Hope And Comfort Usually Follow Genuine Humiliation And Repentance
Dated
September, 1737
Hosea 2:15
And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor
for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and
as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
In
the context, the church of Israel is first threatened with the awful desolation
which God was about to bring upon her for her dealing so falsely and
treacherously with God; because though, in the bold language of the prophet, she
had been married to God, she had yet gone after other lovers, and had committed
adultery with them. “For she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my
bread, and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.” Therefore
God threatened that he would strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she
was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay
her with thirst, and that he would discover her lewdness in the sight of her
lovers, and destroy her vines and fig trees, and make them a forest. So the
prophet goes on terribly threatening her to the end of the thirteenth verse. And
those things were fulfilled in the captivity of Israel in the land of Assyria.
But in the verse preceding the text, and in the remainder of the chapter, there
follows a gracious promise of mercy, which God would show her in the days of the
gospel. “Therefore, behold I will allure her, and bring her into the
wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards
from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing
there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of
the land of Egypt.” “I will allure her,” that is, I will court or woo her
again, as a young man woos a virgin, whom he desires to make his wife. God, for
her committing adultery with other lovers, had threatened that he would give her
a bill of divorce, as verse second, “Plead with your mother, plead; for she is
not my wife, neither am I her husband.” But here in the latter part of the
chapter, God promises that in gospel times he would make her his wife again, as
in the sixteenth verse, “And it shall be at that day that thou shalt call me
Ishi;” that is “my husband.” And so in verse 19, 20, “And I will betroth
thee unto me for ever, yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in
judgment, in loving-kindness, and in mercies; I will even betroth the unto me in
faithfulness.” Here in the fourteenth verse, God promises that he will woo
her, and in the latter part of the verse, he shows in what manner he will deal
with her when he is about to woo or allure her. He would first bring her into
the wilderness; that is, he would bring her into trouble and distress, and so
humble her, and then allure her by speaking comfortably or pleasantly to her, as
a young man does to a maid whom he woos. Then follow the words of the text.
I. We may
observe what God would give to the children of Israel; viz. Hope and
comfort. He promises to give her vineyards; which being spiritually interpreted
as most of the prophecies of gospel times are to be interpreted, signifies
spiritual comforts. Vineyards afford wine, which is comfort to those who are of
heavy hearts. Pro. 31:6, “Give wine to those that are of heavy hearts.” Wine
is to make glad the heart of man. Psa. 104:15. Gospel rest and peace are
sometimes prophesied of, under the metaphor of every man’s sitting under his
vine and under his own fig tree. God promises to give her hope, to open a door
of hope for her, and to give her songs; that is, to give her spiritual joy, and
both cause and disposition joyfully to sing praises to God.
II. We may
observe after what manner God would bestow those benefits. First, they
should be given after great trouble and abasement. Before she had this hope and
comfort given, she should be brought into great trouble and distress to humble
her. He promises to give her her vineyards from thence; that is, from the
wilderness spoken of in the foregoing verse, into which it is said that God
would bring her, before he spoke comfortably to her. God would bring her into
the wilderness, and then give her vineyards. God’s bringing her into the
wilderness was to humble her, and fit her to receive vineyards, and to make her
see her dependence on God for them, that she might not attribute her enjoyment
of them to her idols, as she had done before, for which reason God took them
away, as in the twelfth verse, “And I will destroy her vines and her
fig-trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given
me; and I will make them a forest.” There it is threatened that God will turn
her vineyards into a forest, or wilderness. Here it is promises that he would
turn the wilderness into vineyards, as Isa. 32:15, “Until the Spirit be poured
on us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful
field be counted for a forest.” She should first be in a wilderness, where she
shall see that she cannot help herself, nor any of her idols help, or give her
any vineyards. And then God will help her, that she shall see that it is God,
and not any of her idols or lovers. God would first bring her into a wilderness,
and thence give her vineyards, as God first brought the children of Israel into
a dreadful wilderness. So God opened a door of hope to them in the valley of
Achor, which is a word that signifies trouble, and was so called from the
trouble which the children of Israel suffered by the sin of Achor. So God is
wont first to make their sin a great trouble to them, an occasion of a great
deal of distress, before he opens a door of hope. God promises to make her sing
there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the
land of Egypt. This plainly refers to the joyful song which Moses and the
children of Israel sang when they came up out of the Red sea. The children of
Israel there had great joy and comfort; but just before they had great trouble.
They had been in extreme distress by the oppression of their taskmasters; and
just before this triumphant song, they were brought to extremity and almost to
despair, when Pharaoh and the Egyptians appeared ready to swallow them up.
Second,
this hope and comfort should be bestowed on the slaying and forsaking of sin.
That is the troubler of the soul. It should be given in the valley of Achor,
which was the valley where the troubler of Israel was slain as you may see in
Jos. 7:26; and the place where the children of Israel sang, when they came up
out of the land of Egypt. The eastern shore of the Red sea was the place where
they saw their enemies and old taskmaster, the types of men’s lusts, which are
sinners’ taskmasters, lie dead on the sea-shore, and of whom they took their
final leave. And God had told them, that their enemies whom they had seen that
day, they should see no more forever.
DOCTRINE
God
is wont to cause hope and comfort to arise in the soul after trouble and
humbling for sin, and according as the troubler is slain and forsaken. I would
show,
I. That
it is thus with respect to the first true hope and comfort which is given to the
soul at conversion.
II.
That God is wont to bestow hope and comfort on Christians from time to time in
this way.
I. God
is wont to cause hope and comfort to arise to the soul in conversion after
trouble and humbling for sin, and upon the slaying of the troubler.
First,
it is God’s manner to bestow hope and comfort on a soul in conversion after
trouble and humbling for sin. Under this head are three things to be observed.
1. The trouble itself. 2. The cause, viz. sin. 3.The humbling.
1.
Souls are wont to be brought into trouble before God bestows true hope and
comfort. The corrupt hearts of men naturally incline to stupidity and
senselessness before God comes with the awakening influences of his Spirit. They
are quiet and secure. They have no true comfort and hope, and yet they are
quiet; they are at ease. They are in miserable slavery, and yet seek not a
remedy. They say, as the children of Israel did in Egypt to Moses, “Let us
alone, that we may serve the Egyptians.” But if God has a design of mercy to
them, it is his manner before he bestows true hope and comfort on them, to bring
them into trouble, to distress them, and spoil their ease and false quietness,
and to rouse them out of their old resting and sleeping places, and to bring
them into a wilderness. They are brought into great trouble and distress, so
that they can take no comfort in those things in which they used to take
comfort. Their hearts are pinched and stung, and they can find no ease in
anything. They have, as it were, an arrow sticking fast in them, which causes
grievous and continual pain, an arrow which they cannot shake off, or pull out.
The pain and anguish of it drinks up their spirit. Their worldly enjoyments were
a sufficient good before; but they are not now. They wander about with wounded
hearts, seeking rest, and finding none; like one wandering in a dry and parched
wilderness under the burning, scorching heat of the sun, seeking for some shadow
where he may sit down and rest, but finding none. Wherever he goes the beams of
the sun scorch him. Or he seeks some fountain of, cool water to quench his
thirst, but finds not a drop. He is like David in his trouble, who wandered
about in the wilderness, Saul pursuing him wherever he went, driving and hunting
him from one wilderness to another, from one mountain to another, and from one
cave to another, giving him no rest. To such sinners, all things look dark, and
they know not what to do, nor whither to turn. If they look forward or backward,
to the right hand or the left, all is gloom and perplexity. If they look to
heaven, behold darkness. If they look to the earth, behold trouble, and
darkness, and dimness of anguish. Sometimes they hope for relief, but they are
disappointed, and so again and again they travail in pain, and a dreadful sound
is in their ears. They are terrified and affrighted, and they seek refuge, as a
poor creature pursued by an enemy. He flies to one refuge and there is beset,
and that fails; then he flies to another, and then is driven out of that. And
his enemies grow thicker and thicker about, encompassing him on every side. They
are like those of whom we read in Isa. 24:17, 18. Fear, and the pit, and the
snare are upon them, and when they flee from the noise of the fear they are
taken in the pit; and if they come up out of the pit, they are taken in the
snare. So that they know not what to do. They are like the children of Israel,
while Achor troubled them. They go forth against their enemies, and they are
smitten down and flee before them. They call on God, but he does not answer, nor
seem to regard them. Sometimes they find something in which they take pleasure
for a little time, but it soon vanishes away, and leaves them in greater
distress than before. And sometimes they are brought to the very borders of
despair. Thus they are brought into the wilderness, and into the valley of Achor,
or of trouble.
2. Sin
is the trouble or the cause of this trouble. Sin is the disease of the soul, and
such a disease as will, if the soul is not benumbed, cause exceeding pain. Sin
brings guilt, and that brings condemnation and wrath. All this trouble arises
from conviction of sin. Awakened sinners are convinced that they are sinful.
Before the sinner thought well of himself, or was not convinced that he was very
sinful. But now he is led to reflect first on what he has done, how wickedly he
has spent his time, what wicked acts or practices he has been guilty of. And
afterwards in the progress of his awakenings, he is made sensible of something
of the sin and plague of his heart. They are made sensible of the guilt and
wrath which sin brings. The threatening of God’s law, are set home, and they
are made sensible that God is angry, and that his wrath is dreadful. They are
led to consider the dreadfulness of that punishment, which God has threatened.
The affection or principle, which is wrought upon to cause this trouble, is
fear. They are afraid of the punishment of sin, and God’s wrath for it. They
are commonly afraid of many things here in this world as the fruit of sin. They
are afraid that God will not hear their prayers, that he is so angry with them,
that he will never give them converting grace. They are afraid oftentimes that
they have committed the unpardonable sin, or at least that they have been guilty
of such sin as God will never pardon; that their day is past, and that God has
given them up to judicial hardness of heart and blindness of mind. Or if they
are not already, they are afraid they shall be. They are afraid oftentimes, that
the Spirit of God is not striving with them now, that their fears are from some
other cause. Sometimes they are afraid that it is only the devil, who terrifies
and afflicts them; and that if the Spirit of God is striving with them, he will
be taken from then, and they shall be left in a Christless state. They are
afraid that if they seek salvation, it will be to no purpose, and that they
shall only make their case worse and worse; that they are farther and farther
from anything which is good, and that there is less probability now of their
being converted, than when they began to seek. Sometimes they fear, that they
have but a short time to live, and that God will soon cast them to hell; that
none ever were as they were, who ever found mercy; that their case is peculiar,
and that all wherein they differ from others is for the worse. They have fears
on every side. Oftentimes they are afraid of everything. Everything looks dark,
and they are afraid that everything will prove ruinous to them. But in the issue
of all they are afraid they shall perish forever. They are afraid that when they
die they shall go down to hell, and there have their portion appointed them in
everlasting burnings. This is the sum of all their fears. And the cause of this
fear is a consciousness of the guilt of sin. It is sin, which is the cruel
taskmaster, which oppresses them, and chastises them; and sin is the cruel
Pharaoh, which pursues them. As the children of Israel, before they came to sing
with joy after they came out of the land of Egypt, were under great trouble from
their taskmasters, and sighed by reason of the hard bondage, and then were
pursued, and put into dreadful fear at the Red sea. It was their taskmasters who
made them all this trouble. So it is sin which makes all the trouble which a
sinner suffers under awakenings. Their trouble for sin is no gracious, godly
sorrow for sin; for that does not arise merely from fear, but from love. It is
not an evangelical, but legal, repentance of which we are speaking, which is not
from love to God, but only self love.
3. The
end of this trouble in those to whom God designs mercy is to humble them. God
leads them into the wilderness before he speaks comfortably to them, for the
same cause that he led the children of Israel into the wilderness before he
brought them into Canaan, which we are told was to humble them. Deu. 8:2, “And
thou shalt remember all the way, which the Lord thy God led thee these forty
years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, and to know what was
in thine heart.” Man naturally trusts in himself and magnifies himself. And
for man to enjoy only ease and prosperity and quietness tends to nourish and
establish such a disposition. Deu. 32:15, “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked.”
But by trouble and distress, and by a sense of a heavy load of guilt, God brings
men down into the dust. God brings souls thus into the wilderness to show them
their own helplessness, to let them see that they have nothing to which they can
turn for help, to make them sensible that they are not rich and increased with
goods, but wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; to show them that they
are utterly undone and ruined, to make them sensible of their exceeding
wickedness, and to bring them to be sensible how justly God might cast them off
forever. Those legal troubles tend to show them their utter inability to help
themselves, as their fears put them on using their utmost endeavors, and trying
their utmost strength; and by continuing in that way their experience teaches
them their weakness, and they find they can do nothing. It puts them upon
repeated trials, and they have as repeated disappointments. But repeated
disappointments tend to bring a man to give up the case, and to despair of help
in that way in which he has tried for it. It tends to make men sensible of the
utter insufficiency of their wisdom, and bring them to see their own exceeding
blindness and ignorance. For fear, and concern, and distress, necessarily put a
person on intensely thinking, and studying, and contriving for relief. But when
men have been thus trying their own wisdom and invention to their utmost, and
find it fails, and signifies nothing, and is altogether to no purpose, it makes
them more and more sensible of their weakness and blindness, and brings them to
confess themselves fools, and blind, as to those things which concern their
relief. They are like one who is placed in the midst of a vast hideous
wilderness. At first it may be he may not be sensible but that he knows the way
home, and can directly go in the way which leads out of the wilderness. But
after he has tried and has traveled awhile, and finds that he cannot find the
way, and that he spends himself in vain, and only goes round and round, and
comes to the same place again at last, he is brought to confess that he knows
not where to go, nor what to do, and that he is sensible that he, like one who
is perfectly lost, and altogether in darkness, and is brought at last to yield
the case and stand still, and do nothing but call for help, that if possible any
one may hear, and lead him in the wilderness. For this end God leads men into
the wilderness before he speaks comfortably to them. The troubles which they
have for sin tend to bring them to be sensible how justly God may cast them off
forever. And this brings them to reflect on their sins; for these are the things
of which they are afraid. When a man is terribly afraid of things with which he
is surrounded, this engages his eyes to behold; he looks intensely on them, and
sees more and more how frightful and terrible they are. When they are in fear,
they take much more notice of their sins than at other times. They think more
how wickedly they have lived, and observe more the corrupt and wicked working of
their own hearts, and so are more and more sensible what vile creatures they
are. This makes them more and more sensible how angry God is, and how terrible
his anger is. They try to appease and to reconcile God by their own
righteousness, but it fails. God still appears as an angry God, refusing to hear
their prayers, or appear for their help, till they despair in their own
righteousness, and yield the case. And by more and more of a sight of themselves
are brought to confess that they lie justly exposed to damnation, and have
nothing by which to defend themselves. God appears more and more as a terrible
being to them, till they have done with any imaginations, that they have
anything sufficient to recommend them, or reconcile them to such a God. Thus God
is wont first to bring the soul into trouble by reason of sin, and so to humble
the soul, before he gives true hope and comfort in conversion.
Second,
this hope and comfort are given upon the slaying of the troubler. Whatever
troubles there are for sin, yet if the sin is not slain, it cannot be expected
but that there will be trouble still. Before there will be no true comfort. The
soul may return to stupidity and carelessness, and may receive a false peace and
hope, and sin be kept alive; but no true hope. Persons may be exceedingly
troubled for sin, and yet sin be saved alive. Persons may seem to lament they
have done thus and thus, and weep many tears, and cry out of their sinfulness
and wickedness, and yet the life of sin be whole in them. But if so, they never
shall receive true comfort. They may refrain from sin; there may be a great
reformation, and exact life for a time. Or there may be a total reformation of
some particular ways of sin, and yet not true hope; because sin is only
restrained; it is not slain. Many men are brought to restrain sin, and to give
it slight wounds, who cannot be brought to kill it. Wicked men are loth to kill
sin. They have been very good friends to it ever since they have been in the
world, and have always treated it as one of their most familiar and best
friends. They have allowed it the best room in their hearts, and have given it
the best entertainment they could, and they are very loth to destroy it. But
until this be done, God never will give them true comfort. If ever men come to
have a true hope, they must do as the children of Israel did by Achan. Jos.
7:24, 25, 26, “And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan, the son of Zerah,
and the silver and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons and his
daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all
that he had; and they brought them into the valley of Achor. And Joshua said,
Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel
stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire after they had stoned them
with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So
the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name of that
place was called the valley of Achor unto this day.” So if ever men come to
have any true hope, they must take sin which is the troubler, and all which
belongs to it, even that which seems most dear and precious, though it be as
choice as Achan’s silver and wedge of gold, and utterly destroy them, and burn
them with fire, to be sure to make a thorough end of them, as it were, bury them
and raise over them a great heap of stones, to lay a great weight upon them, to
make sure of it that they shall never rise more. Yea, and thus they must serve
all his sons and daughters. They must not save some of the accursed brood alive.
All the fruits of sin must be forsaken. There must not be some particular lust,
some dear sinful enjoyment, some pleasant child of sin, spared. But all must be
stoned and burned. If we do thus, we may expect to have trouble cease, and light
to arise, as it was in the camp of Israel after slaying the troubler.
Inquiry.
Here it may be inquired, what is implied in slaying
sin at conversion? And it implies these several things:
First,
there must be a conviction of the evil of it as against God. All is carried on
by conviction. Those legal troubles, which are before conversion, arise from
some conviction of the being of sin, and the guilt and danger of it. And the
slaying of sin is by conviction of its evil and hateful nature. To slay the
troubler, we must find him out, as the children of Israel did before they slew
Achan. They rose early in the morning, and searched, and brought all Israel by
their tribes. And then searched the tribe, which was taken by families, and the
family by particular persons, and so found him.
Second,
it is to have the heart turned from, and turned against, it in hatred. The
troubler is never slain, but by a thorough and saving change of heart and
renovation of nature, so that that which before loved sin and chose it, may now
hate and abhor it, and may disrelish it, and all its ways, and especially hate
their former ways of sin.
Third,
forsaking and renouncing it. Let men pretend what they may, their hearts are not
turned from sin, if they do not forsake it. He is not converted, who is not
really come to a disposition utterly to forsake all ways of sin. If ever sinners
have true hope and comfort, they must take a final leave of sin, as the children
of Israel did of the Egyptians at the Red sea. Persons may have a great deal of
trouble from sin, and many conflicts and struggles with it, and seem to forsake
it for a time, and yet not forsake it finally; as the children of Israel had
with the Egyptians. They had a long struggle with them before they were freed
from them. How many judgments did God bring upon the Egyptians, before they
would let them go? And sometimes Pharaoh seemed as if he would let them go; but
yet when it came to the proof he refused. And when they departed from Rameses
doubtless they thought then they had got rid of them. They did not expect to see
them any more. But when they arrived at the Red sea, and looked behind them,
they saw them pursuing them. They found it a difficult thing wholly to get rid
of them. But when they were drowned in the Red sea, then they took an
everlasting leave of them. The king and all the chiefs of them were dead. And
therefore God said to them [in] Exo. 14:13, “The Egyptians, whom ye have seen
to-day, ye shall see them again no more forever.” So sinners must not only
part with sin for a little time, but they must forsake it forever, and be
willing never to see or have anything to do with their old sinful ways and
enjoyments. They must forsake that which is their iniquity, the sin which most
easily besets them, and to which by their constitution or custom they have been
most addicted, which has been, as it were, the dearest of all, and most
respected, as a king among the army of sins; though that must be slain too, as
Pharaoh, the king of the Egyptians, was in the Red sea. And we must not do as
Saul did, when God sent him to kill the Amalekites; but he saved the king of the
Amalekites alive, which cost him his kingdom.
Fourth,
it implies embracing Christ, and trusting in him as the Savior from sin. We must
look to him not only as a Savior from the punishment of sin, but we must receive
and embrace him as a Savior from sin itself. We cannot deliver ourselves from
sin. We cannot slay this enemy of ourselves. He is too strong an enemy for us.
We can no more slay sin ourselves, that the children of Israel, who were
themselves a poor feeble company, a mixed multitude, unprepared to resist such a
force, could themselves slay Pharaoh, and all his mighty army with chariots and
horsemen. It was Christ in the pillar of cloud and fire, who fought for them.
They had nothing to do but trust in him. Exo.14:14, “The Lord shall fight for
you, and ye shall hold your peace.” They could never have drowned the
Egyptians in the sea. It was Christ who did it; for the pillar of cloud stood
between them and the Israelites, and when they were up out of the sea, then
Christ brought on them the waters of the sea. Our enemies must be drowned in the
all-sufficient fountain, and as it were, sea of Christ’s blood, as the
Egyptians were in the Red sea, and then we may sing, as the children of Israel
did in the day when they came up out of the land of Egypt. When sin is thus
slain, then God is wont to open a door of hope, a door through which there
flashes a sweet light out of heaven upon the soul. Then comfort arises, and then
is there a new song in the mouth, even praise unto God.
II. God is wont to
bestow hope and comfort from time to time in the same manner on Christians. In
the consideration of this matter I would show,
First,
that Christians are frequently in darkness, and their hope is often greatly
obscured.
Second,
that it is sin which is the occasion of this darkness.
Third,
their trouble is commonly much increased a little before the renewal of light
and hope.
Fourth, their
darkness is not perpetual, but God is wont to cause hope and comfort to rise
again.
Fifth,
that hope and comfort are renewed to them on the slaying of the troubler.
First,
it is often the case that Christians are under darkness, and their hope is
greatly clouded. God is wont to give his saints hope and comfort at their first
conversion, which sometimes remains without any great interruption for a
considerable time. And some Christians live abundantly more in the light than
others. Some for many years together have but little darkness. God is pleased to
distinguish them from their neighbors. He mercifully keeps them from those
occasions of darkness, into which he suffers others to fall, and gives them of
the light of his countenance. God exercises his sovereignty in this matter, as
he does in giving converting grace. As he bestows that on whom he pleases, so he
bestows on some of those who are converted more light, on others less, according
as it pleases him. But many Christians meet with a great deal of darkness, and
see times in which their hopes are much clouded. Sometimes the sweet and
comfortable influences of God’s Spirit are withdrawn. They were wont to have
spiritual discoveries made of God and Christ to their souls, but now they have
none. Their minds seem to be darkened, and they cannot see spiritual things, as
they have done in times past. Formerly, when they read the Scriptures, they used
often to have light come in, and they seemed to have an understanding and relish
for what they read, and were filled with comfort. But now when they read, it is
all a dead letter and they have no taste for it, and are obliged to force
themselves to read. They seem to have no pleasure in it, but it is a mere task
and burden. Formerly they used to have passages of Scripture come to their
minds, when they were not reading, which brought much light and sweetness with
them. But now they have none. Formerly they used to feel the sweet exercises of
grace. They could trust in God, and could find a spirit of resignation to his
will, and had love drawn forth, and sweet longings after God and Christ, and a
sweet complacence in God; but now they are dull and dead. Formerly they used to
meet with God in the ordinances of his house. It was sweet to sit and hear the
word preached, and it seemed to bring light and life. They used to feel life and
sweetness in public prayers, and their hearts were elevated in singing God’s
praises. But now it is otherwise. Formerly they used to delight in the duty of
prayer. The time which they spent in their closet between God and their own
souls was sweet to them. But now when they go thither, they do not meet God; and
they take no delight in drawing near to God in their closets. When they do pray,
it seems to be a mere lifeless, heartless performance. They utter such and such
words, but they seem to be nothing but words; their hearts are not engaged.
Their minds are continually wandering and going to and fro, after one vanity and
another. With this decay of the exercise of grace, their hope greatly decays;
and the evidences of their piety are exceedingly clouded. When they look into
their hearts, it seems to them that they can see nothing there, from which they
should hope. And when they consider after what manner they live, it seems to
them to argue, that they have no grace. They have but little of anything which
is new, to furnish comfortable evidence to them of their good estate; and as to
their old evidences, they are greatly darkened. Their former experience, in
which they took great comfort, looks dim, and a great way off, and out of sight
to them. They have almost forgotten it, and have no pleasure in thinking or
speaking of it. And sometimes true Christians are brought into terrible
distress. They are not only deprived of their former comforts, and have their
former hopes obscured, but they have inward distressing darkness. God does not
only hide his face, but they have a sense of his anger. He seems to frown upon
them. So it appears to have been with David. Psa. 42:7, “Deep calleth unto
deep at the noise of thy waterspouts; all thy waves and thy billows are gone
over me.” So with Heman. Psa. 88:6, 7, “Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit,
in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted
me with all thy waves.”
Second,
it is sin which is the occasion of this trouble and darkness. Whenever the godly
meet with such darkness, there is some Achan in their souls which is the
occasion of all this; and this is sin. This is the occasion of the darkness of
the godly, as well as the troubles which natural men have under awakenings. It
is not for want of love in God towards his saints, or readiness to grant comfort
to them. Neither is God’s hand shortened, that it cannot save, nor his ear
heavy, that he cannot hear. It is their sin which hides God’s face from them.
Isa. 59:1, 2. Sin is the occasion of this darkness of the saints, in these three
ways:
1. Sometimes it is
owing to the weakness and small degree of grace infused in conversion, and the
strength of remaining corruption. The work of God is the same in all who are
converted, so far that their sin is mortified, and that which reigned before
does not reign now. The heart is changed from darkness to light, and from death
to life, and turned from sin to God. And yet the work is very different with
respect to the degree of mortification of sin, and the degree of grace which is
infused. Some have more spiritual light given in their first conversion than
others; have greater discoveries, and are brought at once to a much greater
acquaintance with God, and have their hearts more humbled, and more weaned from
sin and the world, and more filled with the love of God and Christ, and are
brought nearer to heaven than others. Some at first conversion have a much more
eminent work of grace in their hearts than others. Some have emphatically but
little grace infused, and consequently their corruptions are left in much
greater strength. When it is so, it is no wonder that such have a weaker hope,
and less light and comfort, than others. The natural tendency of indwelling sin
in the saints, is to cloud and darken the mind; and therefore, the more of it
remains, the more will it have this effect. Persons can know their own good
estate in no other way than by seeking, or perceiving grace in their hearts. But
certainly the less of it there is, with the more difficulty will it be seen or
felt. As indwelling sin prevails, so does it the more obscure and cloud grace,
as a great smoke clouds and hides a spark. And therefore the more there is of
this indwelling sin, the more will grace be hid. The greater the strength in
which corruption is left, the more rare will be the good frames which the godly
have, and the more frequent and of longer continuance will be their times of
darkness. It may be, the darkness with which the saints meet is from some
particular corruption, which has always hitherto been in too great prevalence
and strength, and has never yet been mortified to such a degree, but that it
continues a great troubler in the soul. Grace being weak, the sin of the
constitution takes advantage, whether that be a proud and haughty temper, or a
covetous spirit, or an addictedness to some sensuality, or a peevish, fretful,
discontented spirit, or ill temper, or a quarrelsome spirit, or disposition to
high resentment. Or whether it be any other corrupt disposition, which is the
sin to which they are chiefly exposed by natural temper, or by their education
and former custom. If the grace which is infused at conversion, be comparatively
weak, this constitutional sin will take the advantage, and will dreadfully cloud
the mind, and hinder spiritual comfort, and bring trouble and darkness. There is
a great variety in the work of grace upon men’s hearts, as to the particular
discoveries which are then given, and the particular graces which are in chief
exercise; whereby it comes to pass, that some in their conversion are more
assisted against that particular corruption which is its opposite. Hence some
particular corruptions may be left in much greater prevalence than others, and
so be a greater occasion of darkness. Thus some, in the particular experiences
which they have, may not be so especially assisted against pride as others,
whereby their pride may take occasion to work. And when they have had spiritual
discoveries and comfort, they may be lifted up with them. And this may be an
occasion of displeasing and grieving his Holy Spirit, and so of their having a
great deal of darkness. They may not have seen so much of their own emptiness as
some others, and so their corruption may work much more by self-confidence than
others; and no wonder that self-confident persons meet with darkness. No wonder
that when men trust in themselves for light and grace, that their confidence
fails, and they go without that for which they trusted in themselves.
2.
Sometimes the saints are in great darkness on occasion of some gross
transgression into which they have fallen. So it was with David, when he fell
into gross sin in the matter of Uriah. He exceedingly quenched the influences of
the Spirit of God by it, and God withdrew those influences from him, and the
comforts which they had imparted; as appears by his earnestly praying for their
restoration. Psa. 51:12, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold
me with thy free Spirit.” When Christians fall into gross transgression, it is
commonly the fact that an exceedingly deep darkness follows.
3. When
they do not fall into any particular gross and scandalous transgression, yet
they sometimes exceedingly darken their minds by corrupt frames and evil habits,
into which they fall. There is much remaining corruption in the hearts of
Christians, and oftentimes they get into very ill frames. Some particular
corruptions grow very prevalent. Sometimes they grow proud and conceited of
themselves, either on account of their own godliness, and the good opinion
others have of them, or on some other account. Sometimes they fall into a
worldly frame, and spiritual things grow more tasteless to them, and their
hearts are desperately bent on the acquisition of worldly good. Sometimes their
minds grow light and vain, and their affections are wholly fixed on the vanities
of youth, on dress, and gaiety, and fashion. Some, because their minds are not
occupied as once they were, with spiritual enjoyments and delights, sweetly
meditating on heavenly things, breathing and longing after them, and earnestly
seeking them, become the slaves of their sensual appetites. Others grow
contentious and quarrelsome, are often angry with those around them, and cherish
habitual rancor against them in their hearts. They become willful and obstinate,
and stir up strife, and oppose others with vehemence; determining at all hazards
to carry their own measures, and delighting to have those who oppose them
defeated and humbled. It hurts them to have others prosper. Their minds and
hearts are full of turmoil, and heat, and vehemence against one and another.
Others fall into a discontented, fretful, and impatient frame at the disposals
of Providence. And oftentimes many of these things go together. And as these
persons sink into such unhappy frames in their hearts, so they pursue very
sinful courses of conduct. They behave themselves unsuitably, so as to dishonor
God, and greatly to wound religion. They do not appear to others to savor of a
good spirit. They fall into the practice of allowing themselves too great
liberties in indulging their sensual appetites, in the gratification of
covetousness and pride, in strife, backbiting, and a violent pursuit after the
world. They slide into those corrupt frames and evil ways commonly by means of
their first giving way to a slothful spirit. They are not so diligent and
earnest in religion as they once were; but indulge their slothful disposition,
and discontinue their watch, and so lie open to temptation. Thus ill frames
imperceptibly creep upon them, and they insensibly more and more fall into
sinful practices. So it was with David. Their sin, into which they fall in
consequence of this degenerate and sinful state of the affections and the life,
is the occasion of a great deal of darkness. God withdraws his Spirit from them,
their light goes out, and the evidences of their piety grow dim and obscure.
They seem to be in a great measure as they were before they were converted, and
they have no sensible communion with God. Thus sin is the occasion of trouble
and darkness to the Christian.
Third,
when it is thus with Christians, their trouble is commonly greatly increased a
little before the renewal of hope and comfort. When sin prevails, as has been
said, in the hearts of Christians, they are not wont to be easy and quiet like
secure sinners. There is commonly more or less of an inward struggling and
uneasiness. Grace in the heart, though it be dreadfully oppressed, and, as it
were, overwhelmed, yet will be resisting its enemy and struggling for liberty.
So that it is not with Christians in their ill frames, and under the prevalence
of corruption, altogether as it is with carnal, wicked men who are secure. And
there is this good reason for it, that the former have a principle of spiritual
life in their souls, which the latter have not. Yet Christians in their ill
frames may fall into a great deal of security and senselessness; for sin is of a
stupefying nature, and wherever it prevails, will have more or less of that
effect. When they fall into a sinful, worldly, proud, or contentious frame, they
are wont to have a great degree of senselessness and stupidity with it. And
especially when they fall into gross sins, has it a tendency greatly to stupefy
the soul. It obviously had this effect on David. He seems to have been strangely
stupefied, when Nathan came to him with the parable of the rich man, who
injuriously took the poor man’s ewe lamb from him. He was enraged with the man
in the parable, but did not seem to reflect on himself, or think how parallel
his case was with his. And while they are thus senseless, their trouble is not
so great; and if they feel the weight of sin it is not so burdensome to them.
But God is wont, before he renews comfort and hope to them, to bring them into
greater trouble. As a sinner before his first comfort in his conversion is
brought into trouble, so it is wont to be with the saints after their
backslidings and decays, before renewed hope and comfort is granted. There is a
work of awakening wrought upon them. While they remain in their corrupt frames,
they are, as it were, asleep. They are like the ten foolish virgins who
slumbered and slept; and as persons who are asleep, they are unconscious, not
sensible where they are, nor what are their circumstances. Therefore when God is
coming and returning to them by his Spirit, commonly his first work upon them is
a work of awakening, to wake them out of sleep, and rouse them to some
sensibility, to make them sensible of the great folly of their ways, and how
they have displeased and offended God, and what mischief they have done. Thus
God leads them into the wilderness, and brings them into the valley of Achor or
trouble. Then they are in greater trouble than they were before, and have more
sensible darkness, and more distress abundantly. But yet it is really much
better with them now, than before they began to come to themselves. Their
circumstances are much more eligible and more hopeful, though sometimes they are
in distress and almost insupportable. And a little before God renews light and
comfort, they have a very great sense of God’s anger, and his wrath lies heavy
upon them. So it seems to have been with David a little before the restoration
of spiritual comfort to him, which made him speak of the bones which God had
broken, when he was praying for the renewal of comfort. Psa. 51:8, “Make me to
hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” And
probably he has respect to the same thing in Psa. 38 which he calls his psalm to
bring to remembrance. Verses 2, 3, 4, “Thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy
hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine
anger; neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin. For mine
iniquities are gone over mine head; as an heavy burden they are too heavy for
me.” And often when God is about to bring them to themselves, and to restore
comfort to them, he first brings them into some very great and sore temporal
calamity and trouble, and awakens them by that, and in this first brings them
into the wilderness before he speaks comfortably to them. Job 33:16, etc.
“Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may
withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keepeth back his soul
from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword. He is chastened also
with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain; so that
his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat. His flesh is consumed away,
that it cannot be seen; and his bones, that were not seen, stick out. Yea, his
soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers. If there be a
messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man his
uprightness, then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going
down to the pit; I have found a ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a
child’s; he shall return to the days of his youth. He shall pray unto God, and
he shall be favourable unto him, and he shall see his face with joy; for he will
render unto man his righteousness. He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have
sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not, he will
deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light. Lo,
all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring back his soul from
the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living.” Thus those who are
very weak in grace sometimes meet with great and sore trouble, both of body and
mind, which is an occasion of a new work, as it were, of grace upon their
hearts; so that they are more eminent saints afterwards, and have much more
comfort.
Fourth,
when the saints are in darkness, their darkness is not perpetual, but God will
restore hope and comfort to them again. When one of Christ’s sheep wanders
away, and gets into the wilderness, Christ the good Shepherd will not leave him
in the wilderness, but will seek him, and will lay him on his shoulders, and
bring him home again. We cannot tell how long God may leave his saints in the
dark, but yet surely their darkness shall not last forever; for light is sown to
the righteous, and gladness to the upright in heart. Psa. 97:11. God, in the
covenant of grace in which they have an interest, has promised them joy and
comfort. He has promised them everlasting joy. Isa. 61:7. Satan may be suffered
for a time to bring them into darkness, but they shall be brought out again. God
may be provoked to hide his face from them for a time; and if it seems long, yet
it is indeed but a little time. Isa. 54:7, 8, “For a small moment I have
forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I
hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have
mercy on thee.” Psa. 30:5, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh
in the morning.”
Fifth,
hope and comfort are renewed to them on the slaving of the troubler. All sin is
truly mortified in conversion, or has its death wounds then. And all the
exercises of it afterwards are, in some respects, as the efforts and strugglings
of a dying enemy. But yet all life is not actually extinct, and therefore it
needs to be further mortified, to receive more deadly wounds. Sin is slain in
the godly after trouble and darkness, and before the renewing of comfort, in
these three ways:
1. It
is slain as to former degrees of it. All remains of corruption are not
extirpated. Sin does not cease to be in the heart; but it ceases to be any more
in such strength as it has been. It ceases to have that prevalence.
2. It
is slain as to former ways of exercise. The former ways of sin are forsaken.
They are further afterwards from such ways of sin than ever before. The heart is
fortified against them. Thus if a godly man has been in a way of contention and
strife, when he comes to himself again, he slays his contention. He kills sin as
to that way of exercising it. Or if it be some way of sensuality, when he comes
to himself, he will slay his sensuality, and cast it out from him.
3. It is totally
and perfectly slain in his will and inclination.
There is that
renewed opposition made against it, which implies a mortal inclination and
design against it. What the saint seeks when he comes to himself after a time of
great declension, is to be the death of sin, which has been so prevalent in him,
and perfectly to extirpate it. He acts in what he does as a mortal enemy. And if
he does not perfectly destroy it at one blow, it is not for want of inclination,
but for want of strength. The godly man does not deal mercifully and tenderly
with sin, but as far as in him lies, he deals with it as the children of Israel
dealt with Achan, as it were, stones it with stones, and burns it with fire with
all which belongs to it. They do not at all spare it, as wicked men do; they aim
at the very life, and nothing short of it. The saints’ slaying the troubler
after great backslidings and ill frames, implies the following things.
(1). There is a
conviction of the evil of their sin. They are brought to consideration. They
think on their ways before they turn their feet. Psa. 119:59. They consider how
they have behaved themselves, how unworthily, how unfaithful they have been to
their profession, how ungratefully, and disagreeably to the mercies they have
received. They consider how they have provoked God, and have deserved his wrath.
They find the troubler led them to see a great deal more of the sinfulness and
corruption of their hearts commonly than before. In this respect the work of God
with saints after great declinings is agreeable to his work in the heart of a
natural man in order to his conversion.
(2). There is a
gracious humiliation of soul before God for it. The gracious soul, when
convinced of sin after great declensions, and recovered out of them, is deeply
humbled; for it is brought to the dust before God. There is an evangelical
repentance. The heart is broken for sin. That sacrifice is offered to God, which
David offered rather than burnt offerings after his great fall. Psa. 51:16, 17,
“For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it; thou delightest not in
burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a
contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” They are brought as Job was,
after he had sinned, in complaining of God’s dealings with him, to abhor
themselves. Job 42:6. And they are in a meeker frame, as the Christian
Corinthians were, after they had greatly gone out of the way, and had been
reproved by the apostle Paul. 2 Cor. 7:11, “For behold the self-same thing,
that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea
what clearing of yourselves, yea what indignation, yea what fear, yea what
vehement desire, yea what zeal, yea what revenge.” They were filled with
sorrow, and with a kind of indignation, zeal, and spirit of revenge against
themselves for their folly, and so ungratefully treating God. When Christians
are convinced of their sin after remarkable miscarriages and ill frames, they
are commonly convinced of many of the same things of which they were convinced
under their first humiliation, but to a greater degree than ever before. They
are brought to a new conviction, and a greater conviction than ever before, of
their own emptiness, and to be sensible what poor, feeble, helpless creatures,
and what sinful, vile, utterly unworthy creatures, they are; how undeserving
they are of any mercy, and how much they deserve God’s wrath. And this
conviction works by a gracious humbling of the soul. The grace of humility is
greatly increased by it, and very commonly they are more poor in spirit and
lowly of heart during all their future life. They see more what cause there is
for them to lay their hands on their mouths, and to walk humbly with God, and
lie low before him.
(3). There is a
renewed application to Christ as a Savior from sin.
There is a renewed
act of reliance on him for justification, of faith in his blood to cleanse them,
and of trust in his righteousness to cover their nakedness and filthiness. And
Christ as a Savior becomes more precious to them. As they have a greater sense
of their own emptiness and vileness, so they have a more entire dependence on
Christ’s fullness.
(4). The heart is
farther separated from those ways of sin, and more confirmed against them, than
ever. After it they commonly have a greater dread of it, and greater abhorrence,
look upon it more as an enemy, and remember what they have suffered from it; and
their hearts are more confirmed against it than ever. They have stronger
resolutions to all which savors of the like, and all which might lead to it.
Therefore this is mentioned among the effects of the repentance of the
Corinthians after their going astray. “What carefulness it wrought in you, yea
what clearing of yourselves, yea what fear, yea what earnest desire.” There
was a more than ordinary fear and dread of the like sin for the future, and more
carefulness to shun it, and a more earnest desire of the contrary. The work of
God in the heart of a saint after declension oftentimes, in many respects,
resembles the work of God in a sinner at his conversion; though it is not in all
respects like it, because of the great difference in the subject. When the
troubler comes to be thus slain after times of trouble and darkness in the
godly, then God is wont to open a door of hope. The darkness which has covered
them, which was greatest a little before, is now scattered, and light arises. It
may be before there had been a long night of clouds and darkness. But now the
clouds begin to scatter, and the sweet refreshing beams begin to break forth,
and come down into the heart. The soul, which has been wounded, is now healed.
God pours in the oil of comfort. The renewed sense, which is given, of
Christ’s fullness and sufficiency, gives new life and hope and joy. The
troubler being slain, God now grants renewed discoveries of his glory, and
renewed manifestations of his grace. And the soul, which was before in darkness,
is now entertained with sweet views. And now that hope, which was so weakened,
and was almost ready to fail, is revived, and greatly confirmed. Now the soul is
enabled to take comfort in the promises. Now the saint sees evidences of his own
good estate by the renewed manifestations which God makes of himself, and
renewed exercises of grace. Before the soul was greatly exercised with doubts
and fears and dark clouds; and much time was spent in reviewing past
experiences, and looking over and examining those things which were formerly
regarded as evidences of piety; and all in vain. They pored on past experiences,
but to no satisfaction. And the reason was, the troubler was not slain, but
still remained alive. But now God gives them new light, and new experiences,
which in a few moments do more towards scattering their clouds, and removing
their fears, than all their poring on past experiences could do for months, and
probably for years. Before their hearts seemed in a great measure dead as to
spiritual exercises. But now there is, as it were, new life. Now when they read
the Scripture, and when they hear the Word preached, it is with a savor and
relish of it. Now they can find God in his word and ordinances. Now Christ comes
to them, and manifests himself to them, and they are admitted again to communion
with God. When Christians have comfort and hope thus renewed, their comforts are
commonly purer than ever. Their joys are more humble joys, freer from any
mixture and taint of self-righteousness, than before.
Having thus shown
that God is wont to cause hope and comfort to arise to the soul after trouble
and humbling for sin, and upon slaving the troubler, both at first conversion
and afterwards, after sad declinings, I would now give the reasons of the
doctrine.
I.
I would show why God is wont to give comfort after trouble and humbling for sin;
or why he is wont to bring the soul into the wilderness before he speaks
comfortably to it, and leads it into the valley of Achor, before he opens a door
of hope.
First,
it is that the soul may be prepared for a confiding application of itself to
Christ for comfort. It is the will of God that men should have true hope and
comfort conferred upon them in no other way, than by Jesus Christ. It is only by
him that sinners have comfort at their conversion. And it is by him only that
the saints have renewed hope and comfort after their declensions. And therefore
the way to obtain this comfort is to look to him, to fly for refuge to him. And
in order to this, persons have need to be brought to a sense of their necessity
of him. And that they may be so, it is needful that they should be sensible of
their calamity and misery, that they should be in trouble, and be brought to see
their utter helplessness in themselves. And not only natural men, but Christians
also, who are fallen into sin, and are in a dead and senseless frame, need
something to make them more sensible of their necessity of Christ. Indeed the
best are not so sensible of their need of Christ but that they need to be made
more sensible. But especially those who are in ill and dead frames, and a
declining state, need trouble and humbling to make them sensible of their need
of Christ, and to prepare their minds for a renewed confiding application to
Christ as their only remedy. The godly in such a case are sick with a sore
disease, and Christ is the only Physician who can heal them; and they need to be
sensible of their disease, that they may see their need of a physician. They, as
well as natural men, need to be in a storm and tempest to make them sensible of
their need to fly to him who is a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from
the tempest. A Christian, who wanders away from God, is like Noah’s dove,
which flew from the ark. She flew about till weary and spent, seeking rest
somewhere else, but found no rest for the sole of her foot, and then she
returned to the ark. So it is needful that the soul of a godly man, who wanders
from Christ, should become weary, and find no rest for the sole of his foot,
that so he may see his need of returning to Christ. Therefore it is said
concerning the children of Israel in Hos. 2:6, “Therefore, behold, I will
hedge up they way with thorns, and make a wall that she shall not find her
paths.” And in our context, “She shall follow after her lovers, but she
shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then
shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better
with me than now.” When gracious souls wander from Christ, their husband,
following after other lovers, God is wont to bring them into trouble and
distress, and make them see, that their other lovers cannot help them, that so
they may see, that it is best for them to return to their first husband.
Second,
another end of God in it is, that comfort and hope may be the more prized when
obtained. We see in temporal things, that the worth and value of any enjoyment
is learned by the want of it. He who is sick, knows the worth of health. He who
is in pain, knows how to prize ease. He who is in a storm at sea, knows how to
prize safety on shore. And people who are subject to the grievances of war, know
how to value peace. He who endures the hardships of captivity and slavery, is
thereby taught how to value liberty. And so it is in spiritual things. He who is
brought to see his misery in being without hope, is prepared to prize hope when
obtained. He who is brought into distress through fear of hell and God’s
wrath, is the more prepared to prize the comfort which arises from the
manifestation of the favor of God, and a sense of safety from hell. He who is
brought to see his utter emptiness and extreme poverty and necessity, and his
perishing condition on that account, is thoroughly prepared to prize and rejoice
in the manifestation of a fullness in Christ. And those godly persons who are
fallen into corrupt and senseless frames, greatly stand in need of something to
make them more sensible of their want of spiritual comfort and hope. Their
living as they do shows that they have too little sense of the worth and value
of that comfort, and those inestimable spiritual and saving blessings, which God
has bestowed upon them. Otherwise they never would deal so ungratefully with
God, who has bestowed them. If they did not greatly err in slighting spiritual
comfort, as the children of Israel did manna, their hearts would never, to such
a degree, have gone out after vanity, and earthly enjoyments, and carnal
delights. They need to be brought into trouble and darkness to make them
sensible of the worth of hope and comfort, and to teach them to prize it. They
need to be brought into the wilderness, and left for a time to wander and suffer
hunger and thirst in a barren desert, to teach them how to prize their
vineyards. A sense of the pardon of sin, and the favor of God, and a hope of
eternal life, do not afford comfort and joy to the soul any farther than they
are valued and prized. So that the trouble and darkness which go before comfort,
serve to render the joy and comfort the greater when obtained, and so are in
mercy to those for whom God intends comfort.
Third,
it is so ordered that divine power and grace may be acknowledged in giving hope
and comfort. There is naturally in men an exceeding insensibility of their
dependence on God, and a great disposition to ascribe those things which they
enjoy to themselves, or to second causes. This disposition reigns in natural
men. They are wholly under the power of it. Therefore they need to be taught
their own helplessness, and utter insufficiency, and utter unworthiness.
Otherwise, if hope and comfort should be bestowed upon them, they would surely
ascribe all to themselves, or the creature, and so would be lifted up by it, and
would not give God the glory. Therefore it is God’s manner first to humble
sinners before he comforts them. And all this self-confident disposition is not
extirpated out of the hearts of the godly, and especially when they get into ill
frames does it prevail. And it is very requisite, that before any remarkable
comfort is bestowed upon them, they should be the subjects of renewed humbling.
They need renewedly to see what helpless creatures they are, that so , when
light is bestowed, they may be sensible how it is owing to God, and not to
themselves, or any other. And that they may, by their troubles and humblings, be
prepared the more to admire God’s power and mercy, and free and rich grace to
them. While men are continued in fullness in a fruitful land, they will not
learn their own helplessness; and therefore God will cast them out of this
fullness into a wilderness. This is plainly intimated to be the reason of
God’s so dealing with the children of Israel, as is said in the text. The
church of Israel, before God thus led her into the wilderness, did not ascribe
her comforts to God, as in the eighth verse, “For she did not know that I gave
her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold.” But they
ascribed them to her idols. Verse fifth, “For she said, I will go after my
lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my
drink.” And verse twelfth, “These are my rewards, that my lovers have given
me.” For this reason it is that God takes away those things, as in verse
ninth, “Therefore will I return and take away my corn in the time thereof, and
my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to
cover her nakedness.” And verses 11, 12, “I will also cause all her mirth to
cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn
feasts. And I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees, whereof she hath said,
These are my rewards that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a
forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.” God took them away, and
turned her vineyards into a forest, and made her sensible that they were from
him; and then he restored them again. For these reasons God is wont to bring
souls into trouble, and to humble them for sin before he comforts them. I
proceed.
II. To give the
reasons why hope and comfort are not obtained till sin, which is the troubler,
is slain.
First,
while sin is harbored and preserved alive, it tends to provoke God to frown and
express his anger. Sin is God’s mortal enemy. It is that which his soul
infinitely hates, and to which he is an irreconcilable enemy. And therefore if
we harbor this and suffer it to live in our hearts, and to govern our practice,
we can expect no other than that it will provoke God’s frowns. Spiritual
comfort consists in the manifestation of God’s favor, and in friendly
communion with God. But how can we expect this at the same time that we harbor
his mortal enemy? We see what God said to Joshua, while Achan was alive. Jos.
7:12, “Neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed
thing from among you.”
Second,
the natural tendency of sin is to darken the mind, and trouble the conscience.
There is nothing which wounds a well-informed conscience but sin. Sin is the
enemy of grace, and therefore the natural tendency of it is to oppose and keep
down the exercises of grace, and so to extinguish spiritual comfort; for
spiritual comfort comes in no other way than by the exercise of grace. That
which prevents the exercises of grace darkens the evidences of a man’s good
estate. For there are no evidences of this but the exercises of grace. Sin does
as much tend to keep out spiritual comfort, as clouds tend to hide the light of
the sun. And therefore it is necessary that this should be removed in order to
our receiving light and comfort. It is impossible in its own nature that any
should have spiritual light and comfort before sin is mortified. If sinners had
comfort while sin is in reigning power, it could be spiritual comfort; for
spiritual comfort is the same with gracious comfort. But how can there be
gracious comfort where grace has no place? But if there be grace, sin will not
be in reigning power; for the nature of grace is to mortify sin. And as there
can be no spiritual comfort without a degree of mortification of sin in those in
whom sin is mortified, spiritual comfort cannot be any more than in proportion
as sin is mortified.
Third,
a hope of eternal life, if given before the slaying of sin, would be misimproved
and abused. If it were possible that a sinner could obtain a title to eternal
life before sin was mortified, and so could have his own safety and God’s
favor manifested to him, he would only improve it to encourage and embolden
himself in sin. Hope, if they had it then, would have a pernicious influence and
tendency. Till sin is slain, they stand in need of fear to restrain sin. If fear
were once gone before sin is slain, they would soon run into all manner of
wickedness, and without restraint. And so Christians themselves, while they are
in corrupt frames, stand in need of fear to restrain sin; for at such times love
is in a great degree dormant. It is of necessity that persons should have some
principle or other to restrain them from sin. But there is no principle which
can be effectual to restrain men from sin any farther than it is in exercise. If
love is not in exercise it will not restrain men. So that at such times the
saints need fear. And therefore God has wisely ordered it, that at such times
their evidences should be darkened and their hopes clouded, that they may have
fear, when love is not awake, to restrain them. The godly themselves, if their
hope were all alive at those times when they are in carnal and thoughtless
frames, and grace is asleep, would be in great danger to abuse their hope, and
taken encouragement from it to indulge their lusts, or at least, to be the less
careful to restrain and resist them. For we see that in such frames, though
their hopes are clouded, and they have a considerable degree of fear, yet they
are careless and negligent. But how much more so would they be, if they had no
fear to restrain them!
APPLICATION
I. Use
of instruction.
First,
hence we may observe the wonderful wisdom of God in his dealings with the souls
of men. When we consider what has been said, with the reasons of it, we may see
just cause to admire the divine wisdom in his ordinary dealings with respect to
those for whom he intends comfort. His wisdom is admirable in his dealing with
natural men in fitting and preparing them for comfort, in bringing them into
such troubles and distress, and hedging up their way with thorns, as it is
expressed in the context, and leaving them in their distress to follow after
their lovers, their idols, without being able to overtake them; in taking away
their vineyards, and all those things in which they trusted, and making them a
forest; and so showing them what poor, destitute, helpless creatures they are,
before he gives them comfort. And so we may well admire the divine wisdom in his
method of dealing with his saints, who decline and fall into sin, or get into
corrupt frames and ill ways. God knows how to order things concerning them; and
there is a marvelous wisdom observable in his manner of dealing with them in
such cases. We may well admire how wisely God orders things in what has been
said, for his own glory, to secure the glory due to his power and free grace,
and to bring men to a sense of their dependence on him, and to ascribe all to
him. And how he orders things for the glory of his Son, that he may have all the
glory of the salvation of men, who is worthy of it, in that he laid down his
life for their salvation. And also how wisely God orders things for the good of
his own elect people, how he brings good out of evil, and light out of darkness.
How wisely he consults their good and comfort in those things, which appear to
them to be most against them. How he wisely prepares them for good, and makes
way for their receiving comfort, and for its being the more sweet, the more
prized and delighted in, when it is obtained. And oftentimes in bringing about
this in those things, which they think at the time to be signs of God’s
hatred. And how wisely God orders things for preventing men’s abusing a sense
of their own safety, to giving the reins to their lusts. It is ordered so, that
at those times when sin prevails, and there would be danger of this, the
evidences of their safety are hid from their eyes, and the fear of hell comes on
to keep them in awe; and that hope and comfort should be given only at such
times and in such manner that they should have influence to draw men off from
sin, and to prompt them to diligence in duty and the service of God; and that
when it would have most of this tendency, then they should have most of it. When
we consider these things, we may well cry out with the apostle, “O, the depth
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and
his ways past finding out!”
Second,
hence we may learn, that souls, who are in darkness, and as it were, in a
wilderness, have no cause to be discouraged. For by the doctrine we learn that
this is the way often, in order to hope and comfort. Persons are very often
ready to be discouraged by this. God seems to frown. They have a sense of his
anger. They cry to him, and he does not seem to hear their prayers. They have
been striving for relief, but it seems to be to no purpose. They are in such
circumstances, that everything looks dark; everything seems to be against them.
They are lost in a wilderness. They cannot find the way out. They have gone
round and round, and returned again to the same place. They know not which way
to turn themselves, or what to do. Their hearts are ready to sink. But you may
gather encouragement from this doctrine; for by it you may learn that you have
no cause to despair. For it is frequently God’s manner to bring persons into
such circumstances, in order to prepare them for hope and comfort. The children
of Israel were ready to be discouraged at the Red sea, when they saw Pharaoh and
his hosts pursuing them. But it was only to prepare them for the greater joy
after their deliverance. Joshua and the hosts of Israel were ready to be
discouraged when they were smitten at Ai, as you may see in Jos. 7:5, etc. So
that you, who are in the wilderness, may take encouragement from hence, still
earnestly to seek God, and hope for light and comfort in his time.
II. Use of
self-examination. By this persons may try their hopes and comforts, whether they
are of the right kind. If they are such as have arisen after the manner, as is
spoken of in the doctrine; if it is a hope which you found in the valley of
Achor, in the sense which has been explained; it is a sign that it is a hope
which God has given you, and so a hope which you are not to cast away; but which
you are to retain, and rejoice in, and bless God for it. Therefore particularly
inquire concerning your hopes and comforts, whether they have arisen in your
souls when humbled for sin, and in the slaying of sin.
First,
inquire whether your hopes and comforts have been given you upon your soul’s
being humbled for sin. You may try this by three things.
1.
Whether you have seen what a miserable, helpless creature you were. When your
hopes and comforts have arisen in your heart, has it been upon your soul’s
receiving such a sight of yourself. Or has your hope been accompanied with such
a sense of soul? When hope was given at first, was it implanted in a heart thus
prepared? And when you have had remarkable comfort and joy from time to time,
has your joy been accompanied with such a sense and frame of mind? At the same
time that you have had a strong hope of God’s favor, and that Christ was
yours, have you been nothing in your own eyes. Have you at such times appeared
to yourself to be a poor, little, helpless, unworthy creature, deserving nothing
at the hands of God? And do not only inquire whether in your own apprehension
you had some such sight of yourself at first, before your first comfort. If you
ever had a right understanding of yourself, of your own heart, and your own
state, you will never wholly lose it. It will revive from time to time. If you
had it when you received your first comfort, the same sense will come again.
When your comforts are revived, this will revive with them. If the first joy was
granted to a heart thus prepared, there will from time to time be a sense of
your own emptiness and worthlessness, arising with your joys and comforts. It
will be with a deep sense of what a poor, miserable, and exceedingly sinful
creature you are. True comfort is wont to come in such a manner. There is
usually a self-emptying, a soul-abasing, sense of heart accompanying it. So that
at the same time that God lifts up the soul with comfort, and joy, and inward
sweetness, he casts it down with abasement. Evangelical and gracious humiliation
and spiritual comfort are companions, which go one with the other, and keep
company together. When one comes, the other is wont to come with it. It is not
wont to be so with false comforts and joys. But pride and self-fullness are wont
to be the companions of false comfort. Indeed, there may be a counterfeit
abasement going with it. But if you examine it, you will find, that that very
seeming abasement or humiliation lifts the man up, and fills him full of
himself. The hypocrite, in the times of his greatest joy, and most confident
hopes, looks large in himself. His thoughts are very busily employed about his
own excellencies, how holy he is, how eminent a saint he is, how much better he
is than most of his neighbors, how there are few equal to him; and therefore how
it must be that God loves him better than most others; how much God
distinguishes him, how much he experiences, and how good he is, and what delight
he takes in them on that account.
But
true spiritual comfort works in another way. Gracious joy and poverty of spirit
go hand in hand, and rejoice, as it were, in each other’s company. The godly
may at some times have comforts and joys, which do not accompany such abasement.
They may be lifted up with joy and conceit of, and confidence in, themselves at
the same time. But those joys are not spiritual, they are hypocritical, joys.
Such comforts are not from the Spirit of God. A godly man may have false joys.
He is liable to this exercise of corruption, as well as others. And there may be
a mixture of one with the other, or false joy and pride may take occasion from
true ones, afterwards to appear. But a gracious joy is linked together with
poverty of spirit, and never forsakes it. And hence,
2. You may try this
by examining what your hopes and comforts are built upon; whether on Christ
only, or on your own righteousness. If you would know of what kind your comforts
are, follow them up to the fountain, and see what is their source and spring. If
you would know of what kind your hope is, examine the bottom of it, and see upon
what foundation it stands. If your hope is that which has been given in the
valley of Achor, your own righteousness is not the foundation of it. Inquire
therefore what it is, which gives you ease with respect to your past sins, what
it is which quiets your conscience about them. Is it any sense you have of the
free, and sovereign, and infinite grace and mercy of God in Christ? Is it what
you have seen in Christ, or the gospel of his grace, which has lightened your
burden with respect to your sins? Or is that now you think with yourself that
you have done such and such things, or have met with such things, have such
workings of affection towards God, that you are become lovely in his sight, so
that he, seeing what holy affections and experiences your heart has been filled
with, and what discoveries you have had, he is on that account reconciled to
you, and you are become lovely in his eyes? What makes you hope that you are in
favor with God? Is it because you conceive of God as looking down from heaven
upon your heart, on your gracious experiences, and so being, as it were, taken
with, and receiving you into his favor on account of that? Or is your hope of
God’s favor built on a sense which you have of Christ’s worthiness, and the
saving mercy of God in him, and his faithfulness to the promises, which he has
made through him?
3. Inquire
concerning the effect of your comforts, whether they cause an ardent disposition
and desire to exalt God, and to lie low before him. True comforts and joys,
which are from the Spirit of God, and are well founded, are wont to work after
this manner. They excite an inward intense desire that God may be exalted, and
to lie in the dust. Such a one as the psalmist seems to have had, when he says,
Psa. 115:1, “Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.” The
repeating of the expression seems to show how ardent his heart was. When God is
pleased to lift up the light of his countenance upon the soul, and to impart
inward sweetness from a manifestation of his glory, there is wont to be an
inward longing to be in the dust. At such times the Christian sees how it
becomes him to be humble, and how worthy God and Christ are of all the glory,
more than he does at other times. He perceives and laments that he cannot bow
enough; that he is not abased as low before God as becomes such a sinner as
himself. Hence arises an intense desire after self-abasement; and the soul
breathes and pants after humiliation before God.
Second,
inquire whether your hope and comfort are such as have arisen on the slaying of
sin. If your hope is that which you obtained before this, you obtained it too
soon, and had better be without it than with it. It is not sufficient evidence
of your hope, that it was given after much trouble and great terrors, or great
relentings of heart for sin, and bewailing that you had done so wickedly, or
that it was after reformations, and abstaining from former ways of sin, and a
total reformation of some particular evil practices. But if it be a true hope,
it was given after the slaying of sin. And in order the better to determine this
point, let the following inquiries be made.
1. Whether your
hope has been accompanied with a heart and a life turned from sin? Or is there
no remarkable difference in this respect now from what there was before? We all
own conversion to be a great change. And we have all been sufficiently taught,
that the change consists in this; in turning from sin to God. Therefore there
must be a great change in this respect. Is there a great change in this respect
in you? I do not inquire whether there be a great change in you in respect to
hope and comfort; that whereas formerly you did not suppose yourself to be in
Christ, and had no hope of it, now you have hope, and a confident hope, which
oftentimes is an occasion of new and peculiar joy and elevation of spirit. There
may be a great change in you in this respect, and yet you may remain in a
Christless state. But is there a great change with respect to the turning of
your heart from sin, and against sin? You may reply to this, I see abundance of
corruption and wickedness in my heart; and so far is it from being delivered
from corruption, that I seem at times to discover more than ever. But whether
you see more or less corruption in your heart, is your heart turned against the
corruption which you see? Is there a great difference in you in this respect
from what there used to be with respect to your being turned against your own
sin, and finding within yourself a nature opposite to it, a nature to resist it,
to carry it as an uneasy burden? And is your heart turned against yourself for
it, in abhorrence of yourself, and in indignation against yourself? And is your
will turned from sin, that though you find a great deal of corruption in your
heart, yet you do not allow it, you keep a strict watch upon it, and will not
let it walk at liberty to appear in your life and conversation? Is there no lust
harbored, which is prevalent in you, and which is neglected, and suffered to
range and to walk on every side? Is there no sin wittingly tolerated? Do you aim
strictly to keep all God’s commandments; and is that your actual care and
watch, that you may avoid every evil, and every false way; and that you may in
all things, so far as in you lies, please and honor God? And do you find that
this is the tendency of your hope; that your hope has a sanctifying influence
upon you, that it turns you against sin, and stirs you up to seek after purity
from sin? With respect to most who are here present, who entertain hope, there
has been much opportunity for experience in this matter, since you have had your
hope, so that one would think by an impartial and strict examination you might
be able to answer these inquiries.
2.
Those of you, who have obtained your hope again after special and remarkable
departings from God, should inquire in what manner hope has been restored.
Indeed hypocrites are not so apt to have their hope abated by such things, as
those who have a true hope. A hypocrite’s hopes and false comforts will
subsist, and it may be continue as lively as ever, under such great sins, and
such a course of ill practices, as, if a godly man should fall into them, would
bring him into exceeding darkness. Some hypocrites will live in very immoral
ways, and yet keep up their confidence, seem not to have their hope much shaken,
and boast of as much comfort and joy at such times as at any other. But this is
not the manner of a true comfort. A true comfort, which flows from the exercise
and the breathings of the Spirit of God in the heart, must, of necessity, at
such times be exceedingly suppressed; and commonly great trouble and darkness is
the effect. But if it has not been altogether thus with you, but you have found
that at times, when you have greatly sinned and gone on in ill practices, your
hope has decayed, and in the time of it your conscience told you that the way in
which you lived was contrary to known rules, and so was in doubt about your
hope, but since that you have grown strong again in your hope, inquire in what
manner you have obtained your hope again. Unsound professors in such cases are
not wont to obtain hope again in the same manner as the truly godly do, in a
deep humbling for sin, and in slaying the troubler, as has been described. But
it may be only this, that now they do better than they did, and so hope comes
again. If they lived in a way of some vile sensuality for a time, and afterwards
cease to do so, they look on their reformation as an atonement; and so their
hope is renewed without any humbling or abasement, without any special
convictions of the evil of their ways, any special repentance, or renewed sense
of their own vileness, or any renewed flying to the mercy of God in Christ for
refuge, or any further alienation of their hearts from those evil ways in which
they have walked. If your comforts and confidence have been renewed after
remarkable aberrations from the way of duty without something of this nature, it
is to be feared that you make your own righteousness the ground of your hope and
comfort.
3. Inquire whether
at those times, when you have most hope and comfort, above all others, you are
most disposed to be careful to avoid sin, and to strive to live holy. Sometimes
the hope of hypocrites if very confident; and therefore the degree of confidence
which attends a hope is not certain evidence of its truth and genuineness. But
we should examine what effect this strong confidence has upon us. Do we find,
when our hope is strongest and our comfort greatest, that then our hearts are
most set against sin, and that then we feel the greatest desires to live holy,
and have most of a disposition to keep a strict watch, and maintain an earnest
warfare against sin, and are most desirous in everything to do our duty? Or do
we find, on the contrary, when our hope is strong, and we are most satisfied
that our condition is safe, that then we are least careful to avoid sin, and are
least disposed to take pains to curb our lusts, and resist temptation, or lay
ourselves in the way of duty? If it be thus, it is a very bad sign and black
mark on our hopes and comforts. A true hope has a tendency to prompt him who has
it to purify himself, and watch and strive more earnestly against all impurity.
1 John 3:3, “He that hath this hope in him purifieth himself.” They are
condemned who, because they think they are righteous, and so that they shall
certainly have eternal life, will trust in that hope to give themselves the
greater liberty in sin. Eze. 33:13, “When I shall say to the righteous, that
he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity,
all his righteousness shall not be remember; but for his iniquity that he hath
committed, he shall die.”
III. Use of
direction. If it be so, that God is wont to cause hope and comfort to arise
after trouble and humbling for sin, and upon slaying the troubler, this may be
of direction to souls under spiritual trouble and darkness, what course to
pursue for hope and comfort.
First, thoroughly
to renounce and forsake all ways of sinful behavior. For you have heard that
hope and comfort are never to be expected, till sin is slain or forsaken. He who
is not thorough in his reformation, cannot reasonably hope for comfort, how much
soever he may abound in some particular duties. Persons who are under
awakenings, and would seek a true hope of salvation, should in the first place
see, that they thoroughly renounce every wicked practice. They should search
their ways, and consider what is wrong in them: what duties they have omitted,
which ought to have been done; and what practices they have allowed, which ought
to be forsaken. And [they] should immediately reform, retaining no one way of
sin, denying all ungodliness, omitting nothing which is required; and should see
that they persevere in it, that it be not merely a temporary, short-lived
restraint, but an everlasting renunciation. This is the way to have the troubler
slain.
Second,
earnestly to seek humiliation. To that end they should labor to be convinced of
sin. They should be much engaged in searching their own hearts, and keeping a
watchful eye upon them. They should not rest in their own efforts, but earnestly
seek to God to give them a right sight of themselves, and a right conviction of
sin, and show them that they have deserved God’s everlasting wrath. And in
order to this they should carefully watch against backsliding; for backsliding
prevents humiliation. If there has been any progress made by the conviction of
God’s Spirit towards it, it is all lost by backsliding. This again blinds and
stupefies the heart, and sets the man further than ever from a right knowledge
of himself, and sight of his own heart.
Third,
to search and endeavor to find out the troubler. You have heard that when the
godly are in darkness, it is not for want of love in God to them, or a readiness
in him to give them comfort; but that sin is doubtless the cause of their
darkness in one way or another. Their troubler lies at their own door. There is
doubtless some troubler in the camp, which causes God to withdraw. And therefore
if you have light revive, and have the comfortable presence of God again, the
first thing which you do must be to search, and find out the troubler. Many,
when they are in darkness, proceed in a wrong way. They go to examining past
experience. And that they should do; but what is wrong in it is, that they do
that only. They spend their time in seeking for something in themselves which is
good. Whereas they ought to spend more of it in seeking out that which is bad.
Whatever good there is, they are never likely to find it out, till they find out
the sin which obscures and hides it. And whatever they reflect upon, which they
formerly thought was good, is not likely to afford any satisfaction to them,
till that bad thing be removed out of the way which troubled them. They wonder
what the cause is, that they are so in the dark. They verily thought in time
past, that they were right, and that they had experienced a right work of
God’s Spirit on their hearts, and thought that they were the children of God.
But now God hides his face from them, and they wonder what is the matter; as
Joshua seemed to be astonished when Israel was smitten down at Ai. Sometimes
they almost conclude, that it is because they are not the children of God. They
pray to God to renew his comforts to them, and spend much time. And they ought
to pray. But they have more need to do something else. Joshua spent a great deal
of time in prayer when Israel was troubled. He fell upon his face till eventide,
complaining to God about his withdrawing from them. But God says to him. Jos.
7:10, 11, “Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?” As much as
to say, you had more need to be doing something else, than lie there. “Israel
hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant, which I commanded
them; for they have even taken of the accursed thing.” And verse 13, “Up,
sanctify yourselves.” This teaches you, who are under darkness, and have your
hopes darkened, and comforts deadened, what you should do. You must arise and
search, and find out the troubler. If you do not do this, it will signify
nothing to you to lie crying and complaining to God about your darkness. You
have other business which you have more need to do, though prayer should not be
left undone. Let me beseech you, therefore, to be thorough in this. You have
need to be thorough, for it is an exceedingly difficult thing to find out the
accursed thing in such cases. Men’s hearts do like Achan, who hid the accursed
thing in the earth in the midst of his tent. Jos. 7:21. He hid it very closely.
He did not content himself with hiding it in the most secret place in his tent,
but he dug in the ground and buried it in the earth under his feet, that there
might be no sign of it above ground. So are men’s deceitful hearts wont to
hide the accursed thing which troubles them. When they are put upon searching
for the cause of their trouble and darkness, they think of one thing and
another, but commonly overlook the chief cause of all their trouble. It does not
so much as enter their minds. They search the tent, but that is not enough. They
must search the very ground, or they will not find it out. When they tell of
their darkness, and are put upon searching to see whether some sinful way is not
the cause, they readily own that it is their fault. But yet they mistake the
true Achan, not withstanding all they confess of the corruption of their hearts.
It is not merely corruption in their hearts, working in their thought, which is
the cause; but it is some way of outward sin and wickedness, in which they have
of late in a great measure allowed themselves. That is the principal cause of
their trouble; some way of pride, or covetousness, or some way of envy, or
evil-speaking, or ill will to their neighbors, or self-will, or some other way
of unsuitable carriage, which is the chief cause of their darkness. In some
respects, it is a great deal easier to find out little sins than greater sins,
which causes many to strain at a gnat who swallows a camel. Sins which are
common to all, and of which all complain, such as corrupt workings of heart,
they are willing to feel that it is no disgrace to have them. And the godly
commonly tell of such things, and it does not affright them to see them. But
such things as malice, a proud behavior, and many other things which might be
mentioned, are disagreeable. They are not willing to see such things in
themselves. They therefore call them by good names, and put good constructions
on them, and hide them, as Achan did his accursed thing underground. The sin
which troubles them most, has greatest possession of their hearts, and does most
blind and prejudice their minds, is passed over. They can soon enough discover
and see such things in others, in one of an opposite party, or the like, but
they cannot see them in themselves; and so they continue still under darkness.
It is an exceedingly difficult thing to find out the troubler. You have need,
therefore, to be exceedingly thorough in searching for this matter, and not to
spare yourself, or bribe your conscience at all, but labor to be impartial in
the search. And to induce you to this, consider what God said to Joshua. Jos.
7:12, “Neither will I be with you any more, unless you destroy the accursed
thing from among you.” And, therefore,