A77618:43
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.
For the first, What is the Silence here meant? I answer, there is a sevenfold Silence.
First, There is a Stoical Silence: the Stoics of old thought it altogether below a man that hath reason and understanding, either to rejoice in any good, or to mourn for any evil; but this Stoical Silence is such a sinful unsensibleness ⟨p. 5⟩as is very provoking to a holy God, Isa. 26. 10, 11. God will make the most insensible sinner sensible, either of his hand here, or of his wrath in Hell. It is a Heathenish and a horrid sin to be without natural affections, Rom. 1. 31. And of this sin Quintus Fabius Maximus seems to be foully guilty, who when he heard that his Mother and Wife whom he dearly loved, were slain by the fall of an house, and that his younger son, a brave hopeful young man, died at the same time in Umbria, he never changed his countenance, but went on with the affairs of the Common-wealth, as if no such calamity had befallen him; this carriage of his spoke out more stupidity than patience.
First, There is a Stoical Silence: the Stoicks of old thought it altogether below a man that hath reason and understanding, either to rejoyce in any good, or to mourn for any evil; but this Stoical Silence is such a sinful unsensibleness ⟨p. 5⟩as is very provoking to a holy God,