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on my foul; and though my heart hath been an unkindly foil, which bath kept it back, and much hindered its growth, yet, bleffed be the Lord, it ftill grows on, though by flow degrees; and from the Springing of the feed, and fhooting forth of thofe gracious habits, I may conclude an approaching harveft: Now is my falvation nearer than when I believed; every day I come nearer to my falvation, Rom. xiii. 11. O that every day I were more active for the God of my falvation! Grow on, my foul, and add to thy faith virtue, to thy virtue knowledge, &c. Grow on from faith to faith; keep thyfelf under the ripening influences of heavenly ordinances: The fafter thou groweft in grace, the fooner thou shalt be reaped down in mercy, and bound up in the bundle of life, 1 Sam. xv. 29. I have not yet attained the meafure and proportion of grace affigned to me, neither am I already perfect, but am reaching forth to the things before me, and preffing towards the mark for the prize of my heavenly calling, Phil. iii. 12, 13. O mercy to be admired! that I who lately had one foot in hell, ftand now with one foot in heaven!

The reflection of the

The reflection of a hardening finner.

2. But the cafe is far different with me; whilft others are ripening apace for heaven, I am withering; many a foul plowed up by decaying Chriftian. conviction, and fown by fanctification long after me, hath quite overtopped and outgrown me; my fweet and early bloffoms are nipped and blown off my bright morning overcaft and clouded: had I kept on, according to the rate of my first growth, I had either now been in heaven, or at leaft in the fuburbs of it on earth; but my graces wither and languish, my heart contracts and cools to heavenly things; the fun and rain of ordinances and providences improve not my graces how fad therefore is the state of my foul! 3. Thy cafe, O declining faint, is fad, but not like mine: thine is but a temporary remiffion of the acts of grace, which is recoverable; but I am judicially hardening, and "treasuring up to myself wrath against the day of wrath," Rom. ii. 5. Time was when I had fome tender fenfe of fin, when I could mourn and grieve for it; now I have none at all: my heart is grown ftupid and fottish. Time was when I had fome confcientious care of duty, when my heart would faite me for the neglect of it; but now none at all. Wretched foul! what wilt thou do? Thou art gone far, indeed, a few steps further will put thee beyond hope: hitherto I stand in the field; the long-fuffering God doth yet fpare me; yea, fpare me, while he hath cut down many of my companions in fin round about me. What doth this admirable patience, this long-fuffering, drawn out to a wonder, fpeak concerning me! doth it not tell me, that the Lord is not willing I fhould perifh, but rather come to repentance ? 2 Pet. iii. 9. And what argument is like his pity and patience, to lead a foul to repentance? Rom. ii. 4. O that I may not fruftrate VOL. V.

at laft the end of a long-fuffering God, left he proportion the degree of his wrath, according to the length of his patience!

THE POEM.

THEN fields are white, to harvest forth you go

W1

With scythes and fickles to reap down and mow.
Down go the laden ears flat to the ground,

Which thofe that follow having ftitch'd and bound,
'Tis carried home unto the barn, and to

The fields are rid where lately corn did grow.

This world's the field, and they that dwell therein
The corn and tares, which long have ripen'd been :
Angels the reapers, and the judgment-day
The time of harveft, when, like corn and hay,
The fading flow'rs of earthly glory must
Be mowed down, and level'd with the duft:
The barns are heav'n and hell, the time draws nigh,
When through the dark'ned clouds and troubl'd sky,
The Lord fhall break; a dreadful trumpet fhall
Sound to the dead; the stars from heaven fall;
The rolling spheres with horrid flames fhall burn:
And then the tribes on earth fhall wail and mourn.
The judgment fet, before Chrift's awful throne
All flefh fhall be conven'd, and ev'ry one
Receive his doom; which done, the juft fhall be
Bound in life's bundle, even as you fee

The full ripe cars of wheat bound up and borne
In fheaves with joy into the owner's barn.
This done, the angels next in bundles bind
The tares together; as they had combin'd
In acting fin, fo now their lot must be
To burn together in one mifery.

Drunkards with drunkards pinion'd, fhall be fent
To hell together in one regiment.

Adulterers and fwearers there shall lie

In flames among their old fociety.

O dreadful howlings! O the hideous moans.
Of fetter'd finners! O the tears! the groans!
The doleful lamentations as they go

Chain'd faft together to their place of woe!

The world thus clear'd, as finds when harvest's in,
Shall be no more a stage for acting fin.

With purifying flames it fhall be burn'd,
Its ftately fabrics into afhes turn'd.

Ceafe then, my foul to doat on, or admire
This fplendid world, which is referv'd for fire.

Decline the company of finners here,

As thou would'ft not be fhackled with them there.

G

CHAP. XVII.

Upon the Care of Husbandmen to provide for Winter.

Your winter flore in fummer you provide :

To Chriftian prudence this must be apply'd.

OBSERVATION.

OOD husbands are careful in fummer to provide for winter. Then they gather in their winter ftore; food and fuel for themfelves, and fodder for their cattle. "He that gathers in fum"mer is a wife fon : but he that fleeps in harvest is a son that "caufeth fhame," Prov. x. 5. A well chofen feafon is the greatest advantage to any action; which, as it is feldom found in hafte, fo it is often loft by delay. It is a good proverb which the frugal Dutch have among them :-Bonus fervatius faciet bonum bonifacium :—A good faver will make a good benefactor. And it is a good proverb of our own, He that neglects the occafion, the occafion will neglect him, Husbandmen know that fummer will not hold all the year; neither will they truft to the hopes of a mild and favourable winter, but in feafon provide for the worst.

WHAT

APPLICATION.

HAT excellent Chriftians fhould we be, were we but as provident and thoughtful for our fouls? It is doubtless a singular point of Chriftian wifdom to forefee a day of fpiritual ftraits and peceffities; and, during the day of grace, to make provifion for it. This great gospel-truth is excellently fhadowed forth in this natural obfervacion, which I fhall branch out into these feven particulars.

1. Husbandmen know there is a change and viciffitude of feasons and weather; though it be pleasant summer weather now, yet winter will tread upon the heel of fummer: frofts, fnows, and great falls of rain must be expected. This alternate course of seasons, in nature, is fettled by a firm law of the God of nature to the end of the world, Gen. viii. 22. “Whilst the earth remaineth, feed-time and harvest, "cold and heat, winter and fummer, day and night, fhall not " ceafe."

And Christians know, that there are changes in the right-hand of the Moft High, in reference to their spiritual feafons. If there be a Spring-time of the gospel, there will be allo an autumn; if a day of profperity, it will fet in a night of adverfity: " for God hath fet "the one over against the other," Ecclef. vii. 14, In heaven there is a day of everlasting ferenity; in hell a night of perfect endless horror and darkness; on earth, light and darkness take their turns, prosperity and adverfity, even to fouls as well as bodies, fucceed each other. If there be a gofpel-day, a day of grace now current, it will

have its period and determination, Gen. iii. 6.

2. Common prudence and experience enable the husbandman, in the midst of fummer, to foresee a winter, and provide for it before he feel it; yea, natural instinct teaches this to the very birds of the air, and beafts of the field.

And fpiritual wisdom fhould teach Chriftians to exercise their foreseeing faculties, and not fuffer them to feel evil before they fear it. But, oh! the flupifying nature of fin! Though the fork in the heavens knows her appointed time, and the turtle, crane, and swallow the time of their coming, yet man, whom God hath made wifer than the fowls of the air, in this acts quite below them, Jer. viii. 7.

3. The end of God's crdaining a fummer featon, and fending warm and pleasant weather. is to ripen the fruits of the earth, and give the husbandman fit opportunity to gather them in.

And God's defign of giving men a day of grace, is to furnish them with an opportunity for the everlafting happiness and falvation of their fouls; Rev. ii. 21. "I gave her space to repent." It is not a mere reprival of the foul, or only a delay of the execution of threatened wrath, though there be much mercy in that; but the peculiar aim of this patience and bounty of God is to open for them a way to escape the wrath to come, by leading them to repentance," Rom. ii. 4.

4. The husbandman doth not find all harvest-seasons alike favourable; fometimes they have much fair weather, and meet with no hindrance in their bufinefs; other times it is a catching harveft, but now and then a fair day, and then they must be nimble, or all is loft.

There is also a great difference in foul-seafons; fome have had a long and fair feason of grace; a hundred and twenty years did God wait upon the bid world, in the miniftry of Noah. Long did God wait on the gainfaying Ifraelites, Ifa. alij. 14. “I have a long time "held my peace; I have been ftill, and refrained myfelf." Others have a fhort and catching feafon, all lies upon a day, upon a nick of time, Acts xvii. 30.

5. A proper feafon neglected and loft is irrecoverable. Many things in hufbandry must be done in their feafon, or cannot be done at all for that year: if he plow not, and fow not in the proper feafon, he lofes the harveft of that year.

It is even fo as to fpiritual-feafons: Chrift neglected, and grace defpifed, in the feafor: when God offers them, are irrecoverably loft, Prov. i. 28. Then (that is when the feafon is over) "they fhall "call upon me, but I will not hear." Ch! there is a great deal of time in a thort opportunity; that may be done, or prevented, in an hour rightly timed, which cannot be done, or prevented, in a man's life-time afterwards, There was one refolved to kill Julius Cæfar fuch a day: the night before a friend fent him a letter to acquaint him with it: but he being at fupper, and busy in difcourfe, faid, to-morrow is a new day; and indeed it was dies noviffima, his laft day to him.

Whence it became a proverb in Greece, To-morrow is a new day. Our glafs runs in heaven, and we cannot fee how much or little of the fand of God's patience is yet to run down; but this is certain, when that glafs is run, there is nothing to be done for our fouls, Luke xix. 42. "O that thou hadst known, at least, in this thy day,. "the things that belong to thy peace; but now they are hid from "thine eyes."

6. Thofe husbandmen that are careful and laborious in the fummer, have the comfort and benefit of it in winter: he that then provides fuel, fhall fit warm in his habitation, when others blow their fingers. He that provides food for his family, and fodder for his cattle, in the harveft, fhall eat the fruit of it, and enjoy the comfort of his labours, when others fhall be expofed to fhifts and ftraits, And he that provides for eternity, and lays up for his foul a good foundation against the time to come, fhall eat when others are hungry, and fing when others howl, Ifa. lxv. 13. A day of death will come, and that will be a day of straits to all negligent fouls; but then the diligent Chriftian fhall enjoy the peace and comfort that shall flow in upon his heart, from his holy care and fincere diligence in duties; as 2 Cor. i. 12. "This is our rejoicing, the teftimony of our confcience, that in "fincerity and godly fimplicity, we have had our conversation in this "world." So Hezekiah, 2 Kings xx. 3. "Remember now, O "Lord, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect "heart." A day of judgment will come, and then foolish virgins, who neglected the season of getting oil in their lamps, will be put to their fhifts; then they come to the wife, and fay, Give us of your oil, Matth. xxv. 8, 9. but they have none to spare, and the season of buying is then over.

7. No wife hufbandman will neglect a fit opportunity of gathering in his hay and corn, upon a, prefumption of much fair weather to come: he will not fay, The weather is fettled, and I need not trouble myfelf; though my corn and hay be fit for the house, yet I may get it in another time as well as now

And no wife Christian will lofe a present season for his foul, upon the hopes of much more time, yet to come; but will rather fay, Now is my time, and I know not what will be hereafter: hereafter I may wish to fee one of the days of the Son of man, and not fee it, Luke xvii. 22. It is fad to hear how cunning fome men are to difpute themselves out of heaven, as if the devil had hired them to plead against their own fouls; fometimes urging the example of thofe that were called at the eleventh hour, Mat. xx. 6. and fometimes that of the penitent thief: but, oh! to how little purpose is the former pleaded? they that were called at the eleventh hour were never called before, as thefe have been; no man had hired, that is, called or invited them to Chrift; and for the thief (as Mr Fenner rightly obferves) it was a fingular and extraordinary example. It was done when Chrift hanged on the crofs, and was to be inaugurated; then

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