Husbandry spiritualized, or, The heavenly use of earthly things consisting of many pleasant observations, pertinent applications, and serious reflections and each chapter concluded with a divine and suitable poem : directing husband-men to the most excellent improvements of their common imployments : whereunto is added ... several choice occasional meditations / by John Flavell.

APPLICATION.

MAny also there are under the Gospel, who are given o∣ver by God to judicial blindness, hardness of heart, a reprobate sense, and perp••••ual barrenness; so that how ex∣cellent soever the means are which they enjoy, and how ef∣ficacious soever, to the conve••sion, edification and salvation of others; yet they shall never do their souls good, Ezek. 47. 9, 11. Every thing wheresoever the River comes shall live but the miry places thereof, and the marshes thereof shall never be healed but be given to sal••; (i. e.) given to an obstinate and everlasting barrenness. Compare Deut. 9. 23. By these wa∣ters, saith judicious Mr. Strong, understand the doctrine of the Gospel;* 1.1 as Rev. 21. 2. a River of water of life, clear as

Christal. Hic fluvius est uberima doctrina Christi, saith Mr. Brigh••man. This River is the most fruitful doctrine of Christ, yet these waters do not heal the miry marish places, (i. e.) men that live unfruitfully under Ordinances, who are com∣pared to miry and marish places in three respects.

(1) In miry places the water hath not free passage, but stands and settles there. So it is with these barren souls; therefore the Apostle prayes, that the Gospel may run and be glorified, 2 Thes. 3. 1. The word is said to run, when it meets wi••h no stop, Cum libere propagatur, when it is freely propa∣gated and runs through the whole man; when it meets with no stop either in the mou••h of the speaker, or hear••s of the hearers, as it doth in these.

(2) In a miry place, the earth and water is mixt together; this mixture makes mire. So when the truths of God do mix with the corruptions of men, that they either hold some truths, and yet live in their lusts, or else when men do make use of the truths of God to justifie and plead for their ••in••. Or,

(3) When as in a miry place, the longer the water stands in it, the worse it grows; so the longer men abide under Ordinances, the more filthy and polluted they grow: These are the miry places that cannot be healed, their disease is in∣curable, desperate.

O this is a sad case, and yet very common! Many persons are thus given over; as incorrigible and hopeless, Rev. 22. 1••. Let him that is filthy, be filthy still. Ier. 6. 29. Reprobate silver shall men call them, for the Lord hath rejected them, Isa. 6. Go make the heart of this people fat, their ears dull, &c.

Christ executes by the Gospel that curse upon many souls, which he denounced against the figtree, Mat. 21. 19. Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever, and immediately the fig∣tree withered away. To be given up to such a condition, is a fearful judgement indeed, a curse with a witness; the sum of all plagues, miseries and judgments, a fatal stroke at the root it self. It's a wo to have a bad heart, (saith one) but it's the depth of wo, to have a heart that shall never be made better. To be barren under the Gospel is a sore judgement, but to

have that pertinax sterilit••s, a pertinacious barrenness; this is to be twice dead, and pluckt up by the root, as Iude speaks.

And to shew you the woful and miserable state and plight of such men, let the following particulars be weighed. (1) Its a stroke at the soul it self, an inward spiritual judge∣ment; and by how much the more inward and spiritual any judgement is, by so much the more dreadful and lamentable. As soul mercies, are the best of mercies; so, soul-judge∣ments, are the saddest of all judgements. If it were but a tem∣poral stroke upon the body, the loss of an eye, an ear, a hand, a foot, though in it self it would be a considerable loss; yet it were nothing to this. Omnia Deus dedit duplicia (saith Chry∣sostom) speaking of bodily members; God hath given men double members, two eyes, if one be lost, the other sup∣plies its wants; two hands, two ears, two feet, that the fail∣ing of one, may be supplyed by the help of the other; animam vero unam; but one soul, if that perish, there is not another to supply its loss. The soul, saith a Heathen, is the man, that which is seen is not the man. The Apostle calls the body a vile body, Phil. 3. 21. and so it is compared with the soul; and Daniel calls it the Sheath, which is but a contemptible thing to the sword, which is in it. O it were far better that many bodies perish, than one soul; that every member were made the seat, and subject of the most exquisite torture, than such a judgement should fall upon the soul.

(2) It's the severest stroke God can inflict upon the soul in this life, to give it up to barrenness; because it cuts off all hopes, frustrates all means, nothing can be a blessing to him. If one come 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? Iob 12. 14. As there was none found in heaven or earth, that could open the seals of that book, Rev. 5. 5. so is there no opening by the hand of the most able and skilful Ministry, those seals of hardness, blindness and unbelief, thus impressed upon the spirit. Whom j••stice so locks up, mercy will never let out. This is that which makes up the Anathema Maranatha, 1 Cor. 16. 22.

which is the dreadfullest curse in all the book of God, cacursed till the Lord come.

(3) 'Tis the most indiscernable stroke to themselves, that can be, and by that so much the more desperate. Hence there is said to be powred out upon them the spirit of slumber, Isa. 29. 10. The Lord hath powred 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 soporiferous Medicine mingled and made up of opium and such like stupifactive ingredients, which casts a man into such a dead 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. 6. 9, 10. This is the heart which cannot repent, which is spo∣ken of, Rom. 2. 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. 7. 22. We have prophecyed in thy name; this makes the wound desperate, that there is no finding of it, no probe to search it.

(4) 'Tis a stroke that cuts off from the soul all the com∣fort and sweetness of Religion. A man may pray, h••ar, and confer, but all those duties are dry stalks unto him, which yield no meat, no solid substantial nutriment; some com∣mon touches upon the affections he may sometimes find in duty, the melting voice or Rhetorick of the Preacher may perhaps strike his natural affections, as another Tragical sto∣ry pathetically delivered may do; but to have any real com∣munion with 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 Spirit, which are alwayes restrained.

God hath said to such, as he did to them. Gen. 6. 3. My spirit shall no longer strive with them; and then what sweetness is there in Odinances? What is the word separated from

the Spirit, but a dead Letter? it's the Spirit that quickens, 2 Cor. 3. 2. Friend, thou must know that the Gospel works not like a natural cause upon those that hear it; if so, the ef∣••••ct would alwayes follow, unless miraculously stopt and hindred; but it works like a moral instituted cause, whose effi∣cacy and success depends upon the arbitrary concurrence of the Spirit with it. The wind blows where it listeth, so is ev••ry one that is born of the Spirit, Ioh. 3. 8. Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth. Ordinances are as the pool of Bethesda, which had its healing vertue only when the Angel moved the waters; but the spirit never moves savingly upon the wa∣ters of Ordinances, for the healing of these souls, how ma∣ny years soever they lye by them. Though others feel a Di∣vine power in them, yet they shall not. As the men that travelled with Paul, when Christ appeared to him from hea∣ven, they saw the light, but heard not the voice, which he heard to salvation: So it is with these, they see the Mini∣sters, hear the words, which are words 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 Lazarus; Lord, if thou hadst been here, in this Ser∣mon, or in this prayer, this soul had not remained dead. But here is the woe that lyes upon him, God is departed from the means, and none can help him.

(5.) 'Tis such a stroke upon the spirit of man, as is a fearful sign of his eternal reprobation. 'Tis true we cannot positively say of a man in this life, he is a reprobate, one that God will never shew mercy to; but yet there are some probable marks of it upon some men in this world, and they are of a trembling consideration where-ever they appear? of which this is one of the saddest, 2 Cor. 4. 3. If our Gospel be hid, tis hid to those that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not; lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the Image of God, should shine unto them. So Act. 13. 48. As many as were ordained unto eter∣nal life believed. Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, Ioh. 10. 26. And again, Mat 13. 11. To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom, but to them it is not given. There can∣not

be a more dreadful Character of a person marked out for wrath, than to continue under the Ordinances, as the Rocks and miry places do under the natural influences of heaven. What blessed opportunities had Iudus? he was under Christ's own Ministry, he often heard the gracious words that pro∣ceeded out of his mouth; he was night and day in his compa∣ny, 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. 'Tis such a stroke of God upon the soules of men, as immediately foreruns hell and damnation, Heb. 6. 8. But that which beareth thorns and bryars 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 foretaste of heaven, 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 'tis said of the pale horse in the Revelation, that hell follows it. If a man abide not in me (saith Christ, Iohn 156.) he is cast forth as a branch and wi∣thered; 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 vengeance which the Gospel executes upon this barren ground.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Spiritual bar∣renness, p. 8.