A Rebuke to Backsliders: And a Spur for Loiterers A Rebuke to Backsliders, and A Spur for Loiterers. In several Sermons, lately preached to a Private Congregation, and now published for The Awakening a Sleepy Age.If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. - Heb. 10.38.THE Case of the Churches of Christ among us is so deplorable, our spiritual distempers so many and so dangerous, and our decays and languishing's under them so visible, that he hath a blind eye that sees it not, and an hard heart who bleeds not under it. Surely in such a time, the Servants of the Lord should not keep silence; but Oh how insufficient am I, to speak as I ought to speak, in so great a case? Some thoughts I had in mine heart to make an attempt, but being discouraged by the sense of my many infirmities, which have of late exceedingly grown upon me, I laid aside all such thoughts, and only prepared the ensuing Meditations for a Private Congregation, resolving against all further publication of them then from the Pulpit. But when I had gone through what I intended, I was set upon by many of my hearers, from whose importunities (seconded by a worthy Minister) I could have no rest, for divers months together, till I had yielded to publish what now comes to thy hands. |