In this kind of desertion, seconded with this kind of temptation, the way is to call home the soul, and to check it, and charge it to trust in God, even though he shews himself an enemj- ; for it is but a show, he doth but put on a mask, with a purpose to reveal himself the more gi-aciously afterwai'd. His manner is to work by contraries. In this condition God lets in some few beams of light, whereby the soul casts a longing look upon God, even when he seems to forsake it. It will, with Jonah in the belly of hell, look back to the holy temple of God, Jonah ii. 4, it will steal a look unto Christ. Nothing more comfortable in this condition, than to fly to him, that by experience knew what this kind of forsaking meant, for this very end that he might be the fitter to succom- us in the like distress, Heb. iv. 15, 16.
Learn, therefore, to appeal fi'om God to God, oppose his gi-acious nature, his sweet promises to such as ' are in darkness, and see no light,' Isa. 1. 10, inviting them to trust in him, though there appear to the eye of sense and reason nothing but darkness. Here make use of that sweet relation of God in Christ becoming a Father to us. ' Doubtless thou art om- Father,' Isa.
* Nihil est teutatio vel universi mundi et totius inferni in unum constata, ad earn -.qua Deus contrarius homini ponitur. — Luther.
228 THE soul's CO-SJb'LICT.
kiii. 16. Flesh would make a doubt of it, and thou seemest to hide thy face from us, yet doubtless thou art our Father, and hast in former time shewed thyself to be so ; we will not leave thee till we have a blessing from thee, till we have a kinder look from thee. This wrestling will prevail at length, and we shall have such a sight of him, as shall be an encouragement for the time to come, when ' we shall be able to comfort others, with those comforts whereby we have been refreshed ourselves,' 2 Cor. i. 4. With the saint's case remember the saint's com'se, which is to trust in God. So Christ the Head of the church commits himself to that God, whose favour for the present he felt not ; so Job resolves upon trust, though God should kill him. Job xiii. 15.
Obj. But these holy persons were not troubled with the guilt of any par- ticular sin, but I feel the just displeasure of God kindled against me for many and great offences.
A71S. True it is, that sin is not so sweet in the committing, as it is heavy and bitter in the reckoning. When Adam had once offended God, paradise itself was not paradise to him. The presence of God, which was most com- fortable before, was now his greatest terror, had not God, out of his free, infinite, and preventing mercy, come betwixt him and hell, by the promise of the blessed seed. This seed was made sin to satisfy for sin ; sin passive in himself to satisfy for sin active in us, 1 Cor. v. 21.
When God once charges sin upon the soul, alas ! who shall take it off? when the great God shall frown, the smiles of the creature cannot refresh us. Sin makes us afraid of that which should be our greatest comfort ; it puts a sting into every other evU. Upon the seizing of any evil, either of body, soul, or condition, the guilty soul is embittered and enraged ; for from that which it feels, it fore-speaks to itself worse to come, it inter- prets all that befalls as the messengers of an angiy God, sent in displeasure to take revenge upon it. This weakeneth the courage, wasteth the spirits, andblasteth the beauty even of God's dearest ones, Ps. xxxis. 11. There is not the stoutest man breathing, but if God sets his conscience against him it will pull him do-ma, and lay him flat, and fill him -udth such inward terrors, as he shall be more afraid of himself, than of all the world beside. This were a doleful case, if God had not provided in Christ a remedy for this great evil of evils, and if the Holy Spirit were not above the conscience, able as well to pacify it by the sense of God's love in Christ, as to convince it of sin, and the just desert thereby.
Obj. But my sins are not the sins of an ordinary man, my spots are not as the spots of the rest of God's children.
Conceive of God's mercy as no ordinary mercy, and Christ's obedience as no ordinary obedience. There is something in the very greatness of sin, that may encourage us to go to God, for the greater our sins are, the greater the glory of his powerful mercy pardoning, and his powerful grace in healing will appear. The great God delights to shew his greatness in the greatest things. Even men glory, when they are put upon that, which may set forth their worth in any kind. God ' delighteth in mercy,' Mic. vii. 18. It pleaseth him, nothing so well, as being his chief name, which then we take in vain, when we are not moved by it to come unto him.