Flame is soon spent, graces that act most strongly require most influence, as beng most subject to abatement. We sooner lose our affections than anything else. Love is a grace we can ill spare; it is the spring and rise of all duties to God and man… If we would do anything in the resistance of sin, in keeping the commandments, we cannot spare our love… Well, then, watch the more earnestly against the decays and abatement’s of love. Sin confessed without remorse… prayer made for spiritual blessings without the desire of obtaining… hearing without attention… singing without any delight or melody of heart—all this is but the just account of a heart declining in the love of God.
—Thomas Manton