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.

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4. You are glad when you have found your strayers; much more is Christ when he hath found a lost soul. 0 it is a great satisfaction to him to see the fruit of the travail of his soul. Yea, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-nine just persons that need no repentance." What demonstrations of joy and gladness did the father of the prodigal give, when he had found his son that was lost.

5. When you have brought home your strayers, you sometimes clog them, to prevent their wandering again, and stop up the gaps with thorns ; and so doth God often

times, 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. xii. 7.

But then there are five particulars in which Christ's seeking lost souls, and your seeking lost cattle differ.

1. Your cattle 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 possible for him not 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 hath no will to return. Hear how Christ complains. "Ye will not come unto me." Man's

recovery begins in God, not in himself.

2. Your servants can find and bring back your lost cattle as well as you, but so cannot Christ's 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 persuade all; but old Adam was too hard for him.

3. You seek all the cattle that are strayed from you, especially the best; but Jesus 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.

4. When you have recovered and brought home your lost cattle, 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 thou hast given me I have kept, and not one of them is lost but the son of perdition ;" and he was never savingly found.

5. Though you prize your cattle, yet you will not venture your life for the recovery of them; rather let them go than regain them with such an hazard; but Jesus 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.

1. Lord, I am a lost creature! an un- A reflection for done soul! and herein lies my misery,

that I have not only lost my God, but

a lost soul.

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 calls and persuasions 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 country; but I have no mind, with him, to return home. Wretched soul! what will the end of this be? If God have lost thee, the devil hath found thee; he takes up all strayers from God; yea, death and hell will shortly find thee, if Christ do not; and then thy 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.

A reflection for one that was lost, but is found.

2. O my soul! for ever bless and admire the love of Jesus Christ, who came from heaven to seek and save such a lost soul as I was. Lord, how marvellous! how matchless is thy love! I was lost, and am found! I am found, and did not seek; nay, I am found by him from whom I fled. Thy love, O my Saviour! was a preventing love—a wonderful love; thou lovedst me much more than I loved myself; I was cruel to my own soul, but thon wast kind; thou soughtest for me, a lost sinner, and not for lost angels; thy hand of grace caught hold of me, and hast let go thousands, and ten thousands, as good as myself by nature: Like another David, thou didst rescue my poor soul out of the mouth of the destroyer; yea, more than so, thou didst lost thine own life to find mine: And now, dear Jesus, since I am thus marvellously recovered, shall I ever stray again from thee? O let it for ever be a warning to me, how I turn aside into by-paths of sin any more.

CHAPTER IV.

UPON THE FEEDING OF FAT CATTLE.

Fat beasts you kill, the lean you use to save:
God's dispensations some such meuning have.

OBSERVATION.

It is a good observation of a Father, and well applied; Vituli triturantes quotidie ligantur, vituli mactandi quotidie in pascuis libere relinquuntur: Oxen for use are daily yoked and kept short, whilst those that are designed for the shambles, are let loose in green pastures to feed at pleasure. Store beasts fare hard, and are kept lean and low; feeding beasts are excused from the yoke, whilst others are labored and wrought hard every day; the one hath more than he can eat, the other would eat more if he had it.

APPLICATION.

Thus deals the Lord oft-times with his own elect, whom he designs for glory; and with the wicked, who are preparing for the day of wrath: thus are they filled with earthly prosperity, and creature-enjoyments, like rustic and wanton beasts turned out at liberty in a fat pasture, whilst poor saints are kept hard and short; "Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountains of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy." These metaphorical kine are the prosperous oppressors of the world, full-fed, and wanton wicked men. It is true, heaven hath not all the poor, nor hell all the rich; but it is a very common dispensation of providence to bestow most of the things of this world upon them that have no portion in heaven; and to keep them short on

earth, for whom that kingdom is provided. Let me draw forth the similitude in a few particulars.

1. The beasts for slaughter have the fattest pastures; so have the ungodly in the world; "Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than heart could wish." "Their hearts are as fat as grease." These be they that take off the cream of earthly enjoyments, "whose bellies are filled with hidden treasures." "The earth is given into the hands of the wicked." O what full estate ! what an affluence of earthy delights hath God cast in upon some wicked men ! There is much wantonness, but no want in their dwellings: some that know not which way to turn themselves in hell, once knew not where to bestow their goods on earth.

2. Feeding beasts grow wanton in their full pastures; there you shall see them tumble, and frisk, and kick up their heels. The same effect hath the prosperity of the wicked; it makes them wanton; their life is but a diversion from one pleasure to another. "They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance: they take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ they spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave." The same character doth the prophet Amos give of them. "They stretch themselves upon beds of ivory, drink wine in bowls," &c. and no sorrow goes to their hearts. These are they that live in pleasures upon earth, as a fish in the water.

3. These fat pastures do but the sooner hasten the death of these cattle; the sooner they are fatted, the sooner they are slaughtered; and prosperity of the wicked serves to the same end: The prosperity of fools shall destroy them, i. e. it shall be the means and instrument of heating and heightening their lusts, and thereby fitting