rain upon the rock; they do not break my grief; it stands unmoved as adamant, because he has no love for me. But let someone who loves me dearly as his own life come and plead with me, then truly his words are music; they taste like honey; he knows the password of the doors of my heart, and my ear is attentive to every word; I catch the intonation of each syllable as it falls, for it is like the harmony of the harps of heaven. Oh! there is a voice in love, it speaks a language which is its own, it is an idiom and an accent which none can mimic; wisdom cannot imitate it; oratory cannot attain to it; it is love alone which can reach the mourning heart; love is the only handkerchief which can wipe the mourner’s tears away. And is not the Holy Spirit a loving Comforter? Do you know, oh saint, how much the Holy Spirit loves you? Can you measure the love of the Spirit? Do you know how great the affection of his soul is towards you? Go, measure heaven with your span; go, weigh the mountains in the scales; go, take the ocean’s water, and number each drop; go count the sand upon the sea’s wide shore; and when you have accomplished this, you can tell how much he loves you. He has loved you long; he has loved you well; he loved you for ever; and he still shall love you. Surely he is the person to comfort you, because he loves. Admit him, then, to your heart, oh Christian, that he may comfort you in your distress.
11. But next he is a faithful Comforter. Love sometimes proves unfaithful. “Oh! sharper than a serpent’s tooth” is an unfaithful friend! Oh! far more bitter than the gall of bitterness, to have a friend to turn from me in my distress! Oh! woe of woes, to have one who loves me in my prosperity forsake me in the dark day of my trouble. Sad indeed: but such is not God’s Spirit. He ever loves, and loves even to the end — a faithful Comforter. Child of God, you are in trouble. A little while ago you found him a sweet and loving Comforter; you obtained relief from him when others were only broken cisterns; he sheltered you in his bosom, and carried you in his arms. Oh, therefore do you distrust him now? Away with your fears! for he is a faithful Comforter. “Ah! but” you say, “I fear I shall be sick and shall be deprived of his ordinances.” Nevertheless, he shall visit you on your sick bed, and sit by your side to give the consolation. “Ah! but I have distresses greater than you can conceive of; wave upon wave rolls over me; deep calls to deep at the noise of the Eternal’s waterspouts.” Nevertheless, he will be faithful to his promise. “Ah! but I have sinned.” So you have, but sin cannot sever you from his love; he loves you still. Do not think, oh poor downcast child of God, because the scars of your old sins have marred your beauty, that he loves you less because of that blemish. Oh, no! He loved you when he foreknew your sin; he loved you with the knowledge of what the aggregate of your wickedness would be; and he does not love you less now. Come to him in all boldness of faith; tell him you have grieved him, and he will forget your wandering, and will receive you again; the kisses of his love shall be bestowed upon you, and the arms of his grace shall embrace you. He is faithful: trust him; he will never deceive you; trust him; he will never leave you.
12. Again, he is an unwearied Comforter. I have sometimes tried to comfort people who have been tried. You now and then meet with the case of a nervous person. You ask, “What is your trouble?” You are told, and you try, if possible, to remove it, but while you are preparing your artillery to batter the trouble, you find that it has shifted its quarters, and is occupying quite a different position. You change your argument and begin again; but lo, it is again gone, and you are bewildered. You feel like Hercules cutting off the ever growing heads of the Hydra, and you give up your task in despair. You meet with people who are impossible to comfort, reminding one of the man who locked himself up in fetters and threw the key away, so that no one could unlock him. I have found some in the fetters of despair. “Oh, I am the man,” they say, “who has seen affliction; pity me, pity me, oh my friends”; and the more you try to comfort such people, the worse they get; and therefore, we lose all heart, we leave them to wander alone among the tombs of their former joys. But the Holy Spirit never loses heart with those whom he wishes to comfort. He attempts to comfort us and we run away from the sweet cordial; he gives some sweet draught to cure us, and we will not drink it; he gives some wondrous potion to charm away all our troubles, and we put it away from us. Still he pursues us; and though we say that we will not be comforted, he says we shall be, and when he has said, he does it; he is not to be wearied by all our sins, not by all our murmurings.
13. And oh, how wise a Comforter is the Holy Spirit. Job had comforters, and I think he spoke the truth when he said, “Miserable comforters are you all.” But I dare say they esteemed themselves wise; and when the young man Elihu rose to speak, they thought he had a world of impudence. Were they not “grave and reverend seniors?” Did they not comprehend his grief and sorrow? If they could not comfort him, who could? But they did not find out the cause. They thought he was not really a child of God, that he was self-righteous; and they gave him the wrong medicine. It is a bad case when the doctor mistakens the disease and gives a wrong prescription, and so, perhaps, kills the patient. Sometimes, when we go and visit people we mistaken their disease, we want to comfort them on this point, whereas they do not require any such comfort at all, and they would be better left alone than spoiled by such unwise comforters as we are. But oh! how wise the Holy Spirit is! he takes the soul, lays it on the table, and dissects it in a moment; he finds out the root of the matter; he sees where the complaint is; and then he applies the knife where something is required to be taken away, or puts a plaster where the sore is; and he never is mistaken. Oh! how wise, the blessed Holy Spirit! from every comforter I turn and leave them all, for you are he who alone gives the wisest consolation.
14. Then note how safe a Comforter the Holy Spirit is. All comfort is not safe; note that. There is a young man over there who is very melancholy. You know how he became so. He stepped into the house of God and heard a powerful preacher, and the word was blessed and convicted him of sin. When he went home, his father and the rest found there was something different about him, “Oh,” they said, “John is mad; he is crazy”; and what did his mother say? “Send him into the country for a week, let him go to the ball or to the theatre.” John! Did you find any comfort there? “Ah no; they made me worse, for while I was there, I thought hell might open and swallow me up.” Did you find any relief in the gaieties of the world? “No,” you say, “I thought it was an idle waste of time.” Alas! this is miserable comfort, but it is the comfort of the worldling; and when a Christian gets into distress, how many will recommend to him this remedy and the other. “Go and hear Mr. So-and-So preach; have a few friends at your house; read such-and-such a consoling volume”; and very likely it is the most unsafe advice in the world. The devil will sometimes come to men’s souls as a false comforter, and he will say to the soul, “What need is there to make all this ado about repentance? you are no worse than other people,” and he will try to make the soul believe that what is presumption is the real assurance of the Holy Spirit; thus he deceives many by false comfort. Ah, there have been many, like infants, destroyed by elixirs given to lull them to sleep; many have been ruined by the cry of “peace, peace,” when there is no peace, hearing gentle things when they ought to be stirred to the quick. Cleopatra’s asp was brought in a basket of flowers; and men’s ruin often lurks in fair and sweet speeches. But the Holy Spirit’s comfort is safe, and you may rest on it. Let him speak the word, and there is a reality about it; let him give the cup of consolation, and you may drink it to the bottom, for in its depths there are no dregs, nothing to intoxicate or ruin, it is all safe.
15. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is an active Comforter: he does not comfort by words, but by deeds. Some comfort by “Be warmed and be filled, giving nothing.” But the Holy Spirit gives, he intercedes with Jesus; he gives us promises, he gives us grace, and so he comforts us. See again, he is always a successful Comforter; he never attempts what he cannot accomplish.
16. Then to close up, he is an ever present Comforter, so that you never have to send for him. Your God is always near you, and when you need comfort in your distress, behold, the word is near you, it is in your mouth, and in your heart; he is an ever present help in time of trouble. I wish I had time to expand these thoughts; but I cannot.
17. II. The second thing is the COMFORT. Now there are some people who make a great mistake about the
