REFLECTIONS.. The lines are fallen to me in a pleasant place, may the gracious soul say :- -How defective so ever I am in gifts, yet blessed be the The gracious soul's Lord who hath sown the seeds of true reflection. grace in my heart. What though I am not famed and honored 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 Jesus Christ, who hath abounded to me in all spiritual blessings, in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Eph. i. 3. Is not a true jewel, though spurned in 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 favorites of heaven can have? Is not an ounce of pure gold more valuable than many pounds of gilded brass? What though the dews of Helicon descend not upon my head, if in the mean time the sweet influences of Zion fall upon my heart? O my God! how much soever others are elated by the lights of their knowledge, I have cause, with humility, to adore thee for the heav enly heat with which thou hast warmed my affections. Pause awhile, my soul, upon this point: With what seed is my heart sown, and of The deceived what kind are those things wherein I excel soul's reflecothers? Are they indeed special seeds of tion. grace, or common gifts and natural excellen cies ? If the latter, little cause have I to pride myself in them, were they ten thousand times more than they are. If these things be indeed the things that accompany salvation, the seed of God, the true and real work of grace, then, (1.) How comes it to pass that I never found any throes or travailing pangs in the production of them? It is affirmed, and generally acknowledged, that the new creature is never brought forth without such pain and compunctions of heart. Acts ii. 37. I have indeed often felt an aching head, whilst I have read and studied to increase my knowledge; but when did I feel an aching heart for sin? OI begin to suspect that it is not right: Yea, (2.) and my suspicion increases while I consider that grace is of an humbling nature. 1 Cor. xv. 10. Lord, how have I been elated by my gifts, and valued myself above what was meet? O how have I delighted in the noise of the Pharisee's trumpet! Matt. vi. 2. No music so sweet as that. Say, O my conscience, have I not delighted more in the theatre than the closet? In the praise of men, than the approbation of God! O how many evidences dost thou produce against me? Indeed, these are sad symptoms that I have shewed thee, but there is yet another, which renders thy case more suspicious yet, yea, that which thou canst make no rational defence against, even the ineffectualness of all thy gifts and knowledge to mortify any one of all thy lusts. It is beyond all dispute, that gifts may, but grace cannot consist without mortification of sin. Gal. v. 24. Now what lust hath fallen before these excellent parts of mine? Doth not pride, passion, covetousness, and indeed the whole body of sin, live and thrive in me as much as ever? Lord, I yield the cause, I can defend it no longer against my conscience, which casts and condemns me, by full proof, to be but in a wretched, cursed, lamentable state, notwithstanding all my knowledge and flourishing gifts. O shew me a more excellent way. Lord! that I had the sincerity of the poorest saint, though I should lose the applause of all my parts; with these I see I may go to hell, but without some better thing no hope of heaven. CHAPTER IX. UPON SPRINGING WEATHER AFTER SEED TIME. By heaven's influence corn and plants do spring, OBSERVATION. THE earth, after that it is ploughed and sowed must be watered, and warmed with the dews and influences of heaven, or no fruit can be expected. If God do not open to you his good treasure, the heavens to give rain unto the land in its season, and bless all the work of your hands, as it is, Deut. xxviii. 12. the earth cannot yield her increase. The order and dependence of natural causes in the production of fruit, is excellently described, Hosea ii. 21, 22. "I will bear the heavens, and they shall bear the earth; and the earth shall bear the corn, and wine, and oil; and they shall bear Jezreel." Jezreel must have corn, and wine, and oil, or they cannot live; they cannot have it unless the earth bring it forth; the earth cannot bring it forth without the heavens; the heavens cannot yield a drop unless God hear them, that is, unlock ard open them.* "Nature, and natural causes, are nothing else but the order in which God works." This some heathens, by the light of nature, acknowledged, and therefore, when they went to plough in the morning, they did * Natura nihil aliud est quam divinorum operum ordo. Beren lay one hand upon the plough, (to speak their own part of painfulness,) and held up the other hand to Ceres, the goddess of corn, to shew that their expectation of plenty was from their supposed deity.* I fear many Christians lay both hands to the plough, and seldom lift up heart or hand to God, when about that work. There was an husbandman, saith Mr. Smith, that always sowed good seed, but never had good corn; at last a neighbor came to him, and said, I will tell you what probably may be the cause of it-it may be, said he, you do not steep your seed :— No, truly, said the other, nor did I ever hear that seed must be steeped. Yes, surely, said his neighbor, and I will tell you how; it must be steeped in prayer. When the party heard this, he thanked him for his counsel, reformed his fault, and had as good corn as any man whatsoever. Surely it is not the husbandman's, but God's steeps, that drop fatness. Alma mater terra, the earth, indeed, is a fruitful mother, but the rain which fecundates and fertilizes it, hath no other father but God. Job xxxviii. 28. APPLICATION. As impossible it is, in an ordinary way, for souls to be made fruitful in grace and holiness, without the dews and influences of ordinances, and the blessing of God upon them, as for the earth to yield her fruit without the natural influences of heaven; for look, what dews, showers, and clear shinings after rain are to the fields, that the word and ordinances of God are to the souls of men. "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." Deut. xxxii. 2. "For as *Weem's Cerem. Law. + Smith's Essex Dove. the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud; so shall my word be that goeth forth of my mouth." Isa. lv. 10, 11. And as the doctrine of the gospel is rain, so gospel ministers are the clouds in which those heavenly vapours are bound up; the resemblance lies in the following particulars: 1. The rain comes from heaven. Acts xiv. 17. "He gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons," &c. The doctrine of the gospel is also of an heavenly extraction and descent, they are heavenly truths which are brought to you in earthen vessels, things that are hid in God, and come from his bosom. Eph. iii. 8, 9. What Nicodemus said of Christ is, in a proportion, true of every faithful dispenser of the gospel. "Thou art a teacher come from God.". John iii. 2. You are not to look upon the truths which ministers deliver as the mere effects and fruits of their inventions and parts, they are but the conduits through which those celestial waters are conveyed to you. It is all heavenly, the officers are from heaven, Eph. iv. 12. their doctrine from heaven, Eph. iii. 8, 9. the efficacy and success of it from heaven, 1 Cor. iii. 3. “What I receiv ed of the Lord, saith Paul, that have I delivered unto you." 1 Cor. xi. 23. The same may every gospel minister say too. That is the first : 2. The rain falls by divine direction and appointment. "He causes it to rain upon one city, and not upon another." Amos iv. 7. You shall often see a cloud dissolve and spend itself upon one place, when there is not a drop within a few miles of it. Thus is the gospel sent to shed its rich influences upon one place and not upon another; it pours down showers of blessings upon one town or parish, whilst others are dry like the ground which lay near to |