Chapter 12

The ordinary cases in which God leaves his children in darkness.

Now secondly, we come to the more ordinary cases in which God usually dispenses light and darkness. Before naming particulars, I will premise a general rule concerning them. We shall find that God does not constantly go by the same rule in the dispensation of them, so that no man can say that in such and such cases God will certainly desert men, or that he always does so — he is various in his dealings here. For some men he leaves for a while in darkness in, upon, and immediately after their conversion; their sun rises in an eclipse and continues so until noon, yes until their night. On the contrary, toward others sometimes he never shines in more comforts than at their first conversion. Again, some he deserts upon a gross sin committed; to others he never reveals himself more at any time than after a gross sin humbled for and repented of, thereby to show the freeness of his grace. So likewise, some that have less grace and have lived more loosely he fills their sails at death, and they have an abundant entrance with full sail into the kingdom of Christ; others who have walked more strictly with God, and whose ends you would expect to be most glorious, he leaves to fears and doubts, and their sun sets in a cloud.

The reasons why God is thus various in these his dealings are, first, because spiritual comforts tend not simply to the being of a Christian but to his comfortable well-being; and also because in respect of their dispensation they are to be reckoned in the rank of temporal rewards. Though light and assurance is not an earthly but a heavenly blessing, yet it is but a temporary blessing. Therefore, as the promises of temporal good things are not absolute, so the promises to give assurance to a believer are not absolute in the same way as the promises to give him heaven and salvation are. So likewise on the contrary, darkness and distress of conscience is but a temporal chastisement as outward crosses are, differing from them only in the subject matter — the one being conversant about things of the outward man, this about the inward, namely, a man's spiritual state. Hence in the dispensation of both, though God always goes by some rule as in all his dealings, yet he varies and deals differently with his children therein, as he does in dispensing outward prosperity and adversity, 'setting the one against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him' (Ecclesiastes 7:14) — giving such cross and contrary instances in both kinds that men might not trace him in these ways, or as the phrase is in Romans 9, say certainly and infallibly what he means to do in such and such cases. In the world to come he makes even with all the world, however different his dispensations of rewards or punishments have been here, and what is behind to any one he then pays with respect to what they have received. Thus in the matter of spiritual joy and assurance, God may grant it to one who has not feared and obeyed him as much as one who walks in darkness. But then if anyone has received more pledges of assurance beforehand and has not walked accordingly, God counts it as an aggravation of his sin — as he did in Solomon, whose sin is aggravated in 1 Kings 11:9-10 by the fact that he sinned against God who had appeared to him twice. Otherwise, if these comforts make a man in any proportion to such cost more fruitful than others are, I see not but that God who crowns his own graces will reward them the more, this being one means sanctified to some to work more grace, as afflictions are to others. Thus it is likewise in desertings and distress of mind — they being a temporal punishment, God is as various in them. So one of more grace, or one whom God intends more grace to, shall be afflicted and forsaken when one of less grace shall reign as a king, as is said of the Corinthians in case of worldly prosperity. So the latter shall have peace and liberty of mind, triumph over Satan and hell and discomfort, when apostles in comparison — that is, men eminent in grace — are in respect of spiritual conflicts made spectacles to angels and men.

This general rule premised, the ordinary cases follow.

First, in case of carnal confidence. Thus in Psalm 30, David had been in great distress of mind for a while, as appears from verses 3 and 5 — that though heaviness may be for the night, yet joy comes in the morning. In this sunshine David looks about him and sees not a cloud appearing on the horizon that might again eclipse his comfort. Then he grew confident on no other ground than present sense, thinking it would always be so with him, and trusted in the comfort he had at present as if he could never again be so troubled — as in such cases good souls are apt to think. 'Now I shall never be moved,' says David. This was carnal confidence, and God to confound it hides himself again (verse 7).

Now carnal confidence is of three kinds.

First, when we trust to false signs shuffled in among true — which is incident even to believers who are in the state of grace and have good evidences to show for it, who yet together with those sound evidences often take many other signs that are but probable, indeed deceitful, and common to hypocrites as well. This we are apt to do — to take many things as infallible signs which are not. As many are said in Daniel to cleave to the better side by flattery, so in a man's heart many false signs will come in and give their testimony and flatter a man and speak the same thing that true evidences do. Now God, to discover which are false and which are not, leaves a man — and then he will find all his false signs fail him and leave him as flatterers do, being as broken teeth among those which are sound: they fail and disquiet him, like reeds that break when any stress is put on them and so run into his hand.

Or second, when we put too much of our confidence upon signs, though true, and trust too much to comforts and former revelations and witnesses of God's Spirit and to our graces — which are but creatures, acts of God upon us and in us — when therefore we let all the weight of our support hang on these, God in this case often leaves us, that 'no flesh should glory in his presence.'

Or third, when we think graces and comforts are so rooted in ourselves that we neglect God and Christ for the upholding, increase, and exercise of them. Then God withdraws the light of these, that we may have recourse to the spring and wellhead. As too much confidence in the power of inherent grace caused Christ to leave Peter to the power of sin, so confidence in the power of grace also causes God to leave us to the guilt of sin and the terrors that come by it.

The second case: for neglecting such precious opportunities of comfort and refreshment as God has granted. As the neglect of holy duties in which God offered to draw near to us — as the sacraments, etc. So in Song of Solomon 5:4-7, Christ stood at the door and knocked, that is, moved the heart of the church there to pray or perform the like duty in which he is accustomed to come into the heart and visit it. He offered to assist her and began to enlarge and prepare her heart. She made excuses, and upon this Christ went presently away, leaving behind him only an impression, a scent of himself in her heart — enough to stir her up to seek him in the sense of the want of him, as in desertion God is accustomed to do.

Third, in case of not exercising the graces which a man has — not stirring them up — when Christians are as it were between sleeping and waking, which was the church's condition in Song of Solomon 5:2. Then also Christ deserts. To perform duties with the inward man half awake and half asleep, as it were; to pray as if we prayed not — as on the contrary we are to use the world as if we used it not — to do the work of the Lord negligently: this provokes God to absent himself, as he did there in Song of Solomon 5:2. So also in 2 Peter 1:9: he that lacks these things — that is, uses them not, neglecting to add grace to grace — a blindness soon falls on such a man and he forgets all that ever he had. And indeed there is no reason that a man should have present comfort of future grace when he neglects the use of present grace. In Isaiah 64:7, God complains that there was none that stirred up himself, and for this God was angry. Whereas on the contrary, in verse 5, God meets with him that works righteousness and rejoices in him that rejoices to work righteousness — God meets such and rejoices with them and draws near to them. But others who stir not up themselves, God rouses and stirs up with terrors. 'He that walks according to this rule, peace be on him' (Galatians 6:16) — not otherwise. Though comfort is not always the immediate necessary fruit of righteousness, yet it is never without it.

Fourth, in case of some gross sin committed against light, not humbled for, or proving scandalous; or of old sins long forgotten. I will give instances of each particular.

First, for some gross sins committed against light. An instance of this is David. Though he was a man after God's own heart, yet we meet with him often complaining as one who was frequently in these desertions. Among other times, once in Psalm 119:25, 28 where his soul clings to the dust and is at death's door — for he says, 'Quicken me,' meaning in regard to the sense of God's favor, which is better than life. Now ordinarily in Scripture we find no such eminent desertion without finding the cause of it, if we read on. So here, in verse 29: 'Remove from me the way of lying,' says David. He points to the sore of his heart, where his grief lay. David among other corruptions had a lying spirit, as appears very plainly from two or three lies together when he fled from Saul and came to Ahimelech. Ahimelech, fearing to harbor him because of Saul, asked why he was alone — it being suspicious that so great a man should have no greater retinue to attend him. To this David answered that the king had commanded him a business (one lie), that the king had commanded him to keep it secret (another lie), and 'because my servants should not know it, I have sent them to several places' (a third lie). And again in verse 8, 'I have not brought my sword, because the king's business required haste' (a fourth lie). These were deliberate lies. These being gross sins — sins against light, for of all sins lying must be supposed to be against that truth which rises up in the mind — and a sin where a man's mind shows its cunning and wit, and a sin which when the truth is discovered proves exceedingly shameful and scandalous, therefore this sin (especially since he had been going on in it for a while — he calls it 'a way of lying') lay heavily upon him long after. Therefore he entreats God to take the load of it off: 'Remove from me the way of lying.' It was the burden of this which lay so heavily on him that it pressed his soul to the dust of death, as he had before complained.

So for the second particular, in case a sin is not thoroughly humbled for and confessed, or if when we committed it we had shifts to keep us from thinking it was sin or not so heinous — or were doubtful whether it was a sin and so were loath to acknowledge it as such, to burden ourselves with it in our confessions, our hearts standing rather to clear ourselves in it. As it is likely David did in the case of his murder of Uriah: he had done it so cunningly that he thought he could clear himself and wash his hands of it, for it was but 'the chance of war,' he said, that cut him off — 'The sword devours one as well as another' — and so he excused it (2 Samuel 11:25). God in this case brings him to the rack (Psalm 32 — thought to have been made, as well as Psalm 51, on the occasion of his murder). These sins having become known and scandalous, David was to confess publicly, as in the end he did when in making Psalm 51 he stood as it were to do public penance. Now David was loath to come to this; that murder having been done so cunningly, he could hardly be brought to confess it even in secret, much less publicly. God in this case lays his hand so sorely on him that his natural moisture was dried up, as that psalm tells us — for in men troubled in conscience, their distress of mind often casts their bodies into as great heats as men in burning fevers. And this was without intermission day and night. Thus he lay roaring — so he expresses his bearing of the torture — like a criminal on the rack. Though he cried out for mercy to God, yet because not with a broken heart, God therefore accounted it but as roaring, that is, the voice of a creature as it were rather than the voice of a man humbled for his sin. And why was David put to the rack thus? He would not confess and humble himself for his sin. 'I was silent and yet roared' (verse 3). A still, broken-hearted confession might have saved all this torment. But when in the end, 'I said I would confess my sin' (verse 5), and in his heart he resolved once to lay open all that sin of murder and adultery in its circumstances, then God pardoned him — for Nathan coming to him told him, as soon as but a word of confession began to fall from his lips, that his sins were pardoned. And yet after that, as appears in Psalm 51, God did not yet restore comfort and the joy of his salvation to him — for there he prays for it in the sense of the want of it — not until he had publicly confessed it also and thoroughly humbled himself, it having caused the enemies of God to blaspheme. God would have a public satisfaction given.

So when the incestuous person had committed that sin (1 Corinthians 5:1, 9), for which at that time he was not humbled — for afterward in 2 Corinthians 2:7, when he was humbled indeed, Paul bids them comfort him — yet until his humiliation was apparent, Paul bids them deliver such a one to Satan, to the jailer, to the tormentor, to the prince of darkness to terrify him and afflict his spirit. Now the meaning of that delivering him up to Satan was that he should be solemnly excommunicated. When excommunication is performed as it ought to be, in the name of the Lord Jesus and with the power of the Lord Jesus, then as the church cuts them off from communion with them, so God cuts them off from communion with himself and withdraws all fellowship with their spirits, and so leaves them alone in darkness and to desertion. Not only so, but delivers them up to Satan — not with a commission to carry them on to more sin (for the end proposed by the apostle was thereby to destroy the flesh, verse 5, not to nourish it by provoking him to more sin), but to terrify and afflict his conscience and to stir up therein the guilt of sin and terrors for it. God sanctifies this to humble a man and to mortify the flesh. Thus when that Corinthian was excommunicated and given up to Satan, did Satan deal with him — for in 2 Corinthians 2:7 he was near to being swallowed up with too much sorrow, this being occasioned by Satan, 'whose devices we are not ignorant of,' says the apostle (verse 11). Now as every ordinance has a proper peculiar work it is appointed for, an inward effect to accompany it in a man's spirit, so this — and the proper effect and inward working of this great ordinance of excommunication — is terror and sorrow and desertion of spirit, thereby to humble a man, even as it is the proper effect of the sacraments to convey comforts and assurance and the seal of the Spirit. And when this ordinance is neglected or omitted when gross and scandalous sins require it, then a man belonging to God often has God himself work thus and inflict this on him without that ordinance. Thus he dealt with David and others after gross sins. God inwardly excommunicates and casts men out of his presence and from all comforts in his ordinances, though they are not refused by men to come to them — dealing herein as a father who is a public magistrate with an unruly child after some great offense: though he does not cast him off, yet he may send him to prison, to be for example's sake imprisoned, to have him down into the dungeon where he sees no light and into close confinement where he is in so strait a condition that he can neither sit nor stand nor lie. As Elihu expresses it, in Job 36:16 he calls it bringing into a strait place and binding them in fetters and cords of affliction, and then showing them their transgression and where they have exceeded (verses 8-9).

Yes, and third, God does this not only immediately after sins were committed, but sometimes long afterward, even after they have been often confessed. Yes, and after God has pardoned them also in our consciences as well as in heaven, yet the guilt may return again and leave us in darkness. Thus in Job 13:26, for the sins of his youth — which he had undoubtedly humbled himself for and had assurance of the pardon of — God did write bitter things against him for them many years after and made him possess them, as he himself says. For as the power of sin and the law of sin is but partly done away in our members, so in our consciences the guilt of sin is likewise but partly done away in regard of our apprehensions of the pardon of them. Therefore, as those lusts we had thought dead and that we supposed would never rise again do sometimes revive and trouble us afresh with new assaults, so in like manner may the guilt of those sins revive which we thought had long been pardoned. After the commission of some new act, or forgetfulness of the old and security about them, God may let them loose upon us afresh, so that we shall look upon them as if they had never been pardoned.

Now the reason for all these particulars — both why gross sins, especially if against light, when not thoroughly confessed, should yet after many years cast us into such fits of desertion — is:

Because therein we rebel against God's Spirit, and that Spirit deals with us as we deal with him. If you grieve him, he grieves you; if you rebel against him, he fights against you as an enemy. So in Isaiah 63:10: 'They rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit, therefore he was turned to be their enemy and he fought against them.' Now to sin against light is called rebellion (Job 24:11). When men go about to extinguish and darken the light of direction which God has set up in their hearts to guide their paths, God puts out the light of comfort and so leaves them in darkness. But especially then, when our hearts are so full of deceit that we plead our acts are no sins, or extenuate them as David in all likelihood did. In Psalm 32:2 he says that the man is blessed in whom is no deceit; and in Psalm 51:6, 'You desire truth in the inward parts.' David had dealt guilefully and deceitfully in that sin. If a man keeps a sin under his tongue and will not be convinced of it nor bring it forth by confession, God in that case brings him to the rack as they do traitors to make them confess. And if any of our old sins revive and cause these terrors, it is because we began to look on them as past and gone and thought we needed not go on humbling ourselves for them anymore — reckoning they are so buried as never to rise again. Whereas the remembrance of them should keep us low and humble us all our days. It is laid to the charge of those in Ezekiel 16:22 that they did not remember that they lay in their blood. We are apt to think that time wears out the guilt of sins, but to God they are as fresh as if they had been committed yesterday; and therefore nothing wears them out but repentance. Great sins forgiven must not be forgotten.

Fifth, in case of a stubborn, stiff spirit under outward afflictions, when we will not amend nor submit to God. This may be part of the case mentioned in Isaiah 57:16. In verse 17 you shall see where the quarrel began: 'For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry' — that is, for some inordinate affection, some harbored lust. He does not mention so much a gross act of sin committed as some lust harbored; for which God began to be angry and to show the effects of that anger in striking him, perhaps with some outward cross first — 'I was angry and struck him' — and when that did no good, God began to be more angry and to hide himself: 'I hid my face.' This he speaks of inward affliction, which he also calls 'contending with the soul,' and leaving it so far that the spirit was ready to fail. He further intimates the cause of all this: 'He went on perversely in the way of his heart.' When lighter and outward strokes will not take us off, God leaves and deserts our spirits and wounds them. And the reason is, in this case what other course should God take? Either he must give him up to hardness of heart and leave him to his stubbornness, and so he would have lost his child — but that God is resolved he will not do: 'I will heal him,' says he in verse 18. When therefore the heart remains stubborn under other strokes, he has no way left in his ordinary course but to lay strokes upon his spirit and wound that. And this yoke is like to break and tame him if anything can, for this he cannot bear. Other outward afflictions man's natural spirit and stubbornness may bear, and has borne even in heathen men. But the spirit of a man fails under this (verse 16). Other afflictions are but particular — as taking some stars of comfort out of the firmament when others are still left to shine. But when God's countenance is hidden, the sun itself, the fountain of light, is darkened, and a general darkness befalls them. Therefore the heart is driven to God and broken off from all else. And then God delights to restore and comfort a man again: 'I will restore comfort to him' (verse 18).

Sixth, in case of deserting his truth and not professing it and appearing for it when he calls us to do so. In this case he left many of the martyrs — many of whom, especially until those in Queen Mary's days (when with the gospel's increase and the light of it God gave more strength also), and some even then also deserted the truth for a while, and then God in respect of comfort deserted them. Then they, recovering God's favor again upon repentance and a new resolution to stick to the profession of the truth whatever came of it, found that their desertion made them the more bold and resolute. This was in part Jonah's case, who having a commission given him to go to Nineveh with a message from God, withdrew himself and went another way. And God in the midst of his security cast him into a whale's belly, and when he was there God withdrew himself from him as if he meant never to own him more — insomuch that Jonah says in chapter 2:4: 'Then I said, I am cast out of your sight.' And there is this equity in God's dealing thus with us: that as when we are ashamed of Christ the punishment fitted to it is that Christ will be ashamed of us, so when we will not witness for God there is no reason his Spirit should witness to us. And so, when we seem to evade persecution for the cross of Christ, it is fitting that God should take us in hand himself — which is far worse.

Seventh, in case of unthankfulness and too common an esteem had of the assurance and light of God's countenance, and of freedom from those terrors and doubts which others are in — which is a sin Christians are apt to run into. For as the light of the sun, because it is ordinary, is not regarded — none notices it or looks at the sun, but (as he said) when it is in eclipse — so a continual sunshine of God's favor, when enjoyed, occasions only a common esteem of it. And in this case God withdraws those comforts and that assurance, because they are the greatest and sweetest comforts of all; and to abuse them or not to value them provokes God above all else. Therefore in this case God takes them away. For as in Hosea 2:9, in case of unthankfulness in outward mercies God took them away and restored them not again until they esteemed them better and acknowledged from whom they had them, so also in spiritual assurance, light, and comfort does God deal in like manner.

The ordinary situations in which God leaves His children in darkness.

Now, second, we come to the more ordinary situations in which God usually gives or withholds light and darkness. Before naming specific cases, I want to establish a general rule about them. God does not always follow the same pattern in how He distributes these experiences. No one can say that in certain situations God will definitely withdraw from someone, or that He always does so. He varies in His dealings. Some people He leaves in darkness during and immediately after their conversion. Their sun rises in an eclipse and stays that way until noon, even until nightfall. On the other hand, He sometimes never shines more comfort on others than at the moment of their first conversion. Again, some He withdraws from after they commit a serious sin. But to others, He never reveals Himself more powerfully than after a serious sin that has been mourned over and repented of, showing the freedom of His grace. In the same way, some who have less grace and have lived more carelessly find their sails filled at death. They have a full and abundant entrance into the kingdom of Christ. Others who have walked more carefully with God, whose final days you would expect to be the most glorious, He leaves to fears and doubts. Their sun sets behind a cloud.

The reasons why God varies in these dealings are, first, because spiritual comforts are not essential to being a Christian but rather contribute to a Christian's comfortable well-being. Also, in the way they are given out, they belong in the same category as temporary rewards. Although light and assurance are not earthly but heavenly blessings, they are still temporary blessings. Therefore, just as the promises of earthly good things are not absolute, so the promises to give assurance to a believer are not absolute in the same way that the promises to give him heaven and salvation are. Likewise, on the other side, darkness and distress of conscience are only temporary discipline, just as outward troubles are. They differ only in their subject matter: outward troubles deal with the outer life, while these deal with the inner life, namely a person's spiritual condition. So in distributing both, although God always follows some rule in all His dealings, He varies and deals differently with His children. He does this the same way He distributes outward prosperity and hardship, 'setting the one against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him' (Ecclesiastes 7:14). He gives such contrasting and contradictory examples in both areas so that people cannot trace His ways or, as the phrase in Romans 9 puts it, say with certainty and precision what He intends to do in any given case. In the world to come, He settles accounts with everyone, no matter how different His distribution of rewards or punishments has been here. Whatever anyone is still owed, He then pays with respect to what they have already received. So in the matter of spiritual joy and assurance, God may grant it to someone who has not feared and obeyed Him as much as another person who walks in darkness. But then, if someone has received more pledges of assurance beforehand and has not lived up to them, God counts it as making their sin worse. He did this with Solomon, whose sin is made worse in 1 Kings 11:9-10 by the fact that he sinned against God who had appeared to him twice. On the other hand, if these comforts make a person proportionally more fruitful than others, I see no reason why God, who crowns His own graces, would not reward them even more. This is one means He uses to produce more grace in some, just as afflictions are the means He uses for others. The same is true of withdrawals and distress of mind. Since they are a temporary punishment, God is just as varied in how He uses them. So a person with more grace, or one whom God intends to give more grace, may be afflicted and forsaken while a person with less grace reigns like a king, as was said of the Corinthians regarding worldly prosperity. The latter may have peace and freedom of mind, triumphing over Satan, hell, and discomfort, while apostles by comparison, that is, people outstanding in grace, are made spectacles to angels and people when it comes to spiritual struggles.

With this general rule established, the ordinary cases follow.

First, in the case of misplaced confidence. In Psalm 30, David had been in great distress of mind for a while, as verses 3 and 5 show: though heaviness may last for the night, joy comes in the morning. In this sunshine, David looked around and saw no cloud on the horizon that might eclipse his comfort again. Then he grew confident on no other basis than his present feelings. He thought it would always be this way for him, and he trusted in the comfort he had as if he could never again be troubled. Good souls are prone to think this way in such situations. 'Now I shall never be moved,' David said. This was misplaced confidence, and God hid Himself again to break it (verse 7).

Now, misplaced confidence comes in three forms.

First, when we trust in false signs mixed in among true ones. This can happen even to believers who are in a state of grace and have genuine evidence to show for it. Yet alongside their sound evidence, they often accept many other signs that are only probable, even deceptive, and common to hypocrites as well. We are prone to treat many things as certain signs when they are not. Just as many people in Daniel are said to join the better side through flattery, so in a person's heart many false signs will come in, give their testimony, flatter the person, and say the same thing that true evidence says. Now, to reveal which signs are false and which are not, God withdraws from a person. Then they will find all their false signs fail them and abandon them the way flatterers do. These false signs are like broken teeth among healthy ones: they fail and trouble the person, like reeds that break when any weight is put on them and cut into the hand.

Second, when we place too much confidence on signs, even true ones. When we trust too much in comforts, former revelations, witnesses of God's Spirit, and our own graces, which are merely creatures and acts of God upon us and in us. When we let the full weight of our support rest on these things, God often withdraws from us so that 'no flesh should glory in His presence.'

Third, when we think graces and comforts are so deeply rooted in ourselves that we neglect God and Christ for maintaining, increasing, and exercising them. Then God withdraws the light of these, so that we will go back to the source. Just as too much confidence in the power of built-in grace caused Christ to leave Peter to the power of sin, so confidence in the power of grace also causes God to leave us to the guilt of sin and the terrors that come with it.

The second case: for neglecting precious opportunities of comfort and refreshment that God has provided. This includes the neglect of holy duties in which God offered to draw near to us, such as the sacraments and similar practices. In Song of Solomon 5:4-7, Christ stood at the door and knocked. That is, He moved the heart of the church to pray or perform a similar duty through which He typically enters the heart and visits it. He offered to help her and began to enlarge and prepare her heart. She made excuses, and because of this Christ immediately went away, leaving behind only an impression, a lingering sense of Himself in her heart. It was enough to stir her up to seek Him because she felt His absence, as God typically does during times of withdrawal.

Third, in the case of not exercising the graces a person already has, not stirring them up. This was the condition of the church in Song of Solomon 5:2, when Christians are half asleep and half awake, so to speak. In that condition, Christ also withdraws. To perform duties with the inner self half awake and half asleep; to pray as if you were not really praying, just as we are told to use the world as if we were not using it; to do the work of the Lord carelessly: this provokes God to absent Himself, as He did in Song of Solomon 5:2. Likewise in 2 Peter 1:9, the person who lacks these things, that is, does not use them and neglects adding grace to grace, quickly falls into blindness and forgets everything they ever had. And indeed, there is no reason a person should have present comfort about future grace when they neglect using their present grace. In Isaiah 64:7, God complains that no one stirred themselves up, and because of this God was angry. On the other hand, in verse 5, God meets the person who works righteousness and rejoices in the one who delights in doing righteousness. God meets such people, rejoices with them, and draws near to them. But those who do not stir themselves up, God rouses and wakes with terrors. 'Whoever walks according to this rule, peace be on him' (Galatians 6:16), and not otherwise. Although comfort is not always the immediate and necessary result of righteousness, it never comes without it.

Fourth, in the case of some serious sin committed against clear knowledge, not properly mourned over, or proving scandalous; or in the case of old sins long forgotten. I will give examples of each.

First, regarding serious sins committed against clear knowledge. David is an example of this. Though he was a man after God's own heart, we find him often complaining as someone who frequently experienced these withdrawals. Among other times, once in Psalm 119:25, 28 his soul clings to the dust and is at death's door. He says, 'Give me life,' meaning in regard to the sense of God's favor, which is better than life. Normally in Scripture we do not find such a significant withdrawal without also finding its cause, if we read further. So here, in verse 29: 'Remove from me the way of lying,' David says. He points to the sore in his heart, where his grief lay. Among other weaknesses, David had a lying spirit. This is very clear from two or three lies he told in a row when he fled from Saul and came to Ahimelech. Ahimelech, afraid to shelter him because of Saul, asked why he was alone. It was suspicious that such an important man would have no larger group attending him. David answered that the king had sent him on a mission (one lie), that the king had ordered him to keep it secret (another lie), and 'because my servants should not know it, I have sent them to different places' (a third lie). And again in verse 8, 'I have not brought my sword, because the king's business required urgency' (a fourth lie). These were deliberate lies. These were serious sins, sins against clear knowledge, because lying above all sins must be committed against the truth that rises up in the mind. It is a sin where a person's mind shows its craftiness and cunning, and a sin that proves extremely shameful and scandalous when the truth comes out. Therefore this sin, especially since he had been practicing it for a while (he calls it 'a way of lying'), weighed heavily on him long afterward. So he begged God to take the burden off: 'Remove from me the way of lying.' It was the weight of this that pressed his soul to the dust of death, as he had complained earlier.

Now regarding the second particular: when a sin is not thoroughly mourned over and confessed, or when at the time we committed it we had ways of convincing ourselves it was not a sin or not that serious. Or when we were unsure whether it was a sin and so were reluctant to acknowledge it, to burden ourselves with it in our confessions, because our hearts were more inclined to defend ourselves. This is likely what David did in the case of his murder of Uriah. He had done it so cleverly that he thought he could clear himself and wash his hands of it. After all, it was just 'the chance of war,' he said, that killed him. 'The sword takes one as well as another,' and so he excused it (2 Samuel 11:25). In this situation, God brings him to the breaking point (Psalm 32, which is thought to have been written, like Psalm 51, on the occasion of his murder). These sins had become known and scandalous, so David needed to confess publicly, which he eventually did when he wrote Psalm 51 and stood, as it were, to make a public confession. But David was reluctant to do this. Since the murder had been carried out so cleverly, he could hardly be brought to confess it even in private, much less in public. In this situation, God laid His hand on him so severely that his natural strength dried up, as that psalm tells us. In people troubled in conscience, their mental distress often throws their bodies into fevers as intense as burning sickness. And this went on without stopping, day and night. He lay there crying out in agony. That is how he describes his experience of the torture, like a prisoner on the rack. Although he cried out to God for mercy, because he did not do so with a broken heart, God considered it nothing more than the desperate cries of a creature rather than the voice of a person genuinely humbled for his sin. And why was David put through this torment? He would not confess and humble himself for his sin. 'I was silent and yet I cried out' (verse 3). A quiet, broken-hearted confession could have prevented all this torment. But when at last he said, 'I will confess my sin' (verse 5), and in his heart he resolved to lay open all that sin of murder and adultery with all its details, then God pardoned him. Nathan came to him and told him, as soon as a word of confession began to fall from his lips, that his sins were pardoned. And yet after that, as Psalm 51 shows, God still did not restore comfort and the joy of His salvation to him. There David prays for it because he feels its absence. God did not restore it until David had also confessed publicly and thoroughly humbled himself, since his sin had caused the enemies of God to blaspheme. God required a public satisfaction.

When the man guilty of sexual immorality had committed that sin (1 Corinthians 5:1, 9), he was not humbled for it at the time. Afterward, in 2 Corinthians 2:7, when he was genuinely humbled, Paul told them to comfort him. But until his repentance was clear, Paul told them to hand such a person over to Satan, to the jailer, to the tormentor, to the prince of darkness to terrify him and afflict his spirit. The meaning of handing him over to Satan was that he should be formally excommunicated. When excommunication is carried out as it should be, in the name of the Lord Jesus and with the power of the Lord Jesus, then just as the church cuts them off from fellowship with themselves, God cuts them off from fellowship with Himself. He withdraws all communion with their spirits and leaves them alone in darkness and withdrawal. Not only that, but He hands them over to Satan, not with permission to drive them into more sin (for the apostle's stated purpose was to destroy the flesh, verse 5, not to feed it by provoking more sin), but to terrify and afflict the conscience and to stir up the guilt of sin and the terrors that come from it. God uses this to humble a person and to put sin to death. This is how Satan dealt with that Corinthian man when he was excommunicated and given over to Satan. In 2 Corinthians 2:7, he was nearly swallowed up by too much sorrow. Satan brought this about, 'whose schemes we are not ignorant of,' as the apostle says (verse 11). Now, just as every ordinance has its own proper work and intended inward effect on a person's spirit, so does this one. The proper effect and inward working of the great ordinance of excommunication is terror, sorrow, and spiritual withdrawal, meant to humble a person, just as the proper effect of the sacraments is to bring comfort, assurance, and the seal of the Spirit. And when this ordinance is neglected or skipped when serious and scandalous sins demand it, then God Himself often works this way and brings this upon a person who belongs to Him, even without that ordinance. This is how He dealt with David and others after serious sins. God inwardly excommunicates and casts people out of His presence and from all comfort in His ordinances, even though other people do not refuse them access to those ordinances. He acts like a father who is also a public official dealing with an unruly child after a major offense: though he does not disown the child, he may send him to prison as an example, down into the dungeon where he sees no light, into such tight confinement that he can neither sit, stand, nor lie down. As Elihu describes it in Job 36:16, he calls it bringing someone into a tight place and binding them in chains and cords of affliction, and then showing them their wrongdoing and where they have gone too far (verses 8-9).

Yes, and third, God does this not only immediately after sins are committed but sometimes long afterward, even after they have been confessed many times. Even after God has pardoned them in our consciences as well as in heaven, the guilt may return and leave us in darkness. In Job 13:26, for the sins of his youth, which he had undoubtedly humbled himself for and had received assurance of pardon, God wrote bitter things against him for those sins many years later and made him relive them, as Job himself says. Just as the power of sin and the law of sin are only partly removed from our bodies, so in our consciences the guilt of sin is likewise only partly removed in terms of our awareness of being pardoned. Therefore, just as the desires we thought were dead and that we assumed would never rise again sometimes revive and trouble us with fresh attacks, so too the guilt of sins we thought had long been pardoned may revive. After committing some new sin, or becoming careless and forgetful about the old ones, God may let them loose on us again so that we look at them as if they had never been pardoned.

Now the reason behind all these cases, both why serious sins (especially those committed against clear knowledge) when not thoroughly confessed should cast us into these episodes of withdrawal even many years later, is this:

Because in doing so we rebel against God's Spirit, and that Spirit deals with us as we deal with Him. If you grieve Him, He grieves you. If you rebel against Him, He fights against you as an enemy. As Isaiah 63:10 says: 'They rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit, therefore He turned to be their enemy and He fought against them.' Now, to sin against clear knowledge is called rebellion (Job 24:11). When people try to put out and darken the light of guidance that God has set up in their hearts to direct their paths, God puts out the light of comfort and leaves them in darkness. But this is especially true when our hearts are so full of dishonesty that we argue our actions are not sins, or we minimize them, as David most likely did. In Psalm 32:2, he says that the person is blessed in whom there is no deceit. And in Psalm 51:6, 'You desire truth in the inward parts.' David had dealt dishonestly and deceitfully in that sin. If a person hides a sin and will not be convinced of it or bring it out through confession, God brings that person to the breaking point, just as officials put criminals on the rack to make them confess. And if any of our old sins revive and cause these terrors, it is because we began to see them as past and gone and thought we no longer needed to humble ourselves for them, assuming they were so buried they would never surface again. But the memory of them should keep us humble all our days. It is charged against the people in Ezekiel 16:22 that they did not remember they once lay in their own blood. We tend to think that time wears away the guilt of sins, but to God they are as fresh as if they had been committed yesterday. Therefore, nothing wears them out but repentance. Great sins that have been forgiven must not be forgotten.

Fifth, in the case of a stubborn, unyielding spirit under outward hardships, when we will not change or submit to God. This may be part of the situation described in Isaiah 57:16. In verse 17, you can see where the conflict began: 'For the sin of his greed I was angry,' that is, for some out-of-control desire, some harbored lust. He does not mention so much a specific sinful act as a lust that was being sheltered. Because of this, God began to be angry and to show the effects of that anger by striking him, perhaps with some outward hardship first. 'I was angry and struck him.' When that did no good, God became more angry and began to hide Himself: 'I hid My face.' This refers to inward affliction, which he also calls 'contending with the soul,' leaving it to the point where the spirit was ready to collapse. He further reveals the cause of all this: 'He went on stubbornly in the way of his heart.' When lighter and outward blows will not turn us away from sin, God withdraws from our spirits and wounds them. And the reason is: in this situation, what other approach should God take? Either He must give the person up to hardness of heart and leave him to his stubbornness, in which case He would lose His child. But God is determined He will not do that: 'I will heal him,' He says in verse 18. So when the heart remains stubborn under other blows, God has no option left in His ordinary methods but to strike the spirit and wound it. And this burden is the one most likely to break and humble a person, if anything can, because this is something no one can endure. A person's natural spirit and stubbornness can endure other outward hardships, and even pagan people have endured them. But a person's spirit fails under this (verse 16). Other hardships are limited, like removing some stars of comfort from the sky while others still shine. But when God's face is hidden, the sun itself, the source of light, is darkened, and total darkness falls on them. Therefore the heart is driven to God and broken away from everything else. And then God delights to restore and comfort a person again: 'I will restore comfort to him' (verse 18).

Sixth, in the case of abandoning truth and failing to stand for it when God calls us to do so. In this case He left many of the martyrs — many of whom, especially before those in Queen Mary's days (when with the gospel's growth and the increase of its light, God also gave greater strength), and even some in those days also forsook the truth for a time. Then God, in terms of comfort, forsook them. Then they, recovering God's favor upon repentance and a fresh resolve to hold to the truth no matter what came of it, found that their desertion had made them bolder and more steadfast. This was in part Jonah's situation: having been given a commission to go to Nineveh with a message from God, he turned aside and went the other way. God, in the middle of his false security, threw him into the belly of a great fish — and while he was there God withdrew from him as if He meant never to own him again, so much so that Jonah says in chapter 2:4: 'I said, I have been expelled from Your sight.' And there is this justice in God's dealing with us this way: as when we are ashamed of Christ, the fitting punishment is that Christ will be ashamed of us, so when we will not witness for God there is no reason His Spirit should witness to us. And when we try to sidestep persecution for the sake of Christ, it is fitting that God should take us in hand Himself — which is far worse.

Seventh, in the case of ingratitude and too casual a regard for the assurance and light of God's face, and for freedom from the terrors and doubts that others live in — which is a sin Christians are prone to fall into. Just as sunlight, because it is constant, goes unnoticed — no one looks at the sun or pays attention to it, as someone observed, except when it is eclipsed — so a continual sunshine of God's favor, when enjoyed, tends to produce only a careless regard for it. In this case God withdraws those comforts and that assurance, because they are the greatest and sweetest comforts of all, and to abuse them or fail to value them provokes God above almost anything else. Therefore in this case God takes them away. For as in Hosea 2:9, when His people were ungrateful for outward blessings God took them away and did not restore them until they valued them properly and acknowledged from whom they came, so also with spiritual assurance, light, and comfort God deals in the same way.