formed against you shall ever prosper. Many protections and deliverances you have had in your actings for him. Hath he not deserved at your hands to be trusted and feared all your days, with all your power? As my heart hath always been towards the governors in Israel, who willingly offered themselves among the people; so truly my heart never more trembled over them, than now. Oh! where shall we find hearts fit to receive so many mercies, as have been given into our bosoms? Oh! where shall we have hearts large enough to receive all these mercies? The oil ceased when the vessel would hold no more. All my hope and confidence is, that God will work for his name's sake. I could exhort you to sundry particulars, and lay down several paths of God, walking wherein you shall be sure to find peace and safety; as especially that you would regard that which God hath honoured, whereunto the opposition which he had resolved to make void, was made.

Use 3. You that are men of courage, and might, and success, stout of heart, and strong of hand, be watchful over yourselves, lest you should in any thing be engaged against the Lord. The ways of the Lord are your locks, step but out of them, they will be cut, and you will become like other men, and be made a prey and a mocking to the uncircumcised that are round about. These eminencies you have from God, are eminent temptations to undertakings against God, if not seasoned with grace and watchfulness. Ah! how many. baits have Satan and the world suited to these qualifications. Samson shook himself, and went out, saying, I will do as at other times; but he knew not that the Lord was departed from him.' You may think when you are walking in paths of your own, that you will do as at other times; but if your strength be departed away, what will be the end?

Use 4. Our last use should be of instruction in respect of God, that you may see, both what he can do, and trust him; and consider what he hath done, and bless him. For the first; weapons of all sorts, men of all sorts, judgments of all sorts, are at his command and disposal: see it in this psalm. And for what he hath done; if there be any virtue in the presence of Christ in his ordinances; if any worth in the gospel; if any sweetness in carrying on the work of Christ's. revenge against Babylon; if any happiness in the establish

ment of the peace and liberty of a poor nation, purchased with so much blood, and so long a contest; if any content in the disappointment of the predations and threats of God's enemies, and his people's; if any refreshment to our bowels, that our necks are yet kept from the yoke of lawless lust, fury, and tyranny; if any sweetness in a hope that a poor, distressed handful in Ireland may yet be relieved; if any joy that God hath given yet another testimony of his presence amongst us; if it be any way valuable, that the instruments of our deliverance be not made the scorned object of men's revengeful violence; if any happiness, that the authority under which we enjoy all these mercies, is not swallowed up: is it not all in the womb of this deliverance? And who is he that hath given it into our bosom ?

SERMON XXX.

THE

SIN AND JUDGMENT OF SPIRITUAL BARRENNESS.

But the miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt.-EZEK. xlvii. 11.

THIS prophecy contains a vision of the glorious, holy, gospel state of the church under the representation of a most glorious temple, incomparably excelling that built of old by Solomon; an exposition whereof we have, 2 Cor. iii. 6— 8. &c.

The beginning of this chapter sets out the way and means of the calling and gathering of gospel churches, whose worship is to be so glorious; and this is under a vision of 'waters issuing out of the sanctuary,' to heal and quicken all places to which they came.

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By the waters here mentioned is the preaching of the gospel intended. And we may observe of them, first, Their rise which was from the sanctuary. Secondly, Their progress they increased until they became a river that none could pass over. Thirdly, Their effects or efficacy: they healed all waters where they came, and quickened, or caused to live, the fishes that were in them.

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I must not long insist on these particulars.

First, The house or temple from whence these waters issue, may be taken two ways.

1. Mystically, to denote only the presence of God. God dwelt in his temple, thence come these waters, from his presence. He sends out the word of the gospel for the conversion and healing of the nations; Psal. cx. 2. Or,

2. Figuratively, and that either for the place where the temple of old stood, that is, Jerusalem, as the preaching of the gospel was to go forth from Jerusalem, and the sound of it from thence to proceed unto all the world, as Isa. xli. 27.

lii. 7. Acts i. 4. 8. or, for the church of Christ and his apostles, the first glorious, spiritual temple unto God, whence these waters issued.

Secondly, Their progress, which is described by degrees, it being at first small, few men preaching it, and to a few; but afterward increasing, until it filled the whole earth.

Thirdly, The effects mentioned or ascribed unto these waters are two, quickening, and healing; which I shall not in general speak farther unto, because I shall do it in the opening of my text.

In the words of the text you have the state and condition of those places, whither the waters of the sanctuary do come, and the effects before described unto them, are not produced. For so the words are to be read: 'That shall not be healed.'

We have here a description of some lands or places whereunto the holy waters do come. First, They are miry and marshy places.' Secondly, The event of the waters coming to them; they are not healed.' Thirdly, The consequent of that event; they are given unto salt.' I shall in a few words lay open the allegory, or parable

unto you.

First, By the waters of the sanctuary, I told you, is meant the preaching of the gospel, that quickening and healing word which the Lord sends out to gather his church unto himself all the world over; to call his saints to that glorious, gospel, spiritual worship, which is here described in this vision of a temple.

Secondly, The 'miry and marshy places,' where these waters come, are such, where persons cleave inseparably and incurably to their lusts and sins, so that they are not healed by the word. The healing word of the gospel comes, but they receive it not; the water flows over them, they drink it not in, are not quickened, nor healed by it.

Thirdly, To be given unto salt,' is to be left unto barrenness; Deut. xxix. 23. Judg. ix. 45. Jer. xvii. 6.

The figurative sense of the passage thus explained, will afford us the following observations.

Observation I. God is pleased oftentimes to send the waters of the sanctuary to miry and marshy places,' that shall never be healed' by them, nor made fruitful. Or,

God in his infinite wisdom is pleased to send the preaching of the word unto some places, wherein it shall not put forth its quickening and sanctifying power and virtue, upon the souls of them that hear it.

II. All places in the world are barren, unsound and unhealthy, before the coming of the waters of the sanctuary upon them. Or, the souls of all men are spiritually dead and full of woful distempers, until they are quickened and healed by the dispensation of the gospel. The word must come and heal them.

III. The waters of the sanctuary are healing waters. Or, the word of the gospel is in its own nature a quickening, healing, sanctifying, saving word, to them who re

ceive it.

IV. Where the waters of the sanctuary come, and the land is not healed, that land is given up of the Lord to salt or barrenness for ever. Or, where the word of the gospel is, by the infinitely wise disposal of God, preached unto a place, or persons, and they receive it not, so as to have their sinful distempers healed by it, they are usually after a season, given up by the righteous judgment of God unto barrenness, and everlasting ruin.

It is this last proposition, as that which is the direct design and scope of the place, that I intend to insist principally upon. But yet I shall speak somewhat to the former.

I. God is pleased oftentimes in his infinite wisdom to send the preaching of the word unto some places, wherein it shall not put forth its quickening and sanctifying power and virtue, upon the souls of them that hear it.

The whole Scripture, and whole story of the providence of God, in sending the gospel abroad in the world, bears witness to this truth. It was his way from the foundation of the world, and continueth to this very day. Hence was that complaint of the prophet, Isa. liii. 1. Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?' The gospel is preached to them that believe not the report thereof. And, chap. xlix. 4. Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought.' But we need no greater instance, nor any other than that of our Saviour; who spent the greatest part of his ministry in preaching to them who were never healed, never converted,