revive my drooping heart! Do, O Lord, according to thy word, and remember for me these quickening promises, Hos. vi. 3. xiv. 6-8. Isa. xxxv. 1-4. xliv. 3, 4. (3.) The troubled backslider wants peace and comfort. O, saith he, for a sense of God's favour again; alas, this I have lost, my soul is far off from peace, I forget prosperity,* yea, for peace I have great bitterness, and when comfort is offered, my soul refuseth to be comforted. I even remember God, and am troubled, reflecting what joys I have had, which are now lost, and questioning my interest in him; will the Lord cast off for ever? will he be favourable no more?† O what a long while it is since I saw his blessed face! his visits are grown very rare, there is a great and sad strangeness between God and my soul. Alas, what shall I do to recover his smiles? I am sensible now and then of his quickening presence, but his comforting presence is utterly gone; I must justify God, and condemn myself; though he should banish me from his blessed presence for ever, yet is there not hope in Israel concerning this thing? May I believe that God will return? O it would be delightful to behold the light of his countenance! to feel those joys that once I had, but now have lost! O that it were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me! when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness! Lord, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, || hide not thy face from me. "Lord, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?"§ what would my soul give for one of thy wonted smiles? shall I never regain the sense of thy favour? wilt thou suffer thy Job xxix. 2, 3. * Lam. iii. 17. || Psal. li. 12. + Psal. lxxvii. 2-10. child to pine away in disconsolateness for want of his Father's love? O that I might again lie in that blessed bosom! how well shall it be with me upon my return to my first husband!* Lord, remember these words of promise to thy servant, on which thou hast caused me to trust; Isa. lvii. 16-19. liv. 6—8, 13. xxxii. 16, 17. lxvi. 12-14. 2 Cor. vii. 6. (4.) All this will not fully content the returning backslider, without God's favour to secure him from falling for time to come. Alas, saith the restored wanderer, I have a backsliding heart, and though I be brought back now, I shall again go astray, without new supplies of assisting grace: I feel my heart declining, and it will return unto folly after peace spoken,† unless God speak an effecting as well as commanding word, "Go thy way and sin no more." God's special favour must maintain this work fresh in my heart: "Turn us again, and cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved, so will not we go back from thee. Quicken us, and we will call upon thy name."-Psalm lxxx. 3, 7, 18, 19. Lord, unless the Sun of Righteousness keep still shining on me, and elevating me, I shall fall to the earth like a mere vapour or exhalation; if thy favour put not thy right hand under me, I fall and break my bones, dishonour thy name, undo my soul, and never recover. Fain would I hold out, O suffer me not to fall or fail; crown thy grace in me with perseverance, for suffering and perseverance must be the bottom and top of all graces, or they are counterfeit; I have many enemies within and without, I discern how apt I am to fall upon a very slight occasion, I have had too long experience of this treacherous spirit, and I dare not trust it, but I dare trust thee to keep that which concerns thee in me. Establish me, strengthen and setPsalm cxxxviii. 8. * Hos. ii. 7. + Psalm lxxxv. 8. tle my soul:* thou hast by thy favour set my feet on the Rock that is higher than I, O keep me there, my mountain may soon be removed, but maintain me upon thy mountain, till I come to the mount of God. If God be my defence, I shall not be greatly moved, yea, I shall get strength that I shall not be moved at all. † I beg no more than what I have under thy hand in a promise: Psalm i. 3. xxxvii. 23, 24. cxii. 6, 7. Isaiah xli. 17. liv. 10. Jer. xxxii. 38-40. Hos. ii. 19, 20. Phil. i. 6. 3. Another season in which God's favour is valued by his people as life, is, when they are under some pressing, harassing affliction; then they feel a necessity of God's favour. Now these afflictions are of two sorts: first, outward; secondly, inward. A hint of both. (1.) In outward troubles relative to temporal circumstances, God's favour is precious as life itself. Suppose a Christian be poor, and hath little or nothing to betake himself to, even then he may make a shift to live upon God's favour as the good woman said, "I have many a time made a good meal of a promise, when I have not had a morsel of meat in the house." And indeed the godly poor have a double advantage: first, to live by faith; secondly, to enjoy God's peculiar patronage, Psalm cxl. 12. Prov. xxii. 22, 23. We use to say, he is rich, whom God loves; and it is true, for our livelihood consists in God's favour-a little will go far when we have God's favour with it. A saint is not content merely to have God's leave to use the creatures, but his love therewith. Lord, saith the soul, I have little in the world, bnt let me have thee, thy grace in my heart, thy blessing with what I have, and I have more than worldly rich men; though I be poor in the world, let me be heir of thy kingdom.‡ So, * 1 Pet. v. 10. + Psalm lxii. 6. James ii. 5. (2.) In the troubles that affect our good name: the poor soul saith, Alas, I see I have lost the favour of men, they reproach me, they are a terror to me, but be not thou, O Lord, a terror to me, thou art my only hope; men set themselves against me, be thou for me, then may I bid defiance to all the world; thy approbation is a sufficient fence against all men's censures.* Let men report what they will of me, let me have a good report of the truth, and I shall less matter men's verdict; but if I be reproached for Christ, I look upon that as a singular favour from God, and honour to me: the reproach of Christ is my riches.-Heb. xi. 26. 1 Pet. iv. 14. Acts v. 41. Isa. li. 7, 12, 13. (3.) In bodily pains. When the Christian lies sick, or pained upon his bed, among all the visiters that manifest favour to him, he would have the Lord's company, and the Lord doth condescend to come to him, and not only visit him and speak to him, but puts his arm under him, and strengthens him upon his bed of languishing, yea, he tarries with him, and morning and evening makes his bed for him, Psalm xli. 3. O happy favourite of heaven that is thus attended! such a person knows, that if God sees good, he will favour him with removal from his bed, and his love bring him out of the pit, Isa. xxxviii. 17. (4.) In relative troubles. Alas, saith the Christian, my relations are not only poor, but profane, yea, the greatest enemies I have in my religious course, and that Scripture is fulfilled, "A man's enemies are the men of his own house;" in this case, "I will look unto the Lord," Mic. vii. 5-7. I am content to venture to lose, and even actually to lose, the favour of brother, sister, father, mother, to gain and maintain the favour of God, and when all is gone I do not repent the bargain, I * Jer. xvii. 17, 18. xx. 10-12. have made a saving resolution, I am an infinite gainer. But how sad will it be to lose men's favour for appearing religious, and not being so? If you ask for what end, and upon what account, a Christian would have the sense of God's favour? I might shew this largely, by proving that affliction would be sweetened, coming to him as a token of special love from God as his Friend and Father; though it be a bitter pill, yet if it be sweetened with God's favour, the Christian's stomach will not rise against it, but take it cheerfully; if God send it in favour, he tastes honey upon the rod; the best fruit grows upon this tree. A father will correct his children in love, therefore in wisdom, in pity, in due measure, for a short season, for their good to take away sin, and fit them for heaven; therefore the rod is adopted to be as a genuine offspring of the covenant of God's grace, Psalm lxxxix. 32, 33. O, saith the soul, if I can but see God's heart towards me when his hand is on me, I am very well satisfied; let him wound me, so it be a wound of a friend; let him cut me, so he will cure me; let him do what he pleaseth with me, so he will but discover favour to me: and all this God promiseth.—Heb. xii. 8—10. Isa. xxvii. 8, 9. Jer. xlvi. 28. Prov. iii. 12. Isa. lxiii. 9. Zech. xiii. 9. Rom. v. 3-5. Secondly, So for spiritual troubles which arise, (1.) From the guilt of sin. O, saith the soul, what shall I do? whithersoever I go my sin always is before me, sin is upon me; ah, what can a guilty malefactor desire, but the Judge's favour? this God promiseth, and Christ purchaseth, as has been shown: see also, Exod. xxxiv. 6-8. Job xxxiii. 26–28. Mic. vii. 18. (2.) From God's displeasure; in this case, when the poor soul feels God's anger, the only remedy is God's favour. O that God would remove from me the stroke |