Temporary lapses darken the sense of grace, but the incorruptible seed does not die, and God deals with sons not slaves
3. Believers also often slip in act for a season, when either enemies and temptations press from outside or the flesh's slickness works from inside (Revelation 2:4-5 and similar places). Then divine grace is not felt, and faith is not exercised — as if both were gone — the way it was with David and others.
Even then the power of that incorruptible seed (ἀφθάρτου) may be checked, yet the seed never dies or is smothered outright. The spring of grace may be dammed, yet not put out for good (1 Thessalonians 5:19). The light of grace may dim under something like earth's blocking — the world, a cloud of sins, and the like — yet it is not wholly removed and lost, as in an eclipse; or as in a sharp fever life hangs by a thread when the pulse is nearly gone, yet life itself is not thereby extinguished.
Theologians therefore say the fruit and felt sense of justification can pause; the justified state itself is not broken up or finally ruined.
Sins remain, in themselves and by the act, most serious, and by what they deserve most fit for eternal death and for grace's desertion; yet by accident they stop standing as that for God's people. He does not treat his own by bare strict right, as slaves, but with a father's gentleness (ἐπιεικείᾳ), as sons — often with Joseph's hard look toward his brothers, yet with a kinder look ready to return — because God's firm foundation stands, and so on (2 Timothy 2:19).
Latin
3. Saepe etiam fidelem actu deficere ad tempus, praevalente seu externo hostium ac tentationum impetu, seu interno Carnis lubrico, Apoc. II. 4. 5. &c. nullo videlicet sensu divinae gratiae, aut exercitio fidei, amissae quasi, in Davide, & aliis. Sed ita ut seminis illius ἀφθάρτου efficacia praepediri possit, nunquam tamen illud emori, & plane suffocari; obturari fons ille gratiae, non tamen prorsus extingui, 1 Thess. V. 19. deficere lumen illud gratiae, obumbratum interpositione quasi terrae, mundi, nube peccatorum, &c. non tamen in totum tolli, & perire, ut in Eclipsibus accidit; vel prout in morbis acutioribus vita periclitatur, pulsu arteriarum quasi nullo, non eo ipso extinguitur. Unde Theologi, effectum & sensum Justificationis posse suspendi, non statum ipsum dissolvi, aut finaliter subverti. Et quamvis peccata sint per se, ratione actus gravissima, ratione meriti aeterna morte ac desertione gratiae dignissima; per accidens tamen talia esse desinunt; Quia Deus non agit cum suis ex jure stricto, ut servis, sed cum paterna ἐπιεικείᾳ ut filiis; Vultu severo saepe, qualis fuit Josephi erga fratres, sed redituro vultu sereniore; quia solidum stat Dei fundamentum, &c. 2. Tim. II. 19.