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.

The Poem.

YOu that besides your pleasant fruitful fields, Have useless bogs, and rocky ground that yields You no advantage, nor doth quit your cost, But all your pains and charges on them's lost, Hearken to me, Ile teach you how to get More profit by them, than if they were set At higher Rents than what your Tenants pay For your most ••ertile Lands; and here's the way Think when you view them, why the Lord hath chose These, as1 1.1 Emblems to decipher those

That under Gospel-grace grow worse and2 1.2 worse; For means are fruitless; where the Lord doth3 1.3 curse. Sweet showers descend, the Sun his beams reflects on both4 1.4 alike; but not with like effects. Observe, and see how after the sweet showers The grass and corn5 1.5 revive; the fragrant6 1.6 flowers Shoot forth their beauteous heads, the valleys7 1.7 sing, All fresh, and green as in the verdant spring. But rocks are barren still, and8 1.8 bogs are so; Where nought but flags,9 1.9 and worthless rushes grow. Upon these marish grounds there lyes this curse, The more rain falls; by so much more the worse. Even so the1 1.10 dews of grace, that sweetly fall, From Gospel2 1.11 clouds, are not3 1.12 alike to all. The gracious soul doth4 1.13 germinate and bud, But to the Reprobate it doth5 1.14 no good. He's like the withered6 1.15 fig-tree void of fruit; Afearful curse hath smote his very7 1.16 root. The heart's made ••at, the9 1.17 eyes with blindness seal'd; The piercingst truths the Gospel ere reveal'd, Shall be to him but as the Sun and rain Are to obdurate rocks:10 1.18 fruitless and vain. Be this your meditation when you walk By rocks, and fenny grounds, thus learn to talk With your own souls: and let it make you fear Lest that's your case ••ha•• is described here. This is the best improvement you can make. Of such bad ground: good soul, I pray thee take Some pains about them; though they barren be, Thou seest how they may yield sweet fruits to thee.

Notes

• 1 1.1

  Eze. 47. 11▪
• 2 1.2

  2 Tim. 3. 13.
• 3 1.3

  Heb. 6. 8.
• 4 1.4

  Mat. 5. 45.
• 5 1.5

  2 Sam. 23. 4.
• 6 1.6

  Cant. 2. 12.
• 7 1.7

  Psal. 65. 13.
• 8 1.8

  Eze. 47. 11.
• 9 1.9

  Iob 8. 11.
• 1 1.10

  Deut. 22. 2.
• 2 1.11

  Isa. 5. 6.
• 3 1.12

  2Cor. 2. 16.
• 4 1.13

  Psa. 92. 13.
• 5 1.14

  Isa. 6. 9, 10.
• 6 1.15

  Mar. 11. 20.
• 7 1.16

  Isa. 5. 24.
• 9 1.17

  Isa. 6. 10.
• 10 1.18

  Luk. 8. 14. Ier. 17. 5, 6.