Christian Resignation
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“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.”