tried. Ye think ye have not only the leaves of a profeffion, but the fruits of a boly practice too; but, if ye be not broken off from the old ftock, and ingrafted in Chrift Jefus, God accepts not, nor regards your fruits.

Here I must take occafion to tell you, there are five faults will be found, in heaven, with your beft fruits.‚(1.) Their bittern.fs: "Your clusters are bitter," Deut. xxxii. 32. There is a fpirit of bitterness, wherewith tome come before the Lord, in religious duties, living in malice and envy, and which some profeffors entertain against others, because they out thine them, by holiness of life; or becaufe they are not of their opinion or way. This, wherefoever it reigns, is a fearful fymptom of an unregenerate state. But I do not fo much mean this, as that which is common to all the branches of the old ftock, namely, the leaven of hypocrify, Luke xii. 1. which fours and embitters every duty they perform. The wisdom that is full of good fruits, is without hypocrify, James iii. 17. (2) Their ill favour. Their works are abominable, for themselves are corrupt, Pfal. xiv. 1. They all favour of the old ftock, not of the new it is the peculiar priviledge of the faints, that they are unto God a fweet favour of Chrift," 2 Cor. ii. 15. The unregenerate man's fruits favour not of love to Chrift, nor of the blood of Chrift, nor of the incenfe of his interceffion; and therefore will never be accepted of. in heaven. (3.) Their unripenefs. Their grape is an unripe grape, Job xv. 33. There is no influence on them from the Sun of righteoufnefs, to bring them to perfection. They have the shape of fruit, but no more. The matter of duty is in them, but they want right principles and ends; their works are not wrought in God, John iii. 21. Their prayers drop from their lips, before their hearts be impregnate. with the vital fap of the Spirit of fupplication: their tears fall from their eyes, ere their hearts be truly foftned; their feet turn to new paths, and their way is altered; while yet their nature is not changed. (4) Their lightnefs. Being weighed in the balance, they are found wanting. Dan. v. 27. For evidence whereof, you may obferve, they do not humble the foul, but lift it up in pride. The good fruits of holiness bear down the. branches they grow upon, making them to falute the ground. 1 Cor. xv. 10. "I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." But the blafted fruits of unrenewed mens performance, bang lightly on branches towering up to heaven, Judges xvii. 13. "Now know I, that the Lord will do me good, feeing I have a Levite to my

prieft."

prieft." They look indeed fo high, that God cannot behold them, "Wherefore have we fafted, fay they, and thou seest not?" Ifa. lviii. 3. The more duties they do, and the better they seem to perform them, the lefs are they humbled, the more they are lifted up. This difpofition of the finner is the exact reverse of what is to be found in the faint. To men, who neither are in Chrift, nor are folicitous to be found in him, their duties are like windy bladders, wherewith they think to. fwim afhore to IMMANUEL'S land: but thefe muft needs break, and they confequently firk; because they take. not Chrift for the lifter up of their head, Pfal. iii. 3. Laftly, They are not all manner of pleafant fruits, Cant. vii. 13. Chrift is a King must be served with variety. Where God makes the heart his garden, he plans it as Solomon did his, with trees of all kinds of fruits, Ecclef. ii. 5. And accordingly it brings forth the fruit of the Spirit" in all goodnefs," Eph. v. 9. 9. But the ungodly are not fo, their obedience is never univerfal; there is always fome one thing or other excepted. In one word, their fruits are fruits of an ill tree, that cannot be accepted in heaven.

2dly, Our natural ftock is a dead ftock, according to the threatning, Gen. ii. 17. "In the day thou eateft thereof, thou fhalt furely die." Our root now is rottennefs, no marvel the bloffom go up as duft. The ftroke is gone to the heart; the fap is let out, and the tree is withered. The curfe of the firft covenant, like a hot thunder-bolt from heaven has lighted on it, and ruined it. It is curfed now as the fig-tree, Matth. xxi. 19. "Let no fruit grow on thee, henceforth for ever." Now it is good for nothing, but to cumber the ground, and furnifh fuel for Tophet.

Let me inlarge a little here alfo. Every unrenewed man is a branch of a dead ftock. When thou feeft, O finner, a dead stock of a tree, exhaufted of all its fap, having branches on it in the fame condition; look on it as a lively reprefentation of thy foul's ftate. (1.) Where the ftock is dead, the branches must needs be barren. Alas! the barrennefs of many profeffors plainly difcovers on what stock they are growing. It is eafy to pretend to faith, but fhew me thy faith without thy works, if thou canft, James ii. 17. A dead stock can convey no fap.to the branches, to make them bring forth fruit. The Covenant of Works was the bond of our union, with the natural stock but now it is become weak through the flesh; that is, through the degeneracy and depravity of human nature, Rom. vii. 3. It is ftrong enough to command, and to bind heavy burdens on the

fhoul

;

fhoulders of those who are not in Chrift; but it affords no strength to bear them. The fap that was once in the root, is now gone and the law, like a mercilefs creditor, apprehends Adam's heirs, faying, "Pay what thou oweft;" when, alas! his effects are riotoufly fpent. (3.) All pains and coft are loft on the tree, whose life is gone. In vain do men labour to get fruit on the branches when there is no fap in the root. First, the gardner's pains are loft: minifters lofe their labour on the branches of the old ftock, while they continue on it. Many fermons are preached to no purpose, becaufe there is no life to give fenfation. Sleeping men may be awakened, but the dead cannot be raised without a miracle: even fo the dead finner must remain fo, if he be not restored to life by a miracle of grace.

SECONDLY, The influences of heaven are loft on such a tree : In vain doth the rain fall upon it in vain is it laid open to the winter cold and frofts. The Lord of the vineyard digs about many a dead foul, but it is not bettered. " Bruife the fool in a mortar, his folly will not depart." Tho' he meets with many croffes, yet he retains his lufts: let him be laid on a fick bed, be will there ly like a fick beat, groaning under his pain; but not mourning for, nor turning from his fin. Let death itself (tare him in the face, he will prefumptuoufly maintain his hope, as if he would look the grim meffenger out of countenance. Sometimes there are common operations of the divine Spirit performed on him he is fent home with a trembling heart, and with arrows of conviction flicking in his foul: but at length he pre-1 vails against these things, and turns as fecure as ever. Thirdly, Summer and Winter are alike to the branches of the dead ftock. When others about them are budding, bloffoming, and bringing forth fruit, there is no change on them: the dead flock has no growing time at all. Perhaps it may be difficult to know, in the Winter, what trees are dead, and what alive: but the fpring plainly discovers it. There are fome feafns wherein there is little life to be perceived, even among faints: yet times of reviving come at length. But even when the vine flourisheth, and the pomegranates bud forth," (when faving grace is dif covering itself by its lively actings, wherefoever it is) the › branches on the old flock are still withered when the dry bones are coming together, bone to bone, amongst faints, the finner's bones are still lying about the grave's mouth. They are trees that cumber the ground, are near to be cut down: and he will cu' down for the fire, if God in mercy prevent it not, by cutting them off from that stock, and ingrafting them into another.

LASTLY,

LASTLY, Our natural stock is a killing ftock. If the stock die, how can the branches live? If the fap be gone from the root and heart, the branches muft deeds wither. In Adam all die," 1 Cor. xv. 22. The root died in Paradise, and all the branches in it, and with it. The root is impoifoned, thence the branches come to be infected: death is in the pot, and all that tafte of the pulfe, or pottage are killed.

Know then, that every natural man is a branch of a killing ftock. Our natural root not only gives us not life, but it has a killing power reaching all the branches thereof. There are four things, which the first Adam conveys to all his branches; and they are abiding in, and lying on, fuch of them as are not ingrafted to Chrift. First, A corrupt nature: He finned, and his nature was thereby corrupted or depraved; and this corruption is 'conveyed to all his pofterity: He was infected, and the contagion fpread itself over all his feed. Secondly, Guilt, that is an obligation to punishment, Rom. v. 21. "By one man fin entered into the world, and death by fin: and fo death paffed upon all men, for that all have finned." The threatnings of the law, as cords of death, are twisted about the branches of the old stock, to draw them over the hedge into the fire; And, till they be cut off from this stock, by the pruning knife, the sword of vengeance hangs over their heads, to cut them down.. Thirdly, This killing ftock tranfmits the curfe into the branches : The ftock, as the flock, (for I fpeak not of Adam in his perfonal and private capacity,) being curfed; fo are the branches, Gal. iii. 18," For as many as are of the works of the law, are under the curfe." This curfe affects the whole man, and all that belongs to him, every thing he poffeffes; and worketh three ways. (1.) As poifon infecting: thus their "bleffings are curfed," Mal. ii. 2. Whatever the man enjoys, it can do him no good, but evil; being thus impoifoned by the curfe. His profperity in the world" deftroys him," Prov. i. 32. The miniftry of the Gofpel is "a favour of death unto death," to him, 2 Cor. ii. 16. His feeming attainments in religion are curfed to him: his knowledge ferves but to puff him up, and his duties to keep him back from Chrift. (2.) It worketh as a moth, confuming and wafting by little and little, Hof. v. 12. "Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth." There is a worm at the root, confuming them by degrees; Thus the curfe purfued Saul, till it wormed him out of all his enjoyments, and out of the very shew he had of religion: Sometimes they decay like the fat of lambs: and melt away as the fnow in a fun-fhine. (2.) It acteth as a

lion rampant," Hof. v. 14. "I will be unto Ephraim as a lion," The Lord" rains on them fnares, fire and brimftone, and an horrible tempeft," in fuch a manner, that they are hurried away with the ftream. He teareth their enjoyments from them in his wrath, purfueth them with terrors, rents their fouls from their bodies, and throws the deadned branch into the fire. Thus the curfe devours like fire, which none can quench. Laftly, This killing flock tranfmits death to the branches upon it: Adam took the poifonous cup and drank it off: this occafioned death to himself and us: We came into the world fpiritually dead, thereby obnoxious to eternal death, and abfolutely liable to temporal death; This root is to us like the Scythian river, which, they fay, brings. forth little bladders every day, out of which come certain small flies, which are bred in the morning, winged at noon, and dead at night: a very lively emblem of Our mortal state.

Now, firs, is it not abfolutely neceffary to be broken off from this our natural stock? What will our fair leaves of a profession, or our fruits of duties avail, if we be ftil branches of the degenerate, dead and killing stock? But, alas! among the many quellions toffed among us, few are taken up about thefe, Whether am I broken off from the old ftock, or not? Whether am I ingrafted in Christ, or not? Ah! wherefore all this waste! Why is there fo much noife about religion amongst many, who can give no good account of their having laid a good foundation, being mere ftrangers to experimental religion? I fear, if God do not in mercy, timeously undermine the religion of many of us, and let us fee we have none at all; our root will be found rottennefs, and our bloffom go up as duft, in a dying hour: Therefore let us look to our ftate, that we be not found fools in our latter end.

II. Let us now view the fupernatural flock, in which the branches, cut off from the natural stock, are ingrafted. Jefus Chrift is fometimes called "the Branch, Zech. i. 8. So he is, in refpect of his human nature; being a branch, and the top branch of the houfe of David. Sometimes he is called "a Root," Ifa. xi. 18. We have both together, Rev. xxii. 16. “I am the root and the off fpring of David." David's root as God, and his offfpring as man: The text tells, that he is "the Vine,” i. e. he, as, a Mediator, is the Vine-tock, whereof believers are the branches. As the fap comes from the earth into the root and stock, and from thence is diffufed in the branches: fo by Chrift, as Mediator, divine life is conveyed from the fountain, unto these who

are