Backsliding is a species of apostacy from the faith; apostacy is the high road to destruction: total apostacy will certainly end in eternal damnation; for there can neither be repentance or hope for such a soul. The Son of God is the only sacrifice for sin; this he once professed to believe: but now he tramples on his precious blood, wilfully despises and rejects our Saviour; so that now he has only "a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation," which shall devour every adversary of Christ. Heb. 10:27.

Most striking is the picture of such, drawn by Bunyan in his Pilgrim's Progress as a man in an iron cage who thus confesses: "I was once a fair and flourishing professor, both in mine own eyes and the eyes of others; I was, as I thought, fair for the celestial city, and had even joy at the thoughts that I should get thither; but I left off to watch and be sober; laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the word and the goodness, of my God; I grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; I tempted the devil, and he has come to me; I provoked God to anger, and he has left me; I have so hardened my heart that I cannot repent. O, eternity! eternity! how shall I grapple with the misery I must meet with in eternity!" Lord, enable me to take warning by others, and obey thy gracious words, which prevent thy children's total apostacy from thee.

Observe the conduct of the Lord to such; he arraigns them in the former verses for treacherously departing from him, like a wife from her husband: O what perfidious, faithless conduct! for perverting their way before God; and for forgetting the Lord their God, which is the cause of every evil. If the objects of time and sense drive the memory of the Lord from our minds, though but an hour, how foolishly do we act! Our hearts imperceptibly backslide from the sense of his presence.

But, O the love of our Lord! Though backslidden, yet he owns us as children. O Father, thy love ever lives, though folly is in our ways. He calls in love, Return. May love cause us to take shame, fall down in sorrow, and cry for mercy. He promises, "I will heal your backslidings:" I will freely and fully pardon them, though ever so numerous, heinous, or aggravating, as though they had never been committed. Backsliding sinner! believe and rejoice: see the effects of this love in the next meditation: O Lord my God, lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Psalm 13:3.