43. That he should speak well of God, whatsoever evil he receives from God
Another principle that a Christian is to walk by, is this: That he should speak well of God, whatsoever evil he receives from God.
While the water is quiet, the mud lies at the bottom; but when it is disturbed, it rises to the top. Every cock-boat can swim in a shallow river;
T but it must be a strong vessel that ploughs the troubled ocean. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord. He gives before he takes, and takes but what he gives. The hour-glass of outward happiness soon runs out. To-day Job is the richest man in all the east, to-morrow Job is the poorest man in all the world; yet his heart was like a fruitful paradise, when his estate was like a barren wilderness. Though God burnt up his out-house, yet his palace was left standing.
Outward mercies are like the tide, which ebbs as well as flows;—like the sky, which sometimes is clear, and at another time clouded;—or like a budding flower, which a warm day opens, and a cold day shuts again. If God bless us in taking as well as in giving, let us bless him for taking as well as for giving.
That is a choice artist, who can play well upon a broken instrument. To be impatient with our affliction, and patient with our corruption, is to be angry with the medicine which heals us, and in love with the poison which kills us.
Beloved, it is sometimes in mercy to us that God removes outward mercies from us. He never wounds a saint to kill him, but to heal him. A gracious person once said, 'Though I am sometimes full of pains, yet I am at all times full of patience: I often mourn under my corruption, but I never murmur under my affliction.' Some can rejoice in any thing but Christ, and grieve for any thing but lust.
Too many think that God is cutting down the tree, when he is but lopping off its luxuriant branches. They imagine that he is demolishing the superstructure, when he is only laying a right foundation. Poor souls, he is not nipping the flowers, but plucking up the weeds; he is not laying your land fallow, but ploughing the field; he is not putting out the light, but snuffing the candle. Providence hath a beautiful face under a black mask. God has the fairest ends in the foulest ways. The sheep may be dipped in the water to wash it, when there is no design in the good shepherd to drown it.
Christian reader, you may read the marks of a father in the stripes of his children. Every twig of the black rod, is but to draw his image upon you.—Could we but bury our friends alive, we should not mourn so much for them when they are dead. Did not the possession of the riches sometimes draw away our hearts, then the loss of them would not break our hearts.
Son of man, behold I take away the desire of thine eyes with a stroke. What, though he take a wife out of your bosom, so he take her into his own? You may embrace a creature till you kill it with kindness; and wither the sweetest flowers by smelling them too often. God doth but take that out of your hands, which would thrust him out of your heart.
He that mingles his passions with his afflictions, is like a foolish patient, who chews the pills he should swallow whole. He that carnally disturbs his soul for the loss of his substance, casts away the kernel because God hath taken away the shell.
If the tree yield us good fruit, it will be no very great loss, though the wind blow away the leaves. To bless God for mercies, is the way to increase them; to bless God for miseries, is the way to remove them. No good lives so long, as that which is thankfully improved; no evil dies so soon, as that which is patiently sustained.
God can make a plaster of a disease, and bring soundness to the inward man by the sickness of the outward man. If he stop up all your light, it is but to make you fairer windows. When the stars do not shine, the sun appears, repairing the loss of the smaller lights with brighter beams. In the loss of withered nosegays, you may smell at flowers fresh on the stalk. When Christians have their candles put out, they may fetch their light from the sun; and when they have their streams cut off, they may drink at the spring head.
The birds of paradise make the swiftest flight when they have the smallest feathers. These nightingales warble the most sweetly, when they set their breasts against the thorns. The creature often interrupts the respects which we owe to our Creator; and then no wonder if he break the cistern to bring us unto the fountain. Those who are found blessing God under all their losses, shall find God blessing them after all their losses.
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