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Post by Admin on Aug 9, 2023 9:27:34 GMT -5
CHAPTER 1.
Spiritual Comfort in General.
Comfort, in its generally accepted meaning, is that refreshing pleasure,or enlivening satisfaction of spirit,by which a man is upheld and strengthened against all evils,whether felt or feared.Or it is that inward solace which supports and invigorates the heart under trouble of every kind. There are three sorts of comfort: natural, sinful, and spiritual.
Natural comfort is the refreshment of our natural spirits by the good creatures of God, the gifts of his bounty. When God “gives us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, he thereby fills our hearts with food and gladness.” Act 14.17
There is comfort in every creature of God.
When we are hungry, food comforts us; when thirsty, drink refreshes us; when cold, clothes warm us; and when in affliction or in want of advice, friends encourage us. But besides these common and necessary gifts of Providence, every sense has something peculiar to itself, which affords it comfort. The eyes have beautiful colours to give them pleasure; the ears, besides ordinary sounds, have melodious ones to delight them; the taste not only has the suitableness of common food, but the sweetness of honey, to please it; and the smell, besides common aromas, has fragrant flowers to regale it.
Sinful, or unholy comfort, is the pleasure which sinners take in gratifying their lusts, or the delight which they have in abusing the gifts of Divine bounty. Sometimes the true Christian wonders how wicked men can feel comfortable at any time. But he has no cause to wonder, for their very commission of sin is a momentary comfort to their depraved nature. “It is like sport to a fool, to do mischief.” Pro 10.23 “Scorners delight in their scorning.” Pro 1.22 “Their soul delights in their abominations.” Isa 66.3 Committing iniquity is agreeable to their sinful nature, and therefore it is a comfort to it. Indeed, were it not for the frequent opportunities they have to gratify some lust, either of the flesh or the mind, life would be an insupportable burden to them. “Evil men,” says Solomon, “do not sleep unless they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away unless they cause someone to fall.” Pro 4.16 Ah! How inexpressibly dreadful is the condition of that man to whose heart it is a pleasure, a comfort, to sin against a holy and gracious God! Sinful comfort is also the pleasure which self-righteous persons take, either in relying wholly on their own righteousness, or relying partly on the righteousness of Christ and partly on their own, for their justification and title to eternal life. And it is the delight which hypocrites feel in reflecting on their counterfeit graces and attainments.
Spiritual or holy comfort, is that inward solace or satisfaction which supports, strengthens, and exhilarates holy souls. They have this comfort in and from the Lord Jesus, their Covenant-head, by the exercise of faith, hope, love, and the other graces of the Holy Spirit.
Rom 5.1-5 Or it is that spiritual delight, that holy joy, which cheers and invigorates the hearts of believers under all their inward and outward troubles. It is this alone that deserves the name of pure, solid, and durable consolation. If it is a comfort to the wicked man amidst all his afflictions, to gratify his carnal and ungodly lusts, then surely it cannot be but a real and even a great consolation to a holy man, under all the trials of life, to exercise his spiritual graces, and to perform his holy duties.
The word Comfort, in Scripture, is used in a twofold sense. It is sometimes employed to express that which gives consolation. But more frequently, it is used to signify the consolation itself which is received from it or enjoyed by means of it. First, it is employed in Scripture to express that which gives,or is a means of giving consolation to the soul of an afflicted believer
— whether it is a person Col 4.11 or a thing in which comfort is hidden by the blessing of Christ, and by which it is afforded. Or, it is a word or reason suggesting something of consolation to the mind of the Christian. Each of these is styled comfort, because it is a means or instrument of dispensing consolation to the saints. 2Cor 1.4
Second, the term is more frequently employed by the Spirit of inspiration, to express the consolation itself which believers receive, whether by means of persons, things, or reasons, and which they feel or enjoy in their souls. In this treatise, I propose to discourse about spiritual comfort chiefly in this second sense.
In order to illustrate the general nature of this inestimable blessing, I will present it to the view of the devout reader under the following particulars:
1. Spiritual comfort usually supposes trouble of some kind, either felt or feared; or, the prospect of some difficult duty which the believer needs to be encouraged to perform. It is under affliction, or uneasiness, that the heart of the Christian needs to be comforted.The Lord Jesus accordingly says“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Mat 5.4 He made the first promise to his disciples of the Holy Spirit as a Comforter, when sorrow had filled their heart at the prospect of his departure from them. Joh 16.6-7“God,” says the apostle Paul, “comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble.” 2Cor 1.4 And he styles him, “The God who comforts those who are cast down.” 2Cor 7.6 The soul must be quickened and humbled, so that it may be qualified for spiritual consolation. It is “the spirit of the humble, and the heart of the contrite ones,” that the high and lofty One will revive with holy comfort. Isa 57.15 Indeed, the oil of spiritual joy is such that no vessel but a contrite heart can hold it.
The design of imparting Divine consolation is to cheer and invigorate the drooping spirit. The office of the Comforter is to relieve the disconsolate soul.Lam 1.16 It is impossible for those who have never felt the uneasiness of a wounded conscience, to value or desire the joy of God’s salvation.
The soul, that it may need and be prepared for true consolation, must not only be quickened and humbled, but be under some affliction, either felt or apprehended. Comfort, according to an apostolical direction, is to be administered to “the faint-hearted;”1The 5.14 to those who are ready to stagger under the cross, and be overwhelmed by the temptations of Satan and the world;or who are discouraged because of the corruptions of their own hearts.It is trouble that renders spiritual consolation necessary as well as desirable.If the believer were not feeble and incapable of being supported by a created arm,the office of a Divine Comforter would be unnecessary.If he didn’t have a painful,as well as spiritual sense of his want of heavenly consolations,earthly comforts would be more acceptable to him than they are. And if his heart were not prepared for them by being humbled as well as afflicted, they would no more refresh it than a shower of rain would refresh a rock. Accordingly, Christ seldom communicates sensible comfort to the saints, except when they are either in inward or outward trouble. It is by being troubled that they become disconsolate; and so they become fit for being consoled. And it is their sharpest afflictions that often serve toprepare them for the sweetest consolations. Therefore, He usually brings them into the wilderness before he speaks comfortably to them. Hos 2.14 It may be proper here to remark that, just as Divine comfort is the opposite of trouble, so it must be more powerful and effectual than either outward or inward trouble; for there is no prevailing, except by that which is stronger. It must be more forcible to raise up the dejected soul, than the grievance is to cast it down. Otherwise, it cannot be a comfort to it at the time.
2. There are three degrees of spiritual comfort:
the lowest degree is peace of conscience; the next is joy; and the highest is triumph.
Peace of conscience is that inward serenity or tranquility of mind which arises from the faith and sense of being justified in the sight of God, or of being in a state of union with Christ, and of conformity to him. “Being justified by faith,” says the apostle Paul, “we have peace
with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Rom 5.1 The peace with which the God of hope fills the hearts of the saints, is peace in believing.
Rom 15.3 It also arises from the sense, or consciousness of peace with God. When the blood of Christ is applied to the conscience by faith, the conscience is purged by it from dead works; Heb 9.14 and at the same time, the heart is also sprinkled by it from an evil conscience. Heb 10.22 The subject of spiritual peace is a conscience that is purged. Purity and peace are connected together in the conscience; and they are both necessary to render it a good conscience. 1Tim 1.5 When the conscience is sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, it is thereby set free from the dread of revenging wrath. The mind is not disturbed, as formerly, with alarming fears of God’s indignation; nor is it disquieted by His judgments. Pro 1.33 This is usually accompanied with a cordial 6 acquiescence in the will of the Lord, founded on a persuasion of his wisdom and sovereignty,of his holiness and goodness.And so far as a man attains this holy acquiescence in the Divine will, he is secure from disappointment, and free from uneasiness. Now, this peaceful serenity of soul is the first degree of spiritual comfort. When the Lord Jesus would comfort his disconsolate disciples, he said, “These things I have spoken to you, that in me you might have peace.” Joh 16.33
Joy is a higher degree of holy consolation.
Spiritual joy is that gladness of heart which flows from the lively exercise of faith, feasting upon Christ in the offers and promises of the gospel. The apostle Paul prayed thus for the believers at Rome: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.” Rom 15.13 And the apostle Peter said to the Christians of the dispersion, “Believing, you rejoice.” 1Pet 1.8
Joy is a holy delight in living upon Christ, and walking in him. And it is effected by the Holy Spirit shedding abroad in the heart, like a fragrant perfume, the love of God. Rom 5.5 When He graciously condescends to administer that reviving cordial, it elevates and enlarges the fainting soul. Arising as it does from the enjoyment that has begun, and from the hope of the full and endless enjoyment of God in Christ, it strengthens, and so it comforts the drooping heart. “The joy of the Lord,” says Nehemiah, “is your strength.” Neh 8.10
Peace is negative comfort; joy is positive comfort. The former is like the calming of the storm; the latter is like the sun breaking through — the former is a mitigation of trouble; the latter is a sense of positive enjoyment. When a condemned criminal knows that he is pardoned, he has peace; but when (besides this) he is advanced to preferment, he has joy.
Triumph is the highest degree of consolation. The saints triumph when they so greatly rejoice, as to almost shout for joy on account of the victory given to them over their spiritual enemies. They triumph when, being more than conquerors through Him who loved them, they exult or rejoice in their almighty Redeemer, with rapturous delight. This was often the attainment of the holy apostle Paul and of his fellow-labourers in the gospel. “Thanks be to God,” he says, “who always causes us to triumph in Christ.” 2Cor 2.14 In Rom 8.31-39, he gives a lofty description of this triumph of theirs. How high that heavenly consolation rose in the soul of that holy apostle when he was writing that sublime passage! In like manner, the believer triumphs when, in his pursuit of more communion with Christ and conformity to Him, he is enabled to vanquish great opposition. In some happy moments of his life, his joy — like a river swelled by impetuous rains — bursts all its banks, and carries all the joys and all the sorrows of this world before it. It is especially then, that it may be styled “Joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 1Pet 1.8 It is glorious in itself; and it is attended with glorying in the Lord Jesus. When the heart of the Christian is elevated to this degree of consolation, he glories in the Lord. All that is in this world is brought under Him, so that the greatest calamities cannot daunt him. He sets Christ, and God in Christ, against all enemies and all evils, whether external or internal.This triumphant glorying in the Lord is like that of the holy Psalmist, who said, “My soul will make her boast in the Lord.” Psa 34.2
It is remarkable that these three degrees of spiritual comfort are mentioned by our apostle in a single passage. We have,” he says, “peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ ... we rejoice in hope; ... and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also.” Rom 5.1-3
3. According to the covenant of grace, spiritual consolation is given to believers by God the Father, by Christ the second Adam, and by the Holy Spirit. God the Father gives it by sovereign and judiciary authority; Christ the mediator, by gracious dispensation; and the Holy Spirit, by effectual operation. God the Father obtains it for his children; Isa 26.12 Christ the last Adam, administers it; and the blessed Spirit, as the Spirit of Christ, applies it to them. Spiritual consolation is given to them by God the Father. None but Jehovah himself can pour consolation into a troubled soul. All true comfort is originally and fundamentally in Him.
The apostle Paul styles him, “The God of all comfort, who comforts the saints in all their tribulation,” 2Cor 1.3-4 and
“The Father who has loved them, and has given them everlasting consolation.”
2Th 2.16 He also calls Him, “The God of consolation,” Rom 15.5 and “The Comforter of those who are cast down.” 2Cor 7.6 The Lord compares himself to a father pitying his children, and to a mother comforting with tenderest concern, her afflicted infant. Psa 103.13; Isa 66.13
He charges his servants “to strengthen the weak hands, to make firm the feeble knees, and to say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear. Behold your God will come with vengeance, even with recompense; He will come and save you.’” Isa 35.3-4 He suffered his only and beloved Son to be tempted in all points, as his people are, so that he might sympathise with and comfort them under all their temptations.
Comfort is administered to them by Jesus Christ, their Covenant head. The Lord Jesus is the Trustee, the storehouse of all spiritual comfort to the saints. As the Hope set before them, they may derive strong consolation from Him daily. Hence he is styled, “The Consolation of Israel,” Luk 2.25 He is the content of his people’s consolation; the Prince of peace, the true Noah “who comforts them, concerning the work and toil of their hands.” Gen 5.29 It is part of his high office to which he was anointed by the blessed Spirit, “to comfort those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Isa 66.2-3 Therefore there is consolation in Christ.” Phi 2.1 The consolation of the saints abounds by Him.2Cor 1.5 They have it in Him and through him, with Him and by Him. His person,righteousness, fulness, and love are the source and substance of abundant consolation to them, against trouble of every kind. He is the one who gives peace to his people. And “when He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?” Job 34.29 Nothing can comfort the heart without Christ. He removes from the soul all that is dismal, and bestows upon it all that is comfortable. He is the one who makes even the darkness of trouble itself, to be light before those who trust in Him. He is the Sun of righteousness, whose light, and warmth, and healing cheer their souls. When He grants his reviving presence to them, he leaves a delightful perfume of comfort behind him.
Indeed, a man can never know what true pleasure is, till he knows Christ. The compassionate Redeemer therefore says to all who are weary, toiling in a fruitless pursuit of happiness — to all who are heavy-laden and oppressed with the servitude of sin, or bowed down under a load of misery, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.” Mat 11.28
Comfort is applied to the saints by the Holy Spirit. He is thus styled “the Comforter.” Joh 15.26 Being the inestimable gift of the Father,through the mediation of the Son, he is another Comforter.Joh 14.16 The adorable Spirit discharges this office of his, by testifying of Christ, or by taking from the things of Christ, and showing them to believers; by opening and applying the promises of the everlasting covenant to them; by enabling them to believe these with application to themselves; by shedding abroad the love of the Father and of the Son in their hearts; by witnessing their adoption to them, being heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; by abiding in them as the seal, theearnest and the pledge of their eternal inheritance; and by dwelling in them as the Spirit of grace and of supplications.
The Holy Spirit, like Noah’s dove, flies with the olive-leaf of peace, to assure believers that “the winter is past, and the rain is over and gone.” He not only brings words of comfort to their remembrance, but opens their hearts to receive them. Comforts may be so applied as to be brought close to the heart. But if the heart doesn’t open for them, no consolation is experienced. The Spirit, therefore, not only opens and applies the promises to the heart, but opens the heart for the comfort of the promises; then He pours consolation into it. He also comforts the saints by enabling them to trust that in the Lord Jesus, they have righteousness and strength, forgiveness of sins, and a title to eternal life — as well as by renewing them in the image of the Son of God, thus uniting their hearts to the holy will of God. The original word, in the New Testament, which we have translated Comforter, likewise signifies an Advocate. One special way in which the Holy Spirit comforts believers is the exercise in them of his Advocacy, or intercession. Rom 8.26 The more they are enabled to pray in faith, the more they “walk in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.” Act 9.31
4. The spiritual consolation which is given to believers is a part of eternal life. “Believing, you rejoice.” 1Pet 1.8 “He that believes in the Son, has everlasting life.” Joh 3.36 One part of the fruit of the Spirit, when he imparts spiritual life to the soul, is joy. Gal 5.22 But spiritual life in the soul, is eternal life begun. When God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began, eternal life to the second Adam for his spiritual seed, He promised him that, on the condition of His bearing their griefs and carrying their sorrows, they would become heirs of everlasting joy, and heirs of himself as their exceeding joy. As the saving knowledge of Christ in this world, is the earnest and beginning of the beatific vision of God and the Lamb in the heavenly world, and as conformity to Christ in holiness here, is the beginning of perfect conformity to him there
— so the consolation which the saints feel on some occasions in this valley of tears, is the first fruits or beginning of that fulness of joy which will constitute a part of their blessedness in that holy place on high. The joy of the Holy Ghost, which enters into them here, is the same in kind as the joy of their Lord, into which they will enter hereafter. It is therefore styled by one apostle, “Everlasting consolation,” 2Th 2.16 and by another, “Joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 1Pet 1.8 It is joy that is full of glory, or glorious joy
— the very dawning of the day of glory. Holy consolation is glory begun in the soul
— a bud which will open in heaven, and spread into ineffable and endless glory; a dawn which will shine more and more until the glorious Sun of righteousness brightens it into perfect and eternal day. All the joy of the saints below is but a spark, a feeble spark compared to that blaze of rapture which will burn intensely in their spirits above. It is but a slight foretaste, a small drop of that immense ocean of unmingled joy which they are to inherit in the mansions of glory. Although they are not far from the heavenly Canaan, their hearts are often ready to faint under their sufferings from without, and their conflicts with corruption from within. But a taste of the grapes of Eshcol, the first fruits of heaven, revives their spirit, rouses their zeal, and quickens their desire for that endless rest which remains for them there.
Consolation keeps the holy soul on the wing, and increases her strength. It is the very life of the soul. When Naomi expresses the comfort Boaz would afford to Ruth, she said to her, “He will be to you a restorer of your life.” Ruth 4.15 If the contentment and delight of the heart is taken away, it dies. The souls of the wicked have an existence in hell. Yet because it is an existence without comfort, Scripture never says their state is a state of life, but on the contrary, a state of death. Accordingly, restoring comfort to mourners is called “reviving them.” Isa 57.15
5. The grounds and sources of holy consolation, are especially the following: God in Christ, with all his glorious perfections, as a God of love, grace, and mercy, and as the God and portion of the saints; Psa142.5 Christ in his
glorious Person, Phi 3.3 in His righteousness, Isa 61.10fulness, offices, and relations, or Christ living in them, Gal 2.20 and living for them; Rev 1.18 the Holy Spirit as inhabiting, quickening, sanctifying, and sealing them, and as the earnest of their eternal inheritance; 2Cor 1.22 the covenant of grace, as well-ordered in all things and sure, according to which Jehovah — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
— is their God, and they are His people, his peculiar people; Jer 31.33 the infinite atonement,Rom 5.11 continual intercession, Rom 8.34 supreme dominion, the inviolable faithfulness, and the gracious presence of the Lord Jesus, who is given for a covenant of the people; and the ordinances, doctrines, promises, and offers of His gospel, with the peremptory commandment given to sinners, to believe in Him. 1Joh 3.23
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Post by Admin on Aug 9, 2023 11:24:33 GMT -5
These are the leading and the immediate grounds on which, by faith,the saints build their comfort. At the same time, they are the sources from which, by the exercise of faith, they derive their consolation.
Besides these, their faith and sense of the pardon of their sins, of the acceptance of their persons as righteous, of their adoption, of their sanctification, and of the witnessing of the blessed Spirit, are the matter of consolation to them. And so is the lively exercise of all the graces of the Holy Spirit, especially of faith, hope, and love. The comfort of justification, because it is founded on a righteousness which is perfect and always the same, is more stable and permanent than that of sanctification. The great things which believers have in possession, and the greater things which they have in hope, are the sustenance of their consolation. Heb 6.18 The suitableness of those inestimable blessings to their hearts,together with their sense of personal interest in them,affords them unspeakable joy. Luk 1.47 As to their experiences and evidences of grace,these are not grounds on which they build their comfort,strictly speaking. But they are proofs of their saving interest in those grounds of consolation mentioned above, as well as encouragements to build their comfort upon them. And so they are a matter of consolation to their souls. The most comfortable of the saints are those who trust at all times in the second Adam as given for a covenant to them; they can think of all dispensations, conditions, and duties with comfort. Those who have the love of Christ most constantly in their view, and most frequently warm in their heart, as displayed in the covenant of grace, are of all believers, the most free from perplexing doubts and fears.
6. It is both the duty and the privilege of true believers, to attain spiritual consolation. It is their duty, for it is required of them in the
law; and it is their privilege, for it is promised to them in the gospel. It is the duty of all the saints to be of good comfort. Their God, the
God of consolation, would not have them disconsolate or gloomy at any time. And therefore, He expressly forbids them to fear, to be discouraged, to let their heart be troubled, or to yield to oppressive grief.
He says to them, “Fear not, neither be afraid.” Isa 44.8 “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.” Isa 41.10 “Fear not, for I have redeemed you.” Isa 43.1 And the Lord Jesus says, “Do not fear whose who kill the body.” Mat 10.28 “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Joh 14.27 “Fear not; I am the first and the last.” Rev 1.17 “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer.” Rev 2.10 The apostle Paul forbids the believers in Thessalonica to sorrow for deceased saints, like others who have no hope. 1The 4.13 The Lord authorizes no sorrow, except godly sorrow, which is consistent with holy joy, and tends to increase it. He forbids to His people all oppressive grief, all desponding fear, and all perplexing trouble of mind, as hinderances to the exercise of love and the practice of holiness. He is displeased when they let themselves be uncomfortable in His service, when they sit in sackcloth in His gate. He commands them, on the contrary, to rejoice before Him. He has made it their indispensable duty to cast all their care upon Him; 1Pet 5.7 “to eat their bread with joy, and to drink their wine with a cheerful heart; to have their garments always white, and let their head lack no ointment.” Ecc 9.7-8 He delights to see them joyful, and to hear them singing in His righteous ways. And therefore His high command is, “Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous; for praise is beautiful from the upright.” Psa 33.1 “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, you righteous; and shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.” Psa 32.11 “Delight yourself also in the Lord.” Psa 37.4 “Let all those who put their trust in you, rejoice. Let them ever shout for joy, because you defend them. Let those also who love your name, be joyful in you.” Psa 5.11 “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.” Mat 5.12 “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.” Phi 3.1 “Rejoice evermore.” “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again, I say, Rejoice.” Phi 4.4 — as if the apostle said, ‘In the most earnest and urgent manner, I charge you to rejoice, not only at sometimes, but at all times; not only when you’re on the mount with God, but when you’re in the valley; not merely when the Lord shines upon you, but when He hides his face.’ Although no affliction is so hard to bear as the distress of soul, which a believer sometimes endures when he is without comfort
— that is but little, very little indeed, compared to the sin of disobeying God’s authoritative command, by refusing to be comforted. Psa 77.2 It is remarkable that although Asaph, time and again, offered reasons for comfort to his troubled mind (which appears from his soul’s refusing to be comforted), he persisted in refusing consolation
— until he could say, “This is my infirmity” Psa 77.10
— my sin, the distemper of unbelief in my heart. And then he ceased to refuse consolation any longer. It is also the privilege of the saints, to have spiritual comfort. They have the beginnings of eternal life, and so they have joy as part of it. It is their inestimable privilege to have peace with God, to rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and to glory even in tribulation. They have joy which a stranger does not meddle with. Pro 14.10 To them, wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”Pro 3.17 “My mouth,” says the holy Psalmist, “shall praise You with joyful lips.” Psa 63.5 “My lips shall greatly rejoice, when I sing to You; and my soul which You have redeemed.” Psa 71.23 The apostle Paul speaks of having been filled with comfort; of having been “exceedingly joyful in all his tribulation;” 2Cor 7.4 and of having been sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. 2Cor 6.10
“Blessed be the God of all comfort,” he says, “who comforts us in all our tribulation.” 2Cor 1.3-4 He doesn’t say, Who has comforted, or will comfort — who can comfort us if it pleases Him
— but Who comforts; Who always comforts us. Nor does he say, Who comforts us in some or in many tribulations; but “Who comforts us in all our tribulation,” of whatever kind or degree. Indeed, the Lord always comforts His people in a greater or lesser measure. He gives them songs even in the night. Job 35.10
7. Believers always have the seed, or principle of spiritual comfort in them, but not always the sense or feeling of consolation. They have at all times a ground of consolation; and they must have it so long as the everlasting covenant continues to be established with Christ, and with them in Him. 13 So likewise, they always have the seed and root of it in their hearts. “Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.” Psa 97.11 Gladness is sown for the upright in heart. Though it seems to be lost, like seed sown in winter, which lies long under the sod. Yet it is preserved; and in due season it will spring up to view,and yield a plentiful increase.Though the seed of consolation appointed for the saints may lie covered for a time, it is not destroyed. Believers at all times have the seed or principle, and also the habit of spiritual joy in their hearts. Even in their deepest dejection, they have a seed of comfort that will spring up. The fruit of the Spirit in them is joy and peace; and the Spirit as a Comforter abides with them forever. Joh 14.16 But although they always have the principle, they don’t at all times have the sensible enjoyment of comfort. They don’t continually exercise the grace of joy. And therefore, they don’t always see or feel in themselves the principle and habit of that grace.
It is when they are exercising any grace of the Spirit, that they commonly perceive it. Their sensible enjoyment of consolation in this life, is often interrupted by the remaining corruptions of their nature, and by the fiery darts of the wicked one, and by the hidings of God’s countenance from them. They have a sinful hand in interrupting their own sensible comfort. 14 Satan and his instruments have a malicious hand. 1Pet 5.8 And the Lord has a holy hand in order to manifest His sovereignty, to chasten them for their sins, to test and exercise their graces, to excite their more earnest prayers, and to teach them to improve for the future, their sense of His favour. Psa.30.7 Hence, the believer is sometimes lively; and in his exercise of faith and love, he feels his heart aglow from heavenly joy. Yet at other times he is languid, cold, and disconsolate to a great degree. Like Hagar at the well, the believer’s eyes are so held that he cannot perceive his grounds of comfort as he did formerly; and then his day of gladness is turned into a night of heaviness. Lam 5.15
8. The peculiar seasons in which actual and sensible comfort is commonly afforded to believers, are the following:
— The time of some special manifestation of redeeming love to the soul, after a dark night of desertion; Psa 30.5
— the season of God’s appearing remarkably for His church; Exo 15.1
— when some heavy trial is approaching, in order to fortify their minds to endure it; Act 27.24
— in or especially after a time of deep affliction; Isa 43.2
— the time of tribulation for the cause of Christ and His gospel; 15
— often, about the time they were first converted; Luk 15.22-24
— the season in which the ordinances of the gospel are administered to them with uncommon liveliness; Isa 56.7
— frequently, in a season of great humiliation, sorrow, and melting of heart for sin;
— the time in which they are more than ordinarily engaged in the exercise of grace and practice of duty, and especially when they
are in great conflict with the corruptions of their heart; 2Cor 12.7-9
— after sharp conflicts with sin or temptation from which they came away victorious; Rev 2.17
— the season in which the Lord is calling them to some extraordinary service for which they need special encouragement;
— the time in which they see and find the least comfort in creatures, or in which they are destitute of creature-comforts,
and enabled more than usually to despise them in comparison to Christ and God in him;
— the season in which the Lord confers on them some remarkable and unexpected favour;
— and the time in which they employ themselves in fixed and deep meditation on the adorable Redeemer, and His glorious grace. Psa 104.34
For the most part,these are ordinary seasons of sensible comfort to the saints.But as the Lord is infinitely sovereign, wise, and gracious in dispensing His blessings to them, there are also some extraordinary seasons of rejoicing — some ineffable glances of light on their souls, which penetrate, transform, and fill them with rapturous and inexpressible joy.
9. The comfort which the Lord bestows is, in every instance, the most suitable to the present needs of the believer. “As are your days,” says Moses, “so shall your strength be.” Deu 33.25 The Christian’s comforts are wisely and wonderfully adapted to the nature, degree, and continuance of his grievances. When he has the most discouragement without, he usually has the most consolation within.
When the Lord Jesus gives him least of creaturely-comfort, He commonly affords him most of Himself as the Consolation of Israel.
He seldom allows him at once, much of the riches of the earth, and also refreshment from above. Rather, when He shuts before him all doors of help from this world, He opens to him the doors of heaven.
It was only when the Martyr Stephen saw nothing but death for himself in this world, that he saw “the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” Act 7.56 When the Lord brings his people into outward straits, he commonly favours them with inward enlargements. When he puts a cup of affliction into their hands, He usually gives them a cup of consolation with it. “Will He contend with me,” says Job, “with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me.” Job 23.6 The Lord Jesus said to Paul, when he was afflicted by a thorn in the flesh, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” 2Cor 12.9 The time in which believers are most sensible of their utter inability to resist and overcome their corruptions or temptations, and are most engaged in relying on their great Redeemer for strength, is the season in which, by supporting and strengthening them, He usually affords them the most illustrious displays of the perfection of His strength. In proportion to their apparent weakness, His strength will appear perfect in comforting or strengthening their souls under that weakness. Accordingly, the apostle in another place says, “As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ.” 2Cor 1.5 The comfort afforded to the saints is admirably fitted and proportioned to their sufferings in conformity to Christ, and especially to their sufferings for Him. If the one abounded, so does the other, and that will be in the most suitable and exact proportion.
If gall is dropped into their cup, a suitable proportion of sweetness will also be infused, so their affliction will be in measure. Isa 27.8 If they are under various troubles, and trust in Christ, He has various comforts for them. If they labour under powerful evils, He has strong consolations; if they are under new afflictions, He has new comforts; if they are under small grievances, he has small degrees of support to bestow; if under great perplexities, He has great measures of consolation to impart; if in deep distresses, he has deep comforts
— comforts that will sink to the very centre of the soul; and if under continued trials, whether external or internal, He has continued, indeed everlasting consolations to give them. He “will not allow them to be tempted a above what they are able; but with the temptation, He will also make a way to escape, so that they may be able to bear it.” 1Cor 10.13 He will either reduce the trial to their strength, or raise their strength to the trial.
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Post by Admin on Aug 9, 2023 21:04:51 GMT -5
Accordingly, if their holy consolation is small at any time, it is because they are not then exposed, as they are at other times, either to outward temptations or to inward conflicts. So long as believers are liable to yield to the prevalence of their unbelief, pride, indolence, an inordinate attachment to earthly things, and a legal temper, the Lord is pleased to bestow or suspend, to restore or increase, spiritual consolation at such seasons, and in such degrees, as He sees most suitable. This is to prevent or control those evils, and to promote the increase of holiness in their souls. Eze 34.16 Seeing that true comfort is an inward strengthening of the soul against trouble that is felt or feared, it must (as hinted above) be stronger than the trouble, or else the act of comforting will not follow. If the comfort is not above the uneasiness, then it is no longer comfort.
No comforts, therefore, except those which are Divine, can refresh the holy soul under trouble, because in all other comforts, the disease is above the remedy. Believers should never be discouraged in the prospect even of the highest degree of affliction; for the spiritual comfort will be so adapted to the trouble, as to rise above and prevail over it.Psa 94.19 Itis therefore better for them to have the consolation, than to be exempted from the trouble and thus lack the consolation. This is one special advantage to the saints, of an afflicted condition: that the Lord Jesus pities them most, and comforts them most, in that condition. It is commonly when Satan, or the world, or the flesh, is most bitter to them, that the Lord and his grace are sweetest. Indeed, His sharpest dispensations would often be His sweetest, if they knew better how to employ them.
10. The spiritual comfort of the saints is according to their faith. “According: to your faith,” said the Lord Jesus, “be it unto you.” Mat9.29
It is according to the strength of their faith. If a man’s faith is weak, his consolation is weak and unstable. In some happy moment, he may indeed feel a sudden transport of joy; but he still has very little solid or lasting consolation. Doubts, fears, and perplexities will often prevail against the peace of his mind. “Why are you fearful, O you of
little faith?” Mat 8.26 What usually stands between a Christian and the joy of God’s salvation, is his unwillingness to come anew to Christ, as a sinner. So long as this is the case, any small degree of consolation that he may have, will rise and fall according to his frames or feelings. But if his faith is strong, even though he may not have rapturous joy, his consolation will usually be strong; Heb 6.18 if stable, his peace of conscience will also be stable. “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established; he shall not be afraid.” Psa 112.7-8 Faith is not only a spiritual grace, but it is the spirit of every other grace, and especially
of joy. Spiritual joy is “the joy of faith,” Phi 1.25 for it proceeds from faith as its principle. It is the office of faith to take and to hand comfort to the soul — to bring peace into the conscience, and joy into the heart. If direct and firm reliance on the Saviour increases, slavish fear subsides, and settled comfort ensues. Sense looks upon the face, the external conduct of Jesus Christ; but faith, especially strong faith, looks upon his heart, as revealing itself in the sure and unchangeable promise. It sees inward affections of love and mercy,even under outward expressions of displeasure. Faith, when it is strong, can look through a thick cloud of desertion, and discern the affection of a Father under the appearance of an enemy.
It is also according to the exercise of their faith, that believers are comforted. If the Christian seldom exercises his faith. his consolation is proportionately small. If he exercises it frequently, because it is his duty and not merely because he is impelled to it by a painful sense of need, his holy consolation is great in proportion. The more
frequently and simply he acts faith with Christ as its object, who is the Consolation of Israel, and with “good tidings of great joy to all people” as its ground, the more he will have the comfort 0f being conscious that he has the grace of faith. Besides, the more cordially and frequently he exercises faith, the more spiritual pleasure he will enjoy.
For to trust cordially that Jesus loves and saves me, and that He will save me with an everlasting salvation, is in itself a delightful and cheering persuasion. Moreover, faith is the instrument by which the believer received consolation at first, and by which he continues to receive it still. It is by trusting daily in the Lord Jesus for all his salvation
— of which holy consolation is a part
— that the Christian derives daily, renewed supplies of spiritual consolation from His fulness. The more frequent, simple, and lively his actings of confidence in his gracious Redeemer are, the more holy comfort he will receive in every time of need.
To feel comfortable when he is conscious that he has clear evidences of his vital union with Christ, is a duty. But to take his comfort fresh from the Fountain, by the direct application and particular trust of faith, is a still greater duty. It is a duty by which he glorifies his faithful Redeemer more, and receives an increase of pure and solid
consolation. Hence, these are cheering passages of Scriptures: “I would have fainted, unless I believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living;” Psa 27.13 “I have trusted in your mercy; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation;” Psa 13.5 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me;” Joh 14.1“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace inbelieving.” Rom 15.13 “We who have believed, enter into rest.” Heb 4.3 Although the sight of his evidences of grace is indeed pleasant to a holy man, the sight of Christ in the offer and promise, should be much more delightful to him. Unbelief and a legal spirit will dispose a man to always look for something in himself as his ground of comfort. But a holy faith will deal with none but Christ. Nothing is
such a delight to the Lord Jesus, because nothing honours Him so much as direct and unsuspecting confidence in Him for salvation. Whereas, looking to Him or upon him, through one’s own graces and frames, reflects much dishonour upon Him. The man who so looks upon him, is like someone who sees the sun reflected by water, which appears to move or waver as much as the surface of the water does.
11. The properties of spiritual consolation, by which it is distinguished from the joy of the hypocrite, are these:
— True comfort comes by the word of God, and that must be rightly understood;1Joh 1.4 but delusive joy comes either by
impressions outside the word, or by a misunderstanding of the word.
— True consolation is real and solid. The sadness of the believer is, as it were, only seeming sadness; whereas his joy is real. “As sorrowful,” says Paul, “yet always rejoicing.” 2Cor 6.10 The hypocrite, on the contrary, is joyful only in appearance; while in reality he is gloomy and sorrowful. Pro 14.13
— Spiritual comfort goes to the heart, and inspires it with holy delight. It is solid, and dwells more in the heart than in the countenance. But delusive joy floats on the surface; it makes a loud noise and is therefore compared to “the crackling of thorns under a pot.” Ecc 7.6
— True comfort, with regard to its object, rejoices more in the manifested amiableness and excellence of Christ, than in the manifestation of those joys. Phi 3.3 But counterfeit joy rejoices more in the manifestation itself, than in the excellence of the Divine object who is manifested.
— The true Christian rejoices most in the holy and amiable nature of the things of Christ. The formalist delights most in his own pretended interest in those things. What delights him is not so much the beauty of the Lord, as the beauty of his own experience.
— The delight which the believer takes in the Lord and in his word, is his chief delight, his exceeding joy. The dearest delights of nature are, in his estimation, infinitely below Christ, and God in Him. The presence and enjoyment of Christ will, in his esteem, supply the lack of all other comforts. But the chief delight of the hypocrite is not in the Lord, but in some other object.
— True consolation usually accompanies, or follows, godly sorrow for sin. Mat 5.4 But the joy of the empty formalist springs up quickly and without contrition of heart. Joh 16.20 If the hypocrite but offers to mourn for sin, it will effectually hinder his rejoicing in God.
— The godly sorrow of the believer will be a matter of joy for him. He rejoices more when his heart is melting for sin, than he would, even if he had all the carnal delights in the world. On the contrary, the delusive joy of the formalist will be a matter of sorrow to him, either in time or in eternity. Pro 14.13
— True comfort is hidden from unregenerate men. Pro 14.10 It is as far out of the reach of worldly men to discern the spiritual joy of a saint, as it is out of their power to prevent or remove it. The consolation of the sincere Christian is unspeakable;1Pet 1.8 and no wonder,for the matter and importance of it are incomprehensible.But the greatest joy of the hypocrite and the worldling can easily be told. It can, without difficulty, be expressed to the utmost of its value.
— True consolation is glorified or glorious joy. 1Pet 1.8 It has the highest and most glorious object; and it is the beginning as well as the earnest of glory in the soul. Counterfeit joy, on the contrary, is base and inglorious.
— The consolation of the believer is holy. It has a holy, sanctifying influence on his soul. It disposes him to practise universal holiness willingly and cheerfully. It strengthens, encourages, and enlivens his heart in holy obedience. Neh 8.10 It invigorates him for it; it excites him to it. But the joy of the hypocrite is unholy: it leaves his heart as carnal, and his life as unholy as ever
— indeed, it strengthens his lusts, and it encourages him in sloth and in the practice of some secret iniquity. Luk 11.21
— True comfort humbles the sincere Christian, and lays him in the dust at the footstool of a God of infinite holiness, and sovereign grace. But counterfeit joy puffs up the empty formalist with pride and self-conceit. Isa 58.2-3
— Pure consolation is accompanied with a constant fear of displeasing the Lord. Gen 39.9 But delusive joy is connected with no fear except that of suffering from Him.
— Spiritual comfort cannot be maintained without a holy tenderness of conscience, and a constant struggle against all
manner of sin. 1Joh 3.3 But carnal and hypocritical joy is preserved without either one.
— True consolation renders every sin more and more hateful. But counterfeit joy leaves the hypocrite under the reigning love of all iniquity, and especially of some darling sin.
— Holy comfort disposes the believer to frequent impartial self examination. Psa 26.1-3 But delusive joy inclines and encourages the hypocrite to neglect that exercise. Joh 3.20-21 In a word, true consolation is permanent.Joh 16.22 It is so fixed in the heart by the Holy Spirit, that it can never be wholly removed. And it is so strong, that it swallows up almost all matter of unwarrantable fear and grief.Indeed, when the believer has lost all sight of his personal interest in the Saviour, he cannot (as formerly) exercise his joy in God. And in such a case, he cannot help but lose his sense of that joy, even while the principle and habit of it still remain. But though the hypocrite’s persuasion of his pretended interest in the Divine favour continues, his joy ceases.His sense of that interest becomes insipid to him.
12. In proportion to the degree of holy consolation that is afforded the believer, his duty is his delight. Being renewed in the spirit of his mind, the more clearly and spiritually he discerns the loveliness of God in Christ; and the more cordially and firmly he believes His love for him; the more he loves God.1Joh 4.19 And the more he loves God,
the more he delights in Him. Also, in the same proportion that he spiritually discerns the infinite amiableness of the holiness and other perfections of God, and believes with application His redeeming love, he approves God, and the manifestations of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. And the more he approves, or is pleased with God as gloriously manifested in Christ, the more delight he takes in Him. Add to this, that the more he is enabled to cordially trust that God in Christ loves him, and is not his enemy, but rather his Friend and Father, the more spiritual comfort he will have. And the more of that holy consolation that he has (which is a rejoicing in the Lord), the more he will delight in Him as his own God and Father. Now, as the believer is enabled to love, be pleased with, and rejoice in God,
through the Lord Jesus Christ, he is proportionally enabled at the same time, to delight in the infinite holiness of God, as his God in Christ, and in all the illustrious displays of it which are afforded him, especially in redemption. Psa 138.5 And because the moral law, in the hand of the glorious Mediator, is a fair transcript of God’s holiness, and a declaration of His will, the believer also delights in that law according to the inward man. Rom7.22 He loves it because it is holy and just; and he consents to it, because it is good. Rom 7.16 In the same degree, then, in which a holy man is delighted or comforted by a spiritual discovery of the transcendent loveliness of Jehovah, and by a firm belief of His infinite love to him, he delights in His holy commandments. But the more he delights in the commandments of the Lord, the more pleasure he takes in spiritual and universal obedience to them. Psa 19.7-11 His heart is united to the will and to the glory of his redeeming God. And the more he is refreshed by the holy consolations of the
gospel, or enabled to rejoice in Christ Jesus and His great salvation,the more he will delight in evangelical obedience to His will, and in holy activity for His glory. The more his heart is comforted, the more it will be a comfort to him to mortify sin and to practise holiness; also, the more uniformly he will rejoice in all opportunities to do good; and the more ardently he will seize them. Pro 3.17 Beholding the transcendent beauty of the Lord, and trusting that in
Christ, this God is his God, and that He loves him with an everlasting love — the believer delights to think and speak of Him, to adore and serve him, and in all things, to resign himself to His blessed will.
Anointed with the oil of gladness, and refreshed with the sweetness of redeeming mercy, he delights in imitating his great Redeemer, and to do the will of God. And he accounts no pleasure under the sun, equal to that of doing good. If he could be more holy and spiritually minded, it would please him better than to be possessed of all the riches, honours, and pleasures of this world. The more his holy soul is invigorated with spiritual consolation, the more active and cheerful he is in all his duties. For in proportion to his delight in them, they are easy for him.30 Indeed, holy living usually begins with comfort, and is maintained by it. The method of grace revealed by
the gospel, is to comfort our hearts, and thereby to establish us in every good word and work. 2The 2.17
13. Finally, the Lord usually dispensed consolation and affliction alternately to His people, so that they may neither be too depressed, nor too elated. The apostle Paul informs us that “lest he be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelations” which had been afforded him in an extraordinary manner, he was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him.” In order that he might not be elated with an unbecoming conceit of himself through the vanity and deceitfulness of his heart
— as if he were better than other apostles, because of the abundance of the revelations with which he had been favoured
— the Lord employed the most effectual means to keep him humble. He permitted Satan and his instruments
to afflict him, either in his soul or body, or perhaps in both. And that was done in a manner very abasing and grievous to him. But that the holy apostle might not be too downcast by this painful affliction, the Redeemer, in answer to his prayer, comforted him with this gracious promise: “My grace is sufficient for you.” 2Cor 12.9
We also read that the Lord showed David great and sore troubles at one time. But He enabled him to trust that, at another time, He would quicken and comfort him on every side. Psa 71.20-21 A Prophet, personating the ancient church in her captivity, says, “you have lifted me up and cast me down.” Psa 102.10 The believer, then, while he is in this world, has cloudy and clear days,tempestuous and calm seasons. He is at one time in the valley of tears, and at another on the mountain of joy. His gifts, his prosperity, and in consequence of these, his danger of carnal security, are sometimes so great, that the Lord, in order to prevent his being intoxicated, sees it necessary to mingle water with his wine. He sees, it may be, that when the outward path of the Christian is smooth, he is not fit to be trusted
with inward consolation except in a small measure. Therefore,in His infinite wisdom and love, He varies his dispensations to the believer.
By a wise interchange of adversity and prosperity, he sets trouble and comfort, for the most part, against one another, that the one may be a foil to the other
— that the Christian may find a short, easy, and safe passage between them; that in adversity he may weep as though he did not weep,” and in prosperity “rejoice, as though he did not rejoice.” 1Cor 7.30 Indeed, so long as sin remains in the believer, he must, in order to grow in grace, have distress and comfort, either alternately or both together
— to the end that when he is sorrowful, he may not be cast down too low, and that when he is rejoicing, he
may not be lifted up too high.
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2023 0:45:44 GMT -5
Reflections
Are Christ and God in Christ,together with His grace, mercy, and truth, as said above, the primary grounds of a saint’s comfort and hope? If so, I infer from this that his manifold infirmities and deficiencies in his exercise of grace, and in his performance of duty, should at no time discourage him. Believer, your remaining darkness, deadness, carnality, weakness, and indisposition of spirit or holy exercises, should indeed occasion in your soul much godly sorrow and self-loathing; but they should never discourage you in your holy endeavours, nor cause you to despond. They should not make you distrust your faithful Redeemer, nor doubt about any promised blessing. This is because your title grace and glory is not founded on your own performances, but on the consummate righteousness of the Lord Jesus; and your exercise of hope, should be suitable to the grounds of your hope.Do not be disquieted, then, even though you feel the corruption of your nature is strong and active; and while you find at the same time, that your renewed nature is striving in opposition to it, and mourning under a painful sense of it. Unbelieving discouragement, arising from a sense either of sins or of wants, of desertions or of temptations, will weaken your hands, and indispose your heart for spiritual obedience. It was when Peter began to fear, that he began to sink in the water.
Does the Lord Jesus usually afford inward and sensible comfort to his children,about the time of their first conversion? They may see in this an illustrious display of His manifold wisdom, as well as his redeeming love to them. One thing that he designs by this, is that they may perceive as early as possible, the inexpressible advantages that they have gained by the gracious change which His Holy Spirit has produced in them — and thereby be encouraged, as well as inclined, to so run the race that is set before them, as to attain the prize of inexpressible and endless joy in His immediate presence. For having marrow and fatness in their Father’s house, instead of husks in a far country
— spiritual and substantial delights, instead of pleasures that are carnal and empty
— they cannot help but acknowledge, even at the beginning of their Christian course, that they are already unspeakable gainers. Is spiritual joy required of believers in the law, and promised to them in the gospel?
And is the Lord displeased when they appear uncomfortable in His service? Let them learn from this, that it is their duty, at all times and in all conditions, to be of good comfort; and that it is their sin to neglect this part of their duty at any time, or on any account. Consider, believer, that you are commanded to “be of good courage,” yes, to “rejoice in the Lord always.” Phi 4.4 Rely then, upon the promise of the gospel, in order to obey this precept of
the law. Trust firmly that Jesus, the Consolation of Israel, according to His promise, will comfort you in every time of need. And in the faith of the promise, as well as in obedience to the precept, endeavour frequently to rejoice in Him, and in God as your God through him. Joh 20.17 Exercise daily, in dependence on the promise, the grace of holy joy — not so much because it will afford pleasure to yourself, as because it is a duty which you are commanded by your
God and Redeemer, to always perform. If you allow yourself to neglect any duty for a season, and especially this duty, you must not be surprised if you soon lose your present comfort.
Is spiritual consolation or joy, a part of life, of eternal life? Then from this I may justly infer that it slanders true religion to say or insinuate that it deprives persons of the comfort of life. Nothing can be more fake. None in the world has such good reason to rejoice, as the true Christian. If a holy man appears at any time to be sad, it is not because he is religious, but because he is not more religious. The more holiness he attains, the purer consolation he enjoys. It is true, he will take no more pleasure in sin; but instead of that, he will have peace with God, and the joy of His salvation. It is far from Christ’s design, to deprive him of pleasure; but only to determine and enable him to consult his own happiness, in subservience to the glory of God, so as to exchange sinful and mean pleasures, for spiritual and noble ones. Pro 3.17 Accordingly, he experiences such delight in the ways of holiness as he never enjoyed, nor could enjoy, in the ways of sin. “A stranger does not intermeddle with his joy.” Pro 14.10 The believer knows by experience that there is more joy, even in penitential mourning for sin, than in all the mirth of the most
prosperous sinner. He finds such a secret sweetness in his godly sorrow, that instead of desiring the removal of that sorrow, he rather fears it.
Is the comfort with which the saints are favoured, spiritual and holy comfort? Then let no man conclude that he is a true Christian merely because he has felt on some occasions, natural and sensible consolation.
— Natural, outward, and sensible consolation is one thing; spiritual, inward, and holy comfort is another, and a very
different thing.
— The former is natural, and is common both to saints and sinners; the latter is spiritual, and is peculiar to the saints alone;
— natural comfort is outward and sensitive, proceeding under common, providential influence from a man’s natural
constitution of body; spiritual comfort is inward and holy, and is effected by the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, dwelling in the soul.
— Spiritual consolation, as well as natural consolation, is sometimes sensible; or rather, spiritual might be styled (as it sometimes is) sensible consolation; and natural, sensitive delight.
— Spiritual comfort delights chiefly the rational and inward faculties of the soul; natural comfort pleases only its outward and sensitive faculties; namely, the imagination, the natural spirits, and even the external senses.
— The former is wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit, according to the word; it is spiritually understood and believed. The latter is often produced by the external manner of the reader or preacher of the word, such as his elocution, tone, and action.
— Persons of a soft natural constitution of body have this sensitive delight more often, and in greater measure, than those of a contrary temperament. When the one is enjoyed by the saints, they commonly can assign some reason for it; when the other is felt by persons of any description, they usually can give no reason for the delightful sensation, but only that something (they know not what) has made a pleasing impression on them.
— Spiritual comfort is the opposite of trouble of mind on spiritual accounts. Natural comfort is the opposite of melancholy, which is a bodily disease. The former, as I already observed, is the special work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of sincere believers; the latter proceeds from natural and external causes, and is
often raised by Satan in order to confirm sinners in their delusion and hypocrisy.
The hypocrites in Zion, mentioned by Isaiah, “took delight in approaching to God;” Isa. 58.2 and the hearers compared by our Lord to the stony ground, “immediately received the word with gladness.”
Mar 4.16 Thus it appears that thousands of men and women, whose unholy lives demonstrate that they are utter strangers to spiritual and holy consolation, have nevertheless, on some occasions, much natural and sensible delight. Let no man therefore conclude that he is a true Christian, merely because he has felt much sensible and even transporting joy — for his joy may be nothing but a natural sensation. Once more: Is holy consolation peculiar to holy persons? Then it does not belong to unholy men. The same spiritual comfort that the saints have received is offered freely in the gospel to you who live in the love and practice of some known sin. And the authentic offer affords you a warrant to receive it — but no warrant to receive it separate from Christ, nor otherwise than by receiving Him, with his righteousness and salvation. Indeed, it affords you a right to trust in the Lord Jesus for all His salvation, and for holy consolation as a part of it
— but no right to trust that He will give you comfort apart from salvation; no warrant to trust that He will afford you spiritual consolation in the love and practice of any iniquity. You “cannot rejoice for joy, as other people,” for you have no personal interest in Jesus, the Consolation of Israel. Alas! there is not, and never was, the smallest drop of spiritual consolation in your heart. You have comfort from the creature, but none from the Redeemer. You cannot have it from Him, for you delight in sinning against Him. The Lord says to you, and to all the other servants of sin, “Behold, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry. Behold, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold my servants will rejoice, but you will be ashamed. Behold, my servants will sing for joy of heart, but you will cry for sorrow of heart, and will howl for grief of spirit.” Isa 65.13-14 You now love vanity, and rejoice in iniquity; but the day is coming when, if sovereign grace does not prevent it, “your laughter shall be turned to mourning, and your joy, to heaviness.” Jas 4.9 Ah! how depraved is your heart, when it can take pleasure in sin, but no pleasure in Christ or in holiness! What a reproach it is to your understanding and will, to love darkness rather than light, to choose death rather than life! How deep is the corruption of your nature, when you can love sin, which is altogether hateful, infinitely hateful, yet hate Christ and holiness, which are altogether lovely! When you can take delight in the worst of things, but none in the best!
What ignorance and enmity against God you have shown up to now, by standing aloof from holiness, lest it deprive you of your delight in sin! You now say about the holy exercises of private and public worship in which the saints enjoy delightful communion with their God and Saviour, “Behold what a weariness it is!” Mal 1.13 But take heed, lest you provoke the holy Majesty of heaven to cast you into that place of eternal torment, where you will have sufficient cause to be weary. O sinner, the Lord Jesus, who is infinitely excellent and amiable,immensely full of grace and consolation, now offers Himself and all that he is and has, to you as an undone sinner of mankind.And with inexpressible tenderness, He invites you to accept Him, and to trust and delight in Him. He says to sinners in common, who read and hear His blessed gospel, “Come, buy and eat; yes come, buy wine and milk, without money, and without price. Hearken diligently to me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live:and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.” Isa 55.1-3
It will be impossible for you to experience true consolation until you comply with this gracious, cheering invitation.
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Post by Admin on Aug 13, 2023 12:37:08 GMT -5
CHAPTER 2.
The great importance and usefulness of spiritual comfort for the saints.
The high importance and utility of spiritual consolation in qualifying believers for the lively exercise of their graces, and for the spiritual
performance of their duties, will be apparent if the following particulars are considered:
1. It is of such unspeakable consequence to them, that the eternal Father has, in the greatness of His love, sent his only begotten Son into the world with a commission to purchase comfort for them. The Father, according to his eternal covenant with the Son as the last Adam, sent Him in order that He might bear their griefs and carry their sorrows; and might
— at the infinite expense of his unparalleled anguish, agony, and death
— purchase for them the comfort which they had forfeited in the first Adam. He sent his only, his dear Son, to endure the pains of eternal death for them, that in union with Him, they might enjoy the comfort of eternal life; that they might enter into Zion with songs of triumph in their lips and everlasting joy on their heads. The Lord Jesus himself has declared that the comforting of mourners in Zion was a principal object of His mission into the world. “The Spirit of the Lord God,” he says, “is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted; ...to comfort all who mourn; to give to those who mourn in Zion, beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Isa 56.1-3
The Father has also exalted Him, in his human nature,to universal dominion, with the purpose that He might dispense the comfort of salvation to all who would believe in Him. Accordingly, when He was about to leave the world, the legacy he left to his disciples was comfort.
He promised that their sorrow would be turned into joy; and that in Him they would have peace, while in the world they would have tribulation. Joh 16.20,33
So great is the importance of Divine consolation to the saints and to the glory of God in their salvation, that the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to apply it to their souls. The Spirit accordingly testifies of Christ, Joh 15.26 witnesses their adoption into the family of God, and seals them unto the day of redemption. Eph 4.30 In performing these offices, He invigorates and cheers their hearts.
Indeed, so important, so excellent is spiritual comfort in the estimation of God, that God the Father assumes this title, “The God of consolation;” Rom 15.5 “The God of all comfort.” 2Cor 1.3 God the Son is styled, “The Consolation of Israel.” Luk 2.25 And God the adorable Spirit is distinguished by this cheering title, “The Comforter.” Joh 16.7
In a few words, so high is the value which the Lord sets upon holy comfort, that He gives this solemn charge to the ministers of his word: “Strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not.” Isa 35.3-4 Do men set such a high value on earthly comforts, as to pursue the enjoyment of them with unwearied diligence? With what incomparably higher esteem should believers regard heavenly consolations, in which the infinite excellence of redeeming grace is displayed with transcendent lustre!
2. Spiritual consolation is of such high importance as to form an essential part of that eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began. That it is part of eternal life, was evinced above. Comfort or joy is so essential a part of eternal life in heaven, that in scripture, heaven itself is styled Joy. Mat 25.21 To enter into heaven is to enter into joy — the joy of the Lord Jesus. If fulness of joy is a necessary part of eternal life as consummated in heaven,then doubtless joy in an inferior degree, is yet part of that same eternal life, as begun on earth. Now, does spiritual consolation form a part even of eternal life? Is it necessary to holiness and happiness,not only as a means to the end, but (by a nobler kind of necessity) aspart of the end itself? How unspeakably important, then, how divinely excellent it must be! It is supernatural, spiritual, and Divine. And therefore it is of a nature inconceivably more pure, sublime, and ennobling than any natural delight, any earthly joy.
Instead of corrupting and debasing the soul, as carnal joys frequently do, it beautifies and dignifies it. So highly important in our view is even earthly comfort or joy, that as Chrysostom says, ‘We do all, in order that we may joy.’ But creature-comforts, though enjoyed in the utmost variety and in the highest degree, in comparison to Divine consolation even in the lowest degree, are like the glimmering taper before the meridian sun. Holy consolation is a commodity of heaven, that distant country, not to be imported except by faith and prayer. It makes a main expressibly happier than any earthly comforts can do. One smile of the Redeemer, one glance of heaven, as the sure portion of the holy soul, yields more contentment and comfort thanall the delights of this world. What are any, what are all earthly joys, compared with the joy of someone who rejoices in the Lord! Indeed,as Luther says, ‘to comfort the heart is more than to create a world.’
How inexpressibly powerful and grateful is heavenly consolation to the distressed soul! When David had been under great trouble, when a flood of bitter waters overflowed his soul, the Lord let fall a drop or two of heavenly comfort — all was turned to sweetness. Psa 94.19 O the inconceivable excellence, the unparalleled sweetness of Divine consolation!
3. The high importance of spiritual comfort will also appear if we consider that it is the pure delight which saints have in common with holy angels. The pleasures of sense are what believers have in common with irrational creatures; the pleasures merely of reason are what they attain equally with other men. But the delights of communion with God are what they enjoy in common with the angels of light. They are not indeed the same in degree as the joys of angels, but they are the same in kind. They are the pleasures of a soul, and not of bodily sense — the delights of a holy soul, and not a carnal mind. The pleasures of true religion immediately affect the soul, that part of a holy man by which he is allied to the world of spirits. And therefore, they are to be regarded as the only sublime, the only true pleasures of a man. When holy souls are comforted, they are entertained as with angels’ food. Their consolation is not only spiritual, and therefore suitable to a holy and immortal spirit, but it is substantial and satisfying, heavenly and glorious. 1Pet 1.8
Their joy is, in its own nature, unspeakably glorious; and it is accompanied with glorying in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is truly honourable, and it is the earnest of glory in their souls. When sinners have “come to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling,” they “come to an innumerable company of angels.” Heb 12.22,24 Thus, in some measure, believers participate with them in that sublime, that celestial delight which they always enjoy in the presence of God and the Lamb. They then begin to imitate the holy and blessed angels in delighting in objects of the greatest worth, and especially in the will and the glory of God in Christ.
4.Spiritual consolation is of such consequence to believers and to the glory of God in their salvation, that every part of sacred Scripture contributes to promote it, and is intended to do so. “Whatever things were written beforehand,” says the apostle Paul, “were written for our learning; that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope;” Rom 1;5.4
— as if he had said, ‘Whatever things were written in the Old Testament by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, were left on record, not only for the instruction of our ancestors, but for ours likewise. This was in order that we might be excited and encouraged by means of them, to exercise patience under all our afflictions; and that we might be partakers of the joy of faith, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, so as to attain the sure hope of grace to bear them, and of glory to crown them.’ All the types and prophecies, histories and examples, laws and doctrines recorded in the Scriptures, were designed to increase the consolation of believers under their various troubles. Accordingly, in the hand of the adorable Spirit, they all serve either directly or indirectly to advance their comfort. The Old and New Testaments were written for this end, that they might, like breasts of consolation, be suckled by the children of God. Isa 66.11
The blessed word is, in all its parts, a magazine of comfort to the saints. Even those parts of it which seem least adapted to afford them comfort, promote their consolation and their delight, notwithstanding. The strictest of its commands prescribe delightful work to them.
The severest of its threatenings deter them from wandering out of those ways which are ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. The law as a covenant, is subservient to the gospel, and both of them serve to bring the believing soul to holy comfort. 1Cor 14.3 One commendation of the statutes of God is that “they rejoice the heart.” Psa 19.8 The holy word of God in all its parts, is inexpressibly sweet to the exercised Christian. “It is the joy and rejoicing of his heart.” Jer 15.16 The most delicious honey is not so gratifying to the palate, as the holy Scriptures are to the spiritual taste. Psa 19.10 How unspeakably important and useful, then, must this spiritual consolation be, when it is the great design of every part of sacred Scripture, to advance it in the souls of believers!
5. So important is this comfort, that all the dispensations of Divine grace and providence are continually concurring to increase it in the saints. “We know,” says an apostle, “that all things work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” The good mentioned here, means the spiritual and eternal happiness or welfare of the saints. But the spiritual and eternal happiness of the saints consists in spiritual joy, as well as in spiritual knowledge and true holiness. All things, then, all dispensations and occurrences of providence — however diversified, however afflictive — even now, under the special influence of the overruling wisdom and grace of God,cooperate with one another in all their diversified connections and consequences, to promote the spiritual joy, the holy consolation, of those who sincerely love Him.
All hands in heaven, on earth, and in hell, are presently and continually at work in order to increase, either directly or indirectly, the comfort of those who delight in the Lord. And if all things continually work together for their consolation, then nothing remains to work against it.
How important, then, how useful must the consolation of believers be, to subserve the purposes of the Divine glory in their salvation, when all things in the universe are continually employed in advancing it! — when all persons, all dispensations, all events, are incessantly concurring to promote it!
Prosperity and adversity, whether in things internal or external, work together and under gracious and providential influence, to form acurious checker-work which will afterwards, in the light of glory, be contemplated with unceasing admiration. If the Lord brings his
people to his holy mountain, it is that He may make them joyful in his house of prayer. Isa 56.7 If He brings them into the wilderness, it is with a view to speak comfortably to them. Hos 2.14 If their sufferings abound at any time, it is in order that their consolation may also abound. 2Cor 1.5 The sufferings of others are conducive to the increase of their consolations; and the comforts of others are also for their consolation and salvation. 2Cor 1.6 By afflictions, the Lord empties, humbles, and melts them, so that they may be vessels fitted to receive a larger measure of grace and comfort. Psa 119.71 Their loss of other comforts commonly results in their being favoured with more of spiritual comfort; and therefore it is profitable for them. The Lord Jesus wounds them in order to heal them. He casts down when he designs to raise them up. And he brings death, as it were, upon their feelings, wishes, and prospects, when he is about to grant them the desire of their souls. When he told his disciples that he was soon to depart from them, and so removed from them the greatest earthly comfort they ever enjoyed
— which was his bodily presence
— sorrow filled their hearts. But he assured them that this loss would be expedient
— or as the original word also signifies, profitable for them
— in as much as it would make way for a still greater mercy: the coming of the Comforter to abide with them forever. Joh 16.6-7
Believers may then assure themselves that the all-compassionate Saviour will at no time, and on no account, take away from them any of their comforts, except with a view to give them better comforts. He will usually be sweetest to them when their lot in the world is bitterest. For the sharper their trials are, the more they will serve to prepare them for His sweetest consolations. If even thick clouds intercept the cheering light of his countenance from them for a season, those very clouds will occasion this light to break forth again upon them, with brighter splendor. Whether their troubles are external or internal, in the hand of the Holy Spirit they serve to show them how much they need to trust constantly and solely in the Lord Jesus for sanctifying and supporting grace. And the more they trust in Him, the more comfort as well as holiness they will receive from His fulness.
6. Spiritual comfort is of much consequence to believers, for it serves, in a very high degree, to heighten, and sweeten all their temporal comforts. It renders every outward blessing a real and substantial comfort to them. Spiritual consolation is that which makes them capable of relishing, and enjoying their external comforts. Ecc 9.7 Were a man to possess everything under the sun that is delightful and splendid; everything that could please his eye or gratify his taste,and yet he did not enjoy the favour of God with it, he would still be poor and wretched. Rev 3.17 To think that the almighty Jehovah is an infinite enemy to him; that his temporal comforts may be followed by endless torments; and that by all that he eats and drinks, he may only be fattening himself for the day of slaughter
—this will be like wormwood and gall mingled with all his delights.
What can it avail him, though all the world smiles upon him, if he is under the infinite, tremendous frowns of almighty God? They cannot for a moment screen him from the impending storm, nor secure him from the consuming fire. A troubled conscience renders every comfort of life insipid and unpleasing, while on the contrary, a peaceful conscience makes even the meanest morsel sweet. Pro 15.15-16
It infuses an additional sweetness into every other comfort. When a man is enabled to cordially trust that the Lord Jesus loves and saves him, and that He will perfect whatever concerns him, his joy and peace in believing cannot fail to impart a heavenly sweetness to all his earthly joys. By trusting in the blessed Redeemer, he tastes that He is good to him; and so he enjoys Him in all his inferior enjoyments. Whoever places all his confidence and all his delight in the Lord, will have a double relish for every earthly comfort
— because he will see the hand of his gracious Redeemer providing and bestowing it. He will possess Christ in everything while he has it; and possess everything in Christ after it is taken from him. 2Cor 6.10 As it is the absence of his blessed Redeemer that embitters all his temporal
blessings to the believer, so it is His presence, cheering his heart, that improves and sweetens them all. Thus we see that spiritual consolation is of high importance, because, while it is in itself the greatest of all comforts, it is that which serves to heighten all other delights.
7. This comfort is of unspeakable importance to the saints, for it not only heightens all their other comforts, but it alleviates all their calamities. It makes their heaviest afflictions light.2Cor 4.17 When the spirit of the believer is without comfort, the smallest trial becomes a burden. But when his heart is glad, the greatest appears light and easy. The weight of an affliction is to be estimated by the impression it makes on the spirit, rather than by anything in its outward appearance. The smallest affliction will be so heavy as to overwhelm a holy man, if he is left to struggle with it in his own strength, and if he is without the presence of Christ to comfort him.
But if Christ is graciously pleased to pour consolation into his soul, it will be so exhilarated and strengthened, as to induce him to count even the greatest burden light, and the longest trial but for a moment.A sweet and lively impression of the love of Christ in redeeming him, accompanied with a true sense of the sin and misery from which he is redeemed, will render him not only submissive, but even joyful in his affliction.
And while he is rejoicing in hope, though the flesh may still have its uneasy feelings, the spirit will triumph over them. Though a sense of pain may not be taken away, it will be overcome by the faith and sense of redeeming love. Paul and Silas, in the prison at Philippi, felt more pleasure than pain, more joy than sorrow. It was the sweetness of Divine consolation that caused one of the martyrs, when the flame first reached his ear, to say, “What a small pain this is, compared with the glory to come!’ What is a drop of vinegar when put into an ocean of wine! It was this that, as another of them said, made their prisons into their delectable orchards. Favoured with heavenly consolation, many of the saints in ancient times took the spoiling of their goods not only patiently, but joyfully. Heb 10.34 When the Lord Jesus speaks peace to the holy soul, He so refreshes and consoles it that no afflictions, however painful, have any real bitterness in them.
One drop of that consolation which He dispenses from heaven, will suffice to sweeten a whole sea of external trouble, and to fill the believing soul with inexpressible joy. Psa 94.19 He has graciously promised to be, in a special manner, present with His people in their afflictions; and to administer such comfort to their souls, as will greatly alleviate them. “When you pass through the Waters,” He says, “I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burnt; nor shall the flame scorch you.” Isa 43.2 And again, “In me, you may have peace, while in the world you will have tribulation.” Joh 16.33 When he comforts them with a lively sense of his love to them, it turns their wormwood into sweetness, their sorrow into joy. So comforted, they can rejoice and even glory in tribulation. Rom 5.3 This is plain evidence of the high importance and excellence of spiritual consolation: that it overcomes the pains of sense, takes out their sting, and takes away their terror. Holy comfort makes believers so delight in all the will of God, as to take pleasure even in the hardest things, considered as His doing. 2Cor 12.10 How sweet that must be, then, which can sweeten even the wormwood and the gall! Of what consequence that must be, which can make the heaviest burden light! The delights of sense forsake us when we are in trouble and have the greatest need of them. Job 33.19-20 But it is then that the comforts of the Spirit have the sweetest relish, and the strongest influence. Psa 119.59 They are like the tree “cast into the waters of Marah, which made them sweet.” Exo 15.25 How much those people are to be pitied, then, who are drinking deep from the bitter waters of affliction, and have nothing of Divine consolation to sweeten them!
8. It is spiritual consolation alone, which can effectually remove that greatest of all afflictions: trouble of spirit. The delights of sense to someone who is deeply wounded and dejected in spirit, are like“singing songs to a heavy heart.” Pro 25.20 Instead of yielding the smallest relief, they become quite insipid, and even nauseous. For notwithstanding the possession of them, even in the highest degree, “who can bear a wounded spirit?” Pro 18.14 But spiritual consolation, especially when it is strong, not only alleviates but effectually removes that most intolerable of all afflictions. When the Lord graciously returns to the disconsolate believer after a dark night of desertion, and lifts up the light of His countenance upon him. He thereby puts gladness in his heart, far surpassing that of worldly men when their corn and their wine increase. Psa 4.6-7 By so doing, he puts off the sackcloth of the exercised Christian, and girds himself with gladness. Psa 30.11 No sooner does Christ comfort those who mourn in Zion, than “he gives them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Isa 61.2-3
If they “have gone forth and wept, bearing precious seed.” Yet no sooner does He impart consolation to them, than “they come back with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them.” Psa 126.6 “In His favour is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy (or shouting) comes in the morning.” Psa 30.5 How valuable, then, how unspeakably important Divine consolation must be to exercised Christians, whenthey consider that it is the only cure, the sovereign cure, for dejection and anguish of spirit!
9. The great importance of spiritual comfort also appears in this:that it serves to overbalance everything in true religion which seems difficult and unpleasing. Not regarding here either the misrepresentations of some men, or the misapprehensions of others concerning the way of holiness, I will only refer to the chief difficulties and grievances which the Scripture itself represents as occurring in that way. The Lord Jesus, that faithful and true witness, informs us that the way to heaven “is a narrow way;” Mat 7.14 or as the words might be rendered, a strait or distressful way; a way in which the saints have to pass, through much tribulation, into the kingdom of God. Act 14.22 Beside the multitude of imaginary difficulties which appear to the slothful man when he says, “There is a lion in the way, a lion is in the streets,” Pro 26.13 there are some real difficulties in the way to heavenly felicity. Believers, as well as other men, are commanded to exercise repentance daily. And so they are to weep,mourn, and loathe themselves for their iniquities
— to crucify the flesh, and so to mortify the members of the body of sin in them, which is as painful as cutting off a right hand, or plucking out a right eye. It is to deny themselves; to renounce the world as a portion, and thus abandon forever all the pleasures of sin; to take up their cross; and to load their account with manifold afflictions. At the same time, believers are to fight the good fight of faith, to wrestle against the principalities and powers of darkness, to endure hardness, to run with patience the race that is set before them, and to be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Rom 12.11
Now,though these and others which might be mentioned,are in themselves real difficulties which seem very unpleasant, and from which even eminent believers are often ready to shrink, holy comfort is sufficient to overbalance them, much more sufficient. It serves in the hand of the blessed Spirit, to render wisdom’s ways, “ways of pleasantness, and paths of peace” to the saints, Pro 3.17 notwithstanding all the difficulties and grievances which occur in them. Indeed, so sweet and so powerful is spiritual consolation, that in proportion to the degree in which it is bestowed, it makes even those painful exercises pleasant, and those difficult duties easy. Mat 11.30 It renders it very pleasant to the Christian, to be without the pleasures of sin. It adds much more to the pleasantness of a holy life, than it is possible for any sufferings or grievances in this world to ever take from it. These sufferings are but human; the comfort is Divine. Believers know by experience, that in proportion to their trust in Christ, the times of their greatest affliction are usually seasons of their strongest consolation. 2Cor 1.5 And therefore, even the
most dejected and sorrowful of them, would not for a thousand worlds exchange conditions or pleasures with the most prosperous of those who are servants of sin.
10. Holy consolation removes, in proportion to the degree of it, the terror of death and judgment. Spiritual consolation is that which, in the hand of the blessed Spirit, takes away the terrors and alleviates the pains of death. Though death is the friend of grace, it is still the enemy of nature. A dislike and fear of death, therefore, in no way proves that one is not a true believer. We are not in general fond of handling a serpent, even if we know that its sting is plucked out. But when the faith of a Christian is strong, and his hope of salvation is lively, the joy of his faith and the rejoicing of his hope, take away in his view, the frightful appearance of death; and they bestow upon it an amiable, an inviting aspect. Living comforts, in his dying moments, make a Christian even “desire to depart and to be with Christ,” the blessed fountain of everlasting consolation. Phi 1.23 It is the joyful hope of a blessed resurrection, that makes the saints think without fear of resigning their bodies to the gloomy grave. It is the cheering prospect of “a house not made with hands,” that makes them willing without dismay, to leave their earthly tabernacle. Whenthe Lord Jesus would comfort his disciples in the prospect of his departure from them, he said, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again,and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” Joh 14.2-3 If death were to come alone to the saints, its ghastly countenance could only be terrible to them. But when they believe, and rejoice in the assurance that their living Redeemer will, according to his faithful promise, come along with it to sweeten it for them —and will conduct them safely through the dark valley of the shadow of it, Psa 23.4 to the heavenly mountain of their Father’s house
— the prospect is no longer dreadful,but delightful. How consoling are these words of the great Redeemer! He doesn’t say that merely comfort will come in that time of need, but that He himself, the glorious fountain of consolation, will then come and receive them to Himself. It is the comfort of such a promise, when believed with application, that relieves them against the dread of endless torment, and so it raises them above the slavish fear of dying. When the apostle Paul says that Jesus died, speaking at the same time of believers, he says that they only sleep, and sleep in Him. 1The 4.14 One reason why he varies the term is this: Jesus endured death in all its terrors, in order that it might become a quiet and sweet sleep to those who believe in Him. “It is Christ that died.” Rom 8.34 The suffering of death was bitter to Christ, so that the sleep of death might be sweet to them. So then, when they are enabled to rejoice in the well-grounded hope that death for them will only be a dissolution, a departure, a falling asleep in the arms of their dear Redeemer, the dread of it is thereby removed. People in general are not afraid to lie down in bed to sleep. Ah, how contemptible is that pleasure which is damped at the view of death and chased away at the prospect of judgment! But how important, how excellent is that joy which, instead of being abated itself, lessens and even removes the terror of that last enemy!
11. The high importance and excellence of it will further appear if it is compared with the delights of sense. Earthly and sensual joy is easily told, and utterly void of glory. But the joy in believing, is “unspeakable, and full of glory.” 1Pet 1.8 The greatest of worldly joys are mean and empty, and their highest amount may be easily expressed. Indeed, much more is frequently thought and said about their value, than is deserved. They are never, from experience, found equal to the notion which worldly men have of them, nor to the expectation which they form from them. But spiritual joy is far above the highest conceptions that either men or angels can form of it, and the loftiest descriptions they can give of it. Earthly joys too, are empty and inglorious. Even the most plausible of them can never fill or satisfy the soul. They are far below the excellence, as well as the high capacity of the immortal soul. But the joy of faith, the comfort of communion with Christ, just as it is substantial and satisfying, so it is excellent and honourable. It is that of which none needs to be ashamed; and it is heavenly glory itself, begun in the soul.
— Spiritual joy is pure and sublime, while sensual and sinful pleasure is sordid and mean.
— The one is ennobling to the soul; the other is debasing;
— the former is elevating and enlarging; the latter is degrading and enslaving;
— that is satisfying; this is surfeiting;
— the one increases and improves with its use; the other fades with use, and leaves to those who place their happiness in it, a piercing sting behind it;
— the former is pleasing to the Lord; the latter is offensive to Him;
— that will issue in perfect and everlasting joy; this will end in direful and eternal anguish.
Those of the Israelites in the desert who could not form a right estimate of the milk and honey of Canaan, doted on the onions and garlic of Egypt. So it is with the carnal mind, which does not know and love spiritual delights — it relishes and prefers above them, the sordid pleasures of sense. In proportion to a man’s experience of the sweetness of spiritual pleasures, those which are sensual and ensnaring will become insipid to him. They now have no sweetness in comparison to the sweetness which excels. Indeed, it is impossible to express how low, how contemptible the joys of sense, and especially of sin, appear to those who are rejoicing in Christ Jesus.
12. Finally, the inexpressible importance of spiritual comfort appears chiefly in this: that it promotes in an eminent degree, universal holiness of heart and life. It revives and invigorates the graces of the Christian. It excites and encourages a holy man to trust cordially and constantly in Christ for sanctification; to love Him and God in him, with ardent affection; and to so love His manifested glory, as to perform every duty in faith,from love and for the glory of His holy name. He cannot love God supremely, nor delight in doing His will, unless he himself is delighted and cheered by trusting that God loves him. 1Joh 4.19 No arguments will persuade a man to commit his way to the Lord, or to cast his care upon Him, if he does not believe that the Lord cares for him. It is a sense of redeeming love, warm on the heart, that captivates the soul, conciliates the will, and engages the affections. 2Cor 5.14-15
A comfortable persuasion of the love of Jesus to the soul, will be operative in it as a torch in a sheaf
— it will gradually destroy its remaining enmity against Him. It will enlarge the heart with ardent love to Him, and elevate the affections above the world. The soul, in order to be kept from lusting after earthly and carnal pleasures, must
— by an appropriating faith
— take pleasure in the Saviour and in His love. Holy comfort embitters sin to a man, and disposes him to strive against it with a deep abhorrence of it. It tends greatly to melt and humble the heart for sin. 1Cor 15.9-10 The firmer a holy man’s comfort is, the softer his heart is. The more “his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord, so as not to be afraid of evil tidings,” Psa 112.7 the more disposed he is to fear the evil of sinning against Him. Act 9.31 Spiritual comfort also inclines and encourages the saints to ardently follow after universal holiness of life, and to constantly long for the perfection of it. “The Spirit of the Lord God,” says Messiah, “is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me ... to comfort all who mourn;to grant those who mourn in Zion
— to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.” Isa 61.1-3
It disposes believers to frequency and impartiality in self-examination; Psa 26.1-3 and it excites them to diligent endeavours to increasing communion with God in every duty. Psa 63.1-8 It is employed by the Holy Spirit, to render them active, resolute, and cheerful in the spiritual performance of all their various duties. Psa 119.32,166 Godly sorrow indeed disposes them to be serious; but it is holy joy that renders them active. It is “the oil of gladness” that makes the wheels of their voluntary obedience move forward with ease and speed. Some measure of holy comfort is necessary to the practice of evangelical holiness.
In the natural world, summer is necessary as well as winter. The very nature of the duties and exercises of the true Christian is such that they require comfort of heart for their acceptable performance. A holy life commonly begins with comfort, and is maintained by it. Psa26.3 The way to be kept from carelessness and formality in spiritual exercises, is to so trust in Christ for salvation, as to cease to despond; for the soul grows careless by desponding. The sorrow of the world, and the fear of hell, enervate and benumb all the faculties of the soul.
A man can perform no spiritual obedience without some degree of spiritual joy, as well as true love. The former is as much the fruit of the Spirit, as the latter. Gal 5.22 The Christian cannot be encouraged to pray to God unless he is consoled with the hope that God, for Christ’s sake, will graciously hear and answer his prayer. Psa 86.7 He cannot cordially praise God unless he is enabled to trust that God will glorify the perfections of his nature, and magnify the promises of His covenant in his eternal salvation. It is in proportion to his heart being comforted, that he will be truly thankful to the Lord for the smallest favour. It is holy consolation that makes every act of grace,every instance of duty, every part of spiritual service, however secret it is, pleasant to a good man. In a word, it is this consolation that so exhilarates and so constrains him, as to make all his affection run out to the Lord Jesus, and all his strength run out for him. So much for the importance and usefulness of Spiritual comfort to every believer.
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Post by Admin on Aug 21, 2023 15:33:39 GMT -5
CHAPTER 3.
The way in which believers lose their spiritual comfort.
A holy man cannot for a moment lose that principle of comfort or joy, which the Holy Spirit has implanted in his heart in regeneration.
Nor yet can he lose that entire habit of joy which He has implanted there in sanctification,. Yet he sometimes loses the sense or feeling of
it. At times he is deprived of sensible comfort, or of the joy of God’s salvation. By losing spiritual consolation, I don’t mean his falling
from a pleasant into an unpleasant frame of spirit merely for an hour or a day; for his frames are almost perpetually changing. But I mean
his being more or less deprived of the sense of God’s peculiar favour toward him, or of the sensible possession of spiritual comfort, and to
be deprived for a considerable time. When the God of all comfort continues for a season to withhold the cheering light of His gracious
countenance from his soul, he cannot help but be disquieted and disconsolate. Psa 30.7
Though the Lord may withhold sensible comfort from believers for a time, this is to display His wisdom and sovereignty. It is to test the graces of believers — to mortify their pride, and teach them the necessity of adventuring, as sinners, to trust simply in Christ for all the grace of the promise. Yet for the most part, He does it in order to chasten them for their sins against Him as their God and Father. Isa 59.2
At the same time, it is not for every sin of infirmity that He suspends consoling influences from their souls. Otherwise, because they can never so much as think a thought without polluting it by some degree of sin, He would be afflicting them with the lack of comfort at all times. Rather, it is for some peculiarly aggravated transgressions; or for relapsing often into the same sin. It is their iniquities and backslidings that procure trouble of mind for them. Jer 2.19 Such is God’s love to them, and His care of them, and such is His abhorrence of their sin, that He cannot but make even his dear children feel that He is displeased with them when they backslide from Him. His faithfulness to his word also moves Him to do so,for which he threatens trouble as a fatherly chastisement. He even promises it to them as a blessing in disguise. Psa 119.75 And though the sins of some particular believers may not in every instance be the procuring cause of their loss of comfort, as in the case of Job, they are at least the occasion of it. Jer 31.18
All what I further propose to do in this Chapter is to point out some of the leading sins and ways of sinning, by which believers provoke their heavenly Father to suspend for a time, that degree of holy consolation from them which they formerly enjoyed.
1. In the first place, they provoke Him to do this by allowing themselves to continue, in a culpable degree, ignorant of His covenant of grace, and of their warrant to come as sinners and trust in the Lord Jesus for their own particular salvation. These are objects in which the comfort of true believers is at all times intimately concerned. The spiritual and distinct knowledge of this is necessary to qualify them for deriving continual supplies of grace and consolation from the fulness of Christ.
If believers then allow themselves — surrounded as they are by the clear light of the blessed gospel — to retain their ignorance, or to
cherish mistakes respecting the covenant of Jehovah’s peace, Isa 54.10 and respecting the infinite fulness and freeness of His grace treasured up in Christ, the glorious Trustee of that covenant — thenthey thereby undervalue the only doctrine on which all true comfort depends. And so they provoke their heavenly Father to suspend the consolations of His holy covenant from their souls.
The gospel is an exhibition of God’s covenant of grace, to lost sinners of mankind; and therefore it is “good tidings of great joy to all people.” Luk 2.10 To then be willingly ignorant of that gracious contract, is the same as being willingly ignorant of the glorious gospel; and to retain mistaken notions of the former, is the same as erring concerning the latter.
When true Christians satisfy themselves with superficial and indistinct views of the covenant of grace, or with knowing little more than the first principles of the doctrine of that august contract, they so far despise the doctrine of redeeming grace — the joyful tidings of a free salvation — and so they lose the joy of that salvation.
Moreover, in the administration of that everlasting covenant, Christ is freely and fully offered, with His righteousness and fullness, to sinners of mankind in common. And sinners, as such, are graciously invited — yes, and peremptorily commanded — to believe in His name.
The authentic offer, call, and command, founded upon the infinite intrinsic value of the righteousness of Christ, and addressed to every sinner who hears the gospel, afford to every one of them a full warrant to trust in Christ for all the salvation promised in the covenant. If Christians then allow themselves to remain, in great measure, ignorant of their warrant as sinners themselves, to place direct confidence in Christ for all their salvation, or if they cherish mistakes concerning it, then they provoke the Lord to withhold from them that peace and joy which are found in believing. For He is jealous for the honour of His covenant and of His word of grace. At the same time, they indirectly invite Satan to tempt them to conclude that they have no warrant whatever to trust that Christ will save them. If believers were to attain a clearer and more spiritual
understanding of the eternal covenant and its authentic offer than they commonly do, they would see that, in the word of grace, they have a full and unchangeable warrant to trust at all times in the Lord Jesus for their own particular salvation. And so they would live a holier and more comfortable life than they commonly do. They would in that case clearly see that it is warrantable for them, and therefore lawful and reasonable for them, to trust in their faithful Redeemer with full assurance of faith. Ah! how sinful it is, how displeasing to the God of all comfort, to treat with neglect His holy covenant, and the warrant which He graciously affords sinners of mankind to take hold of it! And how effectually that will mar the comforts of one’s own soul!
2. They provoke the Lord to suspend influences of consolation from them, by often yielding to disbelief and distrust of Jesus Christ. An
apostle says, “We who have believed, enter into rest.” “You will keep him in perfect peace,” says the prophet Isaiah, “whose mind is
stayed on You; because he trusts in You.” Isa 26.3 And again, “If you will not believe, surely you will not be established.” Isa 7.9 If a
Christian frequently neglects the exercise of trusting in Christ for fresh supplies of grace and comfort — if he often trusts to the grace
that is in himself, instead of trusting in his infinitely faithful Redeemer, with all his heart and at all times, for the grace which is in
Him, and brought near in the promise — then by doing so, his heart departs from the Lord Jesus, the only Fountain of consolation. Jer 17.5
He places that confidence in his own renewed nature, which he is commanded to place in his Divine Redeemer. By so doing, he idolizes the new creature; he trusts in his own heart; he leans on his own understanding; he makes a saviour of his own created grace. Thus he provokes his heavenly Father, who is a jealous God, to hide His face from him, and to eclipse his evidences of grace from his view. It is now necessary for the Lord, who “will ever be mindful of his covenant,” Psa 111.5 to perform this promise in a higher degree than formerly: “I will cleanse you from all your idols.” Eze 36.25
Accordingly, in order to chasten him for his idolatry, and to teach him the necessity of living continually by faith, God withholds consolation from his soul, and ceases to shine upon his evidences of grace. The consequence is that the believer now not only discerns no grace in his heart to trust in, but he begins to doubt if ever he had any. He formerly looked for comfort to the principle of grace which he discerned in himself, rather than to the fulness of grace which is in Christ. This is contrary to this high command: “You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Jesus Christ.” 2Tim 2.1 But now that he can see and feel nothing in his heart except deep and strong corruption, nothing but a body of sin and death, he becomes at once discouraged and disconsolate.
Christian, you never have greater need to trust simply and firmly in your Divine Saviour, than when your graces are most lively and most
discernable. For then self-confidence is most ready to prevail against you, so as to provoke a jealous God to withhold spiritual comfort
from your soul. If you desire to retain holy consolation, repose the unsuspecting confidence of your heart solely and constantly in your
faithful Redeemer. Apply, trust, and plead His promises. If you distrust Him, if you yield to suspicious and hard thoughts of him; then you transgress against him without cause. In His ways of grace and providence, the Lord Jesus has never dealt with any soul so as to give him cause to be suspicious of Him. Ah! what dishonour you reflect upon the glorious Immanuel, by refusing to trust solely in Him! Do not be grieved that you have nothing to trust to for your salvation beside Christ and the promise. Rather, rejoice that you need nothing besides. Psa 62.2,5,6 Pray often and earnestly that the Holy Spirit may convince you more deeply of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and especially of the greatest of all sins — unbelief.Joh 16.3,9
3. They lose their holy comfort by making their graces, duties, or lively frames, their warrant or ground of a right to trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. These are indeed great encouragements to continue trusting in the Saviour; but they form no part of a man’s warrant to renew his actings of trust in Him. They are fruits and evidences of saving faith; but they are no part of the ground for it. To make them the ground, or even a part of the ground of our right to confide in Jesus for salvation, would be as preposterous as it would be, when transplanting a young tree, to set the top-branches of it in the ground, instead of the roots. The faith of a believer must be grounded on faithfulness in the word, and not on feelings in the heart. If the Christian, then, instead of making the authentic offer,call, and commandment to believe, his warrant to renew his exercise of trusting in Christ for all his salvation, which are all addressed to him in the gospel as a sinner of mankind; if he thinks so highly of his experiences or evidences, as to make them his ground of right to do so — then he is guilty of presumption. He sets aside the warrant
which the Holy Spirit affords him in the word, and presumes to trust in Christ on the ground of something in himself, which is indeed the
fruit but not the root, the evidence but not the ground of faith.
Thus, instead of a true confidence, he places an unwarrantable confidence in his Redeemer; and hereby he reveals the pride and self-righteous propensity that remain in him. Sensible that his holy qualities and performances can give him no right to salvation itself, his legal spirit prompts him to conclude that they will afford him at least a right to the Saviour, a right to exercise particular trustin Him for salvation. Hence, when he discerns his evidences of personal interest in Christ, he can freely trust Him. But when these are eclipsed and cannot be seen, he counts it unwarrantable and presumptuous to confide in Him. Now, seeing it is pride or a legal spirit that disposes the Christian to think that his graces and evidences can give him a right to apply and confide in Christ; and seeing that the immutable design of God is to exalt the Saviour and humble the sinner, God withholds the comfortable sense of his favour from the believer. Psa 138.6 He ceases to shine upon his graces and evidences. He not only leaves him, it may be, to fall repeatedly into some known sin, but He permits Satan, and the man’s own proud and unbelieving heart, to persuade him that he now has no right at all to trust that the holy Jesus will save such a sinner as he is.
Thus he has procured for himself the loss of his comfort.
But even this loss, however great and grievous it may be, is almost less than nothing in comparison to the infinite dishonour which he has reflected upon the Lord Jesus, by presuming to substitute his own graces and attainments in place of the authoritative offers and calls of the gospel, as his warrant to trust in Him — and also by not venturing to rely upon Him for grace, unless he sees grace already in himself to give him a right to place his confidence in Him. Believer, if you would retain spiritual consolation, take heed that you never build your faith upon the reports of your senses. Build it only upon the sure, the unchangeable record of God who cannot lie. Do not substitute sense in the place of His true and holy word. Build your faith and your comfort upon Christ in the word, and not upon your experiences. Do not live upon Christ as felt in the heart, but upon Christ as offered in the gospel.
4. They procure for themselves the loss of spiritual comfort by discontent and impatience arising from the inordinate love of some earthly comfort. This happens when a good man, instead of placing all his happiness and all his hope in Christ, and in God as his God and portion, places much of them in some external comfort. So that he is often disposed to say, ‘What would become of me, or How uncomfortable I would be, if it were not for this comfort!’ He thereby provokes the Lord, who is always readier to profit than to please His children, and to tear the idol from their embrace. Eze 36.25 If he begins to “make gold his hope, and to say to the fine gold, you are my confidence;” Job 31.24 or if “he trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, so that his heart departs from the Lord;” then under the chastening of his heavenly Father, he will be for a season, “like the heath in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.” Jer 17.5-6 “The broken reed on which he leans” will not only fail him, “but it will go into his hand and pierce it.” Isa 36.6 His comforts will be diminished; his hopes will be disappointed; his schemes will one after another be frustrated. His idol, whatever it is, will either be torn from him, or be turned into a source of daily grief to him. The Lord will break his cisterns, and send a worm to his gourds. “For the iniquity of his covetousness” says Jehovah, “I was angry, and struck him; I hid myself and was angry; and he went on backsliding in the
way of his heart.” Isa 57.17
The inordinate and immoderate love of any temporal benefit, upon the loss of that benefit, commonly produces discontent, impatience, and fretfulness, which have a natural tendency to wear down the spirit. If the Christian were to bear his loss of outward comforts, in the exercise of faith and of resignation to the holy will of God, he would still continue to experience inward consolation. But when he presumes to fret and murmur, as if the Lord had wronged him, or had been unkind to him, saying, ‘Alas! My afflictions are very uncommon, and peculiarly severe,’ he thereby procures for himself, in addition to his outward losses, the loss of inward consolation.
Such behaviour as this, forms a combination of various sins, all of which are inconceivably heinous and exceedingly sinful. Discontent
inclines a man to be impatient under afflictions. Discontent and impatience set his mind as on the rack, and torment it with distracting cares about how to be delivered, or how to have his loss retrieved. The secret root of these is an inordinate love of the body, and of worldly enjoyments. Jas 4.4 This again, arises from a lack of due resignation to the holy will of God, and of satisfaction with Him alone as an all-sufficient portion for the whole man. Psa 113.5 And it is usually attended with much disbelief and distrust of His promise.
The Lord says to every believer in His gracious promise, “There no evil shall befall you.” Psa 91.10 ‘No,’ says the fretful Christian, ‘what has
befallen me is evil; otherwise I would not have been disquieted by it.’ But on the contrary, shouldn’t it even delight the Christian to find
that the Lord is drawing away provision from his worldly lusts? Knowing that he must shortly die, ah! why is he so fond of temporal and transitory enjoyments? Why so anxious to acquire them; so eager to embrace them; so disquieted by the loss of them?
Believer, your Covenant-God is all-sufficient for you; and He allows you to call Him yours.
Why then do you go begging to creatures for supply?
Consider that it is a much greater felicity to desire nothing earthly but what you have, than to have all that you desire. Do not
any longer provoke the Lord by obstinate or sullen grief for any outward loss, “lest a worse thing come upon you.” Only then are you in a right frame, when God in Christ is enough for you. Know that it is in the absence or contempt of earthly comforts, that the Holy Spirit is most a Comforter. Remember that God is never to be blamed for depriving you of things which would carry away your heart from Himself as your sure and all-sufficient portion. Do not let your life, even for a moment, be bound up in any worldly enjoyment. O “take heed and beware of covetousness” — it is idolatry; and “their sorrows shall be multiplied, who hasten after another god.” Psa 16.4
5. They lose their spiritual comfort by entertaining vain thoughts. By vain thoughts, I mean empty, frivolous, foolish, unprofitable, groundless, proud, ostentatious, deceitful, impure, and revengeful thoughts; and also, wandering thoughts in prayer, and in other religious exercises.
These thoughts, and others like them, are vain.
They are contrary to the holy law of God and exalt themselves against it. “I hate vain thoughts,” says the holy Psalmist, ‘‘but Your law I love.” Psa 119.113 Now, when a believer, instead of hating and repelling vain thoughts, allows them to lodge within him; Jer 4.14 when he entertain them, and allows them to continue unresisted in his heart, he thereby provokes the displeasure of his heavenly Father.
The mind of the Christian should always be well-furnished with proper subjects of thought, and should habitually exercise itself upon them.
Thus, under the influences of the Holy Spirit, the mind will be secured against the frequent incursion of a multitude of vain thoughts which otherwise will consume much of his precious time, defile his conscience, and expose him sooner or later to a multitude of perplexing, solicitous, and sorrowful thoughts.
Psa 94.19 Nothing but the frequent exercise of true faith and repentance will commonly prevent, in such cases, his sin from being inscribed in legible characters on his chastisement. His vain thoughts, if entertained, will procure for him perplexing and uncomfortable thoughts.
David experienced much perplexity of conscience in consequence of his vain thoughts; and he prayed earnestly that the Lord would
“cleanse him from secret faults.” Psa 19.12 The Christian, if he would retain his holy comfort, must “keep his heart with all diligence.”
Pro 4.23 He must watch his thoughts, strictly, and constantly, as well as his words and actions. It will be necessary for him to walk circumspectly in private, as well as in public. If he allows himself to indulge empty and proud thoughts, he will grieve the Holy Spirit of God, Eph 4.30 and provoke Him to withhold influences of consolation from his soul. Believer, if you would keep up the comfort of, and communion with a holy God, then trust in the Lord Jesus at all times for sanctifying grace, to enable you daily to mortify the members of the body of sin in your heart. Do not allow your thoughts to wander in prayer, or in any other act of devotion. When you are about to pray, consider on the one hand, the greatness and variety of your wants; and on the other, the omniscience and holiness of Jehovah, to whom you are to send up your supplications. He has said that he “will be sanctified in those who come near to him.” Lev 10.3 Guard, especially in private prayer, against coldness and indifference. If vain thoughts that intrude in acts of Divine worship are not entertained, but on the contrary, are hated, resisted, and lamented by you, they will seldom be permitted to rob you of your spiritual comfort. But if you love them, or yield to them, or allow them to quietly lodge within you, they will soon occasion such a mist of darkness in your soul, that you will not be able to discern the graces which dwell there.
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Post by Admin on Aug 21, 2023 16:45:39 GMT -5
6. Believers procure for themselves the loss of holy comfort by mistaking blasphemous and other evil thoughts injected by Satan, for sins of their own. Satan sometimes, in a furious assault, suddenly and swiftly throws in upon the souls of many of the saints, temptations to blasphemous, atheistic, impure, revengeful, and despairing thoughts. Such horrible injections are termed by the apostle Paul, “the fiery darts of the wicked one,” Eph 6.16 because, like the sharp and envenomed darts of a cruel enemy, flying swiftly and invisibly, they penetrate the soul before it is aware. And they hurry it on to hard and blasphemous thoughts of God and of the Saviour.
These violent and sudden temptations, like poisoned darts, pierce and inflame the holy soul with anguish and horror. They not only fill it with the greatest uneasiness, but if they are yielded to for a moment, they produce the most unbecoming suspicions about the grace and word of God. Psa 77.7-9 Blasphemous and atheistic thoughts do, indeed, often arise from the depravity that remains in believers themselves. For our Lord says, “Out of your heart proceed evil thoughts, ... blasphemies.” Mat 15.19 When exercised Christians do not resist, but on the contrary, yield to blasphemous and other evil thoughts, in that case they should consider them as arising out of their own hearts, and charge themselves with them, as sins of their own. But if they strike their minds violently and suddenly; Mat 16.22-23 if being assaulted with them vexes and grieves them; Psa 73.21-22 and if their souls tremble at them and resist them with deep abhorrence; Psa 73.15 then they should not charge them upon themselves as their sins, but upon Satan as his.
Now, it is because believers do not distinguish, as they should, between those blasphemous and evil thoughts which are injected by the devil, and those which proceed from their own hearts, that they are often imposed on by Satan to mistake the former for sins of their own. And so they are deprived of the consolation which is allowed them in the gospel. There is a great difference, indeed, between a man being tempted to blaspheme, or to doubt the truth of the Divine testimony, and actuality being guilty of blasphemy, or of doubting the truth of Scripture.It is only by complying with temptation, that he becomes guilty. Believer, you have much reason to be thankful if you have not been left to take pleasure in those suggestions, or to frame arguments in support of them. Satan may be permitted to overpower, for a moment, the apparent exercise of every grace in you, by a torrent of blasphemous imaginations. But, “resist him, and he will flee from you.” Jas 4.7 “Take up the shield of faith.” Trust that the Lord Jesus, your Saviour and your shield, Psa 28.7 will graciously enable you “to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one,” and according to your faith, it will be to you. All Satan’s attempts to hurry you into sin will be as effectually disarmed of their force by that shield of faith, as fire is disarmed of its strength by being quenched. To distrust your almighty Redeemer, or to doubt that you are a true believer, only because you are thus harassed by Satan, is a much greater sin than all his suggestions put together, however numerous they may be.
7. Believers diminish their comfort much by not habitually watching against corruption within, and temptation from without.
A good man loses much of his holy comfort by not observing cautiously and constantly the motions of sin in his heart. When he doesn’t accustom himself to strictly watch for these in order to detect, resist, and mortify them as early as they begin to appear, Rom8.13 they will speedily acquire such force as to urge him on violently and irresistibly to thoughts, words, and acts of sin. If he would retain comfortable fellowship with an infinitely holy God, then he must watch diligently for the first motions and sallies of depravity in his heart. This is in order that, by the lively exercise of the contrary graces, he may resist them without delay. For if in such a case, he does not instantly try to exercise his graces, and especially his faith, Satan (who is always envious and watchful) will seize that opportunity to exercise the man’s corruptions. And if by being negligent to watch and resist the first motions of corruption in his heart, he often allows them to obtain such force as to gain the
consent of his will to actual transgression, then he can have none to blame but himself, for the loss of his holy consolation. Jer 2.19
The remaining depravity of the heart is not only itself a source of temptation to actual sin, but it is the inlet for all temptations from Satan and the world. Jas 1.14; Jer 17.9 Thus, if he would retain spiritual consolation, the believer must likewise be ever on his guard against temptations from without. If he ceases for a short while to watch against those temptations of Satan, which that deceitful adversary manages in a way of subtlety and stratagem, he will soon be so ensnared by one or more of them, as to fall into sin. Alas! Spiritual wickednesses in high places, which are watching at every moment for opportunities to ensnare his soul, are so many, and so powerful, and so subtle, that it is in vain for the exercised Christian to hope that he will be able to retain his comfort if he ceases for but a moment to watch. Eph 6.12 Though he cannot shut Satan wholly out of his imagination, he should be very cautious that he does not, even in the smallest measure, provide fuel for his flame.
He should, for this purpose, often pray in faith that the Lord would so set a watch upon his eyes and ears, as to constantly enable him to reject and repel every appearance of temptation to sin. And if he would not be tempted by the men of the world, who are also the inveterate enemies of his comfort, he must always keep himself at a due distance from them. Christian, the snares of Satan and of his emissaries are continually set for you. “Be sober therefore and vigilant.” 1Pet 5.8 “Watch in all things;” 2Tim 4.5 and “watch with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, with all perseverance.” Eph 6.18
If you would retain your comfort, then shake off carnal security, and take good heed lest your spiritual enemies surprise and overcome you. Be continually solicitous to spot temptations while they are yet at a distance, in order to prevent them from surprising you. And that you maybe enabled to do so, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the powder of his might.” Eph 6.10 Trust that the Lord Jesus will, and pray that He may, “strengthen you with all might, according to his glorious power, by his Spirit in the inner man.” Col 1.11; Eph 3.16
8. Believers likewise forfeit their spiritual comfort, by presuming, without necessity, to omit repeatedly some known duty. The Lord declares in the 89th Psalm, that he will visit the transgression of the spiritual seed of Messiah with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
There are four phrases by which he expresses the sins or modes of sinning which would procure for them his paternal chastisements. It is remarkable that he employs three of them to express the omission of duties, and only one to express the direct commission of sins: “If his children forsake My law, and do not walk in my judgments; if they break or profane my statutes, and do not keep My commandments, then I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.” Psa 89.30-32 Though sins of commission do indeed expose believers to fatherly chastisements, I believe it will be found that sins of omission do it much more frequently. This is because they are more often guilty of these, and yield to them with less struggle and remorse, than they do to sins of commission. The spiritual declension of a Christian, especially at its beginning, reveals itself for the most part, more by the customary omission of some duties, than by the positive commission of crimes.
Isa 43.22-24 For although the omission of a present duty is indeed a sin, it does not usually appear to a declining Christian, at first view, to be so horrible as the direct commission of a known transgression. And therefore, commonly, nothing but some violent and strong temptation can at first impel him to the downright perpetration of a crime. Whereas, a very small temptation will often suffice to move him to neglect an ordinance, or omit a duty. If at any time he happens to be fatigued more than usual; or to be under a very slight bodily sickness; or to have less time or less accommodation than usual; or to be disturbed and ruffled in his temper; or to be receiving or paying visits — any one of these will probably suffice as a temptation to prevail with him to sluff off, at such a time, private prayer, or family worship, or even public worship or some other present duty; or at least to perform them in a cold and superficial manner. And having once begun to admit such frivolous excuses, he may perhaps be permitted, for a season, to offer to his conscience almost any sort of occurrence as an excuse for omitting the stated performance of one or another of these duties. On such occasions, he likewise commonly neglects the exercise of his graces, especially of his faith and repentance — and it may be that he takes occasion to do so, either from his sins or from his duties. Or perhaps he allows himself to neglect, for a season, some relative duty, or at least not to perform it “heartily, as unto the Lord.” Col 3.23
Now, inasmuch as every omission of a known duty is a sin against God, Jas 4.17 the Christian — by allowing himself for a season, to often neglect some known duty, or not to perform it cheerfully — grieves the Holy Spirit of God, Mal 1.13-14 and provokes Him to suspend consolation from his soul. When he thus presumes to make the Spirit sad, he must not expect that the Spirit will continue to make him glad, as formerly. The moment his heart withdraws and breaks off from any present duty as if it were an unpleasant or irksome task, in the same proportion, it withdraws from the Lord. And so it loses the comfort of serving Him, as well as losing communion with Him. Joh 14.21 To resolve to omit a present duty is even more sinful than to actually omit it without intending so to do.Rev2.4 Ah!how heinous a sin it is,to be disposed, and without necessity to be resolved, either to omit or to curtail a single religious or moral duty! It shows how little regard a man has for the glorious Majesty of heaven, when he can put Him off with slight and curtailed service. Mal 1.6-8 Such behaviour as this will soon, very soon, raise such a thick and dark cloud, as to intercept the cheering beams of the Sun of righteousness from the soul. Alas! the omission or slight performance of many duties, is far from being as considered and lamented by true Christians, as it ought to be.
I have already said that a believer loses his comfort by omitting repeatedly, and without necessity, some known duty. I must now go further,and add that if he lives for a long time in the omission of some duty which he does not yet know is a duty, but which he might have known if he had diligently availed himself of his opportunities to know it — this instance of neglect may lie concealed at the root of his comfort, like a gnawing worm. Neglecting the study of the moral law in its spirituality and great extent, as his rule of duty — so as to continue ignorant of his duty in any one point, when opportunity is graciously afforded him to attain this knowledge — is a greater sin than it will ever be possible for him, or even the highest angel to comprehend. It is not enough, in order to retain spiritual comfort, that a holy man studies well the promises of the gospel. He must likewise study diligently the precepts of the law, in order to obey them. Psa 119.92,165
9. Believers procure for themselves the loss of comfort by sitting down contented with their spiritual attainments. When a good man so far forgets himself, as to rest satisfied for a time with his present degree of knowledge, faith, or holiness, and to become remiss in his efforts to attain more and more of these — when he begins and continues to be so well pleased with his degree of knowledge as to read and hear the gospel with less relish and less diligence than formerly; to be so delighted with his measure of faith and experience, as neither to complain so much about his unbelief, nor to be so diligent and frequent in his actings of faith as in times past; and to be so fond of his attainments in holiness, as to be less diligent than formerly in pressing toward perfection — then he may assure himself that he will thereby lose the comfort of communion with a holy and a jealous God.
If he accustoms himself for a season, not only to rest in his religious attainments, so as to be less eager in pursuing after higher degrees of holiness, but to so rest on them, or to place his confidence in them — he hereby adopts the surest method of losing at once, the sight and the comfort of them.54 In proportion to his trusting in his own knowledge, faith, or holiness, or in pleasant frames in the prospect of any duty which he may be about to perform, instead of trusting only in Christ — or in proportion to his looking to them for comfort, instead of looking solely to Him — he prefers them before Christ. He idolizes them. He makes a saviour and a comforter of them, instead of Jesus Christ; or at least he allows them to share with Christ in that honour. He relies on grace received, and so he trusts in his own heart. This is one sure way in which he provokes the Lord to hide His gracious countenance from him, and to cover his evidences with a cloud in His anger. Luk 9.33-34 If spiritual comforts are rested on, they will just as effectually as earthly ones do, keep a man from comfortable communion with Christ. When the Lord Jesus grants to him the comfort of spiritual attainments, it is not that he may live on it, but that he may be incited and encouraged by it, to persevere in holy faith and evangelical obedience.
But if, on the contrary, he allows himself to be elated with his attainments or comforts, and like Hezekiah, he invites others to see his treasures, then it will be time for the Lord to send the messengers of His anger, to carry away from his view these idols which steal his heart away from Him. When his heart is swelling with self-importance and self-confidence, all that is then poured on it, runs over into the gulf of self-conceit and self- sufficiency. If he relies on his own wisdom and strength, especially in the prospect of difficult duties, then he must not think it strange if he should soon become discouraged and disconsolate. When he presumes to rest on the acting of his faith, rather than upon the glorious Object of his faith, and to draw consolation from that acting, rather than from this Object, he so far prefers the act before the Object, and he then becomes guilty of idolatry. Psa 16.4 But when at length he begins in his practical judgment, to habitually prefer receiving all his strength and comfort directly from Christ, and not to have them in and of himself (even if he would), his consolation by Christ will continue and even abound.
10. Christians deprive themselves of holy consolation by their indolence in the exercise of graces, and in the performance of duties.
We read in the Song of Solomon, Sng 5.2-6 that the Church lost the comfort of a gracious visit from Christ, by her sluggishness. This disposed her to neglect entertaining Him as kindly as she ought to, and as the kindness of His manifestation of himself required. When any of the saints by “joy and peace in believing, and by rejoicing in hope,” Rom 15.13 have found that “there is great reward in keeping His commandments,” Psa 19.11 and yet afterwards they become slothful in the service of Christ, counting his yoke uneasy and His burden heavy, “shall He not punish for these things?” Jer 5.29 They need not wonder that they lose their sense of His favour, when they are conscious that
they often pray for his grace as if they had not prayed — when by their criminal indifference and the coldness of their petitions, they show that they don’t care much whether these are granted or not.If they were duly concerned at the welfare of their souls, they would frequently refresh them by exercising holy meditation and faith, just as they refresh their bodies by receiving food three times or more per day. Diligence in holy exercises and moral duties is not only a debt to the Lord, but a privilege to believers themselves. And therefore, by being slothful they reveal at once injustice and unkindness; a contempt for the glorious Majesty of heaven, and a neglect of His redeeming mercy.
When the Saviour draws near and they don’t regard it, when He knocks and they don’t open, it is indeed high time that He chastises their negligence and rouses them to diligence by withholding the comfort of His gracious visits from them. 56 It is equitable as well as reasonable that the consequence of spiritual sloth should be a loss of sensible consolation. Accordingly, in the administration of the covenant of grace, an intimate connection is established between diligence in holy duties, and the fruition of spiritual comforts. The indolent Christian cannot retain tranquility of mind Heb 6.11
— what heavenly consolation he must lose, for instance, by his criminal inattention to the precious promises of God, and even to the daily dispensations of His holy providence to him! If his love which was once an ascending flame, becomes a feeble spark; if his penitential sorrow which once overflowed all its banks, like the Jordan, becomes “like a brook in summer;” if his zeal which formerly ate him up, is devoured by leanness or declension; if one who in times past could not “give sleep to his eyes nor slumber to his eyelids,” Psa 132.4 till Jesus gave rest to his soul,” can now lie down securely with contracted guilt in his conscience; and if one who formerly was diligent in spiritual exercise and holy obedience, becomes remiss and regardless — he thereby makes a wide breach for the entrance of spiritual trouble.
It is indeed mercifully appointed, as well as wisely, that when he becomes indolent, his comfort should decline, in order that he may in time perceive that he is in a languishing condition; and that without delay he may entreat the Lord Jesus to restore his soul. Besides, if the Lord did not on such occasions, withdraw Himself, then the Christian would not prize His gracious presence highly, nor think it as comfortable as it is.Believer,do not then be slothful in business; but be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” Rom 12.11 See that your soul is vigorous and active in His holy service, by the grace that is received daily from the fulness of Christ. Ecc 9.10 Always be diligent in attempting the exercise of grace, in using the means of grace, and in doing every good work in the strength of promised grace. If persons linger on a journey, they are sometimes overtaken by darkness. If you become slothful in exercising your graces or in performing your duties, don’t wonder if you begin to walk in darkness. Be on your guard continually, then, against every appearance of inward declension, and especially against slothfulness in the exercise of direct confidence in Christ, and of private prayer.
11. 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 to entertain for a season a light esteem of the counsels, ordinances, promises, influences, or comforts of the blessed Spirit — when they receive these, but not gratefully, or they 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 consider himself dishonoured if his proclamations, pardons, or favours, were not 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 those who are the subjects of the Spirit’s gracious influences, and the objects of His peculiar favour, do not consider His word their treasure, His promises their joy, His Sabbaths their delight, and His consolations their felicity, then to that extent they treat Him with indignity. And the more exalted and glorious the adorable Spirit is, the more sinful the indignity is which is thereby offered to Him. Besides, if in their practical judgment, they prefer mean and even sinful objects, before the great things of the Spirit — such as preferring the wisdom and the maxims of the world, before His counsels; the comforts and pleasures of the world, before His consolations; the riches and honours of the world, before the honour of holy conformity to Him, and intimate communion with Him — then thereby they offer an infinite affront to his glorious Majesty. For what greater dishonour can they reflect upon the holy and blessed Spirit, than to show greater practical regard for a creature, for a vain creature, indeed for an enemy, than for Him!
Ah! when a Christian’s desire for 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, for a season, he should be taught the worth of these inestimable blessings, by the lack of them. Or when he takes little account of the offers and promises of the blessed gospel, by constantly poring upon the sins of his heart and of his life, and setting the demerit of these, as it were, in battle-array against the merit of the great Redeemer’s consummate righteousness — 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 8.6 Endeavour without delay, to attain a more spiritual and clearer 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. Thus you will be exempted from those frequent and galling disappointments which can only render the life of a believer uncomfortable. Psa 146.5 If you were to love your redeeming God so much as to habitually come before Him in his ordinances, with delight in Him, and go away with desire for Him, then you would always retain the comfort of communion with him.Psa 37.4; 71.21
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Post by Admin on Aug 21, 2023 18:32:32 GMT -5
12. 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 for something which the Lord sees 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.” Jas 4.3 If they pray, for instance, that as much grace might be given them at once as would be sufficient for them their entire life-time; Joh 4.15 if they peremptorily ask for 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; 2Cor 12.8 and if they pray absolutely for a certain measure of the good things of this life — then the Lord will not, and indeed cannot, in mercy to them, grant such petitions.
Often, the consequence is that after having waited perhaps a long time 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, refuses to come for their salvation in that particular way, and at that very time, 2Kng 5.11 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 likewise gratified in this, they sometimes begin to yield to discouraging and desponding thoughts. Thus they presume to limit the holy One of Israel, who has resolved to act as an infinite
Sovereign in his manner of bringing all his saints to glory. If they would retain spiritual consolation, believers would do well to consider that it is only petitions for things that are unnecessary, and even hurtful to then, that the Lord refuses to grant; that He never denies any of them without a sufficient reason; that He sometimes condescends to show them the reason; 2Cor 12.8-9 that He never refuses except when they ask what is not good, or rather, what is not best for them at the time referred to; and that although they don’t receive what they come for, He yet allows them what is sufficient to bear their charges in coming and going, and He invites them to come again.
They should also 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 you would be comforted from time to time, with answers of peace to your prayers, then offer up to the Lord no unwarrantable desires; no desires except for things which are agreeable to His revealed will; and no desires except in the name of Christ, and by the help of the Spirit. Ask nothing for the purpose of consuming it on your pleasures.Jas 4.3 Always regulate your petitions by the promises of the everlasting covenant.These comprise all that is good for you in time and through eternity, and infinitely more than you are able to ask or think. Eph 3,20
13. They procure for themselves the loss of holy comfort by yielding for a season to those temptations which urge them to attempt things in religion that are impracticable. When Satan perceives that he cannot persuade the Christian to live in the neglect of any known duty, especially the young and inexperienced Christian, 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 delights in requiring difficult duties — duties which must be performed speedily and on pain of incurring His infinite displeasure; that like a tyrannical ruler who makes laws in order to ensnare his subjects, the Lord commands duties which are oppressive, and does it with unrelenting rigour; and 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, and that the yoke of Christ is hard. Apprehending the Lord Jesus to be a rigorous Master, and being under the prevalence of slavish fear, 1Joh 4.18 he performs even the easiest of his duties without courage, without affection, and even with aversion. His comfort is accordingly destroyed, his heart is dejected, and his hands are weakened.
Moreover, Satan sometimes urges him to attempt doing several things at once, which he well knows is impossible. And the moment the saint yields to this temptation, his heart begins to be so divided, his thoughts so perplexed, and his attention 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 it 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.” Luk 10.41 The great rule of every duty is this: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” Ecc 9.10 That is, let your heart be wholly intent upon and occupied with that one duty while you are performing it.
Otherwise,indeed, it cannot be performed either acceptably or comfortably. The tempter will also 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 to rightly discharge some other duty, 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 prayer closet, as to have no opportunity for some other duty that is equally necessary; or to spend so much time in some duty respecting their secular affairs, as to have almost no opportunity for those holy and necessary exercises. In proportion to a good man yielding 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 should daily trust, as well as pray, that the Lord Jesus, who is given “for a leader to the people,” “would according to his promise, Isa 58.11 guide him continually to that which is his present duty, in preference to every other. And when he discerns his present duty, he should resolutely dispatch that duty in the faith of the promise, and then proceed to his next duty in the same manner. Let him diligently perform every act of obedience in its proper season. And that he may have opportunity for every one of them, let him so redeem his time as to spend no time in idleness, or in doing anything except that which his conscience pronounces to be his present duty. Eph 5.15-16
14. Believers forfeit the continuance of their spiritual comfort by the commission of gross and atrocious transgressions — of those sins which 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 63.10 By such iniquities, they wound and waste their own consciences at the same time. When a holy man presumes to resemble the men of this world so as to commit but one of the sins
mentioned in 1Cor 6.9-10, 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 he 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 for a long season, to Divine desertion in respect even to quickening and purifying influences. We know also that Peter’s denial of his blessed Lord rendered him very disconsolate for a time.
If a good man, then — instigated either by corruption within, or by temptation from without — allows himself not only to contemplate with desire, but to actually fall into any of those enormities which are termed by one apostle “the works of the flesh,” Gal 5.19-21 and by another, “the pollutions of the world,” 2Pet 3.20 then 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 continual supplies of sanctifying grace; prayer without ceasing and without fainting; watchfulness in 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.
15. 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 sins that are exposed to the view of others, and thereby grieves, offends, or stumbles 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. In this way, He frequently embitters those sins to his people, by which they have offended others, and 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, you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.” 2Sam 12.14 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.” If blasphemy is justly allowed to be a most atrocious crime, doubtless it must be a heinous iniquity to give occasion for it, especially in any of the children of God. When at any time they fall openly into dishonesty, pride, passion, 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 procure for believers the loss of spiritual comfort, as much as more enormous evils do that are committed in secret.
“For the iniquity of his covetousness,” says Jehovah, “I was angry and struck him: I hid myself, and was angry.” Isa 57.17 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, like Moses, they break the tablets 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 of outward trouble. By presuming to sin openly, they not only offend and grieve the Holy Spirit, but they 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 2.19
16. Lastly, Believers procure for themselves the loss of holy comfort by relapsing often into the same sin. Whatever sin it is, and however strong the temptation to it is, 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 prevalence of corruption and the power of temptation, he allows himself to so resemble the secure hypocrite, as to use the smallest encouragement from the riches of redeeming grace in Christ, to repeat the same offence. By his daring to do so, he “makes Christ the minister of sin.” Gal 2.17 He practically represents the holy Jesus and his great salvation as leaving him still under the dominion of sin— indeed, as affording him encouragement to practise iniquity. Besides this, by relapsing often into the same transgression, the Christian practically declares that he still loves and has pleasure in that sin.Now, by loving what is inexpressibly hateful, and which the Lord hates with infinite abhorrence; and by counting that thing pleasant to his taste, which is the bitterest of all things, 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 math, 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 the greatest of all evils; and that his having fallen again and again into the same offence, after he had received the forgiveness of sins, renders his sin exceedingly sinful. And after he has been chastened with outward affliction for his disobedience, he nevertheless turns again to the same offence, Pro24.16 this will, if infinite mercy doesn’t prevent it, inevitably expose him to inward distress, which is inexpressibly more dreadful and intolerable. Ah! when a man, who has believed through grace, presumes to cast a propitious eye upon some easily besetting sin, and to secretly say, “Isn’t it a little one? and my soul will live” — he is not aware how effectually he thereby robs his soul of holy comfort. If after having often complained to the Lord about his unbelief, pride, self-confidence, deadness, frowardness, censoriousness, and other evils, he is still ready on almost every occasion to gratify them, if not to excuse and vindicate them, doesn’t he hereby resemble the hypocrite? And isn’t it proper that he should for a season be deprived of the comfort of seeing that he is a sincere believer? And also that he should be left under the prevalence of perplexing fears that up to now he has been, and at present still is but a hypocrite?
I do not say that a man’s relapsing for a time, again and again into the same transgression, proves him to be a hypocrite. For God has nowhere promised such a degree of strength to his people during their state of imperfection, that it will set them beyond the possibility of relapsing for a season into the same offences. But I affirm that a true Christian’s doing so, makes him appear very like a hypocrite, obscures his evidences of sincerity, renders his condition inexpressibly dreadful, and exposes him to a very severe chastisement. Believer, if this is your present condition, O apply, and without delay, plead this gracious promise, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely.” Hos 14.4 And in the faith of it, watch and strive with holy resolution, especially against “the sin, which so easily besets you.” Heb 12.1 Know that your redeeming God has made an unalterable, an eternal separation, between the love of sin and the joy of salvation. O endeavour diligently to become eminent, especially in that grace which is more immediately the opposite of your constitutional sin. Would you wish to keep down doubts and fears, and to keep up faith and comfort? Then shun, O shun every occasion, and every appearance, especially of that sin. 1The 5.22 Be persuaded that the pleasure of overcoming even the most easily besetting sin, is inconceivably greater than the pleasure of committing it.[/font][/font][/b]
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Post by Admin on Aug 22, 2023 15:51:15 GMT -5
Reflections
FROM the foregoing particulars, the disconsolate believer may plainly see that he has none to blame but himself, for his loss of holy consolation, When he is bewailing his lack of peaceful tranquility, or of holy joy, he must complain of none but himself. It is he himself that takes, and even forces away his own comfort. For by his aggravated sins, he has rendered it necessary for the Lord to hide His face from him.
Indeed, he never sins against God without sinning against his own soul at the same time. We read in the Scriptures, that we must forgive our enemies, but never in express terms that we must forgive our friends. The iniquities of God’s own people are the most provoking to Him. And though he has forgiven them all as to the guilt of eternal wrath, yet as in the case of Moses, He may refuse to forgive some of them in respect to the guilt of paternal anger. The iniquity of others “is marked before Him;” but “the sin of Judah, is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond.” Jer 17.1
The friends of Christ, then, must be ever on their guard against sin, especially against willful sin. Sinning willfully will assuredly weaken their hands, and bring trouble into their consciences. Does a good man forfeit his holy comfort by making his graces, performances, or lively frames, his ground of a right to trust in Jesus
for salvation? Then he should learn from this the need that he has to daily exercise himself in mortifying the legal spirit which remains in him. It is this that prompts him to make his graces and duties into a warrant to renew his actings of trust in the Saviour, and thereby to forfeit the comfort of his soul. Next to unbelief itself, his legal temper is perhaps the worst enemy of his pure consolation. It is a secret and subtle foe that seems to intend a kindness for him; and yet it always sets him upon seeking some good qualifications in himself, on the ground of which he may trust that God loves him, and that Christ saves him. Let him therefore, if he would retain spiritual comfort, be diligent in mortifying his self-righteous spirit; and know that the way to conquer and destroy it is, by faith, to bring daily into his conscience a better hope from a better righteousness than that of the law. All the spiritual distress of the exercised Christian, may be traced to a legal spirit in him. He seldom lacks comfort, except by looking more or less to his own righteousness, instead of looking away to the consummate righteousness of Jesus Christ. Believer, it is not sufficient, in order to maintain spiritual comfort, that you simply not rely on your graces and performances for a title to eternal life. You must not presume to rely on them for even so much as a
right to trust in Christ. You must not make them the smallest part of your warrant to renew your exercise of confidence in Him.
Again: Do believers lose their holy consolation by living upon their comfort, rather than upon the holy Comforter himself, and by loving the former as much as or more than the latter? They may perceive from this, that it is sinful and very displeasing to the Lord to rely upon the comfort already given to them; or to love consolation in the streams, more than, or even as much as, comfort in the Fountain. He takes sensible comfort away from them, because they have loved it inordinately or too much; and because He would effectually teach them the necessity of loving the adorable Comforter Himself, more than all the sweet consolation which they have received from Him. They must not expect that “the God of all comfort,” will allow them to let their love run waste upon their pleasant feelings. He will elevate it all to Himself. Because he loves them, he will so chasten them as to teach them to love Himself supremely, and to live upon Himself in the absence of sensible delights. He will teach them to love Him more for that boundless ocean which is in Himself, than for the few drops which he has shed upon them — more for His own infinite benignity, than for the grace or comfort which he has communicated to them. He will thereby show them, at the same time, how weak their love of Him is, when they love him chiefly for the comfort which they have received from Him; and how weak their faith is, when they live upon the streams rather than upon the overflowing Fountain of consolation.
Further: By their aggravated offences, do believers provoke the Lord at any time to so hide His face from them, as to leave them in the dark respecting the truth of grace in their hearts? It then follows that, although grace is always in the heart of a holy man, yet he is not always able to discern it there. His heart is always the seat of the principles and habits of grace; and yet he does not continually enjoy the comfort of perceiving them. The figures of a sundial continue to be plainly marked upon it, and yet we cannot see what hour of the day it is unless the sun shines upon it. It is only when graces are in exercise, and when the glorious Sun of righteousness shines upon them, that they can be seen. Therefore, don’t let any of the saints conclude that they never had, and that they do not now have, a well grounded assurance of their being in a state of grace, just because doubts about the truth of grace in them sometimes arise in their minds. Their assurance of a personal interest in Christ is well grounded and true, even if it is far from being perfect. Their graces themselves are imperfect; and therefore that assurance of sense which arises from the perception of them, must likewise be imperfect. Those believers who resolve never to rejoice till they attain perfect assurance, must resolve never to rejoice while they are in this world, They should consider that there are many degrees of real certainty below a perfect degree of it — and that they greatly injure themselves when they call their state of grace into question, whenever they do not clearly perceive their habits of grace.
Once more: Is it only by sinning against the high and holy One, that believers lose the comfort of communion with Him? Then they may discover from this, what reason they have to abhor, and with holy detestation, turn from all manner of sin. Their iniquity has not only pierced the incarnate Redeemer, and grieved the Holy Spirit, but it pierces themselves through with many sorrows. It is the worst enemy of their souls. It incessantly strives to rob them of their purest and sweetest joys. Let them therefore, without ceasing, strive against the motions, and mortify the members, of the body of sin that dwells in them. If they allow sin to dwell at ease in them, even for a moment, it will assuredly deprive them of their holy tranquility.
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