Use: This Truth Looks Sadly upon Several Sorts of Persons

If this be so, then this truth looks sadly upon several sorts of persons. As,

1. This looks sadly upon murmurers, upon such as do nothing but mutter and murmur under the afflicting hand of God. This was Israel’s sin of old, Exod. xvi. 6 — 9; Numb, xiv. 27. 29; chap. xvii. 5. 10; Exod. xv. 24; Deut. i. 27; Psa. cvi. 25; and this is our sin at this day. Ah! what murmuring is there against God, against instruments, and against providences, to be found amongst us! Some murmur at what they have lost, others murmur at what they fear they shall lose; some murmur that they are no higher, others murmur because they are so low; some murmur because such a party rules, and others murmur because themselves are not in the saddle; some murmur because their mercies are not so many as others; and others murmur because their mercies are not as others are; some murmur because they are afflicted, and others murmur because such and such are not afflicted as well as they. Hadst thou no more sins upon thee, perhaps thy murmuring were enough to undo thee, did not God exercise much pity and compassion toward thee.

2. This truth looks sadly upon those that fret, chafe, and vex, when they are under the afflicting hand of God. Many, when they feel the rod smart, ah, how do they fret and fume! “When they are hardly bestead and hungry, they fret themselves, and curse their king and their God,” Isa. viii. 21. “The foolishness of man perverteth his way; and his heart fretteth against the Lord,” Prov. xix. 3. The heart may be fretful and froward, when the tongue doth not blaspheme. Folly brings man into misery, and misery makes man to fret, 2 Kings vi. 33; Psa. xxxvii. 1. 7, 8. Man in misery is more apt to fret and chafe against the Lord, than to fret and chafe against his sin that hath brought him into sufferings. A fretful soul dares attack God himself.

When Pharoah is troubled and frets, he dare fly in the very face of God himself: “Who is the Lord that I should obey him?” And when Jonah is in a fretting humor, he dares tell God to his face, that he doth well to be angry, Jonah, iv. 8, 9. Jonah had done well, if he had been angry with his sin; but he did very ill to be angry with his God. God will vex every vein in that man?s heart, before he hath done with him, who fumes and frets, because he cannot snap asunder the cords with which he is bound, Ezek. xvi. 43. Sometimes good men are sick of the frets; but when they are, it costs them dear, as Job and Jonah found by experience. No man hath ever got any thing by his fretting and flinging, except it hath been harder blows, or heavier chains; therefore fret not when God strikes.

3. This truth looks sadly upon those who charge God foolishly in the day of their adversity: u Why doth a living man complain?” Lam. hi. 39. He that hath deserved a hanging, hath no reason to charge the judge with cruelty, if he escape with a whipping; and we that have deserved condemnation, have no reason to charge God for being too severe, if we escape with a fatherly lashing. Rather than a man will take the blame, and quietly bear the shame of his own folly, he will put it off upon God himself, Gen. hi. 12. It is a very evil thing, when we accuse God, hat we mav excuse ourselves, and lay the fault any where rather than upon our own hearts and wTays. Job was a man of a more noble spirit: “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly,” Job. i. 22. When God charges many men home, then they presently charge God foolishly, they put him to bear the brunt and blame of all; but this will be bitterness in the end. When thou art under affliction, thou mayst humbly tell God, that thou feelest his hand heavy; but thou must not blame him because his hand is heavy. No man hath ever been able to make good a charge against God; and wilt thou be able? Surely no. By charging God foolishly in the day of thy calamity, thou dost but provoke the Lord to charge thee through and through, more fiercely and furiously, with his most deadlydarts of renewed misery. It is thy greatest wisdom to blame thy sins, and lay thy hand upon thy mouth; for why should folly charge innocence? That man is far enough off from being mute and silent under the hand of God, who dares charge God himself for laying his hand upon him. But,

4. This truth looks sadly upon such as will not be silent nor satisfied under the afflicting hand of God, except the Lord will give them the particular reasons why he lays his hand upon them. Good men sometimes dash their feet against this stumbling stone. “Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable?” Jer. xv. 18. Though God hath always reason for what he doth, yet he is not bound to show us the reasons of his doings. Jeremiah’s passion was up, his blood was hot, and now nothing will silence or satisfy him, but the reasons why his pain was perpetual, and his wound incurable. So Job, chap. vii. 20. “Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?” It is an evil and a dangerous thing to cavil at, or to question, his proceedings, Rom. ix. 20; Dan. iv. 34, 35, who is the chief Lord of all, and who may do with his own what he pleaseth. He is unaccountable and uncontrollable; and therefore who shall say, What dost thou? As no man may question his right to afflict him, nor his righteousness in afflicting him; so no man may question the reasons why he afflicts him. As no man can compel him to give a reason of his doings, so no man may dare to ask him the particular reasons of his doings. Kings think themselves not bound to give their subjects a reason for their doings, Eccl. viii. 4; and shall we bind God to give us a reason of his doings, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, and whose will is the true reason and only rule of justice? The general grounds and reasons that God hath laid down in his word, why he afflicts his people, as, namely, for their profit, Heb, xii. 10, for the purging away of their sins, Isa. i. 25, for the reforming of their lives, Ps. cxix. 67, 71, and for the saving of their souls, 1 Cor. xi. 32, should work them to be silent, and satisfied under all their afflictions; though God should never satisfy their curiosity in giving them an account of some more hidden causes, which may lie secret in the abyss of his eternal knowledge and infallible will. Curiosity is the spiritual drunkenness of the soul; and as the drunkard will never be satisfied, be the cup ever so deep, unless he sees the bottom of it; so some curious christians, whose souls are overspread with the leprosy of curiosity, will never be satisfied till they come to see the bottom, and the most secret reasons of all God’s dealings towards them; but they are the greatest fools, who affect to know more than God would have them. Did not Adam’s curiosity render him and his posterity fools? As a man by gazing and prying into the body of the sun, may grow dark and dim, and see less than otherwise he might; so many by a curious prying into the secret reasons of God’s dealings with them, come to grow so dark and dim, that they cannot see those plain reasons which God hath laid down in his word, why he afflicts and tries the children of men.

I have read of one Sir William Champney, (in the reign of King Henry III.) once living in Tower-street, London, who was the first man that ever built a turret on the top of his house, that he might the better overlook all his neighbors; but so it fell out, that, not long after, he was struck blind; so that he who could not be satisfied to see as others did see, but would needs see more than others, saw just nothing at all, through the just judgment of God upon him. And so it is a just and righteous thing with God to strike such with spiritual blindness, who will not be satisfied with seeing the reasons laid down in the word why he afflicts them, but they must be curiously prying and searching into the hidden and more secret reasons of his severity towards them. Ah, christians, it is your wisdom and duty to sit silent and mute under the afflicting hand of God, upon the account of revealed reasons, without making any curious inquiry into those more secret reasons, that are locked up in the golden cabinet of God’s own breast, Deut. xxix. 29.

5. This truth looks sadly upon those who, instead of being silent and mute under their afflictions, use sinful ways to get out of their troubles; who care not though they break with God, with men, and with their own consciences, so that they may but break off the chains that are upon them; who care not by what means the prison door is opened, so they may’ but escape; nor by what hands their bolts are knocked off, so they may be at liberty.

u Take heed, regard not iniquity; for this hast thou chosen rather than affliction,” Job xxxvi. 21. He makes but an ill choice who chooses sin rather than suffering; and yet, such an ill choice good men have sometimes made, when troubles have compassed them round about. Though no lion roars like that in a man’s own bosom, conscience; yet some, to deliver themselves from troubles without, have set that lion a roaring within; some to deliver themselves from outward tortures, have put themselves under inward torments. He purchases his freedom from affliction at too dear a rate, who buys it with the loss of a good name, or a good conscience.