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§ 9. These things had influence on my decay, mainly; 1st, Want of outward and inward afflictions. I had no changes, therefore feared not God, Psal. lv. 19. The spurs were out of my side, terrors were away which drave me to duty. 2dly, In respect of the decay of that inward sweetness which accompanied duty formerly, God, having brought me out of Egypt into the wilderness, had withdrawn that; and, wanting these by-fleeces, I fell in my walk; "For this Moses, we know not what is become of him," Exod. xxxii. 1. 3dly, Through process of time the spirits wearied, and the impressions of things did wear away; and, being wearied, I desired sleep: "They rejoiced in his light for a season,” John v 35; and, as the Galatians, did run well at the break. 4thly, Many tentations from within and from without, which the Lord kept up before. Now the Lord let out my original corruption, and I found nothing but a dead hard heart from within, and discouragement from without, and this made the way more hard. 5thly, The powerful means were removed; the good company and powerful sermons were gone which did feed me. 6thly, Godless company, that had no grace, with which I was trysted, that did eat out all religion out of me. 7thly, The formal, carnal, and lifeless conversation of some (much cried up) professors, made me even despair as it were. 8thly, Too eagerly following of lawful comforts, and employments, and studies. 9thly, Growing remiss in the exercise of duties, especially of private prayer and meditation. 10thly, Not looking to ills in the beginning, but letting them run on; not heeding things, or considering my ways, but sleeping; and therefore became my garden overspread with thorns. 11thly, Want of knowledge and principles, whereby I became over credulous, and believed every thing that was suggested. 12thly, Unbelief and discouragements, whereby I concluded all lost and desperate, and God a hard master, and that I was not yet converted: an evil heart of unbelief in departing from God, Heb. iii. 12. 13thly, Taken up with lesser matters, and not exercised with weighty truths and duties; taken up with trials of grace, and not exercised with common principles. 14thly, Living by sense, and not by faith.

§ 10. I observe these things from this decay of mine; 1st, It is ordinary, and an evil to be watched against, to fall away from that measure saints receive at their first conversion, Rev. ii. 4, 5, "Thou hast fallen from thy first love." Tentations come, and God withdraws his strength and comfort; and in process of time the spirits weary, and this breeds fainting. 2dly, Saints fall not away totally; something still remaineth, 1 John iii. 9, "His seed remaineth in him;" Cant. v. 2, "My heart waketh." 3dly, Whatever the decay of saints be, yet the Lord ordinarily recovers them out of it again; "Though they fall, they shall arise,” Micah vii. 8. The slumbering virgins were at last awakened, Mat. xxv. 5, 7. 4thly, Unbelief, especially in passing hard sentences on our own estate, and doubting of our sonship, the first and greatest cause of apostacy, Heb. iii. 12; therefore, Satan tempted Christ with this first: "If thou be the Son of God." Jer. ii. 25, "There is no hope, we have loved idols." 5thly, A Christian thrives as he keeps up correspondence with God in private duties, especially secret prayer. Mat. xxvi. 41, "Pray, lest ye enter into temptation;" Exod. xvii. 11. 6thly, A backslider ordinarily goeth a great length ere he recover, Jer. ii. 5, "They have deeply revolted, they have gone far from me." 7thly, Saints are drawn from God by appearances of good, by seeming temptations; they are beguiled in the use of lawful comforts. We should watch much against this; "a tree to be desired to make one wise." 8thly, Back sliding and spiritual apostacy comes by degrees; he falls not all at

once.

Mat. xxv. The virgins first slumbered, then slept; hence it is called backsliding: a man quietly slides from God. 9thly, No means can reclaim a backsliding soul, nor make the ebbing soul flow, till the Lord's hour come. It is a stroke of omnipotence that makes the fever turn; no physician can stop the issue. Hos. xiv. 4, It is God that healeth backslidings. 10thly, A man may contract in a way of backsliding such evils very quickly, that he will not for a long time get quite rid of. Sins and decays are very hard to cure. 11thly, Persons are ordinarily very secure, and quiet, and sleeping, in a decaying condition; they sleep while the Son of man

is betrayed to sinners. 12thly, Sense and affections, without knowledge, do expose a soul to many evils, and make their case very uncertain and unstable. Children in understanding, 1 Cor. xiv. 20, are "tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine," Eph. iv. 14. 13thly, A fiery temptation may be suspended and calmed; but, until it be cured by the word, it will return again. All the time of this decay, my temptation of sinning the sin against the Holy Ghost did never recur, in respect it was once cured by the Word. 14thly, Ill company, and peace in the world, are ill attendants of a backslider, Prov. i. 32, “The prosperity of fools destroys them." Oh it is sad when carnal company, and a soul departing from God, tryst together! "Woe to him that is alone," Eccl. iv. 10. 15thly, A carnal generation of professors is greatly abominable to the Lord, and great plagues in the earth, especially to young beginners. Oh for the garments of praise! They raise an evil report; and ordinarily carnality and discouragement go together.

CHAPTER V.

OF MY RECOVERY.

SECTION I.

Of the first several Steps, and manner thereof.

The Lord did not raise me all at once out of my backslidden condition, nor without interruption, (as might be thought,) but very leisurely, and through many ups and downs. The seed was sown, and it grew, and I ate and drank, and knew not how. The spring was small in the beginning, scarce discernible. I looked, indeed, for the kingdom of heaven to come with observation, but it came not so; and as it was sown with little din and noise, so did it grow up quietly, and had many interruptions and winters, going backward and forward; like the filling sea, some wave gained ground, and some succeeding lost and abated, but a new overflowing

regained all again. There would come a wave of the Spirit that would overflow largely, but after that a little ebb; and then, when I little expected, there would come a wave that would set me as far forward as ever again: and then a little decay, and then a recovery, so as for a long time I was tossed up and down like a locust, wearied of myself, and of my life, and righteousness, and enlargements of heart, and of all these glories. I was after humiliation of heart, by a strong yet quiet hand, at the command of God, with little din made to believe and rest on Christ, so as I had never done the same before; and in process of time to become assured, and so come to see myself in a good estate, and to have come off my way, and the Lord to have almost perfected his work, ere I had thought he had well begun. Nor all this time did I know what the Lord was doing until of late; but thinking I was minting to enter in at the strait gate, and "ever learning, and never able to attain to the knowledge of the truth." And now I see that all this time the Lord carried me as an eagle doth her young ones, Deut. xxxii. 10, 11, 12. And when the Lord was leaving, and his work going back in mine eyes, yet was it going forward. The way and steps of this my recovery were,—

§ 1. Step 1st. After I had long departed from God, and so gone far away, the Lord made me unsatisfied with and weary of my present condition; and even in this laughing madness was my heart sorrowful. And when in midst of my jollity, if at any time I would think on my former estate, I would say, Oh what a sad condition am I in now! Oh the days of old! "Oh that it were with me as

in months past!" Oh that I were under Christ's terrors again! His glooms and boasts were better than this at best, Hos. ii. 7, "better when with the first husband." I remembered whence I had fallen, and this dung out the bottom of my carnal contentments.

§ 2. Step 2d. I had thoughts to return to my first husband, but was beaten from this with the apprehensions that it was not time; and hence it became a great case to me, whether the Lord may assault a soul with a spirit of conviction, and leave it, and come

again? Rutherford had a terrible word, which haunted me like a ghost, viz., "A man is saved in the nick of conversion, or else eternally lost." Sometimes I thought I was judicially hardened, and my time gone; but the Lord did take the thorn away, and made me hope, by casting a book in my hand which did write of compunction; and he states the case, viz., “Whether a man once under convictions, and these dying without fruit, can be again converted?" He determined it affirmatively, with such reasons as then convinced me, so as I resolved to set up shop again, and try it, Ezra x. 2, 3, though I found therein a great difficulty.

§ 3. Step 3d. Was the setting about the means, with prayer, reading, and meditation. I rested not in bare fruitless wishings and hopes, but I was helped to set myself to seek the Lord, and set up shop again, though with some difficulty; the irons were rusted. I continued praying morning and evening for some time, and meditating, and preparing my heart, notwithstanding all my discouragements, and indispositions, and little success; for my heart continued hard, dead, and blind, and conversation carnal, and duties were a burden to me.

§ 4. Step 4th. Having for some twenty days prayed, mourned, and complained, and not finding any life, but my deadness increasing, and hearing no word of Christ, I began to have suspicions that sentence was indeed past against me, and that I was sealed under the plague of an hard heart, and that Christ had given over; and was tempted to cast aside duties as vain. And then I said, Oh poor soul! thou wilt never get so much as a tender heart again, nor so much as once to pour out this thy soul to God ere thou die. While I was thus exercised, the Lord was pleased to let me again taste some of the sweetness of duties; for one time I went in the multitude of my thoughts to the Lord in prayer, and it pleased the Spirit to blow, and to open my heart, so as I prayed with abundance of tears and great liberty, and I found much sweetness in the work. Now, although I was not satisfied with this, yet I was comforted, in that it was a proof to me that the Lord had not quite forsaken me, and that after this there would come better.

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