Weak Grace Victorious

True faith, though weak, shall be preserved, and in the end prove victorious.

This doctrine of the preservation of grace is the crown of glory, and sweetness of all other privileges. We should in the midst of regeneration, justification, adoption, droop and be Magor-missabibs, tormented with fear of losing them. It is the assurance of this that makes believers come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads.

Premise this I must: this comfort belongs only to those who have true grace; see therefore whether you can find any saving work upon your heart towards God before you entitle yourselves to the comfort of this doctrine.

Our state by redemption and regeneration is better than Adam’s by creation, in respect of permanency, though not by present integrity. God keeps us safer in a state of imperfection than Adam was in all his innocency. Adam had a better nature, and a stronger inherent power conferred upon him by creation; he was created after God’s image but he defaced and lost it, and afterwards begat in his own likeness, not in the likeness of God, whereof he was stripped. He had a natural power, but no supernatural assistance. We have no natural power, but we have supernatural help. Our supernatural assistance confers upon us a better state than his natural power did, or could do, upon him. We are kept by the power of God to salvation, and he was to be kept by his own; he was to stand by the strength of nature, we by the strength of grace: “By faith into this grace wherein we stand, (Rom. 5:2); “By faith ye stand” (2 Cor. 1:24). He was under the government of his own free will; it is our happiness to be under the conduct of the Son of God by His Spirit, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14); and that by virtue of a charge, a privilege never allowed to Adam nor angels, who, being their own keepers, were soon their own destroyers. He had a natural power to stand, but without a will; we have a gracious power to will, and the act of perseverance conferred upon us. He had a power to stand, precepts to stand, promises to encourage him to stand, but not one promise to secure him from falling; we have both a supernatural help and an immutable promise that the fear of God should be put into our hearts to this end, to preserve us from falling, (Jer. 32:42). By Christ we have not only words of grace to encourage us, but the power of grace to establish us; not only precepts to persevere, but promises that we shall; otherwise the promise could be no surer than that annexed to the covenant of works, (Rom. 4:16). Adam was under a mutable covenant, and we under an everlasting one. Adam had no reserve of nature to supply nature upon any defect; we have, out of Christ’s fulness, grace for grace, (Jn. 1:16), grace for the supply of grace for any emergency.

The manner whereby we stand is different from the manner of his standing; he stood in dependence on his original righteousness, which being once lost, all the original virtues depending on that were lost with it. Our state is secured in higher hands. “But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30), all of which are dispensed to us in the streams, but reserved in Him as the fountain. He is made all those to us, not we to ourselves. Adam’s life was hid in himself; ours with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). Our life is as secure in Christ’s, as Christ’s is secure in God. Christ’s hand and His Father’s bosom are not to be rifled by any power on earth. Heaven is no place to be pillaged by the serpent. Which state then is best? Our nature, restored by the second Adam, is fundamentally better, not at present so bright as His, but more permanent. The mutability of the first Adam procured our misery; the strength of the second preserves our security. So that a gracious man is better established in his little grace, by the power of God, than Adam in his flourishing integrity by the strength of his own will.

This is the proper comfort of this doctrine. It is, and ought to be, a matter of trouble that our grace is so weak; it should not be a matter of murmuring and despondency. We have reason to mourn that our graces are not strong; we have reason to rejoice that we have any at all. Little grace is enrolled in heaven—not as a weak member of the invisible church—but his name is written there (Heb. 10:23). How glimmering was the disciples’ faith, yet our Savior bids them in all that weakness, “Rejoice because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). Could their names have been blotted out again, the joy He exhorts them to could not have dwelt, with such a ground of fear. As the least sin beloved brings us into alliance with the devil, so the least grace cherished entitles us to the family of God; for it is but a rough draft, with blots, of what God has fairly drawn in the glorified saints. The weakest grace gives a deadly wound to sin, and a sure, though not so highly comfortable a title to so abundant an entrance into heaven as a stronger grace. Do not therefore seek your torment where you should find your comfort.

All grace, now triumphant, was weak at first. The very highest began in a seed, a little seed. The waters of the sanctuary, whereby the propagation of the gospel in the world, and the operation of it in the heart, is figured, I say, those waters which will perfectly purify the soul, did at first reach but to the ankles (Ezek. 47:3–5), after that to the loins, and afterwards arise to the height of waters to swim in. Till you read of any grace in Scripture without its mixtures, do not despond. Moses was often praised of God’s, yet though he struck the rock through faith, he struck twice through unbelief, when indeed he was only to speak, not strike, and this God interprets as unbelief (Num. 20:12).

Your grace is weak, but the stock in Christ’s hands for supply is full. He keeps it in His own hands. He knows our necessity better than we do, and measures supplies by His own wisdom, not by our desires; for “I will feed them with judgment” (Ezek. 34:16), that is, He will govern them wisely. It is our happiness that, although we have little in possession, we have much for our necessity. It is our happiness that it is laid so high that we cannot reach it but by faith, that we have it not in our hands to squander it away. Were it in our own hands, it would quickly be dispensed, and we would not have a mite left.

Christ’s charge extends to this weak grace. It was for this reason He has the correct order given Him in our text by His Father—not for the standing reed or flaming flax, though that is included. The weakest is committed to Him, and therefore is as much under His care. To what purpose has Christ this order, if the weakness of grace were a ground of despondency? It is a ground of humiliation, but not of distrust. He was ordered to be a Shepherd whose office is to attend the weak motions of the newly fallen lambs. His bosom is appointed as a place for them, “He shall feed His flock like a Shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young” (Is. 40:11). If you can go, He is to guide you gently; if you cannot, He is to bear you tenderly, not on His shoulders, merely by strength, but in His bosom with a tender affection. He is not only the Shepherd, but Bishop of our souls, and our conversion to Him makes us part of His diocese: “but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls” (1 Pet. 2:25). In all your weakness, He was ordained by God for your help, Ps. 89:19, He laid help upon One that is mighty, mighty to preserve His power and mighty to use it. Help supposes persons who are most in need of it as the objects to whom it is to be afforded. Every new creature has not equal strength, but each has an equal interest in the Redeemer’s death and merit; and the weakest may seem more under His care than the strongest because they stand more in need of that office which He is entrusted with and delights to exercise.

He delights in this charge. It was His delight to do the will of God; yes, and it was His meat and drink to cherish the beginnings of grace in the Samaritan woman, John 4:34, because it was His Father’s work. Surely it was no small part of the joy set before Him, that upon His dying He was to be invested with a power to perform His Father’s charge. He will not, therefore, refuse to embrace the feeblest saint. God takes particular notice of the beginnings of grace, and Christ’s affection runs in the same channel with His Father’s; yes, He regards the very trembling degrees of it. See how He overlooks the infirmities of Job, “Hast thou considered My servant Job?” (Job 2:3), though He knew them as well as his graces, and does not only approve of him and defend him, but makes His boast of him. He makes a public proclamation with joy in the very teeth of the devil, though He had so many pure angels about Him, that one would think He should have spoken of Job with applause, as well as of a poor mortal. Was Job’s grace very strong? What means, then, the multitude of impatient expressions scattered in the book?

He will therefore be faithful in it. His faithfulness is more illustrious in regarding the more troublesome parts of His charge, the same as the fidelity of a friend or servant is more evidenced by the difficulty than facility of his trust. When He knew how weak we are, and how apt to swerve, had He not been resolved to relieve us, He had never sent His Spirit to abide with us for such an end. The apostle assures us that the care lies upon Him still to confirm us to the end, “Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8)—in the day, not before; expect not grace to be triumphant till then. Wherein the faithfulness of God also bears part, ver. 9. And surely those Corinthians were not of the strongest because the apostle doubts whether he should write to them as spiritual or as unto carnal.

He has given evidence of His faithfulness. He never yet put out a dim candle that was lighted at the Sun of righteousness. After His resurrection, He meets with two disciples going to Emmaus, who seem to have thrown away all their faith and hope in Him and to be upon the brink of the sin against the Holy Ghost, “We trusted that it had been He that should have redeemed Israel.” The next words were like to have been: But we think Him an imposter. But does Christ with indignation cast them off, as though He would have no more to do with them? No, He takes pains to enliven their faith, and takes occasion from their weakness to renew their strength, and that in so eminent a manner that it seems to be one of the most excellent sermons that ever He preached, a comment upon the whole Scripture concerning Himself. Beginning at Moses He went through all the prophets and expounded all the Scriptures concerning Himself, He filled their heads with knowledge and inspired their hearts with life. Did our Redeemer ever yet disappoint a trembling faith, or let a limping grace go from Him without a blessing?

Therefore, you may in the weakest state expect assistance. The weakest grace has a throne of grace to supply it, a God of grace to delight in it, a Mediator of grace to influence it, a Spirit of grace to brood upon it. Though grace be weak, yet the grace of all these are sufficient to preserve us. The weakest grace in Christ’s hand shall stand, when the strongest nature without His guard shall fail. It is not our hold of Christ so much that preserves us, as Christ’s hold of us; though the faith we hang by be a weak thread, yet Christ has a strong hand. Had you the grace of a glorified saint, you could not maintain it without His help, and that is sufficient to conduct you through the greatest storms into a safe harbor. “Fear not, thou worm Jacob,...I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the holy One of Israel” (Is. 41:14). What has more need to fear than a worm that is liable to be trod upon by every passenger? What has more reason to fear than a creeping grace in itself? Yet what has less reason to be afraid, when backed by such a mighty power? It is a weakness, but fortified by an almighty strength; it has a power which neither Adam with all his nature, nor the holy angels before their confirmation, were ever possessed of.

Well then, the weaker your grace, the firmer let your dependence be on Christ, and then you will be more secure by that exercise of faith than by the strongest grace without it. A small vessel, managed by a skilful pilot, may be preserved in a rough sea, when a stronger, left to itself, will dash in pieces.

Stephen Charnock (1628–80). See detailed biography at end of article.

Puritan Stephen Charnock (1628–80) pastored in Southwark until 1649 when he went to Oxford and became fellow of New College (1650) and proctor (M.A., 1652). In 1655 he went to Ireland as chaplain, and returned to England after the death of Oliver Cromwell, and lived for fifteen years in London without a pastoral charge due to the abundance of ministers. Throughout these years he pursued personal studies and writing, and became, in the words of Dr. Calamy, “a very considerable scholar and an eminent divine,” noted for his personal piety and his extraordinary command of the original languages of Scripture. In 1675 he was appointed joint pastor with Thomas Watson of a Presbyterian congregation in London, where he remained until his death.

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