FOR the firmer support and comfort of His people, as also to allure and bring in others who are hankering about the door, or yet in the highways and hedges, it has pleased the holy and only wise God to indulge us with plain and positive assurance of the certain continuance of all who have once believed and received the grace of God in truth, albeit that many concerned in this assurance attain not to it. Faith and holiness are of an abiding nature, and this is that we call “perseverance.” All and every one of God’s elect, being once regenerated and believing, are and shall be invincibly carried on to the perfect obtainment of blessedness and glory.
This affords matter of eminent support to believers, especially in difficult cases; it also evinces matter of duty on the believer’s part, and something of direction in reference to both.
Stand still and behold the salvation of the Lord; and, at the sight of this great thing, say in your hearts, with a holy astonishment, “What hath God w rought!” Let your souls be filled and enlarged with everlasting admirings of that grace, that sovereign grace, which has so impregnably secured the salvation of His chosen, that no manner of thing whether within them or without them shall be able to defeat it, or hinder them of it; no, not “the gates of hell;” nay, not so much as one of the stakes thereof shall be removed, and that for ever. Shaken you may be, and tossed with a tempest, but not overturned, because you have an eternal root. Electing love is of that sovereignty, that it rules and over-rules all, both in heaven and earth: Christ Jesus, our Savior and Lord, the Holy Ghost our Sanctifier, Counselor, and Comforter, in all they have done, do, or will do, do still pursue that purpose. When you shall see how God has carried on His work in you, even bearing you on eagles’ wings until He had brought you to Himself, how will you magnify His work, and admire it then! Begin it now.
Let us consider what advantages this great truth of believers’ invincible perseverance yields to us.
1. As it is a part of the doctrine of election, which teaches that nothing in us, but love and grace in God was the only original cause of our salvation; the knowledge whereof will work in the soul a holy love towards God, whom nothing offends but sin. Simon answered right, when he said, “He that had most forgiven him, would love most” (Luke 7:43); whence it follows that he who believes the free remission of all his sins from first to last, must needs love God more than he who believes only the pardon of those that are past. Now this grace of love being the strongest and most operative principle, he that is led by it must act accordingly; that is, vigorously, and without weariness, as Paul did. And Joseph, having received large tokens of God’s love to him, and expecting more yet, argues against and, with a holy disdain and slight, puts by the temptation; “How can I do this, and sin against God,” who has dealt, and will deal, so bountifully with me? Divine love is of infinite efficacy.
2. As it teaches the soul to depend upon God for its keeping, as having His almighty power absolutely engaged for it. Whereas, if the efficacy and event of all that God does for me should depend upon something to be done by myself, who am a frail creature, and prone to revolt, I should still be in fear, because still in danger of falling, and losing all at last; and this fear, being an enfeebling passion, must needs render my resistance, and all my endeavors, both irregular and weak: whereas a magnanimous and fearless spirit, who sees himself clothed with a divine power, shall have his wits, as we say, more about him to discern dangers and advantages, and, consequently, how to avoid the one, and improve the other.
3. As it gives assurance “our labor shall not be in vain.” This made these believing Hebrews to “endure that great fight of afflictions, and to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods because they knew they had in heaven a better and more enduring substance.” All manner of accomplishments put into one, and made your own, would not so invincibly steel your foreheads and strengthen your hearts, as to be sure of success, and to come off conquerors at last: the apostle, therefore, brings it in as the highest encouragement in our Christian warfare (Rom 6:14, 8:37). And our blessed Lord Himself, who of all others had the hardest task to perform, it made His face as a flint, because He knew He should not be confounded (Isa 50:7).
Make it one, and that the main part of your business, to foil and disprove the objections that are brought against this doctrine; and your nearest way to it is by “growing in grace” (2 Peter 3:18, 1:5-10). Lay aside and cast away every weight; especially the sin that most easily besets you; your bosom sin, whatever it be; cast them to the moles and the bats; they are not fit mates for day-light creatures (1 Thess 5:5,6). It is a noble prize you run for; therefore clog not yourself with any thing that may hinder or retard your pace. Watch against the beginnings and very first motions of sin; nip it in the bud; abstain f rom all appearance of evil; and walk not on the brink of your liberty. It is easier to keep out an invader, than to expel him being entered; to keep down a rebel and prevent his rising, than to conquer him when he is up. Great and black clouds have small beginnings; the bigness of your hand at first, may rise and spread so as to cover the whole heavens; therefore, keep off sin at staff’s end.
Be diligent and industrious in it. Think not, because it is God who performs all things for you, that therefore you may sit still, or be remiss in your duty; your arms and armor were not provided to rust in your tent. There may be, indeed, such a juncture in Providence, that it may be your duty, and consequently your strength, to sit still, as was theirs at the Red Sea (Exo 13:14); this is when all further motion is shut up to you; and then the Lord will do His work without you; but usually there is something to be done on our part. Though the Lord would go forth before David, and smite the Philistines, yet David must bestir himself (2 Sam 5:24). This thing is constantly to be affirmed, that they who have believed in God, be careful to maintain good works (Titus 3:8), and do it the rather, “to cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we” (2 Cor 11:12).
Cleave to Jesus Christ, and to Him only; and trust not to your holding of Him, but to His holding of you. This did David, when he says, “Thou holdest me by my right hand” (Psa 73:23). Follow Him, as men follow the court, whose dependence is upon it. While following Him, you cannot do amiss; nor will any good thing be withheld, whether for strength, counsel, or otherwise. Since there are such arguments for believers’ perseverance, let us all so demean ourselves, that we may have them all stand on our side, for proof and evidence that we are of that happy remnant, whom the great God has set apart for Himself, and whom He has made and wrought for this self-same thing; and as it was His purpose, so let it be our spirit and practice to glorify the riches of His grace.
1. If born of God, let us show forth the virtues of our Father, and bear ourselves as His children, both towards Him, and towards the world. Let us live upon Him, and live to Him; rejoicing always before Him; first, for His own blessedness, and then for ours, as derived from His, and by Him reserved in heaven for us; and all, as designing to honor Him as our Father.
2. If we have faith, let it appear by our works. It must be some singular thing that must distinguish us from other men; it is not profession, nor works, nor actions neither, as to the matter of them and so far as visible to men, that will approve us believers; but the principle from which they grow, and the end they drive at; the result of Abraham’s faith was, “to give glory to God,” and so will ours, if Abraham’s seed.
3. Let us carry ourselves under all dispensations, not only quietly, but thankfully, and so as to answer God’s end: walk humbly; hate the thing that is evil; have the world under your feet; esteem preciously of Christ; honor His ordinances; let every grace have its perfect work; and rejoice in hopes of that glory which all these things are preparatory to.
4. If one with Christ, and He our Mediator, then let us walk as He walked; who held His own will always subject to His Father’s; reckoning it “His meat to do His will, and to finish His work;” let us also wait His advice and counsel in every business, and follow it; commit our cause to Him, and interest Him in all our concernments.
5. Apply yourselves to every attribute of God, according to the present occasion; and dwell upon them, and leave them not until you have the grace and help intended by them. They are all made over to the heirs of salvation, to live upon: let it not be said, that in the midst of our abundance we are in straits!
6. If made for the glory of God, make good your end: He is glorious in holiness, and by holiness only can you glorify Him. Bear, therefore, on the forehead of your design and conversation, that royal inscription, “Holiness to the Lord”: by this you will “set to your seal that God is true”; and approve yourselves to be “children that will not lie.” It will also be of singular use and service to yourselves, as to that other end of your being: that you have “glorified God on the earth,” will be a substantial argument that “He will glorify you” in the world to come (John 17:4). For though your personal righteousness be not your title to the heavenly inheritance, yet your constant progression in holiness will be your best evidence, next to the immediate witnessings of the Spirit, that you have a title, and that your title is good. Since, therefore, we were made for and expect such things, “what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness” (2 Peter 3:11).
Well it is for us, who find in ourselves so great proness to backslide, that our eternal condition does not depend on ourselves; but upon that foundation of God mentioned in Timothy, where the apostle, speaking of some who had made shipwreck of the faith, lest true believers should faint in their minds at the sight and apprehension of it, he tells them that nevertheless, that is, notwithstanding this woeful backsliding of some, perhaps of eminent profession, yet “the foundation of God standeth sure,” as if he had said, that they who are of this foundation are sure to be kept: and he confirms it with his seal, “the Lord knoweth them that are His;” He knows whom He has chosen, and concerning whom He has covenanted, that “they shall not depart from Him,” and therefore He will not let them go; they shall be kept as those seven thousand were, from bowing the knee to Baal; adding this caution withal, that “every one which nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim 2:19): which, as it is a means of God’s appointing to keep from apostacy, so it shall be to them an evidence that they are of that foundation, and shall be kept. For, it being His scope to comfort believers against their misgivings which arise from a sense of their own weakness, and a like aptness in themselves to revolt, He needs must use an argument suitable to such an end: and therefore, in saying, “The foundation of God standeth sure,” He must intend, believers standing sure upon it; for the standing sure of the foundation would be small comfort to us, if yet we might be blown off it, or sink beside it. Does God take care for sparrows? For oxen? For ravens? Much more for believing souls, who have committed themselves to His keeping. Let the fowler do all he can, not a sparrow shall fall to the ground: you will say, Without the will of God they cannot: and the will of God is, that they shall not: A thousand may fall at his side, and ten thousand at his right hand, but it shall not come nigh him (Psa 91:7). He that determined such a sparrow shall not fall, determined also to prevent that which would cause him to fall; and therefore, either the fowler shall not find the bird, or the bird shall discern his approach, or smell the powder, and be gone; or if he shoot, he shall miss his mark; or if he hit, it shall light on the feathers that will grow again; a believer’s heel may be bruised, but his vital parts are out of reach, and therefore safe.