By JOHN COLQUHOUN, D.D., Minister of the Gospel, Leith.
(Continued from page 141.)
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A distressing apprehension that some overwhelming judgment will suddenly be inflicted upon them, because of their great offences, is often a consequence of their loss of holy comfort. Heman apprehended that such judgments were to come upon him as would cut him off (Ps. lxxxviii. 5). The disconsolate Christian, under a deep sense of accumulated guilt, is frequently struck with fear that an offended God will inflict upon him some sudden and terrible punishment. A filial and holy fear of Divine judgments, arising from the consideration of the great evil of sin, and of Jehovah’s infinite righteousness, and abhorrence of iniquity, as well as of His tremendous wrath revealed against it; is, indeed, lawful, and should at all times be exercised by the saints. “O Lord, I have heard Thy speech,” says Habakkuk, “and was afraid” (Hab. iii. 2). And David, “Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth like dross: therefore I love Thy testimonies. My flesh trembleth for fear of Thee; and I am afraid of Thy judgments” (Ps. cxix. 119, 120). But when a holy man has deprived himself of comfort he commonly yields to a slavish and excessive dread of the judgments of God. When he hears that a thousand have fallen at his right hand, and ten thousand at his left, he trembles like a leaf of the forest. In such a condition he is disposed to indulge a disquieting, distracting, and tormenting fear; a fear which unsettles his mind, suspends his exercise of faith, disturbs his peace, destroys his hope, and instigates him to impatience, and to the use of unlawful means in order to escape the danger that threatens him. A fear of this kind is very sinful, as well as unbecoming, in a true Christian: it alienates his heart from the Lord and disqualifies him for the spiritual performance of his duty. Since he is walking in darkness, a thousand imaginary fears, disquiet and perplex his soul. He is now readier than formerly to be imposed upon by imaginary dangers, and to be “in great fear where no fear is” (Ps. liii. 5). Although the Lord hath promised to him that “no real evil shall befall him” (Ps. xci. 10); that no affliction shall ever come upon him but what will issue from the greatest love and terminate in the greatest good to him; yet he can almost think of nothing but of imminent danger on every side: and his groundless and gloomy fears of it render him inexpressibly uneasy. Such fears are so many galling fetters to his imprisoned soul; and when he would at any time try to shake them off, his quick sense of total inability discourages him. From this they take occasion to become still more oppressive to him. Hence is that mournful expression of Job, “If I say I will forget my complaint I will leave off my heaviness and comfort myself; I am afraid of all my sorrows: I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent” (Job ix. 27, 28).
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Great uncertainty of mind about their present and their future state is usually a consequence of the suspension of spiritual consolation from their souls. Now that the Christian is walking in darkness he cannot, as formerly, see either his warrant to trust as a sinner in Christ for salvation to himself in particular; or any good evidence of his having ever yet trusted in him. Having lost the light of God’s gracious countenance, and of holy comfort, he has consequently, and in the same proportion, lost sight of his vital union with the Saviour, and of his personal interest in His righteousness and salvation. Hence great and sad doubts, what will become of him for the future, frequently disquiet his mind. “He who walketh in this darkness, knoweth not whither he goeth” (John xii. 35). Unbelief prevaileth so much against him that he often questions whether Jesus Christ can, or will, save such a great sinner as he is and whether God will have mercy upon him or not. He is in perplexing and painful uncertainty what the great and terrible God may be about to do with him when he is to depart hence; and he often suspects the worst: yea, his doubts may be suffered to prevail so much as to make him conclude that the Lord will be favourable to him no more. Thus Asaph, in a similar case, expresseth himself: “Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will He be favourable no more? Is His mercy clean gone for ever? Doth His promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?” (Ps. lxxvii. 7, 8, 9). And the Israelitish Church, in her captivity, saith, “My strength and my hope are perished from the Lord” (Lam. iii. 18). When the holy soul is in darkness it will often argue thus: “The Lord hath departed from me and, it may be, He will never return to me. Oh! what will become of me if I am never to enjoy communion with Him any more! What if I shall have my portion, through all eternity, with hypocrites and unbelievers in the place of torment! I have now no cheering light, no enlivening hope, and, perhaps, I am soon to be cast into outer darkness.” The Christian, in this perplexing condition, hath, indeed, some lucid intervals, now and then; but, as one expresses it, they are like the small breathings and refreshments of a person who is newly taken off the rack and is about to be carried to the rack again. If it is accounted a bitter ingredient in the cup of outward affliction to be kept in suspense concerning any object which is deemed necessary and important to our temporal welfare, how distressing must it be to the spirit of a holy man to be held in suspense between hope and fear respecting objects which are absolutely requisite and infinitely important to his eternal felicity! As a natural man cannot be at ease without natural accommodations or the possession of such things as are adapted to the comfort of natural life, so a spiritual man cannot be quieted without the enjoyment of spiritual blessings. The possession of ten thousand worlds could not afford him the smallest ease. Nothing but the faith of redeeming love to him, the view of his personal interest in the Redeemer, and the hope of his eternal enjoyment of God can put his soul to rest. Were he but to know that he is to be glorified together with Christ, and in due time to enter into His joy, he should soon come forth to the light of consolation.
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Another consequence of their having provoked their heavenly Father to withhold comfort from them is their uttering of heartless and useless complaints. “Even to-day,” saith Job, “is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning” (Job xxiii. 2). And Asaph, “I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed” (Ps. lxxvii. 3). Some believers, after they have lost their wonted consolation, are not at first deeply sensible of the greatness of their loss; and therefore, though they mention with sorrow their want of former comfort, yet their sorrow is far from being very deep. Their hearts are indeed affected by their loss, but they are not so deeply afflicted by it as bitterly to bewail the sins which have procured it. They fill the ears of some of their Christian friends with lamentable accounts of their doleful condition, but at the same time they utter almost nothing but complaints of that which they themselves are suffering. They do not humble themselves deeply before the offended Majesty of heaven; nor do they, by faith, prayer and holy circumspection strive to recover that which they have lost. They are like Issachar, couching down under their burdens, or they may be compared to a diseased man who frequently bemoans himself but does not seek to free himself from his distemper. Sometimes they are very peevish and obstinate, and they seem to take a pleasure in complaining of the trouble which they endure. But they are not aware that by indulging a temper of this kind they render it necessary that their wound should yet be deeper, and that they should yet have more reason to complain before comfort be restored to them. David, when he was under a sense of guilt, and of paternal displeasure, doubtless felt his loss of holy comfort, but yet he did not strive ingenuously to confess and bewail his iniquities and fervently to supplicate for spiritual consolation until “day and night the hand of God was so heavy upon him that his moisture was turned into the drought of summer” (Ps. xxxii. 3, 4). They think, too, that they can never complain enough; that their condition is inexpressibly miserable, as that of Job, when he exclaimed, “Oh, that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up” (Job vi. 2, 3). But such thoughts and expressions as these are very unbecoming in the true believer, who has, in every condition, a compassionate Saviour to trust in, a consummate righteousness to rely on, and promises of grace and glory to apply and plead. The exercise of faith is certainly intermitted when he can allow himself to utter such clamours. He undoubtedly, at that time, forgets the infinite freeness, suitableness, fulness, and sufficiency of the grace which is in Christ Jesus. Besides, he thereby shows plainly that his grief and fear are, after all, far from being great. When sorrow and fear are shallow and superficial they are usually clamorous; but when they are great and deep they are commonly silent: they are so great that they cannot be expressed (Ps. lxxvii. 4), and, therefore, like the waters of a large and deep river they move silently. So long as the dejected Christian is able to complain, methinks instead of complaining to others around him, only of an absent God and Saviour (Lam. iii. 39), he should complain of himself rather, and should complain of himself chiefly to the Lord, who only can relieve him.
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A deep and painful sense of God’s paternal anger is also a consequence and a concomitant thereof. Though believers are, in their justification, so entirely delivered from condemnation to vindictive and eternal wrath as to be no longer exposed to wrath of that kind (Isa. liv. 9); yet, by sinning (which after their justification they do) against the Lord, not as their avenging Judge, but as their gracious God and Father, they incur the guilt of fatherly anger. By the fatherly anger of God is meant His holy and righteous displeasure with His disobedient children, which is manifested by His infliction of chastisement upon them. In this manner the Lord was angry with Moses (Deut. i. 37), and with His ancient Church, the members of which expostulate with Him thus: “O God, why hast Thou cast us off for ever? Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of Thy pasture?” (Ps. lxxiv. 1). When the Lord is so displeased with any of His children as to withdraw from them the sense of His special favour, He commonly, at the same time, impresseth on their souls in place of it a sense of His paternal anger. Instead of cheering them with that delightful sense of His redeeming love to them which they formerly enjoyed, He fixeth deep in their souls a painful feeling of His being angry with them. “For the iniquity of his covetousness,” saith Jehovah, “was I wroth and smote him: I hid me and was wroth” (Isa. lvii. 17). When the Lord is wroth with any of His people for their iniquities He will not only hide His face from them, or deprive them of the cheering sense of His favour, but He will smite them likewise; and this He will do not only by some external stroke of His rod on their bodies or estates, but sometimes by an internal and deep impression of His anger on their souls. And if depriving them of the cheering sense of God’s favour is connected with the feeling of His hot displeasure, an inexpressibly bitter and grievous conflict in their souls must ensue. Therefore hath the Lord said, “I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before Me and the souls which I have made” (Isa. lvii. 16). When God is wroth with His children He makes them feel His displeasure either by frowning so upon them that they shall for a season discern almost nothing of His countenance but a continued and a dreadful frown, or by “covering them with a cloud in His anger” (Lam. ii. 1); or by seeming “to be angry even with their prayer” (Ps. lxxx. 4), to shut it out (Lam. iii. 8), and to “cover Himself with a cloud that it cannot pass through” (Lam. iii. 44); or by leaving their souls to languish under the prevalence of unbelief, discouragement and dread; or by laying sore and long affliction upon their bodies and rendering all the means which they employ for the removal of it unavailing; or, in a word, by threatening to destroy at once all their external comforts. Indeed, when the Lord impresseth on their spirits a deep and fixed sense of His anger no creature can afford to them the smallest consolation. In vain will they seek for ease to their oppressed souls, in business, or amusements, or gay company. Friends may, indeed, mourn with them, but as one expresses it, they cannot wipe away their tears. Nor can they, then, find relief even in the ordinances of God. Every threatening of His holy law appears as an arrow aimed at their heart. Every promise of His blessed Gospel, however full of consolation to others, seems empty to them. Every offer of a Saviour, and of His great salvation, however unlimited, appears to be directed to other sinners and not to them. The Lord Himself seemeth to them as if He were taking no notice of their distress; yea, as if He were an enemy to their souls. We are not to wonder then if in such a case they feel overwhelming trouble and anguish of spirit (Job xix. 6, 8; Ps. xxxviii. 2, 3). Indeed, it is because the Lord still loveth them and resolveth to save them that, when He sees them running on to sin and misery His paternal anger thus overtakes them in order to stop and bring them back again to the comfort of holy conformity to the image of His Son Jesus Christ.
(To be continued.)