This Apostle seems particularly to affect easy and familiar illustrations. The whole epistle abounds with them. He compares certain hearers of the word to persons beholding themselves in a glass, and then forgetting what manner of persons they were. Those who have a dead and unproductive faith he compares to persons who speak kind words to an indigent brother or sister without relieving their necessities. Those who govern not their tongue he reproves, by contrasting their conduct with horses that obey the bit ; with ships that are turned by a helm ; with beasts, birds, and even fishes of the sea, all of which have been tamed by men : and by warn- in <2- them, that as no fountain can send forth sweet water and bitter, and no tree bear both olives and figs, so they can be no true Christians, whilst such unworthy and inconsistent speeches issue from their mouths. Here in our text he brings to our view the husbandman, whose continued labours and patient expectations form a fit model for the Christian. Him we are called to resemble,
1. In a steady prosecution of the appointed means —
[Many are the discouragements which the husbandman meets with in the cultivation of his ground. Sometimes the weather is untoward : sometimes blights, or insects, or mildew, injure his crops: sometimes drought almost destroys all his hopes : but still he goes on from year to year, ploughing his ground, clearing it from weeds, manuring it, casting in his seed, and harrowing it; and this he does, not knowing for certain that a single grain which he casts into the furrows shall rise again. But he expects nothing without the use of means ; and therefore he does his part ; and that too as regu- larly and diligently as if every thing depended on himself. He well knows that God alone can give rain, or cause the sun to shine, or give power to the seed which he has sown to spring up: but still he labours, that he may not fail through any neglect of his own.
\ ow in this he is a pattern for all Christians. They have their work to do. True, they cannot ensure success : but they know that it is in the use, and not in the neglect, of the ap- pointed means, that God will bless them : and therefore they are labouring as assiduously as if every thing depended on