ANd having given you this Advertisement, en passant, we may now proceed a little further, and add, that if we suppose our Contemplator’s thoughts to descend from Heaven to Earth, the far greater multitude and variety of Objects, they will meet with here below, will suggest to them much more numerous Reflections. But because so spacious a Field for Meditation as the whole Earth, would afford us too vast a Theme to be attempted on this occasion, we will confine our Contemplator to his Garden, or rather to any one of the Trees of it, and take notice, not of all the Meditations he might fetch thence, but onely of four or five of the considerablest of those, that the viewing it, may, as he walks by at several times, supply him with.
In then, in the Spring of the Year, our Reflector see the Gardener pruning a Fruit-tree, we may suppose him invited by that Object, to reason thus within himself: Though one that were a Stranger to the Art of Gardening, would think, that that Man is an Enemy to this Tree, and goes about to destroy it, since he falls upon and wounds it, with a sharp Iron, and strikes off several of its Youthful parts, as if he meant to cut it in pieces; yet, he that knows, that the Gardener’s arm is not set on work by Anger, but by Skill, will not conclude that he hates the Tree he thus wounds, but that he has a mind to have it Fruitful, and judges these harsh means the fittest to produce that desirable Effect. And thus, whatever a Man, unacquainted with the ways and designs of Providence, may surmise, when he sees the Church not onely expos’d to the common Afflictions of humane Societies, (for that is but like our Trees being expos’d to be weather-beaten by Winds, and Rain) but distress’d by such Persecutions, as seem to be Divine Inflictions, that invite Men to say of the Body, what the Prophet fore-told should be said of the Head, (Isaiah 53. 4) We esteem’d him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Whatever, I say, a carnal, or a moral, Man would be apt to imagine, upon sight of the Churches distresses; the knowing Christian will not from thence infer, that God hates Her, or that he has abandon’d Her, since ‘tis He, that lov’d his Church so well, as to give Himself for it, who declares, that as many as He loves, He rebukes, and chastens. And this is so fitly applicable also to particular Believers, (John 15. 2) that the Divine Son of the great1 […] do’s not onely give us cause to think, that Afflictions do not suppose God’s Hate, but to hope that they may not always suppose Man’s Guilt, but sometimes rather aim at his Improvement; since they are the memorable words of our Saviour, speaking of his Father, (John 15. 2) Every branch in me, that beareth not Fruit, he taketh away, and every Branch that beareth Fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more Fruit. And it may somewhat illustrate the Similitude, to add, that the Husbandman uses onely to prune the Trees of his Garden, not those that grow wild in his Woods: But though he oftner wound these, yet he wounds the other more fatally, imploying but the pruning Hook to pare off the superfluous Twiggs, or, at most, Branches, of the one, whil’st he lays the Ax to the root of the other, to fell the Tree it self.
But these are not the onely Thoughts, which the pruning of a Fruit-tree may suggest to our Reflector: For if he considers, That by cutting off several of the parts of the Tree, and by Nailing many of the rest to the Wall, the Gardener do’s not onely secure the Tree from being blown down, or torn, by the rudeneness of boisterous Winds, but makes it look well shap’d: So the Divine Husbandman, (as we have lately seen God stil’d in the Scripture) by the wise, and seasonable, though seemingly rigorous, and usually unwelcome, Culture, he imploys upon those Children of his whom he afflicts, do’s not onely protect them from several dangers, whereto, without those harsh restraints, they would be expos’d; but as he makes them amends in point of Safety, for what he denies them in point of Liberty, so he adorns them by VVounding them. His kind and skilful stroaks adding as much to the Beauty of a Christian’s Mind, as they cut away from the Superfluities of his Fortune: For the pressures of Affliction do give so much smoothness and gloss to the Soul that bears them patiently, and resign’dly, that the Heathen Moralist ventur’d to say, That if there were any Spectacle here below noble enough, and worthy to entertain the Eyes of God, it was that of a Good Man, generously contending with ill Fortune. And the Hyperbole (though after this manner somewhat loftily expressed) will appear the less strange to him that considers, That Job had not onely his Patience, when it had been tried to the uttermost, crown’d with a Fortune double to that which had been the fairest in the East; but before his constancy was tried near so far, receiv’d that much higher recompence of an Honour never vouchsaf’d to Mortals until then, when God himself did not onely approve, but (if I may so speak with reverence) make his boast of, a Man. Hast thou consider’d (says he to Man’s great Enemy) my Servant Job, (Job 2. 3) that there is none like him in the Earth, a perfect, and an upright Man, one that feareth God, and escheweth Evil? and still he holdeth fast his Integrity, although thou moved’st me against him to destroy him without cause. Sure one may call him more than happy Job, since, if, as David tells us, the Man is happy whose sins God is pleas’d to cover; (Psal. 32. 1) what may that Man be accounted, whose Graces he vouchsafes to proclaim?
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Footnotes
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That is, Cultivator of the Ground. ↩