It may be asked, Wherein does the difference between the two views appear ?
[Things often commend themselves more by an easy and familiar illustration, than by a long train of argument. We will therefore, with permission, use the simplest illustration that can well be imagined. Only let it be first remembered what it is that we are undertaking to illustrate. It is this. Man, by conversion, is brought into a state which the natural man, by his own powers, can never attain. When he is brought into that state, some think that an indefectible prin- ciple is infused into him ; and that, in consequence of that abiding and indefectible principle, he is, and must of necessity be, preserved from falling. I admit that he shall be kept from falling ; but I deny that it will be through the necessary influence of grace already received. I assert, on the contrary, that he is in himself as liable to fall as ever, and that it is from an extrinsic source he derives all his stability: and that, con- sequently, whilst he has the strongest possible hope in God, he ought to keep in abiding and undiminished exercise a holy fear : yea more, I must say, that, if once he lose that fear, and become self-confident, he is already on the very verge of destruction.
Now, then, take the illustration which is familiar to the mind even of a child. A kite soaring on high is in a situation quite foreign to its nature ; as much so as the soul of man is, when raised above this lower world to high and heavenly pursuits. A person at a distance sees not how it is kept in its exalted station : he sees not the wind that blows it, nor the hand that holds it, nor the string by whose instrumentality it is held. But all of these powers are necessary to its pre- servation in that preternatural state. If the wind were to sink, it would fall : if the hand should cease to hold it, or the string should break, it would fall. It has nothing ivhatever in itself to uphold itself: it has the same tendency to gravitate to the earth as ever it had ; and, if left for a moment to itself, it would fall. Thus it is with the soul of every true believer. It has been raised, by the Spirit of God, to a new, a preter- natural, a heavenly state ; and in that state it is upheld by an invisible and Almighty hand, through the medium of faith. And upheld it shall be ; but not by any power inherent in itself. If left for a moment, it would fall as much as ever. Its whole strength is in God alone ; and its whole security is in the un- changeableness of his nature, and in the efficacy of his grace. In a word, " it is kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation1*."
P 1 Pet. i. 5. Peter and Judas fell equally. But they were not equally recovered. And why ? Because the Lord Jesus Christ had