The Puritan's Dealings with Troubled Souls: 3

This is the third part of an essay written by G. A. Hemming, taken from the collection of essays called "The Puritan Papers". This essay is from volume 1 in that series. Enjoy.  :  )

Let us now assume that the Puritan pastor is satisfied that the man who has approached him in distress is neither unregenerate nor melancholic. He now considered

3. The Genuine Spiritual Distress of the Genuine Child of God

This is the main theme of our present study, and we examine it under four headings:

A. Its Reality

It is impossible to read any of the Puritans, better or lesser known, without coming across some reference to this subject. A few quotations will illustrate: thus "Among all the works of God's eternal counsel there is none more wonderful than His Desertion: which is nothing else but an action of God forsaking His creature---that is, by taking away the grace and operation of His Spirit from His creature." Or again "The blessings that God bestoweth on His own elect children are of two sorts, positive and privative. Positive are real graces wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God. Privative are such means whereby God preserves men from falling into sin, as crosses and desertions: and these in number exceed the first as long as men live in the world." Or again "the man Christ is the blessed channel betwixt the fountain and the cistern through which grace, life, peace, strength, glory come by a gracious and glorious convoy; every vessel shall have its fullness to all eternity; sometimes indeed the streams come fuller, and sometimes slower; sometimes Christ stayeth the current that we may thirst, that after thirsting, we may drink again with redoubled pleasure." Or, yet again, "This is the main of a godly man's unhappiness---that he neither has a full nor a fixed state of comfortable communion with God in the world. After sweet meetings come sad partings." These quotations are given because it is so necessary to insist on this point. Nowadays the Christian is taught often that he should look forward to a life of unbroken victory, joy, and happiness, as not merely desirable, not only attainable, but actually obligatory for him in this life; not so the Puritans. They recognised that quite the reverse is the Christian's portion, and quoted such verses as Isaiah 49:14, "And Zion said, 'the Lord has forsaken me and my God has forgotten me.'" in support of their views: and lest it should be argued that Zion merely feels forsaken but is not actually so, they quote such verses as Isaiah 54:7, where God Himself is the speaker and says, "For a small moment have I forsaken Thee." i.e., God confirms that we do not merely feel deserted: we are deserted.

Yet, the Puritans, "though God deserts His people really yet He does not desert them totally." "The Lord will forsake His People for His great name's sake," 1 Samuel 12:22; and the Puritans interpolated the word "totally" or "finally" between "not" and "forsake." Thus, they argued, desertions are not the interruptions of God's love, they are rather the acts of God's love. God's love of benevolence or intention remains ever unchanged, but God's love of benificence or execution does change. It is these considerations which give rise to the complaints of the saints, either that God does not carry on the spiritual life as He was wont, or that He gives not that peace, joy, comfort, assurance as he was wont; or that He brings them into ourward straits and does not deliver them. The Christian finds that the tenure of grace and peace is not the same.