I' CHAP. III. Upon the Gathering in of Fruits in Autumn. When trees are fhak'd, but little fruit remains, OBSERVATION. T is a pleafant fight in antumn to fee the fruitful branches hanging full of clufters, which weigh the boughs to the ground. Alpice curvatos pomorum pondere ramos, Ut fua quod peperit vix ferat arbor onus. O what a pleafant fight it is to fee, The fruitful clusters bowing down the tree! But thefe laden branches are foon cafed of their burden; for as foon as they are ripe, the husbandman afcends the tree, and thaking the limbs with all his might, caufes a fruitful fhower to fall like hailftones upon the ground below; which being gathered to a heap, are carried to the pound, broken all to pieces in a trough, and squeezed to a dry lump in the prefs, whence all their juice and moisture runs into the fat. How few efcape this fat of all thofe multitudes that grow in the orchard? If you lock upon the trees, you may poflibly fee here one, and there another, two or three upon the utmoft branches, but nothing in comparifon to the vast number that are thus used. THE APPLICATION. HESE fmall remains of fruit, which are either left upon the tree, gathered in for an hoard, do well refemble that finall numher of God's elect in the world, which free-grace hath referved out of the general ruin of mankind. Four things are excellently fhadowed forth to us by this fimilituce. 1. You fee in a fruitful autumn, the trees even oppreffed and overladen with the weight of their own fruits, before the shaking time comes, and then they are cafed of their burden. Thus the whole creation groans under the weight of their fins, who inhabit it, Rom. viii. 22. the creatures are in bondage, and by an elegant Profopopeia, are faid, both to groan and wait for deliverance. The original fin of man brought an original curfe, which burdens the creature, Gen.jii. "Curfed is the ground for thy fake; and the actual fin of man brings actual curfes upon the creature, Pfalm cvii. 34. Thus the inhabitants of the world load and burden it, as the limbs of a tree are burdened, and sometimes broken with the weight of their own fruit. 17. 66 2. You may obferve in your orchards every year, what abundance of fruits daily fall, either by forms, or of their own accord; but when the fhaking time comes, then the ground is covered all over with fruit. Thus it is with the world, that myftical tree, with respect to men that inhabit it; there is not a year, a day, or hour, in which fome drop not, as it were, of their own accord, by a natural death; and fometimes wars and epidemical plagues blow down thoufands together into their graves; thefe are as high winds in a fruitful orchard; but when the thaking time, the autumn of the world, comes, then all its inhabitants shall be shaken down together, either by death, or a tranflation equivalent thereunto. 3. When fruits are fhaken down from their trees, then the hufbandman separates them; the far greater part for the pound, and fome few referved for an hoard, which are brought to his table, and eaten with pleasure. This excellently fhadows forth that great feparation, which Chrift will make in the end of the world, when fome fhall be caft into the wine-prefs of the Almighty's wrath, and others preferved for glory. 4. Thofe fruits which are preferved on the tree, or in the hoard, are, comparatively, but an handful to thofe that are broken in the pound; alas! it is fcarce one of a thoufand, and such a small remnant of elected fouls hath God referved for glory. I look upon the world as a great tree, confifting of four large limbs or branches; this branch or divifion of it on which we grow, hath, doubtless, a greater number of God's elect upon it than the other three; and yet, when I look with a ferious and confidering eye upon this fruitful European branch, and fee how much rotten and withered fruit there grows upon it, it makes me fay, as Chryfoftom did of his populous Antioch; Ah, how fmall a remnant hath Jefus Chrift among thefe vaft numbers! "Many indeed are called, but "ah! how few are chofen ?" Mat. xx. 16. Alas! they are but as the gleanings when the vintage is done; here and there one upon its utmost branches: to allude to that, Ifa. xvii. 6. It was a fad obfervation which that fearching scholar, Mr Brerewood, long fince made upon the world; that, dividing it into thirty equal parts, he found no less than nineteen of them wholly overfpread with idolatry and heathenith darknefs; and of the eleven remaining parts, no lefs than fix are Mahometans; fo that there remains but five of thirty which profefs the Chriftian religion at large; and the far greater part of thefe remaining five are invelopped and drowned in popith darkness; fo that you fee the reformed Proteftant religion is confined to a small spot of ground indeed. Now, if from these we fubtract all the grofly ignorant, openly profane, merely civil, and fecretly hypocritical, judge then in yourselves, how fmall a fcantling of the world falls to Chrift's fhare. Well might Chrift fay, Mat. vii. 14. "Narrow is the way, and "ftrait is the gate that leadeth unto life; and few there be that find "it" And again, Luke xii. 32. "Fear not little flock." The large piece goes to the devil; a little remnant is Chrift's, Rom. ix. 27. Saints in fcripture, are called jewels, Mal. iii. 17. Precious pearls and diamonds, which the Latins call Uniones. Quia nulli duo fimul reperiuntur, (faith Pliny) becaufe nature gives them not by pairs, but one by one: how many pebbles to one pearl! Suitable to this notion, is that complaint of the prophet, Mic. vii. 1, 2. "Wo is me! for I "am as when they have gathered the fummer-fruits, as the grape"gleanings of the vintage; there is no cluster to eat; my foul de"fired the first ripe fruits; the good man is perifhed out of the earth, ❝and there is none, (i. e. none comparatively) upright among men." The prophet alludes to a poor hungry man, that, after the gathering time is paft, comes into an orchard defiring fome choice fruit to eat; but, alas! he finds none; there is no cluster; poffibly here and there one after the shaking time. True faints are the world's rarities. A reflection for one that follows the example of the multitude. REFLECTIONS. 1. What then will be my lot, when that great fhaking time fhall come, who have followed the multitude, and gone with the tide of the world ? How, even when I have been pressed to ftrictness and fingular diligence in the matters of falvation, and told what a narrow way the way of life is, have I put it off with this? If it be fo, then wo to thousands! Ah, foolish heart! Thousands, and ten thousands fhall be woful and miferable, indeed, to all eternity! Will it be any mitigation of my misery, that I shall have thousands of miferable companions with me in hell? Or, will it be admitted for a good plea at the judgment-feat, Lord, I did as the generality of my neighbours in the world did; except it were here and there a more precife perfon, I saw none but lived as I lived. Ah, foolish finner! is it not better to go to heaven alone, than to hell with company?. The worst courfes have always the most imitators; and the road to deftruction is thronged with paffengers. 2. And how little better is my condition, who have often fathered the wickedness of my own heart, upon the encouragement of mercy? Thus hath my heart pleaded against strictness and duty; God is a merciful God, and will not be fo fevere with the world, to damn fo many thousands as are in my condition. Deluded foul! if God had damned the whole race of Adam, he had done them no more wrong: yea, there is more mercy in faving but one man, than there is of feverity and rigour in damning all. How many drunkards and adulterers have lived and died with thy plea in their mouths, "God is a merciful God?" But yet his word exprefsly faith, "Be "not deceived; fuch fhall not inherit the kingdom of God," I Cor. vi. 9. God, indeed, is a God of infinite mercy; but he will never exercife his mercy to the prejudice of his truth. A reflection for an abufer of mercy. 3. Oh! what rich grace is here, That in a general fhipwreck mer A reflection for an cy fhould caft forth a line or plank to fave me! THE POEM. E that with spir'tual eyes în autumn fees HE The heaps of fruit which fall from shaken trees, Like ftorms of hail-ftones, and can hardly find One of a thousand that remains behind; To think how few'll remain that are fincere. But rather wonder that the Lord fhould fhew Mercy to any. Quarrel not with grace; But for thyself God's gracious terms embrace. When all were shipwreck'd, thou fhould'ft wonder more 1 Had the whole fpecies perifh'd in their fin, Yet every tongue before him must be mute, A CHAP. IV. Upon the Cutting down of dead Trees. Dead barren trees you for the fire prepare; OBSERVATION. FTER many years patience, in the ufe of all means to recover a fruit-tree, if the hufbandman fee it be quite dead, and that there can be no more expectation of any fruit from it, he brings his ax, and hews it down by the root; and from the orchard it is carried to the fire, it being then fit for nothing elfe; he reckons it imprudent to let fuch a ufelefs tree abide in good ground, where another may be planted in its room, that will better pay for the ground it ftands in. I myself once faw a large orchard of fair but fruitlefs trees all rooted up, rived abroad, and ricked up for the fire: TH APPLICATION. HUS deals the Lord by useless and barren profeffors who do but cumber his ground, Matth. iii. 10. "And now alfo the ax is "laid to the root of the trees; therefore every tree that brings not "forth good fruit, is hewn down and caft into the fire." And Lukexiii. 7. "Then faid the dreffer of the vineyard, Behold, thefe three years "I came feeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none; cut it down; "why cumbereth it the ground?" Thefe three years, alluding to the time of his miniftry, he being at that time entering upon the laft half-year, as one obferves, by harmonizing the evangelifts; fo long he had waited for the fruit of his miniftry among thofe dead-hearted Jews; now his patience is even at an end: cut them down (faith he) why cumber they the ground? I will plant others, (viz. the Gentiles) in their room. This hewing down of the barren tree doth, in a lively manner, fhadow forth God's judicial proceedings against formal |