The souls implantation into the natural olive. By T.HThe soules implantation into the naturall olive. By T.H

Take heed of this, Christ knocketh this day at your hearts; if you now give him his last answer, and shut the door against him, it may prove to be the last knocking, you ⟨p. 64⟩may hap never to see him more. The Church in the place before named, Cant. 5. ver. 3. shifted off Christ, and would not let him in when she heard him knock: I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? But after she rose to open to her beloved, and her hands dropped myrrh, and her fingers sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock, ver 5. And then she opened to her beloved, but he had withdrawn himself, and was gone: and then she sought him with many troubles and knocks before she found him: The watchmen found her, and wounded her, the keepers of the walls took her veil from her. If you put of Christ, and give him delays when he knocks at the doors of your hearts, then perhaps he may never knock more, and then you may seek him, and desire him earnestly, and perhaps never find him more, or receive comfort from him, and salvation by him. Oh therefore take heed how you drive away your crucified Saviour; but even now make all preparations for his entertainment, and for receiving of him, that you may receive everlasting life, and salvation from him. In Jer. 2.12. the Prophet saith, Be astonished, O ye heavens, be ye horribly afraid, be ye desolate, saith the Lord. What is the reason of this? It is in the 11. and 13. verses: The Heathen have not changed their ⟨p. 65⟩gods, which are no gods, but my people have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, & hewen out to themselves cisterns even broken cisterns that can hold no water: they have changed their glory for that which profiteth not. Be astonished at this, O ye heavens. Turks have their gods, and Infidels have their gods, and what care have they to obey them, when as yet their gods are no gods? And shall a Christian have a Saviour to save him, and to redeem him, and show mercy upon him, and then shut him out in this kind? Remember what the Prophet David saith, Psal. 132.4, 5. I will give no sleep to mine eyes, nor slumber to mine eye-lids, until I have prepared a place, an habitation for the God of Jacob: and if he had said, I have houses, and I have palaces, and Gods honour lieth in the dust;