(6.) Sixthly, Consider, That murmuring is a mercy-embitter in;/ sin, a mercy-souring sin; as put the sweetest things into a sour vessel, it sours them, or put them into a bitter vessel, and it embitters them. Murmuring puts gall and wormwood into every cup of mercy that God gives into our hands. As holy silence gives a sweet taste, a delightful relish, to all a man's mercies, so murmuring embitters all. The mur- murer can taste no sweetness in his sweetest morsels ; every mercy, every morsel, tastes like the white of an egg to him, Job vi. 6. This mercy, saith the murmurer, is not toothsome, nor that mercy is not wholesome ; here is a mercy wants salt, and there is a mercy wants sauce. A murmurer can taste no sweet, can feel no comfort ; he can take no delight in any mercy he enjoys. The murmurer writes marah, that is, bitterness, upon all his mercies, and he reads and tastes bitter- ness in all his mercies. All the murmurer's grapes are grapes of gall, and all their clusters are bitter, Deut. xxxii. 23. As to ' the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet/ Prov. xxvii. 7, so to the murmuring soul every sweet thing is bitter. The mute Christian can suck sweet- ness from every breast of mercy, but the murmurer cries out, Oh it is bitter ! Oh these breasts of mercy are dry !
(7.) Seventhly, Consider, That murmuring is a mercy-destroying
1 Satan can never be quiet, nee victor, nee victus, neither conquered, nor conqueror. [Said of Marcellus, as before. — G.]
* In his Upistolce Ho- Eliane ; or, Familiar Letters. 1650. 3 vols. — G. 8Qu. 'to the'?— Ed. VOL. I. Y
338 THE MUTE CHRISTIAN [Ps. XXXIX. 9.
sin, a mercy-murdering sin. Murmuring outs the throat of mercy; it stabs all our mercies at the heart ; it sets all a man's mercies a-bleeding about him at once : Num. xiv. 30, ' Doubtless ye shall not come into the land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.' God pro- mises them that they should possess the holy land upon the condition • >t (heir obedience. This condition they brake ; and therefore God was not foresworn though he cut them off in the wilderness, and kept them out of Canaan, Deut. xxxi. 16, 17. But what is the sin that provokes the Lord to bar them out of the land of promise, and to cut them off from all those mercies that they enjoyed which entered into the holy land ? Why, it was their murmuring ; as you may see in Numbers xiv. 1-3, 26-29. As you love your mercies, as you would have the sweet of your mercies, and as you would enjoy the life of your mercies, take need of murmuring. Murmuring will bring a consumption upon your mercies ; it is a worm that will make all your mercies to wither. As there be some that love their mercies into the grave, and others that plot their mercies into the grave, so there be some that murmur their mercies into the grave. As you would have your mercies always fresh and green, smiling and thriving, as you would have your mercies to bed and board with you, to rise up and lie down with you, and in all con- ditions to attend you, murmur not. murmur not. The mute Christian's mercies are most sweet and most long-lived ; the murmurer's mercies, like Jonah's gourd, will quickly wither. Murmuring hath cut the throat <»f national mercies, of domestical mercies, and of personal mercies ; and therefore, oh how should men fly from it as from a serpent ! as from the avenger of blood ! yea, as from hell itself!
(8.) Eighthly, Consider, That murmuring unfits the soul for duty, Exod. vi. 7-10. A murmurer can neither hear to profit, nor pray to profit, nor read to profit, nor meditate to profit. The murmurer is neither fit to do good, nor receive good. Murmuring unfits the soul for doings of duties ; it unfits the soul for delighting in duties ; it unfits the soul for communion with God in duties. Murmuring fills the soul with cares, fears, distractions, vexations ; all which unfits a man for duty, 1 Cor. vii. 33-35. As a holy quietness and calmness of spirit prompts a man to duty, as it makes every duty easy and pleasant to the soul, Prov. iii. 17 ; so it is murmuring that unhinges the soul, and indisposes the soul, so that it takes off the chariot wheels of the soul, that the soul cannot look up to God, nor do for God, nor receive from God, nor wait on God, nor walk with God, nor act faith upon God, &c, Ps. xl. 12. < )h ! therefore, as ever you would be in a blessed preparedness, and a blessed fittedness for duty, take heed of murmuring, and sit mute and silent under the afflicting hand of God, Isa. xxvi. 9-11.
(9.) Ninthly, Consider, That murmuring unmans a man ; it strips him of his reason and understanding; it makes him call evil good, and good evil; it puts light for darkness and darkness for light, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter ; it calls saviours destroyers, and deliverers murderers, Isa. v. 18-20; as you see in the murmuring Israelites, Exod. xiv.-xvi. Murmuring uncrowns a man. The murmurer may say, 'My crown is fallen from my head,' Lam. v. 16. Murmuring strips a man of all his glory ; it spoils all his excellency ; it destroys the
PS. XXXIX. 9.] UNDER THE SMARTING ROD. 339
nobility of man ; it speaks him out to be a base ignoble creature. Murmuring clouds a man's understanding ; it perverts the judgment, it puts out the eye of reason, stupefies his conscience ; it sours the heart, disorders the will, and distempers the affections ; it be-beasts a man, yea, it sets him below the beasts that perish ; for he were better be a beast, than be like a beast. The murmurer is the hieroglyphic of folly ; he is a comprehensive vauity ; he is a man and no man ; he is sottish and seoseless ; he neither understands God nor himself nor anything as he should ; he is the man that must be sent to school, to learn of the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the earth, how to cease from murmuring, and how to be mute, Isa. iii. 8, Jer. vii. 6. Ah ! sirs, as you would have the name, the honour, the re- putation of being men, I say men, Take heed of murmuring, and sit silent before the Lord.