engagement: be not you
behind the very forwardest of the Lord's people; you are not an
inconsiderable party in this land. The joy and happiness of Israel was
because of the Levites that waited, that were diligent in their duties,
and diligently attended upon the Lord. "I will cause the horn of Israel
to flourish, saith God:" by what means? "I will give thee, Ezekiel, an
open mouth." That God may give you a heart to teach knowledge, come,
engage your hearts as a gift to God. O, saith Moses, "that all the
Lord's people were prophets!" O, say we, that all this land's people had
prophets, but prophets of the Lord, that might feed them with wisdom and
understanding, that they all might know the Lord, from the greatest to
the least of them! But ah? Lord God, the eye of this kingdom is
distempered, dim, and dark; and then how great is this darkness! our
prophets have prophesied lies, and our priests have pleaded for Baal,
and they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?
Instead of standing for God, they have stood against Him; and instead of
being the best, they are become the basest: the prophet that teacheth
lies, he is the tail. If God should come, as once, to seek for a man,
that should stand in the gap, and make up the breach; among these He
would find the fewest: in this respect our state may be like that which
we find described. Christ comes to make a perfect description of His
church, and so consequently, a comfortable expression of Himself to His
church: and whereas the eyes are the chiefest seat of beauty, and
therefore likeliest to be stood upon, he begins thus. "Turn away thine
eyes from me, for they have overcome me." By eyes, understand the
ministry; I come to speak comfortable things to My people, but set away
the ministers out of My sight, for they have overcome My patience, and
filled Me with fury: now these being removed, the description doth
lovingly go on. Thy hair, thy young professors, are like a flock of
goats; thy teeth, thy civil officers, like a flock of sheep; thy
temples, thy ordinary and common Christians. All right but the eyes, the
eyes I cannot endure. But let none of us provoke this complaint, nor
hold off any longer from the Lord that invites. What say you? Are you
willing to this engagement? Will you bind yourselves to the Lord? Let me
extend my speech to all, and dispatch the remains of this point, and my
meaning thus: that you may be encouraged to engage, consider two