The weakest creatures have the strongest shelters ; and weakness is turned by God to be a help ; for conscience of weakness makes us seek for strength out of ourselves. You know the conies, as Solomon saith, ' they hide themselves in the rock,' Prov. xxx. 26, they flee to their burrows. The birds, because snares are laid for them below, they build their nests on high, to secure themselves that way. We see the vine, a weak plant, it hath the elm to prop it. Weak things must have a strong support. So man, being weak in himself, weak in judgment, weak in affections, he is stablished by God, God herein triumphing in our weakness over strength. For when we have strong adversaries, and we are weak, Satan is a strong enemy. God himself puts upon him the vizor of an enemy sometimes, as in Job's case, and Christ's on the cross ; when God personates an enemy, and the devil is a real enemy ; and the devil's instruments, heretics and seducers, are strong, strong in wit and parts eveiy way, and we are weak to encounter with God, to wrestle with him ; and we are weak to encounter with ' prin-
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP, I, VER. 21. 431
cipalitles and powers,' Eph. vi. 12, and with men of stronger parts, that are besotted and intoxicated with Satanical temptations, and labour to draw all into the snare of the devil with themselves. Now when God in weakness shall triumph over strength, here is glory to God, in stablishing us. It is God that must stablish us.
And as God must only do it, so he is ready^to do it ; for in the covenant of grace it lies upon him. God hath promised there to confirm it ; and thei'efore the apostle, 1 Thess. v. 24, binds it with the faithfulness of God, ' Faithful is he that hath promised, who also will do it.' God is content that our confii'mation should lie upon his faithfulness ; and therefore when he accepts us into the covenant of grace, he performs our part as well as his own. ' God is faithful,' saith the apostle, 1 Cor. i. 9, ' who hath called us to the fellowship of Christ,' who will confirm us to the end. He is content to hazard his reputation, as it were, and to be coimted unfaithful else ; so that strengthening grace is of God. He hath bound himself by his faith- fulness to confirm and to stablish those that are his.
Mark here by the way, before I come to handle the doctrine of persever- ance, what an imducible argument you have to prove that a man that is once in Christ can never fall away.
Say they, indeed, God for his part is ready to maintain us, to do this ; but we for our part are subject to fall away : as if the carrying of us along in the course of grace to salvation did not lie upon God and Christ. God is faithful to confirm us to the end. We being once in the covenant of grace, he doth our part and his own too : how can those then that are in the state of grace ever finally fall away ?
Now God doth confirm us, by working such graces in us by his Spirit, by which we are stablished. As for instance, ' I will put my fear into their hearts, that they shall never depart fi'om me,' Jer. xxxii. 40 ; he stablisheth us by fear. * Make an end of your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that works in you both the will and the deed,' Philip ii. 12. He puts a spirit of jealousy into a man over his corruptions ; and a reve- rential filial fear, which keepeth him from presuming.
And likewise he preserveth us by wisdom, as it is, Prov. ii. 10, 11. * When wisdom entereth into thy heart, discretion shall preserve thee, and understanding shall keep thee.'
And by faith, ' you are kept,' saith the apostle, ' by the mighty power of God through faith to salvation.'
And by peace of conscience, which is wrought in the heart by the Spirit. ' The peace of God which passeth all understanding shall guard (for so the word signifieth) your hearts and minds,'* that is, a true believer that is once in Christ, he finds such joy in the Holy Ghost, such inward peace of conscience, as preserves and guards him from despair, from the temptations of Satan, from the seeming wrath of God. So that God as he stablisheth us, so he stablisheth us as it becometh Christians, as it becomes men, by sanctif^'ing our understandings, by working grace in our hearts, the grace of fear, of wisdom, of faith, of peace, &c. So that a Christian now cannot presume, save in a holy kind of presumption, that God will finish his own good work. But of this, I say, I shall have fitter occasion to speak here- after.
To conckide therefore — God you see must stablish, and God will stab- lish. I^ is a point of great comfort every way ; comfort from the founda- tion and root in whom we are stablished ; and from him that hath taken * Cf. note k, vol. I. p. 334.— G.