The Puritan's Dealings with Troubled Souls: 4

This is the fourth 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.  :  )

B. Its Seriousness
The Puritan recognised that few worse things could befall a child of God than to lose the sense of God's gracious presence. Thus, says one, "And when it's thus with you, that you have declined in your acquaintance with God, and in your apprehension of the sinfulness of sin, the beauty of holiness, the excellency of Christ, the preciousness of the Covenant, you have cause to sit down and weep, for you have not so much of God in you as you have had." Or again, "This unbelief and atheism is a rock which the Saints, the most part of them, do strike upon at one time or another, but it's a dreadful evil." They recognised that God does not merely withhold His light from His own children when they are turning away from Him and trifling with sin. When a child of God is truly walking in God's ways, and when his witness is wholly pleasing unto God, yet still God may withhold His light from His child: and that, they felt, was a most serious and dreadful thing to experience. One of the Puritans gives this most moving illustration: "Robert Glover, martyr at Coventry, being condemned by his Bishop and now at point to be delivered out of this world, it so happened that two or three days before his death, his heart being lumpish and desolate of all spiritual consolation, felt in himself no aptness or willingness to lay down his life, but rather a heaviness and dullness of spirit. Whereupon he feared in himself that the Lord had withdrawn His wonted favour from him. He confided to his friend Austin, who counselled patience and assured him that the Lord would indeed return in all His brightness. Glover continued, therefore, in meekness and patience, and on the day of his death, as he was going to the place of martyrdom, he was so replenished with the Holy Ghost that he cried out, clapping his hands to Austin and saying with these words, 'Austin, His is come, His is come,' and that with such joy and alacrity as one seeming to be risen from some deadly danger to liberty of life than one passing out of the world by any pains of death."
To illustrate God's withdrawing of Himself in sin the Puritans turn to such examples as Noah's drunkenness, David's adultery, and Peter's denial of His Lord; incidentally, on the last incident Sibbes has a pungent comment; he refers to Peter as a bruised reed, and he add, "Peter was bruised when he wept bitterly. This reed, till he met with this bruise, had more wind in him than pith."
All this springs out of the basic Puritan theme of the complete sovereignty of God; no man, even though he be regenerate, can keep himself from sin, and if God for any reason withholds His supporting grace, then that man immediately falls.