24

UPON A NEGLECTED GARDEN.

the flowers of grace seemed to flourish, good desires and resolutions to bud forth, and promising parts gave hopes of future increase. But when they had changed their habitations or their company, and were left either to themselves or those careless of them, they soon grew loose and heathenish, and given to sensuality. In a short time they lost that which they seemed to have, and their souls looked no more like a watered garden, but a barren wilderness; and the dam which religious education had erected, being broken down, the stream ran more violently.

O my soul, is not this in part thy case? Are there not sensible decays of love in thee? Is not thy zeal for God abated, and thy courage in his cause decayed? Are not thy graces choked with weeds? Where is the kindness of thy youth, and the love of thy espousals, when thou went after God in the wilderness? Hast thou not, with the church of Ephesus, lost thy first love? Rev. ii. 4. Dost thou not grow more strange with thy God, and does not God grow more strange with thee? Where is that heart and fervour which did appear in thee? that life and activity in his service? Has not the cooling wind of the world abated this, and thou beginnest to be, as the world calls it, more moderate; or, as God calls it, more lukewarm; the weeds of sin begin to overtop the herb of grace? Do not these grow rank and flourishing, while grace grows weak and feeble? Grace, like the house of Saul, grows weaker and weaker; when sin, like the house of David, gathers strength. Well, beware betimes; if thou grow lukewarm, God will cast

UPON A NEGLECTED GARDEN.

25

thee out of his mouth; if thou bear wild grapes, he will pluck down thy fence, and lay thee waste; if thou art barren, he will cut thee down, and cast thee into the fire.

O my God, without thy assistance I shall bring forth no fruit; or worse than none, wild grapes, grapes of sin and disobedience. The weeds of sins, and the thorns of cares, will suffer no good herb nor flower to flourish. Oh pluck up those weeds, keep under those thorns, and make up those decays in this thy garden; let the north wind and the south "blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out," Cant. iv. 16, that I may be serviceable to thee, and profitable to man; let my fruits be ripened, my graces advanced, by the breathing of the Holy Ghost: then shall I serve thee with thy own, and give thee of thy own, 1 Chron. xxix. 14.

Take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law-to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, Josh. xxii. 5.

Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently, Psa. cxix. 4.

How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, Heb. ii. 3.

Be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless, 2 Pet. iii. 14.

D

IX. UPON THE FADING OF BEAUTIFUL

FLOWERS.

WALKING in the garden, I fixed my eyes upon the flowers there growing. I considered the variety, beauty, and splendour of them; how glorious they appeared after a cooling shower of rain, and the refreshing beams of the shining sun; how pleasantly they looked; how sweet they smelled, filling the ambient air with their sweet savour, delighting the beholder's senses with their colour, shape, and scent. But when, on the other side, I considered how vain and fading all this glory was, and their beauty as the morning dew, which, when the sun appears in his strength, quickly vanishes; when I considered that the same day sees them in the height of their pride, and in their lowest debasement-to-day they are, saith Christ, and to-morrow they are cast into the oven, Matt. vi. 30-methought this did forcibly exhibit the vanity of all human felicity, how transitory it is and uncertain, and how little solidity is to be found in any objects of desire under the sun. Now they flatter, and seem beautiful to the eye, and suddenly they wither and disappear. If we look upon their little lord, and the owner of these things, we shall find him as frail and transitory as they are: this day you may see him in the strength of his youth,

THE FADING OF BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS.

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and his bones full of marrow; and to-morrow death seizes upon him, and the worm sweetly feeds upon him, Job xxiv. 20; they are cut down as the grass, and wither as the flower of the field, Psa. xxxvii. 2. How frequently does Scripture compare man to grass, and to a fading flower? "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it surely the people is grass," Isa. xl. 6, 7. "When the

wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever," Psa. xcii. 7. And as man is thus frail and transitory, so are all sublunary things; there is no stability in them. They are like the moon, every day showing a new face; now waxing, now waning or like the sea, sometimes ebbing, sometimes flowing; now a full sea, and a few hours after low water. Often we may see men flourish like green bay-trees, and suddenly taken away; now in the height of honour, and suddenly in the gulf of disgrace; now flourishing in riches, and quickly pinched with poverty. As it respects beauty, those that have most gloried in it, in a short time by a disease have become deformed. As to friends, those that love to-day, often hate to-morrow and the like we may say of all earthly enjoyments.

O my soul, if earthly delights, how pleasing soever, be so fading and transitory, here thou seest thy folly in spending so much of thy time and solicitude on them. Beauty is but skin deep, and when the frost of sickness, or the wind of old

28 THE FADING OF BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS.

age comes, it withers. Riches are no surer, they make themselves wings, and fly away, Prov. xxiii. 5. Strength will decay, and Samson himself cannot grapple with death. Honour is the emptiest of bubbles; and he that this day is ascending the highest round of the ladder of promotion, may suddenly fall, as Haman did. But there is a beauty which will never fade; grace and holiness will never change colour. There are riches which will be certain, laid up where neither rust corrupts, nor thieves can steal or plunder; there are honours which will last to eternity; pleasures at God's right hand that never shall have an end; there is meat that perisheth not, but endures to eternal life. Spend not thy time in seeking after these gilded nothings and painted vanities.

O my God, bestow those things upon me that will do me good: garments that will adorn me and make me beautiful in the eyes of God and good men; food which will nourish my soul; and riches that will make me rich indeed; put me not off with such trifles as the world affords; the riches of Christ, the jewels of grace, the crown of glory, are worth wishing for, working for, suffering for, striving, fighting, yea, dying for, when other things are not worth half the pains which usually are spent upon them. Lord, no portion but thyself will satisfy; no pleasures will please, but those at thy right hand. Lord, give me these, though thou take from me all the rest.

The fashion of this world passeth away, 1 Cor. vii. 31.