Why say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto

you?

"Why say my people, We are lords; we will come no more
unto you? Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her
attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without
number." Jer_2:31-32

When God becomes less an object of fervent desire, holy
delight, and frequent contemplation, we may suspect a
declension of Divine love in the soul. Our spiritual views of
God, and our spiritual and constant delight in Him, will be
materially affected by the state of our spiritual love. If there is
coldness in the affections, if the mind grows earthly, carnal,
and selfish, dark and gloomy shadows will gather round the
character and the glory of God. He will become less an object
of supreme attachment, unmingled delight, adoring
contemplation, and filial trust. The moment the supreme love
of Adam to God declined, the instant that it swerved from its
proper and lawful center, he shunned converse with God, and
sought to embower himself from the presence of the Divine
glory. Conscious of a change in his affections-sensible of a
divided heart, of subjection to a rival interest-and knowing that
God was no longer the object of his supreme love, nor the
fountain of his pure delight, nor the blessed and only source of
his bliss-he rushed from His presence as from an object of
terror, and sought concealment in Eden's bowers. That God
whose presence was once so glorious, whose converse was
so holy, whose voice was so sweet, became as a strange God
to the rebellious and conscience-stricken creature, and,
"absence from You is best," was written in dark letters upon
his guilty brow.

And where this difference? Was God less glorious in Himself?
Was He less holy, less loving, less faithful, or less the fountain
of supreme bliss? Far from it, God had undergone no change.
It is the perfection of a perfect Being that He is unchangeable,
that He can never act contrary to His own nature, but must
ever be, in all that He does, in harmony with Himself. The
change was in the creature. Adam had left his first love, had
transferred his affections to another and an inferior object;
and, conscious that he had ceased to love God, he would
sincerely have veiled himself from His presence, and have
excluded himself from His communion. It is even so in the
experience of a believer, conscious of a declension in his love
to God. There is a hiding from His presence; there are misty
views of His character, misinterpretations of His dealings, and
a lessening of holy desire for Him: but where the heart is right
in its affections, warm in its love, fixed in its desires, God is
glorious in His perfections, and communion with Him the
highest bliss on earth. This was David's experience-"O God,
You are my God; early will I seek You: my soul thirsts for You,
my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where no
water is; to see Your power and Your glory, so as I have seen
You in the sanctuary. Because Your loving-kindness is better
than life, my lips shall praise You."

Not only in the declension of Divine love in the soul, does God
become less an object of adoring contemplation and desire,
but there is less filial approach to Him. The sweet confidence
and simple trust of the child is lost, the soul no longer rushes
into His bosom with all the lowly yet fond yearnings of an
adopted son, but lingers at a distance; or, if it attempts to
approach, does so with the trembling and the restraint of a
slave. The tender, loving, child-like spirit that marked the walk
of the believer in the days of his espousals-when no object
was so glorious to him as God, no being so loved as his
heavenly Father, no spot so sacred as the throne of
communion, no theme so sweet as his free-grace adoption-
has in a great degree departed; and distrust, and legal fears,
and bondage of spirit have succeeded it. All these sad effects
may be traced to the declension of filial love in the soul of the
believer towards God.