(2.) The second thing which Satan gathers from God's deportment towards the Christian, thereby to bring the hearing of his prayer into question in his anxious thoughts, is, his frowns against the Christian. It cannot be denied but sometimes a dear saint of God may go away from duty with an aching heart, by reason of the sad impressions of an angry God left upon his spirit. And when thus it fares with the Christian, Satan’s time is come, he thinks, to lead him into this temptation, by persuading him he may read what entertainment his prayer had at God’s hands in the language of his countenance and his carriage towards him. If God, saith he, had heard thy prayer, would he handle thee thus? No sure; he would rather have taken thee up into his arms, and kissed thee with the kisses of his mouth, than thus trample thee under is feet. Thou shouldst have had darts of love shot from his pitiful eye, to imitate the purposes of his grace, and not arrows headed with his wrath, to stick in thy soul, and thus drink up thy very spirits. Can these be the wounds of a friend?—this the deportment that means thee well? This was the temptation which ruffled Job’s thoughts, and embittered his spirit, Job 9:17. He could not believe God answered his prayer, ‘because he broke with his tempest.’ As if God’s mercy came always in the still voice, and never in the whirlwind! Now in this case take this double word of COUNSEL.
Counsel (a). Inquire whether this tempest comes to find any Jonah in thy ship; whether it takes thee sinning, or soaking in any past sin unrepented; or whether thy conscience, diligently listened to, doth witness that thou art sincere in thy course, though compassed with many failings. If it overtakes thee in a runaway voyage, with Jonah, or rambling course with the prodigal from thy father’s house, then indeed thou hast reason to question, yea it is beyond all question, that an acceptable prayer in this posture cannot drop from thy lips. What! run from God, and then send to him thy prayers! This is to desire mercy to spend upon thy lust. But if, upon thy faithful search, thou findest this storm overtakes thee in the way of duty and exercise of thy sincerity, like the tempest that met the disciples at sea—when at Christ’s command they launched forth—then be not discouraged. For it is ordinary with God to put on the dis¬guise of an angry countenance, and to use rough language, when his heart is resolved upon ways of mercy, and mediates love to his people. Jacob, you know, wrestled hard and long before victory inclined to his side. And the woman of Canaan was kicked away like a dog with harsh language, who at last was owned of Christ for a dear child, and sent away to her heart’s content. Sincerity needs fear no ill from God. This very consideration kept Job’s head as another time above water, Job 16:12. There we find God taking him by the neck, shaking him as it were to pieces, and setting him up for his mark. But, ver. 17, this upheld his troubled spirit—that all this befell him walking in obedience—‘Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure.’ Wherefore he rears up his confidence, ‘Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high. My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God,’ ver. 19, 20. The holy man was not, for all this, scared from the throne of grace, but still looked on God, though with tears in his eyes, expecting good news at last after so much bed. And we have warrant to do the same. ‘If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God,’ I John 3:21. And this brings me to the second word of counsel I have to give thee.
Counsel (b). Inquire whether under these frowns from God there be yet a spirit of prayer working in thee. Haply thou canst not deny but that thy heart is rather stirred up from these to lament after the Lord with more restless sighs and groans, to pray with more feeling and fervency, than driven away from duty. The spirit of prayer upheld in thee may assure of these two things:—
[1.] That the cloud of anger which seems to sit on God’s brow is not in his heart. It is but a thin veil, through which thy faith might see the working of his bowels towards thee. The presence of the Spirit of God at work thus in a soul cannot stand with his real anger. If his wrath were up, this in thee would be down. Thou shouldst have him soon calling back this his ambassador of peace, at least suspending and withdrawing his assistance. When that sad breach was made between God and David in the matter of Uriah, David’s heart was presently out of tune; his ‘right hand had forgot its cunning,’ and the spirit of prayer had received a sad damp in his heart. Where is the psalm to be found that was penned by David in that interregnum, as I may so say, of his grace? I do not say he did never pray all the time he lay soaking in that sin; but those prayers were not fit to be joined with the holy breathings of that spirit which acted him before his fall and after his recovery. And therefore, good man, when by repentance he came to himself, like one recovering out of a dangerous sickness —which had for a time taken away his senses—he be¬gins to feel himself weak, and how much the Spirit of grace was by his sin enfeebled in him, which makes him so vehemently beg that God would ‘renew a right spirit in him,’ and ‘not take his Holy Spirit from him,’ Ps. 51:10, 11. The Spirit is so choice and peculiar a mercy, that if thou canst find lively actings of his grace in thee—and where are they more sensibly felt than in prayer, helping the soul to sighs and groans which cannot be uttered?—thou canst not in reason think God is not friends with thee, though it were at present as dark as midnight with thy soul.
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