5. They are the most difficult to please.

No class of people make so much trouble for a minister. If he preaches so as to commend himself to their conscience, he hurts their feelings, and they oppose him. If he preaches so as to satisfy their feelings, then their conscience condemns him, and they have no confidence in his honesty. You come down to their standard and they know you are wrong. There is no such thing as pleasing them by preaching. If you crowd the truth home to them, they will grumble, and call it harsh and personal. If you do not preach so as to cut them to the quick, they know that it is wrong, and they will say, "That will never do, we shall never get awake by such preaching as this, the minister is as much asleep as we are, and we never can get along so." Thus they will always feel uneasy, let the preach ing be as it may. If the preacher temporizes for the sake of pleasing, they will have no hearty confidence in him. They may pretend to be pleased, and may praise him, and tell what a great preacher he is, and what an agreeable man, may extol him to the clouds for a scholar or an orator. But they are not satisfied in conscience, for they know there cannot be any lea sonable expectation of getting any good to themselves, or having a revival, under such preaching. They know that the minister ought to preach differently, and they feel that he must preach differently, or they must get another minister, or there never will be a revival, A minister ought not to conciliate the feelings of professors who are in a backslidden state, by any compromise, but he ought to tear open their hearts, and pour in the burning truth, till he can drive them out from their bed of slumber and death.

5. Very often, backsliders are the most hardened people to be found. They are so used to the gospel and all its motives, that they cease to be moved by it. You may hold up the most solemn and piercing truths, you may roll a world of responsibility upon their consciences, and they do not feel. And after a while, the more you use the means to arouse them, the more they will be hardened, until it seems impossible to move them.

6. They are the most loathsome people in the world. Christ uses language in regard to backsliders, in his epistle to the church at Laodicea, which fully expresses this. "I would thou wert either cold or hot. So then, because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth." God seems to loathe them, he cannot endure them, and threatens to spew them out as a most loathsome thing. Backslider! How can you attempt to go near to God, when he feels so? Perhaps Į

am speaking to some here who know you are backsliders. You know that if you go before God he will loathe you and spew you out, he cannot bear you.

7. They are most injurious to the cause of religion. A backslider does more hurt to the cause than an infidel. He does more to prejudice the world against religion, more to prevent the conversion of sinners, more to favor the designs of the devil, than any other person in the world.

8. Backsliders are the most hypocritical of all people. They serve neither God nor the devil, sincerely. They have forsaken the devil, so that they no longer serve him with singleness of heart, and have given themselves to God, but now they do not serve him. They are hypocrites on both sides. Neither God nor the devil can trust them.

.9. When an individual backslides, if he continues in that way without reformation, sooner or later the very same thing will come upon him which he dreaded, and which was the occasion of his backsliding. Suppose it was a regard to reputation that made him backslide. He is a politician, perhaps, and he became a backslider in heart, because he wanted to get some office. By and by you will see that man put down in politics, and lose his office, and so the very thing comes upon him that he was eager to avoid. God will order it, somehow or other, so as to bring the very curse upon him that he dreaded, and he is filled with his own ways. Instead of being lifted up and kept up, as he expected, God has lifted him up to let him fall, and make his fall more signal.

Suppose the individual desires to be rich, and in the pursuit of riches backslides from God. As certain as he is a Christian, God will blast his riches. God values his soul a great deal more than his wealth, and HE will not hesitate to burn up all that property, if there is no better way to deliver him from it. If he has backslidden through fear of getting the ill will of his friends, or through fear of persecution, very likely he will in some other way lose the good will of those very persons. Most marvelous instances could be pointed out, if I had time where backsliders have thus been filled with their own ways Their course has resulted in the entire loss of those very objects which they prized more than the favor of God, and in the suffering of those very evils which they dreaded more than his frown and curse.

10. If you continue in your backslidden state, you may expect that by and by God will let you fall into some iniquity or some disgrace, that will be a source of vexation and trial to you

as long as you live. I have known men who have backslidden to get rich, and they have got into debt and failed, and gone down to their graves loaded with anxiety and reproach. I knew a man, perhaps he is now living, who to gratify an ungodly and ambitious son, entered upon a course of speculation that first destroyed his piety, and then he failed in his speculation and became a bankrupt, and got into such a sea of trouble and toil as will harass him to the day of his death. He used to give liberally to missions, and every good cause, but now he can hardly give a shilling at the monthly concert, because he feels that he owes it, and perhaps it is wronging his creditors. All this is simply being filled with his own ways.

Sometimes, when backsliding is occasioned by an idolatrous attachment to a wife or a child, God takes away the desire of their eyes at a stroke. All this is because God is faithful. He sees one of his children leaning on an idol, and he puts forth his hand and withers away the idol in an instant, rather than let a child of his live and die in sin, and go to hell.

REMARKS.

1. There is no way for young converts to keep from being backsliders, but by guarding against the beginning of decline. Backsliding comes on very much like intemperance, gradually, from the smallest beginnings, in a way that is overlooked. No man ever commenced the career of becoming a drunkard with his eyes open, intending to do it. He first, perhaps, takes a glass on some public day. By and by he begins to keep it in his house to treat his friends, or to take it with bitters, or as a medicine. Next he takes a few drops with his dinner, to help digestion. And so he goes on, without suspecting his danger, till he is a drunkard before he is aware, Nine-tenths of those

The

who become drunkards, are led on from small beginnings, in some such way as this. In much the same way, persons become backsliders by little and little. They do not intend to backslide, but they take the first step without knowing where it will lead, and then they more easily take the second, and so on. only security is in adopting the principle of TOTAL ABSTINENCE FROM SIN. Avoid those little things, as they call them, which lead the way. If they begin to allow themselves in some such "little thing" they are gone. They may continue to keep up the show of godliness, but it will be without the power, and they overlook the fact, that they have become loathsome

backsliders in the sight of God. See that woman. If you could listen at the door of her closet, you would be convinced at once that she is not half in earnest. She keeps up the form of secret prayer very strictly, but there is no heart in it. Prays in secret? She mocks God in secret! She is a backslider.

2. You see the duty of church members to watch over young converts in love, and put them on their guard against the beginnings of backsliding. They should watch them, just as a mother watches her little child, to see that it does not go near where it will fall. Look out for them, and if you see them verging near the lines, warn them, "Beware! go not near that brink-hell is there." Ask them, early and frequently, “Do you pray now as frequently and fervently as you did? Do you love the Bible as much as you did?" And keep them on the guard, and thus prevent them from backsliding.

3. There is great reason to praise God for all that he does with his people when they backslide.

He follows them with stripes, till they return. He says, "If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail."

4. If of any you are in a backslidden state, or if you are a professor of religion and have these marks, and if God does not chastise you, and if you are still prosperous, you have reason to fear that you are given up of God. You have great reason to fear that you never were a child of God, and never knew the love of God, but are a hypocrite on the way to hell. How long have you been in this state? How long is it since you left what you call your first love? If it is long, and you are not yet chastised, you have reason to believe it is because you are a hypocrite. God is faithful, and he will chastise his children when they backslide. He has promised to do it, and he will not fail.

Or does God chastise you? If so, repent, before he chastises you any more. Do not wait for him to chastise you to death, or till he lets you fall into the snares of the devil, and into some grievous sin that shall disgrace and torment you as long as you live. Come back, O Backslider, come back to God., Seek his face, renounce your sin, and he will heal your backslidings, and forgive your transgressions, and bless your soul.

LECTURE XXII.

GROWTH IN GRACE.

TEXT.-" Grow in grace." 2 Pet. iii. 18.

THIS evening I must conclude all that I have to say at present on the subject of Revivals. There are several other subjects which I designed to discuss, but have not had time. It is possible that I may resume the subject in the fall if I live to return to the city, according to my present intention. One of the subjects which I fully intended to discuss, was that of EVANGELISTS, the importance of having such a class of ministers to be employed in revivals-their relation to the church and the ministry, the manner in which they are to be received and treated, both by pastors and churches, and the principles on which they ought to govern themselves in discharging the appropriate duties of their office. But at present, I have concluded that it would be better to conclude this course of lectures with a ser

mon on

GROWTH IN GRACE.

The term grace is used in the Bible in several different senses. When applied to God its meaning is not the same as when applied to man. Grace, in God, is synonymous with beneficence. It is undeserved favor. This is the sense in which the term is used by theologians in reference to God. In men, grace means holiness, that is the sense in which it is used in the text, and to grow in grace is the same as to grow in holiness, or to increase in conformity to God. In discussing this subject, I design to pursue the following order:

I. Show what is meant by growing in grace.

II. Mention some things which are not evidences of growth in grace.

III. What are some of the evidences of growth in grace.

IV. Show how it is to be done, or in what way Christians may grow in grace.

V. Mention some of the evidences of a decline in piety or grace.