be silent nor satisfied under the afflicting hand of God, except the
silent under the hand of God, who dares charge God himself for
laying his hand upon him. But,
4. Fourthly, This truth looks sourly and sadly upon such as will not
be silent nor satisfied under the afflicting hand of God, except the
Lord will give them the particular reasons why he lays his hand upon
them. Good men sometimes dash their feet against this stumbling
stone: Jer. 15:18, 'Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound
incurable?' &c. Though God hath always reason for what he doth, yet
he is not bound to shew us the reasons of his doings. Jeremiah's
passion was up, his blood was hot; and now nothing will silence nor
satisfy him but the reasons why his pain was perpetual, and his
wound incurable. So Job, chap. 7:20, 'Why hast thou set me as a
mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?' It is an evil and a
dangerous thing to cavil at or to question his proceedings, who is the
chief Lord of all, and who may do with his own what he pleaseth,
Rom. 9:20, Dan. 4:3, 36. He is unaccountable and uncontrollable;
and therefore who shall say, What doest thou? As no man may
question his right to afflict him, nor his righteousness in afflicting of
him, so no man may question the reasons why he afflicts him. As no
man can compel him to give a reason of his doings, so no man may
dare to ask him the particular reasons of his doings. Kings think
themselves are not bound to give their subjects a reason of their
doings; and shall we bind God to give us a reason of his doings, who
is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and whose will is the true
reason and only rule of justice? Eccles. 8:4, Rev. 1:5. The general
grounds and reasons that God hath laid down in his word why he
afflicts his people, as, viz., for their profit, Heb. 12:10; for the purging
away of their sins, Isa. 1:25; for the reforming of their lives, Ps.
119:67, 71; and for the saving of their souls, 1 Cor. 11:32,—should
work them to be silent and satisfied under all their afflictions, though
God should never satisfy their curiosity in giving them an account of
some more hidden causes which may lie secret in the abysses of his
eternal knowledge and infallible will. Curiosity is the spiritual
drunkenness of the soul; and look, as the drunkard will never be
satisfied, be the cup never so deep, unless he see the bottom of it, so
some curious Christians, whose souls are overspread with the leprosy
of curiosity, will never be satisfied till they come to see the bottom
and the most secret reasons of all God's dealings towards them; but
they are fools in folio, who affect to know more than God would have
them. Did not Adam's curiosity render him and his posterity fools in
folio? And what pleasure can we take to see ourselves every day fools
in print? As a man by gazing and prying into the body of the sun may
grow dark and dim, and see less than otherwise he might, so many,
by a curious prying into the secret reasons of God's dealings with
them, come to grow so dark and dim, that they cannot see those
plain reasons that God hath laid down in his word why he afflicts and
tries the children of men.
I have read of one Sir William Champney, in the reign of King Henry
the Third, once living in Tower Street, London, who was the first
man that ever built a turret on the top of his house, that he might the
better overlook all his neighbours, but so it fell out, that not long
after he was struck blind; so that he that could not be satisfied to see