Selected from: Andrew Thomson, Sermons and Sacramental Exhortations (Edinburgh, 1831).
“I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.” Psalm 39:9.
When David composed this psalm, he was evidently labouring under some heavy affliction. What that was, we are not informed. But whatever it may have been, it seems to have borne hard upon his spirit; for he says respecting it, “I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.” Nevertheless, he did not murmur or complain under the pressure of his distress. He thought of the character, and the providence, and the purposes of that great Being, to whose appointment he traced it, and under whose government he suffered. And influenced by the considerations which these suggested, as well as upheld by the grace for which he earnestly prayed, he repressed every mutinous feeling, and cherished the sentiments, and uttered the language, of a becoming resignation. He looked up to God and said “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.”
This was the conduct of David. But it is to be feared that there are many of us, who, though placed in his circumstances, do not imitate his example; that with some, the virtue which he thus exhibited is not maintained at all; and that with others, it is maintained but partially and reluctantly; that where the words of impatience are restrained from considerations of decency, the feeling of it is allowed to predominate; and that even where there is a cordial desire, and an earnest endeavour, to submit to the will of God, this submission is not practised with that cheerfulness, nor attended with that satisfaction which every true Christian will be anxious to experience.
To provide against this evil, there are two things that must be principally attended to. In the first place, we must study to be the real disciples of Christ. For if we be only nominally so, we are destitute of those principles, without which, we can neither see the reasonableness, nor feel the workings of resignation. This grace has, on that supposition, nothing either to produce or to support it in our hearts. When all goes well with us, we may talk about it, and inculcate it upon others, and blame or pity those by whom it is not displayed. But when the day of our own probation comes, we have nothing to hold by or lean upon: We have no sense of an interest in the favour of Him by whom we are tried, no habitual confidence in the wisdom and mercy of his dealings with us, no well grounded expectation of being compensated for the possessions and enjoyments of which we are deprived; and therefore, we cannot freely or sincerely say that we are resigned, because the Lord has done it.
And, in the second place, if we be the real disciples of Christ, we must have our minds turned to those doctrines, and habituated to those exercises of religion, which may be considered as affording the appropriate grounds of submission amidst the calamities of life. Unless we have frequent recourse to these—unless we live under their perpetual influence—unless we wear them constantly as defensive armour against the adversities by which we are assailed—it is obvious that when these come upon us, as they often do, unexpectedly and severely, we are not prepared to meet them; our fortitude is apt to fail; and though we have then, as we have always, access to the throne of grace, yet our application there cannot be supposed to have the same fervency, or the same effect, as if we had gone with those pious impressions, rivetted on our minds, and familiar to our thoughts, by which we are constrained to say in the words and spirit of the text, “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.”
Let us now attend shortly to some of those considerations which should encourage us to adopt this language in its full and genuine import.
1. In the first place, when God visits us with painful bereavements, we ought to be resigned, because he only takes away what is his own.
He is sole and absolute proprietor of the universe. It is impossible, in the very nature of things, that he should alienate any, the minutest, part of it. And, consequently, if he has bestowed any blessing upon us, there is necessarily attached to the gift this condition, that being still his own, he may recall it, at whatever time, and in whatever way he pleases. Accordingly, there is not a moment that we can say justly of any of the comforts of life, “This is ours,” without admitting at the same time that, in perfect rectitude, it may be taken from us, whenever it seems good to Him by whom it was originally given. He might indeed promise the perpetuity of the boon which he confers; and in that case his faithfulness would be a sure and unfailing guarantee, that we should not be deprived of it. But this does not apply to any of the good things of a present world. Every one of these is, unquestionably, limited. It is conveyed to us for a particular purpose; and whenever it has fulfilled that purpose, or when, through our perversity, it has ceased to answer its purpose, or when the removal of it would accomplish a wiser or a better purpose, it can be no longer continued with us. Not that God will act from any arbitrary or capricious motive. His conduct must be always dictated and governed by the laws of infinite perfection. But it is still true that all our temporal mercies are at his sovereign disposal; and that, without any violation of the greatness and glory of his character, he may give them, and take them away, and restore them, and resume them again, according to his good pleasure.
In all this there is no injustice on his part; for may He not “do what he will with his own”? and there should be no disappointment on ours; for had we reflected, as we ought, on the nature of our condition as his dependent creatures, we must have perceived that all the blessings we enjoy are revocable and uncertain, and we should, therefore, have been prepared to part with them, whenever it might be so ordered by the inscrutable counsels of his providence. Instead, therefore, of feeling that any injury has been done us, when we are deprived even of those comforts which are dearest to us, and on whose continuance and security we reckoned with most confidence—instead of thus sinning and charging God foolishly—it becomes us to be grateful to him that we have possessed them so long, and in such measure—to condemn ourselves for having regarded them too much as our own absolute property—and, henceforward, to receive, and to hold, every blessing that may be put into our lot, with the conviction that it is still the Lord’s, and that he will do nothing but what is right, when he sees proper to recall it either in part or altogether.
We cannot help, indeed, forming attachments to earthly objects: this is not only natural, but subservient to our duty, and conducive to our happiness. And there is nothing, either in reason or in religion, which forbids us to feel and to cherish such attachments, when we do not thereby devote to the creature what should be devoted to the Creator, and lay up for ourselves a store of future disappointment and pain. But surely it is wise to have them qualified and subdued, by the habitual persuasion, that they are liable to be dissolved, not by what is called accident—not by the malice or violence of our fellow-men—not by the power of a blind and irresistible fate, but by the will of Him who “ruleth over all”; and who, when he takes from us the objects of our affection, only takes from us what belongs to himself by divine inalienable right. And if we be accustomed to take this view of the subject, if we not only speculatively assent to it as an abstract truth, but have it as a part of our practical creed, and constantly realize its truth, and lay our account with its exemplification, in our personal experience, it will, without impairing one generous or useful sentiment, prevent us from indulging in fretfulness, or murmuring under our privations, and will lead us to surrender any comfort whatever, and to make the surrender with patience and readiness into the hands of God, from whom we at first received it, who in kindness has lent it to us for the passing day, or for the passing year, and who is as righteous in taking back, as he was merciful in bestowing the gift whose loss we deplore.
2. In the second place, we should not open our mouth with complaints when we are visited with painful bereavements, but observe the silence of resignation, because it is God who inflicts them, and the same God accompanies them with consolation and support.
In our very darkest and deepest afflictions of a temporal kind, it is seldom, if indeed ever, that we are abandoned to unmixed, and unalleviated suffering. To whatever deprivations we are subjected, there are always some comforts left behind, or some new comforts conveyed to us; which, if they do not compensate what has been taken from us, tend at least to diminish the extent and severity of the loss. This, indeed, may not be perceived or felt at the very moment that any calamity has overtaken us. But when our grief has so far subsided, as to allow us to form a calm and correct estimate of our situation, we shall be sensible that there remains to us much more of the good things of this life, than we at first imagined or were willing to allow. We may have lost a friend, but some are still left to cheer us, or others are raised up for our comfort in adversity. Our worldly substance may have failed; but health is still spared, and opportunities are still provided, by which we may recover our independence and renew our usefulness. One favourite speculation may have come to nothing, but another has succeeded. Our good name may have been injured by the tongue of slander, but we have the means of vindicating what has been thus traduced, and of either living down the calumny, or exposing its injustice and malevolence.
We look on the one hand, and we see the darkness of adversity approaching us: but we look on the other, and behold the light of joy is springing up to cheer our hearts, and chase away our sorrows. And has it not often actually happened in the case of the afflicted, that “their latter end,” like that of Job, has been “much more than their beginning”? In all this there is something that is well fitted to inspire us with patience and contentment. Whatever we suffer is much less, and whatever we enjoy is much more, than we deserve. Considering that we are sinners, and that the best of us are great sinners, we may well ask, “shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil also”? And we may well wonder that he has given us so much of the one, and laid upon us so little of the other. Nor is there a blessing of which we are allowed to partake, that does not intimate to us the benignity of Him by whom we are afflicted, and give us the assurance that, notwithstanding all that he is causing us to suffer, he has not abandoned us to destitution and pain, but has much kindness in store for us, if we will but listen to his warning voice, and “turn our feet unto his testimonies.”
But He gives us consolation and support of a spiritual kind, far more precious and far more efficacious still. Let our temporal privations be as numerous and as severe as they may, still there are sources of comfort which are not only accessible to us, but to which we are invited, and from which we may derive all that is needful to sustain our minds. We have the Bible, containing doctrines that make us acquainted with that system of administration under which we are placed, and promises to excite and animate our hopes, and counsels to direct our steps in the most rugged paths that we have to tread, and examples to bring before us in all its excellence and all its power the virtue of suffering patience. We have “the throne of grace,” where we may go, in the confidence of faith, to unbosom our griefs to our heavenly Father, to commit ourselves to his mercy and protection, and to obtain “the help” that he has promised to send us in “our time of need.” We have the Holy Spirit, who is the comforter of the people of God in the season of distress, and who will communicate to us those secret, but real and powerful influences, which must avail to enlighten us in our thickest darkness, and to give us that fortitude which no dangers can appal, and no calamities subdue. And we have all the various ordinances of religion, by mingling in which our thoughts are solemnly directed to the glad tidings of the gospel; and our spirits refreshed from time to time with the exercises of devotion; and our sorrows soothed by the sympathies of the church; and our souls brought near to him who is the “Father of mercies,” and the “God of all consolation”; and our views carried forward to the rest and peace and sinlessness and joy of that kingdom which He “has prepared for us from the foundation of the world.”
And having such alleviations and such comforts as these, it would ill become us to allow our feelings to rebel against their compassionate author, because he is pleased in his wise and inscrutable providence to deprive us of blessings which we have no title to retain, and to inflict upon us sufferings, which it must be our interest to bear. Let us rather praise him that he touches us with such a lenient hand; let us sing of his mercy, while we are enduring his judgments; let our meditations be upon the blessings that are left us, while our hearts are troubled by the departure of what was dear to us; and looking to the consolations which God imparts, as well as to the sorrows which we feel, and regarding him as the fountain from which both proceed, let our feelings, our language, and our conduct, be those of the Psalmist, as expressed in the words of our text, “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.”
3. In the third place, we should be resigned to the will of God when he afflicts us, because affliction is for our good.
To mere worldly persons there is nothing good but that which gives them much pleasure, unaccompanied by pain; which gratifies their senses; which advances their temporal prosperity; which raises them to honour, to wealth, to influence; and which permits them to enjoy all these without interruption or annoyance. But to true Christians, that, and that alone is good, whatever it may be, which promotes their spiritual and immortal interests; which tends to make them wiser and better; which strengthens their religious principles, and improves their moral character; which renders them faithful servants of God here, and prepares them for the glories of his presence hereafter. And in this view, we must be satisfied, from many considerations, that the trials and distresses in which we are involved, have for their great and ultimate object, our essential welfare. What is the character of that Being who appoints them, or who permits them to befall us? He is a God of infinite mercy—who can have no pleasure in our sufferings—who therefore does not “afflict us willingly”—and whose only design must be to render us more holy and more happy. And while his goodness prompts him to form and to pursue this purpose respecting us, he prosecutes and accomplishes it by means of affliction, because his unerring wisdom selects that as the fittest, and most powerful, and most efficient, method of securing what he benevolently intends.
Nor is it difficult to see the propriety and suitableness of this part of his plan, which, however, must be perfect, whether we can comprehend it or not. It is evidently called for by the state of our nature, and the circumstances of our condition. Our nature is corrupted; and, under the influence of this corruption, we are prone to indulge in sin and to forget the obligations of duty—apt to be intoxicated with prosperity, and to consider this world, when all our wishes are gratified, and all our dreams of joy are undisturbed, not as our temporary residence, but as our everlasting rest. And our outward circumstances engage so much of our attention, and present so many things to occupy our thoughts and fascinate our hearts, that, if unmingled with any thing that is harsh and distasteful to our feelings, we insensibly become the very slaves of worldly pursuits and pleasures, and continue to live as if we were never to die; as if we had no account to render, no immortality to hope for, and no spiritual work to perform. Now, this miserable and fatal enchantment is broken by affliction. When the comforts which we idolized, or on which we doated, are taken from us, this demonstrates them to be unsubstantial and uncertain, and unworthy of all the fond regard we paid them. We see more than ever the necessity of seeking for happiness in the favour of an unchangeable God, in the faith of a never-failing Redeemer, in the hope of an immortal inheritance. And “setting our affections on things above,” we are led to cultivate, with greater diligence, that pious and holy character which it is the grand object of the gospel to form, and by which we are to be prepared for everlasting life.
And while we draw this conclusion from reasoning on the character of God, and from the nature and circumstances of fallen man, it is expressly taught and declared in the sacred scriptures. There, God is represented as our Father, who, all-wise and all-affectionate, does not correct his children from caprice, nor from malignity, nor for purposes of vengeance—but for their reformation and advantage, that they may be “partakers of his holiness.” “No chastening for the present seemeth joyous but grievous; nevertheless, afterwards, it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby.” And “our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, shall work out for us a far more exceeding, even an eternal, weight of glory.”
The truth of these Scriptures has been realized in the experience of thousands. When David said, “it is good for me that I have been afflicted,” he spoke in the name of all the people of God who have been rebuked of Him, and have not despised his chastening. They have been chosen, perhaps, “in the furnace of affliction.” They have come out of it, purified from the dross of sin. They have had their affections detached from the world. They have become more heavenly-minded. They have been brought back from their wanderings after vanity; restored to a more intimate communion with God; and taught to love, and to keep, and to delight in, his commandments. He has taken from them the children whom they had suffered to usurp the throne of their hearts; and they have been instructed by this painful and salutary rebuke to give back to Him that devotedness of affection which they had hitherto lavished on the creatures of a day, and to be more anxious that they and theirs should be inheritors of that “kingdom which cannot be moved,” than that they should continue to be united to one another by those ties which, however strong and however tender, bind them only to the earth and keep them far from heaven. He has deprived them of their riches: and they have learned, in the school of poverty, to lift, to the better and more enduring treasures that are on high, that soul which had been meanly and ingloriously wedded to the paltry treasures of the dust. He has blasted their health; and on the bed of sickness and languishing, during wearisome days and nights of restlessness and pain, they are feeling the emptiness of those vain amusements in which they had too long and too fondly indulged, and are reading, in this leaf of the book of providence, those lessons of humility and sobriety and patience which the theatre of gay life was but ill calculated to afford, and are gradually ripening either for a closer walk with God in this weary wilderness, or for the full enjoyment of his presence in the promised land. He has permitted their reputation to be tarnished by the breath of calumny; and, no longer elevated by the applauses of erring and deceitful mortals, they are now candidates for the honour and the praise that come from God, for the testimony of a good conscience, and for the approving sentence of their Judge at last.
It is thus that God appoints, or overrules, the adversities of life for the benefit of his people, converts their afflictions into blessings, and makes them at once the tokens of present love, and the pledges of future glory. And shall we repine, with this great truth pressed upon us, by every view of his character, and by all that his word has told us; and by the uniform experience of those who have put their trust in him—shall we repine when he disappoints our earthly hopes, and puts the cup of sorrow into our hand, and even makes us drink it to the very dregs? Shall not we rather kiss the rod with which he smites us? Shall not we be disposed to receive all his corrections with patience and submission? And, when the feelings of feeble and afflicted nature would prompt us to deprecate the sorrows he is laying upon us, shall not we still say, “nevertheless, O Lord, not my will, but thine be done.” “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.”
4. There is still another consideration by which we ought to be influenced when involved in affliction. God who sends it, is entitled to our patient acquiescence, our cheerful submission, because at the very time that we are suffering under his hand, he has in reserve, and is preparing for us, the happiness of heaven and immortality.
I need not, my friends, attempt to expatiate on the exquisite nature, the absolute certainty, the infinite value, and the eternal duration of that happiness. We have no adequate description of it to give you; and you are not able to form any adequate conception of it. Yet you are surely so far acquainted with it as to know that it is an attainment with a view to which no labour, no suffering, no discipline can be deemed disproportioned. And scripture has expressly said, that “the sufferings of a present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed.”
Now, with such a prospect before us, would it not be foolish, and unbecoming, and inconsistent, to murmur at any evils we may have to endure in our passage to heaven—to grudge the hardships of the wilderness through which our covenant God is leading us to the land of promise—to be impatient amidst the darkness which shall ere long be succeeded by the dawn and by the brightness of an eternal day? Do not the soldier, and the mariner, and the man of business, submit to many anxieties and pains, borne up and animated by the anticipations of successful enterprise, and rewarded perseverance? And shall we be less contented, or less resigned to the privations of our lot—we, who look forward with a hope resting on the promise of a faithful and unchangeable God, to “the crown of life, which fadeth not away”? Every thing in our case contributes to inspire us with the temper of the Psalmist in its highest and its noblest exercise. Be our tribulations what they may, they must soon come to a perpetual end, and be succeeded by a joy that is ineffable. And not only shall they be succeeded by a joy that is ineffable, but they are an essential part of that course of discipline which our heavenly Father employs to prepare us for entering into glory. So that to be disquieted, and cast down, and made impatient, by our afflictions, is to undervalue the happiness of the heavenly state—to prefer our present ease to our future salvation, and to arraign the wisdom of that plan by which God is training us up for the exercises and the enjoyments of the celestial world. Only let us think of our ultimate and eternal destiny, as “the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus,” and of the connexion which it has with our sufferings and our conduct in this our scene of probation; and we shall see abundant reason to cast ourselves upon the good pleasure of him who gives to us, and who takes away from us, as the God of earth and of heaven, of time and of eternity; and to say, in the words of our text, even though we have had sorrow upon sorrow, “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.”
Those of you who have been visited with severe afflictions, would do well to consider how you carried yourselves in those trying circumstances. If you were fretful, and impatient, and complained that you were hardly dealt with, this was unworthy of your Christian profession, because it was arraigning the goodness, the wisdom, the justice of God; and you have much reason, therefore, to humble yourselves before him, to ask his forgiveness, and to be vigilant against the return of such a discontented, unsubmissive spirit, when you are again subjected to disappointment and distress. And, even though you have not gone the length of uttering the language of complaint—though you have been literally silent, and appeared to bow before the dispensations which befell you,—yet, if this were owing merely to constitutional apathy—or if it were produced by engaging either in the business or amusements of the world—or if it proceeded from causes unconnected with the faith of the gospel,—on any of these suppositions, there was no real resignation to the divine will—nothing of the gracious sentiment which is intimated in the text—nothing, in short, but a substitution of something of your own for that which acknowledges God; and, therefore, you have, in this case also, reason to confess your unworthiness to him, and to pray for remission, and to be solicitous that your mind may be so renewed, and so regulated, and so influenced, as that, in every future time of trouble, your submission may result from Christian principle and be quickened by Christian hope, and that you may feel what the Psalmist felt, when you say what he said,—“I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.”
Let me now address myself more particularly to the younger part of my audience. You have not yet, perhaps, had many trials to distress you; but the Bible tells you, that “man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward”; and though every thing wear a gay and smiling aspect around you, you know not how soon the gloom of sorrow may overcast all your prospects. “Remember, then, your Creator in the days of your youth, before the years draw nigh in which you shall say that you have no pleasure in them.” Prepare, even now, for the difficulties, and misfortunes, and evils of advancing life. And recollect, that your best and only preparation consists in your being at peace with God—in acquainting yourselves with him—in having a deep-seated faith in all the truths and promises of his word—in cultivating an experimental recognition of the perfect excellence of every part of his character and his administration—and in holding habitual communion with him, both as the hearer of prayer, and as the God of comfort. If you thus live by faith in God and in Christ, you are ready for whatever trials and tribulations await you. And being “reconciled to God by the death of his Son,” and confiding in his paternal management of all that concerns you, and tracing every event that befalls you to his will and to his doing, and satisfied that he orders all things wisely and well, and will make them work together for your present and your eternal good,—resignation will become the prevailing temper of your souls. You will not only be patient when adversity comes, but you will be enabled to rejoice in it. And thus, while it will secure your peace amidst the most formidable ills of life, it will fit you for encountering the agonies and the terrors of death, and be instrumental in preparing you for entering that happy world where those dwell who have “come through much tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
And, as it is the gospel which not only inculcates this grace, but holds out the comforts and the views by which it is formed and cherished, let the gospel be precious in our regard. Let us cling to it in every dark and distressful hour, for our own support. And let us be anxious that it may go forth, in all its blessings, and in all its power, among the sinful and sorrowing children of mortality.
