provoke him to wrath; and certainly there are none that do more
overboard, to cool him, and quell him, and keep him prisoner in the
whale's belly, till his stomach be brought down, and his spirit be
made quiet before the Lord. What you get by struggling and
grumbling, you may put in your eye, and weep it out when you have
done: Jer. 7:19, 'Do they provoke me to anger, saith the Lord? Do
they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?' By
provoking of me, they do but provoke themselves; by angering of me,
they do but anger themselves; by vexing of me, they do but fret and
vex themselves: 1 Cor. 10:22, 'Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?
Are we stronger than he?'
Zanchy observes these two things from these words:
1. That it is ill provoking God to wrath, because he is stronger than
we.
2. That though God be stronger than we, yet there are those who
provoke him to wrath; and certainly there are none that do more
provoke him than those who fume and fret when his hand is upon
them. Though the cup be bitter, yet it is put into your hand by your
Father; though the cross be heavy, yet he that hath laid it on your
shoulders will bear the heaviest end of it himself; and why, then,
should you mutter? Shall bears and lions take blows and knocks from
their keepers, and wilt thou not take a few blows and knocks from
the keeper of Israel? Why should the clay contend with the potter, or
the creature with his creator, or the servant with his lord, or
weakness with strength, or a poor nothing creature with an
omnipotent God? Can stubble stand before the fire? Can chaff abide
before the whirlwind? or can a worm ward off the blow of the
Almighty? A froward and impatient spirit under the hand of God will
but add chain to chain, cross to cross, yoke to yoke, and burden to
burden. The more men tumble and toss in their feverish fits, the
more they strengthen the distemper, and the longer it will be before
the cure be effected. The easiest and the surest way of cure is to lie
still and quiet till the poison of the distemper be sweat out. Where
patience hath its perfect work, there the cure will be certain and easy.
When a man hath his broken leg set, he lies still and quiet, and so his
cure is easily and speedily wrought; but when a horse's leg is set, he
frets and flings, he flounces and flies out, unjointing it again and
again, and so his cure is the more difficult and tedious. Such
Christians that under the hand of God are like the horse or mule,
fretting and flinging, will but add to their own sorrows and
sufferings, and put the day of their deliverance further off.
Reason 7. A seventh reason why Christians should be mute and silent
under their afflictions is, because hereby they shall cross and
frustrate Satan's great design and expectation. In all the afflictions he
brought upon Job, his design was not so much to make Job a beggar
as it was to make him a blasphemer; it was not so much to make Job
outwardly miserable, as it was to make Job inwardly miserable, by
occasioning him to mutter and murmur against the righteous hand
of God, that so he might have had some matter of accusation against
him to the Lord. He is the unwearied accuser of the brethren: Rev.
12:10, 'The accuser of the brethren is cast down, which accuseth
them before our God day and night.' Satan is the great make-bait
between God and his children. He hath a mint constantly going in
hell, where, as an untired mint-master, he is still a-coining and
hammering out of accusations against the saints. First, he tempts
and allures souls to sin, and then accuses them of those very sins he
hath tempted them to, that so he may disgrace them before God, and
bring them, if it were possible, out of favour with God; and though he
knows beforehand that God and his people are, by the bond of the
covenant, and by the blood of the Redeemer, so closely united that
they can never be severed, yet such is his rage and wrath, envy and
malice, that he will endeavour that which he knows he shall never
effect. Could he but have made Job froward or fretful under the rod,
he would have quickly carried the tidings to heaven, and have been
so bold as to have asked God whether this was a carriage becoming
such a person, of whom himself had given so glorious a character.
Satan knows that there is more evil in the least sin, than there is in
all the afflictions that can be inflicted upon a person; and if he could
but have made a breach upon Job's patience, ah, how would he have
insulted over God himself! could he but have made Job a mutineer,
he would quickly have pleaded for martial law to have been executed
upon him; but Job, by remaining mute and silent under all his trials,
puts Satan to a blush, and spoils all his projects at once. The best way
to outwit the devil, is to be silent under the hand of God; he that
mutters is foiled by him, but he that is mute overcomes him, and to
conquer a devil is more than to conquer a world.