-- Tit. 2. Directions for perseverance, or to prevent backsliding
saints:' for holy employment and holy company, are very great preservatives against every sin.
Direct. X. 'Go presently to your companions in sin, and lament that you have joined with them, and earnestly warn and entreat them to repent; and if they will not, renounce their course and company, and tell them what God hath shewed you of the sin and danger.' If really you will return, as with Peter you have fallen, so with Peter, go out and weep bitterly; and when you are converted, strengthen your brethren, and help to recover those that you have sinned with.
I have suited most of these Directions to those that relapse into sins of sensuality, rather than to them that fall into atheism, infidelity, or heresy; because I have spoken against these sins already; and the Directions there given, shew the way for the recovery of such.
Tit. 2. Directions for preventing Backsliding, or for Perseverance Apostacy and backsliding is a state that is more easily prevented than cured: and therefore I shall desire those that stand, to use these following Directions, lest they fall.
Direct. I. 'Be well grounded in the nature and reason of your religion.' For it is not the highest zeal and resolution that will cause you to persevere, if your judgments be not furnished with sufficient reasons, to confute gainsayers, and evidence the truth, and tell you why you should persevere. I speak that with grief and shame which cannot be concealed: the number of Christians is so small that are well seen in the reasons and methods of Christianity, and are able to prove what they hold to be true, and to confute opposers, that it greatly afflicteth me to think, what work the atheists and infidels would make, if they once openly play their game, and be turned loose
to do their worst! If they deride and oppose the immortality of the soul, and the life to come, and the truth of the Scriptures, and the work of redemption, and office of Christ; alas, how few are able to withstand them, by giving any sufficient reason of their hope? We have learnt of the Papists, that he hath the strongest faith that believeth with least reason; and we have been (truly) taught that to deny our foundations, is the horrid crime of infidelity: and therefore because it is so horrid a crime to deny or question them, we thought we need not study to prove them: and so most have taken their foundation upon trust (and indeed are scarce able to bear the trial of it), and have spent their days about the superstructure, and in learning to prove the controverted, less necessary points. Insomuch, that I fear there are more that are able to prove the points which an Antinomian, or an Anabaptist do deny, than to prove the immortality of the soul, or the truth of Scripture, or Christianity; and to dispute about a ceremony, or form of prayer, or church government, than to dispute for Christ against an infidel. So that their work is prepared to their hands, and it is no great victory to overcome such raw, unsettled souls.
Direct. II. 'Get every sacred truth which you believe, into your very hearts and lives; and see that all be digested into holy love and practice.' When your food is turned into vital nutriment, into flesh and blood, it is not cast up by every thing that maketh you sick, and turneth your stomachs; as it may be before it is concocted, distributed and incorporated. Truth that is but barely known, is but like meat that is undigested in the stomach: but truth, which is turned into the love of God, and of a holy life, is turned into a new nature; and will not so easily be let go.
Direct. III. 'Take heed of doctrines of presumption and security, and take heed lest you fall away, by thinking it so impossible to fall away,
that you are past all danger.' The covenant of grace doth sufficiently encourage you to obey and hope, against temptations to despair and casting off the means: but it encourageth no man to presume or sin, or to cast off means as needless things. Remember that if ever you will stand, the fear of falling must help you to stand: and if ever you will persevere, it must be by seeing the danger of backsliding, so far as to make you afraid, and quicken you in the means which are necessary to prevent it. It is no more certain that you shall persevere, than it is certain that you shall use the means of persevering: and one means is, by seeing your danger, to be stirred up to fear and caution to escape it. Because it is my meaning in this Direction, to save men from perishing by security upon the abuse of the doctrine of perseverance, I hope none will be offended that I lay down these antidotes.
1. Consider, that the doctrine of perseverance hath nothing in it to encourage security. The very controversies about it, may cause you to conclude, that a certain sin is not to be built upon a controverted doctrine. Till Augustine's time, it is hard to find any ancient writers, that clearly asserted the certain perseverance of any at all. Augustine and Prosper maintain the certain perseverance of all the elect, but deny the certain perseverance of all that are regenerated, justified, or sanctified: for they thought that more were regenerate and justified than were elect, of whom some stood (even all the elect) and the rest fell away: so that I confess, I never read one ancient Father, or Christian writer, that ever maintained the certainty of the perseverance of all the justified, of many hundred, if not a thousand years after Christ. And a doctrine, that to the church was so long unknown, hath not that certainty, or that necessity, as to encourage you to any presumption or security. The churches were saved many hundred years without believing it.
2. The doctrine of perseverance is against security, because it uniteth together the end and the means: for they that teach, that the justified shall never totally fall from grace, do also teach, that they shall never totally fall into security, or into any reigning sin. For this is to fall away from grace. And they teach that they shall never totally fall from the use of the necessary means of their preservation; nor from the cautious avoiding of the danger of their souls: God doth not simply decree that you shall persevere; but that you shall be kept in perseverance by the fear of your danger, and the careful use of means; and that you shall persevere in these, as well as in other graces. Therefore if you fall to security and sin, you fall away from grace, and shew that God never decreed or promised, that you should never fall away.
3. Consider how far many have gone that have fallen away: the instances of our times are much higher than any I can name to you out of history. Men that have seemed to walk humbly and holily, fearing all sin, blameless in their lives, zealous in religion, twenty or thirty years together, have fallen to deny the truth, or certainty of the Scriptures, the Godhead of Christ, if not Christianity itself. And many that have not quite fallen away, have yet fallen into such grievous sins, as make them a terrible warning to us all, to take heed of presumption and carnal security.
4. Grace is not in the nature of it, a thing that cannot perish or be lost. For, 1. It is a separable quality. 2. Adam did lose it. 3. We lose a great degree of it too oft; and the remaining degrees are of the same nature. It is not Only possible in itself to lose it, but too easy; and not possible without co-operating grace to keep it.
5. Grace is not natural to us; to love our ease, and honour, and friends, is natural; but to love Christ, and his holy ways and servants,
is not natural to us: indeed when we do it, it is our natural powers that do it; but not as naturally disposed to it, but as inclined by the cure of supernatural grace. Eating, and drinking, and sleeping we forget not, because nature itself remembereth us of them; but learning and acquired habits may be lost, if not very deeply radicated; and it is commonly concluded as to the nature of them, that 'Habitus infusi habent se ad modum acquisitorum:' 'Infused habits are like to acquired ones.'
6. Grace is, as it were, a stranger, or new comer in us. It hath been there but a little while; and therefore we are but raw, and too unacquainted with the right usage and improvement of it; and are the apter to forget our duty, or to neglect it, or ignorantly to do that which tendeth to its destruction.
7. Grace dwelleth in a heart, which is not wholly dispossessed of those objects which are against its work, nor delivered from those principles which have an enmity against it. The love of the world and flesh was in the heart, before the love of God and holiness: and ignorance was before knowledge, and pride before humility, and selfishness before self-denial. And these are not wholly rooted out; we have dealt so gently with them, (as the Israelites with the Canaanites, Jebusites and other inhabitants of the land) that they are left to try us, and to be thorns in our sides. And the garrison is not free from danger, that hath an enemy always lodged within: our enemies are in the house with us; they lie down and rise up with us, and are as near as our flesh and bones: we can never be where they are not, nor leave them behind us, whithersoever we go, or whatever we do. No marvel, if brother be against brother, and the father against the son; when we are so much against ourselves. And are we yet secure?
8. And the number of snares that are still before us, and of the subtle, malicious enemies of our souls may easily convince us that we are not wholly free from danger. How subtle and diligent is the devil?
How much do his servants imitate him? Every creature or person that we have to do with, and every common mercy which we receive, hath matter of danger in it, which calleth us to fear and watch.
9. Perseverance is nothing else but our continuance in the grace which we received: and this grace consisteth in act as well as in habit: and the habit is for action; and the act is it that increaseth and continueth the habit. And the fear of God, and the belief of his threatenings, and repenttance, and watchfulness, and diligent obedience, are a great part of this grace. And the acts are ours, performed by ourselves, by the helps of God: God doth not believe, and repent, and obey in us, but causeth us ourselves to do it.
Therefore to grow cold, and secure, and sinful, upon pretence that we are sure to persevere, this is to cease persevering, and to fall away, because we are sure to persevere, and not to fall away: which is a mere contradiction.
10. Lastly, Bethink you well what is the meaning of all these texts of Scripture, and the reason that the Holy Ghost doth speak to us in this manner. "And you—hath he reconciled,—to present you holy:—if ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel." "Abide in me, and I in you. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withered. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye willd." "Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." "Keep yourselves in the love of Godf." "They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ; but with many of them God was not well pleased: wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest
he fall." "Be not highminded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not thee." "Ye are fallen from gracei." "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." "Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. For we are partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the endl." "Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." "Hold fast till I comen." "And he that overcometh and keepeth my words unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations."
Take heed therefore of that doctrine which telleth you, that sins to come are all pardoned to you before they are committed, and that you are justified from them, and that it is unlawful to be afraid of falling away, because it is impossible, &c, For no sin is pardoned before it is committed, (though the remedy be provided:) for it is then no sin: and you are justified from no sin, any further than it is pardoned. Suppose God either to decree, or but to foreknow the freest, most contingent act, and there will be a logical impossibility in order of consequence, that it should be otherwise than he so decreeth or foreseeth. But that inferreth no natural impossibility in the thing itself: for God doth not decree or foresee that such a man's fall shall be impossible, but only 'non futurum.'
Direct. IV. 'In a special manner take heed of the company and doctrine of deceivers; yea, though they seem most religious men, and are themselves first deceived, and think they are in the right. And take heed of falling into a dividing party, which separateth from the generality of the truly wise and godly people.' For this hath been an ordinary introduction to backsliding; false doctrine hath a mighty power on the heart. And he that can separate one of the sheep from the rest of the flock, hath a fair advantage to carry him awayq.
Direct. V. 'Be very watchful against the sin of pride, especially pride of gifts, or knowledge, or holiness, which some call spiritual pride;' for God is engaged to cast down the proud. "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Satan assaulted our first parents by that way that he fell himself; and his success encourageth him to try the same way with their posterity. And, alas, how greatly hath he succeeded through all ages of the world till now!
Direct. VI. 'Take heed of a divided, hypocritical heart, which never was firmly resolved for God, upon expectation of the worst, and upon terms of self-denial, nor was ever well loosed from the love of this present world, nor firmly believed the life to come.' For it is no wonder that he falleth from grace, who never had any grace but common, which never renewed his soul. It is no wonder that falsehearted friends forsake us, when their interest requireth it; nor that the seed which never had depth of earth, doth bring forth no fruit, but what will wither when persecution shall arise, or that which is sown among thorns be choked. Sit down and count what it will cost you to be Christians, and receive not Christ upon mistakes, or with reserves.
Direct. VII. 'Take heed lest the world, or any thing in it, steal again into your hearts, and seem too sweet to you.' If your friends, or dwellings, or lands and wealth, or honours, begin to grow too pleasant, and be overloved, your thoughts will presently be carried after them, and turned away from God, and all holy affection will be damped and decay, and grace will fall into a consumption. It is the love of money that is the root of all evil; and the love of this world which is the mortal enemy of the love of God. Keep the world from your hearts, if you would keep your graces.
Direct. VIII. 'Keep a strict government and watch over your fleshly appetite and sense.' For the loosing of the reins to carnal lusts, and yielding to the importunity of sensual desires, is the most ordinary way of wasting grace, and falling off from God.
Direct. IX. 'Keep as far as you can from temptations, and all occasions and opportunities of sinning.' Trust not to your own strength; and be not so foolhardy as to thrust yourselves into needless danger. No man is long safe that standeth at the brink of ruin; if the fire and straw be long near together, Some spark is like to catch at last.
Direct. X. 'Incorporate yourselves into the communion of saints, and go along with them that go towards heaven, and engage yourselves in the constant use of all those means which God hath appointed you to use for your perseverance; especially take heed of an idle, slothful, unprofitable life: and keep your graces in the most lively exercise; for the slothful is brother to the waster;' and idleness consumeth or corrupteth our spiritual health and strength, as well as our bodily.
Set yourselves diligently to work while it is day, and do all the good in your places, that you are able: for it is acts that preserve and increase the habits; and a religion which consisteth only in doing no hurt, is so lifeless and corrupt, that it will quickly perish.
Direct. XI. 'Keep always in thine eye the doleful case of a backslider'
(which I opened before). O what horror is waiting to seize on their consciences! How many of them have we known, that on their deathbeds have lain roaring in the anguish of their souls, crying out,
"I am utterly forsaken of God, because I have forsaken him! There is no mercy for Such an apostate wretch: O that I had never been born, or had been any thing rather than a man! Cursed be the day that ever
I hearkened to the counsel of the wicked, and that ever I pleased this