CHAPTER XXII.—Of sorrow for sin, and hatred for sin, when right and sufficient. Helps thereto
concluding uncomfortably, willingly betray thyself to thy greatest enemy, enforcing that upon thyself, which God labours to draw thee from. As in the sin against the Holy Ghost, fear shews that we have not committed it; so in this, a tender heart fearing lest our time be past, shews plainly that it is not past.
Look upon examples; when the prodigal in his forlorn condition was going to his father, his father stayed not for him, but 'meets him' in the way, Luke 15:20; he did not only go, but ran to meet him. God is more willing to entertain us than we are to cast ourselves upon him; as there is 'a fountain opened for sin, and for uncleanness,' Zech.
13:1, so it is a living fountain of living water, that runs for ever, and can never be drawn dry.
Caution. Here remember, that I build not a shelter for the presumptuous, but only open a harbour for the truly humbled soul to put himself into.
CHAPTER XXII.—Of sorrow for sin, and hatred for sin, when right and sufficient.
Helps thereto Obj. Ah! there's my misery; If I could be humbled for sin, I might hope for mercy, but I never yet knew what a broken heart meant; this soul of mine was never as yet sensible of the grief and smart of sin.
How then can I expect any comfort?
Ans. 1. It is one of Satan's policies to hold us in a dead and barren condition, by following us with conceits, that we have not sorrowed in proportion to our offences. True it is, we should labour that our sorrow might in some measure answer to the heinousness of our sins; but we must know sorrow is not required for itself in that degree as faith is. If we could trust in God without much sorrow for our sins, then it would not be required, for God delights not in our sorrow as sorrow. God in mercy both requires it and works it, as
thereby making us capable vessels of mercy, fit to acknowledge, value, and walk worthy of Christ. He requires it as it is a means to embitter sin, and the delightful pleasures thereof unto us, and by that means bring us to a right judgment of ourselves, and the creature, with which sin commits spiritual adultery, that so we may recover our taste before lost. And then when with the prodigal we return unto ourselves, having lost ourselves before, we are fit to judge of the baseness of sin, and of the worth of mercy; and so upon grounds of right reason, be willing to alter our condition, and embrace mercy upon any terms it shall please Christ to enjoin.
Ans. 2. Secondly, if we could grieve and cast down ourselves beneath the earth, as low as the nethermost pit, yet this would be no satisfaction to God for sin; of itself, it is rather an entrance, and beginning of hell.
Ans. 3. Thirdly, we must search what is the cause of this want of grief which we complain of, whether it be not a secret cleaving to the creature, and too much contentment in it, which oft stealeth away the heart from God, and brings in such contentment as is subject to fail and deceive us; whereupon from discontentment we grieve, which grief, being carnal, hinders grief of a better kind.
Usually the causes of our want of grief for sin are these:—First, a want of serious consideration, and dwelling long enough upon the cause of grief, which springs either from an unsettledness of nature, or distractions from things without. Moveable dispositions are not long affected with anything. One main use of crosses is to take the soul from that it is dangerously set upon, and to fix our running spirits. For though grief for crosses hinders spiritual grief, yet worldly delights hinder more. That grief is less distant from true grief, and therefore nearer to be turned into it.
And secondly, put case we could call off our minds from other things, and set them on grief for our sins, yet it is only God's Spirit that can work our hearts to this grief; and for this end, perhaps, God holds us
off from it, to teach us that he is the teacher of the heart to grieve.
And thereupon it is our duty to wait till he reveal ourselves so far to ourselves, as to stir up this affection in us.
Thirdly, Another cause may be a kind of doubleness of heart, whereby we would bring two things together that cannot suit. We would grieve for sin so far as we think it an evidence of a good condition; but then because it is an irksome task, and because it cannot be wrought without severing our heart from those sweet delights it is set upon; hence we are loath God should take that course to work grief, which crosseth our disposition. The soul must therefore, by self-denial, be brought to such a degree of sincerity and simplicity as to be willing to give God leave to work this 'sorrow, not to be sorrowed for,' 2 Cor. 7:10, by what way he himself pleaseth. But here we must remember again that this self-denial is not of ourselves, but of God, who only can take us out of ourselves, and if our hearts were brought to a stooping herein to his work, it would stop many a cross, and continue many a blessing which God is forced to take from us, that he may work that grief in us which he seeth would not otherwise be kindly wrought.
Ans. 4. God giveth some larger spirits, and so their sorrows become larger. Some upon quickness of apprehension, and the ready passages betwixt the brain and the heart, are quickly moved. Where the apprehension is deeper, and the passages slower, there sorrow is long in working, and long in removing. The deepest waters have the stillest motion. Iron takes fire more slowly than stubble, but then it holds it longer.
Ans. 5. Again, God that searcheth and knows our hearts better than ourselves, knows when and in what measure it is fit for to grieve. He sees it is fitter for some dispositions to go on in a constant grief. We must give that honour to the wisdom of the great physician of souls to know best how to mingle and minister his potions. And we must not be so unkind to take it ill at God's hands when he, out of gentleness and forbearance, ministers not to us that churlish physic
he doth to others, but cheerfully embrace any potion that he thinks fit to give us.
Some holy men have desired to see their sin in the most ugly colours, and God hath heard them in their requests. But yet his hand was so heavy upon them that they went always mourning to their very graves, and thought it fitter to leave it to God's wisdom to mingle the potion of sorrow than to be their own choosers.* For a conclusion, then, of this point, if we grieve that we cannot grieve, and so far as it is sin, make it our grief; then put it amongst the rest of our sins, which we beg pardon of, and help against, and let it not hinder us from going to Christ, but drive us to him. For herein lies the danger of this temptation, that those who complain in this kind think it should be presumption to go to Christ, whenas he especially calleth the 'weary and heavy laden sinner to come unto him,' Mat. 11:28, and therefore such as are sensible that they are not sensible enough of their sin must know, though want of feeling be quite opposite to the life of grace, yet sensibleness of the want of feeling shews some degree of the life of grace. The safest way in this case is from that life and light that God hath wrought in our souls, to see and feel this want of feeling, to cast our selves and this our indisposition upon the pardoning and healing mercy of God in Christ.
Caution. We speak only of those that are so far displeased with themselves for their ill temper, as they do not favour themselves in it, but are willing to yield to God's way in redressing it, and do not cross the Spirit, moving them thus with David to check themselves, and to trust in God. Otherwise, an unfeeling and careless state of spirit will breed a secret shame of going to God, for removing of that we are not hearty in labouring against, so far as our conscience tells us we are enabled.
The most constant state the soul can be in, in regard of sin, is, upon judgment, to condemn it upon right grounds, and to resolve against it. Whereupon repentance is called an after wisdom and change of the mind.† And this disposition is in God's children at all times. And
for affections, love of that which is good, and hatred of that which is evil, these likewise have a settled continuance in the soul. But grief and sorrow rise and fall as fresh occasions are offered, and are more lively stirred up upon some lively representation to the soul of some hurt we receive by sin, and wrong we do to God in it. The reason hereof is, because till the soul be separated from the body, these affections have more communion with the body, and therefore they carry more outward expressions than dislike or abomination in the mind doth. We are to judge of ourselves more by that which is constant than by that which is ebbing and flowing.
Quest. But what is the reason that the affections do not always follow the judgment, and the choice or refusal of the will?
Ans. 1. Our soul being a finite substance, is carried with strength but one way at one time.
2. Sometimes God calls us to joy as well as to grieve, and then no wonder if grief be somewhat to seek.
3. Sometimes when God calleth to grief, and the judgment and will goeth along with God, yet the heart is not always ready, because, it may be, it hath run out so far that it cannot presently be called in again.
4. Or the spirits, which are the instruments of the soul, may be so wasted that they cannot hold out to feed a strong grief; in which case the conscience must rest in settled judgment and hatred of ill, which is the surest and never failing character of a good soul.
5. Ofttimes God in mercy takes us off from grief and sorrow, by refreshing occasions, because sorrow and grief are affections very much afflicting both of body and soul.
Quest. When is godly sorrow in that degree wherein the soul may stay itself from uncomfortable thoughts about its condition?
Ans. 1. When we find strength against that sin which formerly we fell into, and ability to walk in a contrary way; for this answers God's end in grief, one of which is a prevention from falling for the time to come. For God hath that affection in him which he puts into parents, which is by smart to prevent their children's boldness of offending for the time to come.
Ans. 2. When that which is wanting in grief is made up in fear. Here there is no great cause of complaint of the want of grief, for this holy affection is the awe-band of the soul, whereby it is kept from starting from God and his ways.
Ans. 3. When after grief we find inward peace; for true grief being God's work in us, he knows best how to measure it. Therefore, whatsoever frame God brings my soul into, I am to rest in his goodness, and not except against his dealing. That peace and joy which riseth from grief in the use of means, and makes the soul more humble and thankful to God, and less censorious and more pitiful to others, is no illusion nor false light.
Ans. 4. The main end of grief and sorrow is to make us value the grace and mercy of God in Christ, above all the contentments which sin feeds on. Which, where it is found, we may know that grief for sin hath enough possessed the soul before. The sufficiency of things is to be judged by an answerableness to their use and ends. God makes sin bitter, that Christ may be sweet. That measure of grief and sorrow is sufficient which brings us and holds us to Christ.
Ans. 5. Hatred, being the strongest, deepest, and steadiest affection of the soul against that which is evil, grief for sin is then right, when it springs from hatred, and increaseth further hatred against it.
1. Now the soul may be known to hate sin when it seeks the utter abolishing of it; for hatred is an implacable and irreconcileable affection.
2. True hatred is carried against the whole kind of sin, without respect of any wrong done to us, but only out of a mere antipathy and contrariety of disposition to it, as the lamb hateth the whole kind of wolves, and man hateth the whole kind of serpents. A toad does us no harm, but yet we hate it.
3. That which is hateful to us, the nearer it is the more we shun and abhor it, as venomous serpents and hurtful creatures, because the nearness of the object affects us more deeply. Therefore, if our grief spring from true hatred of sin, it will make no new league with it, but grieve for all sin, especially for our own particular sins, as being contrary to the work of God's grace in us, then is grief an affection of the new creature, and every way of the right breed.
4. But for fuller satisfaction in this case, we must know there is sometimes grief for sin in us, when we think there is none. It wants but stirring up by some quickening word. The remembrance of God's favours and our unkindness, or the awaking of our consciences by some cross, will raise up this affection feelingly in us. As in the affection of love many think that they have no love to God at all; yet let God be dishonoured in his name, truth, or children, and their love will soon stir, and appear in just anger.
In want of grief for sin, we must remember, first, that we must have this affection from God, before we can bring it unto God.
And, therefore, in the second place, our chief care should be not to harden our hearts against the motions of the Spirit stirring us to seasonable grief, for that may cause a judicial hardness from God.
God oft inflicteth some spiritual judgment as a correction upon men, for not yielding to his Spirit at the first; they feel a hardness of heart growing upon them. This made the church complain, 'Why hast thou hardened our hearts from thy fear?' Isa. 63:17. Which if Christians did well consider, they would more carefully entertain such impressions of sorrow, as the Spirit in the use of the means, and observation of God's dealing towards themselves or others, shall
work in them, than they do. It is a saying, of Austin, 'Let a man grieve for his sin, and joy for his grief.' Though we can neither love, nor grieve, nor joy of ourselves, as we should, yet our hearts tell us, we are often guilty of giving a check to the Spirit's stirring these affections in us, which is a main cause of the many sharp afflictions we endure in this life, though God's love in the main matter of salvation be most firm unto us.
Third, We must not think to have all this grief at first, and at once, for oftentimes it is deeper after a sight and feeling of God's love than it was before. God is a free agent, and knows every man's several mould, and the several services he is to use them in, and oft takes liberty afterwards to humble men more, when he hath enabled them better to bear it, than in their first entrance into religion. Grief before springs commonly from self-love and fear of danger. Let no man suspect his estate, because God spares him in the beginning. For Christians many times meet with greater trial after their conversion than ever they thought on. When men take little fines, they mean to take the greater rent. God will have his children, first or last, to feel what sin is; and how much they are beholden to him for Christ.
This grief doth not always arise from poring on sin, but by oft considering of the infinite goodness of God in Christ, and thereby reflecting on our own unworthiness, not only in regard of sin past, but likewise of the sin that hangeth upon us, and issues daily from us. The more holy a man is, the more he sees the holiness of God's nature, with whom he desires to have communion, the more he is grieved that there should be anything found in him displeasing to so pure a Majesty.
And as all our grief comes not at first, so God will not have it come all at once, but to be a stream always running, fed with a spring, yet within the banks, though sometimes deeper, sometimes shallower.
Grief for sin is like a constant stream; grief for other things is like a torrent, or swelling waters, which are soon up, soon down; what it wants in greatness is made up in continuance.