It is frequently an effect of divine withdrawal
that the mind becomes grovelling and earthly.
Covetousness and love of riches attain a sad pre
ponderance. The Lord will hide himself if we
love the world ; and, on the other hand, his ab
sence, which is intended for far other purposes,
will sometimes, through the infirmity of our na
ture, increase the evil which it is intended to cure.
When the Lord Jesus is present in the soul, and is
beheld by it, ambition, covetousness, and worldli-
ness flee apace ; for such is his apparent glory that
earthly objects fade away like the stars in noon
day ; but when he is gone they will show their
false glitter, as the stars, however small, will shine
at midnight. Find a Christian whose soul cleaveth
to the dust, and who careth for the things of this
life, and you have found one who has had but
little manifest fellowship with Jesus. As sure as
ever we undervalue the Saviour s company, we
shall set too high an estimate upon the things of
this life, and then bitterness and disappointment
are at the door.



368 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUB.

At this juncture, moreover, the great enemy of
souls is peculiarly lusy ; our extremity is his op
portunity, and he is not backward in availing him
self of it. Now that Zion s Captain has removed
his royal presence, the evil one concludes that he
may deal with the soul after the devices of his own
malicious heart. Accordingly, with many a roar
and hideous yell, he seeks to affright the saint;
and if this suffices not, he lifts his arm of terror and
hurls his fiery dart. As lions prowl by night, so
doth he seek his prey in the darkness. The saint
is now more than usually beneath his power;
every wound from the envenomed dart festers and
gangrenes more easily than at other times ; while
to the ear of the troubled one the bowlings of Satan
seem to be a thousand times louder than he had
ever heard before. Doubts of our calling, our
election, and adoption, fly into our souls like the
flies into Pharaoh s palace, and all the while the
grim fiend covers us with a darkness that may be
felt. Had he attacked us in our hours of commu
nion, we would soon have made him feel the metal
of our swords ; but our arm is palsied, and our
strokes are like blows from the hand of a child,
rather exciting his laughter than his fear. Oh for
the days when we put to flight the armies of the
aliens! would to God we could again put on
strength, and by the arm of the Lord o erthrow the
hosts of hell ! Like Samson we sigh for the hair



JESUS HIDING HIMSELF.

in which our great strength lieth ; and when the
shouts of the vaunting Philistines are in our ears,
we cry for the strength which once laid our ene
mies "heaps upon heaps" by thousands. "We
must again enjoy the manifest presence of the
Lord, or we shall have hard work to lift up a
standard against the enemy.

It is not an unusual circumstance to find sin
return upon the conscience at this critical season.

" Now the heart, disclos d, betrays

All its hid disorders ;
Enmity to God s right ways,

Blasphemies and murders :
Malice, envy, lust, and pride,

Thoughts obscene and filthy,
Sores corrupt and putrefied,

No part sound or healthy.

" All things to promote our fall,

Show a mighty fitness ;
Satan will accuse withal,

And the conscience witness ;
Foes within, and foes without,

Wrath, and law, and terrors ;
Rash presumption, timid doubt,

Coldness, deadness, errors." *

When Israel had the sea before them, and the
mountains on either hand, their old masters

* Hart.

16*



370 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUK.

thought it a fit time to pursue them ; and now that
the believei is in great straits, his former sins rise
up to afflict him and cause him renewed sorrow :
then, moreover, our sins become more formidable
to us than they were at our first repentance ; when
we were in Egypt we saw not the Egyptians upon
horses and in chariots they only appeared as our
task-masters with their whips ; but now we see
them clad in armour as mighty ones, full of wrath,
bearing the instruments of death. The pangs of
sin, when the Lord forsakes us, are frequently as
vehement as at first conversion, and in some cases
far more so ; for conviction of having grieved
a Saviour whose love we have once known, and
whose faithfulness we have proved, will cause grief
of a far more poignant character than any other
order of conviction. Men who have been in a
room full of light, think the darkness more dense
than it is considered to be by those who have long
walked in it ; so pardoned men think more of the
evil of sin than those who never saw the light.

The deserted soul has little or no liberty in
grayer : he pursues the habit from a sense of duty,
but it yields him no delight. In prayer the spirit
is dull and languid, and after it the soul feels no
more refreshment than is afforded to the weary by
a sleep disturbed with dreams and broken with
terrors. He is unable to enter into the spirit of
worship ; it is rather an attempt at devotion than



JESUS HIDING HIMSELF. 371

the attainment of it. As when the bird with
broken wing strives to mount, and rises a little dis
tance, but speedily falls to the ground, where it
painfully limps and flaps its useless pinion so does
the believer strive to pray, but fails to reach the
height of his desires, and sorrowfully gropes his
way with anguishing attempts to soar on high. A
pious man once said " Often when in prayer I
feel as if I held between my palms the fatherly
heart of God, and the bloody hand of the Lord
Jesus ; for I remind the one of his divine love and
inconceivable mercies, and I- grasp the other by
his promise, and strive to hold him fast and say,
* I will not let thee go except thou bless me. 3 " *
But when left by the Lord such blessed nearness
of access is impossible ; there is no answer of
peace, no token for good, no message of love. The
ladder is there, but no angels are ascending and
descending upon it ; the key of prayer is in the
hand, but it turns uselessly within the lock.
Prayer without the Lord s presence is like a bow
without a string, or an arrow without a head.

The Bible, too, that great granary of the finest
wheat, becomes a place of emptiness, where hun
ger looks in vain for food : in reading it, the dis
tressed soul will think it to be all threatenings and
no promises ; he will see the terrors written in

* Gen. xxxii. 26.



372 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUR.

capitals, and the consolations printed in a type so
small as to be almost illegible. Kead the Word
he must, for it has become as necessary as his
food ; but enjoy it he cannot, for its savour has
departed. As well might we try. to read in the
dark as to get joy from Holy Scripture unless
Christ shall pour his gracious light upon the page.
As the richest field yields no harvest without rain,
so the book of revelation brings forth no comfort
without the dew of the Spirit.

Our intercourse with Christian friends, once so
enriching, is rendered profitless, or at best its only
usefulness is to reveal our poverty by enabling us
to compare our own condition with that of other
saints. We cannot minister unto their edification,
nor do we feel that their company is affording us
its usual enjoyment ; and it may be we turn away
from them, longing to see His face whose absence
we deplore. This barrenness overspreads all the
ordinances of the Lord s house, and renders them
all unprofitable. When Christ is with the Chris
tian, the means of grace are like flowers in the sun
shine, smelling fragrantly and smiling beauteously ;
but without Christ they are like flowers by night,
their fountains of fragrance are sealed by the dark
ness. The songs of the temple shall be howlings
in that day, and her solemn feasts as mournful as
her days of fasting. The sacred supper which,
when Christ is at the table, is a feast of fat things,



JESUS HIDING HIMSELF. 373

without him is as an empty vine. The holy con
vocation without Him is as the gatherings of the
market, and the preaching of his Word as the
shoutings of the streets. We hear, but the out
ward ear is the only part affected ; we sing, but

" Hosannahs languish on our tongues,
And our devotion dies."

We even attempt to preach (if this be our calling),
but we speak in heavy chains, full of grievous
bondage. We pant for God s house, and then,
after we have entered it, we are but the worse.
We have thirsted for the well, and having reached
it we find it empty.

Yery probably we shall grow censorious, and
blame the ministry and the church when the blame
lies only with ourselves. We shall begin to cavil,
censure, criticise, and blame. Would to God that
any who are now doing so would pause and inquire
the reason of their unhappy disposition. Hear the
reproof administered by one of the giants of puri
tanic times : " You come ofttimes to Wisdom s
home, and though she prepare you all spiritual
dainties, yet you can relish nothing but some by-
things, that lie about the dish rather for ornament
than for food. And would you know the reason
of this ? It is because Christ is not with your
spirits. If Christ were with you, you would feed
on every dish at Wisdom s table, on promises, yea,



374: THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUR.

and on threatenings too. * To the hungry soul
every bitter thing is sweet, saith Solomon. All
that is good and wholesome goes down well where
Christ is with the spirit." * Oh, for the Master s
smile to impart a relish to his dainties !

Weakness is the unavoidable result of the Lord s
displeasure. " The joy of the Lord is our strength,"
and if this be wanting we necessarily become faint.
"His presence is life," and the removal of it shakes
us to our very foundation. Duty is toilsome
labour, unless Christ make it a delight. " With
out me ye can do nothing," said the Redeemer ;
and truly we have found it so. The boldness of
lion-like courage, the firmness of rooted decision,
the confidence of unflinching faith, the zeal of
quenchless love, the vigour of undying devotion,
the sweetness of sanctified fellowship all hang for
support upon the one pillar of the Saviour s pre
sence, and this removed they fail. There are
many and precious clusters, but they all grow on
one bough, and if that be broken they fall with it.
Though we be flourishing like the green bay-tree,
yet the sharpness of such a winter will leave us
leafless and bare. Then the fig-tree shall not blos
som, neither shall there be fruit in the vine ; the
labour of the olive shall fail, and the field shall
yield no meat." " Instead of sweet smell there

* Lockyer.



JESUS HIDING HIMSELF. 375

shall be a stink ; and instead of a girdle a rent ;
and instead of well-set hair, baldness ; and instead
of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth ; and burn
ing instead of beauty." * It is then that we shall
cry with Saul, " I am sore distressed, for the Philis
tines make war against me, and God is departed
from me, and answereth me no more, neither by
prophets nor by dreams." f Good it is for us that
He is not clean gone for ever, but will turn again
lest we perish.

ISTot to weary ourselves upon this mournful topic,
we may sum up all the manifest effects of a loss of
the manifest favour of Christ in one sad catalogue
misery of spirit, faintness in hope, coldness in
worship, slackness in duty, dulness in prayer, bar
renness in meditation, worldliness of mind, strife
of conscience, attacks from Satan, and weakness in
resisting the enemy. Such ruin doth a withdraw
ing of Divine presence work in man. From all
grieving of thy Spirit, from all offending of the
Saviour, from all withdrawing of thy visible
favour, and loss of thy presence, good Lord,
deliver us. And if at any time we have erred,
and have lost the light of thy countenance, O Lord,
help us still to believe thy grace and trust in the
merits of thy Son, through whom we address thee.
Amen.

* Isa. iii. 24. f 1 Sam. xxviii. 15.



TO THE UNCONYEKTED EEADEK.



SINNER, if the consequences of the temporary
departure of God be so terrible, what must it be to
be shut out from him for ever? If the passing
cloud of his seeming anger scattereth such grievous
rain upon the beloved sons of God, how direful will
be the continual shower of God s unchanging wrath
which will fall on the head of rebellious sinners for
ever and ever ! Ah, and we need not look so far
as the future ! How pitiable is your condition
NOW ! How great is the danger to which you are
every day exposed ! How can you eat or drink,
or sleep or work, while the eternal God is your
enemy? He whose wrath makes the devils roar
in agony is not a God to be trifled with ! Beware !
his frown is death ; tis more tis hell. If you
knew the misery of the saint when his Lord deserts
him but for a small moment, it would be enough
to amaze you. Then what must it be to endure
it throughout eternity ? Sinner, thou art hasting

878



JESUS HIDING HIMSELF. 377

to hell, mind what thou art at! Do not damn
thyself, there are cheaper ways of playing fool
than that. Go and array thyself in motley, and
become the aping fool, at whom men laugh, but do
not make laughter for fiends for ever. Carry coals
on thy head, or dash thine head against the wall,
to prove that thou art mad, but do not " kick
against the pricks ;" do not commit suicide upon
thine own soul for the mere sake of indulging thy
thoughtlessness. Be wise, lest being often reproved,
having hardened thy neck, thou shouldest be sud
denly destroyed, and that without remedy.



XI.

THE CAUSES OF APPARENT
DESERTION.



" Show me wherefore thou contendest with me." JOB, x. 2.



IT would be a grievous imputation upon the
much tried children of God, if we should imagine
that their greater trials are the results of greater
sin. We see some of them stretched upon the bed
of languishing year after year ; others are subject
to the severest losses in business, and a third class
are weeping the oft-repeated bereavements of
death. Are all these chastisements for sin? and
are we to attribute the excess of trouble to an
enlarged degree of transgression? Many of the
Lord s people are free from the extreme bitterness
of such affliction : what is the cause of the differ
ence ? Is it always the result of sin ? We reply,
Certainly not. In many cases it is, but in as many
more it is not. David had a comparatively smooth



878



CAUSES OF APPARENT DESERTION. 3Y9

course until after his sin with Bathsheba, and then
he commenced a pilgrimage of deepest woe ; but
we do not think that the trials of Job were pre
ceded by any great fall ; on the contrary. Job was
never more holy than just before the enemy fell
upon him. Trials have other errands besides the
mortification of the flesh, and other reasons beyond
that of chastisement for sin.

Since the hidings of God s countenance stand
among the chief of our troubles, the previous
remark will apply to them. These are, without
doubt, very frequently a monition from Christ of
his grief at our iniquities ; but, at the same time,
there are so many exceptions to this rule, that it
would be unsafe, as well as untrue, to consider it to
be general. A portion of the Lord s family live
usually in the shade ; they are like those sweet
flowers which bloom nowhere so well as in the
darkest and thickest glades of the forest. Shall we
dare to charge them with guilt on this account ?
If we do so, their extreme sensitiveness will lead
them to plead guilty ; they will be wounded to the
quick, and by their very grief and ingenuous con
fession, they will unwittingly refute our cruel sup
position. Some of these bedarkened travellers
exhibit the rarest virtues and the most precious
graces. They are, of course, wanting in some
great points ; but in others they so much excel that
we are compelled to admire. The white and sickly



380 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUR.

lily is exceeding fair, although she has not the
ruddy health which is the glory of the rose. We
desire that these sons and daughters of mourning
may come forth to the light, and rejoice in their
Lord : but if they shall still tarry in the land of
darkness, be it far from us to charge them with
greater sin because they have less joy. "We
remember well the lines of the poet

" In this wild world the fondest and the best
Are the most tried, most troubled, and distrest."*

We will now venture to suggest some of the rea
sons for the Saviour s withdrawals.

1. Divine Sovereignty is manifested in the com
munion of saints with their Lord, as well as in
every other step of the journey to heaven. He
who giveth no account of his matters, out of his
own absolute will and good pleasure may extin
guish the lamps of comfort and quench the fires of
joy, and yet give to his creature no reason for his
conduct; yea, and find no reason in the creature,
but exercise his kingly rights in the most uncon
trolled and absolute manner. That all men may
see that their best pleasures flow from the river of
God, and are only to be found in him, and only to
be obtained through his divine grace, he is pleased
at certain seasons to dry up the springs, to close the

Crabbe.



CAUSES OF APPARENT DESERTION. 381

fountain, and suspend the flowing of the stream ;
so that even the best of men languish, and all the
godly of the earth do mourn. Lest the green fir-
tree should exalt itself by reason of its fruitfulness,
as if it did garnish itself with beauty, the God of
our salvation allows a withering and a blight to
seize upon it that it may believe the sacred decla
ration, U FROM ME IS THY FRUIT FOUND." God s

own glory is sometimes his only motive for action,
and truly it is a reason so great and good that he
who mocks at it must be a stranger to God, and
cannot be truly humbled before him. It may be
that the sole cause of our sad condition lies in the
absolute will of God ; if so, let us bend our heads
in silence, and let him do what seemeth him good.
Unhappy is our lot when our best Beloved is ab
sent ; but he shall do as he pleases, and we will
sigh for his return ; but we will not chide him for
his absence : " What if God will use his absolute
ness and prerogative in this his dealing with his
child, and proceed therein according to no ruled
case or precedent ? This he may do, and who shall
cry, < What doest thou? "*

We think, however, that this case is but of rare
occurrence, and we would, under every withdrawal,
exhort the believer to look for some other cause,
and only resort to this explanation when he can

* Goodwin.



382 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUR.

truly say, as in God s sight, that with diligent
searching he cannot discover another. Then let
him remember that such trouble shall be richly re
compensed even in this life, as Job s poverty was
fully restored by his double wealth.

2. Without this the believer could not enter into
the depths of fellowship with Christ in his suffer
ings. The very worst of the Saviour s agonies lay
in his desertion by God ; the cry of " My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" was the gall of
the bitterness of the miseries of Jesus. Now, unless
we had to endure a measure of the same excruci
ating: torment of desertion, we could not enter into

O 7

communion with him to any great degree. At the
very deepest our fellowship is shallow ; but give
us the continued and invariable light of the Lord s
countenance, and we should for ever remain little
children in fellowship. Our Master desires that
we may know him in his death, and sympathise
with him in his sufferings. That eminent divine,
Kichard Sibbs, thus writes : " Now all of us must
sip of that cup whereof Christ drank the dregs,
having a taste of what it is to have God to forsake
us. For the most part, those believers who live
any time (especially those of great parts) God deals
thus with ; weaker Christians he is more indulgent
unto. At such a time we know the use of a medi
ator, and how miserable our condition were with
out such an one, both to have borne and overcome



CAUSES OF APPARENT DESERTION. 383

the wrath of God for us!"* Again, the deeply
experienced Thomas Goodwin says: "Though no
creature was able to drink off Christ s cup to the
bottom, yet taste they might, and Christ tells them
they should : Ye shall drink indeed of my cup,
and be baptised with the baptism that I am bap
tised with, t that is, taste of inward affliction and
desertion, as well as of outward persecution ; and
all to make us conformable to him, that we might
come to know in part what he endured for us."
Sweet departure of Jesus, which thus enables us to
approach the nearer to him ! of all reasons for pa
tience none can be more powerful than this.

3. Thus, in some men, the Lord works a prepa
ration for eminent service. By the experience of
sharp inw r ard trouble, the Lord s mighty men are
prepared for the fight. To them the heat by day
and the frost by night, the shoutings of the war,
the spear and the battle-axe are little things, for
they have been trained in a sterner school. They
are like plants which have lived through the severi
ties of winter, and can well defy the frosts of spring;
they are like ships which have crossed the deep and
have weathered the storm, and are not to be upset
by every capful of wind. To them the loss of
man s applause is of small account, for they have
endured the loss of Christ s smile, and have yet

* Sibbs s Bowels Opened. f Matt. xx. 28.

\ Child of Light walking in Darkness



384 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUR.

trusted him. To them the contumely of a world,
and the rage of hell, aye nothing, for they have
suffered what is a thousand times worse they
have passed under the cloud of Christ s transient
forsaking. They are wise, for, like Heman, they
have been " afflicted and ready to die from their
youth up," * and therefore, like him, they are fit
to compare with Solomon in some things, and are
wiser than he in others, f They are useful, for
Paul saith of such men, " Brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore
such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering
thyself, lest thou also be tempted." There are no
preachers in the world like those who have passed
by the way of trouble to the gate of wisdom.
Moses prized Hobab because he knew how to en
camp in the wilderness,^: and so we value the
minister who has learned as Hobab did, by living
in the desert himself. Luther said Temptation was
one of his masters in divinity. We will readily
trust ourselves in the hands of a physician who has
been himself sick of our disease, and has tried the
remedies which he prescribes for us ; so we confide
in the advice of the Christian who knows our trials
by having felt them. What sweet words in season
do tried saints address to mourners ! they are the
real sons of consolation, the truly good Samaritans.

* Ps- l"xviii. 16. f i Rings, iv. 31.

\ Num. x. 31.



CAUSES OF APPARENT DESERTION. 385

We who have a less rugged path, are apt to over
drive the lambs; but these have nourished and
brought up children, and know how to feel for the
weaknesses of the little ones. It is often remarked
that after soul-sorrow our pastors are more gifted
with words in season, and their speech is more full
of savour : this is to be accounted for by the sweet
influence of grief when sanctified by the Holy
Spirit. Blessed Redeemer, we delight in thy love,
and thy presence is the life of our joys ; but if thy
brief withdrawals qualify us for glorifying thee in
cheering thy saints, we thank thee for standing
behind the wall ; and as we seek thee by night, it
shall somewhat cheer us that thou art blessing us
when thou takest away thy richest blessing.

By sad experience of apparent desertion we are
some of us enabled to preach to sinners with
greater affection and concern than we could have
exhibited without it. Our bowels yearn over dying
men, for we know what their miseries must be, if
they die out of Christ. If our light affliction,
which is but for a moment, is yet at times the
cause of great heaviness, what must an eternal
weight of torment be ? These thoughts, begotten
by our sorrow, are very useful in stirring up our
hearts in preaching, for under such emotions we
weep over them, we plead with them ; and, as
though God did beseech them by us, we pray them
in Christ s stead to be reconciled to God. For a
IT



386 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUR.

proof thereof, let the reader turn to the Address
to the Unconverted appended to this chapter ; it
was written by one who for many years endured
the gloom of desertion. May God bless it to sin
ners !

4. The Lord Jesus sometimes hides himself from