CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

2. The great Danger we are in from Satan, sin and the world; for what needeth such a defence, if there were no danger? It's then God that keeps us, and that to salvation: Though God did never so much for us at the first, yet should he not keep to the very last to salvation it self, we should suffer shipwreck in the very Havens mouth.

2. The great Danger we are in from Satan, sinne and the world; for what needeth such a defence, if there were no danger? It's then God that keeps us, and that to salvation: Though God did never so much for us at the first, yet should he not keep to the very last to salvation it self, we should suffer shipwrack in the very Havens mouth.

To open this Doctrine, Consider,

First, That the power of God is necessary both to the beginnings of grace, and the progress. Christ must be not only the Author, but the finisher of our faith. Heb. 12:2. When the Apostle, 1 Pet. 1.3. had showed, that God through his abundant mercy had begotten us again, he showeth this is not enough, but we are kept afterwards by his power; only the power of God in working grace in us, at first finds us in a different estate, then when it preserveth or keepeth us. At first the power of God finds us dead in sin, and in respect of any holiness, like that Chaos at first without form and void. Therefore Ephes. 2. it's a quickening power, which infuseth supernatural life, and so maketh us of spiritually dead, to live: It's an Omnipotent, insuperable Power, like that of Creation, which was out of nothing; and therefore we are said to be created, and his new-creatures. But in the progress of Grace, the power of God finds us not dead, but with spiritual life, only there cannot be any further motions or actings of this life without power from above, Acti agimus, and moti movemus, it's God that enableth us to believe, to hunger and thirst after the enjoyment of him: Even as Conservation doth not find the creature in the Womb of nothing, as Creation did, only it continueth that being already existent, which otherwise would fall into nothing: Thus did not the Lord bear up daily by his power, that heavenly building raised up by him at first in thy soul, it would become a very ruin, and not a stone left upon a stone. It's this later kind of power, the godly need all the day long, if his right hand bear them not up, they immediately fall to the ground.