~14 Haw the brancheJ are taken out State IJ!f. lift. The in&'afted branches are -God'J hzubandry, 1 Cor. 111. 9. The planting of the Lord, lfa.lxi . 3.· The ordinary means he makes ufe of in this work, is the minifiry of the word, 1 Cor. iii. 9· 'We are labourer.r together ®ith God. But the efficacy thereof is wholly from him, whatever the rninil1er's parts or piety be, ver. 7 Neither is he tha~planteth any thing, neither he thqt watereth: but God that giveth· ,the iru·reaft. The apofiles preached to the JewJ, 'yet the body of that people remained in infidelity, R?rn. x. 16. Who hath believed our report ? Yea, Chrift himldf, who fpoke as never man fpoke, faith concerning the fuccefs of his own rnirii(hy, I have laboured in vain, I have.fpent my jlrength for nought, [fa. xlix. 4· rhe branches may be hacked by the preaching of the wor.d : but the {lroke will never go th'rough, tilJ it h>e carried horn~ qn them, by an omnipotent , arm. However God's ordinary way is, by the fo-olijhnefi of preaching tojave them that believe, 1 Cor. i. 21. ' The cutting off of the branch from the natural frock, is performed by the pruning-knife of the law, in the hand of · the Spirit of God, Gal. ii.. 1 9• For I, through the fan», atn . 'dead to the law. lt is by the bond of the 'ovenaot of· works, as t faid before, that \1;~ ·are knit to our natural · fiock; and ' tberefore, as a wife, unwilling to be put away, pleads and hangs by the marriage-tie ; fo do men by the covelllant of works. They hold PY it, like the man who-.· held the fhip wid1 his hands ; and when one band was cut eff, held it with the other ; and ;vhen both were cut off~ held it with his teeth. This will appear from a di(tir.tt view of th.e Lord's work on men, i-n bringing them oif from the old flock ; which -1 now offer in thefe following particulars. '' · · · Firfi, When the Spirit of the Lord comes to d·eal with a perfon, to bring him to Chrifi ~ he finds him in Laodicea's, cafe, in a found :Geep of fe,curity . dreaming of heaven, af1d M:!e fa'vour of God, tho' full ofJzn againjl tl5e Ho/) One of ljrael; Rev, iii. J7. 'Thou knoweJl not that thote art– 'Wretched, and n;i/erable , 'and poor, and blind, and naked:– and therefore be darts in fome beams of l·ight into the d<irk foul • and lets the man fee he is a loft man, if he turn not over' a new leaf, and bet2ke himfelfto a-new· courfe of life~, Tl1ns,~by the Spirit of the Lo1d, afting as ajpirit ofbondage'> , ' . lhet:e \ :
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=