Thomas Manton · 43 of 67

Verse 16. · Part 1

Ver. 16. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.

Here the apostle cometh to make application, and to prove that these were such as Enoch had described, and therefore liable to the judgment threatened. Here are several things charged; I shall take them in order:—

The first thing is their unsatisfiedness with their present condition, expressed in two words:—(1.) Murmurers; (2.) Complainers.

The first word, γογγυσταὶ, signifieth such a muttering as men use when they are under a passion and discontent. The other word, μεμψίμοιροι, signifieth blamers of their lot and portion; namely, of that portion which is set out for them by God; the one implieth their discontented thoughts, the other their querulous expressions, Note hence:—

Obs. 1. That murmuring is a great sin. It is so charged here upon the seducers. I shall, first, show what murmuring is; secondly, prove that it is a great sin.

First, What it is. One saith well, it must needs be known, because it is so commonly practised; but if you will have me describe it, I shall say, it is the scum of discontent, or the vent of impatience, or such bold expostulations and complaints as flow from an exulcerated mind. In the text, you see first men mutter and then complain; the heart boileth with impatience, and then the froth is cast out in passionate speeches and complaints. Humble complaints are not murmuring, else there would be no room for prayer; but bold expostulations are murmurings, when we complain rather of God than to God, taxing the administration of his providence, as if he dealt too hardly with us; so that in effect murmuring is an anti-providence, first cherished by repining thoughts, and then vented and uttered in bold and uncomely speeches. Thoughts are audible with God, but it is worse when thoughts are not controlled, but break out openly in words tending to God’s dishonour; if the fire be kindled in our bosoms, it is some kind of victory if we smother it, and will not let the sparks fly abroad.

There are several kinds of murmuring—either against men, or against God, though in the issue all be against God, against God about men.

1. Against men, and so either against our equals or superiors.

[1.] Equals, when we murmur because they are admitted to the same privileges with ourselves: see Mat. xx. 11, ‘They murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last wrought but one hour.’ So Luke xv. 30, ‘This thy son devoured thy living with harlots,’ &c. And Beza, of some that reproached him with the sins of his unregenerate condition: Hi homines invident mihi gratiam Divinam—surely these men are angry because God hath showed me mercy. There is an envious nature in man: we would all shine alone, and inclose the common salvation. To upbraid men with late conversion is all one as to make it a crime because they are born but yesterday: it is to take up that filth which God would have covered.

[2.] Against superiors, especially because invested with magistracy or ministry. Some men are of a yokeless, libertine spirit, will acknowledge no other law but their own lusts, as in the text, ‘Murmurers, walking after their own lusts;’ think magistracy to be an encroachment upon their freedom, and therefore cannot away with any established order; and as for ministry, that ‘all the Lord’s people are holy,’ Num. xvi. 3; what need any to be set apart for that work? Thus would they level all things in church and commonwealth, as those rebels rose up against Moses and Aaron. But though not against the office, we may murmur at the persons that are advanced, as if we would teach God how to govern the world, and whom to lift up and cast down; or else by finding fault with their government without a cause. Some presumptuous persons, that never learned obedience, are always un satisfied. It was observed of Egypt, that it was Loquax et ingeniosa in contumeliam praefectorum provincia; si quis forte vitaverit culpam, contumeliam non effugit. Many such ungoverned spirits there are, that are always traducing public government, especially when it is most faithfully managed, and to the discouragement of opinionists and evil-doers. God will not suffer this evil to go unpunished, Exod. xvi. 8, and 2 Sam. xviii. 7. The calling is his ordinance, the persons are designed by his providence, and the work concerneth his glory; and therefore God taketh himself to be much interested in the quarrel.

2. There is a murmuring which is immediately against God himself. Since the fall man is always quarrelling with his Maker, either against his decrees, or his laws, or his providence.

[1.] Against his decrees. Proud man cannot endure to hear of God’s absolute sovereignty; we will do what we will, but we will not give leave to God to do what he will. The good man of the house was fain to plead his right, Mat. xx. 15, ‘Shall I not do with my own?’ &c. We can see no reason why God should pass by one and choose another: though we can see no reason, it is enough it is God’s pleasure, Mat. xi. 26. God hath his arcana imperil, as well as earthly princes, and we have cause to admire what we cannot understand; things may be just, though his reasons appear not to us; God is not bound to give us an account, or to tell us all his secrets; human reason groweth giddy by prying into the depth of God’s decrees. It is good to change disputes into wonder and reverence: Rom. ix. 20, ‘Who art thou, O man, that disputest with God?’ We may chop logic one with another, the potsherds of the earth with the potsherds of the earth, but God’s prerogative is above the tribunal of our reason.

[2.] His laws. A proud creature cannot endure to hear of restraints; we could love other things in God, but not his legislative power, Rom. viii. 7; the carnal mind will never stoop, but complaineth of him as harsh and severe, as if he had forbidden us the satisfying of those desires which he hath planted in us. The Israelites murmured thus: the land was a good land, but there were giants and sons of Anak, Num. xiii. 32. The heaven promised is a good heaven, but the way is rough and impassable; duties are difficult, and it is cumbersome to thwart our lusts. The project of carnal nature is to find out an easy and smooth path to eternal happiness: see Ps. cvi. 24, 25, ‘They despised the pleasant land; they believed not his word, but murmured in their tents.’ Heaven, figured by the land of Canaan, is not counted worth the pains and difficulty of getting thither.

[3.] His providence. In general, when the wicked prosper, it is a temptation that hath shaken the tallest cedars in Lebanon: David, though afterwards he was ashamed of it, and counts it brutish ignorance, Ps. lxxiii. 22; so Jer. xii. 1-3, and Hab. i. But let us come to temptations that are of a more particular and private experience. We murmur either for what we want, or for what we have lost, or for what we affect.

First, For what we want. As soon as we are straitened we complain presently; this is not so bad as when we murmur out of wantonness. The Israelites, I observe, did fall a-murmuring either out of want, and then they were spared; as for want of waters, Exod. xv. 24; for want of meat, Exod. xvi. 2; want of bread, Num. xx. 3; but at other times out of wantonness. They ‘loathed manna,’ must have quails; but then some special judgment or other broke out upon them. But, however, it is bad enough when our necessities extort these complaints from us: want is a time of praying, not of murmuring. The throne of grace was erected for a ‘time of need,’ Heb. iv. 16. But it is man’s usual custom to change duties into sins, as admonition into censuring; instead of speaking to men, we speak of men; so in stead of complaining to God, we complain of God, and so make murmuring take the room of prayer. Necessity is a time to put the promises in suit, to try faith, to awaken affections, not to provoke murmurings: ‘I was dumb, and opened not my mouth,’ saith David, Ps. xxxix. 9. We may open our mouths in confessions of sin, humble narratives, pleading of promises, but not in self-justifications, stormings against providence, or words of unbelief and impatience; so we must be dumb, and not once open our mouths.

Secondly, For what we have lost. We complain when God taketh away such a child, or such a comfort, or blasteth such a confidence of ours as our affections were much set upon, and in bitterness of heart speak unworthily of God and his dispensations: see 2 Sam. xviii. 33. We hate going back a degree or two, and count it miserable to be once happy, &c. But, O Christians! remember, when anything is lost, it is a wonder all is not gone. Job lost all, and yet ‘blessed God,’ Job i. 23. Abstulit, sed et dedit, ‘He took, but he gave first. That we were once happy showeth we have not always been miserable; our pilgrimage might have been wholly evil and uncomfortable: ‘Shall we receive good and not evil at the hands of the Lord’? Job ii. 10. There is much gone, but somewhat left; that little that is left is more than we have deserved; many in the world would be glad of our relics. Hath he taken aught from us? He might have taken more; he taketh part that giveth all; all is his own, he reserved the property to himself; as much right as we had to our comforts was long since forfeited. If God hath lent us blessings and demand them again, shall we grudge them to the right owner? It is needful now and then that God should take our comforts from us. When we have gotten a carnal pillow under our heads we are apt to fall into a deep sleep, and dream many a fond dream till God take it from under us. He withdraweth comforts to see how we will take it, and bear up upon our great and everlasting hopes: Heb. x. 34, ‘Ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods,’ &c. You will say that was by martyrdom, but your loss by an ordinary providence; and will not you let God take as willingly as thieves and persecutors? You have the same encouragements, ‘a better and enduring substance.’

Thirdly, For what we affect. We are wont to murmur at the smallness of our portion; we have not so much as others; our condition in the world is not so great, so rich, so honourable as theirs; we have but a single, but they a double, a Benjamin’s portion. Oh! but consider this is mere murmuring. God never undertook to maintain all his children at the same rate, and we cannot expect so much. Variety of conditions is necessary for the preservation of the world. Levelling is not God’s dispensation. Some must be high and some low. The wise preserver of all things distributeth his gifts variously—wealth to one, skill to another, strength to a third; one must reign, another serve, and all for the common good. A piece of arras is composed of several parcels. We should all famish for company if all were of one sort. Who should endure the handy labours? How low soever thou art, thou art there where God hath set thee, and there thou must tarry till the fair invitation of providence call thee higher. Look backward; thou hast made some increase. Jacob took notice that he was become ‘two droves,’ Gen. xxxii. 10, though when he first came into the country he had nothing but his staff in his hand. Many of God’s children are not so high as thou art. If you murmur, what should others do that have less? We cast our eyes forward on those before us, and because we have not so. much as they, so good trading, houses so well furnished, such honour and esteem in the world, all is as nothing. You do not look about you to the thousands that come short of you. You say, Why should not we thrive as they, be preferred as they? Joseph knew why Benjamin had a larger mess, though the rest at the table did not. So doth the Lord know why he giveth to one and not to another.

Secondly, Let me show you the heinousness of the sin by—(1.) The causes of it; (2.) By the injustice of it.

1. The causes of murmuring are many, but ail naught, as—

[1.] Pride and self-love. When men are conceited of themselves, they storm that others are preferred before them. A proud man must needs be discontented, because he sets a high price upon himself; and when others will not come up to his price he is troubled. You will find such a proud thought rising in your heart that men of your worth are not taken notice of, and yet they that deserve least complain and murmur most. The best say, I am not worthy. Real worth is humble. The laden boughs hang their heads; the nettle mounteth when the violet lieth shrouded under its leaves, and is only found out by its own scent. All God’s blessings are low to him that is high in his own eyes.

[2.] Impatience. We cannot endure the least inconvenience. Touchy natures would be at ease, tumbling and wallowing in all kinds of pleasure. Therefore, as soon as we are touched in our skins, we fall a-murmuring, ‘Why is this evil befallen me?’ and ‘Why should I wait upon the Lord any longer?’ An unsubjection of will to God will inevitably put us upon repining.

[3.] Presumption of merit. Where all is of free cost there is no complaining. Men ascribe to themselves when they prescribe to God what he shall do for them, or how bless them. Everything is welcome where nothing is deserved. If you keep a man of alms, you take it ill that he should not be pleased with his diet. When we look to desert, we may wonder more at what we have than what we want. God would do us no wrong if we were reduced to a less pittance. If in a prison, it is a favour we are not in hell. A malefactor would be glad to commute his punishment, a greater for a less, death for exile, exile for loss of estate, and then the whole for a part. Can a firebrand of hell murmur? There is our desert; but we think God is bound, and that it is a wrong that he taketh no more notice of us: ‘Wherefore have we fasted?’ &c., Isa. lviii.; ‘I am not as other men,’ &c., Luke xviii.

[4.] Carnal affection. We are too ravenous and greedy upon outward things, and therefore the disappointment breedeth the more vexation. Our desires and hopes of more destroy the memory and consideration of what we have. God giveth sufficiently to satisfy our necessities, and we seek to supply our lusts. Lust is more given to murmuring than necessity. Nature is contented with a little. It is soon satisfied; but lust enlargeth the desire as hell.

[5.] Unbelief and distrust: Ps. cvi. 24, 25, ‘They believed not his word, but murmured in their tents.’ Men quarrel with God’s providence because they do not believe his promises. Distrust will be sure to breed discontent. It is ill for the present, and they cannot see how it will be better. They could not believe that the wilderness was the way to Canaan, that God can love one whom he corrects, and therefore as soon as they feel the smart of the rod they give vent to their passions.

2. The injustice of it. It is injurious to God, to others, to ourselves.

[1.] It is injurious to God. Murmuring is a sin that pulleth God out of the throne; you ‘enter into judgment’ with him; as David, on the other hand, prayeth, ‘Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord.’ Murmurers either deny his providence or tax it. Implicitly they deny it, as if God did not set out to every man his portion. If men did believe that God did govern the world, even as he made the world, why do they not complain of creation as well as providence? We would laugh at him that would murmur because God did not make him an angel or a star. Why! is it not as ridiculous to murmur because God hath made thee a subject and not a prince, a beggar and not a rich man, a servant but not a master, but that they own the hand of God in one and not in the other, as if the world were governed by blind chance? Or else they tax providence of indiscretion or unrighteousness. It is marvellous to see how murmuring robbeth God of all his attributes. It clippeth his sovereignty. We will not let him do with his own as it pleaseth him. The great contest between him and us is, Whose will shall stand, his or ours? It limits his power, and slights it. When God doth not satisfy us we think he cannot, Ps. lxxviii. 20. We set him a task, and if God perform it not, we question his sufficiency. It is a contention with our maker, an entering into the lists with God, as if we could make our party good against him, Ps. lxxviii. 17. We tax his wisdom. Men will be teaching God how to govern the world, for we prescribe to him as if he did not understand what is fit for us. He pleaseth us not in his wisest dispensations, and we bear it out as if we could mend his works: Job xxi. 22, ‘Shall any teach God knowledge, seeing he judgeth those that are high?’ They that disallow of God’s proceedings take upon them to be God’s teachers. It was a blasphemous speech of Alphonsus, Si Deo a consiliis adfuisset in creatione mundi, multa se consultius ordinaturum—if he had been of God’s council when he made the world, he would have ordered many things better. Many abhor the blasphemy, and yet think almost to the same effect. If they had the governing of the world, such men should not prosper, and such and such things should not be done. Thus do we ‘darken counsel with words without knowledge,’ Job xxxviii. 2, and cast a reproach of folly and injustice upon God’s providence. Again, to his goodness we are injurious, by disvaluing what we have in comparison of what we expect: Mal. i. 2, ‘Wherein hast thou loved us?’ as if they had nothing, because not fully what they expected. It is man’s nature to forget what is granted, and pitch only upon what is denied, as children in a pet throw away what they have if you do not give them more. Saith Haman, ‘All this availeth me nothing,’ &c., Esther v. 13; and the whole kingdom of Israel would not content Ahab when he falleth sick for ‘Naboth’s vineyard, 1 Kings xxi. 4. As in the body, if one humour be out of order, or one joint broken, the soundness of all the rest availeth us nothing; a little is enough to set the creature a complaining. His justice also we tax, as if he did defraud us of our due. We think somewhat is due, or else why do we complain? Mat. xx. 13, ‘Friend, I do thee no wrong,’ &c.

[2.] It is injurious to others; it puts us upon acts of violence and sedition; the murmurers are called ‘rebels,’ Num. xvii. 10. Schism in the church and sedition in the commonwealth are but the fruits of murmuring. Men dislike their own rank and station, and then murmur, and then perturb all. ‘Oh, that I were a judge!’ said Absalom, and afterwards breaketh out into open rebellion. Thin exhalations end in great storms. Servants would be masters, and the poor would be rich, and subjects would be in office and power; and by giving vent to their repining thoughts, inflame the zeal of persons likeminded with themselves, till all be embroiled in blood and confusions.

[3.] It is injurious to ourselves. Man is a foolish creature; what doth he get by complaining of God? Who shall right us? Before what tribunal will you put him in suit? Of all sins, murmuring is most unreasonable, but very pernicious. What do we get by it but disquiet and judgment? It is like spitting against the wind, the drivel is returned upon our own heads. Disquiet it breedeth us. A murmuring spirit is a greater evil than any affliction; like a sour vessel, it turneth all things that are put into it into sourness. Most men’s misery ariseth from their discontent; if their heart and their condition were suited, they would do well enough in the world; we trouble our own peace. If we could learn to frame our minds to our estates, as the skilful musician letteth down the strings a peg lower when the tune requireth it, we should pass to heaven more comfortably. Again, it bringeth down judgment; expressions tending to God’s dishonour have a loud cry in his ears. Miriam was smitten with leprosy for murmuring, and Dathan and Abiram swallowed up alive; fiery serpents, and plagues, and exclusion out of Canaan were Israel’s judgments when they were sick of the fret: see 1 Cor. x. 10, ‘Neither murmur ye, as some of them murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.’

Let us now make application. Beware of murmurings, it is a greater sin than the world taketh it to be. Here I shall speak of two things:—(1.) Murmuring at the times and public changes which have happened amongst us; (2.) Murmuring in our own private case.

First, Murmuring at the times. It is a repining age we live in; many factions are disappointed, and therefore the most are full of discontent, forgetting that all this is the work of a wise God. Mistake me not; I list not to become the times’ advocate; it little beseemeth us to be patrons of public miscarriages, or factors for any private interest.

Therefore, let me proceed with the greatest scripture evidence and conviction, and state what is murmuring at the times. It is forbid den, Eccles. vii. 10, ‘Say not thou that the former times were better than these; for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.’ Now, what is the sin taxed in this scripture? I answer:—

1. Not godly sorrow, and complaining to God, and bewailing the corruptions of the times. No; the mourners in Sion are marked for preservation, Ezek. ix. None are better friends to public interest. It were well if these ‘doves of the valleys’ had more company. This is no sin, for this is the only way of entering our protest, and being free from the corruptions of the age. God hath bound up all politic bodies in the same bundle, and we are concerned in others’ sins. It is the art of divine mercy by this means to prevent public ruin, by interesting his people in the welfare of those places where they live, that every man in his place may be sensible of present sins and approaching judgments. Two dry sticks will set a green one a-fire. Can you blame the children of God, then, if they mourn, and enter their protest against the iniquity of the times? The Corinthians were not clear of the incest committed amongst them till they had mourned; then the apostle saith, ‘Now ye are clear in this matter,’ 2 Cor. vii. 11. Surely they that are involved in the guilt, concerned in the judgment, had need mourn.

2. Not zeal in public reproof: Isa. lviii. 1, ‘Cry aloud, spare not,’ &c. Vitium saeculi is no excuse. If we spare, God will not spare; if we hazard our bodies in bearing our testimony, we save our souls. We must cry out upon sin with a full throat, and that again and again, provided we be clear in our principles and aims, and do it without clamour and popular invectives. When a fire is kindled in a city, we do not say coldly, Yonder is a great fire, I pray God it do no harm. In times of public defection we are not to read tame lectures of contemplative divinity, or fight with ghosts and antiquated errors, but to oppose with all earnestness the growing evils of the world, whatever it cost us.

3. Nor yet a holy dislike and singularity, standing aloof from public corruptions, as Lot in Sodom, and ‘Noah walked with God in his generations,’ Gen. vi. 9. God’s children most commonly are forced to walk in a counter motion to the times. Paul, when he had accused the times as evil, adviseth Christians to ‘walk circumspectly,’ Eph. v. 16. Worldly wisdom would draw quite another conclusion. The times are bad, let us do as well as we can. There is no living in the world unless we yield a little. The oak is rent to pieces with the fury of the wind when the willow boweth and bendeth. Shall we alone resist such a torrent? Thus would we reason; but the Spirit doth not loosen the reins, but straiten them, upon this consideration, ‘The days are evil,’ therefore ‘be circumspect;’ that is, be careful to keep close to rule, lest you be blinded and perverted by the subtleties of those that lie in wait to deceive, and elsewhere: ‘Shine as lights in the midst of a perverse generation.’ Dead fishes swim with the stream. There is a difference between subjection to God and compliance with men, &c.

But now, positively, what is the fault there reproved? I answer:—

[1.] Foolish murmurings, or such a fond and unthankful admiration of former times that we have not a good word for the present. Tacitus observed it, Vitio malignitatis humanae vetera laudantur, praesentia fastidio sunt. It is a common evil, men are praising past times and declaiming against the present: querulous natures are never pleased, neither full nor fasting. Past temptations are forgotten, and therefore present evils seem worst, and laziness many times occasioneth complaints. Many repine against God because he hath given us our lot in such an age, wherein public contests put us upon the trouble of prayer, discourse, and diligent searching in the mind of God; now usually to excuse other duties we fall a-complaining.

Again, private discontent may exasperate some; things are not suitable to their humours and interests. No wonder if Demetrius and the coppersmiths call those evil times when the gospel is like to get up, because their craft is like to go down, and they are not favoured as they desire. Again sottish carnality may be in the wind; carnal men will extol the happiness of former times, their great hospitality and kind neighbourhood, their honest dealing, and good devotion, what a merry time it was, and how plentiful all things were before the new gospel came in, and they had nothing but mass and matins; as those sots, Jer. xliv. 18, 19. Formalists cry up the goodness of the old religion to disparage times of reformation; so the pagans said that the Roman empire thrived more under false gods than under the Christian religion; wherefore Augustine wrote his book, De Civitate Dei, to answer that charge. Christians, these times may be the worse for those that went before; we may smart for their blood and idols and hatred of the people of God; judgments were then in the causes, as the clouds gather before the rain falleth.

[2.] When we pass over the good, and look only upon the evil; we should counterbalance our afflictions with our mercies: ‘Shall we receive good and not evil at the hands of God?’ Job ii. 10. It is railing to gather up the failings of others and not to take notice of their graces; so it is a railing against providence and an ill office to be only like flies pitching upon a sore place. Is there no blessing with all this bad? with our temporal calamities have we not some increase of spiritual privileges, as in the wilderness they had God’s presence, though they had a tedious passage of it? The free use of ordinances will countervail all public burdens. Some suppose that Solomon, in that Eccles. vii. 10, alludeth to the people’s murmuring in his time; there was a temple building, but the taxes were great, and therefore they cried ‘The former times were better than these.’ See 1 Kings xii. 4.

[3.] When we charge our guilt upon the times. Man is apt to transfer his faults upon others, and obliquely upon God himself: ‘The woman which thou gavest me,’ &c.; and so usually the times wherein we live are such, &c. Why, God ordered them, and if you were as you should be, the times could not hurt you. A great deal of fire falleth upon a stone and it burneth not, but a dry chip soon taketh fire. Men think, if they be corrupt, the fault is not theirs, but the times. It is yours certainly; it is bad men make bad times, as I shall show anon.

Let me now give you a few remedies.

(1.) When your hearts storm, look back; there were inconveniences in the wilderness, but a sore bondage in Egypt; a good memory is a help to thankfulness. For my own case, when I am brimful, I consider the times that are past,—see 2 Chron. xv. 3-6—when there was ‘no peace to him that went out or came in;’ when private meetings were a conventicle, and in public we could only sigh, not speak; when maypoles and carnal sports were preferred before the Sabbath; when afternoon preaching was suppressed to make way for those sports; when it was a crime to go from a doting service-reader to hear the preaching of the word. Surely they that are so ready to return into Egypt have forgotten their bondage, when their cry came up to God because of the anguish of their souls. Our ‘hard taskmasters,’ the domineering prelates, and their oppressing filthy courts, are forgotten, our promiscuous communions, and the flat and cold repetitions of an imposed liturgy quite forgotten; so the confinement of preaching, and the restraint of doctrines; these things are out of feeling, and therefore out of remembrance. One great defect the people of God are troubled withal is a bad memory: Micah. vi. 5, ‘O my people! remember,’ &c. I tell you, if we did but remember how we were prelate-bitten, we would not murmur, but give thanks.