"My heart, alas! is alienated from God, backward and contrary to the exercise of religion. I have lost all delight in spiritual things. I cannot call the Sabbath a delight, nor attend to any ordinance with pleasure. My character is very different from what is described in Psa 1.2: 'His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law he meditates day and night.' And my language must be just as different from what the Psalmist uses in Psa 119.97, 'How I love Your law,' etc. Those words
in Isa 53.2, 'He has no form or beauty,' etc. seem more like the language of my own heart and ways. And God may complain of me, as in Hos 8.12.1 "When I bow before the Lord in secret, it is with a servile temper — not thankful, as in enjoying a privilege, but from a sense of absolute necessity, being convinced of my need for mercy.
"When I am not altogether in a stupid, dull, indolent frame, I bewail before Him the wretched depravity of my nature, and the dreadful effects of it throughout the whole man, appearing in pride, unbelief, neglect of God, and the like. But I am more affected by these things as my misery, than as my sin. And therefore, I fear I do not come to Christ as those do who are drawn by the Father. |
