The editorial schedule around here has been a bit out of whack this week, leaving “Reading Classics Together” to get pushed from Thursday to Friday. Please accept my apologies (those of you who were expecting it yesterday). So though we’re a day late, still we come to chapter eight, “The Evils of a Murmuring Spirit.” Here Burroughs turns from the positive (the excellence of contentment) to the negative (the evil of a murmuring spirit).
Summary
This is another good chapter, though for some reason it didn’t grab me quite as much as the last couple. Still, there was a lot of great content there. Burroughs offers five explanations for why a murmuring spirit, or a lack of contentment, is a great evil. He says, “When you hear of a duty that you should perform, you might labour to perform it, but first you must be humbled for the lack of it. Therefore I shall endeavour to get your hearts to be humbled for lack of this grace.” And humble us, he does.
First, this murmuring and discontentedness of yours reveals much corruption in the soul. He offers this solemn warning: “As contentment argues much grace, and strong grace, and beautiful grace, so murmuring argues much corruption, and strong corruption, and very vile corruptions in your heart.” Worldly men, he says, think that the greatness of an affliction is what makes their condition miserable when really it is the murmuring heart that brings misery. “When you are troubled for this affliction you need to turn your thoughts rather to be troubled for the murmuring of your heart, for that is the greatest trouble. There is an affliction upon you and that is grievous, but there is a murmuring heart within and that is more grievous.”
Second, the evil of murmuring is such that when God would speak of wicked men and describe them, and show the brand of a wicked and ungodly man or woman, he instances this sin in a more special manner. Here he turns to Jude to show how murmuring is a particularly offensive sin before God. “God will look upon you as ungodly,” says Burroughs, “for this sin as well as for any sin whatever.”
Third, God counts it rebellion. There is a contentedness in worship and thus there must be rebellion in a lack of contentedness. “Will you be a rebel against God? When you feel your heart discontented and murmuring against the dispensation of God towards you, you should check it thus: Oh, you wretched heart! What, will you be a rebel against God? Will you rise in rebellion against the infinite God? Yet you have done so. Charge your heart with this sin of rebellion.”
Fourth, it is a wickedness which is greatly contrary to grace, and especially contrary to the work of God, in bringing the soul home to himself. Burroughs says plainly, “I know no disorder more opposite and contrary to the work of God in the conversion of a sinner, than this is.” Here he gets into what seems a little bit like an excursus, giving six answers to this question: what is the work of God when a brings a sinner home to himself? I really enjoyed this quote, which was the highlight of the section: “This is the work of God in the soul, to disengage the heart from the creature, and how contrary is a murmuring heart to such a thing! Something which is glued to another cannot be taken off, but you must tear it; so it is a sign your heart is glued to the world, that when God would take you off, your heart tears. If God, by an affliction, should come to take anything in the world from you, and you can part from it with ease, without tearing, it is a sign then that your heart is not glued to the world.”
Fifth, murmuring and discontent is exceedingly below a Christian. He shows that murmuring is below the relation of a Christian, that it is below the high dignity God has put upon him, it is below the spirit of a Christian, it is below the profession of a Christian, it is below that special grace of faith, it is below those helps that a Christian has more than others have, it is below the expectation that God has of Christians and, finally, it is below what God has had from other Christians. “Read the latter part of the eleventh of the Hebrews, and you will find what great things God has had from his people. Therefore not to be content with smaller crosses must needs be a great evil.” Quite right!
Next Week
Just keep on keeping on. Next week we’ll read chapter nine.
Your Turn
The purpose of this program is to read these classics together. So if there is something you’d like to share about what you read, please feel free to do so. You can leave a comment or a link to your blog and we’ll make this a collaborative effort.
