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gentle but more reasonable ones. And here, when we are neither so greatly terrified on the one hand, nor so highly transported on the other, but our passions seem to be settled and cooled, so that we may with more attention make use of the victory God hath given us, the danger is, lest finding ourselves neither driven by terror nor hurried by joy, we grow indeed indifferent and tired of a religion which is not enough sensible. Would you know the first symptom, which, if suffered to possess you, benumbs all your holiness, and causes you to draw back with hasty steps to a heedless, if not an abandoned state, your private duties will give you notice of the growing indifference. If you find that you are not only cold, but careless about them, that you can leave them for a time without much contention about them; if when you set about them you discover yourselves secretly wishing they were ended, and that you do not put forth all your strength when you meet God in those chosen seasons then you may be assured that you are drawing back. The hours of devotion being thus abated, your godliness having nothing to feed upon, your sense of God and of your duty will decline. will no longer appear so very odious; you will see yourselves for a while like dead men, inactive and void of life; serious meditation will be a stranger; you will no longer meet God in your walks, nor be inclined to converse about him with your chosen friends. Perhaps you may be soon tempted to think you have been labouring for nothing, or that holiness needs not so much care and thought as you have laid out upon it. When you are come to this, you are not far from

Sin

destruction. Be convinced that you must soon fall into a carnal, or what is more dangerous, a formal state; a kind of middle way between heaven and earth, just doing no ill, nor any good, a fearful sleep of conscience and of holiness with it. The first symptom by which you may infallibly discover this too frequent state of indifference is, I say, heedlessness or the neglect of your secret devotion. Then it will behove you to take the alarm, to set before you how the soul of God will have no pleasure in you, if you are neither hot nor cold; and how intolerable must this thought be to you, to bethink you that to serve God as you are now likely to do, is to hide your talent in the earth, and to expect nothing for so poor a service, but the slothful and unprofitable servant's wages; to bethink you that the service even of angels is unworthy of God, and how much more the imperfect service of man, when his whole heart and soul are buried in it. [In this state] you must mortify your body, and remove the weight it casts upon the soul, by abstinence and fasting in a religious and solemn manner; you must be more particularly attentive to the word of God, and above all things force upon yourselves, however unwilling, the exercises of public and private devotion. If you can give yourselves leave to neglect these, you are entirely lost; you are drawn back, and God's soul will have no pleasure in you. This now is the great symptom of a declining state in the second stage of godliness; and indeed in any stage of it, it is highly to be feared, and the more so in the manhood of religion, or the last stage of holiness, if such declensions may be thought consistent therewith-but

Thirdly. This last degree of religion hath symptoms of drawing back, which are more peculiar to itself, as well as the other two former ones. Now this last stage is a state, wherein having obtained confirmed freedom from the dominion of sin, we have all imaginable leisure and strength to contend against the remainder of sin dwelling in us, and to improve our graces with a fervent zeal both towards God and towards man. You will observe that when we are arrived hereto, it is very plain that we cannot form any judgment of drawing back, by attending to our not falling into gross and wilful sins, for these we are freed from. Should any one conceive that he was improving in the love of God and of man, in humility, patience, and heavenly-mindedness, because he was neither a drunkard, nor a cheat, nor a fornicator, he must needs deceive himself by so strange a conclu sion. Nor again can we determine our drawing back or not, by any outward practices or exercises of reli gion; these we have discharged, it may be, with an equal diligence for many years, and it is not in any neglect of these, that the first symptoms of drawing back will appear in the advanced Christian. But the proper employment of one arrived at this manhood in holiness, is to improve in his graces, and to root out the remainder of sin dwelling in his heart. Wherefore, if a man be the advanced Christian he takes himself to be, he will perfectly know the state of his soul-will know what graces are imperfect, and what sins are still dwelling in him. These always will be found to act directly in opposition one to the other, so that the degree of imperfec

tion in any grace, is discoverable by the remains of the opposite sin prevailing in us. For instance, just so much as I am defective in humility, exactly so much I have of pride; just so much as I am under the influence of anger, to that very degree I want patience; exactly in proportion as I love this world too much, in the same measure I love the other too little. Suppose now, in this advanced state, you would discover the first symptom of drawing back, set before you with constant and great attention, that remainder of sin which does most prevail against you. I make no question you are perfectly acquainted with what it is: you know if you are most prone to pride, or envy, or self-will, or the too great opinion of the world. For example, let us imagine it to be anger that is most prevailing with you; keep yourselves very attentive to the power it hath over you. Do you find yourselves to bear rebukes, and insults, and mockeries, yet with more calmness, or do you discover that you give place unto wrath? Should this be the case, you are evidently drawing back; if you give way ever so little, your fretful temper may grow into a violent one, your violence may produce hasty expressions, these hard censurings, and an innumerable train of injuries you dare not think of, nor can think of without horror. By the like just judgment, you might discover the first symptoms of a declining state, were the prevailing evil temper of your heart, lust, or worldlymindness, sell-will, or envy. Do you see that you give way therein never so little, you may be assured that you only want temptation, to cause Satan entirely to prevail against you in every instance. Be ready

therefore evermore to take St. Paul's advice along with you, and forgetting those things which are behind, press forward to those which are before, to the victories you have not yet gained, in the pursuit of the high prize of your calling in Christ Jesus."

Notwithstanding all the vigilance and care of Mr. Walker, he had perpetually the mortification of witnessing declensions among his hearers. The truly Christian feelings, with which he regarded this awful proof of the corruption and infirmity of man's nature, are apparent in a short letter to one who mourned over the backslidings of those who had professed themselves disciples of Christ, but now walked no more with him.

DEAR WILLIAM,

You must learn to stand by a little, and leave the head of the church to manage his own matters. It is a mournful sight indeed when any fall back, and go no more after Jesus. Yet this ought not to make us fret and repine, as if all were over. A sad view I have before me every Lord's day: a multitude blind, and I fear past feeling: I speak, but they hear not; nevertheless I cannot but acquiesce in the justice of the divine procedure, yea and be sensible that my unfaithfulness deserves much more, and wonder at the salvation God is working. What I mean is, you ought not to murmur against the ministrations of the Spirit.

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To Mr. Wm. Rawlings, at St. Columbe.

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