-- CHAPTER XII: Four words, perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you
And, indeed, even those interpreters* who restrain the sufferings intended by Peter in the former verses unto persecutions, yet are fain to take in the temptations and spiritual infirmities of men's souls, which they are incident to in their undergoing persecutions, and often in seeking to escape them; and to understand them to be promises for supplies and supports against such failures and incidences; and these are of far greater danger and damage than barely the outward persecutions themselves, simply considered; so as the comfort in these promises must be understood chiefly to respect the evils which men's souls are obnoxious unto. Other interpreters, reading with the vulgar Latin but three words instead of four (the vulgar Latin putting the two middle words into one word, as all one), would have them intended directly for our overcoming our three enemies in this life, the world, the flesh, and the devil, in respect of their tempting us to sin; others, to be three several salves, or remedies, for the three eminent powers of our souls, as they are vitiated and corrupted, as, namely, the understanding, will, and passions; others, to distinguish them, apply them severally, one to the lusts of the eye, the other to the lusts of the flesh, the other to the pride of life, as John hath summed them up. I confess I like not these their discriminations of them; yet this I make use of, that they agree with me in this, that they respect our souls, and the corruption and evil of them, and temptations incident to them; and I would not confine them unto the mischiefs incident to men's souls, by reason of or from outward persecutions only; but I would extend them unto all sorts of soul temptations whatsoever, one as well as another, suitably unto the interpretations I have, and shall give, that by suffering, temptations of all sorts are to be intended by the apostle.
CHAPTER XII
Whether these four words, perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you, intend one and the same in a various manner of expression, or whether they have severally a peculiar import answering particularly to temptations of a differing sort to which are obnoxious.—The
meaning of the word perfect explained: sometimes it is understood of the complete accomplishment of a work.—When applied to the work of grace, as here, it denotes the supplying or making up of imperfections and wants; and that it imports either the adding further degrees of perfection unto the imperfect work of grace first begun in us; or it reaches the case of lapsed Christians, and signifies their being recovered and restored again.—That there are such cases of backsliding, which is not a total apostasy.—To make [perfect] such fallen souls, is to repair what was torn and broken in them by their sin.—Those who fall into grosser sins are made perfect again by a new conversion.
A third question will be, Whether for our support against all such temptations, the accumulation, or heaping up of so many words
(four), should be intended by the Holy Ghost, as signifying only one and the same thing, and so to be made up, so many ingredients, into one dose, as a catholicon, or general medicine and antidote, which may altogether be applied, and taken for relief against any, or all temptations, as they befall us? Or whether there may not be some specific, particular, distinct sort of cordial in one more than another, in reference unto some special sorts of temptations, as they shall occur to us.
Some interpreters do make them up into one bolus, or lump, and to import but one and the same thing,* and yet to be thus multiplied into four, for an exaggeration (as their word is), or more vehement and deep asserting the same, to shew, quam magnæ difficultatis sit, nos perseverare, of how great difficulty the matter of our perseverance is. I would further say, that this is done to the end, to give all believers full assurance of faith that God will infallibly perform it; he would never have made so many words about it else.
And truly, if there were found no other, or further end and use herein, this favourable construction might content us, that God should give four words for one, when one might have been enough, it argues he would have us have 'abundant consolation' from it. That as lawyers multiply words, though to one and the same purpose,
thereby to make all sure, and to bind, and fetch in, and comprehend all, that there might be no exception, nor any doubt left, so here the apostle: which, if there were no peculiar distinct meaning to each word, had been a great security unto us,—a fourfold security and obligation, by four words,—and the rather, because whereas Jesus
Christ our Lord had, in his command to Peter, mentioned but one of these words, στηρίξον τοῦς ἀδελφοὺς σοῦ, 'stablish, or confirm thy brethren,' and no other; and the apostle enlarges to four, when he comes to perform the command. By one word of God was heaven and earth on the first day made and founded upon nothing; and sure so many words as these may well serve to found, stablish, and settle our unbelieving, unstable hearts, in this so great matter of concernment to us.
Yet over and besides this general use to be made hereof, I desire it may be thoroughly searched into, what peculiar confortatives and cordials, in reference unto particular cases in our lives, from sins and special sorts of temptations, the singular and proper import of each in their use in the New Testament will afford us.
I dare not undertake to demonstrate the particulars of this; how the proper and distinct significations of them, of one from another, do respectively promise and speak an answerable proper relief to any and every temptation in their particular variety, although I am apt to think with Gerard, that not only whatever belongs to our salvation
(namely, after calling) is summarily comprehended in those four words; but further, that all sorts of temptations whatever are reducible, and might be referred under some one of these heads of succours and remedies; for it is apparent that each of these words do not simply express a positive promise, as of strengthening, making perfect, &c., but do connotate the privative, or want in us, of the thing promised, for the use of which the promise is intended; as that he will strengthen us against weakness, he will perfect us out of imperfection; and against former imperfection (as in the prophet
Isaiah, chap. 61:3, 'He will appoint beauty for ashes;' and verse 7, 'For shame you shall have double,' &c). The remedies here do
intimate the maladies they are the cures of, and out of which he promiseth deliverance.
And for the genuine moaning of each, I take this rule, which Gerard pitched on, that omnium optima explicatio sumitur ex emphasi
Græcorum verborum. The best explication of them all (or of all others given by others) is to be taken from the emphasis which the Greek words have, as in the sacred language of the New Testament they are used.
Will make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. This word καταρτίσει is sometimes used for the perfecting and completing a work simply, absolutely, and at once, and without having any respect to a former imperfection, it being once had. And thus it is spoken of the human nature of Christ, Heb. 10:5, 'A body hast thou perfected me' (it is the word that is here); and that body was formed or articulated (as the word also signifies) by the Holy Ghost, with the human soul, in all the parts of it, in one instance* of its union with the Son of God, for it subsisted not alone a moment. And, Heb. 11:3, when it is said God framed or perfected the worlds, it is the same word; and the supreme world, the highest heavens, were in one instant created absolutely perfect the first day. But when in the New
Testament it is applied to the works of grace, as it is in the text, it takes into it a connotation of, and a relation to, an imperfect degree of being, which is further to be perfected, and out of which God makes perfect.
And unto such a sense the word in general expresseth a supplement, or making up of wants; as 1 Thes. 3:10, 'Might perfect that which is lacking or deficient in your faith.' And the word ὑστέρημα (there used) is in its proper signification want, and elsewhere is used to signify needs in outward things, 2 Cor. 8:14 and chap. 9:12, which we usually term want; but is there, in the first to the Thessalonians, applied to spiritual wants, and fallings short therein. Now, spiritual sufferings being included in the sufferings here in the text as well as outward, and spiritual imperfections occasioned by outward being
intended, this word therefore imports a meet supply, and making up of spiritual wants; even as there, in 1 Thes. 3:10, it is meant of the perfecting of faith, and what is wanting in it.
Now, this perfecting of what is wanting in graces to us, may receive a double intendment:
1. Simply; viz. that the work of grace begun in any of us being at first short and imperfect in its degrees which are requisite to make it fully perfect, in respect thereunto God's promise here is, that he will go on to perfect that work begun; as Philip. 1:6, 'Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.' It is said of the person who, walking up to the grace received, is without any wilful failure or neglect in his course, and is not guilty of gross or perverse imperfections; which was Paul's case after his calling, who yet says he was not already perfect after a long stage in Christianity: Philip.
3:12, 'Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also
I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.'
And this is the case which the text respects; for it may, yea, and doth, befall several Christians, who have had the special privilege so to have walked from the first, who yet need further additions to make them perfect; and to whom God will, above all other Christians, perform this promise, of making them perfect more and more on earth, unto a consummation of them in holiness in heaven, yet so as the common law of sufferings first must take hold of them; a law common to them, with all others of their brethren, as in the text. And those sufferings, either outward, wherein the apostle Paul abounded; or perhaps inward assaults from Satan, though still resisted, so as not to be overcome by them; after which conflicts God comes anew, wonderfully to perfect and establish such in faith and holiness. And this seems to have been the case and present state of those
Thessalonians when the apostle wrote that epistle to them—for we read of no church he wrote to whom he so commends for having kept
their first conversion work so pure, and without the least defection, as by his rejoicing in them in that epistle appears—and yet he tells them in the words fore-cited, that there were things wanting in their faith, the supply of which he expresseth by this word (which is the end I cite it for), 'That we might perfect that which is lacking in your faith.' Let men called have had never so great and eminent conversions (as these had, as in chap. 1), yet God hath in store reserved, and in design laid up, for them, great and glorious accesses of grace to perfect them, which they all afterwards attain, in their resistance and overcomings of temptation, and strict walkings with him. Whereof there is an instance likewise in that decaying church of Sardis (of which by and by), a few elect, choice Christians in God's account were found even there; who are mentioned in Rev. 3:4,
'Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy.'
The word ὑστερήματα, in that to the Thessalonians, translated 'lacking in your faith,' is the fame that is used by the apostle, Col.
1:24, of our sufferings for Christ; which, as it is translated, runs thus, 'To fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ.' And the filling up of these is the matter of the promise here in Peter; as if he had said, The God of all grace, that hath called us, will fill up what is behind in his ordination; and lacking to what we received at first calling, unto an higher perfection. Besides what is wanting in the doctrinals of faith, there are additional to the special faith of Christians. God hath an all-riches of full assurance, to be added unto our faith of recumbency received at first; and to that rich 'assurance of understanding,' he hath 'joy unspeakable, and full of glory,' to be superadded; and unto 'making our election sure,' he hath 'an abundant entrance into heaven,' begun in this life; for which compare 2 Peter 1:10, 11, 'Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall he ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.' And as thus in point of faith, so in holiness; as we receive at first the Spirit to regenerate us, so there is the promise
of 'pouring out the Spirit' after. As we read in Christ's speeches, and the story of the apostles' times, there is an adding of one grace to another, as our apostle in his second epistle exhorts: 2 Peter 1:5, 6,
'And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness.' And they are degrees of the same grace, as each is to have its perfect work, thereby to make us 'entire, wanting nothing:' James 1:3, 4, 'Knowing this, that the trial of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.'
And these accesses are not always wrought anew insensibly, as plants that grow we know not how; but sometimes sensibly, discernibly in the addition, with a notoriety to themselves and others. There ariseth up a new autumn spring in some, which is as a first conversion, and is by Christ styled a second conversion: 'Except ye be converted,' &c.,
Mat. 18:3, says Christ to his disciples, that were converted already.
There are great windfalls of the Spirit, who 'blows when and where he lists,' after regeneration, that do befall some Christians, and especially such as have kept their garments pure from the first; for 'to him that hath shall be given.' And disciples growing up in such additaments as these are termed a perfection: Luke 6:40, 'The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.' And therefore let such Christians expect eminent fulfillings of these promises, in this manner as hath been spoken, after they have suffered a while.
But yet, lest we should restrain the promise here solely, and only to such Christians as have continued to walk up to their conversion principles, and so exclude all those that after calling have foully fallen into grosser evils against light, or declined and swerved greatly from the first zeal, I shall therefore shew you out of the Scriptures, that, 2. This same word, make perfect‚ under the import of which the promise here runs, doth in the significancy of it, yea, and the application of it also, reach and extend unto such cases, unto this of
lapsed Christians also; and if to such, then certainly to all, or any other sort, that may be supposed to fall out in God's true called ones.
The God of all grace hath in store for such riches laid up, to restore and perfect them again, although it usually costs them very full dear in soul sufferings and sad trials, for and from such extravagancies, ere they attain it. For of such sinnings of his people, God hath said,
'It is bitter, and reacheth to the heart,' Jer. 4:18; and every one doth and will feel them such, sooner or later, whom God hath called, ere they arrive at the performance of this promise, of being made perfect, stablished. But after they have so suffered a while, his grace will perfect and stablish them; and yet perhaps, when they are restored to that perfection God intends to them afterward, it is but in respect of some greater measure of substantial spiritual faith and holiness than ever the had afore, without those superadditions and overpluses of glorious joys, &c. that themselves once had, or others, that have kept their garments pure, have the privilege of.
I need not stand long in shewing that there fall out such cases of backsliding, that yet are not sinking into a total falling away, or extinction of grace: as, 1, the case of 'leaving one's first love,' and declining from that spiritual fervent 'zeal of good works,' which a Christian had once at his first calling, or afterwards, and therewith a cooling and defervescency in holy actings, inward and outward. This was Christ's charge against the angel and church of Ephesus: Rev.
2:4, 5, 'I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember from whence thou art fallen, and do thy first works;' and that this is said to them that had true grace still, in an eminent measure, abiding in them, and who continued still to act holily, though in a lower degree, I need not stand to prove; read the verses afore and after. Again, 2, you read of a far deeper defection in the angel of the church of Sardis, even to the lowest degree, next to a total loss of grace and the state of it: Rev. 3:2, 'I have not found,' says
Christ, 'thy works perfect afore God.' This also is spoken unto them that were true believers, that had some spiritual life remaining in them; ver. 2, 'Be watchful, strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die.' And they were not those principles you are wont to call
the remainders of pure nature in Adam, as natural conscience, &c., but of that life they had received by regeneration from Christ; for we may not think that all conscience was a-dying in these professors, for Christ writes to them as a church that had many good works, which they still exercised, though comparatively dead to what they had been. But their condition was fallen to this, that their spiritual life was ready to die, and like a snuff or wick sunk into the socket (which Christ's comparison reaches) was ready utterly to go out, and expire its last with the next attempt which it made to shine. And this befell them through a drowsiness which their wills had entertained, by degrees come on them; so as they were greatly declined through that negligence, which a willing and indulged sleepiness brought upon them; although the second verse, 'Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God;' this insinuates that they had life, but were next degree to death; in a dead-hearted frame as to spiritual actings, especially inward; so the words, be watchful, and strengthen, do import. Now when it is said of them, that their 'works were not found perfect afore God,' or not full, it notes that they omitted some duties which they afore practised, or were declined so far, as not to perform them; or if they did, it was formally, customarily, deadly, without much agitation of spiritual life in the exercise of them. Not from out of renewed, inward principles stirred up and exerted, and put forth in them, (though habitually they remained in them) of love to God, zeal for God, faith unfeigned, continually exercising itself upon Christ afresh every day, both for justification and for deriving new strength for the acting of them,—'without whom we can do nothing,'—accompanied with holy aims at the glory of God, and that proceeding out of a pure conscience, without the pre-dominancy of by-ends, prevailingly influencing the good works they did, and carrying them on to those duties, more than the energy and provocation of God's glory in their hearts thereto; and this lifeless, dead frame of heart had not been for a spurt or a short paroxysm or fit, but by the reproof Christ gives it appears it had been for some long space and continuance of time.
Yea, 3, we further find that not only such a privative cessation and depraved omission and obstructiveness in the motion, and circulation of good works, but convulsion fits of falling into the commission of grosser acts of sinning, do sometimes befall true believers that have been called, whereof there are many instances in Scripture. But we need no further than the case of our apostle Peter, and which was the occasion of Christ's command to him, in obedience whereunto he wrote this confortatory or consolatory of our text. You know how he did with oaths and curses thrice deny our
Lord after he had true faith; and yet that principle of faith was not utterly extinct by his so grievous a transgression. His heart, poor man, throbbed within, and beat some inward, though faint, resistances to the contrary, even when his will gave consent to perpetrate that high wickedness. And both these things of him our
Saviour's words insinuate, Luke 22:32, 'But I have prayed that thy faith fail not;' therefore he had faith afore, and that faith not extinct, but smothered as in a smoke, which a look of Christ's blew up into a flame of the deepest and most vehement repentance; and Christ fully recovered and restored him again, and made him perfect, and strengthened him more than ever; and it was a new conversion to him, as Christ there terms it.
But my business is to inquire, for the support and comfort of such Christians, whether none of these four words in the text be not in their signification applicable to these cases, and so the promises thereof to reach them; and although many other promising scriptures may be intended to that purpose, yet my design is, and undertaking hath been, all along my handling this text, to keep myself to the words thereof, and take only such supports as they give a ground for; and I look upon this scripture as an abundary and magazine, as to perseverance-comforts, to make a Christian complete therein, and I shall therefore invite them but to drink and taste the waters out of this one cistern, and draw them forth out of this well of consolation; and if this promise of perfecting reaches the cases of these Christians, then any other, the worst supposable, that of total apostasy excepted, which God never suffers his called ones to fall
into, but setting that aside, these fore-mentioned cases are the worst that do befall any of the true saints after calling, in the course of their lives, between their calling and their deaths.
Now for the whole or total of these cases, and as touching them all at once, it is certain that the word καταρτὶζω, imports a making whole, or perfect again of what is any way rent, torn, tattered, maimed, broken, disjointed, or the like, and signifies an instauration, a restitution, or restauration of anything despoiled; and in the proper and original use of it, signifies the making whole of anything that is endamaged or spoiled.* And from hence this its proper signification, fitly in a way of metaphor, comes to be translated here to men's souls, and the sinful impairments thereof, that sense being used in the text; and so it doth most aptly include the foresaid cases, and imports the setting up again and restoring of a soul or person once truly called (for of one after calling he only speaks), that yet after calling hath been both greatly wanting, decayed, and deficient in good works, and also fallen into great and enormous crimes, or both
(for both these do ofttimes accompany one the other), as well as of the carrying of the soul on in an unblameable course of uninterrupted strictness. And for this the proper signification of it, interpreters (and it is a famous instance among them) do, for expounding of this word in the text, allege and apply out of two evangelists what is more properly spoken of the apostles mending their nets, whilst fishermen, when broken, Mat. 4:21, Mark 1:19; from which they take occasion by way of metaphor or similitude
(which is the form of language used in all these four words) to explain this particular word, it being one and the same word that is used by the evangelists that is here. And the subjects of this promise of making perfect by God being our souls, in respect of sins, the sense of it comes to this, that in some likeness and analogy, God's promise is to mend and make our broken souls whole again, after they have been rent and tattered, in the impairment of their graces begun in them, either by decay or more grievous sinnings, so far as to be fitted again for their wonted use and service, as we say, or 'meet for the Master's use,' as the apostle speaks, 2 Tim. 2:21, and to that
end to make them as tight and as strong us ever, that first of their mending nets being the proper signification of the word, and this, in our apostle, the metaphorical; and it is the law of the use of metaphors or borrowed speeches, by way of likeness thus to apply them according to their several kinds, and therefore must be admitted in this. And here I need not tell you, how much more obnoxious our sinful souls are to miscarriages in their kind, than fishermen's nets are to ruptures and breaches in their kind, which yet is as great as of any other thing a man makes use of, as from falling upon anchors or through wrecks in the sea; yea, by multitudes and bigness of fishes when drawn up, Luke 5:6. It is use enough to make of this similitude, and to my present purpose, that whatsoever the breaches be on our parts, God's promise here is to them that are called, to make them perfect again, and not to suffer them to run into such, as shall utterly destroy them.
I shall further but cast in this, agreeable to my general scope I have all along prosecuted, that if art and nature in 'empty man' (as in Job
11:12 man is styled) have skill, and are able to repair the works of their hands, surely the God of all power, and the God of all grace, knows how, and is able much more, yea, and by grace and the engagements thereof, most willing to restore the workmanship of his own hands (which he cannot but love), which he hath on purpose
'created unto good works,' Eph. 2:10. And this then, when his and our adversary Satan (whose work and endeavour it is to spoil that new workmanship, which God by regenerating of us hath begun in us) attempts to ruin us, by stirring up our lusts in us; and with whose temptations those corruptions being irritated do join; whereupon yet, God is so far from being provoked to destroy us or forsake us
(which is Satan's aim), that he is provoked, through his grace that he bears in his heart towards us, to repair what Satan in malice, through our weakness, had attempted to undo. And accordingly, in full opposition to Satan and the strength of lusts in us, he sets himself, with a but God, &c., as here, to undo this ruining work of the devil, notwithstanding all our sinfulness; and further, hath been most graciously pleased thus aforehand to relieve us by such a promise,
made under the significancy of this most elegant metaphor, to mend us, and restore us, and make us perfect again, and our souls as strong and fit for his service as ever.* Oh how often doth the devil in our lives break in upon us, and upon what we have wrought, and in a manner undoes what we have done; yea, when for a long while together we have walked more strictly, and our hearts have been kept up in a holy frame and close communion with God, and gone on in a constancy, performing spiritual duties with much spiritual life; how doth a wretched lust rise in us, stirred up by some occasion, find then strongly withal enforced and impregnated by Satan's temptations and infusions (us in David, Satan is said to have done, when he numbered the people, 1 Chron. 21:1); and so in a great measure mars what we have been so long a-working, insomuch that we are apt to think ourselves utterly undone, and in reality are wonderfully cast behind hand thereby. Ay, but this God of all grace here in the text, sends then his Holy Spirit into our hearts, who provokes us to, and renews unfeigned repentance in us (as there he did in David), lifts us up when we are fallen, and restores us to our former, yea, and often to a much far better and holier constitution and disposure of spirit than ever. And oh, how often is it that God visits us and renews such gracious dispensations upon our sinnings, verifying that blessed manifesto of his gracious heart in the prophet, 'Thy destruction is of thyself; but in me is thy help.'
This from the proper use of the word, as it is appliable, by way of metaphor, unto God's perfecting our souls in the cases afore specified; but as yet only in the general.
But let us further see, if that the word be not in its metaphorical use, in particular applied by the Holy Ghost himself, unto a restoring us in and out of those very particular cases, concerning grosser sins and neglect of known duties.
I begin first with that of falling into grosser sins, which are the worst; according to that rule, that sins of commission are greater evils, and
have more of peccancy in them than sins of omission in good works; of which sort the two first cases afore mentioned were.
In Gal. 6:1, 'If a man' (or although a man, who is supposed by the apostle to be a brother and true Christian) 'be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.' Which last words shew he supposeth the most spiritual may fall into the like. The word
'restore such an one,' is our very word in the text here, and in a way of metaphor, applied to the case afore us, although under another metaphor than the former (yet having the like general import of making perfect what is impaired, &c.); applied, I say, to the making whole again a sinner fallen into a gross sin. And it is expressly so applied to this very case by the Holy Ghost himself.
The metaphor there (as generally interpreters agree, and needs no distinct proof, for the scriptures I shall allege in the prosecution of this, and in the margin,* will clear it so to be) is a metaphor taken from surgeons that set a bone, a limb or limbs, which by some grievous dangerous fall is become loosened from its joint, or perhaps
(which is worse) broken or bruised; and the word παράπτωμα there also suits too, and complies also with this other metaphor of a broken joint. It is translated indeed a fault, but signifies properly a fall, and but metaphorically a sin; yea, and sometimes is ὀνωμαστικῶς, and by way of eminency, put to signify some singular great sin, as when we say Adam's fall, as it was to the ruin of himself and us all; and accordingly his sin and disobedience is in that singular sense termed by the apostle παράπτωμα, Rom. 5:14, which is the word here, and sounds some noticed sin fallen into. And this is a worse matter than the case of that spiritual drowsiness to good works we spake of, out of Rev. 3. Now his exhortation is to such as were more grown and able Christians, whom he terms, 'you that are spiritual,' that is, comparatively to others; and these he exhorts with meekness and all tenderness of spirit (such as we use to say surgeons' hands ought to be), to set him into joint again; or if it were broken by the fall, to set it again. A member thus dislocated, and out
of joint, or a limb and bone broken, are not yet thereby quite severed or cut off from the body it is in, or the head it [is] joined to, but its union still with the body continued; but it is loosened or misplaced, or not in its right socket. So it is with such a man in respect of his union with Christ, and with his mystical body. And it cannot be that he should mean sins of ordinary infirmity (of which the apostle
James says, 'In many things we offend all'); these have not so dangerous an effect as to bring a dislocation upon a member; no, nor do ordinary strains and wrenches, though violent, produce such an effect as this fall here spoken of is said to do. And from which falls also the apostle supposeth these that are spiritual to be free in their ordinary Christian course; for he says, 'Lest ye also be tempted.' It is therefore an heinous sinning he means (however some interpreters would lessen it). And from hence I infer that,
If the word of my text be thus there applied unto such a state of falling into sin (as it is), in the way of a command from God, given unto men, who have but a little mercy in them, that yet with meekness and tenderness they should restore such an one, then surely the God of all grace, who hath picked and chosen out this same word, and put it into a promise here, against all temptations of them whom he hath called (as the current of the text runs); surely he himself will perform it, through Jesus Christ their head, to whom they remain united still, though out of joint, and unto whom God hath engaged himself to do this, as well as promised it to us; to whose heart (namely, Christ) it goes, even the fall of every member of his, more than their persecutions; who is sensible to the quick of these infirmities of ours, as well as of other miseries, and pities us under them, as Heb. 4:15, 16, 'For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.' And if to that purpose the Holy Ghost hath in that place, Gal. 6:1, made use of this word to signify a restoring one from such gross lapses, when it is spoken by way of exhortation to what men should do one to another, shall we not take
and receive it in the same sense from God, and apply it unto such cases wherein it is spoken of him, by way of promise from himself?
Of God, I say, who hath all grace, and power, and faithfulness within himself, to effect and perform what he promiseth? Certainly yes.
There cannot be a greater case of sinning that befalls a regenerate man than what God himself says he did, de facto, find in sin obstinate sinner against himself, who yet was his child: Isa. 57:17,
'For the iniquity of his covetousness I was wroth.' And thereupon, God expressing his displeasure by some eminent correction, and by the context in the verses immediately afore, it seems (as I have elsewhere opened the words in a discourse long since printed) it was an impressing his wrath immediately upon his spirit: 'I was wroth, and smote him: but he went on (notwithstanding) frowardly in the way of his heart;' that is, he added a perverse obstinacy after that, and against that severe correction. His first course of sinning, which occasioned that chastisement, and was committed afore it, the Lord terms an iniquity; that is, a sin of an high kind, in itself alone considered. And further, this his sinning was not a transient act, that passed from him, out of which he presently was recovered, but a way of his heart, says that text, which notes that it had been continued in, yea, and still continued after that great rebuke, and therefore for some long time; yet in this case God doth, upon a most deliberate full notice, view, and cognisance taken thereof, utter himself thus: Isa.
57:18, 'I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will restore comforts to him.' And this God, 'the God of all grace,' promiseth and peremptorily declares he will do; he is resolved to do. I say he peremptorily resolves it, for it is set in opposition against the obstinacy of this sinner; as if God had said, I am as resolute in grace and mercy for him as he is in sinning against me; and God will
'overcome' when he will be merciful, as well as when 'he judgeth,' Ps.
51. And do we find God thus resolute in the Old Testament? Certainly he is not become less gracious in the New, unto those he hath out of grace called, now, when his Christ, our Saviour Jesus, is come, and God hath called them through him. Therefore, even in such cases
(and these are the worst), when through his permission man's
wilfulness throws him into such direful miscarriages as these, he proclaims it, 'I will be merciful unto those I will be merciful unto;' those whom first grace by calling hath took hold of, and maintained a principle of life not extinguished though ready to die. We may warrantably conclude with applying this as a promise here, that God will make perfect, restore (instaurare, as the text) such a soul unto that perfection again as shall fit him, or make him meet, for the actual possession of his inheritance in light, into which he had called him.
And the reason which the text gives is powerfully convincing of this.
For having said that his calling us at first was from out of the whole graciousness of God, it was of such who, before calling, were 'wholly dead in sins and trespasses:' Eph. 2:1, 5 compared, 'And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; (by grace ye are saved.') And then that ἀυτὸς, this same God (which word I put a mighty weight upon, though not taken notice of by our translators, as bringing down the full of that foregone description of God, the God of all grace, &c., upon these following words of promise), 'this same God will restore and perfect' from under these dangerous falls, that would prove fatal indeed, if grace undertook not this restoration of them; and yet they bring not the person into a dead condition, utterly dead as before, but as that Rev. 3:2 represents it, 'ready to die,' a spirit of some life yet remaining in them (as there). And the force of the reason lies in these two things: 1, that he being not fallen into so desperate a state by sinning as he was in afore calling, the principle of life yet remains unexcussed by his fall; 2, and that yet all the grace, out of which God at first called him, is avowedly declared engaged to restore and perfect him again; insomuch as if it could be supposed (as our apostle speaks in another case) so that if need were of as much grace to renew him again as he had laid out upon him in calling and converting him at first, God doth engage himself to spend it upon him again; yea, further, if all the grace that is in the heart of God were requisite to be drawn out, he would sot the whole stock thereof upon it to effect no less than the whole work of calling
entirely anew, and rear it from the very foundations afresh, rather than fail (as we say); and the whole of that grace which first called us would move him to make perfect again such an one.
And in such cases of foul lapses, God often is wont to make such perfect again, by a new conversion; for by that name they are in that case termed, and really are; as to the substance of the work, they are such, although indeed they be but the revivals of fresh acts of faith and repentance, such as at the first. And so in our apostle's case of denying his Master (which I alone afore have instanced in), his restauration is termed by Christ his conversion, 'when thou art converted,' &c. And that the same things are acted over again in us that were at first, David's repentance for his so heinous transgressions, in Ps. 51 shews. And you that know what it is to be converted may trace the prints of a new conversion in all the parts of conversion, to have been supplicated for by him, to be wrought in him, as humiliation for sin, ver. 3, 5, 14; a seeking out for pardon of sin, and righteousness of justification, ver. 2, 7, 9, 14; and as vehement petitions for holiness and sanctification to be renewed, and that in the very terms which are used of its being wrought at first: ver. 10, 'Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.' And he imploreth grace in the same manner and terms also, as any new converts use to seek the favour of God in, and to express themselves by; yea, and that therewith God would restore to him 'the former joy of his salvation,' ver. 12, and 'stablish him with his free spirit' (which last word stablish is the same with the second word here in the text, and so translated by the Septuagint, and used by Christ to our apostle); yea, and lastly, if you will admit it, he utters himself in the very allusion, which, in the way of metaphor, the first word in my text did prompt us to, towards the exposition of the word itself, namely, of setting right a broken or disjointed bone or member; and truly David's language runs thus, 'That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice;' only David, by his broken bones, in that verse, means those dolors (and therefore opposed to joy in the text) and heart-breakings for sin set upon his conscience, together with impressions of the finger of God, which were to his