their own necessities while living but to lay up something for their posterity when they are gone they do not only leave to their children what their progenitors left them but they desire to leave it improved and bettered None but bad husbands and spend-thirfts are of the mind with that Heathen Emperor Tiberius who having put all into such confusions in the Empire that it might be thought the world would end with him yet pleased himself with this apprehension that he should be out of the reach of it and would often say When I am dead let heaven and earth mingle if the world will but hold my time let it break when I am gone But provident men look beyond their own time and do very much concern themselves in the good or evil of their posterity APPLICATION VVHat careful Husbands do with respect to the provisions they make for their children that all prudent Christians are bound to do with respect to the truths committed to them and do them to be transmitted to succeeding Saints In the first age of the world even till the Law was given faithful men were instead of books and records they did by oral tradition convey the truths of God to posterity but since the sacred truth hath been consigned the writing no such tion except full consentient with that written word is to be received as authentick but the truths therein delivered to the Saints are by verbal declarations open confessions and constant sufferings to be preserved and delivered from age to age This was the constant care of the whole cloud of witnesses both ancient and modern who have kept the word of Gods patience and would not accept their own lives liberties or estates no nor the whole world in exchange for that invaluable treasure of truth they have carefully practised Solomons counsel Prov. 23. 23. Buy the truth but sell it not they would not alienate that fair inheritance for all the inheritances on earth Upon the same reasons that you are refuse to part with or embezel your estates Christians also refuse to part with the truths of God You will not waste or alienate your inheritance because it 's precious and of great value in your eyes but much more precious are Gods truths to his people Luther professed he would not take the whole world for one leaf of his Bible Though some profane persons may say with Pilate What is truth yet know that any one truth of the Gospel is more worth than all the inheritances upon earth they are the great things of Gods Law and he that sells them for the greatest things in this world makes a soul-undoing bargain You will not waste or part with your inheritance because you know your posterity will be much wronged by it They that baffle or drink away an estate drink the tears of their sad widows and the very blood of their impoverished children The people of God do also consider how much the generations to come are concern'd in the conservation of the truths of God for them it cuts them to the heart but to think that their children should be brought up to worship dumb idols and fall down before a wooden or a breaden God The very birds and beasts will expose their own bodies to apparent danger of death to preserve their young Religion doth much more intender the heart and bowels than nature doth You reckon it a foul disgrace to sell your estates and beâ—â—me Bankrupts 't is a word that hears ill among you And a Christian accounts it the highest reproach in the world to be a traitor to or an Apostate from the truths of God When the primitive Saints were strictly required to deliver up their Bibles those that did so were justly branded and husht out of their company under the odiou title of Traditores or deliverers You are so loath to part with your â—states because you know its hard recovering an estate again when once you have lost it Christians do also know how difficult it will be for the people of God in times to come to recover the light of the Gospel again if once it be exinguished There is no truth of God recovered out of Antichrists hands without great wrestlings and much blood The Church may call every point of reformed doctrine and discipline so recovered her Napâ—â—alies for with great wrestlings she hath wrestled for them Earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to them Iude 3. To conclude rather than you will part with your estates you will chuse to suffer many wants and hardships all your lives you will fare hard and go bare to preserve what you have for your posterity But the people of God have put themselves upon far greater hardships than these to preserve truth they have chosen to suffer reproaches poverty prisons death and the most cruel torments rather than the loss of Gods truth All the Martyrologies will inform you what their sufferings have been to keep the word of Gods patience they have boldly told their enemies that they might pluck their hearts out of their bodies but should never pluck the truth out of their hearts REFLECTIONS BAse unbelieving heart how have I flinched and shrunk from truth when it hath been in danger I have rather chosen to leave it than my life liberty or estate as a prey to the enemy I have left truth and just it is that the God of truth should leave me Cowardly soul that durst not make a stand for truth yea rather bold and daring soul that wouldst rather venture to look a wrathful God than an angry man in the face I would not own and preserve the truth and the God of truth will not own me 2 Tim. 2. 12. If we deny him he will deny us Lord unto me hast thou committed the precious treasure and trust of truth and as I received it so do I desire to deliver it to the generations to come that the people which are yet unborn may praise the Lord. God forbid I should ever part with such a fair inheritance and thereby begger my own and thousands of souls Thou hast given me thy truth and the world hates me I well know that is the ground of the quarrel would I but throw truth over the walls how soon would a retreat be sounded to all presecutors But Lord thy truth is invaluably precious what a vile thing is my blood compared with the least of all thy truths Thou hast charged me to sell it and in thy strength I resolve never to lift a fine and cut off that golden line wherey thy truths are entailed upon thy people from generation to generation My friends may go my liberary go my blood may go but as for thee precious truth thou shalt never go How dear hath this inheritance of truth cost some Christians how little hath it cost us We are entred into their labours we reap in peace what they sowed in tears yea in blood O the grievous sufferings
that at its first transplanting into Italy 't was watered with wine I cannot say saith he that you have been so watered by me I dare not but this I can humbly and truly say that if our choicest strength and spirits may be named instead of water wine or if the blessing which hath gone along with these waters at any time hath turned them into wine in vigour upon your souls then hath God by me watered your roots with wine The Husbandman builds his house where he makes his purchase dwells upon his Land and frequently visits it he knows that such as dwell far from their Lands are not far from loss So doth God where-ever he plants a Church there doth he fix his habitation intending there to dwell Psal. 46. 5. God is in the midst of her she shall not be moved Thus God came to dwell upon his own Fee and Inheritance in Iudea Levit. 26. 11 12. And I will set my tabernacle amongst you and will be your God and ye shall be my people Which promise is again renew'd to his Churches of the New Testament 2 Cor. 6. 16. And when the Churches shall be in their greatest flourish and purity then shall there be the fullest and most glorious manifestation of the divine presence among them Rev. 21. 3. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying Behold the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and be their God Hence the Assemblies are called the places of his feet And there they behold the beauty of the Lord Psal. 27. Husbandmen grudge not at the cost they are at for their tillage but as they lay out vast sums upon it so they do it cheerfully And now O inhabitants of Ierusalem and men of Iuda judge I pray you betwixt me and my vineyard what could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it And as he bestows upon his heritage the choicest mercies so he doth it with the greatest cheerfulness for the saith Ier. 32. 41. I will rejoyce over them to do them good and I will plant them in this Land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul. It is not the giving out of mercy saith one that grieveth God but the recoyling of his mercies back again upon him by the creatures ingratitude When Husbandmen have been at cost and pains about their Husbandry they expect fruit from it answerable to their pains and expences about it Behold saith Iames the Husbandman waiteth for the precious fruits of the earth Iam. 5. 7. And he looked that it should bring forth fruit Isa. 5. 2. This heavenly Husbandman waits for the fruits of his fields also never did any Husbandman long for the desired Harvest more than God doth for the fruits of holiness from his Saints great are the expectations of God from his people And when the time of the fruit drew near he sent his servants to the Husbandmen that they might receive the fruits of it Husbandman are much delighted to see the success of their labours it comforts them over all their hard pains and many weary dayes to see a good increase Much more is God delighted in beholding the flourishing graces of his people it pleases him to see his plants laden with fruit and his valleys sing with corn Cant. 6. 2. My beloved is gone down into his garden into his beds of spices to feed in the gardens and to gather lillies These beds of spices say Expositors are the particular Churches the companies of Believers he goes to feed in these gardens like as men go to their gardens to make merry or to gather fruit Cant. 4. 16. He eats his pleasant fruit viz. His peoples holy performances sweeter to him than any Ambrosia thus he feeds in the gardens and he gathers lillies when he translates good souls into his Kingdom above For the Lord taketh pleasure in his Saints and will beautifie the meek with salvation The Husbandman is exceedingly grieved when he sees the hopes of a good crop disappointed and his fields prove barren or blasted So the Lord expresses his grief for and anger against his people when they bring forth no fruits or wilde fruits worse than none Hos. 9. 16. Ephraim is smitten their root is dryed up Christ was exceedingly displeased with the fig-tree and cursed it for its barrenness it grieves him to the heart when his servants return to him with such complaints as these We have laboured in vain we have spent our strength for nought Husbandmen imploy many labourers to work in their fields there is need to many hands for such a multiplicity of business God hath diversity of workmen also in the Churches whom he sends forth to labour in his spiritual fields Eph. 4. 12. He gave some Apostles some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry Amos 3. 7. I have sent my servants the Prophets 'T is usual with the Apostles to place this title of servant among their honorary titles though a prophane mouth once called it Probosum artificium a sordid artifice Christ hath stampt a great deal of dignity upon his Ministers in retaining them for the nearest service to himself 1 Cor. 4. 1. Let a man so account of us as the Ministers of Christ they are workers together with God the Husbandman works in the field among his labourers and the great God disdaineth not to work in and with his poor servants in the work of the Ministry The work about which Husbandmen imploy their servants in the field is toylsom and spending You see they come home at night as weary as they can draw their legs after them But Gods workmen have a much harder task than they Hence they are set forth in Scripture by the laborious ox 1. Cor. 9. 9. Rev. 4. 7. Some derive the word Deacon from a word that signifies dust to shew the laboriousness of their imployment labouring till even choaked with dust and sweat 'T is said of Epaphroditus Phil. 2. 13. That for the work of Christ he was sick and nigh unto death not regarding his life to supply their lack of service The Apostles expression Col. 1. ult is very emphatical Whereunto I also labour striving according to his working which worketh in me mightily The word signifies such spending labour as puts a man into an agony and blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh small find so doing The immediate end of the Husbandmans labour and his servants labour is for the improvement of his Land to make it more flourishing and fruitful The scope and end of the Ministry is for the Churches benefit and advantage They must not lord it over God's heritage as if the Church were for them and not they for the Church nor serve themselves of it but
when he goes to preach the Gospel I am now going to preach that word which is to be a savour of life or death to these souls upon how many of my poor hearers may the curse of perpetual barrenness be executed this day O how should such a thought melt his heart into compassion over them and make him beg hard and plead earnestly with God for a better issue of the Gospel than this upon them The Poem YOu that besides your pleasant fruitful fields Have useless bogs and rocky ground that yields You no advantage nor doth quit your cost But all your pains and charges on them 's lost Hearken to me I le teach you how to get More profit by them than if they were set At higher Rents than what your Tenants pay For your most â—ertile Lands and here 's the way Think when you view them why the Lord hath chose These as Emblems to decipher those That under Gospel-grace grow worse and worse For means are fruitless where the Lord doth curse Sweet showers descend the Sun his beams reflects on both alike but not with like effects Observe and see how after the sweet showers The grass and corn revive the fragrant flowers Shoot forth their beauteous heads the valleys sing All fresh and green as in the verdant spring But rocks are barren still and bogs are so Where nought but flags and worthless rushes grow Upon these marish grounds there lyes this curse The more rain falls by so much more the worse Even so the dews of grace that sweetly fall From Gospel clouds are not alike to all The gracious soul doth germinate and bud But to the Reprobate it doth no good He 's like the withered fig-tree void of fruit Afearful curse hath smote his very root The heart 's made â—at the eyes with blindness seal'd The piercingst truths the Gospel ere reveal'd Shall be to him but as the Sun and rain Are to obdurate rocks fruitless and vain Be this your meditation when you walk By rocks and fenny grounds thus learn to talk With your own souls and let it make you fear Lest that 's your case â—haâ— is described here This is the best improvement you can make Of such bad ground good soul I pray thee take Some pains about them though they barren be Thou seest how they may yield sweet fruits to thee CHAP. VII The Plowman guides his Plow with care and skill So doth the Spirit in sound conviction still OBSERVATION IT requires not only strength but much skill and judgment to manage and guide the plow The Hebrew word which we translate to plow signifies to be intent as an Artificer is about some curious piece of work The plow must neither go too shallow nor too deep in the earth it must not indent the ground by making crooked furrows nor leap and make baulks in good ground but be guided as to a just depth of earth so to cast the furrow in a straight line that the floor or surface of the field may be made plain As it is Isa. 28. 25. And hence that expression Luke 9. 62. He that puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven The meaning is that as he that plows must have his eyes alwayes forward to guide and direct his hand in casting the furrows straight and even for his hand will be quickly out when his eye is off So he that heartily resolves for heaven must addict himself wholly and intently to the business of Religion and not have his mind intangled with the things of this world which he hath left behind him whereby it appears that the right management of the plow requires as much skill as strength APPLICATION THis Observation in nature serves excâ—llently to shadow forth this proposition in Diviâ—ity That the work of the Spirit in convincing and humbling the heart of a sinner is a work wherein much of the wisdom as well as power of God is discovered The work of repentance and saving contrition is set forth in Scripture by this Metaphor of plowing Ier. 4. 3. Hos. 10. 12 Plow up your fallow ground that is be convinced humbled and broken hearted for fin And the resemblance betwixt both these works appears in the following particulars 1 'T is a hard and difficult work to plow it 's reckoned one of the painâ—ullest manual labours It is also a very hard thing to convince and humble the heart of a secure stout and proud sinner indurate in wickedness What Luther saith of a dejected soul That it is as easie to raise the dead as to comfort such a one The same I may say of the secure confident sinner 'T is as easie to rend the rocks as to work saving contrition upon such a heart Citius expâ—mice aquam all the melting language and earnest intreaties of the Gospel cannot urge such a heart to shed a tear Therefore it 's called a heart of stone Ezek. 36. 26. A firm rock Amos 6. 12. Shall horses run upon the Rock will one plow there with Oxen yet when the Lord comes in the power of his Spirit these rocks do rend and yield to the power of the word 2 The plow pierces deep into the bosome of the earth makes as it were a deep gash or wound in the heart of it So doth the Spirit upon the hearts of Sinners he pierces their very souls by conviction Act. 2. 37. When they heard this they were pricked or pierced point blank to the heart Then the word divides the soul and Spirit Heb. 4. 12. It comes upon the conscience with such pinching dilemma's and tilts the sword of conviction so deep into their souls that there is no stenching the bloud no healing this wound till Christ himself come and undertake the cure Hâ—reâ— lateri lethalis arundo this barbed arrow cannot be pulled out of their hearts by any but the hand that shot it in Discourse with such a soul about his troubles and he will tell you that all the sorrows that ever he had in this world loss of estate health children or whatever else are but flea-bitings to this this swallows up all other troubles See how that Christian Niobe Luke 7. 38. is dissolved into tears Nâ—w deep calleth unto deep at the noise of his water spouts when the waves and billows of God go over the soul. Spiritual sorrows are deep waters in which the stoutest and most magnanimous soul would sink and drown did not Iesus Christ by a secret and supporting hand hold it up by the chin 3. The plow rends the earth in parts and pieces which before was united and makes those parts hang loose which formerly lay closs Thus doth the spirit of conviction rend in sunder the heart and its most beloved lusts Ioel. 2. 13. Rent your hearts and not your garments that is rather then
your garments for the sense is comparative though the expression be negative And this rending implyes not only acute pain flesh cannot be rent asunder without anguish nor yet only force and violence the heart is a stubborn and knotty piece and will not easily yield but it also implies a dis-union of parts united as when a garment or the earth or any continuous body is rent those parts are separated which fomerly cleaved together Sin and the Soul were glewed fast together before there was no parting of them they would as soon part with their lives as with their lusts but now when the heart is rent for them truely it is also rent from them everlastingly Ezek. 7. 15. to 19. 4 The plow turns up and discovers such things as lay hid in the bosome of the earth before and were covered under a fair green surface from the eyes of men Thus when the Lord plows up the heart of a sinner by conviction then the secrets of his heart are made manifest 2 Cor. 14. 24 25. the most secret and shameful sins will then our for the word of God is quick and powerful sharper than any two edged sword piercing even to the dividing of the soul and spirit the joynts and merrow and is a quick discerner of the thoughts and secret intents of the heart Heb. 4. 12. It makes the fire burn inwardly so that the soul hath no rest till confession give a vent to trouble Fain would the shuffling sinner conceal and hide his shame but the word follows him through all his sinful shifts and brings him at last to be his own both accuser witness and judge â— The work of the plow is but opus ordinabile a preparative work in order to fruit Should the Husbandman plow his ground never so often yet if the seed be not cast in and quickned in vain is the Harvest expected Thus conviction also is but a preparative to a farther work upon the soul of a sinner If it stick there and go no farther it proves but an abortive or untimely birth Many have gone thus far and there they have stuck they have been like a field plowed but not sowed which is a matter of trembling consideration for hereby their sin is greatly aggravated and their eternal misery so much the more increased O when a poor damned creature shall with horror reflect upon himself in hell how near was I once under such a Sermon to conversion My sins were set in order before me my conscience awakened and terrified with the guilt of them many pâ—rposes and resolves I had then to turn to God which had they been perfected by answerable executions I had never come to this place of torment but there I stuck and that was my eternal undoing Many souls have I known so terrified with the guilt of sin that they have come roaring under horrors of conscience to the Preacher so that one would think such a breach had been made between them and sin as could never be reconciled and yet as angry as they were in that fit with sin they have hug'd and imbraced them again 6 'T is best plowing when the earth is prepared and mollified by the showers of rain then the work goes on sweetly and easily And never doth the heart so kindly melt as when the Gospel clouds dissolve and the free grace and love of Iesus Christ comes sweetly showing down upon it then it relents and mourns ingeniously Ezek. 16. 63. That thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy moâ—th any more of thy shame when I am pocified towards thee for all that thou hast done So it was with that poor penitent Luke 7. 38. when the Lord Iesus had discovered to her the super-abounding riches of his grace in the pardon of her manisold abominations her heart melted within her she washed the feet of Christ with tears And indeed there is as much difference betwixt the tears which are forced by the terrors of the law and those which are extracted by the grace of the Gospel as there is betwixt those of a condemned malefactor who weeps to consider the misery he is under and those of a pardoned malefactor that receives his pardon at the foot of the ladder and is melted by the mercy and clemency of his gracious Prince towards him 7 The plow kills those ranck weeds that grow in the field turns them up by the roots buries and rots them So doth saving conviction kill sin at the root makes the soul sick of it begets indignation in the heart against it 2 Cor. 7. 11. The word there signifies the rising of the stomack any being angry even unto sickness Religious wrath is the fiercest wrath now the soul cannot endure sin trembles at it I find a woman more bitter than death saith penitent Solomon Eccl. 7. 26. Conviction like a surâ—et makes the soul to loath what it formerly loved and delighted in 8 That field is not well plowed where the plow jumps and skips over good ground and makes baulks it must turn up the whole field alike and that heart is not savingly convicted where any lust is spared and lest untouched Saving Conviction extends it self to all sins not only to sin in general with this cold confâ—ssion I am a â—â—nner but to the particulars of 〈◊〉 yea to the particular circumstances and aggravations of time place manner occasions thus and thus have I done to the sin of nature as well as practise behold I was shapen in iniquity Psal. 51. 5. There must be no baulking of any sin the spâ—ring of one sin is a sure argument thou art not truely humbled for any sin So far is the convinced soul from a studious concealment of a beloved sin that it weeps over that more than over any other actual sin 9 New ground is much more easily plowed than that which by long lying out of tillage is more consolidated and clung together by deep rooted thorns and brambles which render it difficult to the Plowman This old ground is like an old sinner that hath layn a long time hardening under the means of grace O the difficulty of convincing such a person Sin hath got such rooting in his heart he is so habituated to the reproofs and calls of the word that â—ew such are wrought upon How many young persons are called to one obdurate inveterate sinner I do not say but God may call home such a soul at the eleventh hour but I may say of these compared with others as Solomon speaks Eccles. 7. 28. One man among a thousand have I found c. Few that have long â—esisted the Gospel that come afterwards to feel the saving efficacy thereof REFLECTIONS OGrace for ever to bâ— admired that God should send forth his Word and Spirit to plow up my hard and stony heart yea mine when he hath lest so many of more tender ingenious sweet and melting tempers without any culture or meanes of grace O
among men and rejected eternally by God Who can considerately read that sixth Chapter of the Hebrews and not tremble to think in what a forlorn case a soul may be though set off and accomplisht with the rarest endowments of this kind Mat. 7. 22. We read that many shall say to Christ in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name cast out devils c. and yet themselves at last cast out as a prey to Devils How divinely and rhetorically did a Balaam speak and prophesie Num. 23. What rare and excellent parts had the Scribes and Pharisees Who upon that account were stiled principes seculi the Princes of the world 1 Cor. 2. 8. What profound and excellent parts had the Heathen Sages and Philosophers These things are so far from securing the soul against the wrath to come that they often expose it unto wrath and are as oyl to encrease the eternal burnings but now gracious principles are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle calls them Heb. 6. Things that accompany and have salvation in them These are the things on which the promises of Salvation run and these treasures are never found but in elect vessels Glory is by promise assured and made over to him that possesses them There is but a little point of time betwixt him and the glorified spirits above And how inconsiderable a matter is a little time which contracts and winds up apace For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed And hence the scriptures speaks of them as already saved Rom. 8. 24. We are saved by hope because it s as sure as if we were in heaven We are made to sit in heavenly places Gifts may damnifie the person that possesses them and it may be better in respect of a mans own condition he had never had them Knowledge saith the Apostle Puffeth up 1 Cor. 8. 1. maketh the soul proud and flatulent 'T is a hard thing to know much and not to know it too much The Saints knowledge is better than the Schollars for he hath his own heart instead of a Commentary to help him Aristotle said a little knowledge about heavenly things though conjectural is better than much of earthly things though certain The world by wisdom knew not God saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 1. 21. i. e. their learning hanged in their light they were too wise to submit to the simplicity of the Gospel The excellent parts of the old Hereticks did but serve to midwiâ—e into the world the monstrous birth of soul-damning heresies Cupit abs te ornari diabolus as Austin said to that ingenious young Scholler The devil desires to be adorned by thee But now grace in its self is not subject to such abuses it cannot be the proper univocal cause of any evil effect It cannot puff up the heart but alwayes humbles it nor serve the devils designs but ever opposes them Gifts may be given a man for the sake of others and not out of love to himself they are but as an excellent dish of meat which a man sends to nurse not for her sake so much as for his Child that sucks her God indeed makes use of them to do his children good the Church is benefitted by them though themselves are but like Cooks they prepare excellent dishes on which the Saints feed and are nourished though themselves tast them not They dona ministrantia non sanctificantia ministring but not sanctifying gifts proceeding not from the good will of God to him that hath them but to those he benefits by them And oh what a sad consideration will this be one day to such a person to think I helped such a soul to heaven while I my self must lodg in hell Sin in the raign and power of it may cohabit with the most excellent natural gifts under the same roof I mean in the same heart A man may have the tongue of an Angel and the heart of a Devil The wisdome of the Philosophâ—rs saith Eactantius non excindit vitia sed abscondit did not root out but hide their vices The learned Pharisees were but painted sepulchers gifts are but as a fair glove drawn over a foul hand But now grace is incompatible with Sin in dominions it purifies the heart Act. 15. 9 cleanses the conscience Heb. 9. 14. Crucifies the affections and lusts of the flesh Gal. 5. 24. is not content with the concealment but ruine of corruptions Lastly Gifts must leave us at last Whether there be knowledge that shall cease All flesh is grass and the goodliness of it as the flower of the grass the grass withers the flower fadeth but the word of the Lord abideth for ever Isa. 40. 6 8. Many times they leave a man before death One knock if it hit right as one saith may make a wise man a fool but to be sure they all leave us at death Doth not his excellency which is in him go away Iob 4. 21. yea then all natural excellency departs Death strips the soul of all those splendid ornaments then the rhetorical tongue is struck dum the nimble wit and curious phansie shall entertain your ears with no more pleasant discourses Nunquam jâ—cos dabis as Adrian said to his departing soul but grace ascends with the soul into eternity and there receives its perfection and accomplishment Gifts take their leave of the soul as Orpha did of Naomi but grace saith then as Ruth where thou goest I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge and nothing shall separate thee and me Now pâ—â— all this together and then judge whether the Apostle spake hyperbolyes when he said Covet earnestly the best gifts and yet I shew unto you a more excellent way 1 Cor. 12. ult And thus you have the choiceness of these principles also REFLECTIONS The lines are fallen to me in a pleasant place may the gracious soul say How defective soever I am in gifts yet blessed be the Lord who hath sown the seeds of true grace in my heart What though I am not famed and honoured among men let it suffice me that I am precious in the eyes of the Lord. Though he hath not abounded to me in gifts of nature yet blessed be the God and Father of my Lord Iesus Christ who hath abounded to me in all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Iesus Eph. 1. 3. Is not a true jewel though spurn'din the dirt more precious than a false one though set in gold Why art thou troubled O my soul for the want of these things which reprobates may have and art not rather admiring and blessing God for those things which none but the darlings and favourites of heaven can have is not an ounce of pure gold more valuable than many pounds of guilded brass what though the dews of Helicon descend not upon my head if in the mean time the sweet influences of Sion fall upon my heart O my God!