Part 36

All these were sins against mercies, yea, and doubtless against covenants and the most solemn resolutions to the contrary. For who can imagine but that when Noah was tossed with the flood, and Lot within the scent and smell of the fire and brimstone that burned down Sodom with his sons and daughters, and Gideon, when so fiercely engaged with so great an enemy, and delivered by so strange a hand, should in the most solemn manner both promise and vow to God? But behold, now they in truth are delivered and saved, they recompense all with sin: "Lord, what is man? how abominable and filthy is man, who drinketh in iniquity like water!"

Let these things teach us "to cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?" Indeed, it is a vain thing to build our faith upon the most godly man in the world, because he is subject to err; yea, better men than he have been so. If Noah and Lot and Gideon and David and Solomon--who wanted not matter from arguments, and that of the strongest kind, as arguments that are drawn from mercy and goodness be, to engage to holiness and the fear of God--yet, after all, did so foully fall as we see, let us admire grace that any stand; let the strongest fear, lest he fearfully fall; and let no man but Jesus Christ himself be the absolute platform and pattern of faith and holiness: as the prophet saith, "Let us cease from man."

THE BACKSLIDER.

None knows the things that haunt the backslider's mind; his new sins are all turned talking devil's, threatening devils, roaring devils, within him. Besides, he doubts of the truth of his first conversion, consequently he has it lying upon him as a strong suspicion, that there was nothing of truth in all his first experience; and this also adds lead to his heels, and makes him come, as to sense and feeling, more heavily and with the greater difficulty, to God by Christ. As the faithfulness of other men kills him, he cannot see an honest, humble, holy, faithful servant of God, but he is pierced and wounded at the heart. "Aye," says he within himself, "that man fears God; that man hath faithfully followed God; that man, like the elect angels, has kept his place; but I am fallen from my station like a devil. That man honoreth God, edifieth the saints, convinceth the world and condemneth them, and is become 'heir of the righteousness which is by faith.' But I have dishonored God, stumbled and grieved saints, made the world blaspheme, and, for aught I know, been the cause of the damnation of many. "These are the things, I say, together with many more of the same kind, that come to him; yea, they will come with him, yea, and will stare him in the face, will tell him of his baseness and laugh him to scorn, all the way that he is coming to God by Christ-I know what I say-and this makes his coming to God by Christ hard and difficult to him. Shame covereth his face all the way he comes. He doth not know what to do; the God that he is returning to is the God that he has slighted, the God before whom he has preferred the vilest lusts; and he knows God knows it, and has before Him all his ways.

The man that has been a backslider, and is returning to God, can tell strange stories, and yet such as are very true. No man was in the whale's belly, and came out again alive, but backsliding and returning Jonah; consequently no man could tell how he was there, what he felt there, what he saw there, and what workings of heart he had when he was there, so well as he.

The returning again of the backslider gives a second testimony to the truth of man's state being by nature miserable, of the vanity of this world, of the severity of the law, certainty of death, and terribleness of judgment to come. His first coming to God by Christ told them so, but his second coming tells them so with a double confirmation of the truth. "It is so," saith his first coming; "OH, IT is SO!" saith his second.

The backsliding of a Christian comes through the overmuch persuading of Satan and lust, that the man was mistaken, and that there was no such horror in the things from which he fled, nor so much good in the things to which he hasted. "Turn again, fool," says the devil, "turn again to thy former course. I wonder what frenzy it was that drove thee to thy heels, and that made thee leave so much good behind thee, as other men find in the lusts of the flesh and the good of the world. As for the law, and death, and an imagination of the day of judgment, they are but mere scarecrows, set up by polite heads to keep the ignorant in subjection." "Well," says the backslider, "I will go back again and see;" so, fool as he is, he goes back, and has all things ready to entertain him: his conscience sleeps, the world smiles, flesh is sweet, carnal company compliments him, and all that can be got is presented to this backslider to accommodate him. But behold, he doth again begin to see his own nakedness, and he perceives that the law is whetting his axe: as for the world, he perceives it is a bubble; he also smells the smell of brimstone, for God hath scattered it upon his tabernacle and it begins to burn within him. "Oh," saith he, "I am deluded; Oh, I am ensnared. My first sight of things was true. I see it so again." Now he begins to be for flying again to his first refuge: "O God," saith he, "I am undone; I have turned from thy truth to lies; I believed them such at first, and find them such at last: have mercy upon me, O God."

This, I say, is a testimony, a second testimony by the same man.

"And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out." I shall here speak a word or two to him that is coming, after backsliding, to Jesus Christ for life.

Thy way, O thou sinner of a double dye, thy way is open to come to Jesus Christ. I mean thee, whose heart, after long backsliding, doth think of turning to him again. Thy way, I say, is open to him, as is the way of the other sorts of comers; as appears by what follows.

1. Because the text makes no exception against thee. It doth not say, "And any one but a backslider; any one but him." The text doth not thus object, but indefinitely openeth wide its golden arms to every coming soul, without the least exception. Therefore thou mayest come. And take heed that thou shut not that door against thy soul by unbelief, which God has opened by his grace.

2. Nay, the text is so far from excepting against thy coming, that it strongly suggesteth that thou art one of the souls intended, O thou coming backslider; else why need that clause have been so inserted, "I will in no wise cast out?" as if he should say, "Though those that come now are such as have formerly backslidden, I will in no wise cast away the fornicator, the covetous, the railer, the drunkard, or other common sinners, nor yet the backslider neither."

If thou yet, instead of repenting and doing thy first works, dost remain a backslider,

1. Then remember that thou must die; and remember also, that when the terrors of God, of death, and a back-slidden heart meet together, there will be sad work in that soul: this is the man that hangeth tilting over the mouth of hell, while death is cutting the thread of his life.

2. Remember, that though God doth sometimes, yea, often, receive backsliders, yet it is not always so. Some draw back unto perdition; for, because they have flung up God and would none of him, he in justice flings up them and their souls for ever. Prov. I: 24-28.

XIII. THE CHRISTIAN RACE.

They that will go to heaven must run for it, because, as the way is long, so the time in which they are to get to the end of it is very uncertain; the time present is the only time: it may be thou hast no more time allotted thee than that thou now enjoyest: "Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." Do not say, I have time enough to get to heaven seven years hence; for I tell thee the bell may toll for thee before seven days more be ended; and when death comes, away thou must go, whether thou art provided or not; and therefore look to it--make no delays--it is not good dallying with things of so great concernment as the salvation or damnation of thy soul. You know, he that hath a great way to go in a little time, and less by half than he thinks of, he had need to run for it.

They that will have heaven must run for it, because the devil, the law, sin, death, and hell, follow them. There is never a poor soul that is going to heaven, but the devil, the law, sin, death, and hell make after that soul. "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour." And I will assure you the devil is nimble; he can run apace, he is light of foot, he hath overtaken many, he hath turned up their heels, and hath given them an everlasting fall. Also the law, that can shoot a great way; have a care thou keep out of the reach of those great guns the ten commandments. Hell also hath a wide mouth; it can stretch itself further than you are aware of. And as the angel said to Lot, "Take heed; look not behind thee, neither tarry thou in all the plain"--that is, anywhere between this and the mountain--"lest thou be consumed;" so say I to thee, Take heed; tarry not, lest either the devil, hell, death, or the fearful curses of the law of God, do overtake thee and throw thee down in the midst of thy sins; then thou, as well as I, wouldst say, They that will have heaven must run for it.

They that go to heaven must run for it, because, perchance, the gates of heaven may be shut shortly. Sometimes sinners have not heaven's gates open to them so long as they suppose, and if they be once shut against a man, they are so heavy that all the men in the world and all the angels in heaven are not able to open them. "I shut, and no man can open," saith Christ. And how if thou shouldst come but one quarter of an hour too late? I tell thee it will cost thee an eternity to bewail thy misery in. Francis Spira [Footnote: Francis Spira, an eminent lawyer of Padua, Italy, flurished in the first half of the sixteenth century. He embraced the reformed religion, and advocated evangelical sentiments with very great zeal. But at legnth, terrified by the threats of the papal church, he made a public recantation of his religious opinions. His apostasy from the faith threw him into despair, and amid intolerable mental agonies, refusing all sustenance and comfort, and affirming his certain condemnation for having abjured the known truth, he miserably expired. See Sleidan's History of the Reformation, page 475.] can tell thee what it is to stay till the gate of mercy be quite shut; or to run so lazily that they be shut before thou get within them. What, to be shut out--what, out of heaven! Sinner, rather than lose it, run for it; yea, and "so run that thou mayest obtain."

Be not daunted though thou meetest with never so many discouragements in thy journey thither. That man that is resolved for heaven, if Satan cannot win him by flatteries, he will endeavor to weaken him by discouragements, saying, Thou art a sinner, thou hast broke God's law, thou art not elected, thou comest too late, the day of grace & past, God doth not care for thee, thy heart is naught, thou art lazy--with a hundred other discouraging suggestions. Then thou must encourage thyself with the freeness of the promises, the tender-heartedness of Christ, the freeness of his invitations to come in, the greatness of the sin of others that have been pardoned, and that the same God through the same Christ holdeth forth the same grace free as ever. If these be not thy meditations, thou wilt draw very heavily in the way to heaven if thou do not give up all for lost; therefore I say, take heart in thy journey, and say to them that seek thy destruction, "Rejoice not against me, O my enemy, for when I fall I shall arise, when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me."

Let me give thee a few motives along with thee. It may be they will be as good as a pair of spurs to prick on thy lumpish heart in this rich journey.

1. Consider there is no way but this; thou must either win or lose. If thou winnest, then heaven, God, Christ, glory, ease, peace, life, yea, life eternal, are thine; thou shalt be made equal to the angels in heaven; thou shalt sorrow no more, sigh no more, feel no more pain; thou shalt be out of the reach of sin, hell, death, the devil, the grave, and whatever else may endeavor thy hurt.

But contrariwise, if thou lose, then thy loss is heaven, glory, God, Christ, ease, peace, and whatever else tends to make eternity comfortable to the saints; besides, thou procurest eternal death, sorrow, pain, blackness and darkness, fellowship with devils, together with the everlasting damnation of thy own soul.

2. Consider that this devil, this hell, death, and damnation follow after thee as hard as they can, and have their commission so to do by the law, against which thou hast sinned; and therefore for thy soul's sake make haste.

3. If they seize upon thee before thou get to the city of refuge, they will put an everlasting stop to thy journey. This also cries, Run for it.

4. Know also, that now heaven-gates, the heart of Christ with his arms are wide open to receive thee O methinks that this consideration, that the devil followeth after to destroy, and that Christ standeth open-armed to receive, should make thee reach out and fly with all haste and speed!

5. Keep thine eyes upon the prize: be sure that thine eyes be continually upon the profit thou art like to get. The reason why men are so apt to faint in their race for heaven, lies chiefly in either of these two things:

(1.) They do not seriously consider the worth of the prize; or else if they do, they are afraid it is too good for them. Therefore keep thine eye much upon the excellency, the sweetness, the beauty, the comfort, the peace that is to be had there by those that win the prize.