N02451:138
Agricola. Or, The religious husbandman: the main intentions of religion, served in the business…
Agricola. Or, The religious husbandman: the main intentions of religion, served in the business and language of husbandry. A work adapted unto the grand purposes of piety; and commended therefore by a number of ministers, to be entertained in the families of the country. : [One line from I Corinthians]Agricola. Or, The religious husbandman: the main intentions of religion, served in the business and language of husbandry. A work adapted unto the grand purposes of piety; and commended therefore by a number of ministers, to be entertained in the families of the countrey. : [One line from I Corinthians]
Boston: printed by T. Fleet for D. Henchman, 1727
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Georgica Sacra. The SOWING Of the Field. › The Stony Ground.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Oh! That we did every one more know this Plague of our own Heart! Feel thy Stony Heart, O serious Penitent. Thy Feeling of it, and thy Groaning bitterly and grievously under it; Alas, my hard Heart! My hard Heart! This would be the first Symptom of the Hardness going off. That horrible Disease of the Stone in the Wheel broken at the Cistern, would not be a greater matter of Horror to us, than the Stone in our Heart, if the very Essence of the Stone did not lie in our not Feeling of what we have cause to be most concerned about.
Oh! That we did every one more know this Plague of our own Heart! Feel thy Stony Heart, O serious Penitent. Thy Feeling of it, and thy Groaning bitterly and grievously under it; Alas, my hard Heart! My hard Heart! This would be the first Symptom of the Hardness going off. That horrible Disease of the Stone in the Wheel broken at the Cistern, would not be a greater matter of Horror to us, than the Stone in our Heart, if the very Essence of the Stone did not ly in our not Feeling of what we have cause to be most concern'd about.
II. Some Hearers of the Word whose Hearts are like Stones under it, yet may with some Faith and some Joy seem to Receive the good Seed of the Word that falls upon them. This is as much as to say, That there are some Dissemblers, (we may call them, shining Stones) among the Hearers of the ⟨p. 43⟩Word, who may go a great way in the Religion which the Word calleth for, and yet perish after all. There is not a more lawful Meditation for a Christian to affect himself withal, than This; How far a Man may go in Christianity, and yet after all be found among the False-hearted Hearers of the Word. There is no Grace, but what may have a Counterfeit. A Stony Heart, is a Cheating one; 'Tis Deceitful above all things. Others, and even ourselves too, may be deceived by it. It will out do, even the Spirit that is called, The Deceiver of the Nations.