_Direct._ II. When you know the marks of a backslider, come into the light, and be willing to know yourselves, whether this be your condition, or not, and do not foolishly cover your disease. Inquire whether it be with you as in former times, when the light of God did shine upon you, and you delighted in his ways: when you hated sin, and loved holiness; and were glad of the company of the heirs of life: when the word of God was pleasant to you; and when you poured out your souls to him in prayer and thanksgivings: when you were glad of the Lord's day, and were quickened and confirmed under the teaching and exhortation of his ministers: when you took worldly wealth and pleasures, as childish toys and fooleries, in comparison of the content of holy souls: when you hungered and thirsted after Christ and righteousness; and had rather have been in heaven to enjoy your God, and be free from sinning, than to enjoy all the pleasures and prosperity of this world. And when it was your daily business to prepare for death, and to live in expectation of the everlasting rest, which Christ hath promised. If this were once your case, inquire whether it be so still? or, what alterations are made upon your hearts and lives?
_Direct._ III. If you find yourselves in a backsliding case, by all means endeavour the awakening of your souls, by the serious consideration of the danger and misery of such a state. To which end I shall here set some such awakening thoughts before you (for security is your greatest danger).
1. Consider that to fall back from God, was the sin of the devils. "They are angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitations, and are now reserved in chains under darkness, to the judgment of the great day," Jude 6. And shall they entice you into their own condemnation?
2. It was the sin of our first parents Adam and Eve, to revolt from God, and lose their holiness. And is there any sin that we should more carefully avoid, than that which all the world hath so much suffered by? Every one of the creatures that you look on, and every pain and misery you feel, doth mind you of that sin, and call to you to take heed by the warning of your first parents, that you suffer not your hearts to be drawn from God.
3. It is a part of hell that you are choosing upon earth. "Depart from me, ye cursed," is the sentence on the damned, Matt. xxv. 41; vii. 23. And will you damn yourselves by departing from God, and that when he calleth you and obligeth you to him? To be separated from God, is one half of the misery of the damned.
4. You are drawing back towards the case that you were in, in the days of your unconverted state. And what a state of darkness, and folly, and delusion, and sin, and misery, was that! If it were good or tolerable, why turned you from it? and, why did you so lament it? and, why did you so earnestly cry out for deliverance? But if it were as bad as you then apprehended it to be, why do you again turn towards it? Would you be again in the case you were? Would you perish in it? Or, would you have all those heart-breakings and terrors to pass through again? May I not say to you, as Paul to the Galatians, "O foolish sinners! who hath bewitched you, that you are so soon turned back?" Gal. iii. 1-4. Who have seen that of sin, and of God, and of Christ, and of heaven, and of hell, as you have done?
5. Yea, it is a far more doleful state that you are drawing towards, than that which you were in before. For the guilt of an apostate is much greater than if he had never known the truth. And his recovery is more difficult, and of smaller hope: because he is "twice dead and plucked up by the root," Jude 12. "For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning: for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire," 2 Pet. ii. 20-22. "For if we sin wilfully (by apostasy) after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries," Heb. x. 26, 27. I know this speaketh only of total apostasy from Christ, (such being worthy "of far sorer punishment, than he that despiseth Moses's law," ver. 28, 29,) but it is a terrible thing to draw towards so desperate a state. A habit is easier introduced upon a negation than a privation; in him that never had it, than in him that hath totally lost it.