I must notice another day: _Public troubles on the Church_, which I believe will come yet; I humbly conceive the man of sin will die hard; he seems to be hearing some of his dying groans at present, but it will have its last convulsive struggle; the hour of temptation must come on—the Church seems in her Laodicean state, and it may be really in that state for all I know, though many great men suppose the Church in her Sardian state; be that as it may, have we not cause to lament the general drowsiness of the Church, the very few names that have not defiled their garments—the cloudy state of Professor and Possessor—the state the Prophet alluded to, when he said, _It shall come to pass that the light shall not be clear nor dark_. Is it not true of that light which is in the Church? the people not wholly in the dark about the Doctrines of the Gospel, yet they are not clear; and perhaps, never was a time in the Church when God’s real people were so cloudy, generally, about their interest in the Saviour, so that we may look for the sieve—a sifting time will come, for the Church and the World seem too much allied, at present, in principle and practice. The Saviour says, _Be ye seperate_—and if this small, still voice is not obeyed, you may depend upon it he will bring his rod, _for his fan is in his hand_, _and he will thoroughly purge his floor_. Hence his own declaration, _And I will bring upon thee a day of evil_. This you may feel personally. Also, after having been a little at ease, and careless of God’s glory, his cause, and his ways, he may permit you to fall; or by associating with carnal Professors, or the World too much, God may bring on you a rod to drive you from them—and if you should chance to fall, and they know it, though God in mercy, gives you repentance to life, they will be the first to stone you, and like the Priest and Levite, take care to avoid you; and if after this, you maintain the sentiment of human weakness, and insist upon it man is nothing, but as he is made and kept by the grace of God, these stout men, these whole-hearted professors, will hate you and your Doctrines; so Job found, when he said, _He that is ready to slip with his feet_, _is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease_. But God may bring on you such an evil day.