A77618:111
The silent soul, with sovereign antidotes against the most miserable exigentsThe silent soul, with soveraign antidotes against the most miserable exigents
The silent soul, with sovereign antidotes against the most miserable exigents: or, A Christian with an olive-leaf in his mouth, when he is under the greatest afflictions, the sharpest and sorest trials and troubles, the saddest and darkest providences and changes, with answers to divers questions and objections that are of greatest importance, all tending to win and work souls to be still, quiet, calm and silent under all changes that have, or may pass upon them in this world, &c. / By Thomas Brooks preacher of the Word at Margarets New Fish-street London, and pastor of the Church of Christ meeting there.The silent soul, with soveraign antidotes against the most miserable exigents: or, A Christian with an olive-leaf in his mouth, when he is under the greatest afflictions, the sharpest and sorest trials and troubles, the saddest and darkest providences and changes, with answers to divers questions and objections that are of greatest importance, all tending to win and work souls to bee still, quiet, calm and silent under all changes that have, or may pass upon them in this world, &c. / By Thomas Brooks preacher of the Word at Margarets New Fish-street London, and pastor of the Church of Christ meeting there.
London: printed by R.I. for John Hancock, 1660
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Sixthly, A gracious, a prudent ⟨p. 59⟩Silence, doth not exclude sighing,1 groaning, or roarings under affliction. A man may sigh, and groan, and roar under the hand of God, and yet be silent; it is not sighing, but muttering; it is not groaning, but grumbling; it is not roaring, but murmuring, that is opposite to a holy Silence, Exod. 2. 23. And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage. Job 3. 24. For my sighing cometh before I eat (or as the Hebrew hath it, before my meat) his sighing, like bad weather, came unsent for, and unsought for, Psal. 38. 9. Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee, Psal. 102. 5. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin. Job 3. 24. And my roarings are poured out like the waters. Psal. 38. 8. I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared, by reason of the disquietness of my heart. Psal. 22. 1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? Psal. 32. 3. ⟨p. 60⟩When I kept silence, my bones waxed old, through my roarings all the day long. He roars, but doth not rage, he roars, but doth not repine; when a man is in extremity, nature prompts him to roar, and the law of grace is not against it; and though sighing, groaning, roaring, cannot deliver a man out of his misery, yet they do give some ease to a man under his misery. When Solon wept for his sons death, one said to him, weeping will not help, he answered, Alas! therefore do I weep, because weeping will not help: So a Christian many times sighs, because sighing will not help; and he groans, because groaning will not help; and he roars, because roaring will not help. Sometimes the sorrows of the Saints are so great, that all tears are dried up, and they can get no ease by weeping; and therefore for a little ease they fall a sighing and groaning, and this may be done, and yet the heart may be quiet and silent before