Helps and Directions to Silence the Soul Under the Greatest Afflictions

I shall come now in the last place, to propound some helps and directions, that may contribute to the silencing and stilling of your souls under the greatest afflictions, the sharpest trials, and the saddest providences, that you meet with in this world, and so close up this discourse.

1. All the afflictions that come upon the saints, are the fruits of Divine love. “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore, and repent,” Rev. iii. 19. “For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth,” Heb. xii. 6. “Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth; therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty,” Job. v. 17. “What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? and that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?” chap. vii. 17, 18. “Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction,” Isa. xlviii. 10. When Munster lay sick, and his friends asked him how he did, and how he felt himself? he pointed to his sores and ulcers, whereof he was full, and said, These are God’s gems and jewels wherewith he decketh his best friends, and to me they are more precious than all the gold and silver in the world. There cannot be a greater evidence of God’s hatred and wrath, than his refusing to correct men for their sinful courses and vanities, Hos. iv. 17, 19. “Why should you be smitten any more, you will revolt more and more,” Isa. i. 5. Where God refuses to correct, there God resolves to destroy; there is no man so near the axe, so near the flames, so near hell, as he whom God will not so much as spend a rod upon. God is most angry where he shows no anger. Jerome, writing to a sick friend, hath this expression, I account it a part of unhappiness not to know adversity; I judge you to be miserable, because you have not been miserable. Nothing, saith another, seems more unhappy to me, than he to whom no adversity hath happened. God afflicts thee, O christian, in love; and therefore Luther cries out, Strike, Lord; strike, Lord, and spare not. Who can seriously muse upon this, and not hold his peace, and not be silent under the most smarting rod?

2. Consider, that the trials and troubles, the calamities and miseries, the crosses and losses that you meet with in this world, are all the hell that ever you shall have; here you have your hell, hereafter you shall have your heaven; this is the worst of your condition, the best is to come. Lazarus had his hell first, his heaven last; but Dives had his heaven first, and his hell at last; thou hast all thy pangs, and pains, and throes here, that ever thou shalt have; thy ease, and rest, and pleasure are to come; here you have all your bitter, your sweet is to come; here you have your sorrows, your joys are to come; here you have all your winter nights, your summer days are to come; here you have your Passion-week, your Ascension day is to come; here you have your evil things, your good things are to come; death will put a period to all thy sins, and to all thy sufferings, and it will be an inlet to those joys, delights, and contents, that shall never have an end; and therefore hold thy peace, and be silent before the Lord.

3. Get an assurance that Christ is yours, and pardon of sin yours, and Divine favor yours, and heaven yours, and the sense of this will exceedingly quiet and silence the soul under the sorest and sharpest trials a christian can meet with in this world. He that is assured that God is his portion, will never mutter nor murmur under his greatest burdens. He that can say, Nothing shall separate me from the love of God in Christ, will be able to triumph in the midst of the greatest tribulations. He that with the spouse can say, “My beloved is mine, and I am his,” Cant. ii. 16, will bear up quietly and sweetly under the heaviest afflictions. In the time of the Marian persecution, there was a gracious woman, who being convened before bloody Bonner, (then Bishop of London,) upon the trial of religion, he threatened her that he would take away her husband from her; saith she, Christ is my husband; I will take away thy child; Christ, saith she, is better to me than ten sons; I will strip thee, saith he, of all thy outward comforts; yea, but Christ is mine, saith she, and you cannot strip me of him. The assurance that Christ was hers, bore up her heart, and quieted her spirit under all. “You may take away my life,” saith Basil, “but you cannot take away my comfort; my head, but not my crown; yea,”

said he, “had I a thousand lives, I would lay them all down for my Saviour’s sake, who hath done abundantly more for me.” John Ardley professed to Bonner, when he told him of burning, and how ill he could endure it, “That if he had as many lives as he had hairs on his head, he would lose them all in the fire, before he would lose his Christ.” Assurance will keep a man from muttering and murmuring under the sorest afflictions. Henry and John, (two Augustine monks,) being the first that were burnt in Germany, and Mr. Rogers, the first that was burnt in queen Mary’s days, did all rejoice in the flames. A soul that lives under the assurance of Divine favor, and in its title to glory, cannot but bear up patiently and quietly under the greatest sufferings that possibly can befal it in this world. That scripture is worth its weight in gold: “The inhabitants of Zion shall not say, I am sick; the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity,” Isa. xxiii. 24. He doth. not say, they were not sick; no, but though they were sick, yet they should not say, they were sick. But why should they forget their sorrows, and not remember their pains, nor be sensible of their sickness? The reason is, because the Lord had forgiven them their iniquities; the sense of pardon took away the sense of pain, the sense of forgiveness took away the sense of sickness. Assurance of pardon will take away the pain, the sting, the trouble of every trouble and affliction that a christian meets with; no affliction will daunt, startle, or stagger an assured christian; assured christians will be patient and silent under all, Ps. xxiii. 1. 4 — 6. Melancthon makes mention of a godly woman, who having upon her death-bed been in much conflict, and afterwards much comforted, brake out in these words, “Now, and not till now, I understand the meaning of these words, c Thy sins are forgiven;’” the sense of which did mightily cheer and quiet her. He that hath got this jewel of assurance in his bosom, will be far enough off from vexing or fretting under the saddest dispensations that he meets with in this world.

4. If you would be quiet and silent under your present troubles and trials, then dwell much upon the benefit, the profit, the advantage that hath redounded to your souls, by former troubles and afflictions that have been upon you. u In the day of adversity consider,” Eccl. vii. 14.* Oh! now consider, how by former afflictions the Lord hath discovered sin, prevented sin, and mortified sin; consider how the Lord by former afflictions hath discov-

* There was a good man that had got so much good by his afflictions, that he counted it his greatest affliction to want an affliction; and therefore he would sometimes cry out, Oh, my friends, I have lost an affliction, I have lost an affliction.

ered to thee the impotency, the mutability, the insufficiency, and the vanity of the world, and all worldly concernments; consider how the Lord by former afflictions hath melted thy heart, and broken thy heart, and humbled thy heart, and prepared thee for clearer, fuller, and sweeter enjoyment of himself; consider what pity, what compassion, what bowels, what tenderness, and what sweetness, former afflictions have wrought in thee towards others in misery; consider what room former afflictions have made in thy soul for God, for his word, for good counsel, and for divine comfort; consider how by former afflictions the Lord hath made thee more partaker of his Christ, his Spirit, his holiness, his goodness, &c; consider how by former afflictions the Lord hath made thee to look towards heaven more, to mind heaven, to prize heaven, and to long for heaven more, &c. Now, who can seriously consider all that good that he hath got by former afflictions, and not be silent under present afflictions? Who can remember those choice, great, and precious earnings, that his soul had made of former afflictions, and not reason himself into a holy silence under present afflictions? Thus, O my soul! hath not God done thee much good, great good, special good, by former afflictions? Yes. O my soul! hath not God done that for thee by former afflictions, that thou wouldst not have to do for ten thousand worlds? Yes. And is not God, O my soul, as powerful as ever, as faithful as ever, as gracious as ever, and as ready and willing as ever, to do thee good by present afflictions, as he hath been to do thee good by former afflictions? Yes, yes. Why, why then dost thou not sit silent and mute before him under the present troubles, O my soul? It was the saying of one, That an excellent memory was needful for three sorts of men: First, for tradesmen, for they, having many businesses to do, many reckonings to makeup, many irons in the fire, had need of a good memory. Secondly, great talkers, for they, being full of words, had need to have a good store-house in their heads to feed their tongues. Thirdly, for liars, for they telling many untruths, had need of a good memory, lest they should be taken in their lying contradictions. And I may add, for a fourth, those that are afflicted, that they may remember the great good that they have gained by former afflictions, that so they may be the more silent and quiet under present troubles.

5. To quiet and silence your souls under the sorest afflictions and sharpest trials, consider, that your chief, your choicest treasure, is safe, 2 Tim. i. 12; your God is safe, your Christ is safe, your portion is safe, 2 Tim. iv. 8; your crown is safe, your inheritance is safe, your royal palace is safe, your jewels, your graces are safe; therefore hold your peace.

I have read a story of a man that had a suit, and when his cause was to be heard, he applied himself to three friends, to see what they would do for him. One answered, He would bring him as far on his journey as he could; the second promised him, That he would go with him to his journey’s end; the third engaged himself to go with him before the judge, and to speak for him, and not to leave him till his cause was heard and determined. These three are, a man’s riches, his friends, and his graces; his riches will help him to comfortable accommodations while they stay with him, but they often take leave of a man before his soul takes leave of his body; his friends will go with him to the grave, and then leave him; but his graces will accompany him before God; they will not leave him, nor forsake him, they will go to the grave, and to glory with him.

In that famous battle at Leuctrum, where the Thebans got a signal victory, their captain Epaminondas, a little before his death, demanded whether his buckler were taken by the enemy? and when he understood that it was safe, and that they had not so much as laid their hands on it, he died most willingly, cheerfully, and quietly. Well, christians, your shield of faith is safe, your portion is safe, your royal robe is safe, your kingdom is safe, your heaven is safe, your happiness is safe; and therefore, under all your afflictions and troubles, in patience possess your own souls.

6. If you would be silent and quiet under your sorest troubles and trials, then set yourselves in good earnest upon the mortification of your lusts.* It is unmortified lust which is the sting of every trouble, and which makes every sweet bitter, and every bitter more bitter; sin unmortified adds weight to every burden, it puts gall to our wormwood, it adds chain to chain; it makes the bed uneasy, the chamber a prison, relations troublesome, and every thing vexatious to the soul. “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” James iv. 1. So say I; From whence comes all this muttering, murmuring, fretting, and vexing, &c.? Come they not hence, even from your unmortified lusts? Come they not from your unmortified pride, unmortified self-love, unmortified unbelief, and unmortified passions? Surely they do. Oh! therefore, as you ever would be silent under the afflicting hand of God, labor for more and more of the grace of the Spirit, by which you may mortify the lusts of the flesh, Rom. viii. 13. It is not your strongest resolutions, or purposes, without the grace of the Spirit, that can overmaster a lust. It was the

* Austin saith, If thou kill not sin till it die of itself, sin hath killed thee, and not thou thy sin.

blood of the sacrifice, and the oil, that cleansed the leper in the law; and that by them was meant the blood of Christ, and the grace of his Spirit, is agreed on all hands, Lev. xiv. 14 — 16. It was a touch of Christ’s garment that cured the woman of her bloody issue, Mark v. 25 — 29. Philosophy, saith Lactantius, may hide a sin, but it cannot quench it; it may cover a sin, but it cannot cut off a sin; like a black patch instead of a plaster, it may cover some deformities in nature, but it cures them not; neither is it the papists’ purgatories, watchings, whippings, nor St. Francis’s kissing or licking of lepers’ sores, which will cleanse the fretting leprosy of sin; in the strengh of Christ, and in the power of the Spirit, set roundly upon the mortifying of every lust. Oh! hug none, indulge none, but resolvedly set upon the ruin of all. One leak in a ship will sink it; one wound strikes Goliath dead, as well as three and twenty did Caesar; one Delilah may do Samson as much spite and mischief as all the Philistines; one broken wheel spoils the whole clock; one vein’s bleeding will let out all the vitals, as well as more; one fly will spoil a whole box of ointment, one bitter herb all the pottage; by eating one apple Adam lost paradise; one lick of honey endangered Jonathan’s life; one Achan was a trouble to all Israel; one Jonah raises a storm and becomes lading too heavy for a whole ship. So one unmortified lust will be able to raise very strange and strong storms and tempests in the soul in the days of affliction; and therefore, as you would have a blessed calm and quietness in your own spirits under your sharpest trials, set thoroughly upon the work of mortification. Gideon had seventy sons, Judg. viii. 30, 31; ix. 1 — 5, and but one bastard, and yet that bastard destroyed all his seventy sons. Ah, christian! thou dost not know what a world of mischief one unmortified lust may do; and therefore let nothing satisfy thee but the death of all thy lusts.

7. If you would be silent under your greatest afflictions, your sharpest trials, then make this consideration your daily companion — That all the afflictions that come upon you, come upon you by and through that covenant of grace that God hath made with you, Jer. xxxii. 36 — 44. God hath engaged himself to keep you from the evils, snares, and temptations of the world; in the covenant of grace, God hath engaged himself to purge away your sins, to brighten and increase your graces, to crucify your hearts to the world, and to prepare you for, and preserve you to his heavenly kingdom; and by afflictions he effects all this, and that according to his covenant too. “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments.” In these words you have a supposition that the saints may fall both into sins of commission and sins of omission; in the following words you have God’s gracious promise, u Then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes.” God engages himself, by promise and covenant, not only to chide and check, but also to correct his people for their sins. “Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail,” Ps. lxxxix. 30 — 33. Afflictions are fruits of God’s faithfulness, to which the covenant binds him; God would be unfaithful, if, first or last, more or less, he did not afflict his people; afflictions are part of that gracious covenant which God hath made with his people; afflictions are mercies, yea, covenant-mercies, Ps. cxix. 75. Hence it is that God is called the terrible God, keeping covenant and mercy, Neh. i. 5, because by his covenant of mercy he is bound to afflict and chastise his people. God, by covenant, is bound to preserve his people, and not to suffer them to perish; and happy are they that are preserved. All the afflictions that come upon a wicked man, come upon him by virtue of a covenant of works, and so are cursed unto him; but all the afflictions that come upon a gracious man, come upon him by virtue of a covenant of grace, and so they are blessed unto him, and therefore he hath eminent cause to hold his peace, to lay his hand upon his mouth. 8. If you would be silent and quiet under afflictions, then dwell much upon this — That all your afflictions do but reach the baser and the ignoble part of a christian, his body, his outward man. “Though our outward man decay, yet our inward man is renewed day by day,” 2 Cor. iv. 16. Aristarchus the heathen said, when he was beaten by the Tyrants, Beat on, it is not Aristarchus you beat, it is only his shell. Timothy had a very healthful soul in a crazy body, 1 Tim. v. 23; and Gaius, 3 John 2, had a very prosperous soul in a weak, distempered body. Epictetus, and many of the more refined heathens, have long since concluded, that the body was the organ, (or vessel,) the soul was the man and merchandise. Now, all the troubles and afflictions that a christian meets with, do not reach his soul, they touch not his conscience, they make no breach upon his noble part, and therefore he hath cause to hold his peace, and to lay his hand upon his mouth: the soul is the breath of God, the beauty of man, the wonder of angels, and the envy of devils, Heb. xii. 9. It is a celestial plant, and of a Divine offspring, Zech. xii. 1. It is an immortal spirit; souls are of an angelic nature, a man is an angel clothed in clay: the soul is a greater miracle in a man than all the miracles wrought among men. Now, it is not in the power of any outward troubles and afflictions that a christian meets with, to reach his soul; and therefore he may well sit mute under the smarting rod.

9. If thou wouldst be silent and quiet under the saddest providences and sorest trials, then keep up faith in continual exercise. Now faith, in the exercise of it, will quiet and silence the soul. Thus,

(1.) By bringing the soul to sit down satisfied in the naked enjoyment of God.

(2.) By drying up the springs of pride, self-love, impatience, murmuring, unbelief, and the carnal delights of this world.

(3.) By presenting to the soul greater, sweeter, and better things in Christ, than any this world doth afford, Phil. iii. 7, 8.

(4.) By lessening the soul’s esteem of all outward vanities: do but keep up the exercise of faith, and thou wilt keep silent before the Lord. No man so mute as he whose faith is still busy about invisible objects.

10. If you would keep silent, then keep humble before the Lord. Oh! labor every day to be more humble, and more low and little in your own eyes. Who am I, saith the humble soul, but that God should cross me in his mercy, Job vii. 17, 18, and take away that mercy, and pass a sentence of death upon every mercy? I am not worthy of the least mercy, I deserve not a crumb of mercy, I have forfeited every mercy, I have improved never a mercy. “Only by pride comes contention,” Prov. xiii. 10. It is only pride that put men upon contending with God and men; a humble soul will lie quiet at the feet of God, it will be contented with mean fare; as you see sheep can live upon the bare commons, which a fat ox cannot. A dinner of green herbs relisheth well with the humble man’s palate, whereas a stalled ox is but a coarse dish to a proud man’s stomach; a humble heart thinks none less than himself, and none worse than himself, Gen. xxxii. 10. A humble heart looks upon small mercies as great mercies, and great afflictions as small afflictions, and small afflictions as no afflictions, and therefore sits mute and quiet under all. Do but keep humble, and you will keep silent before the Lord. Pride kicks, and flings, and frets, but a humble man hath still his hand upon his mouth. Every thing on this side hell is mercy, much mercy, rich mercy, to a humble soul; and therefore he holds his peace.

11. If you would keep silent under the afflicting hand of God, then keep close, hold fast these soul-silencing, soul-quieting maxims or principles. As,

(1.) That the worst that God doth to his people in this world is in order to the making of them a heaven on earth; he brings them into a wilderness, but it is, that he may speak comfortably to them, Hosea ii. 14. He casts them into the fiery furnace, but it is that they may have more of his company. Do the stones come thick about Stephen’s ears? it is but to beat him the nearer to Christ, the Corner-stone, &c. Acts vii. 55 — 60.

(2.) If you would be silent, then hold fast this principle — That what God wills is best; when he wills sickness, sickness is better than health; when he wills weakness, weakness is better than strength; when he wills want, want is better than wealth; when he wills reproach, reproach is better than honor; when he wills death, death is better than life. As God is wisdom itself, and so knows that which is best; so he is goodness itself, and therefore cannot do anything but that which is best; therefore hold thy peace.

(3.) If thou wouldst be silent under thy greatest afflictions, then hold fast to this principle — -That the Lord will bear thee company in all thy afflictions, Isa. xli. 10; xliii. 2; Ps. xxiii. 4; Dan. iii. 25; Gen. xxxix. 20, 21; 2 Tim. iv. 16, 17. These scriptures are breasts of divine consolation; these wells of salvation are full; will you turn to them, and draw out, that your souls may be satisfied and quieted?

(4.) If you would be silent under your afflictions, then hold fast this principle — That the Lord hath more high, more noble, and more blessed ends in the afflicting of you, than he hath in the afflicting of the men of the world. The stalk and the ear of corn fall upon the threshing floor, under one and the same flail; but the one is shattered in pieces, the other is preserved. From one and the same olive, and from under one and the same press, is crushed out both oil and dregs; but the one is turned up for use, and the other thrown out as unserviceable; so, though afflictions do befal good and bad alike, as the Scripture speaks, yet the Lord will effect more glorious ends by those afflictions that befal his people, than he will effect by those that befal wicked men; and therefore the^Lord puts his people into the furnace for their trial, but the wicked for their ruin; the one is bettered by affliction, the other is made worse; the one is made soft and tender by afflictions, the other more hard and obdurate; the one is drawn nearer to God by afflictions, the other is driven further from God, &c.

(5.) If you would be silent under your afflictions, then you must hold fast this principle — That the best way in this world to have thine own will, is to lie down in the will of God, and quietly to resign up thyself to his good-will and pleasure. Luther was a man that could have any thing of God; and why? Because he submitted his will to the will of God; he lost his will in the will of God. Oh, soul! it shall be even as thou wilt, if thy will be swallowed up in the will of God.

Lastly, If thou wouldst be silent under the afflicting hand of God, then thou must hold fast to this principle — That God will make times of affliction to be times of special manifestations of divine love and favor to thee. I could confirm this by a cloud of witnesses, but that I am upon a close. Ah, christians! as ever you would be quiet and silent under the smarting rod, hold fast to these principles, and keep them as your lives.

12. To silence and quiet your souls under the afflicting hand of God, dwell much upon the brevity or shortness of man’s life. This present life is not life, but a motion, a journey to ward’s life. Man’s life, saith one, is the shadow of smoke, yea, the dream of a shadow. Saith another, Man’s life is so short, that Austin doubted whether to call it a dying life or a living death. Thou hast but a day to live, and perhaps thou mayest be now in the twelfth hour of that day; therefore hold out faith and patience, thy troubles and thy life will shortly end together; therefore hold thy peace, thy grave is going to be made, thy sun is near setting, death begins to call thee off the stage of this world, death stands at thy back, thou must shortly sail forth upon the ocean of eternity; though thou hast a great deal of work to do, a God to honor, a Christ to close with, a soul to save, a race to run, a crown to win, a hell to escape, a pardon to beg, a heaven to make sure, yet thou hast but a little time to do it in; thou hast one foot in the grave, thou art even going a-shore on eternity; and wilt thou now cry out of thy afflictions? Wilt thou now mutter and murmur when thou art entering upon an unchangeable condition? What extreme folly and madness is it for a man to mutter and murmur when he is just going out of prison, and his bolts and chains are just knocking off! Why, christian, this is just thy case, therefore hold thy peace; thy life is but short, therefore thy troubles cannot be long; hold up, and hold out quietly and patiently a little longer, Rom. viii. 18, and heaven shall make amends for all.