spare not*, for I am lien down in thy will, I have learned to say Amen to thy Amen; thou hast a greater interest in me, than I have in myself, and therefore I give up myself unto thee, and am willing to be at thy disposal, and am ready to receive what impression thou shalt stamp upon me. O blessed Lord! hast thou not again and again said unto me, as once the king of Israel said to the king of Syria, 1 Kings xx. 14. I am thine, and all that I have. I am thine, O soul! to save thee; my mercy is thine to pardon thee; my blood is thine to cleanse thee; my merits are thine to justify thee; my righteousness is thine to clothe thee; my spirit is thine to lead thee; my grace is thine to enrich thee; and my glory is thine to reward thee: and therefore, saith a gracious soul, I cannot but make a resignation of myself unto thee. "Lord here I am, do with me as seemeth good in thine own eyes." I know the best way to have my own will, is to resign up myself to thy will, and to say Amen to thy Amen.

I have read of a gentleman, who meeting with a shepherd in a misty morning, asked him what weather it would be? It will be (saith the shepherd) what weather pleaseth me: and being courteously requested to express his meaning; Sir, (saith he), it shall be what weather pleaseth God, and what weather pleaseth God pleaseth me. When a Christian's will is moulded into the will of God, he is sure to have his will. But,

8. Lastly, A holy, a prudent silence, takes

in a patient waiting upon the Lord under our afflictions, till deliverance comes, Psal. xl. 1. 2. 3. Psal. lxii. 5. My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him. Lam. iii. 26. It is good that a man should both hope, and quietly (or as the Hebrew hath it, silently wait for the salvation of the Lord." The husbandman patiently waiteth for the precious fruits of the earth, James v. 7. 8. The mariner patiently waiteth for wind and tide; and so doth the watchman for the dawning of the day; and so doth the silent soul, in the night of adversity, patiently wait for the dawning of the day of mercy. The mercies of God are not styled the swift, but the sure mercies of David, and therefore a gracious soul waits patiently for them. And thus you see what a gracious, a prudent silence doth include.

III. The third thing is to discover what a holy, a prudent silence under affliction doth not exclude. Now there are eight things that a holy patience doth not exclude.

1. A holy, a prudent silence under affliction, doth not exclude and shut out a sense and feeling of our afflictions. Psal. xxxix, though he was dumb, and laid his hand upon his mouth, ver. 9. yet he was very sensible of his affliction, ver. 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. xxvi. 9. 10. 11. No man shall ever be charged by God for feeling his burthen, if he neither fret nor faint under it; grace doth not destroy nature, but rather perfect it; grace is of a noble offspring, it neither turneth men into stocks, nor to 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 man's furnace of affliction sevenfold hotter, who is in the furnace, but feels it not, Isa. xlii. 24. 25. "Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not

No judgment to a stupid spirit, a hardened heart, and a brazen brow.

walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law; therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle; and he hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew it not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart." Stupidity lays a man open to the greatest fury and severity..

The Physician, when he findeth that the potion which he had given his patient will not work, he seconds it with one more violent; and if that will not work, he gives another yet more violent. If a gentle plaister will not serve, then the chirurgeon applies that which is more corroding; and if that will not do, then he makes use of his cauterizing knife. So when the Lord afflicts, and men feel it not; when he strikes, and they grieve not; when he wounds them, and they awake not; then the furnace is made hotter than ever; then his fury burns, then he lays on irons upon irons, bolt upon bolt, and chain upon chain, until he hath made their lives a hell. Afflictions are the saints diet-drink; and where do you read in all the scripture, that ever any of the saints drank of this diet-drink, and were not sensible of it?

2. A holy, a prudent silence, doth not shut out prayer for deliverance out of our affliction. Though the psalmist lays his hand upon his mouth, in the text, yet he prays for deliverance, ver. 10. "Remove thy stroke away from me; and ver. 11. 12. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears; for I am a stranger

with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence and be no more. Jam. v. 13. Is any among you afflicted? let him pray, Ps. 1. 15. Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. Times of affliction, by God's own injunction, are special times of supplication. David's heart was more often out of tune than his harp; but then he prays, and presently cries, Return to thy rest, O my soul! Jonah prays in the whale's belly, and Daniel prays when among the lions, and Job prays when on the dunghill, and Jeremiah prays when in the dungeon, &c. yea, the Heathen mariners, as stout as they were, when in a storm, they cry every man to his God, Jonah i. 5. 6. To call upon God, especially in times of distress and trouble, is a lesson that the very light and law of nature teaches. The Persian messenger (though an Heathen), as Eschylus observeth, saith thus, When the Grecian forces hotly pursued our host, and we must needs venture over the great water Strymon, frozen then, but beginning to thaw, when a hundred to one we had all died for it; with, mine eyes, saith he, I saw many of those gallants, whom I had heard before so boldly maintain, there was no God, every one upon his knees, and devoutly praying that the ice might hold till they got over. And shall blind nature do more than grace? If the time of affliction be not a time of supplication, I know not what is.

As there are two kinds of antidotes against