CHAPTER XVI: Upon the Care of Husbandmen to provide for Winter
The world thus clear'd, as fields when harvest's in, Shall be no more a stage for acting sin.
With purifying flames it shall be burn'd, Its stately fabrics into ashes turn'd.
Cease then, my soul to doat on, or admire This splendid world, which is reserv'd for fire.
Decline the company of sinners here, As thou would'st not be shackled with them there.
CHAPTER XVI
Upon the Care of Husbandmen to provide for Winter Your winter store in summer you provide:
To Christian prudence this must be applied,
OBSERVATION
GOOD husbands are careful in summer to provide for winter. Then they gather in their winter store; food and fuel for themselves, and fodder for their cattle. "He that gathers in summer, is a wise son: but he that sleeps in harvest is a son that causeth shame," Prov. 10:5. A well chosen season is the greatest advantage to any action: which, as it is seldom found in haste, so it is often lost by delay. It is a good proverb which the frugal Dutch have among them:—Bonus servatius faciet bonum bonifacium:—A good saver will make a good benefactor. And it is a good proverb of our own, He that neglects the
occasion, the occasion will neglect him. Husbandmen know that summer will not hold all the year; neither will they trust to the hopes of a mild and favourable winter, but in season provide for the worst.
APPLICATION
WHAT excellent Christians should we be, were we but as provident and thoughtful for our souls? It is doubtless a singular point of Christian wisdom to foresee a day of spiritual straits and necessities; and, during the day of grace, to make provision for it. This great gospel-truth is excellently shadowed forth in this natural observation, which I shall branch out into these seven particulars.
1. Husbandmen know there is a change and vicissitude of seasons and weather; though it be pleasant summer weather now, yet winter will tread upon the heel of summer: frosts, snows, and great falls of rain must be expected. This alternate course of seasons, in nature, is settled by a firm law of the God of nature to the end of the world,
Gen. 8:22. "Whilst the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night, shall not cease."
And Christians know, that there are changes in the right-hand of the Most High, in reference to their spiritual seasons. If there be a spring-time of the gospel, there will be also an autumn; if a day of prosperity, it will set in a night of adversity: "for God hath set the one over against the other," Eccles. 7:14. In heaven there is a day of everlasting serenity; in hell a night of perfect endless horror and darkness; on earth, light and darkness take their turns, prosperity and adversity, even to souls as well as bodies, succeed each other. If there be a gospel-day, a day of grace now current, it will have its period and determination, Gen. 3:6.
2. Common prudence and experience enable the husbandman, in the midst of summer, to foresee a winter, and provide for it before he feel it; yea, natural instinct teaches this to the very birds of the air, and beasts of the field.
And spiritual wisdom should teach Christians to exercise their foreseeing faculties, and not suffer them to feel evil before they fear it. But, oh! the stupifying nature of sin! Though the stork in the heavens knows her appointed time, and the turtle, crane, and swallow the time of their coming, yet man, whom God hath made wiser than the fowls of the air, in this acts quite below them, Jer. 8:7.
3. The end of God's ordaining a summer season, and sending warm and pleasant weather is to ripen the fruits of the earth, and give the husbandman fit opportunity to gather them in.
And God's design of giving men a day of grace, is to furnish them with an opportunity for the everlasting happiness and salvation of their souls; Rev. 2:21. "I gave her space to repent." It is not a mere reprival of the soul, or only a delay of the execution of threatened wrath, though there be much mercy in that; but the peculiar aim of this patience and bounty of God is to open for them a way to escape the wrath to come, by leading them to repentance," Rom. 2:4.
4. The husbandman doth not find all harvest-seasons alike favourable: sometimes they have much fair weather, and meet with no hindrance in their business; other times it is a catching harvest, but now and then a fair day, and then they must be nimble, or all is lost.
There is also a great difference in soul-seasons; some have had a long and fair season of grace; a hundred and twenty years did God wait upon the old world, in the ministry of Noah. Long did God wait on
the gainsaying Israelites, Isa. 42:14. "I have a longtime held my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself." Others have a short and catching season, all lies upon a day, upon a nick of time, Acts
17:30.
5. A proper season neglected and lost is irrecoverable. Many things in husbandry, must be done in their season, or cannot be done at all for that year: if he plow not, and sow not in the proper season, he loses the harvest of that year.
It is even so as to spiritual seasons: Christ neglected, and grace despised, in the season when God offers them, are irrecoverably lost,
Prov. 1:28. "Then (that is when the season is over) they shall call upon me, but I will not hear." Oh! there is a great deal of time, in a short opportunity; that may be done, or prevented, in an hour rightly timed, which cannot be done, or prevented, in a man's life-time afterwards. There was one resolved to kill Julius Cæsar such a day: the night before a friend sent him a letter to acquaint him with it: but he being at supper, and busy in discourse, said, to-morrow is a new day; and indeed it was dies novissima, his last day to him. Whence it became a proverb in Greece, To-morrow is a new day. Our glass runs in heaven, and we cannot see how much or little of the sand of God's patience is yet to run down; but this is certain, when that glass is run, there is nothing to be done for our souls, Luke 19:42. "O that thou hadst known, at least, in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes."
6. Those husbandmen that are careful and laborious in the summer, have the comfort and benefit of it in winter: he that then provides fuel, shall sit warm in his habitation, when others blow their fingers.
He that provides food for his family, and fodder for his cattle, in the harvest, shall eat the fruit of it, and enjoy the comfort of his labours,
when others shall be exposed to shifts and straits. And he that provides for eternity, and lays up for his soul a good foundation against the time to come, shall eat when others are hungry, and sing when others howl, Isa. 65:13. A day of death will come, and that will be a day of straits to all negligent souls; but then the diligent
Christian shall enjoy the peace and comfort that shall flow in upon his heart, from his holy care and sincere diligence in duties; as 2 Cor.
1:12. "This is our rejoicing, the testimony of our conscience, that in sincerity and godly simplicity, we have had our conversation in this world." So Hezekiah, 2 Kings 20:3. "Remember now, O Lord, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart." A day of judgment will come, and then foolish virgins, who neglected the season of getting oil in their lamps, will be put to their shifts; then they come to the wise, and say, Give us of your oil, Matth. 25:8, 9. but they have none to spare, and the season of buying is then over.
7. No wise husbandman will neglect a fit opportunity of gathering in his hay and corn, upon a presumption of much fair weather to come; he will not say, The weather is settled, and I need not trouble myself; though my corn and hay be fit for the house, yet I may get it in another time as well as now.
And no wise Christian will lose a present season for his soul, upon the hopes of much more time, yet to come; but will rather say, Now is my time, and I know not what will be hereafter: hereafter I may wish to see one of the days of the Son of man, and not see it, Luke 17:22. It is sad to hear how cunning some men are to dispute themselves out of heaven, as if the devil had hired them to plead against their own souls; sometimes urging the example of those that were called at the eleventh hour, Mat. 20:6. and sometimes that of the penitent thief: but, oh! to how little purpose is the former pleaded? they that were called at the eleventh hour were never called before, as these have
been; no man had hired, that is, called or invited them to Christ; and for the thief (as Mr. Fenner rightly observes) it was a singular and extraordinary example. It was done when Christ hanged on the cross, and was to be inaugurated; then kings manifest such bounty, and pardon such crimes as are never pardoned afterwards. Besides, God was then in a way of working miracles; then he rent the rocks, opened the graves, raised the dead, and converted this thief; but God is now out of that way.
REFLECTIONS
1. I have indeed been a good husband for the world: with what care and providence have I looked out for myself and family to provide food to nourish them, and clothes to defend them against the asperities of winter? mean while, neglecting to make provision for eternity, or take care for my soul. O my destitute soul! how much have I slighted and undervalued thee? I have taken more care for an horse, or an ox, than for thee: a well-stored barn, but an empty soul.
Will it not shortly be with me, as with that careless mother, who when her house was on fire, busily bestirred herself to save the goods, but forgot the child (though it were saved by another hand)? and then minding her child, ran up and down like one distracted, wringing her hands, and crying, O my child! my child! I have saved my goods, and lost my child! Such will be the case of thee my soul,
Matth. 16:26. Besides, how easy will my conviction be at the bar of Christ? Will not my providence and care for the things of this life, leave me speechless and self-condemned in that day? What shall I answer, when the Lord shall say, Thou couldest foresee a winter, and seasonably provide for it; yea, thou hadst so much care of thy very beasts, to provide for their necessities: and why tookest thou no care for thy soul? Was that only not worth the caring for?
2. Is it so dangerous to neglect a present proper season of grace?
What then have I done, who have suffered many such seasons to die away in my hand, upon a groundless hope of future opportunities?
Ah deluded wretch! what if that supposition fail? Where am I then? I am not the lord of time, neither am I sure, that he who is, will ever vouchsafe an hour of grace in old age, to him that hath neglected many such hours in youth; neither indeed is it ordinary for God so to do. It is storied of Caius Marius Victorius, who lived about three hundred years after Christ, and to his old age continued a Pagan; but at last being convinced of the Christian verity, he came to Simplicianus, and told him he would be a Christian; but neither he nor the church could believe it, it being so rare an example for any to be converted at his age; but at last seeing it was real, there was a shouting and gladness, and singing of psalms in all churches; the people crying, Caius Marius Victorius is become a Christian! This was written for a wonder: and what ground have I to think, that God will work such wonders for me, who have neglected his ordinary means of salvation?
3. Bless the Lord, O my soul! who gave thee a season, a day for eternal life, which is more than he hath afforded for thousands; yea, bless the Lord for giving thee an heart to understand and improve that season. I confess I have not improved it as I ought; yet this I can
(through mercy) say, that however it fare in future times with my outward man, though I have no treasures or stores laid up on earth, or if I have, they are but corruptible, yet I have a blessed hope laid up in heaven, Col. 1:5. I have bags that wax not old. Whilst worldlings rejoice in their stores and heaps, I rejoice in these eternal treasures.
THE POEM OBSERVE in summer's sultry heat,
How in the hottest day The husbandman doth toil and sweat About his corn and hay:
If then he should not reap and mow, And gather in his stores, How should he live, when, for the snow, He can't move out of doors?
The little ants, and painful bees, By nature's instinct led, These have their summer granaries For winter furnished.
But thou, my soul, whose summer's day Is almost past and gone; What soul-provision dost thou lay In stock to spend upon?
If nature teaches to prepare For temporal life, much rather Grace should provoke to greater care,
Soul-food in time to gather.
Days of affliction and distress Are hasting on apace; If now I live in carelessness, How sad will be my case!
Unworthy of the name of man, Who for that soul of thine, Wilt not do that which others can Do for their very kine.
Think, frugal farmers, when you see Your mows of corn and hay, What a conviction this will be To you another day:
Who ne'er were up before the sun, Nor brake an hour's rest For your poor souls, as you have done So often for a beast.
Learn once to see the difference