1. First, A holy, a prudent silence under affliction doth not exclude and shut out a sense and feeling of our afflictions. Ps. xxxix. 9, though he 'was dumb, and laid his hand upon his mouth,' yet he was very sen- sible of his affliction : verses 10, II, 'Remove thy stroke away from me, I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth : surely every man is vanity/ He is sensible of his pain as well as of his sin ; and having prayed off his sin in the former verses, he labours here to pray off his pain. Diseases, aches, sicknesses, pains, they are all the daughters of sin, and he that is not sensible of them as the births and products of sin, doth but add to his sin and provoke the Lord to add to his sufferings, Isa. xxvi. 9-11. No man shall ever be charged by God for feeling his burden, if he neither fret nor faint under it. Grace doth not destroy nature, but rather perfect it. Grace is of a noble offspring ; it neither turneth men into stocks nor to stoics. The more grace, the more sensible of the tokens, frowns, blows, and lashes of a displeased Father. Though Calvin, under his greatest pains, was never heard to mutter nor murmur, yet he was heard often to say, ' How long, Lord, how long ?' A religious commander being shot in battle, when the wound was searched, and the bullet cut out, some standing by, pitying his pain, he replied, Though I groan, yet I bless God I do not grumble.1 God allows his people to groan, though not to grumble. It is a God-provoking sin to be stupid and senseless under the afflicting hand of God. God will heat that man's furnace of afBic- 1 Sir Philip Sydney?— G.
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tion sevenfold hotter, who is in the furnace but feels it not :l Isa. xlii- 24, 25, ' Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers ? did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned ? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle : and he hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not ; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.' Stupidity lays a man open to the greatest fury and severity.
The physician, when he hndeth that the potion which he hath given his patient will not work, he seconds it with one more violent ; and if that will not work, he gives another yet more violent. If a gentle plaster will not serve, then the chirurgeon applies that which is more corroding ; and if that will not do, then he makes use of his cauterizing knife. So when the Lord afflicts, and men feel it not ; when he strikes, and they grieve not ; when he wounds them, and they awake not : then the furnace is made hotter than ever ; then his fury burns, then he lays on irons upon irons, bolt upon bolt, and chain upon chain, until he hath made their lives a hell. Afflictions are the saints' diet-drink ; and where do you read in all the Scripture that ever any of the saints drunk of this diet-drink, and were not sensible of it.
2. Secondly, A holy, a prudent, silence doth not shut out prayer for deliverance out of our afflictions. Though the psalmist lays his hand upon his mouth in the text, yet he prays for deliverance : ver. 10, ' Remove thy stroke away from me ;' and ver. 11, 12, ' Hear my prayer, O Lord ! and give ear unto my cry ; hold not thy peace at my tears ; for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. Oh spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence and be no more ;' James v. 13, ' Is any among you afflicted'? let him pray ;' Ps. 1. 15, .' Call upon me in the day of trouble : I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.' Times of affliction, by God's own injunction, are special times of supplication.2 David's heart was more often out of tune than his harp ; but then he prays and presently cries, ' Return to thy rest, O my soul.' Jonah prays in the whale's belly, and Daniel prays when among the lions, and Job prays when on the dunghill, and Jeremiah prays when in the dungeon, &c. ; yea, the heathen mariners, as stout as they were, when in a storm, they cry every man to his god, Jonah i. 5, 6. To call upon God, especially in times of distress and trouble, is a lesson that the very light and law of nature teaches. The Persian messenger, though an heathen, as iEschylus observeth, saith thus : ' When the Grecian forces hotly pursued our host, and we must needs venture over the great water Strymon, frozen then, but beginning to thaw, when a hundred to one we had all died for it, with mine eyes I saw, saith he, many of those gallants whom I had heard before so boldly maintain there was no God, every one upon his knees, and devoutly praying that the ice might hold till they got over.'3 And shall blind nature do more than grace ? If the time of affliction be not a time of supplication, I know not what is.
As there are two kinds of antidotes against poison, viz. hot and cold,
1 No judgment to a stupid spirit, a hardened heart, and a brazen brow. * It is an old saying, Qui nescit orare, discat navigare, he that would learn to pray, let him go to sea. 3 Cf. iEschylus, Svppl. 258 ; Agam. 192.— G.
3()8 THE MUTE CHRISTIAN [Ps. XXXIX. 9.
so there are two kinds of antidotes against all the troubles and afflictions of this life, viz. prayer and patience : the one hot, the other cold ; the one quenching, the other quickening. Chrysostom understood this well enough when he cried out : Oh ! saith he, it is more bitter than death to be spoiled of prayer; and thereupon observes that Daniel chose rather to run the hazard of his life than to lose his prayer. Well! this is the second thing. A holy silence doth not exclude prayer ; but,
3. Thirdly, A holy, a prudent silence doth not exclude men's being kmdly affected and afflicted ivith their sins as the meritorious cause of all their sorrows and sufferings.1 Lam. iii. 39, 40, ' Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sin? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord ;' Job xl. 4, 5, ' Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee ? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer ; yea, twice, but 1 proceed no further;' Micah vii. 9, 'I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned.' In all our sorrows we should read our sins; and when God's hand is upon our backs, our hands should be upon our sins.