Thomas Brooks - The Mute Christian - Introduction

My most recent find in wandering around the house is Thomas Brook's The Mute Christian under the Smarting Rod, not a title which makes me think of a nice relaxing evening by the fire. It's not a nice, relaxing book, either, but it's definitely worth reading. It's easy to skim over verses like Psalm 39:9 (I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because You did it), on which this book is based. It's easy not to think about what being silent before God means. This book has just opened my mind to the topic. It is based on the inevitability of trials in Christian life, with Psalm 39:9 as a biblical response to them. My intention is to post at least a portion of his biblically based description of what godly silence is and is not.

From the introduction:

The choicest saints are born to troubles as the sparks fly upwards. Many are the troubles of the righteous, if they were many, and not troubles, (then as it is in the Proverb,) the more the merrier, or if they were troubles, and not many, then the fewer the better cheer? But God, who is infinite in wisdom and matchless in goodness has ordered troubles, yes, many troubles to come trooping in upon us on every side. As our mercies, so our crosses seldom come in singles, they usually come treading one upon the heels of another; they are like April showers, no sooner is one over, but another comes: and yet, Christians, it is mercy, it is rich mercy, that every affliction is not an execution, that every correction is not a damnation. The higher the waters rise, the nearer Noah’s Ark was lifted up to Heaven; the more they afflictions are increased, the more your heart shall be raised heavenward...

Psalm 39:9 I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because You did it.

...There is prudent silence, a holy, a gracious silence, a silence that springs from prudent principles, from holy principles and from gracious causes and considerations, and this is the silence meant here.

What does a prudent, a gracious, a holy silence include?
Part 1
Part 2

What does holy patience not exclude?
Part 3
Part 4

Why must Christians be mute and silent under the greatest afflictions, the saddest providences, and sharpest trials that they meet with in this world?
Part 5
Part 6

Thomas Brooks, The Mute Christian under the Smarting Rod, with Sovereign Antidotes... Seventh Edition. London, 1699. [Abridged, edited, and extracted by SML.]