Of God’s ordinary way of fetching the backslider home I will not now discourse—namely, whether he always breaketh his bones for his sins, as he broke David’s; or whether he will all the days of their life, for this, leave them under guilt and darkness; or whether he will kill them now, that they may not be damned in the day of judgment, as he dealt with them at Corinth (1 Cor 11:30-32). He is wise, and can tell how to embitter backsliding to them he loveth. He can break their bones, and save them; he can lay them in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deep, and save them; he can slay them as to this life, and save them. And herein again appears wonderful grace, that “Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah of his God, though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel” (Jer 51:5).
Eighth. But suppose God deals not either of these ways with the backslider, but shines upon him again, and seals up to him the remission of his sins a second time, saying, “I will heal their backslidings, and love them freely,” what will the soul do now? Surely it will walk humbly now, and holily all its days. It will never backslide again, will it? It may happen it will not, it may happen it will; it is just as his God keeps him; for although his sins are of himself, his standing is of God; I say, his standing, while he stands, and his recovery, if he falls, are both of God; wherefore, if God leaves him a little, the next gap he finds, away he is gone again. “My people,” says God, “are bent to backsliding from me.” How many times did David backslide; yea, Jehoshaphat and Peter! (2 Sam 11,24; 2 Chron 19:1-3; 20:1-5; Matt 26:69-71; Gal 2:11-13). As also in the third of Jeremiah it is said, “But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet return unto me, saith the Lord” (verse 1). Here is grace! So many time as the soul backslides, so many times God brings him again—I mean, the soul that must be saved by grace—he renews his pardons, and multiplies them. “Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man” (Job 33:29).
Ninth. But see yet more grace. I will speak here of heart-wanderings, and of daily miscarriages—I mean, of these common infirmities that are incident to the best of saints, and that attend them in their best performances; not that I intend, for I cannot, mention them particularly, that would be a task impossible; but such there are, worldly thoughts, unclean thoughts, too low thoughts of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, words, ways, and ordinances of God, by which a Christian transgresses many times; may I not say, sometimes many hundred times a day; yea, for aught I know, there are some saints, and them not long-lived either, that must receive, before they enter into life, millions of pardons from God for these; and every pardon is an act of grace, through the redemption that is in Christ’s blood. 17
Seventy times seven times a day we sometimes sin against our brother; but how many times, in that day, do we sin against God? Lord, “who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults” [sins], said David. And again, “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared” (Matt 18:21,22; Psa 19:12; 130:3,4).
But to mention some of them. Sometimes they question the very being of God, or foolishly ask how he came to be at first; sometimes they question the truth of his Word, and suspect the harmony thereof, because their blind hearts and dull heads cannot reconcile it; yea, all fundamental truths lie open sometimes to the censure of their unbelief and atheism; as, namely, whether there be such an one as Christ, such a thing as the day of judgment, or whether there will be a heaven or hell hereafter, and God pardons all these by his grace. When they believe these things, even then they sin, by not having such reverent, high, and holy thoughts of them as they ought; they sin also by having too, too good thoughts of themselves, of sin, and the world; sometimes, let me say, often, they wink too much at known sin, they bewail not, as they should, the infirmities of the flesh; the itching inclinations which they find in their hearts after vanity go too often from them unrepented of. I do not say but they repent them in the general. But all these things, O how often doth God forgive, through the riches of his grace!
They sin by not walking answerably to mercies received; yea, they come short in their thanks to God for them, even then when they most heartily acknowledge how unworthy they are of them; also, how little of the strength of them is spent to his praise, who freely poureth them into their bosoms; but from all these sins are they saved by grace. They sin in their most exact and spiritual performance of duties; they pray not, they hear not, they read not, they give not alms, they come not to the Lord’s table, or other holy appointments of God, but in and with much coldness, deadness, wanderings of heart, ignorance, misapprehensions, &c. They forget God while they pray unto him; they forget Christ while they are at his table; they forget his Word even while they are reading of it.
How often do they make promises to God, and afterwards break them! Yea, or if they keep promise in show, how much doth their heart even grudge the performing of them; how do they shuck18 at the cross; and how unwilling are they to lose that little they have for God, though all they have was given them to glorify him withal! 19
All these things, and a thousand times as many more, dwell in the flesh of man; and they may as soon go away from themselves as from these corruptions; yea, they may sooner cut the flesh from their bones than these motions of sin from their flesh; these will be with them in every duty—I mean, some or other of them; yea, as often as they look, or think, or hear, or speak. These are with them, especially when the man intends good in so doing: “When I would do good,” says Paul, “evil is present with me.” And God himself complains that “every imagination of the thoughts of the heart of man is only evil,” and that “continually” (Rom 7:21; Gen 6:5).
By these things, therefore, we continually defile ourselves, and every one of our performances—I mean, in the judgment of the law—even mixing iniquity with those things which we hallow unto the Lord. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness; all these evil things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7:21-23). Now what can deliver the soul from these but grace? “By grace ye are saved.” QUEST. V.—WHAT MIGHT BE THE REASON MOVED GOD TO ORDAIN AND CHOOSE TO SAVE THOSE THAT HE SAVETH BY HIS GRACE, RATHER THAN BY ANY OTHER MEANS?
I come now to answer the fifth question; namely, to show why God saveth those that he saveth by grace, rather than by any other means.