The Scripture directory for church-officers and people, or, A practical commentary upon the whole…

Use 2. To the people. Sigh and mourn unto God in earnest Prayers for this increase. How terrible will it be, if the want of profiting be in your selves? You do not what God would have you. If the Patient distemper himself wilfully, all the Physic in the world cannot cure him. Know, there is some heavy curse, why after all the planting and watering, yet God gives no increase. Oh! consider, thy account is drawing on! Thy decay, and the Day of Judgment is approaching: God will not let his Word fall to the ground. It will be for life, or for death. Sigh then, and strike upon the breast and thigh: Cry out, Oh! my leanness, my leanness! My barrenness, my barrenness! Help Lord, for I am perishing! Pray to God, that the Blessing upon man kind, to Increase and multiply, may be fulfilled on every Sermon, for thy good.

Ʋse 2. To the people. Sigh and mourn unto God in earnest Prayers for this increase. How terrible will it be, if the want of profiting be in your selves? You do not what God would have you. If the Patient distemper himself wilfully, all the Physick in the world cannot cure him. Know, there is some heavy curse, why after all the planting and watering, yet God gives no increase. Oh! consider, thy account is drawing on! Thy decay, and the Day of Judgment is approaching: God will not let his Word fall to the ground. It will be for life, or for death. Sigh then, and strike upon the breast and thigh: Cry out, Oh! my leanness, my leanness! My barrenness, my barrenness! Help Lord, for I am perishing! Pray to God, that the Blessing upon man kind, to Increase and multiply, may be fulfilled on every Sermon, for thy good.

But God gave the increase.

We have (out of the former part) handled the two-fold ministerial Employment of Church-Officers, to Plant and Water: We continue a further amplification of the peculiar Operation, attributed unto God in all this; with that opposite distinction. But God gave the increase. The Metaphor (as you have heard) is taken from natural things, where though the industry and skill of the Gardener and Husbandman is required, yet God gives all the Increase: (As is more to be showed.) Now, this followeth, à minori ad majus: If in natural things, the Husbandman cannot make an Apple or Cherry, or the least grain of Corn; much less in spiritual things can he make the nature of Grace and goodness. He cannot work the heart to believe, though he make a sound in the ear. Yea, it's good to observe, that God in this spiritual industry, doth more give the Increase, then in natural. For in all the fruit and profit of natural things, God doth not exclude nature from some kind of co-efficiency, as the earth hath some inward power to help to the producing of the fruit thereof: But in this spiritual increase, God doth wholly exclude all natural ability. Grace doth not fructify by the Ministry, as Herbs and Corn do in the ground; for, the ground is the Mother, and hath a kind of vivifical influence into them. But here, God works all and solely. So, that neither the Ministry without, or the natural power and freewill of man within, hath any joint efficacy with God. And although the Apostle saith, We are workers together with God,