I cannot remember a sermon as another can, but blessed be God that I am able to savour it and feel it; that I have an heart to love, and a will to obey all that God discovers to be my duty. The formal professor's reflection. 2. O then how little cause have I to make my boast of ordinances, and glory in my external privileges, who never bear spiritual fruit under them? If I well consider my condition, there is matter of trembling, and not of glorying in these things. It may be while I have been glorying and lifting up my secure heart upon them, the Lord hath been secretly blasting my soul under them, and insensibly executing this horrible curse by them. Shall I boast, with Capernaum, that I am lifted up to heaven, since I may with her at last be cast down to hell? And if so, Lord, what a hell will my hell be! It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for me. It drew tears from the eyes of Christ, when he was looking upon Jerusalem, under the same consideration that I doubt I have cause to look upon my own soul. Luke xix. 41. "He wept over it, saying, If thou hadst . known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes." So long have I been a hearer, a professor of the gospel, so many years I have enjoyed its distinguishing ordinances, but have they not been all dry and empty things to me; hath not the spirit of förmality actuated me in them? Have not self ends and worldly respects lain at the bottom of my best duties? Have not my discourses, in communion with saints, been trade words, speaking what I have learnt, but not felt? Sad is my condition now, but it would be desperate and irrecoverable, shouldst thou execute this curse upon me. 3. And what may I think of my condi- The less fruittion! Lord, I acknowledge my unprofita- ful Christian's bleness, under the means, hath been reflection. shameful; and this hath made my condi tion doubtful. I have often trembled for fear, lest my root had been blasted by such a curse; but if so, whence is this trembling? Whence these fears and sorrows about it? Doth such fruit grow in the soil which thou hast cursed? I am told but now, that on whom this judgment falls, to them thou givest an heart that cannot repent. Lord, I bless thee for these evidences of freedom from the curse; for the fruits of fear, sorrow and holy jealousy. * The laws of men spare for the fruit's sake, and wilt thou not spare me also, my God, if there be found in me a blessing in the bud? Isa. lxv. 8. 4. To conclude, what a serious reflection should this occasion in every dispenser of the The gospelgospel? How should he say when he goes preacher's to preach the gospel, I am going to preach reflection. that word which is to be a savour of life or death to these souls; upon how many of my poor hearers may the curse of perpetual barrenness be executed this day! O how should such a thought melt his heart into compassion over them, and make him beg hard, and plead earnestly with God for a better issue of the gospel than this upon them. *The Roman laws defer punishing a woman with child. Chryst. CHAPTER VII. UPON THE PLOUGHING OF CORN-LAND. The ploughman guides his plough with care and skill; OBSERVATION. Ir requires not only strength, but much skill and judgment to manage and guide the plough. The Hebrew word which we translate to plough, signifies to be intent, as an artificer is about some curious piece of work. The plough must neither go too shallow, nor too deep in the earth; it must not indent the ground, by making crooked furrows, nor leap and make baulks in good ground, but be guided as to a just depth of earth, so to cast the furrow in a straight line, that the floor or surface of the field may be made plain, as it is, Isa. xxxviii. 25. And hence that expression, Luke ix. 62. “He that puts his hand to the plough, and looks back, is not fit for the kingdom of heaven." The meaning is, that as he that ploughs must have his eyes always forward, to guide and direct his hand in casting the furrows straight and even, for his hand will be quickly out when his eye is off; so he that heartily resolves for heaven must addict himself wholly and intently to the business of religion, and not have his mind entangled with the things of this world, which he hath left behind him; whereby it appears that the right management of the plough requires as much skill as strength. APPLICATION. This observation in nature serves excellently to shadow forth this proposition in divinity, that the work of the Spirit in convincing and humbling the heart of a sinner, is a work wherein much of the wisdom, as well as power of God, is discovered. The work of repentance and - saving contrition, is set forth in scripture by this metaphor of ploughing.* Jer. iv. 3. Hos. x. 12. "Plough up your fallow ground;" that is, be convinced, humbled and broken-hearted for sin. And the resemblance betwixt both these works appears in the following particulars. 1. It is a hard and difficult work to plough; it is reckoned one of the most painful manual labors; it is also a very hard thing to convince and humble the heart of a secure, stout and proud sinner, indurate in wickedness. What Luther saith of a dejected soul, "That it is as easy The same to raise the dead, as to comfort such a one." I may say of the secure, confident sinner: It is as easy to rend the rocks as to work saving contrition upon such a heart; Citius ex pumice aquam; all the melting language and earnest intreaties of the gospel cannot urge such a heart to shed a tear; therefore it is called " a heart of stone," Ezek. xxxvi. 26. “ a firm rock," Amos vi. 12. "Shall horses run upon the rock? Will one plough there with oxen ?" Yet when the Lord comes in the power of his Spirit, these rocks do rend and yield to the power of the word. 2. The plough pierces deep into the bosom of the earth, and makes, as it were, a deep gash or wound in the heart of it; so doth the Spirit upon the hearts of sinners, he pierces their very souls by conviction. Acts ii. 37. "When they heard this they were pricked," or † pierced point blank, "to the heart." "Then the word divides the soul and spirit." Heb. iv. 12. It comes *Glossius Rhet. Sacra. p. 300. + Katenugefan, punctim cedo, pungendo penetro. upon the conscience with such piercing dilemmas, and tilts the sword of conviction so deep into their souls, that there is no staunching the blood, no healing this wound, till Christ himself come and undertake the cure. Hæret lateri lethalis arundo; this barbed arrow cannot be pulled out of their hearts by any but the hand that shot it in. Discourse with such a soul about his troubles, and he will tell you that all the sorrows that ever he had in this world, loss of estate, health, children, or whatever else, are but flea-bitings to this; this swallows up all other troubles. See how the Christian Niobe, Luke vii. 38. is dissolved into tears; Now deep calleth unto deep at the noise of his water-spouts, when the waves and billows of God go over the soul. Spiritual sorrows are deep waters, in which the stoutest and most magnanimous soul would sink and drown, did not Jesus Christ, by a secret and supporting hand, hold it up and preserve it. 3. The plough rends the earth in parts and pieces, which before was united, and makes those parts hang loose which formerly lay close. Thus did the spirit of conviction rend asunder the heart, and its most beloved lusts. Joel ii. 13. "Rend your hearts, and not your gar. ments:" That is, rather than your garments, for the sense is comparative, though the expression be negative. And this rending implies not only acute pain; flesh cannot be rent asunder without anguish, nor yet only force and violence; the heart is a stubborn and knotty piece, and will not easily yield; but it also implies a disunion of parts united: As when a garment, or the earth, or any contiguous body is rent, those parts are separated which formerly cleaved together. Sin and the soul are glued fast together before, there was no parting of them, they |