providential care, for the sacrifice of thy Son, for the communications of thy Spirit, for the pardon of my numberless aggravated sins, for the hopes, the undeserved and often forfeited hopes, of eternal glory? Lord, I am ashamed to stand or to kneel before thee. But pity me, I beseech thee, and help me; for I am a pitiable object indeed! My soul cleaveth unto the dust, and lays itself in the dust before thee; but O, quicken me according to thy word! Let me trifle no longer, for I am upon the brink of a precipice! I am thinking of iny ways, O give me grace to turn my feet unto thy testimo nies; to make kaste without any farther delay, that I may keep thy commandments! Search me, O Lord, and try me! Go to the first root of this distemper which spreads itself over my soul, and recover me from it! Represent sin unto me, O Lord, I beseech thee, that I may see it with abhorrence! and represent the Lord Jesus Christ to me in such a light, that I may look upon him and mourn, that I may look upon him and love! May I awaken from this stupid lethargy into which I am sinking; and may Christ give me more abundant degrees of spiritual life and activity than I ever yet received! and may I be so quickened and animated by him, that I may more than recover the ground I have lost, and may make more speedy and exemplary progress than in my best days I have yet done! Send down upon me, O Lord, in a more rich and abundant effusion, thy good spirit! May he dwell in me as in a temple which he has consecrated to himself; and while all the service is directed and governed by him, may holy and acceptable sacrifices be continually offered! May the incense be constant, and may it be fragrant! May the sacred fire. burn and blaze perpetually and may none of its vessels ever be profaned, by being employed to an unholy or forbidden use !-Amen.

CHAP. XXIII.

THE SAD CASE OF A RELAPSE INTO KNOWN AND DELIBERATE SIN, AFTER SOLEMN ACTS OF DEDICATION TO GOD, AND SOME PROGRESS MADE IN RELIGION.

Unthought of relapses may happen, 1. and bring the soul into a miserable case, 2. Yet the case is not desperate, 3. The backslider urged immediately to return; (1.) By deep humiliation before God for so aggravated an offence, 4. (2.) By renewed regards to the divine mercy in Christ, 5. (3.) By an open profession of repentance where the crime hath given public offence, 6. (4.) Falls to be reviewed for future caution, 7. The chapter concludes, 8, with a prayer for the use of one who hath fallen into gross sins after religious resolutions and engagements.

1. THE declensions which I have described in the foregoing chapter must be acknowledged worthy of deep lamentation; but happy will you be, my dear read er, if you never know, by experience, a circumstance yet more melancholy than this. Perhaps, when you consider the view of things which you now have, you imagine that no considerations can ever bribe you, in any single instance, to act contrary to the present dictates or suggestions of your conscience, and of the spir.. it of God as setting it on work. No; you think it would be better for you to die. And you think rightly. But Peter thought and said so too: Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee; and yet afterwards he fell; and therefore be not high minded, but fear. It is not impossible but you may fall into that very sin of which you imagine you are least in danger, or into that against which you have most solemnly resolved, and of which you have most bitterly repented. You may relapse into it again: but, O, if you do, nay, if you should deliberately and presumptuously fall but once, how deep will it pierce your heart; how dear will you pay for all the pleasure with which the temptation has been baited? how will this separate between God and you? What a desolation, what a dreadful desolation, will it spread over your soul! It is grievous to think of it. Perhaps in such a state you may feel more agony and distress in your own conscience, when you come seriously to reflect, than you ever felt when you were

first awakened and reclaimed, because the sin will be attacked with some very high aggravations beyond those of your unregenerate state. I well knew the person that said, "The agonies of a sinner in the first pangs of his repentance were not to be mentioned on the same day with those of the backslider in keart when he comes to be filled with his own way."

2. Indeed it is enough to wound one's heart to think how your's will be wounded: how all your comforts, all your evidenccs, all your hopes, will be clouded; what thick darkness will spread itself on every side, so that neither sun, nor moon, nor stars will appear in your heaven. Your spiritual consolations will be gone; and your temporal enjoyments will also be rendered tasteless and insipid. And if afflictions be sent, as they probably may, in order to reclaim you, a consciousness of guilt will sharpen and envenom the dart. Then will the enemy of your soul, with all his art and power, rise up against you, encouraged by your fall, and labor to trample you down in utter, hopeless ruin. He will persuade you that you are already undone beyond recovery; he will suggest that it signifies nothing to attempt it any more: for that every effort, every amendment, every act of repentance, will but make your case so much the worse, and plunge you lower and lower into hell.

keep you But yield and if it be rest in it

3. Thus will he endeavor by terrors to from that sure remedy which yet remains. not to him. Your case will indeed be sad; now your case, it is deplorably so; and to would be still much worse. Your heart would be hardened yet more and more; and nothing could be expected but sudden and aggravated destruction.-Yet, blessed God, it is not quite hopeless. Your wounds are corrupted because of your foolishness; but the gangrene is not incurable. There is balm in Gilead, there is a Physician there. Do not, therefore, render your condition hopeless, by now saying, There is no hope, and drawing a fatal argument from that false supposition for going after the idols you have loved. Let me address you in the language of God to his backsliding people when they were ready to apprehend that to be

their case, and to draw such a conclusion from it; only return unto me, saith the Lord. Cry for renewed grace; and, in the strength of it, labor to return. Cry with David under the like guilt, I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments; and that remembrance of them is, I hope, a token for good. But if thou wilt return at all, do it im mediately. Take not one step more in that fatal path to which thou hast turned aside. Think not to add one sin more to the account, and then to repent; as if it would be but the same thing on the whole. The second error may be worse than the first; it may make way for another and another, and draw on a terrible train of consequences beyond all you can now imagine. Make haste, therefore, and do not delay. Escape, and fly as for thy life, before the dart strike through thy liver. Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids ; lie not down upon thy bed under unpardoned guilt, lest evil overtake thee, lest the sword of divine justice should smite thee; and whilst thou proposest to return to-morrow, thou shouldst this night go and take possession of hell.

4. Return immediately; and permit me to add, return solemnly. Some very pious and excellent divines have expressed themselves upon this head in a manner which seems liable to dangerous abuse, when they urge men after a fall "not to stay to survey the ground, uor consider how they came to be thrown down, but immediately to get up and renew the race. In slighter cases the advice is good but when conscience has suffered such violent outrage, by the commission of known, wilful, and deliberate sin, (a case which one would hope should bus seldom happen to those who have ence seriously entered on a religious course,) I can by no means think that either reason or scripture encourage such a method. Especially would it be improper, if the action itself has been of so heinous a nature, that even to have fallen into it on the most sudden surprise of temptation, must greatly have ashamed and terrified, and distressed the soul. Such an affair is dreadfully solemn, and should be treated accordingly. If this has been the sad case with you, my then unhappy reader, 1

would pity you and mourn over you; would beseech you, as you tender your peace, your recovery, the health and very life of your soul, that you would not loiter away an hour. Retire immediately for serious reflection. Break through other engagements and employments, unless they be such as you cannot in con, science delay for a few hours, which can. seldom bappen in the circumstance I now suppose. This is the one thing needful. Set yourself to it, therefore, as in the presence of God, and hear at large, patiently and humbly, what conscience has to say, though it chide and reproach severely. Yes, earnestly pray, that God would speak to you by conscience, and make you more thoroughly to know and feel, what an evil and bitter thing it is that you have forsaken him. Think of all the aggravating circumstances attending your offence, and especially those which arise from abused mercy and goodness; which arise not only from your solemn vows and engagements to God, but from the views which you have of a Redeemer's love, sealed even in blood. And are these the returns? was it not enough that Christ should have been thus injured by his enemies? Must he be wounded in the house of his friends too? Were you delivered to work such abominations as these? Did the blessed Jesus groan and die for you, that you might sin with boldness and freedom; that you might extract, as it were, the very spirit and essence of sin, and offend God to a height of ingratitude and baseness which would otherwise have been in the nature of things impossible! O, think how justly God might cast you out from his presence! How justly he might number you among the most signal instances of his vengeance! And think how "your heart would endure, or your hands be strong, if he would deal thus with you! Alas! all your former experiences would. enhance your sense of the ruin and misery that must be felt in an eternal banishment from the divine presence and favor.

5. Indulge such reflections as these. Stand the humbling sight of your sins in such a view as this. The more odious and more painful it appears, the greater prospect there will be of your benefit by at

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