316 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SePw XXXIII.
you that cast liim off after trial, your apostasy is supposed to be the fruit of your experience, as if the devil were a better master ; when you have tried both, you return to him again. Tertullian, in his book De Pcenitentia, hath this saying, After you have tried God, you do as it were deliberately judge Satan's service to be better, or at least you do not find that in God you did expect. Therefore the honour of God is mightily concerned, and lies at stake when you fall off after you have seemed to begin with him with a great deal of accurateness. And God pleads for himself, and stands for his credit, which seems to be wronged hy this apostasy, Jer. ii. 5, casting off his service for the idols of the nation : ' What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me?' and Micali vi. 3, '0 my people, what have I done unto thee, and wherein have I wearied thee ? testify against me.' What ! can you complain of God ? Is God hard to be pleased, backward to reward ? What cause of distaste have you found in him ? — for implicitly you do as it were accuse him.
2. When you fall off" after a taste of the sweetness and practice of godliness, your condition is worse than if you had never begun. There are two dreadful scriptures which speak of the condition of total apostates after some taste, and after they have had some savour of holy things, and some delight in the ways of God. One is Heb. vi. 4-6, ' For it is impossible,' &c. Christians, after they have had some taste, and some enlightening, and made a savoury profession of godli- ness, afterwards they split themselves ; some fall forward to errors and preposterous zeal ; others fall backward by an unfaithful heart ; one breaks his face, the other breaks his neck, as old Eli. But a little to clear that place. Certainly all of us should stand in fear of this heavy judgment of being given up to perish by our apostasy, to an obstinate heart, never to reconcile ourselves by repentance, even the children of God ; for he proposeth it to them, supposeth they are made partakers of the heavenly calling. The apostle doth not speak there of gvery sin against knowledge, but of apostasy from the faith of Christ, and not of apostasy of general professors, that lightly come and lightly go, as the loose sort of Christians here among us ; but specially of those that had a taste, savoury experience of the sweetness of God's ways. Again, he doth not speak of apostasy for a fit, in some great temp- tation of fear, but of deliberate apostasy of those that were enlight- ened, feeling, tasting, so as to make some strict profession ; afterward turn off, lose all, turn atheists, antiscriptiu'ists, formalists, renouncing Christ and the world to come, in the hope of which they seemed before to be carried out with a great deal of delight, and strength and affec- tion. The apostle saith. It is impossible they should be saved, because it is impossible they should repent. This is a fearful state ; and yet, as fearful as it is, it is not unusual : it is a thing we see often in some that have made a savoury profession of the name of God, and afterwards have been blasted, either given up to an injudicious mind, or to vile affections, and are fallen off, and it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance. Oh, then, you that have begun, and have had a taste of the ways of God, and begun to walk closely with him, you should lay this to heart ! Therefore this is propounded to believers, that they should keep at a very great distance from such a
VeR. 31.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 317
judgment, lest we grow to siicli an impenitent state as to be given up to a reprobate- mind and vile affections.
The other place is 2 Peter ii. 21, 22, ' It had been better for them not to have known,' &c. Mark, there are some that through the knowledge of Christ may upon some general assent to gospel truths take u]} a strict profession of the name of Christ, may escape the pollution of the world, that is, outward and gross sins, being enrolled among God's children, and have the privileges of the members of his church, and yet after this may fall off dreadfully. It were far better for such never to have been acquainted with (xod and Christ than to return to their old bondage. A sin after knowledge and profession of the right way is greater than a sin of bare ignorance ; therefore their condition is far more deplorable than the condition of other sinners, for no men sin with such malice as they do ; they have had greater conviction than others, not only external representations of the doctrine of Christ, but some taste, and have made some closure with it in their own souls ; they are more given over by God than others ; and so there are none persecute and hate profession and strictness so much as they that are fallen from it ; and they are more oppressed and entangled by Satan, as the jailor that hath recovered the prisoner wdiich ran from him, loads him with irons. Therefore we had need betimes look to it, and continue and persevere in the practice of the ways of God, which w-e have owned and taken up upon experience.