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Reas. 3. IN respect of your selves you ought to take heed of falling away; in divers respects.
1. All the good that ever you did in your lives will prove lost labour if you fall away; all your fastings, prayings, hearing of Sermons, humiliations, all your zeal
and forwardness, all your righteousness shall be forgotten, as if you had never done any holy duty or service at all, Ezek. 18.24. for as it is said of a backslider returning home again, ver. 22. that all his transgressions which he had before committed shall not be mentioned; so when a Professor turneth away from his righteousness, all his for∣mer righteousness shall not be remembred; God will look on that man as if he had never prayed, nor done any good duty at all.
2. If you fall away, all the good you have done shall be an aggravation of your destruction, of your torments in Hell; all thy prayers, all thy fastings, &c. shall be as so many piles of wood to encrease the fire of Hell; all the Sermons thou hast heard shall heat Hell seven times hotter for thee then others; thy profession lifted thee up to Hea∣ven, it shall then cast thee down to the lowest Hell. Tell me, O ye tormenting Divels, ye that are the keepers of Gods house of eternal correction and vengeance, hath not the Judge of all the world expressed in his Warran••, that when as the petty drunkards and other profane persons are to be lashed but with whips only, that you shall lash Judas and Demas with scorpions?
3. If you fall away, God will never take any pleasure in you more: It is no less then treason for a Subject to withdraw his allegiance from his Prince, and become a servant to his Enemy; and it is high treason against Christ to fall from him, and become a servant to his Enemy, it makes God to abhor him: If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him, Heb. 10.38. The husband may bear much with the froward humours of his wife, while she is chast and sincere; but if she withdraw from him, and follow after other Lovers, he cannot endure it. God takes no delight either in the persons or services of Apostates, whatsoever duties are done by them in their declining estate the Lord abhorreth; he takes delight in his Spouse that keeps close to him, Cant. 2.14. O my Dove, saith he, let me see thy countenance; sweet is thy voice, and
thy face is comely: but God heareth not the prayers, re∣gardeth not the services of such sinners as these are, if any be performed by them.
4. A spiritual curse from God commonly seizeth on Apostates, which (as the waters of jealousie under the Law given to suspected women, made their bellies to rot, so this curse upon Apostates) will make their gifts, parts, seeming graces to rot; an Apostate (like Nebuchadnez∣zars image) degenerateth from an head of gold and breast of silver, into feet of iron and clay: when a man keeps close to God, he blesseth that little that he hath, and it en∣creaseth into a great stock; but when a man departs from God, he is like a sieve that can hold no water, or like a golden cup with an hole in the bottom: as the tree which our Saviour cursed for having no fruit when he came to seek some from it, dried up immediately from the top to the roots; so a spiritual rottenness doth immediately and insensibly spread over their parts and gifts, and spiritual abilities. How can it be otherwise? for the Spirit of God which gives life to all, ceaseth from his common workings in them: when the soul leaves the body, it hastens to pu∣trefaction presently; so doth a Christian wither and de∣cay, when the Spirit of God leaveth him. That curse which David wished to the mountains of Gilboa, on which Saul and Jonathan were slain, falls upon backsliders; Ye mountains of Gilboa, let no rain nor dew fail upon you: so God saith of such as fall away from him, let not the dew of my Word fall upon thy heart any more; hear thou, but never understand my Word more. He that goes from Je∣rusalem to Jericho, shall surely fall among Thieves, and lose his raiment, and be wounded. Grace is like the leaves of a tree, when they fall off from the tree, winter cometh on immediately. See what backsliders are termed in Scri∣pture; they are called degenerate Plants and strange Vines, Jerem. 2.21. Reprobate silver shall men call them, Jerem. 6.30. they are like land-floods that run violently, and spend their strength as quickly, and soon dry up, Job 6.15. they
are compared to Summer-fruits that soon putrifie, Amos 8.1, 2. our Saviour compareth them to shallow-rooted corn, that soon withereth for want of depth of earth, Math. 13.20. they are called empty vines, bringing forth fruit to themselves, Hos. 10.1.
5. Because of Gods dreadful exemplary revenge which sometimes he executeth upon such as fall away from him, filling their consciences with horrour, and their souls with final despair of mercy: time was when they had some flashy comforts in duty, but this spring is now dried up from them, the Spirit of God is departed from them, and an evil spirit from the Lord is fallen upon them, as it did on Saul, tormenting them with horrour, and posses∣sing them with dreadful apprehensions of inevitable and intolerable damnation. Who can conceive what Boaner∣ges, what sons of thunder their consciences become with∣in their bosoms, continually crying out upon them, Oh wretched creature what hast thou done! whom hast thou forsaken? what! hast thou cast off thy God, thy Lord? hast thou forsaken the fountain of living waters? hast thou forsaken him who is the God of peace, the God of comfort, of happiness, of all goodness? I must tell thee, God hath forsaken thee, and he will say to thee, Receive within thy self the determinate sentence of damnation which the Court of Heaven hath irrevocably passed upon thee. Moreover God sometimes executeth some outward remarkable judgment upon revolters; Lot's wife had been in Egypt, and not poisoned with the superstitions of Egypt, lived in Sodom, and not polluted with the sins of Sodom, she was delivered from the errours of Ʋr, delivered from the captivity of the five Kings, and at last delivered from perishing with the Cities of the Plain; yet after all this she forsook her own mercy, and perisheth in the sin of de∣fection; therefore saith our Saviour, Remember Lot's wife, Luke 17.32.
6. However the present dealings of God are with back∣sliders, yet in the end they shall certainly fall into ever∣lasting
destruction, from the glorious presence of that God, whose gracious presence they despised in this life; God will then punish their departure from him with a de∣parture, he will then say to them, seeing ye have depart∣ed from me, ye shall depart from me; you have departed from my ways, from my truths, from my worship, now depart from me ye workers of iniquity; Go ye cursed; none shall stay you: seeing you (as the Angels) fell from your first estate, you shall now receive the condemnation of the Angels, you shall fall into Hell with them; you fell from your seeming grace, you shall now fall from my real mercy into the hands of my justice. Apostacy is nothing else but a falling from the arms of God into the hands of the living God; and how fearful a thing it is to fall into his hands, let Judas, let the Divels from Hell speak; for it is beyond the imagination and expression of man.
H••w wo∣ful was the hand of God upon Spira and Latomus of Lovain, whose minds be∣ing fi••led with di∣vine ter∣rours, unto their end cryed out, that they were dam∣ned and rejected of God, be∣cause that against their con∣science they had fallen from the truths of the Gos∣pel!