I Cor. 11: 30-32.
God is wise, and can tell how to imbitter backsliding to them he
loveth. He can break their bones and save them; he can lay them in
the lowest pit, in darkness and the deep, and save them; he can slay
them as to this life, and save them. And herein appears wonderful
grace, that Israel is not forsaken.
8. But suppose God deals not either of these ways with the
backslider, but shines upon him again, and seals up to him the
remission of his sins a second time, saying, "I will heal their
backslidings, and love them freely." What will the soul do now?
Surely it will walk humbly now, and holily all its days. It will
never backslide again, will it? It may happen it will not; it may
happen it will. It is just as his God keeps him; for although his
sins are of himself, his standing is of God; I say, his standing
while he stands, and his recovery if he falls, are both of God.
Wherefore, if God leaves him a little, the next gap he finds, away
he is gone again: "My people," says God, "are bent to backsliding
from me."
Here is grace. So many times as the soul backslides, so many times
God brings him back again--I mean the soul that must be saved by
grace; he renews his pardons and multiplies them. Yea, for aught I
know, there are some saints, and they not long-lived either, that
must receive, before they enter into life, millions of pardons from
God for these; and every pardon is an act of grace, through the
redemption that is in Christ's blood.
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