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To fhadow forth a heavenly mystery,
Which thus prefents itself before your eye.
As when the fun draws near us in the spring,
All creatures do rejoice, birds chirp and fing.
The face of nature fmiles; the fields adorn
Themselves with rich embroideries: The corn
Revives, and fhooteth up; the warm fweet rain
Makes trees and herbs fprout forth, and spring amain.
Walk but the fields in fuch a fragrant morn,
How do the birds your ears with fuch music charm!
The flowers their flaming beauties do prefent
Unto your captiv'd eyes; and for their fcent,
The fweet Arabian gums cannot compare,
Which thus perfume the circumambient air.
So, when the gospel sheds its cheering beams
On gracious fouls, like those fweet-warming gleams
Which God ordains in nature, to draw forth
The vertue feminal that's in the earth;

It warms their hearts, their languid graces cheers,
And, on fuch fouls, a fpring-like face appears.
The gracious showers these spiritual clouds do yield,
Enriches them with fweetnels, like a field

Which God hath blefs'd. Oh! 'tis exceeding fweet,
When gracious hearts, and heavenly truths do meet !
How should the hearts of faints within them fpring,
When they behold the meffengers that bring
These gladsome tidings? Yea, their very feet
Are beautiful, because their meffage fweet.
Oh what a mercy do thofe fouls enjoy,
On whom fuch gofpel-dews fall day by day!
Thrice happy land! which in this pleasant spring,
Can hear these turtles in her hedges fing?
O prize fuch mercies! If you ask me, why?
Read on, you'll fee there's reafon by and by.

CHA P. X.

Upon a Dearth through want of Rain.

If God reftrains the fhowers, you howl and cry:
Shall faints not mourn when spiritual clouds are dry?

OBSERVATIO N.

IT is defervedly accounted a fad judgment, when God fhuts

up the heavens over our heads, and makes the earth as brass under our feet, Deut. xxviii. 23. Then the husbandmen are

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called to mourning, Joeli. 11. All the fields do languish, and the bellowing cattle are pined with thirst. Such a fad state the prophet rhetorically defcribes, Jer. xiv. 3, 4, 5, 6. “The nobles have fent their little ones to the waters; they came to the pits aud found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were athamed and confounded, and covered "their heads, because the ground is chapt; for there was no "rain in the earth; the plowmen were afhamed, they covered "their heads; yea, the hind also calved in the field, and for"fook it, because there was no grafs; and the wild asses did "fland in the high places: They fouffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes failed, because there was no grass.”

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And that which makes the want of rain fo terrible a judg ment, is the famine of bread, which neceffarily follows thefe extraordinary droughts, and is one of the foreft temporal judgments which God inflicts upon the world.

APPLICATION.

ND, truly as much caufe have they to weep and tremble,

AND

over whose fouls God hats up the spiritual clouds of the gospel, and thereby fends a spiritual famine upon their fouls. Such a judgment the Lord threatens in Amos viii. 11. “Be"hold the day is come, faith the Lord, that I will send a famine "in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but "of hearing the word of the Lord." The meaning is, I will send a more fearful judgment than that of the famiae of bread; for this particle [not] is not exclufive but exceffive; implying, that a famine of bread is nothing, or but a light judgment compared with the famine of the word. Parallel to which is that text, Ha. v. 6. "I will lay it waste (faith God of the fruitless church ;) "it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up "briars and thorns; I will alfo command the clouds that they "rain not upon it." And we find both in human and facred hiftories, that when God hath fhut up the fpiritual clouds, removing or filencing his minifters, fenfible Chriftians have ever been deeply affected with it, and reckoned it a moft tremenduous judgment. Thus the Chriftians of Antioch, when Chryfoftom their minifter was banished, they judged it better to lofe the fun out of the firmament, than lofe that, their minifter. And when Nazianzen was taking his leave of Conftantinople, as he was preaching his farewel fermon, the people were exceedingly af

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* It is better for us to want the light of the fun, than the teaching of Chryfoftomus.

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fected with his lofs; and among the reft, an old man in the congregation fell into a bitter paffion, and cried out, Aude pater, et tecum trinitatem ipfam ejice: (i. e.) Go, Father, if you dare, and take away the whole trinity with you; meaning, that God would not stay when he was gone. How did the Christians of Antioch also weep and lament, when Paul was taking his farewel of them? Acts xx. 37, 38. He had been a cloud of bleffings to that place, but now they must expect no more showers from him. Oh! they knew not how to give up fuch a minister L when the ark of God (which was the fymbol of the Divine prefence among the Jews) was taken, "All the city cried out," Sam. iv. 13. Oh the lofs of a gofpel-miniftry is an inestimablé lofs, not to be repaired but by its own return, or by heaven! Mr. Greenham tells us, that in the times of popifh perfecution, when godly minifters were haled away from their flocks to martyrdom, the poor Christians would meet them in the way to the prisons, or stake, with their little ones in their arms, and throwing themselves at their feet, would thus befpeak them, What 'fhall be our eftate, now you are gone to martyrdom? Who • fhall inftruct these poor babes? Who fhall ease our afflicted ⚫ confciences? Who fhall lead us in the way of life? Recom pence unto them, O'Lord, as they have deferved, who are the caufes of this: Lord give them fad hearts.' Quis talia fando, temperet a lachrymis? And to let you fee there is fufficient ground for this forrow, when God refrains the influences of the gofpel, folemnly confider the following particulars.

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1. That it is a dreadful token of God's great auger against that people from whom he removes the gofpel. The anger of God was fearfully incenfed against the church of Ephesus, when he did but threaten to come against her, and remove the candlestick out of its place, Rev. ii. 5. It is a stroke at the foul, a blow at the root; ufually the laft, and therefore the worft of judgments. There is a pedigree of judgments; first, Gomer bears Jezreel; next, Lo-ruhama, and at last brings forth Lo-ammi, Hofea i. 4, 6, 8, 9.

2. There is cause of mourning, if you confider the deploraBle effate in which all the unregenerate fouls are left, after the gofpel is removed from them. What will become of thele? Or by whom shall they be gathered? It made the bowels of Christ yearn within him, when he looked upon the scattered multitude that had no fhepherd. Matth. ix. 36. What an easy conqueft doth the devil now make of them? How fast doth hell fill in fuch times? Poor fouls being driven thither in droves, and none to rescue them Matthew Paris tells us, that

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in the year 1973, when preaching was fuppreffed at Rome, letters were then framed as coming from hell; wherein the devil them thanks for the multitude of fouls they had fent to him that year. But truly we need not talk of letters from hell, we are told from heaven, how deplorable the condition of fuch poor fouls is; See Prov. xxviii. 19. Haf. iv. 6. Or,

3. The judgment will yet appear very heavy, if you confider the lots which God's own people fuftain by the removal of the gospel; for therein they lofe (1) Their chief glory, Rom. iii. 2. The principal thing in which the peculiar glory of Ifrael consisted was this, "That unto them were committed "the oracles of God." On that account it was called the glorious land, Dan. xi. 16. This made them greater than all the nations round about them, Deut. iv. 7, 8. (2.) By losing the ordinances they lofe their quickenings, comforts, and foul-refreshments; for all these are sweet Areams from the golpelfountain, Pfalm cxix. 50. Col. iv. 8. No wonder then to hear the people of God complain of dead hearts when the gospel is removed. (3.) In the loss of the gospel they lose their defence and fafety. This is their hedge, their wall of protection, Ifa. v. 5. Walls and hedges (faith Mufculus in loc.) are the ordipances of God, which ferved both ad feparationem et munitienem, to distinguish and to defend them. When God plucks up this hedge, and breaks down this wall, all mischiefs break in upon us presently, 2 Chron. xv. 3, 4, 5, 6. " Now for a long "feafon Ifrael hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law.And in those times "there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of "the countries, and nation was destroyed of nation, and city "of city; for God did vex them with all adverfity." How long did Jerufalem remain after that voice was heard in the temple, Migremus hinc? Let us be gone? (4.) With the gofpel, we lose our temporal enjoyments and creature-comforts. These usually come and go with the gospel. When God had once written Lo-ammi upon Ifrael, the next news was this, "I "will recover my wool and my flax," Hofea ii. 9. (5.) And, laftly, to come up to the very cafe in hand, they lofe with it their fpiritual food and foul-fubfiftence, for the gospel is their feaft of fat things, Ifa. xxv. 6. their spiritual wells, Ifa. xii. 3. a dofe diftributed among the Lord's poor, Rom. i. 11. In a word, it is as the rain and dews of heaven, as hath been fhewed, which being restrained, a spiritual famine neceffarily follows,

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a famine, of all, the most terrible. Now to fhew you the analogy between this and a temporal famine, that therein you may fee what caute you have to be deeply affected with it, take it in these fix following particulars.

1. A famine caused by the failing of bread, or that which is in the ftead, and hath the ufe of bread. Dainties and fuperfluous rarities may fail, and yet men may fubfift comfortably: As long as people have bread and water, they will not famish; but take away bread once, and the fpirit of man faileth. Upon this account bread is called a staff, Plalm cv. 16 because what a ftaff is to an aged and feeble man, that bread is to the faint and feeble spirits, which even fo do lean upon it. And look what bread is to the natural fpirits, that, and more than that, the word is to gracious fpirits, Job xxiii. 12. "I have esteemed the "words of thy mouth, more than my neceffary food." If once God breaks this ftaff, the inner man, that hidden man of the heart, will quickly begin to fail and faulter.

2. It is not every degree of fcarcity of bread that prefently makes a famine, but a general failing of it; when no bread is to be had, or that which is, yields no nutriment. For a famine may as well be occafioned by God's taking away panis nutrimentum. the nourishing vertue of bread, that it fhall fignify no more, as to the end of bread, than a chip, Hag. i. 6. As by taking away panem nutrientem, bread itfelf, Ifa. iii. 1. And to it is in a fpiritual famine, which is occafioned, either by God's remov ing all the ordinances, and making vifion utterly to fail; or elfe, though there be preaching, prayer, and other ordinances left (at least the names and fhadows of them) yet the presence of God is not with them. There is no marrow in the bone, no milk in the breaft; and fo, as to a foul-fubfiftence, it is all one, as if there were no fuch things.

3. In a corporeal famine, mean and coarse things become fweet and pleafant: Famine raifes the price and esteem of them. That which before you would have thrown to your dogs, now goes down pleasantly with yourfelves. To the hungry foul every bitter thing is fweet, Prov. xxvii. 7. It is the Dutch proverb, and a very true one, hunger is the best cook *.

In time of famine coarfelt fare contents,

'The barking stomach strains no complements.'

It is ftoried of Artaxerxes Memor, that when he was flying before his enemies, he fed hungrily upon barley-bread, and faid, Cujufmodi voluptatis hactenus inexpertus fuit! O what

* Jujunus ftomachus raro vulgaria temnit.

Horat.

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