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What a large capacity to man! Alas, they are only capable of a little fenfitive pleasure; as you shall see sometimes, how they will frisk in a green pasture; this is all they be capable of, and this death puts an end to: but how comprehenfive are our fouls in their capacities! We are made in the image of God; we can look beyond present things, and are capable of the highest happiness, and that to all eternity: the foul of a beaft is but a material form, which, wholly depending upon, muft needs die with the body; but our fouls are a divine fpark or blaft; and when the body dies, it dies not with it, but fubfifts even in its feparated state.

A reflection for an un

ner.

REFLECTION S.

1. How great a fin is ingratitude to God, for fuch a common, but choice mercy of creation and provifion for me in this world? There is no thankful fin- creature made worfe by kindness, but man. There is a kind of gratitude which I may obferve even in these brute beafts; they do in their way acknowledge their benefactors; "The ox knows his owner, " and the ass his master's crib." How ready are they to serve fuch as feed and cherish them? But I have been both unthankful and unferviceable to my Creator and Benefactor, that hath done me good all my days; thofe poor creatures that sweat and groan under the load that I lay upon them, never finned against God, nor tranfgreffed the laws of their creation, as I have done; and yet God hath dealt better with me than with them. O that the bounty of God, and his diftinguishing mercy between me and the beaffs that perish, might move and melt my heart into thankfulness! O that I might confider feriously what the higher and more excellent end of my creation is, and might more endeavour to anfwer and live up to it! Or elfe, O my foul! it will be worse with thee than the beafts: it is true, they are under bondage and mifery; but it is but for a little time; death will end all their pains, and ease them of all their heavy loads; but I fhall groan to all eternity, under a heavier burden than ever they felt; they have no account to give, but fo have I. What comfort is it that I have a larger capacity than a beaft hath? That God hath endowed me with reafon, which is denied to them? Alas! this will but augment my mifery, and enlarge me to takein a greater measure of anguish. 2. But how many fteps, O my foul mayft thou afcend in the praifes of thy God, when thou confidereft the mercies that God hath beftowed upon thee; not only in that he made thee not a

A reflection for an elect

Loul.

ftone or tree without fenfe, or an horfe or dog without reafon; but that thou art not an infidel without light, or an unregenerate perfon without grace? What! to have fenfe, and all the delights of it, which ftones have not! Reason, with the more high and noble pleasures of it, which beasts have not, the light and knowledge of the great things of the gospel, which the heathens have not! and fuch an expectation and hope of unconceivable glory and felicity, which the unfanctified have not ! O my foul! how rich, how bountiful hath thy God been to thee! Thefe are the overflowings of his love to thee who waft moulded out of the fame lump with the beafts. that groan on earth, yea, with the damned that howl in hell: well may I fay that God hath been a good God to me! The POE M.

HEN I behold a tired jade put on

WH

With whip and fpur, till all his ftrength be gone; See ftreams of sweat run down his bleeding fides, How little mercy's fhewn by him that rides. If I more thankful to my God wou'd prove, Than fuch a rider mercilefs, 'twill move My foul to praife: For who fees this, and can But bless the Lord that he was made a man. And fuch a fight the rider ought to move This meditation duly to improve.

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What hath this creature done, that he fhould be
Thus beaten, wounded, and tir'd out by me?
He is my fellow-creature; 'tis mere grace
I had not been in his, he in my cafe.

Ungrateful,ftupid man! God might have made

Me bear the faddle, as I fee this jade,

He never finn'd, but for my fin doth lie
Subjected unto all this mifery.

Lord, make my heart relent, that I fhould be
To thee more useless, than my horse to me:
He did his utmoft, went as long as ever

His legs cou'd bear him; but for me I never
Thus fpent my ftrength for God, but oft have been

Too prodigal thereof in ways of fin.

Though he's the horse, and I the man, 'twill be
Far better with my horse one day than me:
Unless thy grace prevent and fuperadd

A new creation unto that I had.
Could every rider fix a ferious thought
On fuch a subject, and hereby be taught

Use of Earthly Things.
To fpiritualize it, and improve it thus ;
How fweet would tedious journeys be to us!
But such a task, a graceless heart tires out,
More than the tired horfe I write about.

CHAP. III.
СНАР.

Upon the feeking of loft Cattle.

When feeking your loft cattle, keep in mind,
That thus Chrift Jefus feeks your fouls to find.

W

OBSERVATION.

HEN cattle are ftrayed away from your fields, you ufe all care and diligence to recover them again; tracing their footsteps, crying them in the market-towns, fending your fervants abroad, and enquiring yourfelves of all that you think can give news of thein. What care and pains men will take in fuch cafes, was exemplified in Saul, 1 Sam. ix, 4, 5. who with his fervant, paffed through mount Ephraim, to feek the affes that were ftrayed from his father, and through the land of Shalifha, and through the land of Shalim, and they were not there, and through the land of the Benjamites, but found them not.

THE

APPLICATION.

HE care and pains you take to recover your loft cattle, carries a fweet and lively reprefentation of the love of Jefus Chrift, in the recovery of loft finners. Jefus Chrift came on purpose from heaven upon a like errand, to feek and to fave that which was loft, Matth. xviii. 11. There are feveral particulars in which this glorious defign of Chrift, in feeking and faving loft man, and the care and pains of husbandmen in recovering their loft cattle, do meet and touch, though there be as many particulars alfo in which they differ: all which I fhall open under the following heads.

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1. We fometimes find that cattle will break out of thofe very fields where they have been bred; and where they want nothing that is needful for them. Juft thus loft man departed from his God, brake out of that pleafant enclofure where he was abundantly provided for, both as to foul and body; yet then he brake over the hedge of the command, and went aAray, Ecclef. vii. 29. " Lo, this only have I found, that God "made man upright, but he fought out to himself many inventions:" He was not content and fatisfied with that blef VOL. VI. A 3

fed ftate God had put him into, but would be trying new con clufions, to the lofs and ruin both of himself and his pofterity. 2. Strayers are evermore fufferers for it; all they get by it, to be pined and poinded: And what did man get by departing from his God, but ruin and mifery to foul and body? Will you have an abbreviate of his fufferings and loffes? The full account none can give you: Why, by ftraying from his God, he loft the rectitude and holiness of his nature; like a true ftrayer, he is all dirty and miry, overspread and besmeared both in foul and body with the odious filthiness of fin; he loft the liberty and freedom of his will to good, a precious jewel of ineftimable value. This is a real mifery incurred by the fall, though fome have fo far loft their understandings and humility, as not to own it; he hath loft his God, his foul, his happinefs, and his very bowels of compaffion towards himself in this miferable ftate.

3. When your cattle are ftrayed, yea, though it be but one of the flock or herd, you leave all the reft, and go after that which is loft: So did Jefus Christ, who, in the forecited place, Matth. xvii. r2. compares himself to fuch a fhepherd; he left heaven itself, and all the bleffed angels there, to come into this world to feek loft man. O the precious esteem, and dear love that Chrift had to poor man! How did his bowels yearn towards us in our low ftate! How did he pity us in our misery! As if he had faid, poor creatures, they have loft themfelves, and are become a prey to the devil in a perishing state; I will feek after them, and fave them. The Son of man is come to feek and to fave.

4. You are glad when you have found your ftrayers; much more is Chrift, when he hath found a loft foul. O it is a great fatisfaction to him to fee the fruit of the travail of his foul; Ifa. liii."Yea, there is more joy in heaven over one finner that re"penteth, than over ninety nine just perfons that need no re"pentance." What demonftrations of joy and gladness did the father of the prodigal give, when he had found his fon that was loft Luke xv. 20.

5. When you have brought home your ftrayers, you fome times clog them, to prevent their wandering again, and stop up the gaps with thorns; and fo doth God oftentimes by fuch fouls as are recovered and brought home to Chrift; 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 Chrift's feeking loft fouls, and your seeking loft cattle differ.

4. Your cattle fometimes find the way home themselves, and return to you of their own accord; but loft man never did, nor can do fo; he was his own destroyer, but can never be his own faviour; it was poffible for him not to have loft his God, but having once loft him, can never find him again of himself. Alas! his heart is bent to backfliding, he hath no will to return. Hear how Chrift complains, John v. 40. "Ye will not come "unto me." Man's recovery begins in God, not in himself. 2. Your fervants can find, and bring back your loft cattle as well as you; but fo cannot Chrift's fervants: Ministers may discover, but cannot recover them; they daily fee, but cannot fave 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 perfuade all; but old Adam was too hard for young Melancthon.

3. You feek all the cattle that are frayed from you, efpecially the best; but Jefus Chrift on y feeks poor loft man. There were other creatures, and such as by nature were more excellent, that loft their God and themselves; I mean, the apoftate angels; but he came not to feek them: herein his fin gular love to man appears.

4. When you have recovered and brought home your loft cattle, you may lose them the second time, and never recover them again; but fo cannot Chrift. Man once recovered is for ever fecured by him." All that thou haft given me, I have kept, and not one of them is loft, but the fon of perdition ;" and he was never favingly found, John xvii. 12.

5. Though you prize your cattle, yet you will not venture your life for the recovery of them; rather let them go, than regain them with fuch an hazard, but Jefus Chrift not only ventured, but actually laid down his life to recover, and fave loft 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 furpalling love of Chrift to loft fouls!

REFLECTION S.

A reflection for a

loft foul.

1. Lord, I am a loft creature! an undone foul! and herein lies my misery, that I have not only loft my 'God, but have no heart to return to him: nay, I fly from Chrift, who is come on purpofe from heaven to feek and to fave me: his meffengers are abroad, feeking for fuch as I am, but I avoid them, or at leaft refuse to obey their call and perfuafions to re

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