SIGNS OF A DYING OR DECAYING CHRISTIAN

Signs of a Dying or Decaying Christian



By George Burder (June 5, 1752—May 29, 1832)






1. When you are so indifferent to public worship, or frequenting the church of God, that you can be satisfied to come, or not come, at your own pleasure.
2. When, in your most solemn worship, you are quickly weary without warrantable cause.
3. When few sermons will please you; either you like not the matter, or manner, or man, or place.
4. When you think you know enough.
5. When a small occasion will keep you from Christ’s table, or communion with the church of God.
6. When you have usually no great desire for prayer.
7. When reading the Holy Scriptures is more burdensome than delightful.
8. When you are very inquisitive after novelties or new things, rather than wholesome doctrine.
9. When you are so little prepared for the solemn assemblies, that they come before you think of them, or long for them.
10. When you come to the assembly more for fear of the brethren's eye, than Christ’s omniscient and all-piercing eye.
11. When you will rather betray the name of Christ Jesus and the credit of his gospel by your silence, than appear for it to your own suffering and disparagement.
12. When, at a small offence, you are usually so impatient that you commit great sin.
13. When you are more careful to get the words of Christ’s people than the spirit of Christ’s people, the form than the power.
14. When you are not much troubled at your own miscarriages, while they are kept from public view.
15. When you love least those Christians that deal most faithfully with you, in showing you your faults and pointing you to the remedy.
16. When you pray more that afflictions may be removed than sanctified.
17. When under God's calamity you find neither the need nor the benefit of humbling yourself by fasting and prayer.
18. When the thought of your bosom-lust, or any other sin, is more prevalent with you than pleasing God.
19. When you are curious about the lesser matters of God's law, and careless about the weightier.
20. When the Holy Spirit’s help to the great work of mortification seems not of absolute necessity to you.
21. When you are so ignorant of your spiritual standing that you know not whether you grow or decay.
22. When great sins seem smaller, and small sins seem none at all.
23. When a watchful care of a godly life and a Christian conversation is more accidental than habitual.
24. When care for your body is usually most pleasant, and care for your soul usually most irksome.
25. When you are much a stranger to the practical part of meditation on the word and works of God.
26. When the thoughts of a dying Jesus for your sins little dissuade you from an unchristian conversation.
27. When you can commit sin without pain, and reflect upon it with indifference.
28. When you find greater satisfaction in the company of the world than with the people of God.

George Burder (June 5, 1752—May 29, 1832) was an English Nonconformist divine. In his youth he was an engraver, but in 1776 he began preaching, and was minister of the Independent church at Lancaster from 1778 to 1783. Subsequently he held charges at Coventry (1784 1803) and at Fetter Lane, London (1803-1832). He was one of the founders of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, and the London Missionary Society, and was secretary to the last-named for several years. As editor of the Evangelical Magazine and author of Village Sermons, he commanded a wide influence. A Life (by Henry Forster Burder) appeared in 1833.