Doctrine: When God Hides His Face from His Children

There are two propositions contained in this doctrine, which may be taken notice of, namely:

1. That God may, and sometimes does hide his face from his choicest servants.

2. That his so hiding from them is very troublesome and terrible to them.

Of these distinctly.

Proposition 1. That God may, and sometimes hides his face from his choicest [illegible].

David is an instance for this, of whom we have an account in the Scriptures, that he was a man after God's own heart, one whom God had chosen peculiarly to himself, with whom he had made a covenant well ordered in all things, and sure, and yet we have him here asserting this, and how frequently is he, in the Psalms, bemoaning of himself by reason of such a dispensation (Psalm 10:1, 13) and many the like.

In prosecution of this proposition, we may inquire:

1. When God may be said to hide his face from his own?

2. What it is that procures this hiding of his face from them?

3. For what end or design does he so hide his face?

4. To what degrees this may arrive?

5. How long this may be?

1. When God may be said to hide his face from his own.

The expression is metaphorical and allusive, and ascribed to God after the manner of men. God is a Spirit, and has no body, and consequently no members or parts of a body; when therefore he assumes such in the Scriptures, he speaks to us in our own language, and is to be spiritually understood. Now the face is the most conspicuous part of the body, and is usually bare and open to view. The showing of the face to any is therefore frequently used for kindness, freedom, and familiarity; and the hiding of it is a token of estrangedness and displeasure (2 Samuel 14:24): let him not see my face. Hence David prays for God's favor in such words (Psalm 46): Lift up the light of your countenance upon us. God's hiding of his face then from his creatures intends his withdrawing from them these sensible or experimental discoveries of his benignity to them, which sometimes they enjoyed; or his withholding from them those manifestations of himself which they long for, and which he has been ordinarily wont to bestow upon others: for though hiding does properly intend a withdrawing out of sight, yet it also includes in it a keeping out of sight, and not showing one's self. God is sometimes said to hide his face from sensitive creatures (Psalm 104:29), which intends his providential withholding from them the support of their lives. He is also said to hide his face from wicked men (Deuteronomy 32:20), and that may be both on a temporal and a spiritual account; when he brings trouble upon them, and affords them no relief or comfort in it. But when it is spoken of true believers, it then more peculiarly intends those spiritual desertions, which they are brought into, and left under; or those withdrawings of his manifesting himself to them in his special favor, the enjoyment whereof is their very life and consolation. The end of union to Christ in conversion, is for communion with him; in which there is a mutual commerce maintained between him and us, wherein he imparts to us of his grace, and enables us to return to him service and praise. Whatever therefore either impedes or obscures this communion, belongs to the hiding of his face, or the desertion of which we are now considering: and hence,

1. A Christian may be without outward comforts, and ordinary helps, and yet [illegible] the hidings of God's face. God can take away from his children [illegible] their health, [illegible] strength, relations, estate, liberty, and take up all [illegible] light of his countenance. Was it not so with David, when in the [illegible] of the shadow of death (Psalm [illegible]) and the Prophet, when the fig tree did not blossom, etc. (Habakkuk 3:17, 18)? Yes, he can take away the ordinances themselves from them, which are the ordinary way of their communion with him, and still be a little sanctuary to them (Ezekiel 11:16). God therefore gives them that gracious encouragement in the want of all (Isaiah 41:10): Fear not, for I am with you, etc.

2. He may enjoy all the outward benefits of the covenant, and yet not enjoy the face of God in them; he may partake in the fullness of these, and yet God be withdrawn from them; it is one thing to enjoy the means, and another thing to have God in them manifesting himself to us, by his gracious cooperation with them; and these are separable: out of doubt David was sensible of this, when he put up that request to God (Psalm 51:11, 12): take not your holy Spirit from me; restore to me the joy of your salvation.

3. There may be real communion maintained between God and the soul, and yet a child of God be at a loss about it. It may be carried on so secretly, as that not only others may be ignorant of it, but the Christian himself may have great doubtings about it. God is never nearer to his people than at some times when they think he is farthest from them; he brings them in a way that they know not, and leads them in paths that they have not known (Isaiah 42:16). He steals his grace into them, and draws forth the exercise of it, and carries them heavenward, when they are complaining that they cannot see him nor find him. Was it not so with the Spouse (Canticles 5)? Never was her grace in more vigorous exercise than at that time, when she complains that her beloved had withdrawn himself.

4. All those withdrawings whereby God leaves his children in the dark about their spiritual condition and concerns, belong to this desertion, or hiding of his face. God may be, yes is at work for them in his greatest retirements, but they want the apprehension of it: when therefore they complain as he (Lamentations 3:2): he has led and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Now they are so far deserted; and this is to be read in the dispensation of himself to them in his providence on a spiritual account: and there are many respects in which he thus does; some of the principal whereof we may here take notice of, namely:

When God not only brings outward troubles on his people, but with them withholds consolation, and lets in terrors. Outward afflictions indeed are not a rule of our judgment, since they may befall the most dearly beloved of God, and a beam of God's love in the soul will make them all appear light and momentary, as Paul's did for this reason to him (2 Corinthians 4:17). But God is often wont to use them as expressions of his anger, and witnesses of his displeasure: and they are frequently so to his own; the rods with which he corrects them; and while they can see a father's hand in them, they can take them well: but when they are made to apprehend him coming as an enemy against them, and his terrors make them afraid, now they see not any consolation in his countenance, but wrath. Thus it was with Job in that distress of his, on which account he utters that complaint (Chap. 13:24), "Therefore hides you your face, and holds me for your enemy?"

When God withdraws from his ordinances, and they apprehend not that wonted power of his accompanying, to give them their efficacy. Time was when they never went to an ordinance, but they met with Christ there, and received some token of his presence with them, and acceptance of them: their hearts were touched, their affections raised, the Word and Sacrament left impressions on them, and they were quickened, resolved, enlivened, strengthened, and comforted by them. But now it is not so; but on the other hand, they go with a great deal of listlessness, and attend with deadness and wandering, and come away rather more stupid and out of order as to what is good. And if God were there, would it be so? David therefore longs that he may see God as he has seen him in his sanctuary (Psalms 63:3), and for this it is that he values the ordinances (Psalms 27:4), to behold the beauty of the Lord. The want then of this felt is a dark dispensation.

When they set about duty, and find that assistance withheld which they needed, for want of which they fail in the performance; when they would do good evil is present, and that not only to withstand, but to captivate them (Romans 7:22, 23). They would pray earnestly and enlargedly, but their affections are cold, and their hearts are straitened; they would pray believingly, but are shaken with doubting, and ready to let go their hold on the promise; they would hear intently, but their hearts are wandering, and steal away from them into the corners of the earth ere they are aware, and the like in other holy duties. And now what miserable work do they make in their best performances? They feel themselves like Samson when his locks were cut (Judges 16:20).

When they are left to themselves in an hour of temptation, and so are driven away by it into sin. God does not only suffer temptation to assault them, for so he had often done, and given them a glorious victory and triumph over it, and so brought them off conquerors; and therein witnessed his admirable presence with them. But they have been tripped up by it, and carried down the stream of it, as it was with Hezekiah, when God left him to himself (2 Chronicles 32:31), and Peter when he cowardly denied his Lord; and many others in Scripture record. And this brings them to a loss in their thoughts; and they are brought to conclude, if the Lord had been with me, it would not have been thus; if he had not been withdrawn, I had not been thus deserted.

More especially when they are left to some more gross and conscience-wasting sins, and their conscience is hereupon let loose to terrify them. David prays especially to be kept from presumptuous sin (Psalms 19:13). When therefore they are at any time overtaken with such a sin as is against the light of nature, and the plain precept of the Word of God, such as David's adultery and murder were, such as that of the incestuous Corinthian (1 Corinthians 5:1), this looks so much like a spot that is not of God's children, that it occasions very much darkness in them. And though often for the present such a sin benumbs and stupefies their consciences, and they are insensible of it, yet when God rouses their consciences, and makes it to reflect on the sin, and sets it home with its aggravations, it becomes very dreadful to them. We may be satisfied how it was with David on this account by many passages in Psalms 51. And they are ready to be swallowed up with the remorse of it, as he (2 Corinthians 2:7), lest he be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.

When their own evidences are so blurred that they cannot read them. The Christian's evidences for his good estate are within him; they are the special fruits of the Spirit, which he produces in none but the regenerate: called the things that accompany salvation (Hebrews 6:9). From these he is to argue to his being under the promise, because thereby the condition of it is fulfilled in him. But, though these are in him, yet he cannot find the reality of them: he cannot distinguish his faith from presumption, his repentance from that which is legal, his obedience from that which is false and hypocritical. And this makes him afraid that nothing is right in him; that he has only a shadow and not the substance, which makes him to walk in the dark, as they in Isaiah 50:10. And he calls the truth of every thing into question, and dares to fix upon nothing.

When the Spirit of God withholds his testimony from confirming their evidences. Though the evidence be in us, yet the confirmation of it must be by his testimony (Romans 8:16): the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirits. Whereas he does not now so witness, but leaves us in suspense, and though we cannot deny, yet we dare not conclude, but are tossed and turmoiled about it, and full of fears, thinking that if all were right, he would surely set his hand and seal to it, and let us discern it. Thus therefore David deprecates in the forecited Psalms 51:11, "Take not your holy Spirit from me."

When we want these joys in exercise which are the privilege and duty of the children of God. The Apostle could say (1 Peter 1:8), "You rejoice with joy unspeakable." And the Psalmist prays (Psalm 106:5), "That I may rejoice with the gladness of your nation." And we are bidden to be always in the exercise of this (1 Thessalonians 5:16), "Rejoice evermore." And (Philippians 4:4), "Rejoice in the Lord always." Whereas, though he has some hope, and is not altogether abandoned, yet he is full of trouble; his heart is heavy, he is a stranger to this joy, and goes up and down with a grieved spirit, and in the bitterness of his soul. Such is the Psalmist's moan (Psalm 42:3, 9), "My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say to me, where is your God? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy."

When, in this condition, they pray to God, and can find no answer to their prayers and tears. It is true, he many times answers them graciously, when they do not understand him: however they are to their own sense unanswered, they do not find those returns which they hoped for, and esteemed to be proper for their condition, though they cry incessantly, and mourn after God ardently. So the Psalmist uttered himself (Psalm 22:2), "O my God, I cry in the day time, but you hear not me, and in the night season, and am not silent." No, it may be to their apprehension, God answers them in anger, and gives them the most discouraging returns; as he expostulates (Psalm 80:4), "How long will you be angry at the prayers of your people?" And (Job 30:20, 21), "I cry to you, and you do not hear me, I stand up, and you regard me not, you are become cruel to me." And he apprehends that God rejects his petitions, as (Lamentations 3:8), "When I cry and shout, he shuts out my prayer."

When discouragements oppress, and almost overbear them. Their fears are so great, and their hopes run so low, that they are ready to give up all for gone, and are at the very brinks of despair. Thus it was with David (Psalm 31:22), "I said in my haste, I am cut off from before your eyes." And the Prophet (Jonah 2:4), "I said, I am cast out of your sight." And the Church (Lamentations 3:18), "I said, mine hope and my strength is perished from the Lord." The very thoughts of God trouble him, and he is calling in question every thing in the Covenant (Psalm 77:3, 7, 8, 9). And he cries out as (Psalm 38:10), "Mine heart pants, my strength fails; as for the light of mine eyes, it is also gone from me." And he is afraid that he shall not hold out a moment longer, but be overwhelmed. All these are the fruits and evidences of divine desertions, and such as the Scriptures cited under them do make it appear, that they may befall the best of men in this life.

2. What is it that procures this hiding of his face from them?

In general, this must be sought for in them: and for a clue to lead us in the search, that we be not mistaken about it, let me offer the following conclusions.

That if it were not for sin there would be none of these desertions befalling the people of God. When God made man in his integrity, there was an entire friendship and intimacy between them; there was no cloud to hide his face from him: nor shall there be any more of this when we come to the General Assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect. This began upon man's apostasy, which made a separation; and though it remains with the children of God through this life, yet it shall continue no longer; and the reason why they experience it now, is because they have sin abiding with them. The Psalmist hereupon presumes (Psalm 17, last verse), "I shall be satisfied when I awake with your likeness." And if you ask, why must they meet with such dark dispensations here, the best answer is, because they carry a body of death about with them, and till they put it off, it is like to be so.

That spiritual desertion, of its own nature, belongs to the curse of the first Covenant. It is in itself a great evil, and of a worse sort, being spiritual. It belongs to the death that was denounced in the threatening (Genesis 2:17). And it is the greatest affliction that God's saints meet with in this life, as will be after made manifest. Desertions will be of the sorest plagues that shall befall the damned in hell; it will be the quintessence of their misery, that they shall depart from God's presence, and never see his face shining on them: the very sentence contains this in it (Matthew 25:41), "Depart you cursed." And we are told (2 Thessalonians 1:9), "They shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;" and if in his presence there is fullness of joys (Psalm 16:11), then in a separation from it, there must be fullness of sorrows. Every distance from God is a misery; and if so, then to be utterly forsaken of him is the upshot of infelicity (Hosea 9:12), "Woe to them, when I shall depart from them." Now all misery came into the world by the curse.

That the desertions of the children of God are no part of revenging justice, as they befall them: they are so indeed to the wicked, because they are under the dispensation of the old Covenant: but believers are not under the law, but under grace (Romans 6:14). And in the new Jerusalem, there is no curse (Revelation 22:3). God, in infinite wisdom, sees meet to continue many of the evils themselves upon his own, which sin introduced into the world, but he has taken away the sting and poison out of them; and as a skillful Physician turns them into medicine, and they belong to the all things that shall work together for good to them that love God (Romans 8:28), and come into the saints' inventory (1 Corinthians 3:22), "All is yours." For it is a truth, that all the dispensations of God to them that are in Christ, as all believers are, are to bring about the great design of fitting them for the glory to which they are appointed. Besides, it is certain, that whatever belongs to the execution of the revenging justice of the first Covenant, has been borne by Christ himself, on the account of all for whom he was made a sacrifice, and so cannot again be exacted upon them.

4. That God uses much of his sovereignty in these desertions that he exercises his people withal. He indeed has holy ends and purposes in all that he does, as will be seen in the next enquiry: he never uses his sovereignty separate from his wisdom: though he is arbitrary in what he does, yet he never forgets to carry on his own glory and his people's salvation in and by it. However, he uses a liberty, of which he will not give us an account, and for which we can assign no other reason moving him, but because it so seemed good to him. Hence, all his children are not exercised alike herewith, neither as to kind, nor as to degree. Some walk in the dark, while others go up and down in the light. No, the most watchful and circumspect saints may meet with these; he that fears the Lord, and obeys the voice of his servant, may walk in darkness, and have no light (Isaiah 50:10). And so there is no room left us to censure others on this account: we ought not to be high minded, but fear.

5. That God visits them with these never but when they need them. It is a truth universal concerning the children of God (1 Peter 1:6): you are in heaviness if need be — which need we are not to measure by our shallow understandings, as if God could not, by his absolute power, bring them another way to glory; but this is the way which his infinite wisdom has contrived, in which to lead them to it: and there are those occasions for these, which make them very convenient at such a time, which he knows, though we are at a loss about them. God therefore so speaks to his deserted people (Jeremiah 29:11): I know the thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts of peace, and not of evil. And there is a [illegible] when they also shall see and adore, as Christ to him (John 13:7): What I do you know not now, but you shall know hereafter.

6. That it is usually some sin of theirs, which grieves his Holy Spirit, that procures these desertions. His Spirit is very tender, and he may be grieved — why else are we so cautioned against it (Ephesians 4:30)? And there is nothing but some sin and folly of ours that so does; and such as by which we have put some special affront upon him; for he is pitiful, and knows our frame (Psalm 103:14). Now if we do so grieve him, we must expect that he will show his resentment of it in some way or other; and in what more suitable than in that which shall put us to grief, though so as shall bring us back to him by a kindly repentance, and so make up the breach, and remove the strangeness that was procured by our sin? Hence we find David to be once and again, under a sense of God's withdrawing, bitterly complaining of his sins, as the occasion thereof (Psalm 31:9, 10 and 38, beginning). So that there can be nothing more proper for us, when we meet with such things in providence, than to call ourselves to a severe account, and strictly enquire, what we have done.

3. For what end or design does God so hide his face?

A. In general, we may be assured that God always aims at his own glory, and his children's good, when he so treats them. That God must design his own glory by it is certain, for that is his last end in all his works; and it is inconsistent with his holiness that he should do otherwise; and that he has connected with this in an inseparable subordination, the best good of his people, is a truth of divine revelation; inasmuch as having appointed them to salvation, for the glorifying of his rich grace in them, he conducts them by his mature counsel, in the right way to it, so he presumes (Psalm 73:24): you shall guide me by your counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory. So that there is no one passage in it but what was before contrived and laid out in infinite wisdom. Now the discovery of wisdom is not only in choosing a worthy end, but also in making a choice of suitable means, and rightly applying them for the obtaining of the end. These hidings belong to this conduct, and the design of them is to be discovered by the way in which God makes them to serve thereunto. Hence a child of God may say of every desertion he meets with, as Paul in another case (Philippians 1:19): I know that this shall turn to my salvation; and as Job (chapter 23:10): when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold; and this rule may help us in the particular enquiring into the design of God upon this account, in which we must always have an eye to these five rules that can never fail us.

1. That these withdrawings are not from God's hatred, but his love; they are ready to suspect this, and say, as Psalm 77:7, 8, 9: will the Lord cast off forever? etc.; but it is their infirmity, verse 10. They think, because he hides himself, he loves them not; but indeed he does therefore so hide, because he loves them. Zion thinks that now she is forgotten and forsaken; but God assures her that it is far otherwise (Isaiah 49:14, 15), and God is grieved that his people should think there is any defect or decay in his love, because he so carries to them.

2. That though God love them, yet he may be angry at them, and withdraw in anger. Love and hatred are contraries, but anger is subordinated, and may be employed by either of them; there is an anger of love as well as of hatred: a father has a dear love for his child, but he may be very angry at him, and manifest it too in severe tokens. God can be provoked, so as to withdraw from his own; and he so declares (Isaiah 54:8): In a little wrath I hid my face from you.

3. Yet this anger is managed by love, and shall work accordingly. God's displeasure at his children shall do nothing but what love directs; if then he hides away from them in anger, it is because he sees it is best for them: it shall not extinguish, no, nor diminish, no, nor so much as intermit the operation of his love towards them, but shall always do love's work: when therefore he afflicts, it is in faithfulness, as Psalm 119:75.

4. That God may withdraw from his people when he is not angry; they indeed have cause to be afraid of some provocation given, and accordingly to make diligent search: but God sometimes withdraws from them, when there is no special provocation given him. Job had great desertions, as has been observed, and yet God himself testifies of him, that there was none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man (Job 1:8). And the Church could say, in Psalm 44:17, all this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten you, nor dealt falsely in your Covenant.

5. That there is ever something in the condition of his people, for which these withdrawings are suitable; they are in such a posture as is best for the glory of God, and their everlasting welfare, that they met with such a dispensation. And now let us take notice what that is, that so we may be helped to discover God's special design herein; and this may be reduced to three heads.

1. God does it for their chastisement and amendment. Divine corrections are one part of God's dispensations to his people here (Hebrews 12:6): whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives; and the aim of them [illegible] the doing of them good; let us then observe how he makes these desertions [illegible] to this purpose in a few particulars.

1. God's children are sometimes overtaken with sins that both dishonor him, and wound them; if they were not liable to folly, they would not need correction. Nor is their folly restrained to [illegible] infirmities, but sometimes breaks out into more bold transgressions. God presumes such a thing may be, and for that reason threatens a rod in case (Psalm 89:[illegible], &c.). Sometimes God's name is blasphemed by what they do, as it was by David's folly (2 Samuel 12:14), and their own bones are broken, as he complains (Psalm 51:[illegible]). There are some such wounds as these, which the most eminent saints on Scripture record have gotten to themselves, though more seldom.

2. And they very often grow dull and remiss in the exercise of their graces: carnal concupiscence that remains in them, and the occasions and temptations they meet with in the world, are apt to cool their gracious frames, and bring them into deadness, so that though grace [illegible] alive at the root, yet it does not flourish; there is fire on the hearth, but it is covered with embers; they grow drowsy and lukewarm. It was so with the Spouse (Canticles 5:3), and with the Church of Sardis (Revelation 3, begin.), and usually their being exposed to the fore-mentioned sins begins here. It is generally supposed that David was in such a posture, when he was surprised on the house top (2 Samuel 11, begin.).

3. The glory of God, and their good, are concerned in their recovery. It is not consistent with either of these for them to be left always in such a condition as they have brought themselves into by such things. God's name suffers not a little by the former, nor is there any way for them to repair the injury done to it, but by a soaking repentance; and their work lies by by both, and there is no progress made in the business wherein they are to work out their own salvation. For the reparation therefore of both these, it is requisite, that they be made to see and lament their folly, and be roused up to their business: and God's covenant faithfulness engages him to do this for them.

4. Many times other means to reclaim them are unsuccessful. God uses other courses, and they remain stupid and senseless. David doubtless lived under the enjoyment of, and attendance upon the ordinances of God, and yet he is stupid and remorseless till the Prophet comes. It is too awfully observable that godly men, under some eminent decays, content themselves with formality, and feel not their malady, till God comes in some more awful way to bring them to this sense.

5. Hence God exercises them with such desertions for their awakening, humbling and healing: and when he so does, and touches their consciences, then they resent them, and are brought to themselves. When God hid his face from David, he then cries, and confesses, and begs for the restoring of his Spirit; and he obtains it (Psalm 51). When Christ came to his beloved with sweet allurements, she wantonly neglected and rejected them, but when he put in his finger, and left a touch behind, and then withdrew, now she is quickened, her grace begins to stir and revive, and she rests not till she has gotten the sight of him again (Canticles 5).

2. God does it for the exercise and trial of their grace. That this is one end of God's dark dispensations to his people, we are told in Deuteronomy 8:16: To prove you. And we may see the reason or ground of it in these things.

1. God has put his graces into his people for exercise, in which he is to be glorified. The creature's last end is the glory of God: and that man may glorify him, he must have grace to do it; and he only glorifies God by the exercise of these graces, without which he would receive them in vain. This is the fruitfulness by which Christ tells us, that his Father is glorified (John 15:8).

2. This exercise of grace is made illustrious when it is put to the trial. Grace is like gold, which is discovered by the trial of it, both as to the reality and excellency of it: and what says he (Job 23:10)? When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. By these the truth of grace is made manifest; if there be any activity in it, it will now show itself; and the strength of it will now be proved, whether it be weak or strong. When Peter was upon the waters, he exercised his faith, but so as to show that he had but little (Matthew 14:31).

3. Temptations are suited for this trial. And here by temptations I understand all sorts of afflictions. Prosperity indeed has its temptations in it, but the Spirit of God more peculiarly puts this title upon afflictions, because hereby we are brought into difficulty, wherein it will be proved whether God, or any other be our object of hope and trust. The Apostle therefore tells us that our manifold temptations are for the trial of our faith (1 Peter 1:6, 7). Now we are in the dark, and many will say, where is your God? Besides, there are some graces that are peculiarly suited for, and the proper occasion for the exercise of them is from an hour of temptation, such as patience, meekness, submission, &c.

4. Desertions belong to these Temptations. And indeed grace is never so put to the proof, as when God hides his face from us. To believe in a withdrawing God, to be following hard after him, when he seems to be going away from us; to hold him the faster, when he offers to knock our hands off; to resolve with him (Job 13:15), Though he slay me, I will put my trust in him, and him (Isaiah 8:17), I will wait for the Lord, who hideth his face from the house of Jacob; requires no small measure of faith: when it is with us, as it was with the Psalmist, then to say and do as he did (Psalm 22, beginning) argues grace to have great vigor in it.

5. God hereby lets them know their own weakness, to humble them. When God withdraws, the corrupt part stirs: unbelief is ready to discover itself, impatience to break forth in unsuitable expressions, and carriages; the Christian who before thought, what he could do, if assailed, now finds himself to be at a loss, and ready to sink. See how David expresses himself, in Psalm 77, beginning, as if all were gone; and is made to confess that it was his infirmity, verse 10.

6. And he lets them herein experience his own fidelity and power. When he gives them a full proof of their own weakness, and helps them to cry out to him for help: when with Peter (Matthew 14:30) they find themselves sinking, and call to him for his aid, now he stretches out a hand to them, and upholds them, and thereby wonderfully manifests himself to them. They had never known how faithful and able a God he is, had it not been for such an exigency. It was when the Psalmist was compassed with the sorrows of death, &c., and he called upon God (Psalm 116:3-4), that he celebrates him with that confession, verse 4: Gracious is the Lord and righteous, yea our God is merciful.

7. And herein he also helps others of his children. One such experience is of great use to many, when they are in a like case. We are advised (Hebrews 6:12) to be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. God has recorded such experiences for our admonition, direction, and encouragement. Hereby also he makes such a Christian to be fit to help others at a dead lift, by communicating of their own experiences, for this reason Christ gave that advice to Peter (Luke 22:32): When you are converted, strengthen your brethren.

8. And the tendency and issue of all this, is to advance their glory. This is God's design concerning his children in all their temptations, and so in this of desertion (1 Peter 1:7): That the trial of your faith, may be found to praise, honor, and glory. Those very providences in which God seems to disregard his people, are yet a part of his counsel, by which he guides them to glory (Psalm 73:14), and he will so manage them by his wisdom and power, that they shall in the event add to the weight of their crown (2 Corinthians 5:17).

3. And God does it many times for prevention. Not only to reclaim them from those sins which they have fallen into, but also to preserve them from falling into sin afterward; and that these do greatly serve to this end will appear, if we observe.

1. That God's children are in danger of being drawn into sin; they live in a world of temptation, and they carry about with them a body of death: there are the remains of concupiscence in them, by which they are ready to take the impression of such temptations as are offered to draw them aside; for which reason Christ has given us that as a petition in our addresses to God (Matthew 6:13): lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. A child of God is never free from this hazard as long as he lives in an evil world, and has a flesh in him lusting against the spirit.

2. By sin they obstruct the progress of the work of their generation. There is a work that God has called them to; but sin is no part of it, but contrary to it; and not only so, but every sin, especially such as are more bold, deadens them, and renders them unfit for the business they are engaged in; a believer while under the efficacy of any lust, is not progressive, but regressive; however God can make it serve to his after faster growth. David was thus all the while he lay under his sin.

3. The corruption in them oftentimes abuses the comforts of God's presence to presumption and carelessness. Such is our weakness while we are here, that we can bear but a little of the new wine of consolation. We are like children, who, if cockered by their parents, grow saucy and licentious. This was David's case in our context: God had made his mountain strong, and he thereupon grew secure, and believed himself to be out of danger, and that made him to grow wanton, and remit of that care and watchfulness over himself that became him.

4. Hence God uses such desertions to make them the more careful and fearful for the time to come; these become a close lesson to them, to let them see what an egregious folly it is for them to abuse their father's kindness, and familiarity; this becomes a memento to them as long as they live, and they can hardly outgrow it, but it gives them an item, when at any time a temptation offers itself: it was doubtless such an experiment as brought David to that resolve (Psalm 39:1), I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not; and by this means there is more close communion afterward manifested between God and them.

4. To what degree this desertion may arrive?

A. We may take this brief account of it.

1. That God's desertions are not alike to all his children; nor alike to the same at all times, as there are the degrees of his manifesting himself to them, so of his withdrawing from them. He does not deal with all alike on this account; some are deeper in the valley of the shadow of death than others are: and the same believers are at sometimes more deeply deserted than at others. Some are carried through the world, as with no extraordinary captures of comfort, so with no extraordinary depressions and terrors of soul: whereas others are sometimes ravished beyond measure with the clearest apprehensions of God's love, and again deserted to astonishment, under the hidings of God from them, and the desolate estate which they are reduced to thereby. And how frequent such times had the Psalmist? as will appear by several Psalms.

That God never deserts his children so as he does wicked men; they indeed may not always discern it, but he evermore makes a very great difference between these and those. Deserted believers are the children of God as well then, as when they have never so much of the light of his favor shining upon them. Nor does he at any time so leave them, as to put them out of his favor; he loveth them still, and will never cease so to do; he careth for them, and looks after them still, and they are under that conduct, by which they shall assuredly arrive at his Kingdom in the end. That is an abiding truth (Psalms 94:14): the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. Whereas wicked men are now his enemies, and he will forsake them for ever.

That God, in their greatest desertions, maintains the life of grace in them. Whatever wounds their graces may suffer, and whatever decays they may be under, by reason of God's withdrawing his influence from them; though they may be in a swoon and fainting; yet they shall not be extinguished: they may still say as he (Psalms 118:17): I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord. There is life at the root in the greatest winter, when the Sun of Righteousness absents himself never so far from them. Christ's prayer for Peter, that his faith might not fail (Luke 22:32), shall be effectual for them too. God left David awfully, but yet not totally; they may to sense and appearance seem to be dead, but yet they are really alive; and when this winter is over, and the spring returns, they shall flourish again; the seed that is sown in them ever abides; and they are preserved by the power of God through faith to salvation (1 Peter 1:5).

There are also the stirrings of grace in them at such a time, though it may be very faintly. It has been a question among some, whether a believer may not be so deserted as to assistance, as that his graces may be reduced to the habit, and all acts of them wholly cease? And sense many times will plead hard for the affirmative: and I question not, but that a child of God may be at a very great loss about it, and not apprehensive of any such stirrings: but yet oftentimes there are manifest contradictions between grace and corruption in them: so it was with the Psalmist (Psalms 73:13, 15). But whether it be so or no, out of doubt the sense of the sorrow for, and impatience under such desertions, bespeak the stirring of grace, though under very grievous overbearings of corruption in them: for these are not in themselves the resentment of the flesh, but of the Spirit. All the relentings of heart in God's children, under the discoveries of his absenting himself from them, though there be much of sinfulness accompanying the eruptions of them, are yet the indication of the wrestling of the Spirit against the flesh.

Yet they may be left to grievous sins under these desertions. If God withdraw his assistance from them, and do not afford his wonted influence to the graces of his Spirit that are in them, their vigor will fail, their strength will be enervated, and the carnal part in them will wofully prevail over them, and lead them into captivity, and they shall wound themselves fearfully. Let Peter have never so much love for his Lord, and be never so resolute to stand by and for him, yet if Christ withdraw from him, he shall deny him bitterly, when a temptation offers. If God leave Hezekiah to himself, he shall sin provokingly. If David be thus deserted, he shall involve himself in one great sin upon another. Nor can it be named hardly what one sin there is, which they may not fall into, and that to very grievous aggravating circumstances, bating that one which is unpardonable.

And they may be utterly at a loss about their spiritual state. There does seem to be a greater latitude in those desertions which refer to comfort, than such as relate to assistance: God's faithfulness will not suffer him so to withdraw from their graces, as to suffer them to be extinguished in them; but it is possible, and consistent with his covenant fidelity, that sometimes they lose the comfort of their good estate. Not only may the Spirit of God withdraw his testimony, and refuse to bear his witness to their sonship; and when he so does, all the witness of their own spirits will not satisfy them in the conclusion; but leave them in sad doubts and fears whether there be any thing of truth and sincerity in them; a misgiving heart, and tempting devil setting in, put them upon drawing of sad conclusions against themselves, while their own evidences are beclouded, so as they cannot read them, nor produce any argument for themselves which they dare to place confidence in, and so they are enveloped in dismal darkness; and such a condition as this is that supposed in (Isaiah 50:10).

And they may be hereupon under sore temptations to despair, and give up all hope: they may think themselves lost, and refuse to be comforted, be just ready to sign and seal the conclusion; not only that they are unregenerate, but reprobates too, and gotten beyond all hope of mercy. Was it not so with them (Psalms 31:22): I said in my haste, I am cast out of your sight, and (Lamentations 3:18): my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord; and (Jonah 2:4): I am cast out of your sight. There are indeed at such a time the efforts of faith, but they are so languid, that they cannot tell what to make of them; although they are still such as God preserves, and never suffers them utterly to renounce or abandon their hopes in him; they shall many times utter contradictions in the same breath, which shall be a witness of two contrary principles wrestling in them: but still they known what to make of themselves, and are fearfully tempted to despair, and ready to conclude that they can hold out no longer; and though such degrees of desertion as these, are not very frequent, yet sometimes God, to shew his power, and let it be known what he can do in bringing of his to glory at last through the sorest temptations, suffers it to be so.

5. How long these desertions may abide on a child of God?

A. There are no certain limitations to be set here, but we may take this general account of it.

That God's sovereignty is to be adored in these dispensations. The best way to silence the cavelings of corrupt nature about the degree or duration of God's absconding from his children, is that of Elihu (Job 33:13): "He gives no account of any of his matters"; and if we have risings of heart against this, God will, before he has done with us, bring us to acknowledge that here is reason enough to stop our mouths: so he did by Job.

Yet the desertion shall last no longer than till the end of it is attained. God aims at something by it, and accordingly uses it as a medium in order thereunto; and consequently he will continue it no longer than till he has done that by it which he designed it for; and this must needs be so, because God is infinitely wise, and will do nothing in vain: how then should he continue to do that which himself calls his strange work, any longer than there is occasion for it.

Hence those desertions that are for chastisement usually end when we are brought to God's foot, and amended by them. If God corrects us for our folly, and we continue to be stout and refractory, or careless and regardless, it is not to be wondered if he proceed with us in this course; he has therefore said (Hosea 5:15), "I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face"; and David tells us how long it was with him in this regard, and how he obtained a return (Psalm 33:3, 4, 5).

There are some desertions that have their frequent revolutions: these are the turns that some of God's children are entertained withal: sometimes they are in the light, and anon in the dark; now they are lifted up, and presently they are cast down; and they can come to no settlement. God is not to be contended with when it is so; but if we search diligently, we may possibly find a satisfactory reason in ourselves for it.

God will show his manifold wisdom in bringing of his to glory, and hence acts very differently with them in the exercise or trial of their graces. If God may be glorified by us, that should satisfy us; and in this way he gains great glory; hence,

Some have but few of these desertions, and those also very short: and they are carried the greater part of their life in a clear light: of such we have the Psalmist's remark (Psalm 89:15, 16): "They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance; in your name shall they rejoice all the day."

Others have more of these at their setting out, and afterward they enjoy a great serenity. God pleases to hold them a considerable time in the dark, before he makes remarkable discoveries of himself to them; though he gives them the grace, yet they want the comfort of it; but afterwards, after humble waiting, he comes in with his wondrous light, and replenishes them with it; they find the meaning of that (Psalm 112:4): "To the upright there arises light in the darkness"; a cloudy day has a serene sun-set, and in the evening it is light.

Others begin fair, but are afterwards tried with awful withdrawings. God at first seals his love up to them, takes them into his chambers, and manifests his wonderful love to them: and after that he changes his providence toward them, and they are carried into deep waters, where there is no standing: when they have been royally feasted with his love, they are called to the trial of their grace by his withdrawings. Such was the close of David's reign.

Others have a dark time between; their beginning and ending is bright, but God interposes a time of clouds and darkness, in which they feel no small exercise. So it was with Job.

Others are kept in the dark all their days; and possibly set in a cloud too; the Apostle speaks of some such (Hebrews 2:15), who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage; and we find the Psalmist thus representing his own condition in this respect (Psalm 88:15): "I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up." Now in all these things God brings about his own glory, and carries on the saving good of his children, and is not to be disputed but adored in the arbitrary conduct which he affords them through life and time.

Proposition 2. That his so hiding from them is troublesome and terrible to them; it is that which oppresses, and almost sinks and overwhelms their spirits.

There are two things that may here come under consideration.

1. We may enquire into the nature and operation of this trouble.

2. We may observe, from where it is that these desertions are so terrible to them.

Concerning the nature and operation of this trouble, we may first take a general description of it, and then trace it in the effects which it produces in the Christian.

Of this trouble take this general description: it is the most distressing perplexity of soul, in a child of God, arising from his apprehension of God's withdrawing from him. We before observed that the [illegible] used in our text is very emphatical, which is engrossed in the description, and may be laid forth in the opening of it. Here therefore observe,

The subject of these hidings; and that is a child of God. That these may undergo them has been already observed and made manifest; as also that there is a vast difference between God's hiding from these, and from wicked men; and accordingly there are also different resentments in them, both as to the things wherein God hides, and the entertainment which they give thereunto. We must therefore carry in our minds whom it is that we are treating about.

We are told from where it is that their trouble proceeds; namely, the apprehension of God's withdrawing from them. And here observe,

The foundation of this trouble is in the desertion itself: it is that which gives being to it. If God should not withdraw, they would not thus be troubled: could they always enjoy the light of his countenance, it would abundantly satisfy them, let what else will befall them. Psalm 23:4: "When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no ill, for you are with me."

That which nextly produceth trouble is their apprehension of this. Sometimes they are in so drowsy a frame, that God is hidden, and they are insensible of it, and so long it disquiets them not. How long it was thus with David we cannot certainly tell, but it was so till the Prophet came and roused him (2 Samuel 12, begin.). But when once the spiritual sense is awakened, and they miss, and cannot find him, now they are distressed. And it is an usual thing for him to give such a touch on the conscience upon his withdrawing, which quickens this sense; so he found it in (Canticles 5:4): "My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him." And the reason is, because he ever deserts them with a purpose to return again, and this is in order to it.

The trouble itself is a distressing perplexity of soul. We observed that the word signifies such a consternation as leaves a man, in his own apprehension, without counsel or help: he is brought into a labyrinth, and cannot see his way out; he can look no way but he is entangled, and this distracts him; so he complains (Psalm 88:15): "While I suffer your terrors, I am distracted." And we have such moans (Psalm 31:9, 10): "I am in trouble, mine eye is consumed with grief, &c." And (Psalm 38:8, 10): "I am feeble and sore broken, I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart, my heart pants, my strength fails, &c."

For the quality of it, it is the most distressing. Not but that there are degrees in it, as will anon appear, but in the kind, it is the greatest of any; there is no other sort of distress that a child of God meets with that is comparable to it; all are tolerable in comparison with this; hence that (Proverbs 18:14): "The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?" But this will be more evident by considering of the effects which it produceth in the Christian. Only let me premise in general, that this trouble operates diversly, both as to manner and degrees, accordingly as God hides his face from them. We must therefore consider these effects according to this diversity, and there are some that are common to all, and there are others that are proper to these and those, according as they are accommodated to their particular resentments. We may take a brief account of each of them.

Those effects which are common to all are principally such as these.

It renders their life very uncomfortable. If God hide his face, they lose their comfort and joy: if this light be withdrawn, they are made to sit in darkness; and it puts a sad face upon every other condition they are in; so that,

It takes away the comfort of prosperity. Let God give them never so much of the outward enjoyments of this life — health, strength, wealth, friends, liberty, &c. — they cannot take content in them. When they could enjoy God in and with these, then they could resent this kindness, and be delighted in them; but he is withdrawn, and what good can these do them? If one thing wanted, will eat out the worldling's comfort in every thing else, when he has the greatest affluence thereof; as that miserable Haman confessed (Esther 5:12, 13). What then must the absence of God do to a believer, whom he relies upon as his portion? What comfort had David in his kingdom, and all the glories of it, when God was withdrawn from him? See how he cries out (Psalm 143:7): "Hear me speedily, O Lord, my spirit fails."

It embitters every other affliction; adversity itself is an evil which innocent nature does not easily resent; but yet when he had God with him, he could go through fire and water, and bear it well enough (Isaiah 43:2); but now he sees God's anger in the rod; affliction comes, and God is gone; and that is an evil indeed, where should a child of God seek his support under all troubles but in his God? If all other persons and things leave him, it is no matter, so God will but stand by him, he could say (2 Timothy 4:16, 17): "No man stood with me, but all men forsook me: nevertheless the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me." And he (Psalm 142:4, 5): "No man would know me, refuge failed me, no man cared for my soul; I said, you are my refuge, and my portion in the land of the living."

It takes away the consolation even of spiritual duties and ordinances. These are the relief of a child of God, when he can find none else here (Psalm 73:17): "Till I went into the sanctuary." If he met with any grief in the world, he could ease his mind in his closet, and make up all at a prayer, a sermon, a sacrament, by communion with his beloved; but now, when he comes there, he is not there; he cannot see him as he has seen him; and this makes bitter Sabbaths and sacraments to him, nor can he take rest any where.

It fills them with fear; there is a filial, and there is a slavish fear; the one proceeds from the Spirit of Adoption, and the other from a spirit of bondage: and as there are the beginnings of the one, so the remains of the other in the children of God: the operation of these is divers, and oftentimes very much mixed in them at such a time; the Psalmist says (Psalm 119:120): "My flesh trembleth for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments;" and never more so, than when under desertion; inasmuch as these afford occasions for this fear to be stirred: this night when it comes, brings its terrors along with it.

It makes them restless till the desertion be removed, and God reveals his face again to them. There will indeed be the stirring of corruption as well as grace in this disquietment of mind; but in the whole they cannot abide quiet under these withdrawings; nor can any thing in the world give them satisfaction in the room of that presence of his: the Spouse, in Canticles 5, when her beloved was withdrawn, could not lie still in her bed, nor abide within doors, but she must up and after him, nor could abuses stop her in her quest, or she be at any rest till she had found him again.

With respect to the several resentments they have of these desertions; and these may be considered either as to their kinds, or their degrees.

As to the kinds of them, observe,

1. When they resent God's hiding of himself in respect of his assistances; so that their graces fail in the exercise of them, and they apprehend the means of grace in a great measure unprofitable to them; and instead of growing in grace, they rather wither and decay, and temptations prevail, and they are drawn into sin: the effects especially following on this, are,

1. This fills them with an apprehension of God's anger, and is terrible to them; and indeed there is not a more fearful token of God's displeasure at his children than when he leaves them to sin, and withdraws his Spirit from them. We read (2 Samuel 24:1) the anger of God was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them, to say, go number Israel and Judah. How shall they be able to pursue their work, and obtain the crown if thus left? God is angry indeed, when he lets every grace languish, and corruption to gather strength, and carry them captive, and they cannot but so resent it.

2. This puts them upon a diligent search after the provocation: they conclude on this, that there is blame in them; God would not have so deserted them, if they had not some way prevaricated: this therefore they must find out, and they are in great anxiety of mind till they can come at it. They cry out as he, Job 10:2, shew me therefore why you contend with me; and they look into every corner of their soul, to find out the Achan. David therefore in this trouble of his, runs up to the cause of it, namely his carnal confidence, verse 6.

3. It makes them penitently to mourn after him: it produces in them a godly sorrow to repentance, as (2 Corinthians 7:10). The perplexity of their souls brings them to confess and seek pardon of God (Psalm 32:3, 4, 5). They beg of him to have his Spirit restored, and a new heart created in them, and all that is in them set right again (Psalm 51:10, 11), and nothing can satisfy them till they obtain this at his hands.

2. When they apprehend God deserting them as to comfort; when he hides the light of assurance from them, and leaves them in the dark about their spiritual estate, there are these effects that properly follow.

1. This makes them to call their state into question: there is an assurance which is the basis of a believer's consolation, and according to the degrees of it, such is his comfort in it; this is helped by God's enabling of him to read his own evidences, and to judge of the reality of them, and by his co-witnessing with them. When therefore God withholds this, he is left in the dark about it; and the proper result of it is to be afraid whether ever any thing was right in him, whether he has not all this while deceived himself, and built on a false hope. Out of doubt this fear stirred in David, when he put up that petition, in Psalm 51:11, Cast me not away from your presence.

2. Hence it fills him with terrible thoughts about the issue. What shall become of him at last? If he has hitherto deceived his own soul; if he has boasted of a false gift; if he has arrogated to himself the title of a child of God, and there be no such thing, what shall he do? How shall he appear? He thinks of the terrible day of accounts, and if he should then be found a cheat, and if Christ should say to him, I never knew you, how dreadful will it be? And on this account the terrors of God make him afraid.

2. With respect to the degrees of these desertions. God does not always hide himself alike, neither as to the graces, nor as to the comforts of his people: and hence there are divers measures of this darkness, and distress which is upon them; the lowest whereof are terrible, but yet with more activity of faith than the other. Here then,

1. If the desertion be in lower degrees.

1. It fills him with deep sorrow and mourning. Let God be never so little departed, when he knows it, it produces this in him, nor can it do less; it makes him to say, as Psalm 38:6, I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly, I go mourning all the day long: grief and bitterness seizes him, and it fills his eyes with tears, and his heart with sighing.

2. It raises a combat between hope and fear. There is some stirring of faith, there is also a great moving of diffidence and distrust; his heart is full of tossings, he would hope that God will return to him again; and yet he is afraid whether he will or no: fear presses him down as a heavy weight, and hope endeavours to buoy him up again; there is a wrestling, as Psalm 42, last verse, Why are you cast down O my soul, &c.

3. It puts him upon loud cries, and earnest expostulations with God; and these also with a mixture of faith and unbelief. He pleads with God, argues the case with him, begs hard of him; so he, Psalm 42:9, I will say to God my rock, why have you forgotten me? He draws desponding conclusions, and eats them up again (Psalm 32:22): I said in my haste, I am cut off; nevertheless you have heard the voice of my supplications. Jonah 2:4, I said I am cast out of your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy Temple. He cries out, how long? (Psalm 13:1). He deliberates with himself, and expostulates with God (Psalm 85:5, 6): will you be angry for ever? Will you not revive me?

2. If the desertion be in higher degrees, and comes to that (Isaiah 50:10) that he sits in darkness, and sees no light; and this may sometimes be the case of a gracious soul, though it be more rare and infrequent; the effects are usually answerable; and though faith be not utterly extinct, yet its actings are next to indiscernible, but unbelief gets head, and breaks forth into amazing effects; the principal whereof are as these.

1. It makes him to [illegible] all the work that was wrought in him. He not only questions it, but passes a definitive sentence upon it. He concludes that he has played the hypocrite all this while; dissembled with God, and imposed upon men, and deceived his own soul. David had some such resentments on him, when he prayed God to create a clean heart in him (Psalm 51:10). Nay, those very things which sometimes were his evidence for his good estate, and in which he could take comfort, are now turned into arguments to disprove it.

It creates prejudices against God. He has, in this condition, to do with the fierce wrath of God; he apprehends that God hates him, and is his enemy (Job 33:24). Therefore you hide your face, and hold me for your enemy; and verse 26, you write bitter things against me. The very thoughts of God, which were wont to be his relief and solace are now his distress (Psalm 77:3). I remembered God and was troubled; and he begins to call all the encouragements, promises, hopes that ever he had from him in question, and suspects the truth of them all, verse 7, 8, 9. Will the Lord cast off for ever? &c. and is ready to conclude that he has served a hard master; to say, as Psalm 13, I have cleansed mine heart in [illegible] have washed mine hands in innocency.

This hurries him to conclude himself a cast-away. It brings him to the very brink of despair, and he is ready to vote himself not only an unregenerate person, but a reprobate; that as he never was a child of God, so he never shall be. He is just throwing himself upon this desperate conclusion (Lamentations 3:18): I said, my strength and mine hope is perished from the Lord. And this puts him into a deadly discouragement, and produces such things as these.

It discourages him from all use of means: those very duties and ordinances, which were heretofore his delight, are now his terror, and he is afraid of them. What should he pray for? God will not hear him. Why should he read the word? He reads nothing there but his own doom, and every thing in it speaks evil against him. Why should he go to the house of God, to attend upon the ordinances there dispensed? He shall but increase his guilt, and lay in the more against himself, when every prayer and sermon will rise up [illegible] judgment to condemn him. He [illegible] not approach to the Lord's Table, lest he should there anew seal up his own damnation.

It makes him to put away all counsel and comfort, and snatch at all terrors and affrightments. David says in Psalm 77:2, In the day of my trouble, my soul refused to be comforted. Let godly friends apply to him the encouragements of the Gospel, and lay open before him the mercy and pity of God, he puts it away from him, and concludes that this does not belong to him: the promises are none of his, but the threatenings, and he reads his own doom in them.

This makes him afraid either to live or to die. His trouble is so intense, that sometimes his soul chooses strangling and death rather than his life, as he, Job 7:15. And yet the very thoughts of death are a grievous amazement to him, because he is afraid that it will but post him over to the consummation of miseries. Hence we read of those, who through fear of death, were all their life time subject to bondage (Hebrews 2:15). Only let it be observed, that though he apprehend it not, yet there are the efforts of grace even under this distress, and sometimes he, before he is aware, calls God his God; and sometimes he expresses his ardent longings. Oh! that he would not utterly cast me off, Oh! that he would give some glimmerings of his light! &c.

From where it is that these desertions are so terrible to him?

Here in general, let us observe;

That man is naturally insatiably desirous of happiness, and averse to misery. This is a congenerate principal of human nature, and can be no more separate from it than humanity; the very elective power in man involves it in it. They were the cries of nature, as well as of grace which he uttered in that request (1 Chronicles 4:10): Oh that you would bless me indeed, and that you would keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me.

That man is a dependent creature, and must have an object of trust, for happiness, and freedom from evil and misery. He has not his felicity, nor his security in himself, but must have it from abroad; and if he have it, he must have an object that is able to derive it to him, on whom he may rely; else his trust will be vain, and his expectation frustrate. Hence their complaint on this account (Lamentations 4:17): As for us, our eyes yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

If therefore his object fail him, and he have no other to rely upon, he must needs be perplexed. It is a killing thing to be disappointed in one's expectation, in which his all is concerned: and if the deferring of hope makes the heart to faint, the defeating of it must needs make it to die in the man; especially when he sees no other course to be taken, or any other refuge where he may repair this loss. It will make him to say as he, Judges 18:24, You have taken [illegible] my gods, and what have I more?

And the deeper apprehension that he has of his misery hereby, the more oppressed must he needs be. It is certain that according as men apprehend the good or evil they are concerned in, they will be proportionably affected with it; for the affections are moved by the will, according to the resentment which it has of the good or evil which are the objects of it. These things are accommodated to the rational powers which God has put into man, and are answerably exerted by the children of God, in whom grace does not destroy but rectify nature. Here therefore let us take a particular account of them, as they refer to the matter before us, in the following conclusions.

A child of God has been made apprehensive of the fearful misery under which he was by sin. This is wrought in the heart and conscience by the Spirit of God, in order to the making of the children of men the children of God; and the remembrance of it abides with them as long as they live. Fallen man is in a miserable condition, having lost his right to all good, and being fallen under a curse that involves all infelicities in it. The natural man does not resent this of himself; [illegible] God, when he comes to convert a sinner, reveals it to him, and makes him to know it and feel it, and that both temporal and spiritual. Hence that (Jeremiah 2:19): Know and see that it is an evil thing and bitter. And this belongs to the work of the Spirit (John 16:8): He shall convince the world of sin.

He has been deeply concerned to escape this misery, and obtain eternal felicity. This also has been the fruit of the operation of the Spirit in him: for, though nature itself stimulates men to enquire after an escape, upon conviction of danger, and to use means to obtain it, yet it is God only who has discovered the way for it, and moves the soul to hearken after it; for, by the light of nature there was no discovery of this: nor can the natural man comprehend it, when it is discovered in the Gospel. But God has touched the heart of this man with a remorse and an enquiry, What shall I do to be Saved? And made him very solicitous to obtain it: he was loth to perish, and longed that he might escape; and the terrors which he read in the threatening were so great upon him, and such was his expectation of their falling upon him, that he restlessly longed for relief.

He has found the emptiness and insufficiency of every other object of trust: he has been looking every way for relief; he has been trying many courses to help himself, but they have all disappointed him; he has gone to the world, and that has deceived him; he has looked to his privileges, and they have not succoured him; he has attempted his own righteousness, and that has failed him: he has accordingly been broken off from all these, and dares no longer to look that way; has resolved as they (Hosea 14:3) Ashur shall not save us, &c. and (Jeremiah 3:23) in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and the multitude of mountains.

He has discovered the fulness of sufficiency there is in God, through Christ, to deliver him, and make him perfectly blessed. God has made himself known to him in his communicable perfections, to be one in whom he may trust for salvation; and has revealed himself in the face of Christ, as a God ready to receive him, and bestow eternal salvation upon him: he has seen that he can deliver him from all his miseries, and fill him with those glories which shall make him satisfied: he has appeared to him, as a sun and a shield, and the author of grace and glory and every good thing (Psalms 84:11). As one that is able to save him to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:21), and he has been made to believe that all they are blessed that put their trust in him.

He has utterly renounced all other trust, and placed his alone hope in God, through Christ for salvation. He has rejected the world, both men and things of it, and cast off all his own righteousness and strength, and chosen God in Christ for his portion, and said to him, as (Psalms 73:21) Whom have I in Heaven but you, and there is nothing on the earth that I desire in comparison of you; and has obliged his soul to this, as (Psalms 62:5, 6) my soul trust you in God alone, &c.

Hence his life is bound up in the favour of God: all his help is in that; he has no where else to go; he is resolved in this, that if God do not save him, he must perish; if he be not his portion, he must have none: if God should fail him, he has no where else to repair, but must needs sink; he utterly despairs of having succour from any other hand; he has no other string to his bow; he can not go any whither else, but says, as (John 6:68) whither should we go, you only has the words of eternal life.

Hence the anger of God cannot but be very terrible to him, if he has his whole dependence for time and eternity on God's favor; surely then it cannot but be very bitter, to see him discover his anger, and look to him as an enemy: this is it that he alone accounts fearful; (Psalms 76:7) You, even you are to be feared, and who is he that can stand, when once you are angry?

Those withdrawings of his discover him as an angry God, to his children. They readily read wrath and indignation in them: hence the Psalmist complains how heavily his wrath lay upon him, in these dispensations (Psalms 88:7, 16) your wrath lies heavy upon me, your fierce wrath goes over me.

Hence proportionably to their apprehension of this wrath, must their distress be: as they count it happiness complete to have this God their friend and father, so that it is the top of misery to have him for their enemy: and the more of comfort they have ever felt in communion with him, the more oppressing must his withdrawing be: hence that (Job 31:23) Destruction from God was a terror to me, and by reason of his highness I could not endure. Christ is his life (Colossians 3:4), and if his life have deserted him, what shall he do? Whither shall he go? He knows not how to live at present without him; if his God be gone, he cries out as (Psalms 38:10) My heart pants, my strength fails me. He is desolate and bereaved, and because all his hope for eternity is bound up in God, if he is brought into fear whether ever he will return again, he is at a loss about his interest in him, and suspects whether he has not cast him off for ever; the very thoughts of losing these glorious refreshments, and pleasures, and joys that are in his presence, and at his right hand for evermore, and undergoing those miseries which he has had an apprehension of, which are the portion of those that must be eternally separated from his presence, must needs be dismal beyond conception. None can apprehend or believe it, but the soul that feels it; nor can he express it to others, so bitter and dreadful it is: and he may well cry out as the Church does, in (Lamentations 1:12) Behold and see, if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.