Meekness and Quietness of Spirit
“Even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” (1 Pet 3:4, latter part).
The apostle Peter, in this epistle (like his beloved brother Paul in many of his), presses at length upon Christians the conscientious discharge of the duties belonging to their particular relations. He has good reason for this, for it generally holds true that we are really what we are relatively. In the earlier part of this chapter he directs Christian wives how to conduct themselves in that relation, to the glory of God, their own comfort, and the spiritual benefit of their husbands (1 Pet 3:1–2). Among other good lessons, he teaches them how to dress themselves as “becometh women professing godliness.” Women are commonly observed to be very anxious about their ornaments. When the question is asked, “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?” it is supposed scarcely possible (Jer 2:32).
The apostle takes hold of this common inclination to recommend to their choice and practice those graces and duties which are indeed the most excellent and lovely adorning, not only of women, to whom the exhortation is directly addressed, but of men too, for whom it is no doubt also intended. Notice his method.
1. He tries to wean them from the vanity of outward ornaments (verse 3): “whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning,” etc. This does not forbid the sober and moderate use of decent ornaments, when suited to one’s rank, place, and occasion, except in seasons proper for laying ornaments aside, such as days of fasting and humiliation (Exod 33:4–5). But it forbids the excessive love and abuse of them. There may be “the plaiting of the hair” and the “wearing of gold,” and there must be “the putting on of apparel,” which the shame that came into the world with sin has made necessary. But we must not make these things our adorning. That is, we must not set our hearts on them, nor value ourselves by them, nor think better of ourselves for them, nor take pride in them as though they added any real excellence to us.
We must not say to them, as Saul said to Samuel, “Honour me now before this people,” out of a vain ambition to make “a fair show in the flesh.” We should spend no more care, thought, time, words, or cost on them, and place no more weight on them, than they deserve, which is very little. It is, as Scripture puts it, only “glory hung upon us” (Isa 22:24), and has no glory at all compared to the glory that exceeds it, even in creatures far below us. For “Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed” or beautified “like one of those lilies, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven” (Matt 6:29–30).
We must not seek these things first, nor seek them most, as if we had bodies for no other purpose than to display our clothes, with nothing else to do but make them fine. It was the folly, and proved the ruin, of the rich man in the parable, that he made his purple and fine linen (with other bodily ornaments and delights) his good things, the things in which he found his consolation (Luke 16:19, 25). That is, in the language of this text, he made them his adorning; and so, being stripped of these, he was found naked (2 Cor 5:3).
Let not the wearing of gold and the putting on of apparel be a woman’s whole world. Let not these things be everything to us, as they are to many who reckon it a shame to be out of fashion, whatever the fashion happens to be. Christians are called out of the world and delivered from it (Gal 1:4), and should show a victory won by faith over it, in this as in other matters (1 John 5:4). It is a settled rule of our holy religion, whether people will hear it or not, “that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety” (1 Tim 2:9).
Some exclaim against vanity in apparel as the crying sin of this age above all others, as though it were a new thing under the sun and the former days were better in this respect than these (Eccl 7:10). Others, on the contrary, condemn it as fanatical to speak out against this vanity when the occasion calls for it. Both may find a sufficient answer if they will read the excellent homily of the Church of England entitled An Homily Against Excess of Apparel (No. 18), which shows that even in the early days of the Reformation this vanity prevailed greatly in our land, and the rulers of the church felt obliged to reprove it. But let us move on.
2. He tries to bring them to love the better ornaments, those of the mind, the graces of the blessed Spirit, here called the “hidden man of the heart” (verse 4). Grotius observes that though Peter writes to women, he uses a word of masculine gender, because the ornament he recommends is one both men and women must be adorned with. Grace, as a living principle of regular, holy thoughts, words, and actions, is sometimes called the new man (Eph 4:24), sometimes the inward man (Rom 7:22; 2 Cor 4:16), and here, the hidden man of the heart.
It is called a man because it is made up of many parts and members, and its workings are living and rational, and it restores to the dignity of men those who by sin had made themselves like the beasts that perish. It is called the man of the heart because “out of the heart are the issues of life” (Prov 4:23). There lie the springs of words and actions, and so the salt of grace is cast into the heart, and by it all the waters are healed (2 Kgs 2:21). He is the true Christian who is one inwardly, whose circumcision, whose baptism, is of the heart (Rom 2:29).
It is called the hidden man of the heart because the work of grace is a secret thing, which makes no pompous show before the world. It is a mystery of godliness, a life hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3), to whom secret things belong. So the saints are called his hidden ones (Ps 83:3), for the world does not know them, much less does it yet appear what they shall be. The king’s daughter who is espoused to Christ is “all glorious within” (Ps 45:13).
The working of grace in the soul is often pictured as a regeneration, a being begotten again, and perhaps when this good work is called the hidden man of the heart there is some allusion to the forming of the bones in the womb of a woman with child, which Solomon speaks of as unaccountable, as is also “the way of the Spirit” (Eccl 11:5; compare John 3:8; Ps 139:14–16). Finally, it consists in what is not corruptible. It is not spoiled by the corruption that is in the world through lust, but is in the soul a “well of living water springing up into eternal life” (John 4:14).
In the text he names one particular grace, one member of this hidden man of the heart, which each of us must adorn ourselves with: “a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” Notice two things here.
1. The grace itself recommended to us: it is “a meek and quiet spirit.” There must be not merely a meek and quiet behavior outwardly. Such behavior can come from mere constraint, or from some base and hidden design, while the soul beneath remains rough, turbulent, and poisoned. The words may be softer than oil while war is in the heart (Ps 55:21). But the word of God discerns and judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb 4:12).
The power of human laws may bind a person to good behavior, but only the power of God’s grace will renew a right spirit within (Ps 51:10). That is what makes the tree good, and then the fruit will be good. The God with whom we have to do demands the heart, looks at the underlying principle, and requires truth in the inward parts, not only in the duties of his own immediate worship, that they be done in the Spirit, but also in the duty we owe our neighbor, that it too be done with a pure heart, without pretense. The word of command that the Captain of our salvation gives is, “Christians, take heed to your spirits” (Mal 2:15).
2. The excellence of this grace: it is “in the sight of God of great price.” It is truly a precious grace, for it is precious in the sight of God, and we know he can neither deceive nor be deceived. People of standing, in choosing their ornaments, care less for what is showy than for what is rich, not what makes a glittering, gaudy display and pleases children and fools, but what has intrinsic value and appeals to the intelligent. A meek and quiet spirit is such an ornament. It lacks the gaiety that suits the taste of a worldly age, but it has the real worth that recommends it to the favor of God. It is one of those graces compared to the powders of the merchant (Song 3:6), fetched from far, and bought dearly, even with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus.
We should each labor for this grace and be ambitious for it as the greatest honor, so that present or absent, living or dying, we may be “accepted of the Lord” (2 Cor 5:9). Blessed be God, it is attainable through the Mediator, from whom we have learned how to walk so as to please him. We must walk with meekness and quietness of spirit, for this is “in the sight of God of great price.” This mark of honor is placed especially on the grace of meekness because it is commonly despised and looked on with contempt by the children of this world, as a kind of mean-spiritedness. But however they are termed and treated now, those whom God approves, and to whom he says, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” are happy, and will soon appear so, for by his judgment we must stand or fall eternally.
These words, then, will easily give us this plain doctrine: that meekness and quietness of spirit is a very excellent grace, which we should each put on and be adorned with.
In pursuing this, we shall try, first, to show what this meekness and quietness of spirit is; second, what excellence there is in it; and third, to apply it.
The Nature of Meekness and Quietness of Spirit
Meekness and quietness seem to mean much the same thing. But since quietness carries something of metaphor in it, it will help illustrate meekness, so we will treat them separately.
1. We must be of a meek spirit. Meekness is easiness of spirit. It is not a sinful easiness to be led astray, as Ephraim’s was, who willingly walked after the commandment of idolatrous princes (Hos 5:11). Nor is it a simple easiness to be imposed upon and deceived, as Rehoboam’s was, who at forty years old is still called “young and tenderhearted” (2 Chr 13:7). Rather, it is a gracious easiness to be shaped by what is good, like the easiness of those whose heart of stone has been taken away and replaced with a heart of flesh. Meekness is easiness because it adapts the soul to every circumstance, making a person easy both with himself and with everyone around him.
The Latins called a meek man mansuetus, that is, one accustomed to the hand. This alludes to the taming of creatures wild by nature, bringing them to be tractable and familiar (Jas 3:7–8). Our corrupt nature has made us like the wild ass used to the wilderness, or the swift young camel running her course (Jer 2:23–24). But the grace of meekness, once it gains dominion in the soul, alters its temper, brings it to hand, and submits it to management. Now the wolf dwells with the lamb, the leopard lies down with the kid, and a little child may lead them, for enmity is laid aside and nothing is left to hurt or destroy (Isa 11:6, 9).
Meekness applies both to God and to our neighbors. It belongs to both tables of the law, attending on the first great commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” as well as the second, which is like it, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” though its special reference is to the second.
First, there is meekness toward God. This is the soul’s easy and quiet submission to his whole will, however he is pleased to make it known, whether by his word or by his providence.
1.) It is the silent submission of the soul to the word of God, the understanding bowed to every divine truth and the will to every divine command, both without murmuring or dispute. The word becomes an ingrafted word when it is received with meekness (Jas 1:21), that is, with a sincere willingness to be taught and a desire to learn. Meekness is a grace that splits the stock and holds it open so the word, like a graft, may be inserted. It breaks up the fallow ground and makes it fit to receive the seed. It captivates proud thoughts and lays the soul, like white paper, under God’s pen.
When the dawn takes hold of the ends of the earth, the earth is said to be turned like clay under a seal (Job 38:12–14). Meekness disposes the soul in the same way to admit the rays of divine light it once resisted. It opens the heart, as Lydia’s was opened, and sets us down with Mary at the feet of Christ, in the learner’s place and posture (compare Deut 33:3).
The promise of teaching is made to the meek, because they are disposed to learn: “The meek will he teach his way” (Ps 25:8–9). The word of God is truly gospel, good tidings to the meek (Isa 61:1); they welcome it gladly. The poor in spirit have the gospel preached to them (Matt 11:5), and wisdom’s charity is given to those who wait daily at her gates with meekness, like beggars at the posts of her doors (Prov 8:34).
This is the language of meekness: the child Samuel’s, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth” (1 Sam 3:9); and Joshua’s, who, holding the high post of commanding Israel and defying all her enemies, his mind full of great and bold thoughts, still submitted himself the moment he received a message from heaven, saying, “What saith my Lord unto his servant?” (Josh 5:14); and Paul’s, in the very first breath of the new man, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6); and Cornelius’s, “Now we are all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God” (Acts 10:33); and that of a good man I have read of, who, going to hear the word, used to say: Now let the word of the Lord come, and if I had six hundred necks, I would bow them all to its authority.
To receive the word with meekness is to be delivered into it as into a mold. This seems to be Paul’s image in Romans 6:17: “that form of doctrine into which you were given up.” Meekness softens the wax so it can receive the impression of the seal, whether for doctrine or reproof, for correction or instruction in righteousness. It opens the ear to discipline, silences objections, and suppresses the risings of the carnal mind against the word, consenting that the law is good, and esteeming all its precepts to be right in every matter, even when they most sharply check flesh and blood.
2.) It is the silent submission of the soul to the providence of God, for that too is God’s will concerning us.
a) When the events of providence are grievous and afflictive, displeasing to our senses and crossing our worldly interests, meekness does not merely quiet us under them; it reconciles us to them. It enables us not only to bear evil but to receive it, as well as good, at the hand of the Lord. This is the excellent frame of mind Job argues himself into (Job 2:10). It means kissing the rod, even accepting the punishment of our iniquity, taking in good part all that God does, not daring to strive with our Maker, not even desiring to prescribe to him, but staying silent and not opening our mouths, because God has done it.
How meek was Aaron under the severe dispensation that took away his sons with a particular mark of divine wrath: “he held his peace” (Lev 10:3). God was sanctified, and so Aaron was satisfied, with not a word to say against it. Unlike this was the temper, or rather the distemper, of David, who was not acting like a man after God’s own heart when he “was displeased, because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah” (2 Sam 6:8), as though God had needed David’s permission to assert the honor of his ark. When God’s anger is kindled, ours must be stifled; such is the law of meekness, that whatever pleases God must not displease us.
David was in a better frame of mind when he wrote Psalm 56. Some think its title reflects the calmness and submissiveness of his spirit when the Philistines took him in Gath: it is set “upon Jonath-elemrechokim,” the silent dove far off. It was his calamity to be far off, but he was then like a silent dove, mourning perhaps (Isa 38:14), but not murmuring, not struggling, not resisting, though seized by birds of prey. And the psalm he wrote in this frame of mind was a Michtam, a golden psalm.
The language of this meekness is Eli’s: “It is the Lord” (1 Sam 3:18). And David’s, to the same purpose: “Here I am, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him” (2 Sam 15:25–26). Not only can he do what he will, submitting to his power, for who can stay his hand? Or he may do what he will, submitting to his sovereignty, for he gives no account of his actions. Or he will do what he will, submitting to his unchangeableness, “for he is in one mind, and who can turn him?” But let him do what he will, submitting to his wisdom and goodness, as Hezekiah did: “Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken” (Isa 39:8). Let him do what he will, for he will do what is best.
So the meek and quiet soul says: if God should leave the matter to me, being well assured that he knows what is good for me better than I know myself, I would refer it back to him. “He shall choose our inheritance for us” (Ps 47:4).
b) When the ways of Providence are dark and confusing, and we cannot tell what God means to do with us, we still hold to this comfort: “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” (Ps 77:19; 97:2). A meek and quiet spirit rests in the assurance that all things will work together for good to those who love God, even when we cannot grasp how or by what path.
It teaches us to follow God with implicit faith, as Abraham did, when he went out not knowing where he was going but knowing well whom he followed (Heb 11:8). And it quiets us with this: though we do not know now what he is doing, we will know afterward (John 13:7). When poor Job was brought to that dismal point where he could no longer trace the footsteps of divine providence, and was almost lost in the maze (Job 23:8–9), how quietly he settles the matter, saying, “But he knows the way that I take; when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold!” (Job 23:10).
Second, there is meekness toward our fellow men, toward all people (Titus 3:2), and this is the sense meant here. Meekness has especially to do with the emotion of anger, not to root it out of the soul entirely (that would be quenching a fire that is sometimes needed, even at God’s altar, and blunting the edge of our spiritual weapons in our spiritual warfare), but its office is to direct and govern this emotion, so that we may “be angry, and sin not” (Eph 4:26).
In the school of the philosophers, meekness is a virtue standing in the middle between the extremes of excessive, rash anger on one side and a lack of anger on the other, a balance Aristotle confesses is very hard to determine exactly (Nicomachean Ethics, book 4, chapter 6).
In the school of Christ, meekness is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22–23). It is a grace both freely given and making us pleasing to God, worked by the Holy Spirit as sanctifier and comforter in the hearts of all true believers, teaching and enabling them at all times to keep their passions under the government of religion and right reason. I say it is worked in the hearts of all true believers, because though there are some rough and knotty natures the Spirit works on, whose temper is unhappily sour and harsh and slow to be shaped, yet wherever there is true grace, there is a disposition to strive against that fault, and strength to some degree to conquer it. And though, as with other graces, we cannot expect sinless perfection in this life, we must labor after it and press toward it.
More specifically, the work and office of meekness is to enable us to govern our own anger wisely when provoked, and to bear the anger of others patiently, so that it does not become a provocation to us in turn. The first is meekness’s office especially for those in authority, the second for those under authority, and both apply to equals.
First, meekness teaches us to govern our own anger wisely whenever something provoking arises. Just as temperance moderates our natural appetites toward pleasant things, so meekness moderates our natural passions against displeasing things, and governs how we respond to them. Anger in the soul is like spirit in a horse, good if well managed. Meekness is the bridle, as wisdom is the hand that directs it, sets it on the right path, and keeps it at a steady, even pace, correcting it when it strays, keeping it within proper bounds, and reining it in whenever it grows unruly and threatens harm to ourselves or others. It must be held in check, like the horse or mule, with bit and bridle (Ps 32:9), lest it break through the hedge, trample those in its way, or throw the rider himself.
What we say of fire is true of anger: it is a good servant but a bad master, good on the hearth but bad in the curtains. Meekness keeps it in its place, sets banks to the sea, and says, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed” (Job 38:11).
Regarding our own anger, whenever we meet with something that provokes it, the work of meekness is to do four things.
1.) To consider the circumstances of what we take to be a provocation, so that we never express displeasure without due and mature reflection first. The office of meekness is to keep reason on the throne of the soul where it belongs, to keep the understanding clear and the judgment untainted and unbiased even amid the greatest provocations, so that we can see everything in its true light and its true color, and judge accordingly. It must also keep silence in the court, so that the still small voice in which the Lord speaks, as he did with Elijah at Mount Horeb (1 Kgs 19:12–13), is not drowned out by the noise of the passions in an uproar.
A meek person will never be angry at a child, a servant, or a friend until he has first seriously weighed the matter in fair and even balances, holding the scales with a steady, impartial hand, and judging it necessary only after free and unprejudiced thought. It is said of our Lord Jesus that “he troubled himself” (John 11:33), words that describe a considered act, done for reasons he saw clearly. Things go right in the soul only when no angry feeling is admitted into the affections until it has first passed the scrutiny of the understanding and received its approval there.
Whatever passion does not come in by this door, but climbs up some other way, is a thief and a robber, and we should be on guard against it. In wartime (and such a time it always is in every sanctified soul, in the constant war between grace and corruption), care must be taken to examine every traveler, especially those who come armed: where they came from, where they are going, whose side they are on, and what they want.
So it should be in the well-governed, well-disciplined soul. Let meekness stand sentinel, and when a provocation advances, let us ask who it is we are about to be angry with, and why. What are the merits of the case? Where lay the offense? What was its nature and its tendency? What are the likely consequences of our resentment, and what harm would come from stifling it and letting it go no further? These are the questions meekness would put to the soul, and in answering them, it strips away everything that passion would otherwise suggest, and listens to reason alone, as rational creatures ought.
Three great counsels of meekness appear together in one passage of Scripture, “be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (Jas 1:19), which some observe are captured in the three names of Ishmael’s sons (Gen 25:14; 1 Chr 1:30), which Bishop Prideaux, at the start of the wars, recommended to a former pupil as the sum of his advice: Mishma, Dumah, Massa, meaning “hear, keep silence, bear.” Hear reason, keep passion silent, and then you will not find it hard to bear the provocation.
It is said of the Holy One of Israel, when the Egyptians provoked him, that “he weighed a path to his anger,” as the margin renders it from the Hebrew (Ps 78:50), meaning he measured out a path for his wrath. Justice first weighed the case, and only then did anger pour out its vials. So too, “the Lord came down to see” the pride of the Babel builders before he scattered them (Gen 11:5), and “he came down to see” the wickedness of Sodom before he overthrew it (Gen 18:21), though both sins were plain and obvious. This teaches us to consider before we grow angry, and to judge before we pass sentence, so that in this we may follow God as beloved children, and be merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful.
We read of “the meekness of wisdom” (Jas 3:13), for where wisdom is lacking, that wisdom which is profitable to direct (Eccl 10:10), that wisdom of the prudent which is to understand his way (Prov 14:8), meekness will not long be preserved. It is our rashness and lack of thought that betrays us into all the mischiefs of an ungoverned passion. The reins, which should be kept in the hand of reason, are laid instead on the neck of passion, and so we are hurried over a thousand precipices.
Nehemiah is a striking example of prudence presiding over just anger. He admits, “I was very angry when I heard their cry” (Neh 5:6–7), but that anger never once broke the laws of meekness, for it goes on: “then I consulted with myself,” or, as the Hebrew has it, “My heart consulted in me.” Before he spoke his displeasure, he withdrew into his own heart, took time for a sober thought on the matter, and only then rebuked the nobles in a solid, reasoned speech (verses 8–11), with good result (verses 12–13). In every case where passion demands instant judgment, meekness asks for more time, and insists that the matter be fairly argued, with counsel heard on both sides.
When the wronged Levite chose a very brutal way to stir the tribes of Israel (who were commonly fiery enough without a spur) against the men of Gibeah, he still referred the matter to their careful deliberation. This teaches us, when our hearts are set on revenge, to do the same: lay out how things stand, consider it, take advice, and only then speak our minds (Judg 19:30). When Job had any complaint against his servants, he was willing to hear a reasoned case, and to let them speak for themselves: “For,” he says, “what shall I do when God riseth up?” and again, “did not he that made me in the womb make him?” (Job 31:13–15).
When our hearts run hot, we would do well to ask ourselves the question God put to Cain: “Why am I wroth?” (Gen 4:6). Why am I angry at all? Why so quickly angry? Why so violently angry? Why so far carried away and dispossessed of myself by anger? What reason is there for any of this? Am I right to be angry over a gourd that sprang up in a night and perished in a night (Jonah 4:9)? Should I be stung to the quick by so sudden and passing a provocation? Will not my cooler thoughts correct this hasty resentment, and would it not be better to check it now? Such is the reasoning of the meekness of wisdom.
