This week’s Borrowed Words come from different Puritan authors. I have taken these quotes from our family devotional, Voices from the Past. It is my prayer that you will find comfort as you read these words, and that you’ll be drawn to the Father.

From Thomas Brooks :

“I am mute; I do not open my mouth,

for it is you who have done it”

Psalm 39:9

“David looked at through secondary causes to the first cause, and was silent. The sight of God in an affliction is irresistible effective to silence the heart, and to stop the mouth of a gracious man. It is the duty of gracious souls to so act under the greatest afflictions and saddest providences. This is a prudent holy silence. It sees God, and acknowledges him as the author in all of our afflictions. ‘The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away’ (Job 1: 21)… Those who see the hand of God in their afflictions, will, with David lay their hands upon their mouths (2 Sam. 16: 11-12) If God’s hand is not seen, the heart will fret and rage under affliction…  When afflictions arrest us, we shall murmur and grumble until we see that it is God that strikes. We must see him as King of kings and Lord of lords and stoop under his almighty majestic hand”

Again, from Thomas Brooks:

“For God alone my soul waits in silence;

from him comes my salvation”

Psalm 62: 1

“A gracious prudent silence under the afflicting hand of God includes a holy quietness and calmness of mind and spirit. It shuts out all inward murmurings of the heart. Such a soul is submissive to God. All passions are allayed, tamed, and subdued. It was a Father who put those bitter cups in your hand. It was love that that laid those heavy crosses around your neck. When God’s people are under the rod, he makes by His Spirit and word sweet music in their souls, and allays all tumultuous motions and passions. This holy silence humbly acquits God of all blame and injustice.”

I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous,

and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

Psalm 119: 75

And from Puritan author, Thomas Case, we read:

““If anyone would come after me,

let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Matthew 16: 24

“We are strangers to the cross. When it comes to pass we either despise the discipline of the Lord or else we faint by it. If affliction is moderate we are apt to despise it, but if the rod fetches blood, presently it is intolerable, and we begin to faint, and cry out in our passion, ‘Was ever sorrow like my sorrow?’ Sifferings have obtained an ill name in the world, but God’s rod and love may stand together. God teaches his people in afflictions. He teaches us to feel compassion toward others who are suffering. We are prone to be insensitive toward others when we are at ease in our Zion. He also teaches us to prize our outward mercies and comforts more, and yet to dote upon them less. We are to be more thankful for them, but less ensnared by them. Next, God teaches us self-denial and obedient submission to his will… One way or another God works his children into a sweet, obedient frame. At length, God brings his children to subscribe: ‘What God wills, when God wills, how God wills; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’  Finally,  we can learn humility and meekness of spirit. Pride naturally runs in our veins, and it is nourished by ease and prosperity. By trouble we come to know our own heart. God seeks to develop meekness in his people by affliction, then save them from affliction”

Under His shadow, learning with you,