In your sufferings,
“Consider His holiness and justice, showing he wrongs you not;
His mercy and goodness, that it is not worse;
His sovereignty, that it may silence you:
His infinite wisdom and love, that may satisfy you in it.”
A Spirit Brought Down to Their Lot
Their lot is a low and afflicted one; but their spirit is as low, being, through grace, brought down to it. We may take it up in these five things:
(1.) They submit to it as just. Micah 7.9, “I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against Him.” There are no hardships in our condition, but we have procured them to ourselves; and it is therefore just that we kiss the rod, and be silent under it, and so lower our spirits to our lot. If they complain, it is of themselves; their hearts rise not up against the Lord, far less do they open their mouth against the heavens. They justify God, and condemn themselves, reverencing His holiness and spotless righteousness in His proceedings against them.
(2.) They go quietly under it as tolerable. Lam. 3.26-29, “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone, and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him; he putteth his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope.” While the unsubdued spirit rages under the yoke as a bullock unaccustomed to it, the spirit brought to the lot goes softly under it. They see it is of the Lord’s mercies that it is not worse; they take up the naked cross, as God lays it down, without those overweights upon it that turbulent passions add thereunto; and so it becomes really more easy than they thought it could have been, like a burden fitted on the back.
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[Editor’s Note: This post appeared at Monergism.com. Original Source: The Crook in the Lot by Thomas Boston.]
