Jeremiah Burroughs :: Sermon Eight

SERMON VIII.

For I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content (Philippians 4:11).

The Evils of a Murmuring Spirit — Continued

I mentioned many things in the last chapter to set out the evil of discontent. I shall name two or three more.

6. It is below a Christian in this, because it’s below those helps that a Christian has more than others have. They have the promises to help them that others have not. It’s not so much to have a Nabal have his heart sink, because he has nothing but the creature to uphold him, but it’s much for a Christian that has promises and ordinances to uphold his spirit which others have not.

7. It’s below the expectation that God has of Christians, for God expects not only that they should be patient in afflictions, but that they should rejoice and triumph in them. Now Christians, when God expects this from you, for you not so much as to have attained to contentedness under afflictions. Oh, this is beneath the expectation of God from you.

8. It is below that God has had from other Christians. Others have not only been contented with little trials, but they have triumphed under great afflictions, they have suffered the spoiling of their goods with joy. Read but the latter part of the 11 of the Hebrews [Hebrews 11], and you shall find what great things God has had from his people. Therefore not to be content with smaller crosses, this must needs be a great evil.

VI. By Murmuring We Undo Our Prayers

The sixth evil that there is in a murmuring spirit, is this: By murmuring you undo your prayers, for it is exceeding contrary to the prayers that you make to God. When you come to prayer to God, you acknowledge his sovereignty over you, you come there to profess yourselves to be at God’s disposal. What do you pray for, except you acknowledge that you are at his disposal, except you will stand, as it were, at his disposal, never come to petition to him. If you will come to petition him, and yet will be your own carver you go contrary to your prayers, to come as if you would beg your bread at your Father’s gates every day, and yet you must do what you list: this is the undoing of the prayers of a Christian. I remember I have read of Latatimer, speaking concerning Peter that denied his master, said: ‘Peter forgot his Paternoster, for that was, hallowed be thy name, and thy kingdom come.’ So we may say, when you have murmuring and discontented hearts you forget your prayers, you forget what you have prayed for. For you must make the Lord’s prayer to be as a pattern for your prayers though you say not always the same words. What do you pray, but, ‘Give us this day our daily bread?’ For that’s Christ’s intention that we should have that as a pattern, and is a directory, as it were, how to make our prayers. Now God does not teach any of you to pray, Lord, give me so much a year, or let me have such kind of cloth, and so many dishes at my table. Christ does not teach you to pray so; but he teaches us to pray, ‘Lord give us our bread,’ showing that you should be content with a little. What have you not bread to eat? I hope there’s none of you here but have that.

Objection. But I do not know if I should die what should become of my children. Or if I have bread now, I know not where I shall have it the next week, or where I shall have provision for the winter.

Answer. Where did Christ teach us to pray: Lord, give us provision for so long a time? No, but if we have bread for this day, Christ would have us content. Therefore when we murmur because we have not so much variety as others have, we do, as it were, forget our Paternoster. It’s against our prayers; we do not in our lives hold forth the acknowledgement of the sovereignty of God over us as we seem to acknowledge in our prayers. Therefore when at any time you find your hearts murmuring then do but reflect upon yourselves and think therefore: Is this according to my prayers, in which I held forth the sovereign power and authority that God has over me?

VII. The Effects of a Murmuring Heart

The seventh thing that I add for the evil of discontentment, is, The woeful effects that comes to a discontented heart from murmuring. I’ll name you five, there are five evil effects that comes from a murmuring spirit.

1. By murmuring and discontent in your hearts, you come to lose a great deal of time. How many times do men and women, when they are discontented let their thoughts run, and are musing and contriving through their present discontentedness and let their discontented thoughts be working in them, for some hours together, and they spend their time in vain. When you are alone you should spend your time in holy meditation, but you are spending your time in discontented thoughts. You who complain that you cannot meditate, you cannot think on good things, but if you begin to think of them a little, and your thoughts are off from them. But if you be discontented with anything, then you can go alone, and muse, and roll things up and down in your thoughts to feed a discontented humor. Oh, labor to see this evil effect of murmuring, the losing of your time.

2. It does unfit you for duty. A man or woman that is in a contented frame, you may turn such a one to anything at any time, he is fit for to go to God at any time; but when one is in a discontented condition, then a man or woman is exceeding unfit for the service of God. And it causes many distractions in duty, it unfits for duty, and when you come to perform duties, oh, the distractions that are in your duties, when your spirits are discontented. When you hear of any ill news from sea and cannot bear it, or of any ill from a friend, or any loss or cross, oh, what distractions do they cause in the performance of holy duties! When you should be in enjoying communion with God, you are distracted in your thoughts about the cross that has befallen you, whereas had you but a quiet spirit, though great crosses befall you, yet they would never hinder you in the performance of any duty.

3. Consider what wicked risings of heart and resolutions of spirit there are many times in a discontented fit. In some discontented fits the heart rises against God, and against others, and sometimes has even desperate resolutions what to do to help itself. If the Lord should have suffered you to have done, sometimes in a discontented fit, what you had thought to do, what wonderful misery had you brought upon yourselves! Oh, it was a mercy of God that did stop you, had not God stopped you, but let you go on when you thought to help yourselves this way and the other way, oh, it had been ill with you. Do you but remember those risings of heart and wicked resolutions that sometimes you have had in a discontented mood, and learn to be humbled for that.

4.Unthankfulness, that’s an evil and a wicked effect that comes from discontent. Unthankfulness, the Scripture does rank among very great sins. For men and women that are discontent though they enjoy many mercies from God, yet they are thankful for none of them, for this is the vile nature of discontentment, to lessen every mercy of God. To make those mercies they have from God to be as nothing to them, because they have not what they would have. Sometimes it’s so even in spiritual things, if they have not all they would have, the comforts that they would have, then what they have is nothing to them, do you think that God will take this well? If you should give a friend, a kinsman, a purse of money to go and trade with, and he should come and say: ‘What do you give me? They are but a few coins, they will do me no good.’ You cannot bear this at his hand if he should do so, because he has not as much money as he would. So for you to be ready to say, ‘All that God has given me is worthless, will do me no good, they are but coins.’ Though they are the precious graces of God’s Spirit that are more worth than thousands of worlds, yet for you to say: ‘They are nothing, they are but common gifts, and all is but in hypocrisy, all counterfeit.’ Oh! what an unthankful thing is this! The graces of God’s Spirit are nothing to a discontented heart that has not all that it would have. And so for outward blessings: though God has given your health of body, and strength, and has given you some competency for your family, some way of livelihood, yet because you are disappointed in something that you would have, therefore all is nothing to you. Oh! What unthankfulness is this!

God expects that every day you should spend some time in blessing his name for what mercy he has granted to you, there’s not any one of you who are in the lowest condition, but you have abundance of mercies to bless God for, but discontentedness makes them nothing. It’s an excellent saying that I remember Luther has: ‘This is the rhetoric of the Spirit of God,’ it’s a very fine saying of his, ‘to extenuate evil things, and to amplify good things: if there falls out a cross, to make the cross to be but little, but if there be a mercy to make the mercy to be great.’ Therefore, if there be a cross, if the Spirit of God prevails in the heart, such a man or woman will wonder that it is no greater, and will bless God that though there be such a cross, yet that it is no more; that’s the work of the Spirit of God; and if there be a mercy, wonders at God’s goodness that God granted so great a mercy. The Spirit of God extenuates evils and crosses, and does magnify and amplify all mercies, and makes all mercies seem to be great, and all afflictions seem to be little. But, he says, the Devil goes quite contrary, the rhetoric of the Devil is quite otherwise: he does lessen God’s mercies, and amplify evil things. Therefore, a godly man wonders at his cross that it is no more, a wicked man wonders his cross is so much: ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘none was ever so afflicted as I am!’ If there be a cross, the Devil puts the soul upon musing on it, and making it greater than it is, and so it brings discontent. And then on the other side, if there be a mercy, then it’s the rhetoric of the Devil to lessen the mercy. ‘Aye, indeed’ he says, ‘the thing is a good thing, but what is it? It is no great matter, and for all this I may be miserable.’ Thus, the rhetoric of Satan does lessen God’s mercies, and does increase afflictions.

And for this I’ll give you a notable example that we have in Scripture, it is the example of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Numbers 16:12-13, ‘And Moses sent to call Dathan, and Abiram the sons of Eliab: which said, we will not come up: Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land that flows with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except you make yourself altogether a prince over us?’ Mark, they slighted the land that they were going to, the land of Canaan, that was the land that God promised them that should flow with milk and honey. But mark here their discontentedness, because they met with some troubles in the wilderness. Oh, it was to slay them, they made their affliction in the wilderness to be greater than it was, oh, it was to kill them, though it were indeed to carry them to the land of Canaan. But now their deliverance from Egypt though it was a great mercy, they made that mercy to be nothing, for they said, ‘You have brought us out of a land that flows with milk and honey,’ what land was that? It was the land of Egypt, the land of their bondage, but they call it a land that flowed with milk and honey, though it were the land of their most cruel and unsupportable bondage. Whereas, they should have blessed God as long as they had lived for God’s delivering them out of the land of Egypt, yet meeting with some cross they make their deliverance from Egypt no mercy, no, it was rather a misery to them. ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘Egypt was a land that flowed with milk and honey.’ Oh, what baseness is there in a discontented spirit! A discontented spirit out of envy to God’s grace will make mercies that are great to be little, yea to be none at all. Would one ever have thought that such a word should have come from the mouth of an Israelite that had been under bondage and cried under it, and yet when they meet with a little cross in their way to say, ‘You have brought us out of the land that flows with milk and honey.’ To say they were better before than now, and yet before they could not be contented neither. This is the usual unthankful expression of a discontented heart. And it is so with us now when we meet with any cross in our condition, any taxation and trouble, especially if any among you have been where the enemy has prevailed, you are ready to say, ‘We had plenty before and we are now brought to a condition of hardship, we were better before when we had the Prelates and others to domineer,’ and so we endanger ourselves to be brought into that bondage again. Oh, let us take heed of this, of a discontented heart, there is this woeful cursed fruit of discontent to make men and women unthankful for all the mercies God has granted to them, and this is a sore and grievous evil.

And lastly, there’s this evil effect in murmuring, It causes shifting of spirit: they that murmur and are discontent, are liable to temptations, to shift for themselves in sinful and ungodly ways, discontent is the ground of shifting courses and unlawful ways. How many of you may have your consciences condemn you of this, that you in the time of your afflictions have fought to shift for yourselves by ways that have been sinful against God, and your discontent was the bottom and ground of it? If you would avoid shifting for yourselves by wicked ways, labor to mortify this sin of discontent, to mortify it at the root.

VIII. Discontent Is a Foolish Sin

The Eight evil that there is in murmuring and discontent is this: there is a great deal of folly, extreme folly, in a discontented heart, it’s a foolish sin. I shall open the folly of it in many particulars.

1. It takes away the present comfort of what you have, because you have not something that you would have. What a foolish thing is this, that because I have not what I would have, I will not enjoy the comfort of what I have? Do not you account this folly in your children, you give them some food and they are not contented. Perhaps they say it’s not enough, they cry for more, and if you do not give them more they will throw away what they have. And though you account that folly in your children, yet you deal therefore with God: God gives you many mercies, but you see others have more mercies than you and therefore you cry for more; but God gives you not what you would want and upon that you throw away what you have, is not this folly in your hearts? It is unthankfulness.

2. There’s a great deal of folly in discontentment, for by all your discontent you cannot help yourselves, you cannot get anything by it. Who can by taking any care add one cubit to his stature, or make one hair that is white to be black? You may vex and trouble yourselves, but you can get nothing by it. Do you think that the Lord will come in a way of mercy ever a whit the sooner because of the murmuring of your spirits. Oh no, but mercy will be rather deferred the longer for it, though the Lord were before in a way of mercy, yet this disorder of your hearts were enough to put him out of his course of mercy, and though he had thoughts that you should have the thing before, yet now you shall not have it. If you had a mind to give such a thing to your child, yet if you see him in a discontented fretting way you will not give it him. And this is the very reason why there are so many mercies denied to you, because of your discontentment. You are discontented for want of them, and therefore you have them not, you do deprive yourselves of the enjoyment of your own desires because of the discontentment of your hearts, because you have not your desires, and is not this a foolish thing?

3. There’s a great deal of folly in this, there are commonly many foolish attitudes that a discontented heart is guilty of. They carry themselves foolishly towards God and towards men. There are such expressions, and such kind of behavior comes from them, as makes their friends to be ashamed of them many times. Their attitudes are so unseemly, they are a shame to themselves and their friends.

4. There is a great deal of folly in discontent and murmuring: For it does eat out the good and sweetness of a mercy before it comes. If God should give a mercy that we are discontented for the want of, yet the blessing of the mercy is as it were eaten out before we come to have it. Discontent is like a worm that eats the meat out of the nut, and then when the meat is eaten out of it, then you shall have the shell. If a child should cry for a nut that has the meat eaten out, or all worm–eaten, what good would the child have by having the nut? So such an outward comfort you would gladly have and you are troubled for the want of it, but the very trouble of your spirits is the worm that eats out the blessing of the mercy. Then perhaps God gives it you, but gives you it with a curse mixed with it that you were better not have it than have it. That man or woman that is discontented for want of some good thing, if God does give that good thing to them before they be humbled for their discontent that did proceed from them, such a man or woman can have no comfort of the mercy, but it will be rather an evil than a good to them. And therefore for my part if I should have a friend or brother or one that were as deer to me as my own soul, that I should see discontented for the want of such a comfort, I should rather pray, ‘Lord, keep this thing from them, till you will be pleased to humble their hearts for their discontent; let not them have the mercy until they come to be humbled for their discontent for the want of it, for if they have it before that time they will have it without any blessing.’ And therefore it should be your care when you find your hearts discontented for want of anything, to be humbled for it, thinking therefore with yourselves: Lord, if what I so immoderately desire should come to me before I be humbled for my discontent for want of it, I am certain I can have no comfort of it, but I shall rather have it as an affliction to me.

There are many things which you desire as your lives, and think that you should be happy if you had them, yet when they do come you find not such happiness in them, but they prove to be the greatest crosses and afflictions to you that ever you had, and on this ground, because your hearts were immoderately set upon them before you had them. As it was with Rachel: she must have children or else she died, ‘Well,’ said God, ‘seeing you must, you shall have them,’ but though she had a child she died according to what she said, ‘Give me children or else I die.’ So in regard of any other outward comforts, people may have the thing, but often times they have it so as it proves the heaviest cross to them that ever they had in all their lives. Such a child as you were discontent for the want of it, it may be it was sick, and your hearts were out of temper for fear that you should lose it; and God restores it, but he restores it so as he makes it a cross to your heart all the days of your lives. One observes concerning manna, ‘When the people were contented with their allowance that God allowed them, then it was very good, but when they would not be content with God’s allowance, but would gather more than God would have them; then says the text, there was worms in it.’ So when we are content with our conditions, and what God disposes of us to be in, there’s a blessing in it, then it’s sweet to us, but if we must needs have more, and keep it longer than God would have us to have it, then there will be worms in it and no good at all.

5. There’s a great deal of folly in discontentedness, for it makes our afflictions a great deal worse than otherwise it would be. It no way removes our affliction, indeed, while they do continue they are a great deal the worse and heavier, for a discontented heart is a proud heart, and a proud heart will not pull down his sails when there comes a tempest and storm. If a Mariner when a tempest and storm comes should be forward and would not pull down his sails, but is discontented with the storm, is his condition the better because he is discontented and will not pull down his sails? Will this help him? Just so is it for all the world with a discontented heart, a discontented heart is a proud heart, and he out of his pride is troubled with his affliction, and is not contented with God’s authority, and so he will not pull down his spirit at all, and make it bow to God in this condition in which God has brought him. Now is his condition the better because he will not pull down his spirit? No, certainly abundantly worse, a thousand to one but the tempest and storm overwhelms his soul. And therefore you see what a great deal of folly there is in the sin of discontentment.

IX. It Provokes the Wrath of God

The ninth evil of murmuring and discontentment is this: There is a mighty deal of danger in the sin of discontentment, for it exceedingly provoke the wrath of God. It’s a sin that much provokes God against his creature. We find most sad expressions in Scripture, and examples too, how God has been provoked against many for their discontent. In Numbers 14, you have a notable text, and one would think that it would be enough for ever to make you fear murmuring: in the 26th verse, it is said, ‘The Lord spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron saying,’ what did he say? ‘How long shall I bear with this evil congregation which murmur against me?’ How long shall I bear with them, says God, this evil congregation, oh it’s an evil congregation that murmur against me! And how long shall I bear with them? They do murmur, and they have murmured. As those that have murmuring spirits, and murmuring dispositions, they will murmur again, and again. How long shall I bear with this evil congregation that murmur against me? How justly may God speak this of many of you that are this morning before the Lord: How long shall I bear with this wicked man or woman that does murmur against me, and has usually in the course of their lives murmured against me when anything falls out otherwise than they would have it?

And mark what follows after, ‘I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel.’ You murmur, it may be others hear you not, it maybe you speak not at all, or but half–words; yet God hears the language of your murmuring hearts, and those muttering sayings, and those half–words that come from you. And observe further in this verse, how the Lord repeats this sin of murmuring, ‘How long shall I bear with this evil congregation which murmur against me?’ Secondly, ‘I have heard their murmuring,’ Thirdly, ‘which they murmur against me.’ Murmur, murmur, murmur–three times in one verse he repeats it, and this is to show his indignation against the thing. When you express indignation against a thing, you will repeat it over again, and again. Now the Lord, because he would express his indignation against this sin, he repeats it over again, and again, and it follows in the 28th verse, ‘Say unto them, as truly as I live saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you.’ Mark, God swears against a murmurer. Sometimes in your discontent you will be ready to swear. Do you swear in your discontent? So, does God swear against you for your discontent. And what was it that God would do to them? Verse 29, 30, ‘Doubtless your carcasses shall fall in the wilderness, and you shall not come into the land concerning which I swear, to make you dwell therein.’ As if God should say, ‘If I have any life in me, your lives shall go for it, as I live it shall cost you your lives.’ A discontented murmuring fit of yours may cost you your lives. You see how it provokes God, there is more evil in it than you are aware of, it may cost you your lives, and therefore look to yourselves, and learn to be humbled at the very beginnings of such disorders in the heart. So, in Psalm 106:24, 25, ‘Yea they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word; but murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord. Therefore, he lifted up his hand against them to overthrow them in the wilderness.’ There are many things observable in this Scripture.

From that which was written before, how a murmuring heart does slight God’s mercies, so it is here: ‘They despised the pleasant land.’ And a murmuring heart is contrary to faith: ‘they believed not his word, but (says the text) they murmured in their tents, and hearkened not to the voice of the Lord.’ Many men and women will hearken to the voice of their own base murmuring hearts, that will not hearken to the voice of the Lord. If you would hearken to the voice of the Lord there would not be such murmuring as there is. But mark what follows upon it, you may not think to please yourselves in your murmuring discontentedness, and think that no evil shall come of it. ‘Therefore he lifted up his hand against them to overthrow them.’ You that are discontented, you lift up your hearts against God, and you cause God to lift up his hand against you. Perhaps God lays his finger upon you softly in some afflictions that are upon you, in your families or elsewhere, and you cannot bear the hand of God that lies upon you as tenderly as a tender–hearted nurse that lays her hand upon the child. You cannot bear the tender hand of God that is upon you in a lesser affliction; it would be just for God to lift up his hand against you in another manner of affliction. Oh, a murmuring spirit provokes God exceedingly.

There is another place in Numbers 16: compare the 41st verse, and the 46th verse together, ‘But tomorrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the Lord,’ and mark in the 46th verse, ‘And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer and put fire therein, from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation and make an atonement for them, for there is wrath gone out from the Lord, the plague is begun.’ Mark how God’s wrath is kindled: in the 41st verse, the congregation had murmured, and they murmured against Moses and Aaron, (perhaps you murmur more directly against God) and that was against God, in murmuring against God’s ministers. It was against God but not so directly; but it may be the murmuring of your hearts is more directly against God’s dealings with you, if you murmur against those that God makes instruments, because you have not everything that you would have, as against the Parliament, or such and such that are public instruments, it’s against God. It was but against Moses and Aaron that the Israelites murmured, and they said that Moses and Aaron had killed the people of the Lord, though it was the hand of God that was upon them for their former wickedness, in murmuring. It is usual for wicked, vile hearts to deal therefore with God, that when God’s hand is a little upon them for to murmur again and again, and so to bring upon themselves even infinite kind of evils. But now the anger of God was quickly kindled: ‘Oh’ says Moses, ‘Go, take the censer quickly, for wrath is gone out from Jehovah, the plague is begun.’

So while you are murmuring in your families, the wrath of God may quickly go out against you. In a morning or evening, when you are murmuring, the wrath of God may come quickly upon your families or persons. You are never so prepared for present wrath as when you are in a murmuring discontented fit. Those that stand by and see you in a murmuring discontented fit, have cause to say: ‘Oh let us go and take the censer, let us go to prayer, for we are afraid that wrath is gone out against this family, against this person.’ And it were a very good thing for you, that are a godly wife, when you see your husband come home and fall to murmuring because things go not according to his desire, to go to prayer, and say: ‘Lord, pardon the sin of my husband.’ And so for the husband to go to God in prayer falling down and beseeching of him that wrath may not come out against his family for the murmuring of his wife. And the truth is, at this day there has been, at least lately, as much murmuring in England as ever was, and even in this very respect the plague is begun. And this very judgment it does come many times upon murmuring upon those that are so discontented in their families and are always grumbling and murmuring at anything that falls out amiss.

I say this text of Scripture in Numbers does clearly hold forth this, that the Lord brings the plague upon men for this sin of murmuring; he does it in kingdoms and families, and on particular persons. Though we cannot always point out the particular sin that God brings this for, yet this should be examined how far we are guilty of the sin of murmuring; because the Scripture holds forth this so clearly, that Moses when he did but hear that they murmured: ‘Do they murmur?’ he said, ‘go forth quickly, and seek to pacify the anger of God, for wrath is gone out, and the plague is begun.’ And in 1 Corinthians 10:10, there you have a notable example of God’s heavy displeasure against murmuring, ‘Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.’ Take heed of murmuring as some of them did, (he speaks of the people of Israel in the wilderness,) but says he, what came of it? They were destroyed of the destroyer. Now the destroyer is thought to be the fiery–serpents that were sent among them. They murmured, and God sent fiery serpents to sting them. What do you think that such a cross and affliction does sting you? Perhaps such an affliction is upon you, and it seems to be grievous for the present, what? Do you murmur and repine? God has greater crosses to bring upon you. Those people who murmur for the want of outward comforts, for want of water, and for the want of bread, they murmur, but the Lord sends fiery–serpents among them. I may say to a murmuring heart, ‘Woe to you that strives with your maker. Woe to that man, that woman that strives against their maker. What else are you doing, but striving against your maker? Your maker has the absolute disposal of you, and will you strive against your maker? What does this murmuring discontented heart of yours do otherwise but wrangle and contend and strive even with God himself? Oh, woe to him that strives against his maker! I may further say to you, as God’s speaks to Job. Job 38:1, 2, when Job was impatient, said, Now God spoke out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?’ So, do you speak against God’s ways, and his providence which have fallen out concerning your condition and outward comforts? Who is this? Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Where’s that man or woman whose hearts are so bold and impudent that they dare speak against the administration of God’s providence?

X. There Is a Curse upon It

The tenth evil of murmuring and discontent is this: There’s a great curse of God upon it, so far as it does prevail in one that is wicked it has the curse of God upon it. In Psalm 59:15, see what the curse of God is upon wicked and ungodly men, ‘Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied.’ That is the imprecation and curse upon wicked and ungodly men, that if they be not satisfied they shall grudge; when you are not satisfied in your desires and finds your heart grudging against God, apply this Scripture – what? Is the curse of the wicked upon me? This is the curse that is threatened upon wicked and ungodly ones, that they shall grudge if they be not satisfied.

And in Deuteronomy 28:27, it’s threatened as a curse of God upon men, that they cannot be content with their present condition, ‘But they shall say in the morning, would God it were even; and at even, would God it were morning.’ And so they lie tossing up and down and cannot be content with any condition that they are in, because of the sore afflictions that be upon them. And therefore it is further threatened as a curse upon them, in the 34th verse, that they should be mad for the sight of their eyes which they should see: this is but the extremity of their discontentedness, that is, they shall be so discontented, as they shall be even mad. Many men and women in discontented moods are mad kind of people, and though you may please yourselves in such a mad kind of behavior, yet know, that it is a curse of God upon men to be given up to a kind of madness for evils that they suppose are upon them, and that they fear. In the 47th verse, there is a notable expression to show the curse of God upon murmuring hearts: the Lord threatening the curses that shall be upon them, he says in verse 45, 46, and 47: ‘The curse shall pursue thee, and they shall be upon thee for a sign, and for a wonder, and upon thy seed forever: Because thou servest not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things.’ God here threatens to bring his curse upon them, as to make them a wonder and a sign to others, why? Because they served not the Lord with joyfulness of heart, that may be added to that of the wrath of God upon men. Therefore God would bring such a curse upon them as would make them a wonder to all that were about them. Oh, how far are you then that have a murmuring heart, from serving the Lord with joyfulness?

XI. There Is Much of the Spirit of Satan in It

The eleventh evil of discontent and murmuring is this: There is much of the spirit of Satan in a murmuring spirit. The Devil is the most discontented creature that is in the world. He is the proudest creature that is, and the most discontented creature and the most dejected creature. Now, therefore, so much discontentment as you have, so much of the spirit of Satan you have. It was the unclean spirit that went up and down and found no rest; so, when a man or woman’s spirit has no rest, it is a sign that it has much of the unclean spirit, of the spirit of Satan, and you should think therefore with yourself, Oh, Lord, what have I the spirit of Satan upon me? It is Satan that is the most discontented spirit that is, and oh! how much of his spirit have I upon me that can find no rest at all?

XII. It Brings an Absolute Necessity of Disquiet

Murmuring and discontent has this evil in it: There is an absolute necessity that you should have disquiet all the days of your life. As if a man that is in a great crowd should complain that other folks touch him. While we are in this world God has so ordered things that afflictions must befall us, and if we will complain and be discontented upon every cross and affliction, why we must complain and be discontent all the days of our lives. Yes, God in just judgment will let things fall out on purpose to vex those that have vexing spirits, and discontented hearts, and therefore there is a necessity that they should live disquieted all their days. And men will not much care to disquiet those that are continually murmuring. Oh, they will have disquiet all their days.

XIII. God May Justly Withdraw His Protection

Lastly, there’s this dreadful evil in discontent and murmuring: God may justly withdraw his care of you, and his protection over you, seeing God cannot please you in his administrations. We use to say so to discontented servants: ‘Nay, if you be not pleased, better yourselves when you will.’ If you have a servant not content with his diet and wages, and work, you say, better yourselves. So, may God justly say to us, we that profess ourselves servants to him, to be in his work, and yet are discontented with this thing or that in God’s family, God might justly say, better yourselves. What if God should say to any of you: ‘If my care over you do not please you, then take care of yourselves, if my protection over you will not please you, then protect yourselves.’ Now all things that do befall you, befall you through a providence of God, and if you be those that belong to God there is a protection of God over you, and a care of God. Now if God should say, ‘Well, you shall not have the benefit of my protection any longer, and I will take no further care of you.’ Would not this be a most dreadful judgment of God from heaven upon you? Take heed what you do then, in being discontent with God’s will towards you, and indeed upon discontent that may befall you. And this is the reason why many people though God’s protection has been very gracious over them for a time, and they have thrived abundantly, yet afterwards almost all that behold them may say that they live as if God had cast off his care over them, and as if God did not care what befell them.

Now then, my brethren, put all these together, all that we were speaking of the last chapter, and these particulars that have been added now, for the setting out of a murmuring and discontented spirit. Oh, what an ugly face has this sin of murmuring, and discontentedness! Oh, what cause is there that we should lay our hands upon our hearts, and go away and be humbled before the Lord because of this! Whereas your thoughts were wont to be exercised about providing for yourselves, and getting more comforts to yourselves, let the stream of your thoughts now be turned to humble yourselves for your discontentedness. Oh, that you may have your hearts break before God, for otherwise you will fall to it again. Oh, the wretchedness of man’s heart!

You shall find in Scripture concerning the people of Israel, how strangely they fell to their murmuring, again and again. Do but observe three texts of Scripture, for that, in Exodus 15:1 at the beginning, there you shall have Moses and the congregation singing to God and blessing God for his mercy: ‘Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song to the Lord, and spoke saying, I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea.’ And then, ‘The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation, he is my God and I will prepare him a house, my father’s God and I will exalt him.’ And so he goes on, ‘and who is like unto thee, O Lord, amongst the gods, who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?’ Thus their hearts triumphed in God, but mark, before the chapter is ended in the 23rd verse, ‘When they came to Marah (in the same chapter) they could not drink of the waters of Marah for they were bitter, therefore the name of it was called Marah; and the people murmured against Moses.’ After so great a mercy as this was, what unthankfulness was there here in their murmuring!

Then God gave them water, but in the very next chapter they fell to their murmuring. You read not that they were humbled for their former murmuring, and therefore they murmur again. Exodus 16:1, ‘All the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, and the whole congregation’ (in the second verse) ‘of the children of Israel murmured against Moses, and against Aaron in the wilderness, and the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh–pots, and when we did eat bread to the full.’ Now they want flesh, they wanted water before, but now they want meat, they fell to murmuring again, they were not humbled for this murmuring against God, neither when God gave them flesh according to their desires, but they fell to murmuring again, they wanted something else. In the very next chapter, (they went not far), in the 17th of Exodus at the beginning: ‘And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin and pitted in Rephidim; and there was no water for the people to drink.’ Then in the second verse, ‘Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink, and Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord?’ And in the third verse, ‘And the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses and said, Wherefore is this, that you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, and our children, and our cattle with thirst?’ So, one time after another, still as soon as ever they had received the mercy then they were a little quieted, but they were not humbled. I bring these Scriptures for this to show, that if we have not been humbled for murmuring, the next cross that we meet with we will fall to murmuring again.

And now there are different aggravations of this sin of murmuring, I’ll mention but one now, and I shall but begin that. The first aggravation is this.

To murmur when we enjoy abundance of mercy; the greater and the more abundant the mercy is that we enjoy, the greater and the viler is the sin of murmuring. As here now, when God had newly delivered them out of the house of bondage, for them, now to murmur, because they want some few particulars that they desire, oh, to sin against God after a great mercy this is a great aggravation, and a most abominable thing. Now my brethren, the Lord has granted us very great mercies. I’ll but speak a word of what God has done of late, what mercies has the Lord granted to us this summer, heaped mercies upon us, one mercy upon another, what a condition were we in at the beginning of this summer? And what a different condition are we in now! Oh, what a mercy is it that the Lord has not taken advantages against us, that he has not made those Scriptures, before mentioned, good upon us for all our murmuring, the Lord has gone on with one mercy after another. We hear of mercy in Bristol, and mercy to our brethren in Scotland. But still if after this we should have anything befall us that is but cross to us, that we should be ready to murmur again. Oh, let us not so requite God for those mercies of his. Oh, let’s take heed of giving God any ill requital for his mercies. Oh, give God praise according to his excellent greatness, to his excellent goodness and grace!

And now has God given to you the contentment of your hearts? Take heed of being the cause of any grief to your brethren, think not that because God has been gracious to you, that therefore he has given you liberty to bring them into bondage. Oh, let not there be such an ill effect of God’s mercy to you, as for you to exclude by petitioning, or any other way, your brethren that the Lord has been pleased to make instruments of your peace; let not that be the fruit of it, nor to desire anything that yourselves do not yet understand. God is very jealous of the glory of his mercy, and if there should be an ill use made of the mercy of God after we enjoy it, oh, it would go to the heart of God! Nothing is more grievous to the heart of God than the abuse of mercy. As now, if any way that is hard and rigid should be taken towards our brethren, and those especially that God has made such particular instruments of good to us, that have been so willing to venture their lives, and all for us; now, when we have our turns served, let God and his people, and servants that have been a means to save us, shift for themselves as well as they can. Oh! This is a great aggravation of your sin, to sin against the mercies of God. But for this aggravation, and specially in this particular, we shall speak to, God willing, the next chapter.