Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul
Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul
by Octavius Winslow (1841)
* Preface
* Chapter 1: Incipient Declension
* Chapter 2: Declension in Love
* Chapter 3: Declension in Faith
* Chapter 4: Declension in Prayer
* Chapter 5: Declension in Connection with Doctrinal Error
* Chapter 6: On Grieving the Spirit
* Chapter 7: The Fruitless and the Fruitful Professor
* Chapter 8: The Lord, the Restorer of His People
* Chapter 9: The Lord, the Keeper of His People
Chapter 1: Incipient Declension
"The backslider in heart." (Proverbs 14:14)
If there is one consideration more humbling than another to a spiritually-minded believer, it is, that, after all God has done for him, - after all the rich displays of his grace, the patience and tenderness of his instructions, the repeated discipline of his covenant, the tokens of love received, and the lessons of experience learned, there should still exist in the heart a principle, the tendency of which is to secret, perpetual, and alarming departure from God. Truly, there is in this solemn fact, that which might well lead to the deepest self-abasement before Him.
If, in the present early stage of our inquiry into this subject, we might be permitted to assign a cause for the growing power which this latent, subtle principle is allowed to exert in the soul, we would refer to the believer's constant forgetfulness of the truth, that there is no essential element in divine grace that can secure it from the deepest declension; that, if left to its self-sustaining energy, such are the hostile influences by which it is surrounded, such the severe assaults to which it is exposed, and such the feeble resistance it is capable of exerting, there is not a moment - splendid though its former victories may have been - in which the incipient and secret progress of declension may not have commenced and be going forward in the soul! There is a proneness in us to deify the graces of the Spirit. We often think of faith and love, and their kindred graces, as though they were essentially omnipotent; forgetting that though they undoubtedly are divine in their origin, spiritual in their nature, and sanctifying in their effects, they yet are sustained by no self-supporting power, but by constant communications of life and nourishment from Jesus; that, the moment of their being left to their inherent strength, is the moment of their certain declension and decay.