go yet farther from you, and be brought back again to you with ten-fold difficulty. If you have lost the cheering pre- sence of your God, know that he has already gone " to the threshold of the house."]
2. The influences of his grace —
[God is pleased to strengthen his people with might by his Spirit in their inward man, so that they are enabled to overcome the world, to mortify the flesh, and to withstand all the principalities and powers of hell. He endues them with grace sufficient for them: but, if they are unfaithful to the grace received, he will withdraw it, and leave them to the unassisted efforts of their own arm. Then, like Samson with his locks shorn, they will become weak as other men : the world will regain its ascendant over them : their natural pro- pensities will return with renewed force : and Satan will be able so to practise his former wiles, as to gain the most fatal advantage over them. They are like Israel before Ai, because of the Achan in their camp".
Here then is another subject of inquiry for us. Do we find that we are less able than formerly to resist our besetting sins ? that we have less power to repress the workings of evil tempers, and of corrupt affections? Do we find that duty is more dif- ficult than in former times, and sin more easy and pleasant?
Then we may know that God has gone, not to the
threshold only, but even to the court. O fearful state ! What cries, and tears, and labours, become the person that is reduced to it ! He has not a moment to spare : if he would not lose God speedily and for ever, he must humble himself before God in dust and ashes : he must " repent and turn him- self from all his transgressions, else his iniquity will become his ruin."]
3. The warnings of his Spirit —
[The conscience of one that lives nigh to God is made tender, as the apple of his eye : and if by any means he be betrayed into sin, he mourns, and weeps, and never finds a moment's rest, till he has " washed it away in the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness." But this sensibility is soon lost : it is God's presence only that preserves it : and if God's " Holy Spirit be quenched by us, he will give us over to a hardness of heart," so that the things which once would have occasioned the deepest humiliation, shall now scarcely produce a sigh.
And can it be, that any one is so far left, as to have his eyes blinded as to the malignity of sin, and his conscience
n Josh. vii. 11, 12.