speed ; the other falls as a man from the top of a mast, that is engulfed, past all recovering, in the devouring sea. lie falls, as Hanian did bcfbre Mordecai; when he begins, he stays not, but falls till he can fall no lower. This we see in Saiil, whose heart was never right ; when once his naughty heart discovered itself, he tumbl'ed down the hill apace, and stop])ed not, but from one sin went to a worse ; and in a few years you see how far he was got from his first stage, where he first took his leave of God. He that should have told Saul, when he betrayed his disti'ust and unbelief, in not staying the fidl time for Samuel's com- ing, which was the first wry step taken notice of in his apostasy, that he who now was so hot for the worship of God that he could not stay for the prophet's coming, would ere long quite give it over, yea, fall from inquiring of the Lord, to ask counsel of the devil, by seeking to a witch, and from seeking counsel of the devil should, at the last and worst act of his bloody tragedy, with his own hands throw himself desperately into the devil's mouth by self-murder, — siu'ely he would have Avondered at it more than Hazael did at the plain charac- ter Elisha gave of him to his face. And truly all the account we can give of it is, that his heart was naught at first, which Samuel on that occasion hinted to him, 1 Sam. xiii., when he told him, ' The Lord hath sought him a man after •his own heart ;' David he meant, who afterward fell into a sin greater, as to the matter of the fact, than that for which Saul was rejected of God. and yet hav- ing but an habitual sincerity, as the ' root of the matter in him,' haj^pily reco- vered out of it ; for want of which hypocritical Saul miscai'ried finally : so true is that proverb, that ' frost and fraud have dirty ends.' Now there is a double reason for this recovering strength of sincerity ; one taken from the nature of sincerity itself, the other from the jJi'omise by God settled on the soul where sincerity is found.
First, From the nature of sincerity itself. Sincerity is to the soul as the soul is to the body ; it is a spark of divine life kindled in the bosom of the creature by the Spirit of God : it is ' the seed of God remaining' in the saint, 1 John iii. 9. Now, as the seed cast into the womb of the earth, and quickened there by the influence of heaven upon it, doth put forth its head fresh and green in the spring, after many a cold nip it hath had from the winter ; so doth sincere grace after temptations and falls, when God looks out upon it with the beams of his exciting grace : but the hypocrite, wanting this inward principle of life, doth not so ; he is a Christian by art, not by a new nature, dressed up like a pujjpet, in the fashion and outward shape of a man, that moves by the jimmers which the workman fastens to it, and not informed by a soul of its own ; and therefore as such an image, when worn by time, or broken by violence, can do nothing to renew itself, but crumbles away by piecemeals till it comes at last to nothing, so doth the hypocrite waste in his profession without a vital principle to oppose his ruin that is coming upon him. There is great diti'erence between the wool on the sheep's back, which, shorn, will grow again, and the wool of the sheep's skin on a wolf's back ; clip that, and you shall see no more grow in its room. The sincere Christian is the sheep, the hypocrite is the wolf clad in the sheep's skin ; the application of it is obvious.
Secondly, The sincere soul is imder a promise, and promises are restorative : Psa. xix. 7, ' The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soid ;' in Hebrew ' restoring the soul.' It fetcheth back the soul to life, as a strong cordial one in a fainting fit, which virtue is proper to the promissory part of the word, and therefore so to be taken in this place. Now the sincere soul is the only rightful heir of the promises. Many sweet promises are laid in for the assuring succour and auxiliary aid to bring them ofi'in all their dangei;s and temptations: Prov. xxviii. 18, ' Whoso walketh uprightly shall be saved.' Now mark the opposi- tion, ' but he that is perverse shall fall at once ;' that is, suddenly, irrecoverably. Job viii. 20 : ' God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evildoers;' he will not take them by the hand, (Heb.,) that is, to help them up when they fall ; nay, the hypocrite is not only destitute of a promise for his help but lies also under a curse from God. Great pains we find him take to rear his house, and when he hath done, ' leans on it, but it shall not stand ; he holds it fast, but it shall not endure,' Job viii. 15. 'A little that the righteous hath is better than the riches of many wicked,' Psa. xxxvii. Ki. Hut why .' See the reason, ver. 17: ' For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but tlie Lord
gg2 HAVING YOUR LOINS