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righteousness," 2 Cor. ix. 10. 'Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ," &c., Phil. i. II. "The wisdom from above is full of good fruits," James iii. 17. "Every branch in me that beareth fruit he purgeth, that it may bring forth more fruit," John xv. 2. "He that abideth in me, and I in him, bringeth forth much fruit," ver. 5. "I have chosen you, that ye should bring forth fruit," ver. 16. "Being fruitful in every good work," Col. i. 10. As touching the nature and condition of these fruits,

(1.) They must be fruits of a right kind, Phil. i. 27; Eph. v. 3, 4; 1 Cor. xii. 31; good and spiritual fruits, of the same nature with the good seed that has been sown in us: when wheat is sown, tares must not come up; nor cockle, when barley is cast into the ground. Our fruit must be such as becomes the gospel, not fruits of the flesh. Not fruits merely of gifts, parts, abilities of utterance, knowledge, nor only of civil righteousness, just dealing toward men, freedom from scandals; not fruits only of external profession of religion, in prayer, hearing, &c.; but such as are suitable and proper to a supernatural root and principle, fruits worthy of amendment of life, Matt. iii.; love "out of a pure heart," 1 Tim. i. 5; spiritual fruits, fruits brought forth to a spiritual end; they must give a sweet and delightful relish, though possibly they are not very bulky. Our ends must be raised up to aim at God, and to sanctify him in all our duties. Our obedience must proceed more out of thankfulness, and less out of constraint of conscience; such fruits they must be as are reckoned, Gal. v. 22, 23, "Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, faith," &c. Thy fruit must be of a singularly excellent nature. A tree of righteousness, a branch of the true vine, must not bring forth grapes and thistles. If fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, &c. must not be once named among us, as becometh saints, then not be brought forth and owned. Muddy water is not a suitable stream to a crystal fountain. Brambles and briers are more fit for a wild common than a garden knot. Of the sinful actions committed by a saint, the wicked will say to God, as Jacob's sons did to their father of Joseph's coat, "See whether this be thy son's coat or no."

(2.) They must be fruits in point of production, apparency, and bringing forth. Fruits are not in, but upon the tree. Our goodness must not only appear, but yet it must appear: if it exist, it must and will be seen. Men must see our good works, that God may be glorified, Phil. i. 11. If they see them not, it must not be because we will not show them, but because they will not or cannot see them. The fountain which is full must also overflow. The hand must be filled as well as the heart with the fruits of righteousness. It is not having good in us, but doing good by us, for which we are called good. Our profiting in holiness must appear to all men, 1 Tim. iv. 15. We must shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Our fruits must feed many.

(3.) They must be fruits suitable to the helps and furtherances bestowed upon us for producing them. If the soil be very fat, the watering very frequent, the cost and care very great, we expect the fruit should be very abundant. Indifferent hearts and lives are not good enough where God has bestowed excellent means. He is not a fruitful Christian who has but an ordinary growth under rich opportunities. Our returning must be proportionable to our receiving. They who enjoy much from God, and yet are no better than those who enjoy less, are therefore worse because they are not better. Whereas for the time, saith the apostle, you should have been teachers of

others, &c., Heb. v. 12. "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required," Luke xii. 48. (4.) It must be fruitfulness in bringing forth all the fruits of righteousness. Fruits of the first and second table; of religion toward God, and of righteousness toward man. Fruits inward; good thoughts, desires, purposes, longings after God, good affections, holy joy, love, fear, sorrow. Fruits outward; good works, holy words: "Whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report," Phil. iv. 8. Observe the apostle's repetition of whatsoever; we must not pick and choose, and do whatsoever we please. Whatsoever the Lord commands we must do, Exod. ix. 8; xxiv. 3, 7; not examining what the service is which is commanded, but who the Master is who commands; growing up in Christ in all things; not preferring one thing before another; "being fruitful," as the apostle expresses it, "in every good work," Col. i. 10; having respect to all the commandments, Psal. cxix. 6; esteeming every precept" concerning all things to be right," ver. 128; not doing, with Herod, many things, but all things; thoroughly furnished to all good works: our feet must endure to walk in a stony as well as in a sandy path. As a man who is to plant an orchard will get some trees of every good fruit, so we must get every good fruit which we hear of, and set our hearts with it. The pulse of a gracious person beats evenly; and he is neither a maimed person to want any limb, nor a monster to have one limb so large that others want their due proportion.

(5.) They must be fruits, as of every good kind, so of every kind abundantly, not brought forth in a penurious, scanty measure. Imperfection must be our trouble as well as our pollution. The soil of a Christian's soul, like the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years, must bring forth by handfuls. We must set no stints and limits to our Christian fruitfulness. We must know no enough, Phil. iii. 13. The degrees of a Christian's grace must be like numbers, the highest whereof being numbered, a higher than that may be named. We must look upon every grace like the faith of the Thessalonians, to have something lacking to it, 1 Thess. iii. 10. Perfection is our pattern, and proficiency is ever our duty. We are never gotten far enough till we are gotten home. He that thinks himself rich enough is nothing worth, and he that desires not to bear much fruit is no part of God's husbandry, John xv. 1, 2.

(6.) They must be fruits brought forth when the trees grow old. They must be borne constantly. Trees of righteousness bring forth most fruit in their old age; in this unlike other trees, who grow barren in their old age. They must ever be green and flourishing, Psal. xcii. 14. The bitter fruit of apostacy cannot be brought forth by a good tree. It had been better never to have been planted that we might bear fruit, and that we never had begun to bear fruit, than afterward to be plucked up for ceasing to bear fruit. The good ground bringeth forth fruit with patience; and glory and immortality is the portion only of those who are patient and continuing in well-doing.

(7.) They must be fruits in point of maturity; not only buds and blossoms, but brought forth to perfection. It is not enough for Christians only to have good motions and purposes, but their resolutions must also be brought to execution, and not perish like an abortive birth. Many make their purposes, as one saith, like our eves, and their performances like our holy-days: servants work hard upon the one, that they may play upon the other; so do

he bring to God all the gold and silver in Solomon's temple, it were, if brought by him, nothing, incomparably below one broken-hearted groan for sin, and fiducial breathing after Jesus Christ. All his truly good works may be summed up with a cipher; and though they glitter here, glow-worm like, in the dark night of this world, yet in the bright disquisition of the day of judgment they shall all vanish and disappear. Oh how great will the shame and disappointment of hypocrites be, who at that day shall see that all their days they have been doing nothing! To close this, what a comfort may this be to the poorest child of God, that God, in the midst of all his wants of these common blessings, has yet bestowed one upon him which is distinguishing! God bestows those blessings upon others which a saint, as such, needs not have, and that blessing upon him which the wicked, as such, cannot have. And how may a child of God improve this for comfort in the weakness, smallness, deficiencies, if they be his trouble, of his grace, considering it is fruit, true fruit; and it is more, though it be but one little basketful, nay, but one small cluster of grapes, than all the hypocrites in the world can show; and the least cluster as truly shows that is a vine which bears it, as the most plentiful increase that ever any vine brought forth! Obs. 5. Incorrigibleness in sin is a dismal condition. These seducers were trees twice dead; the apostle despaired of their future living and becoming fruitful, and this was an estate that argued them extremely miserable. It is a woe to have a bad heart, but it is the depth of woe to have a heart that shall never be better. Sickness is an affliction, but sickness past recovery, a desperate sickness, is a desperate evil. How did it fetch tears from the eyes of Christ, that the things belonging to Jerusalem's peace were not only formerly unknown, but that now they were utterly hid from their eyes! "O Ephraim," (saith God,) "what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee ?" "If ye will not hear," saith Jeremiah to the incorrigible Jews, "my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, and mine eye shall weep sore," &c., Jer. xiii. 17. "Rachel wept for her children, and would not be comforted," not because they were ill or sick, but were not. This incorrigibleness in sin, which frustrates and disappoints all the means of grace, provokes God to a total and angry removal of them; and makes him say, I will take no more pains with this desperate sinner; "He that is filthy, let him be filthy still," Rev. xxii. 11. It is that which, as the prophet speaks, wearies God. "Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more," Isa. i. 5. “I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom," Hos. iv. 14. "Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone," ver. 17. When a tree is utterly dead, when it is pertinaciously barren, the hedge and wall shall be taken away and broken down; if it will be fruitless, it shall be fenceless; it shall neither be pruned nor digged, the clouds shall be forbidden to rain, Isa. v. 6.

When the Physician of souls sees men rend in pieces his prescripts, and pull off his plasters, and throw away those wholesome potions which he administers to them, he gives them over, and suffers them to perish in their sins. Punish them he will, chasten them he will not. Cut them off he will, cure them he will not, Jer. vi. 29. When, instead of being refined in the fire, the metal will after all the hottest fires, and the constant blowing of the bellows, continue inseparable from its dross; when the bellows are burnt in the fire, and "the founder melteth in vain; reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them," Jer. vi. 29, 30. What is it but hell upon earth, for sinners to go to hell without con

trol, to be given up to their heart's lusts, to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath; and, in a word, to be as bad as they will? O woeful recompence of spiritual pertinacy! The earth which, under all the drinking in of rain, "beareth thorns and briers, is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing," Heb. vi. 8. This double death, and irrecoverableness in sin, is a kind of foretaste of the second death. As perseverance in holiness crowns, so pertinacy in sin condemns; he who is obstinate in sin unto the end shall undoubtedly receive the curse of eternal death. How sore a judgment is it, so to be past feeling, that nothing cooler than hell-fire, and lighter than the loins of an infinite God, can make us sensible, though too late! O let us beware of the modest beginnings of sin, which certainly make way for immodest proceedings therein; every commission of sin is a strong engagement to a following act of wickedness; he who begins to go down to the chambers of death, knows not where he shall stop. In short, let no help to holiness leave thee as bad, for if so, it will leave thee worse, than it found thee, and present unreformedness will make way for incorrigibleness under the means.

Obs. 6. It is our greatest wisdom, and ought to be our chiefest care, to be preserved from apostacy. Take heed of being twice dead, i. e. of adding a death by apostacy to the death by original corruption. To this end, let us,

(1.) Be sure to have the truth of spiritual life in us; not only the external appearances of life, the leaves of religion, the form of godliness, and a name to live: he that would not die twice, must be sure he truly lives once; hypocrisy will end in apostacy; where the truth is not truly loved, it will be truly left. A tree that is unsound at the root, will soon cease from its faint puttings forth: the hollow heart will not hold out; the outward form without the inward power of godliness continues not in times of temptation. Labour for a faith of real reception, and please not thyself with that of mere illumination; the bellows of persecution which blow the sparks of sincerity into a flame, blow the blaze of hypocrisy into nothing.

(2.) Forecast the worst that can befall thee, and the best that can be laid before thee, to take thee off from the love and ways of holiness; reckon upon opposition in every way of God: he who meets not with the hatred of a man, may justly suspect his love to the truth; and he who expects not that hatred, will hardly continue his love to truth. When thou enterest upon religion, think not that thou goest to sea upon pleasure, but employment; not for recreation, but traffic; lest instead of holding out to thy intended port, thou presently makest to the next shore, upon the rising of the least storm. Though Christ requires thee not actually as yet to forsake all for him, yet he will have thee habitually prepared to do so, Luke xiv. 28-30, 33. Sever all worldly comforts from Christ in thy thoughts, and try how thou canst love him by and for himself, for his own beauty, without his clothes and external ornaments.

(3.) Take heed of the smallest decay, or a beginning to remit of thy holiness. And to this end, 1. Tremble at those sins which are seemingly but small; whatever has the nature of sin must be the object of hatred; the least enemy of the soul must not be despised. Though some sins may seem small comparatively, yet there is no one but must be accounted great considered in itself; the least sin herein resembling the earth, which though it be but a point to the heavens, yet is a vast and immeasurable body of itself. There is nothing little which offends a great God, or hurts an immortal soul. Poison and death are lodged in the least sin; and as unfaithful

Non avis utiliter viscatis effugit alis. Ovid.

ness to God is discovered in a smaller as well as a greater sin, as towards men in a trifling as well as a weighty thing; so commonly it proceeds from showing itself in sins accounted slight, to manifest itself in courses notoriously and heinously sinful: the decay of a tree first appears in its boughs and twigs, but by little and little it goes on further, into the larger arms, and from them to the main body; and decay of grace is first seen in smaller matters, slight omissions. 2. And therefore, secondly, oppose sin in its bud and beginnings, in its first motions, overtures, solicitations: the greatest deluge begins with a drop; every sin defiling the conscience, makes a man the more careless of it. He who dares not wade to the ankles is in no danger of having the water reach as high as his neck. Sinners increase to more ungodliness; when they once descend, they know not where to stop: the beginnings of sin are modest, the progress adventurous, the conclusion may be impudent, in open apostacy. A drop of water may quench that spark which, if neglected till it grow to a flame, may violently destroy a whole town: the greatest crocodile at first laid in a little egg. Yea, thirdly, be afraid of the occasions of sin: the sparks in a flint let alone are quiet; but beat it with a steel, they come out and kindle a great fire: let not occasions of sin beat upon thy heart. It is easier to pass by the snare than to wind oneself out of it; if thou wouldst not like, long for, eat, and impart the forbidden fruit, gaze not on it, Gen. vi. 2; Psal. cxix. 37; Job xxxi. 1: a Christian's charity it is not to be, and his prudence not to behold, a provocation to sin. God will preserve us in our ways, not in our wanderings. 4. Never look upon thyself as perfect, or thy progress in holiness as sufficient; he who thinks he has enough will soon come to have nothing; that we have will be gone, unless we strive to get more: look not backward in thy Christian race to see how many thou hast outstripped, but look forward on those who have gotten ground of thee: consider not so much how far thou hast gone, and how many come short of thee; as how far thou art to go, and how far thou comest short of commanded perfection: our greatest perfection in this life is to contend after perfection; we must never cease growing till we are grown into heaven. Christianity knows no enough: he who has the least grace has enough to be thankful; he who has the most has not enough to be either proud or idle. He will be stark naught who labours not to be as good as the best. In rowing up a river that runs with a strong stream, if we rest our oars, we fall down the stream; while we neglect to gain, we spend on the stock; he who hid his talent lost it. 5. Presume not upon thine own strength and power to stand; thou bearest not the root, but it bears thee; God's power only is our support, by it we are kept through faith to salvation: they who call not upon God go aside from God, Psal. Qui operatur ut xiv. 3, 4. He who first sets us up must accedamus, idem also shore and keep us up; he who has damus. Aug. de brought us to himself must also hold Bon. Pers. cap. 7. us, that we depart not from himself: we are poor weak reeds, but tied to the strong pillar of God's power we shall stand: he who relies upon himself has a reed for his upholder: we cannot put too much confidence in God, or too little in ourselves. Peter's over-venturousness tripped up his heels, Matt. xxvi. 33. Let us not be like sick men, who, when they have had a good day or two, think themselves presently well again, and so putting off their warmer clothes, put on thinner garments, and adventure into the fresh air, whereupon follow irre

More viatorum nequaquam debemus aspicere

quantum jam iter egimus, sed quan

tum superest ut peragamus, ut paulisper fiat

præteritum quod mide adhuc at

tenditur futurum. Gr. Mor. 1. 22. c. 7.

operatur ne disce

coverable relapses. It is the fear of God in the heart which keeps us from departing from him: let us fear always if we would fall never. "Be not high-minded, but fear." "Lean not," saith Solomon, "to thine own understanding," Prov. iii. 5: he who is his own teacher hath a fool to his master.

Obs. 7. God at length discovers unsound, empty, and decaying Christians to be what they are. These fruitless, dead trees are at length "plucked up by the roots;" their inside is turned outward. They who, going among the drove of professors, are but like sheep, shall be detected either here or hereafter to be but goats. Thus Cain, at the first a sacrificer, yet being a hypocrite, was given up to be a murderer, and was cast out of the sight of the Lord, out of his father's family, and from the ordinances. "Doeg, detained before the Lord" (1 Sam. xxi. 7) about religious offices, afterward discovers his unsoundness of heart by his cruelty; and more afterwards did God lay him open, when at his destruction it was seen and said, that "This is the man that made not God his strength," &c., Psal. lii. 7. The like may be said of Judas's, of whom Doeg was a type, discovery by his treachery; and of Saul's also by that horrid act of murdering the priests, and going to the witch, God also taking away his Spirit from him: they who are not of us will at length be suffered to go out from us. God leads those who secretly turn aside to crooked ways, with the workers of iniquity; though they did not seem to be workers of iniquity, yet God discovers them to be such by leading them forth with them. There are none who so much dishonour Christ as they who profess to be rooted in him, and yet are unfruitful and dead Christians. Christ is a fruitful soil, full of strength; and for any appearing to be in him to be barren and decay, is a great disparagement to him; every one will be ready to blame him for all their defects: therefore, that they may dishonour him no more, they are plucked up from that soil to which they only seemed to belong, for they were there only by a visible profession, not by a real rooting, as a lifeless stake is put into the ground; and in the civil law, till a tree has taken root it does not belong to the soil on which it is planted; and then it appears that they never were rooted in Christ. Please not (then) yourselves with a mere outward empty profession of godliness, with your standing among the trees of Christ in his orchard, merely in being accounted trees of righteousness, or only with the having a name to live. These things will be so far from hindering, that they will further your eradication. A dead, barren oak a man will haply suffer to stand in his wood, but not a dead vine in his vineyard. It was not a wild tree of the wood, which none ever expected should bear fruit, that Christ cursed, but an empty fig-tree, whose nature promised fruit. Root yourselves as much downward in inward holiness as you spread upward in outward profession, otherwise God will at length make your hypocrisy known, and will not suffer you always to abuse his own patience, the good opinions of beholders, and the place of your own standing; and the longer he lets you stand to deceive others, the greater shall your shame be when you shall be discovered.

This for the third resemblance, whereby the apostle describes the sin and wickedness of these seducers; "Trees without fruit, whose fruit withereth," &c.