Sermon XXII.1 Christ’s pastoral care.
“Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.” — Mic. vii. 14.
It is not much I shall offer unto you from these words; yet I cannot give you a right apprehension of the mind of God in them, and what I intend from them, without a little going over the chapter from the beginning. “Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits,” etc, verse 1. When the prophet says, “Woe is me,” he speaks in the name of the earth, say some, as it was the seat of the church of God. I rather take it to be in the name of the church of God, of those who were truly so, in the midst of a profane but outwardly professing people. And this lamentation is with a prospect and view of the sin which was in the people, and of the misery which was coming upon them. They have both of them ever been matter of lamentation unto all that truly fear God. They cannot consider the sins and the miseries of an outwardly professing people, but every one of them ought to cry, “Woe is me! sorrow is to me; sadness of heart is to me.” In respect of sin, David saith, Ps. cxix. 136, “Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy law.” And in respect of misery and judgments, Jeremiah expresses his sense thus, Jer. ix. 1, “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.” The prophet foreseeing both these, — an overflowing of sin, and an overflowing of judgment, — had reason to cry, “Woe is me!” — “It is a lamentation unto me.”
He gives an account of the state of the professing, visible church: which he looks upon to be like unto a field or a vineyard, after the harvest is past and the vintage over: “I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape-gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desireth the first ripe fruit.” His prayer was, that they might be a fruitful vineyard unto God; but saith he, “We are just as when the vintage is over; there are some grapes, some clusters left under the leaves, but the principal are taken off:” — and not only so, but when a field is reaped, or a vineyard gathered, the owner leaves it for a season, takes down the fence, and the beasts come in and prey upon it, until the time of culture and tillage is come again. God never leaves a professing church to be a wilderness, unless upon the utmost apostasy; but he many times leaves them to be as a field after harvest, or a vineyard after the vintage. God will leave Babylon to be as a wilderness, that shall never be tilled any more, — shall have no rain, no fences, no tillage; but he will not leave his church so, unless the utmost apostasy come. In like manner, when a man hath gathered in his corn out of the field, you would think he had thrown off all his care about it; the fence is broken down, and the beasts come in; it lies in common, — men ride over it, and trample upon it, and he lets it alone: but when the time of culture is come again, the man makes up his fence, drives out the cattle, tills the ground again, and sows it with good seed, that it may bring forth good fruit. So God deals frequently with his church. He dealt so with them here. He takes down the hedge, he suffers the wild beasts to come in, — lets persons spoil at their pleasure; but there will come a time of culture again, when he will have fruit brought forth unto his praise.
In verse 2 the prophet refers the evil he complained of unto two heads:— first, That those who were good were very few; and, secondly, That those who were evil were very bad: “The good man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men; they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.” This phrase, “The good man is perished out of the earth,” is not that the good man perisheth, but that he is taken away, and the earth hath lost the benefit and advantage which it had by him. The same expression is used, Isa. lvii. 1, “The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to hear; and merciful men are taken away;” and Ps. xii. 1, “The godly man ceaseth; the faithful fail from among the children of men.”
From hence, therefore, we may observe, that when the good are very few, and the bad are very bad, inevitable destruction lies at the door of that place or nation. If either of these be otherwise, there is yet hope, If there had been but ten good men in Sodom, it had been spared. If the sin of the Amorites had not been come to the full, they had not been ruined. If the good, therefore, are not very few, or the bad very bad, there is yet hope; but where both concur in a professing nation, as in this, which was the visible church of God, unavoidable destruction is at the door; there is neither hope nor recovery: and therefore, they that endeavour to make men good, to increase the number of the good, they do not only endeavour to save their own souls, but they endeavour to save the nation from ruin. And we will place our plea and our cause there, — wherein we are engaged in this world against the world and those that do reproach us, — that our design is to save the nation as far as we are able; for it is to increase the number of the good, to convert men unto God: the consequence of which is to preserve the nation. And it will at last be found, that they who are useful herein, do more for the preservation of the nation than armies or navies can do. But when the prophet says, “The good man perisheth, and there is none uptight among men,” it is an hyperbolical expression, intimating that there are but few that are either good or upright.