CHAPTER XXI.—Of quieting the spirit in troubles for sin; and objections answered
CHAPTER XXI.—Of quieting the spirit in troubles for sin; and objections answered
To begin with troubles of the spirit, which indeed are the spirit of troubles, as disabling that which should uphold a man in all his troubles. A spirit set in tune and assisted by a higher spirit, will stand out against ordinary assaults, but when God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall seem contrary to our spirits, whence then shall we find relief?
Here all is spiritual, God a Spirit, the soul a spirit, the terrors spiritual, the devil, who joins with these, a spirit, yea that which the soul fears for the time to come, is spiritual, and not only spiritual, but eternal, unless it pleaseth God at length to break out of the thick cloud wherewith he covers himself, and shine upon the soul, as in his own time he will.
In this state,* comforts themselves are uncomfortable to the soul. It quarrels with everything. The better things it hears of, the more it is vexed. Oh! what is this to me, what have I to do with these comforts? the more happiness may be had, the more is my grief. As for comforts from God's inferior blessings, as friends, children, estate,
&c., the soul is ready to misconstrue God's end in all, as not intending any good to him thereby.
In this condition God doth not appear in his own shape to the soul, but in the shape of an enemy; and, when God seems against us, who shall stand for us? Our blessed Saviour in his agony had the angels to comfort him; but had he been a mere man, and not assisted by the Godhead, it was not the comfort, no not of angels that could have upheld him, in the sense of his Father's withdrawing his countenance from him. Alas! then, what will become of us in such a case, if we be not supported by a spirit of power and the power of an almighty
Spirit?
If all the temptations of the whole world and hell itself were mustered together, they were nothing to this, whereby the great God sets himself contrary to his poor creature.* None can conceive so, but those that have felt it. If the hiding of his face will so trouble the soul, what will his frown and angry look do? Needs must the soul be in a woeful plight, whenas God seems not only to be absent from it, but an enemy to it. When a man sees no comfort from above, and looks inward and sees less; when he looks about him, and sees nothing but evidences of God's displeasure; beneath him, and sees nothing but desperation; clouds without, and clouds within, nothing but clouds in his condition here, he had need of faith to break through all, and see sun through the thickest cloud.
Upon this, the distressed soul is in danger to be set upon by a temptation, called the temptation of blasphemy, tentatio blasphemiarum, that is, to entertain bitter thoughts against God, and especially against the grace and goodness of God, wherein he desires to make himself most known to his creature. In those that have wilfully resisted divine truths made known unto them, and, after taste, despised them, a persuasion that God hath forsaken them, set on strongly by Satan, hath a worse effect. It stirs up a hellish hatred against God, carrying them to a revengeful desire of opposing whatsoever is God's, though not always openly, for then they should lose the advantage of doing hurt, yet secretly and subtilly, and under pretence of the contrary. To this degree of blasphemy God's children never fall, yet they may feel the venom of corruption stirring in their hearts, against God and his ways which he takes with them; and this adds greatly to the depth of their affliction, when afterward they think with themselves what hellish stuff they carry in their souls.
This is not so much discerned in the temptation, but after the fit is somewhat remitted.
In this kind of desertion, seconded with this kind of temptation, the way is to call home the soul, and to check it, and charge it to trust in God, even though he shews himself an enemy; for it is but a show, he doth but put on a mask, with a purpose to reveal himself the more
graciously afterward. His manner is to work by contraries. In this condition God lets in some few beams of light, whereby the soul casts a longing look upon God, even when he seems to forsake it. It will, with Jonah in the belly of hell, look back to the holy temple of God,
Jonah 2:4, it will steal a look unto Christ. Nothing more comfortable in this condition, than to fly to him, that by experience knew what this kind of forsaking meant, for this very end that he might be the fitter to succour us in the like distress, Heb. 4:15, 16.
Learn, therefore, to appeal from God to God, oppose his gracious nature, his sweet promises to such as 'are in darkness, and see no fight,' Isa. 50:10, inviting them to trust in him, though there appear to the eye of sense and reason nothing but darkness. Here make use of that sweet relation of God in Christ becoming a Father to us.
'Doubtless thou art our Father,' Isa. 63:16. Flesh would make a doubt of it, and thou seemest to hide thy face from us, yet doubtless thou art our Father, and hast in former time shewed thyself to be so; we will not leave thee till we have a blessing from thee, till we have a kinder look from thee. This wrestling will prevail at length, and we shall have such a sight of him, as shall be an encouragement for the time to come, when 'we shall be able to comfort others, with those comforts whereby we have been refreshed ourselves,' 2 Cor. 1:4. With the saint's case remember the saint's course, which is to trust in God.
So Christ the Head of the church commits himself to that God, whose favour for the present he felt not; so Job resolves upon trust, though
God should kill him, Job 13:15.
Obj. But these holy persons were not troubled with the guilt of any particular sin, but I feel the just displeasure of God kindled against me for many and great offences.
Ans. True it is, that sin is not so sweet in the committing, as it is heavy and bitter in the reckoning. When Adam had once offended
God, paradise itself was not paradise to him. The presence of God, which was most comfortable before, was now his greatest terror, had not God, out of his free, infinite, and preventing mercy, come betwixt
him and hell, by the promise of the blessed seed. This seed was made sin to satisfy for sin; sin passive in himself to satisfy for sin active in us, 2 Cor. 5:21.
When God once charges sin upon the soul, alas! who shall take it off? when the great God shall frown, the smiles of the creature cannot refresh us. Sin makes us afraid of that which should be our greatest comfort; it puts a sting into every other evil. Upon the seizing of any evil, either of body, soul, or condition, the guilty soul is embittered and enraged; for from that which it feels, it fore-speaks to itself worse to come, it interprets all that befalls as the messengers of an angry God, sent in displeasure to take revenge upon it. This weakeneth the courage, wasteth the spirits, and blasteth the beauty even of God's dearest ones, Ps. 39:11. There is not the stoutest man breathing, but if God sets his conscience against him it will pull him down, and lay him flat, and fill him with such inward terrors, as he shall be more afraid of himself, than of all the world beside. This were a doleful case, if God had not provided in Christ a remedy for this great evil of evils, and if the Holy Spirit were not above the conscience, able as well to pacify it by the sense of God's love in Christ, as to convince it of sin, and the just desert thereby.
Obj. But my sins are not the sins of an ordinary man, my spots are not as the spots of the rest of God's children.
Conceive of God's mercy as no ordinary mercy, and Christ's obedience as no ordinary obedience. There is something in the very greatness of sin, that may encourage us to go to God, for the greater our sins are, the greater the glory of his powerful mercy pardoning, and his powerful grace in healing will appear. The great God delights to shew his greatness in the greatest things. Even men glory, when they are put upon that, which may set forth their worth in any kind.
God 'delighteth in mercy,' Mic. 7:18. It pleaseth him, nothing so well, as being his chief name, which then we take in vain, when we are not moved by it to come unto him.
That which Satan would use as an argument to drive us from God, we should use as a strong plea with him. Lord, the greater my sins are, the greater will be the glory of thy pardoning mercy. David, after his heinous sins, cries not for mercy, but for 'abundance of mercy;'
'according to the multitude of thy mercies, do away mine offences,'
Ps. 51:1. His mercy is not only above his own works, but above ours too. If we could sin more than he could pardon, then we might have some reason to despair. Despair is a high point of atheism, it takes away God and Christ both at once. Judas, in betraying our Saviour, was an occasion of his death as man, but in despairing he did what lay in him to take away his life as God.
When, therefore, conscience, joining with Satan, sets out the sin in its colours, labour thou by faith to set out God in his colours, infinite in mercy and lovingkindess. Here lies the art of a Christian; it is divine rhetoric thus to persuade and set down the soul. Thy sins are great, but Adam's was greater, who being so newly advanced above all the creatures, and taken into so near an acquaintance with God, and having ability to persist in that condition if he would, yet willingly overthrew himself and all his whole posterity, by yielding to a temptation, which though high, as being promised to be like unto
God, yet such as he should and might have resisted. No sin we can commit, can be a sin of so tainting and spreading a nature; yet, as he fell by distrust, so he was recovered by trusting, and so must we relying on a second Adam, whose obedience and righteousness from thence reigns, Rom. 5:17, to the taking away not only of that one sin of Adam, and ours in him, but of all, and not only to the pardon of all sin, but to a right of everlasting life. The Lord thinks himself disparaged, when we have no higher thoughts of his mercy than of our sins, when we bring God down to our model, whenas 'the heavens are not so much higher than the earth, than his thoughts of love and goodness are above the thoughts of our unworthiness,' Isa.
55:9. It is a kind of taking away the Almighty to limit his boundless mercy in Christ, within the narrow scantling* of our apprehension; yet infidelity doth this, which should stir up in us a loathing of it above all other sins. But this is Satan's fetch,† when once he hath
brought us into sins against the law, then to bring us into sins of a higher nature, and deeper danger, even against the blessed gospel, that so there may be no remedy, but that mercy itself might condemn us.
All the aggravations that conscience, and Satan helping it, are able to raise sin unto, cannot rise to that degree of infiniteness, that God's mercy in Christ is of. If there be a spring of sin in us, there is a spring of mercy in him, and a fountain open daily to wash ourselves in,
Zech. 13:1. If we sin oft, let us do as St Paul, who prayed oft 'against the prick of the flesh,' 2. Cor. 12:7, 8. If be a devil of long continuance, yet fasting and prayer will drive him out at length, Mat.
17:21.
Nothing keeps the soul more down than sins of long continuance, because corruption of nature hath gotten such strength in them, as nature is added to nature, and custom doth so determine and sway the soul one way, that men think it impossible to recover themselves.
They see one link of sin draw on another, all making a chain to fasten them to destruction. They think of necessity they must be damned, because custom hath bred a necessity of sinning in them, and conceive of the promise of mercy, as only made to such as turn from their sinful courses, in which they see themselves so hardened that they cannot repent.
Certain it is, the condition is most lamentable, that yielding unto sin brings men unto. Men are careful to prevent dangerous sicknesses of body, end the danger of law concerning their estates; but seldom consider into what a miserable plight their sins, which they so willingly give themselves up unto, will bring them. If they do not perish in their sins, yet their yielding will bring them into such a doleful condition, that they would give the whole world, if they were possessors of it, to have their spirits at freedom from this bondage and fear.
To such as bless themselves in an ill way upon hope of mercy, we dare not speak a word of comfort, because God doth not, but threatens his wrath shall burn to hell against them. Yet because while life continues there may be, as a space, so a place and grace for repentance, these must be dealt withal in such a manner, as they may be stayed and stopped in their dangerous courses; there must be a stop before a turn.
And when their consciences are thoroughly awaked with sense of their danger, let them seriously consider whither sin, and Satan by sin, is carrying of them, and lay to heart the justice of God, standing before them as an angel with a drawn sword, ready to fall upon them if they post on still.
Yet to keep them from utter sinking, let them consider withal, the unlimited mercy of God, as not limited to any person, or any sin, so not to any time. There is no prescription of time can bind God. His mercy hath no certain date that will expire, so as those that fly unto it shall have no benefit. Invincible mercy will never be conquered, and endless goodness never admits of bounds or end.*
What kind of people were those that followed Christ? Were they not such as had lived long in their sinful courses? He did not only raise them that were newly dead, but Lazarus, that had lien 'four days in the grave,' John 11:39. They thought Christ's power in raising the dead had reached to a short time only, but he would let them know that he could as well raise those that had been long as lately dead. If Christ be the physician, it is no matter of how long continuance the disease be. He is good at all kind of diseases, and will not endure the reproach of disability to cure any. Some diseases are the reproaches of other physicians, as being above their skill to help, but no conceit more dangerous when we are to deal with Christ.
'The blessed martyr Bilney was much offended when he heard an eloquent preacher inveighing against sin, saying thus, Behold, thou hast lies rotten in thy own lusts, by the space of sixty years, even as a
beast in his own dung, and wilt thou presume in one year to go forward towards heaven, and that in thine old age, as much as thou wentest backward from heaven to hell in sixty years?' 'Is not this a goodly argument?' saith Bilney. 'Is this preaching of repentance in the name of Jesus? It is as if Christ had died in vain for such a man, and that he must make satisfaction for himself. If I had heard, saith he, such preaching of repentance in times past, I had utterly despaired of mercy.' We must never think the door of hope to be shut against us, if we have a purpose to turn unto God. As there is nothing more injurious to Christ, so nothing more foolish and groundless than to distrust, it being the chief scope of God in his word to draw our trust to him in Christ, in whom is always open a breast of mercy for humbled sinners to fly unto.
But thus far the consideration of our long time spent in the devil's service should prevail with us, as to take more shame to ourselves, so to resolve more strongly for God and his ways, and to account it more then sufficient that we have spent already so much precious time to so ill purposes; and the less time we have, to make the more haste to work for God, and bring all the honour we can to religion in so little a space. Oh, how doth it grieve those that have felt the gracious power of Christ in converting their souls, that ever they should spend the strength of their parts in the work of his and their enemy! and might they live longer, it is their full purpose for ever to renounce their former ways. There is bred in them an eternal desire of pleasing God, as in the wicked there is an eternal desire of offending him, which eternity of desires God looks to in both of them, and rewards them accordingly, though he cuts off the thread of their lives.
But God in wisdom will have the conversions of such as have gone on in a course of sinning, especially after light revealed, to be rare and difficult. Births in those that are ancienter, are with greater danger than in the younger sort. Cavendum est vulnus quod dolore curatur.
God will take a course, that his grace shall not be turned into wantonness. He oft holds such upon the rack of a troubled
conscience, that they and others may fear to buy the pleasure of sin at such a rate. Indeed, where sin abounds, there grace superabounds; but then it is where sin, that abounded in the life, abounds in the conscience in grief and detestation of it, as the greatest evil. Christ groaned at the raising of Lazarus, which he did not at others, because that although to an almighty power all things are alike easy, yet he will show that there be degrees of difficulties in the things themselves, and make it appear to us that it is so. Therefore, those that have enjoyed long the sweet of sin, may expect the bitterest sorrow and repentance for sin.
Yet never give place to thoughts of despair, as coming from him that would overturn the end of the gospel, which lays open the riches of God's mercy in Christ; which riches none set out more than those that have been 'the greatest of sinners,' 1 Tim. 1:15, as we see in Paul.
We cannot exalt God more than by taking notice, and making use of that great design of infinite wisdom in reconciling justice and mercy together, so as now he is not only merciful, but 'just in pardoning sins,' Rom. 3:26. Our Saviour, as he came towards the latter age of the world, when all things seemed desperate; so he comes to some men in the latter part of their days. The mercy shewed to Zaccheus and the good thief was personal, but the comfort intended by Christ was public, therefore still trust in God.
In this case, we must go to God, with whom all things are possible, to put forth his almighty power, not only in the pardoning, but in subduing our iniquities. He that can make a camel go through a needle's eye, can make a high conceited man lowly, a rich man humble. Therefore, never question his power, much less his willingness, when he is not only ready to receive us when we return, but persuades and entreats us to come in unto him, yea, after backsliding and false dealing with him, wherein he allows no mercy to be shewed by man, yet he will take liberty to shew mercy himself,
Jer. 3:2.
Obj. But I have often relapsed and fallen into the same sin again and again.
Ans. If Christ will have us pardon our brother seventy-seven times,* can we think that he will enjoin us more than he will be ready to do himself, when in case of showing mercy he would have us think his thoughts to be far above ours? Adam lost all by once sinning, but we are under a better covenant, a covenant of mercy, and are encouraged by the Son to go to the Father every day for the sins of that day.
Where the work of grace is begun, sin loses strength by every new fall; for hence issues deeper humility, stronger hatred, fresh indignation against ourselves, more experience of the deceitfulness of our hearts, renewed resolutions until sin be brought under. That should not drive us from God, which God would have us make use of to fly the rather to him. Since there is a throne of grace set up in Jesus Christ, we may boldly make use of it, and lat us be ashamed to sin, and not be ashamed to glorify God's mercy in begging pardon for sin. Nothing will make us more ashamed to sin than thoughts of so free and large mercy. It will grieve an ingenuous spirit to offend so good a God. Ah, that there should be such a heart in me as to tire the patience of God, and dam up his goodness as much as in me lies! But this is our comfort, that the plea of mercy from a broken spirit to a gracious Father will ever hold good. When we are at the lowest in this world, yet there are these three grounds of comfort still remaining:—
1. That we are not yet in the place of the damned, whose estate is unalterable. 2. That whilst we live, there is time and space for recovering of ourselves. 3. That there is grace offered, if we will not shut our hearts against it.
Obj. Oh, but every one hath his time; my good hour may be past.
Ans. That is counsel to thee; it is not past if thou canst raise up thy heart to God, and embrace his goodness. Shew by thy yielding unto mercy, that thy time of mercy is not yet out, rather than by