5. AVith respect to the degree, it is such a strengthening of the soul as doth prevent not only our fall, but our shaking. Before falling away, or our being drawn to apostasy, there may be a shaking, a douijtfulness, and wavering of mind with respect to the truth, and much inconstancy and unevenness of life with respect to practice. Now, Christians, as they must not draw back to perdition, so they must not be always fluctuating and unfixed, either in matters of opinion, but settled in the truth, or in matters of practice ; there must be a strength and stability of holy inclinations and resolutions for God and the world to come still kept up. or else there will be no evenness or uniformity in the course of our lives. And though we avoid apos- tasy, yet we cannot avoid scandal ; though there be no falling back, there is a stepping out into bypaths : 1 Cor. xv. 58, ' Be stedfast and unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord ; ' and Eph. iii. 17, ' That ye being rooted nnd grounded in love,' &c. ; and Col. i. 23, ' If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.' If we do not look to the degree, our weakness and instability groweth upon us ; as in matters of opinion, some have an unsettled head of a vertiginous spirit : Eph. iv. 14, ' Carried about with every wind of doctrine,' They never were well grounded in the truth, nor took up the ways they are engaged in upon sufficient evidence ; and therefore, by their own weakness, and the cunning and diligence of the seducers, are drawn into error. Light chaff is blown up and down by every wind, when solid grain hitcheth in, and restcth in the floor where it is winnowed. A half light makelli us uncertain in our course. For matter of practice, if we allow our- selves in our first declinings, the evil will grow upon us ; when the judgment reasoneth more remissly against sin than it did before, and the will doth oppose it with less resolution, or with greater faintness
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and indifferency, or when opposition doth more discourage us. No ; there must be a resolved conquest of temptations that would pervert you ; this will only serve our turn : Heb. xii. 3, ' Consider him that endured such contradictions, lest ye be weary and faint in your minds.' Weariness is a lesser degree of deficiency. Many a man is weary that is not faint or quite spent ; so with the practice of godliness, when the heart begins to be alienated and estranged from God, and the life of duty doth decay. When our first love is gone, our first works will in a great measure cease : Rev. ii. 4, 5, ' Nevertheless I have some- thing against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works.' Well, then, the degree must be minded ; for though a man may be stedfast in the main, yet he may be somewhat moved and shaken ; but a Christian should not only be stedfast, but unmoveable ; otherwise we shall be very uncertain in our motions.
II. How needful it is : this is in a great measure showed already. But yet more fully.
1. Man at best is but a creature. The new creation doth carry a great correspondence with the old and first creation. It is not enough that the creature be, but he must be sustained in being ; we have our being in God still : Acts xvii. 28, ' For in him we live, and move, and have our being.' As providence is a continual creation, so stablishing grace is the continuance of the new creation. The same grace that sets us in the state of the new creation, the same stablisheth us. God found no stability in the angels, therefore it is said he trusteth them not : Job xv. 15, ' Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints ; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.' They stand by the grace and favour of God. Take the best creatures even as creatures, they are defective and unstable in themselves ; for God will have the creature, as a creature, to be a dependent thing on the Creator, who only is a being of himself. Man at his best estate was but an unstable crea- ture— for Adam gave out at the first assault — and since, we are very unstable, blown down with the blast of every little temptation. Even in the state of grace, we are like a glass without a bottom, broken as soon as out of hand ; and, therefore, God alone is able to make us stand, and persevere in this grace that we have received: 2 Cor. i. 21, ' Now, he that stablisheth us with you in Christ is God.' After we are in Christ, our stability is in God alone.
2. The indisposition of our natures both to every good word and work. (1.) To every good word. The truths of the gospel are super- natural. Now, things that are planted in us contrary to nature can hardly subsist and maintain themselves. We have some seeds of the law yet left in our hearts, Rom. ii. 14. But the gospel dependeth on sure revelation ; therefore are there so many heresies against the gospel, but none against the law. Therefore, as they depend upon a divine revelation, they must be settled in our hearts by a divine power, and by a divine power preserved there ; that as the docti-ine is super- natural, so the grace may be also by which we do receive it. Faith is the gift of God : Eph. ii. 8, ' For by grace ye are saved, through faith ; and that not of yourselves : it is the gift of God ;' both as to its begin- ning, so to its preservation and increase. (2.) To every good work.