in Salem. Babylon signifies confusion, and Salem signifies peace. Now God dwells not in spirits that are unquiet and in confusion, but he dwells in peaceable and quiet spirits. Unquiet spirits can take in neither counsel nor comfort, grace nor peace, &c. : Ps. lxxvii. 2, ' My soul refused to be comforted.' The impatient patient will take down no cordials ; he hath no eye to see, nor hand to take, nor palate to relish, nor stomach to digest anything that makes for his health and welfare. When the man is sick and froward, nothing will down ; the sweetest music will make no melody in his ears: Exod. vi. 6-9, 'Where- fore, say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will brino- you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm, and with great judgment. And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land concerning the which I did sware to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you for a heritage ; I am the Lord.' The choicest cordials and comforts that heaven or earth could afford are here held forth to them, but they have no hand to receive them. Here Moses his lips drops honey- combs, but they can taste no sweetness in them. Here the best of earth and the best of heaven is set before them, but their souls are shut up, and nothing will down. Here is such ravishing music of paradise as might abundantly delight their hearts and please their ears, but they cannot hear. Here are soul-enlivening, soul-supporting, soul-strength- ening, soul-comforting, soul-raising, and soul-refreshing words, but they cannot hearken to them : ver. 9, ' And Moses spake so unto the chil- dren of Israel, but they hearkened not unto Moses, for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.' They were under their anguish1 feverish fits, and so could neither hear nor see, taste nor take in, anything that mi^ht be a mercy or a comfort to them.2 They were sick of impatiency and dis- content : and these humours being grown strong, nothing would take with them, nothing would agree with them. When persons are under strong pangs of passion, they have no ears neither for reason nor religion.
Reason 6. A sixth reason why gracious souls should be silent under the smarting rod, is this, viz., because it is fruitless, it is bootless to strive, to contest or contend with God. No man hath ever got any- thing by muttering or murmuring under the hand of God, except it hath been more frowns, blows, and wounds. Such as will not lie quiet and still, when mercy hath tied them with silken cords, justice will put them in iron chains ; if golden fetters will not hold you, iron shall.3 If Jonah will vex and fret and fling, justice will fling him 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. vii. 19, ' Do they provoke me to anger, saith the Lord ? Do they not provoke thern-
1 Qu. ' aguish '? — Ed. _ 3 No air agrees well with weak, peevish, sickly bodies.
8 If bedlams will not lie quiet, they are put into darker rooms, and heavier chains are put upon them.
318 T1IK MUTE CHRISTIAN [Ps. XXXIX. 9.
selves to the confusion of their own faces ?' By provoking of me, they do but provoke themselves; by angering of me, they do but anger them- selves ; by vexing of me, they do but fret and vex themselves : 1 Cor. x. 22, ' Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy ? Are we stronger than he ? Zanchy1 observes these two things from these words:
1. That it is ill provoking God to wrath, because he is stronger than
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 pro- voke 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 1 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 dis- temper, 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 lea- 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. xii. 10. 'Tlir 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 tosiu, 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 1 Jerome Zauchiu- not to bo confounded with his contemporary Basil Zanchius. — 0.