at the very glory of Christ, tenderly touch and affect thee ? Yea, be thou tenderly affected with all the reproaches that fall upon him from abroad, but especially with those that redound to him from thine own unfruitfulness. Oh ! disgrace not the root that bears thee ! let it never be said, that any evil fruit is found upon a branch that lives and is fed by such a rooti
vf H ! what considering serious man can see
The close conjunction of the graff and tree ; And whilst he contemplates, he doth not find
This meditation graffed on his mind ? I am the branch, and Christ the vine ;
Thy gracious hand did pluck Me from that native stock of mine.
That I his sap might suck. The bloody spear did in his heart
A deep incision make. That grace to me he might impart,
And I therefore partake. The Spirit and faith are that firm band
Which binds us fast together ; Thus we are clasped hand in hand,
And nothing can us sever. Bless'd be that hand which did remove
Me from my native place ! This was the wonder of thy love,
The triumph of thy grace ! That I, a wild and cursed plant
Should thus preferred be. Who all those ornaments do want.
Thou may'st in others see. As long as e'er the root doth live.
The branches are not dry ; Whilst Christ hath grace and life to give.
My soul can never die. O blessed Saviour ! never could
A grafF cleave to the tree More close than thy poor creature would
United be with thee. My soul, dishonour not the root,
'Twill be a shame for thee To want the choicest sorts of fruit, -
And yet thus graffed be.
Thus you may shake from graiFs, before they blow. More precious fruit than e'er on trees did grow.
150 HUSBANDRY SPIRITUALIZED ; OTJ,
Upon the Gathering in of Fruits in Autumn -
When trees are shdk''d, hut little fruit remains. Just such a remnant to the Lord jmr tains.
At is a pleasant sight in autumn to see the fruitful branches hanging full of clusters, which weigh the boughs to the ground, Aspice curvatos pomorum j^ondere ramos, Ut sua quod peperit vixferat arhor onus. Which I may thus English. O tvhat a pleas'ant sight it is to see, The fruitful clusters hoiving down the tree ! But these laden branches are soon eased of their burden ; for as soon as they are ripe, the husbandman ascends the tree, and shaking the limbs with all his might, causes a fruitful shower to fall like hail- stones upon the ground below ; which being gathered to a heap, are carried to the pound, broken all to pieces in a trough, and squeezed to a dry lump in the press, whence all their juice and moisture runs into the fat. How few escape this fat of all those multitudes that grow in the orchard.'^ If you look upon the trees, you may possibly see here one, and there another, two or three upon the utmost bran- ches, but nothing in comparison to the vast number that are thus used.
X HESE small remains of fruit, which are either left upon the tree, or gathered in for an hoard, do w^ell resemble that small num- ber of God's elect in the world, which free-grace hath reserved out of the general ruin of mankind. Four things are excellently sha- dowed forth to us by this similitude.
1. You see in a fruitful autumn, the trees even oppressed and over- laden with the weight of their own fruits, before the shaking time comes, and then they are eased of their burden. Thus the whole creation groans under the weight of their sins, who inhabit it, Rom. viii. 22. the creatures are in bondage, and by an elegant Prosopopeia, are said, both to groan and wait for deliverance. The orignial sin of man brought an original curse, which burdens the creature, Gen. iii. 17. " Cursed is the ground for thy sake ; and the actual sin of man '' brings actual curses upon the creature, Psalm cvii. 34. Thus the inhabitants of the world load and burden it, as the limbs of a tree are burdened, and sometimes broken with the weight of their own fruit
2. You may observe in your orchards, every year, what abundance of fruits daily fall, either by storms, or of their own accord ; but when the shaking time comes, then the ground is covered all over
THE HEAVENLY USE OF EARTHLY THINGS. 151
Vith fruit. Thus it is with the world, that mystical tree, witli re- spect to men that inhabit it ; there is not a year, a day, or hour, in which some drop not, as it were, of their own accord, by a natural death ; and sometimes wars and epidemical plagues blow down thou- sands together into their graves ; these are as high winds in a fruitful orchard ; but when the shaking time, the autumn of the world, comes, then all its inhabitants shall be shaken down together, either by death, or a translation equivalent thereunto.
3. When fruits are shaken down from their trees, then the hus- bandman separates them ; the far greater part for the pound, and some few reserved for an hoard, which are brought to his table, and eaten with pleasure. This excellently shadows forth that gr at se- paration, which Christ will make in the end of the world, when some shall be cast into the wine-press of the Almighty's wrath, and others preserved for glory.
4. Those fruits which are preserved on the tree, or in the hoard, are comparatively, but an handful to those that are broken in the pound ; alas ! it is scarce one of a thousand, and such a small remnant of elected souls hath God reserved for glory.
I look upon the world as a great tree, consisting of four large limbs or branches ; this branch or division of it on which we grow, hath, doubtless, a greater number of God's elect upon it than the other three ; and yet, when I look with a serious and considering eye upon this fruitful European branch, and see how much rotten and with- ered fruit there grows upon it, it makes me say, as Chrysostom did of his populous Antioch ; Ah, how small a remnant hath Jesiis Christ among these vast numbers ! "• Many indeed are called, but ah ! how " few are chosen ?"" Mat. xx. 16. Alas ! they are but as the fflean- ings when the vintage is done ; here and there one upon its utmost branches : to allude to that, Isa. xvii. 6. It was a sad observation which that searching scholar, Mr. Brerewood, long since made upon the world ; that, dividing it into thirty equal parts, he found no less than nineteen of them wholly overspread with idolatry and heathenish darkness; and of the eleven remaining parts, no less than six are Mahometans ; so that there remains but five of thirty which profess the Christian religion at large ; and the far greater part of these re- maining five are inveloped and drowned in popish darkness ! so that you see the reformed Protestant religion is confined to a small spot of ground indeed. Now, if from these we subtract all the grossly igno- rant, openly profane, merely civil, and secretly hypocritical, judge then in yourselves, how small a scantling of the world falls to Christ's share.