СНАР. Upon the Harvest-Season. Corn, fully ripe, is reap'd, and gather'd in : OBSERVATION. HEN the fields are white to harvest, then husbandmen walk W through them, rub the ears; and finding the grain full and folid, they prefently prepare their fcythes and fickles; fend for their harvest-men, who quickly reap and mow them down; and after thefe follow the binders, who tie it up; from the field where it grew, it is carried to the barn, where it is threshed out; the good grain gathered into an heap, the chaff feparated and burnt, or thrown to the dunghill. How bare and naked do the fields look after harvest, which before were pleasant to behold? When the harvest-men enter into the field, it is (to allude to that, Joel ii. 3.) before then, like the garden of Eden, and behind them a defolate wildernefs; and, in fome places, it is ufual to fet fire to the dry stubble when the corn is houfed; which rages furiously, and covers it all with afhes. TH APPLICATION. HE application of this, I find made to my hands by Chrift himfelf, in Mat. xiii. 38, 39. "The field is the world; the (( good feed are the children of the kingdom; the tares are the "children of the wicked one; the enemy that fowed them is the devil; the harveft is the end of the world; the reapers are the "angels." The field is the world; there both the godly and ungodly live and grow together, until they be both ripe; and then they fhall both be reaped down by death: death is the fickle that reaps down both. I will open this allegory in the following particulars: 1. In a catching harveft, when the hufbandman fees the clouds begin to gather and grow black, he hurries in his corn with all poftible hafte, and houfes it day and night.. So doth God, the great Hufbandman; he hurries the faints into their graves when judgments are coming upon the world; Ifa. lvii. 1. "The righteous perifh, and no man layeth it to heart; and mer"ciful men are taken away, none confidering that the righteous is "is taken away from the evil to come." Methufelah died the year before the flood; Auguftine a little before the facking of Hippo; Pareus juft before the taking of Heidelburg; Luther a little before the wars broke out in Germany. But what fpeak I of fingle faints? Sometimes the Lord houfes great numbers together, before fome fweeping judgment comes. How many bright and glorious stars did fet almoft together within the compafs of a few years, to the astonish ment of many wife and tender hearts in England? I find some of them thus ranked in a funeral elegy: The learned Twiffe went firfl, (it was his right) Then holy Palmer, Burroughs, Love, Gouge, White, I have not nam'd them half; their only ftrife Long to have done their parts, and leave the stage. The Lord fees it better for them to be under-ground, than aboveground; and therefore, by a merciful providence, fets them out of harm's way. 2. Neither the corn nor tares can poffibly refift the sharp and keen fickle, when it is applied to them by the reaper's hand; neither can the godly or ungodly refift the ftroke of death when God inflicts it; Eccl. viii. 8. "No man can keep alive his own foul in the day "of death; and there is no difcharge in that war." The frail body of man is as unable to withstand that firoke, as the weak reeds or feeble stalks of the corn are to refift the keen scythe and sharp fickle. 3. The reapers receive the wheat which they cut down into their arms and bofom. Hence that expreffion, by way of imprecation upon the wicked, Pfal. cxxix. 6, 7 "Let them be as the grass upon the house "top, which withers before if grows up; wherewith the mower fill"eth not his hand, nor he that bindeth theaves, his bofom." Such withered grafs are the wicked, who are never taken into the reaper's bofom; but as foon as faints are cut down by death, they fall into the hands and bofoms of the angels of God, who bear them in their arms and bofoms to God their father, Luke xvi. 22. For look, as these bleffed fpirits did exceedingly rejoice at their converfion, Luke xv. 10. and thought it no difhonour to minifter to them, whilst they stood in the field, Heb. i. 14. So when they are cut down by death, they will rejoice to be their convoy to heaven. 4. When the corn and weeds are reaped and mowed down, they fhall never grow any more in that field; neither shall we ever return to live an animal life any more after death, Job vii. 9, 10. " As the "cloud is confumed, and vanisheth away; fo he that goeth down to "the grave, fhall come up no more; he shall return no more to his "house, neither fhall his place know him any more." Laftly, (to come home to the particular fubject of this chapter) the reapers are never fent to cut down the harveft until it be fully ripe; neither will God reap down faints or finners until they be come to a maturity of grace or wickedness. Saints are not reaped down until their grace is ripe, Job v. 26. "Thou fhalt come to thy grave "in a full age, as a fhock of corn cometh in its season." Not that ⚫ every godly man dies in fuch a full old age, (faith Mr Caryl on that place) but yet, in one fenfe, it is an univerfal truth, and ever fulfilled; for whenfoever they die, they die in a good age; yea, though they die in the fpring and flower of their youth, they die in a good old age; i. e. they are ripe for death whenever they die. Whenever a godly man dies, it is harveft-time with him, though in a natural capacity he be cut down while he is green, and cropped in the bud or bloffom; yet in his fpiritual capacity he never ⚫dies before he be ripe. God ripens him fpeedily, when he intends to take him out of the world fpeedily; he can let out fuch warm rays and beams of his Spirit upon him, as thall foon maturate the feeds of grace into a preparedness for glory.' The wicked alfo have their ripening-time for hell and judgment; God doth with much long-fuffering endure the veffels of wrath prepared for deftruction. Of their ripenefs for judgment the Scripture often speaks, Gen. xv. 16. The fin of the Amorites is not yet "full." And of Babylon it is faid, Jer. li. 13. “O thou that dwel" left upon many waters! thine end is come, and the meafure of "thy covetoufnefs." It is worth remarking, that the meafure of the fin, and the end of the finner, come together. So Joel iii. 13. " Put ye in the fickle, "for the harvest of the earth is ripe; for the prefs is full, the fats "overflow; for their wickednefs is great" Where, note, finners are not cut down till they be ripe and ready. Indeed, they are never ripe for death, nor ready for the grave; that is, fit to die; yet they are always ripe for wrath, and ready for hell before they die. Now, as husbandmen judge of the ripenets of their harvest, by the colour and hardnefs of the grain; fo may we judge of the ripenefs both of faints and finners, for heaven or hell, by thefe following figns. Three figns of the maturity of grace. THEN the corn is near ripe, it bows the head, and ftoops lower than when it was green. When the people of God are near ripe for heaven, they grow more humble and self-denying, than in the days of their firft profeflion. The longer a faint grows in the world, the better he is full acquainted with his own heart, and his obligations to God; both which are very humbling things. Paul had one foot in heaven, when he called himself the chiefeft of finners, and leaft of faints, 1 Tim. i. 15. Eph. iii. 8. A Chriftian in the progrefs of his knowledge and grace, is like a veffel caft into the fea, the more it fills, the deeper it finks. Thofe that went to study at Athens (faith Plutarch) at first coming feemed to themselves to be wife men; afterwards only lovers of wifdom, and after that, only rhetoricians, fuch as could speak of wisdom, but knew little of it, and laft of all, ideots in their own apprehenfions; ftill, with the increafe of learning, laying afide their pride and arrogancy. 2. When harveft is nigh, the grain is more folid and pithy than ever it was before; green corn is foft and fpungy, but ripe corn is fubftantial and weighty: So it is with Chriftians; the affections of a young Chriftian, perhaps are more feverous and fprightly; but thofe of a grown Chriftian are more judicious and folid; their love to Chrift abounds more and more in all judgments, Phil. i. 9. The limbs of a child are more active and pliable: but as he grows up to a perfect state, the parts are more confolidated and firinly knit. The fingers of an old musician are not fo nimble; but he hath a more judicious ear in mufic than in his youth. 3. When corn is dead ripe, it is apt to fall of its own accord to the ground, and there fhed; whereby it doth, as it were, anticipate the harvest-man, and calls upon him to put in the fickle. Not unlike to which are the lookings and longings, the groanings and haftenings of ready Chriftians to their expected glory; they haften to the coming of the Lord, or, as Montanus more fitly renders it, they haften the coming of the Lord; (i. e.) they are urgent and instant in their defires and cries to haften his coming; their defires fally forth to meet the Lord; they willingly take death by the hand; as the corn bends to the earth, fo doth thefe fouls to heaven: This shows their harvest to be near. Six figns of the maturity of fin. HEN finners are even dead-ripe for hell, the signs appear fouls not to be far from wrath, upon whom they appear. 1. When confcience is wafted, and grown paft feeling, having no remorfe for fin; when it ceafes to check, reprove, and finite for fin any more, the day of that finner is at hand, his harvest is even come. The greatest violation of confcience is the greatest of fins; this was the cafe of the forlorn Gentiles, among whom Satan had fuch a plentiful harvest; the patience of God fuffered them to grow till their confciences were grown feared, and patt feelings, Eph. iv. 19. When a member is fo mortified, that if you lance and cut it never fo much, no fresh blood, or quick flesh appears, nor doth the man feel any pain in all this, then it is time to cut it off 2. When men give themselves over to the fatisfaction of their lufts, to commit in with greedinefs, then are they grown to a maturity of fin; when men have flipped the reins of confcience, and rufh headlong into all impiety, then the laft fands of God's patience are running down. Thus Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, in like manner gave themfelves over to wickedness and ftrange fins; and then juftice quickly gave them up for an example, fuffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 3. That man is even ripe for hell, that is become a contriver of fin, a defigner, a ftudent in wickednefs. One would think it strange, that any man should fet his invention on work upon fuch a fubject as fin is, that any fhould study to become a dexterous artist this way! and yet the fcripture frequently fpeaks of fuch, whofe bellies pre pare deceit," Job xv. 35. "who travail in pain to bring forth" this deformed birth, ver. 20. "who wink with their eyes," whilft plodding wickednefs, as men ufed to do when they are most intent upon the study of any knotty problem, Prov. vi. 13. Thefe have fo much of hell already in them, that they are more than half in hell already. 4. He that of a forward profeffor is turned a bitter perfecutor, is alfo within a few rounds of the top of the ladder; the contempt of their light the Lord hath already punished upon them, in their obduracy and madness against the light. Reader, if thou be gone thus far, thou art almost gone beyond all hope of recovery. Towards other finners God ufually exercifes more patience, but with fuch he makes fhort work. When Judas turns traitor to his Lord, he is quickly fent to his own place. Such as are again intangled and overcome of those lufts they once feemed to have clean escaped, these bring upon themfelves fwift damnation, and their judgment lingers not, 2 Pet. ii. 3, 20. 5. He that can endure no reproof or controul in the way of his fin, but derides all counfel, and, like a ftrong current, rages at, and fweeps away all obftacles in his way, will quickly fall into the dead lake, Prov. xxix. 1. "He that being often reproved, hardeneth his "neck, fhall fuddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." This is a death-fpot, a hell-fpot, wherever it appears. From this very symptom the prophet plainly predicted the approaching ruin of Amazia, 2 Chron. xxv. 16. "I know that God hath determined to deftroy thee, because thou haft done this, and haft not hearkened "to my voice." He that will not be timely counfelled, fhall be quickly deftroyed. Lally, When a man comes to glory in his fin, and boast of his wickedness, then it is time to cut him down, "whofe end is de"ftruction, whofe glory is in their fhame;" Phil. iii. 19. This is a braving, a daring of God to his face; and with whomfoever he bears long, to be fure thefe are none of them, You fee now what are the figns of a full ripe finner; and when it comes to this, either with a nation, or with a fingle perfon, then ruin is near, Joel iii. 13. Gen. xv. 16. It is in the filling up of the meafure of fin, as in the filling up of a veffel caft into the fea which rolls from fide to fide, taking in the water by little and little till it be full, and then down it finks to the bottom. Mean while, admirable is Divine patience, which bears with thefe veffels of wrath, whilft fitting for deftruction! REFLECTION. The reflection of a 1. Cheer thyfelf, O my foul! with the heartgrowing Chriflian. ftrengthening bread of this Divine meditation. Let faith turn every drop of this truth into a foul-reviving cordial. God hath fown the precious feed of grace up |