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WHY
EACHSLIDING
IS
PERMITTED.
with
their
spirits;
of
God's
recovery
of
them from sins
after
their backsliding
from
him.
These
and many
other
ways has
Gòd
in
the secrets
of
his
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
of
all
outward
means,
and
the
sovereignty
and necessary
power 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
of
his
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
find
encouragement
by
the story
of Peter