626 WHY EACHSLIDING IS PERMITTED. with their spirits; of God's recovery of them from sins after their backsliding from him. These and manyother ways has Gòd in the secrets ofhis counsel. His methods Of love are numberless, we cannot trace the paths of divine grace, they are various and bidden as the paths . of his providence. The _Last thing I proposed to speak to is, why God Both this, why he suffers a soul to run so far from him, and after all reclaims him ? Why God doth not rather re- claim him at first by ordinary methods ? to .which I answer, I. To shew the insufficiency ofall outward means, and the sovereignty and necessarypower of grace. God doth -for the most part in the government of nature and of grace too, use means; hut sometimes God will work without instruments and without means, to shew that his grace is sufficient to do what he pleases, and that all outward means and instruments without it are vain and insignificant things. ` I will do what I will do,. saith Grace, I will shew mercy to whom I will skew mercy.' Again, II. For the honour of his own covenant; for when souls have run so far from God beyond the common me- thods of recovery, so that afflictions will not restore them, then what is it can restore them but his covenant and his faithfulness to his own promises? and because he has triven them into the hands ofhis own Son, therefore he will never suffer ithem to be plucked_ out of his hands. He remembers his covenant, he remembers his promises of old, which he stare to their fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, &c. III. After many afflictions and chastisements have been tried, and souls are not restored to God, he Both it by his own grace then because he seeth they are not able to bear more afflictions without I unning into despair. They will be ready to plunge themselves into eternity at uncertainties, they are upon the borders of destruction, and therefore I will put forth, my sovereign love and will heal them. IV. God doth this to encourage other backsliders not to despair utterly. It may be, there are many of us hire that have been ready to sink into despair because of our sins, but findencouragement by the story of Peter
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