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SERMON XIV.

THE ART OF CONTENTMENT.

PHILIP. iv. 11.

I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

IT seems, to learn to be content is necessary: it is not natural to us. St. Paul went to school for it and he had learnt the lesson. Let us consider, first, the necessity and importance of this lesson, from the nature of our circumstances in this world; secondly, let us endeavour to lay open the mystery of those instructions by which St. Paul so well understood the secret of contentment. We may then apply the subject to the wicked, and to the righteous. And, O may the God of patience be with us, instructing us also in this arduous but most useful attainment.

1. The necessity of the lesson is quite obvious and plain. The least attention to our circumstances will convince us of it. Adam indeed, before he fell, had no occasion to learn this doctrine of contentment. There is no mystery in a man's being content with his condition, when every thing around him and within

him is just as he would wish it. A pleasant paradise, with all the delights and comforts of life, and no more labour than what was agreeable and salutary; a mind at peace with his God; a disposition right with his Maker in all things; and the strongest thirst of his soul after bliss ever copiously supplied by the all-bountiful Creator: these things rendered it impossible that he should be unhappy even for a moment. Well may a man be content who meets with nothing to try his patience, who meets not with a single circumstance to thwart his will. But, alas! the gold is now become dim; the crown is fallen from our head; and he who knew earthly things well, and was no flatterer of human nature, though himself placed in circumstances the most easy and the most prosperous, declared, "all is vanity and vexation of spirit." Place a man in the most enviable situation; still there are uneasinesses, from little circumstances and cross accidents, which are so continually incident to this the most prosperous condition, that surely there is a frequent call for the exercise of patience; and some, perhaps many tempers, need to learn this lesson of contentment in the most affluent situation, as much as those who struggle under the severest calamities. But, besides this, what evils does the world abound with? Sickness, poverty, reproach, fill the world with variety of wretchedness. And the near approach of death to us all, with

the tedious circumstances attendant on old age, proclaims our lot to be miserable. But sin is the bitter root whence all these branches of evil proceed. Ever since sin came into the world, woe and pain have been its attendants. The fever of anger, the slow consumption of envy, and the lethargy of sloth, gnaw or benumb the very vitals of the soul. And, as if the necessary evils of life were not sufficient, we multiply them ten thousand fold by worrying and tormenting one another. Then, oh that uneasy vacancy arising from our distance from God, and the horrors of a guilty conscience! this is the hell of the soul. A few, indeed, restored through grace to Divine favour and communion, walk with a spirit and a hope and a taste quite superior to the rest of mankind. But they also have need to learn to possess their souls in patience; for, without it, to what woes are they continually subject! They are exposed still to sin and temptation, as well as others; with this difference, that sin is to their sensible minds the severest burden, and constitutes the most serious conflict, unknown to the unconverted. Nor is it pleasant to be assailed by the wrath and malice and frowns of an unfriendly world, and that persecution which more or less befals all who will live godly in Christ Jesus. Add to this the redoubled malice and refined subtlety of Satan, tempting, disquieting, and distressing them from time to time, in a way best known to themselves.

A world, then, for St. Paul's mysterious instruction in the art of contentment! He who has it, has a jewel. The evils of life are ren-> dered tolerable by it, which are else intolerable: and by this a Christian waits till his happy change come. Certainly, and it must be deeply observed, this lesson, like every other spiritual good thing, is not learnt by the light of nature and common sense. There is something like patience which human philosophy pretends to teach, but it is all pride and hardness of heart: it is as different from St. Paul's contentment as hell is from heaven. He that would learn true contentment (and its necessity is now sufficiently evinced), must go to school, with Paul, to Jesus the Son of David; and by his Spirit, in inward teaching according to the word, be formed to patience.

2. This let us, secondly, attend to.-It is obvious, at first sight, that he who would learn to be content, should learn to fix his thoughts and desires on some future object. This is the way by which we naturally strive to comfort persons who are at present involved in deep distress. We tell them, they should be patient; things will be better by and bye: such and such persons and things will relieve them. And thus it is, even in a natural and worldly sense, that we hope for that we see not, and thence are induced in patience to wait for it: and thus it is that the soldier, the sailor, the merchant, the tradesman, is animated to support various

troubles and calamities, by the cheerful prospect which he has in future. But if our idea of future things reaches not beyond the grave; if this world's goods be all that we have in view; it is plain they are poor, unsatisfying, uncertain prospects at best, and such as death is sure to deprive of us in a little time. Behold, then, the true ground of patience,hope, and hope full of immortality. But we need a Divine teaching, a spiritual illumination, to enter into the force of this idea. "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." If we were sufficient of ourselves to teach ourselves this lesson, plain and obvious as it may seem, there were no occasion for the Psalmist to pray this prayer. We assent, indeed, to the truth of these things. Life is short: a shadow, a vapour, a span, or whatever term expressive of littleness or instability, we can give it. Time is nothing to eternity: what are a few years' trouble, compared with an eternity of bliss! How reasonable to bear the former, then, from the hope of the latter! But so it is-and I appeal to the feelings and experience of my audience if it be not so-that, though we do assent to this, and can find no objection to make against the reasoning, yet the practical conclusion does not follow: we are still impatient, discontented, and fretful, if present things succeed not to our mind. A very important lesson is hence to be learnt, deeply