Now this is a mystery to a carnal heart. They can see no such thing; perhaps they think God loves them when he prospers them and makes them rich, but they think God loves them not when he afflicts them. That is a mystery, but grace instructs men in that mystery, grace enables men to see love in the very frown of God's face, and so come to receive contentment.

Faith has this excellency, that it is able to bring life out of death, light out of darkness. It has a kind of creating virtue.

Oh, that we could but convince men and women that murmuring spirit is a greater evil than any affliction, whatever the affliction!

Holiness is the very principle of eternal life, the very beginning of eternal life in the heart, and that which will certainly grow up to eternal life.

Thus, a godly man wonders at his cross that it is not more, a wicked man wonders his cross is so much.

Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.

I am discontented because I have not these things which God never yet promised me, and therefore I sin much against the Gospel, and against the grace of faith.