Meditations and discourses concerning the glory of Christ applied unto unconverted sinners, and saints…Meditations and discourses concerning the glory of Christ applyed unto unconverted sinners, and saints…

4. I proceed unto that which was proposed in the fourth, or last place; namely, the Way and Means whereby Believers may be delivered from these Decays, and come to thrive and flourish in the inward Principle, and outward Fruits of Spiritual Life, which will bring us back unto the Consideration of that Truth which we may seem to have diverted from. And to this end, the things ensuing are proposed unto Consideration.

1. THE State of Spiritual Decays is recoverable. No Man that is fallen under it hath any Reason to say There is no hope, provided he take the right way for his Recovery. If every step that is lost in the way to Heaven should be irrecoverable, Woe would be unto us; we should all assuredly perish. If there were no Reparation of our Breaches, no healing of our Decays, no Salvation but for them who are always progressive in Grace; if God ⟨p. 63⟩should mark all that is done amiss, as the Psalmist speaks, O Lord, who should stand? Nay, if we had not Recoveries every day, we should go off with a perpetual Backsliding. But then, as was said, it it required that the right means of• it be used, and not that which is destructive of what is designed, whereof I shall give an Instance. When Trees grow old, or are decaying, it is useful to dig about them, and manure them, which may cause them to flourish again, and abound in Fruit: But instead hereof, if you remove them out of their Soil, to plant them in another, which may promise much advantage, they will assuredly wither and dye. So it is with Professors, and hath been with many; finding themselves under manifold Decays, and little or nothing of the Life and Power of Religion left in them, they have grown weary of their Station, and have changed their Soil, or turning from one way in Religion unto another, as some have turned Papists, some Quakers, and the like, apprehending that fault to be in the Religion which they professed, which was indeed only in themselves. You cannot give an instance of any one who did not visibly wither and dye therein; but had they used the proper means for their Healing and Recovery, they might have lived and brought forth Fruit.