Some particular rules may direct you herein : (1.) Compare yourselves with the saints of God, who were faithful in their generations, and are now fallen asleep; what a deal of work did Josiah do in a short season? what
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a light did John set up in a few years? with what unwearied pains and industry did our deceased friend serve his gene- ration ? It is said of Caesar, that he was ashamed of his own sloth, when he found that Alexander had conquered the eastern world, at the age wherein he had done nothing. Be- hold here, one receiving his dismission about the age of forty years, and what a world of work for God, and the in- terest of the Lord Christ did he in that season? and how well in the close, hath he parted with a temporal life for him, who by his death procured for him an eternal life, and now rest is sweet unto this labouring man. Provoke one another by examples.
(2.) Be diligent to pass through your work, and let it not too long hang upon your hands. Your appointed season may come before you bring it to the close ; yea, search out work for God. You that are intrusted in power, trifle not away your season. Is there no oppressed person that with diligence you might relieve? is there no poor distressed widow or orphan, whose righteous requests you might ex- pedite and dispatch? are there no stout offenders against God and man that might be chastised? are there no slack and slow counties and cities in the execution of justice, that might be quickened by your example ? No places des- titute of the gospel that might be furnished and supplied by your industry and wisdom? can you not find out some- thing of this or the like nature to be dispatched with vigour and diligence? nay do not innumerable particulars in each kind lie upon your hands ? and is not your non-performance of them such a sacrifice as wherewith God is not well pleased ? Your time is limited and appointed, you know not how soon you may be overtaken with it ; and would it not be desirable unto you, that you had done these things? will it be bitterness in the end, that you so laid out your endeavours?
Use 2. All men have but their seasons in any work, only God abideth in it for ever : in every undertaking let your eye still be on him, with whom is the fulness and the residue of the Spirit. Jeremiah's great bewailing of Josiah's death was doubtless made upon the account of his discerning that none would come after him to carry on the work which he had begun, but the wickedness of that people was to come
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to their height; else God can raise up yet more Josiah's; let hitn be eyed as the principal and only abiding agent in any great undertaking.
In the residue of the observations I shall be very brief. The next is.
Observation 11. God oftentimes suffers not the choicest of his servants to see the accomplishment of those glorious things, wherein themselves have been most eminently engaged.
The case of Moses is most eminently known, he had a large share in suffering the persecutions which were allotted to the people : forty years' banishment he endured in the wilderness, under the reproach of Christ ; forty years more spent in wrestling with innumerable difficulties, dangerous perils, mutinies, wars, and contentions. At the close, when he comes to look upon the land, when the end of all that dispensation was to be wound up, and the rest and reward of all his toil and labour to be had, which formerly he had undergone for twice forty years ; * Go thou thy ways,' saith the Lord, 'thou shalt rest,' take thy dismission, thou shalt not enter into the good land, lie down here in the wilderness in peace.
John Baptist goes and preaches the drawing nigh of the kingdom of God, but lived only to point out Christ with his finger, cries, * Behold the Lamb of God,' I must decrease, and is cut off. David makes the great preparation for the temple, but he shall not see so much as the foundation laid. Men must take their appointed lot. * God will send by the hand of him whom he will send. Daniel must rest until the end be.' It is said of some they began to deliver Israel. The case of Zerubbabel was very rare, who saw the founda- tion, and also the top-stone of the temple laid, and yet the work of Jerusalem was not half finished in his days, as you may see, Zech. i. And this because,
L God oftentimes receives secret provocations from the choicest of his servants which moves him to take them short of their desires. Those of his own whom he employs in great works, have great and close communion with him. God usually exercises their spirits in near acts of fellowship with himself: they receive much from him, and are con- strained to unburden themselves frequently upon him ; now
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when men are brought into an intimacy with God, and have received oreat engagements from him, the Lord takes notice of every working and acting of their souls in an especial manner, and is oftentimes grieved and provoked with that in them which others can take no notice of: let a man read the story of that action of Moses, upon which the Lord told him directly he should not see the finishing of the work he had in hand, nor enter into Canaan; Numb. xx. 7, 8. 11. It will be a hard matter to find out wherein the failing was : he smote the rock with the rod, with some words of im- patience, when he should only have spoken to it, and this with some secret unbelief, as to the thing he had in hand. God deals with others visibly, according to their outward actions, but in his own he takes notice of all their unbelief, fears withdrawings, as proceeding from a frame in no mea- sure answerino- those gracious discoveries of himself, which he hath made unto them, and on this account it is, that some are taken off in the midst of their work.