thy soul's state. (1.) Where the stock is dead, the branches must needs be barren. Alas! the barrenness of many professors plainly discovers on what stock they are growing. It is easy to pretend to faith, but show me thy faith without thy works, if thou canst, James ii. 18. A dead stock can convey no sap to the branches, to make them bring forth fruit. The Covenant of Works was the bond of our union with the natural stock; but now it is become weak through the flesh; that is, through the degeneracy and depravity of human nature, Rom. viii. 3. It is strong enough to command, and to bind heavy burdens on the shoulders of those who are not in Christ; but it affords no strength to bear them. The sap that was once in the root, is now gone; and the law, like a merciless creditor, apprehends Adam's heirs, saying, "Pay what thou owest;" when, alas! his effects are riotously spent. (3.) All pains and cost are lost on the tree, whose life is gone. In vain do men labour to get fruit on the branches when there is no sap in the root. First, the gardener's pains are lost: ministers lose their labour on the branches of the old stock, while they continue on it. Many sermons are preached to no purpose, because there is no life to give sensation. Sleeping men may be awakened, but the dead cannot be raised without a miracle: even so the dead sinner must remain, if he be not restored to life by a miracle of grace.

SECONDLY, The influences of heaven are lost on such a tree: in vain doth the rain fall upon it: in vain is it laid open to the winter cold and frost. The Lord of the vineyard digs about many a dead soul, but it is not bettered. "Bruise the fooljin a mortar, his folly will not depart." Though he meet with many crosses, yet he retains his lusts: let him be laid on a sick bed, he will there lie like a sick beast, groaning under his pain: but not mourning for, nor turning from his sin. Let death itself stare him in the face, he will presumptuously maintain his hope, as if he would look the grim messenger out of countenance. Sometimes there are common operations of the divine Spirit performed on him: he is sent home with a trembling heart, and with arrows of conviction sticking in his soul: but at length be prevails against these things, and turns as secure as ever. Thirdly, summer and winter are alike to the branches of the dead stock. When others about them are budding, blossoming, and bringing forth fruit, there is no change on them, the dead stock has no growing time at all. Perhaps it may be difficult to know, in the winter, what trees are dead, and what are alive; but the spring plainly discovers it. There are some seasons wherein there is little life to be perceived,

even among saints: yet times of reviving come at length. But even when the vine flourisheth, and the pomegranates bud forth," (when saving grace is discovering itself by its lively actings, wheresoever it is) the branches on the old stock are still withered: when the dry bones are coming together, bone to bone, amongst saints, the sinner's bones are still lying about the grave's mouth. They are trees that cumber the ground, are near to be cut down: and will be cut down for the fire, if God in mercy prevent it not, by cutting them off from that stock, and ingrafting them into another.

LASTLY, Our natural stock is a killing stock. If the stock die, how can the branches live? If the sap be gone from the root and heart, the branches must needs wither. "In Adam

all die," 1 Cor. xv. 22. The root died in Paradise, and all the branches in it, and with it. The root is impoisoned, thence the branches come to be infected: death is in the pot, and all that taste of the pulse, or pottage, are killed.

Know then, that every natural man is a branch of a killing stock. Our natural root not only gives us not life, but it has a killing power reaching all the branches thereof. There are four things which the first Adam conveys to all his branches; and they are abiding in, and lying on, such of them as are not ingrafted to Christ. First, A corrupt nature: He sinned, and his nature was thereby corrupted or depraved; and this corruption is conveyed to all his posterity: he was infected, and the contagion spread itself over all his seed. Secondly, Guilt, that is an obligation to punishment, Rom. v. 21. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." The threatenings of the law, as cords of death, are twisted about the branches of the old stock, to draw them over the hedge into the fire; and, till they be cut off from this stock, by the pruning-knife, the sword of vengeance hangs over their heads, to cut them down. Thirdly, This killing stock transmits the curse into the branches: the stock, as the stock, (for I speak not of Adam in his personal and private capacity,) being cursed; so are the branches, Gal. iii. 18, “For as many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse." This curse affects the whole

man, and all that belongs to him, every thing he possesses; and worketh three ways. (1.) As poison infecting: thus their "blessings are cursed," Mal. ii. 2. Whatever the man enjoys it can do him no good, but evil; being thus impoisoned by the curse. His prosperity in the world "destroys him," Prov. i. 32. The ministry of the gospel is "a savour of death unto death," to him, 2 Cor. ii. 16. His seeming attainments in religion are

cursed to him; his knowledge serves but to puff him up, and his duties to keep him back from Christ. (2.) It worketh as a moth, consuming and wasting by little and little, Hos. v. 12. "Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth." There is a worm at the root, consuming them by degrees. Thus the curse pursued Saul, till it wormed him out all his enjoyments, and out of the very show he had of religion. Sometimes they decay like the fat of lambs, and melt away as the snow in a sun-shine. (3.) It acteth as a lion rampant, Hos. v. 14, “I will be unto Ephraim as a lion." The Lord "rains on them snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest," in such a manner, that they are hurried away with the stream. He teareth their enjoyments from them in his wrath, pursueth them with terrors, rents their souls from their bodies, and throws the deadened branch into the fire. Thus the curse devours like fire, which none can quench. Lastly, This killing stock transmits death to the branches upon it: Adam took the poisonous cup and drank it off: this occasioned death to himself and us: we came into the world spiritually dead, thereby obnoxious to eternal death, and absolutely liable to temporal death. This root is to us like the Scythain river, which, they say, brings forth little bladders every day, out of which come certain small flies, which are bred in the morning, winged at noon, and dead at night: a very lively emblem of our mortal state.

Now, sirs, is it not absolutely necessary to be broken off from this our natural stock? What will our fair leaves of a profession, or our fruits of duties avail, if we be still branches of the degenerate, dead, and killing stock? But alas! among the many questions tossed among us, few are taken up about these, Whether am I broken off from the old stock, or not? Whether am I ingrafted in Christ, or not? Ah! wherefore all this waste? Why is there so much noise about religion amongst many, who can give no good account of their having laid a good foundation: being mere strangers to experimental religion? I fear, if God do not, in mercy, timely undermine the religion of many of us, and let us see we have none at all, our root will be found rottenness, and our blossom go up as dust, in a dying hour: therefore let us look to our state, that we be not found

fools in our latter end.

II. Let us now view the supernatural stock, in which the branches, cut off from the natural stock, are ingrafted. Jesus Christis some times called "the Branch," Zech. iii. 8. So he is in respect of his human nature; being a branch, and the top branch of the house of David. Sometimes he is called "a Root," Isa. xi. 17. We have both together, Rev. xxii. 16. "I am the root and the offspring of David." David's root as God, and his

offspring as man. The text tells us, that he is "the Vine," i. e. he, as a Mediator, is the Vine-stock, whereof believers are the branches. As the sap comes from the earth into the root and stock, and from thence is diffused into the branches: so by Christ as Mediator, divine life is conveyed from the fountain, unto those who are united to him by faith, John vi. 57, “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." Now, Christ is Mediator, not as God only, as some have asserted; nor yet as man only, as the Papists generally hold: but he is Mediator as God-man Acts xx. 28, The church of God, which he hath purchased with his blood." Heb. ix. 14, "Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God." The divine and human natures have their distinct actings, yet a joint operation, in his discharging the office of a Mediator. This is illustrated by the similitude of a fiery sword, which at once cuts and burns: cutting, it burneth; and burning, it cutteth; the steel cuts, and the fire burns. Wherefore Christ, God-man, is the stock, whereof believers are the branches; and they are united to whole Christ. They are united to him in his human nature, as being "members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones," Eph. v. 30, and they are united to him in his divine nature; for so the Apostle speaks of this union, Col. i. 27. "Christ in you the hope of glory." And by him they are united to the Father, and to the Holy Ghost, 1 John iv. 15, "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." Faith, the bond of this union, receives whole Christ, God-man; and so unites us to him as such.

Behold here, O believers, your high privilege. Ye were once branches of a degenerate stock, even as others: but ye are, by grace, become branches of the true Vine, John xv. 1. Ye are cut out of a dead and killing stock, and ingrafted in "the last Adam, who was made a quickening spirit," I Cor. xv. 45. Your loss by the first Adam is made up, with great advantage, by your union with the second. Adam, at his best estate, was but a shrub, in comparison with Christ the Tree of Life.

He was

but a servant, Christ is the Son, the Heir, the Lord of all things, "the Lord from Heaven." It cannot be denied, that grace was shown in the first covenant; but it is as far exceeded, by the grace of the second covenant, as the twilight is by the light of the mid-day.

III. What branches are taken out of the natural stock, and grafted into this Vine? Ans. These are the elect, and none other. They, and they only, are grafted into Christ; and consequently none but they are cut off from the killing stock. For

them alone he intercedes, "that they may be one in him and his Father," John xvii. 9. 23. Faith, the bond of this union, is given to none else: it is "the faith of God's elect,” Tit. i. 1. The Lord passes by many branches growing on the natural stock, and cuts off only here one and there one, and grafts them into the true Vine, according as free love hath determined. Oft does he pitch upon the most unlikely branch, leaving the top-boughs, passing by the mighty, and the noble, and calling the weak, base, and despised, 1 Cor. i. 26, 27. Yea, he often leaves the fair and smooth, and takes the rugged and knotty: "And such were some of you, but ye are washed," 1 Cor. vi. 11. If ye inquire why so? We find no other reason but because they were "chosen in him," Eph. i. 4. Predestinated to the

adoption of children by Jesus Christ," ver. 5. Thus are they gathered together in Christ, while the rest are left growing on their natural stock, to be afterwards bound up in bundles for the fire. Wherefore, to whomsoever the gospel may come in vain, it will have a blessed effect on God's elect, Acts xiii. 48, "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Where the Lord has much people, the Gospel will have much success, sooner or later: such as are to be saved will be added to the mystical body of Christ.

How the Branches are taken out of the Natural Stock, and ingrafted into the Supernatural Stock.

IV. I am to show how the branches are cut off from the natural stock, the first Adam, and grafted into the true Vine, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks to the husbandman, not to the branch, that it is cut off from its natural stock, and ingrafted into a new one. The sinner, in his coming off from the first stock, is passive; and neither can nor will, come off from it, of his own accord, but clings to it, till almighty power make him to fall off, John vi. 44, "No man can come unto me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him." And ch. v. 40, "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." The ingrafted branches are "God's husbandry," 1 Cor. iii. 9. "The planting of the Lord," Isa. Ixi. 3. The ordinary means he makes use of in this work, is the ministry of the word, 1 Cor. iii. 9, "We are labourers together with God." But the efficacy thereof is wholly from him, whatever the minister's parts or piety be, ver. 7, "Neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth: but God that giveth the increase." Apostles preached to the Jews, yet the body of that people remained in infidelity, Rom. x. 16, "Who hath believed our re

The