Learning Contentment (2)

The Christian can want and can abound, without tainting himself with the sins of those conditions. For instance, he can abound without pride, though this is a hard matter. Abundance works upon the soul of a man. He needs a strong brain who experiences abundance, as it is a wild untamed thing. We see how it wrought upon Solomon and David (1 Kings 11:1; 2 Sam. 11:2). Yet nevertheless the child of God has grace even to overcome the sins that accompany abundance. He has grace to be lowly-minded in a great state; not to trust in uncertain riches; he knows that he has an inheritance of better things in another world, which teaches him to set a small esteem upon all things below.
The same is true of want. The sin that we are subject to fall into in want is putting forth our hands to evil means, to steal. God's child can learn to want without tainting his conscience with ill courses, and then to want without impatience, without too much dejection of spirit, as if all were lost. Indeed, a Christian in a manner is rich in all conditions. For God is his portion, and however a beam may be taken away, the sun is his; take away a stream, the spring is his; in the poorest state, God all-sufficient is his still. God never takes away himself. The Christian knows this, and therefore he can want, he can be abased as long as he has the spring of all. Whereas those that have not been brought up in Christ's school, nor trained up in a variety of conditions, are unable to do this. If they abound, they are proud; if they be cast down, they murmur and fret, and are dejected, as if there were no Providence to rule the world, as if they were fatherless children. This is the excellency of a Christian, that by experience, he knows how to abound with the practice of the graces, and how to want with the avoiding of the snares that usually are in that condition.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Art of Contentment, Works, vol. 5, p. 179-80
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