Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 21, 2025
How many once in fellowship and in daily communion with the Lord now think more of their dresses and ornaments than of their precious souls! Love does not like to be forgotten. Mothers would have broken hearts if their children left them and never wrote a word or sent any memento of their affection; and God pleads over backsliders as a parent over loved ones who have gone astray.
The ordinary elements of every Christian congregation are necessarily visible here backsliders and newly- caught communicants; ancient women duly converted and moderately fond of tea, snuff, and charity; people who cough continually, and will do so in their graves if not closely watched; parties, with the Fates against them, who fly off periodically into fainting fits; contented individuals, whose gastric juice flows evenly, who can sleep through the most impassioned sermon with the utmost serenity; weather-beaten orthodox souls who have been recipients of ever so much daily grace for half a life time, and fancy they are particularly near paradise; lofty and isolated beings who have a fixed notion that they are quite as respectable if not as pious as other people; easy-going well-dressed creatures "whose life glides away in a mild and amiable conflict between the claims of piety and good breeding."
Remember, that though God doth sometimes, yea, often, receive backsliders, yet it is not always so. Some draw back unto perdition; for, because they have flung up God and would none of him, he in justice flings up them and their souls for ever. Prov.
Old James Howel says, "metheglin does stupefy more than any other liquor if taken immoderately and keeps a humming in the brain which made one say he loved not metheglin because he was wont to speak too much of the house he came from, meaning the hive." Bradford tells of backsliders from Merrymount who "abased themselves disorderly with drinking too much stronge drinke aboard the Freindshipp."
Those who did not obey were, after a short respite, expelled from their parishes. Those who obeyed were regarded by their congregations as backsliders and self-seekers. Three hundred and fifty ministers were driven with their families from their homes in the depth of winter; and to supply their places new ministers were appointed, popularly known as the King's Curates.
We know not how to avert more wrath from the Lord, reclaim backsliders, confirm the wavering, direct sincere inquirers, apprise the unsuspecting of their danger, and exonerate our own consciences, otherwise than by giving open, candid and honest testimony for Christ and truth, against those, even once brethren by covenant bonds, who have dishonored him, and caused the way of truth to be evil spoken of.
"Perhaps he can't manage his feet; perhaps they just won't climb." 295 "Yes, or p'raps he just does n't want to climb any more; but it must be frightensome, sliding backwards." "I suppose it is." "Is it wicked?" "Why, yes, it is, generally; perhaps always." "Brother Nathan and Sister Hetty were backsliders; Sister Tabitha said so.
A very pretty girl, who was kneeling in the attitude of Canova's Magdalene immediately before us, amongst an immense quantity of jargon, broke out thus: "Woe! woe to the backsliders! hear it, hear it Jesus! when I was fifteen my mother died, and I backslided, oh Jesus, I backslided! take me home to my mother, Jesus! take me home to her, for I am weary! Oh John Mitchel!
"Not while they were backsliders; but perhaps they'd begin to climb again, and then in time they might grow to be angels." "I should n't think likely," remarked Sue, decisively, clicking her needles as one who could settle most spiritual problems in a jiffy. "I think the sliding kind is diff'rent from the climbing kind, and they don't make easy angels."
We now hear backsliders as well as heathen, those who have long heard, but never believed in the gospel, speaking the same language as those who have never, till now, heard of a Saviour; all confess themselves most vile and unworthy, weep over their sins, and cry for mercy through the atonement of Jesus. Thus, in Labrador also, the word of the cross is the power of God unto salvation.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking