CHAPTER XII: The cases ordinary wherein God doth leave his in darkness
which phrase would seem to note out something external. God had took him aside into heaven, and spoke wonderful things to him, and when he comes down again, Satan must take him to task and batter him; the flesh would have grown proud if it had not been thus beaten black and blue. He had been in heaven, and heard the language of angels and saints, 'things not to be uttered;' and now he must hear by devils the language of hell. This buffeting, I take it, was by Satanical injections.
[2.] Secondly, before God doth dispense great revelations and comforts, he doth sometimes desert. And as before great distresses, which he means to lead his children into, he fills their hearts with joy unspeakable and glorious, to strengthen them against the approaching conflict, (thus God, to hearten his Son against that great agony in the garden and combat on the cross, transfigureth him on the mount first;) so, on the contrary, sometimes before great revelations and comforts, to make them sweet and the more welcome, God useth to withdraw himself then most; thereby preparing the heart for them, as physicians do the body for cordials.
The greatest spring-tide of comfort comes in upon the lowest ebb of distress. Distress enlargeth the heart, and makes it thirst after comfort the more, whereby it is made more capable of consolation; for that rule holds usually true, 2 Cor. 1:5, that 'as sufferings abound, so comforts shall abound also.'
CHAPTER XII:
The cases ordinary wherein God doth leave his in darkness
The cases ordinary wherein God doth leave his in darkness.
2. Now, secondly, we come to the more ordinary cases wherein God dispenseth this darkness. Ere I name particulars, I will premise concerning them this general rule: We shall find that God goes not constantly by the same rule in the dispensation of them,—so as no man can say that in such and such cases God will and doth desert men, or that he always doth so,—but is various in his dealings herein.
For some men he leaves for a while in darkness, in and upon and immediately after their conversion; their sun riseth in an eclipse, and continueth so till noon, yea, till their night. On the country, towards others sometimes he never shines in more comforts on them than at their first conversion. Again, some he deserts upon a gross sin committed; to others he never reveals himself more at any time than after a gross sin humbled for and repented of, thereby to shew the freeness of his grace. So likewise, some that have less grace and have lived more loosely, he fills their sails at death, and they have
'abundant entrance,' with full sail, into the 'kingdom of Christ.'
Others that have walked more strictly with God, and whose ends you would expect should be most glorious, he leaves to fears and doubts, and their sun doth set in a cloud.
And the reasons why God is thus various in these his dealings is both because spiritual comforts tend not simply ad esse, but bene esse; not to the absolute being of a Christian, but his comfortable wellbeing: and also because in respect of their dispensation they are to be reckoned in the rank of temporal rewards; and though light and assurance is not an earthly but a heavenly blessing, yet it is but a temporary blessing. And therefore, as the promises of other temporal good things are not absolute, no more are the promises to give assurance to a believer absolute, as those to give him heaven and salvation are. Therefore likewise, on the contrary, darkness and
distress of conscience is but a temporal chastisement, as outward crosses are, differing from them only in the matter of them; the one being conversant about things of the outward man; this of the inward, namely, a man's spiritual estate. Hence, therefore, in the dispensation of both, though God always goes by some rule, as in all other dealings of his, yet so as he varies and deals differently with his children therein; as he doth in dispensing outward prosperity and adversity, 'setting the one against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him,' as Solomon says, Eccles. 7:14, that is, gives such cross and contrary opposite instances in both kinds, that men might not 'find him out' in these ways, or 'trace' him, as the phrase is, Rom. 11:33, not so as to say certainly and infallibly what he means to do in such and such cases. Indeed, in the world to come, he makes even with all the world, how differing soever his dispensations of rewards or punishments have been here; and what is behindhand to any one, he then pays with respect to what they have received.
Thus in matter of spiritual joy and assurance, God may vouchsafe it to one that hath not feared and obeyed him so much as one that walks in darkness; but then if any one hath received more earnestpennies beforehand, and hath not walked answerably, God considers it as an aggravation of his sin, as he did in Solomon, whose sin is aggravated by this, 1 Kings 11:9, 10, that he sinned against God, who 'had appeared to him twice.' Otherwise, if these comforts make a man, in any proportion to such cost, more fruitful than others are, I see not but that God, who crowns his own graces, will reward them the more; this being one means sanctified to some to work more grace, as afflictions are to others. Thus it is in like manner in desertings and distress of mind; they being a temporal punishment,
God is as various in them. So as one of more grace, or whom God intends more grace unto, shall be afflicted and forsaken, when one of less shall 'reign as king,' as it is said of the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 4:8, in case of worldly prosperity. So he shall have peace and liberty of
mind, triumph over Satan, and hell, and discomfort; when apostles in comparison—that is, men eminent in grace—are, in respect of spiritual conflicts, made 'spectacles to angels and men.'
This rule premised, the ordinary cases follow:— (1.) First, in case of carnal confidence. Thus, Ps. 30, David had been in great distress of mind for a while, as appears by what is said, ver.
3, 5, that 'though heaviness be over-night, yet joy cometh in the morning;' and in this sunshine David looks about him, and sees never a cloud appear in view that might again eclipse his comfort.
Than he grew confident, upon no other ground but present sense, thinking it would always be so with him, and so trusted in that comfort he had at present, as if now he could never have been troubled so again, as in such cases good souls are apt to think: 'Now I shall never be removed,' says David. This was carnal confidence, and God, to confound it, hides himself again, ver. 7.
Now, carnal confidence is either— [1.] First, when we trust to false signs shuffled in among true; which is incident even to believers that are in the state of grace, and have good evidences to shew for it; who yet, together with those sound evidences, do often rake together many other signs that are but probable, yea, and which are deceitful, and but common to hypocrites. This we are apt to do, to take many things as infallible signs which are not. As many are said in Daniel to cleave to the better side by flattery; so in a man's heart, many false signs will come in, and flatter a man, and give their testimony, and speak the same thing true evidences do. Now God, to discover which are false, and which are not, leaves a man; and then he will find all his false signs to leave him, as flatterers use to do; and to be but as broken teeth among those which are sound and whole, to fail and disquiet him; like reeds
that break when any stress is put to them, and so to run into his hand. Or— [2.] Secondly, when we put too much of our confidence upon signs, though true, and trust too much to comforts and former revelations, and witnesses of God's Spirit, and to our graces, which are all but creatures, acts of God upon us and in us. When, therefore, we let all the weight of our support to hang on these, God in this case often leaves us, 'that no flesh should rejoice in his presence.' Or—
[3.] Thirdly, when we think graces and comforts are so rooted in ourselves, that we neglect God and Christ, for the upholding, increase, and exercise of them; then God withdraws the light of these, that we may have recourse to the spring and well-head. As too much confidence in the power of inherent grace caused Christ to leave Peter to the power of sin, so the like confidence also in the power of grace, causeth God to leave us to the guilt of, and terrors that come by, sin.
(2.) The second case: for neglecting such precious opportunities of comforts and refreshings as God hath vouchsafed; as for the neglect of holy duties, wherein God did offer to draw nigh to us, the sacraments, prayer, &c. So, Cant. 5:4–7, Christ stood at the door and knocked; that is, moved the heart of the church there to pay or perform the like duty in which he useth to come into the heart and visit it; he offered to assist her, and began to enlarge and prepare her heart, but she made excuses. Upon this, Christ went presently away; only he left behind him an impression, a scent of himself in her heart, ver. 4–6, enough to stir her up to seek him, in the sense of the want of him; as in desertion God useth to do.
(3.) Thirdly, in case of not exercising the graces which a man hath, not stirring them up, &c.; when Christians are, as it were, between
sleeping and waking, which was the church's condition in that Cant.
5:2; then also Christ deserts. To perform duties with the inward man half awake, as it were, and half asleep; to pray as if we prayed not,
(as, on the contrary, we are 'to use the world as if we used it not;) thus to do the work of the Lord negligently, this provoketh God to absent himself; as he did there, Cant. 5:2. And so, 2 Peter 1:9, 'He that lacketh these things,' that is, useth them not, neglecting to 'add grace to grace,' (as the former words expound that phrase; and it agrees with the like elsewhere used; as, Matt. 25:29, he that useth not his talent, is said not to have it, 'To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not,' &c.,) a blindness soon falls on such a man, and he forgetteth all that ever he had, as was opened before.
And, indeed, there is no reason that a man should have present comfort of future grace, when he neglects the use of present grace.
Isa. 64:7, God complains that there was 'none that stirred up himself;' and for this 'God was wroth.' Whereas otherwise, ver. 5,
'God meets with him that worketh righteousness,' and rejoiceth in him that rejoiceth to work righteousness; God meets such, and rejoiceth with, and draws nigh unto them. But others, that stir not up themselves, God rouseth and stirs them up by terrors: 'He that walketh according to this rule, peace be on him,' Gal. 6:16; not else.
Though comfort is not always the present necessary fruit of righteousness, yet it is never without it.
(4.) Fourthly, in case of some gross sin committed against light, unhumbled for, or proving scandalous, or of old sins long forgotten. I will give instances of each particular:—
[1.] First, for some gross sin committed against light. An instance for this is David; who, though he was a man after God's heart, yet we meet with him often complaining, as one that was frequently in these desertions. Amongst other times, once in the 119th Psalm, verse 25,
28, where 'his soul cleaveth unto the dust,' and is even at death's door, for he says, 'quicken me:' he means it in regard of the sense of God's 'favour, which is better than life;' which also is the meaning of that phrase, that his 'soul did cleave unto the dust,—that is, was brought to the apprehension of death; therefore, Ps. 22:15, Christ upon the cross, of whom the psalm is made, cries out that 'God had forsaken him, and brought his soul to the dust of death.' And David says here also, that 'his soul melted, and was dissolved;' even all the powers of it were loosened and failed within him at the sense of God's wrath, even as wax melts before the fire. Ordinarily we find in Scripture no such eminent desertion, but we find the cause of it not far off, if we read on; so here, in the 29th verse, 'Remove from me,' says David, 'the way of lying.' He points to the sore of his heart, and wherein his grief lay. David, among other corruptions, had a lying spirit. In 1 Sam. 21:2, David very roundly telleth two or three lies together, when he fled from Saul and came to Ahimelech, who, fearing to harbour him because of Saul, asked him why he was alone; it being a suspicious thing that he, so great it man, should have no greater train to attend him; and did argue that he fled as a proscribed person, and then it would be dangerous to foster him. To this he answers roundly, 'that the king had commanded him a business,'— there is one lie; and that 'the king had commanded him secresy in it,'—there is another; and because 'my servants should not know it, I have sent them away' to several places,—there is a third. And again, at the 8th verse, 'I have not brought my sword, because the king's business required haste,'—there is a fourth lie. David went on here in a way of lying; they were all made and deliberate lies. Other such like speeches of his—as that, 1 Sam. 27:8, 10, where he told Achish, 'that he went against the south of Judah, and against the south of the Kenites,' ver. 10, whenas he went against 'the Geshurites and the Amalekites,' ver. 8—some excuse, because those nations bordered over against the south of Judah and the south of the Kenites, and so
make out a truth in that his speech; but yet the last verse, that says Achish believed David, implies that as he understood it, so David indeed meant it, as if he had gone up against his own countrymen; and then it can no way be excused. These, therefore, being gross sins, sins against light, as of all sins lying must needs be supposed to be, because it is against that truth which riseth up in the mind, and is a sin wherein a man's mind shews art, cunning, and wit, and a sin which, when the truth is discovered, proves exceeding shameful and scandalous; therefore this sin, especially when it had been some while gone on in by him, which therefore he calls a 'way of lying,' lay heavy on him long after. Therefore he entreats God to take the load of it off, 'Remove from me the way of lying.' It was the load hereof which did lie so heavy on him, as it pressed his soul to the dust of death, as he had before complained.
[2.] So for the second particular, in case a sin be not thoroughly humbled for and confessed; or if when we committed it, we had shifts to keep us from thinking it to be sin, or not so heinous, or were doubtful whether it were a sin or no, and so were loath to acknowledge it to be a sin, and to burden ourselves with it in our confessions; but our hearts stood out rather to clear ourselves in it, as it is likely David did in the case of his murder of Uriah. He had done it so cunningly as he thought he could clear himself and wash his hands of it; or it was but the chance of war, says he, that did cut him off—'The sword devoureth one as well as another,'—and so he excuseth it, 2 Sam. 11:25. God in this case brings him to the rack, Ps.
32. It is thought that psalm was made, as well as the 51st Psalm, upon that occasion of this murder; and indeed it may seem so, they are tuned so near together, as might be shewn in many particulars.
These sins being known and become scandalous, David was to confess publicly; as in the end he did, when, in making the 51st
Psalm, he stood to do penance in a white sheet, that I may so speak.
Now David was loath to come to this; that murder being done so cunningly, he could hardly be brought to confess it so much as in secret, much less publicly. God in this case lays his hand so sorely on him that his 'natural moisture was dried up,' as that psalm tells us; for in men troubled in conscience, their trouble of mind casts their bodies often into as great heats as men that are in burning fevers. So,
Ps. 102:3, in the like fit, he says, 'his bones were burnt like a hearth,' and this was without intermission, 'day and night;' and thus he lay
'roaring,' (so he expresseth his carriage in his torture,) like a malefactor on the rack; though haply he cried out for mercy to God, yet because not with a broken heart, God therefore accounted it but as roaring,—that is, the voice of a beast, as it were, rather than the voice of a man humbled for his sin. And why was David put to the rack thus? He would not confess and humble himself for his sin; 'I was silent, and yet roared,' ver. 3; a still, broken-hearted confession might have saved all this torment. But when in the end 'I said I would confess my sin,' ver. 5, and in his heart he resolved once to lay open all that sin of murder and adultery in the circumstances of them, then God pardoned him, as you know he did; for Nathan coming to him, told him, as soon as but a word of confession began to fall from him, 'that his sins were pardoned.' And yet after that, as appears in the 51st Psalm, God did not yet 'restore comfort' and 'the joy of his salvation' to him, for there he prays for it in the sense of the want of it; not until he had publicly confessed it also, and thoroughly humbled himself; it having caused 'the enemies of God to blaspheme,' God would have a public satisfaction given.
So when the incestuous person had committed that sin, 1 Cor. 5:1, 9, for which, as then he was not humbled, (for afterwards, in 2 Cor. 2:7, when he was humbled indeed, he bids them comfort him,) yet till that his humiliation was apparent, he bids them to 'deliver such a one to Satan,' to the jailer, to the tormentor, to the prince of
darkness, to terrify him and afflict his spirit. Now, the meaning of that delivering him up to Satan was, that he should be solemnly excommunicated; which, when it is performed as it ought to be, 'in the name of the Lord Jesus,' and with the power of the Lord Jesus, then, as the church cuts them off from communion with them, so God from communion with himself, and he withdraws all fellowship with their spirits, as was before declared, and so leaves them alone in darkness and to desertions. And not only so, but 'delivereth them up to Satan,' not with a commission to carry them on to more sin,—for the end propounded by the Apostle was thereby to 'destroy the flesh,' ver. 5, not to nourish it by provoking him to more sin,—but to terrify and afflict his conscience, and to stir up therein the guilt of sin, and terrors for it, which God sanctifies to humble man and to mortify the flesh. And thus when that Corinthian was excommunicated, and given up to him, did Satan deal with him; for, 2 Cor. 2:7, he was nigh being 'swallowed up of too much sorrow,' and this occasioned by Satan, 'whose devices we are not ignorant of,' says the Apostle, ver.
11. Now, as every ordinance hath a proper peculiar work it is appointed for, an inward effect to accompany it in a man's spirit, so this; and that proper effect and inward working and event of this great ordinance of excommunication is terror, and sorrow, and desertion of spirit, thereby to humble a man; even as it is the proper effect of sacraments to convey comfort and assurance, and to convey the 'seal of the Spirit.' And when this ordinance is neglected or omitted, when yet gross and scandalous sins require it; then a man belonging to God, God himself often works thus, and inflicts this on him without that ordinance. Thus he dealt with David and others after gross sins. God inwardly excommunicates and casts them out of his presence, and from all comforts in his ordinances, although they are not refused by men to come to them; dealing herein as a father that is a public magistrate, with an unruly child, after some great misdemeanour, though he cast him not off, yet he may send him to
the jail, to be for example's sake imprisoned: for the jailer to take him, and to clap irons on him, to have him down into the dungeon, where he sees no light, and into the little-case, where he is in so strait a condition as he can neither sit, nor stand, nor lie, as Elihu expresseth it, Job 36:16; he calleth it 'bringing into a strait place,' and 'binding them in fetters and cords of affliction; and then he shews them their transgression, and wherein they have exceeded,' ver. 8, 9.
[3.] Yea, and thirdly, this God doth not only presently after the sins were committed, but sometimes a long while after, and that when they have been often confessed. Yea, and after that God hath pardoned them also in our consciences, as well as in heaven, yet the guilt may return again and leave us in darkness. Thus, Job 13:26, for 'the sins of his youth,' which questionless he had humbled himself for, and had assurance of the pardon of, yet God did 'write bitter things against him' for them many years after, and 'made him possess them,' as himself speaks. God gave him over to the jailer, and put him into the little-ease in prison: 'Thou puttest my feet into the stocks,' says he, ver. 27. For as the power of sin and the law of sin is but in part done away in our members, so in our consciences the guilt of sin is likewise but in part done away, in regard of our apprehensions of the pardon of it; and therefore as those lusts we had thought dead, and that they would never have risen again, do sometimes revive and trouble us afresh, coming with new assaults, so in like manner may the guilt of those sins revive which we thought long before had been pardoned; and after the commission of some new act, or forgetfulness of the old, and security about them, God may let them loose upon us afresh, that we shall look upon them, as if they never had been pardoned.
Now the reason of all these particulars, both why gross sins, especially if against light, when not confessed thoroughly, should yet after many years cast us into such fits of desertion, is—
Because therein we rebel against God's Spirit; and that Spirit, ita nos tractat, ut à nobis tractatur, doth deal with us as we with him. If you grieve him, he grieves you; if you rebel against him, he fights against you as an enemy. So, Isa. 63:10, 'They rebelled, and vexed his Holy
Spirit; therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.' Now to sin against light is called rebellion; so Job
24:13. When men go about to extinguish and darken the light of direction which God had set up in their hearts to guide their paths by, God puts out the light of comfort, and so leaves them to darkness.
But especially then when our hearts are so full of guile, as we plead that they are no sins, or extenuate them, as David in all likelihood did, Ps. 32; in reference to which he says, in ver. 2 of that psalm, that 'that man is a blessed man in whom is no guile;' and in the 51st
Psalm, ver. 6, 'Thou desirest truth in the inward parts.' David had dealt guilefully and deceitfully in that sin. If man keeps a sin under his tongue, and will not be convinced of it, nor bring it forth by confession, God in that case brings him to the rack, as they do traitors, to confess; and if it be that any of our old sins revive and cause these terrors, it is because we began to look on them as past and gone, and thought we needed not go on to humble ourselves any more for them, making account they are so buried as that they will never rise again, whenas the remembrance of them should keep us low and humble us all our days. It is laid to the charge of them in Ezek. 16:22, 'that they remembered not that they lay in their blood.'
We are apt to think that time wears out the guilt of sins; but to God they are as fresh as if they had been committed yesterday, and therefore nothing wears them out but repentance. Great sins forgiven must not be forgotten.
(5.) Fifthly, in case of a stubborn, stiff spirit, under outward afflictions; when we will not mend nor stoop to God. This may be part of the case mentioned Isa. 57, where God alleging the reason why he contended with a poor soul of his, he gives an account of it.
Ver. 17, you shall see where the quarrel began: 'For the iniquity of his covetousness I was wroth;' that is, for some inordinate affection, which we call concupiscence; he mentioneth not a gross act of sin committed, so much as some lust harboured: for which God began to be angry, and to shew the effects of that his anger in smiting him, haply with some outward cross first, 'I was wroth and smote him:' and when that did no good, God began to be more angry, and to hide himself, 'I hid my face;' and this he speaks of inward affliction, which he also calleth, ver. 16, 'contending with the soul,' and so far leaving it as that the 'spirit was ready to fail.' It came to inward affliction in the end. And he further intimates the cause of all this, 'He went on frowardly in the way of his heart.' When lighter and outward strokes will not take us off, God leaves and deserts our spirits, and wounds them. And the reason is, for in this case what course else should God take? For either he must give him up to hardness of heart, and leave him to his stubbornness, and so he should have lost his child; but that God is resolved he will not do: 'I will heal him,' I saith he, ver.
18. When, therefore, the heart remains stubborn under other strokes, he hath no way left, in his ordinary course and progress in the way of means, but to lay strokes upon his spirit, and wound that. And this yoke is like to break and tame him, if any; for this he cannot bear.
Other outward afflictions man's natural spirit, stoutness, and stubbornness, may bear, and hath borne, even in heathen men; they have endured anything rather than be put out of their way—'The spirit of man will sustain its infirmities;' but in this 'the spirit fails in them,' ver. 16. Other afflictions are but particular—but as talking some stars of comfort out of the firmament, when others are still left to shine to them. But when God's countenance is hid, the sun itself,
the fountain of light, is darkened, and so a general darkness befalls them. And therefore then the heart is driven to God, and broke off from all things else; and then God delights to restore and to comfort a man again, 'I will restore comfort to him,' ver. 18.
(6.) Sixthly, in case of deserting his truth, and not professing it and appearing for it when he calls us to do it. In this case he left many of the martyrs; many of whom, especially until those in Queen Mary's days, (when with the gospel's increase, and the light of it, God gave more strength also;) and some then also did desert the truth for a while, and then God in respect of comfort deserted them; and then they recovering God's favour again upon repentance, and a new resolution taken to stick to the profession of the truth whatever came of it, that their desertion made them the more bold and resolute. And this was in part Jonah's case, who having a commission sealed him to go to Nineveh with a message from God, he withdrew himself, and went another way; and God in the midst of his security cast him into a whale's belly: and when he was there, God withdraws himself from him, as if he meant never to own him more, insomuch that Jonah says, chap. 2:4, 'Then I said, I am cast out of thy presence.' And there is this equity in this dealing of God thus with us: that as when we are ashamed of Christ, the punishment fitted to it is, that Christ will be ashamed of us; so when we will not witness for God, there is no reason his Spirit should witness to us. And so, when we seem to evade persecution for the cross of Christ, then it is meet God should meet with us, and take us in hand himself, which is far worse.
(7.) Seventhly, in case of unthankfulness, and too common an esteem had of assurance, and light of God's countenance, and of freedom from those terrors and doubtings which others are in; which is a sin
Christians are apt to run into. For as the light of the sun, because it is ordinary, is not regarded, none mind it or look at the sun, but, as he