CHAPTER IV: How Satan and our hearts increase this darkness and distress
them in fearfulness to offend. But to apply any such examples absolutely unto them, so as to say, Thus God intends to do with thee for such and such sins, and that God will never be merciful, this the Holy Ghost doth not speak to a believer's heart.
CHAPTER IV:
How Satan and our hearts increase this darkness and distress How Satan and our hearts increase this darkness by false conclusions from the Spirit's work, illustrated by the like in the illumination of temporaries.—The Spirit's work in both compared.
AND now the Spirit of God having proceeded thus far himself in causing such darkness and terrors of conscience in them that fear him; Satan and their own hearts, unto which he may and doth often further also leave them, may take occasion from these dispensations of the Holy Ghost, which are all holy, righteous, and true, to draw forth false and fearful conclusions against themselves and their estates, and start amazing doubts and fears of their utter want of grace, and lying under the curse threatenings of eternal wrath at the present, yea, and further, of eternal rejection for the future, and that God will never be merciful; and so lay them lower, and cast them into a further darkness and bondage than the Holy Ghost was cause of, or intended: misinterpreting and perverting all these his righteous proceedings, as interpreting that withdrawing his light and presence, and hiding himself, to be a casting them off, (thus Heman, Ps.
88:14;) so, likewise, misconstruing that temporary wrath, chastising
and wounding their spirits for the present, to be no other than the impressions and earnest of God's eternal vengeance; and arguing, from their being under wrath, themselves to be children of wrath; and misapplying the application of all those threatenings of eternal damnation made by the Spirit, but in relation and under a condition of such and such courses for the future, to be absolute against their persons, and to speak their present estate. And because such examples of men cast off are presented to them, to shew them what advantage God might take against them; they, mistaking, think they read their own destiny laid before them in them, and conclude that God will deal so with them. And thus the Apostle says of sin, Rom.
7:11, that 'sin taking occasion by the commandment,'—he misunderstanding the scope of it when a Pharisee,—'it deceived him, and therefore slew him;' and yet 'the commandment is holy, just, and good,' ver. 12. So Satan and our hearts, by occasion of these dealings of the Spirit, which are righteous and true, as himself is, who is the Spirit of truth and leads into truth, do deceive believers, and lay them in their apprehensions 'among the slain, whom God remembereth no more,' as Heman speaks, Ps. 88:5.
And as in these, so in other works and dispensations of God's Spirit, it is ordinary for Satan and our hearts to practise the like delusions and false conclusions upon them. To instance in those more common and inferior works of the Spirit on the hearts of men, not as yet savingly regenerated: the Spirit enlightening them, together with impressions of joy, and a taste of sweetness in the promises of the gospel, and of salvation revealed therein, which, under a condition of true repentance and conversion, the Spirit of God doth make the offer and tender of known unto their hearts. Thus he wrought upon the stony ground, and in the Jews by John's ministry, John 5:35; which light, and taste, and revelation of this conditional proffer, tending in a way unto salvation, by alluring their hearts to seek it,
they often through Satan's abuse of this good work, and the selfflattery of their own hearts, do too hastily take to be that grace which accompanies salvation, (ἐχόμενα τῆς σωτηρίας,) or which hath salvation annexed to it; from which the Apostle, by that very expression, Heb. 6:9, doth difference those enlightenings mentioned ver. 4. They thus mistaking these works precursory to grace, even as the Jews mistook John, that was sent but before to prepare the way for Christ, to be that very true Christ that was to come into the world, and misunderstanding the intendment of God's most blessed Spirit in such his dealings, they make up too hasty a conclusion not meant by the Spirit in those promises.
And I instance in these the rather, because these his dispensations of desertion, which we have in hand, towards them already regenerated, and those forementioned visitations towards such as often attain not to regeneration, are in an opposite way of comparison exceeding parallel, and much alike in the dispensations themselves,—as well as in the differing false conclusions which are drawn from either,—and do therefore exceedingly illustrate the one the other; God withdrawing himself as much in their sense from those who are in covenant with him, as he draws near unto and visits their hearts from on high who are as yet strangers to him. The needle of God's favour and love varying as much, that I may so allude, towards hell in their compass who shall be saved, as it doth heavenward in the other, many of whom arrive not thither. For as they are brought nigh to the kingdom of heaven, as Christ told him,
Matt. 12:34; so of true believers it may be said, that their souls do often draw near to hell in their own sense and apprehension, and 'the pains of hell do take hold upon them.' And as the other are enlightened, as Balaam was, so they are left to walk in darkness and see no light; and do taste of that wrath which the law threatens, as those other taste the goodness of that salvation the gospel offereth.
God, out of a temporary anger, chastising them for a moment, as with a temporary favour he shineth upon the other. That as they 'for a season rejoice in that light,' John 5:35, so God's dearest children
'may be for a season in much heaviness,' as the Apostle speaks, 1 Pet.
1:6, and 'walk in darkness.' And as the similitude of the dealings themselves runs thus far along in a parallel line of comparison, so it holds in the false apprehensions which Satan and our hearts do make out of both. And the cause of the mistake in each is also alike. For God's dealings with those temporary believers being so like to those dealings towards such as receive a state of adoption from him, they thence too hastily conclude their acceptance unto life. And, on the contrary, God's dealings with these temporary despairers, as I may so call them, being so like in their sense to his proceedings with those he cuts off for ever, they, in like manner, as hastily conclude ('I said in my haste,' says David) their eternal rejection. Only in the issue they prove unlike: these desertions tending but to the present discomfort of true believers through their frailty; but in the other, through their own willing neglect, their enlightenings turn to their destruction.
So as, to conclude, we must warily sever the work of God's Spirit herein from that of Satan and our own hearts, not attributing such desperate conclusions to the Spirit. Thus that depth of sorrow wherewith that humbled Corinthian was well-nigh 'swallowed up,' 2
Cor. 2:7, is ascribed unto Satan, when, ver. 11, it is made and termed one of his devices, which word doth in part refer to the Corinthian's sorrow. Thus David also imputes that his questioning, Ps. 77,
'whether God would be merciful' to him, ver. 7, unto his own heart; 'this is my infirmity,' says he, ver. 10. So as the blame herein is to be divided between Satan and our hearts.—To speak more particularly of either.