Direct. X. Be specially furnished with those reasons which should keep you in a cheerful contentedness with your state; and may suppress every thought of anxiety and discontent.[113] As, 1. Consider as aforesaid, that that is the best condition for you which helpeth you best to heaven; and God best knoweth what will do you good, or hurt. 2. That it is rebellion to grudge at the will of God; which must dispose of us, and should be our rest. 3. Look over the life of Christ, who chose a life of poverty for your sakes; and had not a place to lay his head. He was not one of the rich and voluptuous in the world; and are you grieved to be conformed to him? Phil. iii. 7-9. 4. Look to all his apostles, and most holy servants and martyrs. Were not they as great sufferers as you? 5. Consider that the rich will shortly be all as poor as you: naked they came into the world, and naked they must go out; and a little time makes little difference. 6. It is no more comfort to die rich than poor; but usually much less; because the pleasanter the world is to them, the more it grieveth them to leave it. 7. All men cry out, that the world is vanity at last. How little is it valued by a dying man! and how sadly will it cast him off! 8. The time is very short and uncertain, in which you must enjoy it; we have but a few days more to walk about, and we are gone. Alas, of how small concernment is it, whether a man be rich or poor, that is ready to step into another world! 9. The love of this world drawing the heart from God, is the common cause of men's damnation; and is not the world liker to be over-loved, when it entertaineth you with prosperity, than when it useth you like an enemy? Are you displeased, that God thus helpeth to save you from the most damning sin? and that he maketh not your way to heaven more dangerous? 10. You little know the troubles of the rich. He that hath much, hath much to do with it, and much to care for; and many persons to deal with, and more vexations than you imagine. 11. It is but the flesh that suffereth; and it furthereth your mortification of it. 12. You pray but for your daily bread, and therefore should be contented with it. 13. Is not God, and Christ, and heaven, enough for you? should that man be discontent that must live in heaven? 14. Is it not your lust, rather than your well-informed reason, that repineth? I do but name all these reasons for brevity: you may enlarge them in your meditations.
FOOTNOTES
[100] Prov. xxviii. 6; Jam. ii. 5.
[101] Eccles. ii. 14; ix. 2, 3.
[102] Psal. x. 15; 1 Sam. ii. 7.
[103] Saith Aristippus to Dionysius, Quando sapientia egebam, adii Socratem? nunc pecuniarum egens, ad te veni. Laert. in Aristip.
[104] 1 Cor. vii. 35.
[105] Luke x. 41.
[106] Matt. vi.; 1 Pet. v. 7; Phil. iv. 6.
[107] Prov. xxiii. 4.