AN INTRODUCTION To the Second Part of HUSBANDRY
Unsoundness, and abide thy strictest test!
AN INTRODUCTION To the Second Part of HUSBANDRY HOW is it, reader, have I tired thee, Whilst through these pleasant fields thou walk'st with me?
Our path was pleasant; but if length of way Do weary thee, we'll slack our pace and stay:
Let's sit a while, under the cooling shade Of fragrant trees; trees were for shadow made.
Lo here a pleasant grove, whose shade is good; But more than so, 'twill yield us fruit for food:
No dangerous fruits do on these branches grow, No snakes among the verdant grass below;
Here we'll repose a while, and then go view The pleasant herds and flocks; and so adieu.
CHAPTER I
Upon the Ingraffing of Fruit-trees Ungraffed trees can never bear good fruit; Nor we, till graffed on a better root.
OBSERVATION
A WILD tree naturally springing up in the wood or hedge, and never graffed or removed from its native soil, may bear some fruit, and that fair and beautiful to the eye; but it will give you no content at all in eating, being always harsh, sour, and unpleasant to the taste; but if such a stock be removed into a good soil, and graffed with a better kind, it may become a good tree, and yield store of choice and pleasant fruit.
APPLICATION
UNREGENERATE men, who never were accquainted with the mystery of spiritual union with Jesus Christ, but still grow upon on their natural root, old Adam, may, by the force and power of natural principles, bring forth some fruit, which, like the wild hedge-fruit we speak of, may, indeed, be fair and pleasant to the eyes of men, but God takes no pleasure at all in it; it is sour, harsh, and distasteful to him, because it springs not from the Spirit of Christ, Isa. 1:13. "I cannot away with it, it is iniquity," &c. But that I may not entangle the thread of my discourse, I shall (as in the former chapters) set before you a parallel betwixt the best fruits of natural men, and those of a wild ungraffed tree.
1. The root that bears this wild fruit is a degenerate root, and that is the cause of all this sourness and harshness in the fruit it bears; it is the seed of some better tree accidentally blown, or cast into some waste and bad soil, where not being manured and ordered aright, it is turned wild: So all the fruits of unregenerate men flow from the first Adam, a corrupt and degenerate root; he was indeed planted a right seed, but soon turned a wild and degenerate plant; he being the root from which every man naturally springs, corrupts all the fruit that any man bears from him. It is observed by Gregory pertinently
to my present purpose, Genus humanum in parente primo, velut in radice putruit: Mankind was putrified in the root of its first parent;
Matth. 7:18. "A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit."
2. This corrupt root spoils the fruit, by the transmission of its sour and naughty sap into all the branches and fruits that grow upon it; they suck no other nourishment, but what the root affords them, and that being bad, spoils all; for the same cause and reason, no mere natural or unregenerate man can ever do one holy or acceptable action, because the corruption of the root is in all those actions. The necessity of our drawing corruption into all our actions, from this cursed root Adam, is expressed by a quick and smart interrogation,
Job 14:4. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one."
The sense of it is well delivered us (by Mr. Caryl, in loc.) This question (saith he) may undergo a twofold construction. First, thus,
Who can bring a morally clean person out of a person originally unclean? and so he lays his hand upon his birth-sin. Or, Secondly, which speaks to my purpose, it may refer to the action of the same man; man being unclean, cannot bring forth a clean thing; i.e. a clean or holy action; that which is originated is like its original. And that this sour sap of the first stock (I mean Adam's sin) is transmitted into all mankind, not only corrupting their fruit, but ruining and withering all the branches, the apostle shews us in that excellent parallel betwixt the two Adam's, Rom. 5:12. "Wherefore, as by one man [one, not only in individuo, sed in specie, one representing the whole root or stock,] sin entered into the world:" not by imitation only, but by propagation; and this brought death and ruin upon all the branches.
3. Although these wild hedge-fruits be unwholesome and unpleasant to the taste, yet they are fair and beautiful to the eye: a man that looks upon them, and doth not know what fruit it is, would judge it
by its shew and colour, to be excellent fruit; for it makes a fairer shew oftentimes than the best and most wholesome fruit doth: even so, these natural gifts and endowments which some unregenerate persons have, seem exceeding fair to the eye, and a fruit to be desired. What excellent qualities have some mere natural men and women! what a winning affability, humble condescension, meekness, righteousness, ingenuous tenderness and sweetness of nature! As it was (hyperbolically enough) said of one, In hoc homine, non peccavit
Adam: Adam never sinned in this man; meaning that he excelled the generality of Adam's children in sweetness of temper and natural endowments.
What curious phantasies, nimble wits, solid judgments, tenacious memories, rare elocution, &c. are to be found among mere natural men! by which they are assisted in discoursing, praying, preaching and writing to the admiration of such as know them. But that which is highly esteemed of men, is abomination to God, Luke 16:15. It finds no acceptance with him, because it springs from that cursed root of nature, and is not the production of his own
Spirit.
4. If such a stock were removed into a better-soil, and graffed with a better kind, it might bring forth fruit pleasant and grateful to the husbandman; and if such persons (before described) were but regenerated and changed in their spirits and principles, what excellent and useful persons would they be in the church of God?
And then their fruits would be sweet and acceptable to him. One observes of Tertullian, Origen, and Jerom, that they came into Canaan laden with Egyptian gold, i.e. they came into the church full of excellent human learning, which did Christ much service.
5. When the husbandman cuts down his woods or hedges, he cuts down these crab stocks with the rest, because he values them not any more than the thorns and brambles among which they grow; and as
little will God regard or spare these natural branches, how much soever they are laden with such fruit. The threatening is universal,
John 3:3. "Except you be regenerate, and born again, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." And again, Heb. 12:14. "Without holiness no man (be his natural gifts never so excellent) shall see
God." Embellished nature, is nature still; "That which is born of the flesh, is but flesh," however it be set off with advantage to the eye of man.
REFLECTIONS
1. To what purpose then do I glory in my natural accomplishments?
Though I have a better nature than some others have, yet it is a cursed nature still. These sweet qualities and excellent gifts, do only hide, but not kill the corruption of nature, I am but a rotten post gilded over, and all my duties but hedge-fruit, which God makes no account of. O cunning thought! that the unlearned shall rise and take heaven, when I with all my excellent gifts shall descend into hell.
Heaven was not made for scholars, as such, but for believers; as one said, when they comforted him upon his deathbed, that he was a knowing man, a doctor of divinity; O, said he, I shall not appear before God as a doctor, but as a man; I shall stand upon a level with the most illiterate in the day of judgment. What doth it avail me that I have a nimble wit, whilst I have none to do myself good? Will my judge be charmed with a rhetorical tongue? Things will not be carried in that world, as they are in this. If I could, with Berengarius, discourse deomni scibili, of every thing that is knowable; or with Solomon, unravel nature from the cedar, to the hyssop, what would this advantage me, as long as I am ignorant of Christ, and the mystery of regeneration? My head hath often ached with study, but when did my heart ach for sin? Methinks, O my soul! thou trimmest up thyself in these natural ornaments, to appear before God, as much
as that delicate Agag did, when he was to come before Samuel, and fondly conceited that these things would procure favour, or, at least, pity from him; but yet think not, for all that, the bitterness of death is past: Say not within thyself, will God cast such a one as I into hell?
Shall a man of such parts be damned? Alas? Justice will hew thee to pieces, as Samuel did that spruce king, and not abate thee the least for these things; many thousand branches of nature, as fair and fruitful as thyself, are now blazing in hell, because not transplanted by regeneration into Christ: and if he spared not them, neither will he spare thee.
2. I am a poor despised shrub which have no beauty at all in me, and yet such a one hath the Lord chosen to transplant into Christ, whilst he left many fragrant branches standing on their native stock, to be fuel of his wrath to all eternity! O grace! for ever to be admired! Ah! what cause have I to be thankful to free grace, and for ever to walk humbly with my God! the Lord hath therefore chosen an unlikely, rugged and unpolished creature as I am, that pride may for ever be hid from mine eyes, and that I may ever glory in his presence, 1 Cor.
1:29. I now have the advantage of a better root and soil than any carnal person hath; it will therefore be a greater shame to me, and a reproach to the root that bears me, if I should be outstripped and excelled by them; yet, Lord, how often do I find it so? I see some of them meek and patient, whilst I am rough and surly; generous and noble, whilst I am base and penurious. Truly such a branch as I am, is no honour to the root that bears it.
THE POEM I AM a branch of that fair Eden tree Which to mankind God hath ordain'd to be
The common stock: his situation good, His branches many, of himself a wood; And like a cedar by the river fed, Unto the clouds his ample branches spread:
Sin smote his root, then justice cut him down, And levell'd with the earth his lofty crown.
What hope of branches when the tree's o'erturn'd, But like dry faggots to be bound and burn'd?
It had been so, had not transcendent love, Which in a sphere above our thoughts doth move,
Prepar'd a better stock to save and nourish Transplanted twigs, which in him thrive and flourish
In Adam all are curs'd; no saving fruit Shall ever spring from that sin-blasted root;
Yea, all the branches that in him are found, How flourishing soever, must be bound And pil'd together (horrid news to tell!)
To make an everlasting blaze in hell.
God takes no pleasure in the sweetest bud Disclos'd by nature; for the root's not good,
Some boughs, indeed, richly adorned are With natural fruits, which to the eye are fair;
Rare gifts, sweet dispositions which attract The love of thousands, and from most exact
Honour and admiration. You'll admire That such as these are fuel for the fire.
Indeed, ten thousand pities 'tis to see Such lovely creatures in this case to be.
Did they by true regeneration draw The sap of life from Jesse's root, the law, By which they now to wrath condemned are,
Would cease to curse, and God such buds would spare But out of him there's none of these can move
His unrelenting heart, or draw his love.
Then cut me off from this accursed tree, Lest I for ever be cut off from thee.