repetition of past follies. Let
others learn and take heed lest they also drift away, as the Apostle
puts it.

My chief purpose, however, relates to those who, though they once _had
the blessing of a clean heart, have lost it_. Their present lack is not
due to their having exhausted their earnings in lawful pursuits, or
because they invested their treasure in sanctified enterprises, but
because they have let the blessing slip; or, turning back to Haggai's
words, they have been as him 'that earneth wages to put it into a bag
with holes'. The experience is a thing of the past. At times they are
tempted to say that they were deluded, and never had the blessing, or
that they were as a man who only dreamed that he had his wages; but
that is not so. The wages were earned, but lost.

So you must not regard your experience as the sensations of a dream.
You had the blessing right enough, and some of you had secured it at no
small sacrifice; but, alas! you let it slip out of your possession, and
you woke up to find it gone.

It is remarkable how many sanctified people have to testify that before
they settled into the regular experience of Full Salvation they lost
the blessing which they had received; in fact, some eminent saints have
recorded repeated experiences of loss before they learned how to carry
themselves and guard against the dangers.

Perhaps here I ought to say definitely, that the Bible does not tell us
of any stage in our heavenward journey at which we can be saved from
the possibility of losing the blessing. This blessed treasure of
perfect purity, peace which passeth all understanding, and joy
unspeakable, is only ours so long as we maintain that entire
consecration and faith which are the conditions on which the blessing
is received. There is no spot where the advice is not necessary--'Keep
thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life'.
Paul put it clearly, 'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest
he fall', and showed how seriously he regarded the matter when he
declared that he had to keep his body under and in hand, lest after
preaching to others he should himself become a castaway.

I have called to mind two remarkable touches of Bunyan, in his
'Pilgrim's Progress'. The first picture shows us Christian, weary with
climbing the Hill Difficulty, turning aside into a pleasant arbour
where he sat down to rest. For the comfort of his own heart he pulled
out his roll of assuranc