deliverance out of our afflictions. Though the psalmist lays his hand
sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they
obedient unto his law. Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury
of his anger, and the strength of battle: and he hath set him on fire
round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to
heart.' Stupidity lays a man open to the greatest fury and severity.
The physician, when he findeth that the potion which he hath given
his patient will not work, he seconds it with one more violent; and if
that will not work, he gives another yet more violent. If a gentle
plaster will not serve, then the chirurgeon applies that which is more
corroding; and if that will not do, then he makes use of his
cauterizing knife. So when the Lord afflicts, and men feel it not;
when he strikes, and they grieve not; when he wounds them, and
they awake not: then the furnace is made hotter than ever; then his
fury burns, then he lays on irons upon irons, bolt upon bolt, and
chain upon chain, until he hath made their lives a hell. Afflictions are
the saints' diet-drink; and where do you read in all the Scripture that
ever any of the saints drunk of this diet-drink, and were not sensible
of it.
2. Secondly, A holy, a prudent, silence doth not shut out prayer for
deliverance out of our afflictions. Though the psalmist lays his hand
upon his mouth in the text, yet he prays for deliverance: ver. 10,
'Remove thy stroke away from me;' and ver. 11, 12, 'Hear my prayer,
O Lord! and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears; for
I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Oh
spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence and be no
more;' James 5:13, 'Is any among you afflicted? let him pray;' Ps.
50:15, 'Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and
thou shalt glorify me.' Times of affliction, by God's own injunction,
are special times of supplication. David's heart was more often out of
tune than his harp; but then he prays and presently cries, 'Return to
thy rest, O my soul.' Jonah prays in the whale's belly, and Daniel
prays when among the lions, and Job prays when on the dunghill,
and Jeremiah prays when in the dungeon, &c.; yea, the heathen
mariners, as stout as they were, when in a storm, they cry every man
to his god, Jonah 1:5, 6. To call upon God, especially in times of
distress and trouble, is a lesson that the very light and law of nature
teaches. The Persian messenger, though an heathen, as Æschylus
observeth, saith thus: 'When the Grecian forces hotly pursued our
host, and we must needs venture over the great water Strymon,
frozen then, but beginning to thaw, when a hundred to one we had
all died for it, with mine eyes I saw, saith he, many of those gallants
whom I had heard before so boldly maintain there was no God, every
one upon his knees, and devoutly praying that the ice might hold till
they got over.' And shall blind nature do more than grace? If the time
of affliction be not a time of supplication, I know not what is.
As there are two kinds of antidotes against poison, viz. hot and cold,
so there are two kinds of antidotes against all the troubles and
afflictions of this life, viz. prayer and patience: the one hot, the other
cold: the one quenching, the other quickening. Chrysostom
understood this well enough when he cried out: Oh! saith he, it is
more bitter than death to be spoiled of prayer; and thereupon