Chapter 16
Your winter store in Summer you provide;
To Christian prudence this must be applied.
Observation.
Good husbands are careful in Summer to provide for Winter, then they gather in their Winter store; food and fuel for themselves, and fodder for their cattle. He that gathers in Summer is a wise son, but he that sleeps in harvest is a son that causes shame (Proverbs 10:5). A well chosen season is the greatest advantage to any action, which as it is seldom found in haste, so it is often lost by delay. It is a good proverb which the frugal Dutch have among them; Bonus Servatius, facit bonum Bonifacium; a good saver, will make a good benefactor. And it is a good proverb of our own; He that neglects the occasion, the occasion will neglect him. Husbandmen know that Summer will not hold all the year, neither will they trust to the hopes of a mild and favorable Winter, but in season provide for the worst.
Application.
What excellent Christians should we be, were we but as provident and thoughtful for our souls? It is doubtless a singular point of Christian wisdom, to foresee a day of spiritual straits and necessities, and during the day of grace to make provision for it. This great Gospel truth is excellently shadowed forth in this natural observation, which I shall branch out into these seven particulars.
Husbandmen know there is a change, and vicissitude of seasons and weather; though it be pleasant Summer weather now, yet Winter will tread upon the heel of Summer; frosts, snows, and great falls of rain must be expected. This alternate course of seasons in nature is settled by a firm law of the God of nature, to the end of the world (Genesis 8:22). While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night, shall not cease.
And Christians know, that there are changes in the right hand of the most High, in reference to their spiritual seasons. If there be a Spring time of the Gospel, there will also be an Autumn; if a day of prosperity, it will set in a night of adversity; for God has set the one over against the other (Ecclesiastes 7:14). In heaven there is a day of everlasting serenity, in hell a night of perfect and endless horror and darkness; on earth, light and darkness take their turns, prosperity and adversity, even to souls as well as bodies, succeed each other. If there be a Gospel day, a day of grace now current, it will have its period and determination (Genesis 3:6).
Common prudence and experience enables the Husbandman, in the midst of Summer, to foresee a Winter, and provide for it before he feel it; indeed natural instinct teaches this to the very birds of the air, and beasts of the field.
And spiritual wisdom should teach Christians to exercise their foreseeing faculties, and not suffer them to feel evil before they fear it. But O the stupifying nature of sin! Though the Stork in the heavens knows her appointed time, and the Turtle, Crane and Swallow the time of their coming, yet man, whom God has made wiser than the fowls of the air, in this acts quite below them (Jeremiah 8:7).
The end of God's ordaining a summer season, and sending warm and pleasant weather, is to ripen the fruits of the earth, and give the Husbandman fit opportunity to gather them in.
And God's design in giving men a day of grace, is to furnish them with an opportunity for the everlasting happiness and salvation of their souls (Revelation 2:21). I gave her a space to repent. It is not a mere reprieval of the soul, or only a delay of the execution of threatened wrath, though there be much mercy in that; but the peculiar aim of this patience and bounty of God, is to open for them a way to escape the wrath to come, by leading them to repentance (Romans 2:4).
The Husbandman does not find all harvest seasons alike favorable, sometimes they have much fair weather, and meet with no hindrance in their business; other times it is a catching harvest, but now and then a fair day, and then they must be nimble or all is lost.
There is also great difference in soul-seasons, some have had a long and a fair season of grace; an hundred and twenty years did God wait upon the old world, in the ministry of Noah. Long did God wait on the gainsaying Israelites (Isaiah 42:14). I have a long time held my peace, I have been still and refrained myself. Others have a short and catching season, all lies upon a day, upon a nick of time (Acts 17:30).
A proper season neglected and lost, is irrecoverable. Many things in Husbandry must be done in their season, or cannot be done at all for that year; if he plow not, and sow not in the proper time, he loses the harvest of that year.
It is even so as to spiritual seasons. Christ neglected, and grace despised, in the season when God offers them, are irrecoverably lost (Proverbs 1:28). Then (that is, when the season is over) they shall call upon me but I will not hear. O, there is a great deal of time in a short opportunity! That may be done or prevented, in an hour rightly timed, which cannot be done or prevented in a man's lifetime afterwards. There was one resolved to kill Julius Caesar such a day; the night before, a friend sent him a letter to acquaint him with it, but he being at supper, and busy in discourse, said, tomorrow is a new day, and indeed it was, dies novissima, his last day to him; from where it became a proverb in Greece. Tomorrow is a new day. Our glass runs in heaven, and we cannot see how much or little of the sand of God's patience is yet to run down; but this is certain, when that glass is run, there is nothing to be done for our souls (Luke 19:42). O that you had known at least in this your day, the things that belong to your peace, but now they are hid from your eyes.
Those husbandmen that are careful and laborious in the summer have the comfort and benefit of it in winter; he that then provides fuel shall sit warm in his habitation, when others blow their fingers. He that provides food for his family, and fodder for his cattle in the harvest, shall eat the fruit of it, and enjoy the comfort of his labors, when others shall be exposed to shifts and straits. And he that provides for eternity, and lays up for his soul a good foundation against the time to come, shall eat when others are hungry, and sing when others howl (Isaiah 65:13). A day of death will come, and that will be a day of straits to all negligent souls; but then the diligent Christian shall enjoy the peace and comfort that shall flow in upon his heart, from his holy care and sincere diligence in duties, as (2 Corinthians 1:12). This is our rejoicing, the testimony of our conscience, that in all sincerity and godly simplicity, we have had our conversation in this world. So Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:3): Remember now, O Lord, how I have walked before you in truth, and with a perfect heart. A day of judgment will come, and then foolish virgins, who neglected the season of getting oil in their lamps, will be put to their shifts; then they come to the [reconstructed: wise], and say, give us of your oil (Matthew 25:8-9), but they have none to spare, and the season of buying is then over.
No wise husbandman will neglect a fit opportunity of gathering in his hay and corn, upon a presumption of much fair weather to come; he will not say, the weather is settled, and I need not trouble myself, though my corn and hay be fit for the house, yet I may get it in another time as well as now.
And no wise Christian will lose a present season for his soul, upon the hopes of much more time yet to come; but will rather say, now is my time, and I know not what will be hereafter; hereafter I may wish to see one of the days of the Son of man, and not see it (Luke 17:22). It is sad to hear how cunning some men are to dispute themselves out of heaven, as if the devil had hired them to plead against their own souls; sometimes urging the example of those that were called at the eleventh hour (Matthew 20:6), and sometimes that of the penitent thief. But, O! to how little purpose is the former pleaded; they that were called at the eleventh hour were never called before, as these have been — no man had hired; that is, called or invited them to Christ, and for the thief (as Mr. Fenner rightly observes) it was a singular and extraordinary example. It was done when Christ hung on the Cross, and was to be inaugurated; then kings manifest such bounty, and pardon such crimes, as are never pardoned afterwards. Besides, God was then in a way of working miracles; then he rent the rocks, opened the graves, raised the dead, and converted this thief; but God is now out of that way.
REFLECTIONS.
I have indeed been a good husband for the world; with what care and providence have I looked out for myself and family, to provide food to nourish them, and clothes to defend them against the asperities of winter? Meanwhile neglecting to make provision for eternity, or take care for my soul. O my destitute soul! how much have I slighted and undervalued you? I have taken more care for a horse or an ox, than for you; a well-stored barn, but an empty soul. Will it not shortly be with me, as with that careless mother, who when her house was on fire, busily bestirred herself to save the goods, but forgot the child? (though it were saved by another hand) and then minding her child, ran up and down like one distracted wringing her hands, and crying, O my child, my child! I have saved my goods, and lost my child — such will be the case of you, my soul (Matthew 16:26). Besides how easy will my conviction be at the bar of Christ? Will not my providence and care for the things of this life, leave me speechless and self-condemned in that day? What shall I answer when the Lord shall say, You could foresee a winter, and seasonably provide for it? Indeed, you had so much care of your very beasts, to provide for their necessities, and why did you take no care for your soul? Was that only not worth the caring for?
Is it so dangerous to neglect a present proper season of grace? What then have I done, who have suffered many such seasons to die away in my hand, upon a groundless hope of future opportunities! Ah, deluded wretch! what if that supposition fail? Where am I then? I am not the Lord of time, neither am I sure, that he who is, will ever vouchsafe an hour of grace in old age, to him that has neglected many such hours in youth; neither indeed is it ordinary for God so to do. It is storied of Caius Marius Victorius, who lived about 300 years after Christ, and to his old age continued a pagan, but at last being convinced of the Christian verity, he came to Simplicianus and told him, he would be a Christian; but neither he, nor the Church could believe it, it being so rare an example for any to be converted at his age. But at last seeing it was real, there was a shouting and gladness, and singing of Psalms in all churches, the people crying Caius Marius Victorius is become a Christian. This was written for a wonder, and what ground have I to think, that God will work such wonders for me, who have neglected his ordinary means of salvation?
Bless the Lord, O my soul! who gave you a season, a day for eternal life, which is more than he has done for thousands; indeed, bless the Lord for giving you a heart to understand and improve that season. I confess I have not improved it as I ought; yet, this I can (through mercy) say — that however it fare in future times, with my outward man, though I have no treasures or stores laid up on earth, or if I have, they are but corruptible, yet I have a blessed hope laid up in heaven (Colossians 1:5). I have bags that do not grow old. While worldlings rejoice in their stores and heaps, I will rejoice in these eternal treasures.
The Poem.
Observe in summer's sultry heat, how in the hottest day: the husbandman does toil and sweat about his corn and hay. (Job 7:2, Genesis 3:19)
If then he should not reap and mow, and gather in his store; how should he live, when for the snow he can't move out of door? (Proverbs 10:5)
The little ants, and painstaking bees; by nature's instinct led; These have their summer granaries, for winter furnished. (Proverbs 6:6-7)
But you my soul, whose summer's day is almost past and gone; What soul-provision do you lay in stock, to spend upon? (Matthew 6:20; 1 Timothy 6:10)
If nature teaches to prepare for temporal life, much rather Grace should provoke to greater care, soul food in time to gather. (Jeremiah 8:7; Matthew 16:26)
Days of affliction, and distress are hastening on apace, If now I live in carelessness; how sad will be my case! (Zephaniah 2:2-3)
Unworthy of the name of man who for that soul of yours; Will not do that which others can do for their very kine. (Isaiah 32:9)
Think frugal farmers, when you see your mows of corn and hay; What a conviction this will be to you, another day. (Luke 12:18, 20)
Who never were up before the sun, nor break an hour's rest; For your poor souls, as you have done so often, for a beast.
Learn once to see the difference; between eternal things; And these poor transient things of sense: that fly with eagle's wings. (2 Corinthians 4:18; 1 Corinthians 7:31; Proverbs 23:5)
