The work of the Spirit

By the quickening breath of the Spirit, the soul is roused up to feel its own dignity, and high powers of enjoyment. This, being accompanied with some discoveries of the glory of God, opens the conscience to apprehend what vile debasement the soul hath been yielding itself to, while it hath been idolatrously pursing after vanity. The misery felt, in being kept at a distance from God, naturally introduces an inquiry into the causes of that misery. The soul says to itself, "Why am I thus? Why doth a God of infinite goodness keep at such distance from me? Why doth he withhold from me my only happiness? What mean these chains of darkness, which invisibly bind me?" Conscience, and the law of God, answer, "God is angry. Thou hast moved him to jealousy. There is no peace to the wicked. Be astonished, ye heavens, at this; for they have committed two evils: they have forsaken the fountain of living waters, and have hewed out to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water!" Thus, the charge of guilt begins to fasten upon the conscience. The soul, softened and enlightened by the Spirit, bows down under this load. The vigorous thoughts ruminate on former conduct and courses, and search into the immense evils of transgression. The threatenings of God begin to sound like thunder. The unmeasurable vastness of eternity, and the unknown terribleness of God's infinite wrath, and the terror of being eternally separated from God, drink up the attention of the soul, and lay prostrate its courage. And here, there is room for such feelings as I cannot describe; nor can they be fully uttered by any tongue. Through what a sea of horror, doth the soul often make its way, in its first approaches to God? And how often are God's people plunged back into these depths, after having felt the joy of his salvation? I know there are different degrees of these things. But the lowest degree has in it, a depth and awfulness, much beyond what many professors of religion give evidence of being acquainted with. Let us hear how Job expresses himself on this subject, Job 6:2-4. "Oh that my grief were fully weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore, my words are swallowed up." He is not here speaking merely, or chiefly, of his outward afflictions, but of an inward sense of divine wrath, on account of sin. This appears from the next words, "For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me." David, the man after God's own heart, was no stranger to such exercises. Therefore, he cries out, in one Psalm, of the oppressive weight of his iniquities; and in another, of their vast number; and in another, of the dreadful depths into which he was thereby plunged. It would be the greatest mercy that could befall many high-flying professors of orthodoxy, to have some restless days, and sleepless nights, under such terrors of God, and so to learn the value of that salvation, which they vainly pretend to embrace with their hearts, while they indeed trample it under their feet.

But let who will, be at ease in Zion, the children of God, unless in times of dangerous backsliding, are not so. They have committed, and do still commit, enough of sin, to keep their consciences at work, and to be a source of much weariness and restlessness of sprit. Nor, doth the grace of the gospel exempt believers from such exercises; they continue, more or less, till their admission into the heavenly glory. It is then only, that God will wipe away all such tears from his children's eyes.