The Danger of Spiritual Backsliding

When a people grow cold and dead with respect to religion, there generally is but little said about [it]. There will be but little said about it in families. And when neighbors meet, you shall hear but little talk about soul concerns; all the talk will be about the world. They'll be full of talk about their worldly business, about this and the other worldly design, about buying and selling. Or their tongues will be yet worse employed, in talking against their neighbor. That which men's hearts do most abound with, that their tongues will be apt to [be] employed about. When men's hearts are taken up about the world, there will be little talk about anything [else]; but if men are full of concern about spiritual and eternal things, and they have the principal possession of their hearts, it will surely be agreeable to 'em sometimes to speak of them. And when there is a warm spirit in religion, it will oftentimes be the subject of conversation. Men will naturally fall into it; Matthew 12:34, "of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh"; see Malachi 3:16, "They that feared the Lord spoke often one to another."