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MAN

APPLICATION.

ANY alfo, there are, under the gofpel, who are given over by God to judicial blindness, hardness of heart, a reprobate fenfe, and perpetual barrennefs; fo that how excellent foever the means are which they enjoy, and how efficacious foever to the converfion, edification, and falvation of others; yet they fhall never do their fouls good. Ezek. xlvii. 9, 11. "Every thing wherefoever the river comes fhall live, but the miry places thereof, and the marfhes "thereof shall never be healed, but be given to falt ;" i. e. given to an obftinate and everlasting barrennefs. Compare Deut. ix. 23. By thefe waters, faith the judicious Mr Strong, understand the doctrine of the gospel; as Rev. xxi. 2. a river of water of life, clear as crystal: Hic fluvius eft uberrima doctrina Chrifti, faith Mr Brightman. This river is the most fruitful doctrine of Chrift; yet these waters do not heal the miry, marfhy places; i. e. men that live unfruitfully under ordinances, who are compared to miry, marshy places, in three refpects:

(1.) In miry places the water hath not free paffage, but stands and fettles there. So it is with thefe barren fouls; therefore the apoftle prays, that the gofpel may run, and be glorified, 2 Thef. iii. 1. The word is faid to run, when it meets with no ftop, Cum libere propagatur, when it is freely propagated, and runs through the whole man; when it meets with no ftop, either in the mouth of the speaker, or hearts of the hearers, as it doth in thefe.

(2.) In a miry place the earth and water are mixed together; this mixture makes mire. So when the truths of God do mix with the corruptions of men, that they either hold fome truths, and yet live in their lufts; or else when men do make use of the truths of God to juftify and plead for their fins. Or,

(3.) When, as in a miry place, the longer the water ftands in it, the worse it grows; fo the longer men abide under ordinances, the more filthy and polluted they grow. Thefe are the miry places that cannot be healed, their difeafe is incurable, defperate.

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O this is a fad cafe! and yet very common; many persons are thus given over as incorrigible, and hopeless; Rev. xxii. 11. "Let him that is filthy be filthy ftill." Jer. vi. 29. “ Reprobate filver shall "men call them, for the Lord hath rejected them.” Ifa. vi. 10, 11. "Go make the heart of this people fat, their ears dull," &c.

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Chrift executes, by the gofpel, that curfe upon many fouls, which he denounced against the fig-tree, Mat. xxi. 19 Let no fruit grow "on thee henceforth for ever; and immediately the fig-tree wither"ed away." To be given up to fuch a condition, is a fearful judgment indeed, a curfe with a witnefs; the fum of all plagues, miferies, and judgments, a fatal stroke at the root itself. It is a woe to have

Spiritual barrenness, p. 8.

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a bad heart, (faith one) but it is the depth of woe to have a heart that never fhall be made better. To be barren under the gospel, is a fore judgment, but to have that pertinax fterilitas, a pertinacious barrennefs; this is to be twice dead, and plucked up by the root, as Jude fpeaks.

And to fhew you the woful and miferable state and plight of fuch men, let the following particulars be weighed.

(1.) It is a stroke at the foul itfelf, an inward fpiritual judgment ; and by how much the more inward and spiritual any judgment is, by fo much the more dreadful and lamentable. As foul-mercies are the beft mercies, fo foul-judgments are the faddeft of all judgments. If it were but a temporal ftroke upon the body, the loss of an eye, an ear, a band, a foot, though in itfelf it would be a confiderable lofs, yet it were nothing to this. Omnia Deus dedit duplicia, faith Chryfoftom, fpeaking of bodily members; God hath given men double members, two eyes, if one be loft, the other supplies its want ; two hands, two ears, two feet, that the failing of one may be fupplied by the help of the other: animam vero unam, but one foul; if that perifh, there is no other to fupply its lofs. The foul, faith a

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heathen*, is the man; that which is feen, is not the man." The apoftle calls the body a vile body, Phil. iii. 21. and fo it is, compared with the foul; and Daniel calls it the fheath, which is but a contemptible thing to the fword which is in it. Oh! it were far better that many bodies perifh, than one foul; that every member were made the feat and fubject of the moft exquifite torture, than fuch a judgment fhould fall upon the foul.

(2.) It is the feverest stroke God can inflict upon the foul in this life to give it up to barrenness; because it cuts off all hopes, fruftrates all means, nothing can be a bieffing to him. If one comes from the dead, if angels fhould defcend from heaven to preach to him, there is no hope of him. If God fhut up a man, who can open? Job xii. 14. As there was pone found in heaven or earth that could open the feals of that book, Rev. v. 5. fo is there no opening by the hand of the moft able and skilful miniftry, thofe feals of hardness, blindness, and unbelief, thus impreffed upon the fpirit. Whom juftice fo locks up, mercy will never let out. This is that which makes up the Anathema Maranatha, 1 Cor. xvi. 22. which is the dreadfulest curfe in all the book of God, accurfed till the Lord come.

(3.) It is the most indifcernable stroke to themselves that can be, and by that fo much the more defperate. Hence there is faid to be poured out upon them the fpirit of flumber, Ifa. xxix. 10. "The

Lord hath poured out up you the fpirit of deep fleep, and hath "closed your eyes." Montanus renders it, The Lord hath mingled upon you the fpirit of deep fleep. And fo it is an allufion to a foporiferous medicine mingled, and made up of opium, and fuch-like

* Ουκ εσιν άνθρωπος το ερώμενον. Plato.

ftupefactive ingredients, which cafts a man into fuch a deep fleep, that do what you will to him, he feels, he knows it not. "Make "their eyes heavy, and their ears dull; left they fhould fee, and "hear, and be converted,” Ifa. vi. 9, 10. This is the heart that cannot repent, which is fpoken of, Rom. ii. 5. For men are not sensible at all of this judgment, they do not in the leaft fufpect it, and that is their mifery. Though they be curfed trees, which fhall never bear any fruit to life, yet many times they bear abundance of other fair and pleafant fruits to the eye, excellent gifts, and rare endowments; and thefe deceive and undo them. Mat. vii. 22. "We have pro"phefied in thy name;" this makes the wound defperate, that there is no finding of it, no probe to fearch it.

(4.) It is a stroke that cuts off from the foul all the comforts and fweetness of religion. A man may pray, hear, and confer. but all thofe duties are dry ftalks to him, which yield no meat, no folid fubftantial nutriment; fome common touches upon the affections he may sometimes find in duty, the melting voice or rhetoric of the preacher may perhaps ftrike his natural affections, as another tragical story pathetically delivered may do; but to have any real communion with God in ordinances, any discoveries or views of the beauty of the Lord in them, that he cannot have; for these are the special effects and operations of the Spirit, which are always restrained.

God hath faid to fuch, as he did to them, Gen. vi. 3. "My "Spirit fhall no longer strive with them;" and then what sweetness is there in ordinances? What is the word, feparated from the Spirit, but a dead letter? It is the Spirit that quickens, 2 Cor. iii. 2. Friend, thou muft know that the gofpel works not like a natural caufe upon those that hear it; if so, the effect would always follow, unless miraculously stopt and hindered; but it works like a moral infituted caufe, whofe efficacy and fuccefs depend upon the arbitrary concurrence of the Spirit with it. "The wind blows where it lift"eth, fo is every one that is born of the Spirit," John iii. 8. "Of "his own will begat he us by the word of truth." Ordinances are as the pool of Bethefda, which had his healing virtue only when the angel moved the waters; but the Spirit never moves favingly upon the waters of ordinances, for its healing of their fouls, how many years foever they lie by them; though others feel a divine power in them, yet they fhall not. As the men that travelled with Paul, when Chrift appeared to him from heaven, they faw the light, but heard not the voice which he heard to falvation: So it was with these; they fee the minifters, hear the words, which are words of falvation to others, but not fo to them. Concerning these miferable fouls, we may figh, and fay to Chrift, as Martha did concerning her brother Lazarus: Lord, if thou hadft been here, in this fermon, or in this prayer, this foul had not remained dead. But here is the woe that lies upon him, God is departed from the means and none can help him.

(5.) It is fuch a ftroke upon the fpirit of man, as is a fearful fign of his eternal reprobation. It is true, we cannot pofitively fay of a man in this life, he is a reprobate, one that God will never fhew mercy to; but yet there are fome probable marks of it upon fome men in this world, and they are of a trembling confideration wherever they appear; of which this is one of the faddeft. 2 Cor. iv. 3. " If "our gofpel be hid, it is hid to those that are loft, in whom the god "of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not; "left the light of the glorious gofpel of Chrift, who is the image of "God, fhould fhine unto them." So Acts xiii. 48. "As many as "were ordained unto eternal life believed. Ye believe not, because "ye are not of my sheep," John x. 26. And again, Matth. xiii. 11. "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but to "them it is not given." There cannot be a more dreadful character of a perfon marked out for wrath, than to continue under the ordinances, as the rocks and miry places do under the natural infuences of heaven. What bleffed opportunities had Judas? He was under Chrift's own miniftry, he often heard the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth; he was day and night in his company, yet never the better; and why? Becaufe he was the fon of perdition, that is, a man appointed to deftruction and wrath.

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(6.) And lastly, To add no more. It is fuch a ftroke of God upon the fouls of men, as immediately fore-runs hell and damnation, Heb. vi. 8. "But which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto curfing, whofe end is to be burnt." So that look as fome faints in this world have had a prelibation or foretaste of heaven, which the scripture calls the earnest of the Spirit; fo this is a precurfor of hell, a fign of wrath at the door. We may fay of it as it is faid of the pale horfe in the Revelation, that hell follows it. "man abide not in me, (faith Christ, John xv. 6.) he is caft forth as "a branch, and withered;" which is the very state of thefe barren, curfed fouls. And what follows? Why, faith he, men gather them, and caft them into the fire, and they are burned. Lo, this is the vengeance which the gofpel executes upon this barren ground.

The fincere foul's reflection.

REFLECTIONS.

1. Well then, bleffed be God that made me feel the faving power of the gofpel. O, let God be exalted for ever for this mercy! that how defective foever I am in common gifts, though I have a dull underftanding, a leaking memory, aftammering tongue; I have felt, and do feel the power of the gofpel upon my heart. I bless thee (my God) that although I labour under many spiritual infirmities, yet I am not fick of this incurable difeafe. I have given thee indeed juft caufe to inflict and execute this dreadful curse upon me alfo, but thou haft not dealt with me after my deferts, but ac

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cording to the riches of thy mercy. Some little fruit I bring forth, and what it is, is by virtue of my union with Jefus Chrift, Rom. vii. 4. And this hath more in it as to my comfort, than all the glittering gifts and fplendid performances of the most glorious hypocrite can yield to him if I might have my choice (faith one) I would chufe and prefer the moft defpicable and fordid work of a ruftic Chriftian before all the victories of Alexander, and triumphs of Cæfar. Bles fed therefore be the Lord, who hath abounded unto me in all spiritual bleffings, in heavenly places in Chrift Jefus.

I cannot remember a fermon as another can, but bleffed be God that I am able to favour it, and feel it; that I have an heart to love, and a will to obey all that God difcovers to be my duty.

2. O, then how little caufe have I to make my boaft of ordinances,

and glory in my external privileges, who never bear The formal profeffpiritual fruit under them? If I well confider my

condition, there is matter of trembling, and not of for's reflection. glorying in these things. It may be while I have been glorying in them, and lifting up my fecure heart upon them, the Lord hath been fecretly blafting my foul under them, and infenfibly executing this horrible curfe by them. Shall I boaft with Capernaum that I am lifted up to heaven, fince I may with her, at last be caft down to hell? And if fo, Lord, what a hell will my hell be? It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for me. It drew tears from the eyes of Chrift, when he was looking upon Jerufalem, under the fame confideration that I doubt I have caufe to look upon my own foul, Luke xix. 41. "He wept over it, faying, If thou hadst known, " even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy "peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes." So long have I been a hearer, a profeffor of the gofpel, fo many years have I enjoyed its diftinguishing ordinances, but have they not been all dry and empty things to me; hath not the fpirit of formality acted me in them? Have not self-ends and worldly refpects lain at the bottom of my best duties? Have not my difcourfes, in communion with faints been trade words, speaking what I have learnt, but not felt? Sad is my condition now, but it would be defperate and irrecoverable .fhouldft thou execute this curfe upon me.

3. And what may I think of my condition? Lord, I acknowledge my unprofitablenefs under the means hath been The less fruitful fhameful; and this hath made my condition doubtChriftian's reflecful. I have often trembled for fear, left my root tion. had been blafted by fuch a curfe; but if fo, whence is this trembling? Whence these fears and forrows about it? Doth fuch fruit grow in that foil which thou haft cursed? I am told but now, that on whom this judgment falls, to them thou giveft an heart that cannot repent. Lord, I blefs thee for thefe evilences of freedom from the curfe; for the fruits of fear, forrow, and holy jealousy. VOL. V.

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