Contemplations  
UPON THE PRINCIPAL PASSAGES OF THE Holy Story.  
The First Volume, In four Books.  
By J. H. D. D.  
LONDON, Printed by M. Bradwood for Sa. Macham 1612.   

To THE HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE HENRY Prince of WALES, his Highness' unworthy servant dedicates all his labours, and wishes all happiness.  
Most gracious Prince,  
THis work of mine, which (if my hopes and desires fail me not) time may hereafter make great, I have presumed both to dedicate in whole to your Highness, and to parcel out in severals unto subordinate hands. It is no marvel if Books have this freedom, when we ourselves can and ought to be all yours, while we are our own, and others under you. I dare say, these Meditations, how rude soever they may fall from my pen, in regard of their subject are fit for a Prince. here your Highness shall see how the great pattern of Princes, the King of Heaven, hath ever ruled the World, how his substitutes, earthly Kings, have ruled it under him, and with what success either of glory, or ruin. Both your peace and war shall find here holy and great examples. And if history and observation be the best counsellors of your youth; what story can be so wise and faithful as that which God hath written for men, wherein you see both what hath been done, and what should be? What observation so worthy as that which is both raised from God, and directed to him? If the propriety which your Highness justly hath in the work, and Author, may draw your Princely eyes and heart the rather to these holy speculations, your servant shall be happier in this favour, than in all your outward bounty; as one, to whom your spiritual progress deserves to be dearer than his own life; and whose daily suit is, that God would guide your steps aright in this slippery age and continue to rejoice all good hearts in the view of your gracious proceedings.  
Your HIGHNESSES humbly devoted servant, IOS. HALL..   

Contemplations. THE FIRST BOOK.  

The Creation of the World.  
Man.  
Paradise.  
Cain and Abel.  
The Deluge.    

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, THOMAS Earl of EXETER, one of his majesties most honourable Privy Counsel: All grace and happiness.  
RIght Honourable, I knew I could not bestow my thoughts better than upon Gods own history, so full of edification and delight: which I have in such sort endeavoured to do, that I shall give occasion to my Reader of some meditations, which perhaps he would have miss. Every help in this kind deserves to be precious. I present the first part to your Honour, wherein you shall see the world both made, and smothered again: Man in the glory of his creation, and the shame of his fall: Paradise at once made and lost. The first man killing his seed, the second his brother. If in these I shall give light to the thoughts of any Reader, let him with me give the praise to him from whom that light shone forth to me. To whose grace and protection I humbly commend your Lordship: as  
Your Honours unfeignedly devoted in all observance and duty, IOS. HALL..   

Errata.  
PAge 2. line 9 read unperfect. p. 18. l. 1. for mighty re. weighty. p. 19 l. 10. for whether r. whither. p. 21. l. 1 for insensible r. insensible. p. 27. l. 6. for which vile, read which is vile. p. 28. l. 8 for the r. their. p. 30. l. 3. for be otherwise r. be no otherwise. p. 42. l. antepen. for measure r. pleasure. p 44. l. 7. for wrought r. taught. p. 47. l. penult. for as r. and. p. 5●. l. 17. for these r. those. pag. 74. l. 12. for great y r. gently. p 91. l. penult. for lest r. lest. p. 100 l. 13 for qual r. equal p. 116. l. 5. for whether r. whither. pag. 119 l. 16. for should Sarah r. should live in Sarah. p. 123 l. 8. for neither r. either. p. 128. l. 1. for his r. this. pa. 130. l. 15. for any r. and. p. 147. l. 1. for for r. from. pa. 148. l. penult. for profess r. profess not. pa. 154. l. 13. for these r. those. p. 181. l. 6. for ears r. tears. pa 231. l 16 for really r real lie. p. 248. l. 16. for affliction r. affection. p. 251. l. vl. for unbelieving r. unbeseeming. pag. 288. l. 6. for times r. time. p. 318. l. 5. for more proficiency r. mere unproficiency. Besides the reader must be entreated to pardon the misse-pointing, especially of the three first books; as the want of stops, pag, 27. l. 10. p. 55. l. ●2. p. 56. l. 15. p. 57 l. 10. p. 64. l. ult. p. 70. l. 14. p. 71. l. 9 p. 77. l. 10. p. 98. l. 10. p. 111. l. penult. p. 121. l. 2. p. 125. l. 9 p. 132. l. 1. pag. 146. l. 2. p. 151. l. 3. pa. 174 l. 12. p. 180. l. 10. p. 190. l. 13. p. 194. l 17. p. 198. antepen. p. 221. l. 12. p. 233. l. 18. p. 243 l. 15. Through fault of the copy.   

Contemplations.  
THE FIRST BOOK.  

The Creation.  
WHat can I see, O God, in thy Creation but miracles of wonders? Thou madest something of nothing, and of that something all things. Thou which wast without a beginning, gavest a beginning to time, and to the world in time: It is the praise of us men if when we have matter, we can give fashion; thou gavest a being to the matter, without form; thou gavest a form to that matter, and a glory to that form; If we can but finish a sleight and unperfest matter, according to a former pattern, it is the height of our skill, but to begin that which never was, whereof there was no example, whereto there was no inclination, wherein there was no possibility of that which it should be, is proper only to such power as thine; the infinite power of an infinite creator: with us, not so much as a thought can arise without some matter, but here with thee, all matter arises from nothing. How easy is it for thee to repair all out of something, which couldst thus fetch all out of nothing? wherein can we now distrust thee, that hast proved thyself thus omnipotent? Behold to have made the least clod of nothing, is more above wonder then to multiply a world; but now the matter doth not more praise thy power, than the form thy wisdom; what beauty is here? what order? what order in working? what beauty in the work.  
Thou mightest have made all the world perfect in an instant, but thou wouldst not. That will, which caused thee to create, is reason enough why thou didst thus create. How should we deliberate in our actions, which are so subject to imperfection, since it pleased thine infinite perfection (not out of need) to take leisure. Neither did thy wisdom herein proceed in time only, but in degrees: At first thou madest nothing absolute; first thou madest things which should have being without life, than those which should have life and being; lastly those which have being, life, reason: So we ourselves in the ordinary course of generation, first live the life of vegetation, then of sense, of reason afterwards. That instant wherein the heaven and the earth were created in their rude matter, there was neither day nor light, but presently thou madest both light & day. Whiles we have this example of thine, how vainly do we hope to be perfect at once? It is well for us, if through many degrees we can rise to our consummation.  
But (alas) what was the very heaven itself without light? how confused? how formless? like to a goodly body without a soul, like a soul without thee. Thou art light, and in thee is no darkness. Oh how incomprehensibly glorious is the light that is in thee, since one glimpse of this created light gave so lively a glory to all thy workmanship! This, even the bruit creatures can behold: That, not the very Angels. That shines forth only to the other supreme world of immortality; this to the basest part of thy creation. There is one cause of our darkness on earth, and of the utter darkness in hell, the restraint of thy light. Shine thou O God, into the vast corners of my soul, and in thy light I shall see light.  
But whence, O God, was that first light? The sun was not made till the fourth day, light the first. If man had then been, he might have seen all lightsome; but whence it had come he could not have seen: As in some great pond, we see the banks full, we see not the springs whence that water ariseth. Thou that madest the Sun, madest the light, without the Sun, before the Sun, that so light might depend upon thee, and not upon thy Creature. Thy power will not be limited to means. It was easy to thee to make an heaven without a Sun, light without an heaven, day without a Sun, time without a day: It is good reason thou shouldest be the Lord of thine own works. All means serve thee: why do we weak wretches distrust thee; in the want of those means, which thou canst either command, or forbear. How plainly wouldst thou teach us, that we creatures need not one another, so long as we have thee? One day we shall have light again, without the Sun. Thou shalt be our Sun; thy presence shall be our light: Light is sown for the righteous. This Sun and light is but for the world below itself; thine only for above. Thou givest this light to the Sun, which the Sun gives to the world: That light which thou shalt once give us, shall make us shine like the Sun in glory.  
Now this light which for three days was thus dispersed thorough the whole heavens, it pleased thee at last to gather and unite into one body of the Sun. The whole heaven was our Sun, before the Sun was created: but now one star must be the Treasury of light to the heaven and earth. How thou lovest the union and reduction of all things of one kind to their own head and centre.  
So the waters must by thy command be gathered into one place, the sea; so the upper waters must be severed by these airy limits from the lower: so heavy substances hasten downward, and light mount up: so the general light of the first days must be called into the compass of one sun; so thou wilt once gather thine elect from all coasts of heaven to the participation of one glory. Why do we abide our thoughts and affections scattered from thee, from thy Saints, from thine Anointed? Oh let this light which thou hast now spread abroad in the hearts of all thine, once meet in thee: We are as thy heavens in this their first imperfection; be thou our Sun, into which our light may be gathered.  
Yet this light was by thee interchanged with darkness, which thou mightst as easily have commanded to be perpetual. The continuance even of the best things cloieth, and wearieth: there is nothing but thyself, wherein there is not satiety. So pleasing is the vicissitude of things, that the intercourse even of those occurrents which in their own nature are less worthy, gives more contentment, than the unaltered estate of better. The day dies into night; and rises into the morning again; that we might not expect any stability here below, but in perpetual succession's: It is always day with thee above: the night savoureth only of mortality: Why are we not here spiritually as we shall be hereafter? Since thou hast made us children of the light, and of the day, teach us to walk ever in the light of thy presence, not in the darkness of error and unbelief.  
Now in this thine enlightened frame, how fitly, how wisely are all the parts disposed; that the method of the creation might answer the matter, the form, both. Behold all purity above; below, the dregs and lees of all. The higher I go, the more perfection; each element superior to other, not more in place then dignity; that by these stairs of ascending perfection our thoughts might climb unto the top of all glory, and might know thine empyreal heaven no less glorious above the visible, than those above the earth. Oh how miserable is the place of our pilgrimage, in respect of our home! Let my soul tread a while in the steps of thine own proceedings; and so think as thou wroughtest: When we would describe a man, we begin not at the feet, but the head: The head of thy Creation is the heaven; how high? how spacious? how glorious? It is a wonder that we can look up to so admirable an height, and that the very eye is not tired in the way. If this ascending line could be drawn right forwards, some that have calculated curiously have found it 500 years journey unto the starry heaven. I do not examine their art; O Lord, I wonder rather at thine, which hast drawn so large a line about this little point of earth: For in the plainest rules of art and experience, the compass must needs be six times as much as half the height. We think one Island great, but the earth unmeasurably. If we were in that heaven with these eyes, the whole earth (were it equally enlightened) would seem as little to us, as now the least star in the firmament seems to us upon earth: And indeed, how few stars are so little as it? And yet how many void and ample spaces are there besides all the stars? The hugeness of this thy work, O God, is little inferior for admiraon to the majesty of it. But oh what a glorious heaven is this which thou hast spread over our heads? With how precious a vault hast thou walled in this our inferior world? What worlds of light hast thou set above us? Those things which we see are wondrous; but those which we believe and see not, are yet more. Thou dost but set out these unto view, to show us what there is within. How proportionable are thy works to thyself? King's erect not cottages, but set forth their magnificence in sumptuous buildings: so hast thou done, O King of glory. If the lowest pavement of that heaven of thine be so glorious, what shall we think of the better parts yet unseen? And if this Sun of thine be of such brightness and majesty, oh what is the glory of the maker of it? And yet if some other of thy stars were let down as low as it, those other stars would be Suns to us; which now thou hadst rather to have admired in their distance. And if such a sky be prepared for the use and benefit even of thine enemies also upon earth, how happy shall those eternal Tabernacles be, which thou hast sequestered for thine own?  
Behold then in this high and stately building of thine, I see three stages; This lowest heaven for fowls, for vapours, for meteors: The second for the stars: The third for thine Angels and Saints. The first is thine outward Court, open for all: The second is the body of thy covered Temple, wherein are those candles of heaven perpetually burning: The third is thine Holy of Holies. In the first is tumult, and vanity: In the second immutability & rest: In the third glory and blessedness. The first we feel, the second we see, the third we believe. In these two lower is no felicity, for neither the fowls, nor stars are happy. It is the third heaven alone, where thou, O blessed Trinity, enjoyest thyself, and thy glorified spirits enjoy thee. It is the manifestation of thy glorious presence that makes heaven to be itself; This is the privilege of thy children: that they he reseeing thee which art invisible by the eye of faith, have already begun that heaven which the perfect sight of thee shall make perfect above. Let my soul then let these heavens alone till it may see, as it is seen. That we may descend to this lowest and meanest region of heaven, wherewith our senses are more acquainted; What marvels do even here meet with us? There are thy clouds the bottles of rain, vessels as thin as the liquor which is contained in them: there they hang, and move, (though mighty with their burden:) How they are upheld, and why they fall, here, and now, we know not, and wonder; these thou makest one while as some airy seas to hold water: an other while, as some airy furnaces, whence thou scatterest thy sudden fires unto all parts of the earth, astonishing the world with the fearful noise of that eruption: out of the midst of water thou fetchest fire; and hard stones out of the midst of thin vapours; another while, as some steel glasses, wherein the Sun looks and shows his face in the variety of those colours which he hath not; There are thy streams of light, blazing and falling stars, fires darted up and down in many forms, hollow openings, and (as it were) gulfs in the sky; bright circles about the moon, and other planets, snows, hail: In all which it is enough to admire thine hand, though we cannot search out thine action. There are thy subtle winds, which we hear and feel, yet neither can see their substance, nor know their causes; whence and whither they pass, and what they are, thou knowest. There are thy fowls of all shapes, colours, notes, natures: whiles I compare these with the inhabitants of that other heaven, I find those stars, and spirits like one another: These meteors and fowls, in as many varieties, as there are several creatures. Why is this? Is it because man (for whose sake these are made) delights in change; thou in constancy? Or is it, that in these thou mayest show thine own skill, and their imperfection▪ There is no variety in that which is perfect, because there is but one perfection; and so much shall we grow nearer to perfectness, by how much we draw nearer to unity, and uniformity. From thence, if we go down to the great deep, the womb of moisture, the well of fountains, the great pond of the world; we know not whether to wonder at the Element itself, or the guests which it contains. How doth that sea of thine roar and foam and swell, as if it would swallow up the earth? Thou stayest the rage of it by an insensible violence: and by a natural miracle confinest his waves, why it moves, and why it stays, it is ●o us equally wonderful: what living mountains (such are thy Whales) roll up and down in those fearful billows: for greatness of number, hugeness of quantity, strangeness of shapes, variety of fashions, neither air nor earth can compare with the waters: I say nothing of thy hid treasures which thy wisdom hath reposed in the bowels of the earth and sea; How secretly, and how basely are they laid up? secretly, that we might not seek them; basely, that we might not over esteem them: I need not dig so low as these metals, mineries, quarres, which yield riches enough of observation to the soul. How many millions of wonders doth the very face of the earth offer me? which of these herbs, flowers, trees, leaves, seeds, fruits, is there? What beast, what worm, wherein we may not see the footsteps of a Deity: wherein we may not read infiniteness of power of skill: and must be forced to confess, that he which made the Angels and stars of heaven, made also the vermin on earth: O God the heart of man is too straight to admire enough even that which he treads upon? What shall we say to thee the maker of all these? O Lord how wonderful are thy works in all the world, in wisdom hast thou made them all. And in all these thou spakest, and they were done. Thy will is thy word, & thy word is thy deed. Our tongue, and hand, and heart are different: all are one in thee; which art simply one, & infinite. Here needed no helps, no instruments: what could be present with the eternal: what needed, or what could be added to the infinite? Thine hand is not shortened, thy word is still equally effectual; say thou the word and my soul shall be made new again: say thou the word, & my body shall be repaired from his dust. For all things obey thee; O Lord why do I not yield to the word of thy counsel; since I must yield, as all thy creatures, to the word of thy command?   

Man.  
But (O God) what a little Lord hast thou made over this great world? The least corn of sand is not so small to the whole earth, as man is to the heaven: when I see the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars, O God what is man? Who would think thou shouldst make all these creatures for one, and that one, well-near the least of all? Yet none but he, can see what thou hast done; none but he can admire, and adore thee in what he seeth; how had he need to do nothing but this, since he alone must do it? Certainly the price and virtue of things consists not in the quantity: one diamond is more worth than many quarries of stone, one loadstone hath more virtue than mountains of earth: It is lawful for us to praise thee in ourselves: All thy creation hath not more wonder in it, than one of us: other creatures thou madest by a simple command; Man, not without a divine consultation: others at once; Man thou didst first form, then inspire: others in several shapes like to none but themselves: Man after thine own image: others with qualities fit for service; Man for dominion; Man had his name from thee; They had their names from man; How should we be consecrated to thee above all others, since thou hast bestowed more cost on us then others? What shall I admire first? Thy providence in the time of our creation? Or thy power & wisdom in the act? First thou madest the great house of the world & furnishedst it: then thou broughtest in thy Tenant to possess it; The bare walls had been too good for us, but thy love was above our desert: Thou that madest ready the earth for us before we were, hast by the same mercy prepared a place in heaven for us whiles we are on earth. The stage was first fully prepared then was man brought forth, thither, as an actor, or spectator, that he might neither be idle nor discontent, behold thou hadst addressed an earth for use, an heaven for contemplation: after thou hadst drawn that large and real map of the world; thou didst thus abridge it into this little table of man; he alone consists of Heaven and earth; soul and body. Even this earthly part which vile in comparison of the other, as it is thine (O God) I dare admire it, though I can neglect it as mine own, for lo; this heap of earth hath an outward reference to heaven, other creatures grovel down to their earth, and have all their senses intent upon it; this is reared up towards heaven, and hath no more power to look beside Heaven, then to tread beside the earth. Unto this, every part hath his wonder. The head is nearest to heaven, as in place, so in resemblance; both for roundness of figure, and for those divine guests which have their seat in it; There dwell those majestical powers of reason, which make a man; all the senses as they have their original from thence, so they do all agree there to manifest the virtue: how goodly proportions hast thou set in the face; such as though oft-times we can give no reason why they please, yet transport us to admiration; what living glasses are those which thou hast placed in the midst of this visage, whereby all objects from far are clearly represented to the mind? and because their tenderness lies open to dangers, how hast thou defenced them with hollow bones, and with prominent brows, and lids? And lest they should be too much bend on what they ought not, thou hast given them peculiar nerves to pull them up towards the seat of their rest? What a tongue hast thou given him; the instrument not of taste only, but of speech? How sweet and excellent voices are form by that little loose film of flesh, what an incredible strength hast thou given to the weak bonds of the jaws? What a comely and tower-like neck, therefore most sinewy because smallest. And lest I be infinite, what able arms and active hands hast thou framed him, whereby he can frame all things to his own conceit. In every part beauty, strength, convenience meet together. Neither is there any whereof our weakness cannot give reason, why it should be otherwise. How hast thou disposed of all the inward vessels, for all offices of life, nourishment, egestion, generation; No vain sinew, artery is idle. There is no piece in this exquisite frame whereof the place, use, form, doth not admit wonder, and exceed it: Yet this body if it be compared to the soul, what is it, but as a clay wall that encompasses a treasure, as the wooden box of a jeweller; as a course case to a rich instrument, or as a mask to a beautiful face. Man was made last, because he was worthiest. The soul was inspired last, because yet more noble; If the body have this honour to be the companion of the soul, yet withal it is the drudge. If it be the instrument, yet also the clog of that divine part. The companion for life, the drudge for service, the instrument for action, the clog in respect of contemplation. These external works are effected by it, the internal which are more noble, hindered; Contrary to the bird which sings most in her cage, but flies most and highest at liberty. This my soul teaches me of itself, that itself cannot conceive how capable, how active it is. It can pass by her nimble thoughts from heaven to earth in a moment, it can be all things, can comprehend all things; know that which is; and conceive of that which never was, never shall be: Nothing can fill it, but thou which art infinite, nothing can limit it but thou which art every were. O God which madest it, replenish it, possess it. Dwell thou in it which hast appointed it to dwell in clay. The body was made of earth common to his fellows, the soul inspired immediately from God; The body lay senseless upon the earth like itself, the breath of lives gave it what it is, and that breath was from thee. Sense, motion, reason, are infused into it, at once. From whence then was this quickening breath? No air, no earth, no water was here used to give help to this work: Thou that breathedst upon man, and gavest him the holy spirit: didst also breathe upon the body, and gavest it a living spirit, we are beholden to nothing but thee for our soul. Our flesh is from flesh; our spirit is from the God of spirits. How should our souls rise up to thee, and fix themselves in their thoughts upon thee who alone created them in their infusion, & infused them in their creation? How should they long to return back to the fountain of their being, and author of being glorious? Why may we not say that this soul as it came from thee, so it is like thee; as thou, so it, is one, immaterial, immortal, understanding spirit, distinguished into three powers which all make up one spirit. So thou the wise creator of all things wouldst have some things to resemble their creator. These other creatures are all body; man is body and spirit; the Angels are all spirit, not without a kind of spiritual composition; Thou art alone after thine own manner, simple, glorious, infinite; No creature can be like thee in thy proper being; because it is a creature; How should our finite, weak, compounded nature, give any perfect resemblance of thine? Yet of all visible creatures thou vouchsafest Man the nearest correspondence to thee: not so much in these natural faculties, as in those divine graces, wherewith thou beautifiest his soul.  
Our knowledge, holiness, righteousness was like the first copy from which they were drawn; Behold we were not more like thee in these, than now we are unlike ourselves in their loss; O God we now praise ourselves to our shame, for the better we were we are the worse, As the sons of some prodigal or tainted ancestors tell of the lands, and Lordships which were once theirs; only do thou whet our desires answerable to the readiness of thy mercies, that we may redeem what we have lost; that we may recover in thee, what we have lost in ourselves, The fault shall be ours if our damage prove not beneficial.  
I do not find that man thus framed found the want of an helper. His fruition of God gave him fullness of contentment, the sweetness which he found in the contemplation of this new workmanship, and the glory of the author, did so take him up, that he had neither leisure nor cause of complaint. If man had craved an helper, he had grudged at the condition of his creation, and had questioned that which he had, perfection of being. But he that gave him his being, and knew him better than himself, thinks of giving him comfort in the creature, whiles he sought none but in his maker; He sees our wants, and forecasts our relief, when we think ourselves too happy to complain: How ready will he be to help our necessities, that thus provides for our perfection?  
God gives the nature to his creatures, Man must give the name, that he might see they were made for him, they shall be, to him what he will. In stead of their first homage, they are presented to their new Lord, and must see of whom they hold. He that was so careful of man's sovereignty in his innocence, how can he be careless of his safety in his renovation?  
If God had given them their names, it had not been so great a praise of Adam's memory to recall them as it was now of his judgement (at first sight) to impose them, he saw the inside of all the creatures at first; (his posterity sees but their skins ever since;) and by this knowledge he fitted their names to their dispositions. All that he saw were fit to be his servants, none to be his companions. The same God that finds the want, supplies it. Rather than man's innocency shall want an outward comfort, God will begin a new creation. Not out of the earth which was the matter of man, not out of the inferior creatures, which were the servants of Man, but out of himself, for dearness, for equality. Doubtless such was man's power of obedience, that if God had bidden him yield up his rib, waking, for this use, he had done it cheerfully, but the bounty of God was so absolute, that he would not so much as consult with man's will, to make him happy. As man knew not while he was made, so shall he not know while his other self is made out of him: that the comfort might be greater, which was seen before it was expected.  
If the woman should have been made, not without the pain, or will of the man, she might have been upbraided with her dependence, and obligation. Now she owes nothing but to her creator: The rib of Adam sleeping, can challenge no more of her, than the earth can of him. It was an happy change to Adam of a rib, for an helper; what help did that bone give to his side? God had not made it, if it had been superfluous: and yet if man could not have been perfect without it, it had not been taken out.  
Many things are use-ful & convenient, which are not necessary, and if God had seen man might not want it, how easy had it been for him which made the woman of that bone, to turn the flesh into another bone? but he saw man could not complain of the want of that bone, which he had so multiplied, so animated.  
O God, we can never be losers by thy changes, we have nothing but what is thine, take from us thine own, when thou wilt, we are sure thou canst not but give us better.   

Paradise.  
MAn could no sooner see, than he saw himself happy: His eyesight and reason were both perfect at once, and the objects of both were able to make him as happy as he would, when he first opened his eyes, he saw heaven above him, earth under him, the creatures about him, God before him, he knew what all these things meant, as if he had been long acquainted with them all: He saw the heavens glorious, but far off, his maker thought it requisite to fit him with a paradise nearer home. If God had appointed him immediately to heaven, his body had been superfluous; It was fit his body should be answered with an earthen image of that heaven which was for his soul: Had man been made only for contemplation, it would have served as well to have been placed in some vast desert, on the top of some barren mountain; But the same power which gave him an heart to meditate, gave him hands to work; and work fit for his hands; Neither was it the purpose of the Creator that man should but live: measure may stand with innocence; he that rejoiced to see all he had made to be good, rejoiceth to see all that he had made to be well; God loves to see his creatures happy; Our lawful delight is his: they know not God that think to please him with making themselves miserable.  
The Idolaters thought it a fit service for Baal to cut and lance themselves; never any holy man looked for thanks from the true God by wronging himself. Every earth was not fit for Adam, but a Garden; a Paradise: What excellent pleasures, and rare varieties have men found in gardens planted by the hands of men? And yet all the world of men cannot make one twig, or leaf, or spire of grass: When he that made the matter undertakes the fashion, how must it needs be beyond our capacity excellent? No herb, no flower, no tree was wanting there, that might be for ornament or use; whether for sight, or for scent, or for taste. The bounty of God wrought further than to necessity: even to comfort and recreation: Why are we niggardly to ourselves when God is liberal? But for all this; if God had not there conversed with man, no abundance could have made him blessed.  
Yet behold that which was man's store house, was also his workhouse; His pleasure was his task, Paradise served not only to feed his senses, but to exercise his hands: If happiness had consisted in doing nothing, man had not been employed; All his delights could not have made him happy in an idle life. Man therefore is no sooner made, than he is set to work: Neither greatness nor perfection can privilege a folded hand; He must labour because he was happy; how much more we, that we may be? This first labour of his was as without necessity, so without pains, without weariness; how much more cheerfully we go about our businesses, so much nearer we come to our Paradise:  
Neither did these trees afford him only action for his hands, but instruction to his heart, for here he saw God's sacraments grow before him; All other trees had a natural use; these two in the midst of the Garden, a spiritual; Life is the act of the soul, knowledge the life of the soul; the tree of knowledge, and the tree of life then, were ordained as earthly helps of the spiritual part: Perhaps he which ordained the end, immortality of life; did appoint this fruit as the means, of that life; It is not for us to inquire after the life we had; and the means we should have had, I am sure it served to nourish the soul by a lively representation of that living tree, whose fruit is eternal life, and whose leaves serve to heal the nations.  
O infinite mercy, man saw his Saviour before him; ere he had need of a Saviour, he saw in whom he should recover an heavenly life, ere he lost the earthly; but after man had tasted of the tree of knowledge, he might not taste of the tree of life; That immortal food was not for a mortal stomach: Yet then did he most savour that invisible tree of life, when he was most restrained from the other.  
O Saviour, none but a sinner can relish thee: My taste hath been enough seasoned with the forbidden fruit, to make it capable of thy sweetness; Sharpen thou as well the stomach of my soul by repenting as by believing, so shall I eat in despite of A-Adam, live for ever. The one tree was for confirmation; the other for trial, one showed him what life he should have, the other what knowledge he should not desire to have: Alas, he that knew all other things, knew not this one thing, that he knew enough: how Divine a thing is knowledge, whereof even innocency itself is ambitious? Satan knew what he did, If this bait had been gold, or honour, or pleasure, man had contemned it, who can hope to avoid error, when even man's perfection is mistaken? He looked for speculative knowledge, he should have looked for experimental: he thought it had been good to know evil: Good was large enough to have perfected his knowledge, and therein his blessedness.  
All that God made was good, and the maker of them much more good; they good in their kinds, he good in himself. It would not content him to know God, and his creatures, his curiosity affected to know that which God never made, evil of sin, and evil of death, which indeed himself made, by desiring to know them; now we know well evil enough & smart with knowing it. How dear hath this lesson cost us that in some cases it is better to be ignorant; And yet do the sons of Eve inherit this saucy appetite of their grandmother; How many thousand souls miscarry with the presumptuous affectation of forbidden knowledge:  
O God, thou hast revealed more than we can know, enough to make us happy, teach me a sober knowledge and a contented ignorance.  
Paradise was made for man, yet there I see the serpent; what marvel is it if my corruption find the serpent in my closet, in my table, in my bed, when our holy parents found him in the midst of Paradise: no sooner is he entered but he tempteth, he can no more be idle, then harmless, I do not see him at any other tree; he knew there was no danger in the rest▪ I see him at the tree forbidden. How true a serpent is he in every point; In his insinuation to the place; in his choice of the tree, in his assault of the woman, in his plausiblenes of speech to avoid terror, in his question to move doubt, in his reply to work distrust, in his protestation of safety, in his suggestion to envy and discontent, in his promise of gain.  
And if he were so cunning at the first, what shall we think of him now, after so many thousand years experience? Only thou, (O God) and these Angels that see thy face are wiser than he; I do not ask why, when he left his goodness, thou didst not bereave him of his skill? Still thou wouldst have him an Angel, though an evil one, And thou knowest how to ordain his crait to thine own glory; I do not desire thee to abate of his subtlety, but to make me wise; Let me beg it without presumption, make me wiser than Adam; even thine image which he bore, made him not (through his own weakness) wise enough to obey thee; thou offeredst him all fruits, and restrainedst but one; Satan offered him but one and restrained not the rest; when he chose rather to be at Satan's feeding then thine, it was just with thee to turn him out of thy gates, with a curse: why shouldest thou feed a rebel at thine own board?  
And yet we transgress daily, and thou shutest not heaven against us: how is it that we find more mercy than our forefathers? His strength is worthy of severity, our weakness finds pity. That God from whose face he fled in the garden, now makes him with shame to fly out of the garden: those Angels that should have kept him, now keep the gates of Paradise against him; It is not so easy to recover happiness, as to keep it, or lose it: Yea the same cause that drove man from Paradise, hath also withdrawn paradise from the world.  
That fiery sword did not defend it against those waters wherewith the sins of men drowned the glory of that place: neither now do I care to seek where that paradise was which we lost, I know where that Paradise is, which we must care to seek; and hope to find; As man was the image of God, so was that earthly Paradise an image of heaven; both the images are defaced, both the first patterns are eternal: Adam was in the first, and stayed not: In the second, is the second Adam which said, This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. There was that chosen vessel, & heard, and saw what could not be expressed, by how much the third heaven exceeds the richest earth, so much doth that Paradise whereto we aspire exceed that which we have lost.   

Cain and Abel.  
Look now (O my soul) upon the two first brethren, perhaps twins; and wonder at their contrary dispositions and estates: If the privileges of nature had been worth any thing, the first borne child should not have been a reprobate.  
Now that we may ascribe all to free grace, the elder is a murderer, the younger a saint, though goodness may be repaired in ourselves, yet it cannot be propagated to ours: Now might Adam see the image of himself in Cain, for after his own image begot he him, Adam slew his posterity, Cain his brother, we are too like one another in that wherein we are unlike to God: Even the clearest grain sends forth that chaff from which it was fanned, ere the sowing: yet is this Cain a possession, the same Eve that mistook the fruit of the garden, mistook also the fruit of her own body, her hope deceived her in both; so, many good names are ill bestowed; and our comfortable expectations in earthly things do not seldom disappoint us, doubtless their education was holy; For Adam though in Paradise he could not be innocent, yet was a good man out of Paradise; his sin and fall now made him circumspect, and since he saw that his act had bereaved them of that image of God which he once had for them, he could not but labour by all holy endeavours to repair it in them. That so his care might make a mends for his trespass: How plain is it, that even good breeding cannot alter destiny? That which is crooked can none make strait, who would think that brethren, and but two brethren: should not love each other, Dispersed love grows weak, and fewness of objects useth to unite affections: If but two brothers be left alive of many, they think that the love of all the rest should survive in them; and now the beams of their affection are so much the hotter, because they reflect mutually in a right line upon each other: yet behold, here are but two brothers in a world; and one is the butcher of the other. Who can wonder at dissensions amongst thousands of brethren, when he sees so deadly opposition betwixt two, the first roots of brotherhood: who can hope to live plausibly and securely amongst so many cain's, when he sees one Cain the death of one Abel? The same devil that set enmity betwixt man and god; sets enmity betwixt man and man, and yet God said; I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed, our hatred of the serpent and his seed is from God: Their hatred of the holy seed is from the serpent; Behold here at once, in one person the seed of the woman and of the serpent, cain's natural parts are of the woman; his vicious qualities of the serpent; The woman gave him to be a brother, the serpent to be a manslayer, all uncharitableness, all quarrels are of one author: we cannot entertain wrath, and not give place to the Devil. Certainly, so deadly an act must needs be deeply grounded.  
What then was the occasion of this capital malice? Abel's sacrifice is accepted; what was this to Cain? cain's is rejected; what could Abel remedy this? Oh envy; the corrosive of all ill minds; and the root of all desperate actions: the same cause that moved Satan to tempt the first man, to destroy himself, and his posterity, the same moves the second man to destroy the third:  
It should have been cain's joy to see his brother accepted; It should have been his sorrow, to see that himself had deserved a rejection, his brother's example should have excited, and directed him: Could Abel have stayed God's fire from descending? Or should he (if he could) reject God's acceptation, and displease his maker, to content a brother? Was Cain ever the farther from a blessing, because his brother obtained mercy? How proud and foolish is malice? which grows thus mad, for no other cause, but because God, or Abel is not less good; It hath been an old and happy danger to be holy; Indifferent actions must be careful to avoid offence; But I care not what devil or what Cain be angry that I do good, or receive good.  
There was never any nature without envy; Every man is born a Cain; hating that goodness in another, which he neglected in himself; There was never envy that was not bloody; for if it eat not another's heart, it will eat our own, but unless it be restrained it will surely feed itself with the blood of others, oft times in act, always in affection. And that God which (in good) accepts the will for the deed, condemns the will for the deed in evil. If there be an evil heart, there will be an evil eye, and if both these, there will be an evil hand  
How early did Martyrdom come into the world? The first man that died, died for religion; who dare measure God's love by outward events, when he sees wicked Cain standing over bleeding Abel; whose sacrifice was first accepted, and now himself is sacrificed. Death was denounced to man as a curse; yet behold it first lights upon a Saint, how soon was it altered by the mercy of that just hand which inflicted it? If death had been evil, and life good; Cain had been slain, and Abel had survived, now that it begins with him that God loves, O death where is thy sting?  
Abel says nothing, his blood cries: Every drop of innocent blood hath a tongue, and is not only vocal, but importunate, what a noise than did the blood of my Saviour make in heaven, who was himself the shepherd and the sacrifice; The man that was offered, and the God to whom it was offered; The spirit that herd both says, it spoke better things than the blood of Abel; Abel's blood called for revenge his for mercy; Abel's pleaded his own innocency, his, the satisfaction for all the believing world: Abel's procured cain's punishment, his, freed all repentant souls from punishment, better things indeed, than the blood of Abel. Better, and therefore that which Abel's blood said, was good: It is good that God should be avenged of sinners, Execution of justice upon offenders, is no less good, then rewards of goodness.  
No sooner doth Abel's blood speak unto God, than God speaks to Cain; There is no wicked man to whom God speaks not, if not to his ear, yet to his heart: what speech was this? Not an accusation, but an inquiry, yet such an inquiry as would infer an accusation, God loves to have a sinner accuse himself, and therefore hath he set his deputy in the breast of man, neither doth God love this, more than nature abhors it: Cain answers stubbornly: The very name of Abel wounds him no less, than his hand had wounded Abel: Consciences that are without remorse, are not without horror: wickedness makes men desperate; the murderer is angry with God, as of late for accepting his brother's oblation, so now for listening to his blood.  
And now he dares answer God with a question, Am I my brother's keeper? where he should have said, am not I my brother's murderer. Behold he scorneth to keep whom he feared not to kill, Good duties are base and troublesome to wicked minds, whiles even violences of evil are pleasant, Yet this miscreant which neither had grace to avoid his sin, nor to confess it, now that he is convinced of sin, and cursed for it, how he howleth, how he exclaimeth? He that cares not for the act of his sin, shall care for the smart of his punishment. The damned are weary of their torments, but in vain. How great a madness is it to complain too late; He that would not keep his brother, is cast out from the protection of God; he that feared not to kill his brother, fears now, that whosoever meets him will kill him. The troubled conscience proiecteth fearful things, and sin makes even cruel men cowardly: God saw it was too much favour for him to die: he therefore wils that which Cain wills; Cain would live; It is yielded him, but for a curse, how oft doth God hear sinners in anger? He shall live, banished from God, carrying his hell in his bosom, and the brand of God's vengeance in his forehead, God rejects him, the earth repines at him, men abhor him; himself now wishes that death which he feared, and no man dare pleasure him with a murder; how bitter is the end of sin, yea without end; still Cain finds that he killed himself more than his brother, we should never sin if our foresight were but as good as our sense; The issue of sin would appear a thousand times more horrible, than the act is Pleasant.   

The Deluge.  
THe world was grown so foul with sin, that God saw it was time to wash it with a flood. And so close did wickedness cleave to the authors of it, that when they were washed to nothing, yet it would not off, yea so deep did it stick in the very grain of the earth; that God saw it meet to let it soak long under the waters. So under the Law, the very vessels that had touched unclean water must either be rinced, or broken, Mankind began but with one, and yet he that saw the first man, lived to see the earth peopled with a world of men, yet men grew not so fast as wickedness, one man could soon and easily multiply a thousand sins, never man had so many children, so that when there were men enough to store the earth, there were as many sins as would reach up to heaven, whereupon the waters came down from heaven, and swollen up to heaven again, If there had not been so deep a deluge of sin, there had been none of the waters: From whence then was this superfluity of iniquity? Whence, but from the unequal yoke with Infidels? These marriages did not beget men, so much as wickedness; from hence religious husbands both lost their piety, and gained a rebellious and godless generation.  
That which was the first occasion of sin, was the occasion of the increase of sin, A woman seduced Adam, women betray these sons of God, the beauty of the apple betrayed the woman, the beauty of these women betrayed this holy seed, Eve saw and lusted, so did they, this also was a forbidden fruit, they lusted, tasted, sinned, died; the most sins begin at the eyes, by them commonly Satan creeps into the heart that soul can never be in safety that hath not covenanted with his eyes.  
God needed not have given these men any warning of his judgement, They gave him no warning of their sins, no respite: yet that God might approve his mercies to the very wicked; he gives them an hundred & twenty years respite of repenting, how loath is God to strike, that threats so long, he that delights in revenge, surprises his adversary, whereas he that gives long warnings desires to be prevented if we were not wilful, we should never smart.  
Neither doth he give them time only, but a faithful teacher. It is an happy thing when he that teacheth others is righteous; Noah's hand taught them as much as his tongue. His business in building the Ark was a real sermon to the world, wherein at once were taught mercy and life to the believers; and to the rebellious destruction.  
Me thinks I see those monstrous sons of Lamech coming to Noah, and ask him, what he means by that strange work; whether he mean to sail upon the dry land. To whom when he reports God's purpose, and his, they go away laughing at his idleness, and tell one another, in sport, that too much holiness hath made him mad: yet cannot they all flout Noah out of his faith, he preaches and builds and finishes. doubtless more hands went to this work than his: many a one wrought upon the Ark, which yet was not saved in the Ark. Our outward works cannot save us without our faith, we may help to save others, and perish ourselves: what a wonder of mercy is this that I here see? One poor family called out of a world, and as it were eight grains of corn fanned from a whole barn full of chaff: one hypocrite was saved with the rest, for Noah's sake, not one righteous man was swept away for company; For these few was the earth preserved still under the waters; and all kinds of creatures upon the waters; which else had been all destroyed. Still the world stands, for their sakes, for whom it was preserved; Else fire should consume that, which could not be cleansed by water.  
This difference is strange; I see the savagest of all creatures, lions tigers; bears by an instinct from God come to seek the Ark, (as we see Swine foreseeing a storm, run home crying for shelter; men I see not; Reason once debauched is worse than brutishness: God hath use even of these fierce and cruel beasts, and glory by them, even they being created for man, must live by him, though to his punishment: how greatly do they offer & submit themselves to their preserver; renewing that obeisance to this repairer of the world which, they before sin, yielded to him that first stored the world: He that shut them into the Ark when they were entered, shut their mouths also while they did enter. The Lion's faun upon Noah, and Daniel; What heart cannot the maker of them mollify?  
The unclean beasts God would have to live, the clean to multiply; and therefore he sends to Noah seven of the clean, of the unclean two: He knew the one would annoy man with their multitude, the other would enrich him; Those things are worthy of most respect which are of most use.  
But why seven? Surely that God that created seven days in the week, and made one for himself; did here preserve of seven clean beasts, one for himself; for Sacrifice: He gives us six for one in earthly things, that in spiritual we should be all for him.  
Now the day is come, all the guests are entered, the Ark is shut, and the windows of heaven opened: I doubt not but many of those scoffers, when they saw the violence of the waters descending, and ascending, according to Noah's prediction, came wading middle-deep unto the Ark, and importunately craved that admittance, which they once denied. But now, as they formerly rejected God, so are they justly rejected of God: E'er vengeance begin, repentance is seasonable; but if judgement be once gone out, we cry too late; while the Gospel solicits us, the doors of the Ark are open; if we neglect the time of grace, in vain shall we seek it with tears, God holds it no mercy to pity the obstinate. Others more bold than they, hope to overrun the judgement, and climbing up to the high mountains look down upon the waters, with more hope than fear: and now when they see their hills become islands, they climb up into the tallest trees there with paleness and horror at once look for death, & study to avoid it, whom the waves overtake at last half dead with famine and half with fear. Lo now from the tops of the mountains they descry the Ark floating upon the waters, and behold with envy that which before they beheld with scorn.  
In vain doth he fly whom God pursues. There is no way to fly from his judgements, but to fly to his mercy by repenting. The faith of the righteous cannot be so much derided, as their success is magnified: How securely doth Noah ride out this uproar of heaven, earth, and waters? He hears the pouring down of the rain above his head, the shrieking of men, and roaring, and bellowing of beasts, on both sides him, the raging and threats of the waves under him, he saw the miserable shifts of the distressed unbelievers; and in the mean time sits quietly in his dry Cabin, neither feeling nor fearing evil, he knew that he which owed the waters, would steer him, that he who shut him in, would preserve him. How happy a thing is faith? What a quiet safety, what an heavenly peace doth it work in the soul, in the midst of all the inundations of evil?  
Now when God had fetched again all the life which he had given to his unworthy creatures, and reduced the world unto his first form wherein waters were over the face of the earth, it was time for a renovation of all things to succeed this destruction; To have continued this deluge long, had been to punish Noah, that was righteous; After forty days therefore, the heavens clear up, after 150. the waters sink down: How soon is God weary of punishing, which is never weary of blessing; yet may not the Ark rest suddenly, If we did not stay somwhile under God's hand we should not know how sweet his mercy is, and how great our thankfulness should be, The Ark though it was Noah's sort against the waters, yet it was his prison, he was safe in it, but penned up; he that gave him life by it, now thinks time to give him liberty out of it.  
God doth not reveal all things to his best servants, behold he that told Noah 120. years before, what day he should go into the Ark, yet foretells him not now in the Ark what day the Ark should rest upon the hills, and he should go forth; Noah therefore sends out his intelligencers, the Raven, and the Dove: whose wings in that vaporous air might easily descry further than his sight: The Raven of quick sent, of gross ●eede, of tough constitution, no foul was so fit for discovery; the likeliest things always succeed not; He neither will venture far into that solitary world for fear of want, nor yet come into the Ark for love of liberty; but hovers about in uncertainties. How many carnal minds fly out of the Ark of God's Church; and embrace the present world: rather choosing to feed upon the unsavoury carcases of sinful pleasures; then to be restrained within the strait lists of Christian obedience.  
The Dove is sent forth, a foul, both swift and simple. She like a true citizen of the Ark, returns; and brings faithful notice; of the continuance of the waters by her restless and empty return; by her Olive leaf, of the abatement: how worthy are those messengers to be welcome, which with innocence in their lives, bring glad tidings of peace, and salvation in their mouths?  
Noah rejoices, and believes; yet still he waits seven days more: It is not good to devour the favours of God too greedily; but so take them in, that we may digest them: oh strong faith of Noah that was not weary with this delay; some man would have so longed for the open air after so long closeness, that upon the first notice of safety he would have uncovered, and voided the Ark; Noah stays seven days ere he will open; and well near two months ere he will forsake the Ark; and not then, unless God that commanded to enter, had bidden him depart. There is no action good without faith: no faith without a word. Happy is that man which in all things (neglecting the counsels of flesh & blood) depends upon the commission of his maker.   
FINIS.   

Contemplations. THE SECOND BOOK.  

Noah.  
Babel.  
Abraham.  
Isaac sacrificed.  
Lot and Sodom.   
Imprinted at London by Melch. Bradwood for Samuel Macham, and are to be sold at his shop in Paul's Churchyard at the sign of the Bull-head-1612.   

TO THE RIGHT Honourable the LORD STANHOPE one of his majesties most Honourable privy Counsel, All grace and happiness.  
RIGHT Honourable: I durst appeal to the judgement of a carnal Reader (let him not be prejudicate) that there is no history so pleasant as the sacred; set aside the majesty of the inditer; none can compare with it, for the Magnificence and Antiquity of the matter, the sweetness of compiling, the strange variety of memorable occurrences: And if the delight be such, what shall the profit be esteemed of that which was written by God for the salvation of men: I confess no thoughts did ever more sweetly steal me and time away, than those which I have employed in this subject, and I hope none can equally benefit others, for if the mere relation of these holy things be profitable, how much more when it is reduced to use: This second part of the world repaired, I dedicate to your Lordship, wherein you shall see Noah as weak in his Tent, as strong in the Ark, an ungracious son reserved from the Deluge to his Father's curse: modest piety rewarded with blessings, the building of Babel, begun in pride, ending in confusion. Abraham's faith, fear, obedience, Isaac bound upon the Altar under the hand of a Father that hath forgotten both nature, and all his hopes; Sodom burning with a double fire, from hell, and from heaven: Let rescued from that impure City, yet after finding Sodom in his cave: Every one of these passages is not more full of wonder, then of edification. That spirit which hath penned all these things for our learning, teach us their right use: and sanctify these my unworthy meditations to the good of his Church. To whose abundant grace I humbly commend your Lordship.  
Your Lordships unfeignedly devoted in all due observance. Jos. Hall.   

THE SECOND BOOK.  

Noah.  
NO sooner is NOAH come out of the Ark, but he builds an Altar: not an house for himself, but an Altar to the Lord: Our faith will ever teach us to prefer God to ourselves; delayed thankfulness is not worthy of acceptation, Of those few creatures that are least, God must have some; they are all his, yet his goodness will have man know, that it was he, for whose sake they were preserved; It was a privilege to those very bruit creatures that they were saved from the waters, to be offered up in fire unto God; what a favour is it to men to be reserved from common destructions, to be sacrificed to their maker, and redeemer.  
Lo this little fire of Noah, through the virtue of his faith, purged the world, and ascended up into those heavens from which the waters fell, and caused a glorious rainbow to appear therein for his security: All the sins of the former world were not so unsavoury unto God, as this smoke was pleasant. No perfume can be so sweet as the holy obedience of the faithful. Now God that was before annoyed with the ill savour of sin, smells a sweet savour of rest: Behold here a new and second rest: First God rested from making the world, now he rests from destroying it: Even while we cease not to offend, he ceases from a public revenge.  
His word was enough; yet withal he gives a sign; which may speak the truth of his promise to the very eyes of men, thus he doth still in his blessed Sacraments, which are as real words to the soul: The rainbow is the pledge of our safety; which even naturally signifies the end of a shower; all the signs of God's institution are proper, and fignificant.  
But who would look after all this to have found righteous Noah the Father of the new world, lying drunken in his tent? Who could think that wine should overthrow him that was preserved from the waters? That he who could not be tainted with the sinful examples of the former world, should begin the example of a new sin of his own? What are we men, if we be but ourselves? While God upholds us, no temptation can move us, when he leaves us, no temptation is too weak to overthrow us? What living man had ever so noble proofs of the mercy, of the justice of God? Mercy upon himself, justice upon others: What man had so gracious approbation from his maker: behold he of whom in an unclean world God said. Thee only have I found righteous, proves now unclean, when the world was purged: The preacher of righteousness unto the former age, the King, Priest, and Prophet of the world renewed is the first that renews the sins of that world which he had reproved, and which he saw condemned for sin: Gods best children have no fence for sins of infirmity: Which of the Saints have not once done that, whereof they are ashamed? God that lets us fall knows how to make as good use of the sins of his holy ones as of their obedience: If we had not such patterns, who could choose but despair at the sight of his sins?  
Yet we find Noah drunken but once, one act can no more make a good heart unrighteous, than a trade of sin can stand with regeneration, but when I look to the effect of this sin, I can not but blush and wonder; Lo this sin, is worse than sin; Other sins move shame but hide it, this displays it to the world, Adam had no sooner sinned, but he saw and abhorred his own nakedness, seeking to hide it even with bushes.  
Noah had no sooner sinned, but he discovers his nakedness, & hath not so much rule o● himself, as to be ashamed, one hours drunkenness bewrays that which more than 600. years' sobriety had modestly concealed; he that gives himself to wine, is not his own: what shall we think of this vice, which robs a man of himself, and lays a beast in his room? Noah's nakedness is seen in wine, it is no unusual quality in this excess, to disclose secrets; drunkenness doth both make imperfections, & show those we have, to others eyes, so would God have it, that we might be double ashamed, both of those weaknesses which we discover, & of that weakness which moved us to discover. Noah is uncovered; but in the midst of his own tent: It had been sinful though no man had seen it: unknown sins have their guilt and shame, and are justly attended with known punishments. Ungracious Cham saw it and laughed, his Father's shame should have been his; the deformity of those parts from which he had his being; should have begotten in him a secret horror, and dejection, how many graceless men make sport at the causes of their humiliation. Twice had Noah given him life, yet neither the name of a Father, and preserver, nor age, nor virtue could shield him from the contempt of his own.  
I see that even God's Ark may nourish monsters▪ some filthy toads may lie under the stones of the Temple, God preserves some men in judgement, better had it been for Cham to have perished in the waters, then to live unto his Father's curse. Not content to be a witness of this filthy sight; he goes on to be a proclaimer of it. Sin doth ill in the eye but worse in the tongue: As all sin is a work of darkness, so it should be buried in darkness. The report of sin is oft-times as ill, as the commission; for it can never be blazoned without uncharitableness; seldom without infection; Oh the unnatural and more than Chammish impiety of those sons which rejoice to publish the nakedness of their spiritual parents even to their enemies.  
Yet it was well for Noah that Cham could tell it to none but his own; and those, gracious and dutiful sons. Our shame is the less if none know our faults but our friends. Behold how love covereth sins, these good sons are so far from going forward to see their father's shame, that they go backward to hide it, The cloak is laid on both their shoulders, they both go back with qual paces, and dare not so much as look back lest they should unwillingly see the cause of their shame, and will rather adventure to stumble at their father's body then to see his nakedness: How did it grieve them to think that they which had so oft come to their holy father with reverence must now in reverence turn their backs upon him; and that they must now clothe him in pity, which had so often clothed them in love: And which adds more to their duty, they covered him, and said nothing. This modest sorrow is their praise, and our example; The sins of those we love and honour, we must hear of with indignation; fearfully and unwillingly believe, acknowledge with grief and shame, hide with honest excuses, and bury in silence.  
How equal a regard is this both of piety and disobedience? because Chamsinned against his Father, therefore he shall be plagued in his children; japheth is dutiful to his Father, and finds it in his posterity. Because Chamwas an ill son to his Father, therefore his sons shall be seruans to his brethren, because japheth set his shoulder to Sems, to bear the cloak of shame, therefore shall japheth dwell in the tents of Sem; partaking with him in blessing, as in duty. When we do but what we ought; yet God is thankful to us; and rewards that which we should sin if we did not: who could ever yet show me a man rebelliously undutiful to his parents that hath prospered in himself, and his seed?   

Babel.  
HOW soon are men and sins multiplied? within one hundred years the world is as full of both, as if there had been no deluge. Though men could not but see the fearful monuments of the ruin of their Ancestors, yet how quickly had they forgotten a flood? Good Noah lived to see the world both populous, and wicked again. And doubtless oft-times repent to have been the preserver of some whom he saw to traduce the vices of the former world, to the renewed: It could not but grieve him to see the destroyed giants revive out of his own loins, and to see them of his flesh and blood tirannise over themselves. In his sight Nimrod casting off the awe of his holy grandfather, grew imperious and cruel, and made his own kinsmen servants. How easy a thing it is for a great spirit to be the head of a faction; when even brethren will stoop to servitude; And now when men are combined together, evil and presumptuous motions find encouragement in multitudes; and each man takes a pride in seeming forwardest, we are the cheerfuller in good when we have the assistance of company, much more in sinning, by how much we are more prone to evil then good. It was a proud word (Come let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach to heaven.)  
They were newly come down from the hills unto the plains, and now think of raising up an hill of building in the plain, when their tents were pitched upon the mountains of Armenia they were as near to Heaven as their tower could make them; but their ambition must needs aspire to an height of their own raising. Pride is ever discontented; and still seeks matter of boasting in her own works.  
How fond do men reckon without God, Come let us build; As if there had been no stop but in their own will: As if both earth and time had been theirs: Still do all natural men build Babel; forecasting their own plots so resolutely, as if there were no power to countermand them: It is just with God that peremptory determinations seldom prosper: Whereas those things which are fearfully and modestly undertaken, commonly succeed.  
Let us build us a city, if they had taken God with them it had been commendable, establishing of societies is pleasing to him that is the God of order: But a tower whose top may reach to Heaven, was a shameful arrogance, an impious presumption; who would think that we little Ants that creep upon this earth should think of climbing up to heaven, by multiplying of earth?  
Pride ever looks at highest, the first man would know as God, these would dwell as God; covetousnesnesse and ambition know no limits. And what if they had reached up to heaven, some hills are as high as they could hope to be, and yet are no whit the better; no place altars the condition of nature, an Angel is glorious, though he be upon earth; and man is but earth though he be above the clouds: The nearer they had been to heaven the more subject should they have been to the violences of heaven; to thunders, lightnings, and those other higher inflammations, what had been but to thrust themselves into the hands of the revenger of all wicked insolences? God loves that heaven should be looked at, and affected with all humble desires, with the holy ambitions of faith, not with the proud imaginations of our own achievements.  
But wherefore was all this? Not that they loved so much to be neighbours to heaven, as to be famous upon earth; It was not commodity that was here sought, not safety, but glory: whither doth not thirst of fame carry men? whether in good or evil: It makes them seek to climb to heaven, it makes them not fear to run down headlong to hell: Even in the best things desire of praise stands in competition with conscience, and brags to have the more clients. One builds a Temple to Diana in hope of glory, intending it for one of the great wonders of the world; another in hope of fame burns it. He is a rare man that hath not some Babel of his own, whereon he bestows pains and cost, only to be talked of. If they had done better things in a vainglorious purpose; their act had been accursed; if they had built houses to God, if they had given alms to men, if they had sacrificed, prayed, lived well; the intent poisons the action; but now both the act and the purpose are equally vain, and the issue is as vain as either.  
God hath a special indignation at pride above all sins, and will cross our endeavours not for that they are evil (what hurt could be in laying one brick upon another?) but for that they are proudly undertaken: He could have hindered the laying of the first stone; and might as easily have made the trench for the foundation, the grave of the builders: But he loves to see what wicked men would do; and to let fools run themselves out of breath; what monument should they have had of their own madness, and his powerful interruption, if the walls had risen to no height? To stop them then in the midst of their course, he meddles not with either their hands, or their feet, but their tongues; not by pulling them out, not by losing their strings, not by making them say nothing, but by teaching them to say too much: Here is nothing varied but the sound of letters, even this frustrates the work, and befools the workmen: How easy is it for God ten thousand ways to correct and forestall the greatest projects of men? He that taught Adam the first words, taught them words that never were. One calls for brick, the other looks him in the face, and wonders what he commands, and how and why he speaks such words, as were never heard, and in stead thereof brings him mortar, returning him an answer as little understood, each chides with other, expressing his choler so, as he only can understand himself: From heat they fall to quiet entreaties, but still with the same success. At first every man thinks his fellow mocks him, but now perceiving this serious confusion their only answer was silence, and ceasing; they could not come together, for no man could call them to be understood; & if they had assembled nothing could be determined, because one could never attain to the others purpose: No, they could not have the honour of a general dismission, but each man leaves his trowel and station more like a fool than he undertook it, so commonly actions begun in glory, shut up in shame. All external actions depend upon the tongue, No man can know others mind, if this be not the interpreter; hence as there were many tongues given to stay the building of Babel, so there were as many given to build the new jerusalem, the evangelical Church. How dear hath Babel cost all the world? At the first when there was but one language, men did spend their time in Arts; (so was it requisite at the first settling of the world, and so came early to perfection) but now we stay so long (of necessity) upon the shell of tongues, that we can hardly have time to chew the sweet kernel of knowledge: Surely men would have grown too proud if there had been no Babel: It falls out oft-times that one sin is a remedy of a greater. Division of tongues must needs slacken any work: Multiplicity of language had not been given by the Holy ghost for a blessing to the Church, if the world had not been before possessed with multiplicity of languages, for a punishment: Hence it is that the building of our Zion rises no faster, because our tongues are divided; Happy were the Church of God if we all spoke but one language: Whiles we differ, we can build nothing but Babel; difference of tongues caused their Babel to cease, but it builds ours.   

Abraham.  
IT was fit that he which should be the father and pattern of the faithful should be thoroughly tried for in a set copy every fault is important, and may prove a rule of error: of ten trials which Abraham passed; the last was the sorest: No son of Abraham can hope to escape temptations, while he sees that bosom in which he desires to rest, so assaulted with difficulties. Abraham must leave his country and kindred, and live among strangers; The calling of God never leaves men, where it finds them, the earth is the Lords; and all places are alike to the wise and faithful: If Chaldea had not been grossly idolatrous; Abraham had not left it; no bond must tie us to the danger of infection:  
But whether must he go? To a place he knew not, to men that knew not him: it is enough comfort to a good man, wheresoever he is, that he is acquainted with God, we are never out of our way while we follow the calling of God. Never any man lost by his obedience to the highest: because Abraham yielded, God gives him the possession of Canaan: I wonder more at his faith in taking this possession, then in leaving his own; Behold Abraham takes possession for that seed which he had not; which in nature he was not like to have; of that land whereof he should not have one foot, wherein his seed should not be settled of almost five hundred years after, the power of faith can prevent time; and make future things present; If we be the true sons of Abraham we have already (while we sojourn here on earth) the possession of our land of promise: while we seek our country, we have it.  
Yet even Canaan doth not afford him bread, which yet he must believe shall flow with milk and honey to his seed: sense must yield to faith, woe were us, if we must judge of our future estate by the present, Egypt gives relief to Abraham, when Canaan cannot In outward things Gods enemies may far better, than his friends: Thrice had Egypt preserved the Church of God, in Abraham, in jaacob, in Christ; God oft-times makes use of the world for the behoof of his; though without their thanks; as contrarily, he uses the wicked for scourges to his own inheritance, and burns them; because in his good they intended evil.  
But what a change is this? Hitherto hath Sarah been Abraham's wife, now AEpypt hath made her his sister; fear hath turned him from an husband to a brother; No strength of faith can exclude some doubtings: God hath said, I will make thee a great nation, Abraham saith, The Egyptians will kill me: He that lived by his faith, yet shrinketh, and sinneth. How vainly shall we hope to believe without all fear, and to live without infirmities? Some little aspersions of unbelief cannot hinder the praise and power of faith; Abraham believed, and it was imputed to him for righteousness; He that through inconsiderateness doubted twice of his own life, doubts not of the life of his seed, even from the dead and dry womb of Sarah, yet was it more difficult that his posterity should Sarah, then that Sarah's husband should live in Egypt: This was above nature, yet he believes it; Sometimes the believer sticks at easy trials, and yet breaks through the greatest temptations without fear: Abraham was old ere this promise and hope of a son; and still the older, the more uncapable; yet God makes him wait twenty five years for performance, no time is long to faith which hath learned to differre hopes without fainting and irksomeness.  
Abraham heard this news from the Angel, and laughed, Sarah heard it, and laughed; they did not more agree in their desire, then differ in their affection; Abraham laughed for joy; Sarah for distrust, Abraham laughed because he believed it would be so; Sarah because she believed it could not be: the same act varies in the manner of doing, and the intention of the doer, yet Sarah laughed but within herself and is bewrayed: How God can find us out in secret sins; how easily did she now think, that he which could know of her inward laughter, could know of her conception, and now she that laughed and believed not, believeth and feareth.  
What a lively pattern do I see in Abraham & Sarah, of a strong faith and weak, of strong in Abraham and weak in Sarah: She to make God good of his word to Abraham, knowing her own barrenness, substitutes an Hagar, and in an ambition of seed, persuades to Polygamy. Abraham had never looked to obtain the promise by any other than a barren womb, if his own wife had not importuned him to take another: when our own apparent means fail, weak faith is put to shifts; and projects strange devices of her own to attain her end. She will rather conceive by another womb then be childless: when she hears of an impossibility to nature, she doubreth, and yet hides her diffidence; and when she must believe, feareth, because she did distrust: Abraham hears and believes and expects and rejoices; he saith not, I am old and weak; Sarah is old and barren, where are the many nations that shall come from these withered loins? It is enough to him that God hath said it, he sees not the means, he sees the promise. He knew that God would rather raise him up seed from the very stones that he trod upon, than himself should want a large and happy issue.  
There is no faith where there is neither means or hopes. Difficulties and impossibilities are the true objects of belief: Hereupon God adds to his name that which he would fetch from his loins, and made his name as ample as his posterity: never any man was a loser by believing: Faith is ever recompensed with glory.  
Neither is Abraham content only to wait for God, but to smart for him; God bids him cut his own flesh; he willingly sacrifices this parcel of his skin and blood, to him that was the owner of all: How glad he is to carry this painful mark of the love of his creator. How forward to seal this covenant with blood betwixt God and him, not regarding the soreness of his body in comparison of the confirmation of his soul; The wound was not so grievous as the signification was comfortable. For herein he saw that from his loins should come that blessed seed which should purge his soul from all corruption: well is that part of us lost, which may give assurance of the salvation of the whole; our faith is not yet sound, if it have not taught us to neglect pain for God, and more to love his Sacraments, than our own flesh.   

Isaac sacrificed.  
But all these are but easy tasks of faith, all ages have stood amazed at the next: Not knowing whether they should more wonder at God's command, or Abraham's obedience, many years had that good Patriarch waited for his Isaac; now at last he hath joyfully received him, and that with this gracious acclamation. In Isaac shall thy seed be called, and all nations blessed. Behold the son of his age, the son of his love, the son of his expectation, he that might not endure a mock from his brother, must now endure the knife of his Father; Take thine only son Isaac whom thou lovest and get thee to the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering.  
Never any gold was tried in so hot a fire. Who but Abraham would not have expostulated with God? What? Doth the God of mercies now begin to delight in blood? Is it possible that murder should become piety? Or if thou wilt needs take pleasure in an human sacrifice, is there none but Isaac fit for thine Altar, none but Abraham to offer him? Shall these hands destroy the fruit of mine own loins? Can I not be faithful unless I be unnatural? Or if I must needs be the monster of all parents, will not Ishmael yet be accepted? O God where is thy mercy, where is thy justice? Hast thou given me but one only son, and must I now slay him? Why did I wait so long for him? Why didst thou give him me? Why didst thou promise me a blessing in him? What will the heathen say when they shall hear of this infamous massacre? How can thy name, and my profession escape a perpetual blasphemy? With what face shall I look upon my wife Sarah, whose son I have murdered▪ How shall she entertain the executioner of Isaac? Or who will believe that I did this from thee? How shall not all the world spit at his holy cruelty, and say there goes the man that cut the throat of his own son. Yet if he were an ungracious or rebellious child, his deserts might give some colour to this violence, but to lay hands on so dear, so dutiful, so hopeful a son, is uncapable of all pretences.  
But grant that thou which art the God of nature mayst either alter or neglect it, what shall I say to the truth of thy promises? Can thy justice admit contradictions; can thy decrees be changeable, canst thou promise & disappoint? Can these two stand together, Isaac shall live to be the father of nations; and Isaac shall now die by the hand of his Father? when Isaac is once gone where is my seed, where is my blessing? O God if thy commands and purposes be capable of alteration, alter this bloody sentence, and let thy first word stand.  
These would have been the thoughts of a weak heart, But God knew that he spoke to an Abraham, and Abraham knew that he had to do with a God: Faith had taught him not to argue, but obey; In an holy wilfulness he either forgets nature, or despises her, he is sure that what God commands is good, that what he promises, is infallible, and therefore is careless of the means, and trusts to the end.  
In matters of God, whosoever consults with flesh and blood shall never offer up his Isaac, to God, there needs no counsellor when we know God is the commander; here is neither grudging nor deliberating, nor delaying: His faith would not suffer him so much as to be sorry for that he must do. Sarah herself may not know of God's charge, and her husband's purpose, lest her affection should have overcome her faith; lest her weakness now grown importunate, should have said, Disobey God any die. That which he must do, he will do, he that hath learned not to regard the life of his son, had learned not to regard the sorrow of his wise. It is too much tenderness to respect the censures and constructions of others, when we have a direct word from God. The good Patriarch rises early, and addresses himself to his sad journey. And now must he travel three whole days to do this execution, and still must Isaac be in his eye, whom all this while he seems to see bleeding upon the pile of wood, which he carries; there is nothing so miserable as to dwell under the expectation of a great evil; That misery which must be, is mitigated with speed, and aggravated with delay: All this while if Abraham had repent him, he had leisure to return. There is no small trial, even in the very time of trial: now when they are come within sight of the chosen mountain, the servants are dismissed, what a devotion is this that will abide no witnesses, he will not suffer two of his own vassals to see him do that, which soon after all the world must know he hath done, yet is not Abraham afraid of that piety, which the beholders could not see without horror, without resistance, which no ear could hear of without abomination. What stranger could have endured to see the father carry the knife and fire, instruments of that death, which he had rather suffer then inflict? The son securely carrying that burden which must carry him.  
But if Abraham's heart could have known how to relent, that question of his dear, innocent and religious son had melted it into compassion, My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the sacrifice? I know not whether that word, My Father, did not strike Abraham as deep, as the knife of Abraham could strike his son: yet doth he not so much as think, (O miserable man that may not at once be a son to such a God, and a father to such a son:) Still he persists, and conceals, and where he meant not, prophecies, My son, God shall provide a lamb for the burnt offering:  
The heavy tidings was loath to come forth, It was a death to Abraham to say what he must do: He knows his own faith to act this, he knows not Isaac's to endure it, But now when Isaac hath helped to build the Altar, whereon he must be consumed; he hears (not without astonishment) the strange command of God, the final will of his Father: My son thou art the lamb which God hath provided for this burnt offering; If my blood would have excused thee, how many thousand times had I rather to give thee my own life, then take thine Alas I am full of days, and now of long lived not but in thee; Thou mightest have preserved the life of thy father and have comforted his death, but the God of us both hath chosen thee; He that gave thee unto me miraculously, bids me by an unusual means to return thee unto him. I need not tell thee, that I sacrifice all my worldly joys, yea and myself in thee, but God must be obeyed; neither art thou too dear for him that calls thee: come on my son, restore the life that God hath given thee by me: offer thyself willingly to those flames, send up thy soul cheerfully unto thy glory; and know that God loves thee above others, since he requires thee alone to be consecrated in sacrifice to himself.  
Who cannot imagine with what perplexed mixtures of passions, with what changes of countenance, what doubts, what fears, what amazement good Isaac received this sudden message from the mouth of his Father, how he questioned, how he pleaded; but when he had somewhat digested his thoughts, and considered that the Author was God, the actor Abraham, the action a sacrifice, he now approves himself the son of Abraham; now he encourages the trembling hands of his Father; with whom he strives in this praise of forwardness, and obedience; now he offers his hands and feet to the cords, his throat to the knife, his body to the altar; and growing ambitious of the sword and fire, entreats his father to do that, which he would have done though he had dissuaded him; O holy emulation of faith! O blessed agreement of the sacrificer, and oblation: Abraham is as ready to take, as Isaac to give, He binds those dear hands which are more straightly bound with the cords of duty, and resolution; he lays his sacrifice upon the wood, which now before hand burned inwardly with the heavenly fire of zeal and devotion.  
And now having kissed him his last, not without mutual tears, he lifts up his hand to fetch the stroke of death at once; not so much as thinking, perhaps God will relent after the first wound; Now the stay of Abraham, the hope of the Church lies on bleeding under the hand of a Father, what bowels can choose but yearn at this spectacle; which of the savagest heathens that had been now upon the hill of Moriah, and had seen through the bushes the sword of a father hanging over the throat of such a son would not have been more perplexed in his thoughts, than that unexpected sacrifice was in those briars: yet he whom it nearest concerned, is least touched, Faith hath wrought the same in him, which cruelty would in others, not to be moved; He contemns all fears, and overlooks all impossibilities; His heart tells him that the same hand which raised Isaac from the dead womb of Sarah, can raise him again from the ashes of his sacrifice: with this confidence was the hand of Abraham now falling upon the throat of Isaac who had given himself for dead, and rejoiced in the change; when suddenly the Angel of God interrupts him, forbids him, commends him.  
The voice of God was never so welcome, never so sweet, never so seasonable as now: It was the trial that God intended, not the fact; Isaac is sacrificed, and is yet alive, and now both of them are more happy in that they would have done, than they could have been distressed if they had done it. God's charges are oft times harsh in the beginnings, and proceeding, but in the conclusion always comfortable: True spiritual comforts are commonly late and sudden: God differr's on purpose that our trials may be perfect, our deliverance welcome, our recompense glorious: Isaac had never been so precious to his father if he had not been recovered from death; if he had not been as miraculously restored as given: Abraham had never been so blessed in his seed, if he had not neglected Isaac for God.  
The only way to find comfort in any earthly thing is to surrender it (in a faithful carelessness) into the hands of God: Abraham came to sacrifice, he may not go away with dry hands: God cannot abide that good purposes should be frustrate: lest either he should do that, for which he came or should want means of speedy thanksgiving for so gracious a appointment. Behold a Ram stands ready for the sacrifice, and as it were, proffers himself to this happy exchange. He that made that beast, brings him thither, fastens him there: Even in small things there is a great providence what mysteries there are in every act of God? The only son of God upon this very hill, is laid upon the altar of the cross; and so becomes a true sacrifice for the world, that yet he is raised without impeachment, and exempted from the power of death: The Lamb of God which takes the sins of the world is here really offered, and accepted: One Saviour in two figures; in the one, dying; restored in the other. So Abraham whiles he exercises his faith, confirms it; and rejoices more to foresee the true Isaac in that place offered to death for his sins, then to see the carnal Isaac preserved from death for the reward of his faith. Whatsoever is dearest to us upon earth is our Isaac; happy are we if we can sacrifice it to God; those shall never rest with Abraham that cannot sacrifice with Abraham.   

Lot and Sodom.  
BEfore Abraham and Lot grew rich, they dwelled together; now their wealth separates them; Their society was a greater good than their riches: Many a one is a loser by his wealth; Who would account those things good which make us worse? It had been the duty of young Lot to offer rather than to choose; to yield rather than contend: who would not here think Abraham the nephew; and Let the uncle? It is no disparagement for greater persons to begin treaties of peace. Better doth it beseem every son of Abraham to win with love, then to sway with power. Abraham yields over this right of his choice; Lot takes it, And behold Lot is crossed in that which he chose, Abraham is blessed in that which was left him, God never suffers any man to lose by an humble remission of his right in a desire of peace.  
Wealth hath made Lot not only undutiful, but covetous, he sees the goodly plains of jordan, the richness of the soil, the commodity of the rivers, the situation of the cities, and now not once enquiring into the conditions of the inhabitants, he is in love with Sodom: Outward appearances are deceitful guides to our judgement, or affections: they are worthy to be deceived that value things as they seem: It is not long after that Lot pays dear for his rashness. He fled for quietness with his uncle and fiends war with strangers: Now is he carried prisoner with all his substance by great enemies; Abraham must rescue him, of whom he was forsaken. That wealth which was the cause of his former quarrels, is made a prey to merciless heathens. That place which his eye covetously chose betrays his life and goods. How many Christians whiles they have looked at gain, have lost themselves?  
Yet this ill success hath neither driven out Lot, nor amended Sodom; he still loves his commodity, and the Sodomites their sins wicked men grow worse with afflictions, as water grows more cold after an heat: And as they leave not sinning, so God leaves not plaguing them, but still follows them with succession of judgements: In how few years hath Sodom forgot she was spoiled, and led captive? If that wicked city had been warned by the sword, it had escaped the fire; but now this visitation had not made ten good men in those five cities: How fit was this heap for the fire, which was all chaff? Only Let vexed his righteous soul with the sight of their uncleanness; He vexed his own soul, for who bade him stay there? yet because he was vexed, he is delivered. He escapeth their judgement, for whose sins he escaped. Though he would be a guest of Sodom, yet because he would not entertain their sins, he becomes an host to the Angels: Even the good Angels are the executioners of God's judgement: There cannot be a better or more noble act then to do justice upon obstinate malefactors.  
Who can be ashamed of that which did not mis-beseem the very Angels of God? Where should the Angels lodge but with Lot, the houses of holy men are full of these heavenly spirits, when they know not, they pitch their tents in ours, and visit us when we see not, and when we feel not, protect us; It is the honour of God's Saints to be attended by Angels: The filthy Sodomites now flock together, stirred up with the fury of Envy, and lust, and dare require to do that in troops which to act single, had been too abominable, to imagine, unnatural. Continuance and society in evil makes wicked men outrageous and impudent: It is not enough for Lot to be the witness; but he must be the bawd also. (Bring forth these men that we may know them.  
Behold even the Sodomites speak modestly; though their acts and intents be villainous. What a shame it is for those which profess impurity of heart, to speak filthily? The good man craves and pleads the laws of hospitality; and when he sees headstrong purposes of mischief chooses rather to be an ill father; then an ill host: His intention was good, but his offer was faulty; If through his allowance the Sodomites had defiled his daughters; it had been his sin; If through violence they had defiled his guests; it had been only theirs: There can be no warrant for us to sin, lest others should sin: It is for God to prevent sins with judgement, it is not for men to prevent a greater sin with a less: the best minds when they are troubled; yield inconsiderate motions, as water that is violently stirred; sends up bubbles: God meant better to Lot then to suffer his weak offer to be accepted: Those which are bend upon villainy are more exasperated by dissuasion; as some strong streams when they are resisted by floodgates, swell over the banks.  
Many a one is hardened by the good word of God; and in steed of receiving the counsel, rages at the messenger: When men are grown to that pass, that they are no whit better by afflictions, and worse with admonitions, God finds it time to strike; Now Lots guests begin to show themselves Angels, and first deliver Lot in Sodom, then from Sodom: First strike them with blindness, whom they will after consume with fire: How little did the Sodomites think that vengeance was so near them, while they went groping in the streets, and cursing those whom they could not find, Let with the Angels is in secure light, and sees them miserable, and foresees them burning. It is the use of God to blind and besot those whom he means to destroy: The light which they shall see shall be fiery, which shall be the beginning of an everlasting darkness, and a fire unquenchable: Now they have done sinning and God begins to judge: Wickedness hath but a time, the punishment of wickedness is beyond all time. The residue of the night was both short and dangerous. Yet good Lot, though sought for by the Sodomites, and newly pulled into his house by the Angels goes forth of his house to seek his sons in law: No good man would be saved alone; faith makes us charitable with neglect of all peril: He warns them like a Prophet, and advises them like a Father, but both in vain, he seems to them as if he mocked, and they do more than seem to mock him again. Why should to morrow differ from other days? Who ever saw it rain fire? Or whence should that brimstone come? Or if such showers must fall, how shall nothing burn but this valley? So to carnal men preaching is foolishness, devotion idleness, the Prophet's mad men; Paul a babbler: These men's incredulity is as worthy of the fire, as the others uncleanness. He that believes not is condemned already.  
The messengers of God do not only hasten Lot, but pull him by a gracious violence out of that impure city. They thirsted at once after vengeance upon Sodom and Lot's safety; they knew God could not strike Sodom, till Lot were gone out, and that Lot could not be safe within those walls. We are all naturally in Sodom, if God did not hale us out, whiles we linger we should be condemned with the world. If God meet with a very good field, he pulls up the weeds, and lets the corn grow, if indifferent, he lets the corn and weeds grow together; if very ill, he gathers the few ears of corn, and burns the weeds.  
Oh the large bounty of God which reacheth not to us only, but to ours: God saves Lot for Abraham's sake, and Zoar for Lot's sake; If Sodom had not been too wicked, it had escaped: Were it not for God's dear children that are intermixed with the world it could not stand: The wicked owe their lives unto these few good; whom they hate and persecute. Now at once the Sun rises upon Zoar, and fire falls down upon Sodom: Abraham stands upon the hill and sees the cities burning; It is fair weather with God's children, when it is foulest with the wicked. Those which burned with the fire of lust, are now consumed with the fire of vengeance They sinned against nature, and now against the course of nature; fire descends from Heaven and consumes them: Lot may not so much as look at the flame, whether for the stay of his passage, or the horror of the sight, or trial of his faith; or fear of commiseration. Small precepts from God are of importance, obedience is as well tried, and disobedience as well punished in little, as in much: His wife doth but turn back her head, whether in curiosity, or unbelief, or love, and compassion of the place; she is turned into a monument of disobedience; what doth it avail her not to be turned into ashes in Sodom, when she is turned into a pillar of salt in the plain? He that saved a whole city cannot save his own wife. God cannot abide small sins, in those whom he hath obliged. If we displease him, God can as well meet with us out of Sodom: Let now come into Zoar marvels at the stay of her, whom he might not before look back to call; & soon after returning to seek her beholds this change with wonder and grief: He finds salt in steed of flesh, a pillar in steed of a wife; he finds Sodom consumed, and her standing, and is more amazed with this, by how much it was both more near him, and less expected.  
When God delivers us from destruction, he doth not secure us from all afflictions: Lot hath lost his wife, his allies, his substance, and now betakes himself to an uncomfortable solitariness.  
Yet though he fled from company, he could not fly from sin: He who could not be tainted with uncleanness in Sodom, is overtaken with drunkenness and incest in a cave: Rather than Satan shall not want baits his own daughters will prove Sodomites; Those which should have comforted, betrayed him: How little are some hearts moved with judgements? The ashes of Sodom and the pillar of salt were not yet out of their eye when they dare think of lying with their own Father. They knew that whilst Lot was sober he could not be unchaste: Drunkenness is the way to all bestial affections, and acts. Wine knows no difference either of persons or sins: No doubt Lot was afterwards ashamed of his incestuous seed, and now wished he had come alone out of Sodom; yet even this unnatural bed was blessed with increase; and one of our saviours worthy Ancestors sprung after from this line. God's election is not tied to our means; neither are blessings or curses ever traduced; The chaste bed of holy parents hath oft times bred a monstrous generation; and contrarily God hath raised sometimes an holy seed from the drunken bed of incest, or fornication; It hath been seen that weighty ears of corn have grown, out of the compass of the tilled field: Thus will God magnify the freedom of his own choice: and let us know that we are not borne, but made good.   
FINIS.   

Contemplations. THE THIRD BOOK.  

jacob and Esau.  
jacob and Laban.  
Dinah.  
judah and Thamar.  
joseph.   
Imprinted at London by Melch. Bradwood for Samuel Macham, and are to be sold at his shop in Paul's Churchyard at the sign of the Bullhead. 1612.   

TO THE RIGHT Honourable, the LORD DENNY Baron of Waltham my singular good Patron: All grace and happiness.  
RIGHT Honourable, I know, and in all humility confess, how weak my discourse is, and how unworthy of this divine subject which I have undertaken, which if an Angel from heaven should say he could sufficiently comment upon, I should distrust him. Yet this let me say, (without any vain boasting) that these thoughts (such as they are) through the blessing of God, I have woven out of myself, as holding it (after our saviours rule) better to give then to receive. It is easier to heap together large volumes of others labours, then to work out lesser of our own, and the suggestion of one new thought is better than many repeated.  
This part (which together with the Author is yours) shall present to your Lordship, the busiest of all the Patriarches, together with his trials, and success: wherein you shall see Esau stripped by fraud, of that which he willingly sold, Jacob's hard adventures for the blessing, and no less hard services for his wives and substance, his dangerous encounters ending joyfully, the rape of his only daughter seconded with the treacherous murder of his sons, judah's wrong to Thamar repaid by his own uncleanness: joseph's sale, imprisonment, honour, piety; The sin of his brethren well bestowed, well answered. I so touch at the uses of all these, as one that know, it is easy to say more, and impossible to say enough. God give a blessing to my endeavours, and a pardon to my weaknesses; to your Lordship, an increase of his graces, and perfection of all happiness.  
Your Lordships humbly and officiously devoted in all duty. IOS. HALL..   

THE THIRD BOOK.  

Jacob and Esau.  
OF all the patriarchs none made so little noise in the world as Isaac; none lived either so privately, or so innocently: Neither know I whether he approved himself a better son or an husband. For the one; He gave himself over to the knife of his Father, and mourned three years for his mother; for the other he sought not to any handmaid's bed, but in a chaste forbearance reserved himself for twenty years space, and prayed. Rebecca was so long barren, his prayers proved more effectual than his seed. At last she conceived, as if she had been more than the daughter in law to Sarah; whose son was given her, not out of the power of nature, but of her Husband's faith; God is oft better to us than we would: Isaac prays for a son; God gives him two at once: Now, she is no less troubled with the strife of the children in her womb, than before with the want of children: we know not when we are pleased; that which we desire, oft-times discontents us more in the fruition; we are ready to complain both full and fasting. Before Rebecca conceived she was at ease: Before spiritual regeneration there is all peace in the soul: No sooner is the new man form in us, but the flesh conflicts with the spirit: There is no grace where is no unquietness: Esau alone would not have striven, nature will ever agree with itself; Never any Rebecca conceived only an Esau; or was so happy as to conceive none but a jacob; She must be the mother of both, that she may have both joy and exercise. This strife began early; Every true Israelite begins his war with his being. How many actions which we know not of, are not without presage and signification? These two were the champions of two nations, the field was their mother's womb, their quarrel, precedency and superiority: Esau got the right of nature; jacob of grace: yet that there might be some pretence of equality, lest Esau should outrun his brother into the world, jacob holds him fast by the heel: So his hand was borne before the others foot: But because Esau is some minutes the elder, that the younger might have better claim to that which God had promised he buys that, which he could not win: If either by strife, or purchase, or suit, we can attain spiritual blessings we are happy: If jaacob had come forth first, he had not known how much he was bound to God for the favour of his advancement. There was never any meat except the forbidden fruit so dear bought, as this broth of jaacob; In both, the receiver and the eater is accursed: Every true son of Israel will be content to purchase spiritual favours with earthly; And that man hath in him too much of the blood of Esau, which will not rather die then forego his birthright. But what hath careless Esau lost, if having sold his birthright, he may obtain the blessing? Or what hath jaacob gained, if his brother's venison may countervail his pottage? Yet thus hath old Isaac decreed; who was now not more blind in his eyes, then in his affections: God had forewarned him that the elder should serve the younger, yet Isaac goes about to bless Esau. It was not so hard for Abraham to reconcile God's promise and Isaac's sacrifice, as for Isaac to reconcile the superiority of jacob, with Esau's benediction: for God's hand was in that, in this none but his own: The dearest of God's saints have been sometimes transported with natural affections: He saw himself preferred to Ishmael, though the elder; he saw his father wilfully forgetting nature at God's command, in binding him for sacrifice; He saw Esau lewdly matched with Heathens; and yet he will remember nothing, but Esau is my first borne; But how gracious is God; that when we would, will not let us sin? And so order our actions, that we do not what we will, but what we ought; That God which had ordained the Lordship to the younger, will also contrive for him the blessing; what he will have effected, shall not want means: the mother shall rather defeat the son, and beguile the Father, than the Father shall beguile the chosen son of his blessing: what was jacob to Rebecca more than Esau? or what mother doth not more affect the elder? But now God inclines the love of the mother to the younger against the custom of nature, because the father loves the elder, against the promise: The affections of the parents are divided, that the promise might be fulfilled; Rebeccaes craft shall answer Isaac's partiality: Isaac would unjustly turn Esau into jacob, Rebecca doth as cunningly turn jacob into Esau: her desire was good, her means were unlawful; God doth oft times effect his just will by our weaknesses; yet neither thereby justifying our infirmities; nor blemishing his own actions. here was nothing but countersaiting a feigned person, a feigned name, feigned venison, a feigned answer, & yet behold a true blessing but to the man, not to the means: Those were so unsound, that jacob himself doth more fear their curse then hope for their success: Isaac was now both simple and old, yet if he had perceived the fraud, jacob had been more sure of a curse, than he could be sure, that he should not be perceived; those which are plain hearted in themselves, are the bitterest enemies to deceit in others: Rebecca presuming upon the Oracle of God, and her husband's simplicity, dare be his surety for the danger, his counsellor for the carriage of the business, his cook for the diet, yea dresses both the meat and the man: and now puts words into his mouth, the dish into his hand the garments upon his back, the goats hair upon the open parts of his body, and sends him in thus furnished for the blessing: Standing no doubt at the door, to see how well her lesson was learned, how well her devise succeeded. And if old Isaac should by any of his senses have discerned the guile; she had soon stepped in, and undertaken the blame, and urged him with that known will of God concerning Jacob's dominion, and Esau's servitude, which either age or affection had made him forget. And now she wishes she could borrow Esau's tongue as well as his garments, that she might securely deceive all the senses of him, which had suffered himself more dangerously deceived with his affection: But this is past her remedy: her son must name himself Esau with the voice of jacob. It is hard if our tongue do not bewray what we are, in spite of our habit. This was enough to work Isaac to a suspicion, to an inquiry, not to an incredulity: He that is good of himself will hardly believe evil of another: And will rather distrust his own senses, than the fidelity of those he trusted: All the senses are set to examine; none sticketh at the judgement but the ear; To deceive that, jacob must second his dissimulation with three lies at one breath: I am Esau, as thou badst me, my venison: one sin entertained fetcheth in another, and if it be forced to lodge alone, either departeth, or dieth: I love Jacob's blessing, but I hate his lie, I would not do that wilfully, which jacob did weakly, upon condition of a blessing: He that pardoned his infirmity, would curse my obstinateness. Good Isaac sets his hands to try whether his ears informed him aright; he feels the hands of him whose voice he suspected: that honest heart could not think that the skin might more easily be counterfeited, than the lungs: A small satisfaction contents those whom guiltiness hath not made scrupulous: Isaac believes, and blesses the younger son in the garments of the elder: If our heavenly Father smell upon our backs the savour of our elder brother's robes, we cannot depart from him unblessed: No sooner is jacob gone away full of the joy of his blessing then Esau comes in, full of the hope of the blessing: And now he cannot repent him to have sold that in his hunger for pottage; which in his pleasure he shall buy again with venison: The hopes of the wicked fail them when they are at highest, whereas God's children find those comforts in extremity which they durst not expect. Now he comes in blowing, and sweeting for his reward, and finds nothing but a repulse: Lewd men when they think they have earned of God; and come proudly to challenge favour, receive no answer but who art thou? Both the Father and the Son wonder at each other, the one with fear, the other with grief; Isaac trembled, and Esau wept; the one upon conscience, the other upon envy: Isaac's heart now told him that he should not have purposed the blessing where he did; and that it was due to him unto whom it was given, and not purposed; hence he durst not reverse that which he had done, with God's will, besides his own: For now he saw that he had done unwilling justice: God will find both time and means to reclaim his own, to prevent their sins, to manifest and reform their errors who would have looked for tears from Esau? Or who dare trust tears, when he sees them fall from so graceless eyes? It was a good word, Bless me also my father; Every miscreant can wish himself well: No man would be miserable if it were enough to desire happiness: Why did he not rather weep to his brother, for the pottage, then to Isaac for a blessing, If he had not then sold, he had not needed now to beg: It is just with God to deny us those favours which we were careless in keeping, and which we under valued in enjoying; Esau's ears find no place for Isaac's repentance; Except it were that he hath done that by wile, which he should have done upon duty. No motive can cause a good heart to repent that he hath done well; how happy a thing it is to know the seasons of grace, and not to neglect them; how desperate to have known & neglected them, these tears were both late and false; the tears of rage, of envy, of carnal desire; worldly sorrow causeth death: yet whiles Esau howls out thus for a blessing, I hear him cry out of his father's store (Hast thou but one blessing my father) of his brother's subtlety (was he not rightly called jacob?) I do not hear him blame his own deserts; He did not see, while his Father was deceived, and his brother crafty, that God was just, and himself uncapable, he knew himself profane, and yet claims a blessing. Those that care not to please God, yet care for the outward favours of God, and are ready to murmur if they want them, as if God were bound to them, and they free. And yet so merciful is God, that he hath second blessings for those that love him not, and gives them all they care for. That one blessing of special love is for none but Israel; but those of common kindness are for them that can sell their birthright: This blessing was more than Esau could be worthy of, yet like a second Cain, he resolves to kill his brother, because he was more accepted, I know not whether he were a worse son, or brother; He hopes for his father's death, and purposes his brothers; and vows to shed blood in steed of tears. But wicked men cannot be so ill as they would; that strong wrestler against whom jacob prevailed, prevailed with Esau, and turned his wounds into kisses; an host of men came with Esau; an army of Angels met jacob, Esau threatened, jacob prayed, His prayers, and presents have melted the heart of Esau into love. And now in steed of the grim and stern countenance of an executioner, jacob sees the face of Esau, as the face of God. Both men and devils are stinted, the stoutest heart cannot stand out against God, He that can wrestle earnestly with God, is secure from the harms of men. Those minds which are exasperated with violence, and cannot be broken with fear, yet are bowed with love; when the ways of a man please God, he will make his enemies at peace with him.   

Jacob and Laban.  
ISAAC'S life was not more retired and quiet, than Jacob's was busy and troublesome. In the one I see the image of contemplation, of action in the other. None of the Patriarches saw so evil days as he; from whom justly hath the Church of God therefore taken her name. Neither were the faithful ever since called Abrahamites, but Israelites: that no time might be lost, he began his strife in the womb; after that, he flies for his life from a cruel brother to a cruel uncle. With a staff goes he over Iorden alone; doubtful and comfortless, not like the son of Isaac. In the way the earth is his bed, and the stone his pillow; Yet even there he sees a vision of Angels: Jacob's heart was never so full of joy, as when his head lay hardest. God is most present with us in our greatest dejection, and loves to give comfort to those that are forsaken of their hopes.  
He came far to find out an hard friend; and of a nephew becomes a servant. No doubt when Laban heard of his sister's son, he looked for the Camels and attendance that came to fetch his sister Rebecca, not thinking that Abraham's servant could come better furnished, than Isaac's son; but now when he saw nothing but a staff he looks upon him not as an uncle, but a master. And while he pretends to offer him a wife as the reward of his service, he craftily requires his service as the dowry of his wife.  
After the service of an hard apprentiseship hath earned her whom he loved; his wife is changed, and he is, in a sort, forced to an unwilling adultery: His mother had before in a cunning disguise substituted him, who was the younger son, for the elder; and now not long after his father in law, by a like fraud, substitutes to him the elder daughter for the younger: God comes oftentimes home to us in our own kind; and even by the sin of others pays us our own, when we look not for it. It is doubtful whether it were a greater cross to marry whom he would not, or to be disappointed of her whom he desired. And now he must begin a new hope, where he made account of fruition; To raise up an expectation once frustrate, is more difficult, then to continue a long hope drawn on with likelihoods of performance: yet thus dear is jacob content to pay for Rachel, fourteen years servitude: Commonly Gods children come not easily by their pleasures: what miseries will not love digest and overcome? And if jacob were willingly consumed with heat in the day, with frost in the night to become the son in law to Laban: What should we refuse to be the sons of God?  
Rachel whom he loved is barren Lea which was despised, is fruitful; How wisely God weighs out to us our favours and crosses in an equal balance; so tempering our sorrows that they may not oppress, and our joys that they may not transport us: each one hath some matter of envy to others, and of grief to himself.  
Lea envies Rachel's beauty, and love; Rachel envies Leahs fruitfulness: Yet Lea would not be barren, nor Rachel blear eyed. I see in Rachel the image of her grandmother Sara; both in her beauty of person, in her actions, in her success: she also will needs suborn her handmaid to make her a mother; and at last beyond hope, herself conceiveth: It is a weak greediness in us to affect God's blessings by unlawful means; what a proof and praise had it been of her faith if she had stayed God's leisure, & would rather have endured her barrenness, than her husband's Polygamy: Now she shows herself the daughter of Laban, the father for covetousness, the daughters for emulation have drawn sin into Jacob's bed: He offended in yielding, but they more in soliciting him, and therefore the fact is not imputed to jacob, but to them. In those sins which Satan draws us into, the blame is ours, in those which we move each other unto, the most fault and punishment lies upon the tempter. None of the Patriarches divided his seed into so many wombs as jacob, none was so much crossed in his seed.  
Thus rich in nothing but wives and children, was he now returning to his father's house, accounting his charge, his wealth. But God meant him yet more good. Laban sees that both his family, and his flocks were well increased by Jacob's service. Not his love therefore but his gain makes him loath to part. Even Laban's covetousness is made by God the means to enrich jacob.  
Behold his straight master entreats him to that recompense, which made his nephew mighty, and himself envious: God considering his hard service paid him his wages out of Laban's folds. Those flocks and herds had but few spotted sheep, and goats, until Jacob's covenant, than (as if the fashion had been altered) they all ran into parted colours, the most and best (as if they had been weary of their former owner) changed the colours of their young, that they might change their master.  
In the very shapes and colours of bruit creatures there is a divine hand, which disposeth them to his own ends. Small and unlikely means shall prevail where God intends an effect. Little peeled sticks of hazel or poplar laid in the troughs shall enrich jacob with an increase of his spotted flocks; Laban's sons might have tried the same means, and failed: God would have Laban know that he put a difference betwixt jacob and him; that as for fourteen years he had multiplied Jacob's charge of cattle to Laban, so now for the last six years he would multiply Laban's flock to jacob? and if Laban had the more, yet the better were Jacob's: Even in these outward things, Gods children have many times sensible tastes of his favours above the wicked.  
I know not whether Laban were a worse uncle, or father, or master he can like well Jacob's service, not his wealth. As the wicked have no peace with God, so the godly have no peace with men; for if they prosper not, they are despised; if they prosper, they are envy. This uncle whom his service had made his Father, must now upon his wealth be fled from as an enemy: and like an enemy pursues him: If Laban had meant to have taken a peaceable leave, he had never spent seven days journey in following his innocent son: jacob knew his churlishness and therefore resolved rather to be unmannerly, then injuried, well might he think that he whose oppression changed his wages so often, in his stay would also abridge his wages in the parting; now therefore he wisely prefers his own estate to Laban's love: It is not good to regard too much the unjust discontentment of worldly men, and to purchase unprofitable favour with too great loss.  
Behold Laban follows jacob with one troop, Esau meets him with another, both with hostile intentions, both go on till the utmost point of their execution: both are prevented ere the execution. God makes fools of the enemies of his Church, he lets them proceed that they may be frustrate, and when they are gone to the utmost reach of their tether he pulls them back to their stake with shame: Lo now Laban leaves jacob with a kiss; Esau meets him with a kiss: Of the one he hath an oath, tears of the other, peace with both: Who shall need to fear man that is in league with God?  
But what a wonder is this: jacob received not so much hurt from all his enemies, as from his best friend. Not one of his hairs perished by Laban, or Esau; yet he lost a joint by the Angel, and was sent halting to his grave: He that knows our strength, yet will wrestle with us for our exercise; and loves our violence and importunity.  
Oh happy loss of jacob, he lost a joint and won a blessing: It is a favour to halt from God, yet this favour is seconded with a greater. He is blessed because he would rather halt then leave ere he was blessed. If he had left sooner, he had not halted, but he had not prospered. That man shall go away sound, but miserable, that loves a limb more than a blessing. Surely if jacob had not wrestled with God, he had been foiled with evils: How many are the troubles of the righteous.  
Not long after, Rachel; the comfort of his life, dieth. And when but in her travel, and in his travel to his Father? when he had now before digested in his thoughts the joy and gratulation of his aged father, for so welcome a burden. His children, (the staff of his age) wound his soul to the death. Reuben proves incestuous, juda adulterous, Dinah ravished; Simeon and Levi murderous, Er, and Onan stricken dead, joseph lost; Simeon imprisoned; Benjamin, the death of his mother, the Father's right hand, endangered; himself driven by famine, in his old age, to die amongst the Egyptians, a people that held it abomination to eat with him. If that Angel with whom he strove, and who therefore strove for him, had not delivered his soul out of all adversity he had been supplanted with evils, and had been so far from gaining the name of Israel, that he had lost the name of jacob, now what son of Israel can hope for good days, when he hears his Fathers were so evil? It is enough for us if when we are dead we can rest with him in the land of promise. If the Angel of the covenant once bless us, no pain, no sorrows can make us miserable.   

Dinah.  
I Find but one only daughter of jacob, who must needs therefore be a great darling to her father; and she so miscarries, that she causes her father's grief to be more than his love. As her mother Leah; so she hath a fault in her eyes, which was, Curiosity: She will needs see, and be seen; and whiles she doth vainly see, she is seen lustfully. It is not enough for us to look to our own thoughts, except we beware of the provocations of others: If we once wander out of the lists that God hath set us in our callings, there is nothing but danger: Her virginity had been safe if she had kept home; or if Sechem had forced her in her mother's tent; this loss of her virginity had been without her sin; now she is not innocent that gave the occasion.  
Her eyes were guilty of this temptation: Only to see, is an insufficient warrant to draw us into places of spiritual hazard: If Sechem had seen her busy at home his love had been free from outrage; now the lightness of her presence gave encouragement to his inordinate desires. Immodesty of behaviour makes way to lust; and gives life unto wicked hopes: yet Sechem bewrays a good nature even in filthiness; He loves Dinah after his sin, and will needs marry her whom he hath defiled. Commonly lust ends in loathing: Ammon abhors Thamar as much, after his act, as before, he loved her; and beats her out of doors, whom he was sick to bring in. But Sechem would not let Dinah fare the worse for his sin. And now he goes about to entertain her with honest love, whom the rage of his lust had dishonestly abused. Her deflowering shall be no prejudice to her, since her shame shall redound to none but him, and he will hide her dishonour with the name of an husband. What could he now do, but sue to his Father, to hers, to herself; to her brethren, entreating that, with humble submission which he might have obtained by violence. Those actions which are ill begun, can hardly be salved up with late satisfactions; whereas good entrances give strength unto the proceedings, and success to the end.  
The young man's father, doth not only consent but solicit; and is ready to purchase a daughter either with substance, or pain: The two old men would have ended the matter peaceably; but youth commonly undertakes rashly, and performs with passion, The sons of jacob think of nothing but revenge, and (which is worst of all) begin their cruelty with craft, and hide their craft with religion: A smiling malice is most deadly; and hatred doth most rankle the heart when it is kept in and dissembled. We cannot give our sister to an uncircumcised man; here was God in the mouth, and Satan in the heart: The bloodiest of all projects have ever wont to be coloured with religion: because the worse any thing is, the better show it desires to make; and contrarily, the better colour is put upon any vice, the more odious it is; for as every simulation adds to an evil, so the best adds most evil: themselves had taken the daughters and sisters of uncircumcised men; Yea jacob himself did so; why might not an uncircumcised man obtain their sister? Or if there be a difference of giving and taking, it had been well if it had not been only pretended. It had been an happy ravishment of Dinah that should have drawn a whole country into the bosom of the church: but here was a sacrament intended, not to the good of the soul, but to murder of the body: It was an hard task for Hamor and Sechem not only to put the knife to their own foreskins, but to persuade a multitude to so painful a condition.  
The Sons of jacob dissemble with them, they with the people. (Shall not their flocks and substance be ours?) Common profit is pretended; whereas only Sechems' pleasure is meant. No motive is so powerful to the vulgar sort, as the name of commodity; The hope of this makes them prodigal of their skin and blood; Not the love to the Sacrament, not the love to Sechem: sinister respects draw more to the profession of religion, than conscience: if it were not for the loaves and fishes, the train of Christ would be less. But the Sacraments of God mis-received, never prosper in the end, These men are content to smart, so they may gain.  
And now that every man lies sore of his own wound, Simeon and Levi rush in armed, & wound all the males to death: Cursed be their wrath for it was fierce, and their rage for it was cruel: indeed, filthiness should not have been wrought in Israel; but murder should not have been wrought by Israel; if they had been fit judges (which were but bloody executioners) how far doth the punishment exceed the fault? To punish above the offence is no less unjustice, then to offend one offendeth, and all feel the revenge: yea all, (though innocent) suffer that revenge, which he that offended, deserved not. Sechem sinned, but Dinah tempted him: She that was so light, as to wander abroad alone, only to gaze, I fear was not over difficult to yield: And if having wrought her shame, he had driven her home with disgrace to her father's tent, such tyrannous lust had justly called for blood, but now he craves, and offers, and would pay dear for but leave to give satisfaction.  
To execute rigour upon a submiss offender is more merciless than just: Or if the punishment had been both just and proportionable from another, yet from them which had vowed peace and affinity, it was shamefully unjust. To disappoint the trust of another, and to neglect our own promise and fidelity for private purposes, adds faithlessness unto our cruelty. That they were impotent it was through their circumcision: what impiety was this instead of honouring an holy sign, to take an advantage by it? what shrieking was there now in the streets of the city of the Hiuites? And how did the beguiled Sichemites when they saw the swords of the two brethren, die cursing that Sacrament in their hearts which had betrayed them? Even their curses were the sins of Simeon and Levi; whose fact, though it were abhorred by their father, yet it was seconded by their brethren. Their spoil makes good the others slaughter. Who would have looked to have found this outrage in the family of jacob? How did that good Patriarch when he saw Dinah come home blubbered and wring her hands, Simeon and Levi sprinkled with blood, wish that Leah had been barren as long as Rachel: Good parents have grief enough (though they sustain no blame) for their children's sins: What great evils arise from small beginnings. The idle Curiosity of Dinah hath bred all this mischief, Ravishment sollowes upon her wandering, upon her ravishment murder, upon the murder spoil: It is holy and safe to be jealous of the first occasions of evil either done, or suffered   

Judah and Thamar.  
I Find not many of Jacob's sons more faulty than judah; who yet is singled out from all the rest, to be the royal progenitor of Christ; and to be honoured with the dignity of the birthright; that God's election might not be of merit, but of grace: Else howsoever he might have sped alone, Thamar had never been joined with him in this line: Even judah marries a Canaanite, it is no marvel though his seed prosper not: And yet that good children may not be too much discouraged with their unlawful propagation, the fathers of the promised seed are raised from an ineestuous bed: judah was very young, scarce from under the rod of his Father, yet he takes no other counsel for his marriage, but from his own eyes, which were like his sister Dinah's, roving and wanton, what better issue could be expected from such beginnings. Those proud jews that glory so much of their pedigree and name from this Patriarch, may now choose whether they will have their mother a Canaanite, or an harlot: Even in these things oft-times the birth follows the belly. His eldest son Er, is too wicked to live; God strikes him dead ere he can leave any issue, not abiding any science to grow out of so bad a stock: Notorious sinners God reserves to his own vengeance, He doth not inflict sensible judgements upon all his enemies, lest the wicked should think there were no punishment abiding for them elsewhere. He doth inflict such judgements upon, some, lest he should seem careless of evil. It were as easy for him to strike all dead, as one: but he had rather all should be warned by one, and would have his enemies find him merciful, as his children just: His brother Onan sees the judgement, and yet follows his sins. Every little thing discourages us from good. Nothing can alter the heart that is set upon evil: Ere was not worthy of any love; but though he were a miscreant, yet he was a brother Seed should have been raised to him; Onan justly leeses his life with his seed; which he would rather spill, then lend to a wicked brother. Some duties we owe to humanity, more to nearness of blood Ill deservings of others can be no excuse for our injustice, for our uncharitableness. That which Thamar required, Moses afterward, as from God, commanded; the succession of brothers into the barren bed: Some laws God spoke to his Church long ere he wrote them: while the author is certainly known, the voice and the finger of God are worthy of equal respect. judah hath lost two sons, and now doth but promise the third, whom he sins in not giving. It is the weakness of nature, rather to hazard a sin, than a danger. And to neglect our own duty, for wrongful suspicion of others: though he had lost his son in giving him: yet he should have given him: A faithful man's promise is his debt, which no fear of damage can dispeuse with.  
But whereupon was this slackness? judah feared that some unhappiness in the bed of Thamar was the cause of his son's miscarriage; whereas it was their fault that Thamar was both a widow and childless. Those that are but the patients of evil, are many times burdened with suspicions; and therefore are ill thought of, because they fare ill: Afflictions would not be so heavy if they did not lay us open unto uncharitable conceits.  
What difference God puts betwixt sins of wilfulness, and infirmity? The sons pollution is punished with present death, the father's incest is pardoned, and in a sort prospereth.  
Now Thamar seeks by subtlety, that which she could not have by award of justice; the neglect of due retributions drives men to indirect courses; neither know I whether they sin more in righting themselves wrongfully, or the other in not righting them: She therefore takes upon her the habit of an harlot, that she might perform the act; If she had not wished to seem an whore, she had not worn that attire, nor chosen that place, immodesty of outward fashion or gesture bewrays evil desires, the heart that means well, will never wish to seem ill; for commonly we affect to show better than we are. Many harlots will put on the semblances of chastity, of modesty, never the contrary. It is no trusting those which do not wish to appear good. judah esteems her by her habit, and now the sight of an harlot hath stirred up in him a thought of lust; Satan finds well that a fit object is half a victory.  
Who would not be ashamed to see a son of jacob thus transported with filthy affections? At the first sight is he inflamed; neither yet did he see the face of her, whom he lusted after, it was enough motive to him that she was a woman; neither could the presence of his neighbour the Adullamite compose those wicked thoughts, or hinder his unchaste acts.  
That sin must needs be impudent, which can abide a witness: yea so hath his lust besotted him, that he cannot discern the voice of Thamar, that he cannot foresee the danger of his shame in parting with such pledges. There is no passion which doth not for the time bereave a man of himself: Thamar had learned not to trust him without a pawn; He had promised his son to her as a daughter, and failed; now he promised a kid to her as an harlot, & performeth it, whether his pledge constrained him, or the power of his word, I inquire not: Many men are faithful in all things, save those which are the greatest, and dearest; If his credit had been as much endangered in the former promise, he had kept it: Now hath Thamar requited him. She expected long the enjoying of his promised son, and he performed not: but here he performs the promise of the kid, and she stays not to expect it; judah is sorry that he cannot pay the hire of his lust, and now feareth lest he shall be beaten with his own staff, lest his signet shall be used to confirm, and seal his reproach; resolving not to know them; and wishing they were unknown of others. Shame is the easiest wages of sin, and the surest, which ever begins first in ourselves. Nature is not more forward to commit sin, then willing to hide it.  
I hear as yet of no remorse in judah, but fear of shame. Three months hath his sin slept, and now when he is securest, it awakes and baits him. News is brought him that Thamar begins to swell with her conception, and now he swells with rage, and calls her forth to the flame like a rigorous judge, without so much as staying for the time of her deliverance; that his cruelty in this justice, should be no less ill, than the unjustice of occasioning it. If juda had not forgotten his sin, his pity had been more than his hatred to this of his daughters: How easy is it to detest those sins in others which we flatter in ourselves: Thamar doth not deny the sin, nor refuse punishment; but calls for that partner in her punishment, which was her partner in the sin: the staff, the signet, the handkerchief accuse and convince juda, and now he blushes at his own sentence, much more at his act, and cries out (she is more righteous than I) God will find a time to bring his children upon their knees, and to wring from them penitent confessions: And rather than he will not have them sound ashamed, he will make them the trumpets of their own reproach.  
Yet doth he not offer himself to the flame with her, but rather excuses her by himself. This relenting in his own case shamed his former zeal: Even in the best men nature is partial to itself: It is good so to sentence others frailties, that yet we remember our own, whether those that have been, or may be, with what shame, yea with what horror must judah needs look up-upon the great belly of Thamar, and on her two sons, the monuments of his filthiness?  
How must it needs wound his soul to hear them call him both Father, and Grandfather, to call her mother, and sister: If this had not cost him many a sigh, he had no more escaped his Father's curse then Reuben did: I see the difference not of sins, but of men: Remission goes not by the measure of the sin, but the quality of the sinner; yea rather, the mercy of the forgiver: Blessed is the man (not that sins not, but) to whom the Lord imputes not his sin.   

Joseph.  
I Marvel not that joseph had the double portion of Jacob's land, who had more than two parts of his sorrows: None of his sons did so truly inherit his afflictions; none of them was either so miserable, or so great: suffering is the way to glory: I see in him not a clearer type of Christ, then of every Christian, because we are dear to our Father, and complain of sins, therefore are we hated of our carnal brethren: If joseph had not meddled with his brother's faults, yet he had been envied for his Father's affection; but now malice is met with envy: There is nothing more thankless or dangerous then to stand in the way of a resolute sinner: That which doth correct and oblige the penitent, makes the wilful mind furious and revengeful.  
All the spite of his brethren cannot make joseph cast off the livery of his father's love: what need we care for the censures of men 〈◊〉 if our hearts can tell us that we are in favour with God.  
But what meant young joseph to add unto his own envy▪ by reporting his dreams? The concealment of our hopes or abilities hath not more modesty, than safety: He that was envied for his dearness, and hated for his intelligence, was both envied and hated for his dreams. Surely God meant to make the relation of these dreams, a means to effect that which these dreams imported. We men work by likely means; God by contraries. The main quarrel was, (Behold this dreamer cometh.) Had it not been for his dreams; he had not been sold, if he had not been sold, he had not been exalted. So joseph's state had not deserved envy, if his dreams had not caused him to be envied. Full little did joseph think when he went to seek his brethren that this was the last time he should see his Father's house: Full little did his brethren think when they sold him naked to the Ismaelites to have once seen him in the throne of Egypt. God's decree runs on; and while we, either think not of it, or oppose it, is performed.  
In an honest and obedient simplicity joseph comes to inquire of his brethren's health, and now may not return to carry news of his own misery: whiles he thinks of their welfare they are plotting his destruction. (Come let us slay him,) Who would have expected this cruelty in them which should be the Fathers of God's Church: It was thought a favour that Reubens' entreaty obtained for him that he might be cast into the pit alive; to die there. He looked for brethren, and behold murderers; Every man's tongue, every man's fist was bend against him: Each one strives who shall lay the first hand upon that changeable cote, which was died with their Father's love, and their envy: And now they have stripped him naked, and haling him by both arms, as it were: cast him alive into his grave. So in pretence of forbearance, they resolve to torment him with a lingering death: the savagest robbers could not have been more merciless: for now besides (what in them lies) they kill their Father in their brother. Nature if it once degenerate, grows more monstrous and extreme than a disposition borne to cruelty.  
All this while joseph wanted neither words nor tears, but like a passionate suppliant (bowing his bare knees to them whom he dreamt should bow to him) entreats and persuades by the dear name of their brotherhood, by their profession of one common God, for their father's sake; for their own souls sake not to sin against his blood: But envy hath shut out mercy; and makes them not only forget themselves to be brethren, but men: What stranger can think of poor innocent joseph, crying naked in that desolate and dry pit (only saving that he moistened it with tears) and not be moved? Yet his hard-hearted brethren sit them down carelessly, with the noise of his lamentation in their ears, to eat bread; not once thinking by their own hunger, what it was for joseph to be affamisht to death.  
Whatsoever they thought, God never meant that joseph should perish in that pit; and therefore he sends very Ismaelites to ransom him from his brethren; the seed of him that persecuted his brother Isaac, shall now redeem joseph from his brethren's persecution: When they came to fetch him out of the pit, he now hoped for a speedy dispatch; That since they seemed not to have so much mercy as to prolong his life, they would not continue so much cruelty as to prolong his death.  
And now when he hath comforted himself with hope of the favour of dying, behold death exchanged for bondage: how much is servitude to an ingenuous nature worse than death? For this is common to all; that, to none but the miserable: judah meant this well, but God better: Reuben saved him from the sword; judah from affamishing: God will ever raise up some secret favourers to his own amongst those that are most malicious: How well was this favour bestowed? If joseph had died for hunger in the pit, both jacob and judah, and all his brethren had died for hunger in Canaan. Little did the Ismaelitish merchants know what a treasure they bought carried and sold; more precious than all their balms and mirrhes. Little did they think that they had in their hands the Lord of Egypt, the jewel of the world: Why should we contemn any man's meanness, when we know not his destiny?  
One sin is commonly used for the vail of another: joseph's coat is sent home dipped in blood, that whiles they should hide their own cruelty, they might afflict their Father, no less than their brother. They have devised this really to punish their old father for his love, with so grievous a monument of his sorrow.  
He that is mourned for in Canaan as dead, prospers in Egypt under Potiphar; and of a slave is made a ruler: Thus God meant to prepare him for a greater charge; he must first rule Potiphars' house, than Pharaohs kingdom: his own service is his least good; for his very presence procures a common blessing: A whole family shall far the better for one joseph: Virtue is not looked upon alike with all eyes: his fellows praise him, his master trusts him, his mistress affects him too much. All the spite of his brethren was not so great a cross to him, as the inordinate affection of his mistress. Temptations on the right hand are now more perilous, and hard to resist, by how much they are more plausible and glorious; But the heart that is bend upon God, knows how to walk steadily and indifferently betwixt the pleasures of sin; and fears of evil: He saw, this pleasure would advance him: He knew what it was to be a minion of one of the greatest Ladies in Egypt: yet resolves to contemn it: A good heart will rather lie in the dust, then rise by wickedness. (How shall I do this, and sin against God.  
He knew that all the honours of Egypt could not buy off the guilt of one sin, and therefore abhors not only her bed, but her company: He that will be safe from the acts of evil, must wisely avoid the occasions, as sin ends ever in shame when it is committed, so it makes us past shame that we may commit it; The impudent strumpet dare not only solicit, but importune, but in a sort force the modesty of her good servant; She lays hold on his garment; her hand seconds her tongue.  
Good joseph found it now time to flee; when such an enemy pursued him; how much had he rather leave his cloak, than his virtue. And to suffer his mistress to spoil him of his livery, rather than he should blemish her honour, or his masters in her, or God in either of them.  
This second time is joseph stripped of his garment; before, in the violence of envy, now of lust; before of necessity, now of choice: Before, to deceive his father, now his master: for behold, the pledge of his fidelity which he left in those wicked hands, is made an evidence against him of that which he refused to do: therefore did he leave his cloak because he would not do that; of which he is accused and condemned because he left it: what safety is there against great adversaries, when even arguments of innocence are used to convince of evil? Lust yielded unto is a pleasant madness, but is a desperate madness when it is opposed: No hatred burns so furiously as that which arises from the quenched coals of love.  
Malice is witty to devise accusations of others out of their virtue, and our own guiltiness: joseph either pleads not, or is not heard.  
Doubtless he denied the fact, but he dare not accuse the offender: There is not only the praise of patience but oft-times of wisdom, even in unjust sufferings: He knew that God would find a time to clear his innocence, and to reward his chaste faithfulness.  
No prison would serve him, but Paraohs. joseph had lain obscure, and not been known to Pharaoh, if he had not been cast into Paraohs' dungeon: the afflictions of God's childs turn ever to their advantages. No sooner is joseph a prisoner, than a guardian of the prisoners. Trust and honour accompany him wheresoever he is: In his Father's house, In Potiphars', in the jail, in the Court; still he hath both favour and rule.  
So long as God is with him, he cannot but shine in spite of men The walls of that dungeon cannot hide his virtues, the irons cannot hold them. Paraohs' officers are sent to witness his graces, which he may not come forth to show, the cupbearer admires him in the jail, but forgets him in the Court. How easily doth our own prosperity make us forget either the deservings, or miseries of others. But as God cannot neglect his own, so lest of all in their sorrows. After two years more of joseph's patience; that God which caused him to be lift out of the former pit to be sold; now calls him out of the dungeon to honour. He now puts a dream into the head of Pharaoh. He puts the remembrance of joseph's skill into the head of the cupbearer, who to pleasure Pharaoh, not to requite joseph; commends the prisoner, for an interpreter: He puts an interpretation in the mouth of joseph▪ he puts this choice into the heart of Pharaoh of a miserable prisoner to make the ruler of Egypt. Behold one hour hath changed his fetters into a chain of gold, his rags into fine linen, his stocks into a chariot, his jail into a palace, Potiphars' captive into his masters Lord; the noise of his chains into Abrech. He whose chastity refused the wanton allurements of the wife of Potiphar, hath now given him to his wife the daughter of Potipherah. Humility goes before honour; serving and suffering are the best tutors to government. How well are God's children paid for their patience? How happy are the issues of the faithful? Never any man repented him of the advancement of a good man.  
Pharaoh hath not more preferred joseph then joseph hath enriched Pharaoh; If joseph had not ruled Egypt and all bordering nations had perished▪ The providence of so faithful an officer hath both given the Egyptians their lives, and the money, cattle, lands, bodies of the Egyptians to Pharaoh. Both have reason to be well pleased. The subjects owe to him their lives, the King his subjects, and his dominions, The bounty of God made joseph able to give more than he received. It is like, the seven years of plenty were not confined to Egypt; other countries adjoining were no less fruitful: yet in the seven years of famine Egypt had corn when they wanted.  
See the difference betwixt a wise provident frugality, and a vain ignorant expense of the benefits of God: The sparing hand is both full and beneficial, whereas the lavishment is not only empty, but injurious.  
Good jacob is pinched with the common famine. No piety can exempt us from the evils of neighbourhood. No man can tell by outward events, which is the Patriarch, and which the Canaanite.  
Neither doth his profession lead him to the hope of a miraculous preservation. It is a vain tempting of God to cast ourselves upon an immediate provision, with neglect of common means: His ten sons must now leave their flocks, and go down into Egypt, to be their father's purveyors. And now they go to buy of him whom they had fold; and bow the knees to him for his life, which had bowed to them before for his own life. His age, his habit; the place, the language kept joseph from their knowledge; neither had they called off their minds from their folds, to inquire of matters of foreign state, or to hear that an Hebrew was advanced to the highest honour of Egypt▪ But he can not but know them, whom he left at their full growth, whose tongue and habit, and number were still one: whose faces had left so deep an impression in his mind, ●t their unkind parting: It is wisdom sometimes so to conceal our knowledge, that we may not prejudice truth.  
He that was hated of his brethren for being his fathers spy; now accuses his brethren for common spies of the weaknesses of Egypt; he could not without their suspicion have come to a perfect intelligence of his father's estate, and theirs, if he had not objected to them that which was not. We are not always bound to go the nearest way to truth. It is more safe in cases of inquisition to fetch far about, that he might seem enough an Egyptian, he swears heathenishly. How little could they suspect, this oath could proceed from the son of him, which swore by the fear of his father Isaac? How oft have sinister respects drawn weak goodness to disguise itself, even with sins?  
It was no small joy to joseph, to see this late accomplishment of his ancient dream; to see these suppliants (I know not whether more brethren, or enemies) groveling before him in an unknowing submission: And now it doth him good to seem merciless to them, whom he had found wilfully cruel; to hide his love from them which had showed their hate to him, and to think how much he favoured them, and how little they knew it: And as sporting himself in their seeming misery, he pleasantly imitates all those actions reciprocally unto them, which they in despite and earnest, had done formerly to him; he speaks roughly, rejects their persuasions, puts them in hold, and one of them in bonds. The mind must not always be judged by the outward face of the actions. God's countenance is oft-times as severe, and his hand as heavy to them whom he best loveth. Many a one under the habit of an Egyptian hath the heart of an Israelite. No song could be so delightful to him, as to hear them in a late remorse condemn themselves before him, of their old cruelty towards him, who was now their unknown witness and judge.  
Nothing doth so powerfully call home the conscience, as affliction; neither need there any other art of memory for sin, besides misery. They had heard joseph's deprecation of their evil with tears, and had not pitied him; yet joseph doth but hear their mention of this evil which they had done against him, and pities them with tears, he weeps for joy to see their repentance, and to compare his safety and happiness with the cruelty which they intended, and did, and thought they had done.  
Yet he can abide to see his brother his prisoner; whom no bonds could bind so strong, as his affection bound him to his captive: Simeon is left in pawn, in fetters; the rest return, with their corn, with their money, paying nothing for their provision; but their labour; that they might be as much troubled with the beneficence of that strange Egyptian Lord, as before with his imperious suspicion. Their wealth was now more irkesom to them, than their need, and they fear God means to punish them more in this superfluity of money, then in the want of victuals. (What is this that God hath done to us?) It is a wise course to be jealous of our gain; and more to fear, then desire abundance.  
Old jacob that was not used to simple and absolute contentments receives the blessing of seasonable provision, together with the affliction of that heavy message; the loss of one son, and the danger of another. And knows not whether it be better for him to die with hunger, or with grief for the departure of that son of his right hand: He drives off till the last; Protraction is a kind of ease in evils that must come.  
At length (as no plea is importunate as that of famine) Benjamin must go; one evil must be hazarded for the redress of another what would it avail him to see whom he loved, miserable? how injurious were that affliction to keep his son so long in his eye till they should see each other die for hunger.  
The ten brothers return into Egypt loaded with double money in their sacks, and a present in their hands; the danger of mistaking is requited, by honest minds with more than restitution. It is not enough to find our own hearts clear in suspicious actions, except we satisfy others: Now hath joseph what he would, the sight and presence of his Benjamin, whom he therefore borrows of his Father for a time, that he might return him with a greater interest of joy: And now he feasts them whom he formerly threatened, and turns their fear into wonder; all unequal love is not partial; all the brethren are entertained bountifully, but Benjamin hath a fivefold portion: By how much his welcome was greater, by so much his pretended theft seemed more heinous, for good turns aggravate unkindnesses, and our offences are increased with our obligations: How easy is it to find advantages, where there is a purpose to accuse: Benjamins sack makes him guilty of that whereof his heart was free: Crimes seem strange to the innocent; well might they abjure this fact with the offer of bondage and death: For they which carefully brought again that which they might have taken, would never take that which was not given them. But thus joseph would yet dally with his brethren, and make Benjamin a thief that he might make him a servant and fright his brethren with the peril of that their charge, that he might double their joy, and amazedness in giving them two brothers at once: our happiness is greater, and sweeter when we have well feared, and smarted with evils.  
But now when judah seriously reported the danger of his old father, and the sadness of his last complaint, compassion and joy will be concealed no longer; but break forth violently at his voice and eyes. Many passions do not well abide witnesses, because they are guilty to their own weakness: joseph sends forth his servants that he might freely weep. He knew he could not say, I am joseph, without an unbelieving vehemence.  
Never any word sounded so strangely as this, in the ears of the patriarchs. Wonder, doubt, reverence, joy, fear, hope, guiltiness struck them at once. It was time for joseph to say Fear not; No marvel if they stood with paleness and silence before him; looking on him, and on each other: the more they considered, they wondered, and the more they believed, the more they feared: For those words (I am joseph,) seemed to sound thus much to their guilty thoughts: You are murderers, and I am a Prince in spite of you; My power and this place, give me all opportunities of revenge; My glory is your shame, my life your danger, your sin lives together with me. But now the tears and gracious words of joseph have soon assured them of pardon and love, and have bidden them turn their eyes from their sin against their brother, to their happiness in him, and have changed their doubts into hopes and joys; causing them to look upon him without fear, though not without shame. His loving embracements clear their hearts of all jealousies; and hasten to put new thoughts into them; of favour, and of greatness: So that now forgetting what evil they did to their brother, they are thinking of what good their brother may do to them: Actions salved up with a free forgiveness, are as not done; and as a bone once broken is stronger after well setting, so is love after reconcilement.  
But as wounds once healed leave a scar behind them; so remitted injuries leave commonly in the actors a guilty remembrance; which hindered these brethren from that freedom of joy which else they had conceived: This was their fault, not joseph's; who strives to give them all security of his love, and will be as bountiful, as they were cruel. They sent him naked to strangers, he sends them in new and rich liveries to their Father; they took a small sum of money for him, he gives them great treasures; They sent his torn cote to his Father; He sends variety of costly raiments to his Father by them: They sold him to be the load of camels; He sends them home with chariots. It must be a great favour that can appease the conscience of a great injury. Now they return home rich and joyful, making themselves happy to think, how glad they should make their father with this news.  
That good old man would never have hoped that Egypt could have afforded such provision as this. joseph is yet alive: This was not food, but life to him. The return of Benjamin was comfortable: but that his dead son was yet alive after so many years lamentation, was tidings too happy to be believed, and was enough to endanger that life with excess of joy, which the knowledge thereof doubled. Ouer-excellent objects are dangerous in their sudden apprehensions. One grain of that joy would have safely cheered him, whereof a full measure overlays his heart with too much sweetness. There is no earthly pleasure, whereof we may not surfeit: of the spiritual we can never have enough.  
Yet his eyes revive his mind, which his ears had thus astonished. When he saw the charets of his son, he beloeved joseph's life, and refreshed his own. He had too much before, so that he could not enjoy it: now he saith, I have enough, joseph my son is yet alive.  
They told him of his honour, he speaks of his life: life is better than honour. To have heard that joseph lived a servant, would have ioied him more, than to hear that he died honourably. The greater blessing obscures the less. He is not worthy of honour that is not thankful for life.  
Yet joseph's life did not content jacob without his presence: (I will go down and see him ere I die:) The sight of the eye is better than to walk in desires; Good things pleasure us not in their being, but in our enjoying.  
The height of all earthly contentment appeared in the meeting of these two; whom their mutual loss had more endeared to each other: The intermission of comforts hath this advantage, that it sweetens our delight more in the return, than was abated in the forbearance. God doth oft-times hide away our joseph for a time that we may be more joyous and thankful in his recovery: This was the sincerest pleasure that ever jacob had, which therefore God reserved for his age.  
And if the meeting of earthly friends be so unspeakably comfortable; how happy shall we be in the sight of the glorious face of God our heavenly Father; of that our blessed redeemer, whom we sold to death by our sins, and which now after that noble Triumph hath all power given him in heaven and in earth:  
Thus did jacob rejoice when he was to go out of the land of promise to a foreign nation for joseph's sake; being glad that he should lose his country for his son. What shall our joy be, who must out of this foreign land of our pilgrimage to the home of our glorious inheritance, to dwell with none but our own; in that better and more lightsome Goshen-free from all the encumbrances of this Egypt, and full of all the riches and delights of God? The guilty conscience can never think itself safe: So many years experience of joseph's love could not secure his brethren of remission: those that know they have deserved ill, are wont to misinterpret favours, and think they cannot be beloved: All that while, his goodness seemed but concealed, and sleeping malice; which they feared in their Father's last sleep would awake and bewray itself in revenge: Still therefore they plead the name of their Father, though dead, not daring to use their own: Good meanings cannot be more wronged, then with suspicion: It grieves joseph to see their fear, and to find they had not forgotten their own sin, and to hear them so passionately crave that which they had.  
Forgive the trespass of the servants of thy Father's God:) What a conjuration of pardon was this? What wound could be either so deep, or so festered, as this plaster could not cure? They say not, the sons of thy Father, for they knew jacob was dead, and they had degenerated; but the servants of thy Father's God: How much stronger are the bonds of religion, then of nature: If joseph had been rancorous, this deprecation had charmed him; but now it resolves him into tears: They are not so ready to acknowledge their old offence as he to protest his love; and if he chide them for any thing, it is for that they thought they needed to entreat since they might know, it could not stand with the fellow servant of their Father's God to harbour maliciousness, to purpose revenge. Am not I under God? And fully to secure them; he turns their eyes from themselves to the decree of God, from the action to the event; as one that would have them think, there was no cause to repent of that which proved so successful.  
Even late confession finds forgiveness; joseph had long ago seen their sorrow, never but now heard their humble acknowledgement; Mercy stays not for outward solemnities. How much more shall that infinite goodness pardon our sins when he finds the truth of our repentance.   
FINIS   

Contemplations. THE FOURTH BOOK.  

The affliction of Israel. Or  
The Egyptian bondage.  
The birth and breeding of Moses.  
Moses called.  
The plagues of Egypt.   
Imprinted at London by Melch. Bradwood for Samuel Macham, and are to be sold at his shop in Paul's Churchyard at the sign of the Bull-head-1612.   

TO THE RIGHT Honourable JAMES, Lord Hay: All grace and happiness.  
RIGHT Honourable: All that I can say for myself is a desire of doing good; which if it were as fervent in richer hearts, that Church which now we see comely, would then be glorious: this honest ambition hath carried me to neglect the fear of seeming prodigal of my little: and while I see others talents resting in the earth, hath drawn me to traffic with mine in public. I hope no adventure that ever I made of this kind shall be equally gainful to this my present labour, wherein I take Gods own history for the ground, and work upon it by what meditations my weakness can afford. The divinenes of this subject shall make more than amends for the manifold defects of my discourse; although also the blame of an imperfection is so much the more when it lighteth upon so high a choice. This part which I offer to your Lordship shall show you Pharaoh impotently envious and cruel, the Israelites of friends become slaves, punished only for prospering; Moses in the weeds, in the court, in the desert, in the hill of visions; a Courtier in Egypt, a shepherd in Midian, an Ambassador from God, a leader of God's people, and when you see the prodigious variety of the plagues of Egypt you shall not know whether more to wonder at the miracles of Moses, or Pharaohs obstinacy. Finally, you shall see the same waves made both a wall & a gulf in one bower; the Egyptians drowned, where no Israelite was wet-shod; and if these passages yield not abundance of profitable thoughts, impute it (not without pardon) to the poverty of my weak conceit; which yet may perhaps occasion better unto others. In all humble submission I commend them (what they are) to your Lordship's favourable acceptation, and yourself with them, to the gracious blessing of our God.  
Your Lordships in all dutiful observance at command. IOS. HALL..   

THE FOURTH BOOK.  

The affliction of Israel.  
Egypt was long an harbour to the Israelites; now it proves a jail; the posterity of jacob finds too late, what it was for their forefathers to sell joseph, a slave into Egypt. Those whom the Egyptians honoured before as Lords, they now contemn as drudges: One Pharaoh advances whom another labours to depress: Not seldom the same man changes copies, but if favours outlive one age they prove decrepit and heartless: It is a rare thing to find posterity heirs of their father's love: How should men's favours be but like themselves, variable and inconstant? there is no certainty but in the favour of God, in whom can be no change; whose love is entailed upon a thousand generations.  
Yet if the Israelites had been treacherous to Pharaoh, if disobedient, this great change of countenance had been just; now the only offence of Israel is that he prospereth; That which should be the motive of their gratulation, and friendship, is the cause of their malice. There is no more hateful sight to a wicked man then the prosperity of the conscionable; None but the spirit of that true harbinger of Christ can teach us to say with contentment, He must increase, but I must decrease.  
And what if Israel be mighty and rich? (If there be war, they may join with our enemies, and get them out of the land) Behold they are afraid to part with those whom they are grieved to entertain: Either staying or going is offence enough, to those that seek quarrels; There were no wars, and yet they say (If there be wars) The Israelites had never given cause of fear to revolt, and yet they say, (Lest they join to our enemies to those enemies which we may have; So they make their certain friends slaves, for fear of uncertain enemies. Wickedness is ever cowardly, and full of unjust suspicions; it makes a man fear, where no fear is, fly when none pursues him. What difference there is betwixt David and Pharaoh; The faith of the one says, I will not be afraid for ten thousand that should beset me; The fear of the other says, Lest if there be war, they join with our enemies; Therefore should he have made much of the Israelites, that they might be his, his favours might have made them firm; Why might they not as well draw their swords for him?  
Weak and base minds ever incline to the worse; and seek safety rather in an impossibility of hurt, then in the likelihood of just advantage: Favours had been more binding then cruelties, yet the foolish Egyptian had rather have impotent servants, then able friends. For their welfare alone Pharaoh owes Israel a mischief; and how will he pay it?  
(Come let us work wisely;) Lewd men call wicked policies wisdom, and their success happiness: Herein Satan is wiser, than they, who both lays the plot, and makes them such fools as to mistake villainy and madness, for the best virtue.  
Injustice is upheld by violence, whereas just governments are maintained by love: Taskmasters must be set over Israel; they should not be the true seed of Israel, if they were not still set to wrestle with God in afflictions: Heavy burdens must be laid upon them: Israel is never but loaded, the destiny of one of Jacob's sons is common to all. To lie down betwixt their burdens: If they had seemed to breathe them in Goshen sometimes, yet even there it was no small misery to be foreigners, and to live among Idolaters: But now the name of a slave is added to the name of a stranger. Israel had gathered some rust in idolatrous Egypt, and now he must be scoured, they had born the burden of God's anger, if they had not born the burdens of the Egyptians.  
As God afflicted them with another mind then the Egyptians; (God to exercise them, the Egyptians to suppress them;) so causes he the event to differ. Who would not have thought with these Egyptians, that so extreme misery should not have made the Israelites unfit both for generation and resistance; Moderate exercise strengthens, extreme destroys nature: That God which many times works by contrary means caused them to grow with depression, with persecution to multiply; How can God's Church but fare well, since the very malice of their enemy's benefits them. O the Sovereign goodness of our God that turns all our poisons into cordials, God's vine bears the better with bleeding.  
And now the Egyptians could be angry with their own maliciousness, that this was the occasion of multiplying them whom they hated, and feared; to see that this service gained more to the workmen, then to their masters; The stronger therefore the Israelites grew, the more impotent grew them alice of their persecutors. And since their own labour strengthens them, now tyranny will try what can be done by the violence of others: Since the present strength cannot be subdued; the hopes of succession must be prevented: women must be suborned to be murderers, and those whose office is to help the birth, must destroy it.  
There was less suspicion of cruelty in that sex, and more opportunity of doing mischief. The male children must be borne, and die at once; what can be more innocent than the child that hath not lived so much as to cry, or to see light? It is fault enough to be the son of an Israelite: the daughters may live for bondage, for lust a condition so much (at the least) worse then death, as their sex was weaker. O marvelous cruelty that a man should kill a man, for his sex's sake. Whosoever hath loosed the reins unto cruelty is easily carried into incredible extremities.  
From burdens they proceed to bondage, and from bondange to blood: from an unjust vexation of their body, to an inhuman destruction of the fruit of their body; As the sins of the concupiscible part, from slight motions grow on to foul executions, so do those of the irascible; there is no sin whose harbour is more unsafe then of that of malice: But oft times the power of tyrants answers not their will; evil commanders cannot always meet with equally mischievous agents.  
The fear of God teaches the mid wives to disobey an unjust command; they well knew how no excuse it is for evil, I was bidden. God said to their hearts, Thou shalt not kill, This voice was louder than Pharaohs. I commend their obedience in disobeying, I dare not commend their excuse, there was as much weakness in their answer, as strength in their practice: as they feared God in not killing, so they feared Pharaoh in dissembling: oft times those that make conscience of greater sins are overtaken with less. It is well and rare if we can come forth of a dangerous action without any soil; and if we have escaped the storm; that some after drops wet us not.  
Who would not have expected that the midwives should be murdered for not murdering? Pharaoh could not be so simple to think these women trusty yet his indignation had no power to reach to their punishment God prospered the midwives: who can harm them? Even the not doing of evil is rewarded with good. And why did they prosper? Because they feared God; Not for their dissimulation but their piety. So did God regard their mercy, that he ragarded not their infirmity. How fond do men lay the thank upon the sin which is due to the virtue: true wisdom teaches to distinguish God's actions, and to ascribe them to the right causes: Pardon belongs to the lie of the Midwives, remuneration to their goodness, prosperity to their fear of God.  
But that which the Midwives will not, the multitudes shall do; It were strange if wicked rulers should not find some or other instruments of violence: all the people must drown whom the women saved; Cruelty hath but smoked before, now it flames up; secret practising hath made it shameless, that now it dare proclaim tyranny. It is a miserable state where every man is made an executioner: there can be no greater argument of an ill cause then a bloody prosecution, whereas truth upholds herself by mildness, and is promoted by patience. This is their act, what was their issue? the people must drown their males, themselves are drowned: they died by the same means by which they caused the poor Israelitish infants to die; that law of retaliation which God will not allow to us, because we are fellow creatures, he justly practiseth in us. God would have us read our sins in our judgements, that we might both repent of our sins; and give glory to his justice.  
Pharaoh raged before, much more now that he received a message of dismission: the monitions of God make ill men worse: the waves do not beat nor roar any where so much as at the bank which restrains them. Corruption when it is checked, grows mad with rage. As the vapour in a cloud would not make that fearful report, if it met not with opposition. A good heart yields at the stillest voice of God: but the most gracious motions of God harden the wicked. Many would not be so desperately settled in their sins, if the word had not controlled them. How mild a message was this to Pharaoh, and yet how galling? We pray thee let us go. God commands him that which he feared. He took pleasure in the present servitude of Israel: God calls for a release. If the suit had been for mitigation of labour, for preservation of their children, it might have carried some hope, and have found some favour, but now God requires that which he knows will as much discontent Pharaoh as Pharaohs cruelty could discontent the Israelites (Let us go) How contrary are God's precepts to natural minds? And indeed, as they love to cross him in their practice; so he loves to cross them in their commands before, & his punishments afterward; It is a dangerous sign of an ill heart to feel God's yoke heavy.  
Moses talks of sacrifice, Pharaoh talks of work. Any thing seems due work to a carnal mind, saving God's service: nothing superfluous, but religious duties. Christ tells us there is but one thing necessary: nature tells us there is nothing but that, needless. Moses speaks of devotion, Pharaoh of idleness. It hath been an old use, as to cast fair colours upon our own vicious actions, so to cast evil aspersions upon the good actions of others. The same Devil that spoke in Pharaoh, speaks still in our scoffers, and calls religion hypocrisy, conscionable care, singularity. Every vice hath a title, and every virtue a disgrace.  
Yet while possible tasks were imposed, there was some comfort. Their diligence might save their backs from stripes. The conceit of a benefit to the commander, and hope of impunity to the labourer, might give a good pretence to great difficulties: but to require tasks not faisible, is tyrannical, and doth only pick a quarrel to punish. They could neither make straw, nor find it, yet they must have it. Do what may be, is tolerable; but do what cannot be, is cruel. Those which are above others in place, must measure their commands, not by their own wills, but by the strength of their inferiors. To require more of a beast than he can do, is inhuman. The task is not done: the taskmasters are beaten: the punishment lies where the charge is; they must exact it of the people, Pharaoh of them. It is the misery of those which are trusted with authority, that their inferiors faults are beaten upon their backs. This was not the fault to require it of the taskmasters, but to require it by the taskmasters, of the people. Public persons do either good or ill with a thousand hands, and with no fewer shall receive it.   

The birth and breediug of Moses.  
IT is a wonder that Amram the father of Moses; would think of the marriage bed in so troublesome a times when he knew he should beget children either to slavery, or slaughter: yet even now in the heat of this bondage▪ he marries jochebed▪ the drowning of his sons was not so great an evil, as his own burning; the thraldom of his daughters not so great an evil, as the subjection unto sinful desires. He therefore uses God's remedy for his sin; and refers the sequel of his danger to God. How necessary is his imitation for those which have not the power of containing? Perhaps we would have thought it better to live childless: but Amram and jochebed durst not incur the danger of a sin, to avoid the danger of a mischief. No doubt when jochebed the mother of Moses saw a manchild borne of her, and him beautiful and comely, she sell into extreme passion, to think that the executioners hand should succeed the Midwives. All the time of her conception, she could not but fear a son; now she sees him, and thinks of his birth and death at once; her second throws are more grievous than her first. The pains of travel in others are somewhat mitigated with hope, and countervailed with joy that a man-child is borne; in her they are doubled with fear; the remedy of others is her complaint: still she looks when some fierce Egyptian would come in, & snatch her new-born infant out of her bosom; whose comeliness had now also added to her affection.  
Many times God writes presages of Majesty and honour, even in the faces of children. Little did she think, that she held in her lap the deliverer of Israel. It is good to hazard in greatest appearances of danger. If jochebed had said, If I bear a son they will kill him, where had been the great rescuer of Israel? Happy is that resolution which can follow God hoodwinked, and let him dispose of the event: When she can no longer hide him in her womb, she hides him in her house; afraid lest every of his cry should guide the executioner to his cradle. And now she sees her treasure can be no longer hid, she ships him in a bark of bulrushes, and commits him to the mercy of the waves, and (which was more merciless) to the danger of an Egyptian passenger, yet doth she not leave him without a guardian.  
No tyranny can forbid her to love him, whom she is forbidden to keep: Her daughter's eyes must supply the place of her arms and if the weak affection of a mother were thus effectually careful, what shall we think of him whose love, whose compassion is (as himself) infinite? His eye, his hand cannot but be with us, even when we forsake ourselves: Moses had never a stronger protection about him, no not when all his Israelites were pitched about his tent in the wilderness, than now when he lay sprawling alone upon the waves: No water, no Egyptian can hurt him. Neither friend nor mother dare own him, and now God challenges his custody. When we seem most neglected, and forlorn in ourselves, then is God most present, most vigilant.  
His providence brings Pharaohs daughter thither to wash herself. Those times look for no great state: A Princess comes to bathe herself in the open stream: she meant only to wash herself, God fetches her thither to deliver the deliverer of his people. His designs go beyond ours. We know not (when we set our foot over our threshold) what he hath to do with us. This event seemed casual to this Princess, but predetermined, and provided by God, before she was: how wisely and sweetly God brings to pass his own purposes in our ignorance and regardlessness. She saw the Ark, opens it, finds the child weeping; his beauty and his tears had God provided for the strong persuasions of mercy. This young and lively Oratory prevailed. Her heart is stroke with compassion, and yet her tongue could say, it is an Hebrews child.  
See here the merciful daughter of a cruel father: It is an uncharitable and injurious ground to judge of the child's disposition by the parents. How well doth pity beseem great personages? and most in extremities. It had been death to another to rescue the child of an Hebrew; in her, it was safe and noble. It is an happy thing when great ones improve their places to so much more charity as their liberty is more.  
Moses his sister finding the princess compassionate, offers to procure a nurse, and fetches the mother, and who can be so fit a nurse as a mother? She now with glad hands receives her child, both with authority and reward. She would have given all her substance for the life of her son; and now she hath a reward to nurse him. The exchange of the name of a mother for the name of a nurse hath gained her both her son, and his education, and with both, a recompense. Religion doth not call us to a weak simplicity, but allows us as much of the serpent, as of the Dove: Lawful policies have from God both liberty in the use and blessing in the success.  
The good Lady did not breed him as some child of alms, or as some wretched outcast for whom it might be favour enough to live; but as her own son. In all the delicacies, in all the learning of Egypt. Whatsoever the Court, or the School could put into him, he wanted not; yet all this could not make him forget that he was and Hebrew. Education works wondrous changes, and is of great force either way, a little advancement hath so puffed up some above themselves, that they have not only forgot their friends, but scorned their parents. All the honours of Egypt could not win Moses not to call his nurse, mother: or wean him from a willing misery with the Israelites. If we had Moses his faith, we could not but make his choice. It is only our infidelity that binds us so fast to the world, and makes us prefer the momentany pleasures of sin, unto that everlasting recompense of reward.  
He went forth and looked on the burdens of Israel. What needed Moses to have afflicted himself with the afflictions of others? Himself was at ease and pleasure in the Court of Pharaoh. A good heart cannot abide to be happy alone; and must needs, unbidden, share with others in their miseries. He is no true Moses that is not moved with the calamities of God's Church. To see an Egyptian smite an Hebrew, it smote him, and moved him to smite. He hath no Israelitish blood in him, that can endure to see an Israelite stricken either with hand or tongue.  
here was his zeal: where was his authority? Doubtless Moses had an instinct from God of his magistracy; else how should he think they would have understood what himself did not? Oppressions may not be righted by violence, but by law. The redress of evil by a person unwarranted, is evil. Moses knew that God had called him, he knew that Pharaoh knew it not: therefore he hides the Egyptian in the sand. Those actions which may be approved unto God, are not always safe with men: as contrarily, too many things go currant with men, that are not approved of God.  
Another Hebrew is strucken, but by an Hebrew: the act is the same, the agents differ: neither doth their profession more differ, than Moses his proceedings. He gives blows to the one: to the other, words. The blows to the Egyptian were deadly; the words to the Hebrew, gentle and plausible. As God makes a difference betwixt chastisements of his own, and punishments of strange children: So must wise governors learn to distinguish of sins and judgements, according to circumstances. How mildly doth Moses admonish? Sirs, ye are brethren. If there had been but any dram of good nature in these Hebrews, they had relented: now it is strange to see that being so universally vexed with their common adversary, they should yet vex one another: One would have thought that a common opposition should have united them more, yet now private grudges do thus dangerously divide them. Blows enough were not dealt by the Egyptians, their own must add to the violence. Still Satan is thus busy, and Christians are thus malicious, that (as if they wanted enemies) they fly in one another's faces. While we are in this Egypt of the world, all unkind strifes would easily be composed if we did not forget that we are brethren.  
Behold an Egyptian in the skin of an Hebrew: How dogged an answer doth Moses receive to so gentle a reproof? Who would not have expected that this Hebrew had been enough dejected with the common affliction? But vexations may make some more miserable, not more humble. As we see sicknesses make some tractable, others more froward; It is no easy matter to bear a reproof well; if never so well tempered; no sugar can bereave a pill of his bitterness: None but the gracious can say, Let the righteous smite me.  
Next to the not deserving a reproof is the well taking of it. But who is so ready to except and exclaim as the wrong-doer? The patient replies not. One injury draws on another, first to his brother, then to his reprover. Guiltiness will make a man stir upon every touch: he that was wronged, could incline to reconciliation: Malice makes men uncapable of good counsel; and there are none so great enemies to justice, as those which are enemies to peace.  
With what impatience doth a galled heart receive an admonition? This unworthy Israelite is the pattern of a stomachful offender, first he is moved to choler in himself: then he calls for the authority of the admonisher: A small authority will serve for a loving admonition. It is the duty of men, much more of Christians to advise against sin; yet this man asks who made thee a judge, for but finding fault with his injury▪ Then, he aggravates, and misconstrues; Wilt thou kill me? when Moses meant only to save both. It was the death of his malice only that was intended and the safety of his person. And lastly he upbraids with former actions; Thou killed'st the Egyptian: What if he did? What if unjustly? What was this to the Hebrew? Another man's sin is no excuse for ours: A wicked heart never looks inward to itself, but outward to the quality of the reprover if that afford exception, it is enough. As a dog runs first to revenge on the stone: what matter is it to me who he be that admonishes me: let me look home into myself: let me look to his advise. If that be good, it is more shame to me to be reproved by an evil man. As a good man's allowance cannot warrant evil, so an evil man's reproof may remedy evil: If this Hebrew had been well pleased, Moses had not heard of his slaughter; Now in choler all will out; And if this man's tongue had not thus cast him in the teeth with blood, he had been surprised by Pharaoh, ere he could have known that the fact was known.  
Now he grows jealous, flees and escapes No friend is so commodious in some eases as an adversary; This wound which the Hebrew thought to give Moses, saved his life. As it is good for a man to have an enemy, so it shall be our wisdom to make use of his most choleric objections. The worst of an enemy, may prove most sovereign to ourselves. Moses flees, It is no discomfort for a man to flee when his conscience pursues him not: Where Gods warrant will not protect us, it is good for the heeels to supply the place of the tongue.  
Moses when he may not in Egypt, he will be doing justice in Midian. In Egypt he delivers the oppressed Israelite. In Midian the wronged daughters of jethro. A good man will be doing good, wheresoever he is; His trade is a compound of charity and justice as therefore evil dispositions cannot be changed with airs, no more will good. Now than he sits him down by a well in Midian. There he might have to drink, but where to eat he knew not. The case was altered with Moses, to come from the dainties of the court of Egypt, to the hunger of the fields of Midian: It is a lesson that all God's children must learn to take out, to want and to abound. Who can think strange of penury, when the great governor of God's people once hath nothing? Who would not have thought in this case, Moses should have been heartless and sullen; so cast down with his own complaints, that he should have had no feeling of others; yet how hot is he upon justice? No adversity can make a good man neglect good duties, he sees the oppression of the shepherds, the image of that other he left behind him in Egypt: The maids, (daughters of so great a peer) draw water for their flocks, the inhuman shepherds drive them away; rudeness hath no respect either to sex, or condition; If we lived not under laws this were our case; Might would be the measure of justice: we should not so much as enjoy our own water: unjust courses will not ever prosper: Moses shall rather come from Egypt to Midian to beat the shepherds, than they shall vex the daughters of jethro: This act of justice was not better done than taken. Revel requites it kindly with an hospital entertainment. A good nature is ready to answer courtesies: we cannot do too much for a thankful man. And if a courteous heathen reward the watering of a sheep in this bountiful manner, how shall our God recompense but a cup of cold water, that is given to a disciple? This savour hath won Moses, who now consents to dwell with him, though out of the Church. Curiosity or whatsoever idle occasions may not draw us (for our residence) out of the bounds of the Church of God: danger of life may; we love not the Church if we easily leave it: if in a case of life, we leave it not (upon opportunity) for a time of respite, we love not ourselves. The worst part of Moses his requital was his wife, one of those whom he had formerly protected.  
I do not so much marvel that jethro gave him his daughter (for he saw him valiant, wise, learned, nobly bred) as that Moses would take her; a stranger, both in blood and religion. I could plead for him necessity: his own nation was shut up to him; if he would have tried to fetch a daughter of Israel, he had endangered to leave himself behind. I could plead some correspondence in common principles of religion; for doubtless Moses his zeal could not suffer him to smother the truth in himself: he should have been an unfaithful servant, if he had not been his master's teacher. Yet neither of these can make this match either safe, or good. The event bewrays it dangerously inconvenient. This choice had like to have cost him dear: she stood in his way for circumcision; God stands in his way for revenge. Though he was now in God's message, yet might he not be for borne in this neglect. No circumstance, either of the dearness of the solicitor▪ or our own engagement, can bear out a sin with God: Those which are unequally yoked, may not ever look to draw one way. True love to the person cannot long agree with dislike of the religion. He had need to be more than a man, that hath a Zipporah in his bosom, and would have true zeal in his heart. All this while Moses his affection was not so tied to Midian, that he could forget Egypt. He was a stranger in Midian: what was he else in Egypt? Surely either Egypt was not his home, or a miserable one; and yet in reference to it, he calls his son Gershom, a stranger there. Much better was it to be a stranger there, than a dweller in Egypt. How hardly can we forget the place of our abode or education, although never so homely? And if he so thought of his Egyptian home, where was nothing but bondage and tyranny, how should we think of that home of ours, above, where is nothing but rest and blessedness?   

Moses called.  
FOrty years was Moses a courtier, and forty years (after that) a shepherd: That great men may not be ashamed of honest vocations, the greatest that ever were have been content to take up with mean trades. The contempt of honest callings in those which are well borne, argues pride, without wit: How constantly did Moses stick to his hook? and yet a man of great spirits, of excellent learning, of curious education, and if God, had not (after his forty years service) called him off, he had so ended his days. Humble resolutions are so much more heroical, as they fall into higher subjects.  
There can be no fitter disposition for a leader of God's people, than constancy in his undertakings, without either weariness, or change. How had he learned to subdue all ambitious desires, and to rest content with his obscurity. So he might have the freedom of his thoughts, and full opportunity of holy meditations, he willingly leaves the world to others, and envies not his proudest acquaintance of the Court of Pharaoh. He that hath true worth in himself, and familiarity with God, finds more pleasure in the desers of Midian, than others can do in the palaces of Kings.  
Whiles he is tending his sheep, God appeared unto him, God never graces' the idle with his visions; when he finds us in our callings, we find him in the tokens of his mercy: Satan appears to the idle man in manifold temptations, or rather presents himself, and appears not. God was ever with Moses, yet was he not seen till now. He is never absent from his, but sometimes he makes their senses witnesses of his presence. In small matters may be great wonders. That a bush should burn is no marvel, but that it should not consume in burning, is justly miraculous: God chooseth not ever great subjects wherein to exercise his power. It is enough that his power is great in the smallest.  
When I look upon this burning bush with Moses, me thinks I can never see a worthier, and more lively Emblem of the Church; That in Egypt was the furnace yet wasted not. Since then how oft hath it been flaming, never consumed. The same power that enlightens it, preserves it: and to none but his enemies is he a consuming fire; Moses was a great Philosopher, but small skill would have served to know the nature of fire, and of the bush: that fire meeting with combustible matter could not but consume: If it had been some solid woood it would have yielded later to the flame; but bushes are of so quick dispatch, that the joy of the wicked is compared to a fire of thorns. He noted it a while, saw it continued, & began to wonder. It was some marvel how it should come there; but how it should continue without supply, yea without diminution of matter, was truly admirable: Doubtless he went oft about it, and viewed it on all sides, and now when his eye and mind could meet with no likely causes, so far off, resolves, I will go see it; His curiosity led him nearer, and what could he see but a bush and a flame which he saw at first unsatisfied? It is good to come to the place of God's presence, howsoever; God may perhaps speak to thy heart, though thou come but for novelty: Even those which have come upon curiosity have been oft taken: Absence is without hope; If Moses had not come, he had not been called out of the bush.  
To see a fire not consuming the bush, was much; but to here a speaking fire, this was more; and to hear his own name out of the mouth of the fire, it was most of all. God makes way for his greatest messages by astonishment and admiration: as on the contrary, carelessness carries us to a more proficiency under the best means of God: If our hearts were more awful, God's messages would be more effectual to us.  
In that appearance God meant to call Moses to come; yet when he is come inhibits him; (Come not hither) We must come to God, we must not come too near him, when we meditate of the great mysteries of his word, we come to him: we come too near him when we search into his counsels. The Sun and the fire say of themselves, Come not too near, how much more the light which none can attain unto? We have all our limits set us: The Gentiles might come into some outer courts, not into the inmost: The jews might come into the inner Court, not into the Temple: the Priests and Levites into the Temple, not into the Holy of Holies; Moses to the hill, not to the bush. The waves of the sea had not more need of bounds, than man's presumption. Moses must not come close to the bush at all; and where he may stand, he may not stand with his shoes on. There is no unholiness in clothes: God prepared them for man at first, and that of skins▪ lest any exception should be taken at the hides of dead beasts. This rite was significant. What are the shoes but worldly and carnal affections? If these be not cast off when we come to the holy place, we make ourselves unholy▪ how much less should we dare to come with resolutions of sin? This is not only to come with shoes on, but with shoes bemired with wicked filthiness; the touch whereof profanes the pavement of God, and makes our presence odious.  
Moses was the son of Amram, Amram of Kohath, Kohath of Levi, Levi of jacob, jacob of Isaac, Isaac of Abraham. God puts together both ends of his pedigree, I am the God of thy father, and of Abraham, Isaac, jacob. If he had said only, I am thy God, it had been Moses his duty to attend awfully; but now that he says I am the God of thy Father, and of Abraham etc. He challenges reverence by prescription. Any thing that was our Ancestors, pleases us; their houses; their vessels, their cote-armour; How much more their God? How careful should parents be to make holy choices? Every precedent of theirs are so many monuments and motives to their posterity. What an happiness it is to be borne of good parents: hence God claims an interest in us, and we in him, for their sake. As many a man smarteth for his father's sin, so the goodness of others is crowned in a thousand generations. Neither doth God say, I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, jacob; but, I am. The patriarchs still live after so many thousand years of dissolution. No length of time can separate the souls of the just from their maker. As for their body, there is still a real relation betwixt the dust of it, and the soul: and if the being of this part be more defective, the being of the other is more lively, and doth more than recompense the wants of that earthly half.  
God could not describe himself by a more sweet name than this, I am the God of thy father, and of Abraham, etc. yet Moses hides his face for fear. If he had said, I am the glorious God that made heaven and earth, that dwell in light inaccessible, whom the Angels cannot behold; or, I am God the avenger, just and terrible, a consuming fire to mine enemies, here had been just cause of terror.  
But ●hy was Moses so frighted with a familiar compellation? God is no less awful to his own in his very mercies. Great is thy mercy that thou mayst be feared: for to them, no less majesty shines in the favours of God, than in his judgements and justice. The wicked heart never fears God but thundering, or shaking the earth▪ or raining fire from heaven; but the good can dread him in his very sunshine: his loving deliverances and blessings affect them with awfulness Moses was the true son of jacob, who when he saw nothing but visions of love and mercy, could say, How dreadful is this place?  
I see Moses now at the bush hiding his face at so mild ● representation: hereafter we shall see him in this very mount betwixt heaven and earth, in thunder, lightning, smoke, earthquakes, speaking mouth to mouth with God, bare faced, and fearless: God was then more terrible, but Moses was less strange. This was his first meeting with God; further acquaintance makes him familiar, and familiarity makes him bold: Frequency of conversation gives us freedom of access to God; and makes us pour out our hearts to him as fully and as fearelesly as to our friends. In the mean time now at first he made not so much haste to see, but he made as much to hide his eyes: Twice did Moses hide his face; once for the glory which God put upon him, which made him so shine, that he could not be beheld of others; once for Gods own glory, which he could not behold. No marvel. Some of the creatures are too glorious for mortal eyes: how much more when God appears to us in the easiest manner, must his glory needs overcome us? Behold the difference betwixt our present, and future estate: Then, the more majesty of appearance, the more delight: when our sin is quite gone, all our fear at God's presence shall be turned into joy. God appeared to Adam before his sin with comfort, but in the same form which after his sin was terrible. And if Moses cannot abide to look upon God's glory when he descends to us in mercy, how shall wicked ones abide to see his fearful presence when he sets upon vengeance. In this fire he flamed and consumed not, but in his revenge our God is a consuming fire.  
First Moses hides himself in fear, now in modesty. Who am I? None in all Egypt or Midian was comparably fit for this embassage. Which of the Israelites had been brought up a Courtier, a scholar, an Israelite by blood, by education an Egyptian learned, wise, valiant, experienced? Yet, Who am I? The more fit any man is for whatsoever vocation, the less he thinks himself. Forwardness argues insufficiency. The unworthy thinks still, Who am I not? Modest beginnings give hopeful proceedings, and happy end. Once before, Moses had taken upon him, and laid about him; hoping than they would have known that by his hand God meant to deliver Israel: but now when it comes to the point, Who am I? God's best servants are not ever in an equal disposition to good duties. If we find differences in ourselves sometimes, it argues that grace is not our own. It is our frailty, that those services which we are forward to, aloof off, we shrink at, near hand, and fearfully misse-give. How many of us can bid defiances to death, and suggest answers to absent temptations, which when they come home to us, we fly off, and change our note, and instead of action, expostulate?   

The plagues of Egypt.  
IT is too much honour for flesh and blood to receive a message from heaven, yet here God sends a message to man, and is repulsed: well may God ask, who is man that I should regard him, but for man to ask who is the Lord, is a bold and proud blasphemy. Thus wild is nature at the first; but ere God have done with Pharaoh, he will be known of him, he will make himself known by him, to all the world: God might have swept him away suddenly. How unworthy is he of life, who with the same breath that he receives, denies the giver of it: But he would have him convinced, ere he were punished; First therefore he works miracles before him, then upon him. Pharaoh was now from a staff of protection and sustentation to God's people, turned to a serpent that stung them to death; God shows him himself in this real emblem; doing that suddenly before him, which Satan had wrought in him by leisure; And now when he crawls and winds, and hisses, threatening peril to Israel, he shows him how in an instant, he can turn him into a senseless stick, and make him if not useful, yet fearless: The same God which wrought this, gives Satan leave to imitate it; the first plague that he meant to inflict upon Pharaoh, is delusion: God can be content the Devil should win himself credit, where he means to judge, and holds the honour of a miracle well lost, to harden an enemy, Yet to show that his miracle was of power, the others of permission; Moses his serpent devours theirs; how easily might the Egyptians have thought, that he which caused their serpent not to be, could have kept it from being, and that they which could not keep their Serpent from devouring, could not secure them from being consumed; but wise thoughts enter not into those that must perish. All Gods judgements stand ready, and wait but till they be called for. They need but a watchword to be given them: No sooner is the rod lift up, but they are gone forth into the world, presently the waters run into blood, the frogs and lice crawl about, and all the other troops of God come rushing in upon his adversaries: All creatures conspire to revenge the injuries of God. If the Egyptians look upward, there they have thunder, lightning, hail, tempests, one while no light at all, another while such fearful flashes as had more terror, than darkness. If they look under them, there they see their waters changed into blood, their earth swarming with frogs and grasshoppers: If about them, one while the flies fill both their eyes and ears, another while they see their fruits destroyed, their cattle dying, their children dead. If lastly they look upon themselves, they see themselves loathsome with louse, painful and deformed with scabs, biles and botches.  
First God begins his judgement with the waters. As the river of Nilus was to Egypt in steed of heaven to moisten and fatten the earth; so their confidence was more in it then in heaven; Men are sure to be punished most and soonest, in that which they make a corrival with God. They had before defiled the rivers with the blood of innocents; and now it appears to them, in his own colour. The waters will no longer keep their counsel: Never any man delighted in blood, which had not enough of it, ere his end: they shed but some few streams, and now behold whole rivers of blood: Neither was this more a monument of their slaughter, past, than an image of their future destruction. They were afterwards overwhelmed in the red sea, and now beforehand they see their rivers red with blood. How dependent and servile is the life of man, that cannot either want one element, or endure it corrupted; It is hard to say whether there were more horror, or annoyance in this plague. They complain of thirst, and yet doubt whether they should die, or quench it with blood. Their fish (the chief part of their sustenance) dies with infection, and infecteth more by being dead. The stench of both is ready to poison the inhabitants; yet Pharaohs curiosity carries him away quite from the sense of the judgement, he had rather send for his magicians to work feats, then to humble himself under God for the remooval of this plague; And God plagues his curiosity with deceit, those whom he trusts, shall undo him with prevailing; the glory of a second miracle shall be obscured by a false imitation, for a greater glory to God in the sequel.  
The rod is lift up again, Behold, that Nilus which they had before adored, was never so beneficial as it is now troublesome; yielding them not only a dead, but a living annoyance: It never did so store them with fish, as now it plagues them with frogs; Whatsoever any man makes his God, besides the true one, shall be once his tormenter. Those loathsome creatures leave their own element to punish them, which rebelliously detained Israel from their own. No bed, no table can be free from them, their dainty Ladies cannot keep them out of their bosoms; neither can the Egyptians sooner open their mouths, than they are ready to creep into their throats; as if they would tell them that they came on purpose to revenge the wrongs of their maker: yet even this wonder also is Satan allowed to imitate. Who can marvel to see the best virtues counterfeited by wicked men, when he sees the devil emulating the miraculous power of God? The feats that Satan plays may harden, but cannot benefit. He that hath leave to bring frogs, hath neither leave, nor power, to take them away, nor to take away the stench from them. To bring them, was but to add to the judgement; to remove them, was an act of mercy. God doth commonly use Satan in executing of judgement, never in the works of mercy to men.  
Yet even by thus much is Pharaoh hardened, and the sorcerers grown insolent. When the devil and his agents are in the height of their pride, GOD shames them in a trifle. The rod is lift up: the very dust receives life: lice abound every where, and make no difference betwixt beggars and Princes. Though Pharaoh and his Courtiers abhorred to see themselves lousy, yet they hoped this miracle would be more easily imitable: but now the greater possibility, the greater foil. How are the great wonder-mongers of Egypt abashed that they can neither make lice of their own, nor deliver themselves from the louse that are made. Those that could make serpents and frogs, could not either make or kill lice; to show them that those frogs and serpents were not their own workmanship. Now Pharaoh must needs see how impotent a devil he served, that could not make that vermin which every day rises voluntarily out of corruption. jannes' and jambres cannot now make those louse (so much as by delusion) which at another time they cannot choose but produce unknowing, and which now they cannot avoid. That spirit which is powerful to execute the greatest things when he is bidden, is unable to do the least when he is restrained. Now these corrivals of Moses can say, This is the finger of God. Ye foolish Enchanters, was God's finger in the louse, not in the frogs, not in the blood, not in the serpent? And why was it rather in the less, than in the greater? Because ye did imitate the other, not these. As if the same finger of God had not been before in your imitation, which was now in your restraint: As if ye could have failed in these, if ye had not been only permitted the other. Whiles wicked minds have their full scope, they never look up above themselves; but when once God crosses them in their proceedings, their want of success teaches them to give God his own. All these plagues perhaps had more horror than pain in them. The frogs creep upon their clothes, the louse upon their skins, but those stinging hornets which succeed them, shall wound and kill. The water was annoyed with the first plague, the earth with the second and third; this fourth fills the air, and besides corruption brings smart. And that they may see this winged army comes out from an angry God, (not either from nature, or chance) even the very flies shall make a difference betwixt Egypt, and Goshen. He that gave them their being, sets them their stint. They can no more sting an Israelite, than favour an Egyptian. The very wings of flies are directed by a providence, and do acknowledge their limits. Now Pharaoh finds how impossible it is for him to stand out with God, since all his power cannot rescue him from louse and flies.  
And now his heart begins to thaw a little: Go, do sacrifice to your God in this land; or (since that will not be accepted) Go into the wilderness, but not far: but how soon it knits again! Good thoughts make but a thoroughfare of carnal hearts, they can never settle there: yea his very misse-giving hardens him the more: that now neither the murrain of his cattle, nor the botches of his servants can stir him a whit. He saw his cattle struck dead with a sudden contagion; he saw his sorcerers (after their contestation with God's messengers) struck with a scab in their very faces, and yet his heart is not struck. Who would think it possible that any soul could be secure in the midst of such variety, and frequency of judgements? These very plagues have not more wonder in them, than their success hath. To what an height of obduration will sin lead a man, and of all sins, incredulity? Amidst all these storms Pharaoh sleepeth, till the voice of God's mighty thunders, and hail mixed with fire roused him up a little.  
Now as betwixt sleeping and waking, he starts up, and says, God is righteous, I am wicked, Moses pray for us, and presently lays down his head again. God hath no sooner done thundering, than he hath done fearing. All this while you never find him careful to prevent any one evil, but desirous still to shift it off when he feels it; never holds constant to any good motion; never prays for himself, but carelessly wills Moses and Aaron to pray for him; never yields God his whole demand, but higgleth and dodgeth, like some hard chapman, that would get a release with the cheapest: First, they shall not go; then, go and sacrifice, but in Egypt; next, go sacrifice in the wilderness, but not far off; after, go ye that are men; then, go you and your children only; at last, go all save your sheep and cattle. Wheresoever mere nature is, she is still improvident of future good, sensible of present evil, inconstant in good purposes, unable, through unacquaintance, and unwilling to speak for herself, niggardly in her grants, and uncheerfull. The plague of the grasshoppers startled him a little; and the more, through the importunity of his servants: for when he considered the fish destroyed with the first blow, the cattle with the fifth, the corn with the seventh, the fruit and leaves with this eighth, and nothing now left him but a bare fruitless earth to live upon, and that, covered over with locusts, necessity drove him to relent for an advantage: Forgive me this once; take from me this death only. But as constrained repentance is ever short and unsound; the West wind together with the grasshoppers blows away his remorse; and now is he ready for another judgement. As the grasshoppers took away the sight of the earth from him, so now a gross darkness takes away the sight of heaven too: other darknesses were but privative, this was real and sensible. The Egyptians thought this night long, (how could they choose, when it was six in one?) and so much the more, for that no man could rise to talk with other, but was necessarily confined to his own thoughts: One thinks, the fault in his own eyes, which he rubs often times in vain: Others think that the Sun is lost out of the firmament, and is now withdrawn for ever: Others, that all things are returning to their first confusion: All think themselves miserable past remedy, and wish (whatsoever had befallen them) that they might have had but light enough to see themselves die.  
Now Pharaoh proves like to some beasts that grow mad with baiting: grace often resisted turns to desperateness; Get thee from me, look thou see my face no more; whensoever thou comest in my sight, thou shalt die. As if Moses could not plague him as well in absence: As if he that could not take away the louse, flies, frogs, grasshoppers, could at his pleasure take away the life of Moses that procured them. What is this but to run upon the judgements, and run away from the remedies? Evermore, when God's messengers are abandoned, destruction is near. Moses will see him no more till he see him dead upon the sands; but God will now visit him more than ever: The fearfullest plagues God still reserves for the upshot: All the former do but make way for the last. Pharaoh may exclude Moses and Aaron, but God's Angel he cannot exclude: Insensible messengers are used, when the visible are debarred.  
Now God begins to call for the blood they owned him: In one night every house hath a carcase in it and (which is more grievous) of their first borne, and (which is yet more fearful) in an instant. No man could comfort other; every man was too full of his own sorrow, helping rather to make the noise of the lamentation more doleful, and astonishing. How soon hath God changed the note of this tyrannical people! Egypt was never so stubborn in deniing passage to Israel, as now importunate to entreat it: Pharaoh did not more force them to stay before, than now to depart: whom lately they would not permit, now they hire to go. Their rich jewels of silver and gold were not too dear for them whom they hated; how much rather had they to send them away wealthy, than to have them stay to be their executors? Their love to themselves obtained of them the enriching of their enemies; and now they are glad to pay them well for their old work, and their present journey: God's people had stayed like slaves, they go away like conquerors, with the spoil of those that hated them: armed for security, and wealthy for maintenance.  
Old Jacob's seventy souls which he brought down into Egypt in spite of their bondage & bloodshed, go forth six hundred thousand men, besides children. The world is well mended with Israel since he went with his staff and scrip over jordan. Tyranny is too weak, where God bids Increase and multiply. I know not where else the good herb over-growes the weeds; the Church outstrips the world. I fear if they had lived in ease and delicacy, they had not been so strong, so numerous. Never any true Israelite lost by his affliction. Not only for the action, but the time, Pharaohs choice meets with Gods. That very night, when the 130. years were expired, Israel is gone, Pharaoh neither can, nor can will to keep them longer; yet in this, not fulfilling Gods will, but his own. How sweetly doth God dispose of all second causes, that whiles they do their own will, they do his?  
The Israelites are equally glad of this haste: who would not be ready to go, yea to fly out of bondage? They have what they wished; it was no staying for a second invitation. The loss of an opportunity is many times unrecoverable: The love of their liberty made the burden of their dough light: who knew whether the variable mind of Pharaoh might return to a denial, and (after all his stubbornness) repent of his obedience? It is foolish to hazard where there is certainty of good offers, and uncertainty of continuance. They go therefore; and the same God that fetched them out, is both their guide and protector. How carefully doth he choose their way? not the nearer, but the safer. He would not have his people so suddenly change from bondage to war.  
It is the wondrous mercy of God that he hath respect, as to his own glory, so to our infirmities. He intends them wars hereafter, but after some longer breathing, and more preparation; his goodness so order all, that evils are not ready for us, till we be ready for them. And as he chooses, so he guides their way. That they might not err in that sandy and untracked wilderness, himself goes before them: who could but follow cheerfully when he sees God lead him? He that lead the wise men by a star, leads Israel by a cloud: That was an higher object, therefore he gives them an higher and more heavenly conduct: This was more earthly, therefore he contents himself with a lower representation of his presence. A pillar of cloud and fire: A pillar, for firmness; of cloud and fire, for visibility and use. The greater light extinguishes the less, therefore in the day he shows them not fire, but a cloud: In the night nothing is seen without light; therefore he shows them not the cloud, but fire: The cloud shelters them from heat by day; the fire digests the rawness of the night. The same God is both a cloud and a fire to his children, ever putting himself into those forms of gracious respects, that may best fit their necessities.  
As good motions are long ere they can enter into hard hearts, so they seldom continue long. No sooner were the backs of Israel turned to depart, than Pharaohs heart and face is turned after them, to fetch them back again. It vexes him to see so great a command, so much wealth cast away in one night; which now he resolves to redeem, though with more plagues. The same ambition and covetousness that made him wear out so many judgements, will not leave him, till it have wrought out his full destrustruction. All Gods vengeances have their end, the final perdition of his enemies, which they cannot rest till they have attained: Pharaoh therefore and his Egyptians will needs go fetch their bane. They well knew that Israel was fitter to serve than to fight; weary with their servitude, not trained up to war, not furnished with provision for a field: Themselves captains and soldiers by profession, furnished with horses, and chariots of war. They gave themselves therefore the victory beforehand, and Israel either for spoil or bondage: yea the weak Israelites gave up themselves for dead, and already are talking of their graves. They see the sea before them; behind them, the Egyptians: they know not whether is more merciless, and are strucken with the fear of both. O God, how couldst thou forbear so distrustful a people! They had seen all thy wonders in Egypt, and in their Goshen; they saw even now thy pillar before them, and yet they did more fear Egypt than believe thee. Thy patience is no less miracle than thy deliverance. But in stead of removing from them, the cloudy pillar removes behind them, and stands betwixt the Israelites and Egyptians: as if God would have said, They shall first overcome me, O Israel, ere they touch thee. Wonder did now justly strive with fear in the Israelites, when they saw the cloud remove behind them, and the sea remove before them. They were not used to such bulwarks. God stood behind them in the cloud; the sea reared them up walls on both sides them. That which they feared would be their destruction, protected them: how easily can God make the cruelest of his creatures both our friends and patrons?  
Yet here was faith mixed with unbelief. He was a bold Israelite that set the first foot into the channel of the sea: and every step that they set in that moist way, was a new exercise of their faith. Pharaoh sees all this, and wonders; yet hath not the wit or grace to think (though the pillar tells him so much) that God made a difference betwixt him, and Israel. He is offended with the sea, for giving way to his enemies, and yet sees not why he may not trust it as well as they. He might well have thought that he which gave light in Goshen, when there was darkness in Egypt, could as well distinguish in the sea: but he cannot now either consider, or fear: It is his time to perish. God makes him fair way, and lets him run smoothly on till he be come to the midst of the sea; not one wave may rise up against him to wet so much as the hoof of his horse. Extraordinary favours to wicked men are the forerunners of their ruin.  
Now when God sees the Egyptians too far to return, he finds time to strike them with their last terror: they know not why, but they would return too late. Those Chariots in which they trusted, now fail them, as having done service enough to carry them into perdition. God pursues them, and they cannot fly from him. Wicked men make equal haste both to sin, and from judgement: but they shall one day find that it is not more easy to run into sin, than impossible to run away from judgement: the sea will show them, that it regards the rod of Moses, not the sceptre of Pharaoh; and now (as glad to have got the enemies of God at such an advantage) shuts her mouth upon them, and swallows them up in her waves, and after she hath made sport with them a while, casts them up on her sands, for a spectacle of triumph to their adversaries.  
What a sight was this to the Israelites, when they were now safe on the shore to see their enemies come floating after them upon the billows, and to find among the carcases upon the sands, their known oppressors, which now they can tread upon with insultation. They did not cry more loud before, than now they sing. Not their faith, but their sense teaches them now to magnify that God after their deliverance, whom they hardly trusted for deliverance.   
FINIS.