t. xxxii. 36 ; iron hit, Heb. x. 37 ; Exod. xii. 17, 41, 42, 51.
PS. XXXIX. 9.] UNDER THE SMARTING ROD. 387
reignty of appointing times'? Acts i. 7, xvii. 26. It is but just and equal, that that God that hath made time, and that hath the sole power to appoint and dispose of time, that he should take his own time to do his people good. We are many times humorous,1 preposterous, and hasty, and now we must have mercy or we die, deliverance or we are undone ; but our impatience will never help us to a mercy, one hour, one moment, before the time that God hath set. The best God will always take the best time to hand out mercies to his people. There is no mercy so fair, so ripe, so lovely, so beautiful, as that which God gives out in his own time. Therefore hold thy peace ; though God delays thee, yet be silent, for there is no possibility of wringing a mercy out of God's hand, till the mercy be ripe for us, and we ripe for the mercy, Eccles. iii. 11.
[5.] Fifthly, The Lord in this life will certainly recompense, and make his children amends for all the delays and, put-offs that he exer- cises them with in this world,2 as he did Abraham in giving him such a son as Isaac was, and Hannah in giving her a Samuel. He delayed Joseph long, but at length he changes his iron fetters into chains of gold, his rags into royal robes, his stocks into a chariot, his prison into a palace, his bed of thorns into a bed of down, his reproach into honour, and his thirty years of suffering into eighty years reigning in much grandeur and glory. So God delayed David long, but when his suffer- ing hours were out, he is anointed, and the crown of Israel is set upon his head, and he is made very victorious, very famous and glorious for forty years together, 2 Sam. i. Well ! Christians, God will certainly pay you interest upon interest for all the delays that you meet with ; and therefore hold your peace. But,
[6.] Sixthly and lastly, The Lord never delays the giving in of this mercy, or that deliverance, or the other favour, but wpon great andj weighty reason ; and therefore hold thy peace.
Quest. But what are the reasons that God doth so delay and put off his people from time to time, as we see he doth ?
Ans. [1.] First, for the trial of his people, and for the differencing and distinguishing of them from others? As the furnace tries gold, so delays will try what metal a Christian is made of. Delays will try both the truth and the strength of a Christian's graces. Delays are a Christian touchstone, a lapis Lydius, that will try what metal men are made of, whether they be gold or dross, silver or tin, whether they be sincere or unsound, whether they be real or rotten Christians. As a father, by crossing and delaying his children, tries their dispositions, and makes a full discovery of them, so that he can say, that child is of a muttering and grumbling disposition, and that it is of an humorous and wayward disposition, but the rest are of a meek, sweet, humble, and gentle disposition : so the Lord, by the delaying and crossing of his children, discovers their different dispositions. The manner of the Psylli, which are a kind of people of that temper and constitution that no venom will hurt them, is, that if they suspect any child to be none of their own, they set an adder upon it to sting it, and if it cry, and the
1 Given to ' humours,' or capricious. — G.
2 Ps. xc. 15, and the first and last chapters of Job compared.
3 Mat. xv. 21-29 ; I Peter i. 7 ; Job xxiii. 8-10; Deut. viii. 2
388 THE MUTE CHRISTIAN [Ps. XXXIX. 9.
flesh swell, they oust it away as a spurious issue, but if it do not cry, if it do not so much as quatch,1 nor do not grow the worse for it, then they account it for their own, and make very much of it ;2 so the Lord l'V delays, which are as the stinging of the adder, tries his children; it' they patiently, quietly, and sweetly can bear them, then the Lord will own them, and make much of them, as those that are near and dear unto him; but if under delays they fall a-crying, roaring, storm- ing, vexing, and fretting, the Lord will not own them, but reckon them as bastards, and no sons, Heb. xii. 8.
[2.] Secondly, That they may have the greater experience of his poiver, grace, love, and mercy in the clove. Christ loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus, yet he defers his coming for several days, and Lazarus must die, be put in the grave, and lie there till he stinks. And why so, but that they might have the greater experience of his power, grace, and love towards them ? John xi. 3, 5, 6, 17.
[3.] Thirdly, To sharpen his children's a ppet ite, and to put a greater edge upon their desires ; to make them cry out as a woman in travail, or as a man that is in danger of drowning, Cant. iii. 1-4 ; Isa. xxvi. 8, 9, 16. God delays, that his people may set upon him with greater strength and importunity ; he puts them off, that they may put on with more life and vigour ; God seems to be cold, that he may make us the more hot; he seems to be slack, that he may make us the more earnest; he seems to be backward, that he may make us the more forward in pressing upon him. The father delays the child, that he may make him the more eager, and so doth God his, that he may make them the more divinely violent. When Balaam had once put off Balak, 'he sent again,' saith the text, 'certain princes more, and more honourable than they/ Num. xxii. 15. Balaam's put-offs did but make Balak the more importunate, it did but increase and whet his desires. This is that that God aims at by all his put-offs, to make his children more earnest, to whet up their spirits, and that they may send up more and yet more honourable prayers after him, that they may cry more earnestly, strive more mightily, and wrestle more importunately with God, and that they may take heaven with a more sacred violence. Anglers draw back the hook, that the fish may be the more forward to bite ; and God sometimes seems to draw back, but it is only that we may press the more on. And therefore, as anglers, when they have long waited, and perceive that the fish do not so much as nibble at the bait, yet do they not impatiently throw away the rod, or break the hook and line, but pull up, and look upon the bait and mend it, and so throw it in again, and then the fish bites : so when a Christian prays, and prays, and yet catches nothing, God seems to be silent, and heaven seems to be shut against him ; yet let him not east off prayer, but mend his prayer; pray more believingly, pray more affectionately, and pray more fervently, ami then the fish will bite, then mercy will come, and comfort will come, and deliverance will come. But,
[4.] Fourthly, Ood delays am/ puts off his people many limes, that he may make a fuller discovery of themselves to themselves. Few