November 24

I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound, and to suffer need.—Philippians 4:11, 12.

WONDERFUL scholar! In the school of Christ how vast were the acquirements of Paul! So accomplished was he in heavenly wisdom, that, in prosperity, he was lowly and temperate, ready to resign all at the first call of the Giver: in adversity, he was content, as if he had a secret treasure, a concealed fountain issuing from within. He was rich in his deep poverty; for it is not acquiring possessions, but the retrenching our desires, that makes us truly rich. All the gold and silver of the West, and the pearls and jewels of the East, can not truly enrich the soul. This lesson he had learned in the school of heaven, and by experience and exercise made it familiar to him; as our Saviour learned obedience by his sufferings.

This is a duty as difficult as excellent; therefore a wise and holy man, either conscious of his own weakness, or suspicious of his strength, so earnestly deprecated the extremes: Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full and deny thee, and say, who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of the Lord in vain. He was not without doubt or danger, lest he should be corrupted by prosperity, or foiled by adversity: there is great hazard in either, but more in fullness than in want. He that rows in a shallop near the shore, needs not the skill and courage of a pilot that directs a ship through the tempestuous seas. The temptations of prosperity are more numerous. A swarm of flies comes to sweet things; and are very grateful to the sensual appetites. The temptations of adversity are troublesome and grievous, and at their appearance, nature recoils from them; and accordingly the tempter manages them: he insinuates into the heart like a serpent by pleasures, and transfuses his poison imperceptibly; but like a roaring lion, he pursues the afflicted. Experience instructs us, that many have made an easy forfeiture of their integrity when prosperous, and in sharp afflictions have been recovered. But in heavy calamities, we are apt either to be fired with discontent, and constructively to dispute with God about the righteousness of his proceedings; or to faint and languish, by bleeding inwardly. Vexation and immoderate sorrow hinder the free exercise of reason and religion; and men's sufferings occasionally increase their sins. As when physic does not work well, it improves the disease, and brings death more speedily and painfully.

Now it is a rare wonder, to see a person wisely to manage these wide extremes, without exhibiting in the variable passions, the external changes in their condition. If the sun should make a search, it would discover but few, who enjoy prosperity without insolence, or suffer adversity without impatience, or such dejection as exceeds the rule of the passions. To endure the burning Line, and frozen Pole, without distempering the blood and humors, proceeds from a sound and firm constitution. To receive no hurtful impressions by great changes of condition, discovers a habit of excellent grace and virtue in the soul. Thus when a person retains an humble mind with rising honor, when affability, modesty, and condescension, are joined with courtly dignity, it is the effect of great virtue. It is said by the psalmist, The sun knoweth its going down; when arrived at the meridian, and shining in its richest beams, the revolution is certain, and he sets in the evening. So when those who are in their highest elevation of honor, understand themselves, and with sober thoughts consider they must shortly decline, and set in the dark grave, it is the effect of excellent virtue. When those who from a mean condition, come to abound in riches, do not set their hearts upon them, remembering they often take wings and fly to the heavens, and the possessors must shortly fall to the earth; when they do not furnish provisions for their lusts, but use them with discretion; when they employ them for sacred and merciful uses, considering they are not proprietors, but stewards; when they consider their receipts and expenses, and the strict account they must give of all; this adorns the gospel.

And in the sudden fall from a prosperous into a calamitous condition, when men look upward to the sovereign Disposer of all events, with meek submission, and resign themselves to the will and wisdom of God; whose end is to refine, and consume them by a fiery trial; when they are more solicitous to have their affliction sanctified than removed, and bless God for taking, as well as giving his benefits; this is the effect of excellent grace, and has a rich reward attending it.