THE CASE OF SPIRITUAL DECAY AND LANGUOR IN RELIGION
1. Declension in religion, and relapses into sin, with their sorrowful consequences, are in the general too probable.--2. The ease of declension and langour in religion described, negatively.--3. And positively.--4. As discovering itself by a failure in the duties of the closet.--5. By a neglect of social worship.--6. By want of love to our fellow Christians.--7. By an undue attachment to sensual pleasures or secular cares.--8. By prejudices against some important principles in religion.--9,10. A symptom peculiarly sad and dangerous.--11. Directions for recovery.--12. Immediately to be pursued. A prayer for one under spiritual decays.
1. IF I am so happy as to prevail upon you in the exhortations and cautions
I have given, you will probably go on with pleasure and comfort in religion,
and your path will generally be "like the morning light, which shineth more and
more until the perfect day." (Prov. 4: 18) Yet I dare not flatter myself with
an expectation of such success as shall carry you above those varieties of
temper, conduct, and state, which have been more or less the complaint of the
best of men. Much do I fear, that, how warmly soever your heart may now be
impressed with the representation I have been making, though the great objects
of your faith and hope continue unchangeable, your temper towards them will be
changed. Much do I fear that you will feel your mind languish and tire in the
good ways of God; nay, that you may be prevailed upon to take some step out of
them, and may thus fall a prey to some of those temptations which you now look
upon with a holy scorn. The probable consequence of this will be, that God will
hide his face from you; that he will stretch forth his afflicting hand against
you, and that you still will see your sorrowful moments, how cheerfully soever
you now "be rejoicing in the Lord, and joying in the God of your salvation."
(Hab. 3: 18) I hope, therefore, it may be of some service, if this too probable
event should happen, to consider these cases a little more particularly; and I
heartily pray, that God would make what I shall say concerning them the means
of restoring, comforting, and strengthening your soul, if he ever suffers you
in any degree to deviate from him.
2. We will first consider the case of
Spiritual Declensions and Languor in religion. And here I desire, that, before
I proceed any farther, you would observe that I do not comprehend under this
head every abatement of that fervor which a young convert may find when he
first becomes experimentally acquainted with divine things. Our natures are so
framed, that the novelty of objects strikes them in something of a peculiar
manner: not to urge how much more easily our passions are impressed in the
earlier years of life, than when we are more advanced in the journey of it.
This, perhaps, is not sufficiently considered. Too great a stress is commonly
laid on the flow of affections; and for want or this, a Christian, who is
ripened in grace, and greatly advanced in his preparation for glory, may
sometimes be led to lament imaginary rather than real decays, and to say,
without any just foundation, "O that it were with me as in months past!" (Job
29:2) Therefore, you can hardly be too frequently told, that religion consists
chiefly "in the `resolution of the will for God,' and in a constant care to
avoid whatever we are persuaded he would disapprove, to despatch the work he
has assigned us in life, and to promote his glory in the happiness of mankind."
To this we are chiefly to attend, looking in all to the simplicity and purity
of those motives from which we act, which we know are chiefly regarded by that
God who searches the heart; humbling ourselves before him at the same time
under a sense of our many imperfections, and flying to the blood of Christ and
the grace of the Gospel.
3. Having given this precaution, I will now a
little more particularly describe the case, which I call the state of a
Christian who is declining in religion; so far as it does not fall in with
those which I shall consider in the following chapters. And I must observe that
it chiefly consists "in a forgetfulness of divine objects, and a remissness in
those various duties to which we stand engaged by that solemn surrender which
we have made of ourselves to the service of God." There will be a variety of
symptoms, according to the different circumstances and relations in which the
Christian is placed; but some will be of a more universal kind. It will be
peculiarly proper to touch on these; and so much the rather, as these
declensions are often unobserved, like the gray hairs which were upon Ephraim,
when he knew it not. (Hos. 7:9)
4. Should you, my reader, fall into this state,
it will probably first discover itself by a failure in the duties of the
closet. Not that I suppose they will at first, or certainly conclude that they
will at all, be wholly omitted, but they will be run over in a cold and formal
manner. Sloth, or some of those other snares which I cautioned you against in
the former chapter, will so far prevail upon you, that though perhaps you know
and recollect that the proper season of retirement is come, you will sometimes
indulge yourself upon your bed in the morning, sometimes in conversation or
business in the evening, so as not to have convenient time for it. Or perhaps,
when you come into your closet at that season, some favorite book you are
desirous to read, some correspondence that you choose to carry on, or some
other amusement, will present itself, and plead to be despatched first. This
will probably take up more time than you imagined; and then secret prayer will
be hurried over, and perhaps reading the Scriptures quite neglected. You will
plead, perhaps, that it is but for once; but the same allowance will be made a
second and a third time; and it will grow more easy and familiar to you each
time than it was the last. And thus God will be mocked, and your own soul will
be defrauded of its spiritual meals, if I may be allowed the expression; the
word of God will be slighted, and self-examination quite disused; and secret
prayer itself wilt grow a burden rather than a delight; a trifling ceremony,
rather than a devout homage, fit for the acceptance of "our Father who is in
heaven."
5. If immediate and resolute measures be not
taken for your recovery from these declensions, they will spread farther, and
reach the acts of social worship. You will feel the effects in your family and
in public ordinances. And if you do not feel them, the symptoms will be so much
the worse. Wandering thoughts will, as it were, eat out the very heart of these
duties. It is not, I believe, the privilege of the most eminent Christians to
be entirely free from them; but probably in these circumstances you will find
but few intervals of strict attention, or of any thing which wears the
appearance of inward devotion. And when these heartless duties are concluded,
there will scarce be a reflection made, how little God hath been enjoyed in
them, how little he hath been honored by them. Perhaps the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper, being so admirably adapted to fix the attention of the soul, and
to excite its warmest exercise of holy affections, may be the last ordinance in
which these declensions will be felt. And yet, who can say that the sacred
table is a privileged place? Having been unnecessarily straitened in your
preparations, you will attend with less fixedness and enlargement of heart than
usual. And perhaps a dissatisfaction in the review, when there has been a
remarkable alienation or insensibility of mind, may occasion a disposition to
forsake your place and your duty there. And when your spiritual enemies have
once gained this point upon you, it is probable you will fall by swifter
degrees than ever, and your resistance to their attempts will grow weaker and
weaker.
6. When your love to God our Father and to the
Lord Jesus Christ fails, your fervor of Christian affection to your brethren in
Christ will proportionably decline; and your concern for usefulness in life
abate, especially where any thing is to be done for spiritual edification. You
will find some one excuse or another for the neglect of religious discourse,
perhaps not only among neighbors and Christian friends, when very convenient
opportunities offer; but even with regard to those who are members of your own
families, and to those who, if you are fixed in the superior relations of life,
are committed to your care.
7. With this remissness, an attachment either to
sensual pleasures or to worldly business will increase. For the soul must have
something to employ it, and something to delight itself in; and as it turns to
the one or the other of these, temptations of one sort or another will present
themselves. In some instances, perhaps the strictest bonds of temperance, and
the regular appointments or life, may be broken in upon, through a fondness for
company, and the entertainments which often attend it. In other instances, the
interests of life appearing greater than they did before, and taking up more of
the mind, contrary interests of other persons may throw you into disquietude,
or plunge you in debate and contention, in which it is extremely difficult to
preserve either the serenity or the innocence of the soul. And perhaps, if
ministers and other Christian friends observe this, and endeavor in a plain and
faithful way to reduce you from your wandering, a false delicacy of mind, often
contracted in such a state as this, will render these attempts extremely
disagreeable. The ulcer of the soul, if I may be allowed the expression, will
not bear being touched when it most needs it; and one of the most generous and
self-denying instances of Christian friendship shall be turned into an occasion
of coldness and distaste, yea, perhaps of enmity.
8. And possibly, to sum up all, this disordered
state of mind may lead you into some prejudices against those very principles
which might be most effectual for your recovery; and your great enemy may
succeed so far in his attempts against you, as to persuade you that you have
lost nothing in religion, when you have almost lost all. He may very probably
lead you to conclude that your former devotional frames were mere fits of
enthusiasm, and that the holy regularity of your walk before God was an
unnecessary strictness and scrupulosity. Nay, you may think it a great
improvement in understanding, that you have learnt from some new masters, that,
if a man treat his fellow creatures with humanity and good nature, judging and
reviling only those who would disturb others by the narrowness of their
notions, (for these are generally exempted from other objects of the most
universal and disinterested benevolence so often boasted of) he must
necessarily be in a very good state, though he pretend not to converse much
with God, provided that he think respectfully of him, and do not provoke him by
any gross immoralities.
9. I mention this in the last stage of religious
declension, because I apprehend that to be its proper place; and I fear it will
be found, by experience, to stand upon the very confines of that gross apostacy
into deliberate and presumptuous sin, which wilt claim our consideration under
the next head. And because, too, it is that symptom which most effectually
tends to prevent the success, and even the use, of any proper remedies, in
consequence of a fond and fatal apprehension that they are needless. It is, if
I may borrow the simile, like those fits of lethargic drowsiness which often
precede apoplexies and death.
10. It is by no means my design at this time to
reckon up, much less to consider at large, those dangerous principles which are
now ready to possess the mind, and to lay the foundation of a false and
treacherous peace. Indeed they are in different instances various, and
sometimes run into opposite extremes. But if God awaken you to read your Bible
with attention, and give you to feel the spirit with which it is written,
almost every page will flash conviction upon the mind, and spread a light to
scatter and disperse these shades of darkness.
11. What I chiefly intend in this address, is to
engage you, if possible, as soon as you perceive the first symptoms of these
declensions, to be upon your guard, and to endeavor, as speedily as possible,
to recover yourself from them. And I would remind you, that the remedy must
begin where the first cause or complaint prevailed, I mean, in the closet, Take
some time for recollection, and ask your own con-science, seriously, how
matters stand between the blessed God and your soul? Whether they are as they
once were, and as you could wish them to be, if you saw your life just drawing
to a period, and were to pass immediately into the eternal state? One serious
thought of eternity shames a thousand vain excuses, with which, in the
forgetfulness of it, we are ready to delude our own souls. And when you feel
that secret misgiving of heart which will naturally arise on this occasion, do
not endeavor to palliate the matter, and to find out slight and artful
coverings for what you cannot forbear secretly condemning, but honestly fall
under the conviction, and be humbled for it. Pour out your heart before God,
and seek the renewed influences of his Spirit and grace.. Return with more
exactness to secret devotion, and to self-examination. Read the Scripture with
yet greater diligence, and especially the more devotional and spiritual parts
of it. Labor to ground it in your heart, and to feel what you have reason to
believe the sacred penmen felt when they wrote, so far as circumstances may
agree. Open your soul, with all simplicity; to every lesson which the word of
God would teach you; and guard against those things which you perceive to
alienate your mind from inward religion, though there be nothing criminal in
the things themselves. They may perhaps in the general be lawful; to some
possibly they may be expedient; but if they produce such an effect as was
mentioned above, it is certain they are not convenient for you in these
circumstances, above all, seek the converse of those Christians whose progress
in religion seems most remarkable, and who adorn their profession in the most
amiable manner. Labor to obtain their temper and sentiments, and lay open your
case and your heart to them, with all the freedom which prudence will permit.
Employ yourself, at seasons of leisure, in reading practical and devotional
books, in which the mind and heart of the pious author is transfused into the
work, and in which you can, as it were, taste the genuine spirit of
Christianity. And to conclude, take the first opportunity that presents, of
making an approach to the table of the Lord, and spare neither time nor pains
in the most serious preparation for it. There renew your covenant with God; put
your soul anew into the hands of Christ, and endeavor to view the wonders of
his dying love, in such a manner as may rekindle the languishing flame, and
quicken you to more vigorous resolution than ever, "to live unto him who died
for you." (2 Cor. 5:15) And watch over your own heart, that the good
impressions you then felt may continue. Rest not, till you have obtained as
confirmed a state of religion as you ever knew. Rest not, till yon have made a
greater progress than before; for it is only by a zeal to go forward, that you
can be secure from the danger of going backward, and revolting more and more.
12. I only add, that it is necessary to take
these precautions as soon as possible, or you will probably find a much swifter
progress than you are aware in the downhill road; and you may possibly be left
of God, to fall into some gross and aggravated sin, so as to fill your
conscience with an agony and horror which the pain of "broken bones" (Psa.
51:8) can but imperfectly express.
A Prayer for one under Spiritual Decays.