[1.] Sometimes then the children of God may be brought into total distresses of conscience, even with desperation, and, that which is more hideous, with blasphemy, if Mr Perkins his observation hold true, who tells us, ‘that they may be so overcharged with sorrow as to cry out they are damned, and to blaspheme God:’[354] and we have no reason to contradict it, when we observe how far David went in his haste more than once. And whatever may be the private differences betwixt these and the reprobates in their agonies—as differences there are, both in God’s design, and their hearts, though not visible—yet if we compare the fears, troubles, and speeches of the one and the other together, there appears little or no difference which bystanders can certainly fix upon. If it seems harsh to any that so horrid a thing as despair should be charged upon the elect of God, in the worst of their distresses, it will readily be answered: First, That if we suppose not this, we must suppose that which is worse. If we like not to say that God’s children may fall into despair, we must conclude, very uncharitably, that they that fall into despair are not God’s children. Second, It is easy to imagine a difference betwixt partial and total despair, betwixt imaginary and real. The children of God, under strong perturbation of spirit, may imagine themselves to do what they do not, and so may bear false witness against themselves—professing that all their hope of salvation is lost, when yet the root of their hope may still remain in their hearts undiscovered. The habit may be there when all visible acts of it are at present suspended, or so disguised in a crowd of confused expressions that they cannot be known; or, if they have real distrust of their salvation, yet every fit of real diffidence is not utter desperateness; neither will it denominate a man to be totally desperate, any more than every error, even about fundamentals, will denominate a man a heretic.[355] For as it must be a pertinacious error in fundamentals that makes a heretic, so it must be a pertinacious diffidence that makes a man truly desperate. Third, But sometimes the children of God have only partial distresses. That is, they may have a great measure of some of the ingredients, without mixture of the rest. Particularly, they may have a great measure of the sense of divine wrath and desertion, without desperation. The possibility of this is evident, beyond exception, in the example of our blessed Saviour, when he cried out, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ [Mat. xxvii. 46.] None can ascribe desperation to him without blasphemy; and if they should, the very words, ‘My God, my God’—expressing his full and certain hope—do expressly contradict them. Such an instance of spiritual distress without desperation I take Heman to be. How high his troubles were is abundantly testified in Ps. lxxxviii.; and yet that his hope was not lost appears not only by his prayer for relief in the general—for hope is not utterly destroyed where the appointed means for help are carefully used—but by the particular avouchment of his hope in God, in the first verses of that psalm, ‘O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee.’
(4.) The last difference of spiritual distresses which I shall observe is this, that some are more transient fits and flashes of terror under a present temptation, which endure not long; others are more fixed and permanent. The less durable distresses may be violent and sharp while they hold. Temptations of diffidence may strongly possess a child of God, and at first may not be repelled; and then before their faith can recover itself, they vent their present sad apprehensions of their estate, as Jonah did, chap. ii. 4, ‘I said, I am cast out of thy sight,’ Many such fits David had, and in them complained at this rate, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me? why castest thou off my soul?’ Ps. xxxi. 22, ‘I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes.’ Ps. cxvi. 11, ‘I said in my haste, All men are liars;’ which was a great height of distrust, and too boldly reflecting upon God’s faithfulness, considering the special promises that God had made to him. Such sharp fits were those of Bainham and Bilney, martyrs, whose consciences were so sorely wounded for recanting the truth which they professed, that they seemed to feel a very hell within them.
The more fixed distresses, as they are of longer continuance, so they are often accompanied with the very worst symptoms; for when in these agonies, no sun nor star of comfort appears to them for many days, all hope that they shall be saved seems to be taken away, [Acts xxvii. 20;] and being tired out with complaints and importunities, without any answer, they at last reject the use of means. Some have lain many years—as the paralytic man at the pool of Bethesda—without cure; some from their youth up, as Heman complains. Some carry their distresses to their death-bed, and it may be are not eased till their souls are ready to depart out of their bodies, and then they often end suddenly and comfortably. Some I could tell you of, who on their death-bed, after grievous terrors, and many outcries concerning their miseries of ‘blackness and darkness for ever,’ lay long silent; and then on a sudden brake out into raptures of joy and adoring admiration of the goodness of God, using that speech of the apostle, Rom. xi. 33, ‘Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!’ Others go out of the world in darkness, without any appearance of comfort. Such an instance was Mr Chambers, as the story of his death testifies, mentioned by Mr Perkins, in his treatise ‘Of Desertions,’ of whom this account is given: that in great agonies he cried out, ‘he was damned,’ and so died. The case of such is surely very sad to themselves, and appears no less to others; yet we must take heed of judging rashly concerning such. Nay, if their former course of life hath been uniformly good—for who will reject a fine web of cloth, as one speaks, for a little coarse list[356] at the end—especially if there be any obscure appearance of hope—as that expression of Mr Chambers, ‘Oh that I had but one drop of faith!’ is by Mr Perkins supposed to be—we ought to judge the best of them. We have seen the nature of spiritual distresses in the ingredients and differences thereof. We are now to consider,
2. Satan’s method in procuring them: which consists, (1.) In the occasions which he lays hold on for that end. (2.) In the arguments which he useth. (3.) In the working up of their fears, by which he confirms men in them.
(1.) As to the occasions, he follows much the same course which hath been described before in spiritual troubles; so that I need not say much, only I shall note two things:—
[1.] That it makes much for Satan’s purpose, if the party against whom he designs have fallen into some grievous sins. Sins of common magnitude do not lay a foundation suitable to the superstructure which he intends. He cannot plausibly argue reprobation or damnation from every ordinary sin; but if he finds them guilty of something extraordinary, then he falls to work with his accusations. The most usual sins which he takes advantage from, are, as Mr Perkins observes, those against the third, sixth, and seventh command; sometimes those against the ninth. Murder, adultery, perjury, and the wilful denial of truth against conscience, are the crimes upon which he grounds his charge, but most usually the last. Upon this, the distressed Spira, and some of the martyrs. As for the other, the more private they are, Satan hath oft the more advantage against them, because God’s secret and just judgment will by this means ‘bring to light the hidden things of darkness,’ [1 Cor. iv. 5,] and force their consciences to accuse them of that which no man could lay to their charge, that he might manifest himself to be ‘the searcher of the hearts, and trier of the reins,’ [Rev. ii. 23.] Thus have many been forced to disclose private murders, secret adulteries, and to vomit up, though with much pain and torture, that which they have by perjury or guile extorted from others.
[2.] Where Satan hath not these particular advantages, he doth endeavour to prepare men for distresses, by other troubles long continued. All men that are brought to despair of their happiness, must not be supposed to be greater sinners than others. Some are distressed with fears of eternal damnation, that are in a good measure able to make Job’s protestation in these cases, chap. xxxi. 9, &c., that their ‘heart hath not been deceived by a woman;’ that they have not laid wait at their neighbour’s door; that they have not lift up their hand against the fatherless, when they saw their help in the gate; that their land doth not cry against them, nor the furrows thereof complain; that when they saw the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, their heart hath not been secretly enticed, nor their mouth kissed their hand; that they rejoiced not in the destruction of him that hated them, nor lift up themselves when evil found him, &c. Notwithstanding all which, their fears are upon and prevail against them. But then before Satan can bring them to consent to such dismal conclusions against themselves, they must be extraordinarily fitted to take the impression; either tired out under great afflictions, or long exercised with fears about their spiritual estates, without intermixture of comfort or ease, or their faculties broken and weakened by melancholy. Any of these give him an advantage equivalent to that of great sins. For though he cannot say to these, Your sins are so enormous, that they are, considered themselves together with their circumstances, sad signs of reprobation; yet he will plead that God’s carriage towards them doth plainly discover that he hath wholly cast them off, and left them to themselves, without hope of mercy.
(2.) As for the arguments which he useth, they are much-what from the same topics which he maketh choice of in bringing on spiritual troubles. Only as he aims at the proof of a great deal more against God’s children, than that they are not converted; so accordingly he screws up his mediums for proof to a higher pin. His arguments are,
[1.] From scriptures wrested or misapplied. His choice of scriptures for this purpose, is of such places as either seem to speak most sadly the dangerous and fearful estate of men, according to the first view and literal representation of them, through the unskilfulness of those that are to be concerned; or of such places as do really signify the miserable unhappiness of some persons, who through their own fault have been cut off from all hope, and the possibility of the like to some others for the future. So that, in framing arguments from Scripture, the devil useth a twofold cunning. First, There are some scriptures which have the word damnation in them, applied to some particular acts and miscarriages of men, when yet their intendment is not such as the word seems to sound, or as he would make them to believe. Now when he catcheth a child of God in such acts as are there specified, if he finds that his ignorance or timorousness is such as may render the temptation feasible, he presently applies damnation to them, by the authority of those texts. For instance, that text of Rom. xiv. 23, hath been frequently abused to that end, ‘He that doubteth, is damned if he eat.’ The word ‘damned’ there, strikes deep with a weak, troubled Christian that is not skilful in the word of righteousness. For whether Satan apply it to sacramental eating, as sometimes he doth to the ignorant, though contrary to the purpose of the text, or to doubting in the general, he makes this conclusion out of it: ‘Thou doubtest, or thou hast eaten the sacrament doubtingly, therefore there is no hope for thee; thou art damned.’ Whereas all this while, the devil doth but play the sophister in the abuse of the signification of words. For that scripture evidently relates to the difference that then was in the church, about eating those meats that were unclean by Moses’s law; in which case the apostle doth positively declare, that the difference betwixt clean and unclean meats is taken away; so that a Christian might with all freedom imaginable eat those meats that were formerly unclean, with this proviso, that he were ‘fully persuaded in his own mind,’ [Rom. xiv. 5.] The necessity of which satisfaction, he proves from this, that otherwise he should offend his own conscience, which in that case must needs condemn him, and that is the damnation that is there spoken of; as is more evident by comparing this verse with the next foregoing, ‘Happy is he that condemneth not himself.’ But he that doubteth, doth condemn himself, because ‘he eats not of faith,’—that is, from full persuasion of the lawfulness of the thing. This scripture then hath nothing at all in it to the purpose for which Satan brings it. It doth not speak of any final sentence of condemnation passed upon a man for such an act; all and the utmost that it saith, is only this, that it is a sin to go against the persuasion of conscience, and consequently it puts no man further off salvation than any other sin may do; for which, upon repentance, the sinner may be pardoned.
Another text which Satan hath frequently abused, to the very great prejudice of many, is that of 1 Cor. xi. 29, ‘He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself.’ With this scripture he insults over the humble, fearful Christian, who is sensible of his unworthiness of so great a privilege. Sometimes he keeps him off long from the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, upon this very score that such an unworthy wretch ought not to make such near and familiar approaches to Christ. And if at last he is persuaded to partake of this ordinance, then, taking advantage of the party’s consciousness of his great vileness, and the very low thoughts which he entertains of himself, he endeavours to persuade him that now he hath destroyed himself for ever, and run upon his own irrecoverable damnation. Thus he pleads it, Can anything be more plain than that thou hast eaten and drunken unworthily? Thy own conscience tells thee so; and can anything be more positively asserted than this, that he that doth so, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself? What then canst thou think of thyself, but that thou art a damned wretch? Neither do I speak barely what may be supposed Satan would say in this matter, but what may be proved by many instances he hath said and urged upon the consciences of the weak, who have from hence concluded, to the great distress of their souls, that by unworthy receiving of the sacrament they have sealed up their own condemnation; and all this by abusing and perverting the sense of this text. For the unworthy receiving doth relate to the miscarriages which he had taxed before, and it implies a careless, profane eating; such as might plainly express the small or unworthy esteem that they had in their hearts for that ordinance. And the damnation there threatened is not final and irrevocable damnation, but temporal judgment; as the apostle himself doth explain it in the next verses; ‘For this cause many are sickly.... And if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged.’ That is, as he further explains it, we should not be thus chastened or afflicted; and the word translated ‘damnation’ doth signify judgment—κρῖμα. At the furthest, if we should take it for the condemnation of hell, all that is threatened would be no more than this: that such have deserved, and God in justice might inflict the condemnation of hell for such an offence; which is not only true of this sin but of all others, which still do admit of the exception of repentance. All this while this is nothing to the poor humbled sinner, that judgeth himself unworthy in his most serious examination and greatest diligence. Satan here plays upon the unexactness of the translation, and the ignorance of the party in criticisms; for it is not every one that can readily answer such captious arguments.