to similar backsliding, he takes no comfort from it, but is always able to give a fuller, a fairer, and better account of their case in question than his own.

2nd. From your private communication, the root of the matter still appears to be in him; what, I would ask, constitutes the essence of a final apostacy? and why do some endure for a while, and then fall away? why is it that the reality and the profession seem to go together? why is it so many can make a fair show in the flesh, and it turns out but a vain show? why is it they neither hold out in believing or doing, but survive the reputation of the one, and lose all pretension to the other. The truth is, they resemble a land flood, it is a rapid for a moment, nay, it is a full flowing stream, you might suppose it would continue overflowing, and ever full; but alas! it is fed by no spring, therefore it soon runneth apace, loses itself in the sandy soil, or is dried up by the summer sun.

Such, sooner or later, must be the end of all outward professors in religion; their professed fellowship with God, is no more a sign of true fellowship with him, than a mere orthodox opinion in religion, is religion itself

SECTION XXXII.

DIFFICULTY, AND MEANS OF RECOVERY.

When the heart has once shifted from its proper centre, its recovery is very difficult; it requires no less a power to restore it, than that which at first created it: time, some people say, is a great restorer, and so it is; but regeneration, in the first instance, by the grace of God, and secondly, in cases of backsliding, renewal of heart by the same Spirit, are, we find, the only true restoratives from all our misery.

It is the grace of God in Christ alone, that gives back all that we lost by the fall, and infinitely more; in proportion as the divine image is replaced in the soul, the blessings of all our longlost and long-forfeited privileges will certainly be recovered; but the victory will never be fully accomplished in this world: we shall all have to say, at the close of life, what the Lord said to Joshua," Thou art old, and well stricken in years, and yet there remaineth much land to be possessed;" even so when we shall have grown old in the ways of grace, and well stricken in years of experience, still such are the frequent relapses of the best, and the little way gained by the most exemplary; such is the unholy nature of the carnal mind, the many obstacles it plants in the way of spiritual growth, that we shall all have to exclaim, in a dying hour, "there remain many corruptions to be mortified, and much of the

spiritual soil to be recovered from the hands of the enemy."

The difficulty of our full recovery to God, either in regeneration, or conversion from sin, arises from our vile nature: the very substance upon which the law of Moses was written, was typical of our nature, God commanded Moses to write it on two tables of stone; this was to intimate to all succeeding generations of men, the rocky nature and the flinty substance the blindness, and obduracy of the human heart: it was to show how unfeeling and impenetrable it is in spiritual things, and it must be confessed, that this figurative representation of it, falls far short of reality, for however hard and impenetrable to impression some stones are, (and perhaps the most precious are the most so,) all of them come indescribably short of the stubbornness and utter insensibility of every Christless and graceless soul.

This view of the hearts of all men by nature, and of the backslider's in particular, will pave the way for my insisting much on the necessity of supernatural influence in the recovery of all that have gone astray; for though I do admit, in a general way, that some preparatory work is, without doubt, going on in the heart before its ultimate recovery-there may be comparisons of former comforts with present misery; there may be inward consciousness of untold compunction, grievous soul-upbraidings, the writing of bitter things against self; there may be other favourable symptoms of a returning sinner before he does actually return, such as growing serious

ness of manner, more of thoughtfulness than of late, an increasing desire for privacy, and a greater seriousness of deportment in the house of mercy, and greater punctuality likewise; but these are but the refluence of the sea, the harbingers of the coming tide; they are only as the polishing of the stones that were afterwards to be laid and built up in the temple; a preparation, which was nothing in itself, but vastly important as it respected the future building; still, nothing but a great and saving work of the Spirit, in quickening, reviving, strengthening, &c. can bring back any prostrate soul to God; the prayer of David, therefore, must be his prayer, "my soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken me according to thy word." (Ps. cxix. 25.)

I am so fully persuaded of the necessity of an effectual work of the Spirit, in restoring the fallen to spiritual health, that were they to have recourse to every other expedient, they would, I hesitate not to say, all necessarily fail: some persons there have been, in every age of the world, who have fancied, that if God did but speak to them from heaven, they would repent of their backsliding, believe, and turn to Him; but depend upon it, no means, human or divine, not even the voice of God himself will be enough for the purpose; the backslider can resist the warning voice of God himself, and continue in the face of revelation and warnings, in his headlong course. When Cain conceived malice, and murder in his heart, the Lord spake to him and reasoned with him, and set his sins before him, but did he repent of his wicked purpose? Did he not go on adding one

sin to another, till at length he filled up the measure of his iniquity by slaying his brother; and you may rest assured, when the soul of any backslider has been secretly languishing for some time, and consuming its energies and graces, little by little, when all that was good and gracious in it, has manifested, not a partial or particular, but universal decay, nothing in the world can repair the breach, nothing will be found harder than the soul of such a man.

It was a saying of Martin Luther, in regard to cases of this sort, that it was harder to restore, or comfort backsliders, labouring under afflicted consciences, than to raise the dead; and while those who think little of grieving the Spirit of God, and declining from God, will do well to think much of such a sentiment, it may be desirable, to enforce on penitent backsliders, the important doctrine, that the grace of God is always free, yet the twofold difficulty which our friend, I conceive, will have to contend with, will be, first, to discover, in the riches of grace, its reference to himself, and then, it will be impossible for him to take comfort from it, till the Lord apply it.

If our friend, or indeed any other man in the like situation, fancies he can get consolation, or abiding comfort by hearing, or listening to the sound of pardoning grace, he will find himself egregiously mistaken; a bare declaration of mercy may satisfy the conscience of the formalist or hypocrite, but it never can pacify or allay the fears of a man who is in earnest; the of grace God in Christ must be sensibly felt in the soul to