2. Perplexed thoughtfulness about their great and wretched nn- Jcindness towards God is another part of the depths of sin-entangled souls. So David complains: Pa Ixxvii. 3, "I remembered God," saith ho, " and was troubled." How comes the remembrance of God to be unto him a matter of trouble? In other places he professeth that it was all his relief and supportment. How comes it to be an occasion of his trouble? All had not been well between God and him; and whereas formerly, in his remembrance of God, his thoughts were chiefly exercised about his love and kindness, now they were wholly possessed with his own sin and unkiudness. This causeth
Ver.1,2.] WHEREIN DEPTHS OF Sm CONSIST. 335
his trouble. Herein lies a share of the entanglements occasioned by sin. Saith such a soul in itself, " Foolish creature, hast thou thus requited the Lord? Is this the return that thou hast made unto him for all his love, his kindness, his consolations, mercies? Is this thy kindness for him, thy love to him? Is this thy kindness to thy friend? Is this thy boasting of him, that thou hadst found so much goodness and excellency in him and his love, that though all men should forsake him, thou never wouldst do so? Are all thy promises, all thy engagements which thou madest unto God, in times of dis- tress, upon prevailing obligations, and mighty impressions of his good Spirit upon thy soul, now come to this, that thou shouldst so foolishly forget, neglect, despise, cast him off? Well! now he is gone; he is withdrawn from thee; and what wilt thou do? Art thou not even ashamed to desire him to return?" They were thoughts of this nature that cut Peter to the heart upon his fall. The soul finds them cruel as death, and strong as the grave. It is bound in the chains of them, and cannot be comforted, Ps. xxxviii, 3-6. And herein consists a great part of the depths inquired after: for this consideration ex- cites and puts an edge upon all grieving, straitening, perplexing affections, which are the only means whereby the soul of a man may be inwardly troubled, or trouble itself; such are sorrow and shame, with that self-displicency and revenge wherewith they are attended. And as their reason and object in this case do transcend all other occasions of them, so on no other account do they cause such severe and perplexing reflections on the soul as on this.
3. A revived sense of justly deserved ivrath belongs also to these depths. This is as the opening of old wounds. When men have passed through a sense of wrath, and have obtained deliverance and rest through the blood of Christ, to come to their old thoughts acjain, to be trading afresh with hell, curse, law, and wrath, it is a depth indeed. And this often befalls gracious souls on the account of sin : Ps. Ixxxviii. 7, '' Thy wrath lieth hard upon me," saith Heman, It pressed and crushed him sorely. There is a self-judging as to the desert of wrath, which is consistent with a comfortmg persuasion of an interest in Christ. This the soul finds sweetness in, as it lies in a subserviency to the exaltation of grace. But in this case, the soul is left under it without that relief It plungeth itself into the curse of the law and flames of hell, without any cheering supportment from the blood of Christ. This is walking in " the valley of the sliadow of death." The soul converseth "with death and what seems to lie in a tendency thereunto. Tlie Lord, also, to increase his perplexities, puts new life and spirit into the law, — gives it a fresh commission, as it were, to take such a one into its custody; and the law will never in this world be wanting unto its duty.
SS6 AN EXPOSITIOX UPON PSALM CXXX. [Vcr.1,2.
4. Oppressing apprehensions of temporal judgments concur herein also; for God will judge his people. And judgment often begins at the house of God. " Though God," saith such a one, " should not cast me off for ever, — though he should pardon my ini- quities; yet he may so take vengeance of my inventions as to make me feed on gall and wormwood all my days." Ps. cxix. 120, saith David, " My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments." He knows not what the gi'eat God may bring upon him ; and being full of a sense of the guilt of sin, which is the bottom of this whole condition, every judgment of God is full of terror unto him. Sometimes he thinks God may lay open the filth of his heart, and make him a scandal and a reproach in the world. Ps. xxxix. 8, " O," saith he, " make me not a reproach of the foolish." Sometimes he trembles lest God should strike him suddenly with some signal judgment, and take him out of the world in darkness and sorrow: so saith David, " Take me not away in thy wrath." Sometimes he fears lest he shall be like Jonah, and raise a storm in his family, in the church whereof he is a member, or in the whole 7iation: " Let them not be ashamed for my sake." These things make his heart soft, as Job speaks, and to melt within him. When any affliction or public judgment pf God is fastened to a quick, living sense of sin iu the conscience, it overwhelms the soul, whether it be only justly feared or be actually inflicted ; as was the case of Joseph's brethren in Egypt. The soul is then rolled from one deep to another. Sense of sin casts it on the consideration of its affliction, and affliction turns it back on a sense of sin. So deep calleth unto deep, and all God's billows go over the soul. And they do each of them make the sold tender, and sharpen its sense unto the other. Affliction softens the soul, so that the sense of sin cuts the deeper, and makes the larger wounds; and the sense of sin weakens the soul, and makes affliction sit the heavier, and so increaseth its burden. In this case, that affliction Avhich a man in his usual state of spiritual peace could have embraced as a sweet pledge of love, is as goads and thorns in his side, depriving him of all rest and quietness; God makes it as thorns and briers, wherewith he will teach stubborn souls their duty, as Gideon did the men of Succoth.