The Loss of Spiritual Comfort

By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, D.D., Minister of the Gospel Leith (1813).

(Continued from page 52.)

1. Believers suffer a diminution of their spiritual comfort by having and entertaining a low estimation of the counsels and comforts of the Holy Spirit of Christ. When they allow themselves, for a season, to entertain a light esteem of the counsels or ordinances or promises or influences or comforts of the Blessed Spirit; when they receive these, but not gratefully, or keep them but not diligently, they thereby dishonour and grieve the Holy Spirit Himself, who is the glorious Author of them. An earthly Sovereign would account himself dishonoured if his proclamations or pardons or favours should not be entertained with high regard, especially by those who are not only the subjects of his dominion but the objects of his favour. In like manner if they who are the subjects of the Spirit’s gracious influences, and the objects of His peculiar favour, do not account His Word their treasure, His promises their joy, His Sabbaths their delight, and His consolations their felicity, they so far treat Himself with indignity: and the more exalted and glorious the adorable Spirit is, the more sinful the indignity is which is thereby offered Him. Besides, if in their practical judgment they prefer mean and even sinful objects before the great things of the Spirit, such as the wisdom and the maxims of the world, before His counsels, the comforts and the pleasures of the world before His consolations, the riches and the honours of the world before the honour of holy conformity to Him, and of intimate communion with Him, they do thereby offer an infinite affront to His glorious Majesty. For what greater dishonour can they reflect upon the holy and blessed Spirit than practically to show greater regard to a creature, to a vain creature, yea, to an enemy, than to Him! Oh! when a Christian’s desire to the food of his soul is almost gone; when he appears as if he had been surfeited with the gospel; when Divine ordinances instead of being highly esteemed are basely slighted by him; and when his heart is more set upon his farm or merchandise than upon seasons of communion with God in Christ, he must not be surprised if he should, for a season, be taught the worth of these inestimable blessings by the want of them. Or when, by poring constantly upon the sins of his heart and of his life, and by setting the demerit of these, as it were, in battle array, against the merit of the great Redeemer’s consummate righteousness, he makes little account of the offers and promises of the blessed gospel, he must blame none but himself for his loss of comfort. O Christian, consider well these words of the Apostle Paul: “To be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. viii. 6). Endeavour to attain without delay a more spiritual and clear discernment of the things of the Spirit. Pray frequently and fervently for more acquaintance with them, and for more complacency in them. Learn to form such a low estimate of the creature as to expect nothing from it; and such a high esteem of the Lord Jesus as to expect all from Him; so shalt thou be exempted from those frequent and galling disappointments which cannot but render the life of a believer uncomfortable (Ps. exlv. 5). Wert thou to love thy redeeming God so much as habitually to come before Him in His ordinances with delight in Him, and to go away with desire to Him, thou shouldst retain the comfort of communion with Him (Ps. xxxvii. 4 and lxxi. 21).

2. True, Christians deprive themselves of comfort by presuming to pray for things which are not suitable to their condition, and which it would not be consistent with the scheme of their salvation to grant them at present, nor indeed at any time. When they venture repeatedly to ask in prayer something which the Lord seeth to be improper for them, and not necessary to subserve the wise purposes of His glory in their sanctification. “They ask, and receive not, because they ask amiss” (James iv. 3). If, for instance, they pray that as much grace might be given them at once as would be sufficient for them all their lifetime (John iv. 15); if they peremptorily ask sensible manifestations, great enlargements, and high ecstasies of joy; if they pray for any comfort whatever without resolving to use diligently all the other appointed means of attaining it; if they entreat the removal of any affliction before they have been rightly exercised under it (II Cor. xii. 8); and if they pray absolutely for a certain measure of the good things of this life, the Lord will not, and indeed cannot, in mercy to them grant such petitions. The consequence often is that after having, it may be, waited long for answers without receiving any, they become discouraged and disconsolate. Moreover, when they venture in prayer to prescribe to the Lord a way and a time of appearing for their help; and when the Lord, as He will surely do, refuseth to come for their salvation in that particular way and at that very time (II Kings v. 11), they take occasion from that refusal to yield to disquietude and discouragement; or when they venture to propose the Lord’s particular way of treating some other believers as the way in which they desire that He would deal with them; and find that they are not gratified likewise in this, they sometimes begin to yield to discouraging and desponding thoughts. Thus they presume to limit the Holy One of Israel, who hath resolved to act as an infinite Sovereign in His manner of bringing all His saints to glory. Believers, if they would retain spiritual consolation, would do well to consider that it is only such petitions as are for things unnecessary, and even hurtful to them, that the Lord refuseth to grant that He never denieth any of them, without a sufficient reason, and that He sometimes condescends to show them the reason (II Cor. xii. 8, 9); that He never refuseth, but when they ask what is not good or, rather, what is not best for them at the time referred to, and that, although they do not receive what they come for, yet He allows them that which is sufficient to bear their charges in coming and going, and invites them to come again. They ought also to consider that those are not the holiest nor the greatest of believers whose sense is the most indulged. Believing Mary is forbidden to touch Jesus; and disbelieving Thomas is commanded to thrust his hand into His side. Christian, if thou wouldst, from time to time, be comforted with answers of peace to thy prayers, offer up to the Lord no unwarrantable desires but in the name of Christ, and by the help of the Spirit. Ask nothing on purpose to consume it upon thy pleasures (James iv. 3). Regulate always thy petitions by the promises of the everlasting covenant, which comprise all that is good for thee in time and through eternity, and infinitely more than thou art able to ask or think (Eph. iii. 20).

3. They procure for themselves the loss of holy comfort by yielding for a season to such temptations as urge them to attempt things in religion that are impracticable. When Satan perceives that he cannot persuade the Christian, especially the young and inexperienced Christian, to live in the neglect of any known duty, he sometimes presses him vehemently to a rash and quick performance of some difficult duty. He suggests to him that the Lord is a hard Master, that He delighteth in requiring difficult duties, duties too which must be performed speedily, and that, on the pain of incurring His infinite displeasure, that, like a tyrannical ruler who makes laws in order to ensnare his subjects, He commands duties which are oppressive and doth it with unrelenting vigour, and that He requires them to be done with the utmost degree of exactness or else He will not accept them. Now, so far as a good man yields to this horrible temptation, he presumes to imagine that the commandments of God are grievous, that the yoke of Christ is hard. Apprehending the Lord Jesus to be a vigorous Master, he, under the prevalence of slavish fear (John iv. 18) performs even the easiest of his duties without courage, without affection, and even with aversion. His comfort accordingly is destroyed, his heart is dejected, his hands are weakened.

Moreover, Satan sometimes urges him to attempt the doing of several things at once which he well knows is impossible. And the moment he yields to this temptation his heart begins to be so divided, his thoughts to be so perplexed, and his attention to be so distracted, between a multiplicity of objects which crowd into his view that he becomes incapable of performing any duty well. Endeavouring to grasp too much, he lets all slip. Whatever he tries to perform he does it superficially and unseasonably. When he is called to perform one duty he is, perhaps, addressing himself to another and, like Martha, he is “careful and troubled about many things” (Luke x. 41). The great rule of every duty is this: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might” (Eccles. ix. 10); that is, “Let thy heart be wholly intent upon and occupied with that one duty, while thou art performing it.” Indeed, it cannot otherwise be performed either acceptably or comfortably.

The tempter also will, sometimes, instigate those of the saints who are called to perform a greater variety of duties than others are to continue longer than is requisite in doing some one duty in order to put it out of their power, rightly to discharge some other equally incumbent on them. He will press them, for instance, either to employ so much time in the worship of the family, and especially in that of the closet, as to have no opportunity for some other duty equally necessary, or to spend so much time in some duty respecting their secular affairs as to have almost no opportunity for these holy and necessary exercises. In proportion as a good man yields for a time to this temptation it is easy to see that he thereby deprives himself of that comfort of communion with a holy God which is enjoyed only in a conscientious and seasonable discharge of every known duty. Now, in order to prevent his falling into this destructive snare, he ought daily to trust, as well as to pray, that the Lord Jesus, who is given “for a leader to the people” (Isa. lv. 4) would, according to His promise (Isa. lviii. 11), guide him continually to that which, in preference to every other, is his present duty. And when he discerns his present duty he should resolutely, and in the faith of the promise, despatch that and then proceed in the same manner to his next duty. Let him diligently perform every act of obedience in its proper season; and, that he may have opportunity for everyone, let him so redeem his time as to spend no time in idleness or in doing anything but that which his conscience pronounces to be his present duty (Eph. v. 15, 16).

1. Believers forfeit the continuance of their spiritual comfort by the commission of gross and atrocious transgressions, of such sins as are contrary, not only to the light of Revelation, but even to the light of nature. By doing so they rebel against and “vex the Holy Spirit so that He is turned” as it were, “to be their enemy and to fight against them” (Isa. lxiii. 10). By such iniquities they at the same time wound and waste their own consciences. When a holy man presumes to resemble the men of this world so much as to commit but one of the sins mentioned in I Cor. vi. 9, 10, or any other heinous iniquity, he thereby pierces the Lord Jesus, grieves the Holy Spirit, inflicts a deep wound in his own conscience, and so procures for himself the loss of holy consolation. We see in some of the penitential Psalms of David that his adultery and murder not only deprived him of sensible comfort, but exposed him, and that for a long season, to Divine desertion, in respect even of quickening and purifying influences. We know also that Peter’s denial of his blessed Lord rendered him, for a time, very disconsolate. If a good man, then, instigated either by corruption within or by temptation from without, suffer himself, not only to contemplate with desire but actually to fall into any of those enormities which, by one apostle, are termed “The works of the flesh” (Gal. v. 19-21, and by another “The pollutions of the world” (II Pet. ii. 20), he exposes himself in an uncommon degree to the dreadful frowns of his Heavenly Father, for such enormities as they are directly opposite even to the light of nature, so they are most contrary to the influences of grace. The sin of a believer in falling into any one of them is deeply aggravated from all his manifold privileges, and more especially from this, that he usually has more strength afforded him against gross enormities than even against sins which are more spiritual and less obvious to his view. The means of being kept from falling into gross iniquities, which the Christian ought diligently to use, are such as these: trust in Christ, at all times, for continued supplies of sanctifying grace, prayer without ceasing, and without fainting; watchfulness unto prayer and against his spiritual enemies with all perseverance, and keeping a constant guard, more especially against pride of heart, confidence in grace received, and the evil that is in the world.

2. Christians likewise destroy the peace and comfort of their minds by open sins of any kind which offend others around them and cause many of them to stumble. When any of the saints commit such sins as are exposed to the view of others, and thereby grieve or offend or stumble them, the Lord is greatly dishonoured and displeased, and His Holy Spirit is so grieved as to suspend for a time His cheering influences from their souls. He, in this way, frequently embitters those sins to His people by which they have offended others, and have given them occasion to reproach His blessed religion, and to blaspheme His holy name. After David had sinned openly, in the matter of Uriah, Nathan said to him, “Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die” (II Sam. xii. 14). The Lord charged it, as a deeply aggravated sin, upon His ancient people, that by the unholy and offensive behaviour of many of them, they occasioned “His holy name to be profaned among the heathen” (Ezek. xxxvi. 20, 23; Rom. ii. 24). If blasphemy is justly allowed to be a most atrocious crime, doubtless it must be a heinous iniquity, especially in any of the children of God, to give occasion to it. When they at any time fall openly into dishonesty or pride, or passion or revenge, or unbecoming discourse, and especially into covetousness, the enemies of the gospel never fail to take special notice of it, and to take occasion from it, to become more confirmed in their inveterate prejudices against faith and holiness. These sins, therefore, do as much as more enormous evils that are committed in secret, procure for believers the loss of spiritual comfort. “For the iniquity of his covetousness,” saith Jehovah, “was I wroth and smote him: I hid Me and was wroth” (Isa. lvii. 17). When, after spiritual enlargement and communion with God in holy exercises, Christians become negligent in glorifying Him by good works before men; when, as soon as they have come down from the mount, they, like Moses, break the tables of the holy law, such ungrateful and inconsistent behaviour as this often provokes their Heavenly Father to chasten them by the infliction of inward as well as outward trouble. By presuming to sin openly they not only offend and grieve the Holy Spirit, but trouble and discourage other saints around them, and therefore it is proper that they themselves should feel spiritual trouble and should know by their own bitter experience “that it is an evil thing and bitter that they have forsaken the Lord their God” (Jer. ii. 19).

3. Lastly, believers procure for themselves the loss of holy comfort by relapsing often into the same sin. What sin soever it be, and how strong soever the temptation to it be, the repeated and especially the frequent commission of it will provoke the Holy Spirit to withhold His consoling influences from the backsliding Christian. This will more especially be the case if, under the prevalance of corruption and the power of temptation, he suffer himself to resemble so much the secure hypocrite as to take the smallest encouragement from the riches of redeeming grace in Christ, to repeat the same offence. By his daring to do so he “maketh Christ the minister of sin” (Gal. ii. 17); he practically represents the holy Jesus and His great salvation as leaving him still under the dominion of sin, yea, as affording him encouragement to practise iniquity. Besides, by relapsing often into the same transgression the Christian practically declares that he still loves and has pleasure in that sin. Now, by loving that which is inexpressibly hateful, and which the Lord hateth with infinite abhorrence, and by counting that pleasant to his taste, which is of all things the most bitter, and which tendered to the Saviour’s lips, the vinegar and gall, the believer renders it indispensably necessary that the sweet and holy consolations of the Spirit be suspended from him in order that he may be made to see that his iniquity is most hateful, and to experience that it is most bitter. Moreover, the repetition of a transgression heightens the crime. As in figures, the addition of one figure makes the number ten times greater, so the Christian’s repetition of the same sin, of a sin which he has often confessed, lamented, and resolved against, renders it heinous in a tenfold degree and calls aloud for paternal chastisement. In such a case he must be taught, not only by the anguish of the Redeemer’s soul, in the garden and on the cross, but by the trouble of his own spirit, that sin is of all evils the greatest, and that his having fallen again and again into the same offence after he had received the forgiveness of sins renders his sin exceeding sinful (Ezra ix. 13, 14; Mal. ii. 13).

(To be continued.)