When the methods of providence are dark and intricate and we are quite at a loss what God is about to do with us, “his way is in the sea, and his path in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known,” clouds and darkness are round about him, a meek and quiet spirit acquiesces in an assurance that all things shall work together for good to us if we love God, though we cannot apprehend how or which way. It teaches us to follow God with an implicit faith, as Abraham did when he went out not knowing very well whom he followed (Heb 11:8). It quiets us with this, that though what he doeth “we know not now,” yet we “shall know hereafter” (John 13:7). When poor Job was brought to that dismal plunge that he could no way trace the footsteps of the divine providence, but was almost lost in that labyrinth, how quietly does he sit down with this thought, “But he knows the way I take; when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:8-9).

Meekness, in the school of Christ, is one of the “fruits of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22-23). It is a grace (both gratis data, ‘freely given,’ and gratum faciens, ‘rendering kind’), wrought by the Holy Ghost both as a sanctifier and as a comforter in the hearts of all true believers, teaching and enabling them at all times to keep their passions under the conduct and government of religion and right reason. I observe that it is wrought in the hearts of all true believers because though there are some rough and knotty pieces that the Spirit works upon, whose natural temper is unhappily sour and harsh, which are long in the squaring; yet wheresoever there is true grace, there is a disposition to strive against, and strength in some measure to conquer, that distemper. And though in this, as in other graces, an absolute sinless perfection cannot be expected in this present state, yet we are to labor after it, and press toward it.

Matthew Henry, The Quest for Meekness and Quietness of Spirit –reprinted by Soli Deo Gloria Publications – pg 21-22 (first published in 1698).

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