Contemplations, THE six VOLUME.  
By jos. HALL. D. of D.  
LONDON, Printed by J. H. for Nathaniel Butter. 1622.    

Contemplations. THE SIXTEENTH BOOK. Containing 

Shimei Cursing.  
Achitophel.  
The death of Absalon.  
sheba's Rebellion.  
The Gibeonites revenged.  
The numbering of the people.     

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND TRULY NOBLE LORD, FRANCIS, Lord RUSSELL, Baron of THORNHAUGH all increase of Honour and Happiness.  
RIGHT HO:  
You shall not need to impute it to any other reason besides your virtues, that I have presumed to shroud this piece of my labours under your Noble Patronage. The world hath taken just notice how much the Gospel is graced by your real profession; whom neither honour hath made overly, nor wealth lavish, nor charge miserable, nor greatness licentious. Go on happily in these safe and gainful steps of goodness; and still honour the God that hath honoured you; In the mean time, accept from my unworthy hands these poor Meditations, more high for their subject, then mean for their author; Wherein SHIMEYS curses shall teach you how unable either greatness, or innocence is to bear off the blows of ill tongues; and how baseness ever moulds itself according to the advantage of times. ACHITOPHEL'S depth compared with his end shall show how witless, and insensate craft is, when it strives against honesty; and how justly they are forsaken of their reason, that have abandoned God; The blood of ABSALON and SHEBA proclaim the inevitable revenge of rebellion, which neither in woods nor walls can find safety. The late famine of Israel for the forgotten violence offered to the Gibeonites, shows what note God takes of our oaths, and what sure vengeance of their violation. DAVID'S muster seconded with the plague of Israel teaches, how highly God may be offended with sins of the least appearance, how severe to his own, how merciful in that severity. If these my thoughts shall be approved beneficial to any soul, I am rich. I shall vow my prayers to their success; and to the happiness of your Honourable Family, both in the root, and branches; Whereto I am in all  
Humble duty devoted, IOS: HALL..   

Contemplations.  
SHIMEI cursing.  
WITH an heavy heart, and a covered head, and a weeping eye, and bare feet, is David gone away from Jerusalem; never did he with more joy come up to his city, than now he left it with sorrow: how could he do otherwise, whom the insurrection of his own Son drove out from his house, from his throne, from the Ark of God? and now, when the depth of this grief deserved nothing but compassion, the foul mouth of Shimei entertains David with curses: There is no small cruelty in the picking out of a time for mischief; That word would scarce gall at one season, which at another killeth. The same shaft flying with the wind pierces deep, which against it, can hardly find strength to stick upright. The valour, and justice of children condemns it for injuriously cowardly to strike their adversary when he is once down. It is the murder of the tongue to insult upon those, whom God hath humbled, and to draw blood of that back, which is yet blue from the hand of the Almighty. If Shimei had not presumed upon David's dejection, he durst not have been thus bold; now he that perhaps durst not have looked at one of those Worthies single, defies them all at once, and doth both cast, and speak stones against David, and all his army. The malice of a base spirits sometimes carries them further than the courage of the valiant.  
In all the time of David's prosperity, we heard no news of Shimei; his silence and colourable obedience made him pass for a good subject; yet all that while was his heart unsound, and traitorous. Peace and good success hides many a false heart; (like as a snow-drift covers an heap of dung) which once melting away descries the rottenness that lay within: Honour and welfare are but flattering glasses of men's affections; adversity will not deceive us; but will make a true report as of our own powers, so of the dispositions of others.  
He that smiled on David in his throne, curseth him in his flight; if there be any quarrels, any exceptions to be taken against a man, let him look to have them laid in his dish when he fares the hardest. This practice have wicked men learned of their master to take the utmost advantages of our afflictions; He that suffers had need to be double armed, both against pain, and censure.  
Every word of Shimei was a slander; He that took Saul's spear from his head, and repented to have but cut the lap of his garment, is reproached as a man of blood; The man after Gods own heart is branded for a man of Belial. He that was sent for out of the fields to be anointed, is taxed for an usurper; If David's hands were stained with blood, yet not of Saul's house; it was his servant, not his master that bled by him; yet is the blood of the Lords anointed cast in David's teeth, by the spite of a false tongue. Did we not see David (after all the proofs of his humble loyalty) shedding the blood of that Amalakite who did but say he shed Saul's? Did we not hear him lament passionately for the death of so ill a master, chiding the mountains of Gilboa on which he fell; and angrily wishing that no dew might fall where that blood was poured out; and charging the daughters of Israel to weep over Saul, who had clothed them in scarlet? Did we not hear and see him enquiring for any remainder of the house of Saul, that he might show him the kindness of God? Did we not see him honouring lame Mephibosheth with a princely seat at his own table? Did we not see him revenging the blood of his rival Ishbosheth, upon the heads of Rechab and Baanah? What could any living man have done more to wipe off these bloody aspersions? Yet is not a Shimei ashamed to charge innocent David with all the blood of the house of Saul.  
How is it likely this clamorous wretch had secretly traduced the name of David, all the time of his government, that dares thus accuse him to his face, before all the mighty men of Israel, who were witnesses of the contrary? The greater the person is, the more open do his actions lie to misinterpretation, and censure. Every tongue speaks partially according to the interest he hath in the cause, or the patient. It is not possible that eminent persons should be free from imputations; Innocence can no more protect them, than power.  
If the patience of David can digest this indignity, his train cannot; their fingers could not but itch to return iron for stones. If Shimei rail on David, Abishai rails on Shimei; Shimei is of Saul's family, Abishai of David's; each speaks for his own; Abishai most justly bends his tongue against Shimei, as Shimei against David, most unjustly; Had Shimei been any other than a dog, he had never so rudely barked at an harmless passenger; neither could he deserve less than the loss of that head which had uttered such blasphemies against Gods anointed; The zeal of Abishai doth but plead for justice, and is checked; What have I to do with you ye sons of Zeruiah? David said not so much to his reviler, as to his abettor: He well saw that a revenge was just, but not seasonable; he found the present a fit time to suffer wrongs, not to right them: he therefore gives way rather meekly to his own humiliation, then to the punishment of another; There are seasons wherein lawful motions are not fit to be cherished; Anger doth not become a mourner; One passion at once is enough for the soul. Unadvised zeal may be more prejudicial, than a cold remissness.  
What if the Lord for the correction of his servant have said unto Shimei, Curse David; yet is Shimeys curse no less worthy of abishai's sword; the sin of Shimeys curse was his own, the smart of the curse was Gods; God wils that as David's chastisement, which he hates as Shimeys wickedness; That lewd tongue moved from God, it moved lewdly from Satan. Wicked men are never the freer from guilt, or punishment, for that hand which the holy God hath in their offensive actions; Yet David can say, Let him alone, and let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him; as meaning to give a reason of his own patience, rather than Shimeys impunity; the issue showed how well David could distinguish betwixt the act of God, and of a traitor; how he could both kiss the rod, and burn it; There can be none so strong motive of our meek submission to evils, as the acknowledgement of their original; He that can see the hand of God striking him by the hand or tongue of an enemy, shall more awe the first mover of his harm, then malign the instrument.  
Even whiles David laments the rebellion of his son, he gains by it; and makes that the argument of his patience, which was the exercise of it. Behold, my son which came forth of my bowels seeketh my life; how much more now may this Beniamite do it? The wickedness of an Absalon may rob his father of comfort, but shall help to add to his father's goodness; It is the advantage of great crosses, that they swallow up the less; One man's sin cannot be excused by another's, the lesser by the greater; If Absalon be a traitor, Shimei may not curse and rebel: But the passion conceived from the indignity of a stranger may be abated by the harder measure of our own; If we can therefore suffer because we have suffered, we have profited by our affliction. A weak heart faints with every addition of succeeding trouble; the strong recollects itself, and is grown so skilful that it bears off one mischief with another.  
It is not either the unnatural insurrection of Absalon, nor the unjust curses of Shimei, that can put David quite out of heart. It may be that the Lord will look on mine affliction, and will requite good for his cursing, this day. So well was David acquainted with the proceedings of God, that he knew cherishing was ever wont to follow stripes; after vehement evacuation, cordials; after a dark night, the clear light of the morning: Hope therefore doth not only uphold, but cheer up his heart, in the midst of his sorrow; If we can look beyond the cloud of our affliction, and see the Sunshine of comfort on the other side of it, we cannot be so discouraged with the presence of evil, as heartened with the issue; As on the contrary, let a man be never so merry within, and see pain and misery waiting for him at the door, his expectation of evil shall easily daunt all the sense of his pleasure; The retributions of temporal favours go but by Peradventures, It may be the Lord will look on mine affliction; of eternal, are certain and infallible; If we suffer, we shall reign; why should not the assurance of reigning make us triumph in suffering?  
David's patience draws on the insolence of Shimei. Evil natures grow presumptuous upon forbearance: In good dispositions, injury unanswered grows weary of itself, and dies in a voluntary remorse; but in those dogged stomaches, which are only capable of the restraints of fear, the silent digestion of a former wrong provokes a second; Mercy had need to be guided with wisdom, lest it prove cruel to itself.  
Oh the base minds of inconstant-Time-seruers! Stay but a while, till the wheel be a little turned; you shall see humble Shimei fall down on his face before David, in his return over jordan; now his submission shall equal his former rudeness; his prayers shall requite his curses, his tears make amends for his stones, Let not my Lord impute iniquity unto me; neither do thou remember that which thy servant did perversely, the day that my Lord the King went out of jerusalem, that the King should take it to heart; for thy servant doth know that I have sinned; False-hearted Shimei, had Absalon prospered, thou hadst not sinned, thou hadst not repent; then hadst thou bragged of thine insultation over his miseries, whose pardon thou now beggest with tears. The changes of worldly minds are thankless; since they are neither wrought out of conscience, nor love, but only by a slavish fear of a just punishment.  
David could say no more to testify his sorrow (for his heinous sins against God) to Nathan, than Shimei says of himself to David; whereto may be added the advantage of a voluntary confession in this offender, which in David was extorted by the reproof of a Prophet; yet is David's confession seriously penitent, Shimeys craftily hypocritical; Those alterations are justly suspected, which are shaped according to the times, and outward occasions; the true penitent looks only at God, and his sin, and is changed when all other things are themselves.  
Great offences had need of answerable satisfactions; As Shimei was the only man of the house of Benjamin that came forth and cursed David in his flight, so is he the first man (even before those of the house of joseph, though nearer in situation) that comes to meet David in his return with prayers and gratulation: Notorious offenders may not think to sit down with the task of ordinary services; The retributions of their obedience must be proportionable to their crimes.   

Achitophel.  
SO soon as David heard of Achitophel's hand in that conspiracy, he falls to his prayers, O Lord, I pray thee turn the counsel of Achitophel into foolishness; The known wisdom of his revolted counsellor made him a dangerous and dreadful adversary: Great parts misemployed cannot but prove most mischievous: when wickedness is armed with wit, and power, none but a God can defeat it; when we are matched with a strong and subtle enmity, it is high time (if ever) to be devout; If the bounty of God have thought good to furnish his creatures with powers to war against himself, his wisdom knows how to turn the abuse of those powers to the shame of the owners, and the glory of the giver.  
Oh the policy of this Machiavelli of Israel, no less deep, than hell itself: Go in to thy father's concubines, which he hath left to keep the house; and when all Israel shall hear that thou art abhorred of thy father, the hands of all that are with thee shall be strong. The first care must be to secure the faction: There can be no safety in siding with a doubtful rebel; if Absalon be a Traitor yet he is a son; Nature may return to itself; Absalon may relent, David may remit; where than are we that have helped to promote the conspiracy: the danger is ours, whiles this breach may be peeced; There is no way but to engage Absalon in some further act, uncapable of forgiveness; Besides the throne, let him violate the bed of his father; unto his treason let him add an incest, no less unnatural; now shall the world see that Absalon neither hopes, nor cares for the reconciliation of a father; Our quarrel can never have any safe end but victory; the hope whereof depends upon the resolution of our followers; they cannot be resolute, but upon the unpardonable wickedness of their leader; Neither can this villainy be shameful enough, if it be secret. The closeness of evil argues fear, or modesty; neither of which can beseem him that would be a successful traitor; Set up a tent on the top of the house, and let all Israel be witnesses of thy sin, and thy father's shame; Ordinary crimes are for vulgar offenders; Let Absalon sin eminently; and do that which may make the world at once to blush, and wonder.  
Who would ever have thought that Achitophel had lived at the Court, at the Council-table of a David? Who would think that mouth had ever spoken well? Yet had he been no other than as the Oracle of God to the religious Court of Israel; even whiles he was not wise enough to be good: Policy and grace are not always lodged under one roof; This man whiles he was one of David's deep Counsellors, was one of David's fools that said in their hearts, There is no God; Else he could not have hoped to make good an evil with worse, to build the success of treason upon incest.  
Profane hearts do so contrive the plots of their wickedness, as if there were no overruling power to cross their designs, or to revenge them: He that sits in heaven laughs them to scorn, and so far gives way to their sins, as their sins may prove plagues unto themselves.  
These two sons of David met with pestilent counsel: Amnon is advised to incest with his sister; Absalon is advised to incest with his father's Concubines; That by jonadab, this by Achitophel: Both prevail: It is as easy at least to take ill counsel, as to give it: Proneness to villainy in the great cannot want either projectors to devose, or parasites to execute the most odious and unreasonable sins.  
The tent is spread (lest it should not be conspicuous enough) on the top of the house, The act is done; in the sight of all Israel: The filthiness of the sin was not so great, as the impudency of the manner: When the prophet Nathan came with that heavy message of reproof, and menace to David, after his sin with Bathsheba, he could say from God, Behold I will raise up evil against thee, out of thine own house, and will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives, in the sight of this Sun: For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before this Sun. The counsel of Achitophel, and the lust of Absalon have fulfilled the judgement of God. Oh the wisdom of the Almighty, that can use the worst of evils, well; and most justly make the sins of men his executioners!  
It was the sin of Reuben that he defiled his father's bed; yet not in the same height of lewdness: what Reuben did in a youthful wantonness, Absalon did in a malicious despite; Reuben sinned with one; Absalon with ten; Reuben secretly, Absalon in the open eyes of heaven and earth; yet old jacob could say of Reuben, Thou shalt not excel; thy dignity is gone; Whiles Achitophel says to Absalon, Thy dignity shall arise from incest; Climb up to thy father's bed, if thou wilt sit in his throne; If Achitophel were a politician, jacob was a Prophet; if the one spoke from carnal sense, the other from divine revelation. Certainly, to sin is not the way to prosper; what ever vain fools may promise to themselves, there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord.  
After the rebellion is secured for continuance, the next care is that it may end in victory; this also hath the working head of Achitophel projected. Wit and experience told him that in these cases of assault, celerity uses to bring forth the happiest dispatch: whereas protraction is no small advantage to the defendant. Let me (saith he) choose out now twelve thousand men, and I will up, and follow after David this night; and I will come upon him while he is weary, and weak-handed. No advice could be more pernicious: For, besides the weariness, and unreadiness of David and his army, the spirits of that worthy leader were daunted, and dejected with sorrow, and offered way to the violence of a sudden assault. The field had been half won ere any blow stricken. Achitophel could not have been reputed so wise, if He had not learned the due proportion betwixt actions and times: He that observeth every wind shall never sow; but he that observes no Wind at all, shall never reap.  
The likeliest devices do not always succeed; The God that had appointed to establish David's throne, and determined Solomon to his succession, finds means to cross the plot of Achitophel, by a lesse-probable advice: Hushai was not sent back for nothing: where God hath in his secret will decreed any event, he inclines the wills of men to approve that which may promote his own purposes: Neither had Hushai so deep an head; neither was his counsel so sure, as that of Achitophel, yet his tongue shall refel Achitophel, and divert Absalon: The pretences were fairer; though the grounds were unsound; First, to sweeten his opposition, he yields the praise of wisdom to his adversary in all other counsels, that he may have leave to deny it in this; His very contradiction in the present insinuates a general allowance. Then, he suggests certain apparent truths concerning David's valour, and skill, to give countenance to the inferences of his improbabilities; Lastly, he cunningly feeds the proud humour of Absalon, in magnifying the power and extent of his commands, and ends in the glorious boasts of his forepromised victory; As it is with faces, so with counsel, that is fair that pleaseth. He that gives the utterance to words, gives also their speed: Favour both of speech and men is not ever according to desert, but according to fore-ordination: The tongue of Hushai, and the heart of Absalon is guided by a power above their own; Hushai shall therefore prevail with Absalon, that the treason of Absalon may not prevail; He that worketh all in all things, so disposeth of wicked men and spirits, that whiles they do most oppose his revealed will, they execute his secret, and whiles they think most to please, they overthrow themselves.  
When Absalon first met Hushai returned to Jerusalem, he upbraided him pleasantly with the scoff of his professed friendship to David; Is this thy kindness to thy friend? Sometimes there is more truth in the mouth then in the heart, more in jest then in earnest; Hushai was a friend, his stay was his kindness; and now he hath done that for which he was left at Jerusalem, disappointed Achitophel, preserved David; Neither did his kindness to his friend rest here, but (as one that was justly jealous of him, with whom he was allowed to temporize) he mistrusts the approbation of Absalon; and not daring to put the life of his master upon such an hazard, he gives charge to Zadok, and Abiathar of this intelligence unto David: we cannot be too suspicious when we have to do with those that are faithless: We cannot be too curious of the safety of good Princes.  
Hushai fears not to descry the secrets of Absaloms' counsel; To betray a traitor is no other than a commendable work; Zadok and Abiathar are fast within the gates of Jerusalem; their sons lay purposely abroad in the fields; this message that concerned no less than the life of David, and the whole kingdom of Israel, must be trusted with a maid: Sometimes it pleaseth the wisdom of God, who hath the variety of heaven and earth before him, to single out weak instruments for great services; and they shall serve his turn, as well as the best; No counsellor of state could have made this dispatch more effectually; jonathan and Ahimaaz are sent, descried, pursued, preserved; The fidelity of a maid instructed them in their message, the subtlety of a woman saved their lives. At the well of Rogel they received their message, in the Well of Bahurim was their life saved; The sudden wit of a woman hath choked the mouth of her Well with dried corn, that it might not bewray the messengers; and now David hears safely of his danger, and prevents it; and though weary with travel, and laden with sorrow, he must spend the night in his remove. God's promises of his deliverance, and the confirmation of his kingdom may not make him neglect the means of his safety: If he be faithful, we may not be careless; since our diligence and care are appointed for the factors of that divine providence; The acts of God must abate nothing of ours; rather must we ●abour, by doing that which he requireth, to further that which he decreeth.  
There are those that have great wits for the public, none for themselves: Such was Achitophel, who whiles he had powers to govern a state, could not tell how to rule his own passions: Never till now do we find his counsel balked; neither was it now rejected as ●ll, only Hushaies was allowed for better; he can live no longer now that he is beaten at his own weapon: this alone i● cause enough to saddle his Asse● and to go home, and put th● halter about his own neck Pride causes men both to misinterpret disgraces, and to overrate them; Now is David's praie● heard, Achitophel's counsel is turned into foolishness; Desperate Achitophel, what if thou be no● the wisest man of all Israel● Even those that have not attained to the highest pitch of wisdom, have found contentment in a mediocrity; what 〈◊〉 thy counsel were despised? 〈◊〉 wise man knows to live happily in spite of an unjust contempt: what madness is this 〈◊〉 revenge another man's reputation upon thyself? And whiles thou strivest for the highest room of wisdom, to run into the grossest extremity of folly? Worldly wisdom is no protection from shame and ruin. How easily may a man, though naturally wise, be made weary of life: A little pain, a little shame, a little loss, a small affront can soon rob a man of all comfort, and cause his own hands to rob him of himself; If there were not higher respects then the world can yield, to maintain us in being, it should be a miracle if indignation did not kill more than disease: now, that God by whose appointment we live here, for his most wise and holy purposes, hath found means to make life sweet, and death terrible.  
What a mixture do we find here of wisdom and madness? Achitophel will needs hang himself, there is madness; He will yet set his house in order; there is an act of wisdom; And could it be possible, that he who was so wise as to set his house in order, should be so mad as to hang himself? That he should be careful to order his house, who regarded not to order his impotent passions? That he should care for his house, who cared not for either body or soul? How vain it is for a man to be wise, if he be not wise in God? How preposterous are the cares of idle worldlings that prefer all other things to themselves, and whiles they look at what they have in their coffers, forget what they have in their breasts.   

The Death of Absalon.  
THE same God that raised enmity to David from his own loins, procured him favour from foreigners; Strangers shall relieve him, whom his own son persecutes; Here is not a loss, but an exchange of love: Had Absalon been a son of Ammon, and Shobi a son of David; David had found no cause of complaint: If God take with one hand, he gives with another: whiles that divine bounty serves us in, good meat, though not in our own dishes, we have good reason to be thankful. No sooner is David come to Mahanaim, than Barzillai, Machir, and Shobi refresh him with provisions; Who ever saw any child of God left utterly destitute? Whosoever be the messenger of our aid, we know whence he comes; Heaven shall want power, and earth means, before any of the household of faith shall want maintenance.  
He that formerly was forced to employ his arms for his defence against a tyrannous father in law, must now buckle them on against an unnatural son: Now therefore he musters his men, and ordains his commanders, and marshals his troops, and, since their loyal importunity will not allow the hazard of his person, he at once incourages them by his eye, and restrains them with his tongue, Deal gently with the young man Absalon, for my sake: How unreasonably favourable are the wars of a father? O holy David, what means this ill-placed love, this unjust mercy? Deal gently with a traitor? but of all traitors with a son? of all sons with an Absalon, the graceless darling of so good a father; and all this for thy sake, whose crown, whose blood he hunts after? For whose sake should Absalon be pursued, if he must be forborn for thine? He was still courteous to thy followers, affable to suitors, plausible to all Israel, only to thee he is cruel: Wherefore are those arms, if the cause of the quarrel must be a motive of mercy? Yet thou sayest, Deal gently with the young man Absalon, for my sake: Even in the holiest Parents nature may be guilty of an injurious tenderness, of a bloody indulgence.  
Or, whether shall we not rather think this was done in type of that unmeasurable mercy of the true king, and redeemer of Israel, who prayed for his persecutors, for his murderers; and even whiles they were at once scorning and killing him, could say, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do? If we be sons, we are ungracious, we are rebellious, yet still is our heavenly Father thus compassionately regardful of us: David was not sure of the success; there was great inequality in the number; Absaloms' forces were more than double to his; It might have come to the contrary issue, that David should have been forced to say, Deal gently with the father of Absalon; but, in a supposition of that victory, which only the goodness of his cause bade him hope for, he saith, Deal gently with the young man Absalon; as for us, we are never but under mercy; our God needs no advantages to sweep us from the earth, any moment, yet he continues that life, and those powers to us, whereby we provoke him, and bids his Angels deal kindly with us, and bear us in their arms, whiles we lift up our hands, and bend our tongues against heaven. O mercy past the comprehension of all finite spirits, and only to be conceived by him whose it is: Never more resembled by any earthly affection then by this of his Deputy and Type, Deal gently with the young man Absalon, for my sake.  
The battle is joined; David's followers are but an handful to Absaloms'? How easily may the fickle multitude be transported to the wrong side? What they wanted in abettors, is supplied in the cause. Unnatural ambition draws the sword of Absalon, David's, a necessary and just defence. They that in simplicity of heart followed Absalon, cannot in malice of heart, persecute the father of Absalon: with what courage could any Israelite draw his sword against a David? or on the other side, who can want courage to fight for a righteous Sovereign, and father, against the conspiracy of a wicked son? The God of hosts, with whom it is all one to save with many or with few, takes part with justice, and lets Israel feel, what it is to bear arms for a traitorous usurper. The sword devours twenty thousand of them, and the wood devours more than the sword, It must needs be a very universal rebellion, wherein so many perished; What virtue or merits can assure the hearts of the vulgar, when so gracious a Prince finds so many revolters? Let no man look to prosper by rebellion; the very thickets, and stakes, and pits, and wild beasts of the wood shall conspire to the punishment of traitors; Amongst the rest, see how a fatal oak hath singled out the ringleader of this hateful insurrection; and will at once serve for his hangman and gallows; by one of those spreading arms snatching him away to speedy execution. Absalon was comely, and he knew it well enough; His hair was no small piece of his beauty, nor matter of his pride: It was his wont to cut it once a year; not for that it was too long, but too heavy; his heart could have borne it longer, if his neck had not complained; And now, the justice of God hath plaited an halter of those locks; Those tresses, had formerly hanged loosely disheveled on his shoulders, now he hangs by them; He had wont to weigh his hair, and was proud to find it so heavy; now his hair poiseth the weight of his body, and makes his burden his torment: It is no marvel if his own hair turned traitor to him, who durst rise up against his father. That part which is misused by man to sin, is commonly employed by God to revenge; The revenge that it worketh for God, makes amends for the offence, whereto it is drawn against God; The very beast whereon Absalon sat, as weary to bear so unnatural a burden, resigns over his load to the tree of justice; There hangs Absalon between heaven and earth, as one that was hated, and abandoned both of earth, and heaven: As if God meant to prescribe this punishment for traitors, Absalon, Achitophel, and judas die all one death: So let them perish that dare lift up their hand against Gods anointed.  
The honest soldier sees Absalon hanging in the Oak, and dares not touch him; his hands were held with the charge of David, Beware that none touch the young man Absalon; joab, upon that intelligence, sees him, and smites him, with no less than three darts; What the soldier forbore in obedience, the Captain doth in zeal: not fearing to prefer his Sovereign's safety, to his command; and more tendering the life of a King, and peace of his Country, than the weak affection of a father; I dare not sit judge betwixt this zeal and that obedience; betwixt the captain and the Soldier; the one was a good subject, the other a good Patriot: the one loved the King, the other loved David; and out of love disobeyed; the one meant as well, as the other sped: As if God meant to fulfil the charge of his Anointed, without any blame of his subjects, it pleased him to execute that immediate revenge upon the rebel, which would have dispatched him without hand, or dart: only the Mule and the Oak conspired to this execution; but that death would have required more leisure, than it was safe for Israel to give; and still life would give hope of rescue; to cut off all fears, joab lends the Oak three darts to help forward so needful a work of justice: All Israel did not afford so firm a friend to Absalon, as joab had been; who but joab had suborned the witty widow of Tekoah, to sue for the recalling of Absalon, from his three years' exile? Who but he went to fetch him from Geshur to jerusalem? Who but he fetched him from his house at jerusalem (whereto he had been two years confined) to the face, to the lips of David? Yet now he that was his solicitor for the King's favour, is his executioner against the King's charge: With honest hearts all respects either of blood or friendship cease in the case of treason; well hath joab forgotten himself to be friend to him who had forgotten himself to be a son. Even civilly, the King is our common father; our country our common mother; nature hath no private relations which should not gladly give place to these; He is neither father, nor son, nor brother, nor friend that conspires against the common parent▪ Well doth he who spoke parables for his master's son, now speak darts to his King's enemy; and pierces that heart which was false to so good a father: Those darts are seconded by joabs' followers; each man tries his weapon upon so fair a mark. One death is not enough for Absalon; he is at once hanged, shot, mangled, stoned: justly was he lift up to the Oak, who had lift up himself against his father, and sovereign; justly is he pierced with darts, who had pierced his father's heart with so many sorrows; justly is he mangled, who had dismembered and divided all Israel; justly is he stoned, who had not only cursed, but pursued his own parent.  
Now joab sounds the retreat; and calls off his eager troops from execution; however he knew what his rebellious countrymen had deserved in following an Absalon; Wise commanders know how to put a difference betwixt the heads of a faction, and the misguided multitude; and can pity the one, whiles they take revenge on the other.  
So did Absalon esteem himself, that he thought it would be a wrong to the world, to want the memorial of so goodly a person. God had denied him sons; How just it was that he should want a son, who had robbed his father of a son, who would have robbed himself of a father, his father of a Kingdom? It had been pity so poisonous a plant should have been fruitful; His pride shall supply nature, he rears up a stately pillar in the King's dale, and calls it by his own name, that he might live in dead stones, who could not survive in living issue; and now, behold this curious pile ends in a rude heap, which speaks no language, but the shame of that carcase which it covers: Hear this ye glorious fools, that care not to perpetuate any memory of yourselves to the world, but of il-deseruing greatness; the best of this affectation is vanity; the worst, infamy and dishonour; whereas the memorial of the just shall be blessed; and if his humility shall refuse an Epitaph, and chose to hide himself under the bare earth, God himself shall engrave his name upon the pillar of eternity.  
There now lies Absalon in the pit, under a thousand gravestones, in every of which is written his everlasting reproach; well might this heap over-live that pillar; for when that ceased to be a pillar, it began to be an heap; neither will it cease to be a monument of Absaloms' shame, whiles there are stones to be found upon earth; Even at this day very Pagans and Pilgrims that pass that way, cast each man a stone unto that heap, and are wont to say in a solemn execration; Cursed be the parricide Absalon, and cursed be all unjust persecutors of their parents, for ever; Fasten your eyes upon this woeful spectacle, o all ye rebellious and ungracious children, which rise up against the loins and thighs from which ye fell: and know that it is the least part of your punishment, that your carcases rot in the earth, and your name in ignominy; these do but shadow out those eternal sufferings, of your souls, for your foul and unnatural disobedience.  
Absalon is sped; who shall report it to his father? Surely joab was not so much afraid of the fact, as of the message; There are busy spirits that love to carry news, though thankless, though purposelesse; such was Ahimaaz, the son of Zadock; who importunately thrusts himself into this service; wise joab, who well saw, how unwelcome tidings must be the burden of the first post, dissuades him in vain; he knew David too well to employ a friend in that errand. An Ethiopian servant was a fitter bearer of such a message, than the son of the Priest. The entertainment of the person doth so follow the quality of the news, that David could argue afar off, He is a good man, he cometh with good tidings. Oh how welcome deserve those messengers to be that bring us the glad tidings of salvation; that assure us of the foil of all spiritual enemies, and tell us of nothing but victories, and Crowns, and Kingdoms; If we think not their feet beautiful, our hearts are foul with infidelity, and secure worldliness.  
So wise is Ahimaaz grown by joabs' intimation, that though he outwent Cushi in his pace, he suffers Cushi to outgo him in his tale, cunningly suppressing that part, which he knew must be both necessarily delivered, and unpleasingly received.  
As our care is wont to be where our love is; David's first word is not, how fares the host, but how fares the young man Absalon: Like a wise, and faithful messenger, Cushi answers by an honest insinuation, The enemies of my Lord the King, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is; implying both what was done, and, why David should approve it being done; How is the good King thunderstruck with that word of his Blackamoor? who, as if he were at once bereaved of all comfort, and cared not to live, but in the name of Absalon, goes and weeps, and cries out, O my son Absalon, my son, my son Absalon; Would God I had died for thee, O Absalon, my son, my son. What is this we hear? that he whose life Israel valued at ten thousand of theirs, should be exchanged with a traitors? that a good King, whose life was sought, should wish to lay it down for the preservation of his murderer? The best men have not wont to be the least passionate; But what shall we say to that love of thine, o Saviour, who hast said of us wretched traitors, not, Would God I had died for you; But I will dye, I do dye, I have died for you; Oh love, like thyself, infinite, incomprehensible, whereat the Angels of Heaven stand yet amazed; wherewith thy Saints are ravished, Turn away thine eyes from me, for they overcome me▪ Oh thou that dwellest in the Gardens, the companions harken to thy voice, cause us to hear it; that we may in our measure answer thy love, and enjoy it for ever.   

sheba's Rebellion.  
IT was the doom which God passed upon the man after his own heart by the mouth of Nathan, that the sword should never depart from his house, for the blood of Vriah; After that wound healed by remission, yet this scar remains; Absalon is no sooner cast down into the pit, than Sheba the son of Bichri is up in arms; If David be not plagued, yet he shall be corrected; First by the rod of a son, then of a subject: He had lift up his hand against a faithful subject; now a faithless dares to lift up his hand against him; Malice like some hereditary sickness runs in a blood; Saul and Shimei, and Sheba were all of an house; That ancient grudge was not yet dead; The fire of the house of jemini was but raked up, never thoroughly out; and now, that which did but smoke in Shimei, flames in Sheba; Although even through this chastisement it is not hard to discern a Type, of that perpetual succession of enmity, which should be raised against the true King of Israel. O Son of David, when didst thou ever want enemies? How wert thou designed by thine eternal father, for a sign that should be spoken against? How did the Gentiles rage, and the people imagine vain things? The Kings of the earth assembled, and the Rulers came together against thee? Yea, how do the subjects of thine own kingdom daily conspire against thee? Even now whiles thou injoyest peace, and glory at thy Father's right hand, as soon shalt thou want friends, as enemies upon earth.  
No eye of any traitor could espy a just quarrel in the government of David, yet Sheba blows the trumpet of rebellion; and whiles Israel and judah are striving who should have the greatest part in their reestablished Sovereign, he sticks not to say, We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Ishai; and whiles he says, Every man to his tents O Israel, he calls every man to his own; So in proclaiming a liberty from a just and loyal subjection, he invites Israel to the bondage of an usurper.  
That a lewd conspirator should breathe treason, it is no wonder; but is it not wonder and shame, that upon every mutinous blast Israel should turn traitor to Gods anointed? It was their late expostulation with David, why their brethren the men of judah should have stolen him from them; now might David more justly expostulate, why a rebel of their brethren should have stolen them from him: As nothing is more unstable than the multitude, so nothing is more subject to distastes, than Sovereignty; for as weak minds seek pleasure in change; so every light conceit of irritation seems sufficient colour of change; Such as the false dispositions of the vulgar are, love cannot be security enough for Princes, without the awfulness of power; What hold can there be of popularity, when the same hands that even now fought for David to be all theirs, now fight against him, under the son of Bichri, as none of theirs? As Bees when they are once up in a swarm, are ready to light upon every bow, so the Israelites, being stirred by the late commotion of Absalon, are apt to follow every Sheba; It is unsafe for any State, that the multitude should once know the way to an insurrection; the least tract in this kind is easily made a path▪ Yet, if Israel rebel, judah continues faithful▪ Neither shall the son of David ever be left destitute of some true subjects in the worst of Apostasies: He that could command all hearts, will ever be followed by some; God had rather glorify himself by a remnant.  
Great commanders must have active thoughts; David is not so taken up with the embroiled affairs of his state, as not to intend domestic justice; His ten concubines, which were shamelessly defiled by his incestuous son, are condemned to ward, and widowhood; Had not that constupration been partly violent, their punishment had not been so easy; had it not also been partly voluntary, they had not been so much punished; But how much so ever the act did partake of either force, or will, justly are they sequestered from David's bed; Absalon was not more unnatural in his rebellion, then in his lust; If now David should have returned to his own bed, he had seconded the incest: How much more worthy of separation are they, who have stained the marriage bed with their wilful sin?  
Amasa was one of the witnesses, and abettors of Absaloms' filthiness, yet is he (out of policy) received to favour and employment, whiles the concubines suffer; Great men yield many times to those things, out of reasons of state, which if they were private persons could not be easily put over; It is no small wisdom to engage a new reconciled friend, that he may be confirmed by his own act: Therefore is Amasa commanded to levy the forces of judah: joab after many great merits and achievements lies rusting in neglect: he that was so entire with David as to be of his counsel for Vriahs' blood; and so firm to David, as to lead all his battles against the house of Saul, the Ammonites, the Aramites, Absalon is now cashiered, and must yield his place to a stranger, late an enemy: Who knows not that this son of Zeruiah had shed the blood of war in peace? But if the blood of Absalon had not been louder than the blood of Abner, I fear this change had not been; Now joab smarteth for a loyal disobedience; How slippery are the stations of earthly honours, and subject to continual mutability? Happy are they who are in favour with him, in whom there is no shadow of change.  
Where men are commonly most ambitious to please with their first employments, Amaza slackens his pace; The least delay in matters of rebellion is perilous, may be irrecoverable; The sons of Zeruiah are not sullen; Abishai is sent, joab goes unsent to the pursuit of Sheba. Amasa was in their way; whom no quarrel but their envy had made of a brother an enemy; Had the heart of Amasa been privy to any cause of grudge, he had suspected the kiss of joab; now his innocent eyes look to the lips, not to the hand of his secret enemy; The lips were smooth, Art thou in health, my brother; the hand was bloody, which smote him under the fifth rib; That unhappy hand knew well this way unto death; which with one wound hath let out the Souls of two great Captains, Abner and Amasa; Both they were smitten by joab, both under the fifth rib, both under a pretence of friendship. There is no enmity so dangerous as that which comes masked with love; Open hostility calls us to our guard; but there is no fence against a trusted treachery: we need not be bidden to avoid an enemy, but who would run away from a friend? Thus spiritually deals the world with our souls; it kisses us, and stabs us at once; If it did not embrace us with one hand, it could not murder us with the other; Only God deliver us from the danger of our trust, and we shall be safe.  
joab is gone, and leaves Amasa wallowing in blood; That spectacle cannot but stay all passengers; The death of great persons draws ever many eyes; Each man says, Is not this my Lord Amasa? Wherefore do we go to fight, whiles our General lies in the dust? What a sad presage is this of our own miscarriage? The wit of joabs' followers hath therefore soon both removed Amasa out of the way, and covered him; not regarding so much the loss, as the eyesore of Israel. Thus wicked Politics care not so much for the commission of villainy, as for the notice; Smothered evils are as not done; If oppressions, if murders, if treasons may be hid from view, the obdured heart of the offender complains not of remorse.  
Bloody joab, with what face, with what heart canst thou pursue a traitor to thy King, whiles thyself art so foul a traitor to thy friend, to thy cousin-german, and (in so unseasonable a slaughter) to thy Sovereign, whose cause thou professest to revenge? If Amasa were now in an act of loyalty, justly (on God's part) paid for the arrearages of his late rebellion, yet that it should be done by thy hand, then, and thus, it was flagitiously cruel; Yet, behold joab runs away securely with the fact, hasting to plague that in another, whereof himself was no less guilty; So vast are the gorges of some consciences, that they can swallow the greatest crimes, and find no strain in the passage.  
It is possible for a man to be faithful to some one person, and perfidious to all others; I do not find joab other then firm and loyal to David, in the midst of all his private falsehoods; whose just quarrel he pursues against Sheba, through all the Tribes of Israel. None of all the strong Forts of revolted Israel can hide the Rebel from the zeal of his revenge▪ The City of Abel lends harbour to that conspirator, whom all Israel would, and cannot protect; joab casts up a Mount against it, and having environed it with a siege, begins to work upon the wall; and now, after long chase, is in hand to dig out that Vermin, which had earthed himself in this borough of Beth-maachah. Had not the City been strong and populous, Sheba had not cast himself for succour within those walls; yet of all the inhabitants, I see not any one man move for the preservation of their whole body: Only a woman undertakes to treat with joab, for their safety: Those men whose spirits were great enough to maintain a traitor against a mighty King, scorn not to give way to the wisdom of a matron; There is no reason that Sex should disparage, where the virtue and merit is no less than masculine: Surely the soul acknowledgeth no Sex, neither is varied according to the outward frame; How oft have we known female hearts in the breasts of Men▪ and contrarily manly powers in the weaker vessels? It is injurious to measure the act by the person, and not rather to esteem the person for the act.  
She, with no less prudence than courage challengeth joab for the violence of his assault; and lays to him that law which he could not be an Israelite, and disavow; the Law of the God of peace; whose charge it was, that when they should come near to a City to fight against it, they should offer it peace; and if this tender must be made to foreigners, how much more to brethren? So as they must inquire of Abel, ere they battered it; War is the extreme act of vindicative justice; neither doth God ever approve it for any other than a desperate remedy; and if it have any other end then peace, it turns into public murder. It is therefore an inhuman cruelty to shed blood, where we have not proffered fair conditions of peace: the refusal whereof is justly punished with the Sword of revenge.  
joab was a man of blood, yet when the wise woman of Abel charged him with going about to destroy a mother in Israel; and swallowing up the inheritance of the Lord, with what vehemency doth he deprecate that challenge, God forbid, God forbid it me, that I should devour, or destroy it; Although that city with the rest had engaged itself in sheba's sedition, yet how zealously doth joab remove from himself the suspicion of an intended vastation? How fearful shall their answer be, who upon the quarrel of their own ambition have not spared to waste whole tribes of the Israel of God? It was not the fashion of David's Captains to assault any city ere they summoned it; here they did; There be some things that in the very fact carry their own conviction; So did Abel in the entertaining, and abetting a known conspirator; joab challenges them for the offence, and requires no other satisfaction than the head of Sheba; This Matron had not deserved the name of Wife, and faithful in Israel, if she had not both apprehended the justice of the condition, and commended it to her Citizens; whom she hath easily persuaded to spare their own heads, in not sparing a Traitors; It had been pity those walls should have stood if they had been too high to throw a Traitor's head over.  
Spiritually, the case is ours: Every man's breast is as a city enclosed; Every sin is a traitor, that lurks within those walls; God calls to us for sheba's head; neither hath he any quarrel to our person, but for our sin: If we love the head of our Traitor, above the life of our soul, we shall justly perish in the vengeance: we cannot be more willing to part with our sin, than our merciful God is to withdraw his judgements.  
Now is joab returned with success, and hopes by sheba's head to pay the price of amasa's blood; David hates the murder, entertains the man, defers the revenge; joab had made himself so great, so necessary, that David may neither miss, nor punish him: Policy led the King to connive at that which his heart abhorred; I dare not commend that wisdom which holds the hands of Princes from doing justice; Great men have ever held it a point of worldly state, not always to pay where they have been conscious to a debt of either favour, or punishment; but to make Time their servant for both; Solomon shall once defray the arrearages of his father; In the mean time joab commands and prospers; and David is fain to smile on that face, whereon he hath in his secret destination written the characters of Death.   

The Gibeonites revenged.  
THE reign of David was most troublesome towards the shutting up; wherein both war and famine conspire to afflict him; Almost forty years had he sat in the throne of Israel, with competency, if not abundance of all things; now at last are his people visited with a long dearth; we are not at first sensible of common evils; Three years drought and scarcity are gone over ere David consults, with God, concerning▪ the occasion of the judgement, now he found it high time to seek the face of the Lord; The continuance of an affliction sends us to God, and calls upon us to ask for a reckoning; Whereas like men strucken in their sleep, a sudden blow cannot make us to find ourselves; but rather astonisheth, then teacheth us.  
David was himself a Prophet of God, yet had not the Lord all this while acquainted him with the grounds of his proceedings against Israel; this secret was hid from him, till he consulted with the Vrim; Ordinary means shall reveal that to him, which no vision had descried; And if God will have Prophets to have recourse unto the Priests, for the notice of his will; how much more must the people? Even those that are the inwardest with God must have use of the Ephod.  
justly is it presupposed by David that there was never judgement from God, where hath not been a provocation from men; therefore when he sees the plague, he inquires for the sin. Never man smarted causelessly from the hand of divine justice; Oh that when we suffer, we could ask what we have done; and could guide our repentance to the root of our evils.  
That God whose counsels are secret, even where his actions are open, will not be close to his Prophet, to his Priest: without inquiry we shall know nothing; upon inquiry nothing shall be concealed from us, that is fit for us to know.  
Who can choose but wonder at once both at David's slackness in consulting with God, and God's speed in answering so slow a demand? He that so well knew the way to God's Oracle, suffers Israel to be three years pinched with famine, ere he asks why they suffer; Even the best hearts may be overtaken with dulness in holy duties; But oh the marvelous mercy of our God, that takes not the advantage of our weaknesses; David's question is not more slow, than his answer is speedy, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. Israel was full of sins, besides those of Saul's house; Saul's house was full of sins besides those of blood; Much blood was shed by them besides that of the Gibeonites; yet the justice of God singles out this one sin of violence offered to the Gibeonites (contrary to the league made by joshua, some four hundred years before) for the occasion of this late vengeance. Where the causes of offence are infinite, it is just with God to pitch upon some; it is merciful not to punish for all: Wellnear forty years are passed betwixt the commission of the sin, and the reckoning for it. It is a vain hope that is raised from the delay of judgement; No time can be any prejudice to the ancient of days; When we have forgotten our sins, when the world hath forgotten us, he sues us afresh for our arrearages. The slaughter of the Gibeonites was the sin not of the present, but rather the former generation; and now posterity pays for their forefathers; Even we men hold it not unjust to sue the heirs and executors of our debtors▪ Eternal payments God uses only to require of the person, temporary ofttimes of succession.  
As Saul was higher by the head and shoulders than the rest of Israel, both in stature and dignity, so were his sins more conspicuous than those of the vulgar. The eminence of the person makes the offence more remarkable to the eyes both of God and men.  
Neither Saul nor Israel were faultless in other kinds; yet God fixes the eye of his revenge upon the massacre of the Gibeonites, Every sin hath a tongue, but that of blood over cries▪ and drowns the rest. He who is mercy itself abhors cruelty in his creature above all other inordinateness; That holy soul which was heavy pressed with the weight of an heinous adultery, yet cries out, Deliver me from blood, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing joyfully of thy righteousness.  
If God would take account of blood, he might have entered the action upon the blood of Vriah spilt by David; or (if he would rather insist in Saul's house) upon the blood of Ahimelech the Priest; and fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen Ephod; but it pleased the wisdom and justice of the Almighty rather to call for the blood of the Gibeonites, though drudges of Israel, and a remnant of Amorites; Why this? There was a perjury attending upon this slaughter; It was an ancient oath, wherein the Princes of the Congregation had bound themselves (upon Iosua●s league) to the Gibeonites, that they would suffer them to live; an oath extorted by fraud, but solemn, by no less name, than the Lord God of Israel; Saul will now thus late either not acknowledge it; or not keep it; out of his zeal therefore to the children of Israel, and judah, he roots out some of the Gibeonites, whether in a zeal of revenge of their first imposture, or in a zeal of enlarging the possessions of Israel, or in a zeal of executing God's charge upon the brood of Canaanites, he that spared Agag whom he should have smitten, smites the Gibeonites whom he should have spared: Zeal and good intention is no excuse, much less a warrant for evil; God holds it an high indignity that his name should be sworn by, and violated. Length of time cannot dispense with our oaths, with our vows; The vows and oaths of others may bind us, how much more our own?  
There was a famine in Israel; a natural man would have ascribed it unto the drought; and that drought perhaps to some constellations; David knows 〈◊〉 look higher; and sees a divine hand scourging Israel for some great offence; and overruling those second causes to his most just executions. Even the most quicksighted worldling is purblind to spiritual objects; and the weakest eyes of the regenerate pierce the Heavens, and espy God in all earthly occurrences.  
So well was David acquainted with God's proceedings, that he knew the removal of the judgement must begin at the satisfaction of the wronged; At once therefore doth he pray unto God, and treat with the Gibeonites; What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that I may bless the inheritance of the Lord? In vain should David (though a Prophet) bless Israel, if the Gibeonites did not bless them: Injuries done us on earth give us power in heaven; The oppressor is in no man's mercy but his whom he hath trampled upon.  
Little did the Gibeonites think that God had so taken to heart their wrongs, that for their sakes all Israel should suffer. Even when we think not of it, is the righteous judge avenging our unrighteous vexations; Our hard measures cannot be hid from him, his returns are hid from us; It is sufficient for us, that God can be no more neglective than ignorant of our sufferings. It is now in the power of these despised Hiuites to make their own terms with Israel; Neither Silver, nor Gold will savour with them towards their satisfaction; Nothing can expiate the blood of their fathers, but the blood of seven sons of their deceased persecutor; Here was no other than a just retaliation; Saul had punished in them the offence of their predecessors▪ they will now revenge Saul's sin in his children. The measure we meet unto others, is with much equity remeasured unto ourselves. Every death would not content them, of Saul's sons, but a cursed and ignominious, hanging on the Tree; Neither would that death content them, unless their own hands might be the executioners; Neither would any place serve for the execution but Gibeah, the Court of Saul; neither would they do any of this for the wreaking of their own fury, but for the appeasing of God's wrath, We will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul.  
David might not refuse the condition: He must deliver, they must execute: He chooses out seven of the sons, and grandchildren of Saul; That House had raised long an unjust persecution against David; now God pays it upon another's score. David's love and oath to jonathan, preserves lame Mephibosheth▪ How much more shall the Father of all mercies do good unto the children of the faithful, for the covenant made with their Parents?  
The five sons of Adriel the Meholathite, David's ancient rival in his first love, which were borne to him by Merab, Saul's Daughter, and brought up by her barren sister Michol, the wife of David, are yielded up to death; Merab was after a promise of marriage to David, unjustly given away by Saul, to Adriel; Michol seems to abet the match in breeding the children; now in one act (not of David's seeking) the wrong is thus late avenged upon Saul, Adriel, Merab, Michol, the children: It is a dangerous matter to offer injury to any of God's faithful ones; If their meekness have easily remitted it, their God will not pass it over without a severe retribution.  
These five, together with two sons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine, are hanged up at once before the Lord; yea and before the eyes of the World; No place but an Hill will serve for this execution; The acts of justice as they are intended for example, so they should be done in that eminent fashion that may make them both most instructive, and most terrifying; unwarrantable courses of private revenge seek to hide their heads in secrecy; The beautiful face of justice both affects the light, and becomes it.  
It was the general charge of God's Law that no corpse should remain all night upon the gibbet; The Almighty hath power to dispense with his own command; so doubtless he did in this extraordinary case; these carcases did not defile, but expiate. Sorrowful Rizpah spreads her a Tent of Sackcloth upon the rock, for a sad attendance upon those sons of her womb; Death might bereave her of them, not them of her love; This spectacle was not more grievous to her, then pleasing to God, and happy to Israel; Now the clouds drop fatness, and the earth runs forth into plenty. The Gibeonites are satisfied, God reconciled, Israel relieved.  
How blessed a thing it is for any Nation that justice is unpartially executed even upon the mighty. A few drops of blood have procured large showers from Heaven. A few carcases are a rich compost to the earth; The drought and dearth remove away with the breath of those pledges of the offender; judgements cannot tyrannize where justice reigns: as contrarily, there can be no peace where blood cries unheard, unregarded.   

The Numbering of the people.  
ISRAEL was grown wanton and mutinous; God pulls them down first by the sword, then by famine, now by pestilence; Oh the wondrous, and yet just ways of the Almighty! Because Israel hath sinned, therefore David shall sin that Israel may be punished; Because God is angry with Israel, therefore David shall anger him more, and strike himself in Israel, and Israel through himself.  
The spirit of God elsewhere ascribes this motion to Satan, which here it attributes to God; Both had their hand in the work; God by permission, Satan by suggestion; God as a judge, Satan as an enemy: God as in a just punishment for sin, Satan as in an act of sin; God in a wise ordination of it to good; Satan in a malicious intent of confusion; Thus at once God moved, and Satan moved; Neither is it any excuse to Satan or David, that God moved; neither is it any blemish to God, that Satan moved; The ruler's sin is a punishment to a wicked people: though they had many sins of their own, whereon God might have grounded a judgement, yet as before he had punished them with dearth for Saul's sin, so now he will not punish them with plague, but for David's sin; If God were not angry with a people, he would not give up their governors to such evils as whereby he is provoked to vengeance; and if their governors be thus given up, the people cannot be safe; The body drowns not whiles the head is above the water; when that once sinks▪ death is near, justly therefore ere we charged to make prayers and supplications, as for all, so especially for those that are in eminent authority▪ when we pray for ourselves, we pray not always for them, but we cannot pray for them, and not pray for ourselves; the public weal is not comprised in the private, but the private in the public.  
What then was David's sin? He will needs have Israel and judah numbered: Surely there is no malignity in numbers; Neither is it unfit for a Prince to know his own strength; this is not the first time that Israel hath gone under a reckoning▪ The act offends not, but the mis-affection; The same thing had been commendably done out of a Princely providence, which now through the curiosity, pride, misconfidence of the doer proves heinously vicious; Those actions which are in themselves indifferent, receive either their life, or their bane from the intentions of the agent. Moses numbereth the people with thanks, David with displeasure: Those sins which carry the smoothest foreheads, and have the most honest appearances, may more provoke the wrath of God, than those which bear the most abomination in their faces. How many thousand wickednesses passed through the hands of Israel, which we men would rather have branded out for a judgement, than this of David's? The righteous judge of the world censures sins, not by their ill looks, but by their soul hearts.  
Who can but wonder to see joab the Saint, and David the trespasser? No Prophet could speak better than that man of blood; The Lord thy God increase the people an hundred fold more than they be; and that the eyes of my Lord the King may see it; But why doth my Lord the King desire this thing? There is no man so lewd as not to be sometimes in good moods, as not to dislike some evil; contrarily no man on earth can be so holy, as not sometimes to overlash, It were pity that either joab or David should be tried by every act; How commonly have we seen those men ready to give good advice to others for the avoiding of some sins; who in more gross▪ outrages have not had grace to counsel their own hearts? The same man that had deserved death from David for his treacherous cruelty, dissuades David from an act that carried but a suspicion of evil; It is not so much to be regarded who it is that admonisheth us, as what he brings; Good counsel is never the worse for the▪ foul carriage▪ There are some dishes that we may eat even from sluttish hands.  
The purpose of sin in a faithful man is odious, much more the resolution: Notwithstanding joabs' discreet admonition David will hold on his course; and will know the number of the people, only that he may know it; joab and the Captains address themselves to the work: In things which are not in themselves evil, it is not for subjects to dispute but to obey; That which authority may sin in commanding, is done of the inferior, not with safety only, but with praise. Nine months and twenty days is this general muster in hand; at last the number is brought in; Israel is found eight hundred thousand strong, judah five hundred thousand; the ordinary companies which served by course for the royal guard (four and twenty thousand each month) needed not be reckoned; the addition of them with their several Captains raises the sum of Israel to the rate of eleven hundred thousand. A power able to puff up a carnal heart; but how can an heart that is more than flesh trust to an arm of flesh? Oh holy David, whither hath a glorious vanity transported thee? Thou which once didst sing so sweetly, Put not your trust in Princes, nor in the son of man, for there is no help in him. His breath departeth, and he returneth to his earth, than his thoughts perish; Blessed is he that hath the God of jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God; How canst thou now stoop to so unsafe and unworthy a confidence?  
As some stomachful horse that will not be stopped in his career with the sharpest bit, but runs on heddily till he come to some wall, or ditch, and then stands still and trembles; so did David; All the dissuasions of joab could not restrain him from his intended course; almost ten months doth he run on impetuously, in a way of his own, rough and dangerous, at last his heart smites him; the conscience of his offence, and the fear of judgement have fetched him upon his knees, O Lord I have sinned exceedingly in that I have done; therefore now▪ Lord, I beseech thee take away the trespass of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly. It is possible for a sin not to bait only, but to sojourn in the holiest soul; but though it sojourn there as a stranger, it shall not dwell there as an owner. The renewed heart after some rovings of error will once (ere overlong) return home to itself, and fall out with that ill guide, wherewith it was misled, and with itself for being misled; and now it is resolved into tears, and breathes forth nothing but sighs, and confessions, and deprecations.  
here needed no Nathan by a parabolical circumlocution to fetch in David to a sight, and acknowledgement of his sin; The heart of the penitent supplied the Prophet; no others tongue could smite him so deep as his own thoughts; But though his reins chastisd him in the night, yet his Seer scourges him in the morning, Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do unto thee. But what shall we say to this? When upon the Prophet's reproof for an adultery cloaked with murder, David did but say, I have sinned, it was presently returned, God hath put away thy sin; neither did any smart follow, but the death of a misbegotten infant; and now when he voluntarily reproved himself for but a needless muster, and sought for pardon unbidden with great humiliation, God sends him three terrible scourges, famine, sword, or pestilence; that he may choose with which of them he had rather to bleed▪ he shall have the favour of an election, not of a remission. God is more angered with a spiritual, and immediate affront offered to his Majesty, in our pride, and false confidence in earthly things, then with a fleshly crime though heinously seconded.  
It was an hard and woeful choice; of three years' famine added to the three forepast; or of three months flight from the sword of an enemy, or three day's pestilence; The Almighty that had fore determined his judgement, refers it to David's will as fully, as if it were utterly undetermined, God hath resolved, yet David may choose; That infinite wisdom hath foreseen the very will of his creature; which whiles it freely inclines itself to what it had rather, unwittingly wills that which was fore-appointed in heaven.  
We do well believe thee, o David, that thou wert in a wonderful strait; this very liberty is no other than fetters▪ Thou needst not have famine, thou needst not have the sword, thou needst not have pestilence; one of them thou must have; There is misery in all, there is misery in any; thou and thy people can die but once; and once they must die, either by famine, war, or pestilence. Oh God, how vainly do we hope to pass over our sins with impunity, when all the favour that David and Israel can receive is to choose their bane?  
Yet behold, neither sins, nor threats, nor fears can bereave a true penitent of his faith, Let us fall now into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great. There can be no evil of punishment wherein God hath not an hand; there could be no famine, no sword without him; but some evils are more immediate from a divine stroke; such was that plague into which David is unwillingly willing to fall, He had his choice of days, months, years in the same number; and though the shortness of time prefixed to the threatened pestilence might seem to offer some advantage for the leading of his election, yet God meant (and David knew it) herein to proportion the difference of time to the violence of the plague; neither should any fewer perish by so few day's pestilence, then by so many years' famine: The wealthiest might avoid the dearth, the swiftest might run away from the Sword; no man could promise himself safety from that pestilence: In likelihood God's Angel would rather strike the most guilty; How ever therefore David might well look to be in wrapped in the common destruction, yet he rather chooses to fall into that mercy which he had abused, and to suffer from that justice which he had provoked; Let us now fall into the hands of the Lord.  
Humble confessions, and devout penance cannot always avert temporal judgements; Gods Angel is abroad, and within that short compass of time sweeps away seventy thousand Israelites; David was proud of the number of his subjects, now they are abated; that he may see cause of humiliation in the matter of his glory; In what we have offended, we commonly smart; These thousands of Israel were not so innocent, that they should only perish for David's sin; Their sins were the motives both of this sin, and punishment; besides the respect of David's offence, they die for themselves.  
It was no ordinary pestilence that was thus suddenly and universally mortal; Common eyes saw the botch, and the marks, saw not the Angel; David's clearer sight hath espied him (after that kill peragration through the Tribes of Israel) shaking his sword over jerusalem, and hover over Mount Zion; and now he who doubtless had spent those three dismal days in the saddest contrition, humbly casts himself down at the feet of the avenger, and lays himself ready for the fatal stroke of justice; It was more terror that God intended in the visible shape of his Angel, and deeper humiliation; and what he meant, he wrought; Never Soul could be more dejected, more anguished with the sense of a judgement; in the bitterness whereof he cries out, Behold I have sinned, yea I have done wickedly; But these Sheep what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house. The better any man is, the more sensible he is of his own wretchedness; Many of those Sheep were Wolves to David; What had they done? They had done that which was the occasion of David's sin, and the cause of their own punishment; But that gracious penitent knew his own sin, he knew not theirs; and therefore can say, I have sinned, What have they done? It is safe accusing, where we may be boldest, and are best acquainted, ourselves.  
Oh the admirable charity of David, that would have engrossed the plague to himself, and his house, from the rest of Israel; and sues to interpose himself betwixt his people and the vengeance; He that had put himself upon the paws of the Bear, and Lion, for the rescue of his Sheep, will now cast himself upon the sword of the Angel, for the preservation of Israel; There was hope in those conflicts; in this yeeldance there could be nothing but death; Thus didst thou, O son of David, the true and great Shepherd of thy Church, offer thyself to death for them who had their hands in thy blood; who both procured thy death, and deserved their own. Here he offered himself that had sinned, for those whom he professeth to have not done evil; thou that didst no sin, vouchsavedst to offer thyself for us, that were all sin; He offered and escaped, thou offeredst, and diedst; and by thy death we live, and are freed from everlasting destruction.  
But, O Father of all mercies, how little pleasure dost thou take in the blood of sinners? it was thine own pity that inhibited the destroyer; Ere David could see the Angel, thou hadst restrained him; It is sufficient, hold now thine hand; If thy compassion did not both withhold and abridge thy judgements, what place were there for us out of hell?  
How easy and just had it been for God to have made the shutting up of that third evening red with blood? His goodness reputes of the slaughter; and calls for that Sacrifice wherewith he will be appeased; An Altar must be built in the threshing-floor of Araunah the jebusite; Lo, in that very Hill where the Angel held the sword of Abraham from killing his Son, doth God now hold the Sword of the Angel from killing his people; Upon this very ground shall the Temple, after, stand; here shall be the holy Altar, which shall send up the acceptable oblations of God's people in succeeding generations.  
O God, what was the threshing-floor of a jebusite to thee above all other soils? What virtue, what merit was in this earth? As in places, so in persons, it is not to be heeded what they are, but what thou wilt; That is worthiest which thou pleasest to accept.  
Rich and bountiful Araunah is ready to meet David in so holy a motion; and munificently offers his Zion for the place, his Oxen for the Sacrifice, his Carts and Ploughs, and other Utensils of his Husbandry for the wood; Two frank hearts are well met; David would buy, Araunah would give; The jebusite would not sell, David will not take: Since it was for God, and to David, Araunah is loath to bargain: Since it was for God, David wisheth to pay dear, I will not offer burnt Offering to the Lord my God, of that which doth cost me nothing; Heroical spirits do well become eminent persons; He that knew it was better to give then receive, would not receive but give; There can be no devotion in a niggardly heart; As unto dainty palates, so to the godly soul, that tastes sweetest that costs most; Nothing is dear enough for the Creator of all things. It is an heartless piety of those base-minded Christians, that care only to serve God good cheap.   

Contemplations. THE SEVENTEENTH BOOK. 

Adonijah defeated.  
David's end and Salomon's beginning.  
The execution of joab and Shimei.  
Salomon's choice, with his judgement upon the two Harlots.  
The Temple.  
Solomon with the Queen of Sheba.  
Salomon's Defection.     

TO MY WORTHILY MUCH HONOURED FRIEND Sr HENRY MILDMAY Knight, Master of the jewell-house; all grace and peace.  
SIR,  
Besides all private obligations, your very name challengeth from me all due services of love, and honour; If I have received mercy to bear any fruit, next under heaven, I may thank the stock wherein I was ymped; which was set by no other than the happy hand of your right Honourable Grandfather; How have I so long forborn the public Testimony of my just gratulations, and thankful respects to so true an heir of his noble virtues. Pardon me that I pay this debt so late; and accept of this parcel of my well-meant labours; Wherein you shall see SALOMON both in his rising and setting; his rising hopeful and glorious, his declination fearful; You shall see the proofs of his early graces; of mercy, in sparing ADONIIAH, and ABIATHAR; of justice, in punishing that rival of his, with JOAB, and SHIMEI; of wisdom, in his award betwixt the two harlots, and the administration of his Court, and state: of piety, in building and hallowing the Temple; all dashed in his fall, repaired in his repentance. I have no cause to misdoubt either the acceptation, or use of these mine high pitched thoughts; which, together with your self, and your worthy and virtuous Lady, I humbly commend to the care and blessing of the highest; who am bound by your worth and merits to be ever  
Your sincerely, and thankfully devoted in all observance, IOS: HALL..   

Contemplations.  
ADONIJAH Defeated.  
DAVID had not so carefully husbanded his years, as to maintain a vigorous age; he was therefore what through wars, what with sorrows, what with sickness, decrepit betimes; By that time he was seventy years old, his natural heat was so wasted, that his clothes could not warm him; how many have we known of more strength, at more age? The holiest soul dwells not in an impregnable fort; If the revenging Angel spared David, yet age and Death will not spare him; Neither his new altar, nor his costly sacrifice can be of force against decay of nature; Nothing but death can prevent the weaknesses of age.  
None can blame a people if when they have a good King, they are desirous to hold him; David's servants and subjects have commended unto his bed a fair young virgin; not for the heat of lust, but of life; that by this means they might make an outward supplie of fuel for that vital fire which was well-near extinguished with age.  
As it is in the market, or the stage, so it is in our life; One goes in, another comes out; when David was withering, Adonijah was in his blossom; That son, as he was next to Absalon both in the beauty of his body, and the time of his birth, so, was he too like him in practice; He also taking advantage of his father's infirmity, will be carving himself of the kingdom of Israel; That he might no whit vary from his pattern, he gets him also Charets and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him: These two, Absalon and Adonijah were the darlings of their father; Their father had not displeased them from their childhood, therefore they both displeased him in his age; Those children had need to be very gracious, that are not marred with pampering; It is more than God owes us, if we receive comfort in those children whom we have overloved; The indulgence of parents at last pays them home in crosses.  
It is true that Adonijah was David's▪ eldest son now remaining, and therefore might seem to challenge the justest title to the Crown; But the kingdom of Israel (in so late an erection) had not yet known the right of succession: God himself that had ordained the government, was as yet the immediate elector; He fetched Saul from among the stuff, and David from the sheepfold; and had now appointed Solomon from the ferule, to the Sceptre.  
And if Adonijah (which is unlike) had not known this, yet it had been his part to have taken his father with him in this claim of his succession; and not so to prevent a brother, that he should shoulder out a father; and not so violently to preoccupate the throne, that he should rather be a rebel, than an heir.  
As Absalon, so Adonijah wants not furtherers in this usurpation, whether spiritual, or temporal; joab the General, and Abiathar the Priest give both counsel, and aid to so unseasonable a challenge; These two had been firm to David in all his troubles, in all insurrections; yet now finding him fastened to the bed of age, and death, they show themselves thus slippery in the loose; Outward happiness and friendship are not known till our last act. In the impotency of either our revenge or recompense, it will easily appear who loved us for ourselves, who for their own ends.  
Had not Adonijah known that Solomon was designed to the kingdom both by God, and David, he had never invited all the rest of the King's sons, his brethren, and left out Solomon; who was otherwise the most unlikely to have been his rival in this honour; all the rest were elder than he; and might therefore have had more pretence for their competition: Doubtless the Court of Israel could not but know, that immediately upon the birth of Solomon, God sent him by Nathan the Prophet, a name and message of love; neither was it for nothing that God called him jedidiah; and forepromised him the honour of building an house to his Name; and (in return of so glorious a service) the establishment of the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever; Notwithstanding all which, Adonijah backed by the strength of a joab, and the gravity of an Abiathar, will underworke Solomon, and justle into the not-yet-vacant seat of his father David. Vain men, whiles like proud and yet brittle clay, they will be knocking their sides against the solid, and eternal decree of God, break themselves in pieces.  
I do not find that Adonijah sent any message of threats, or unkindness to Zadok the Priest, or Nathan the Prophet, or Benaiah the son of jehoiada, and the other worthies; only he invited them not to his feast with the King's sons, and servants; Sometimes a very omission is an affront, and a menace. They well knew that since they were not called as guests, they were counted as enemies; Ceremonies of courtesy, though they be in themselves sleight, and arbitrary, yet the neglect of them in some cases may undergo a dangerous construction.  
Nathan was the man by whom God had sent that errand of grace to David, concerning Solomon, assuring him both to reign, and prosper; yet now when Adonijah's plot was thus on foot, he doth not sit still, and depend upon the issue of God's decree, but he bestirs him in the business, and consults with Bathsheba how at once to save their lives, and to advance Solomon, and defeat Adonijah; God's pre-determination includes the means as well as the end; the same providence that had ordained a crown to Solomon, a repulse to Adonijah, preservation to Bathsheba and Nathan, had fore-appointed the wise and industrious endeavours of the Prophet to bring about his just, and holy purposes; If we would not have God wanting to us, we must not be wanting to ourselves: Even when we know what God hath meant to us, we may not be negligent.  
The Prophets of God did not look for revelation in all their affairs, in some things they were left to the counsel of their own hearts; the policy of Nathan was of use as well as his prophecy: that alone hath turned the stream into the right channel; Nothing could be more wisely contrived then the sending in of Bathsheba to David, with so seasonable and forceable an expostulation, and the seconding of hers with his own.  
Though lust were dead in David, yet the respects of his old matrimonial love lived still; the very presence of Bathsheba pleaded strongly; but her speech more; the time was, when his affection offended in excess towards her being then another's; he cannot now neglect her being his own; and if either his age, or the remorse of his old offence should have set him off; yet she knew his oath was sure; My Lord thou swarest by the Lord thy God unto thine handmaid, saying, Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne; His word had been firm, but his oath was inviolable; we are engaged if we have promised, but if we have sworn, we are bound.  
Neither heaven nor earth hath any gyves for that man that can shake off the fetters of an oath; for he cares not for that God whom he dares invoke to a falsehood; and he that cares not for God, will not care for man.  
Ere Bathsheba can be over the threshold, Nathan (upon compact) is knocking at the door. God's Prophet was never but welcome to the bedchamber of King David; In a seemiug strangeness he falls upon the same suit, upon the same complaint with Bathsheba: Honest policies do not misbecome the holiest Prophets; She might seem to speak as a woman, as a mother, out of passion; the word of a Prophet could not be misdoubted; He therefore that had formerly brought to David that chiding and bloody message concerning Bathsheba, comes now to David, to sue for the life and honour of Bathsheba, and he that was sent from God (to David) to bring the news of a gracious promise of favour unto Solomon, comes now to challenge the execution of it from the hands of a father; and he whose place freed him from suspicion of a faction, complains of the insolent demeanour and proclamation of Adonijah; What he began with an humble obeisance, shutting up in a lowly and loving expostulation, Is this thing done by my Lord the King, and thou hast not showed thy servant who should sit on the Throne of my Lord the King after him? As Nathan was of God's counsel unto David, so was he of David's Counsel both to God, and the State; As God therefore upon all occasions told Nathan what he meant to do with David, so had David wont to tell Nathan what he meant to do in his holy and most important civil affairs. There are cases wherein it is not unfit for God's Prophets to meddle with matters of State; It is no disparagement to religious Princes to impart their counsels unto them, who can requite them with the counsels of God.  
That wood which a single iron could not rive, is soon split with a double wedge; The seasonable importunity of Bathsheba and Nathan, thus seconding each other, hath so wrought upon David, that now his love to Adonijah gives place to indignation, nature to an holy fidelity; and now he renews his ancient oath to Bathsheba with a passionate solemnity; As the Lord liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity, even as I swore unto thee by the Lord God of Israel, saying, Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne in my stead; so will I certainly do this day; In the decay of David's body I find not his intellective powers any whit impaired: As one therefore that from his bed could with a perfect (if weak) hand steer the government of Israel; he gives wise and full directions for the inauguration of Solomon; Zadok the Priest, and Nathan the Prophet, and Benaiah the Captain receive his grave and Princely charge for the carriage of that so weighty a business. They are commanded to take with them the royal guard, to set Solomon upon his father's Mule, to carry him down in state to Gihen, to anoint him with the holy oil of the Tabernacle, to sound the trumpets and proclaim him in the streets, to bring him back with triumph and magnificence to the Court, and to set him in the royal Throne with all the due ceremonies of Coronation.  
How pleasing was this command to them who in Salomon's glory saw their own safety? Benaiah applauds it, and not fearing a father's envy, in David's presence wisheth Salomon's throne exalted above his; The people are ravished with the joy of so hopeful a succession; and break the earth, and fill the heaven with the noise of their Music and shoutings.  
Salomon's guests had now at last better cheer than Adonijah's; whose feast (as all wicked men's) ended in horror; No sooner are their bellies full of meat, than their ears are full of the sound of those trumpets, which at once proclaim Salomon's triumph, and their confusion; Ever after the meal is ended comes the reckoning; God could as easily have prevented this jollity, as marred it; But he willingly suffers vain men to please themselves for the time in the conceited success of their own projects, that afterwards their disappointment may be so much more grievous; No doubt, at this feast there was many an health drunk to Adonijah, many a confident boast of their prospering design, many a scorn of the despised faction of Solomon; and now for their last dish is served up astonishment, and fearful expectation of a just revenge. jonathan, the son of Abiathar the Priest, brings the news of Salomon's solemn and joyful enthronization; now all hearts are cold, all faces pale; and every man hath but life enough to run away; How suddenly is this braving troop dispersed? Adonijah their new Prince flies to the horns of the Altar, as distrusting all hopes of life, save the Sanctity of the place, and the mercy of his rival.  
So doth the wise and just God befool proud and insolent sinners in those secret plots, wherein they hope to undermine the true son of David, the Prince of peace; he suffers them to lay their heads together and to feast themselves in a jocund security, and promise of success; at last, when they are at the height of their joys, and hopes, he confounds all their devices, and lays them open to the scorn of the world, and to the anguish of their own guilty hearts.   

David's end, and Salomon's beginning.  
IT well became Solomon to begin his reign in peace. Adonijah receives pardon upon his good behaviour, and finds the throne of Solomon, as safe as the Altar. David lives to see a wise son warm in his seat, and now he that had yielded to succession yields to nature. Many good counsels had David given his heir; now he sums them up in his end. Dying words are wont to be weightiest; The Soul when it is entering into glory breathes nothing but divine. I go the way of all the earth; How well is that princely heart content to subscribe to the conditions of humane mortality; as one that knew Sovereignty doth not reach to the affairs of nature? Though a King, he neither expects, nor desires an immunity from dissolution; making not account to go in any other than the common track, to the universal home of mankind, the house of age; Whither should earth but to earth? and why should we grudge to do that, which all do? Be thou strong therefore, and show thyself a man, Even when his spirit was going out, he puts spirit into his Son; Age puts life into youth, and the dying animates the vigorous. He had well found that strength was requisite to government; that he had need to be no less than a man that should rule over men; If greatness should never receive any opposition, yet those worlds of cares, and businesses that attend the chair of State, are able to over-lay any mean powers; A weak man may obey, none but the strong can govern. Graceless courage were but the whetstone of tyranny; Take heed therefore to the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his Statutes. The best legacy that David bequeathes to his heir, is the care of piety; himself had found the sweetness of a good conscience, and now he commends it to his successor. If there be any thing that in our desires of the prosperous condition of our children, takes place of goodness, our hearts are not upright. Here was the father a King, charging the King his son to keep the Statutes of the King of Kings; as one that knew greatness could neither exempt from obedience, nor privilege sin; as one that knew the least deviation in the greatest and highest Orb, is both most sensible, and most dangerous: Neither would he have his son to look for any prosperity, save only from well-doing; That happiness is built upon sands or Ice, which is raised upon any foundation besides virtue. If Solomon were wise, David was good; and if old Solomon had well remembered the counsel of old David, he had not so foully miscarried.  
After the precepts of piety, follow those of justice; distributing in a due recompense, as revenge to joab and Shimei, so favour to the house of Barzillai. The bloodiness of joab had lain long upon David's heart; the hideous noise of those treacherous murders, as it had pierced heaven, so it still filled the ears of David; He could abhor that villainy, though he could not revenge it; What he cannot pay, he will owe, and approve himself at last a faithful debtor: Now he will defray it by the hand of Solomon. The slaughter was of Abner, and Amasa, David appropriates it; Thou knowest what joab did to me: The Sovereign is smitten in the Subject; Neither is it other then just, that the arraignment of mean malefactors runs in the stil● of wrong to the King's Crown and dignity: How much more dost thou, O son of David, take to thyself those insolences which are done to thy poorest subjects, servants, sons, members here upon earth? No Saul can touch a Christian here below, but thou feelest it in heaven, and complainest.  
But, what shall we think of this? David was a man of war, Solomon a King of peace; yet David refers this revenge to Solomon, How just it was that he who shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his girdle that was about his loins, should have his blood shed in peace, by a Prince of peace; Peace is fittest to rectify the outrages of War; Or whether is not this done in type of that divine administration, wherein thou, O Father of heaven, hast committed all judgement unto thine eternal son? Thou who couldst immediately either plague, or absolve sinners, wilt do neither but by the hand of a Mediator.  
Solomon learned betimes what his ripeness taught afterwards, Take away the wicked from the King, and his Throne shall be established in righteousness; Cruel joab, and malicious Shimei, must be therefore upon the first opportunity removed; The one lay open to present justice, for abetting the conspiracy of Adonijah; neither needs the help of time for a new advantage; The other went under the protection of an oath from David, and therefore must be fetched in upon a new challenge. The hoar head of both must be brought to the grave with blood; else David's head could not be brought to his grave in peace; Due punishment of malefactors is the debt of authority; If that holy King have run into arrearages; yet as one that hates and fears to break the bank, he gives order to his paymaster; It shall be defrayed, if not by him, yet for him.  
Generous natures cannot be unthankful: Barzillai had showed David some kindness in his extremity; and now the good man will have posterity to inherit the thanks. How much more bountiful is the Father of mercies, in the remuneration of our poor unworthy services? Even successions of generations shall far the better for one good parent.  
The dying words and thoughts of the man after Gods own heart did not confine themselves to the straits of these particular charges, but enlarged themselves to the care of God's public service; As good men are best at last, David did never so busily, and carefully marshal the affairs of God, as when he was fixed to the bed of his age and death. Then did he load his son Solomon with the charge of building the house of God; then did he lay before the eyes of his son the model and pattern of that whole sacred work whereof if Solomon bear the name, yet David no less merits it: He now gives the platform of the Courts, and buildings; He gives the gold and silver for that holy use; an hundred thousand talents of Gold, a thousand thousand talents of Silver; besides brass and iron passing weight; He weighs out those precious metals for their several designments; Every future vessel is laid out already in his poise, if not in his form; He excites the Princes of Israel to their assistance, in so high a work; He takes notice of their bountiful offerings; He numbers up the Levites for the public service; and sets them their tasks. He appoints the Singers, and other Musicians to their stations; the Porters to the Gates that should be; And now when he hath set all things in a desired order, and forwardness, he shuts up with a zealous blessing of his Solomon, and his people, and sleep with his fathers. Oh blessed soul, how quiet a possession hast thou now taken (after so many tumults) of a better Crown! Thou that hast prepared all things for the house of thy God, how happily art thou now welcomed to that house of his, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens! Who now shall envy unto good Princes the honour of overseeing the businesses of God, and his Church; when David was thus punctual in these divine provisions? What fear can be of usurpation where they have so glorious a precedent?  
Now is Solomon the second time crowned King of Israel; and now in his own right (as formerly in his fathers) sits peaceably upon the Throne of the Lord; His awe and power come on faster than his years; Envy and ambition where it is once kindled, may sooner be hid in the ashes, than quite put out; Adonijah yet hangs after his old hopes; He remembers how sweet he found the name of a King; and now hath laid a new plot for the setting up of his cracked title; He would make the bed a step to the throne; His old complices are sure enough; His part would gather much strength, if he might enjoy Abishag the relict of his father, to wife; If it were not the jewish fashion (as is pretended) that a King's widow should marry none but a King; yet certainly the power both of the alliance, and friendship of a Queen must needs not a little advance his purpose; The crafty rival dare not either move the suit to Solomon, or effect the marriage without him; but would cunningly undermine the son by the suit of that mother, whose suit had undermined him. The weaker vessels are commonly used in the most dangerous suggestions of evil.  
Bathsheba was so wise a woman that some of her counsels are canonised for divine, yet she saw not the depth of this drift of Adonijah; therefore she both entertains the suit, and moves it: But what ever were the intent of the suitor, could she choose but see the unlawfulness of so incestuous a match? It is not long since she saw her late husband David abominating the bed of those his Concubines, that had been touched by his son Absalon; and can she hold it lawful that his son Adonijah should climb up to the bed of his father's wife? Sometimes even the best eyes are dim, and discern not those things which are obvious to weaker sights: Or whether did not Bathsheba well see the foulness of the suit, and yet in compassion of Adonijah's late repulse (wherein she was the chief agent) and in a desire to make him amends for the loss of the kingdom, she yields even thus to gratify him. It is an injurious weakness to be drawn upon any by-respects to the furtherance of faulty suits, of unlawful actions.  
No sooner doth Bathsheba come in place, than Solomon her son rises from his chair of State and meets her and bows to her, and sets her on his right hand; as not so remembering himself to be a King, that he should forget he was a son. No outward dignity can take away the rights and obligations of nature; Had Bathsheba been as mean, as Solomon was mighty, she had carried away this honour from a gracious son: Yet for all these due compliments, Bathsheba goes away with a denial, Reverence she shall have, she shall not have a condescent.  
In the acts of Magistracy, all regards of natural relations must give way; That which she propounded as a small request, is now, after a general and confused engagement rejected as unreasonable. It were pity we should be heard in all our suits. Bathsheba makes a petition against herself, and knows it not; her safety and life depends upon Salomon's reign, yet she unwittingly moves for the advancement of Adonijah.  
Solomon was too dutiful to check his mother, and too wise to yield to her: In unfit supplications we are most heard when we are repelled. Thus doth our God many times answer our prayers with merciful denials and most blesseth us in crossing our desires.  
Wise Solomon doth not find himself perplexed with the scruple of his promise; he that had said Ask on, for I will not say thee nay, can now swear, God do so to me, and more also, if Adonijah have not spoken this word against his own life▪ His promise was according to his supposition; his supposition was of no other than of a suit, honest, reasonable, expedient; now he holds himself free from that grant, wherein there was at once both sin and danger. No man can be entangled with general words against his own just and honest intentions.  
The policies of wicked men befool them at last; this intercession hath undone Adonijah, and in stead of the Throne, hastens his grave: The sword of Benaiah puts an end to that dangerous rivality. joab and Abiatbar still held Champerty with Adonijah; Their hand was both in his claim of the kingdom, and in the suit for Abishag; There are crimes wherein there are no accessories, such is this of treason. Abiathar may thank his burden that he lives; Had he not borne the Ark of the Lord before David, he had not now carried his head upon his shoulders; Had he not been afflicted with David, he had perished with Adonijah; now though he were, in his own merit, a man of death, yet he shall survive his partners, Get thee to Anathoth unto thine own fields; The Priesthood of Abiathar, as it aggravated his crime, so it shall preserve his life: Such honour have good Princes given to the Ministers of the Sanctuary, that their very coat hath been defence enough against the sword of justice; how much more should it be of proof against the contempt of base persons?  
Besides his function, respect is had to his sufferings; The father and brethren of Abiathar were slain for David's sake, therefore for David's sake Abiathar (though worthy of death) shall live; He had been now a dead man, if he had not been formerly afflicted; Thus doth our good God deal with us; by the rod he prevents the sword; and therefore will not condemn us for our sins, because we have suffered. If Abiathar do not forfeit his life, yet his office he shall; he must change jerusalem for Anathoth, and the Priesthood for a retired privacy. It was fourscore years ago since the sentence of judgement was denounced against the house of Eli; now doth it come to execution; This just quarrel against Abiathar (the last of that line) shall make good the threatened judgement; The wickedness of Elies' house was neither purged by sacrifice, nor obliterated by time: If God pay slowly, yet he pays sure; Delay of most certain punishment is neither any hindrance to his justice, nor any comfort to our miseries.   

The execution of Joab, and Shimei.  
ABiathar shall live though he serve not; It is in the power of Princes to remit (at least) those punishments which attend the breach of humane Laws; good reason they should have power to dispense with the wrongs done to their own persons; The news of Adonijah's death, and Abiathars removal cannot but affright joab; who now runs to Gibeon, and takes sanctuary in the Tabernacle of God; all his hope of defence is in the horns of the Altar; Fond joab hadst thou formerly sought for counsel from the Tabernacle, thou hadst not now needed to seek to it for refuge; if thy devotions had not been wanting to that Altar, thou hadst not needed it for a shelter: It is the fashion of our foolish presumption to look for protection, where we have not cared to yield obedience.  
Even a joab clings fast to God's Altar in his extremity; which in his ruff and welfare he regarded not; The worst men would be glad to make use of God's ordinances, for their advantage; Necessity will drive the most profane and lawless man to God; But what do those bloody hands touching the holy Altar of God? Miserable joab, what help canst thou expect from that sacred pile? Those horns that were besprinkled with the blood of beasts, abhor to be touched by the blood of men; that Altar was for the expiation of sin by blood; not for the protection of the sin of blood. If Adonijah fled thither and escaped, it is murder that pursues thee more than conspiracy; God hath no sanctuary for a wilful Homicide.  
Yet such respect doth Benaiah give to that holy place, that his Sword is unwilling to touch him that touches the Altar: Those horns shall put off death for the time; and give protraction of the execution, though not preservation of life; How sweet is life even to those who have been prodigal of the blood of others? that joab shifts thus to hold it but some few hours? Benaiah returns with joabs' answer, in stead of his head; Nay, but I will die here; as not daring to unsheathe his Sword against a man sheltered in God's Tabernacle, without a new commission. Young Solomon is so well acquainted with the Law of God, in such a case, that he sticks not at the sentence: He knew that God had enacted, If a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from mine Altar, that he may die: He knew joabs' murders had not been more presumptuous, then guileful, and therefore he sends Benaiah to take away the offender, both from God, and men, from the Altar, and the world.  
No Subject had merited more than joab; When proclamation was made in Israel, that who ever should smite the jebusites first, he should be the Chief and Captain; joab was the man; When David built some part of jerusalem, joab built the rest; so as jerusalem owes itself to joab, both for recovery, and reparation; No man held so close to David; no man was more intent to the weal of Israel, none so successful in victories; yet now is he called to reckon for his old sins, and must repay blood to Amasa, and Abner: It is not in the power of all our deserts to buy off one sin, either with God, or man: where life is so deeply forfeited, it admits of no redemption.  
The honest simplicity of those times knew not of any infamy in the execution of justice. Benaiah, who was the great Marshal under Solomon, thinks not his fingers defiled with that fatal stroke. It is a foolish niceness to put more shame in the doing of justice, then in the violating of it.  
In one act Solomon hath approved himself both a good Magistrate, and a good son; fulfilling at once the will of a father, and the charge of God; concluding upon this just execution, that, upon David, and upon his seed, and upon his house, and upon his Throne there shall be peace for ever from the Lord; and inferring, that without this there could have been no peace.  
Blood is a restless suitor, and will not leave clamoring for judgement, till the mouth be stopped with revenge. In this case favour to the offender, is cruelty to the favourer.  
Now hath joab paid all his arrearages by the sword of Benaiah; there is no suit against his corpse; that hath the honour of a burial fit for a Peer of Israel, for the near cousin to the King. Death puts an end to all quarrels; Solomon strikes off the score, when God is satisfied; The revenge that survives death and will not be shut up in the Coffin, is barbarous, and unbeseeming true Israelites.  
Only Shimei remains upon the file; his course is next, yet so, as that it shall be in his own liberty to hasten his end; Upon David's remission, Shimei dwells securely in Bahurim, a town of the tribe of Benjamin; Doubtless, when he saw so round justice done upon Adonijah, and joab, his guilty heart could not think Solomon message portended aught but his execution; and now he cannot but be well pleased with so easy conditions, of dwelling at jerusalem, and not passing over the brook Kidron; What more delightful place could he choose to live in, than that city, which was the glory of the whole earth? What more pleasing bounds could he wish then the sweet banks of Kidron? jerusalem could be no prison to him, whiles it was a Paradise to his betters; and if he had a desire to take fresh air, he had the space of six furlongs to walk from the city to the brook; He could not complain to be so delectably confined; And beside, thrice every year he might be sure to see all his friends without stirring his foot.  
Wise Solomon whiles he cared to seem not too severe an exactor of that, which his father had remitted; prudently lays insensible twigs for so foul an offender; Besides the old grudge, no doubt Solomon saw cause to suspect the fidelity of Shimei; as a man who was ever known to be hollow to the house of David; The obscurity of a Country life would easily afford him more safe opportunities of secret mischief; Many eyes shall watch him in the city; he cannot look out unseen, he cannot whisper, unheard: Upon no other terms shall he enjoy his life, which the least straying shall forfeit.  
Shimei feels no pain in this restraint; How many Nobles of Israel do that for pleasure, which he doth upon command? Three years hath he lived within compass; limited both by Salomon's charge and his own oath; It was still in his power (notwithstanding David's Caveat) to have laid down his hoare-head in the grave, without blood; The just God infatuates those whom he means to plague; Two of Shimeys servants are fled to Gath; and now he saddles his Ass and is gone to fetch them back; Either (he thinks) this word of Solomon is forgotten, or in the multitude of greater affairs, not heeded; or this so small an occurrence will not come to his ear: Covetousness and presumption of impunity are the destruction of many a soul; Shimei seeks his servants, and loses himself; How many are there who cry out of this folly, and yet imitate it; These earthly things either are our servants, or should be; How commonly do we see men run out of the bounds, set by God's law, to hunt after them, till their souls incur a fearful judgement?  
Princes have thousands of eyes, and ears; If Shimei will for more secrecy saddle his own Ass, and take (as is like) the benefit of night, for his passage; his journey cannot be hid from Solomon; How wary had those men need to be which are obnoxious? Without delay is Shimei complained of, convented, charged with violation both of the oath of God, and the injunction of Solomon; and that all these might appear to be but an occasion of that punishment, whose cause was more remote, now is all that old venom laid before him, which his malice had long since spit at Gods anointed: Thou know'st all the wickedness, whereto thine heart is privy, that thou didst to David my father.  
Had this old tally been stricken off; yet could not Shimei have pleaded aught for his life; For, had he said; Let not my Lord the King be thus mortally displeased for so small an offence: Who ever died for passing over Kidron? What man is the worse for my harmless journey? It had soon been returned, If the act be small, yet the circumstances are deadly; The commands of Sovereign authority make the sleightest duties weighty; If the journey be harmless, yet not the disobedience; It is not for subjects to poise the Prince's charge in the scales of their weak constructions; but they must suppose it ever to be of such importance, as is pretended by the Commander. Besides the precept, here was a mutual adjuration; Shimei swore not to go, Solomon swore his death if he went; the one oath must be revenged, the other must be kept: If Shimei were false in offending; Solomon will be just in punishing. Now therefore, that which Abishai the son of Zeruiah wished to have done in the greenness of the wound, and was repelled; after long festering Benaiah is commanded to do, The stones that Shimei threw at David, struck not so deep, as Benaiah's sword; The tongue that cursed the Lords anointed hath paid the head to boot. Vengeance against rebels may sleep, it cannot die; A sure, if late, judgement attends those that dare lift up either their hand, or tongue against the sacred persons of Gods Vice-gerents. How much less will the God of heaven suffer unrevenged the insolences, and blasphemies against his own divine Majesty? It is a fearful word, he should not be just, if he should hold these guiltless.   

Salomon's Choice, with his judgement upon the two harlots.  
AFter so many messages and proofs of grace, Solomon begins doubtfully, both for his match, and for his devotion: If Pharaohs daughter were not a Proselyte, his early choice was (besides unwarrantable) dangerous: The high places not only stood, but were frequented, both by the people, and King; I do not find David climbing up those mis-hallowed hills, in an affectation of the variety of Altars; Solomon doth so, and yet loves the Lord, and is loved of God again: Such is the mercy of our God, that he will not suffer our well-meant weaknesses to bereave us of his favours: he rather pities, then plagues us for the infirmities of upright hearts.  
Gibeon was well worthy to be the chief, yea the only hie-place; There was the allowed Altar of God, there was the Tabernacle, though (as then) severed from the Ark; thither did young Solomon go up; and, as desiring to begin his reign with God, there he offers no less than a thousand sacrifices.  
Solomon worships God by day; God appears to Solomon by night; Well may we look to enjoy God, when we have served him; The night cannot but be happy whose day hath been holy.  
It was no unusual course with God to reveal himself unto his servants by dreams; So did he here to Solomon; who saw more with his eyes shut, than ever they could see open, even him that was invisible: The good King had offered unto God a thousand burnt-sacrifices, and now God offereth him his option, Ask what I shall give thee: He whose the beasts are on a thousand mountains graciously accepts a small return of his own. It stands not with the munificence of a bountiful God to be indebted to his creature, we cannot give him aught unrecompensed; There is no way wherein we can be so liberal to ourselves, as by giving to the possessor of all things. And art thou still, o God, less free unto us thy meaner servants under the Gospel? Hast thou not said, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, it shall be given you? Only give us grace not to be wanting unto thee, and we know thou canst not suffer any thing to be wanting unto us.  
The night follows the temper of the day; and the heart so useth to sleep, as it wakes: Had not the thoughts of Solomon been intent upon wisdom by day, he had not made it his suit in his dream: There needs no leisure of deliberation; The heart was so forestalled with the love, and admiration of wisdom, that not abiding the least motion of a competition, it fastens on that grace it had longed for; Give unto thy servant an understanding heart, to judge thy people. Had not Solomon been wise before, he had not known the worth of wisdom, he had not preferred it in his desires; The dunghill cocks of the World cannot know the price of this pearl; those that have it, know that all other excellencies are but trash, and rubbish unto it. Solomon was a great King, and saw that he had power enough, but withal, he found that royalty, without wisdom, was no other than eminent dishonour; There is no trade of life whereto there belongs not a peculiar wisdom; without which there is nothing but a tedious unprofitableness: much more to the highest, and busiest vocation, the regiment of men; As God hath no reason to give his best favours unasked; so hath he no will to withhold them where they are asked.  
He that in his cradle had the title of Beloved of God, is now beloved more in the Throne for the love and desire of wisdom; This soil could never have borne this fruit alone; Solomon could not so much as have dreamt of wisdom, if God had not put it into him; and now God takes the suit so well, as if he were beholden to his creature for wishing the best to itself: and because Solomon hath asked what he should, he shall now receive both what he asked, and what he asked not: Riches and honour shall be given him in to the match. So doth God love a good choice, that he recompenses it with over-giving; Could we but first seek the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, all these earthly things should be superadded to us; Had Solomon made wealth his boon, he had failed both of riches and wisdom; now he asks the best, and speeds of all; They are in a fair way of happiness that can pray well; It was no dis-comfort to Solomon, that he awaked and found it a dream; for he knew this dream was divine, and oracular; and he already found in his first waking, the real performance of what was promised him sleeping: Such illumination did he sensibly find in all the rooms of his heart, as if God had now given him a new soul: No marvel if Solomon now returning from the Tabernacle to the Ark, testified his joy and thankfulness by burnt-offerings, and peace-offerings, and public feastings; The heart that hath found in itself the lively testimonies of God's presence, and favour, cannot contain itself from outward expressions.  
God likes not to have his gifts lie dead where he hath conferred them; Israel shall soon witness that they have a King enlightened from heaven; in whom wisdom did not stay for heirs; did not admit of any parallel in his predecessors; The alwise God will find occasions to draw forth those graces to use, and light, which he hath bestowed on man. Two Harlots come before young Solomon with a difficult plea; It is not like the Prince's ear was the first that heard this complaint; there was a subordinate course of justice for the determination of these meaner incidences: the hardness of this decision brought the matter, through all the benches of inferior judicature, to the Tribunal of Solomon; The very Israelitish Harlots were not so unnatural as some now adays that counterfeit honesty; These strive for the fruit of their womb, ours to put them off; One son is yet alive, two mothers contend for him. The children were alike for features, for age; the mothers were alike for reputation, here can be no evidence from others eyes; Whethers now is the living Child, and whethers is the dead? Had Solomon gone about to wring forth the truth by tortures, he had perhaps plagued the innocent, and added pain to the misery of her loss; the weaker had been guilty, and the more able to bear, had carried away both the Child, and the victory: The countenance of either of the mothers bewrayed an equality of passion; Sorrow possessed the one, for the son she had lost; and the other, for the son she was in danger to lose: Both were equally peremptory, and importunate in their claim; It is in vain to think that the true part can be discerned by the vehemence of their challenge; Falsehood is ofttimes more clamorous than truth; No witnesses can be produced; They two dwelled apart under one roof; and if some neighbours have seen the children at their birth, and circumcision; yet how little difference, how much change is there in the favour of infants? how doth death alter more confirmed lines?  
The impossibility of proof makes the guilty more confident, more impudent; the true mother pleads that her child was taken away at midnight by the other; but in her sleep; She saw it not, she felt it not; and if all her senses could have witnessed it, yet, here was but the affirmation of the one, against the denial of the other, which in persons alike credible do but counterpoise. What is there now to lead the judge, since there is nothing either in the act, or circumstances, or persons, or plea, or evidence that might sway the sentence? Solomon well saw that when all outward proofs failed, there was an inward affection, which if it could be fetched out, would certainly bewray the true mother; He knew sorrow might more easily be dissembled then natural love; both sorrowed for their own; both could not love, one, as theirs; To draw forth then this true proof of motherhood, Solomon calls for a sword; Doubtless, some of the wiser hearers smiled upon each other; and thought in themselves, What, will the young King cut these knotty causes in pieces? Will he divide justice with edge-tools? will he smite at hazard before conviction? The actions of wise Princes are riddles to vulgar constructions; neither is it for the shallow capacities of the multitude to fathom the deep projects of Sovereign authority: That sword which had served for execution, shall now serve for trial; Divide ye the living child in twain, and give the one half to the one, and the other half to the other; Oh divine oracle of justice, commanding that which it would not have done, that it might find out that which could not be discovered; Neither God, nor his Deputies may be so taken at their words, as if they always intended their commands for action, and not sometimes for probation.  
This sword hath already pierced the breast of the true mother; and divided her heart with fear, and grief, at so killing a sentence; There needs no other rack to discover nature; and now she thinks, woe is me that came for justice, and am answered with cruelty; Divide ye the living child? Alas, what hath that poor infant offended that it survives, and is sued for? How much less miserable had I been, that my child had been smothered in my sleep, then mangled before mine eyes? If a dead carcase could have satisfied me, I needed not to have complained; What a woeful condition am I fall'n into, who am accused to have been the death of my supposed child already, and now shall be the death of my own? If there were no loss of my child, yet how can I endure this torment of mine own bowels? How can I live to see this part of myself sprawling under that bloody sword? And whiles she thinks thus, she sues to that suspected mercy of her just judge, Oh my Lord, give her the living child, and slay him not: as thinking, if he live, he shall but change a mother; if he die, his mother loseth a son; Whiles he lives, it shall be my comfort that I have a son, though I may not call him so; dying, he perisheth to both; it is better he should live to a wrong mother, then to neither: Contrarily, her envious competitor as holding herself well satisfied that her neighbour should be as childless, as herself, can say, Let it be neither mine, nor thine, but divide it; Well might Solomon, and every hearer conclude, that either she was no mother, or a monster, that could be content with the murder of her child; and that if she could have been the true mother, and yet have desired the blood of her infant, she had been as worthy to be stripped of her child for so foul unnaturalness, as the other had been worthy to enjoy him for her honest compassion. Not more justly then wisely therefore doth Solomon trace the true mother by the footsteps of love, and pity; and adjudgeth the child to those bowels that had yearned at his danger.  
Even in morality it is thus also; Truth as it is one, so it loves entireness; falsehood, division: Satan that hath no right to the heart, would be content with a piece of it; God that made it all, will have either the whole, or none; The erroneous Church strives with the true, for the living child of saving doctrine; each claims it for her own; Heresy conscious of her own injustice, could be content to go away with a leg, or an arm of sound principles, as hoping to make up the rest with her own mixtures; Truth cannot abide to part with a joint; and will rather endure to lose all by violence, than a piece through a willing connivency.   

The Temple.  
IT is a weak and injurious censure that taxeth Salomon's slackness in founding the house of God; Great bodies must have but slow motions; He was wise that said, the matters must be all prepared without, ere we build within; And if David have laid ready a great part of the metals and timber; yet many a tree must be felled and squared, and many a stone hewed and polished, ere this foundation could be laid; neither could those large Cedars be cut, sawn, seasoned in one year; Four years are soon gone in so vast a preparation: David had not been so entire a friend to Hiram, if Hiram had not been a friend to God; Salomon's wisdom hath taught him to make use of so good a neighbour, of a father's friend; he knows that the Tyrians skill was not given them for nothing; Not Iewes only, but Gentiles must have their hand in building the Temple of God; Only jews meddled with the Tabernacle, but the Temple is not built without the aid of Gentiles; They, together with us, make up the Church of God.  
Even Pagans have their Arts from heaven; how justly may we improve their graces to the service of the God of Heaven; If there be a Tyrian that can work more curiously in gold, in silver, in brass, in iron, in purple, and blue silk, than an Israelite, why should not he be employed about the Temple? Their heathenism is their own; their skill is their makers; Many a one works for the Church of God, that yet hath no part in it.  
Solomon raises a tribute for the work; not of money, but of men: Thirty thousand Israelites are levied for this service; yet not continuedly, but with intermission; their labour is more generous, and less pressing; it is enough if they keep their courses one month in Lebanon, two at home; so as ever ten thousand work, whiles twenty thousand breath. So favourable is God to his creature, that he requires us not to be overtoyled in the works of his own service. Due respirations are requisite in the holiest acts. The main stress of the work lies upon Proselytes; whose both number, and pains was herein more than the Natives: An hundred and fifty thousand of them are employed in bearing burdens, in hewing stones; besides their three thousand, three hundred overseers; Now were the despised Gibeonites of good use, and in vain doth Israel wish that the zeal of Saul had not robbed them of so serviceable drudges.  
There is no man so mean but may be some way useful to the house of God; Those that cannot work in gold, and silver, and silk, yet may cut and hew; and those that can do neither, yet may carry burdens; Even the services that are more homely, are not less necessary: Who can dishearten himself in the conscience of his own insufficiency, when he sees God can as well serve himself of his labour, as of his skill.  
The Temple is framed in Lebanon, and set up in Zion; Neither hammer nor axe was heard in that holy structure; There was nothing but noise in Lebanon, nothing in Zion but silence and peace; What ever tumults are abroad, it is fit there should be all quietness & sweet concord in the Church; Oh God, that the axes of schism, or the hammers of furious contentions should be heard within thy Sanctuary! Thine house is not built with blows, with blows it is beaten down: Oh knit the hearts of thy servants together in the unity of the spirit, and the bond of peace; that we may mind and speak the same things, that thou who art the God of peace, mayst take pleasure to dwell under the quiet roof of our hearts.  
Now is the foundation laid, and the walls rising of that glorious fabric, which all Nations admired, and all times have celebrated; Even those stones which were laid in the Base of the building were not ragged and rude, but hewed and costly; the part that lies covered with earth from the eyes of all beholders, is no less precious, than those that are most conspicuous: God is not all for the eye, he pleaseth himself with the hidden value of the living stones of his spiritual Temple; How many noble graces of his servants have been buried in obscurity; not discerned so much as by their own eyes? which yet as he gave, so he crowneth: Hypocrites regard nothing but show; God nothing but truth.  
The matter of so goodly a frame strives with the proportion, whether shall more excel; Here was nothing but white Marble without; nothing but Cedar and Gold within; Upon the Hill of Zion stands that glittering and snowy pile, which both inviteth and dazzleth the eyes of passengers a far off; so much more precious within, as Cedar is better than stone, Gold then Cedar; No base thing goes to the making up of God's house; If Satan may have a dwelling, he cares not though he patch it up of the rubbish of stone, or rotten sticks, or dross of metals; God will admit of nothing that is not pure and exquisite; His Church consists of none but the faithful, his habitation is in no heart but the gracious.  
The fashion was no other than that of the Tabernacle; only this was more costly, more large, more fixed; God was the same that dwelled in both, he varied not, the same mystery was in both; Only it was fit there should be a proportion betwixt the work and the builder; The Tabernacle was erected in a popular estate, the Temple in a Monarchy; it was fit this should favour of the munificence of a King, as that of the zeal of a multitude; That was erected in the flitting condition of Israel in the desert; this, in their settled residence in the promised Land; it was fit therefore that should be framed for motion, this for rest. Both of them were distinguished into three remarkable divisions, whereof each was more noble, more reserved than other.  
But what do we bend our eyes upon stone, and wood, and metals? God would never have taken pleasure in these dead materials for their own sakes, if they had not had a further intendment: methinks I see four Temples in this one. It is but one in matter, as the God that dwells in it is but one; three yet more in resemblance: according to the division of them in whom it pleases God to inhabit; For where ever God dwells, there is his temple; Oh God, thou vouchsafest to dwell in the believing heart: as we thy silly creatures have our being in thee, so thou the Creator of heaven and earth hast thy dwelling in us. The heaven of heavens is not able to contain thee, and yet thou disdainest not to dwell in the straight lodgings of our renewed soul. So then, because God's children are many, and those many divided in respect of themselves, though united in their head, therefore this Temple which is but one in collection as God is one, is manifold in the distribution, as the Saints are many; each man bearing about him a little shrine of this infinite Majesty; And for that the most general division of the Saints is in their place and estate; some struggling, and toiling in this earthly warfare, others triumphing in heavenly glory, therefore hath God two other, more universal Temples; One the Church of his Saints on earth, the other, the highest heaven of his Saints glorified. In all these, o God, thou dwellest for ever, and this material house of thine is a clear representation of these three spiritual; Else what were a temple made with hands unto the God of spirits? And though one of these was a true type of all, yet how are they all exceeded each by other? This of stone, though most rich and costly, yet what is it to the living Temple of the holy Ghost, which is our body? What is the Temple of this body of ours, to the Temple of Christ's body which is his Church? And what is the Temple of God's Church on earth, to that which triumpheth gloriously in heaven?  
How easily do we see all these in this one visible Temple? which as it had three distinctions of rooms; the Porch, the Holy-place, the Holy of Holies; so is each of them answered spiritually; In the porch we find the regenerate soul entering into the blessed societic of the Church; In the holy place, the Communion of the true visible Church on earth, selected from the world; In the holy of holies (whereinto the hie-Priest entered once a year) the glorious heaven, into which our true hie-Priest, Christ jesus, entered once for all to make an atonement betwixt God, and man. In all these what a meet correspondence there is both in proportion, matter, situation?  
In proportion; The same rule that skilful carvers observe in the dutting out of the perfect statue of a man, that the height be thrice the breadth, and the breadth one third of the height, was likewise duly observed in the fabric of the Temple; whose length was double to the height, and treble to the breadth; as being sixty cubits long, thirty high, and twenty broad; How exquisite a symmetry hast thou ordained (o God) betwixt the faithful heart, and thy Church on earth, with that in heaven; how accurate in each of these, in all their powers and parts compared with other; So hath God ordered the believing soul that it hath neither too much shortness of grace, nor too much height of conceit, nor too much breadth of passion; So hath he ordered his visible Church, that there is a necessary inequality, without any disproportion; an height of government, a length of extent, a breadth of jurisdiction duly answerable to each other; So hath he ordered his triumphant Church above, that it hath a length of eternity, answered with an height of perfection, and a breadth of incomprehensible glory.  
In matter; All was here of the best; The wood was precious, sweet, lasting; The stone beautiful, costly, insensible of age; The gold pure and glittering; So are the graces of God's children, excellent in their nature▪ dear in their acceptation, eternal in their use: So are the ordinances of God in his Church, holy, comfortable, irrefragable. So is the perfection of his glorified saints incomparable, unconceivable.  
In Situation; the outer parts were here more common, the inner more holy, and peculiarly reserved: I find one Court of the Temple open to the unclean, to the uncircumcised; Within that; another open only to the Israelites, and of them, to the clean; within that, yet another, proper only to the Priests and Levites; where was the Brazen Altar for sacrifice, and the Brazen sea for washings; The eyes of the Laity might follow their oblations in hither, their feet might not.  
Yet more, in the covered rooms of the Temple, there is, whither the Priests only may enter, not the Levites; there is, whither the hie-priest only may enter, not his brethren.  
It is thus in every renewed man, the individual temple of God; the outward parts are allowed common to God and the world; the inwardest and secretest, which is the heart, is reserved only for the God that made it. It is thus in the Church visible, the false and foule-hearted hypocrite hath access to the holy ordinances of God, and treads in his Courts; only the true Christian hath entire and private conversation with the holy one of Israel. He only is admitted into the Holy of holies, and enters within the glorious veil of heaven.  
If from the walls we look unto the furniture; What is the Altar whereon our sacrifices of prayer and praises are offered to the Almighty but a contrite heart? What the golden Candlesticks, but the illumined understanding, wherein the light of the knowledge of God, and his divine will shineth for ever? What the Tables of Shewbread, but the sanctified memory, which keepeth the bread of life continually? Yea, if we shall presume so far as to enter into the very closet of God's oracle; Even there, o God, do we find our unworthy hearts so honoured by thee, that they are made thy very Ark, wherein thy Royal law, and the pot of thine heavenly Manna is kept for ever; and from whose propitiatory, shaded with the wings of thy glorious Angels, thou givest the gracious Testimonies of thy good spirit, witnessing with ours, that we are the children of thee the living God.  
Behold, if Solomon built a Temple unto thee, thou hast built a Temple unto thyself in us; We are not only through thy grace living stones in thy Temple, but living Temples in thy Zion: Oh do thou ever dwell in this thine house; and in this thy house let us ever serve thee: Wherefore else hast thou a Temple, but for thy presence with us, and for our worshipping of thee? The time was, when, as thy people, so thyself; didst lodge in flitting Tents, ever shifting, ever moving; thence thou thoughtest best to sojourn both in Shilo; and the roof of Obed-Edom; After that, thou condescendedst to settle thine abode with men, and wouldst dwell in an house of thine own, at thy jerusalem. So didst thou in the beginning lodge with our first Parents as in a Tent; Sojourn with Israel under the law; and now makest a constant residence under the Gospel, in the hearts of thy chosen children; from whence thou wilt remove no more; they shall remove from the world, from themselves, thou shalt not remove from them.  
Wheresoever thou art, o God, thou art worthy of adoration; Since thou ever wilt dwell in us, be thou ever worshipped in us; Let the Altars of our clean hearts send up ever to thee the sweetly-perfumed smokes of our holy meditations, and faithful prayers, and cheerful thanks-givings; Let the pure lights of our faith, and godly conversation shine ever before thee, and men, and never be put out; Let the bread of life stand ever ready upon the pure, and precious tables of our hearts. Lock up thy Law, and thy Manna within us; and speak comfortably to us from thy mercy-seat. Suffer nothing to enter in hither that is unclean; Sanctify us unto thyself, and be thou sanctified in us.   

Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba.  
GOD hath no use of the dark lanterns of secret, and reserved perfections; We ourselves do not light up candles to put them under bushels. The great lights whether of heaven, or earth are not intended to obscurity; but as to give light unto others, so to be seen themselves; Dan and Beersheba were too straight bounds for the fame of Solomon; which now hath flown over all lands and seas, and raised the world to an admiration of his more than humane wisdom. Even so, o thou everlasting King of peace, thy Name is great among the Gentiles; There is no speech, nor language, where the report of thee is not heard; The sound of thee is gone forth through all the earth; Thy name is an ointment poured out, therefore the virgins love thee.  
No doubt many from all coasts came to learn and wonder; none with so much note as this noble daughter of Cham: Who herself deserves the next wonder to him whom she came to hear, and admire; That a woman, a Princess, a rich and great Queen, should travel from the remotest south, from Saba, a region famous for the greatest delicacies of nature, to learn wisdom, is a matchless example. We know Merchants that venture to either Indies for wealth; Others we know daily to cross the seas for wanton curiosity; Some few Philosophers we have known to have gone far for learning, and amongst Princes it is no unusual thing to send their Ambassadors to farre-distant kingdoms, for transaction of businesses either of State, or commerce; but that a royal Lady should in person undertake and overcome so tedious a journey, only to observe, and inquire into the mysteries of nature, art, religion, is a thing past both parallel, and imitation; Why do we think any labour great, or any way long to hear a greater than Solomon? How justly shall the Queen of the South rise up in judgement, and condemn us, who may hear wisdom crying in our streets, and neglect her?  
Certainly so wealthy a Queen, and so great a lover of wisdom could not want great scholars at home; them she had first opposed with her enigmatical demands; and now finding herself unsatisfied she betakes herself to this Oracle of God; It is a good thing to doubt, better to be resolved: The mind that never doubts shall learn nothing; the mind that always doubts shall never profit by learning; Our doubts only serve to stir us up to seek truth; Our resolutions settle us in the truth we have found. There were no pleasure in resolutions if we had not been formerly troubled with doubts; There were nothing but discomfort and disquietness in doubts, if it were not for the hope of resolution; It is not safe to suffer doubts to dwell too long upon the heart; there may be good use of them as passengers, dangerous as inmates: Happy are we if we can find a Solomon to remove them.  
Fame as it is always a blab, so ofttimes a liar. The wise Princess found cause to distrust so uncertain an informer, whose reports are still either doubtful, or fabulous; and like winds, or streams, increase in passing: If very great things were not spoken of Solomon, fame should have wronged him; and if but just rumours were spread of his wisdom, there needed much credulity to believe them. This great Queen would not suffer herself to be lead by the ears; but comes in person to examine the truth of foreign relations. How much more unsafe is it in the most important businesses of our souls, to trust the opinions and reports of others? Those ears and eyes are ill bestowed that do not serve to choose and judge for their owners.  
When we come to a rich treasure, we need not be bidden to carry away what we are able. This wise Lady as she came far for knowledge, so finding the plenty of this vein, she would not depart without her full load: There was nothing wherein she would leave herself unsatisfied: she knew that she could not every day meet with a Solomon; and therefore she makes her best use of so learned a master; Now she empties her heart of all her doubts, and fills it with instruction. It is not good neglecting the opportunities of furnishing our souls with profitable, with saving knowledge. There is much wisdom in moving a question well, though there be more in assoiling it: What use do we make of Salomon's teacher, if sitting at the feet of Christ we leave our hearts either ignorant, or perplexed?  
As if the errand of this wealthy Queen had been to buy wisdom, she came with her Camels laden with Gold, and precious stones, and rich odours: Though to a mighty King she will not come to school emptie-handed; If she came to fetch an invaluable treasure, she finds it reason to give thanks unto him that kept it. As he is a fool that hath a price in his hand to get wisdom, and wants an heart; So is he unthankful that hath an heart to get wisdom, and hath no price in his hand; A price, not countervailable to what he seeks, but retributorie to him of whom he seeks. How shameful is it to come always with close hands to them that teach us the great mysteries of salvation.  
Expectation is no better than a kind enemy to good deserts. We lose those objects which we overlook. Many had been admired if they had not been overmuch befriended by fame; who now in our judgement are cast as much below their rank, as they were fore-imagined above it. This disadvantage had wife Solomon with this stranger; whom rumour had bid to look for incredible excellencies; yet so wonderful were the graces of Solomon, that they overcame the highest expectation, and the liberallest belief: So as when she saw the architecture of his buildings, the provisions of his tables, the order of his attendants, the religion of his sacrifices, she confessed both her injust incredulity in not believing the report of his wisdom, and the injury of report in underrating it. I believed not the words till I came, and mine eyes had seen it; and lo the one half was not told me. Her eyes were more sure informers than her ears. She did not so much hear as see Salomon's wisdom in these real effects. His answers did not so much demonstrate it, as his prudent government. There are some whose speeches are witty, whiles their carriage is weak, whose deeds are incongruities, whiles their words are Apothegms. It is not worth the name of wisdom that may be heard only, and not seen; Good discourse is but the froth of wisdom; the pure and solid substance of it is in well-framed actions; if we know these things, happy are we if we do them.  
And if this great person admired the wisdom, the buildings, the domestic order of Solomon, and chiefly his stately ascent into the House of the Lord; how should our souls be taken up with wonder at thee▪ O thou true son of David, and Prince of everlasting peace, who receivedst the spirit not by measure? who hast built this glorious house, not made with hands, even the heaven of heavens? whose infinite providence hath sweetly disposed of all the family of thy creatures, both in heaven and earth; and who lastly didst ascend up on high, and ledst captivity captive, and gavest gifts to men?  
So well had this studious Lady profited by the Lectures of that exquisite Master, that now she envies, she magnifies none but them who may live within the air of Salomon's wisdom: Happy are thy men, and happy are thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom; As if she could have been content to have changed her Throne for the footstool of Solomon. It is not easy to conceive how great a blessing it is to live under those lips, which do both preserve knowledge, and utter it: If we were not glutted with good counsel, we should find no relish in any worldly contentment in comparison hereof; But, he that is full, despiseth an honeycomb.  
She, whom her own experience had taught how happy a thing it is to have a skilful Pilot sitting at the stern of the State, blesseth Israel for Solomon, blesseth God for Israel, blesseth Solomon and Israel mutually in each-other; Blessed be the Lord thy God which delighted in thee, to set thee on the Throne of Israel. Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he the King to do judgement and justice. It was not more Salomon's advancement to be King of Israel, than it was the advancement of Israel to be governed by a Solomon. There is no earthly proof of God's love to any Nation comparable to the substitution of a wise, and pious governor: to him we owe our peace, our life, and which is deservedly dearer, the life of our souls, the Gospel. But, oh God, how much hast thou loved thine Israel for ever, in that thou hast set over it that righteous Branch of jesse, whose name is Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace: in whose days judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely? Sing O heaven, and rejoice, O earth, and break forth into singing, O mountains, for God hath comforted his people, and will have everlasting mercy upon his afflicted.  
The Queen of Sheba did not bring her gold and precious stones to look on, or to re-carry, but to give to a wealthier than herself. She gives therefore to Solomon an hundred and twenty talents of Gold, besides costly stones and odours. He that made silver in Jerusalem as stones, is yet richly presented on all hands. The rivers still run into the Sea; To him that hath shall be given: How should we bring unto thee, O thou King of Heaven, the purest gold of thine own graces, the sweetest odours of our obediences? Was not this withal a type of that homage which should be done unto thee, O Saviour, by the heads of the Nations? The Kings of Tarshish and the Isles bring presents; the Kings of Sheba and Saba bring gifts; yea all Kings shall worship thee, all Nations shall serve thee: They cannot enrich themselves but by giving unto thee.  
It could not stand with Salomon's magnificence to receive rich courtesies without a return; The greater the person was, the greater was the obligation of requital; The gifts of mean persons are taken but as tributes of duty; it is dishonourable to take from equals, and not to retribute: There was not therefore more freedom in her gift, then in her receipt; Her own will was the measure of both; She gave what she would, she received what soever she would ask; And she had little profited by Salomon's school, if she had not learned to ask the best: She returns therefore more richly laden than she came; she gave to Solomon as a thankful Client of wisdom; Solomon returns to her as a munificent Patron, according to the liberality of a King; We shall be sure to be gainers by whatsoever we give unto thee, o thou God of wisdom and peace: Oh that we could come from the remote regions of our infidelity, and worldliness, to learn wisdom of thee, who both teachest and givest it abundantly, without upbraiding, without grudging; and could bring with us the poor presents of our faithful desires, and sincere services; how wouldst thou receive us with a gracious acceptation, and sends us away laden with present comfort, with eternal glory?   

Salomon's defection.  
SInce the first man Adam, the world hath not yielded either so great an example of wisdom, or so fearful an example of Apostasy as Solomon: What humane knowledge Adam had in the perfection of nature by creation, Solomon had by infusion; both fully, both from one fountain; If Adam called all creatures by their names, Solomon spoke from the Cedars of Lebanon, to the moss that springs out of the wall; and besides these vegetables, there was no Beast, nor Fowl, nor Fish, nor creeping thing that escaped his discourse. Both fell, both fell by one means; as Adam, so might Solomon have said, The woman deceived me; It is true indeed, that Adam fell as all; Solomon as one; yet so as that this one is the pattern of the frailty of all. If knowledge could have given an immunity from sin, both had stood: Affections are those feet of the soul, on which it either stands, or falls; Solomon loved many outlandish women; I wonder not if the wise King miscarried; Every word hath bane enough for a man; Women, many women, outlandish, idolatrous, and those not only had, but doted on; Sex, multitude, nation, condition, all conspired to the ruin of a Solomon; If one woman undid all mankind, what marvel is it if many women undid one? yet had those many been the daughters of Israel, they had tempted him only to lust, not to mis-devotion; now they were of those Nations, whereof the Lord had said to the children of Israel, Go not ye in to them, nor let them come in to you, for surely they will turn your hearts after their Gods; to them did Solomon join in love; who can marvel if they disjoined his heart from God? Satan hath found this bait to take so well, that he never changed it since he crept into Paradise. How many have we known whose heads have been broken with their own rib?  
In the first world the sons of God saw the daughters of men, and took them wives of all they liked; they multiplied not children, but iniquities; Balaam knew well if the dames of Moab could make the Israelites wantoness, they should soon make them Idolaters: All lies open where the covenant is not both made with the eye, and kept.  
It was the charge of God to the Kings of Israel, before they were, that they should not multiply Wives. Solomon hath gone beyond the stakes of the law, and now is ready to lose himself amongst a thousand bedfellows: Who so lays the reins in the neck of his carnal appetite, cannot promise where he will rest. Oh Solomon, where was thy wisdom, whiles thine affections run away with thee into so wild a voluptuousness? What boots it thee to discourse of all things, whiles thou misknowest thyself? The perfections of speculation do not argue the inward powers of selfe-government; The eye may be clear whiles the hand is palsied. It is not so much to be heeded how the soul is informed, as how it is disciplined; The light of knowledge doth well, but the due order of the affections doth better: Never any mere man since the first, knew so much as Solomon▪ many that have known less have had more command of themselves; A competent estate well husbanded, is better than a vast patrimony neglected.  
There can be no safety to that soul where is not a straight curb upon our desires; If our lusts be not held under as slaves, they will rule as tyrants. Nothing can prevent the extremity of our miscarriage but early and strong denials to our concupiscence: Had Solomon done thus, delicacy and lawless greatness had not led him into these bogs of intemperance.  
The ways of youth are steep and slippery, wherein as it is easy to fall, so it is commonly relieved with pity; but the wanton inordinations of age are not more unseasonable than odious; yet behold Salomon's younger years were studious, and innocent, his over-hastened age was licentious and misgoverned; For, when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other Gods; If any age can secure us from the danger of a spiritual fall, it is our last; and if any man's old-age might secure him, it was Salomon's; the beloved of God, the Oracle, the miracle of wisdom; who would have looked but that the blossoms of so hopeful a spring, should have yielded a goodly and pleasant fruit, in the Autumn of age? yet behold even Salomon's old age vicious. There is no time wherein we can be safe, whiles we carry this body of sin about us; Youth is impetuous, mid-age stubborn, old age weak, all dangerous; Say not now; The fury of my youthful flashes is over; I shall henceforth find my heart calm and impregnable; whiles thou seest old Solomon doting upon his concubines, yea upon their Idolatry.  
It is no presuming upon time▪ or means, or strength; how many have begun and proceeded well, who yet have shamed themselves in their last stage? If God uphold us not, we cannot stand; If God uphold us, we cannot fall; when we are at our strongest, it is best to be weak in ourselves; and when at our weakest, strong in him, in whom we can do all things.  
I cannot yet think so hardly of Solomon, that he would project his person to Ashtaroth the Goddess of the Sidonians, or Milchom the Idol of the Ammonites, or Chemosh the abomination of Moab: He that knew all things from the shrub, to the Cedar, could not be ignorant that these statues were but stocks, or stones, or metals, and the powers resembled by them, Devils. It is not like he could be so insensate to adore such deities; but so far was the uxorious King blinded with affection, that he gave not passage only to the Idolatry of his heathenish wives, but furtherance.  
So did he dote upon their persons, that he humoured them in their sins: Their act is therefore his, because his eyes winked at it; his hand advanced it; He that built a Temple to the living God, for himself and Israel in Zion, built a Temple to Chemosh in the mount of Scandal, for his mistresses of Moab, in the very face of God's house: No hill about jerusalem was free from a Chapel of Devils; Each of his dames had their Puppets, their altars, their incense; Because Solomon feeds them in their superstition, he draws the sin home to himself, and is branded for what he should have forbidden. Even our very permission appropriates crimes to us; We need no more guiltiness of any sin then our willing toleration.  
Who can but yearn, and fear to see the woeful wrack of so rich and goodly a vessel? O Solomon, wert not thou he whose younger years God honoured with a message and style of love? To whom God twice appeared; and in a gracious vision renewed the covenant of his favour? Whom he singled out from all the generation of men to be the founder of that glorious Temple which was no less clearly the Type of heaven, than thou wert of Christ the Son of the everliving God? Wert not thou that deep Sea of wisdom which God ordained to send forth rivers and fountains of all divine, and humane knowledge to all nations, to all ages? Wert not thou one of those select Secretaries, whose hand it pleased the Almighty to employ in three pieces of the divine monuments of sacred Scriptures? Which of us dares ever hope to aspire unto thy graces? Which of us can promise to secure ourselves from thy ruins? We fall, o God, we fall to the lowest hell, if thou prevent us not, if thou sustain us not: Uphold thou me according to thy word that I may live, and let me not be ashamed of my hope. Order my steps in thy word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. All our weakness is in ourselves, all our strength is in thee. O God be thou strong in our weakness, that our weak knees may be ever steady in thy strength.  
But in the midst of the horror of this spectacle (able to affright all the sons of men) behold some glimpse of comfort: was it of Solomon that David his father prophesied; Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand? If sensible grace, yet final mercy was not taken from that beloved of God; In the hardest of this winter▪ the sap was gone down to the root, though it showed not in the branches: Even whiles Solomon removed, that word stood fast, He shall be my Son, and I will be his Father. He that foresaw his sin, threatened and limited his correction. If he break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit his transgression with a rod, and his iniquity with stripes; Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail; My Covenant will I not break; nor alter the thing that is gone out of my mouth; Behold the favour of God doth not depend upon Salomon's obedience; If Solomon shall suffer his faithfulness to fail towards his God; God will not requite him with the failing of his faithfulness to Solomon; If Solomon break his covenant with God; God will not break his Covenant with the father of Solomon, with the Son of David; He shall smart, he shall not perish. Oh gracious word of the God of all mercies, able to give strength to the languishing, comfort to the despairing, to the dying, life. Whatsoever we are, thou wilt be still thyself, O holy one of Israel, true to thy Covenant, constant to thy Decree; The sins of thy chosen can neither frustrate thy counsel, nor outstrip thy mercies.  
Now I see Solomon of a wanton lover, a grave Preacher of mortification; I see him quenching those inordinate flames with the tears of his repentance. Me thinks I hear him sighing deeply betwixt every word of that his solemn penance which he would needs enjoin himself before all the world, I have applied my heart to know the wickedness of folly, even the foolishness of madness; and I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is as nets and snares, and her hands as bands; Who so pleaseth God shall be delivered from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her.  
Solomon was taken as a sinner, delivered as a penitent. His soul escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare was broken, and he delivered; It is good for us that he was both taken, and delivered; Taken, that we might not presume; and that we might not despair, delivered. He sinned, that we might not sin; he recovered, that we may not sink under our sin.  
But, oh the justice of God inseparable from his mercy; Salomon's sin shall not escape the rod of men; Rather then so wise an offender shall want enemies, God shall raise up three adversaries unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite, Rezon the King of Aram, jeroboam the son of Nebat, whereof two were foreign, one domestical: Nothing but love and peace sounded in the name of Solomon; nothing else was found in his reign, whiles he held in good terms with his God; But when once he fell foul with his maker, all things began to be troubled. There are whips laid up against the time of Salomon's foreseen offence, which are now brought forth for his correction; On purpose was Hadad the son of the King of Edom hid in a corner of Egypt from the sword of David and joab, that he might be reserved for a scourge to the exorbitant son of David: God would have us make account that our peace ends with our innocence: The same sin that sets debate betwixt God and us, arms the creatures against us; It were pity we should be at any quiet whiles we are fall'n out with the God of peace.   

Contemplations UPON THE PRINCIPAL HISTORIES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. The third Book. Containing 

The Widow's son raised.  
The Ruler's son healed.  
The dumb Devil ejected.  
Matthew called.  
Christ among the Gergesens; or Legion, and the Gadarene heard.     

TO MY RIGHT WORTHY AND WORSHIPFUL FRIEND, Master JOHN GIFFORD of Lancrasse in Devon, Esquire, All Grace and Peace.  
SIR,  
I hold it (as I ought) one of the rich mercies of GOD, that he hath given me favour in some eyes which have not seen me; but none, that I know, hath so much demerited me, unknown, as your worthy Family: Ere therefore you see my face, see my hand willingly professing my thankful Obligations: Wherewith may it please you to accept of this parcel of thoughts, not unlike those fellows of theirs, whom you have entertained above their desert. These shall present unto you our bountiful Saviour, magnifying his mercies to men, in a sweet variety; healing the diseased, raising the dead, casting out the Devil, calling in the Publican, and shall raise your heart to adore that infinite goodness; Every help to our devotion deserves to be precious; So much more, as the decrepit age of the world declines to an heartless coldness of piety: That GOD, to whose honour these poor labours are meant, bless them in your hands, and from them, to all Readers. To his protection I heartily commend you, and the right virtuous Gentlewoman, your worthy wife, with all the pledges of your happy affection, as whom you have deserved to be  
Your truly thankful and officious friend, IOS: HALL..   

The Widow's Son raised.  
THE favours of our beneficent Saviour were at the least contiguous. No sooner hath he raised the Centurion's servant from his bed, than he raises the Widow's son from his Beer.  
The fruitful clouds are not ordained to fall all in one field; Nain must partake of the bounty of Christ as well as Cana, or Capernaum: And if this Sun were fixed in one Orb, yet it diffuseth heat, and light to all the world; It is not for any place to engross the messengers of the Gospel, whose errand is universal; This immortal seed may not fall all in one furrow.  
The little city of Nain stood under the hill of Hermon, near unto Tabor; but now it is watered with better dews from above, the doctrine and miracles of a Saviour.  
Not for state, but for the more evidence of the work, is our Saviour attended with a large train; So entering into the gate of that walled City, as if he meant to besiege their faith by his power, and to take it; His providence hath so contrived his journey, that he meets with the sad pomp of a funeral; A woeful widow attended with her weeping neighbours is following her only son to the grave; There was nothing in this spectacle that did not command compassion.  
A young man in the flower, in the strength of his age swallowed up by death; Our decrepit age both expects death, and solicits it; but vigorous youth, looks strangely upon that grim sergeant of God; Those mellow apples that fall alone from the tree we gather up with contentment; we chide to have the unripe unseasonably beaten down with cudgels.  
But more, a young man, the only son, the only child of his mother: No condition can make it other then grievous for a well-natu'rd mother to part with her own bowels; yet surely store is some mitigation of loss: Amongst many children one may be more easily miss; for still we hope the surviving may supply the comforts of the dead; but when all our hopes and joys must either live or die in one, the loss of that one admits of no consolation.  
When God would describe the most passionate expression of sorrow that can fall into the miserable, he can but say, Oh daughter of my people gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in the ashes, make lamentation and bitter mourning, as for thine only son; Such was the loss, such was the sorrow of this disconsolate mother; neither words, nor tears can suffice to discover it.  
Yet more; had she been aided by the counsel and supportation of a loving yoke-fellow, this burden might have seemed less intolerable; A good husband may make amends for the loss of a son; had the root been left to her entire, she might better have spared the branch; now both are cut up, all the stay of her life is gone; and she seems abandoned to a perfect misery. And now when she gave herself up for a forlorn mourner, past all capacity of redress, the God of comfort meets her, pities her, relieves her; Here was no solicitor but his own compassion; In other occasions he was sought, and sued to; The Centurion comes to him for a servant, the Ruler for a son▪ jairus for a daughter, the neighbours for the Paralyticke; here he seeks up the patient, and offers the cure unrequested; Whiles we have to do with the Father of mercies, our afflictions are the most powerful suitors. No tears, no prayers can move him so much as his own commiseration. Oh God, none of our secret sorrows, can be either hid from thine eyes, or kept from thine heart: and when we are passed all our hopes, all possibilities of help; then art thou nearest to us for deliverance.  
Here was a conspiration of all parts to mercy. The heart had compassion, the mouth said, Weep not, the feet went to the Beer, the hand touched the coffin, the power of the Deity raised the dead: What the heart felt was secret to itself, the tongue therefore expresses it in words of comfort, Weep not; Alas what are words to so strong and just passions? To bid her not to weep that had lost her only son, was to persuade her to be miserable, and not feel it; to feel, and not regard it: to regard, and yet to smother it; Concealment doth not remedy but aggravate sorrow: That with the counsel of not weeping therefore, she might see cause of not weeping; his hand seconds his tongue: He arrests the coffin, and frees the Prisoner; Young man I say unto thee arise; The Lord of life, and death, speaks with command; No finite power could have said so without presumption, or with success: That is the voice that shall one day call up our vanished bodies from those elements, into which they are resolved, and raise them out of their dust; Neither sea, nor death, nor hell can offer to detain their dead, when he charges them to be delivered: Incredulous nature, what dost thou shrink at the possibility of a resurrection, when the God of nature undertakes it? It is no more hard for that almighty Word which gave being unto all things, to say, Let them be repaired, then, Let them be made.  
I do not see our Saviour stretching himself upon the dead corpse, as Elias, and Elisha, upon the sons of the Sunamite, and Sareptan, nor kneeling down, and praying by the Beer, as Peter did to Dorcas, but I hear him so speaking to the dead, as if he were alive, and so speaking to the dead that by the word he makes him alive, I say unto thee, arise; Death hath no power to bid that man lie still, whom the Son of God bids Arise. Immediately he that was dead sat up. So at the sound of the last trumpet by the power of the same voice, we shall arise out of the dust, and stand up glorious; this mortal shall put on immortality, this corruptible, incorruption; This body shall not be buried, but sown; and at our day shall therefore spring up with a plentiful increase of glory; How comfortless, how desperate should be our lying down, if it were not for this assurance of rising? And now, behold, lest our weak faith should stagger at the assent to so great a difficulty, he hath already by what he hath done, given us tastes of what he will do; The power that can raise one man, can raise a thousand, a million, a world; no power can raise one but that which is infinite; and that which is infinite admits of no limitation; Under the old Testament, God raised one by Elias, another by Elisha living, a third by Elisha dead; By the hand of the Mediator of the new Testament he raised here the son of the widow, the daughter of jairus, Lazarus, and, in attendance of his own resurrection he made a gaoledelivery of holy prisoners, at jerusalem. He raises the daughter of jairus from her bed; this widow's son from his coffin; Lazarus from his grave, the dead saints of jerusalem from their rottenness, that it might appear no degree of death can hinder the efficacy of his overruling command; He that keeps the keys of death cannot only make way for himself through the common hall, and outer-roomes, but through the inwardest, and most reserved closerts of darkness.  
Me thinks I see this young man who was thus miraculously awaked from his deadly sleep, wiping and rubbing those eyes that had been shut up in death; and descending from the Beer, wrapping his winding sheet about his loins, cast himself down in a passionate thankfulness, at the feet of his Almighty restorer; adoring that divine power which had commanded his soul back again to her forsaken lodging; and though I hear not what he said, yet I dare say they were words of praise and wonder, which his returned soul first uttered; It was the mother whom our Saviour pitied in this act, not the son; (who now forced from his quiet rest must twice pass through the gates of death.) As for her sake therefore he was raised, so to her hands was he delivered; that she might acknowledge that soul given to her, not to the possessor: Who cannot feel the amazement, and ecstasy of joy that was in this revived mother, when her son now salutes her from out of another world? And both receives and gives gratulations of his new life? How suddenly were all the tears of that mournful train dried up with a joyful astonishment? How soon is that funeral banquet turned into a new Birthday feast? What striving was here to salute the late carcase of their returned neighbour? What awful and admiring looks were cast upon that Lord of life, who seeming homely, was approved omnipotent? How gladly did every tongue celebrate both the work, and the author? A great Prophet is raised up amongst us, and God hath visited his people. A Prophet was the highest name they could find for him whom they saw like themselves in shape, above themselves in power; They were not yet acquainted with God manifested in the flesh; This miracle might well have assured them of more than a Prophet; but he that raised the dead man from the Beer would not suddenly raise these dead hearts from the grave of Infidelity; they shall see reason enough to know that the Prophet who was raised up to them, was the God that now visited them, and at last should do as much for them as he had done for the young man, raise them from death to life, from dust to glory.   

The Ruler's Son Cured.  
THE bounty of God so exceedeth man's, that there is a contrariety in the exercise of it; We shut our hands because we have opened them; God therefore opens his, because he hath opened them: Gods mercies are as comfortable in their issue, as in themselves; Seldom ever do blessings go alone; where our Saviour supplied the Bridegroom's wine, there he heals the Ruler's son; He had not in all these coasts of Galilee done any one miracle but here; To him that hath shall be given.  
We do not find Christ oft attended with Nobility; here he is; It was some great Peer, or some noted Courtier that was now a suitor to him for his dying son: Earthly greatness is no defence against afflictions: We men forbear the mighty; Disease and death know no faces of Lords, or Monarches; Could these be bribed, they would be too rich; why should we grudge not to be privileged, when we see there is no spare of the greatest?  
This noble Ruler, listens after Christ's return into Galilee; The most eminent amongst men will be glad to hearken after Christ in their necessity: Happy was it for him that his son was sick; he had not else been acquainted with his Saviour, his soul had continued sick of ignorance, and unbelief; Why else doth our good God send us pain, losses, opposition, but that he may be sought to? Are we afflicted, whither should we go but to Cana, to seek Christ? whither but to the Cana of heaven, where our water of sorrow is turned to the wine of gladness, to that omnipotent Physician, who healeth all our infirmities; that we may once say, It is good for me that I was afflicted.  
It was about a day's journey from Capernaum to Cana; Thence hither did this Courtier come for the cure of his son's fever; What pains even the greatest can be content to take for bodily health? No way is long, no labour tedious to the desirous: Our souls are sick of a spiritual fever, labouring under the cold fit of infidelity, and the hot fit of self-love; and we sit still at home, and see them languish unto death.  
This Ruler was neither faithless, nor faithful; Had he been quite faithless, he had not taken such pains to come to Christ. Had he been faithful, he had not made this suit to Christ, when he was come, Come down, and heal my son, ere he die.  
Come down, as if Christ could not have cured him absent; Ere he die, as if that power could not have raised him being dead; how much difference was here betwixt the Centurion, and the Ruler; That came for his servant, this for his son. This son was not more above that servant, than the faith which sued for the servant surpassed that which sued for the son; The one can say, Master come not under my roof, for I am not worthy, only speak the word; and my servant shall be whole; The other can say, Master, either come under my roof, or my son cannot be whole. Heale my son, had been a good suit, for Christ is the only Physician for all diseases; but, Come down, and heal him, was to teach God how to work.  
It is good reason that he should challenge the right of prescribing to us, who are every way his own; it is presumption in us to stint him unto our forms: An expert workman cannot abide to be taught by a novice; how much less shall the alwise God endure to be directed by his creature? This is more than if the patient should take upon him to give a Recipe to the Physician: That God would give us grace is a beseeming suit, but to say, Give it me by prosperity, is a saucy motion.  
As there is faithfulness in desiring the end, so modesty and patience in referring the means to the author. In spiritual things God hath acquainted us with the means whereby he will work, even his own sacred ordinances; Upon th●se, because they have his own promise, we may call absolutely for a blessing; In all others, there is no reason that beggars should be choosers; He who doth whatsoever he will, must do it how he will; It is for us to receive, not to appoint.  
He who came to complain of his son's sickness, hears of his own, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. This noble man was (as is like) of Capernaum; There had Christ often preached; there was one of his chief residences: Either this man had heard our Saviour oft, or might have done; yet because Christ's miracles came to him only by hearsay (for as yet we find none at all wrought where he preached most) therefore the man believes not enough; but so speaks to Christ as to some ordinary Physician, Come down and heal; It was the common disease of the jews, incredulity; which no receipt could heal but wonders; A wicked and adulterous generation seeks signs. Had they not been wilfully graceless; there was already proof enough of the Messias; the miraculous conception and life of the forerunner; Zacharies' dumbness; The attestation of Angels, the apparition of the Star, the journey of the Sages, the vision of the Shepherds, the testimonies of Anna and Simeon, the prophesies fulfilled, the voice from heaven at his baptism, the divine words that he spoke; and yet they must have all made up with miracles; which though he be not unwilling to give at his own times, yet he thinks much to be tied unto, at theirs; Not to believe without signs, was a sign of stubborn hearts.  
It was a foul fault, and a dangerous one; Ye will not believe: What is it that shall condemn the world but unbelief? What can condemn us without it? No sin can condemn the repentant, Repentance is a fruit of faith; where true faith is then, there can be no condemnation; as there can be nothing but condemnation without it. How much more foul in a noble Capernaite, that had heard the Sermons of so divine a Teacher? The greater light we have, the more shame it is for us to stumble.  
Oh what shall become of us, that reel and fall in the clearest Sunshine that ever looked forth upon any Church? Be merciful to our sins, o God, and say any thing of us, rather, then, Ye will not believe.  
Our Saviour tells him of his unbelief; he feels not himself sick of that disease; All his mind is on his dying son; As easily do we complain of bodily griefs, as we are hardly affected with spiritual. Oh the meekness and mercy of this Lamb of God; When we would have looked that he should have punished this suitor for not believing, he condescends to him, that he may believe: Go thy way, thy son liveth. If we should measure our hopes by our own worthiness, there were no expectation of blessings, but if we shall measure them by his bounty, and compassion, there can be no doubt of prevailing. As some tender mother that gives the breast to her unquiet child, in stead of the rod, so deals he with our perversnesses.  
How God differences men according to no other conditions, then of their faith! The Centurion's servant was sick, the Ruler's son; The Centurion doth not sue unto Christ to come; only says, My servant is sick of a Palsy; Christ answers him, I will come, and heal him: The Ruler sues unto Christ that he would come, and heal his son, Christ will not go; only says, Go thy way, thy son lives; Outward things carry no respect with God; The Image of that divine Majesty shining inwardly in the graces of the soul, is that which wins love from him in the meanest estate; The Centurion's faith therefore could do more than the Ruler's greatness; and that faithful man's servant hath more regard than this great man's son.  
The Ruler's request was, Come and heal; Christ's answer was, Go thy way, thy son lives; Our merciful Saviour meets those in the end, whom he crosses in the way: How sweetly doth he correct our prayers, and whiles he doth not give us what we ask, gives us better than we asked.  
justly doth he forbear to go down with this Ruler, lest he should confirm him in an opinion of measuring his power by conceits of locality, and distance; but he doth that in absence, for which his presence was required with a repulse; Thy son liveth; giving a greater demonstration of his omnipotency then was craved; How oft doth he not hear to our will; that he may hear us to our advantage? The chosen vessel would be rid of tentations, he hears of a supply of grace; The sickman asks release, receives patience: life, and receives glory: Let us ask what we think best, let him give what he knows best.  
With one word doth Christ heal two Patients, the son, and the father, the son's fever, the father's unbelief; That operative word of our Saviour was not without the intention of a trial; Had not the Ruler gone home satisfied with that intimation of his son's life, and recovery, neither of them had been blessed with success: Now the news of performance meets him one half of the way; and he that believed somewhat ere he came, and more when he went, grew to more faith in the way; and when he came home, enlarged his faith to all the skirts of his family; A weak faith may be true, but a true faith is growing: He that boasts of a full stature in the first moment of his assent, may presume, but doth not believe.  
Great men cannot want clients; their example sways some, their authority more; they cannot go to either of the other world's alone; In vain do they pretend power over others, who labour not to draw their families unto God.   

The dumb Devil ejected.  
THAT the Prince of our peace might approve his perfect victories, wheresoever he met with the Prince of darkness he foiled him, he ejected him; He found him in heaven, thence did he throw him headlong; and verified his Prophet, I have cast thee out of mine holy mountain; And if the Devils left their first habitation, it was because (being Devils) they could not keep it; Their estate indeed they might have kept, and did not; their habitation they would have kept, and might not; How art thou fall'n from heaven o Lucifer? He found him in the heart of man; (for in that closet of God did the evil spirit after his exile from heaven shroud himself; Sin gave him possession, which he kept with a willing violence) thence he casts him by his word, and spirit; He found him tyrannising in the bodies of some possessed men, and with power commands the unclean spirits to depart.  
This act is for no hand but his: When a strong man keeps possession, none but a stronger can remove it: In voluntary things the strongest may yield to the weakest; Samson to a Dalilah; but in violent, ever the mightiest carries it; A spiritual nature must needs be in rank above a bodily; neither can any power be above a spirit, but the God of spirits.  
No otherwise is it in the mental possession; Where ever sin is, there Satan is; As on the contrary, whosoever is borne of God, the seed of God remains in him; That evil one not only is, but rules in the sons of disobedience: in vain shall we try to eiect him, but by the divine power of the Redeemer; For this cause the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil; Do we find ourselves haunted with the familiar Devils of Pride, self-love, sensual desires, unbelief? None but thou, o Son of the everliving God, can free our bosoms of these hellish guests; Oh cleanse thou me from my secret sins, and keep me that presumptuous sins prevail not over me. O Saviour, it is no Paradox to say that thou castest out more Devils now, than thou didst whiles thou wert upon earth; It was thy word, When I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me; Satan weighs down at the feet, thou pullest at the head, yea at the heart; In every conversion which thou workest, there is a dispossession. Convert me, o Lord, and I shall be converted; I know thy means are now no other than ordinary; if we expect to be dispossessed by miracle, it would be a miracle if ever we were dispossessed; Oh let thy Gospel have the perfect work in me, so only shall I be delivered from the powers of darkness.  
Nothing can be said to be dumb, but what naturally speaks; nothing can speak naturally, but what hath the instruments of speech; which because spirits want, they can no otherwise speak vocally, then as they take voices to themselves, in taking bodies; This devil was not therefore dumb in his nature, but in his effect; The man was dumb by the operation of that devil, which possessed him; and now the action is attributed to the spirit, which was subjectively in the man; It is not you that speak, saith our Saviour, but the spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.  
As it is in bodily diseases, that they do not infect us alike, some seize upon the humours, others upon the spirits; some assault the brain, others the heart, or lungs; so in bodily and spiritual possessions; In some the evil spirit takes away their senses, in some their limbs, in some, their inward faculties; like as spiritually they affect to move us unto several sins; One to lust, another to covetousness, or ambition, another to cruelty, and their names have distinguished them according to these various effects: This was a dumb devil; which yet had possessed not the tongue only of this man, but his ear; nor that only, but (as it seems) his eyes too.  
O subtle and tyrannous spirit, that obstructs all ways to the soul: that keeps out all means of grace both from the doors, and windows of the heart; yea that stops up all passages whether of ingress, or egress; Of ingress at the eye, or ear; of egress at the mouth; that there might be no capacity of redress.  
What holy use is thereof our tongue but to praise our Maker, to confess our sins, to inform our brethren? How rife is this dumb Devil everywhere, whiles he stops the mouths of Christians from these useful and necessary duties?  
For what end hath man those two privileges above his fellow creatures, Reason, and Speech, but, that, as by the one he may conceive of the great works of his Maker, which the rest cannot, so by the other he may express what he conceives, to the honour of the Creator, both of them, and himself; And why are all other creatures said to praise God, and bidden to praise him, but because they do it by the apprehension, by the expression of man? If the heavens declare the glory of God, how do they it but to the eyes, and by the tongue of that man, for whom they were made? It is no small honour whereof the envious spirit shall rob his Maker, if he can close up the mouth of his only rational, and vocal creature; and turn the best of his workmanship into a dumb Idol, that hath a mouth and speaks not; Lord open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.  
Praise is not more necessary than complaint; praise of God, than complaint of ourselves, whether to God, or men; The only amends we can make to God, when we have not had the grace to avoid sin, is to confess the sin we have not avoided: This is the sponge that wipes out all the blots and blurs of our lives; If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  
That cunning manslayer knows there is no way to purge the sick soul, but upward by casting out the vicious humour wherewith it is clogged; and therefore holds the lips close, that the heart may not disburden itself by so wholesome evacuation. When I kept silence, my bones consumed; For day and night thy hand, o Lord, was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of Summer; O let me confess against myself my wickedness unto thee, that thou mayst forgive the punishment of my sin.  
We have a tongue for God, when we praise him; for ourselves, when we pray, and confess; for our brethren, when we speak the truth for their information; which if we hold back in unrighteousness, we yield unto that dumb Devil: where do we not see that accursed spirit? He is on the Bench, when the mute, or partial judge speaks not for truth, and innocence: He is in the pulpit, when the Prophets of God smother, or halve, or adulterate the message of their master; He is at the bar, when irreligious jurors dare lend an oath to fear, to hope, to gain: He is in the market, when godless chapmen for their penny sell the truth, and their soul; He is in the common conversation of men, when the tongue belies the heart, flatters the guilty, balketh reproofs even in the foulest crimes: O thou, who only art stronger than that strong one, cast him out of the hearts, and mouths of men; It is time for thee, Lord, to work, for they have destroyed thy law.  
That it might well appear this impediment was not natural; so soon as the man is freed from the spirit, his tongue is free to his speech: The effects of spirits as they are wrought, so they cease at once. If the Son of God do but remove our spiritual possession, we shall presently broke forth into the praise of God, into the confession of our vileness, into the profession of truth.  
But, what strange variety do I see in the spectators of this miracle, some wondering, others censuring, a third sort tempting, a fourth applauding; There was never man, or action, but was subject to variety of constructions: What man could be so holy, as he that was God? What act could be more worthy than the dispossession of an evil spirit? yet this man, this act passeth these differences of interpretation: What can we do to undergo but one opinion? If we give alms, and fast; some will magnify our charity, and devotion, others will tax our hypocrisy: If we give not, some will condemn our hardheartedness, others will allow our care of justice; If we preach plainly, to some it will savour of a careless slubbering, to others of a mortified sincerity; Elaborately, some will tax our affectation, others will applaud our diligence in dressing the delicate viands of God; What marvel is it, if it be thus with our imperfection, when it fared no otherwise with him that was purity, and righteousness itself? The austere forerunner of Christ came neither eating nor drinking, they say, He hath a Devil; The son of man came eating and drinking, they say, This man is a glutton, a friend of Publicans and sinners: and here one of his holy acts carries away at once wonder, censure, doubt, celebration. There is no way safe for a man but to square his actions by the right rule of justice, of charity; and then let the world have leave to spend their glosses at pleasure. It was an heroical resolution of the chosen vessel, I pass very little to be judged of you, or of man's day.  
I marvel not if the people marvelled; for here were four wonders in one; The blind saw, the deaf heard, the dumb spoke, the demoniac is delivered; Wonder was due to so rare, and powerful a work, and, if not this, nothing; We can cast away admiration upon the poor devices, or activities of men, how much more upon the extraordinary works of omnipotency? Whoso knows the frame of heaven and earth shall not much be affected with the imperfect effects of frail humanity; but shall with no less ravishment of soul acknowledge the miraculous works of the same almighty hand. Neither is the spiritual eiection worthy of any meaner entertainment; Rarity and difficulty are wont to cause wonder; There are many things which have wonder in their worth, and lose it in their frequency; there are some which have it in their strangeness, and lose it in their facility; Both meet in this. To see men haunted, yea possessed with a dumb Devil is so frequent, that it is a just wonder to find a man free; but to find the dumb spirit cast out of a man, and to hear him praising God, confessing his sins, teaching others the sweet experiments of mercy, deserves just admiration. If the Cynic sought in the market for a man amongst men, well may we seek amongst men, for a convert. Neither is the difficulty less than the rareness: The strong man hath the possession, all passages are blocked up, all helps barred, by the treachery of our nature; If any soul be rescued from these spiritual wickednesses, it is the praise of him that doth wonders alone.  
But whom do I see wondering? The multitude; The unlearned beholders follow that act with wonder, which the learned Scribes entertain with obloquy: God hath revealed those things to babes, which he hath hid from the wise, and prudent. With what scorn did those great Rabbins speak of these sons of the earth, This people that knows not the Law is accursed? Yet the mercy of God makes an advantage of their simplicity; in that they are therefore less subject to cavillation, and incredulity; as contrarily, his justice causes the proud knowledge of the other to lie as a block in their way, to the ready assent unto the divine power of the Messias; Let the pride of glorious adversaries disdain the poverty of the clients of the Gospel; it shall not repent us to go to heaven with the vulgar, whiles their great ones go in state to perdition.  
The multitude wondered; Who censured but Scribes great Doctors of the law, of the divinity of the jews? What Scribes, but those of jerusalem, the most eminent Academy of judea? These were the men, who out of their deepe-reputed judgement cast these foul aspersions upon Christ. Great wits ofttimes misled both the owners and followers; How many shall once wish they had been borne dullards, yea idiots, when they shall find their wit to have barred them out of heaven? Where is the Scribe, where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made the wisdom of the world foolishness? Say the world what it will, a dram of holiness is worth a pound of wit; Let others censure with the Scribes, let me wonder with the multitude.  
What could malice say worse, He casteth out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of Devils? The jews well knew that the Gods of the heathen were no other than Devils; Amongst whom for that the Lord of Files (so called, whether for the concourse of flies to the abundance of his sacrifices, or for his aid implored against the infestation of those swarms) was held the chief, therefore they style him, The Prince of Devils. There is a subordination of spirits; some hire in degree, some inferior to others; Our Saviour himself tells us of the Devil, and his Angels; Messengers are inferior to those that send them: The seven Devils that entered into the swept, and garnished house, were worse than the former; Neither can Principalities, and Powers, and Governors, and Princes of the darkness of this world design other then several ranks of evil Angels; There can be no being, without some kind of order, there can be no order in parity; If we look up into heaven, there is The King of Gods, The Lord of Lords; higher than the highest. If to the earth, There are Monarches, Kings, Princes, Peers, people; If we look down to hell, There is the Prince of Devils; They labour for confusion that call for parity; What should the Church do with such a form, as is not exemplified in heaven, in earth, in hell?  
One devil (according to their supposition) may be used to cast out another: How far the command of one spirit over another may extend, it is a secret of infernal state, too deep for the inquiry of men: The thing itself is apparent; upon compact, and precontracted composition, one gives way to other for the common advantage; As we see it in the Commonwealth of Cheaters, and Cutpurses; one doth the fact, another is feed to bring it out, and to procure restitution: both are of the trade; both conspire to the fraud; the actor falls not out with the revealer; but divides with him that cunning spoil.  
One malicious miscreant sets the Devil on work to the inflicting of disease, or death; another upon agreement, for a further spiritual gain, takes him off; There is a Devil in both; And if there seem more bodily favour, there is no less spiritual danger in the latter; In the one Satan wins the agent, the suitor in the other; It will be no cause of discord in hell, that one devil gives ease to the body which another tormented, that both may triumph in the gain of a soul. O God, that any creature which bears thine Image, should not abhor to be beholden to the powers of hell for aid, for advice? Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that men go to inquire of the god of Ekron? Can men be so sottish to think that the vowed enemy of their souls can offer them a bait, without an hook? What evil is there in the city which the Lord hath not done, what is there which he cannot as easily redress: He wounds, he heals again; And if he will not, it is the Lord, let him do what seems good in his eyes; If he do not deliver us, he will crown our faithfulness in a patient perseverance. The wounds of a God are better than the salves of Satan.  
Was it possible that the wit of Envy could devose so high a slander? Beelzebub was a God of the heathen; therefore herein they accuse him for an Idolater; Beelzebub was a Devil to the jews, therefore they accuse him for a conjurer; Beelzebub was the chief of Devils, therefore they accuse him for an Arch-exorcist, for the worst kind of Magician; Some professors of this black Art, though their work be devilish, yet they pretend to do it in the name of jesus, and will presumptuously seem to do that by command, which is secretly transacted by agreement; the Scribes accuse Christ of a direct compact with the Devil; and suppose both a league and familiarity, which by the law of Moses (in the very hand of a Saul) was no other than deadly; Yea so deep doth this wound reach, that our Saviour, searching it to the bottom, finds no less in it then the sin against the Holyghost; inferring hereupon that dreadful sentence of the irremissiblenesse of that sin unto death: And if this horrible crimination were cast upon thee, o Saviour, in whom the Prince of this world found nothing, what wonder is it if we thy sinful servants be branded on all sides with evil tongues?  
Yea (which is yet more) how plain is it that these men forced their tongue to speak this slander against their own heart? Else, this blasphemy had been only against the son of man, not against the holy Ghost; but now, that the searcher of hearts finds it to be no less then against the blessed spirit of God, the spite must needs be obstinate; their malice doth wilfully cross their conscience. Envy never regards how true, but how mischievous; So it may gall, or kill, it cares little, whether with truth, or falsehood; For us, Blessed are we when men revile us, and say all manner of evil of us, for the name of Christ; For them: What reward shall be given to thee, thou false tongue? Even sharp arrows with hot burning coals; Yea those very coals of hell from which thou wert enkindled.  
There was yet a third sort that went a midway betwixt wonder, and censure; These were not so malicious as to impute the miracle to a Satanical operation; they confess it good, but not enough; and therefore urge Christ to a further proof; Though thou hast cast out this dumb Devil, yet this is no sufficient argument of thy divine power; We have yet seen nothing from thee like those ancient miracles, of the times of our forefathers. josua caused the Sun to stand still; Elias brought fire down from heaven; Samuel astonished the people with thunder and rain in the midst of harvest; If thou wouldst command our belief, do somewhat like to these; The casting out of a Devil, shows thee to have some power over hell; show us now, that thou hast no less power over heaven. There is a kind of unreasonableness of desire, and insatiableness in infidelity; it never knows when it hath evidence enough; This which the jews over-looked, was a more irrefragable demonstration of divinity, then that which they desired. A Devil was more than a Meteor, or a parcel of an element; to cast out a Devil by command, more than to command fire from heaven: Infidelity ever loves to be her own carver.  
No son can be more like a father, than these jews to their progenitors in the desert; that there might be no fear of degenerating into good, they also of old tempted God in the Wilderness: First, they are weary of the Egyptian bondage, and are ready to fall out with God, and Moses, for their stay in those fornaces: By ten miraculous plagues they are freed, and going out of those confines; the Egyptians follow them, the sea is before them; now they are more afflicted with their liberty, than their servitude; The sea yields way, the Egyptians are drowned; and now, that they are safe on the other shore, they tempt the providence of God for water; The rock yields it them; then, no less for bread and meat; God sends them Manna, and Quails, they cry out of the food of Angels; Their present enemies in the way are vanquished, they whine at the men of measures, in the heart of Canaan; Nothing from God but mercy; nothing from them but Temptation.  
Their true brood both in nature and sin had abundant proofs of the Messiah; if curing the blind, lame, diseased, deaf, dumb, eiecting devils, overruling the elements, raising the dead could have been sufficient▪ yet still they must have a sign from heaven; and shut up in the style of the Tempter, If thou be the Christ. The gracious heart is credulous; Even where it sees not, it believes; and where it sees but a little, it believes a great deal; Neither doth it presume to prescribe unto God what, and how he shall work; but takes what it finds, and unmoveably rests in what it takes. Any miracle, no miracle serves enough for their assent, who have built their faith upon the Gospel of the Lord jesus.   

Matthew called.  
THE number of the Apostles was not yet full, One room is left void for a future occupant; who can but expect, that it is reserved for some eminent person? and behold, Matthew the Publican is the man: Oh the strange election of Christ; Those other disciples, whose calling is recorded, were from the Fisherboat, this from the Tole-booth, They were unlettered, this infamous; The condition was not in itself sinful, but as the taxes, which the Romans imposed on God's free people, were odious, so the Collectors, the Farmers of them abominable; Besides, that it was hard to hold that seat without oppression, without exaction; One that best knew it, branded it with poling, and sycophancy: And now, behold a griping Publican called to the family, to the Apostle-ship, to the Secretary-ship of God; Who can despair in the conscience of his unworthiness; when he sees this pattern of the free bounty of him that calleth us? Merits do not carry it in the gracious election of God, but his mere favour. There sat Matthew the Publican busy in his Countinghouse, reckoning up the sums of his rentals; raking up his arrearages, and wrangling for denied duties, and did so little think of a Saviour, that he did not so much as look at his passage, but, jesus, as he passed by, saw a man sitting at the receipt of custom, named Matthew; As if this prospect had been sudden and casual, jesus saw him in passing by; Oh Saviour, before the world was, thou sawst that man sitting there, thou sawst thine own passage; thou sawst his call in thy passage; and now thou goest purposely that way, that thou mightst see, and call: Nothing can be hid from that piercing eye; one glance whereof hath discerned a Disciple in the clothes of a Publican; That habit, that shop of extortion cannot conceal from thee a vessel of election; In all forms thou knowest thine own; and in thine own time shalt fetch them out of the disguises of their foul sins, or unfit conditions; What sawst thou, o Saviour, in that Publican, that might either allure thine eye, or not offend it? What but an hateful trade, an evil eye, a griple hand, bloody tables, heaps of spoil? yet now thou saidst, Follow me; Thou that saidst once to jerusalem, Thy birth and nativity is of the land of Canaan; Thy father was an Amorite, thy mother an Hittite; Thy navel was not cut, neither wert thou washed in water, to supple thee, thou wast not salted at all; thou wast not swaddled at all; None eye pitied thee, but thou wast cast out in the open fields, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast borne; And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, Live, yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, Live; Now also, when thou passedst by, and sawst Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom, saidst to him, Follow me; The life of this Publican was so much worse, than the birth of that forlorn Amorite, as, Follow me, was more then, Live; What canst thou see in us, o God, but ugly deformities, horrible sins, despicable miseries, yet doth it please thy mercy to say unto us, both, Live, and, Follow me?  
The just man is the first accuser of himself; whom do we hear to blazon the shame of Matthew, but his own mouth? Matthew the Evangelist tells us of Matthew the Publican; His fellows call him Levi, as willing to lay their finger upon the spot of his unpleasing profession; himself will not smother, nor blanch it a whit, but publishes it to all the world, in a thankful recognition of the mercy that called him; as liking well that his baseness should serve for a fit foil to set off the glorious lustre of his grace by whom he was elected; What matters it how vile we are, o God, so thy glory may rise in our abasement?  
That word was enough, Follow me; spoken by the same tongue, that said to the corpse, at Nain, Young man I say to thee, Arise; He that said, at first, Let there be light, says now, Follow me: That power sweetly inclines which could forceably command; the force is not more unresistible, than the inclination; When the Sun shines upon the Icicles, can they choose but melt, and fall? When it looks into a dungeon, can the place choose but be enlightened? Do we see the jet drawing up straws to it, the Loadstone iron, and do we marvel if the omnipotent Saviour, by the influence of his grace, attract the heart of a Publican? He arose and followed him. We are all naturally averse from thee, o God; do thou but bid us Follow thee; draw us by thy powerful word, and we shall run after thee. Alas, thou speakest, and we sit still; thou speakest by thine outward word to our ear, and we stir not, speak thou by the secret, and effectual word of thy spirit, to our heart; The world cannot hold us down, Satan cannot stop our way, we shall arise, and follow thee.  
It was not a more busy than gainful trade that Matthew abandoned to follow Christ into poverty; and now he cast away his counters, and struck his tallies, and crossed his books, and contemned his heaps of cash in comparison of that better treasure, which he foresaw lie open in that happy attendance. If any commodity be valued of us too dear to be parted with, for Christ, we are more fit to be Publicans, than Disciples; Our Saviour invites Matthew to a Discipleship; Matthew invites him to a feast. The joy of his call makes him to begin his abdication of the world, in a banquet.  
Here was not a more cheerful thankfulness in the inviter, than a gracious humility in the guest: The new servant bids his master, the Publican his Saviour, and is honoured with so blessed a presence. I do not find where jesus was ever bidden to any table, and refused; If a Pharisee, if a Publican invited him, he made not dainty to go; Not for the pleasure of the dishes; what was that to him who began his work in a whole Lent of days? But (as it was his meat and drink to do the will of his Father,) for the benefit of so winning a conversation. If he sat with sinners, he converted them; If with converts, he confirmed and instructed them; If with the poor, he said them; If with the rich in substance, he made them richer in grace. At whose board did he ever sit, and left not his host a gainer? The poor Bridegroom entertains him, and hath his water-pots filled with wine: Simon the Pharisee entertains him, and hath his table honoured with the public remission of a penitent sinner, with the heavenly doctrine of remission: Zacheus entertains him, salvation came that day to his house, with the author of it; that presence made the Publican a son of Abraham; Matthew is recompensed for his feast with an Apostle-ship: Martha, and Mary entertain him, and beside divine instruction receive their brother from the dead; O Saviour, whether thou feast us, or we feast thee, in both of them is blessedness.  
Where a Publican is the Feast-master, it is no marvel if the guests be Publicans, and sinners; whether they came alone out of an hope of that mercy, which they saw their fellow had found; or whether Matthew invited them to be partners of that plentiful grace, whereof he had tasted, I inquire not: Publicans and sinners will flock together; the one, hateful for their trade, the other for their vicious life. Common contempt hath wrought them to an unanimity; and sends them to seek mutual comfort in that society, which all others held loathsome and contagious. Moderate correction humbleth, and shameth the offender; whereas a cruel severity makes men desperate; and drives them to those courses, whereby they are more dangerously infected; How many have gone into the prison faulty, and returned flagitious? If Publicans were not sinners, they were no whit beholden to their neighbours.  
What a table full was here? The Son of God beset with Publicans, and sinners: O happy Publicans, and sinners, that had found out their Saviour; Oh merciful Saviour, that disdained not Publicans and sinners.  
What sinner can fear to kneel before thee, when he sees Publicans and sinners sit with thee? Who can fear to be despised of thy meekness, and mercy, which didst not abhor, to converse with the outcasts of men? Thou didst not despise the thief confessing upon the cross, nor the sinner weeping upon thy feet, nor the Cananite crying to thee in the way, not the blushing adulteress, nor the odious Publican, nor the forswearing Disciple, nor the persecutor of Disciples, nor thine own executioners, how can we be unwelcome to thee, if we come with tears in our eyes, faith in our hearts, restitution in our hands? Oh Saviour, our breasts are too oft shut upon thee, thy bosom is ever open to us; we are as great sinners as the consorts of these Publicans, why should we despair of a room at thy Table?  
The squint-eid Pharisees look across at all the actions of Christ; where they should have admired his mercy, they cavil at his holiness; They said to his Disciples; why eateth your master with Publicans, and sinners? They durst not say thus to the Master, whose answer (they knew) would soon have convinced them; This wind (they hoped) might shake the weak faith of the Disciples; They speak where they may be most likely to hurt; All the crew of Satanical instruments have learned this craft of their old Tutor in Paradise: We cannot reverence that man, whom we think unholy; Christ had lost the hearts of his followers, if they had entertained the least suspicion of his impurity; which the murmur of these envious Pharisees would fain insinuate; He cannot be worthy to be followed that is unclean; He cannot but be unclean that eateth with Publicans and sinners: Proud and foolish Pharisees, ye fast whiles Christ eateth; ye fast in your houses, whiles Christ eateth in other men's; ye fast with your own, whiles Christ feasts with sinners; but if ye fast in pride, whiles Christ eats in humility; if ye fast at home, for merit, or popularity, whiles Christ feasts with sinners for compassion, for edification, for conversion, your fast is unclean, his feast is holy, ye shall have your portion with hypocrites, when those Publicans, and sinners shall be glorious.  
When these censurers thought the Disciples had offended, they speak not to them, but to their Master; Why do thy Disciples that which is not lawful? now, when they thought Christ offended, they speak not to him, but to the Disciples; Thus, like true make-bates they go about to make a breach in the family of Christ, by setting off the one from the other; The quick cie of our Saviour hath soon espied the pack of their fraud, and therefore he takes the words out of the mouths of his Disciples, into his own; They had spoke of Christ to the Disciples; Christ answers for the Disciples concerning himself, The whole need not the Physician, but the sick. According to the two qualities of pride; scorn, and overweening, these insolent Pharisees overrated their own holiness, contemned the noted unholiness of others; As if themselves were not tainted with secret sins, as if others could not be cleansed by repentance; The searcher of hearts meets with their arrogance, and finds those justiciaries sinful, those sinners just; The spiritual Physician finds the sickness of those sinners wholesome, the health of those Pharisees desperate: that, wholesome, because it calls for the help of the Physician, this, desperate, because it needs not. Every soul is sick; those most, that feel it not; Those that feel it, complain, those that complain, have cure; those that feel it not, shall find themselves dying ere they can wish to recover. Oh blessed Physician, by whose stripes we are healed, by whose death we live, happy are they that are under thy hands, sick, as of sin, so of sorrow for sin; it is as impossible they should die, as it is impossible for thee to want either skill, or power, or mercy; Sin hath made us sick unto death, make thou us but as sick of our sins, we are as safe, as thou art gracious.   

Christ among the Gergesens, or Legion, and the Gadarene heard▪  
I Do not any where find so furious a Demoniac, as amongst the Gergesens; Satan is most tyrannous, where he is obeyed most. Christ no sooner sailed over the lake, than he was met with two possessed Gadarenes; The extreme rage of the one hath drowned the mention of the other; Yet in the midst of all that cruelty of the evil spirit, there was sometimes a remission, if not an intermission, of vexation; If, Oft-times Satan caught him, then, sometimes, in the same violence, he caught him not. It was no thank to that malignant one, who as he was indefatigable in his executions, so unmeasurable in his malice; but▪ to the merciful overruling of God, who in a gracious respect to the weakness of his poor creatures, limits the spiteful attempts of that immortal enemy; and takes off this Mastiff, whiles we may take breath: He who in his justice gives way to some onsets of Satan, in his mercy restrains them; so regarding our deservings, that withal he regards our strength: If way should be given to that malicious spirit, we could not subsist; no violent thing can endure; and if Satan might have his will, we should no moment be free; He can be no more weary of doing evil to us, than God is of doing good: Are we therefore preserved from the malignity of these powers of darkness, Blessed be our strong helper that hath not given us over to be a prey unto their teeth: Or if some scope have been given to that envious one, to afflict us, hath it been with favourable limitations, it is thine only mercy, o God, that hath▪ chained and muzzled up this band-dog, so as that he may scratch us with his paws, but cannot pierce us with his fangs. far, far is this from our deserts, who had too well merited a just abdication from thy favour, and protection, and an interminable seizure by Satan, both in soul and body.  
Neither do I here see more matter of thanks to our God, for our immunity from the external injuries of Satan, than occasion of serious inquiry into his power over us, for the spiritual. I see some that think themselves safe from this ghostly tyranny, because they sometimes find themselves in good moods, free from the suggestions of gross sins, much more from the commission; Vain men, that feed themselves with so false and frivolous comforts; will they not see Satan, through the just permission of God, the same to the soul, in mental possessions, that he is to the body, in corporal? The worst demoniac hath his lightsome respites; not ever tortured; not ever furious; betwixt whiles he might look soberly, talk sensibly, move regularly; It is a woeful comfort that we sin not always: There is no master so barbarous as to require of his slave a perpetual unintermitted toil; yet, though he sometimes eat, sleep, rest, he is a vassal still; If that wicked one have drawn us to a customary perpetration of evil, and have wrought us to a frequent iteration of the same sin, this is gage enough for our servitude, matter enough for his tyranny, and insultation; He that would be our tormentor always, cares only to be sometimes our Tempter.  
The possessed is bound, as with the invisible fetters of Satan, so with the material chains of the inhabitants; What can bodily force prevail against a spirit? Yet they endeavour this restraint of the man, whether out of charity, or justice; Charity, that he might not hurt himself; justice, that he might not hurt others; None do so much befriend the Demoniac as those that bind him; Neither may the spiritually possessed be otherwise handled; for though this act of the enemy be plausible, and, to appearance, pleasant, yet there is more danger in this dear, and smiling tyranny; Two sorts of chains are fit for outrageous sinners; Good laws, unpartial executions; That they may not hurt, that they may not be hurt to eternal death.  
These iron chains are no sooner fast, then broken; There was more than an humane power in this disruption; It is not hard to conceive the utmost of nature, in this kind of actions; Samson doth not break the cords, and ropes like a thread of tow, but God by Samson; The man doth not break these chains, but the spirit. How strong is the arm of these evil angels, how far transcending the ordinary course of nature? They are not called Powers for nothing; what flesh and blood could but tremble at the palpable inequality of this match, if herein the merciful protection of our God did not the rather magnify itself, that so much strength, met with so much malice, hath not prevailed against us: In spite of both we are in safe hands; He that so easily broke the iron fetters, can never break the adamantine chain of our faith; In vain do the chafing billows of hell beat upon that rock, whereon we are built; And though these brittle chains of earthly mettle be easily broken by him, yet the sure-tempered chain of God's eternal decree, he can never break; that almighty Arbiter of heaven, and earth, and hell, hath chained him up in the bottomless pit, and hath so restrained his malice, that (but, for our good) we cannot be tempted; we cannot be foiled, but for a glorious victory.  
Alas it is no otherwise with the spiritually possessed; The chains of restraint are commonly broken by the fury of wickedness; What are the respects of civility, fear of God, fear of men, wholesome laws, careful executions to the desperately licentious, but as cobwebs to an harnet? Let these wild Demoniacs know, that God hath provided chains for them, that will hold, even everlasting chains under darkness; these are such as must hold the Devil's themselves (their masters) unto the judgement of the great day, how much more those impotent vassals? Oh that men would suffer themselves to be bound to their good behaviour, by the sweet, and easy recognizances of their duty to their God, and the care of their own souls, that so they might rather be bound up in the bundle of life.  
It was not for rest, that these chains were torn off, but for more motion; This prisoner runs away from his friends, he cannot run away from his jailor; He is now carried into the wilderness; Not by mere external force, but by internal impulsion; Carried by the same power that unbound him, for the opportunity of his Tyranny, for the horror of the place, for the affamishment of his 〈◊〉 for the avoidance of all means of resistance. Solitary deserts are the delights of Satan▪ It is an unwise zeal that moves us to do that to ourselves, in an opinion of merit, and holiness, which the Devil wishes to do to us for a punishment, and conveniency of tentation. The evil spirit is for solitariness; God is for society; He dwells in the assembly of his Saints, yea, there he hath a delight to dwell; Why should not we account it our happiness that we may have leave to dwell, where the author of all happiness loves to dwell?  
There cannot be any misery incident into us, whereof our gracious Redeemer is not both conscious, and sensible; without any entreaty therefore of the miserable Demoniac, or suit of any friend; the God of spirits takes pity of his distress; and, from no motion but his own, commands the ill spirit to come forth of the man: O admirable precedent of mercy, preventing our requests, exceeding our thoughts, forcing favours upon our impotence; doing that for us, which we should, and yet cannot desire. If men upon our instant solicitations would give us their best aid, it were a just praise of their bounty, but it well became thee, o God of mercy, to go without force, to give without suit; And do we think thy goodness is impaired by thy glory? If thou wert thus commiserative upon earth, art thou less in heaven? How dost thou now take notice of all our complaints, of all our infirmities? How doth thine infinite pity take order to redress them? What evil can befall us which thou knowest not, feelest not, relievest not? How safe are we that have such a Guardian, such a Mediator in heaven?  
Not long before had our Saviour commanded the winds, and waters, and they could not but obey him; now, he speaks in the same Language to the evil spirit; he entreats not, he persuades not, he commands; Command argues superiority, He only is infinitely stronger than the strong one in possession; Else, where powers are matched, though with some inequality, they tug for the victory; and without a resistance yield nothing. There are no fewer sorts of dealing with Satan, then with men; Some have dealt with him by suit, as the old Satanian heretics, and the present Indian Savages, sacrificing to him, that he hurt not: Others by covenant, condicioning their service upon his assistance, as Witches and Magicians, Others by insinuation of implicit compact, as charmers and Figure-casters; Others by adjuration, as the sons of Sceva, and modern Exorcists, unwarrantably charging him by an higher name than their own; None ever offered to deal with Satan by a direct and primary command, but the God of spirits; The great Archangel, when the strife was about the body of Moses, commanded not, but imprecated rather, The Lord rebuke thee, Satan; It is only the God that made this spirit an Angel of light, that can command him, now that he hath made himself the Prince of darkness. If any created power dare to usurp a word of command, he laughs at their presumption; and knows them his vassals whom he dissembles to fear as his Lords; It is thou only, o Saviour, at whose beck those stubborn Principalities of hell yield, and tremble: no wicked man can be so much a slave to Satan, as Satan is to thee; the interposition of grace may defeat that dominion of Satan; thy rule is absolute, and capable of no let. What need we to fear, whiles we are under so omnipotent a commander? The waves of the deep rage horribly, yet the Lord is stronger than they; Let those Principalities and powers do their worst; Those mighty adversaries are under the command of him, who loved us so well as to bleed for us, What can we now doubt of? His power, or his will? How can we profess him a God, and doubt of his power? How can we profess him a Saviour, and doubt of his will? He, both can, and will command those infernal powers; we are no less safe, than they are malicious.  
The Devil saw jesus by the eyes of the Demoniac; For the same saw, that spoke; but it was the ill spirit, that said, I beseech thee torment me not; It was sore against his will that he saw so dreadful an object; The overruling power of Christ dragged the foul spirit into his presence. Guiltiness would fain keep out of sight; The limbs of so woeful an head shall once call to the hills, and rocks to hide them from the face of the Lamb; such Lion-like terror is in that mild face, when it looks upon wickedness: Neither shall it be one day the least part of the torment of the damned, to see the most lovely spectacle that heaven can afford: He, from whom they fled in his offers of grace, shall be so much more terrible, as he was, and is more gracious; I marvel not therefore that the Devil, when he saw jesus, cried out; I could marvel that he fell down, that he worshipped him: That which the proud spirit would have had Christ to have done to him, in his great duel, the same he now doth unto Christ, fearfully, servilely, forcedly; Who shall henceforth brag of the external homage he performs to the Son of God, when he sees Satan himself fall down, and worship? What comfort can there be in that, which is common to us with Devils; who as they believe, and tremble, so they tremble, and worship? The outward bowing is the body of the action, the disposition of the soul is the soul of it; therein lies the difference from the counterfeit stoop of wicked men, and spirits: The religious heart serves the Lord in fear, and rejoices in him with trembling; What it doth is in way of service; In service to his Lord, whose sovereignty is his comfort, and protection; In the fear of a son, not of a slave; In a fear tempered with joy; In a joy, but allayed with trembling; whereas the prostration of wicked men, and devils is only an act of form, or of force; as to their judge, as to their tormentor, not as to their Lord; in mere servility, not in reverence, in an uncomfortable dulness, without all delight; in a perfect horror, without capacity of joy; These worship without thanks, because they fall down without the true affections of worship.  
Who so marvels to see the Devil upon his knees, would much more marvel to hear what came from his mouth; jesa the son of the most high God; A confession, which if we should hear without the name of the author, we should ask, from what Saint it came. Behold, the same name given to Christ by the Devil, which was formerly given him by the Angel, Thou shalt call his name jesus; That awful name, whereat every knee shall bow, in heaven, in earth, and under the earth, is called upon, by this prostrate Devil: and lest that should not import enough, (since others have been honoured by this name in Type,) he adds, for full distinction, The Son of the most high God, The good Syrophenician, and blind Bartimeus could say, The Son of David; It was well to acknowledge the true descent of his pedigree, according to the flesh; but this infernal spirit looks aloft, and fetcheth his line out of the most heavens, The Son of the most high God; The famous confession of the prime Apostle (which honoured him with a new name to immortality,) was no other then, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God; and what other do I hear from the lips of a fiend? None more divine words could fall from the highest Saint; Nothing hinders but that the veriest miscreant on earth, yea the foulest Devil in hell may speak holily: It is no passing of judgement upon loose sentences; So Peter should have been cast for a Satan, in denying, forswearing, cursing; and the Devil should have been set up for a Saint, in confessing, jesus the Son of the most high God; Fond hypocrite, that pleasest thyself, in talking well, hear this Devil, and when thou canst speak better than he; look to far better; but in the mean time know, that a smooth tongue, and a foul heart, carries away double judgements.  
Let curious heads dispute whether the Devil knew Christ to be God; In this I dare believe himself, though in nothing else; he knew what he believed, he believed what he confessed, jesus the Son of the most high God; To the confusion of those semi-Christians, that have either held doubtfully, or ignorantly misknowne, or blasphemously denied what the very Devils have professed. How little can a bare speculation avail us in these cases of Divinity? So far this Devil hath attained, to no ease, no comfort. Knowledge alone doth but puff up; it is our love that edifies; If there be not a sense of our sure interest in this jesus, a power to apply his merits, and obedience, we are no whit the safer, no whit the better; only we are so much the wiser, to understand who shall condemn us.  
This piece of the clause was spoken like a Saint, jesus the Son of the most high God; the other piece, like a Devil, What have I to do with thee? If the disclamation were universal, the latter words would impugn the former; for whiles he confesses jesus to be the Son of the most high God, he withal confesses his own inevitable subjection; Wherefore would he beseech, if he were not obnoxious; He cannot, he dare not say, What hast thou to do with me; but, What have I to do with thee; Others indeed I have vexed, thee I fear; in respect then of any violence, of any personal provocation, What have I to do with thee? And dost thou ask, o thou evil spirit, what thou hast to do with Christ, whiles thou vexest a servant of Christ? Hast thou thy name from knowledge, and yet so mistakest him whom thou confessest, as if nothing could be done to him, but what immediately concerns his own person? Hear that great, and just judge sentencing upon his dreadful Tribunal; In as much as thou didst it unto one of these little ones, thou didst it unto me; It is an idle misprision to sever the sense of an injury done to any of the members, from the head.  
He that had humility enough to kneel to the Son of God, hath boldness enough to expostulate, Art thou come to torment us before our time? Whether it were, that Satan, who useth to enjoy the torment of sinners, whose music it is to hear our shrieks, and gnash, held it no small piece of his torment, to be restrained in the exercise of his tyranny; Or, whether the very presence of Christ were his rack: For, the guilty spirit proiecteth terrible things, and cannot behold the judge, or the executioner without a renovation of horror, Or, whether (as himself professeth) he were now in a fearful expectation of being commanded down into the deep, for a further degree of actual torment, which he thus deprecates.  
There are tortures appointed to the very spiritual natures of evil Angels; Men, that are led by sense, have easily granted the body subject to torment, who yet, have not so readily conceived this incident to a spiritual substance: The holy Ghost hath not thought it fit to acquaint us with the particular manner of these invisible acts, rather willing that we should herein fear, then inquire; but, as all matters of faith, though they cannot be proved by reason (for that they are in an higher sphere) yet afford an answer able to stop the mouth of all reason, that dares bark against them, (since truth cannot be opposite to itself) so, this of the sufferings of spirits; There is therefore both an intentional torment incident to spirits, and a real: For, as in blessedness the good spirits find themselves joined unto the chief good; and, hereupon feel a perfect love of God, and unspeakable joy in him, and rest in themselves, so contrarily, the evil spirits perceive themselves eternally excluded from the presence of God, and see themselves settled in a woeful darkness; and, from the sense of this separation arises an horror not to be expressed, not to be conceived; How many men have we known to torment themselves with their own thoughts? There needs no other gibbet then that, which their troubled spirit hath erected in their own heart: and if some pains begin at the body, and from thence afflict the soul in a copartnership of grief, yet others arise immediately from the soul, and draw the body into a participation of misery; Why may we not therefore conceive mere and separate spirits capable of such an inward excruciation?  
Besides which, I hear the judge of men and Angels say, Go ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil, and his Angels; I hear the Prophet say, Tophet is prepared of old; If with fear, and without curiosity we may look upon those flames; Why may we not attribute a spiritual nature to that more than natural fire? In the end of the world, the elements shall be dissolved by fire: and if the pure quintessential matter of the sky, and the element of fire itself, shall be dissolved by fire, than that last fire shall be of another nature, then that which it consumeth; what hinders then but that the omnipotent God hath from eternity created a fire of another nature proportionable even, to spiritual essences? Or why may we not distinguish of fire, as it is itself, a bodily creature, and, as it is an instrument of God's justice, so working, not by any material virtue, or power of it own, but by a certain height of supernatural efficacy, to which it is exalted by the omnipotence of that supreme and righteous judge? Or lastly, why may we not conceive that though spirits have nothing material in their nature, which that fire should work upon, yet by the judgement of the almighty Arbiter of the world, justly willing their torment, they may be made most sensible of pain, and, by the obedible submission of their created nature, wrought upon immediately by their appointed tortures; Besides, the very horror, which ariseth from the place, whereto they are everlastingly confined: For if the incorporeal spirits of living men may be held in a loathed, or painful body, and conceive sorrow to be so imprisoned; Why may we not as easily yield that the evil spirits of Angels, or men may be held in those direful flames, and much more abhor therein to continue for ever? Tremble rather, o my soul, at the thought of this woeful condition of the evil Angels; who, for one only act of Apostasy from God, are thus perpetually tormented, whereas we sinful wretches multiply many, and presumptuous offences against the Majesty of our God; And withal admire, and magnify that infinite mercy to the miserable generation of man; which, after this holy severity of justice to the revolted Angels, so graciously forbears our heinous iniquities, and both suffers us to be free for the time, from these hellish torments, and gives us opportunity of a perfect freedom from them for ever; Praise the Lord, o my soul, and all that is within me, praise his holy name, who forgiveth all thy sins, and healeth all thine infirmities; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction, and crowneth thee with mercy and compassions.  
There is no time wherein the evil spirits are not tormented; there is a time, wherein they expect to be tormented yet more; Art thou come to torment us before our time? They knew that the last Assizes are the prefixed term of their full execution; which they also understood to be not yet come; For though they knew not when the day of judgement should be; (a point concealed from the glorious Angels of heaven) yet they knew when it should not be; and therefore can say, Before the time. Even the very evil spirits confess, and fearfully attend a set day of universal Sessions; They believe less than Devils, that either doubt of, or deny that day of final retribution.  
Oh the wonderful mercy of our God, that both to wicked men, and spirits, respites the utmost of their torment; He might upon the first instant of the fall of Angels, have inflicted on them the highest extremity of his vengeance; He might upon the first sins of our youth (yea of our nature) have swept us away, and given us our portion in that fiery lake; he stays a time for both; Though, with this difference of mercy to us men, that here, not only is a delay, but, may be, an utter prevention of punishment, which to the evil spirits is altogether impossible; They do suffer, they must suffer; and though they have now deserved to suffer all they must, yet they must once suffer more than they do.  
Yet, so doth this evil spirit expostulate, that hesues; I beseech thee torment me not. The world is well changed, since Satan's first onset upon Christ; Then, he could say, If thou be the Son of God; now, jesus, the Son of the most high God; then, All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down, and worship me; now, I beseech thee torment me not; The same power, when he lists, can change the note of the Tempter, to us; How happy are we that have such a Redeemer as can command the Devils to their chains? Oh consider this ye lawless sinners, that have said, Let us break his bonds, and cast his cords from us; How ever the Almighty suffers you, for a judgement to have free scope to evil, and ye can now impotently resist the revealed will of your Creator, yet the time shall come, when ye shall see the very masters, whom ye have served, (the powers of darkness) unable to avoid the revenges of God; How much less shall man strive with his Maker; man, whose breath is in his nostrils, whose house is clay, whose foundation is in the dust?  
Nature teaches every creature to wish a freedom from pain: the foulest spirits cannot but love themselves; and this love must needs produce a deprecation of evil; Yet, what a thing is this, to hear the Devil at his prayers? I beseech thee torment me not; Devotion is not guilty of this, but fear; There is no grace in the suit of Devils, but nature▪ no respect of glory to their Creator, but their own ease; They cannot pray against sin, but against torment for sin. What news is it now, to hear the profanest mouth, in extremity, imploring the sacred name of God, when the Devils do so? The worst of all creatures hates punishment, and can say, Led me not into pain; only the good heart can say, Led me not into temptation▪ If we can as heartily pray against sin, for the avoiding of displeasure, as against punishment, when we have displeased, there is true grace in the soul: Indeed, if we could fervently pray against sin, we should not need to pray against punishment; which is no other than the inseparable shadow of that body; but if we have not laboured against our sins, in vain do we pray against punishment; God must be just; and the wages of sin is death.  
It pleased our holy Saviour, not only to let fall words of command upon this spirit, but to interchange some speeches with him: All Christ's actions are not for example: It was the error of our Grandmother to hold chat with Satan; That God, who knows the craft of that old Serpent, and our weak simplicity, hath charged us not to inquire of an evil spirit; surely, if the Disciples returning to Jacob's Well, wondered to see Christ talk with a woman, well may we wonder to see him talking with an unclean Spirit; Let it be no presumption, o Saviour, to ask upon what grounds thou didst this, wherein we may not follow thee: We know, that sin was excepted in thy conformity of thyself to us; we know there was no guile found in thy mouth, no possibility of taint in thy nature, in thine actions; Neither is it hard to conceive how the same thing may be done by thee without sin, which we cannot but sin in doing. There is a vast difference in the Intention, in the Agent; For, on the one side, thou didst not ask the name of the spirit, as one that knew not, and would learn by enquiring; but, that by the confession of that mischief, which thou pleasedst to suffer, the grace of the cure might be the more conspicuous, the more glorious; so, on the other, God and man might do that safely, which mere man cannot do, without danger; thou mightest touch the leprosy, and not be legally unclean, because thou touchedst it to heal it, didst not touch it with possibility of infection; So mightest thou, who by reason of the perfection of thy divine nature, wert uncapable of any stain, by the interlocution with Satan, safely confer with him, whom corrupt man, predisposed to the danger of such a pearl, may not meddle with, without sin, because not without peril; It is for none but God to hold discourse with Satan; Our surest way is to have as little to do with that evil one, as we may; and if he shall offer to maintain conference with us by his secret tentations, to turn our speech unto our God, with the Archangel, The Lord rebuke thee Satan.  
It was the presupposition of him that knew it, that not only men but spirits have names; This than he asks; not out of an ignorance, or curiosity; nothing could be hid from him who calleth the stars, and all the hosts of heaven by their names; but, out of a just respect to the glory of the miracle he was working; whereto the notice of the name would not a little avail: For, if without inquiry, or confession, our Saviour had ejected this evil spirit, it had passed for the single dispossession of one only Devil, whereas now, it appears there was a combination and hellish champerty in these powers of darkness, which were all forced to veil unto that almighty command.  
Before, the Devil had spoken singularly of himself, What have I to do with thee; and, I beseech thee torment me not; Our Saviour yet, knowing that there was a multitude of Devils lurking in that breast, who dissembled their presence, wrists it out of the Spirit by this interrogation, What is thy name? Now can those wicked ones no longer hide themselves; He that asked the question, forced the answer, My name is Legion. The author of discord hath borrowed a name of war: from that military order of discipline (by which the jews were subdued) doth the Devil fetch his denomination; They were many, yet they say, My name, not, Our name; though many, they speak as one, they act as one, in this possession: There is a marvelous accordance even betwixt evil spirits; that Kingdom is not divided, for than it could not stand; I wonder not that wicked men do so conspire in evil; that there is such unanimity in the brochers, and abettors of errors, when I see those devils, which are many in substance, are one in name, action, habitation; Who can brag too much of unity, when it is incident into wicked spirits? All the praise of concord is in the subject; if that be holy, the consent is Angelical, if sinful, devilish.  
What a fearful advantage have our spiritual enemies against us? If armed troops come against single stragglers, what hope is there of life, of victory? How much doth it concern us to band our hearts together, in a communion of Saints? Our enemies come upon us like a torrent; Oh let not us run asunder like drops in the dust; All our united forces will be little enough, to make head against this league of destruction.  
Legion imports Order, number, conflict. Order, in that there is a distinction of regiment, a subordination of Officers; Though in hell there be confusion of faces, yet not confusion of degrees; Number; Those that have reckoned a Legion at the lowest, have counted it six thousand; others, have more than doubled it; though here it is not strict, but figurative, yet the letter of it implies multitude; How fearful is the consideration of the number of Apostate-Angels? And if a Legion can attend one man, how many must we needs think are they, who, all the world over, are at hand to the punishment of the wicked, the exercise of the good, the tentation of both; It cannot be hoped there can be any place, or time, wherein we may be secure from the onsets of these enemies; Be sure, ye lewd men, ye shall want no furtherance to evil, no torment for evil; Be sure, ye godly, ye shall not want combatants to try your strength, and skill; Awaken your courages to resist, and stir up your hearts to make sure the means of your safety; There are more with us then against us; The God of heaven is with us, if we be with him; and our Angels behold the face of God; If every devil were a Legion, we are safe: Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil; Thou, o Lord, shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of our enemies, and thy right hand shall save us.  
Conflict; All this number is not for sight, for rest; but for motion, for action; Neither was there ever hour, since the first blow given to our first parents, wherein there was so much as a truce betwixt these adversaries. As therefore strong frontier-Townes, when there is a peace concluded on both parts, break up their garrison, open their gates, neglect their Bulwarks; but, when they hear of the enemy mustering his forces, in great and unequal numbers, than they double their guard; keep Sentinel, repair their Sconces, so must we, upon the certain knowledge of our numerous, and deadly enemies, in continual array against us, address ourselves always to a wary and strong resistance. I do not observe the most to think of this ghostly hostility; Either they do not find there are tentations, or those tentations hurtful; they see no worse than themselves; and if they feel motions of evil, arising in them, they impute it to fancy, or unreasonable appetite; to no power, but natures; and; those motions they follow, without sensible hurt; neither see they what harm it is to sin: Is it any marvel that carnal eyes cannot discern spiritual objects? That the world who is the friend, the vassal of Satan, is in no war with him? Elishaes' servant, when his eyes were opened saw troops of spiritual soldiers, which before he discerned not; If the eyes of our souls be once enlightened by supernatural knowledge, and the clear beams of faith, we shall as plainly descry the invisible powers of wickedness, as now our bodily eyes see heaven, and earth. They are, though we see them not, we cannot be safe from them, if we do not acknowledge, not oppose them.  
The Devils are now become great suitors to Christ; That he would not command them into the deep; that he would permit their entrance into the swine. What is this deep but hell? both for the utter separation from the face of God; and for the impossibility of passage to the region of rest and glory? The very evil spirits, then, fear, and expect a further degree of torment; they know themselves reserved in those chains of darkness for the judgement of the great day; There is the same wages due to their sins, and to ours; neither are the wages paid till the work be done; they, tempting men to sin, must needs sin grievously in tempting; as with us men those that misled into sin, offend more than the actors; not till the upshot therefore of their wickedness shall they receive the full measure of their condemnation: This day, this deep they tremble at; what shall I say▪ of those men that fear it not? It is hard for men to believe their own unbelief: If they were persuaded of this fiery dungeon, this bottomless deep, wherein every sin shall receive an horrible portion with the damned, durst they stretch forth their hands to wickedness? No man will put his hand into a fiery crucible to fetch gold thence, because he knows it will burn him; Did we as truly believe the everlasting burning of that infernal fire, we durst not offer to fetch pleasures, or profits, out of the midst of those flames.  
This degree of torment they grant in Christ's power to command; they knew his power unresistible; had he therefore but said, Back to hell, whence ye came, they could no more have stayed upon earth, than they can now climb into heaven. O the wonderful dispensation of the Almighty; who though he could command all the evil spirits down to their dungeons in an instant; so as they should have no more opportunity of temptation, yet thinks fit to retain them upon earth; It is not out of weakness, or improvidence of that divine hand, that wicked spirits tyrannzie here upon earth, but out of the most wise, and most holy ordination of God, who knows how to turn evil into good; how to fetch good out of evil; and by the worst instruments, to bring about his most just decrees: Oh that we could adore that awful, and infinite power, and cheerfully cast ourselves upon that providence, which keeps the Keys even of hell itself, and either lets out, or returns the Devils to their places.  
Their other suit hath some marvel in moving it, more in the grant; That they might be suffered to enter into the heard of Swine. It was their ambition of some mischief, that brought forth this desire; that since they might not vex the body of the man, they might yet afflict men in their goods; The malice of these envious spirits reacheth from us, to ours; It is sore against their wills, if we be not every way miserable: If the Swine were legally unclean for the use of the table, yet they were naturally good; Had not Satan known them useful for man, he had never desired their ruin; But as Fencers will seem to fetch a blow at the leg, when they intent it at the head; so doth this devil; whiles he drives at the Swine, he aims at the souls of these Gadarens; by this means, he hoped well (and his hope was not vain) to work in these Gergesens a discontentment at Christ, an unwillingness to entertain him, a desire of his absence; he meant to turn them into Swine, by the loss of their Swine: It was not the rafters, or stones of the house of jobs children, that he bore the grudge to, but to the owners; nor to the lives of the children so much, as the soul of their father; There is no affliction wherein he doth not strike at the heart; which, whiles it holds free, all other damages are light; but a wounded spirit (whether with sin or sorrow) who can bear? What ever becomes of goods, or limbs, happy are we if (like wise soldiers) we guard the vital parts; whiles the soul is kept sound from impatience, from distrust, our enemy may afflict us, he cannot hurt us.  
They sue for a sufference; not daring other then to grant that without the permission of Christ, they could not hurt a very swine; If it be fearful to think how great things evil spirits can do with permission; it is comfortable to think how nothing they can do without permission: We know they want not malice to destroy the whole frame of God's work; but of all, man; of all men, Christians; but if without leave they cannot set upon an hog, what can they do to the living Images of their Creator? They cannot offer us so much as a suggestion, without the permission of our Saviour; And can he that would give his own most precious blood for us, to save us from evil, wilfully give us over to evil?  
It is no news that wicked spirits wish to do mischief, it is news that they are allowed it; If the owner of all things should stand upon his absolute command, who can challenge him for what he thinks fit to do with his creature? The first Foal of the Ass is commanded, under the law, to have his neck broken, what is that to us? The creatures do that they were made for, if they may serve any way to the glory of their Maker; But, seldom ever doth God leave his actions unfurnished with such reasons, as our weakness may reach unto. There were sects amongst these jews that denied spirits, they could not be more evidently, more powerfully convinced then by this event: Now shall the Gadarens see from what a multitude of Devils they were delivered; and how easy it had been for the same power to have allowed those spirits to seize upon their persons, as well as their Swine; Neither did God this without a just purpose of their castigation; His judgements are righteous, where they are most secret; though we cannot accuse these inhabitants of aught, yet he could; and thought good thus to mulct them: And if they had not wanted grace to acknowledge it, it was no small favour of God, that he would punish them in their Swine, for that, which he might have avenged upon their bodies, and souls: Our goods are furthest off us; If but in these we smart, we must confess to find mercy.  
Sometimes it pleaseth God to grant the suits of wicked men, and spirits, in no favour to the suitors: He grants an ill suit, and withholds a good; He grants an ill suit in judgement, and holds back a good one, in mercy; The Israelites ask meat; he gives Quails to their mouths, and leanness to their souls; The chosen vessel wishes Satan taken off, and hears only, My grace is sufficient for thee: We may not evermore measure favour by condescent; These Devils doubtless receive more punishment for that harmful act, wherein they are heard. If we ask what is either unfit to receive, or unlawful to beg, it is a great favour of our God to be denied.  
Those spirits which would go into the Swine by permission, go out of the man by command; they had stayed long, and are ejected suddenly; The immediate works of God are perfect in an instant, and do not require the aid of time for their maturation.  
No sooner are they cast out of the man, than they are in the Swine; They will lose no time, but pass without intermission from one mischief to another; If they hold it a pain not to be doing of evil; Why is it not our delight to be ever doing good? The impetuousness was no less, than the speed, The heard was carried with violence from a steep-downe place into the lake, and was choked. It is no small force that could do this; but if the Swine had been so many mountains, these spirits, upon God's permission, had thus transported them: How easily can they carry those souls (which are under their power,) to destruction? Unclean beasts that wallow in the mire of sensuality, brutish drunkards, transforming themselves by excess, even they, are the swine, whom the Legion carries headlong to the pit of perdition.  
The wicked spirits have their wish; The Swine are choked in the waves; What ease is this to them? Good God; that there should be any creature that seeks contentment in destroying, in tormenting the good creatures of their Maker! This is the diet of hell; Those fiends feed upon spite; towards man so much more, as he doth more resemble his Creator: Towards all other living substances, so much more as they may be more useful to man.  
The Swine ran down violently, what marvel is it if their keepers fled; that miraculous work which should have drawn them to Christ, drives them from him: They run with the news; the country comes in with clamour; The whole multitude of the country about, besought him to depart; The multitude is a beast of many heads; every head hath a several mouth, and every mouth hath a several tongue, and every tongue a several accent; Every head hath a several brain, and every brain thoughts of their own; so as it is hard to find a multitude, without some division: At least seldom ever hath a good motion found a perfect accordance; it is not so infrequent for a multitude to conspire in evil; Generality of assent is no warrant for any act; Common error carries away many; who inquire not into the reason of aught, but the practice: The way to hell is a beaten road through the many feet that tread it; when vice grows into fashion, singularity is a virtue.  
There was not a Gadarene found, that either dehorted their fellows, or opposed the motion; it is a sign of people given up to judgement, when no man makes head against projects of evil. Alas, what can one strong man do against a whole throng of wickedness? Yet this good comes of an unprevailing resistance, that God forbears to plague, where he finds but a sprinkling of faith: Happy are they, who (like unto the celestial bodies, which being carried about, with the sway of the highest sphere, yet creep on their own ways) keep on the courses of their own holiness, against the swinge of common corruptions: They shall both deliver their own souls, and help to withhold judgement from others.  
The Gadarenes sue to Christ for his departure; It is too much favour to attribute this to their modesty, as if they held themselves unworthy of so divine a guest; Why then did they fall upon this suit in a time of their loss? Why did they not tax themselves, and intimate a secret desire of that, which they durst not beg? It is too much rigour to attribute it to the love of their hogs, and an anger at their loss; then, they had not entreated, but expelled him; It was their fear that moved this harsh suit: A servile fear of danger to their persons, to their goods, Lest he that could so absolutely command the Devils, should have set these tormentors upon them; Lest their other Demoniacs should be dispossessed with like loss. I cannot blame these Gaderens that they feared; This power was worthy of trembling at; Their fear was just, the use of their fear was unjust; They should have argued, This man hath power over men, beasts, Devils, it is good having him to our friend; his presence is our safety & protection; Now they contrarily mis-inferre, Thus powerful is he, it is good he were further off; What miserable and pernicious misconstructions do men make of God; of divine attributes, and actions? God is omnipotent, able to take infinite vengeance of sin, Oh that he were not; He is provident, I may be careless; He is merciful, I may sin; He is holy, Let him depart from me, for I am a sinful man; How witty sophisters are natural men to deceive their own souls, to rob themselves of a God? Oh Saviour, how worthy are they to want thee that wish to be rid of thee? Thou hast just cause to be weary of us, even whiles we sue to hold thee; but when once our wretched unthankfulness grows weary of thee, who can pity us to be punished with thy departure? Who can say it is other then righteous, that thou shouldst regest one day upon us, Depart from me ye wicked.  
FINIS.