2. Because he will supply him with grace, that he may not —
[This, also, is a part of God's covenant which he has made with us in the Son of his love. If this covenant were kept out of view, there are two things which we might justly appre- hend : the one is, that God would depart from us ; the other is, that we should depart from him. But on both parts God has undertaken for his people. He says, " I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good ; and I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from mes." It was not by a mere act of his power that he converted them at first : he enlightened their understanding, and renewed their heart, and " made them willing in the day of his power." So will he even to the end deal with them as rational beings, and " draw them with the cords of a man." " He will keep them, indeed, by his own power1 :" but it shall be through the instrumentality of their own exertions. He will keep them ; but they shall also " keep themselves; so that the wicked one shall not touch them11." Thus secured by God's engagement for them, on the one hand, and by the mighty working of his power in them, on the other hand, it may truly be said of them, " They cannot sin, because they are born of God."]
Yet let me improve this subject,
1 . In a word of caution to the secure —
[The doctrine of Final Perseverance, if unscripturally maintained, will be productive of the most fatal consequences to the soul. Shall any man say, ' I am born of God : and there- fore can never perish, though I live in sin ?' Let him rather say, £ The sins which I commit, prove to demonstration, that I am not born of God. I may have been partially affected with
r 1 John ii. 9. s Jer. xxxii. 40.
* 1 Pet. i. 5. u 1 John ii. 14. before cited.