By JOHN COLQUHOUN, D.D., Minister of the Gospel, Leith.
(Continued from page 205.)
11. Hard thoughts of God, and jealous thoughts of Christ, do often take occasion to arise from the want of comfort, especially if believers have remained long in that condition.
Hard thoughts of God proceed from their disconsolate hearts, such as, That He is so greatly incensed against them as to be implacable; that He hath so forsaken them as never any more to return; that He hath passed such a sentence of condemnation upon them as shall never be reversed; that He hath covered Himself with such a cloud in His anger as shall henceforth render it impossible for their prayer to pass through; that He hath forgotten to be gracious to them; that His mercy is clean gone for ever, and such like. When dejection and terror continue long, they obscure the mind and cause it to form and entertain gloomy, yea, monstrous apprehensions. Hence are these words of Job: “He performeth the thing that is appointed for me, and many such things are with Him. Therefore am I troubled at His presence when I consider I am afraid of Him. For God maketh my heart soft and the Almighty troubleth me, because I was not cut off before the darkness” (Job xxiii. 14-17).
Jealous thoughts of Christ, the glorious head and husband of believing souls, do likewise arise from the disconsolate heart. If souls have hard thoughts of God they will quickly entertain jealous thoughts of Christ Jesus. And if they but begin to suspect that Christ doth not love them, or that He is not faithful in performing His promises to them, they will be afraid to take His word and afraid to trust Him or to commit themselves and their salvation to Him. Christian, be continually on thy guard against unbelieving and suspicious thoughts of the love of Christ to thy soul. Trust firmly that He loveth thee and careth for thee, and that He will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Thy sensible comfort may leave thee but thy faithful Redeemer, the husband of thy soul, will never totally or finally forsake thee. He may indeed for a season “cause grief, but He will have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies” (Lam. iii. 32). Say not then, when He hideth His face from thee, “He hath utterly forsaken me,” but rather, in the exercise of unsuspecting confidence in Him and in His love to thee, say, “He will turn again; He will have compassion upon me; He will subdue my iniquities, and will cast all my sins into the depths of the sea” (Mic. vii. 19). O guard against jealous thoughts of thy infinitely faithful Redeemer. Do not suspect Him without ground. The moment thou art jealous of His love to thee thou sinnest against Him without a cause. The Lord Jesus at no time so conducts Himself in His ways of grace and providence toward thee as to give thee the smallest cause to suspect His faithfulness (Lam. iii. 23). And if thou wouldst never suspect His kindness and faithfulness to thy soul, till thou had a cause, it is all that He would desire. Remember that to be jealous of the holy Jesus is to sin not only against Him but against thyself. “Jealousy is the rage of a man” (Prov. vi. 34), and “it is cruel or hard as the grave” (Song. viii. 6). It will disquiet and torture thy soul: it will waste thy spirits, and prey upon thee like the grave. Thou indeed hast been unfaithful, very unfaithful, to the Lord Jesus, but this, though a ground of deep humiliation, yet is no ground at all for suspecting His faithfulness to His own promise, upon which He hath caused thee to hope (Ps. exix. 49).
12. Another consequence of their loss of spiritual consolation is their being usually so discomposed and dispirited thereby as to become at the time unfit for the spiritual performance of their duty.
This will more especially be the case with them if, as is too common, they in their disconsolate condition, forbear to trust in the Saviour for present and eternal salvation. Though their obedience is not accepted on account of their faith, yet it is spiritually good and acceptable, in proportion to the strength and the frequency of their actings of faith. If, then, they cease for a season to act faith, they, in the same proportion, cease for that time to perform spiritual and acceptable obedience to the Lord, for “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Heb. xi. 6). It is not sufficient, in order to acceptable obedience, that Christians have faith in principle, and even in habit: they must likewise have it in exercise; and that even when they walk in darkness and have no light of sensible comfort (Isa. l. 10). But if, in the darkness of spiritual trouble, they forbear for a season to trust in the Lord Jesus for complete salvation to themselves in particular, that trouble will so disquiet and dispirit them as to disqualify them either for doing or for suffering, according to the will of God. “I am,” saith Heman, “as a man that hath no strength” (Ps. lxxxviii. 4). Nay, it hath made some of them even think that it is to no purpose for them to endeavour spiritually to perform any duty. Indeed, their souls, when in that doleful condition, are commonly so much occupied with the fear of eternal wrath that sin as sin, and duty as duty, are but little considered by them. Moreover, that conscience by which they judge themselves to be still under the guilt of all their sins is in the Scripture called “an evil conscience” (Heb. x. 22), a conscience which the blood of Christ must purge from dead works in order to their being capacitated to serve the living God (Heb. ix. 14). Love, which is the fulfilling of the law and the end of the commandment, must arise out of a good conscience as well as out of a pure heart (I Tim. i. 5). That evil or guilty conscience, by which disquieted Christians judge that the Lord is still their enemy, because of their sins, doth greatly strengthen the remaining enmity of their hearts against Him; and so it indisposes them for affectionate and filial obedience to Him. For in proportion as they decline in their love to Him they are hardly drawn to Him in any spiritual service, and easily drawn from Him: they come slowly and depart readily; they approach with reluctance; and while they stand before Him, it is with hesitation and dislike.
Besides, as spiritual joy raises and invigorates the spirit, so carnal and legal sorrow depresses and enfeebles it. All sorrow, except godly sorrow, lies like lead on the heart, cold and heavy, and presses it still downward. It likewise makes the soul contract itself or shrink from that spiritual intercourse with God in Christ which it ought, eagerly and incessantly, to pursue. Under the pressure of sadness, especially when it is accompanied with terror, believers themselves find no heart to pray and no life in praying. They bow their knees; they sigh and cry, but the Lord seemeth not to regard them, nor to return answers of peace to their prayers. Their thoughts are, for the most part, in a continual tumult; and so, in all their efforts to pray, wandering and perplexing thoughts do sadly prevail against them. Their sadness greatly abates their vigour of spirit and destroys their freedom of speech: it dampeth also their faith, and hope, and love; and so it mars their prayers as well as all their other spiritual exercises. Finding that they are still as perplexed and as disconsolate after prayer as before it, and fearing that their prayer is an abomination to the Lord, they are almost at the point of giving it over. They are troubled when they do not pray, and when they would pray they find that they cannot. Sometimes, when the trouble of their mind becomes great and violent, it suppresses their words and can itself find no vent. “I am so troubled,” says Asaph, “that I cannot speak” (Ps. lxxvii. 4). The waters of their trouble and anguish do so drown their cries that they either cannot pray at all or can find no liberty, no pleasure, no relief in their prayers.
13. Lastly, the joint effect of those consequences above-mentioned frequently is that the natural spirits begin to be disordered and dejected.
Trouble of mind, especially when it is great, or of long continuance, commonly produces this effect. Such is the nature of the union between the soul and the body that there is almost never any vigorous exercise of any of the affections or passions of the soul without some corresponding effect thereby produced on the motion of the fluids, and especially of the natural spirits of the body. The motion of the animal spirits is thereby altered, whence often arises some bodily sensation, especially about the heart and other parts essential to life, which are the fountains of these fluids. So much is the body subjected to the soul, and so much do the spirits of the body depend on the affections of the soul, that the exercise of any one of the affections has a direct tendency to produce some sensible effect on the body; and if the exercise of any of them be great or violent it will produce an effect proportionably great and violent. Accordingly, the holy Psalmist, expressing his vehement desire of communion with God in public ordinances, says, “My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee” (Ps. lxxii. 1). And again, “My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (Ps. lxxxiv. 2).
Now the affections of grief and fear do, in proportion to the degree of their exercise, contract the natural spirits and render their motions feeble and slow. The consequence is that the vigour of the body commonly declines: its motions become sluggish. The lamp of life burns dimly. The countenance grows dejected; the complexion waxes pale; and no liveliness nor activity seems to remain. Hence are these complaints in Scripture, “On my eyelids is the shadow of death” (Job xvi. 16). “I am become like dust and ashes” (Job. xxx. 19). “My moisture is turned into the drought of summer” (Ps. xxxii. 4). “There is no soundness in my flesh because of Thine anger” (Ps. xxxviii. 3). “I am become like a bottle in the smoke” (Ps. exix. 83). “My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave” (Ps. lxxxviii. 3). As the motion of the spirits of the body is retarded and altered by the influence of the grief and fear of the soul, so this alteration, especially if it continue for a considerable time, will at length produce that disorder which is called melancholy. Though melancholy, which is indeed a distemper of the body, is totally distinct from trouble of mind, strictly so-called, yet the former often proceeds from, and is increased by, the latter; and the latter, again, is reciprocally augmented and often prolonged by the former. For as the soul cannot but feel with the body in its pain, so the body cannot be exempted from sharing with the soul in its trouble.
(To be continued.)