But, above all, we have the authority of the word of God, declaring that such backslidings are the very tests of the true church:  “For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you,” I Cor. 11:19.  It is not, however, meant that any who had really believed went back to perdition.  On the contrary, it is the creed of every sound evangelical church, that those who do go back to perdition were persons who never really believed in Jesus.  Their eyes may have been opened to see the dread realities of sin and of the wrath to come; but if they saw not righteousness for their guilty souls in the Saviour, there is nothing in all Scripture to make us expect that they will continue awake.  “Awake, them that sleepest, and Christ will give thee light,” is the call—­inviting sinners to a point far beyond mere conviction.  One who, for a whole year, went back to folly, said:  “’Your sermon on the corruption of the heart made me despair, and so I gave myself up to my old ways—­attending dances, learning songs,” etc.  A knowledge of our guilt, and a sense of danger, will not of themselves keep us from falling; nay, these, if alone, may (as in the above case) thrust us down the slippery places.  We are truly secure only when our eye is on Jesus, and our hand locked in his hand.  So that the history of backslidings, instead of leading us to doubt the reality of grace in believers, will only be found to teach us two great lessons, viz. the vast importance of pressing immediate salvation on awakened souls, and the reasonableness of standing in doubt of all, however deep their convictions, who have not truly fled to the hope set before them.

There was another ground of prejudice against the whole work, arising from the circumstance that the Lord had employed in it young men not long engaged in the work of the ministry, rather than the fathers in Israel.  But herein it was that sovereign grace shone forth the more conspicuously.  Do such objectors suppose that God ever intends the honor of man in a work of Revival?  Is it not the honor of his own name that He seeks?  Had it been his wish to give the glory to man at all, then indeed it might have been asked, “Why does He pass by the older pastors, and call for the inexperienced youth?” But when sovereign grace was coming to bless a region in the way that would redound most to the glory of the Lord, can we conceive a wiser plan than to use the sling of David in bringing down the Philistine?  If, however, there be some whose prejudice is from the root of envy, let such hear the remonstrance of Richard Baxter to the jealous ministers of his day.  “What! malign Christ in gifts for which He should have the glory, and all because they seem to hinder our glory!  Does not every man owe thanks to God for his brethren’s gifts, not only as having himself part in them, as the foot has the benefit of the guidance of the eye, but also because his own ends may be attained by his brethren’s gifts as well as by his own?...  A fearful thing that any man, that hath the least of the fear of God, should so envy at God’s gifts, that he would rather his carnal hearers were unconverted, and the drowsy not awakened, than that it should be done by another who may be preferred before them."[17]