expressly required his children to employ all the appointed means of grace, for promoting their advancement in holiness; yet it is not the merely mechanical observance of them, how frequent and regular so ever that may be, which is productive of this effect. The Lord, it is true, must have a respect to his own institutions, and will bestow the blessing annexed to the observance of them, when it is rightly performed. But it is only when they are engaged in from proper motives and aims,-a supreme regard to his authority, and a desire to advance his glory, and their own spiritual interests, that he can approve their religious services. While he claims the homage both of the body and the soul; it is to the latter that he chiefly looks. When the heart is wanting, the veneration of the lip is of no value in his estimation.

manner.

The best of God's people are far from performing religious duties, always, in a lively and spiritual Too frequently they have cause to confess and bewail their coldness and formality. But while this may be occasionally the case with them who are growing in grace; no advancement can be made in the divine life, when it becomes for a season habitual. Yet such is the lifeless frame of spirit to which they often subject themselves, from excessive worldly cares and attachments, and the deadening influence of worldly friends.-Not daring, however, to neglect the appointed means of grace, little heart as they feel for them, they are satisfied for a time with their form. The religious duties of the closet, the family, and the public worshipping assembly, are observed

with a cold and spiritless formality, day after day, and week after week. But no spiritual advantage is derived from them. Instead of smiling on such services, and rendering them instrumental to their quickening and advancement in holiness; they meet with Jehovah's frown. They come up as smoke in his nostrils; and he testifies his displeasure with his children for thus offering to him the blind and the lame. The fructifying influences of his Spirit are restrained from them; and, instead of growing in grace, they suffer a woful declension.

9. Another hinderance to growth in grace is, the frequent omission of religious duties.-God's chil dren all know that it is their commanded duty, to use the means of grace with steadfastness and perseverance. Yet in too many instances they act contrary to their knowledge. For very trifling reasons they are, sometimes, induced to neglect the observance of some one or other of the religious services, required for their improvement. When they happen to be more than commonly fatigued with the cares or toils of business,—when they have less time or convenience than usual,-when their mind has been disquieted and ruffled by any teasing occurrence,-or when they have been receiving or paying visits till a late hour; the reading of the scriptures, meditation, self-examination, and the prayers of the family and the closet, are omitted. Though they may have no intention at first to repeat the omission, unless for a very urgent reason; yet, having yielded once, they are easily induced to yield a second time.

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degrees their excuses multiply, and their neglect of duty becomes too frequent; till at length they begin to omit, sometimes, the public ordinances of Christ.

Such conduct is at once the symptom, and the cause, of sad decline. Their souls, deprived of their accustomed refreshment, soon begin to languish. Like flowers in a garden, which fade and droop, when the rills by which they are watered are frequently shut up; their graces not only cease to grow, but begin to wither. Through his own appointed means of grace, like so many channels, God conveys to the souls of his people these refreshing and fructifying influences of his Spirit, by which they "spring up as willows by the water courses.”* Nor does he warrant them, in any other way, to expect these divine influences, when the mediums of obtaining them are sinfully neglected. When his children, therefore, are chargeable with this guilt, their souls cannot be in health and prosper. Their famished and sickly condition will soon become apparent.-Warned by the assurance of this, let them steadfastly resist every temptation to the omission of duty; and, instead of relaxing their diligence in observing the means appointed for their improvement, let them increasingly abound, till the short period allotted for it comes to a close.

10. Shunning the society and religious converse of Christian friends, is both a cause and a symptom of declining in piety. It is natural for affectionate and dutiful children of the same family to desire each other's company, and to feel pleasure in each other's

* Isaiah xli. 4.

intimate and familiar conversation. The ties of relationship by which they are bound together, and the interest which they take in each other's welfare, and in the honour and prosperity of their beloved father's house; induce them to prefer each other's society to that of strangers. Especially it will be so, when they are sojourners in a foreign land. The case is similar with the children of God. Knit together by ties stronger far than those of blood,-ties the most tender and indissoluble, they "love one another with a pure heart fervently." Viewing each other as children of the same heavenly Father,―partakers of the same faith and hope,-fellow pilgrims on their way to the same country,-exposed to the same enemies and dangers,-protected and guided by the same almighty and unerring Leader,-joint heirs of the same glorious inheritance,-and expectants of dwelling together eternally in the same house of many mansions; they cannot but delight in mutually associating, to converse respecting their present condition and their future prospects.

The case of any Christian, therefore, is very unpromising, when he begins to manifest a coolness and indifference to the company of his pious brethren. When, without reasonable excuse, any he visits them not so frequently as he was accustomed,—is always in haste to get away, when he does visit them,— studiously avoids entering into religious conversation with them, and manifests uneasiness to get off, when they introduce subjects of this nature; there is no room to doubt that something is wrong. When the Christian is growing in grace, the very reverse

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of all this is characteristic of his temper and tice. Few as his godly acquaintances may be, if he could, he would desire to be very frequently in their company; and, when practicable, to improve such interviews in devotional exercises, and in talking of the good land to which they are journeying.-All, therefore, who are conscious of diminished relish for the society and religious converse of their Christian brethren, and a desire to find apologies for absenting from their company, have reason to account themselves in a state of spiritual backsliding.

11. The last hinderance to growth in grace which I shall here specify, is relapses into known sin.— Instances of this nature occur but too frequently. Many of the Lord's children have been left to feel their weakness, and to fall by temptations which they, at one time, thought it impossible should overcome them. Peter, when forewarned by Christ, that after a very short time, he should deny him, could not imagine that he should ever be guilty of a crime so base. With sanguine protestations, therefore, he rashly ventured to reply, "Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee." And yet the event verified the prediction. Three several times, in rapid succession, he denied the Lord who bought him. Like him, they who are actuated by supreme love to Christ, and who deem themselves prepared to suffer martyrdom for his sake, rather than to dishonour him by sins into which others have fallen sometimes soon imitate their example. Proudly trusting too much to their own strength, they have been made to experience their extreme weakness.

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