Third Part — Chapter 3
When seeking your lost Cattel, keep in mind
That thus Christ Iesus seeks, your souls to find.
OBSERVATION.
WHen Cattel are strayed away from your fields; you use all care and diligence to recover them again, tracing their footsteps, crying them in Market-Towns, sending your servants abroad, and inquiring your selves of all that you think can give news of them. What care and pains men will take in such cases, was exemplified in Saul, 1 Sam. 9. 4, 5. who with his servant passed through Mount Ephraim, to seek the Asses that were strayed from his father, and through the Land of Shalisha, and through the Land of Shalim, and they were not there, and through the Land of the Benjamites, but found them not.
APPLICATION.
THe care and pains you take to recover your lost cattel, carries a sweet and lively representation of the love of Iesus Christ, in the recovery of lost sinners. Iesus Christ came on purpose from heaven upon a like errand, to seek and to save that which was lost, Mat. 18. 11. There are several particulars in which this glorious design of Christ, in seeking and saving lost man, and the care and pains of Husbandmen in recovering their lost cattel, do meet and touch, though there be as many particulars also in which they differ; all which I shall open under the following heads.
We sometimes find that cattel will break out of those very fields where they have been bred, and where they want nothing, that is needful for them. Iust thus, lost man departed from his God, brake out of that pleasant enclosure where he was abundantly provided for, both as to soul and body; yet then he brake over the hedge of the command, and went astray, Eccles. 7. 29. Lo this only have I found, that God made man upright, but he sought out to himself many inventions. He was not content and satisfied with that blessed state God had put him into, but would be trying new conclusions to the loss and ruin, both of himself and his posterity.
Strayers are evermore sufferers for it; all they get by it, is to be pinned and pounded; and what did man get by departing from his God, but ruin and misery to soul and body? Will you have an abreviate of his sufferings and losses? (the full account none can give you) why, by straying from his God, he lost the rectitude and holiness of his nature; (like a true strayer) he is all dirty and miry, overspread and besmeared both in soul and body, with the odious filthiness of sin; he lost the liberty and freedom of his will to good; a precious jewel of inestimable value: This is a real misery incurr'd by the fall, though some have so far lost their understandings and humility, as not to own it; he has lost his God, his soul, his happiness, and his very bowels of compassion towards himself in this miserable state.
When your cattel are strayed, yea, though it be but one of the Flock or Herd, you leave all the rest, and go after that which is lost: So did Iesus Christ, who in the fore-cited place, Mat. 18. 12. compares himself to such a Shepherd; he left heaven it self, and all the blessed Angels there, to come into this world to seek lost man. O the precious esteem, and dear love that Christ had to poor man! How did his bowels yearn towards us in our lost state! How did he pity us in our misery! As if he had said, Poor creatures, they have lost themselves, and are become a prey to the devil, in a perishing state; I will seek after them, and save them. The Son of man is come to seek and to save.
You are glad when you have found your strayers; much more is Christ, when he has found a lost soul. O 'tis a great satisfaction to him to see the fruit of the travel of his soul; Isa. 53. Yea, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than ninety nine just persons that need no repentance. What demonstrations of joy and gladness did the father of the Prodigal give, when he found his Son that was lost, Luk[•] 15. 20.
When you have brought home your strayers, you sometimes clog them, to prevent their wandring again, and stop up the gaps with thorns; and so does God oftentimes by such souls as are recovered and brought home to Christ; he hangs a clog of affliction to prevent their departure from God again, 2 Cor. 12. 7.
But then there are five particulars in which Christ seeking lost souls, and your seeking lost cattel differ.
Your cattel sometimes find the way home themselves, and return to you of their own accord; but lost man never did, nor can do so; he was his own destroyer, but can never be his own Saviour; it was impossible for him to have lost his God, but having once lost him, can never find him again of himself. Alas! his heart is bent to backsliding, he has no will to return. Hear how Christ complains, Ioh. 5. 40. You will not come to me. Mans recovery begins in God, not in himself.
Your servants can find, and bring back your lost cattel as well as you; but so cannot Christs servants. Ministers may discover, but cannot recover them; they daily see, but cannot save them; lament them they can, but help them they cannot; intreat and beg them to return they can and do, but prevail with them they cannot. Melancthon thought when he began to preach, to perswade all; but old Adam was too hard for young Melancthon.
You seek all the cattel that are strayed from you, especially the best; but Iesus Christ only seeks poor lost man. There were other creatures, and such as by nature were more excellent, that lost their God and themselves; I mean, the Apostate Angels; but he came not to seek them: Herein his singular love to man appears.
When you have recovered and brought home your lost cattel, you may lose them the second time, and never recover them again; but so cannot Christ. Man once recovered, is for ever secured by him. All that you [•]ast given me I have kept, and not one of them is lost, but the son of perdition; and he was never savingly found, Ioh. 17. 12.
Though you prize your cattel, yet you will not venture your life for the recovery of them; rather let them go than regain them with such an hazard; but Iesus Christ not only ventured, but actually laid down his life to recover, and save lost man: He redeemed them at the price of his own blood; he is that good Shepherd that laid down his life for the Sheep. O the surpassing love of Christ to lost souls!
REFLECTIONS.
LOrd, I am a lost creature, an undone soul; and herein lyes my misery, that I have not only lost my God, but have no heart to return to him! Nay, I fly from Christ, who is come on purpose from heaven to seek and to save me; his Messengers are abroad seeking for such as I am, but I avoid them, or at least refuse to obey their call and perswasions to return. Ah, what a miserable state am I in! every step I go is a step towards hell; my soul, with the Prodigal is ready to perish in a strange Countrey! but I have no mind with him to return home; wretched soul, what will the end of this be? If God have lost you, the Devil has found you; he takes up all strayers from God: yea, death, and hell will shortly find you, if Christ do not; and then your recovery (O my soul!) will be impossible. Why sit I here perishing and dying! I am not yet as irrecoverably lost as the damned are. O let me delay no longer, lest I be lost for ever!
O my soul! for ever bless and admire the love of Iesus Christ, who came from heaven to seek and save, such a lost soul as I was. Lord, how marvellous, how matchless is your love! I was lost, and am found. I am found, and did not seek; nay, I am found by him from whom I fled. Your love, O my Saviour! was a preventing love, a wonderful love; you lovedst me much more than I loved my self; I was cruel to my own soul, but you wast kind; you soughtest for me, a lost sinner, and not for lost Angels; your hand of grace caught hold of me, and has let go thousands, and ten thousands, as good as my self by nature. Like another David, you didst rescue my poor lost soul out of the mouth of the destroyer; yea, more than so, you dist lose your own life to find mine: And now, dear Iesus, since I am thus marvellously recovered, shall I ever straggle again from you? O, let it for ever be a warning to me, how I turn aside into bypaths of sin any more!
The Poem.
VVHen cattel from your fields are gone astray, and you to seek them through the Country ride; Enquiring for them all along the way; tracking their foot-steps, where they turn'd aside.
One servant this way sent, another that; searching the fields, and countrey round about: This meditation now falls in so pat; as if God sent it to enquire you out.
My beasts are lost, and so am I by sin; my wretched soul from God thus wandring went, And I seek them, so was I sought by him who from the fathers bosom forth was sent.
Pursu'd by Sermons, Follow'd close by grace; and strong convictions Christ has sought for me, Yea though I shun him still he gives me chase, as if resolv'd I should not damned be.
When Angels lost themselves it was not so, God did not seek, or once for them enquire; But said, let these Apostate creatures go, I'le plague them for it with eternal fire.
Lord, what am I, that you shouldst set your eyes and still seek after such a wretch as I? Whose matchless mercy, and rich grace despise, as if in spight thereof resolv'd to die.
Why should I shun you, blessed Saviour, why should I avoid you thus? you dost not chase My soul to slay it; O that ever I should fly a Saviour that's so full of grace!
Long hast you sought me, Lord, I now return; O let your bowels of compassion sound, For my departure, I sincerely mourn; and let this day, your wandring sheep be found.
