Chapter 2

The particulars of the distress, contained in these two phrases: walking in darkness; having no light.

The second thing to be inquired into is, what is the condition of such a one who is thus in darkness, and who has no light? Which I will so far discover as the phrases used here will give light into, by the help of other Scriptures.

First, he is said to have no light. Light, says the apostle (Ephesians 5:13), is that whereby things are made manifest — that is, to the sense of sight, to which light properly belongs. And as light and faith are here severed, as you see; so sight also is in 2 Corinthians 5:7 distinguished from faith, which is the evidence of things absent and not seen. When therefore here he says 'he has no light,' the meaning is: he lacks all present sensible testimonies of God's favor to him; he sees nothing that may give sensible present witness of it to him. God's favor and his own graces, and all the sensible tokens and evidences thereof which are apprehended by spiritual sight, are become all as absent things, as if they were not or never had been; that light which ordinarily discovers these as present, he is completely deprived of.

To understand this, we must know that God, to help our faith (which, as I said before, is distinguished from sight as we now speak of it), grants a threefold light to his people, to add assurance and joy to their faith, which is to faith as a backing of steel to a bow to strengthen it, and made to be taken off or put on to it at God's good pleasure.

First, the immediate light of his countenance, which is a clear evident beam and revelation of God's favor, immediately testifying that we are his, which is called the sealing of the Spirit, received after believing (Ephesians 1:13), which David desired and rejoiced in more than in all worldly things. 'Lord, lift up the light of your countenance' (Psalm 4:6): in which, more or less, in some glimpses of it, some of God's people have the privilege to walk with joy from day to day. Psalm 89:15: 'They shall walk in the light of your countenance, in your name shall they rejoice all day.' And this is here utterly withdrawn: and it may thus come to pass that the soul, in regard of any sense or sight of this, may be left in that case that Saul really was left in (1 Samuel 28:15): 'God is departed from me and answers me not, neither by prophets nor by dreams' — though with this difference, that God was really departed from Saul, but to these only in their own apprehensions. Yet so, as for anything they can see of him, God is departed clean from them; answers them neither by prayer, nor by word, nor by conference; they cannot get one good look from him. Such was Jonah's case: 'I am cast out of your sight' (Jonah 2:4) — that is, he could not get a sight of him; not one smile, not one glance or cast of his countenance, not a beam of comfort, and so thought himself cast out. And so he dealt with David often, and sometimes a long time together (Psalm 13:1): 'How long will you hide your face from me?' and Psalm 89:46: 'How long?' etc. Even so long as David puts God in remembrance and pleads how short a time in all he had to live, and complains how in much of that time his face had been hid from him (verse 47). And the like was Heman's case, and this also long, even from his youth up (Psalm 88:14-15). So from Job (Job 13:24), yes, and from Christ himself: 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'

But concerning this, you will ask: how can this dealing of his stand with his everlasting love continued notwithstanding to the soul — that he should deal so with one he loves — but especially, how it may stand with the real influence of his grace, powerfully enabling the soul all that while to go on to fear and obey him?

For the first, it may stand with his everlasting love, and God may be his God still, as the text tells us; so Isaiah 54:8: 'For a moment I have hid my face, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you.' It is but hiding his face and concealing his love, as David concealed his love from Absalom when his bowels yearned towards him. And God takes the liberty that other fathers have, to shut his children out of his presence when he is angry. And it is but for a moment — that is, in comparison of eternity — though perhaps it should be thus with him during a man's whole life. And he therefore takes liberty to do it because he has such an eternity of time to reveal his kindness in; time enough for kisses and embraces, and to pour forth his love in.

And for the second, the real gracious influences and effects of his favor may be continued, upholding, strengthening, and carrying on the soul still to obey and fear him, while he yet conceals his favor. For when Christ complained, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' — when as great an eclipse, in regard of the light of God's countenance, was upon his spirit as was upon the earth — yet he never more obeyed God; was never more strongly supported than at that time, for then he was obeying to the death. Like as we see that when the sun is eclipsed, though the earth lacks the light of it, yet not the influence thereof; for the metals which are engendered in the bottom of the earth are concocted by the sun, so that though the light of the sun comes not to them, yet the influence and virtue of it does, and alters and changes them. So does God's favor visit men's hearts in the power, heat, and vigorous influence of his grace, when the light and comfort of it does not, but is shut out.

The second light which God grants his people ordinarily to help and supplement their faith is the sight and comfort of their own graces, to which so many promises belong — as, of their love to his people, fear of his name, desire to obey him. So that often when the sun is set, yet starlight appears — that is, though that other, the immediate presence and evidence of his favor, shines not on the soul, yet his graces therein appear as tokens of that his love. So that the soul knows that there is a sun still that gives light to these stars, though it sees it not; as in the night, we know that there is a sun in another horizon because the stars we see have their light from it, and we are sure that it will arise again to us.

Now a soul that has true grace in it, and goes on to obey God, may also lack light to see these his graces, and look upon his own heart as empty of all. And as they in the storm (Acts 27:20), so he in temptation may come to have neither sunlight nor starlight — no light, as in the text. Thus Isaiah 63:17, the church there complains that God had hardened them from his fear: they were afraid, feeling their hearts so hard that the fear of God was wanting — which yet was there, for they complain of the lack of it.

But yet, thirdly, though he lacks the present light of God's countenance and the sight of present graces, yet he may have a comfortable remembrance of what once before he had still left, and so long is not utterly left in darkness. Therefore further know that the state of one that fears God and obeys him may be such as he may have no comfortable light or remembrance of what grace he formerly had. 2 Peter 1:9: one that has true grace in him only lacks the exercise of it (for I take it that place is to be understood of a regenerate man, because he was purged from sin, and is now said to lack grace because he does not use it; for the same is not to have and not to use — a man is said not to have that which he does not use when he ought to use it, especially in things whose worth lies wholly in use and employment, for it is as good as if he had it not). Now such a man may fall into such a blindness that he cannot see far off, and so forgets his former assurance that he was purged from his old sins. Yes, it may be, calls all into question. Thus David in Psalm 30:6-7 — though his heart was but even now a little before full of joy and assurance of God's favor — yet God did but hide his face and all was gone: 'I was troubled,' says he. He was thus blind and could not see what was but a little past him, as it is with men in a mist.

And the reason of these two last assertions is as evident as the experience thereof. For graces in us shine but with a borrowed light, as the stars do, with a light borrowed from the sun. So that, unless God will shine secretly and give light to your graces and irradiate them, your graces will not appear to comfort you, nor be at all a witness of God's favor to assure you. For our spirit — that is, our graces — never witnesses alone; but if God's Spirit does not join in testimony therewith, it is silent. 'The Spirit of God witnesses with our spirits' (Romans 8:16). Now therefore, when God has withdrawn his testimony, then the testimony of our hearts and of our own graces has no force in it.

But you will say: can a man have the exercise of grace and not know it? Fear God, etc., and not discern it?

Yes, and some graces may then be as much exercised in the heart as at any other time. He may fear God as truly and as much as ever, and yet this fear have no light in it to discover itself to him. It may be in the heart, in being and working, when not in your apprehension.

The reason is, because as the influence of God's favor may be really in the heart when the sense, sight, and light of it is withdrawn (as was said before), so the power of grace may in like manner be in the heart when the light and comfort thereof is wanting. And although it is true that every man, having the power of reflecting upon his own actions, can discern what thoughts are in him and what affections, and can tell for the matter of them what he thinks on and that he is grieved, etc. — but yet so as he may still question whether those thoughts be acts of true and unfeigned faith, and whether those affections of sorrow for sin, etc., be sanctified affections, holy and genuine and spiritual affections. And the reason of the difference is, because though the natural spirit which is in a man knows the things of a man, as the apostle has it (1 Corinthians 2:11) — that is, his own thoughts, etc., understanding them physically as they are acts of a man — yet what is the true goodness of them morally: in discerning this, the spirit of a man is deceitful and cannot know it without the supernatural light of the Spirit of God, who, as he is the giver and actor of that grace in us, so is given of God that we might know the things which are given us of God (1 Corinthians 2:8, 12). 'Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright,' says the psalmist. Grace and the exercise of it is the seed which they continually scatter; but light and joy is the crop that is to be reaped. This seed often lies hid long, though it will come up in the end. Thus light or joy may be severed from grace, and the comfort of it from the power of it.

Secondly, let us further consider the other phrase, and what is intimated thereby to be his condition when, as it is said, he walks in darkness.

First, to walk in darkness implies to be in doubt where to go: so John 12:35, 'He that walks in darkness knows not where he goes.' And thus the soul of one that fears God may be filled with doubts whether God will ever be merciful to him yes or no, and not know what God means to do with him, whether he shall go to heaven or hell. Psalm 77:7-9: 'Will the Lord be merciful?' — which speeches are spoken doubtingly: for verse 10, he says this was his infirmity, to call this into question. So Heman, Psalm 88:5-6, 11-12: he thought himself as one that was in hell — 'free among the dead,' that is, as one admitted into the company of them there (verse 5), free of that company, as you use to say, and of the number of those whom God no more remembered. In such darkness was he (verse 6). And to raise him out of that condition was a thing he doubted whether God would ever do (verses 10-12): 'Will you show wonders to the dead? shall your wonders be declared in the grave?' — that is, did God ever show mercy to one that was in the same state that they in hell are in, which is my state now? Yes, so as to be out of hope. So Lamentations 3:18: 'My hope is perished from the Lord.'

Secondly, those in darkness are apt to stumble at everything. So Isaiah 59:10, one effect of darkness mentioned there is to stumble at noon day. So take a soul that is left in darkness, and it will stumble at all it hears out of the word, either in conference or at sermons; all it reads, all promises it meets with, it is more discouraged by them. Oh, think they, that there should be such glorious promises and not belong to us! Such a one misapplies and misinterprets all God's dealings and the Scriptures against himself, and refuses comfort — as Psalm 77:2. Yes, and as at the third verse, when he remembers God, he is troubled.

Thirdly, darkness is exceedingly 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' (Genesis 15:12). So his soul here may be filled with fears and terrors from God's wrath, and of God being an enemy to him. Heman was almost distracted and out of his wits with terrors (Psalm 88:15). So the church thought (Lamentations 3), yes, and concluded it for certain that God was her enemy: 'Surely he is turned against me' (verse 3).

The particulars of this distress, contained in two phrases: 'walking in darkness' and 'having no light.'

The second thing to examine is the condition of someone who is in this darkness and has no light. I will describe it as far as the phrases used here allow, drawing on other Scriptures for help.

First, he is said to have no light. The apostle says in Ephesians 5:13 that light is what makes things visible — that is, perceptible to the sense of sight, which light properly belongs to. Just as light and faith are distinguished here in the text, sight is also distinguished from faith in 2 Corinthians 5:7, since faith is the evidence of things absent and unseen. So when the text says 'he has no light,' the meaning is: he lacks all present sensible evidence of God's favor toward him — he sees nothing that can give him any direct, present witness of it. God's favor, his own graces, and all the tangible signs and evidences of them — which are normally grasped through spiritual sight — have all become as absent things, as if they never existed. The light that ordinarily reveals them as present has been entirely taken away.

To understand this, we need to know that God gives His people a threefold light to strengthen faith, adding assurance and joy to it. This light is like a steel backing on a bow — it reinforces faith — and God adds or removes it as He pleases.

The first is the immediate light of His countenance — a clear, direct beam and revelation of God's favor, personally testifying that we belong to Him. This is called the sealing of the Spirit, received after believing (Ephesians 1:13), which David desired and rejoiced in more than all worldly things. 'Lord, lift up the light of Your countenance' (Psalm 4:6) — in more or less degree, in some glimpses of it, some of God's people have the privilege of walking with joy from day to day. Psalm 89:15: 'They shall walk in the light of Your countenance; in Your name they shall rejoice all day.' This light is utterly withdrawn in such darkness. It may come to this: in terms of any sense or sight of it, the soul may be left in a position like Saul's in 1 Samuel 28:15 — 'God has departed from me and no longer answers me, neither by prophets nor by dreams' — though with this difference: God had truly departed from Saul, but for these souls it is only in their own perception. Yet so completely, that as far as anything they can see, God has gone entirely — He does not answer them through prayer, the word, or conversation; they cannot get a single good look from Him. Such was Jonah's situation: 'I have been cast out from Your sight' (Jonah 2:4) — that is, he could not catch a glimpse of God; not one smile, not one glance, not a single ray of comfort, and so he thought himself cast out. God dealt this way with David often, and sometimes for a long time (Psalm 13:1): 'How long will You hide Your face from me?' and Psalm 89:46: 'How long?' and so on. David even reminded God how short a life he had and complained how much of that time God's face had been hidden from him (verse 47). Heman experienced the same, and for a long time — from his youth (Psalm 88:14-15). So did Job (Job 13:24), and even Christ Himself: 'My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?'

But you may ask: how can this treatment of God's child be consistent with His everlasting love continuing toward that soul — that He would deal this way with one He loves? And how can it be consistent with the real influence of His grace powerfully enabling the soul all the while to continue fearing and obeying Him?

As for the first, it is entirely consistent with His everlasting love, and God may still be that person's God, as the text tells us. Isaiah 54:8: 'For a brief moment I hid My face from you, but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you.' It is only the hiding of His face and the concealing of His love — much as David concealed his love from Absalom while his heart still yearned for him. God takes the same liberty that other fathers take: to shut His children out of His presence when He is displeased with them. And it is only for a moment — that is, in comparison to eternity — even if it should last through the whole of a person's earthly life. He takes this liberty because He has an eternity of time in which to reveal His kindness — time enough for embraces and to pour out His love without measure.

As for the second, the real gracious influences of His favor may continue — upholding, strengthening, and carrying the soul forward in obedience and fear — even while He conceals that favor. When Christ cried, 'My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?' — when as great an eclipse of the light of God's countenance was upon His spirit as was upon the earth — He never obeyed God more completely and was never more strongly sustained than at that moment, for He was obeying to the point of death. Consider how when the sun is eclipsed, the earth loses its light but not its influence. Metals forming deep in the earth are shaped by the sun, so that though its light does not reach them, its influence and power does, altering and transforming them. In the same way, God's favor visits men's hearts through the power, warmth, and vigorous influence of His grace, even when the light and comfort of that favor is shut out.

The second light God ordinarily gives His people to support their faith is the sight and comfort of their own graces — toward which so many promises point, such as love for His people, fear of His name, and desire to obey Him. Often when the sun has set, starlight still appears — that is, though the immediate evidence of God's favor no longer shines on the soul, his graces still show themselves as tokens of that love. The soul knows there is a sun that gives light to those stars, even though it cannot see the sun itself — just as at night we know there is a sun in another horizon because the stars we see receive their light from it, and we are certain it will rise again for us.

Now a soul that has true grace and continues to obey God may still lack the light to see those graces, and may look at his own heart as completely empty. As those on the ship in the storm (Acts 27:20) could see neither sun nor stars, so someone in temptation may have neither sunlight nor starlight — no light at all, as the text says. Isaiah 63:17 shows the church complaining that God had hardened them from His fear — they were afraid, feeling their hearts so hard that they could find no fear of God in them — yet the fear was there, as evidenced by the fact that they mourned its absence.

But third, even if a person lacks both the immediate light of God's countenance and the sight of present graces, he may still have a comforting memory of what he once had — and as long as that remains, he is not left in total darkness. Yet know that the state of one who fears God and obeys Him may reach the point where he has no comforting memory at all of former grace. In 2 Peter 1:9, a person with true grace is described as lacking its exercise — I take this passage to refer to a regenerate man, because he had been purged from sin but is now said to lack grace because he does not use it. Not using and not having are the same thing in practice, especially for things whose entire value lies in use — it is as if he did not have it. Such a man may fall into such blindness that he cannot see what is not far off, and so forgets his former assurance that he had been purged from his old sins. Yes, he may call all of it into question. David shows this in Psalm 30:6-7 — though his heart had been full of joy and assurance of God's favor just a short time before, God had only to hide His face and all of it was gone: 'I was troubled,' he says. He was blinded and could not see what had been so recently before him, just as people in a thick fog cannot see what is right in front of them.

The reason behind these last two observations is as plain as the experience of them. Graces in us shine with only a borrowed light, as stars do — their light comes from the sun. So unless God shines secretly and illuminates your graces, they will not appear to bring you comfort or serve as any witness of His favor to assure you. Our spirit — that is, our graces — never bears witness alone. If God's Spirit does not join in testifying, our spirit is silent. 'The Spirit of God witnesses with our spirits' (Romans 8:16). Therefore, when God has withdrawn His testimony, the testimony of our own hearts and graces carries no force.

But you may ask: can a person truly exercise grace and not know it? Can he fear God and yet not recognize it?

Yes — some graces may be as fully at work in the heart at that time as at any other. A person may fear God as truly and as much as ever, and yet that fear may carry no light within it to reveal itself to him. It may be present in the heart — active and real — while remaining outside his awareness.

The reason is this: just as the influence of God's favor may be genuinely present in the heart while the sense, sight, and light of it is withdrawn, so the power of grace may be in the heart while the light and comfort of it is absent. It is true that every person, having the natural ability to reflect on his own inner life, can discern what thoughts he has and what emotions are stirring, and can name them for what they are — he knows he is thinking about something, that he is grieved, and so on. But he may still question whether those thoughts are acts of true and genuine faith, and whether those feelings of sorrow for sin are sanctified, holy, and spiritual affections. The reason for this uncertainty is that although the natural spirit within a person knows the things of a person, as the apostle says in 1 Corinthians 2:11 — that is, it understands his own thoughts as acts of a human being — it cannot discern their true moral quality without the supernatural light of God's Spirit. The Spirit, being both the giver and the agent of grace within us, is given by God precisely so that we may know the things that have been given to us by God (1 Corinthians 2:8, 12). 'Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright,' says the psalmist. Grace and its exercise is the seed they continually scatter; but light and joy is the harvest to be reaped. This seed often lies hidden for a long time, though it will sprout in the end. So light and joy may be separated from grace, and the comfort of grace from its power.

Second, let us consider the other phrase and what it tells us about the condition of someone who, as the text says, walks in darkness.

First, to walk in darkness means to be unsure where to go: 'He who walks in darkness does not know where he is going' (John 12:35). In the same way, the soul of a God-fearing person may be filled with doubts about whether God will ever be merciful — not knowing what God intends for him, whether he will go to heaven or hell. Psalm 77:7-9 shows this in doubtful, questioning language: 'Will the Lord be merciful?' — and in verse 10 he admits that calling this into question was his weakness. Heman's case in Psalm 88:5-6, 11-12 is similar — he thought of himself as one already in hell: 'free among the dead,' meaning numbered among those God no longer remembers (verse 5). Such was his darkness (verse 6), and he doubted whether God would ever lift him out of it (verses 10-12): 'Will You show wonders to the dead? Shall Your wonders be declared in the grave?' — meaning, had God ever shown mercy to one in the same state as those in hell, which was his current state? He had even lost hope: 'My hope has perished from the Lord' (Lamentations 3:18).

Second, those in darkness are prone to stumble at everything. Isaiah 59:10 names stumbling at noon as one of the effects of darkness. Take a soul left in darkness, and it will stumble at everything it hears from the word — in conversation or at sermons — and everything it reads. Every promise it encounters discourages it further. Such a person thinks: how can there be such glorious promises that do not belong to me! They misread and misapply all of God's dealings and all of Scripture against themselves, refusing comfort — as Psalm 77:2 shows. And as verse 3 of that psalm shows, when they remember God, they are troubled.

Third, darkness is filled with terror and dread. Children in the dark imagine they see fearful things — which is why Genesis 15:12 speaks of 'the horror of darkness.' In the same way, a soul in this condition may be overwhelmed with fears and terrors — the fear of God's wrath, of God being its enemy. Heman was nearly driven out of his mind with terror (Psalm 88:15). The church in Lamentations 3 came to the same conclusion with certainty: 'Surely He has turned against me' (verse 3).