If Noah and Lot and Gideon and David and Solomon--who wanted not
matter from arguments, and that of the strongest kind, as arguments
that are drawn from mercy and goodness be, to engage to holiness and
the fear of God--yet, after all, did so foully fall as we see, let
us admire grace that any stand; let the strongest fear, lest he
fearfully fall; and let no man but Jesus Christ himself be the
absolute platform and pattern of faith and holiness: as the prophet
saith, "Let us cease from man."
THE BACKSLIDER.
None knows the things that haunt the backslider's mind; his new sins
are all turned talking devil's, threatening devils, roaring devils,
within him. Besides, he doubts of the truth of his first conversion,
consequently he has it lying upon him as a strong suspicion, that
there was nothing of truth in all his first experience; and this
also adds lead to his heels, and makes him come, as to sense and
feeling, more heavily and with the greater difficulty, to God by
Christ. As the faithfulness of other men kills him, he cannot see an
honest, humble, holy, faithful servant of God, but he is pierced and
wounded at the heart. "Aye," says he within himself, "that man fears
God; that man hath faithfully followed God; that man, like the elect
angels, has kept his place; but I am fallen from my station like a
devil.
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