The Lord is with us while we are with him—but when we
forsake him, he hides his face, and departs from us, that we may not depart
from him any more. It is dangerous to let the soul out of the heavenly
frame; for the inclination being carnal, the affections corrupt, the will
stubborn, and the heart deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked—it is with much labor, that the rebel is brought back again to
obedience. Moreover, the soul above all things, receives a tinge and
resemblance of that with which it is most conversant; hence the carnal mind
stops not with its carnality—but even turns into enmity against God. While
the soul which beholds the glory of the Lord, is changed into the same
image, from glory to glory.
Again, the nearer the soul is allowed to approach to God,
the easier it is kept with God; but the further it removes from God, the
faster it flies from him, like a stone tumbling down a mountain, the
velocity of which increases according to the distance it has fallen; and
which at last, with amazing rapidity, rolls to the lowest bottom of the
valley. So the spiritual defection is made by degrees. First our love to God
cools; then our delight in God and in pious duties languishes; then our
watch against sins and shortcomings is slackened; then we count the service
of God a weariness; then our mortification of lusts is suspended; then the
performance of pious exercises proves a burden; then our affections grow
carnal, and our meditations vain; then sins appear, and we view them, first,
with no great degree of abhorrence, secondly, with a friendly eye; then we
dally with them, and then turn openly and avowedly profane. This has been
the case with some, who were once shining professors.
But when the saints have departed from God, though mercy
will not let them fall finally and totally away—yet what rueful thoughts,
what despairing groans, what melting complaints, what terrors of conscience
for a time, what penitential sorrow and breaking of heart, what dreary looks
on their backslidings, what anguish, remorse, and pain, what inward
vexation, and trouble of mind, to think how they have sinned against God,
thought little of his love, forgot his goodness, and buried his mercies in
oblivion—have chastised their mournful departure from God! until their heart
is swept, by the Spirit of grace and consolation, of all these terrible
storms and filled with joy and peace. in renewed acts of believing.
But, again, as the backsliding soul leaves God—so God may
leave the soul in justice. He may punish sin with sin. He may punish our
going away from him, with his going away from us, and permitting us to go
further away from him. He may justly deprive us of the mercy which we do not
prize as we ought. When we will not hear him, though he stands at the door
and knocks—he may not hear when we pray before the throne. We think little
of that unspeakable privilege of being allowed to walk with God—but it is a
mournful thing to walk without him, if once we know what it is to walk with
him. We should watch our ways, guard against the beginning of our
wanderings, the first straying of our thoughts from God. For by sad
experience I may say, that the heart which is not fixed on God, is tossed to
and fro, up and down—seeking rest in many things, and finding it in none.
But, Oh! that when I have flown out of the ark upon the
flood of vanities, I may not, with the raven, before I return to the sacred
resting-place, sit down on dead and despicable objects, as corrupt in their
kind as the carrion floating on the face of the waters—but, with the nobler
dove, return to him whose arm of mercy can pull me into the ark again, and
encircle my soul with his favor, and make her rest with vast delight in his
unchangeable love.
In your sovereignty and love, depart not from me. And in
your mercy, let not me depart from you. Hold me by your right hand, and my
soul shall follow hard after you, until you allow yourself, (O
condescendence!) to be overtaken in vision and fruition, where I shall never
fall away from you again!