just and sober complaining against the authors, contrivers, abettors,
though he had been with Nimrod and his crew on the tower of Babel,
which was raised to the height of one thousand five hundred forty-six
paces, as Heylin reports. Though we may not trust in means, yet we
may and ought to use the means; in the use of them, eye that God
that can only bless them, and you do your work. As the pilot that
guides the ship hath his hand upon the rudder, and his eye on the
star that directs him at the same time; so when your hand is upon the
means, let your eye be upon your God, and deliverance will come. We
may neglect God as well by neglecting of means as by trusting in
means; it is best to use them, and in the use of them, to live above
them. Augustine tells of a man, that being fallen into a pit, one
passing by falls a-questioning of him, what he made there, and how
he came in? Oh! said the poor man, ask me not how I came in, but
help me and tell me how I may come out. The application is easy.
But,
8. Eighthly, and lastly, A holy, a prudent silence, doth not exclude a
just and sober complaining against the authors, contrivers, abettors,
or instruments of our afflictions: 2 Tim. 4:14, 'Alexander the
coppersmith did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his
works.' This Alexander is conceived by some to be that Alexander
that is mentioned, Acts 19:33, who stood so close to Paul at Ephesus,
that he run the hazard of losing his life by appearing on his side; yet
if glorious professors come to be furious persecutors, Christians may
complain: 2 Cor. 11:24, 'Of the Jews five times received I forty
stripes, save one.' They inflict, saith Maimonides, no more than forty
stripes, though he be as strong as Samson, but if he be weak, they
abate of that number. They scourged Paul with the greatest severity,
in making him suffer so oft the utmost extremity of the Jewish law,
whenas they that were weak had their punishment mitigated: ver. 25,
'Thrice was I beaten with rods,' that is, by the Romans, whose custom
it was to beat the guilty with rods.
If Pharaoh make Israel groan, Israel may make his complaint against
Pharaoh to the Keeper of Israel, Exod. 2; if the proud and
blasphemous king of Assyria shall come with his mighty army to
destroy the people of the Lord, Hezekiah may spread his letter of
blasphemy before the Lord, Isa. 37:14–21.
It was the saying of Socrates, that every man in this life had need of a
faithful friend and a bitter enemy; the one to advise him, and the
other to make him look about him; and this Hezekiah found by
experience.
Though Joseph's bow abode in strength, and the arm of his hands
were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, yet
Joseph may say, that the archers, or the arrow-masters, as the
Hebrew hath it, have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated
him, Gen. 49:23, 24. And so David sadly complained of Doeg, Ps.
109:1, 21; yea, Christ himself, who was the most perfect pattern for
dumbness and silence under sorest trials, complains against Judas,
Pilate, and the rest of his persecutors, Ps. 69:20, 30, &c.; yea, though
God will make his people's enemies to be the workmen that shall fit
them and square them for his building, to be goldsmiths to add
pearls to their crown, to be rods to beat off their dust, scullions to
scour off their rust, fire to purge away their dross, and water to
cleanse away their filthiness, fleshliness, and earthliness, yet may
they point at them, and pour out their complaints to God against
them, Ps. 132:2–18. This truth I might make good by above a
hundred texts of Scripture; but it is time to come to the reasons of
the point.
Quest IV
Eight reasons why Christians must be
mute and silent under their greatest
afflictions
IV. Why must Christians be mute and silent under the greatest
afflictions, the saddest providences, and sharpest trials that they
meet with in this world? I answer,
Reason 1. That they may the better hear and understand the voice of
the rod. As the word hath a voice, the Spirit a voice, and conscience a
voice, so the rod hath a voice. Afflictions are the rod of God's anger,
the rod of his displeasure, and his rod of revenge; he gives a
commission to his rod, to awaken his people, to reform his people, or
else to revenge the quarrel of his covenant upon them, if they will not
bear the rod, and kiss the rod, and sit mute and silent under the rod:
Micah 6:9, 'The Lord's voice crieth unto the city, and the man of
wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed
it.' God's rods are not mutes, they are all vocal, they are all speaking
as well as smiting; every twig hath a voice. Ah! soul, saith one twig,
thou sayest it smarts; well! tell me, is it good provoking of a jealous
God? Jer. 4:18. Ah! soul, saith another twig, thou sayest it is bitter, it
reacheth to thy heart, but hath not thine own doings procured these
things? Rom. 6:20, 21. Ah! soul, saith another twig, where is the
profit, the pleasure, the sweet that you have found in wandering from
God? Hosea 2:7. Ah! soul, saith another twig, was it not best with
you, when you were high in your communion with God, and when
you were humble and close in your walking with God? Micah 6:8.
Ah! Christian, saith another twig, wilt thou search thy heart, and try
thy ways, and turn to the Lord thy God? Lam. 3:40. Ah! soul, saith
another twig, wilt thou die to sin more than ever, and to the world
more than ever, and to relations more than ever, and to thyself more
than ever? Rom. 14:6–8; Gal. 6:18. Ah! soul, saith another twig, wilt
thou live more to Christ than ever, and cleave closer to Christ than
ever, and prize Christ more than ever, and venture further for Christ
than ever? Ah! soul, saith another twig, wilt thou love Christ with a
more inflamed love, and hope in Christ with a more raised hope, and
depend upon Christ with a greater confidence, and wait upon Christ
with more invincible patience, &c.? Now, if the soul be not mute and
silent under the rod, how is it possible that it should ever hear the
voice of the rod, or that it should ever hearken to the voice of every
twig of the rod? The rod hath a voice that is in the hands of earthly
fathers, but children hear it not, they understand it not, till they are
hushed and quiet, and brought to kiss it, and sit silently under it; no
more shall we hear or understand the voice of the rod that is in our
heavenly Father's hand, till we come to kiss it, and sit silently under
it. But,
Reason 2. Gracious souls should be mute and silent under their
greatest afflictions and sharpest trials, that they may difference and
distinguish themselves from the men of the world, who usually fret
and fling, mutter or murmur, curse and swagger, when they are
under the afflicting hand of God: Isa. 8:21, 22, 'And they shall pass
through it hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that,
when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their
king, and their God, and look upward. And they shall look unto the
earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and
they shall be driven to darkness.' Ah! how fretful and froward, how
disturbed and distracted, how mad and forlorn, are these poor
wretches under the rebukes of God! They look upward and
downward, this way and that way, on this side and on that, and
finding no help, no succour, no support, no deliverance, like
Bedlams, yea, like incarnate devils, they fall upon cursing of God,
and their king: Isa. 59:11, 'We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like
doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is
far from us.' They express their inward vexation and indignation by
roaring like bears. When bears are robbed of their whelps, or taken
in a pit, oh how dreadfully will they roar, rage, tear, and tumble! So
when wicked persons are fallen into the pit of affliction, oh how will
they roar, rage, tear, and cry out! not of their sins, but of their
punishments; as Cain, 'My punishment is greater than I am able to
bear,' Gen. 4:13; Isa. 51:20, 'Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the
head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury
of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God.' When the huntsman hath taken
the wild bull in his toil, and so entangled him, that he is not able to
wind himself out, oh, how fierce and furious will he be! how will he
spend himself in struggling to get out! Such wild bulls are wicked
men, when they are taken in the net of affliction.
It is said of Marcellus the Roman general, that he could not be quiet,
nec victor, nec victus, neither conquered nor conqueror! It is so with
wicked men; they cannot be quiet, neither full nor fasting, neither
sick nor well, neither in wealth nor want, neither in bonds nor at
liberty, neither in prosperity nor in adversity: Jer. 51:37, 38, 'And
Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an
astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant. They shall roar
together like lions: and they shall yell as lions' whelps.' When the lion
roars, all the beasts of the field tremble, Amos 3:8. When the lion
roars, many creatures that could outrun him are so amazed and
astonished at the terror of his roar, that they are not able to stir from
the place. Such roaring lions are wicked men, when they are under
the smarting rod: Rev. 16:9–12, 'They gnaw their tongues for pain,
and they blaspheme the God of heaven, because of those sores, pains,
and plagues that are poured upon them; and they repented not of
their deeds, to give him glory.' And therefore gracious souls have
cause to be silent under their sorest trials, that they may difference
and distinguish themselves from wicked men, who are 'like the
troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and
dirt,' Isa. 57:20. The verb רשע, signifies to make a stir, to be
exceeding busy, unquiet, or troublesome. Ah! what a stir do wicked
men make, when they are under the afflicting hand of God! Ah! the
sea is restless and unquiet when there is no storm; it cannot stand
still, but hath his flux and reflux; so it is much more restless, when by
tempest upon tempest it is made to roar and rage, to foam and cast
up mire and dirt. The raging sea is a fit emblem of a wicked man that
is under God's afflicting hand.
Reason 3. A third reason why gracious souls should be silent and
mute under their sharpest trials is, that they may be conformable to
Christ their fiead, who was dumb and silent under his sorest trials:
Isa. 53:7, 'He was oppressed, and he was afflicted; yet he opened not
his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep
before his shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.' Christ was
tongue-tied under all his sorrows and sufferings: 1 Peter 2:21–23,
'Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should
follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his
mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he
suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that
judgeth righteously.' Christ upon the cross did not only read us a
lecture of patience and silence, but he hath also set us ὑπογραμμὸν a
copy or pattern of both, to be transcribed and imitated by us when
we are under the smarting rod. It will be our sin and shame if we do
not bear up with patience and silence under all our sufferings,
considering what an admirable copy Christ hath set before us. It is
said of Antiochus, that being to fight with Judas, captain of the host
of the Jews, he shewed unto his elephants the blood of the grapes
and mulberries, to provoke them the better to fight. So the Holy
Ghost hath set before us the injuries and contumelies, the sorrows
and sufferings, the pains and torments, the sweat and blood of our
dearest Lord, and his invincible patience, and admirable silence
under all, to provoke us and encourage us to imitate the Captain of
our salvation, in patience and silence under all our sufferings.
Jerome having read the life and death of Hilarion,—one that lived
graciously and died comfortably,—folded up the book, saying, Well!
Hilarion shall be the champion that I will follow; his good life shall
be my example, and his good death my precedent. Oh! how much
more should we all say, We have read how Christ hath been afflicted,
oppressed, distressed, despised, persecuted, &c.; and we have read
how dumb, how tongue-tied, how patient, and how silent he hath
been under all; oh! he shall be the copy which we shall write after,
the pattern which we will walk by, the champion which we will
follow. But, alas! alas! how rare is it to find a man that may be
applauded with the eulogy of Salvian, Singularis domini preclarus
imitator, an excellent disciple of a singular master. The heathens had
this notion amongst them, as Lactantius reports, that the way to
honour their gods was to be like them; and therefore some would be
wicked, counting it a dishonour to their gods to be unlike to them. I
am sure the way to honour our Christ, is in patience and silence to be
like to Christ, especially when a smarting rod is upon our backs, and
a bitter cup put into our hands.
Reason 4. The fourth reason why the people of God should be mute
and silent under their afflictions, is this, because it is ten thousand
times a greater judgment and affliction, to be given up to a fretful
spirit, a froward spirit, a muttering or murmuring spirit under an
affliction, than it is to be afflicted. This is both the devil's sin, and the
devil's punishment. God is still afflicting, crossing and vexing of him,
and he is still a-fretting, repining, vexing, and rising up against God.
No sin to the devil's sin, no punishment to the devil's punishment. A
man were better to have all the afflictions of all the afflicted
throughout the world at once upon him, than to be given up to a
froward spirit, to a muttering, murmuring heart under the least
affliction. When thou seest a soul fretting, vexing, and stamping
under the mighty hand of God, thou seest one of Satan's first-born,
one that resembles him to the life. No child can be so much like the
father, as this froward soul is like to the father of lies; though he hath
been in chains almost this six thousand years, yet he hath never lain
still one day, nor one night, no nor one hour in all this time, but is
still a-fretting, vexing, tossing and tumbling in his chains, like a
princely bedlam. He is a lion, not a lamb; a roaring lion, not a sleepy
lion; not a lion standing still, but a lion going up and down; he is not
satisfied with the prey he hath got, but is restless in his designs to fill
hell with souls, 1 Pet. 5:8. He never wants an apple for an Eve, nor a
grape for a Noah, nor a change of raiment for a Gehazi, nor a wedge
of gold for an Achan, nor a crown for an Absalom, nor a bag for a
Judas, nor a world for a Demas. If you look into one company, there
you shall find Satan a-dishing out his meat to every palate; if you
look into another company, there you shall find him fitting a last to
every shoe; if you look into a third company, there you shall find him
suiting a garment to every back. He is under wrath, and cannot but
be restless. Here, with Jael, he allures poor souls in with milk, and
murders them with a nail; there, with Joab, he embraces with one
hand, and stabs with another. Here with Judas, he kisses and
betrays; and there, with the whore of Babylon, he presents a golden
cup with poison in it. He cannot be quiet, though his bolts be always
on; and the more unquiet any are under the rebukes of God, the
more such resemble Satan to the life, whose whole life is filled up
with vexing and fretting against the Lord. Let not any think, saith
Luther, that the devil is now dead, nor yet asleep, for as he that
keepeth Israel, so he that hateth Israel, neither slumbereth nor
sleepeth. But in the next place,
Reason 5. A fifth reason why gracious souls should be mute and
silent under the greatest afflictions and sharpest trials that do befall
them is this, because a holy, a prudent silence under afflictions,
under miseries, doth best capacitate and fit the afflicted for the
receipt of miseries. When the rolling bottle lies still, you may pour
into it your sweetest or your strongest waters; when the rolling,
tumbling soul lies still, then God can best pour into it the sweet
waters of mercy, and the strong waters of divine consolation. You
read of the 'peaceable fruits of righteousness': Heb. 12:11, 'Now no
chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous;
nevertheless, afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of
righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby;' James 3:18,
'And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace, of them that make
peace.' The still and quiet soul is like a ship that lies still and quiet in
the harbour; you may take in what goods, what commodities you
please, whilst the ship lies quiet and still: so when the soul is quiet
and still under the hand of God, it is most fitted and advantaged to
take in much of God, of Christ, of heaven, of the promises, of
ordinances, and of the love of God, the smiles of God, the
communications of God, and the counsel of God; but when souls are
unquiet, they are like a ship in a storm, they can take in nothing.
Luther, speaking of God, saith, God doth not dwell in Babylon, but in
Salem. Babylon signifies confusion, and Salem signifies peace. Now
God dwells not in spirits that are unquiet and in confusion, but he
dwells in peaceable and quiet spirits. Unquiet spirits can take in
neither counsel nor comfort, grace nor peace, &c.: Ps. 77:2, 'My soul
refused to be comforted.' The impatient patient will take down no
cordials; he hath no eye to see, nor hand to take, nor palate to relish,
nor stomach to digest anything that makes for his health and welfare.
When the man is sick and froward, nothing will down; the sweetest
music will make no melody in his ears: Exod. 6:6–9, 'Wherefore, say
unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out
from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of
their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm and
with great judgment. And I will take you to me for a people, and I
will be to you a God, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God,
which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
And I will bring you in unto the land concerning the which I did
sware to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it
to you for a heritage; I am the Lord.' The choicest cordials and
comforts that heaven or earth could afford are here held forth to
them, but they have no hand to receive them. Here Moses his lips
drops honey-combs, but they can taste no sweetness in them. Here
the best of earth and the best of heaven is set before them, but their
souls are shut up, and nothing will down. Here is such ravishing
music of paradise as might abundantly delight their hearts and
please their ears, but they cannot hear. Here are soul-enlivening,
soul-supporting, soul-strengthening, soul-comforting, soul-raising,
and soul-refreshing words, but they cannot hearken to them: ver. 9,
'And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel, but they hearkened
not unto Moses, for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.' They
were under their anguish feverish fits, and so could neither hear nor
see, taste nor take in, anything that might be a mercy or a comfort to
them.2 They were sick of impatiency and discontent: and these
humours being grown strong, nothing would take with them, nothing
would agree with them. When persons are under strong pangs of
passion, they have no ears neither for reason nor religion.
Reason 6. A sixth reason why gracious souls should be silent under
the smarting rod, is this, viz., because it is fruitless, it is bootless to
strive, to contest or contend with God. No man hath ever got
anything by muttering or murmuring under the hand of God, except
it hath been more frowns, blows, and wounds. Such as will not lie
quiet and still, when mercy hath tied them with silken cords, justice
will put them in iron chains; if golden fetters will not hold you, iron
shall. If Jonah will vex and fret and fling, justice will fling him