ponder this great question whether those things whereon I depend as my best evidences for the life to come be the real or only the common works of the Spirit whether they be such as can now endure the test of the Word and abide a fair tryal at the bar of my own conscience Come then my soul set the Lord before thee to whom the secrets of all hearts are manifest and in the awful sence of that great day make true answer to these heart-discovering queries for though thou canst not discern the difference betwixt these things in another yet thou mayest and oughtest to discern it in thy self for what man knows the things of a man save the spirit of man that is in him First Is my obedience uniform am I the same man in all times places and companies or rather am I not exact and curious in open and publick remiss and careless in private and secret duties sincere souls are uniform souls Psal. 119. 6. the hypocrite is no closet-man Mat. 6. 5. Secondly Doth that which I call grace in me oppose and mortifie or doth it not rather quietly consist with and protect my lusts and corruptions true grace tollerates no lust Gal. 5. 17. No not the bosom darling-corruption Psa. 18. 23. Thirdly Doth that which I call my grace humble empty and abase my soul or rather doth it not puff it up with self-conceitedness all saving grace is humble grace 1 Cor. 15. 10. But the soul which is lifted up is not upright Hab. 2. 4. Lastly Canst thou my soul rejoyce and bless God for the grace imparted to others and rejoyce if any design for Christ be carried on in world by other hands or rather dost thou not envy those that excel thee and carest for no work in which thou art not seen But stay my soul it is enough If these be the substantial differences betwixt special and common grace I more than doubt I shall not endure the day of his coming Whose fan is in his hand Do not those spots appear upon me which â—re not the spots of his children Wo is me poor wretch the characters of death are upon my soul Lord add power to the form life to the name to live practise to the knowledge or I perish eternally O rather give me the Saints heart than the Angels tongue the poorest breathing of thy Spirit than the richest ornaments of common gifts let me neither deceive my self or others in matters of so deep and everlasting consequence The Poem IN Eastern Countreys as good Authors write Tares in their springing up appear to sight Not like it self a weed but real wheat Whose shape and form it counterfeits so neat Though 't would require a most judicious eye The one from t'other to diversifie Till both to some maturity be grown And then the difference is eas'ly known Even thus hypocrisie that cursed weed Springs up so like true grace that he will need More than a common insight in this case That saith this is not that is real grace Ne're did the cunning Actor though a slave Array'd in princely robes himself behave So like a King as this doth act the part Of saving grace by its deep hellish art Do gracious souls melt mourn and weep for sin The like in hypocrites observ'd hath been Have they their comforts joyes and raptures sweet With them in comforts hypocrites do meet In all religious duties they can go As far as Saints in some things farther too They speak like Angels and you 'l think within The very spirit of Christ and grace hath bin They come so neer that some like Isaac take Iacob for Esau this for that mistake And boldly call their eyes with his being dim True grace hypocrisie and duty sin Yea many also Iacob like imbrace Leah for Rachel common gifts for grace And in their bosoms hug it till the light Discover their mistake and cleer their sight And then like him confounded they will cry Alas 't is Leah curs'd hypocrisie Guide me my God that I may not in stead Of saving grace nurse up this cursed weed O let my heart by thee at last be found Sincere and all thy workings on it sound CHAP. XIII Fowls weeds and blastings do your corn annoy Even so corruptions would your grace destroy OBSERVATION THere are amongst many others three critical and dangerous periods betwixt the seed-time and Harvest The first when corn is newly committed to the earth all that lyes uncovered is quickly pickt up by the birds and much of that which is but slightly covered is stockt up as soon as it begins to sprout by Rooks and other devouring fowls Mat. 13. 4. but if it escape the fowls and gets root in the earth yet then is it hazarded by noxious weeds which purloin and suck away its nourishment whilst it is yet in the tender blade If by the care of the vigilant Husbaâ—dman it be freed from choaking weeds yet lastly as great a danger as any of the former still attends it for oftentimes whilst it is blowing in the ear blastings and mildews smite it in the stalk which cuts off the juice and sap that should ascend to nourish the ear and so shrivels and dries up the grain whilst it is yet immature whereby it becomes like those ears of corn in Pharaohs vision which were thin and blasted with the East-wind or like the ears the Psalmist speaks of upon the house top wherewith the reaper filleth not his arms APPLICATION TRue grace from the infancy to the perfection thereof conflicts with far more greater dangers amongst which it answerably meets with three dangerous periods which marvellously hazard it So that it is a much greater wonder that it ever arrives at its just perfection For 1 no sooner hath the great Husbandman disseminated these holy seeds in the regenerate heart but multitudes of impetuous corruptions immediately assault and would cetainly devour them like the fowls of the air did not the same arm that sowed them also protect them It fares with grace as with Christ its Author whom Herod sought to destroy in his very infancy The new creature is scarce warm in its seat before it must fight to defend its self This conflict is excellently set forth in that famous Text Gal. 5. 17. The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would By flesh here understand the corruption of nature by original sin and the sinful motions thereof by spirit not the soul or natural spirit of man but the Spirit of God in man viz. those graces in men which are the workmanship of the Spirit and therefore called by his name The opposition betwixt these two is expressed by lusting i. e. desiring the mutual ruine and destruction of each other for even when they are not acting yet then they are lusting there is an opposite
plentiful harvest Ioel 2. 23 24. Beglad then ye Children of Sion and râ—joyce in the Lord your God for he hath given you the former rain modâ—rately and he will cause to come down for you the rain the former and the latter rain in the first month and the floors shall be full of wheat and the faces shall overflow with wine and Oyl Thus the Gospel hath a double use and benefit also It 's necessary as the former rain at Seed-time it causes the first spring of grace in the heart Psal. 19. 7. And there could be in an ordinary way no spring of grace without it Prov. 29. 18. And as this former rain is necessary to cause the first spring of grace so also it hath the use of the latter rain to ripen those precious fruits of the Spirit in the souls of Belivers Eph. 4. 11 12 13. He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Were all the elect converted unto God yet still there would be a necessity of a Gospel Ministry After a great glut of rain usually there comes a drought 't is a common Countrey Proverb Wet and dry pay one another And truly when a people are glutted with a fulness of Gospel-mercies it 's usual with God to shut up and restrain the Gospel-clouds that for a time at least there be no dews upon them and thereby teach them to prize their despised because common mercies at an higher rate For as a good man once said mercies are best known by the back and most prized when most wanted In those dayes the word of the Lord was precious there was no open vision 1 Sam. 3. 1. It is with spiritual as with temporal food slighted when plenteous but if a famine once come then every bit of bread is precious Ierusalem remembred in the dayes of her affiction and of her misery all her pleasant things that she had in the dayes of old Lam. 1. 7. 'T is both a sinflul and dangerous thing to wantonize with Gospel-mercies and dâ—spise the plainest if faithful Minisâ—eâ—s of the Gospel The time may come when you may be glad of the plainst Sermon from the mouth of the meanest Embassador of Christ. To conclude the prayers of Saints are the keys that open and shut the natural clouds and cause them either to givâ— out or with-hold their influences Iames 5. 18. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months and he prayed again and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth fruit God hath subjected the works of his hands to the prayers of his Saints Isa. 45. 11. Prayer is also the golden key which opens these mystical Gospel clouds and dissolves them into sweet gracious showers God will have the whole work of the Ministry carried on by the prayers of his people they first obtain their Ministers by prayer Luke 10. 2. Pray ye the Lord of the Harvest to sâ—nd forth labourers into the vineyard It is by the help of prayer that they are carried on and enabled to exercise their Ministry They may tell their people as a great General once told his Souldiers That he flew upon their wings Pray for me saith the great Apostle that utterance may be given me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the Mysteries of the Gospel Eph. 6. 19. Yea by the Saints prayers it is that Ministers obtain the success and fruits of their labours Tâ—fse 3. 1. Finally brethren pray for us that the word of the Lord my have free course and â—e glorified even as it is with you And thus you have the Metaphor opened Now Oh! That these truths migh come down in sweet showers upon the hearts both of Ministers and people in the following Reflections REFLECTIONS Am I then a cloud and is my doctrine as rain to water the Lords inheritance * and yet do I think it much to be tossed up and down by the furious winds and storms of persecution do I not see the clouds above me in continual motions and agitations and shall I dream of a fixed setled state No false Teachers who are clouds without rain are more likely to enjoy that than I. Which of all the Prophets have not been tossed and hurried worse than I Acts 7. 52. He that will not let men alone to be quiet in their lusts must expect but little quiet from men in this life But it is enough Lord that arest remaineth for thy servant let me be so wise to secure a rest to come and not so vain to expect it on earth And O that I might study those instructing clouds from which as from the bottles of heaven God pours down refreshing showers to quench and satisfie the thirsty earth in this may I resemble them and come amongst the people of the Lord in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ Rom. 15. 29. O let not those thirsty souls that wait for me as for the rain Iob 29. 23. Return like the Troops of Tema ashamed with their heads covered Iob 6. 19. O that my lips might refresh many let me never be like those empty clouds which deceive the hopes of thirsty souls but let my doctrine descend as the rain and distil as the dew and let that plot of thine inheritance which thou hast assigned to me be as the field which the Lord hath blessed Once more lift up thine eyes to the clouds and behold to how great an height the Sun hath mounted them for by reason of their sublimity it is that they are called the clouds of heaven Mat. 24. 30. Lord let me be a cloud of heaven too Let my heart and conversation be both there Who is more advantaged for an heavenly life than I heavenly truths are the subjects of my daily study and shall earthly things be the objects of my daily delights and loves God forbid that ever my earthly conversation should contradict and shame my heavenly calling and profession Shine forth thou glorious Suâ— of righteousness and my heart shall quickly be attracted and mounted above these visible clouds yea and above the aspectable heavens Is the Gospel rain and its Ministers clouds Wo is me then that my habitation is upon the mountains of Gilboa where there are no dews Ah sad lot that I should be like Gideons dry fleece whilst the ground round about me is wet with the dew of heaven O thou that commandest the clouds above and openest the windows of heaven remember and refresh this parched wilderness
experimentally true A Verse may find him that a Sermon flies And turn delight into a Sacrifice I should never have been perswaded especially in this scribling Age wherein we may complain with the Poet. Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim To have set my dull fancy upon the Rack to extort a Poem to entertain my Reader for I cannot say with Ovid Sponte sua carmen c. but that I have been informed that many Seamen induced by the pleasure of a Verse have taken much pains to learn the Poems in their Compass by heart and I hope both the Children at home and the Servants in the fields will learn to exercise themselves this way also O how much better will it be so to do than to stuff their memories with obscene Ballads and filthy Songs which corrupt their minds and dispose them to much wickedness by irritating their natural corruption But these are purer flames you will find nothing here of such a tendency 'T is guilt not Poetry to be like those Whose wit in Verse is downright sin in Prose Whose studies are prophaneness as if then They only were good Poets when bad men I shall add no more but to beg that God who instructeth the Husbandman in his civil Calling to teach him wisdom spiritually to improve it and particularly that you may reap a crop of much spiritual benefit from that seed which is here sown by the hand of the Lords unprofitable servant and in him Your very affectionate Friend and Servant IOHN FLAVELL TO THE CHRISTIAN READER THere are three things wherein as it hath been said long before my day the exercise of Godliness doth chiefly consist Prayer Temptation Meditation Meditation is the Subject of this following Manual The Object of Meditation is twofold First The Word Secondly The Works of God The Works of God are twofold First Internal Secondly External The External Works of God are twofold First Of Creation Secondly of Providence The works of Providence are likewise twofold First In things Civil the Lord ordering and over-ruling all the affairs and motion of single Persons Families and Nations in a subserviency to his own most holy Ends Designs and Purposes Secondly In things Natural the Lord instructing the Husbandman to discretion and teaching him how to Dress and Till the Earth that it may give Seed to the Sower and Bread to the Eater as also how to breed up and manage the Beasts of the field both greater and lesser Cattel for the use and service of Man Meditation upon this lower part of the Works of God and his wonderful Providences about them may raise our souls very high and while we wisely consider these natural things we may grow more and more wise in and for Spirituals and Eternals The worthy and ingenious Author of the ensuing Discourse hath supplied us with an excellent help for the Spiritualizing of the providential Works of God in natural things by godly Meditation we chiefly want the help of the holy Spirit without which all other helps and helpers are altogether insufficient to frame and wind up our hearts for this both profitable and delightful duty yet the help which the Lord is pleased to give us for our direction in it by the Ministery of man is not only not to be refused but thankfully received and improved and all little enough to bring our minds to or keep them at this work The best of Saints on this side heaven have though they are not earthly minded much earth in their minds which like a heavy clog at their heels or a weight at their hearts presseth them down when they would make an Essay to mount upward in Meditation We find it no easie matter to keep off earthly thoughts when we are most seriously engaged in heavenly work how hard is it then to get in and be fixed upon heavenly thoughts while we are engaged about earthly work yea are for so is the Husbandman working the very earth and raking in the bowels of it 'T is a great part of our holiness to be spiritually minded while we are conversing with God through Iesus Christ in spiritual duties but to be spiritually minded and to mind spiritual things when we are conversing with the clods of the earth and the furrows of the field when we have to do with Corn and Grass with Trees and Plants with Sheep and Oxen when we behold the birds and fowls of the Air the worms and all that creep upon the ground then I say to be spiritually minded and thence to have our thoughts ascending and soaring up to God in heart-affecting and quickning contemplations witnesseth an high degree of holiness and of gracious attainments To make a ladder out to earthly materials for the raising of our selves in spirit up to heaven is the Art of Arts. Holy and happy indeed are they who being taught of God have learned this Art and live in the daily practise of it Earthly objects usually hinder us in our way sometimes turn us quite out of our way to heaven Many plow and sow dig and delve the earth till their hearts become as earthly as the earth it self many deal about the beasts of the field till themselves become even brutish Is it not then a blessed design which this Author aims and drives at so to spiritualize all sorts or the whole compass of earthly Husbandry that all sorts of husbandmen may become spiritual and heavenly It seems to me a taken for good that God hath an intendment of some special good to the souls of such as are by profession proper Husbandmen seeing he hath lately put it into the hearts of two faithful Ministers who with all of that profession are Husbandmen in a figure to undertake though in a different way this Subject to publish their labours in print that they may be of use not only for the present age but for posterity And that the Husbandman may be pleased as well as profited in perusing the labours of this Author he hath with singular aptness and acuteness contrived and contracted the sum or scope of every Chapter into an elegant Distich or pair of Verses placed at the head of it and concluded it with a choice melodious Poem sutable to and dilating upon the whole matter of it These the Husbandman who can but read may quickly learn and sing for his solace instead of those vain Ballads and corrupting Rimes which many of that rank are apt to buy and solace themselves withal without any benefit yea much to their hurt making their hearts more corrupt carnal and vain thereby Let me add one word more to the Reader This Book of Husbandry Spiritualized is not calculated only for the common Husbandman persons of any calling or condition may find the Author working out such searching Reflections and strong Convictions from almost every part and particular of the Husbandmans work as may prove if faithfully improved very useful to them to some for their
to the following Discourse The Apostle's scope in the context being to check and repress the vain glory and emulation of the Corinthians who instead of thankfulness for and an humble and diligent improvement of the excellent blessings of the Ministry turn'd all into vain ostentation and emulation one preferring Paul and another Apollos in the maan time depriving themselves of the choice blessings they might have received from them both To cure this growing mischief in the Churches he checks their vanity and discovers the evil of such practises by several Arguments amongst which this is one Ye are God's Husbandry q. d. Whar are ye but a field or plot of ground to be manured and cultivated for God and what are Paul Apollo and Cephas but so many work-men and labourers imployed by God the great Husbandman to plant and water you all If then you shall glory in some and despise others you take the ready way to deprive your selves of the benefits and mercies you might receive from the joint Ministry of them all God hath used me to plant you and Apollo to water you you are obliged to bless him for the Ministry of both and it will be your sin if you despise either If the work-men be discouraged in their labours 't is the field that loses and suffers by it so that the words are a similitude serving to illustrate the Relation 1. Which the Churches have to God 2. Which God's Ministers have to the Churches The relation betwixt God and them is like that of an Husbandman to his ground of tillage The Greek word signifies Gods Arable or that plot of ground which God manures by the ministry of Pastors and Teachers It serves to illustrate the relation that the Ministers of Christ sustain to the Churches which is like that of the Husbands servants to him and his fields which excellent notion carries in it the perpetual necessity of a Gospel-Ministry For what fruit can be expected where there are none to till the ground As also the diligence accountableness and rewards which these labourers are to give to and receive from God the great Husbandman All runs into this That the life and imployment of an Husbandman excellently shadows forth the relation betwixt God and his Church and the relative duties betwixt its Ministers and members Or more briefly thus The Church is God's Husbandry about which his Ministers are imployed I shall not here observe my usual Method intending no more but a Preface to the following Discourse but only open the particulars wherein the resemblance consists and then draw some Corrolaries from the whole The first I shall dispatch in these twenty particulars following The Husbandman purchases his fields and gives a valuable consideration for them Ier. 32. 9 10. So hath God purchased his Church with a full valuable price even the precious blood of his own Son Act. 20. 28. Feed the Church of God which he hath purchased or acquired with his own blood O dear-bought inheritance how much doth this bespeak its worth or rather the high esteem God hath of it to pay down blood and such blood for it never was any inheritance bought at such a rate every particular elect person and none but such as are comprehanded in this purchase the rest still remain in the devils right Sin made a forfeiture of all to justice upon which Satan entred and took possession and as a strong man armed still keeps it in them Luke 11. 21. but upon payment of this sum to justice the Elect who only are intended in this purchase pass over into God's right and propriety and now are neither Satans Acts 26. 18. nor their own 1 Cor. 6. 19. but the Lord 's peculiar 1 Pet. 2. 6. And to shew how much they are his own you have two possessives in one verse Cant. 8. 12. My vineyard which is mine is before me Mine which is mine Husbandmen divide and separate their own Lands from other mens they have their Land-marks and boundaries by which propriety is preserved Deut. 27. 17. Prov. 22. 28. So are the people of God wonderfully separated and distinguisht from all the people of the earth Psal. 4. 3 The Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself and the Lord knoweth who are his 2 Tim. 2. 19 It is a special act of grace to be inclosed by God out of the waste howling wilderness of the world Deut. 33. 16. This God did intentionally in the decree before the world was which decree is executed in their sanctification and adoption Corn-fields are carefully fenced by the Husbandman with hedges and ditches to preserve their fruits from beasts that would otherwise over-run and destroy them Non minus est virtus quam querere parta tueri It is as good Husbandry to keep what we have as to acquire more than we had My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill and he fenced it Isa. 5. 1 2. No inheritance is better defended and secured than the Lords inheritance Psal. 125. 2. As the mountains are round about Ierusalem so the Lord is round about his people So careful is he for their safety that he createth upon every dwelling place of mount Sion and upon her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night for upon all the glory shall be a defence Isa. 4. 5. Not a particular Saint but is hedged about and inclosed in arms of power and love Iob 1. 10. Thou hast made a hedge about him The Devil sain would but by his own confession could not break over that hedge to touch Iob till Gods permission made a gap for him Yea he not only makes an hedge but a wall about them and that of fire Zech. 2. 5. Sets a guard of Angels to encamp round about them that fear him Psal. 34. 7. and will not trust them with a single guard of Angels neither though their power be great and love to the Saints as great but watches over them himself also Isa. 27. 2 3. Sing ye unto her a vineyard of red wine I the Lord do keep it I will water it every moment lest any hurt it I will keep it night and day Husbandmen carry out their Compost to fertilize their arable ground they dung it dress it and keep it in heart and in these Western parts are at great charges to bring lime and salt water sand to quicken their thin and cold soyl Lord let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dung it and if it bear fruit well if not cut it down Luke 13. 8. O the rich dressing which God bestows upon his Churches they are costly fields indeed drest and fertilized not only by precious Ordinances and Providences but also by the sweat yea bloud of the dispensers of them You Londoners saith Mr. Lockier are trees watered choicely indeed 't is storied of the Palm-tree
an innocent pleasure and verifie the saying of the Poet Ovid. Tempus in agrorum cultu confumere dulce est Although they plow from morning until night Time steals away with pleasure and delight APPLICATION BUt how much greater cause have the people of God to address themselves unto his work with all cheerfulness of spirit And indeed so far as the heart is spiritual it delights in its duties 'T is true the work of a Christian is painful and much more spending than the Husbandmans as was opened Chap. 1. but then it as much exceeds in the delights and pleasures that attend it What is the Christians work but with joy to draw water out of the wells of salvation Isa. 12. 3. You may see what a pleasant path the path of duty is by the cheerfulness of those that have walked in them Psal. 119. 14. I have rejoyced in the way of thy judgment as much as in all riches And by the promises that are made to such Psal. 13 8. 5. Yea they shall sing in the ways of the Lord for great is the glory of the Lord. And again You shall have a song as in the night when an holy solemnity is kept and gladness of heart as when one goeth with a pipe to come to the mountain of the Lord to the mighty one of Israel Isa. 30. 29. And lastly by the many commands whereby joy in the wayes of the Lord is made the duty of the Saints Rejoyce in the Lord ye righteous for praise is comely for the upright Psa. 97. 12. Rejoyce and again I say rejoyce Phil. 4. 4. Where the command is doubled yea not only simple rejoycing but the highest degree of that duty comes within the command Psal. 132. 9 16. Shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart And Luke 6. 22 23. they are bid to leap for joy when about the difficult'st part of their work and that you may see there is sufficient ground for it and that it is not like the mad mirth of sinners be pleased to consider The nature of the work about which they are employed it is the most excellent and heavenly employment that ever souls were acquainted with O what a ravishing and delightsome thing it is to walk with God! and yet by this the whole work of a Christian is expressed Gen. 17. 1. Can any life compare with this for pleasure Can they be chill that walk in the Sun-shine or sad that abide in the fountain of all delights and walk with him whose name is the God of all comfort 2 Cor. 1. 3. In whose presence is the fulness of joy Psal. 16. 11. O what an Angelical life doth a Christian then live Or 2ly If we consider the variety of spiritual imployments varietas delectat Change of employment takes off the tediousness of Labour Variety of voices please the ear variety of colours delight the eye the same meat prepared several wayes pleases the palate more and clogs it less Bâ—t O the variety of choice dishes wherewith God entertains his people in a Sâ—bbath as the Word Prayer Sacraments c. Isa. 58. 13. If thou call the Sabbath thy delights or as Tremelius renders it thy delicate things My soul saith David shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness Psal. 63. 5. Or lastly if we consider the suitableness of this work to a regenerate soul. Is it any pain for a bird to flye or a fish to swim Is the eye tired with beautiful objects or the ear with melodious sounds As little can a spiritual soul be wearied with spiritual and heavenly exercises Rom. 7. 22. I delight in the Law of God after the inner man Gravia non gravitant in eorâ—m loco saith the Philosopher weighty things are not heavy in their own element or center And surely God is the center of all gracious spirits A Saint can sit from morning to night to hear discourses of the love and loveliness of Iesus Christ. The fight of your thriving flocks and flourishing fields cannot yield you that pleasure which an upright soul can find in one quarter of an hours communion with God They that are after the flesh saith the Apostle Rom. 8. 5. do mind the things of the flesh and they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit But then look how much heavenly objects transcend earththly ones and how much the soul is more capable of delight in those objects than the gross and duller senses are in theirs so much doth the pleasure arising from the duty excel all sensitive delights on earth REFLECTIONS How am I cast and condemned by this may I say who never favoured this spiritual delight in holy duties When I am about my earthly employments I can go on unweariedly from day to day all the way is down hill to my nature and the wheels of my affections being oyled with carnal delight run so fast that they have need most times of trigging Here I rather need the curb than the spur O how fleet and nimble are my spirits in these their pursuits But O what a slug am I in religious duties Sure if my heart were renewed by grace I should delight in the law of God Rom. 7. 22. All the world is alive in their wayes every creature injoyes his proper pleasure and is there no delight to be found in the paths of holiness Is godliness only a dry root that bears no pleasant fruits No no there are doubtless incomparable pleasures to be found therein but such a carnal heart as mine favours them not I cannot say but I have found delight in Religious duties but they have been only such as rather sprang from the ostentation of gifts and applauses of men than any sweet and real communion I have had with God through them they have rather proved food and fewel to my pride than food to my soul. Like the Nightingale I can sing sweetly when I observe others to listen to me and be affected with my musick O â—alse deceitful heart such delight as this will end in howling were my spirit right it would as much delight in retirements for the enjoyment of God as it doth in those duties that are most exposed to the observation of man Wilt such a spring as this maintain a stream of affections when carnal motives fail What wilt thou answer O my soul to that question Ioâ— 27. 9 10. Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him Will he delight himself in the Almighty Will he alwayes call upon God What wilt thou reply to this question Deceive not thou thy self O my soul thou wilt doubtless be easily perswaded to let go that thou never delightedst in and from an hypocrite in Religion quickly become an Apostate from Religion From all this the upright heart takes advantage to rouze up its delight in God and thus it expostulateth with it self Doth the Plowman sing amidst his drudging labours and whistle away his weariness in
the fields and shall I droop amidst such heavenly imployment O my soul what want'st thou here to provoke thy delight if there be such an affection as delight in thee methinks such an object as the blessed face of God in Ordinances should excite it Ah how would this ennoble all my services and make them Angel-like how glad are those blessed creatures to be imployed for God No sooner were they created but they sang together and shouted for joy Iob 38. 7. How did they fil the Aire with heavenly melody when sent to bring the joyful tydings of a Saviour to the world Ascribing glory to God in the highest even to the highest of their powers yea this delight would make all my duties Christ-like and the nearer that pattern the more excellent He delighted to do his Fathers will it was to him meat and drink Psal. 40. 7 Iohn 4. 32 34. Yea it would not only ennoble but facilitate all my duties and be to me as wings to a bird flying or failes to a a ship in motion Non tardat uncta rota oyled wheels run freely Or ever I was aware my soulmade me like the chariots of Aminadab O what is the reason my God my delight in thee should be so little Is it not because my unbelief is so great Rouze up my delights O thou fountain of pleasure and let me swim down the stream of holy joyes in duty into the boundless Ocean of those immense delights that are in thy presence and at thy right hand for evermore The Poem O What a dull despondent heart is mine That takes no more delight in things divine When all the Creatures both in heaven and earth Enjoy their pleasures and are big with mirth Angels and Saints that are before the Throne In extasies and raptures every one Perpetually is heled Each blessed spirit The purest highest joyes doth there inherit The Saints on earth in their imperfect state Those Peerless joyes by faith do antedate To natural men who favour not this pleasure Yet bounteous nature doth unlock her treasure Of sensitive delights Yea strange to tell Bold sinners rant it all the way to hell Like fifh that play in Iordans silver stream So these in sensual lusts and never dream Of that dead Sea to which the stream doth tend And to their pleasures puts a fatal end Yea birds and beasts as well as men enjoy Their innocent delights These Chirp and play The cheerful birds among the branches sing And make the neighboring groves with musick ring With various warbling notes they all invite Our ravisht ears with pleasure and delight The new faln Lambs will in a Sun-shine day About their feeeding dams jump up and play Are Cisterns sweet and is the fountain bitter Or can the Sun be dark when glow-worms glitter Have instruments their sweet melodious airs All creatures their delights and Saints not theirs Yea theirs transcend these sensual ones as far As noon day Phebus doth a twinkling star Why droop I then may any creature have A Life like mine for pleasure Who ere gave The like encouragement that Christ hath given To do his will on earth as 't is in heaven CHAP. IV. Corn Land must neither be too fat nor poor The middle state suits best with Christians sure OBSERVATION HUsbandmen find by experience that their arable Lands mâ—y be drâ—ft too much as well as too little If the soil be over rank the seed shoots up so much into the stalk thaâ— it seldome ears well and if too thin and poor it wants its due nutriment and comes not to perfection Therefore their care is to keep it in heart but not to overdress or underdress its The end of all their cost and paines about it is fruit and therefore reason tells them that such a state and temperament of it as best fits it for fruit is best both for it and them APPLICATION AND doth not spiritual experience teach Christians that a mediocrity and competency of the things of this life best fits them for the fruits of obedience which is the end and excellency of their beings A man may be overmercied as well as over afflicted Rare fumant foelicibus arae the altars of the rich seldome smoke When our outward injoyments are by providence shaped and fitted to our condition as a suit is to the body that fits close and neat neither too curt nor long we cannot desire a better condition in this world This was it that wife Agur requested of God Prov. 30. 8 9. Give me neither Poverty nor Riches but feed me with food convenient for me least I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain Against both he prayes equally not absolutely that had been his sin but comparatively and submissively to the will of God He had rather if God see it fit to avoid both these extreams but what would he have then Why food convenient Or according to the Hebrew give me my prey or statute bread which is a Metaphor from birds that flye up and down to prey for their young and what they get they distribute among them they bring them enough to preserve their lives but not more than enough to lye mouldering in the nest Such a proportion Agur desired and the reason why he desired it is drawn from the danger of both the extreams He measured like a wise Christian the conveniency or inconveniency of his estate in the world by its suitableness or unsutableness to the end of his being which is the service of God He accounted the true excellency of his life to consist in its reference and tendency to the glory of his God and he could not see how a redundancy or too great a penury of earthly comforts could fit him for that but a middle estate equally removed from both extreams best fitted that endâ— And this was all that good Iacob who was led by the same spirit lookt at Gen. 28. 20. And Iacob vowed a vow saying if God will be with me and keep me in the way that I go and will give me bread to eat and rayment to put on so that I come again to my fathers house in peace then shall the Lord be my God Poor Iacob he desires no great matters in the world food and rayment will satisfie him in spiritual things his desires are boundless he is the most greedie and unsatisfied man in the world Hos. 12. 4. but in the matters of this life if he can get from God but off am aquam a morsel of meat and a mouth full of water he will not envy the richest Craesus or Crassus upon earth Meat and drink are the riches of Christians Divitiae sunt adleg em natura composita paupertas saith Pomponius Attius riches are such a poverty or mediocrity as hath enough for natures uses
motions did I withstand what a good spirit have I grieved Ah! my soul thou wouldst have abhor'd thy self thou couldst never have born it had thy heart been as stupid and as relentless then as now If ever a poor soul had reason to dissolve it self into tears for its sad relapses I have But yet mourn not O my soul as one without hope Remember There is hope in Israel concerning this thing As low as thy condition is it is not desperate it is not a disease that scorns a Remedy many a man that hath been stretcht out for dead hath revived again and lived many a comfortable day in the world many a tree that hath cast both leaf and fruit by the skill of a prudent Husbandman hath been recovered again and made both flourishing and fruitful Is it not easier think'st thou to recover a languishing man to health than a dead man to life and yet this God did for me Epâ— 2. 1. Is any thing too hard for the Lord Though my soul draw nigh to the pit and my life to the destroyers yet he can send me a messenger one among a thousand that shall declare to me my uprightness then shall be deliver me from going down into the pit my flesh shall be fresher than a Childes and I shall return to the dayes of my youth Iob 33. 21. Though my flourish and much of my fruit too be gone and I am a withering tree yet as long as the root of the matter is in me there is more hope of such a poor decayed withered tree than of the hypocrite that wants such a root in all his glory and bravery His Sun shall set and never rise again but I live in expectation of a sweet morning after this dark night Rouze up therefore O my soul set thy faith awork on Christ for quickning grace for he hath life in himself and quickens whomsoever he will Ioâ— 7. 38. Stir up that little which remains Rev. 3. 2. Hath thou not seen lively flames proceed from glimmering and dying sparks when carefully collected and blown up get amongst the most lively and quickening Christians as iron sharpens iron so will these set an edge upon thy dull affections Prov. 27. 17. Acts 18. 15. But above alL cry mightily to the Lord for quickening he will not despise thy cry The moans of a Distressed Child work upon the bowels of a tender father And be sure to keep within thy view the great things of eternity which are ready to be revealed live in the believing and serious contemplations of them and be dead if thou canst 'T is true thou hast reason enough from they condition to be for ever humbled but no reason at all from thy God to be in the least discouraged The Poem THou art the Husbandman and I A worthless plot of Husbandry Whom special love did ne'retheless Divide from natures wilderness Then did the Sun-shine of thy face And sweet illapses of thy grace Like April showers and warming gleams Distil its dews reflect its beams My dead affections then were green And hopeful buds on them were seen These into duties soon were turn'd In which my heart within me burn'd O halcyon dayes Thrice happy slate Each place was Bethel heavens gate What sweet discourse What heavenly talk Whilst with thee I did daily walk Mine eyes o'reflow my heart doth sink As oft as on those dayes I think For strangeness now is got between My God and me as may be seen By what is now and what was then 'T is just as if I were two men My fragrant branches blasted be No fruits like those that I can see Some Canker-worm lyes at my root Which fades my leaves destroyes my fruit My soul is banished from thy â—ight For this it mourneth day and night Yet why dost thou desponding lye With Ionah cast a backward eye Sure in thy God help may be had There 's precious balm in Gilead That God that made me spring at first When I was barren and accurst Can much more easily restore My soul to what it was before 'T was Haman's Iob's and David's case Yet all recover'd were by grace A word a smile on my poor soul Will make it perfect sound and whole A glance of thine hath soon dissolv'd A soul in sin and grief involv'd Lord if thou canst not work the cure I am contented to endure CHAP. VI. No skill can mend the miry ground and sure Some souls the Gospel leaves as past a cure OBSERVATION ALthough the industry and skill of the Husbandman can make some ground that was useless and bad good for tillage or pasture and improve that which was barren and by his cost and pains make one Acre worth ten yet such is the nature of some rocky or miry ground where the water stands and there is no way to cleanse it that it can never be made fruitful The Husband-man is fain to let it alone as an incurable piece of wast and worthless ground and though the Sun and clouds shed their influences on it as well as upon better Land yet that doth not at all mend it Nay the more showers it receives the worse it proves For these do no way fecundate or improve it nothing thrives there but worthless flags and rushes APPLICATION MAny also there are under the Gospel who are given over by God to judicial blindness hardness of heart a reprobate sense and perpâ—â—ual barrenness so that how excellent soever the means are which they enjoy and how efficacious soever to the conveâ—sion edification and salvation of others yet they shall never do their souls good Ezek. 47. 9 11. Every thing wheresoever the River comes shall live but the miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall never be healed but be given to salâ— i. e. given to an obstinate and everlasting barrenness Compare Deut. 9. 23. By these waters saith judicious Mr. Strong understand the doctrine of the Gospel as Rev. 21. 2. a River of water of life clear as Christal Hic fluvius est uberima doctrina Christi saith Mr. Brighâ—man This River is the most fruitful doctrine of Christ yet these waters do not heal the miry marish places i. e. men that live unfruitfully under Ordinances who are compared to miry and marish places in three respects 1 In miry places the water hath not free passage but stands and settles there So it is with these barren souls therefore the Apostle prayes that the Gospel may run and be glorified 2 Thes. 3. 1. The word is said to run when it meets wiâ—h no stop Cum libere propagatur when it is freely propagated and runs through the whole man when it meets with no stop either in the mouâ—h of the speaker or hearâ—s of the hearers as it doth in these 2 In a miry place the earth and
water is mixt together this mixture makes mire So when the truths of God do mix with the corruptions of men that they either hold some truths and yet live in their lusts or else when men do make use of the truths of God to justifie and plead for their â—inâ— Or 3 When as in a miry place the longer the water stands in it the worse it grows so the longer men abide under Ordinances the more filthy and polluted they grow These are the miry places that cannot be healed their disease is incurable desperate O this is a sad case and yet very common Many persons are thus given over as incorrigible and hopeless Rev. 22. 1â— Let him that is filthy be filthy still Ier. 6. 29. Reprobate silver shall men call them for the Lord hath rejected them Isa. 6. Go make the heart of this people fat their ears dull c. Christ executes by the Gospel that curse upon many souls which he denounced against the figtree Mat. 21. 19. Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever and immediately the fig-tree withered away To be given up to such a condition is a fearful judgement indeed a curse with a witness the sum of all plagues miseries and judgments a fatal stroke at the root it self It 's a wo to have a bad heart saith one but it 's the depth of wo to have a heart that shall never be made better To be barren under the Gospel is a sore judgement but to have that pertinax sterilitâ—s a pertinacious barrenness this is to be twice dead and pluckt up by the root as Iude speaks And to shew you the woful and miserable state and plight of such men let the following particulars be weighed 1 It s a stroke at the soul it self an inward spiritual judgement and by how much the more inward and spiritual any judgement is by so much the more dreadful and lamentable As soul mercies are the best of mercies so soul-judgements are the saddest of all judgements If it were but a temporal stroke upon the body the loss of an eye an ear a hand a foot though in it self it would be a considerable loss yet it were nothing to this Omnia Deus dedit duplicia saith Chrysostom speaking of bodily members God hath given men double members two eyes if one be lost the other supplies its wants two hands two ears two feet that the failing of one may be supplyed by the help of the other animam vero unam but one soul if that perish there is not another to supply its loss The soul saith a Heathen is the man that which is seen is not the man The Apostle calls the body a vile body Phil. 3. 21. and so it is compared with the soul and Daniel calls it the Sheath which is but a contemptible thing to the sword which is in it O it were far better that many bodies perish than one soul that every member were made the seat and subject of the most exquisite torture than such a judgement should fall upon the soul. 2 It 's the severest stroke God can inflict upon the soul in this life to give it up to barrenness because it cuts off all hopes frustrates all means nothing can be a blessing to him If one come from the dead if Angels should descend from heaven to preach to him there is no hope of him If God shut up a man who can open Iob 12. 14. As there was none found in heaven or earth that could open the seals of that book Rev. 5. 5. so is there no opening by the hand of the most able and skilful Ministry those seals of hardness blindness and unbelief thus impressed upon the spirit Whom jâ—stice so locks up mercy will never let out This is that which makes up the Anathema Maranatha 1 Cor. 16. 22. which is the dreadfullest curse in all the book of God cacursed till the Lord come 3 'T is the most indiscernable stroke to themselves that can be and by that so much the more desperate Hence there is said to be powred out upon them the spirit of slumber Isa. 29. 10. The Lord hath powred out upon you the spirit of deep sleep and hath closed your eyes Montanus renders it The Lord hath mingled upon you the spirit of deep sleep And so it is an allusion to a soporiferous Medicine mingled and made up of opium and such like stupifactive ingredients which casts a man into such a dead sleep that do what you will to him he feels he knows it not Make their eyes heavy and their ears dull lest they should see and hear and be converted Isa. 6. 9 10. This is the heart which cannot repent which is spoken of Rom. 2. 5. For men are not sensible at all of this judgment they do not in the least suspect it and that is their misery Though they be cursed trees which shall never bear any fruit to life yet many times they bear abundance of other fair and pleasant fruits to the eye excellent gifts and rare endowments And these deceive and undo them Mat. 7. 22. We have prophecyed in thy name this makes the wound desperate that there is no finding of it no probe to search it 4 'T is a stroke that cuts off from the soul all the comfort and sweetness of Religion A man may pray hâ—ar and confer but all those duties are dry stalks unto him which yield no meat no solid substantial nutriment some common touches upon the affections he may sometimes find in duty the melting voice or Rhetorick of the Preacher may perhaps strike his natural affections as another Tragical story pathetically delivered may do but to have any real communion with God in Ordinances any discoveries or views of the beauty of the Lord in them that he cannot have for these are the special effects and operations of the Spirit which are alwayes restrained God hath said to such as he did to them Gen. 6. 3. My spirit shall no longer strive with them and then what sweetness is there in Odinances What is the word separated from the Spirit but a dead Letter it's the Spirit that quickens 2 Cor. 3. 2. Friend thou must know that the Gospel works not like a natural cause upon those that hear it if so the efâ—â—ct would alwayes follow unless miraculously stopt and hindred but it works like a moral instituted cause whose efficacy and success depends upon the arbitrary concurrence of the Spirit with it The wind blows where it listeth so is evâ—ry one that is born of the Spirit Ioh. 3. 8. Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth Ordinances are as the pool of Bethesda which had its healing vertue only when the Angel moved the waters but the spirit never moves savingly upon the waters of Ordinances for the healing of these souls how many years soever they lye by them Though others feel a Divine power in them yet they shall not As the men that
untilled desart is of Corn. The earlier the Seed is sown the better it is rooted and enabled to endure the asperities of the Winter so when grace is early infused when nature is sanctified in the bud grace is thereby exceedingly advantaged 'T was Timothies singular advantage that he knew the scriptures of a Child Frosts and snows conduce very much to the well rooting of the seed and makes it spread and take root much the better So do Sanctified afflictions which usually the people of God meet with after their calling and often in their very Seed-time 1 Thes. 1. 6. And you became followers of us and of the Lord having received the word in much affliction But if they have fair weather then to be sure they shall meet with weather hard enough afterwards Heb. 10. 32 But call to remembrance the former dayes in which after ye were illuminated ye indured a great fight of afflictions When the Seed is cast into the earth it must be covered up by the harrow the use whereof in Husbandry is not only to lay a plain floor as they speak but to open and let in the Corn to the bosome of the earth and there cover it up for its security from birds that would devour it Thus doth the most wise God provide for the security of that grace which he at first disseminated in the hearts of his people He is as well the finisher as the Author of their grace Heb. 12. 2. And of this they may be confident that he that hath begun a good work in them will perform it unto the day of Christ. The care of God over the graces of his people is like the covering of the seed for security Seed-Corn is in its own nature of much more value and worth than other Corn the Husbandman casts in the principal wheat So are the seeds of grace sown in the renewed soul for it 's called The seed of God 1 Iohn 3. 9. The Divine natuâ—e 2 Pet. 1. 4. One dram o grace is far beyond all the glory of this world it s more precious than gold which perishes I Pet. 1. 7. The price of it is above rubies and all that thou canst desire is not to be compâ—red with it Pro. 3. 15. There is a great deal of Spirit and vigour in a little Seed though it be small in bulk yet it is great in vertue and efficay Gracious habits are also vigorous and efficatious things Such is their efficacy that they overcome the world 1 Ioh. 5. 4. Whatsoeve is born of God overcometh the world They totally alter and change the person in whom they are He that persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed They enable the soul to do and suffer great things for God Heb. 11. 33 34 35. The stalk and â—ar are potentially and virtually in a small grain of Corn. So are all the fruits of obedience which believers afterwards bring forth to God vertually contained in those habits of seeds of grace 'T is strange to consider that from a mustard-seed which as Christ saith is the least of all seeds should grow such great branches that the birds of the Air may build their nests in them Surely the heroical and famous acts and atchievements of the most renowed believers sprang from sinall beginnings at first to that eminency and glory The fruitfulness of the seed depends upon the Sun and rain by which they are quickened as is opened largely in the next Chapter And the principles of grace in us have as necessary a dependance upon the assisting and exciting grace without us For though it be true they are immortal seeds yet that is not so much from their own strength as from the promises made to them and that constant influx from above by which they are revived and preserved from time to time The seed is fruitful in some soyls more than in others prospers much better and comes sooner to maturity So doth grace thrive better and grow faster in some persons than in others Your faith groweth exceedingly 2 Thes. 1. 3. Whilst the things that are in others are ready to die Rev. 3. 2. Though no mans heart be naturally a kind soyl to grace yet doubtless grace is more advantaged in some dispositions than in others And lastly their agreement as Seed appears in this the Seed-corn is scattered into all parts of the field as proportionably and equally as may be So is grace diffus'd into all the faculties judgment will and all the affections are sowed with these new principles The God of peace sanctifie you wholly 1 Thes. 5. 23. And thus you see why principles of grace are called seed Now in the next place which is the second thing promised and mainly designed in this Chapter to shew you the choiceness and excellency of these holy principles with which sanctified souls are embellisht and adorned and to convince you that true grace excels all other principles by which other persons are acted even as the principal wheat doth the chaff and refuse stuff I shall here institute a comparison betwixt grace and the most splendid common gifts in the world and its transcendent excellency above them all will evidently appear in the seven following particulars The most excellent common gifts come out of the common treasury of God's bounty and that in a natural way they are but the improvement of a mans natural abilities or as one calls them the sparks of nature blown up by the wind of a more benign and liberal education but principles of grace are of a divine and heavenly original and extraction not educed or raised from nature but supernaturally infused by the Spirit from on high Ioh. 3. 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit When a soul is sanctified by them he partakes of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. Is born not of flesh nor of blood nor of the will of man but of God Ioh. 1. 13. In this respect they differ from gifts as the heavenly Manna which was rained down from heaven differs from common bread which by paines and industry the earth produces in a natural way The best natural gifts afford not that sweetness and solid comfort to the soul that grace doth they are but a dry stalk that affords no meat for a soul to feed on A man may have an understanding full of light and an heart void of comfort at the same time but grace is a fountain of purest living streams of peace and comfort 1 Pet. 1. 8. Believing we rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory light is sown for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart All true pleasures and delights are seminally grace Psal. 97. 11. they are sown for them in these divine and heavenly graces which are glory in the bud Gifts adorn the person but do not secure the soul from wrath A man may be admired for them
How much soever others are elated by the light of their knowledge I have cause with humility to adore thee for the heavenly heat with which thou hast warmed my affections Pause a while my soul opon this point With what seed is my heart sown and of what kind are those things wherein I excel others are they indeed speciall seeds of grace or common gifts and naturall excellencies If the latter little cause have I to pride my self in them were they ten thousand times more then they are If these things be indeed the things that accompany salvation the seed of God the true and real work of grace Then 1 how comes it to pass that I never found any throws or travelling pangs in the production of them It s affirmed and generally acknowledged that the new creature is never brought forth without such pains and compunctions of heart Act. 2. 37. I have indeed often felt an aking head whilst I have read and studied to increase my knowledge but when did I feel an aking heart for Sin Oh I begin to suspect that it is not right Yea 2 and my suspition increases whiles I consider that grace is of an humbling nature 1 Cor. 15. 10. Lord how have I been elated by my gifts and valued my self above what was meet O how have I delighted in the noise of the Pharisees trumpet Mat. 6. 2. No musick so sweet as that Say O my consicience have I not delighted more in the Theater than the closet in the praise of men than the approbation of God Oh how many evidences dost thou produce against me Indeed these are sad symptoms that I have shewed thee but there is yet another which renders thy case more suspitious yet yea that which thou canst make no rational defence against even the ineffectualness of all thy gifts and knowledge to mortifie any one of all thy lusts It 's beyond all dispute that gifts may but grace cannot consist without mortification of sin Gâ—l 5. 24. Now what lust hath fallen before these excellent parts of mine Doth not pride passion covetousness and indeed the whole body of â—in live and thrive in me as much as ever Lord I yield the cause I can defend it no longer against my conscience which caâ—ts and condemns me by full proof to be but in a wretched cursed lamentable state notwithstanding all my knowledg and flourishing gifts O shew me a more excellent way Lord That I had the sincerity of the poorest Saint though I should lose the applause of all may parts with these I see I may go to hell but without some better thing no hope Of heaveâ— The Poem GReat difference betwixt that seed is found With which you sow your several plots of ground Seed-wheat doth far excel in dignity The cheper Barley and the courâ—er Rye Though in themselves they good and wholsome are Yet these with choicest wheat may not compare Mens hearts like fields are sowed with different grain Some baser some more noble some again Excelling both the former more than wheat Excels that grain your swine and horses eat For principles of meer morality Like Cummin Barley Fitches Pease or Rye In those mens hearts are often to be â—ound Whom yet the Scripture calleth cursed ground And nobler principles than these sometime Cal'd common grace and spiritual gifts which shine In some mens heads where is their habitation Yet they are no companions of Salvation These purchase honour both from great and small But I must tell thee that if this be all Though like an Angel in these gifts thou shine Amongst blind mortals for a little time The days's at hand when such as thou must take Thy lot with devils in th' infernal lake But principles of special saving grace Whose seat is in the heart not head or face Like sollid wheat sown in a fruitful field Shall spring and flourish and at last will yield A glorious harvest of eternal rest To him that nourish'd them within his breast O grace how orient art thou how divine What is the glory of all gifts to thine Disseminate this seed within my heart My God I pray thee though thou shouldst impart The less of gifts then I may truly say That thou hast shew'd me the more excellent way CHAP. IX By heavens influence Corn and plants do spring Gods showers of grace do make his valleys sing OBSERVATION THe earth after that it is plowed and sowed must be watered and warm'd with the dews and ifluences of heaven or no fruit can be expected If God do not open to you his good treasure the heavens to give rain unto the Land in its season and bless all the work of your hands as it is Deut. 28. 12. The earth cannot yield her increase The order and dependance of natural causes in the productions of fruit is excellently described Hos. 2. 21. 22. I will hear the heavens and they shall hear the earth and the earth shall hear the corn and wine and Oyl and they shall hear Iezreel Iezreel must have corn and wine and Oyl or they cannot live they cannot have it unless the earth bring it forth the earth cannot bring it forth without the heavens the heavens cannot yield a drop unless God hear them that is unlock and open them Nature and natural causes are nothing else bâ—t the order in which God works This some Heatheâ—s by the light of nature acknowledged and therefore when they went to plow in the morning they did lay one hand upon the plow to speak their own part to be painfulness and hold up the other hand to Ceres the Goddess of Corn to shew that their expectation of plenâ—y was from their supposed Deity I fear many Christians lay both hands to the plow and seldom lift up heart or hand to God when about that work There was an husbandman saith Mr. Smith that alwayes sowed good Seed but never had good Corn at last a neighbour came to him and said I will tell you what probably may be the cuse of it It may be said he you do not steep your Seed no truly said the other nor ever did I hear that Seed must be steeped yes surely said his neighbour and I will tell you how it must be steeped in prayer When the party heard this he thanked him for his counsel reformed his fault and had as good Corn as any man whatsoever Surely it is not the Husbandmans but God steps that drop fatness Alma Mater terra the earth indeed is a fruitful mother but the rain which â—ecundates and fertilizes it hath no other father but God Iob 38. 28. APPLICATION As impossible it is in an ordinary way for souls to be made fruitful in grace and holiness without the dews and influences of Ordinances and the blessing of God upon them as for the earth to yield her fruit without the natural influences of heaven for look what
wherein I live with showers o grace that we may not be as the heath in the desart which seeth not when good cometh nor inhabit the parched places of the wilderness O Lord thou hast caused the heavens above me to be black with clouds thou openest the celestial casements from above and daily sendest down showers of Gospel-blessings O that I might be as the parched earth under them not for barrenness but for thirstiness Let me say My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the Courts of the lord that I might there see the beauty of the Lord. Doth the spungy earth so greedily suck up the showers and open as many mouths as there are clefts in it to receive what the clouds despense and shall those precious soul-inriching showers fleet away unprofitably from me if so then What an account have I to make for all those Gospel-blessings that I have injoyed for all those Gospel-dews and showers wherewith I have been watered Should I be found fruitless at last it will â—are better with the barren and uncultivated wilderness than with me more tolerable for Indians and Barbarians that never heard the Gospel than for me that have been so assiduously and plenteously watered by it Lord what a difference wilt thou put in the great day betwixt simple and pertinacious barrenness Surely if my root be not rottenness such heavenly waterings and influences as these will make it sprout forth into fruits of obedience The Poem THe vegetables here below depend Upon those treasures which the heavens do spend Most bounteously upon them to preserve Their being and their beauty This may serve To shadow forth a heavenly mystery Which thus presents it sâ—lf before your eye As when the Sun draws near us in the spring All creatures do rejoyce birds chirp aâ—d sing The face of nature smiles the fields â—dorn Themselves with rich embroyderies â—he corn Revives and shooteth up the warm swâ—â—t rain Makes trees and herbs sprout forth and spring amain Walk but the fields in such a fragrant mâ—â—n How do the birds your ears with musick charm The flowers their flaming beauty's do present Unto your captiv'd eyes and for their scent The sweet Arabian gums cannot compare Which thus perfume the circumambient air So when the Gospel sheds its cheering beams On gracious souls like those sweet warming gleams Which God ordaines in nature to draw forth The vertue seminal that's in the earth It warms their hearts their languid graces cheers And on such souls a spring-like face appears The gracious showers these spiritual clouds do yield Inriches them with sweetness like a field Which God hath blest Oh! 't is exceeding sweet When gracious hearts and heavenly truths do meet How should the hearts of Saints within them spring When they behold the messengers that bring These gladsom tydings Yea their very feet Are beautiful because their message sweet O what a mercy do those souls enjoy On whom such Gospel-dews fall day by day Thrice happy Land which in this pleasant spring Can hear these Turtles in her hedges â—ing O prize such mercies if you ask me why Read on you 'l see there 's Reason by and by CHAP. X. If God restrain the showers you howl and cry Shall saints not mourn when spiritual clouds are dry OBSERVATION 'T Is deservedly accounted a sad judgment when God shuts up the heavens over our heads and makes the earth as brass under our feeet Deut. 28. 23. Then the Husbandmen are called to mourning Ioel. 1. 11. All the fields do languish and the bellowing cattle are pined with thrist Such a sad state the prophet rhetorically describes Ier. 14. 3 4 5 6. The Nobles have sent their little ones to the waters they came to the pits and found no water they returned with their vessels empty they were ashamed and confounded and covered their heads because the ground is chapt for there is no rain in the earth the Plowmen were ashamed they covered their heads yea the Hinde also calved in the field and forsook it because there was no grass and the wild asses did stand in the high places they sâ—uffed up the wind like dragons their eyes failed because there was no grass And that which makes the want of rain so terrible a judgment is the famine of bread which necessarily follows these eâ—traordinary droughts and is one of the sorest temporal judgments which God inflicts upon the world APPLICATION ANd truly as much cause have they to weep and tremble over whose souls God shuts up the spiritual clouds of the Gospel and thereby sending a spiritual famine upon their souls Such a judgment the Lord threatens in Amos 8. 11. Behold the dayes come saith the Lord that I will send a famine in the Land not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water but of hearing the word of the Lord. The meaning is I will send a more fearful judgement than that of the famine of bread for this particle not is not exclusive but excessive implying that a famine of bread is nothing or but a light judgment compared with the famine of the word Parallel to which is that Text Isa. 5. 6. I will lay it wast saith God of the fruitless Church sit shall not be pruned nor digged but there shall come up bryars and thorns I will also command the clouds that they rain not upon it And we find both in humane and sacred Histories that when God hath shut up the spiritual clouds removing or silencing his Ministers sensible Christians have ever been deeply affected with it and reckoned it a most tremendous judgment Thus the Christians of Antioch when Chrysostom their Minister was bâ—nished they judged it better to lose the Sun out of the firmament than lose that their Minister And when Nazianzen was taking his leave of Constantinople as he was preaching his farewell-Sermon the people were exceedingly affected with his loss and among the rest an old man in the Congregation fell into a bitter passion and cryed out Aude pater tecum trinitatem ipsam ejice i. e. Go farther if you dare and take away the whole Trinity with you meaning that God would not stay when he was gone How did the Christians of Antioch also weep and lament when Paul was taking his farewell of them Act. 20. 37 38. He had been a cloud of blessings to that place but now they must expâ—ct no more showâ—râ— from him O they knew not how to givâ— up such a Minister Whâ—n the Ark of God which was the Symbole of the divine presence among the Iews was taken all the City cryed out 1 Sam. 4. 13. O the loss of a Gospel Ministry is an inestimable loss not to be repaired but by its own return or by heaven Mr. Greenham tells us that in the times of Popish persecution when godly Ministers were haled away from their flocks to Martyrdom the poor Christians would meet
them in the way to the prisons or stake with their little ones in their armes and throwing themselves at their feet would thus bespeak them What shall be our estate now you are gone to Martyrdom who shall instruct these poor Babes Who shall ease our afflicted consciences Who shall lead us in the way of life recompense unto them O Lord as they have deserved who aâ—e the causes of this Lord give them sad hearts Quis talia fando temperet a lachrymis And to let you see there is sufficient ground for this sorrow when God restrains the influences of the Gospel solemnly consider the following particulars That it is a dreadful token of God's great anger against that people from whom he removes the Gospel The anger of God was fearfully incensed against the Church of Ephesus when he did but threaten to come against her and remove the Candlestick out of its place Rev. 2. 5. 'T is a stroke at the soul a blow at the root usually the last and therefore the worst of judgments There is a pedigree of judgments first Gomer bears Iezreel next Loruhamah and at last brings forth Loammi Hos. 1. 4 6 8 9. There is cause of mourning if you consider the deplorable estate in which all the unregenerate souls are left after the Gospel is removed from them What will become of these or by whom shall they be gathered It made the bowels of Christ yearn within him when he looked upon the scattered multitude that had no Shepherd Mat. 9. 36. What an easie conquest doth the devil now make of them how fast doth hell fill in such times poor souls being driven thither in droves and none to rescue them Mathew Paris tells us that in the year 1072. when preaching was suppressed at Rome letters were then framed as coming from hell wherein the devil gave them thanks for the multitude of souls they had sent to him that year But truly we need not talk of letters from hell we are told from heaven how deplorable the condition of such poor souls is See Prov. 28. 19. Hos. 4. 6. Or The judgment will yet appear very heavy if you consider the loss which God 's own people sustain by the removal of the Gospel for therâ—in they lose 1 their chief glory Rom. 3. 2. the principal thing in which the peculiar glory of Israel consisted was this That unto them was committed the Oracles of Gâ—d On that account is was called the glorious Land Dan. 11. 16. This made them greater than all the Nations rouâ—â— about them Deut. 4. 7. 8. 2 By losing the Ordinances they lose their quickenings comforts and soul-refreshments for all these are sweet streams from the Gospel fountain Psal. 119. 50. Col. 4. 8. No wonder then to hear the People of God Complain of dead hearts when the Gospel is removed 3 In the loss of the Gospel they lose their defence and safety This is there is their hedge their wâ—ll of protection Isa. 5. 5. Walls and hedges saith Musculus in loc are the Ordinances of God which serve both ad se perationem munitionem to distinguish and to defend them When God plucks up this hedge and breaks down this wall all mischiefs break in upon us presently 2 Chron. 15. 3 4 5 6. Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true Goâ— and without a teaching Priest and without Law And in those times there was no peace to him that went out nor to him that came in but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the Countiries and Nations was destroyed of Nation and City of City for God did vex them with all adversity How long did Ierusalem remain after that voice was heard in the Temple migremuâ— hinc Let us be gone 4 With the Gospel we lose our temporal injoyments and creature comforts These usually come and go with the Gospel When God had once written Loammi upon Israel the next news is this I will recover my wool and my flax Hos. 2. 9. 5 and lastly to come up to the very case in hand they loâ—e with it their spiritual food and soul-subsistence for the Gospel is their feast of fat things Isa 25. 6. their spiritual wells Isa. 12. 3. a dole distributed among the Lords poor Rom. 1. 11. In a word it is as the rain and dews of heaven as hath been shewed which being restrained a spirituall famine necessarily follows a famine of all the most terrible Now to shew you the analogy betwixt this and a temporal famine that therein you may see what cause you have to be deeply affected with it take it in thse six following particulars A famine is caused by the failing of bread or that which is in the stead and hath the use of bread Dâ—inties and superfluous rarities may fail and yet men may subsist comfortably As long as people have bread and water they will not famish but take away bread once and the spirit of man faileth Upon this account bread is called a staff Psal. 105. 16. because what a staff is to an aged or feeble man that bread is to the faint and feeble spirits which even so do lean upon it And look what bread is to the natural spirits that and more than that the word is to gracious spirits Iob 23. 12. I have esteemed the words of thy mouth more than my necessary food If once God break this staff the inner man that hidden man of the heart will quickly begin to fail and faulter It is not every degree of scarcity of bread that presently makes a famine but a general failing of it when no bread is to be had or that which is yields no nutriment For a famine may as well be occasioned by Gods taking away panis nutrimentum the nourishing vertue of bread that it shall signifie no more as to the end of bread than a chip Hag. 1. 6. as by taking away panem nutrientem bread it self Isa. 3. 1. And so it is in a spiritual famine which is occasioned either by Gods removing all the Ordinances and making vision utterly to â—ail or else though there be preaching prayer and other Ordinances left at least the names and shadows of them yet the presence of God is not with them There is no marrow in the bone no milk in the breast and so as to soul-subsistance 't is all one as if there were no such things In a corporeal famine mean and course things become sweet and pleasant famine raises the price and esteem of them That which before you would have thrown to your dogs now goes down pleasantly with your selves To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet Prov. 27. 7 'T is the Dutch Proverb and a very true one hunger is the best Cook Iejunus stomachus raro vulgaria temnit Horat In time of famine coursest fare contents The barking stomach strains no complements 'T is storied of Artaxerxes Memor that when he was flying before his enemies he fed
hungrily upon barly bread and said Cujusmodi voluptatis hactenus in expernus fuit Oh what pleasure have I hitherto been ignorant of when grea◠Darius drank the pudled water that had been defiled with dead carcases which had been slain in that famous battel he professed he never drank more pleasant drink And famous Hunniades said he never fared more daintily than when in a like exigence he supped upon bread onions and water with a poor Shepheard in his cottage Iust so doth the famine of the Word raise the price and esteem of vulgar and despised truths O what would we give for one of those Sermons one of those Sabbaths we formerly enjoyed In those dayes the word of the Lord was precious When God calls to the enemy to take away and remove his contemned but precious dainties from his wanton Children and a spiritual famine hath a little pinched them they will then learn to prize their spiritual food at a higher rate In time of famine some persons suffer more than others It falls heaviest and pincheth hardest upon the poorer sort as long as any thing is to be had for money the rich will have it So it falls out in a spiritual famine although the most experienced and best furnished Christians will have enough to do to live in the absence of Ordinances yet they are like to subsist much better than weak ignorant and unexperienced ones Some Christians have Husbanded their time well and like Ioseph in the seven years plenty laid up for a scarcity The Word of God dwells richly in them Some such there are as Iohn calls young men who are strong and the word of God remaineth in them of whom it may be said as Ierom spake of Nepotianus that by long and assiduous meditation of the Scriptures he had made his breast the very Library of Christ. But others are babes in Christ and though God will preserve that good work which he hath begun in them yet these poor babes will soonest find and be most concerned in the loss of their spiritual Fathers and Nurses In time of famine there are pitiful cryes and heart-breaking complaints where-ever you go O the many pale faces you shall then see and the sad language that rings in your ears in every place One cryes bread bread for Christ's sake one bit of bread another faints and falls down at your door All he◠People sigh Lam. 1. 11. Yea the poor little ones are brought in v. 12. crying to their Mothers where is the Corn and wine and then pouring out their souls into their Mothers bosome Iust so it is in a famine of the Word poor Christians every-where sighing and crying O where are our godly Ministers Our sweet Sabbaths Sermons Sacraments my Fathers my Fathers the Chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof How beautiful were your feet upon the mountains And then weeping like the people at Pauls departure to think they shall see their faces no more Lastly in time of famine there is nothing so costly or precious but people will part with it to purchase bread They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve their souls Lam. 1. 11. And doubt less when a spiritual famine shall pinch hard those that have been close-handed to maintain a-Gospel Ministry will account it a choice mercy to enjoy them again at any rate Though the Lord feed you with the bread of affliction and give you the watres of adversity yet it will sweeten that bread and water to you if your teachers be no more removed into corners Isa. 30. 20. REFLECTIONS Is the famine of the word such a fearful judgment then Lord pardon my unthankfulness for the plentiful and long continued injoyment of such a precious and invaluable mercy How lightly have I esteemed the great things of the Gospel O that with eyes and hands lifted up to heaven I might bless the Lord that ever I was brought forth in an age of so much light in a valley of visions in a Land flowing with Gospel-mercies Hath not God made of one bloud all the Nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth and determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation Act. 17. 26. Many of these great and populous Nations are involved in gross darkness Now that of all the several ages of the world and places in it God should espy the best place for me and bring me forth into it in such an happy nick of time as can hardly be paralleld in History for the plenty of Gospel-mercies that this age and Nation hath enjoyed that my Mother did not bring me forth in the desarts of Arabia or wastes of America but in England where God hath made the Sun of the Gospel to stand still as the natural Sun once did over Gibeon and that such a mercy should no more affect my soul let shame cover my face for this and trembling seize my heart Is the Gospel indeed departed its sweet influences restrained and a famine worse than that of bread come upon us Alas for the day for it is a great day so that none is like it it is even the day of Iacob 's trouble Wo is me that ever I should survive the Gospel and the precious liberties and mercies of it What horrid sins have been harboured amongst us for which the Lord contends by such an unparalleld judgment Lord let me justifie thee even in this severe dispensation the provocation of thy Sons and of thy daughters have been very great and amongst them none greater than mine May we not this day read our sin in our punishment O what nice and wanton appetites what curious and itching ears had thy people in the dayes of plenty Methods tones and gestures were more regarded than the excellent treasures of divine truths Ah my soul I remember my fault this day little did I then consider that Sermons work not upon hearts as they are thus elegant thus admirable but as they are instruments in the hand of God appointed to such an end Even as Austin said of the Conduits of water though one be in the shape of an Angel another of a beast yet the water refreshes as it is water and not as it comes from such a Conduit By this also O Lord thou rebukest the supiness and formality of thy people How drowsie dull and careless have they been under the most excellent and quickning means few more then I. Alas I have often presented my body before the Lord in Ordinances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but my soul hath been wandring abroad as Chrysostom speaks I should have come from under every Sermon as a sheet comes from the press with all the stamps and lively impressions of the truths I heard upon my heart But Alas If it had been demanded of me as once it was of Aristotle after a long and curious Oration how he liked it I might have answered as he did Truly I did not hear it for
conclude let all doubting Christians reflect seriously upon this truth and suck marrow and fatness out of it to strengthen and establish them against all their fears your life your spiritual life hath for many years hanged in suspence before you and you have often said with David I shall one day fall by the hand of Saul Desponding trembling soul lift up thine eyes and look upon the fields the corn lives still and grows up though birds have watcht to devour it snows have covered it beasts have cropt it weeds have almost choakt it yet it 's preserved And hath not God more care of that precious seed of his own spirit in thee than any Husbandman hath of his corn hath he not said That having begun the good work in thee he will perfect it to the day of Christ Phil. 2. 6. Hath he not said I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish Iohn 12. 28. Hast thou not many times said and thought of it as thou dost now and and yet it lives O what matter of unspeakable joy and comfort is this to upright souls Well then be not discharged for thou dost not run as one uncertain nor fight as one that beats the air 1 Cor. 9. 26. but the foundation of God stands sure having this seal the Lord knows who are his 2 Tim. 2. 19. Though thy grace be weak thy God is strong though the stream seem sometimes to fail yet it 's fed by an ever-flowing fountain The Poem 'T Is justly wondered that an ear of corn Should come at last in safety to the Barn It runs through many hazards threatning harms Betwixt the sowers hands and reapers arms The earth no sooner takes it from the sack But you may see behind the sowers back A troop of thieves which would at once destroy That seed in which lyes hid the seed of joy This dangerous period past it soon doth fall Into a second no less critical It shooteth forth the tender blade and then The noxious weeds engender it again These clasp about it till they kindly choak The corn as flattering Ivy doth the oak Are weeds destroyed and all that danger past Lo now another comes the worst at last For when i' th ear it blow begins to kern As mildew smites it which you can't discern Nor any way prevent till all be lost The corn destroy'd with all your hopes and cost Thus saving grace that precious seed of joy Which hell and nature plot how to destroy Escapes ten thousand danger 's first and last O who can say now all the danger 's past 'T is like a crazy bark tost in a storm Or like a taper which is strangely born Without a lanthorn in a blustring night Or like to glimmering sparks whose dying light Is still preserv'd The roaring waves swell high Like moving mountains in the darkned sky On their proud back the little bark is even Mounted unto the battlements of heaven From thence dismounted to the deeps doth slide Receiving water upon every side Yet he whose voice the proudest waves obey Brings it at last into the quiet key The blustring winds strive with a fatal puff To bring the tapor to a stinking snuff Their churlish blasts extinguish it and then Our gentle breath recovers it agen The fainting sparks beneath the ashes lye Where choakt and smother'd they begin to dye But these collected we do gently blow Till from faint sparks to lively flames they grow Even thus is grace preserv'd thus kept alive By constant wonders Grace doth live and thrive CHAP. XIV Our Husbandmen for Harvest wait and stay O let not any Saint do less than they OBSERVATION THe expectation of a good Harvest at last makes the Husbandman with untired patience to digest all his labours He that plows plow in hope 1 Cor. 6. 19. and they are not so irrational to think they shall presently be partakers of their hope nor so foolish to anticipate the Harvest by cutting down their corn before it be fully ripened but are content to plow sow and weed it and when it 's fully ripe then they go forth into their fields and reap it down with joy APPLICATION CAn a little Corn cause men to digest so many difficult labours and make them wait with invincible patience till the reaping time come much more should the expectation of eternal glory steel and fortifie my spirit against all intercurrent hardships and difficulties It least of all becomes a Christian to be of a hasty and impatient spirit Light is sown for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart Psal. 92. 11. Behold the Husbandman waiteth c. Iam. 5. 7. Be patient therefore my Brethren for the coming of the Lord draws neer There are three great Arguments to perswade Christians to a long-suffering and patient frame under sufferings 1 The example of Christ Isa. 53. 7. to think how quietly he suffered all injuries and difficulties with invincible patience is sufficient to shame the best of Christians who are of such short Spirits I have read of one Elezarius a noble man that when his wife wondered at his exceeding great patience in bearinig njuries he thus answered her You know sometimes my heart is ready to rise with indignation against such as wrong me but I presently begin to think of the wrongs that Christ suffer'd and say thus to my self although thy servant should pluck thy beard and smite thee on thy face this were nothing to what thy Lord suffer'd he suffered more and greater things and assure your self wife I never leave off thinking on the injuries done to my Saviour till such time as my mind be still and quiet To this purpose it was well noted by Bernard speaking of Christ's humiliation was Christ the Lord of glory thus humbled and emptied of his fulness of glory and shall such a worm as I swell 2 The desert of sin Lam. 3. 39. Why doth the living man complain It was a good saying of blessed Greenham When sin lyes heavy affliction lyes light And it is a famous instance which Dr. Taylor gives us of the Duke of Condey I have read saith he when the Duke of Condia had voluntarily entred into the incommodities of a religious poverty and retirement he was one day spied and pitied by a Lord of Italy who out of tenderness wisht him to be more careful and nutritive of his person the good Duke answered Sir be not troubled and think not that I am ill provided of conveniences for I send an Harbinger before me that makes ready my lodgings and takes care that I be royally entertained The Lord asked him who was his Harbinger he answered the knowledge of my self and the consideration of what I deserve for my sins whâ—ch is eternal torments and when with this knowledge I arrive at my lodging how unprovided soever I find it methinks it is ever better than I deserve and as the sense of sin which
when shall I return rejoyceing bringing my sheaves with me Their harvest comes when they receive their corn mine comes when I leave it O much desired harvest O day of the gladness of my heart How long Lord How long Here I wait as the poor man Bethesda's pool looking when my turn will come but every one steps into heaven before me yet Lord I am content to wait till my time be fully come I would be content to stay for my glorification till I have finisht the work of my generation and when I have done the will of God then to receive the promise If thou have any work on earth to use me in I am content to abide Behold the Husbandman waiteth and so will I for thou art a God of judgement and blessed are are all they that wait for thee But how doth my sloathful soul sink down into the flesh and settle it self in the love of this animal life How doth it hug and wrap up it self in the garment of this mortality not desiring to be removed hence to the more perfect and blessed state The Husbandman indeed is content to stay till the appointed weeks of the Harvest but would he be content to wait alwayes O my sensual heart is this life of hope as contentful to thee as the life of vision will be Why dost thou not groan within thy self that this mortality might be swallowed up of life Doth not the scripture describe the Saints by their earnest looking for the mercy of our Lord Iesus unto eternal life Iude 21. By their hastening unto the coming of the day of God 2 Pet. 3. 12. What is the matter that my heart hangs back doth guilt lye upon my conscience Or have I gotten into a pleasant condition in the world which makes me say as Peter on the Mount It 's good to be here Or want I the assurance of a better state Must God make all my earthly comforts die before I shall be willing to die Awake Faith awake my Love heat up the drowzy desires of my soul that I may say make hast my Beloved and come away The Poem NO prudent Husbandman expects the fruit of what he sows Till every cause have its effects and then he reaps and mows He works in hope the year throughout and counts no labour lost If when the season comes about His harvest quits his cost This rare example justly may rebuke and put to shame My soul which sows its seed one day and looks to reap the same Is cursed nature now become so kind a soyl to grace That to perfection it should come within so short a space Grace springs not up with speed and ease like mushrooms in a night But rather by degrees increase as doth the morning light Is corn so dear to Husbandmen much more is heaven to me Why should not I have patience then to wait as well as he To promises appointed years by God's decrees are set These once expir'd beyond its fears my soul shall quickly get How small a part of hasty time Which quickly will expire Doth me within this world confine and then comes my desire Come Lord how long my soul hath gasp'd faith my affections warms O when shall my poor â—oul be clasp'd in its redeemers arms The time seems long yet here I 'le lye till thou my God do call It is enough eternity will make amends for all CHAP. XIX Corn fully ripe is reap'd and gather'd in So must your selves when ripe in grace or sin OBSERVATION VVHen the fields are white to harvest then Husbandmen walk through them rub the ears and finding the grain full and solid they presently prepare their Sithes and Sickles send for their harvestmen who quickly reap and mow them down and after these follow the binders who stitch it up from the field where it grew it 's carried to the Barn where it is threshed out the good grain gathered into an heap the chaff separated and burnt or thrown to the dunghil how bare and naked do the fields look after harvest which before were pleasant to behold When the harvest men enter into the field it is to allude to that Ioel 2. 3. before them like the garden of Eden and behind them a desolate wilderness and in some places its usual to set fire to the dry stubble when the corn is housed which rages furiously and covers it all with ashes APPLICATION THe Application of this I find made to my hands by Christ himself in Mat. 13. 38 39. The field is the world the good seed are the Children of the kingdom the tares are the children of the wicked one the enemy that sowed them is the devil the harvest is the end of the world the reapers are the Angels The field is the world there both the godly and ungodly live and grow together till they be both ripe and then they shall both be reaped down by death death is the Sickle that reaps down both I will open this Allegory in the following particulars In a catching harvest when the Husbandman sees the clouds begin to gather and grow black he hurries in his corn with all possible hast and houses day and night So doth God the great Husbandman he hurries the Saints into their graves when judgments are coming upon the world Isa. 57. 1. The righteous perish and no man layeth it to heart and merciful men are taken away none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come Methusalah died the year before the flood Augustine a little before the sacking of Hippo Pareus just before the taking of Heidleberge Luther a little before the Wars brake out in Germany but what speak I of single Saints Sometimes the Lord houses great numbers together before some sweeping judgement comes How many bright and glorious stars did set almost together within the compass of a few years to the astonishment of many wise and tender hearts in England I find some of them ranked in a Funeral Elegy The learned Twisse went first it was his right Then holy Palmer Burroughs Love Gouge White Hill Whitaker grave Gataker and Strong Perâ—e Marshal Robinson all gone along I have not nam'd them half their only strife Hath been of late who should first part with life These few who yet survive sick of this age Long to have done their parâ—s and leave the stage The Lord sees it better for them to be under ground than above ground and therefore by a merciful providence sets them out of harms way Neither the corn or tares can possibly resist the sharp and keen Sickle when it 's applyed to them by the reâ—pers hand neither can the godly or ungodly resist the stroke of death when God inflicts it Ecclis 8. 8. No man can keep alive his own soul in the day of death and there is no discharge in that war The frail body of man is as
away and their joy ceases Earthly hearts are acquainted with no higher comforts but the people of God can joy in him and take comfort in their earthly enjoyments too and what comfort they take in these things is much more refined and sweet than yours for they enjoy all these things in God and his love in giving them puts a sweetness into them that you are unacquainted with Thus you see how far your joy falls short of theirs REFLECTIONS HOw have I rejoyced in a thing of nought and pleased my self with a vanity God hath blessed me in my fields and in my stores but not with spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. My Barns are full of corn but my soul is empty of grace common bounty hath given me a fulness of the things of this life but what if the meaning of it should be to fat me for the day of slaughter what if this be the whole of my portion from the Lord what if the language of his providences to my soul should be this Lo here I have given thee with Ishmael the fatness of the earth Thou shalt not say but thou hast tasted of thy Creator's bounty but make the most of it for this is all that ever thou shalt have from me There be others in the world to whom I have denyed these things but for them I have reserved better for the most part they are poor in this world but rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom Is not this enough to damp all my carnal mirth Should my conscience give me such a memento as Abraham in the parable gave to Dives Remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things Ah what a cut would that be to all my comforts A man in a Fever hath a lively colour but a dying heart I have an appearance a shadow of comfort but a sad state of soul. Blessed be the God and father of my Lord Iesus Christ who hath blessed me with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Eph. 1. 3. Though he hath not seen fit to give me much of this world in hand yet it hath pleased him to settle a rich inheritance upon me by promise the hopes and expectations whereof yield my soul more true comfort than all the present enjoyments of this world could have done Blessed be the Lord who hath not given me my portion in this life that by keeping me from the enjoyment hath also preserved me from the snares of a prosperous estate Lord Iesus I have no bags I have no Barns but thou shalt be to me instead of all those things When others rejoyce in the fulness of their earthly comforts I will rejoyce in the fulness of my Christ they have that which though I have not I shall not want and I have that which all their riches cannot purchase Bless the Lord O my soul But Lord how am I obliged above thousands to love and praise thee to bless and admire thee who hast not only plentifully provided for my soul but for my body too who hast given me both the upper and the neather springs heaven and earth things present and things to come Thou hast not dealt so with all no not with all thine own people many of them are strangers to the mercies which I enjoy God hath done great things for me O my soul what wilt thou do for God The freer the condition is he hath placed me in the more am I both obliged and advantaged for his service and yet I doubt it will be found that many a poor Christian that labours with his hands to get his bread redeems more hours for God than I do Lord make me wise to understand and answer the double end of this gracious dispensation Let me bestow the more of my time on God and stand ready to Minister to the necessities of his people Oh what an unhappy wretch am I that have nothing either in hand or in hope am miserable here and like to be so for ever Had I but an interest in Christ as the godly poor have that would sweeten all present troubles and shew me the end of them But alas I am poor and wicked contemned of men and abhorred of God an object of contempt both to heaven and earth Lord look upon such a truly miserable object with compassion give me a portion with thy people in the world to come if thou never better my outward condition here O sanctifie this poverty bless these straits and wants that they may necessitate my soul to go to Christ make this poverty the way to glory and I shall bless thee to eternity that I was poor in this world The Poem OFt have I seen when harvest's almost in The last load coming how some men have bin Rapt up with joy as if that welcom cart Drew home the very treasure of their heart What joyful shoutings hooping hollowing noise With mingled voices both of men and boyes To carnal minds there is no greater mirth No higher joy nor greater heaven on earth He speaks pure Paradoxes that shall say These are but trifles to what Saints enjoy But they despise your sparks as much as you Contemn their Sun Some that could never shew A full stuft Barn on which you set yourt hear But glean perhaps the ears behind your cart Yet are the gleanings of their comfort more Than all your harvest and admired store Your mirth is mixt with sorrow theirs is pure Yours like a shadow fleets but theirs indure God gives to you the husk to them the pith And no heart-string sorrow adds therewith Though at the gates of death they sometimes mourn No sooner doth the Lord to them return But sorrow 's banisht from their pensive breast Ioy triumphs there and smiles their cheeks invest Have you beheld when with perfumed wings Out of the balmy East bright Phoebus springs Mounting th' Olympick hill with what a grace He views the throne of darkness and doth chase The shades of night before him having hurl'd His golden beams about this lower world How from sad Groves and solitary Cells Where horrid darkness and confusion dwells Batts Owles and doleful creatures fly away Resigning to the cheerful birds of day Who in those places now can sit and chaunt Where lately such sad creatures kept their haunt Thus grief resigns to joy sighs groans and tears To songs triumphant when the Lord appears O matchless joy O countenance divine What are those trifles to these smiles of thine May I with poor Mephibosheth be blest With these sweet smiles let Ziba take the rest My life my treasure thou shalt ne'r be sold For silver hills or rivers pav'd with gold Wer 't thou but known to worldlings they would scorn To stoop their hearts to such poor things as corn For so they do because thou art above That sphere wherein their low conceptions move CHAP. XIX More solid grain with greater
away you must into the land of darkness Though thou cry with Adrian O my poor soul whither art thou going die thou must thou barren Professor though it were better for thee to do any thing else than to die What a dreadful screech will thy conscience give when it sees the ax at thy root and say to thee as it is Ezek. 7. 6. An end is come the end is come it watcheth for thee behold it is come O said Henry Beauford that rich and wretched Cardinal Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England when he perceived whereto he must wherefore must I die If the whole Realm would save my life I am able either by policy to get it or by riches to buy it Fye quoth he will not death be hired will riches do nothing No neither riches nor policy can then avail That side to which the Tree leaned most while it stood that way it will fall when it is cut down and as it falls so it lies whether to the South or North Eccles. 11. 3. So it fares with these mystical trees I mean fruitless Professors Had their hearts and affections inclined and bended heaven-ward whilst they lived that way no doubt they had fallen at their death but as their hearts inclined to sin and ever bended to the world so when God gives the fatal stroke they must fall hell-ward and wrath-ward and how dreadful will such a fall be When the dead tree is carried out of the Orchard it shall never be among the living trees of the Orchard any more many years it grew among them but now it shall never have a place there again And when the barren Professor is carried out of the world by death he shall never be associated with the Saints any more He may then say farewell all ye Saints among whom I lived and with whom I so often heard fasted prayed I shall never see your faces more Mat. 8. 11 12. I say unto you that many shall come from the East and West and North and South and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob in the Kingdom of heaven but the children of the Kingdom shall be cast forth into outer darkness there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth When the dead tree is carried out of the Orchard the Husbandman cuts off his branches and rives him asunder with his wedges This also is the lot of barren Professors The Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him and will cut him asunder he shall be diffected or cut abroad Luke 12. 46. Now therefore consider this ye that forget God leâ—t I tear or rend you in pieces Psal. 50. 22. O direful day when the same hand which planted pruned and watered thee so long and so tenderly shall now strike mortal strokes at thee and that without pity For be that made them will not have mercy on them and be that formed them will shew them no favour Iâ—a 27. 11. For the day of mercy is over and the day of his wrath is fully come When this tree is cleav'd abroad then itsi rotten hollow inside appears which was the cause of its barrenuess it looked like a Fair and sound bodied tree but now all may see how rotten it is at the heart So will God in that day when he shall diâ—â—ect the barren Professor discover the rottenness of his heart and unâ—oundness of his principles and ends then they who never suspected him before shall see what a hollow and rotten-hearted Professor he was Lastly the fruitless tree is cast into the fire This also is the end and sad issue of formality Iohn 15. 6. He is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned This is an undouâ—tâ—d truth That there is no plant in Gods vineyard but he will have glory from it by bearing fruit or glory on it by burning in the fire In this fire shall they lye gnashing their teeth Luke 13. 38. and that both in indignation against the Saints whom they shall see in glory and against Iesus Christ who would not save them and against themselves for losing so foolishly the opportunities of salvation Do you behold when you sit by the fire the froth that boyles out of those flaming logs O think of that some and rage of these undone creatures foaming and gnashing their teeth in that fire which is not quenched Mark 9. 44. REFLECTION HOw often have I passed by such barren trees with a more barren heart as little thinking such a tree to be the emblem of my self as Nebuchadnezzâ—r did when he saw that tree in a dream which represented himself and shadowed forth to him his ensuing misery Dan. 4. 13. But Oh my conscience my drousie sleepy conscience wert thou but tender and faithful to me thou wouldst make as round and terrible an application of such a spectacle to me as the faithful Prophet did to him v. 22. And thus wouldst thou O my soul bemoan thy condition Poor wretch here I grow for a little time among the trees of righteousness the plants of renown but I am none of them I was never planted a right seed some green and flourishing leaves of profession indeed I have which deceive others but God cannot be deceived he sees I am fruitless and rotten at the heart Poor soul what will thine end be but burning Behold the axlyeth by thy root and wonder it is that there it should lye so long and I yet standing still mercy pleads for a fruitless creature Lord spare it one year longer Alas he need strike no great blow to ruine me his very breath blows to destruction Iob 4. 9. a frown of his face can blast and ruine me Psal. 80. 6. he is daily sollicited by his justice to hew me down and yet I stand Lord cure my barrenness I know thou hadst rather see fruit than fire upon me The Poem IF after pains and patience you can see No hopes of fruit down goes the barren tree You will not suffer trees that are unsound And barren too to cumber useful ground The fatal ax is laid unto the root It 's fit for fire when unfit for fruit But though this be a dead and barren tree Reader I would not have it so to thee May it to thee this serious thought suggest In all the Orchard this dead tree's the best Think on it sadly lay it close to heart This is the case in which thou wast or art If so thou wast but now dost live and grow And bring forth fruit what praise and thanks dost ow To that wise Husbandman that made thee so O think when justice listed up its hand How mercy did then interceding stand How pity did on thy behalf appear To beg reprieval for another year Stop Lord forbear him all hope is not past He can but be for fire at the last Though many
Sermons many a gracious call He hath resisted like a brazen wall The next may win him then thy grace shall raise Unto it self a monument of praise How should this meditation thaw and melt The heart of him that hath such mercy felt But if thou still remain a barren tree Then here as in a mirrour thou may'st see Thy wretched state when justice at a blow Requites Gods patience in thine overthrow And canst thou bear it can thy heart endure To think of everlasting burnings sure This must thy lot thy fearful portion be If thou continue still a barren tree An Introduction TO THE Third PART OF HUSBANDRY NOw from the pleasant Orchard let us walk A turn i' th fields and there converse and talk With Cows and Horses they can teach us some Choice Lessons though irrational and dumb My Reader 's weary yet I do not fear To be forsaken by one Reader here He 'l doubtless stay to hear what questions I Propound to beasts and how they make reply The fatted Ox and pamper'd horse you ride Their careless Master for his care thus chide CHAP. I. More care for Horse and Oxen many take Than for their Souls or dearest Childrens sake OBSERVATION MAny Husbandmen are excessively careful about their cattel rising themselves early or causing their servants to rise betimes to provender and dress them Much time is spent in some Countreys in trimming and adorning their Horses with curious trappings and plumes of feathers and if at any time a beast be sick what care is taken to recover and heal them you will be sure they shall want nothing that is necessary for them yea many will chuse rather to want themselves than suffer their Horses so to do and take a great deal of comfort to see them thrive and prosper under their hands APPLICATION VVHat one said of bloudy Herod who slew so many children at Bethlehem That it were better to be his swine than his Son may be truly enough applyed to some Parents and Masters who take less care for the saving the souls of their children and servants than they do for the bodies of those beasts which daily feed at their stalls and cribs Many there be who do in reference to their souls as Iacob did with respect to the preservation of their bodies when he put all the herds of cattel before and his Wives and little ones behind as he went to meet his brother Esau. 'T is a weighty saying of a grave Author It 's vile ingratitude to rejoyce when cattel multiply and repine when children increase its Heathenish distrustfulness to fear that he who provides for your beasts will not provide for your children and it 's no less than unnatural cruelty to be careful of the bodies of beasts careless of the souls of children Let us but a little compare your care and diligence in both respects and see in a few particulars whether you do indeed value your own or your children and servants souls as you do the life and health of a beast Your care for your very Horses is expressed early whilst they are but Colts and not come to do you any service you are willing to be at pains and cost to have them broken and brought to their way This is more than ever many of them did for their children they can see them wild and profane naturally taking a stroke or way of wickedness but yet never were at any pains or cost to break them these must be fondel'd and cockered up in the natural way of their own corruption and wickedness and not a rod or reproof used to break them of it 'T is observed of the Persians that they put out their children to School as soon as they could speak and would not see them in seven years after lest their indulgence should do them hurt You keep your constant set times morning and evening to feed water and dress your cattel and will by no means neglect it once but how many times have you neglected morning and evening duties in your families yea how many be there whose very tables in respect of any worship God hath there do very little differ from the very cribs and mangers at which their horses feed As soon as you are up in a morning you are with your beasts before you have been with your God how little do such differ from beasts and happy were it if they were no more accountable to God than their beasts are The end of your care cost and pains about your cattel is that they may be strong for labour and the more serviceable to you thus you comply with the end of their beings But how rare a thing is it to find these men as careful to fit their posterity to be useful and serviceable to God in their generations which is the end of their beings If you can make them rich and provide good matches for them you reckon that you have fully discharged the duty of parents if they will learn to hold the Plow that you are willing to teach them But when did you spend an hour to teach them the way of salvation Now to convince such careless Parents of the heinousness of their sin let these four Queries be solemnly considered Whether this be a sufficient discharge of that great duty which God hath laid upon Christian Parents in reference to their families That God hath charged them with the souls of their families is undeniable Deut. 6. 6 7. Eph. 6. 4. If God had not cloathed you with his authority to command them in the way of the Lord he would never have charged them so strictly to yield you obedience as he hath done Eph. 6. 1. Col. 3. 20. Well a great trust is reposed in you look to your duty for without dispute you shall answer for it Whether it be likely if the time of youth which is the moulding age be neglected they will be wrought upon to any good afterwards Husbandmen let me put a sensible case to you Do yo not see in your very horses that whilst they are young you can bring them to any way but if once they have got a false stroke and by long custom it be grown nutural to them then there is no breaking them of it yea you see it in your very Orchards you may bring a tender twig to grow in what form you please but when it s grown to a sturdy limb there is no bending it afterwards to any other form than what it naturally took Thus it is with children Prov. 22. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it Whether if you neglect to instruct them in the way of the Lord Satan and their own natural corruptions will not instruct them in the way to hell Consider this ye careless Parents if you will not teach your children the Devill will teach them if you shew them not how
of such Tyrants is both inglorious and unlamented When the wicked perish there is shouting Prov. 11. 10. Which was exemplified to the life at the death of Nero of whom the Poet thus sings Cum mors crudelem rapuisset saeva Neronem Credibile est multos Roman agitasse jacos When cruel Nero dy'd th' Historian tells How Rome did mourn with Bonefires plays and bells Remarkable for contempt and shame have the ends of many bloudy Tyrants been so Pompey the great of whom Clau dian the Poet sings Nudus pascit aves jacet en qui pâ—ssidet orbem Exiguae telluris inops Birds eat his flesh lo now he cannot have Who rul'd the world a space to make a grave The like is storied of Alexander the great who lay unburied thirty dayes and William the Conquerer with many other such Birds of prey whilst a beneficial and holy life is usually closed up in an honourable and much lamented death For mine own part I wish I may sooder my conversation in the world that I may live when I am dead in the affâ—ctions of the best and leave an honourable testimony in the consciences of the worst that I may oppress none do good to all and say when I dye as good Ambrose did I am neither ashamed to live nor afraid to dye MEDIT. III. Vpon the sight of a Black-bird taking sanctuary in a bush from a pursuing Hawk VVHen I saw how hardly the poor Bird was put to it to save her self from her enemy who hover'd just over the bush in which she was fluttering and squeeking I could not but hasten to relieve her pity and succour being a due debt to the distressed which when I had done the bird would not depart from the bush though her enemy were gone this act of kindness was abundantly repaid by this Meditation with which I returned to my walk My soul like this Bird was once distressed pursued yea seized by Satan who had certainly made a prey of it had not Iesus Christ been a sanctuary to it in that hour of danger How ready did I find him to receive my poor soul into his protection then did he make good that sweet promise to my experience Those that come unto me I will in no wise cast out It call'd to mind that pretty and pertinent story of the Philosopher who walking in the fields a Bird pursued by a Hawk flew into his bosom her took her out and said Poor bird I will neither wrong thee nor expose thee to thine enemy since thou camest unto me for refuge So tender and more than so is the Lord Iesus to distressed souls that come unto him Blessed Iesus how should I love and praise thee glorifie and admire thee for that great salvation thou hast wrought for me If this Bird had faln into the claws of her enemy she had been torn to pieces indeed and devoured but then a few minutes had dispatcht her and ended all her pain and misery but had my soul fallen into the hand of Satan there had been no end of its misery Would not this scared Bird be flusht out of the Bush that secured her though I had chased away her enemy and wilt thou my soul ever be enticed or scared from Christ thy refuge O let this for ever ingage thee to keep close to Christ and make me say with Ezra and now O Lord since thou hast given me such a deliverance as this should I again break thy commandments MEDIT. IV Vpon the sight of diver Lennets intermingling with a flock of Sparrows ME thinks these Birds do fitly resemble the gaudy Gallant and the plain peasants how spruce and richly adorned with shining and various coloured feathers like scarlet richly laid with gold and silver lace are those how plainly clad in a home-spun countrey russet are these Fine feathers saith our proverb make proud Birds and yet the feathers of the Sparrow are as useful and beneficial both for warmth and flight though not so gay and ornamental as the others and if both were stript out of their feathers the Sparrow would prove the better Bird of the two by which I see that the greatest worth doth not alwayes lye under the finest cloaths And besides God can make mean and homely garments as useful and beneficial topoor despised Christians as the ruffling and shining garments of wanton Gallants are to them and when God shall strip men out of all external excellencies these will be found to excel their glittering neighbours in true worth and excellency Little would a man think such rich treasures of grace wisdom humility c. lay under some russet coats Saepe sub attrita latitat sapientia veste Under poor garments more true worth may be Than under silks that whistle who but he Whilst on the other side the heart of the wicked as Solomon hath observed is little worth how much sover his cloaths be worth Alas it falls out two frequently among us as it doth with men in the Indies who walk over the rich veins of gold and silver Oar which lyes hid under a ragged and barren surface and know it not For my how pâ—rt I desire not to value any man by what is extrinsecal and worldly but by that true internal excellency of grace which makes the face to shine in the eyes of God and good men I would contemn a vile person though never so glorious in the eye of the world but honour such as fear the Lord how sordid and despicable soever to appearance MEDIT. V. Vpon the sight of a Robbin-red-breast picking up a worm from a mole-hill then raising OBserving the Mole working industriously beneath and the Bird watching so intently above I made a stand to observe the issue When in a little time the bird descends and seizes upon a worm which I perceived was crawling apace from the enemy below that hunted her but fell to the share of another which from above waited for her My thoughts presently suggested these Meditations from that occasion me thought this poor worm seem'd to be the Emblem of my poor soul which is more endangered by its own lusts of pride and covetousness than this worm was by the Mole and Bird my pride like the aspiring Bird watches for it above my covetousness like this subterranean Mole digging for it beneath Poor soul what a sad Dilemma art thou brought to If thou go down into the caverns of the earth there thou art a prey to thy covetousness that hunts thee and if thou aspire or but creep upward there thy pride waits to ensnare thee Distressed soul whither wilt thou go ascend thou mayest not by a vain elation but by a heavenly conversation beside which there is no way for thy preservation the way of life is above to the wise c. Again I could not but observe the accidental benefit this poor harmless Bird obtained by the labour of the Mole who hunting intentionally for her self unburroughed and ferrited out this