1. We sometimes find that cattle will break out of those very fields where they have been bred ; and where they want nothing that is needful for them. Just thus lost man departed from his God, brake out of that pleasant enclosure where he was abundantly provided for, both as to soul and body ; yet then he brake over the hedge of the command, and went astray, Eccles. vii. 29. " Lo, this only have I " found, that God made man upright, but he sought out to himself " many inventions :" He was not content and satisfied with that blessed state God had put him into, but would be trying new con- clusions, to the loss and ruin both of himself and his posterity.
2. Strayers are evermore sufferers for it ; all they get by it is to be pined and poinded : and what did man get by departing from his God, but ruin and misery to soul and body.? Will you have an ab- breviate of his sufferings and losses ? The full account none can give you : Why, by straying from his God, he lost the rectitude and holi- ness of his nature ; like a true strayer, he is all dirty and miry, over- spread and besmeared both in soul and body with the odious filthiness
168 HU.sr>AXDllY SPIilTTUALT^Et) ; oir,
of sin ; he lost the libert^^ and freedom of his will to good, a prccioa^ jewel of inestimable value. This is a real misery incurred by the falU though some have so {ar lost their understandings and humility, as not to own it; he hath lost his God, his soul, his happiness, and his very bowels of compassion towards himself in this miserable state,
0?. When your cattle are strayed, yea, though it be but one of the flock or herd, you leave all the rest, and go after that which is lost : So did Jesus Christ J who, in the forecited place, Matth. xviii. 12. compares himself to such a shepherd ; he left heaven itself, and all the l3lessed angels there, to come into this world to seek lost man. O the precious esteem, and dear love that Christ had to poor man ! How did his bowels yearn towards us in our low state ! How did he pity us in our misery ! As if he had said, poor creatures, they have lost themselves, and are become a prey to the devil in a perishing state ; I will seek after them, and save them. The son of man is come to seek and to save.
4. You are glad when you have found your strayers, much more is Christ when he hath found a lost soul. O it is a great satisfaction to him to see the fruit of the travail of his soul, Isa. liii. '' Yea, there " is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over " ninety-nine just persons that need no repentance."" What demon- strations of joy and gladness did the father of the prodigal give, when he had found his son that was lost ? Luke xv. 20.
5. When you have brought home your strayers, you sometimes clog them to prevent their wandering again, and stop up the gaps w ith thorns ; and so doth God oftentimes by such souls as are reco- vered and brought home to Christ ; he hangs a clog of affliction to prevent their departure from God again, 2 Cor. xii. 7.
But then there are five particulars in which Christ's seeking lost souls, and your seeking lost cattle differ.
1. Your cattle sometimes find the way home themselves, and re- turn to you of their own accord ; but lost man never did, nor can do so ; he was his own destroyer, but can never be his own saviour ; it was possible for him not to have lost his God, but having once lost him, can never find him agam of himself Alas ! his heart is bent to backsliding, he hath no will to return. Hear how Christ complains, John v. 40. " Ye will not come unto me." Man''s re- covery begins in God, not in himself.
2. Your servants can find, and bring back your lost cattle as well as you ; but so cannot Christ's servants : Ministers may discover, but cannot recover them : they daily see, but cannot save them ; lament them they can, but help them they cannot ; intreat and beg them to return they can, and do, but prevail with them they cannot. Melancthon thought, when he began to preach, to persuade all ; but old Adam was too hard for young Melancthon.
3. You seek all the cattle that are strayed from you, especially the best ; but Jesus Christ only seeks poor lost man. There were other
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♦Toaturcs, and such as by nature were more excellent, that lost their God and themselves : I mean, the apostate angels ; but he came not to seek them : herein his singular love to man appears.
4. When you have recovered and brought home your lost cattle, vou may lose them the second time, and never recover them again ; but so cannot Christ. ]\Ian once recovered is for ever secured by Iiim. "• All that thou hast given me, I have kept, and not one of " them is lost but the son of perdition;" and he was never savingly found, John xvii. 12.
5. Though you prize your cattle, yet you will not venture your life for the recovery of them ; rather let thenl go than regain them with such an hazard ; but Jesus Christ not only ventin-ed, but actual- ly laid down his life to recover and save lost man : he redeemed them at the price of his own blood ; he is that good shepherd that laid down his life for the sheep. O the surpassing love of Christ to lost souls !
1. Lord, I am a lost creature ! an undone soul ! and herein lies my misery, that I have not only lost my God, but
have no heart to return to him : nay, I fly from A reflection Jbr a Christ, who is come on purpose from heaven to lost soul. seek and to save me : his messengers are abroad, seeking for such as I am, but I avoid them, or at least refuse to obey their call and persuasions to return. Ah, what a miserable state am I in ! Every step I go is a step towards hell ; my soul, mth the pro- digal, is ready to perish in a strange country : but I have no mind, with him, to return home. Wretched soul ! what will the end of this be ? If God have lost thee : the devil hath found thee ; he takes up all strayers from God : yea, death and hell will shortly find thee, if Christ do not ; and then thy recovery, O my soul ! will be im- possible ! Why sit I here perishing and dying? lam not yet as irrecoverably lost as the damned are. O let me delay no longer, lest I be lost for ever !
2. O my soul ! for ever bless and admire the love of Jesus Christ, vA\o came fj'om heaven to seek and save sucli a