upon the souls of men: and the more able we are to examine it, the more striking and beautiful will this representation appears to us.

Husbandry among men is distributed into several spe cies or kinds. We have the husbandry of the field or farm, of the garden, of the vineyard and the plantation. These all require, according to their peculiar circumstances, the constant culture and superintendence of human industry; or they would produce nothing, or nothing of utility.

We know, likewise, that the most cultivated field or garden, the most fertile vineyard, and most beautiful plantation, were originally a rude and desolate common, a melancholy and unproductive wilderness, the rage only of savage and devouring beasts, or of men perhaps more wild and savage than they. It was science and industry, through providence, which changed these gloomy cir cumstances into their present condition of use and beauty, and made regions, which were almost a picture of the valley of the shadow of death, to become the chearful haunts of domestic and useful creatures, and of social and civilized men.

We are also sensible, from constant experience, that the most fertile field or vineyard, the most enchanting garden or plantation, let alone and permitted to remain without culture and skill, soon returns to its savage state of nature, and would bear nothing but contemptible fruits and noxious weeds.

All this is the expressive picture of redeemed men. The Lord found his people in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness. Yea, Zion itself was once a wilderness,

a part of the desolate waste, and undistinguishable from it; till the great Husbandman marked out her lines, raised up her fences, and thereby divided, sanctified, or set her apart for himself, from all the miserable soil laying round about her. This was a selection, according to his own plan or will; according to the mere spontaneous exertion of his own almighty power. The people of God could no more have appointed or rescued themselves from the common wretchedness of the world, than a garden or field could have chosen its own peculiar situation, or wrought itself up into fruitfulness and beauty. The natural truth is undeniable and obvious; and what that natural truth preaches, is equally so, both in the word of God, in continual fact, and in the uniform experience of his redeemed. They sought not him, but he sought out (agreeable to the name he has given them, in Isa. lxii. 12.) and gave unto them the bounds of their habitation and turned the desert place into his spiritual inclosure or garden. They only became a part of his HUSBANDRY, because it pleased him to make them such; and no other reason can they or do they desire to give; and no other does his holy revelation afford, of this gracious and wonderful matter. They look upon every attempt to be wiser than this, as a presumption, which God hath already condemned for its folly, and will hereafter cover with shame.

As this spiritual field, garden, vineyard, or plantation, is selected and inclosed by JEHOVAH; So is it defended, arranged, supplied, weeded, and fertilized, by him. His eye is ever upon it. It is the constant work of his hand. He waters it every moment. He guards it from Satan, the

wild boar of the wood. He both prunes and gives sap to all the branches, that they may bring forth more fruit, and more and better fruit. And he finally gathers the corn into his garner, and his ripe and pleasant fruits to his home.

Were the Lord to leave this his husbandry alone to itself; it would, like the husbandry in nature, soon produce nothing but weeds and thorns: the inclosures would be broken down, and the whole run into wilderness again. But the great Husbandman is ever breaking up some fallow ground, repairing some spiritual breaches, taking away some injurious weeds, introducing some useful plants, nourishing some tender herbs or trees, preparing manure for some needy ground, securing some weak or falling branches, and, in a word, watching over the whole with an all-seeing eye, and providing for the whole with an unremitting hand. O what loving-kindness and mercy are here exhibited for this once barren and desolate field! And how precious, how eternally precious, is it become to the Lord of life and glory, since he was pleased to set his love upon it, and to live and walk therein! It is indeed his portion; he calls it so; and the lot of his inheritance, which he hath procured for himself; and who shall take it away from him?

In this spiritual field or garden, there is undoubtedly, as in the natural, a great variety of plants, and a great difference in size, in use, in fruitfulness, and in beauty; but still they are all good for something: all have a certain produce, according to this Husbandman's design; from him entirely their fruit, or their virtue, is found; all are the precious objects of his delight, and speak out Y 2 his

his power and praise. Every leaf receives his air or spirit, for transpiration and life: every flower reflects one or more of the various rays of his beaming and overspreading light: every fruit is nourished and sweetened, by his genial and attempered heat. All that lives and grows in this garden, as well as the garden itself, is from the fostering production of his hand, and the determining attention of his eye.

When the Lord causes a plant or tree to spring up in his garden, it is usually at first very small and tender, and requires particular care and defence. He, therefore, bestows it; and waits, with much kindness and patience, over the whole progression, till it hath answered his original design, and is ripe unto perfection. He does not permit the pestilent weeds of sin to contaminate or stifle it; nor even (what would sometimes be the case) some greater and more advanced plant to overgrow and hurt it; but he transplants it when necessary, or makes room for its increase, according to his own purpose, or the proper occasion and place allotted to it.

As his air, or spirit, gives life, and maintains life in every plant of his field or garden; so his light of righteousness,' freely shining, covers every leaf and every flower with his gracious splendor. According to the just remark of a learned and ingenious author; "There is one very considerable circumstance, common to the clothing of a flower and to the righteousnesss signified by it-that both are equally the work or gift of God. It is God that clothes the grass of the field with such beauty; and it is God that giveth to his people the far more lasting ornaments of grace and sanctification. Man,

with his utmost skill, can never weave such delicate embroidery, as we find in one single leaf of an ordinary flower; and no works or merits of man, with all his toil and spinning, can compose that robe of righteousness, without which we must not hope to appear in the presence of God."* All is of free grace and unmerited bounty, from beginning to end; and all is complete, because it is the energy of HIM, whose work is, unimpeachably, perfect.

The maturity and worth of the fruit too are all his own. His gracious heat perfects the life and sweetness, of what his air and light maintain and beautify. The productions may differ in size, or excellence, or utility: but the difference is ordained by him, who best knows the end for which he made the whole and every part. The sanctification, as well as the justification, of his people, is entirely, by himself, through his Spirit: it is all his own workmanship; his own husbandry: and he, who hath told us this, hath also told us, that it is all for his own glory. Here then,

Where reason fails with all her pow'rs,

True faith prevails, and love adores,

Though there are undoubtedly great differences in the kinds of trees and plants, not only in the natural but also in this spiritual garden; yet the stateliest cedars and the lowliest shrubs are respectively arranged in their proper places, by the Great Husbandman, throughout the whole plantation. On account of the eminence of these cedars,

* Joxes's free inquiry into the signification of the Spring. p. 14. both

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