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SERMON XIX.

SERMON I.

THE NECESSITY OF WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN ORDER TO SALVATION; THOUGH THE REWARD OF THEM IS ONLY TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE FREE GRACE AND MERCY OF GOD: ASSERTED AGAINST THE ANTINOMIANS AND PAPISTS.

HOSEA X. 12.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy. IN the preceding verses of the chapter, God sharply reproves and severely threatens Israel for their wickedness, especially their idolatry. But the good God always in judgment remembering mercy, to those reprehensions and menaces subjoins here in my text an exhortation to repentance and amendment of life, enforced with a gracious promise of mercy upon such repentance.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy. Which words (not to spend time needlessly in any farther preface) I shall first briefly explain, and then raise such plain, practical, and useful observations from them, as they naturally and without straining afford.

First for the explanation of the text, It is obvious to observe in general, that the verse, out of which my text is taken, contains an exhortation to repentance and a good life, expressed under the metaphors of ploughing and sowing; and also a promise of mercy under answerable metaphors of rain upon the seed sown, and of reaping a joyful harvest. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in

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mercy:

break up the fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. But I am concerned at present to explain only the beginning of the verse, which I have pitched on for the subject of my discourse at this time.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness. The sowing of seed is a metaphor used in Scripture to signify the doing of those moral exercises and works, by which (according as the quality of them is, as they are good or bad) men are to expect from God either reward or punishment. To sow in righteousness therefore is nothing else but to live righteously, to do righteous actions, that is, works of piety towards God, and of justice and charity towards our neighbour. For righteousness here is not only just and righteous dealing towards men, but it is virtus universalis, "an universal virtue," containing in it all other virtues. In this comprehensive sense it is often taken in Scripture; as for example, Psalm xi. 7. The righteous Lord loveth righteousness. Proverbs xi. 5, 6. The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way, but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them; but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness. Dan. xii. 3. They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. Matt. v. 20. Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. And that in this large sense it is to be understood here, is evident, because the exhortation, Sow in, or unto,

righteousness, requires an universal reformation, conversion, and turning to God. It is a calling of the Israelites to a general repentance, not only of their unjust dealings, but of all those other sins with which God had before charged them. And besides, to the command, Sow in righteousness, is presently added in the verse out of which my text is taken, break up the fallow ground; where by the fallow ground is meant the unregenerate heart, the heart that is void of virtue, and overrun with vice; as it is expressly expounded, Jer. iv. 3, 4. For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart, &c. Now to break or plough up the fallow ground of our hearts, is by the exercises of mortification to subdue and root up our vicious inclinations, that so our hearts may be made fit soil, and prepared to receive the seeds of virtue. The sowing therefore in righteousness here commanded, is of a wider extent than to be confined only to works of justice, strictly so called, and signifies the practice of all virtues, for which our hearts, being cultivated by the forementioned exercises, are fitted and disposed.

Reap in mercy. Where Grotius and others note, that in the Scripture language Seminare est bene agere; metere referre mercedem; "To sow is to "do well; to reap is to receive the reward of so "doing."

The words, though they are delivered imperatively, yet are a plain promise; as if it had been said, Sow in righteousness, and then you shall reap in mercy. For it is usual in Scripture for the

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