greatest troubles and your sorest trials, you will be found fighters
after a quiet and silent spirit, which the great and glorious God sets
so great a price upon! This is a pearl of greatest price, and happy is
he that purchases it, though it were with the loss of all. But,
6. Sixthly, Consider, That if you sit not silent and quiet under your
greatest troubles and your sorest trials, you will be found fighters
against your own prayers. How often have you prayed that the will of
God may be done, yea, that it may be done on the earth, as the
angels, those glistering courtiers, those princes of glory, do it now in
heaven! Mat. 6:10. When troubles and afflictions come upon you, the
will of God is done, his will is accomplished; why then should you
fret, fling, and fume, and not rather quietly lie down in his will,
whose will is a perfect will, a just and righteous will, a wise will, an
overruling will, an infinite will, a sovereign will, a holy will, an
immutable will, an uncontrollable will, an omnipotent will, and an
eternal will? Certainly you will but add affliction to affliction, by
fighting against your own prayers, and by vexing and fretting
yourselves when the will of God is done. It is sad to see a man to fight
against his friends, it is sadder to see him fight against his relations,
it is saddest of all to see him fight against his prayers; and yet this
every Christian doth, who murmurs and mutters when the rod of
God is upon him. Some there be that pray against their prayers, as
Augustine, who prayed for continency with a proviso, Lord! give me
continency, but not yet; and some there be who fight against their
prayers, as those who pray that the will of God may be done, and yet
when his will is done upon them, they are like the troubled sea when
it cannot rest, they are still fretting against the Lord. Ah, Christians!