TIM $ACK3LIISER7S WAYS EXAMINED. 817 and I will heal him : he, has been ready to forget' himself by forgetting me, but I will not forget him, I will have compassion on him; he has little to de with me now in all the afla.irs of life, but nay eye runs to and fro through the earth to do him good; though he does not know it is his case, and his circumstances are before me, saith the Lord, whomsoever God has fixed his love upon, there is not one moment of God's duration that that soul is not fixed uponhis heart.; he remembers us with an ever- lasting remembrance. II. As a tendency towards the creature introduces a forgetfulness of God, so it brings a negligence of duties towards God. For when the heart takes up with some created good, then there will not be that delight and satisfaction that there once was in duty; and when once the relish of a performance is lost, there will be a weari- ness in it ; and when there is a weariness, there will follow a negligence in it, and, gradually an omission of duties and worship will follow, and perhaps a total neg- lect of both public and private devotion. For a season a person may suffer a despairing thought so to prevail as to neglect waiting upon God': yet, saith God, . I will not neglect him, I remember him, and I will heal him ; he is grown weary of me, but I am not grown weary of my love to him, or of my kind concern for him ; there is a deadness and coldness in his heart when he draws nigh to me; but my heart has the' same warmth of love to him as ever it had ; though the manifestations of it are various, yet the spring of love is everlastingly the same. Ile has not called upon me in secret, but my eye is continually upon him there ; he has not waited upon me in public, though my blessings wait for hirn in Zion. III. When the soul grows strong in this love towards some created object, and departs from God, it will be ready to go on in the contrary path. . And this has been the experience of many christians, that when they have given a loose to their desires in the pursuit of a lawful thing, too far, they have been left to fall, into great and scandalous sins. Yet, saith God, though he walks con- trary to rae, I will not walk contrary to him ; I will . turn my face to him now before he turns to me. " I have "seen his ways, and I will heal him." IV. The creature may so far lose his God and the
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