Oh, how jealous we should be of anything that would reduce us so low as this, and give a handle to the adversary! Beware of religious inconsistency. _One_ fatal step, one unguarded _word_ may undo a lifetime of hallowed influence. One scar on the character, one blot on the page of the living epistle is indelible. It may be washed away, indeed, by the blood of sprinkling, so that nothing of it will remain against you in the book of God; but the eye and memory of the world, keen to watch and treasure the inconsistencies of God's people, will not so easily forgive or forget! The Hart laid itself open to the toils of the huntsman. It was hit by the archers. One fierce dart of temptation sped with unerring aim. It has left the track of blood behind it in the glades of the forest--the unbelieving world hounds in remorseless pursuit, and the taunting cry will follow to the grave! Are there any who feel that the experience of David is their own,--who either by reason of religious inconsistency or religious declension have laid themselves open to the upbraiding question, "_Where is thy God?_"--Perhaps _religious declension_ is the more common of the two. You are not, as we have surmised in a previous chapter, what once you were. You have not the same love of the Saviour as once you had--the same confidence in His dealings--the same trust in His faithfulness--the same zeal for His glory. Affliction, when it comes, does not lead you, as once it did, to cheerful acquiescence--to the cherishing of a meek, unmurmuring submissive spirit under God's sovereign will and discipline, but rather to a hasty, misgiving frame--fretting and repining when you should be prostrate at the mercy-seat, saying, "_The will of the Lord be done_!"