be ill wared on us who carry so unworthily with it as we do; yet it is
well with the gracious soul that he is under grace's tutory and care;
for grace will care for him when he careth not much for it, nor yet
seeth well to his own welfare; grace can and will prevent, yea, must
prevent, afterward, as well as at the first; that grace may be grace,
and appear to be grace, and continue unchangeably to be grace, and so
free grace. Well is it with the believer, whom grace has once taken by
the heart and brought within the bond of the covenant of grace; its
deadliest condition is not desperate. When corruption prevaileth to such
a height, that the man is given over for dead, there being no sense, no
motion, no warmth, no breath almost to be observed, yet grace, when
violently constrained by that strong distemper, to retire to a secret
corner of the soul, and there to lurk and lie quiet, will yet at length,
through the receiving influences of grace promised in the covenant, and
granted in the Lord's good time, come out of its prison, take the
fields, and recover the empire of the soul; and then the dry and
withered stocks, when the God of all grace will be as dew unto Israel,
shall blossom and grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon;
his branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree,
and his smell as Lebanon. It is a happy thing either for church or
particular soul to be planted in grace's sappy soil, they lie open to
the warm beams of the Sun of Righteousness; and the winter blasts may be
sharp and long; clouds may intercept the heat, and nipping frosts may
cause a sad decay, and all the sap may return and lie, as it were,
dormant in the root; yet the winter will pass, the rain will be over and
gone, and the flowers will appear on the earth; the time of singing of
birds will come, and the voice of the turtle will be heard in the land;
then shall even the wilderness and solitary place be glad, and the
desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose, it shall blossom
abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon