One Hundred and Ninety Sermons on Psalm 119

4. There is desertio correctiva & eruditiva, a desertion for correction, and a desertion for instruction. Sometimes the aim of it is merely for correction for former sins; it is a penal over-clouding for our unkind and ungracious dealing with him. God may do it for sins; nay, many times for old sins long ago committed, he may charge them anew upon the conscience, Job 13. 24. compared with v. 26. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? Thou makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. An old bruise may trouble us long after, upon every change of weather. Many that have grieved Gods Spirit in their youth, after they have been converted, God will reckon with them about it in their age. A man will smart for his ungracious courses first or last. Sometimes it is merely for Instruction; it instructs us chiefly to show us Gods Sovereignty, with the changeableness of the best comfort on this side heaven. To show us his Sovereignty, that he will be free to go and come at his own pleasure. He will have his people know he is Lord, and may do with his own as pleaseth him. The heavenly irradiations and outshinings of his love, are not at our beck, God will dispense them according to his pleasure. A Mariner hath no cause to murmur and quarrel with God, because the wind bloweth out of the East, when he desireth a Westerly gale: why? because it is his wind, and he will dispose these things according to his pleasure. So the comfort and outshinings of his love are his, and he will take them, and give them as he thinks good. Again, to show us the changeableness of the best comforts on this side heaven. When Christ hath been in the soul with a full and high influx of comfort, this doth not remain long with us, God may withdraw. Observe it often, after the highest enlargements there may be some forsaking. Cant. 5. 1. there we read of a Feast between Christ and his beloved; Come eat, O friends; drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved. Here they are feasted with love; presently we read of desertion, the Spouse waxeth lazy and drowsy, and Christ is gone; then she is forced to go up and down to find him. Paul had his Raptures; then a Messenger of Satan to buffet him. The same Disciples ⟨p. 50⟩that were conscious to Christs Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John,