pit, and my life to the destroyers, yet he can send me a messenger, one among a thousand, that shall declare to me my uprightness; then shall he deliver me from going down into the pit, my flesh shall be fresher than a child's and I shall return to the days of my youth." Job xxxiii. 22.— Though I flourish, and much of my fruit too be gone, and I am a withering tree; yet as long as the root of the matter is in me, there is more hope of such a poor, decayed, withered tree, than of the hypocrite that wants such a root, in all his glory and bravery. His sun shall set, and never rise again; but I live in expectation of a sweet morning after this dark night.

Hast thou not seen

Rouse up, therefore, O my soul, set thy faith to work on Christ for quickening grace, for he hath life in himself, and quickens whomsoever he will. John vii. 38. Stir up that little which remains. Rev. iii. 2. lively flames proceed from glimmering and dying sparks, when carefully collected, and blown up? Get amongst the most lively and quickening Christians'; "as iron sharpens iron, so will these set an edge upon thy dull affections." Prov. xxvii. 17. Acts xviii. 15. But, above all, cry mightily to the Lord for quickening, he will not despise thy cry.

The moans of a distressed child work upon the bowels of a tender father. And be sure to keep within thy view the great things of eternity, which are ready to be revealed; live in the believing and serious contemplations of them, and be dead if thou canst. It is true, thou hast reason enough from thy condition, to be for ever humbled, but no reason at all from thy God, to be in the least discouraged.

THE POEM.

THOU art the husbandman, and I
A worthless plot of husbandry,
Whom special love did, ne'ertheless,
Divide from nature's wilderness.
Then did the sun-shine of thy face,
And sweet illapses of thy grace,
Like April show'rs, and warming gleams,
Distil its dews, reflect its beams.
My dead affections then were green,
And hopeful buds on them were seen ;
These into duties soon were turn'd,
In which my heart within me burn'd.
O halcyon days! thrice happy state!
Each place was Bethel, heaven's gate.
What sweet discourse, what heav'nly talk,
Whilst with thee I did daily walk!
Mine eyes o'erflow, my heart doth sink,
As oft as on those days I think.
For strangeness now is got between
My God and me, as may be seen
By what is now, and what was then
'Tis just as if I were two men.
My fragrant branches blasted be,
No fruits like those that I can see.
Some canker-worm lies at my root,
Which fades my leaves, destroys my fruit.
My soul is banish'd from thy sight,
For this it mourneth day and night.
Yet why dost thou desponding lie?
With Jonah cast a backward eye.
Sure in thy God help may be had,
There's precious balm in Gilead.

;

That God that made me spring at first,
When I was barren and accurst,
Can much more easily restore

My soul to what it was before.

'Twas Heman's, Job's, and David's case,

Yet all recovered were by grace.

A word, a smile on my poor soul,
Will make it perfect, sound and whole.
A glance of thine hath soon dissolv'd
A soul in sin and grief involv'd.
Lord, if thou canst not work the cure,
I am contented to endure.

CHAPTER VI.

UPON THE INCURABLENESS OF SOME BAD GROUND.

No skill can mend the miry ground; and sure
Some souls the gospel leaves as past a cure.

OBSERVATION.

ALTHOUGH the industry and skill of the husbandman can make some ground that was useless and bad, good for tillage and pasture, and improve that which was barren, and by his cost and pains make one acre worth ten; yet such is the nature of some rocky or miry ground, where the water stands, and there is no way to cleanse, that it can never be made fruitful. The husbandman is fain to let it alone, as an incurable piece of waste or worthless ground; and though the sun and clouds shed their influences on it, as well as upon better land, yet that doth not at all mend it; nay, the more showers it receives, the worse it proves ;

for these do no way fecundate or improve it-nothing thrives there but worthless flags and rushes.

APPLICATION.

Many, also, there are, under the gospel, who are given over by God to judicial blindness, hardness of heart, a reprobate sense and perpetual barrenness; so that how excellent soever the means are which they enjoy, and how efficacious soever to the conversion, edification and salvation of others, yet they shall never do their souls good. Ezekiel xlvii. 9, 11. “Every thing wheresoever the river comes shall live, but the miry places thereof, and the marshes thereof shall never be healed, but be given to salt;" (i. e.) given to an obstinate and everlasting barrenness. Compare Deut. ix. 23. By these waters, saith the judicious * Mr. Strong, understand the doctrine of the gospel; as, Rev. xxii. 1. "a river of water of life, clear as crystal;" Hic Auvius est uberrima doctrina Christi, saith Mr. Brightman. This river is the most fruitful doctrine of Christ, yet these waters do not heal the miry, marshy places, (i. e.) men that live unfruitfully under ordinances, who are compared to miry, marshy places in three respects:

1. In miry places the water hath not free passage, but stands and settles there; so it is with these barren souls, therefore the apostle prays that the gospel and be glorified." 2 Thess. iii. 1.

66 may run The word is said to libere propagatur,

run, when it meets with no stop, Cum when it is freely propagated, and runs through the whole man; when it meets with no stop, either in the mouth of the speaker, or hearts of the hearers, as it doth in these. 2. In a miry place the earth and water is mixed to

*Spiritual barrenness, page 3.

gether; this mixture makes mire: So when the truths of God do mix with the corruptions of men, that they either hold some truths, and yet live in their lusts, or else when men do make use of the truths of God to justify and plead for their sins: Or,

3. When, as in a miry place, the longer the water' stands in it, the worse it grows; so the longer men abide under the ordinances, the more filthy and polluted they grow these are the miry places that cannot be healed, their disease is incurable, desperate.

"Go

O this is a sad case! and yet very common; many persons are thus given over as incorrigible and hopeless. Rev. xxii. 11. "Let him that is filthy be filthy still." Jer. vi. 29. "Reprobate silver shall men call them, for the Lord hath rejected them." Isa. vi. 10, 11. make the heart of this people fat, their ears dull," &c. Christ executes by the gospel that curse upon many souls, which he denounced against the fig-tree. Matt. xxi. 19. "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever, and immediately the fig-tree withered away." To be given up to such a condition, is a fearful judgment indeed, a curse with a witness; the sum of all plagues, miseries and judgments; a fatal stroke at the root itself. It is a woe to have a bad heart, saith one, but it is the depth of woe, to have a heart that never shall be made better. To be barren under the gospel is a sore judgment, but to have that pertinax sterilitas, a pertinacious barrenness; that is to be twice dead, and plucked up by the root, as Jude speaks.

And to shew you the woful and miserable state and plight of such men, let the following particulars be weighed.

1. It is a stroke at the soul itself, an inward spiritual