“Ye now have sorrow: But I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” John 16:22.
1. After God had wrought a great deliverance for Israel, by bringing them out of the house of bondage, they did not immediately enter into the land which he had promised to their fathers; but “wandered out of the way in the wilderness,” and were variously tempted and distressed. In like manner, after God has delivered them that fear him from the bondage of sin and Satan; after they are “justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus,” yet not many of them immediately enter into “the rest which remaineth for the people of God.” The greater part of them wander, more or less, out of the good way into which he hath brought them. They come, as it were, into a “waste and howling desert,” where they are variously tempted and tormented: And this, some, in allusion to the case of the Israelites, have termed “a wilderness state.”
2. Certain it is, that the condition wherein these are has a right the tenderest compassion. They labour under an evil and sore disease; though one that is not commonly understood; and for this very reason it is the more difficult for them to find a remedy. Being in darkness themselves, they cannot be supposed to understand the nature of their own disorder; and few of their brethren, nay, perhaps, of their teachers, know either what their sickness is, or how to heal it. So much the more need there is to inquire, First, What is the nature of this disease Secondly, What is the cause and, Thirdly, What is the cure of it
I. 1. And, First, what is the nature of this disease, into which so many fall after they have believed Wherein does it properly consist; and what are the genuine symptoms of it It properly consists in the loss of that faith which God once wrought in their heart. They that are in the wilderness, have not now that divine “evidence,” that satisfactory conviction “of things not seen,” which they once enjoyed. They have not now that inward demonstration of the Spirit which before enabled each of them to say, “The life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” The light of heaven does not now “shine in their hearts,” neither do they “see him that is invisible;” but darkness is again on the face of their souls, and blindness on the eyes of their understanding. The Spirit no longer “witnesses with their spirits, that they are the children of God;” neither does he continue as the Spirit of adoption, “crying” in their hearts, “Abba, Father.” They have not now a sure trust in his love, and a liberty of approaching him with holy boldness. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,” is no more the language of their heart; but they are shorn of their strength, and become weak and feeble-minded, even as other men.
2. Hence, Secondly, proceeds the loss of love; which cannot but rise or fall, at the same time, and in the same proportion, with true, living faith. Accordingly, they that are deprived of their faith, are deprived of the love of God also. They cannot now say, “Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee.” They are not now happy in God, as everyone is that truly loves him. They do not delight in him as in time past, and “smell the odour of his ointments.” Once, all their “desire was unto him, and to the remembrance of his name;” but now even their desires are cold and dead, if not utterly extinguished. And as their love of God is waxed cold, so is also their love of their neighbour. They have not now that zeal for the souls of men, that longing after their welfare, that fervent, restless, active desire of their being reconciled to God. They do not feel those “bowels of mercies” for the sheep that are lost, — that tender “compassion for the ignorant, and them that are out of the way.” Once they were “gentle toward all men,” meekly instructing such as opposed the truth; and, “if any was overtaken in a fault, restoring such an one in the spirit of meekness:” But, after a suspense, perhaps of many days, anger begins to regain its power; yea, peevishness and impatience thrust sore at them that they may fall; and it is well if they are not sometimes driven, even to “render evil for evil and railing for railing.”
3. In consequence of the loss of faith and love, follows, Thirdly, loss of joy in the Holy Ghost. For if the loving consciousness of pardon be no more, the joy resulting therefrom cannot remain. If the Spirit does not witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, the joy that flowed from that inward witness must also be at an end. And, in like manner, they who once “rejoiced with joy unspeakable,” “in hope of the glory of God,” now they are deprived of that “hope full of immortality,” are deprived of the joy it occasioned; as also of that which resulted from a consciousness of “the love of God,” then “shed abroad in their hearts.” For the cause being removed, so is the effect: The fountain being dammed up, those living waters spring no more to refresh the thirsty soul.