Think, beloved, each one of you who are Christ’s, how much you may have backslidden of late. Have you not become lax in prayer? You maintain the habit of it, and you could not give that up, but you have not that power in prayer you once had. You still read the word, but mayhap the Scripture is not so sweet to you as it was aforetime. You come now to the communion table, you have not learned to forsake the assembling of yourselves together there; but oh, the face of the King, in his beauty, have you seen that as once you did?
Perhaps you still are doing a little for his cause, but are you doing what you once did or all you might do? Instead of going on unto perfection, is not your growth stunted? Must you not confess that you are not a runner towards heaven so much as a loiterer in the road thither? Do these accusations evoke no confessions? I fear the most of us, if we came to search, would have to say, “I do remember when the love of my espousals was upon me, and my heart was warm with love to Christ; but now, alas! how slow are my passions in moving towards him! O that I could feel once again the glow of my first love, and that my spirit did rejoice in him as on the day of my conversion.”
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