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330

DREADFUL GUILT OF BACKSLIDING.

soul for a miserable eternity; to throw eternal life away, and choose eternal death. To backslide, is to slight your best friends, and please your worst enemy; to make heaven mourn, and hell rejoice; to act as guilty a part as Satan himself acted; to treat with the basest ingratitude a loving God; and to trample under foot the pains, and groans, and sorrows of a dying Saviour. To backslide, is to choose devils for your companions instead of angels; hell for your home instead of heaven; weeping, wailing, and despair for your portion, instead of peace and praise. In fine, Sarah, to backslide, is to act so wicked, so mad, so hellish a part, that even devils themselves can scarcely wish any to act a worse. And had you begun to act this part? God be praised, if you now mourn that you did so ! Flee to him, my friend, afresh! Plead with him the promises I have mentioned from his word. Praise him that he did not give you over to a hardened heart! and O! may you hereafter praise him for this in heaven.

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Depend upon it, my dear friend, the view now given you of the guilt of backsliding is not too strong. The word of God represents confirmed backsliders as turned aside after Satan; as having damnation because they have cast away their faith; as drawing back unto perdition;' as being shut out of the eternal rest; as crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh, and putting him to an open shame; as having trodden under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith they were sanctified, an unholy thing; as doing despite to the Spirit of grace; as falling into the hands of the living God, and he is a consuming fire to them; as having their latter end worse than the beginning. For them there remains a certain fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. They are those, who having fallen into the snare of the devil, are taken captive by him at his will. What awful descriptions! how should they rouse you! how alarm you, lest you should turn aside again! To be led captive by Satanwhat can be worse? Could you see that dreadful enemy dragging an unhappy soul to perdition, how would you tremble! yet remember that the backslider, though he see it not, is led captive by the devil at his will. Oh, let these awful thoughts lead you to watch and to pray; to look into your own heart;

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EVILS OF BACKSLIDING.

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to examine your own state; to distrust yourself; to depend on your Redeemer; and to dread the guilt of backsliding, more than the wretchedness to which it leads.

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Again, Sarah, if you have felt the pangs of a wounded conscience, seek for peace afresh, through the blood of the Lamb; and let the unhappy hours you have passed, and the tears your fall has occasioned, be so many motives with you to return to God, and to cleave to Christ. Surely you have found that thoughtlessness and laughter cannot make the backslider's state happy. You know something of this truth, many others know much of it. I reminded you of a friend, who told me how happy he was in the ways of God. Peace with God made life pleasant. The night and the day were alike comfortable, and fear fled far from him: but the tempter suggested to him, What need so much ado about religion? These words, or something to this effect, run in his mind. At length he yielded; he went backward; and the tempter triumphed. And now his comforts were gone. He could not lie down at night, without fear of waking in eternal torment before the morning. He found it was a bitter, as well as guilty, thing, to forsake his Redeemer. Learn wisdom, Sarah, from your own unhappiness. Learn it from that of others. You have been near the edge of a precipice, from which many who reach it, never return, but fall from God to rise no more. O be thankful, that you have not fallen quite so low! O be watchful, lest you should! O strive! O pray! that your repentance be not this time, what it was a few months back.

"Should I say more, Sarah; then again I would admonish you to look forward to future things. Think of your dying bed, of your pulse fluttering, your heart failing, your friends bidding you a last farewell, and you departing to meet your God. What comfort it will give you, if you have a Saviour then! What misery it will cause you, should you then be found a backslider, and then have to think that this friendly warning did you no good! Think yourself standing before your Judge. How happy if you meet his smile! if you find his blood has blotted out every sin, and the sin of forsaking him among the dreadful list! And, Sarah, this happiness will be yours, if you return and cleave to him. But, oh! how wretched would you be, if you should meet his frown, and

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MOTIVES FOR RETURNING TO GOD.

hear him say, You forsook me in yonder burning worlddepart-depart for ever! What bitter groans would burst from your heart! What bitter tears, if tears can then be shed, flow from your eyes! How would you wish that you had watched, and prayed, and bore all crosses, and endured all hardships, and denied all allurements, and even died for Jesus rather than forsaken him!

"Go through a church-yard, Sarah. Look at its graves, and think, Here lie the young, the healthy, and the strong. Here lie those whom the world once charmed, and those who for it slighted their immortal souls, and what is the world to them now! and soon shall this youthful and healthful body, like theirs, be mouldering dust; and soon shall these active limbs be common earth. Soon will my eyes be shut upon the world; and all its cares, and all its pleasures will neither pain nor please me in the grave; but then where will be my immortal spirit? That cannot die; that lives for ever; and shall I sell that soul to Satan, and get this world only for it? and shall I give up my Saviour, and throw my hopes away? Oh, foolish heart, that ever thought of doing it! Oh, deceived and miserable creature that I have been! for I began to do so.

"My dear friend, what shall I say more? I mourn the thought of seeing you hereafter at the left hand of the eternal Judge. I mourn the thought of never meeting you in the world of peace, to whom I have often broken the bread of life. Could I prevent your departure, never should you depart. Return to God, and peace will again be yours. Return to Jesus, and you will yet be happy. But let it be with full purpose of heart. Let it be with earnest prayer. Let it be with a watchful jealousy lest you should deceive yourself in a concern of endless consequence. Learn to live on Christ. Depend on him. Look to him. Resist the world for a little time, and you shall reach a better. Fight the good fight of faith, and you will soon receive the crown of glory. The conflict is short, the rest eternal.-Then, at length, beyond the reach of sin, Satan, the world, and a deceitful heart, may you there praise the grace which first awakened you; the greater grace that brought you back to God. May God grant it! Amen!"

THE BACKSLIDER ADDRESSED.

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§ 6. Do I address a backslider? Probably all that has now been said will have no more effect on you, than I fear it had on her to whom it was originally written, and who is since gone to her dread account. Yet shall I leave you for ever, and not make one more attempt to restore you to the paths of life! Stop then, I beseech you, before the shades of death close round your head, before the voice of mercy is withdrawn for ever; stop, I beseech you, and a little more consider your ways.

Think of your sin many are its aggravations. You have sinned against the world. You have thrown a stumbling-block in the way of the unconverted, and exposed them and yourself to the woe denounced by the Lord Jesus Christ: Woe unto the world because of offences; but woe unto that man by whom the offence cometh. And are not you that wretched creature! Oh, how awful is it for one that has professed religion, to injure the immortal souls of others! and to assist Satan in leading multitudes to perdition!

You have sinned against your relatives. If they are the disciples of Jesus, how have you blasted their hopes respecting you, and how ill requited them for all their tenderness, kindness, and care? If they know him not, you have probably hardened them in carelessness and sin, and thus contributed to sink those who are dearest to you down to hell.

You have sinned against yourself. You might have been respected and beloved, esteemed and useful in life; and have possessed a bright inheritance in heaven; but alas! how low has your conduct sunk you! how has it deprived you of respect and affection in this life, and of every cheering hope for the eternal world!

You have sinned against your Christian friends. You professed to be their friend, yet have acted the part of the worst enemies. The world is ready to reproach them without cause; but you have given the world occasion to do so, and those who pity you, yet abhor your conduct and disown you, may share in your reproach.

You have sinned against the Lord Jesus Christ. He died to redeem you from sin. Often have you heard of his dying love. You professed to ground your hopes upon it. But oh! for all his dying love and living care, for all his sorrows, and his bitter death, what a return have you made him! You have

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THE BACKSLIDER ADDRESSED.

pleased Satan, and displeased your Redeemer! Have done the will of the devil, and injured your gracious Saviour, and brought reproach upon his holy cause.

Think how different is your state now from what it was, when you solemnly yielded yourself up to your Redeemer. Look back to that day. Who would then have thought of this? How will the profession you then made rise in the judgment against you! How will every opportunity you have had of sitting down at the Redeemer's table, every sermon you have heard, every warning you have had, aggravate your guilt and double your condemnation! How may the serious friends, who once were your companions, and the ministers, who have preached to you the everlasting gospel, appear as witnesses that you once knew the ways of God, and then turned back unto perdition! They who now pity and pray for you, will then pity you no longer, but own that your destruction is just.

And are all your professions come to this? Did you profess religion, but to make yourself more completely a child of the devil by forsaking it? Has that Redeemer who shed his blood for you deserved no better than this at your hands? Do you thus requite all his sufferings, all his love, and all his goodness? Have you found something more worthy of your love than Christ? That should be a treasure indeed for which you sell your own soul to the devil, and renounce God, and Christ, and hope, and holiness, and happiness, and heaven. Will your irreligious companions make up to you this dreadful loss? Oh, poor deceived unhappy creature, if you go on in your way, they who are now your companions in folly will soon be your companions in hell! How will you meet your injured and forsaken Redeemer ?

You have sinned against the Holy Spirit. Sin grieves and quenches the Spirit. O beware, lest he leave you to yourself; for then you would be sealed up under eternal impenitency

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You have sinned against God. David mentions this as a peculiar aggravation of his iniquity. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned." If your profession was sincere, how awfully have you sinned against God! Did you not profess, that he had by his Spirit opened your eyes to see your ruined state? Did you not believe that through his love he gave his Son

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