Part 5 - SATAN'S SECOND MAIN DESIGN: Is To Accuse, Vex and Trouble The Saint For Sin.

Argument  2.  A second argument Satan useth, is this, He whose sorrow falls short of theirs that never truly repented, he is not humbled enough.  But, soul, thy sorrow falls short of some that never truly repented; ergo.  Well, the first proposition is true, but how will Satan prove his minor?  Thus: Ahab, he took for his sin, and went in sackcloth.  Judas, he made bitter complaint.  O, says Satan, didst thou not know such a one that lay under terror of conscience, walking in a sad mournful condition so many months, and every one took him for the greatest convert [in] the country?  And yet he at last fell foully, and proved an apostate.  But thou never didst feel such smart, pass so many weary nights and days in mourning and bitter lamentation as he hath done, [and] therefore thou fallest short of one that fell short of repentance.  And truly this is a sad stumbling-block to a soul in an hour of temptation.  Like a ship sunk in the mouth of the harbour, which is more dangerous to others than if it had perished in the open sea; there is less scandal by the sins of the wicked, who sink, as it were, in the broad sea of profaneness, than in those who are convinced of sin, troubled in conscience, and miscarry so near the harbour, within sight, as it were, of saving grace.  Tempted souls can hardly get over these without dashing.  Am I better than such a one that proved nought at last?  Now to help thee a little to find out the fallacy of this argument, we must distinguish between the terrors that accompany sor­row, and the intrinsical nature of this grace.  The first, which are accessory, may be separated from the other, as the raging of the sea, which is caused by the wind, from the sea when the wind is down.  From this distinction take two conclusions.

             (1.) One may fall short of an hypocrite in the terrors that sometimes accompany sorrow, and yet have the truth of this grace, which the other with all his terrors wants.  Christians run into many mistakes, by judging rather according to that which is accessory, than that which is essential to the nature of duties and graces.  Sometimes thou hearest one pray with a moving expression, while thou canst hardly get out a few broken words in duty, and thou art ready to accuse thyself and to admire him, as if the gilt of the key made it open the door the better.  Thou seest another abound with joy which thou wantest, and art ready to conclude his grace more, and thine less; whereas thou mayest have more real grace, only thou wantest a light to show thee where it lies.  Take heed of judging by accessories.  Perhaps thou hast not heard so much of the rattling chains of hell, nor in thy conscience the outcries of the damned to make thy flesh tremble; but hast not seen that in a bleeding Christ which hath made thy heart melt and mourn, yea, loathe and hate thy lusts more than the devil himself? Truly, Christian, it is strange to hear a pa­tient complain of his physician, when he finds his physic work effectually to the evacuating his distempered humours, and the restoring his health, merely because he was not so sick as some others with the working of it.  Soul, thou hast more reason to be bles­sing God that the convictions of his Spirit wrought so kindly on thee, to effect that in thee without those errors which have cost others so dear.

             (2.)  This is so weak an argument, that contrariwise, the more the terrors are, the less the sorrow is for sin while they remain.  These are indeed preparatory sometimes to sorrow; they go before this grace as austere John before meek Jesus.  But as John went down when Christ went up, his increase was John's decrease, so as truly godly sorrow goes up, these terrors go down.  As the wind gathers the clouds, but those clouds seldom melt into a set rain, until the wind falls that gathered them; so these terrors raise the clouds of our sins in our consciences , but when these sins melt into godly sorrow, this lays the storm presently.  Indeed, as the loud winds blow away the rain, so these terrors keep off the soul from this gospel sorrow.  While the creature is making an out­cry, ‘it is damned, it is damned,’ it is taken up so much with the fear of hell, that sin as sin, which is the proper object of godly sorrow, is little looked on or mourned for.  A murderer condemned to die is so possessed with the fear of death and thought of the gallows, that there lies the slain body, it may be, before him, unlamented by him: but when his pardon is brought, then he can bestow his tears freely on his murdered friend.  ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced, and mourn.’  Faith is the eye.  This eye, beholding its sin piercing Christ, and Christ pardoning its sin, affects the heart.  The heart affected sighs. These inward clouds melt, and run from the eye of faith with in tears; and all this is done when there is no tempest of terror upon the spirit, but a sweet serenity of love and peace; and therefore, Christian, see how Satan abuseth thee, when he would persuade thee thou art not humbled enough, because thy sorrow is not attended with these legal terrors.