A practical exposition on the 130th Psalm

This is the first evil that the soul in this condition is enabled ⟨p. 66⟩to avoid. We know how God rebukes it in Zion. Zion said the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me, Isaiah 49. 14. But how foolish is Zion, how froward, how unbelieving in this matter; what ground hath she for such sinful despondencies, such discouraging conclusions? Can a woman, saith the Lord, forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb, yea, they may forget, but I will not forget thee. The like reproof he gives to Jacob upon the like complaint, Chap. 40. 28, 29, 30. There is nothing that is more provoking to the Lord, nor more disadvantageous unto the soul, than such sinful despondency. For,

This is the first evil that the soul in this condition is enabled ⟨p. 66⟩to avoid. We know how God rebukes it in Sion. Sion said the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me, Isaiah 49. 14. But how foolish is Sion, how froward, how unbelieving in this matter; what ground hath she for such sinful despondencies, such discouraging conclusions? Can a woman, saith the Lord, forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb, yea, they may forget, but I will not forget thee. The like reproof he gives to Jacob upon the like complaint, Chap. 40. 28, 29, 30. There is nothing that is more provoking to the Lord, nor more disadvantagious unto the soul, than such sinful despondency. For,

First, It insensibly weakens the soul, and disenables it, both for present duties, and future endeavours. Hence, some poor creatures mourn, and even pine away in this condition, never getting one step beyond a perplexing sense of sin all their days. Some have dwelt so long upon it, and have so entangled themselves with a multitude of perplexed thoughts, that at length their natural faculties have been weakened, and rendered utterly useless; so that they have lost both sense of sin and every thing else. Against some, Satan hath taken advantage to cast in so many entangling objections into their minds, that their whole time hath been taken up in proposing doubts and objections against themselves; with these they have gone up and down, to one and another, and being never able to come unto a consistency in their own thoughts, they have spent all their days in a fruitless, sapless, withering comfortless condition. Some with whom things come to a better issue, are yet for a season brought to that discomposure of Spirit, or are so filled with their own apprehensions, that when the things which are most proper to their condition are spoken to them, they take no impression in the least upon them. Thus the soul is weakened by dwelling too long on these considerations; until some cry with those in