dead, and anon again they feel the flame of love kindled with that coal, quickening them to such a readiness, and fuch free offers of themselves to fervice, as to those that understand not the reason of it, would feem prefumptuous forwardness; and there may be in fome minds, at one and the fame time, a ftrange mixture and counterworking of thefe two together; a fenfe of unfitnefs and unworthinefs drawing back, and yet the ftrength of love driving forward, thinking thus, "How can I, who am fo filthy, "fo vile, fpeak of God? yet hath he fhown me mercy, how then can I be filent ?”

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Send me.] Mofes' reluctance, this fame Prophet would have vented too before the touch of the coal, while he faid, Wo is me, I am undone, or ftruck down, as the word may fignify, cannot speak with fuch unholy lips of fo holy a God. Ifaiah cries out of polluted lips, as Mofes complained of stammering lips; and this is fit to precede, first a sense of extreme inability and indignity, and then, upon a change and call, ready obedience. A man once undone and dead, and then recovered, is the only fit meffenger for God; in fuch an one love overcomes all difficulties without and within, and in his work no constraint is he feeling but that of love, and where that is, no other will be needed; the sweet all-powerful constraint of love will fend thee all-cheerful, though it were through the fire or water: No water can quench it, nor fire out-burn it; it burns hotter than any other kindled against it; after the touch of that coal, no forbearing. (Jer. xx. 9. But his word was in my heart as a burning fire, fhut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, I could not stay. 1 Pet. v. 2. Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the overfight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind). Yet he fays, fend me ; though he had fo ardent a defire and readiness to go, yet he will not go unsent, but humbly offers himself,

and

and waits both for his commiffion and inftructions and how awful are they!

LECTURE III.

Ver. 9. And he said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and fee ye indeed, but perceive not.

Ver. 10. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and but their eyes; left they fee with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be bealed.

H'

IS meffage you fee is most fad, and fo he is put to it, put to the trial of his obedience, as men ufually are according to the degree of their fitnefs. Nothing is more fweet to a meffenger, than to have good news to carry. Oh! it is a bleffed fweet thing to convert fouls! But, how heavy, to harden them by preaching! Yet thus it is to many, at fome times, and almoft generally to all; certainly before this much had been heard and defpifed; they had been hardening their own hearts, and now they fhall have enough of it; their very fin fhall be their plague, a plague of all others the moft terrible; yet, as was faid above, there are times of the height of this plague, as of others, and this was one of thofe times of its raging mortality. The Prophet did nothing but preach, and yet they were ftupified by it; and indeed wherever the word does not foften and quicken, it hardens and kills; and the more lively the ministry of the word is where it works this effect, the more deeply doth it work it.

This was verified on the Jews; though then God's own people, yet it was verified on them to the utmoft; and this context is often cited against them in the New Testament, no place fo often. So excellent

a

a preacher as Ifaiah, and fo well reputed amongst his people, yet was fent to preach them blind, and deaf, and dead; and this fame does the gofpel to most of many a congregation in Scotland: and the more of Chrift that is fpoken, the more are unbelievers hardened. Ifaiah, the most evangelical of all the Prophets, was yet brought to that, Who hath believed our report? Yea, this was fulfilled in the preaching of Christ himfelf; as the hotter the fun, the more is the clay hardened.

Go tell this people.] Obferve the mighty power of the word, to whatsoever it is fent; as it is wonderfully efficacious for foftening, melting, reducing to God; fo, if it be fent, to harden, to seal to judgment, to bring in and haften it; and therefore fpoke of, as effecting the things it speaks; as in Jer. i. 10. See, I have this day fet thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to deftroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant; Ezek. xliii. 3. And it was according to the appearance of the vifion, which I faw when I came to destroy the city; Hofeah vi. 5. Therefore have I hewed them by the Prophets; I bave Alain them by the words of my mouth. Therefore defpife it not, fpiritual judgments are the heaviest of all ; though least felt for a time, yet they stick closest, and prove faddeft in the end: The not feeling is a great part of the plague; in this is the nature and malignity of the difeafe, that it takes away the fight and fense of other things, and of itself. The plague is a disease seizing on the fpirits, and therefore is so dangerous; but this only feizes on the spirit of the mind; and is any thing fo dreadful? Oh! any plague but that of the heart. People think it a good thing not to feel the word, not to be troubled: Well, as they love this, they are filled with it, and shall have enough of it; fo in self-love, fui amator fibi dat. God is righteous and pure in this, there are many vain cavils about his working on the heart to harden, which arife from an ignorant low conceit of God, as of a dependent be

ing, or tied to laws, or to give account. We ought rather to tremble before him; he doth no iniquity; and we shall be forced to confefs it. Many ways of his are obscure, but none are unjuft. Find we not this people fit under the found, and are many of them as if absent, as if they had never heard fuch things fpoke of? fo grofsly ignorant of all these; bearing hear, but underftand not: others are yet worfe; they get a kind of knowledge, but it is dead, and works nothing; these see, and yet perceive not, and know not even what they know; most are of this fort, and they are of all others the worft to convince. When they are told of Chrift, and forgiveness of fins, and are entreated to believe thefe myfteries, they cry out, Oh! we do, we know them, and can anfwer, if you ask us, what these doctrines are. But the heart is not changed, no fin is forfaken, no ftudy of holiness, no flame of love. This not perceiving is the great judgment of this land, this the great cause of lamentation, that Chrift is fo much known and yet fo little: People do not think whither it tends, and what the importance of this meffage is; they hear it as a paffing tale, or, at the beft, as for the prefent, a pleafing found, a lovely fong, Ezek. xxxiii. 32.; and if by an able minifter, fung by a good voice, but no impreffion is made, it dies out in the air, it enters not into their hearts to quicken them, and fo their evil is the more deadly. Oh! bemoan this, beg the removal of it above all judgments, and the fending forth of that Spirit, that caufes the mountains to flow down, Ifa. lxiv. 1. Many of you, my brethren, may be under fomewhat of this, as there are divers degrees of it, ere it come to be incurable; Oh! pray to be delivered, left it grow fo far that it be in vain to bid you do fo. Better to be caft into extreme terrors for a time, than to con tinue thus; better to fall into a fever than into this lethargy, which makes you fleep to death.

Convert, and be healed.] These two go together; all miferies are healed, and grace and favour flow forth,

when

when once the foul is ftirred up to feek after God, and turn in to him: other courfes of healing, public or private evils, are but mountebank cures, that vex and torment, as unapt phyfic does, and do no good; yea make things worfe than before; Hofea v. 13. When Ephraim faw his fickness, and Judah bis wound; then went Ephraim to the Affyrian, and fent to King Jareb, yet could be not heal you, nor cure you of your wound: compared with chap. vi. ver. 1. Come and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath fmitten, and he will bind us up.

There is much in a custom of fruitlefs hearing to stupify and make hard; to make men fermon-proof; and the hearing of the most excellent, hardens most, both against them, and against all others that are their inferiors; for, being accustomed to hear the most moving ftrains, unmoved, makes them fcorn, and eafily beat back, that which is lefs preffing. A largely endued, and very fpiritual minifter, is either one of the highest bleffings, or heavieft curfes, that can come upon a people.

Hearing bear.] This even the minifters themselves may fall under: fpeakers may have no ears; as the Italian fays of preachers, they do not hear their own voice: They may grow hard, by cuftom of speaking of divine things without divine affection; fo that nothing themselves, or others, fay, can work on them: Hence it is that fo few formal dead minifters are converted, that one faid, raro vidi clericum pœnitentem; fo hardened are they against the means of conviction, in which they have been fo long converfant, and not converted by them. They have been fpeaking fo often of heaven and hell, and of Jefus Chrift, and feeling nothing of them, that the words have loft their power, and they are grown hard as the skin of leviathan, esteeming iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. And this, by the way, befide that God's difpenfation is fo fixed, may be a reafon why that fin, mentioned in the fixth of the Hebrews, is unpardonVOL. II.

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