By Thomas Watson
Care is a spiritual canker that doth waste and dispirit; we may sooner by our care add a furlong to our grief than a cubit to our comfort.
Whatever we have is not merit, but bounty; the least bit of bread is more than God owes us; we can bring faggots to our own burning, but not one flower to the garland of our salvation.
Be not content, O sinner, in this estate!
Contentment doth prepare and tune the heart. First you prepare the viol, and wind up the strings, ere you play a fit of music: when a Christian’s heart is wound up to this heavenly frame of contentment, then it is fit for duty.
A contented spirit is a silent spirit; he hath not one word to say against God.
Men can be content to be anything but what God would have them.
Did we believe this, it would give a check to the sinful disputes and cavils of our hearts: shall I be discontented at that which is enacted by a decree, and ordered by a providence? Is this to be a child or a rebel?
The wise God hath ordered our condition; if he sees it better for us to abound, we shall abound.
The motion of the soul heaven-ward is a violent motion, it must be learned; flesh and blood is not skilled in these things.
God sits at the stern of his church. Sometimes it is a ship tossed upon the waves, but cannot God bring this ship to haven, though it meet with a storm?
Paul, in regard of his faith and courage, was like a cedar, he could not be stirred; but for his outward condition, he was like a reed bending every way with the wind of providence.
If men are poor, they learn to be envious; they malign those that are above them.
A gracious spirit is a contented spirit.
A man had better be at the trouble of setting a bone, than to be lame, and in pain all his life.
Contentment is a flower that doth not grow in every garden; it teacheth a man how in the midst of want to abound.
God’s word must be the star that guides, and his will the weight that moves our obedience.
Another man desires liberty, God sees restraint better for him; he will work his liberty by restraint; when his feet are bound, his heart shall be most enlarged.
Grace is beyond gifts; thou comparest thy grace with another’s gifts, there is a vast difference.
A man may read the figure on the dial, but he cannot tell how the day goes, unless the sun shines upon the dial: we may read the Bible over, but we can not learn the purpose, till the Spirit of God shines into our hearts.
A man may know much of Christ, and yet not learn Christ: the devils knew Christ. A man may preach Christ, and yet not learn Christ, as Judas and the pseudo-apostles. A man may profess Christ, and yet not learn Christ.
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