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. That man honoreth God, edifieth the saints, convinceth the
world and condemneth them, and is become 'heir of the righteousness
which is by faith.' But I have dishonored God, stumbled and grieved
saints, made the world blaspheme, and, for aught I know, been the
cause of the damnation of many. "These are the things, I say,
together with many more of the same kind, that come to him; yea,
they will come with him, yea, and will stare him in the face, will
tell him of his baseness and laugh him to scorn, all the way that he
is coming to God by Christ-I know what I say-and this makes his
coming to God by Christ hard and difficult to him. Shame covereth
his face all the way he comes. He doth not know what to do; the God
that he is returning to is the God that he has slighted, the God
before whom he has preferred the vilest lusts; and he knows God
knows it, and has before Him all his ways.
The man that has been a backslider, and is returning to God, can
tell strange stories, and yet such as are very true. No man was in
the whale's belly, and came out again alive, but backsliding and
returning Jonah; consequently no man could tell how he was there,
what he felt there, what he saw there, and what workings of heart he
had when he was there, so well as he.
The returning again of the backslider gives a second testimony to
the truth of man's state being by nature miserable, of the vanity of
this world, of the severity of the law, certainty of death, and
terribleness of judgment to come. His first coming to God by Christ
told them so, but his second coming tells them so with a double
confirmation of the truth. "It is so," saith his first coming; "OH,
IT is SO!" saith his second.
The backsliding of a Christian comes through the overmuch persuading
of Satan and lust, that the man was mistaken, and that there was no
such horror in the things from which he fled, nor so much good in
the things to which he hasted. "Turn again, fool," says the devil,
"turn again to thy former course. I wonder what frenzy it was that
drove thee to thy heels, and that made thee leave so much good
behind thee, as other men find in the lusts of the flesh and the
good of the world. As for the law, and death, and an imagination of
the day of judgment, they are but mere scarecrows, set up by polite
heads to keep the ignorant in subjection." "Well," says the
backslider, "I will go back again and see;" so, fool as he is, he
goes back, and has all things ready to entertain him: his conscience
sleeps, the world smiles, flesh is sweet, carnal company compliments
him, and all that can be got is presented to this backslider to
accommodate him. But behold, he doth again begin to see his own
nakedness, and he perceives that the law is whetting his axe: as for
the world, he perceives it is a bubble; he also smells the smell of
brimstone, for God hath scattered it upon his tabernacle and it
begins to burn within him. "Oh," saith he, "I am deluded; Oh, I am
ensnared. My first sight of things was true. I see it so again." Now
he begins to be for flying again to his first refuge: "O God," saith
he, "I am undone; I have turned from thy truth to lies; I believed
them such at first, and find them such at last: have mercy upon me,
O God."
This, I say, is a testimony, a second testimony by the same man.
"And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out." I shall
here speak a word or two to him that is coming, after backsliding,
to Jesus Christ for life.
Thy way, O thou sinner of a double dye, thy way is open to come to
Jesus Christ. I mean thee, whose heart, after long backsliding, doth
think of turning to him again. Thy way, I say, is open to him, as is
the way of the other sorts of comers; as appears by what follows.
1. Because the text makes no exception against thee. It doth not
say, "And any one but a backslider; any one but him." The text doth
not thus object, but indefinitely openeth wide its golden arms to
every coming soul, without the least exception. Therefore thou
mayest come. And take heed that thou shut not that door against thy
soul by unbelief, which God has opened by his grace.
2. Nay, the text is so far from excepting against thy coming, that
it strongly suggesteth that thou art one of the souls intended, O
thou coming backslider; else why need that clause have been so
inserted, "I will in no wise cast out?" as if he should say, "Though
those that come now are such as have formerly backslidden, I will in
no wise cast away the fornicator, the covetous, the railer, the
drunkard, or other common sinners, nor yet the backslider neither."
If thou yet, instead of repenting and doing thy first works, dost
remain a backslider,
1. Then remember that thou must die; and remember also, that when
the terrors of God, of death, and a back-slidden heart meet
together, there will be sad work in that soul: this is the man that
hangeth tilting over the mouth of hell, while death is cutting the
thread of his life.
2. Remember, that though God doth sometimes, yea, often, receive
backsliders, yet it is not always so. Some draw back unto perdition;
for, because they have flung up God and would none of him, he in
justice flings up them and their souls for ever. Prov. I: 24-28.