A77618:99
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.
First, A holy, a prudent Silence under affliction, doth not exclude and shut out a sense and feeling of ⟨p. 45⟩our afflictions, Psal. 39. though he was dumb, and laid his hand upon his mouth, vers. 9. yet he was very sensible of his affliction, vers. 10, 11. Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: Surely every man is vanity. He is sensible of his pain, as well as of his sin; and having prayed off his sin in the former verses, he labours here to pray off his pain; diseases, aches, sicknesses, pains, they are all the daughters of sin, and he that is not sensible of them, as the births and products of sin, doth but add to his sin, and provoke the Lord to add to his sufferings, Isa. 26. 9, 10, 11. No man shall ever be charged by God for feeling his burden, if he neither fret nor faint under it; grace doth not destroy nature, but rather perfect it, grace is of a noble off-spring, it neither turneth men into stocks, nor to ⟨p. 46⟩Stoics; the more grace, the more sensible of the tokens, frowns, blows, and lashes of a displeased Father. Though Calvin under his greatest pains, was never heard to mutter, nor murmur, yet he was heard often to say, How long Lord, how long? A religious Commander being shot in battle, when the wound was searched, and the bullet cut out, some standing by pitying his pains, he replied, though I groan, yet I bless God I do not grumble: God allows his people to groan, though not to grumble. It is a God-provoking sin to be stupid and senseless under the afflicting hand of God. God will heat that mans furnace of affliction sevenfold hotter, who is in the furnace, but feels it not, Isa. 42. 24, 25. Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the Robbers? did 1not the Lord, he, against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his Law. Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the ⟨p. 47⟩