CHAPTER III: The efficient causes of this distress
belong to us! Such a one misapplies and misinterprets all God's dealings and the Scriptures against himself, and 'refuseth comfort,' as Ps. 77:2; yea, and, as at the 3d verse, when he 'remembers God, he is troubled.'
(3.) Thirdly, darkness is exceeding terrible and full of horror. When children are in the dark, they think they see fearful sights; it is therefore called the 'horror of darkness,' Gen. 15:12. So his soul here may be filled with fears and terrors from God's wrath, and of God's being an enemy to him. Heman was almost distracted and out of his wits with terrors, Ps. 88:15. So the church thought, Lam. 3; yea, and concluded it for certain that God was her enemy: 'Surely he is turned against me,' ver. 3.
CHAPTER III:
The efficient causes of this distress.
First, the Spirit; whether he hath any hand therein, and how far.
HAVING thus explicated and proved this, that this doth and may befall one who truly fears the Lord, for the more full clearing of it I will further shew— I. The efficient causes; II. The cases wherein; III. The ends for which, God leaves his children in such distresses.
I. For the efficient causes of this so woeful, desperate, dark condition of God's child; they are three which have a hand in it:—
1. God's Spirit.
2. A man's own guilty and fearful heart.
3. Satan.
1. For God's Spirit. Although he hath a hand in some part of this disquiteness, yet we must take heed how we put upon him any of those doubts and desperate fears and conclusions whereby the child of God calls his state into question. For the Spirit is not the direct efficient, or positive cause of them.
And to this end we may consider that known place, Rom. 8:15, 'Ye have not received the spirit of bondage to fear again, but the spirit of adoption;' the right understanding of which will also prevent an objection. For some have alleged this place, as if the child of God, after he had once the Spirit, sealing adoption to him, could never after fall into apprehension of bondage—that is, into fears of eternal damnation—any more, or of being bound over for hell; and that this can befall him but once, and that at his first conversion.
But if we mark the words well, the Apostle affirmeth not that fears of bondage can never befall God's child again, but his scope is to shew that the Spirit which we have received, having been once become the spirit of adoption, that Spirit is never after again the spirit of bondage to us, nor the cause of such fears. Indeed, at first conversion, and before he did witness adoption, he then revealed our estate to us to be an estate of bondage; which he then doth in love, to drive us out of it; and then indeed he was a 'spirit of bondage:' to which he hath reference when he says, 'to fear again,' because he was
once such to them, and such the Holy Ghost then might be, and then witness to them that their estates were damnable; for then it was a truth, in that they had lived in an estate of bondage, whereunto damnation was immediately due; and had they died in it, had certainly fallen upon them. But when once, by making a man a son, he hath become the spirit of adoption to him, then if ever he should put him into such apprehensions and fears again, he should witness an untruth. Therefore, for the comfort of them and all believers, he tells them that he never crosseth nor reverseth his testimony of adoption, but his office is to be ready as a witness to seal to it. But yet, though the judge doth not condemn any more, yet the jailor may trouble and affright us, and our own hearts may condemn us, 1 John
3:21. God may give Satan leave to east us into prison, to clap bolts upon us again, and to become a lying spirit of bondage to us, as he became a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab's prophets; and he may give up our hearts to be fettered with 'the cords of our own sins,'
Prov. 5:22, and to be ensnared with its own inventions, and fears, and jealousies.
For a more distinct understanding of this, to manifest how it comes to pass that all this befalls God's child, I will shew how far the Holy
Ghost proceedeth in it, and puts forth his hand towards it; and what Satan's work is, where he strikes in, and our own hearts, to work further and deeper distress than the Holy Ghost by himself alone intended. For unto these three several hands is the whole to be ascribed, and the works of God's Spirit, and his concurrence therein, carefully to be severed from Satan's, as light from darkness at the first.
Thus far, then, the Spirit of God may concur in this darkness that befalls his Child:—
(1.) Privatively. He may suspend his testimony, and the execution of his office of witnessing adoption; he may withdraw his comfortable presence, and hide himself for a moment, and conceal his love, as other fathers will sometimes do; as David did, when yet his heart was towards Absalom. He may not admit him to see his face, he may shut a son out of doors, when yet he doth not cast him off. He may 'retain their sins,' as Christ's expression is, John 20:23,—that is, call in the patent of his pardon which he had passed under his hand and seal,
'in earth,' that is, in their own consciences; take it out of their hands and custody, and call for it homo again into the pardon-office 'in heaven,' Matt. 18:18, and there keep it. And also when Satan comes and gives in a false witness and evidence, and our own hearts thereupon likewise condemn us, the Holy Ghost may stand by, as it were, silent, and say nothing to the contrary, but forbear to contradict Satan by any loud testimony or secret rebuking him, as he doth at other times; as Zech. 3:1, 2.
(2.) Positively. He may further proceed:— [1.] To reveal and represent God as angry with his child for such and such sins formerly committed, and make him sensible thereof; not barely by concealing his love, but by making impressions of his wrath upon his conscience immediately, and not by outward crosses only.
Thus, Isa. 57:17, 18, God not only 'hid himself and was wroth,'—that is, expressed his wrath by hiding himself,—but 'I smote him and was wroth;' and ver. 16, he contended and was wroth,'—that is, fought against him as an enemy, as Isa. 63:10, and this with his wrath upon his spirit. For it follows that the spirit was ready to fail, and the soul which he had made. So as it was the spirit which was the white God shot at and wounded, and that be deep that it was ready to fail and come to nothing: which Solomon calls by way of distinction 'a wounded spirit,' which who can bear? and differenceth it from all
other afflictions upon the outward man, which strike the spirit but through the clothes of the body mediately; for, says he, 'the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity'—that is, all such outward afflictions wherein it suffers but by way of sympathy and compassion. But when the spirit itself is laid bare and naked, and wounded immediately by God's wrath, which only can reach it and wound it, who can bear this? Thus towards Heman, God did not only hide his face from him,
Ps. 88:14, but 'his fierce wrath went over him,' and 'thy terrors,' says he, 'cut me off,' ver. 16; not wounded him only, but even cut him off.
And such impressions of immediate wrath, as expressions and effects of God's anger, the Holy Ghost may make upon the spirit of his child.
For it is a truth that God is angry and wroth with them when they sin; which anger he may make known, not only by dumb signs in outward crosses and effects, but by an immediate witnessing, and plain and express speaking so much to their consciences, and making them to feel so much, by scalding drops of his hot displeasure let fall thereon. And as other fathers shew their anger by whipping the bodies of their children, upon this ground, as says the apostle, because they are the 'fathers of our flesh,' Heb. 12:9; so, for the like reason, may God shew his anger and chastise his children by lashing their spirits: for he is the 'Father of our spirits,' as he speaks in the same place. And likewise our spirits, and the very 'bones and marrow' of them, do lie 'open and naked to him with whom we have to do;' and his word and Spirit being 'quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,' are able 'to divide,' and cut even to the 'bones and marrow,' as the same author speaks, Heb. 4:12, 13.
Yet withal, so as when he expresseth his wrath thus upon their consciences, he doth not witness that this is an eternal wrath which he hath conceived against them; for it is but a temporary displeasure,
'it is but for a moment,' as Isaiah speaks, the indignation of a father; nor is it a wrath which revenging justice hath stirred in him, but fatherly affection, Heb. 12:6. And though the Spirit tells them that
God is displeased, yet never that they are accursed; that is a false collection made out of it. Yet— [2.] The Holy Ghost may proceed yet further herein; so far as to bring forth, and shew him, and shake over him the rod of his eternal wrath, especially when he hath provoked Christ by presumptuous sins already, and to prevent his going on frowardly in the way of his heart. And this, both by presenting to them and setting on all those threatenings, which do hypothetically and conditionally threaten, even to believers, eternal damnation: such as that which we find,
Rom. 7:13, 'If ye live after the flesh, ye,' even you believers, 'shall die;' for there is a truth in all such threatenings, so conditionally propounded, which reacheth God's dearest children, under a condition, and with relation to going on in sin. To stop him and prevent him in which, when he is agoing on frowardly in the way of his heart, the Holy Spirit may bring home such threatenings to him, with respect to such a course as he is entering into, and accordingly stir up the fear of that damnation thus threatened, if he should go on in those sins he hath begun to commit. But to apply threatening of eternal damnation simply to his person, as that thou shalt die eternally, this the Holy Ghost doth not speak to the heart of a believer, when he is a believer. And again also, the Holy Ghost may represent to him and mind him of all those examples of men in whom, for their going on in sin, 'his soul hath had no pleasure,' Heb.
10:39; and of God's dealings with them,—as how he sware against many of the Israelites, for their provocations of him, 'that they should never enter into his rest;' and how he rejected Esau for the despisal of his birthright,—and all this with this end, to startle and awaken him; and with this intimation, that for such and such sins
God might in like manner deal with him. For these and the like examples doth the Spirit of God set before the believing Hebrews,
Heb. 3:12; and the believing Corinthians, 1 Cor. 10:5–13, to keep