manured them plowed them sowed them and bestowed cost and labour upon them that you should be to God To bestow plowing and seed upon a field and yet to bear nothing that discourages you but if there is a crop coming and when the Labourers find there is a good crop that they can fill their Arms with sheaves this incourages you Then Deut. 16.14 when the Harvest is done they make merry together have a Harvest feast and have Harvest songs and are merry I say then are those words of Christ fulfilled John 4.35 36. and with that I shall conclude Say not that there are yet four moneths and then cometh Harvest behold I say unto you lift up your eyes and look on the fields for they are white already to Harvest And he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together Thus it is where there is a good Harvest he that Plows the field was Instrumental to begin the work and be that soweth the first seed of Grace and he that reaps the Corn those that had a hand in perfecting the work all these shall rejoice together Then all those faithful Ministers that have laboured according to the Talents given unto them of the Lord then the people too that are made sruitful to God that have received the seed in good and honest hearts they shall rejoice with their Ministers there shall be a Harvest-feast and Harvest-songs the supper of the Lamb and the Song of the Lamb and the Angels they will come in and have a share for they gather the Corn into the Barn and both Angels Ministers and People shall all sing Praise and rejoice together and that for ever and ever Use There are other Uses we should have made of this point We might have made application of it to such as are of the Ministerial calling if there were any such here to stir them up to follow their labour and to reprove such as are Loiterers not Labourers Paul could say he had laboured more abundantly than they all but may it not be said of some they labour not at all Oh how many curses doth the Scripture denounce against such as do this work of the Lord negligently But I shall not stay on this as not suiting the present Auditory Use Let me shut up all with this one word more to the People Remember the lesson and duty we have been teaching this day and make Conscience of practising it If ever it were a duty in season for you to put on sackloath and lye in the dust to mourn and mourn bitterly for the loss of faithful Ministers it is now when they dye and drop into their Graves so fast If ever there were a time for you Christians to crie and crie aloud to the Lord of the Harvest to send forth more labourers into the Harvest it is now when there is like to be so great a scarcity of them And truly if I were able to speak so as to be heard by all the Christians of England who are commonly known and distinguished by the name of Non-conformists I would earnestly bespeak them all that they would with one heart and one consent agree to set apart a day of Humiliation and Prayer for this very end for certainly the loss of many Ministers so Eminent in their Generation as have been lately taken away is a severe Rebuke from the Lord and I fear a sad presage of some greater evils at hand than we think of Remember my Beloved who it is that here bids you Pray the Lord of the Harvest our blessed Lord himself who hath given you not only his command for this duty but his own example too in this very case as you may see if you read Luke 6.12 It is said Jesus went out into a Mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer If you ask what was the Occasion that he was a whole night in Prayer the thirteenth Verse will declare it for when it was day he called his Disciples and of them he chose twelve c. The occasion seems to be the work that he had to do the next mourning to send forth his Apostles to Preach the Gospel Christ looked upon this as a great work a weighty and solemn matter that required Prayer And whatever men may think of it it is the greatest work that ever any of the sons of men were employed in since the world began and the Truths we Preach to you are so glorious and of such infinite Concernment as you souls will have cause Eternally to bless God for if you receive them in faith and love and such as you would not have been without the knowledge of for ten thousand worlds You therefore that have any love to Christ any love to the truth any love to the souls and salvation of men oh Pray all and every one of you Pray pray the Lord of the Harvest that he would send forth Labourers into the Harvest FINIS
A CRY for LABOURERS IN Gods Harvest Being a SERMON Preached upon The sad Occasion of the late FUNERAL of that Eminent Servant of Christ Mr. RALPH VENNING Who departed this Life March 10. 1673 4. By Robert Bragge an unfeigned Lover of and Mourner for the deceased LONDON Printed and are to be sold by John Hancock Senior and Junior at the sign of the three Bibles in Popes-head Alley in Cornhill 1674. To the READERS and more especially to such as were the HEARERS of this SERMON THough I should readily welcome any occasion to testifie to the world that great respect and dear Affection which I had for the Person in whose remembrance this Sermon was Preached yet I thought I had reason enough to say you Nay again and again in your desires of Printing it and indeed I cannot well answer it to my own Reason that I do now subscribe my Placet to the publication of it For it seems volens nolens you will have it from me It had been excuse enough that in the preparing this Discourse for the Pulpit I had no thought at all of preferring it to the Press And this the intelligent Reader will easily believe me in when he sees how Home-spun and plain both Matter and Stile of it are Truly I am afraid lest some that knew what a popular and excellent Preacher Mr. Venning was will think him disparaged and not honoured by such a Discourse when they shall behold instead of a Velvet Pall but a piece of Freeze for his covering When I heard the sad tidings of the Death of this my dear Brother and fellow-helper The Text here treated on was the first Scripture that came into my mind and I judg'd it might be a word in season to that Congregation who had enjoyed his worthy labours and were more immediately concerned in his Death and loss To help them in the Improvement of this sad stroke was all that I intended For how could I think there would be need of a Funeral Oration of any Elegies or Encomiums to keep up the Name and Memory of such a one whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the Churches and whose own works left behind will ever praise him in the Gates of this great City I do not question at all the acceptance of this work how mean and slender so ever it be because as the Picture of a dead Friend it may serve to put you in mind of him whom you so dearly loved and have so great cause to remember If the having of these Lines before your eyes may affect your hearts If it may be of use to you to stir up the Grace of God in you and to engage you in this great Duty which the Judgements of Gods Hand as well as of his Mouth do call aloud for I shall not think my labour lost I never Preached a Sermon with a sadder Heart nor to a sadder Auditory I did not much wonder to see so many weeping Eyes when I considered for whom you wept You have lost one that was an Interpreter a Preacher one of a thousand Oh how was he wont to lift up his Voice like a Trumpet what Musick was he wont to make in your Ears what Melody in your Hearts How spiritually and sweetly did he use to Pray How powerfully and profitably did he use to Preach What an holy Art had he of dividing the Word aright both to those that were without and those within Methinks I see you still flocking about him and hanging like a company of Bees upon his Lips What Milk and Honey did there use to drop thence He fed you not only with the Milk but with the Cream of the Word I doubt not but there are some yea many of you that have cause to bless God that ever you saw his Face and heard his Voice God having spoken not only to your Ears but to your Hearts by him He hath now Prayed and Preached his last with you he is at rest from his Labours and his works follow him Pray ye the Lord of the Harvest that he would continue the faithful Labourers that are yet among you that the Harvest may not be lost for want of Labourers that none of his Churches may be left as Sheep without a Shepherd And Pray ye that He would send forth more Labourers into the Harvest that the number of those that Love and Fear him in the Earth may be encreased and such added to the Church as shall be saved And let all that love the Lord say Amen and Amen So Prays An unworthy Servant R. BRAGGE MATTH IX 38. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the Harvest that he would send forth Labourers into his Harvest YOU are not ignorant of the Occasion of my choosing this Text. And the Text as you may perceive doth suit the Occasion God is calling his Labourers out of his Harvest apace he removes them by pairs yea by clusters what shall we do what is like to become of us That is the Question I know that you have great thoughts of heart about it There is like to be a great dearth and scarcity of faithful Labourers in Gods Harvest We have here the Counsel that our Lord Christ himself gives in this very case that we should Pray the great Lord of the Harvest that he would send forth Labourers into his Harvest You see what the duty of the Text is that is Prayer Who it is that we must pray unto to him that is the great Lord of the Harvest What it is that we must pray for that he would send forth Labourers into his Harvest Then Lastly You have the Therefore or the Reason why he presses this duty upon his Disciples The Harvest truly is great saith he in the former Verse but the Labourers are few The people did flock after Christs Ministry in great multitudes and he had compassion upon them because he saw them as Sheep without a Shepherd Pray you therefore saith he the Lord of the Harvest that he would send forth Labourers into his Harvest The Lesson or Observation that I would put you upon the learning and practice of is this DOCT. That it is the Duty of every good Christian Man or Woman to pray and cry mightily to God that â—e would send forth more Labourers into his Harvest especially when there is a great scarcity and want of Labourers in the Harvest In the prosecuting hereof we would do something by way of Explication something by way of Confirmation and something by way of Application For Explication there are only two things 1. What we are to understand here by the Harvest 2. Who are those Labourers in the Harvest 1. What are we to understand by the Harvest Thereby I take to be meant the People that were to be gathered in to Christ by the Preaching of the Gospel Christ you know did often speak in Parables and that People it seems delighted much in Similitudes and Parables And therefore the Scripture
spirits so that their life many times goeth out in their Labour And this is likewise held out to us by those many Metaphors that the Scripture doth apply to the Ministers of the Gospel They are compared here in the Text you see to Harvest men the Husbandmans work of Plowing and Harrowing Sowing and Reaping it is a laborious and painful work and the sweat of the Brain is no less than that of the Brow So sometimes they are called Builders as in 1 Cor. 3.9 We are Labourers together with God you are Gods husbandry you are Gods building Now the Building of Houses that is a laborious work for the House is not built of the Trees as they are standing in the Forest or of the Stones as they are in the Quarry but there must be hewing the Stones and squaring the Timber for the building the House What is the Ministers work but to build up an House for God an Habitation for Jesus Christ As the materials with which the Temple was built of old were first squared and fitted and prepared for the Building so must souls be for this spiritual House So that indeed Ministers are as Carpenters and Masons I have hewn them by my Prophets and that sheweth they have hard labour of it and many times meet with knotty pieces very hard hearts such as have made some of the best of Gods Labourers complain cry out and resolve with Jeremy they would Speak no more in the name of the Lord. So I might shew you likewise how they are compared to Shepherds and Watchmen whose calling you know have labour in them But to name no more their labour is compared to that which is the greatest labour of all What is that to the labour of a Woman in Travail Gal. 4.19 My little Children of whom I travail in Birth again until Christ be formed in you Thus it is with faithful Ministers they have many a Pang many a throw of heart before Christ be formed in them to whom they Preach So if you look upon the work of the Ministry in these Metaphors by which the Scripture doth express it you see their calling is a laborious calling So if you look upon it out of these Metaphors you may see there is much of labour in this work there is labour to Preach the word labour in Reading Studying Praying and Meditating as Paul bids Timothy give himself unto Prayer and reading the word c. and there is labour in dispensing the Word There is a double labour the labour of the Mind as well as the Body There is labour to instruct the ignorant to shew man his unrighteousness and to shew man his righteousness labour to exhort and quicken those that are sluggish labour in resolving those that doubt and in comforting those that are sad there is labour in bringing in Souls to Christ and labour in building up souls when they are brought in Do but see what is said of John the Baptist who you know was a Labourer in Gods Harvest Luke 3.5 what his work was Every Valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low and the crooked shall be made streight and the rough ways shall be made smooth Now to level mountains and fill up Valleys to make crooked things streight and rough ways smooth this cannot be done without labour And yet my brethren there is greater labour that the faithful Ministers of Christ sometimes go through than all this they are forced oftentimes not only to sweat at the Plough but bleed at the Cross they labour in induring reproaches and Persecutions they meet with in the world for the truths sake Remember my brethren saith James the Prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an Example of suffering Affliction and of Patience Who would have thought they should meet with any hard usage for speaking to People in the name of the Lord What saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 2.3 Truly God hath made us a spectacle to the world Why so We are appointed to death every day and reckoned the off-scouring of the World They are the greatest enemies the Devil and his Kingdom hath in the world and therefore the Devil is so great an enemy to them The faithful Ministers of Christ stand in the front of opposition That is the Devils principle Smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered So that then you soe they are much mistaken who look upon a Ministers life as an easie if not an Idle life who think all their labours but a little Lip-labour I might tell you it is no easie thing for you to hear a Sermon well and then sure it cannot be such an easie thing to preach well it will cost you labour to hear aright I grant it is an easie thing to give the Minister the hearing but to give the ears to the Minister to give every truth a double hearing that is a hard matter I grant it is an easie thing to let in a Sermon at one ear and to let it out at the other but to let a Sermon in at the ear and to let it sink down in the heart and thence to spring up in the life this is a hard thing It is an easie thing to write down a Sermon in your Books and to repeat it at night in your Families and to discourse and talk of it but to get this Sermon written in your hearts and to repeat it over in your lives to be doers of it and not hearers only this will require pains and labour Thus we have shown you what this Harvest is here spoken of and who the Labourers are and now we come near to the point it self to shew that it is your duty to Pray the Lord of the Harvest that he would send forth more Labourers into his Harvest Here are these three things offer themselves to be spoken to for the confirming of the point 1. That the Mininstry of the word it is a very great gift and blessing to a people 2. That God and God alone it belongs to him to send forth these Labourers into his Harvest 3. That our duty and work is to Pray and Pray earnestly to God that he would increase the number of his faithful Labourers And these may serve as the grounds and reasons of the Point for I shall name no other 1. Then do you ask me why we should pray to God to send forth more Labourers into his Harvest Because I say to have these faithful Labourers among you is one of the greatest gifts and blessings that God can bestow upon a People See what Christ himself saith of such Matth. 5.13 Ye are the salt of the Earth c. You know that salt savours every thing and that it is to preserve things from Rotting and Putrefaction so that salt is a very useful and necessary thing in the world you know not how to be without it Of such use and necessity is the Ministry of the word for
of God much less doth a Minister preach a Sermon but there is a providence in it When God sends a Minister to a Congregation he doth lett out a piece of Land or bids him husband that for me Levit. 27.26 You read there how God would have them to value their Land dedicated to God to be worth more or less according to the Seed of it as it was capable of receiving much or less seed so the Minister should value his Land according to his opportunity he hath to sow Seed there 4. It is the Lord of the Harvest that must give success to these Labourers or else all their Preaching and labouring will be but as Plowing and Sowing among the Rocks You must not think Preaching of the Gospel doth work upon souls by any inherent vertue in the Word as Fire warms and Food nourishes and Physick heals If the Spirit of the Lord doth not go along with the Word it will be but as Musick to the Deaf c. 1 Cor. 3. Paul may plant Apollos may water but God gives the increase Now if the husbandman cannot command Seed to grow out of the Ground how much less can Ministers create Grace in Souls If in Natural things it is God that makes the Grass to spring how much more in spiritual things It is he makes the Soul to fructifie Alas it is not the parts and Eloquence of the Minister can beget Grace that must be the work of Gods Spirit 3. Here is our Duty or work in order to the obtaining this Gift that is to Pray the Lord of the Harvest that he would send forth more Labourers into his Harvest Prayers you know that is the prevailing course for the removing any evil that lies upon us or obtaining any good we stand in need of Psal 50.15 Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will hear you Such and such things God promises to do for his People But for this I will be sought unto saith the Lord. God will do good things for his Church and People but he will do things in his own order Here I might shew you the great power the Prayers of Gods People have with him The fervent effectual Prayer of the righteous prevaileth much Acts 12. You read there how Herod had put to death one of the Apostles And Peter was likewise taken up too and the Church go to Prayer what was the issue Peter was delivered Likewise what became of Herod He was smitten of God As one said Wo be to the Birds of prey when Gods Turtles begin to cry and mourn before him O that we were perswaded of this that there is such a great deal of power and prevalency in Prayer how should we be more exercised in this Duty both in publick and private and to be representing the state of the Church to God as they did of Lazarus to Christ He whom thou lovest is dead so should we say He whom thou lovest thy Church is sick and languishing ready to give up the Ghost I would come to the last thing There are only two or three Uses I would make of it Use 1. If it be the duty of every good Christian Man and Woman thus to pray and cry to God for the sending more Labourers into his Harvest then it shews us 1. The necessity of a Gospel Ministry What do you think of the Husbandmans Calling is that a necessary Calling to Plow and sow the Land that ye may have Bread to eat What would your Houses and Families do without Bread No more can a Church of God subsist in this world without the Ministry of the Word I know there are some ready to say What need is there of mens Preaching what need of the Ministry of Man cannot God do it alone Yea we have Christ and the teaching of the Spirit what need is there of mans teaching is not the Spirit above man is not Christ above Ministers I grant there is no necessity of Preaching the Word with respect to God he is able to save men and women without the Preaching of the Word as well as with it he doth not need the gifts and parts and tongue of any man for bringing souls home to himself As Israel in the Wilderness when they had no Plowing yet God could feed them he could bring them Bread from Heaven But yet as Gods ordinary way of maintaining and feeding your Bodies it is by Plowing and sowing the Field so it is the ordinary way God hath set in his Church for feeding your souls It pleased him 1 Cor. 1.21 by the foolishness of Preaching to save them that believe and God will keep close to his own Ordinance and honour his own Institution As Acts 9. when Paul was converted it was in an extraordinary way It is true Christ did speak to him out of the Clouds Saul Saul why persecutest c. and he said Who art thou Lord Christ you know Preached himself to Paul and he trembled and was astonished and said Lord what wouldst thou have me to do and Christ said Arise and go into the City and it shall be told thee what thou must do Could not Christ have as well told him his own work and business See how Christ begins the work but would have Paul to wait upon him in his own way therefore Ananias must be sent to Paul The like instance you have in the next Chapter there you read of Cornelius a devout man yet knew little of Christ and God sent an Angel to him Thy Prayer is heard and thine Alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God send therefore to Joppa and call Simon whose Surname is Peter and he shall speak unto thee What was not the Angel as well able to have taught Cornelius as Peter yea doubtless but as if he had said That is none of my Commission therefore send for such a person he shall speak to thee Here I might spend time to shew you the necessity of the Ministry of the Word 1. In order to Conversion Regeneration and bringing sinners to Christ Faith comes by hearing Who is Paul c. but Ministers by whom ye believed Do you look for seed-time without Plowing the Ground No more must you expect Grace without hearing the Word 2. I might shew you the necessity hereof for the building up of those that are Converted When we are in Christ when we are Believers we are not now above the Ministry of the Word above Ordinances No my Brethren this Ministry of the Word and Ordinances must continue in the Church as long as there is one soul to be saved as long as one soul is out of Heaven it must continue till the coming of Christ Again 2. If the sending forth of Labourers into the Harvest be such a desirable mercy then it shews us how much we should prize a faithful Ministry If God hath sent us faithful Ministers we should look upon it as a great and wonderful blessing It is the