270 SEVENTH SERMON the prophet seemeth to allude, Isa. xvii. 6. xxiv. 13.) Though a gun be discharged at a whole flight of birds, there are but few killed. Though the net be spread over the whole pond, but few fishes are taken ; many thrust their heads into the mud, and the net passeth over them ; and so most hearers do busy their heads with their own sensual or worldly thoughts, and so escape the power of the word. In the richest mine that is, there is much more earth and dross digged out than pure metal. Christ's flock in every place is but a little flock, Luke xii. 32. Few chosen, Matt. xx. 16. few saved, Luke xiii. 23. few that find the narrow way, which leadeth unto life, Matt. vii. 13, 14. The basest creatures are usually the most numerous, as flies and vermin ; those that are more noble, are more rare too. The people of the God of Abraham are in the scripture style, princes and nobles, Psa. xlvii. 9. Acts xvii. 11. 1 Pet. ii. 9. and how few are such kind of men in comparison with the vulgar sort ? They are indeed many in themselves, Heb. ii. 10. Rev. vii. 9. but very few and thin, being compared with the rest of the world. We must therefore learn not to be offended or dis- couraged by the paucity of sincere professors, no more than we are in a civil state by the paucity of wise counsellors and politicians, in comparison with the common people. It is no strange thing at all in any societies of men to see the weaker part more than the wiser. If but few attend the right ways of the Lord, and walk in them, remember it is a work of wisdom, and such wisdom as cometh from above, and hath no seeds or principles in corrupt nature out of which it might be drawn ; nay, against which all the vigour of carnal reason doth exalt itself; so that the more natural wisdom men have the more in danger
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