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. viii. 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. lix. 11, 'We 1 Schola cruets est schola lucis.
$14 THE MUTE CHRISTIAN [Ps. XXXIX. 9.
roar all like hoars, and mourn sore like doves : we look for judgment, but there is none ; for salvation, but it is far from us/1 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. iv. 13 ; Isa. li. 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, nee victor, nee 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. li. 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 iii. 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.2 Such roaring lions are wicked men, when they are under the smarting rod : Rev. xvi. 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. lvii. 20. The verb yjjn, 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 head, who was dumb and silent under his sorest trials : Isa. liii. 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 li. 21—23,
1 The bear, as Aristotle observeth, licketb her whelps into form, aud lovoth them beyond measure, and is most lierce, roaring and raging when she is robbed of them. [Of. Pliny, sab voce. — ii."\ 2 Ambrose on Amos iii. 3.
PS. XXXIX. 9.] UNDER THE SMARTING ROD. 315
' Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that }7e 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 thatjudgeth righteously.'1 Christ upon the cross did not only read us a lecture of patience and 6ilence, but he hath also set us v^oy^a^fAv, 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.2 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.