The Mute Christian Under the Sm
meat;' his sighing, like bad weather, came unsent for and unsought: so Ps. 38:9, 'Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee.' Ps. 102:5, 'By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin.' Job 3:24, 'And my roarings are poured out like the waters.' Ps. 38:8, 'I am feeble and sore broken; I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.' Ps. 22:1, 'My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my roaring?' Ps. 32:3, 'When I kept silence, my bones waxed old, through my roarings all the day long.'
He roars, but doth not rage; he roars, but doth not repine. When a man is in extremity, nature prompts him to roar, and the law of grace is not against it; and though sighing, roaring, groaning, cannot deliver a man out of his misery, yet they do give some ease to a man under his misery. When Solon wept for his son's death, one said to him, Weeping will not help. He answered, Alas! therefore do I weep, because weeping will not help. So a Christian many times sighs, because sighing will not help; and he groans, because groaning will not help; and he roars, because roaring will not help. Sometimes the sorrows of the saints are so great, that all tears are dried up, and they can get no ease by weeping; and therefore for a little ease they fall asighing and groaning; and this may be done, and yet the heart may be quiet and silent before the Lord. Peter wept and sobbed, and yet was silent. Sometimes the sighs and groans of a saint do in some sort tell that which his tongue can in no sort utter. But,
7. Seventhly, A holy, a prudent silence, doth not exclude nor shut out the use of any just or lawful means, whereby persons may be delivered out of their afflictions. God would not have his people so in love with their afflictions, as not to use such righteous means as may deliver them out of their afflictions: Mat. 10:23, 'But when they persecute you in this city, flee you into another;' Acts 12:5, When Peter was in prison, the saints thronged together to pray, as the original hath it, ver. 12; and they were so instant and earnest with God in prayer, they did so beseech and besiege the Lord, they did so beg and bounce at heaven-gate, ver. 5, that God could have no rest, till, by many miracles of power and mercy, he had returned Peter as a bosom-favour to them: Acts 9:23–25, 'And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him: but their laying await was known of Saul: and they watched the gates day and night to kill him.
Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket.' The blood of the saints is precious in God's eye, and it should not be vile in their own eyes. When providence opens a door of escape there is no reason why the saints should set themselves as marks and butts for their enemies to shoot at: 2 Thes. 3:1, 2, the apostles desire the brethren 'to pray for them, that they may be delivered from unreasonable (ἀτοποι, absurd) and wicked (πονηξὸι, villainous) men; for all men have not faith.' It is a mercy worth a seeking, to be delivered out of the hands of absurd, villainous, and troublesome men.
Afflictions are evil in themselves, and we may desire and endeavour to be delivered from them, James 5:14, 15, Isa. 38:18–21; both inward and outward means are to be used for our own preservation.
Had not Noah built an ark, he had been swept away with the flood,