Lay it up against a time of temptation for a pillar and ground of your faith, that here God doth both. He gives us promises, and gives us Christ whereon the promises are founded ; and likewise establisheth us, and seals us, &c. He doth all. So that as none can stablish the soul, but God by his Spii'it, so he will do it. It is an excellent reason of the apostle in Rom. v. 10, * If when we were enemies, God gave us his Son to reconcile us, how much more now shall we be saved 1 ' If we were saved by the death of Christ when we were enemies, much more shall we be preserved by his life, he now living in heaven ! So I say, if God, when there was nothing in us, but we were in a clean opposite estate, did begin spiritual life in us, much more will he stablish that which he hath begun in us.
And this stablishing, as well as the beginning of grace, comes likewise from God ; for take grace in the whole latitude and extent of it, take all that can be in grace, all comes gi'aciously fi'om God : the ofier of it, the beginning of it. This manner of it, that it should be strong, the strength- ening of grace, it comes from God. He strengtheneth us in grace, as well as begins it. So that gi-ace itself, and this modus, this manner, that it is strong and firm, that it should hold out, all comes from God.
A Christian needs not only converting grace, but stablishing grace. God that converted him must stablish him, and build him up, and confirm him. Peter was in the state of grace, and yet when God did not stablish him, you see how he fell. So David was an excellent man, but when God did not stablish him, you see how he fell. The weakest, with the stablishing grace of God, wiU stand : and the strongest, without the stablishing grace of God, win sink and fall.
The apostle doth not say, he hath done, but he doth ' stablish' us. This must be considered, that the life of a Christian is a perpetual dependent life : not only in his conversion he lives by faith, he hath his fii'st life ; but ever after he lives by faith, that is, dependence on God for assistance, and protection, and strength in the whole course of his life.
The ignorance of this makes us subject to fail ; for when we trust to grace received, and do not seek for a new supply, w^e fall into Peter's case, ' Though all men forsake thee, yet will not I,' Mat. xxvi. 35. Hereupon Peter fell foully. He had too much confidence in gi-ace received.
Therefore God is fain to humble his children, to teach them dependence ; and usually therefore in Scriptui-e, where some special grace is given, he hath somewhat joined with it, to put them in mind that they do not stand by their own strength. In the same chapter where Peter makes a glorious
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coufession, ' Thou art the Son of the living God,' Mat. xvi. 16, and he was honoured of Christ by that confession ; yet Christ calls him Satan in the Biime chapter, ver. 23, and he forsakes his Master. A strange thing ! to teach us, that we stand not of ourselves. When we are strong, it is by God ; when we are weak, it is Ijy ourselves.
Jacob wrestled, and was a i)revailer with God, but he was fain to halt for it. He was struck with halting all the days of his life : though he had the victory, and overcame God, taking upon him, as I said before, the person of an enemy to strive with him. Yet God, to put him in mind that he had the strength whereby he prevailed from him, and not of himself, he made him limp all his days. We need perpetual dependence upon God.
Therefore let us set upon nothing in our own strength, as Hannah saith comfortably, 1 Sam. ii. 9, 'No man is strong by his own strength.' God is all our sufficiency. Man's nature doth affect a kind of divinity; he would be a god to himself: but God will teach him that he is not a God, but a dependent creature. He affects a divinity. Thus he will set upon things in confidence of his own wisdom, without prayer, and thinks to work things with the strength of his own parts, to compass things with his o^vn wit, to bring things to a good issue. 0 no ! it will not be so. In Prov. iii. 6, ' Acknowledge God in all thy ways,' that is, acknowledge him in thy enter- prises in anything ; acknowledge him in the progress, that thou needest stablishing grace ; acknowledge him in the issue, that thou needest hia blessing upon all thy endeavours ; acknowledge God in all our ways.
Therefore, what do we but make ourselves gods, when we set upon busi- ness, especially weighty, without invocation and dependence ? A Christian is wondrous weak, a man is vanity in himself; but take him as he is built upon the promises, and as he is in the love of God and Christ, he is a kind of almighty man ; then * 1 can do all things in Christ that strengtheneth me,' Philip, iv. 13. A Christian is omnipotent if he depend upon the pro- mise, and commit his ways to God ; but he is impotent and weak in him- self. It is God that must stablish us. A man that is vanity, he makes him firm ; a man that is weak, he makes him strong ; a man that is un- settled, he settles him. The word is a firm thing, and God that builds us on the word is as firm ; and Christ in whom we are built is as finn. Peter when he built on the word he was wondrous firm, he was a rock too. A man that stands on a rock is firm. Now in believing the gospel, and in being built on the gospel, upon the prophets and apostles, upon apostolical truth, now we that are weak in ourselves are firm.