A77618:368
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, If you would be silent and quiet under your sorest troubles and trials, then set your selves in good earnest upon the mortification of your lusts; it is unmortified1 lusts 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. James 4. 1. From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not ⟨p. 357⟩hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 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, and unmortified self-love, and unmortified unbelief, and unmortified passions? &c. Surely they do. Oh therefore! as ever you would be silent under the afflicting hand of God, labour for more & more of the grace of the Spirit, by which you may mortify the lusts2 of the flesh; it is not your strongest resolutions or purposes, without the grace of the Spirit, that can over-master a lust; a foul sore, till it be indeed healed, will run, though we resolve and say it shall not. It was the blood of the Sacrifice, and the Oil, that cleansed the Leper in the Law, and that by them was meant the blood of3 Christ, and the grace of his Spirit, is agreed on all hands. It was a touch of Christs garment that cured ⟨p. 358⟩the woman of her bloody Issue. Philosophy (saith Lacta•tius) it 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 in stead of a plaster, it may cover some deformities in nature, but it cures them not; neither is it the Papists purgatories, watchings, whippings, &c. nor St. Francis his kissing or licking of Lepers sores, which will cleanse the fretting leprosy of sin; in the strength 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 Sampson as much spite and mischief, as all the Philistines; one broken wheel spoils all the whole Clock;