Taken, with editing, from Flavel’s Husbandry Spiritualized, The Heavenly Use of Earthly Things, in volume 5 of his Works. He has been making a spiritual application of ploughing and now provides some reflections suited to various classes of people.
1. Reflections for a true convert.
O grace, for ever to be admired: that God should send forth His Word and Spirit to plough up my hard and stony heart, yes mine, when He has left so many of more tender, intelligent, sweet and melting tempers without any means of grace. O blessed gospel, heart-dissolving voice! I have felt thine efficacy, I have experienced thy divine and irresistible power; thou art indeed sharper than any two-edged sword, and woudest to the heart; but thy wounds are the wounds of a friend. All the wounds thou hast made in my soul were so many doors opened to let in Christ; all the blows thou gavest my conscience were only to beat off my soul from sin, which I embraced and had retained to my everlasting ruin, if thou hadst not separated me from them.
O wise and merciful Physician, Thou didst indeed bind me with cords of conviction and sorrow, but it was only to cut out that stone in my heart, which would have killed me if it had continued there. How I struggled and opposed Thee, as if Thou hadst come with the sword of an enemy, rather than the lance and probe of a skillful and tender-hearted physician? Blessed be the day when my sin was discovered and made bitter to me! O happy sorrows which prepared for such matchless joys! O blessed hand, which turned my salt waters into pleasant wine and, after many pangs and sorrows of soul, at last brought forth deliverance and peace!
2. Reflections for a stubborn heart.
O what a rock of adamant is this heart of mine, that never was wounded yet or savingly pierced for sin by the terrors of the law, or the melting voice of the gospel! Long have I sat under the Word, but when did I feel a relenting pang? O my soul, my stupified soul, you have an antidote against repentance, but have you any antidote against hell? You can keep out the sense of sin now but are you able to keep out the terrors of the Lord hereafter? If you could turn a deaf ear to the sentence of Christ on the day of judgement as easily as you do to the entreaties of Christ on the day of grace, it would be something, but surely there is no defence against that sentence. Ah, fool that I am to quench these convictions, unless I knew how to quench those flames they warn me of.
3. Reflections for someone who has misused opportunities.
May I not challenge for the first place among all the mourners in the world, who have all lost those convictions which several times came upon me under the Word? I have been often awakened by it and filled with terrors and tremblings under it, but those troubles have soon worn off again, and my heart (like water in a pan removed from the fire) has returned to its natural coldness. Lord, what a dismal case I am in! I have choked and strangled many convictions which, it may be, shall never more be revived until Thou revive them against me in judgement. I have been in pangs, and brought forth nothing but wind; my troubles have wrought no deliverance, neither have my lusts fallen before them? My conscience has indeed been sometimes sick with sins – yes, so sick as to vomit them up by an external, partial reformation? But then, like the dog, I have turned again to my vomit and now I fear that I am given over to a heart that cannot repent.
O that these pangs could be brought to life again! But alas, they have ceased. I am like a prisoner escaped and arrested again, whom the jailer loads with double chains. Surely, my soul, if your spiritual troubles do not return again, they are but gone back to bring eternal troubles. It is with you, O my soul, as with a man whose bones have been broken and not well set; who must – however terrible it may appear to him – endure the pain of breaking and setting them again, if he will ever be made a sound man. O that I might rather choose to be the object of Thy wounding mercy! If Thou wilt not plough up my heart powerfully by conviction, I know it must be rent in pieces at last by desperation.