To be well skilled in the mystery of Christian contentment is the duty, glory and excellence of a Christian.

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.

My brethren, the reason why you have not got contentment in the things of the world is not because you have not got enough of them-that is not the reason-but the reason is, because they are not things proportionable to that immortal soul of yours that is capable of God himself.

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.

But if I have once overcome my heart, and am contented through the grace of God in my heart, then this makes me content not only in one particular but in general, whatever befalls me.

When [the saints] perform actions to God, then the soul says: 'Oh! that I could do what pleases God!' When they come to suffer any cross: 'Oh, that what God does might please me!' I labour to do what pleases God, and I labour that what God does shall please me: here is a Christian indeed, who shall endeavour both these. It is but one side of a Christian to endeavour to do what pleases God; you must as well endeavour to be pleased with what God does, and so you will come to be a complete Christian when you can do both, and that is the first thing in the excellence of this grace of contentment.

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