is provided for thee; it is even a reign with glorious Chrift thy Redeemer for ever and ever: And, haft thou any ground to be discontented or envious?

DIRECT. VII. Guard against repining complaints and difcontented murmurings, against the Providence of God, under heavy Sickness and affliction.

WE fee the murmurers and complainers are claffed with those that walk after their own lufts, Jude, v. 16.' I know the people of God are liable to murmuring and impatience alfo under affliction; but there is a great difference between them and the wicked. I will have occafion to speak of believers murmuring afterwards, when I come to speak of their cafe in particular; but here I fhall handle the fin of murmuring in general, and as it appears mainly in the unregenerate, under heavy affliction,

This fin of murmuring is the froth of impatience, and fcum of discontent; it is firft cherished by repining thoughts, and then vented by unfuitable complaints and expoftulations, taxing the administration of Providence, as if God dealt too hard with us. Our very thoughts are audible with God, yea, as loud in his ears, as words are in ours; but it is yet worse, when repining thoughts are not crushed, but fuffered to break forth into words tending to the difhonour of God.

Queft." But, is it altogether unlawful to complain of affliction, whatever be our cafe?"

Anf. Humble complaints are not murmurings, nor finful in themselves, otherwise there would be no room for prayer, and for spreading out our diftreffed cafe before the Lord. We find God's children making complaints in affliction; but when they do not complain of God, but to God, with an humble enquiry into the cause and meaning of his difpenfations, and laying all the blame upon themfelves, as did Job, chap. x. 1, 2. "I will leave my complaint upon thyfelf. I will fpeak in the bitterness of my foul, I will fay unto God, do

not

not condemn me; fhew me wherefore thou contendeft with me." Thus the bleffed Son of God himself did in his diftrefs, when he cried, "My God, my God, why haft thou forfaken me ?" But there, we may observe, he complains to God, not of God; he hath not a hard word or thought of God, but expreffeth a holyconfidence in God, "My God, my God," he hath two words of faith for one word of fear. He humbly enquires into the cause of the dispensation, and defires to bring up his will to God, not that God fhould bring down his will to him: If it be poffible (says he) let this cup pafs; however, glorify thy name, provide for thy own glory, and do with me what thou pleafeft. In this matter our Lord doth set himself as an example of patience to us, teaching us to beware of impatient murmuring and quarrelling with God's Providence in our affliction; which many times we are guilty of, either when we harbour harth thoughts of God's dealings, or break forth into rafh and unadvifed fpeeches; when we charge God foolishly, and complain either of too much feverity, as Ezek. xviii. 2, 25. Or of too long delay, as Ifa. xlix. 14. Or when our complaints are mixed with unbelief and distrust, as Pfal. lxxviii. 19. Or when we complain more of our punishment than we do of our fin, and nothing will fatisfy us but deliverance from trouble

Now, to deter you from those murmurings and complaints in trouble, I fhall lay before you the following confiderations: 1. They who deferve worst, do com monly complain and murmur most, and are most ready to think they are hardly dealt with. The unthankful Ifraelites were still murmuring; ambitious Abfalom was difcontented; bloody Haman, in the midst of all his greatnefs, cries out, "What doth all this avail me?" But humble Jacob faith, he was not worthy of the least of all the mercies and truth which God had thewed him. And holy Job bleffes God, and patiently submits, when he took from him, as well as when he gave

him.

2. Murmuring is a fin that God takes special notice of, and looks on it as an injury and affront done immediately against himself, Num. xiv. 27. "I have heard

the

the murmurings of the children of Ifrael, which they murmur against me." He that gives ear to the groans of his own fpirit, doth alfo hear the grumblings of thine, and will reckon with thee for them.

3. It can nowife benefit or relieve us in diftrefs. I may fay of finful complaining, (as Christ of finful care) which of you, by complaining, can add one cubit to his ftature ? What eafe or relief can you get by contending with God? Nay, inftead of eafing you of your burden, it will make it heavier; as a child, the more he ftruggles with his parents, he is the more beaten. The Ifraelites were once within eleven days journey of Canaan; but, by their murmurings, they provoked God to lead them forty years march in the wilderness, before they could reach it.

4. Whatever be your diftrefs, there is no juft ground for complaints whilft thou haft thy life for a prey. Remember that word of the afflicted church, Lam. iii. 39. "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his fins?" A man living, a man upon the earth, a man out of hell, hath no cause to complain, whatever be his afflictions. For, let him compare his fin and punishment together, and he will find there is no proportion: Sin is a tranfgreffion against the infinite God; punifhment is but an affliction upon the finite creature: Sin strikes at the very being of God: but punishment only at the comfort of the creature. So that whatever your punishment be, you have more caufe to give thanks than to complain, and to fay, with Ezra, "Thou haft punished us lefs than our iniquities deferve: It might have been a thousand times worse, if ftrict juftice had been the rule: It is of the Lord's mercies we are not confumed.

5. When you murmur under fickness, you quarrel with the meffenger of that fovereign God who gave you your lives, and can take them again when he thinks fit; and we know, meffengers ought not to be maltreated or abufed, whatever be their commiflion, and far lefs when they are fent upon a good defign. Now, if you confider the defign of this meffenger, and his errand to you, instead of fretting and quarreling at his coming,

you

you ought rather to blefs God that fends fuch a fuitable harbinger and forerunner, to tell you that death is approaching, and that he vouchfafes to take fo much pains on you, to wean you from the world, and make you willing to be gone, by long continued trouble; when he might have feized you in a violent manner, and driven you away by main force, without using any means to obtain your confent. Have not many, who were moft unwilling to die, at the beginning of a fickness, been brought, by the increase and continuance of it, to be well fatisfied to leave the world, and long to be with Chrift? And was not this for their advantage?

6. Confider the great evil and finfulness of impatient murmurings, complaints, and quarrellings, under affliction.

1. Murmurings hath in it much unbelief and diftruft of God, Pfal. cvi. 24, 25. "They believed not his word, but murmured in their tents." They could not believe that the wilderness was the way to Canaan, that God would provide and furnith a table for them there, and relieve them in all their ftraits. So it is with us in trouble; we quarrel with God's providence, because we do not believe his promises; we do not believe that this can be consistent with love, or can work for good in the end.

2. It hath in it unthankfulness. While we complain of one affliction, we overlook a thousand mercies. The Ifraelites murmured fo for what they had not, that they unthankfully forgot all that they had. Whereas, a thankful perfon is fo far from fretting, that God doth not give him every thing, that he wonders that God fhould give him any thing. "I am lefs than the least of all thy mercies," Lid Jacob. We are perplexed, faid Paul, but not in defpair; we have God to go to, which is matter of praife; but the murmurer unthankfully overlooks all his prefent, and forgets all his former mercies; and gives not God thanks for any thing. Becaufe God removes his comforts, his health, ftrength, and eafe, for a time; all the years he formerly enjoyed, though moft undefervedly, ate quite buried in ob

livion.

3. It

ken to what a Chriftian friend noticeth in you, either when speaking to you, or to others about you," Let the righteous fmite me," faith David, "and it shall be a kindness." Yea, do not difregard what even enemies fay of you as David got good by the malicious reproaches of Shimei, in the day of his affliction, fo may you in the time of diftrefs; for fometimes malice itself will speak truth. Enemies are sharp-fighted to spy out our faults, and fo may, through the divine bleffing, prove monitors to us, both with refpect to fin and duty.

4. Confider the nature and circumftances of thy diftress. Oft times the affliction is so suitable to the tranfgreffion, that we may clearly read our fin written on the forehead of our punishment, as in the cafe of Adonibezek, and many others. And alfo you may be helped to find it out by the Lord's timing of the rod to you; was it fent when you was under much formality in duty or when you was eagerly purfuing the things of the world; or when you was under the power of fome prevailing luft or other? then the rod comes to reprove you, and awake you to fee the evil thereof.

5. Confider what is the fin that hath been formerly moft affrighting to thy thoughts, and perplexing to thy confcience, when thou hast been in the immediate vie w of death and a tribunal. It is very likely (if thou hast not truly repented of it) that is the fin which God now intends to awake thee to see the evil of, that thou mayeft fincerely mourn for and turn from it, looking to God in Christ, for pardon and mercy.

Object." Ah! (faith one) it is my lot to lie under a dumb and filent rod, I do not understand its language, I cannot hear its voice, I cannot find out the fin that is pointed at by it; what courfe fhall I take?

Anf. 1. Be deeply humbled under this trial, and bewail thy cafe before the Lord; for it very much aggravates the affliction to God's people, when they know not the language of it; hence was it that Job lamented fo heavily, that his way was hid, and he knew not the reafon of God's contending with him, Job iii. 23.

2. A believer's cafe may be sometimes fo dark, that it requires a good deal of fpiritual art and wisdom to enable