Thomas Boston
1. Consider that the heaviest thing in your lot comes out of a Friend’s hand. Even in the worst of times this is good news to Zion: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that sayeth unto Zion, Thy God reigneth” (Is 52:7). Whoever the instruments of our affliction may be, and whoever may lay his hand heavily on us, we only meet with what comes from the Lord’s fingers. “The Father . . . hath committed all judgement unto the Son” (Jn 5:22). And will we not venture our outward condition in His hand, on which we venture ourselves for eternity? A tongue, far less a hand, cannot move against us but by Him (2 Sam 16).
2. Consider how unsuitable you are to carve out your lives for yourselves; and “should it be according to thy mind?” (Job 34:33). How weak you are to discern your true interest! Could you venture to pilot yourselves through the rocks and sandbanks in the world? No, you dare not, if you know yourselves. Why then will you not resign yourselves to a wise providence? But, you say, it is only in some things we would have it so. But Christ will be a helmsman for you through the whole, or not at all. He will not share the government with you; and there is no reason why He should, for you are weak and do not see far off. There is many a pleasant green path in the world that leads into the lion’s den and many a rugged way that leads into a paradise. You see the nearer end of the way, but not the far end; He sees it.
3. Have you not already lived to see your hopes and fears both baffled by a wise providence? As for the hopes you have taken up by the choice of your own wilful will, have you not been sometimes made to let the knife drop with shame, after you have cut your fingers in carving for yourself – like Lot not daring to stay in all the plain, though some time before he built his own nest in the heart of it? And for your fears about the conduct of providence, have you not seen how God has drawn you, for your good, against your will and that it was good you were crossed in such a matter, and that such a project of yours was baffled? Seeing then that we are such bunglers at carving our lot, it is reasonable we give up the knife as Jacob did in Joseph’s case.
4. Consider that there is much in the ordering of your lot which is infinitely more than you yourself are master of.
(1.) Believe that the seven eyes of infinite wisdom are about your lot (Zec 3:9). Now in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. No work in the world is by chance; your condition is not the result of some random work; it is not a work huddled up in haste. The scheme was drawn up from eternity and lay before the Lord without any need of alteration. Everything in your condition, however recently it happened, was in the womb of the wise decree from eternity.
(2.) Believe that there is a soft hand of grace and goodness about it (Rom 8:28). A gracious providence brings it out of the womb of the decree. Why should we not then embrace it and welcome it into the world. There is a stream of grace that goes through all the dispensations of providence to the Lord’s people. Now, when infinite wisdom tempered with grace and goodwill, orders our lot, is it not reasonable for us to be fully content with it? Hence I infer:
[1.] Whatever your condition is, it is for God’s honour, for it is ordered by Him who does all for that end and cannot fail of His purpose. Though you do not see why it is so, you may believe that it is so, upon this ground: providence runs much underground, so that weak man cannot see how the means answer the end; but God sees it, and that is enough. This is a contenting consideration to a gracious soul, that will be pleased with what may glorify God (Phil 1:20).
[2.] Your condition is good for you (Rom 8:28). That may be good which is not pleasant; it may bring profit although it brings no pleasure. God loves to work by contraries, to bring health to the soul out of sickness of the body, to enrich His people by poverty, to do them good by crossing their desires, and blow them to their harbour by winds from the opposite direction.
[3.] Indeed it is best for you. If you are a child of God, your present lot in the world is the best you could now have. Infinite wisdom sees it is so, and grace and good-will make it so. All God’s works are perfect in their kind (Deut 32:4). Will vain man come after God and tell Him how to mend His work? If it was not most fit for His own holy ends, it is not perfect. Indeed if you are not in Christ, those things in your lot which you are discontented with – your crosses and afflictions – are best for you; for if anything in your lot will bring you to God, it will be this.
5. Consider that those things in your lot which you are so ready to be discontented with are truly necessary for you (Lam 3:33). If you could do without them, you would not get them; for God takes no pleasure merely in making His creatures miserable. If your lot is afflicted, know that strong diseases must have strong remedies; do not blame the physician for that, but the disease. The wilful child would live without the rod, but the parent sees it necessary to chastise him. If God withdraws anything from you, it is only to starve a lust that would feed on it; if He lays on you what you do not wish, it is only to bear down a lust that otherwise would carry you headlong. Give providence a fair hearing; it will answer for itself. Why then should people be displeased with their mercies, and be angry with their blessings?
6. Consider that great things in one’s lot have a great burden with them. A man will get a softer bed in a palace than in a cottage, but the poor man will readily sleep more soundly in his cottage than the king in his palace. People look to the great things which others have beyond what they have, but they do not consider the burden that goes along with them. They who lack the one lack the other too, and therefore have reason to be content.
(1.) Where there is a great trust, there is a great reckoning (Lk 12:48). You see others have much that you lack; do not grudge it; they have the more to reckon for. God keeps an account of all the mercies He bestows on all men, and they that have most now have most to account for when the Lord shall seek an account of His servants. Look well to yourself, and be content. I fear it will be found that, little though you have, it is more than you can guide well.
(2.) Great things in the world are great snares and bring great dangers along with them (Mk 10:23). They who walk low are not so prominent as those who walk on high, but the latter are most apt to fall. How fond we are of the world even when it frowns on us! What would become of us if it did nothing but smile? It is hard to carry a full cup evenly. Affliction is often timely ballast to a light heart that prosperity would give too much sail to, till it should sink.
7. Consider, if you are a child of God, that what you possess you have without cost (Rom 8:32). And therefore, though it is little, it is better to you than the abundance of many others, which will bring a dear reckoning at last. The children of the family may fare more coarsely than strangers, but there is a great difference: the strangers have a reckoning for it when they go away; but the children have nothing to pay.
(1.) Remember you forfeited all in Adam; it is a mercy that you have anything at all. I know of nothing but sin and death that we can lay claim to as our own property (Lam 3:39). He that deserves hell has no reason to complain while he is out of it.
(2.) Anything which you have a covenant right to now is through Christ; it is the purchase of His blood. So that makes it precious, as the price of blood; and that should make us content with it, seeing we have it freely through Him.
8. Consider the vanity of all things below the sun (Ecc 1:2). A just estimation of worldly things would make us content with very little. But a blind judgement first sets an exorbitant price on earthly things, and raises the value of them; and then people think they can never get enough of them. But low thoughts of them would clip the wings of our affection to them, and a little of them would content us (Prov 23:5). Riches make themselves wings, and fly away. There is a wing of chance, casualties and losses; and though by your wisdom you could clip all these wings, yet there is a wing of death and mortality that will carry them away.
9. Consider the preciousness and excellence of heavenly things (Col 3:2). More heavenly-mindedness would make us less anxious about these things. If we are in danger of losing these, it is madness to be taken up about trifles and concerned with earthly losses. Will he whose life is in danger go up and down making a moan for a sore finger? And if they are secure, it is horrid ingratitude to be discontented with our lot here. Would a man that has a ship loaded with goods coming ashore vex himself for losing a pin out of his sleeve, or a penny out of his pocket? Heaven will make up all our losses, and hell will make men forget their greatest crosses in the world.
10. Consider much of death and eternity. For, as little as any of us have, we have perhaps as much as will serve our turn here. Our time is uncertain. It is folly to vex ourselves because we do not have all the conveniences that we would desire in a house that we have no lease of but may have to remove from it tomorrow.