their day, which they had commission to denounce. So this prophet here not only discovers great awe and fear at what he saw and foretold concerning God's own people, the Jews, but at the after-reckoning with the Chaldeans, his and their enemies. When God comes to do judgment on the wicked, this will make even them who stand by and suffer not with them, to tremble; yea, such also as are advantaged by it, as usually the people of God are, their enemies' ruin proving their deliverance. The majesty and greatness of God, and the terribleness of his march towards them and seizing on then, as it is here highly set forth, this works an awful fear in the hearts of his own children. They cannot see their Father angry but it makes them quake, though it be not against them, but on their behalf. And this were our right temper, when we see or hear of the hand of God against wicked men, who run their own courses against all warning-not to entertain these things with carnal rejoicings and lightness of mind, or with boasting insults; to applaud indeed the righteousness of God, and to give him his glory, but withal to fear before him, though they were strangers and no way a part of ourselves; and to have an humble sense of the Lord's dealing in it; (Psal. lii, 6.) and to learn to reverence God; in all our ways to acknowledge him ; to be sure to take him along with us, and to undertake nothing without him.

And this fear of judgments falling upon others, is the way not to feel them on ourselves. When God sees that the sound of the rod on others' backs will humble a soul or a people, he will spare the stroke of it. They who have most of this holy fear of God's anger, fall least under the dint of it. Blessed is he that feareth always; but he that hardeneth his heart, shall fall into mischief; Prov. xxviii, 14. He that fears it not, shall fall into it; he that fears and trembles at it, shall escape. So the prophet here trusts for himself; ver. 16; I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble, and, upon this confidence, he rises to this high resolution, Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

The words, to make no other division of them, are conjuncture of a sad supposition, and a cheerful position or purpose.

Although the fig-tree shall not blossom. This is a thing that may come, and possibly which the prophet did foresee would come, amongst other judgments; and it is of all other outward scourges the sorest, most smarting, and most sweeping; it cuts off most people, and can least be suffered and shifted. It lieth amongst the rest in the storehouse of divine judgments. He who furnished the earth, and gave being by the word of his mouth to all these things, hath still the sole absolute power of them: they obey his word of command, and, rightly looked upon, in our use of them and the sweetness we find in them, lead us to him as the spring of being and goodness. He is invisible in his nature; in his works, most visible and legible. Not only the spacious heavens and the glorious lights in them, but the meanest things on earth, every plant and flower in their being and growing, yea, every pile of declare God to us. grass,

And it is a supernatural delight in natural things, to see and taste him in them. It is more pleasant than their natural relish; it is the chief inner sweetness, the kernel and marrow of all; and they that take not the pains, and have not the skill to draw it forth, lose the far better half of their enjoyments, even of the things of this earth. To think how wise he is who devised such a frame, how powerful he who made all these things, how rich he must be who still continues to furnish the earth with these varieties of provisions, how sweet must he be, whence all these things draw their sweetness! But, alas! we are brutish, and in our use of these things, we differ little or nothing from the beast. We are called to a higher life, but we live it not. Man is in honor, but he understands it not; he is as the beast that perishes.

Now because we acknowledge God so little in the use of these things, therefore he is put to it, so to speak, to teach us our lesson in the want and deprivement of them, which our dulness is more sensible of. We know things a great deal better by wanting them, than by having them, and take more notice of that hand which hath power of them, when he withdraws, than when he bestows them.

Besides all other provocations and particular abuses of these things by intemperance and luxury, were it no more than the very neglecting of God in his goodness, this

calls for a famine, to diet us into wiser thoughts, and to remind us of our own and all other creatures' dependence on that God whom we so forget, as to serve our idols and base lusts upon his bounty. This was the case of Judah and Israel; Hos. ii, 8, 13. But when more sparingly fed and better taught in the wilderness, those mercies were restored again, and then all acknowledge the dowry of that blessed marriage with himself, which is so far beyond all account; ver. 14, 16.

What wretched ingratitude is it, not to regard and love him in the use of all his mercies! But it is horrid stupidity, not to consider and seek to him in their withdrawment, or in the threatening of it. Few have a right sense of his hand in any thing. They grumble and cry out, but not to him. As in the case of oppression, it is said, Job xxxv, 9, 10, By reason of the multitude of oppressions, they make the oppressed to cry; they cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty; but none saith, Where is God my maker? so of this very judgment of famine the prophet speaks, Hos. vii, 14, And they have not cried unto me with their hearts, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me. They did not humbly and repentingly seek to God by prayer, but a natural brutish sense of their wants pressed out complaints; they howled as a hungry dog would do for bread. This is all that most men do, in years of dearth, or harvests threatening it. No beast in the mountain or wilderness, is so untamed as the heart of man, which, when catched in God's judgments, lies and cries as a wild bull in a net. It is true, they are somewhat nearer sober thoughts in distress; and their grief, though merely natural, yet is nearer spiritual grief, than their mirth and laughter; but it must have a touch of the Spirit above to make it spiritual, to make it change to gold, to turn it to godly sorrow. No scourge carries a power of changing the heart with it; that is a superadded work. Many people and particular persons have been beaten as in a mortar with variety of afflictious, one coming thick upon another, and yet are never the wiser, and yet have not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

Therefore, if you be afflicted, join prayer with your correction, and beg by it, that God would join his Spirit with it. Seek this in earnest, else you will be not a whit the better, but will still endure the smart, and not reap the fruit thereof. Yea, I believe, some are the worse, even by falsely imagining they are better, partly presuming it must be so, and partly, it may be, feeling some present motions and meltings in the time of affliction, which vanish and presently cool when they are off the fire. Aye, but these two together make a happy man; Blessed is he whom thou correctest, and teachest out of thy law.

Although the fig tree shall not blossom. This sometimes does, and at any time may, befal a land; and it is very useful to put such cases. It is true, there is great odds betwixt real and imagined distress; yet certainly the frequent viewing of its picture, though it is only in thy imagination, bath so much likeness as somewhat abates the strangeness and frightfulness of its true visage when it comes.

There is a foolish pre-apprehension of possible evils, which, whether they come or not, does no good, but makes evils to come perplexingly before-hand, and antedates their misery, and adds the pain of many others that will never come. These are the fumes of a dark distempered humor, vain fears, which vex and trouble some minds at present, and do not waste any thing of any grief to come after. But calmly and composedly to sit down and consider evil days coming, any kind of trials that probably, yea, or possibly, may arrive, so as to be ready to entertain them without astonishment; this is a wise and useful exercise of the mind, and takes off much of the weight of such things, breaks them in falling on us, that they come not so sadly down, when they light first upon the apprehension. Thus, it is true, nothing comes unawares to a wise man. He hath supposed all, or as bad as any thing that can come, hath acquainted his mind with the horridest shapes, and therefore when such things appear, will not so readily start at them.

This I would advise to be done, not only in things we can more easily suffer, but in those we think would prove hardest and most indigestible-to inure the heart to them; not

to be like some, who are so tender-fancied, that they dare not so much as think of some things, the death of a dear friend, or husband, or wife, or child. That is oftener to be viewed, rather than any other event. Bring thy mind to it, as a starting-horse to that whereat it does most startleWhat if I should be bereft of such a person, such a thing? This would make it much more tolerable when thou art put to it. What if the place where I live were visited with all at once in some degree, pestilence, and sword, and famine? How should I look on them? Could my mind keep its own place and standing, fixed on God in such a case? What if I were turned out of my good furniture and warm house, and stripped not only of accessory, but necessary things; (as here he supposes not only the failing of delicacies, the fig-trees, wine, and olives, but, of common necessary food, the fields not yielding meat, and the flocks cut off) my little ones crying for bread, and none for them? You little know what the tenderest and delicatest among you may be put to. These times have given many real instances within these kingdoms, of strange changes in the condition of all ranks of persons. Or think, if thou abhorrest that, What if I were smitten with blotches or loathsome sores on my flesh, or if, by any accident, I should lose an arm, or an eye, or both eyes? What if extreme poverty, and sickness, and forsaking of friends, come all at once? Could I welcome these, and make up all in God; find riches, and friends, and fulness in him? Most men, if they would speak truly to such cases, must declare them insufferable-I were undone if such a thing befel me, or such a comfort were taken from me. Most would cry out, as Micah did, Ye have taken away my gods; for so are these things our hearts cleave to and principally delight in. He that worships mammon, his purse is the sensiblest piece of him he is broken, if fire, or ravage of war throw him out of his nest and empty it. He that makes his belly his god, how could he endure the case the prophet puts here, the failing of vines, of flocks, and herds?

It were good to add to the supposition of want, somewhat of the reality of it; sometimes to abridge thyself of things thou desirest and lovest, to inure thy appetite