What are you going to say when you are sitting with a sobbing friend or family member who has lost what is most valuable to them? Or, more in line with our recent emphasis on preaching to ourselves, what are you going to say to yourself? What is there to say when your heart no longer finds it ‘easy’ to trust in God and His providence? Will you have answers when you hear someone saying, “how can I trust God now?” The second objection to silence that Thomas Brooks deals with is for the person who has lost what they hold dearest in this world. “Oh, but, sir! The Lord hath smitten me in my nearest and dearest comforts and contentments, and how then can I hold my peace? God hath taken away a husband, a wife, a child, an only child, a bosom-friend, and how then can I be silent?” (I-346: the following quotations are taken from pages 346-354 of volume 1 in my Banner of Truth edition). Brooks gives 12 answers for the objection (although if you are in actual conversation with someone, I doubt the best thing is to hammer them with all 12 consecutively).
1) “If God did not strike thee in that mercy which was near and dear unto thee, it would not amount to an affliction….(T)hat storm is no storm that only blows off the leaves, but never hurts the fruit…” The idea here seems to be that we are all going to be afflicted and should not surprised that it hurts when we do.
2) “The best mercy is not too good for the best God.” If you have given up what is best to God, it is not as though you have given Him too much.
3) “Your near and dear mercies were first the Lord’s before they were yours, and always the Lord’s more than they were yours.
When God gives a mercy, he doth not relinquish his own right in that mercy.”
4) “It may be thou hast not made a happy improvement of thy near and dear mercies whilst thou enjoyedst them….There are many who are very much taken with their mercies, who make no conscience of improving their mercies. Have thy near and dear mercies been a star to lead thee to Christ?…The candle of mercy is set up not to play by, but to work by.”
5) “If in this case God had made thee a precedent to others, thou must have held thy peace; how much more, then, shouldst thou be mute when God hath made many others precedents to thee?” Then after giving examples of how God took what was most precious from many of his ‘choice saints’ Brooks concludes with: “Then why shouldst thou murmur and fret at that which hath been the common lot of the dearest saints? Though God hath smitten thee in this or that near and dear enjoyment, it is thy wisdom to hold thy peace, for that God that hath taken away one, might have taken away all.”
6) “It may be thy sins have been much about thy near and dear enjoyments.” He has a great illustration of how the comforts of this life are like snow-balls. When you hold them too tight, too close to yourself they are soon melted and gone, but when you keep them at some distance they will stay with you longer.
7) “Thou hast no cause to murmur because of the loss of such near and dear enjoyments, considering those more noble and spiritual mercies and favours that thou still enjoyest….In the want of all your sweetest enjoyments, Christ will be all in all unto you (Colossians 3:11).”
8) “If God, by smiting thee in thy nearest and dearest enjoyments, shall put thee upon a more thorough smiting and mortifying of thy dearest sins, thou hast no cause to murmur.”
9) “Consider that the Lord hath many ways to make up the loss of a near and dear mercy to thee…He that lives upon God in the loss of creature comforts, shall find all made up in the God of comforts; he shall be able to say, though my child is not, my friend is not, my yoke-fellow is not, yet my God liveth, and ‘blessed by my rock,’ (Psalm 89:26).”
10) “How canst thou tell but that which thou callest a near and dear mercy, if it had been continued longer to thee, might have proved the greatest cross, the greatest calamity and misery that ever thou didst meet with in this world?…Christians hold your peace, for you do not know what thorns in your eyes, what goads in your sides, nor what spears in your hearts, such near and dear mercies might have proved had they been longer continued.”
11) “Thou canst not tell how bad thy heart might have proved under the enjoyment of those near and dear mercies that now thou hast lost….Heap all the sweetest contentments and most desirable enjoyments of this world upon a man, they will not make him a Christian; heap them upon a Christian, they will not make him a better Christian.”
12) “Get thy heart more affected with spiritual losses, and then thy soul will be less afflicted with those temporal losses that thou mournest under….Now, what is the loss of a husband, a wife, a child, a friend, to the loss of God, Christ, the Spirit, or the least measure of grace or communion with God?”
In a way I hope that no one reading this needs this right now but I know better. We are all going to need to have answers for ourselves and those who depend upon us to sharpen them as iron sharpens iron. What you should do now is rewrite all 12 in your own words. This will better enable you to either take this to heart now or tuck away for when you are going to need it (wouldn’t it make Joe Thorn a very happy man if we worked these into 12 “Notes to Self”). And take a moment now to pray for those who need it today.
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Post Script: make sure you read the comments for a brief discussion that helps to clarify when these truths are best taken.
Me and Brooks 
Hmmm…No offense, but I’m not sure, as a bereaved parent, how any of these would have helped me. I may be missing the point, though. Most people who deeply grieve don’t want someone to try to answer the questions of “why?” (because there may be no clear answer to that question); they just want to be loved and supported. Sometimes it really is the action that speaks louder than the word. I do appreciate your thought-provoking commentary, though.
Rebecca, thanks for your comment and I am sorry for your loss. I haven’t lost a child and don’t pretend to know what it is like. I appreciate you stopping to comment instead of just moving on as it helps to clarify this. I think I did a poor job of setting the context for these statements by Thomas Brooks. I made it sound like they are for those initial moments of grief to help comfort and they are not. Brooks’ book “The Mute Christian…” is not written as comfort for the afflicted but to show us what our duty is under trials. His starting place is Psalm 39:9 and the point of the book is to move us to the same silence (which is a reflection of a deep trust in God) which David had there.
I know what you are getting at because as I have read through this book I’ve often thought, would I actually say this to someone? I think the key is to remember Brooks’ context. As a beloved pastor who shepherded souls through a civil war, the London plague year and the London fire I am sure he would have given that silent love and support. I feel like I ‘know’ him a bit through reading a number of his works and he truly loved people. He is writing here not so much for the grieving but for the one who is starting to quit trusting in God. It is for the heart that is beginning to feel it cannot be silent under afflictions because God has taken too much.
Does that sound fair?
Also as someone who has lost a child: I know these are not things I would have wanted to hear, but they are things I know are true and need to make true in my heart and mind if I am to grow from such an experience
Thanks for the comment Adam. I think these these things belong generally a little later on in the process. It isn’t about the immediate comfort you need but the coming to grips with God once you can start to process the awful stuff that happens. It’s more about ‘settling in’ than ‘comforting’, know what I mean?
Whilst I would certainly share your views that this teaching might be more appropriate for people some time further on in ‘the suffering process’, I would like to suggest that Thomas Brooks would also have intended that his readers/listeners imbibe these principles BEFORE the trials come – that we might be better prepared to meet our afflictions, and that they might be to us ‘a refining fire, rather than a consuming fire’. Sadly most believers these days (myself included) choose not to learn how to face affliction until it is already at our door (or through it!).
Excellent point Bryan. The fact that the material was mostly preached by Brooks before he sent it out as a book definitely confirms your point. Surely some of the people in his congregation would have needed it right in that moment but it is very safe to say he was preparing people like you say.
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