The Puritan's Dealings with Troubled Souls: 7

This is the seventh and final 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.  :  )

(c) The work of the Holy Spirit.
The Puritans taught that at times God Himself brings about this experience of desertion. They quoted and expounded Isaiah 50:10-11 in this connection and taught that "it is no new thing for the children and heirs of light sometimes to walk in darkness and for a time not to have any glimpse or gleam of light." At such a time the Christian may express himself in the words of Psalm 88, but he is also to stay himself upon God and await the gracious return of the Lord's known presence.

(d) Its purpose.
The purposes which God may have in mind in permitting these experiences may be summarised as follows:

a) To show God's power.
We need to be reminded that however long we have walked with God yet we are still kept only by His grace.
b) To cause a man to long for heaven.
In a time of desertion the Christian's desire for the unbroken fellowship of heaven itself may well be strengthened and increased.
If the desertion be such that the Christian falls into sin, its purpose may be
c) Chastisement.
The child of God is brought to deeper penitence and greater loathing of sin.
d) To reveal the Christian to himself.
He begins to see what a sinner he really is, and the depths to which he can sink.
e) To prevent worse sin.
The Christian may be so humbled by his fall into lesser sin that he avoids a greater sin into which he would otherwise have fallen.
If the desertion be such that the Christian loses the sense of God's favour, its purpose may be
f) To let him taste the fellowship of Christ's sufferings.
The Lord drank the cup when His Father forsook Him. "And that cup hath gone round among God's people ever since."
g) To cause him to feel the loss of the damned, and hence give him a real compassion for souls.
h) To prove to the Christian the reality of his love to God.
In some cases a man may feel himself utterly lost---and at that point cry out from his heart, "If it please the Lord to damn me, let me be damned---only let the Lord do that which pleases Him."
This is agony at the time, but afterwards the Christian realises that such prayer, putting God's good pleasure before his own eternal salvation, could come only from a renewed heart. And here is comfort and assurance indeed.
These gleanings from the Puritans are offered in all humility in the hope that we ourselves may better understand the varied experiences which are ours as God's children and Satan's enemies and that as we are called to be under-shepherds in Christ's flock, so we may be able to comfort others with the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God, to whose blessed name be glory. Amen.

Works:
Bolton: Directions for Right Comforting
Baxter: Right method for a Settled Peace of Conscience
T. Goodwin: A Child of Light walking in Darkness
Symonds: A Deserted Soul's Cause and Cure
Perkins: Works, vol. I
Owen: Exposition of Psalm 130
Sibbes: The Bruised Reed, and the Saint's Conflict.
Greenham: Grave Counsels
Gurnall: Christian in Complete Armour
Matthew Henry: Commentaries

The Puritan's Dealings with Troubled Souls: 6

This is the sixth 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) Direct attack of Satan.

The Puritans recognised the power and ubiquity of the forces of darkness. They recognised that Satan did indeed walk to and fro throughout the earth, that he was present at the most sacred moments, as when Joshua, the High Priest, stood before the Lord and yet had an adversary to resist him. Once again the basic doctrine of the Puritans affects their understanding of all other themes. They understood the full implications of the Fall and the depravity of human nature which has resulted therefrom. Satan, they said, has different modes of attack upon the child of God. First, they said, he can attack our reason. "On which," says Sibbes, "he worketh effectively because of his great ability to forge and invent false reasonings and arguments to overthrow our faith! Who, when young, outwitted our first parents when their reason was not depraved, but now he is grown 'that old serpent' and we are become 'children apt to be tossed too and fro.' Satan hath had time enough to improve his knowledge in! A student he is of five thousand years' standing that hath lost no time, but, as he is said to accuse day and night, so he is able to study both day and night: and he hath made it his chief, if not his whole, study to enable himself to tempt and plead against us. It is his trade. Therefore, as men are called lawyers or divines from their callings so he, the Tempter and the Accuser, from his employment. And by this, his long experience and observation he hath his set and composed machinations, his method of temptations which are studied and artificially moulded and ordered. Even such systems and methods as tutors and professors of arts and sciences have and do read over again and again to their auditors. The Apostle calls them darts, and he hath a whole shop and armoury of them ready made and forged, which are called the depths of Satan. Which depths, if in any point, are most to be found in this: for he is more especially versed in this great question and dispute---'whether a man be a child of God or no,' more than in any other. All other controversies he has had to deal with, but in particular ages as occasionally they were started, but this hath been the standing controversy of all ages since God hath had any children of earth. With every one of whom more or less he hath at one time or another had solemn disputes about it so as he knows all the advantages, windings, and turnings in this debate; all the objections and answers and discussions in it. Not only this, but he knows the several frames and temper of spirit of men as well as of their temptations. He knows all the several ranks and classes of men in the state of grace and according to their ranks with what sort of temptations  to encounter them, for even as the gifts and operations of the Spirit are many and varied so also are men's temptations. Further, he is able undiscernably to communicate all his false reasonings, tho' never so spiritual, which he doth forge invent and that in such a manner as to deceive us by them and to make them take with us."

Another mode of attack is an assault upon our conscience. Wonderful indeed is the Puritan understanding of this subtle and all important point. Any child of God who is spiritually alert understands only too well his own repeated failures. Because of these failures, there is a right sense of shame. The child of God has but to see in the word any sin delineated to realise its lurking presence in his own heart. This induces a sense of shame and Satan is quick to seize upon this and to use it for his own ends. There is a profound difference between the presence of sinful tendencies in a Christian's heart and the predominance and power of those tendencies. Should those tendencies result in sinful action---should they gain an uppermost place in the Christian's heart and thinking, then the Holy Spirit Himself will be quick to convict and induce a right sense of shame; but Satan will come to a Christian when those evil tendencies are still only lurking, subdued, in his mind, and Satan will accuse the Christian because of them and produce within him a sense of guilt which God does not want him to have. In this way he loses the sense of God's favour and presence and Satan's purpose is achieved. Here again we should notice the masterly way in which the Puritans were able to distinguish between the true convicting work of the Spirit and the spurious convicting of Satan. they saw that the more truly humble a man is , the more sensitive he is concerning the corruptions of his own heart, the more able Satan is to attack him along this line. And the Puritans knew when to administer comfort in all such cases.

Thus Satan is a most powerful foe, ever seeking to darken the soul of the child of God; and the child of God is helpless against him in his own strength. "None can take Satan off from a man but God. He must rebuke him: none else can. A poor soul fights with Satan in this darkness like unto a man that is assaulted by one that carries a dark lantern, who can see the assaulted and how to buffet him and follows him wherever he goes; whereas the poor man cannot see him or who it is that strikes him nor be aware how to ward the blow. Therefore the Apostle when buffeted by Satan knew not what to do but only to have recourse to God by prayer, for he could no more avoid or run away from these suggestions than from himself, nor could all the saints on earth any other way have freed him. None till God should cause him to depart."

The Puritan's Dealings with Troubled Souls: 5

This is the fifth 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.  :  )

C. It's Causes

The Puritans realised that this withdrawing of the realised presence of God could arise from a number of different causes which may, for our convenience, be grouped under three subheadings.

(a) Sin unrealised or unconfessed.

It is at this point that the Puritans show two things, first their own view of the seriousness and extent of sin and second their understanding of the strange and tortuous workings of the human mind. The Puritan pastor was not merely content that his people should reject sin in a general sense, he was always ready to particularise, and he found, as men have always found, that there is vast difference between a general acceptance of a principle and an acceptance of the detailed application of that principle. The Puritan pastors therefore made a point of detailing the ways in which their people might be falling into sin and did not hesitate to approach them and point out their failings. Not that they found this an easy task, nor did they find a ready acceptance of their reproofs or probings. Baxter comments ruefully that however gently and graciously a pastor admonishes or reproves an individual member of his flock, yet frequently his reproof is met with resentment rather than with amendment of life. Furthermore, the Puritan approach to this matter was never negative only; they recognised the seriousness of sins of omission as well as sins of commisssion, and they were quick to point out that failure to perform duty and failure to obey, in detail, the commandments of God was just as much sin as the more obvious forms. Here then was one of the most common causes of the loss of God's favour and gracious presence---unrealised sin.

The Puritans recognised further that sin mights be realised yet not confessed. Says Guernall, "Thou mayest, though a child of God, be under fresh guilt and defilement as yet unrepented of. Now in this case---God can shut His door upon His own child. As a saint, thou hast a right to all the promises of the covenant: but as a saint under guilt or the defilement of any sin that thou hast not yet repented of, thou art not fit to enjoy what thou hast a right to as a saint. God doth not disinherit thee indeed, but He sequesters the promise from thee, and the rents of it shall not be paid to thee till thou renewest thy repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus for the pardon of it. Thy God will choose a fitter time than this to signify His love to thee."

For this reason they laid much stress on the keeping of short accounts with God; let a man, they said, make his peace with God at the close of each day. Let him search his heart and conscience in the light of God's word, and let him be quick not only to recognise, but to confess and mourn for his sin. They saw, as few of us today have seen, all that was implied both antecently and subsequently by the prayer "Restore unto me the joy of my salvation."

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.