Make diligent search into, and to call to remembrance what formerly hath been between God and you. The remembrance of former things doth often uphold, when present sense fails. This David practised in the like case, Psalm 77:5, 6, when his soul had refused comfort, as I told you, ver. 2; yet in the end he began not only to be willing to listen to what might make for him, but set himself a-work to recall to mind, to ‘consider the days of old, to make diligent search,’ namely, into the records and register of God’s dealings, ver. 11, to see if there were never a record extant which might help him, now the devil pleaded against his title. Even as if your houses and lands were called into question, you would search over old writings and deeds; so do you in this. ‘I considered,’ says he, ‘the songs in the night,’—that is, that joyful communion he had enjoyed with God, when God and he sang songs together,—and ‘I communed with mine own heart, and made diligent search;’ I tossed and tumbled over my heart, to see if no grace formerly had been there, and if no grace at present were there. He searched into what might comfort him, as well as into the causes might provoke God thus to deal with him; for I take it both may be meant.
And so Job did, when he was thus stricken and forsaken of God: he views over every part of his life; he seeks what dry land he could find to get footing upon in the midst of seas of temptations; recounts what a holy life he had lived, with what fear and strictness he had served God, chap. 29 and chap. 30, and chap. 31 throughout, and tells them plainly, chap. 27:5, 6, that let them plead and argue what they could against him, and go about to prove him a hypocrite, ’till I die,’ says he, ‘I will not remove mine integrity from me, nor let go my righteousness:’ I will never give up mine interest in God’s mercies, nor the evidences I have to shew for them. And, says he, chap. 19:27, 28, ‘Though my reins be at present consumed, yet the root of the matter is in me,’—that is, though God deals thus hardly with me, as you see, yea, though the exercise of grace is much obscured, the sunshine of God’s favour withdrawn, his face hidden from me, and the joyful fruits of righteousness, and comfortable fresh green speeches, and leaves you have known to grow upon this now withered stock fallen off; yet there is the root of the matter still in me—a root of faith that decays not, a constant frame of grace that still remains, which hateth sin, loveth God; and you shall all never beat me from it. And canst thou call nothing to remembrance betwixt God and thee, which argues infallibly his love? What! nothing? Look again. Did God never speak peace unto thy heart, and shed his love abroad in it? Hast thou at no time found in thine heart pure strains of true love and good-will to him, some pure drops of godly sorrow for offending him, and found some dispositions of pure self-denial, wherein thou didst simply aim at his glory more than thine own good? Hast thou never an old tried evidence which hath been acknowledged and confirmed again and again in open court? What! not one? And if thou canst now call to mind but one, if in truth, it may support thee. For if one promise do belong to thee, then all do, for every one conveys whole Christ, in whom all the promises are made, and who is the matter of them. As in the sacraments, the bread conveys whole Christ, and the wine also whole Christ: so in the word every promise conveys whole Christ. And if thou canst say, as the church of Ephesus, Rev. 2:6, ‘This thing I have, that I hate sin,’ and every sin, as God hates it, and because he hates it: as Christ owned them for this one grace, and though they had many sins and many failings, yet, says he, this thou hast, &c. If Christ will acknowledge thee to be his for one ear-mark, or if he sees but one ‘spot of his child’ upon thee, Deut. 32:5, thou mayest well plead it, even any one, to him. Yea, though it be but in a lesser degree, in truth and sincerity. For God brings not a pair of scales to weigh your graces, and if they be too light refuseth them: but he brings a touchstone to try them; and if they be true gold, though never so little of it, it will pass current with him; though it be but smoke, not flame, though it be but as a wick in the socket, Matt. 12:20, (as it is there in the original,) likelier to die and go out than to continue, which we use to throw away; yet he will not quench it, but accept it. Yea, and though at present thou findest in thy sense no grace stirring in thee, nothing but hardness, deadness, &c., yet if thou canst remember, Yea, but this once I had; as a woman with child, though after her first quickening she doth not always find the child to stir, yet because she did feel it stir, she still conceives hopes and thinks she is with child; so think thou of the new creature formed within thee.
These things you are to recall and consider in time of distress: to remember former graces and spiritual dispositions in you; and God’s gracious dealings with you. God remembers them to have mercy on you; and why should you not remember them to comfort you? Therefore, Heb. 6:9, 10, ‘We hope,’ says he, ‘better things of you; for God is not unrighteous to forget your labour of love;’ namely, to reward you And therefore he calls upon them in like manner, Heb. 10:31, ‘to call to remembrance the former days’ to comfort them; how they held out when their hearts were tried to the bottom; when shipwreck was made of their goods, good names, and all for Christ,—yet they made not shipwreck of a good conscience.
Thomas Goodwin. A Child of Light Walking in Darkness.
