2. And as he gives us a second testimony, that the world and himself are so as at first he believed they were, so by this his returning he testifies that God and Christ are the same, and much more than ever he believed at first they were. This man has made a proof before and a proof after conviction of the evil of one and the good of the other. This man has proved it by feeling and seeing, and by receiving grace before and after. This man God has set up to be a witness; this man is two men, has the testimony of two men, and must serve in the place of two men. He knows what it is to be fetched from a state of nature by grace, but this is something all Christians know as well as he does. Ay, but he knows what it is to be fetched from the world, from the devil, and hell, the second time; and that, but few professors know, for few that fall away return to do again. (Heb 6:4-8) Ay, but this man comes again, wherefore there is news in his mouth, sad news, dreadful news, and news that is to make the standing saint take heed lest he falls. The returning backslider, therefore, is a rare man, a man of worth and intelligence, a man to whom the men of the world should flock and to whom they should learn to fear the Lord God. He also is a man of whom the saints should receive both caution, counsel, and strength in their present standing, and they should, by his harms, learn to serve the Lord with fear and to rejoice with trembling. (1 Cor 10:6–13, Isa 551:11–13 Luke 22:32)
This man has the second time also had a proof of God’s goodness in his Christ unto him, a proof which the standing Christian has not—I would not tempt him that stands to fall; but the good that a returning backslider has received at God’s hands, and at the hand of Christ, is a double good; he has been converted twice, fetched from the world, and from the devil, and from himself twice; oh, grace! and has been made to know the stability of God’s covenant, the unchangeableness of God’s mind, the sure and lasting truth of his promise in Christ, and of the sufficiency of the merits of Christ, over and over.
[The manner of a backslider’s return.]—In the manner of this man’s coming to God by Christ, I shall also speak a word or two. He comes as the newly-awakened sinner comes, and that from the same motives and the knowledge of things as he hath over and above (which he had as good have been without), that which the newly-awakened sinner has not; to wit, the guilt of his backsliding, which is a guilt of a worse complexion, of a deeper dye, and of a heavier nature than is any guilt else in the world. He is also attended to with fears and doubts that arise from other reasons and considerations than do the doubts and fears of the newly-awakened man; doubts build upon the vileness of his backsliding. He also has more dreadful scriptures to consider, and they will look more wishfully in his face, yea, and will also make him take notice of their grim physiognomy than has the newly-awakened man. Besides, as a punishment for his backsliding, God seems to withdraw the sweet influences of his Spirit as if he would not suffer him to pray nor to repent anymore (Psa 51:11), as if he would now take all away from him and leave him to those lusts and idols that he left his God to follow. Swarms of his new rogueries shall haunt him in every place, and that not only in the guilt but in the filth and pollution of them. (Prov 14:14) None know the things that haunt a backslider’s mind; his new sins are all turned into talking devils, threatening devils, and roaring devils within him. Besides, he doubts 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; this also leads to his heels and makes him come to sense and feel heavier and with 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. Ay says within himself that man fears God, that man has faithfully followed God, that man, like the elect angels, has kept his place, but I have fallen from my station like a devil. That man honors God, edifies the saints, convinces the world to condemn them, and becomes the heir of righteousness, which is by faith.
But I have dishonored God, stumbled and grieved saints, made the world blaspheme, and, for all 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 with him; yea, they will come with him, yea, and will stare him in the face, 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. Besides, he thinks saints will be aware of him, will be shy of him, will be afraid to trust him, yea, will tell his Father of him and make intercession against him, as Elias did against Israel (Rom 11:2), or as the men did that were fellow-servants with him that took his brother by the throat. (Matt 18:31) Shame covereth his face all the way he comes; he doth not know what to do; the God he is returning to is the God that he has slighted, the God before whom he has preferred the vilest lust; and he knows God knows it and has before him all his ways. The man who has been a backslider and is returning to God can tell strange stories, and yet such 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, as well as he.
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