Man ashiv le-Yahoweh, or, A serious enquiry for a suitable return for continued life,…

¹What are the signs of a man that waxeth worse and worse under all the Means that God useth to make him better?

1. 1Question Sixth.

MY purpose is not here to speak of the declinings of Grace in the hearts of Gods people, which never is so much (because not total) to denominate them absolutely bad, though they make them worse (because on the losing hand) being compared with themselves, when better in the lively actings and daily increase of grace; but of the growth of wicked men in sin and Impiety, which may be discerned by these symptoms.

MY purpose is not here to speak of the declinings of Grace in the hearts of Gods people, which never is so much (because not total) to denominate them absolutely bad, though they make them worse (because on the losing hand) being compared with themselves, when better in the lively actings and daily increase of grace; but of the growth of wicked men in sin and Impiety, which may be discerned by these symptomes.

I. The less a man is attending upon God in the use of holy Means, the worse he is. Thou wast wont to keep up a constancy, or at least a frequency in holy duties, though thou never didst perform them in a right manner, nor from a ⟨p. 60⟩right principle, nor for a right end; yet time was, that thou couldest not omit them, but thy natural Conscience would reproach thee, and molest thy peace; and though the performance of those duties in thy manner and way, did never prove thee to be good, yet the total omission of them now, doth prove thee to be worse: inasmuch as thou hast shaked off all form of Religion, and dost not profess thy self to be at all Religious, but hast stifled Natural Conscience, and laid aside a sense of a Deity, which before did stir thee up to do some Homage unto God. Thou didst pray, but now thou dost not; thou didst hear, but now thou dost not; it is because thou art worse.