(2.) It is the severest stroke God can inflict upon the soul in this life to give it up to barrenness ; because it cuts oif all hopes, frus- trates all means, nothing can be a blessing to him. If one comes from the dead, if angels should descend from heaven to preach to him, there is no hope of him. If God shut up a man, who can open ? Job xii. 14. As there was none found in heaven or earth that could open the seals of that book, Rev. v. 5. so is there no opening by the han.l of the most able and skilful ministry, those seals of hardness, blindness, and unbelief, thus impressed upon the spirit. Whom justice •0 locks up, mercy will never let out. This is that which makes up the Anathema Maranatha, 1 Cor. xvi. 22. which is the dreadfulest curse in all the book of God, accursed till the Lord come.
(3.) It is the most indiscernable stroke to themselves that can be, and by that so much the more desperate. Hence there is said to be poured out upon them the spirit of slumber, Isa. xxix. 10. " The ** Lord haih poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath *^ closed your eyes."*" Montanus renders it. The Lord hath mingled upon you the spirit of deep sleep. And so it is an allusion to a sopo- riferous medicine mingled, and made up of opium, and such-like
r-i — — — — ^ — — — — — '
* 'Oux. tsiv civ&fWTroff 70 opMfMivov^ Plato.
THE HEAVENLY USE OF EATITHLY THINGS. 57
stupefactive ingredients, which casts a man into such a deep sleep, that do what you will to him, he feels, he knows it not. " Make " their eyes heavy, and their ears dull ; lest they should see, and *' hear, and be converted,'"' Isa. vi. 9, 10. This is the heart that cannot repent ^viiich is spoken of, Rom. ii. 5. For men are not sensible at all of this judgment, they do not in the least suspect it, and that is their misery. Though they be cursed trees, which shall never bear any fruit to life, yet many times they bear abundance of other fair and pleasant fruits to the eye, excellent gifts, and rare endowments : and these deceive and undo them. Mat. vii. 22. " We have pro- ** phesied in thy name ;" this makes the wound desperate, that there is no finding of it, no probe to search it.
(4.) It is a stroke that cuts off from the soul all the comforts and sweetness of religion. A man may pray, hear, and confer, but all those duties are dry stalks to him, which yield no meat, no solid sub- stantial nutriment ; some common touches upon the affections he may sometimes find in duty, the melting voice or rhetoric of the preacher may perhaps strike his natural affections, as another tragical story pathetically delivered may do ; but to have any real commu- nion ^\nth 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 Spiiit, which are always restrained.
God hath said to such, as he did to them. Gen. vi. 3. " My " Spirit shall no longer strive with them ;'"' and then what sweetness is there in ordinances ? What is the word, separated from the Spi- rit, but a dead letter ? It is the Spirit that quickens, 2 Cor. iii. 2. Friend, thou must know that the gospel works not like a natural cau^e upon those that hear it ; if so, the effect would always follow, unless miraculously stopt and hindered ; but it works like a moral instituted cause, whose efficacy and success depend upon the arbitrary concurrence of the Spirit with it. *' The wind blows where it listeth, " so is very 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 Bethesda, which had his healing virtue only when the angel moved the waters ; but the Spirit never moves savingly upon the waters of ordinances, for its healing of their souls, how many years soever they lie by them ; though others feel a divine power in them, yet they shall not. As the men that travelled with Paul, when Christ appeared to him from heaven, they saw the light, but heard not the voice which he heard to salvation : So it was with these ; tliey see the ministers, hear the words, which are w'ords of salvation to others, but not so to them. Concerning these miserable souls, we may sigh, and say to Christ, as Martha did concerning her brother Laza- rus : Lord, if thou hadst been here, in this sermon, or in this prayer, this soul had not remained dead. But here is the woe that lies upon him, God is departed from the means and none can help him>
58 HUSBAKDUY SPIRITUALIZED ; OR,
(5.) It is such a stroke upon the spirit of man, as is a fearful sign of his eternal reprobation. It is true, we cannot positively say of a man in this Ufe, he is a reprobate, one that God will never shew mer- cy to ; but yet there are some probable marks of it upon some men in this world, and they are of a trembling consideration wherever they appear ; of which this is one of the saddest, 2 Cor. iv. 3. " If ** our gospel be hid, it is hid to those that are lost, in whom the god *' of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not ; *' lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of *' God, should shine unto them/' So Acts xiii. 48. " As many as *' were ordamed unto eternal life believed. Ye believe not, because " ye are not o^my sheep,"" John x. 9S. 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 charac- ter of a person marked out for wrath, than to continue under the or- dinances, as the rocks and miry places do under the natural influ- ences of heaven. What blessed opportunities had Judas ? He was under Christ's own ministry, he often heard the Pfracious words that proceeded out of his mouth ; he was day and night in his company, yet never the better ; and why? Because he was the son of perdition^ that is, a man appointed to destruction and wrath.
(6.) And lastly, To add no more. It is such a stroke of God upon the souls of men, as immediately fore-runs hell and damnation, Heb, vi. 8. " But which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is *' nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burnt." So that look as some saints in this world have had a prelibation or forestate of hea- ven, which the scripture calls the earnest of the Spirit ; so this is a precursor of hell, a sign of wrath at the door. We may say of it as it is said of the pale horse in the Revelation, that hell follows it. *' If '' a man abide not in me, (saithChrist, John xv. 6.) he is cast forth as " a branch, and withered ;" which is the very state of these barren, cursed souls. And what follows ? Why, saith he, men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. Lo, this is the vengea,nce which the gospel executes upon this barren ground.