Contemplation's Upon the principal passages of the holy History.  
THE THIRD VOLUME: IN THREE BOOKS.  
BY I. HALL., Doctor of Divinity.  
Printed by H. L. for Nathanael Butter, and William Butler. 1615.    

Contemplations. THE NINTH BOOK.  
Containing The Rescue of Gibeon. The Altar of the Reubenites. Ebud and Eglon. jael and Sisera. Gideons' calling. Gideons' preparation & victory. The revenge of Succoth and Penuel. Abimelech's usurpation.   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MY SINGULAR GOOD LORD, SIR THO: EGERTON KNIGHT, Lord Ellesmere; Lord Chancellor of England; Chancellor of the University of Oxford; The sincere and grave Oracle of Equity; The great & sure friend of the Church; The sanctuary of the Clergy; The bountiful encourager of Learning, J. H.  
With thankful acknowledgement of God's blessing upon this State, in so worthy an Instrument, and humble prayers for his happy continuance, Dedicates this poor and unworthy part of his labours.   

CONTEMPLATIONS.  

THE RESCVE of Gibeon.  
THE life of the Gibeonites, must cost them servitude from Israel, and danger from their neighbours: if joshua will but sit still, the deceit of the Gibeonites shall be revenged by his enemies. Five kings are up in Arms against them, and are ready to pay their fraud with violence: What should these poor men do? If they make not their peace, they die by strangers; if they do make their peace with Foreigners, they must die by neighbours. There is no course that threatens not some danger; We have sped well if our choice hath light upon the easiest inconvenience.  
If these Hiuites have sinned against God, against Israel, yet what have they done to their neighbours? I hear of no treachery, no secret information, no attempt. I see no sin but their league with Israel, & their life: yet (for aught we find) they were free men; no way either obliged, or obnoxious. As Satan, so wicked men cannot abide to lose any of their community: if a Convert come home, the Angels welcome him with songs, the Devils follow him with uproar and fury, his old Partners with scorns and obloquy.  
I find these neighbour Princes half dead with fear, and yet they can find time to be sick of envy. Malice in a wicked heart is the king of Passions: all other vail & bow when it comes in place; even their own life was not so dear to them as revenge. Who would not rather have looked, that these Kings should have tried to have followed the Copy of this league? or if their fingers did itch to fight, why did they not rather think of a defensive war against Israel, than an offensive against the Gibeonites. Gibeon was strong, and would not be won without blood; yet these Amorites, which at their best were too weak for Israel, would spend their forces before hand on their neighbours. Here was a strong hatred in weak breasts: they feared, and yet began to fight; they feared Jsrael, yet began to fight with Gibeon. If they had sat still, their destruction had not been so sudden: the malice of the wicked, hastens the pace of their own judgement. No rod is so fit for a mischievous man, as his own.  
Gibeon, and these other Cities of the Hiuites, had no King: & none yielded, and escaped, but they. Their Elders consulted before for their league; neither is there any challenge sent to the King, but to the City: And now the five Kings of the Amorits have unjustly compacted against them. Sovereignty abused, is a great spur to outrage; the conceit of authority in great persons, many times lies in the way of their own safety, whiles it will not let them stoop to the ordinary courses of inferiors. Hence it is, that heaven is peopled with so few Great-ones: hence it is, that true contentment seldom dwells high; whiles meaner men of humbled spirits, enjoy both earth and heaven.  
The Gibeonites had well proved that though they wanted an Head, yet they wanted not wit; and now the same wit that won joshua and Israel to their friendship and protection, teacheth them to make use of those they had won. If they had not more trusted joshua, than their walls, they had never stolen that league; & when should they have use of their new Protectors, but now that they were assailed? Whither should we fly but to our joshua, when the powers of darkness (like mighty Amorites) have besieged us? If ever we will send up our prayers to him, it will be, when we are beleaguered with evils. If we trust to our own resistance, we cannot stand; we cannot miscarry, if we trust to his: in vain shall we send to our joshua in these straits, if we have not before come to him in our freedom.  
Which of us would not have thought joshua had a good pretence for his forbearance; & have said, You have stolen your league with me; why do you expect help from him whom ye have deceived? All that we promised you, was a sufferance to live; enjoy what we promised, we will not take your life from you; Hath your faithfulness deserved to expect more than our covenant; we never promised to hazard our lives for you, to give you life with the loss of our own. But that good man durst not construe his own covenant to such an advantage; He knew little difference betwixt killing them with his own sword, and the sword of an Amorite: whosoever should give the blow, the murder would be his. Even permission in those things we may remedy, makes us no less actors than consent; some men kill as much by looking on, as others by smiting: We are guilty of all the evil we might have hindered.  
The noble disposition of joshua, besides his engagement, will not let him forsake his new vassals: Their confidence in him, is argument enough to draw him into the Field. The greatest obligation to a good mind, is another's trust▪ which to disappoint, were mercilessly perfidious. How much less shall our true joshua fail the confidence of our faith? Oh my Saviour, if we send the messengers o● our prayers to thee into thy Gilgal, thy mercy binds thee to relief: never any soul miscarried that trusted thee; we may be wanting in our trust, our trust can never want success.  
Speed in bestowing, doubles a gift; a benefit deferred, loses the thanks, and proves unprofitable. joshua marches all night, & fights all day for the Gibeonites: They took not so much pains in coming to deceive him, as he in going to deliver them. It is the noblest victory to overcome evil with good; if his very Israelites had been in danger he could have done no more: God, and his joshua, make no difference betwixt Gibeonites Israelited, and his own natural people. All are Israelites whom he hath taken to league: we strangers of the Gentiles, are now the true jews; GOD never did more for the natural Olive, then for that wild Imp which he hath graffed in. And as these Hiuites could never be thankful enough to such a joshua; no more can we to so gracious a Redeemer, who forgetting our unwoorthiness, descended to our Gibeon, and rescued us from the powers of hell, and death.  
joshua fought, but God discomfited the Amorites; The praise is to the workman, not the instrument: Neither did God slay them only with joshua's sword, but with his own hailstones; that now the Amorites may see both these revenges come from one hand. These bullets of GOD do not wound, but kill: It is no wonder that these five Kings fly; They may soon run away from their hope, never from their horror: If they look behind, there is the sword of Israel, which they dare not turn upon, because God had taken their heart from them, before their life: If they look upwards, there is the haile-shot of God fight against them, out of heaven; which they can neither resist, nor avoid.  
If they had no enemy but Israel, they might hope to run away from death, sith fear is a better footman, then desire of revenge; but now, whither-soever they run, heaven will be above their heads: And now, all the reason that is left them in this confusion of their thoughts, is to wish themselves well dead; there is no evasion where GOD intends a revenge. We men have devised to imitate these instruments of death, and send forth deadly bullets out of a cloud of smoke; wherein yet, as there is much danger, so much uncertainty: but this God, that discharges his Ordinance from heaven, directs every shot to an head, and can as easily kill as shoot. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God: he hath more ways of vengeance, than he hath creatures. The same heaven that sent forth water to the old world, fire to the Sodomites, lightning and thunderbolts to the Egyptians, sends out hailstones to the Amorites. It is a good care how we may not anger God; it is a vain study how we may fly from his judgements, when we have angered him; if we could run out of the world, even there shall we find his revenges far greater.  
Was it not miracle enough that God did brain their Adversaries from heaven, but that the Sun and Moon must stand still in heaven? Is it not enough that the Amorites fly, but that the greatest Planets of heaven must stay their own course, to witness, and wonder at the discomfiture? For him which gave them both being and motion, to bid them stand still, it seems no difficulty, although the rareness would deserve admiration: but, for a man to command the chief stars of heaven (by whose influence he liveth) as the Centurion would do his servant, Sun stay in Gibeon, and Moon stand still in Aialon, it is more than a wonder. It was not joshua, but his faith that did this; not by way of precept, but of prayer. If I may not say that the request of a faithful man (as we say of the great) commands, God's glory was that which joshua aimed at: he knew that all the world must needs be witnesses of that, which the eye of the world stood still to see. Had he respected but the slaughter of the Amorites, he knew the hailstones could do that alone; the Sun needed not stand still to direct that cloud to persecute them; but the glory of the slaughter was sought by joshua, that he might send that up, whence those hailstones, and that victory came: All the earth might see the Sun and Moon; all could not see the cloud of hail, which because of that heavy burden flew but low. That all Nations might know the same hand commands both in earth, in the clouds, in heaven, joshua now prays, that he which disheartened his enemies upon earth, & smote them from the cloud, would stay the Sun and Moon in heaven. God never got himself so much honour by one days work amongst the heathen; and when was it more fit, then now, when five heathen Kings are banded against him?  
The Sun and the Moon were the ordinary Gods of the world: and who would not but think, that their standing still but one hour, should be the ruin of Nature? & now, all Nations shall well see, that there is an higher than their highest; that their Gods are but servants to the GOD whom themselves should serve, at whose pleasure both they and Nature shall stand at once. If that God which meant to work this miracle, had not raised up his thoughts to desire it, it had been a blamable presumption, which now is a faith worthy of admiration. To desire a miracle without cause, is a tempting of God. O powerful GOD that can effect this! O power of faith that can obtain it! What is there that God cannot do? and what is there which God can do, that faith cannot do?   

THE ALTAR of the Reubenites.  
REuben, and Gad, were the first that had an inheritance assigned them; yet they must enjoy it last: So it falls out oft in the heavenly Canaan, the first in title, are the last in possession. They had their lot assigned them beyond Iorden; which though it were allotted them in peace, must be purchased with their war: that must be done for their brethren, which needed not be done for themselves: they must yet still fight, and fight foremost, that as they had the first patrimony, they might endure the first encounter. I do not hear them say, This is our share, let us sit down, and enjoy it quietly, fight who will for the rest: but when they knew their own portion, they leave wives and children to take possession, and march armed before their brethren, till they had conquered all Canaan. Whether should we more commend their courage, or their charity? Others were moved to fight with hope, they only with love: they could not win more, they might lose themselves; yet they will fight, both for that they had something, and that their brethren might have. Thankfulness and love can do more with God's children, then desire to merit, or necessity: No true Israelite can (if he might choose) abide to sit still beyond jordan, when all his brethren are in the field. Now when all this war of God was ended, and all Canaan is both won and divided, they return to their own; yet not till they were dismissed by joshua: all the sweet attractives of their private love cannot hasten their pace. If heaven be never so sweet to us, yet may we not run from this earthen warfare till our great Captain shall please to discharge us. If these Reubenites had departed sooner, they had been recalled, if not as cowards, surely as fugitives; now they are sent back with victory and blessing. How safe and happy it is to attend both the call, and the dispatch of GOD!  
Being returned in peace to their home, their first care is, not for Trophies; nor for houses, but for an Altar to God; an Altar, not for sacrifice, which had been abominable, but for a memorial what God they served. The first care of true Israelites, must be the safety of Religion; the world, as it is inferior in worth, so must it be in respect: He never knew God aright, that can abide any competition with his Maker.  
The rest of the Tribes no sooner hear news of their new Altar, but they gather to Shiloh, to fight against them: they had scarce breathed from the Cananitish war, and now they will go fight with their brethren: if their brethren will (as they suspected) turn Idolaters, they cannot hold them any other then Canaanites. The Reubenites & their fellows, had newly settled the rest of Israel in their possessions, and now ere they can be warm in their seats, Israel is up in Arms to thrust them out of their own: the hatred of their suspected Idolatry, makes them forget either their blood, or their benefits. Israel says, These men were the first in our battles, and shall be the first in our revenge; They fought well for us, we will try how they can fight for themselves. What if they were our Champions? Their revolt from God hath lost them the thank of their former labours; their Idolatry shall make them of brethren, adversaries; their own blood shall give handsel to their new Altar. O noble and religious zeal of Israel! Who would think these men the sons of them that danced about the molten Calf? That consecrated an Altar to that Idol? Now they are ready to die or kill, rather than endure an Altar without an Idol. Every overture in matter of Religion, is worthy of suspicion, worthy of our speedy opposition: God looks for an early redress of the first beginnings of impiety. As in treasons or mutinies, wise statesmen find it safest to kill the serpent in the egg; so in motions of spiritual alterations: one spoonful of water will quench that fire at the first, which afterwards whole buckets cannot abate.  
Yet do not these zealous Israelires run rashly and furiously upon their brethren, nor say, What need we expostulate? The fact is clear: what care we for words, when we see their Altar? What can this mean, but either service to a false God, or division in the service of the true? There can be no excuse for so manifest a crime: Why do we not rather think of punishment, than satisfaction? But they send ere they go; and consult ere they execute. Phineas the son of Eleazar the Priest, and ten Princes (for every Tribe one) are addressed both to inquire, & dissuade; to inquire of the purpose of the fact; to dissuade from that which they imagined was purposed. Wisdom is a good guide to zeal, and only can keep it from running out into fury: If discretion do not hold in the reins, good intentions will both break their own necks, and the riders: yea, which is strange, without this, the zeal of God, may lead us from God.  
Not only wisdom, but charity moved them to this message. For, grant they had been guilty, must they perish unwarned? Peaceable means must first be used to recall them, ere violence be sent to persecute them. The old rule of Israel, hath been still to inquire of Abel; No good Shepherd sends his dog to pull out the throat of his strayed sheep, but rather fetches it on his shoulders to the fold: Sudden cruelty stands not with religion: He which will not himself break the bruised reed, how will he allow us, either to bruise the whole, or to break the bruised, or to burn the broken?  
Neither yet was here more charity in sending, than uncharitableness in the misconstruction. They begin with a challenge; & charge their brethren deeply with transgression, apostasy, rebellion. I know not how two contrary qualities fall into love; it is not naturally suspicious, & yet many times suggests jealous fears of those we affect. If these Israelites had not loved their brethren, they would never have sent so far to restrain them; they had never offered them part of their own patrimony: if they had not been excessively jealous, they had not censured a doubtful action, so sharply. They met at Shilo, where the Tabernacle was; but if they had consulted with the Ark of God, they had saved both this labour, & this challenge: This case seemed so plain, that they thought advice needless: Their inconsiderateness therefore brands their brethren with crimes whereof they were innocent; and makes themselves the only offenders. In cases which are doubtful and uncertain, it is safe either to suspend the judgement, or to pass it in favour; otherwise, a plain breach of charity in us, shall be worse than a questionable breach of justice in another.  
Yet this little gleam of their uncharitable love began at themselves; if they had not feared their own judgements in the offence of Reuben, I know not whether they had been so vehement: The fearful revenges of their brothers sin are still in their eye. The wickedness of Peor, stretched not so far as the plague; Achan sinned, and Israel was beaten: therefore by just induction, they argue (Ye rebel to day against the Lord, tomorrow will the Lord be wroth with all the Congregation.) They still tremble at the vengeance passed; and find it time to prevent their own punishment, in punishing their brethren. God's proceedings have then their right use, when they are both carefully remembered, and made patterns of what he may do.  
Had these Reubenites been as hot in their answer, as the Israelites were in their charge, here had grown a bloody war out of misprision: But now their answer is mild and moderate, and such as well showed, that though they were further from the Ark, yet no less near to God. They thought in themselves, This act of ours, though it were well meant by us, yet might well be by interpretation scandalous; it is reason our mildness should give satisfaction for that offence, which we have not prevented. Hereupon, their answer was as pleasing, as their act was dangerous. Even in those actions whereby an offence may be occasioned (though not given) charity binds us to clear both our own name, and the conscience of others.  
Little did the Israelites look for so good a ground of an action so suspicious; An Altar without a sacrifice? An Altar and no Tabernacle? An Altar without a precept, and yet not against God? It is not safe to measure all men's actions by our own conceit, but rather to think there may be a further drift, and warrant of their act, than we can attain to see.  
By that time the Reubenites have commented upon their own work, it appears as justifiable, as before offensive. What wisdom and religion is found in that Altar, which before showed nothing but Idolatry? This discourse of theirs, is full both of reason and piety; We are severed by the river jordan from the other Tribes; perhaps hereafter, our choice may exclude us from Israel: Posterity may peradventure say, jordan is the bounds of all natural Israelites; the streams whereof never gave way to those beyond the River: If they had been ours, either in blood or religion, they would not have been sequestered in habitation. Doubtless therefore these men are the offspring of some Strangers, which by vicinity of abode, have gotten some tincture of our language, manners, religion; What have we to do with them, what have they to do with the Tabernacle of God? Sith therefore we may not either remove God's Altar to us, or remove our Patrimony to the Altar; The Pattern of the Altar shall go with us, not for sacrifice, but for memorial; that both the posterity of the other Israelites may know, we are no less derived from them, than this Altar from theirs; & that our posterity may know, they pertain to that Altar, whereof this is the resemblance. There was no danger of the present; but posterity might both offer and receive prejudice, if this Monument were not. It is a wise & holy care to prevent the dangers of ensuing times, and to settle religion upon the succeeding generations. As we affect to leave a perpetuity of our bodily issue, so much more to traduce piety with them. Do we not see good husbands set and plant those trees, whereof their grandchildren shall receive the first fruit, & shade? Why are we less thrifty in leaving true religion entire, to our children's children?   

Ehud and Eglon.  
AS every man is guilty of his own sorrow, these Israelites bred mischief to themselves: It was their mercy that plagued them with those Canaanites, which their obedience should have rooted out. If foolish pity be a more human sin, yet it is no less dangerous than cruelty: Cruelty kills others, unjust pity kills ourselves. They had been Lords alone of the promised Land, if their commiseration had not over-swayed their justice; and now their enemies are too cruel to them (in the just revenge of God) because they were too merciful: That God, which in his revealed will had commanded all the Canaanites to the slaughter, yet secretly gives over Israel to a toleration of some Canaanites, for their own punishment. He hath bidden us cleanse our hearts of all our corruptions: yet he will permit some of these thorns still in our sides, for exercise, for humiliation. If we could lay violent hands upon our sins, our souls should have peace; now our indulgence costs us many stripes, & many tears: what a continued circle is here of sins, judgements; repentance, deliverances? The conversation with Idolaters, taints them with sin; their sin draws on judgements; the smart of the judgement moves them to repentance; upon their repentance follows speedy deliverance, upon their peace and deliverance they sin again.  
Othniel, Calebs' nephew, had rescued them from Idolatry and servitude: his life, and their innocence and peace ended together. How powerful the presence of one good man is in a Church or State, is best found in his loss.  
A man that is at once eminent in place & goodness, is like a stake in a hedge; pull that up, and all the rest are but loose and rotten sticks, easily removed: or like the pillar of a vaulted roof, which either supports, or ruins the building. Who would not think Idolatry an absurd and unnatural sin? which as it hath the fewest inducements, so had also the most direct inhibitions from God; and yet after all these warnings, Israel falls into it again: Neither affliction nor repentance can secure an Israelite from redoubling the worst sin, if he be left to his own frailty. It is no censuring of the truth of our present sorrow, by the event of a following miscarriage; The former cries of Israel to God were unfeigned, yet their present wickedness is abominable: Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.  
No sooner had he said (Israel had rest) but he adds, They committed wickedness: The security of any people is the cause of their corruption; standing waters soon grow noisome. Whiles they were exercised with war, how scrupulous were they of the least intimation of Idolatry? the news of a bare Altar beyond jordan, drew them together for a rèuenge; now they are at peace with their enemies, they are at variance with God: It is both hard & happy not to be the worse with liberty; The sedentary life is most subject to diseases.  
Rather than Israel shall want a scourge for their sin, God himself shall raise them up an enemy: Moab had no quarrel but his own ambition, but God meant by the ambition of the one part, to punish the Idolatry of the other; his justice can make one sin the executioner of another, whiles neither shall look for any other measure from him, but judgement: The evil of the City is so his, that the instrument is not guiltless. Before, God had stirred up the King of Syria against Israel; now, the King of Moab; afterwards, the King of Canaan: He hath more variety of judgements, than there can be offences; if we have once made him our adversary, he shall be sure to make us adversaries enough; which shall revenge his quarrel, while they prosecute their own.  
Even those were Idolaters by whose hands God plagued the Idolatries of Israel. In Moab, the same wickedness prospers, which in Gods own people is punished: the justice of the Almighty can least brook evil in his own; the same heathen which provoked Israel to sin, shall scourge them for sinning. Our very profession hurts us, if we be not innocent.  
No less than eighteen years did the rod of Moab rest upon the inheritance of God: Israel seems as borne to servitude; they came from their bondage in the Land of Egypt, to serve in the Land of Promise; They had neglected God, now they are neglected of GOD; Their sins have made them servants, whom the choice of GOD had made free, yea his first borne. Worthy are they to serve those men, whose false Gods they had served, & to serve them always in thraldom, whom they have once served in Idolatry. We may not measure the continuance of punishment, by the time of the commission of sin; one minutes sin deserves a torment beyond all time.  
Doubtless, Israel was not so insensible of their own misery, as not to complain sooner than the end of eighteen years; The first hour they sighed for themselves, but now they cried unto God. The very purpose of affliction is to make us importunate; He that hears the secret murmurs of our grief, yet will not seem to hear us, till our cries be loud & strong. GOD sees it best to let the penitent dwell for the time under their sorrows; he sees us sinking all the while, yet he lets us alone till we be at the bottom: and when once we can say, Out of the depths have I cried to thee; instantly follows, The Lord heard me. A vehement suitor cannot but be heard of God, whatsoever he asks. If our prayers want success, they want heart; their blessing is according to their vigour. We live in bondage to these spiritual Moabites, our own corruptions. It discontents us; but where are our strong cries unto the GOD of heaven? where are our tears? If we could passionately bemoan ourselves to him, how soon should we be more than conquerors? Some good motions we have to send up to him, but they faint in the way. We may call long enough, if we cry not to him.  
The same hand that raised up Eglon against Israel, raised up also Ehud for Israel, against Eglon; When that Tyrant hath revenged God of his people, God will revenge his people of him. It is no privilege to be an instrument of God's vengeance by evil means: Though Eglon were an Usurper, yet had Ehud been a Traitor if God had not sent him; it is only in the power of him that makes Kings, when they are once settled, to depose them. It is no more possible for our modern butchers of Princes, to show they are employed by God, then to escape the revenge of GOD in offering to do this violence, not being employed.  
What a strange choice doth God make of an Executioner? A man shut of his right hand; either he had but one hand, or used but one, and that the worse, and more unready: Who would not have thought both hands too little for such a work; or, if either might have been spared, how much rather the left? GOD seeth not as man seeth; It is the ordinary wont of the Almighty, to make choice of the unlikeliest means. The instruments of God must not be measured by their own power, or aptitude, but by the will of the Agent: though Ehud had no hands, he that employed him, had enabled him to this slaughter. In human things, it is good to look to the means; in divine, to the worker; No means are to be contemned that God will use; no means to be trusted that man will use without him.  
It is good to be suspicious where is least show of danger, and most appearance of favour. This lefthanded man comes with a present in his hand, but a dagger under his skirt. The Tyrant, besides service, looked for gifts; and now receives death in his bribe: Neither God nor men, do always give where they love. How oft doth God give extraordinary illumination, power of miracles, besides wealth and honour, where he hates? So do men too oft accompany their curses with presents; either least an enemy should hurt us, or that we may hurt them. The intention is the favour in gifts, and not the substance.  
Ehuds' faith supplies the want of his hand: Where GOD intends success, he lifts up the heart with resolutions of courage, & contempt of danger. What indifferent beholder of this project would not have condemned it, as unlikely to speed; To see a maimed man go alone to a great King, in the midst of all his troops; to single him out from all witnesses; to set upon him with one hand in his own Parlour, where his Courtiers might have heard the least exclamation, and have comen in, if not to the rescue, yet to the revenge. Every circumstance is full of improbabilities: Faith evermore overlookes the difficulties of the way, & bends her eyes only to the certainty of the end. In this intestine slaughter of our tyrannical corruptions, when we cast our eyes upon ourselves, we might well despair; Alas, what can our left-hands do against these spiritual wickednesses? But when we see who hath both commanded, and undertaken to prosper these holy designs, how can we misdoubt the success? I can do all things through him that strengthens me.  
When Ehud hath obtained the convenient secrecy both of the weapon & place; now with a confident forehead he approaches the Tyrant, and salutes him, with a true and awful preface to so important an act. I have a message to thee from God. Even Ehuds' poniard was God's message; not only the vocal admonitions, but also the real judgements of God, are his errands to the world. He speaks to us in rain & waters, in sicknesses & famine, in unseasonable times & inundations: These are the secondary messages of God; if we will not hear the first, we must hear these to our cost.  
I cannot but wonder at the devout reverence of this Heathen Prince; He sat in his Chair of State; The unweildinesse of his fat body was such, that he could not rise with readiness and ease; yet no sooner doth he hear news of a message from God, but he rises up from his Throne, & reverently attends the tenor thereof: Though he had no Superior to control him, yet he cannot abide to be unmannerly in the business of God.  
This man was an Idolater, a Tyrant: yet what outward respects doth he give to the true God? external ceremonies of piety, and compliments of devotion, may well be found with falsehood in religion. They are a good shadow of truth where it is: but where it is not, they are the very body of hypocrisy. He that had risen up in Arms against God's people, and the true worship of God, now rises up in reverence to his Name: GOD would have liked well to have had less of his courtesy, more of his obedience.  
He looked to have heard the message with his ears, and he feels it in his guts; So sharp a message, that it pierced the body, & let out the soul through that unclean passage: neither did it admit of any answer, but silence and death. In that part had he offended by pampering it, and making it his God; and now his bane finds the same way with his sin. This one hard and cold morsel, which he cannot digest, pays for all those gluttonous delicates, whereof he had formerly surfeited. It is the manner of God, to take fearful revenges of the professed enemies of his Church.  
It is a marvel, that neither any noise in his dying, nor the fall of so gross a body, called-in some of his attendants: But that GOD, which hath intended to bring about any design, disposes of all circumstances to his own purpose. If Ehud had not come forth with a calm and settled countenance, and shut the doors after him, all his project had been in the dust. What had it been better that the King of Moab was slain, if Israel had neither had a messenger to inform, nor a Captain to guide them? Now he departs peaceably, & blows a trumpet in Mount Ephraim, gathers Israel, and falls upon the body of Moab, as well as he had done upon the head, and procures freedom to his people. He that would undertake great enterprises, had need of wisdom, and courage; wisdom to contrive, and courage to execute; wisdom to guide his courage, & courage to second his wisdom: both which, if they meet with a good cause, cannot but succeed.   

jael and Sisera.  
IT is no wonder if they who ere fourscore days after the Law delivered, fell to Idolatry alone, now after fourscore years since the Law restored, fell to Idolatry among the Canaanites: Peace could in a shorter time work looseness in any people: and if for●ie years after othniel's deliverance, they relapsed, what marvel is it that in twice forty after E●ud, they thus miscarried? What ●re they the better to have killed Eglon the King of Moab, if the Idolatry of Moab have killed them? The sin of Moab shall be found a worse Tyrant than their Eglon. Israel is for every market; they sold themselves to Idolatry, God sells them to the Canaanites; it is no marvel they are slaves, if they will be Idolaters: After their longest intermission, they have now the sorest bondage. None of their Tyrants were so potent as jabin with his 900. chariots of Iron. The longer the reckoning is deferred, the greater is the sum: God provides on purpose mighty Adversaries for his Church, that their humiliation may be the greater in sustaining, and his glory may be greater in deliverance.  
I do not find any Prophet in Israel during their sin; but so soon as I hear news of their repentance, mention is made of a Prophetess, & judge of Israel. There is no better sign of God's reconciliation, than the sending of his holy messengers to any people; He is not utterly fallen out with those whom he blesses with prophecy. Whom yet do I see raised to this honour? Not any of the Princes of Israel; not Barac the Captain; not Lapidoth the husband; but a woman, for the honour of her sex; a wife, for the honour of wedlock: Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth.  
He that had choice of all the millions of Israel, culls out two weak women, to deliver his people; Deborah shall judge, jael shall execute. All the Palaces of Israel, must yield to the palm-tree of Deborah; The weakness of the instruments, redounds to the greater honour of the workman. Who shall ask God any reason of his elections, but his own pleasure? Deborah was to sentence, not to strike; to command, not to execute: This act is masculine, fit for some Captain of Israel; She was the Head of Israel, it was meet some other should be the hand: it is an imperfect and titular government where there is a commanding power, without correction, without execution. The message of Deborah finds out Barac the son of Abinoam, in his obscure secrecy, and calls him from a corner of Nepthali, to the honour of this exploit. He is sent for, not to get the victory, but to take it; not to overcome, but to kill; to pursue, & not to beat Sisera. Who could not have done this work, whereto not much courage, no skill belonged? Yet even for this will God have an instrument of his own choice: It is most fit that GOD should serve himself where he list, of his own; neither is it to be inquired, whom we think meet for any employment, but whom God hath called.  
Deborah had been no Prophetess, if she durst have sent in her own name; Her message is from him that sent herself, Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded? barac's answer is faithful, though conditionate; and doth not so much intend a refusal to go without her, as a necessary bond of her presence with him. Who can blame him that he would have a Prophetess in his company? If the man had not been as holy as valiant, he would not have wished such society. How many think it a perpetual bondage to have a prophet of God at their elbow? God had never sent for him so far, if he could have been content to go up without Deborah; He knew that there was both a blessing, and encouragement in that presence. It is no putting any trust in the success of those men, that neglect the messengers of God.  
To prescribe that to others, which we draw back from doing ourselves, is an argument of hollowness and falsity: Barac shall see that Deborah doth not offer him that cup, whereof she dare not begin; without regard of her sex she marches with him to Mount Tabor, and rejoices to be seen of the ten thousand of Israel. With what scorn did Sisera look at these glean of Israel? How unequal did this match seem of ten thousand Israelites against his three hundred thousand foot, ten thousand horse, nine hundred chariots of Iron? And now in a bravery, he calls for his troops, and means to kill this handful of Israel with the very sight of his piked chariots; and only feared it would be no victory to cut the throats of so few. The faith of Deborah and Barac was not appalled with this world of Adversaries, which from Mount Tabor they saw hiding all the Valley below them; they knew whom they had believed, and how little an arm of flesh could do against the God of Hosts.  
Barac went down against Sisera, but it was GOD that destroyed him. The Israelites did not this day wield their own swords, lest they should arrogate any thing; God told them before hand, it should be his own act. I hear not of one stroke that any Canaanite gave in this fight; as if they were called hither, only to suffer. And now proud Sisera, after many curses of the heaviness of that Iron carriage, is glad to quit his Chariot, and betake himself to his heels. Who ever yet knew any earthly thing trusted in, without disappointment? It is wonder if God make us not at last as weary of whatsoever hath stolen our hearts from him, as ever we were fond.  
Yet Sisera hopes to have sped better than his followers, in so seasonable an harbour of jael. If Heber and jael had not been great persons, there had been no note taken of their Tents; There had been no league betwixt King jabin and them: now their greatness makes them known, their league makes them trusted. The distress of Sisera might have made him importunate, but jael begins the courtesy, and exceeds the desire of her guest: He asks water to drink, she gives him milk; he wishes but shelter, she makes him a bed; he desires the protection of her Tent, she covers him with a mantle. And now Sisera pleases himself with this happy change, and thinks how much better it is to be here, then in that whirling of chariots, in that horror of flight, amongst those shrieks, those wounds, those carcases. Whiles he is in these thoughts: his weariness & easy reposal hath brought him asleep. Who would have looked that in this tumult and danger, even betwixt the very jaws of death, Sisera should find time to sleep? How many worldly hearts do so in the midst of their spiritual perils?  
Now whiles he was dreaming, doubtless, of the clashing of armours, rattling of chariots, neighing of horses, the clamour of the conquered, the furious pursuit of Israel; jael seeing his temples lie so fair, as if they invited the nail & hammer, entered into the thought of this noble execution; certainly not without some checks of doubt, and pleas of fear: What if I strike him? And yet who am I, that I should dare to think of such an act? Is not this Sisera, the famousest captain of the world, whose name hath wont to be fearful to whole Nations? What if my hand should serve in the stroke? What if he should awake, whiles I am lifting up this instrument of death▪ What if I should be surprised by some of his followers while the fact is green, and yet bleeding? Can the murder of so great a Leader be hid, or unrevenged? Or if I might hope so, yet can my heart allow me to be secretly treacherous? Is there not peace betwixt my house, and him? Did not I invite him to my Tent? Doth he not trust to my friendship & hospitality? But what do these weak fears, these idle fancies of civility? If Sisera be in league with us, yet is he not at defiance with God? Is he not a Tyrant to Israel? Is it for nothing that GOD hath brought him into my Tent? May I not now find means to repay unto Israel all their kindness to my Grandfather jethro? Doth not GOD offer me this day, the honour to be the Rescuer of his people? Hath God bidden me strike, and shall I hold my hand? No Sisera, sleep now thy last, and take here this fatal reward of all thy cruelty and oppression.  
He that put this instinct into her heart, did put also strength into her hand; He that guided Sisera to her Tent, guided the nail through his temples; which hath made a speedy way for his soul through those parts, and now hath fastened his ear so close to the earth, as if the body had been listening what was becomne of the soul. There lies now the great terror of Israel at the foot of a woman: He that brought so many hundred thousands into the Field, hath not now one Page left, either to avert his death, or to accompany it, or bewail it: He that had vaunted of his Iron chariots, is slain by one nail of Iron, wanting only this one point of his infelicity, that he knows not by whose hand he perished.   

Gideons' Calling.  
THe judgements of God still the further they go, the sorer they are; the bondage of Israel under jabin was great, but it was freedom in comparison of the yoke of the Midianites. During the former tyranny, Deborah was permitted to judge Israel under a palm-tree; Under this, not so much as private habitations will be allowed to Israel: Then, the seat of judgement was in the sight of the Sun, now their very dwellings must be secret, under the earth. They that rejected the protection of God, are glad to seek to the Mountains for shelter; & as they had savagely abused themselves, so they are fain to creep into dens & caves of the rocks, like wild creatures for safeguard: God had sown spiritual seed amongst them, and they suffered their heathenish neighbours to pull it up by the roots; and now, no sooner can they sow their material seed, but Midianites and Amalekites are ready by force to destroy it. As they inwardly dealt with God; so GOD deals outwardly by them; Their eyes may tell them what their souls have done: yet that God whose mercy is above the worst of our sins sends first his Prophet with a message of reproof, and then his Angel with a message of deliverance. The Israelites had smarted enough with their servitude, yet God sends them a sharp rebuke. It is a good sign when God chides us, his round reprehensions are ever gracious forerunners of mercy: whereas his silent connivence at the wicked, argues deep and secret displeasure: The Prophet made way for the Angel, reproof for deliverance, humiliation for comfort.  
Gideon was threshing Wheat by the Winepress. Yet Israel hath both Wheat and Wine, for all the incursions of their enemies. The worst estate out of hell, hath either some comfort, or at least, some mitigation; in spite of all the malice of the world, God makes secret provision for his own. How should it be but he that owns the earth, and all creatures, should reserve ever a sufficiency from foreigners (such the wicked are) for his household? In the worst of the Midianitish tyranny, Gideons' field and barn are privileged, as his fleece was afterwards from the shower.  
Why did Gideon thrash out his corn? To hide it; Not from his neighbours, but his enemies: his Granary might easily be more close, than his barn. As then, Israelites threshed out their corn, to hide it from the Midianites: but now, Midianites thrash out corn, to hide it from the Israelites. These rural Tyrants of our time, do not more lay up corn, than curses; he that withdraweth corn, the people will curse him; yea, God will curse him, with them, & for them.  
What shifts nature will make to live? Oh that we could be so careful to lay up spiritual food for our souls, out of the reach of those spiritual Midianites, we could not but live, in despite of all Adversaries.  
The Angels that have ever God in their face, & in their thoughts, have him also in their mouths, The Lord is with thee. But this which appeared unto Gideon, was the Angel of the covenant, the Lord of Angels. Whiles he was with Gideon, he might well say, The Lord is with thee. He that sent the Comforter, was also the true Comforter of his Church; he well knew, how to lay a sure ground of Consolation, and that the only remedy of sorrow, and beginning of true joy, is The presence of God. The grief of the Apostles for the expected loss of their Master, could never be cured by any receipt but this, of the same Angel, Behold, I am with you to the end of the world. What is our glory but the fruition of God's presence? The punishment of the damned, is a separation from the beatifical face of God; needs must therefore his absence in this life, be a great torment to a good heart: and no cross can be equivalent to this beginning of heaven in the Elect, The Lord is with thee.  
Who can complain either of solitariness, or opposition, that hath GOD with him? With him, not only as a witness, but as a party: Even wicked men and devils cannot exclude God, not the bars of hell can shut him out; He is with them perforce, but to judge, to punish them: Yea, God will be ever with them to their cost; but to protect, comfort, save, he is with none but his.  
Whiles he calls Gideon valiant, he makes him so. How could he be but valiant, that had God with him? The godless man may be careless, but cannot be other then cowardly. It pleases God to acknowledge his own graces in men, that he may interchange his own glory, with their comfort; how much more should we confess the graces of one another? An envious nature is prejudicial to God; He is a strange man in whom there is not some visible good; yea, in the Devils themselves we may easily note some commendable parts, of knowledge, strength, agility: Let God have his own in the worst creature; yea, let the worst creature have that praise, which God would put upon it.  
Gideon cannot pass over this salutation, as some fashionable complement, but lays hold on that part, which was most important; the tenure of all his comfort; and (as not regarding the praise of his valour) inquires after that which should be the ground of his valour, the presence of God: God had spoken particularly to him; He expostulates for all. It had been possible GOD should be present with him, not with the rest; as he promised to have been with Moses, Israel: and yet when God says, The Lord is with thee, he answers, Alas Lord, if the Lord be with us. Gideon cannot conceive of himself as an exempt person; but puts himself among the throng of Israel, as one that could not be sensible of any particular comfort, while the common case of Israel laboured. The main care of a good heart is still for the public, neither can it enjoy itself, while the Church of God is distressed. As faith draws home generalities, so charity diffuses generalities from itself to all.  
Yet the valiant man was here weak; weak in faith, weak in discourse; whiles he argues God's absence by affliction, his presence by deliverances, and the unlikelihood of success by his own disability; all gross inconsequences: Rather should he have inferred God's presence upon their correction; for wheresoever God chastises, there he is, yea, there he is in mercy. Nothing more proves us his, than his stripes; he will not bestow whipping where he loves not. Fond nature thinks GOD should not suffer the wind to blow upon his dear ones, because herself makes this use of her own indulgence; but none out of the place of torment, have suffered so much as his dearest children. He says not we are Idolaters; therefore the Lord hath forsaken us, because we have forsaken him: This sequel had been as good, as the other was faulty; (The Lord hath delivered us unto the Midianites, therefore he hath forsaken us:) Sins, not afflctions, argue God absent.  
Whiles Gideon bewrayeth weakness, God both gives him might and employs it; (Go in this thy might, and save Jsrael.) Who would not have looked that God should have looked angrily on him, and chid him for his unbelief? But he whose mercy will not quench the weakest fire of grace, though it be but in flax, looks upon him with compassionate eyes; and to make good his own word, gives him that valour he had acknowledged.  
Gideon had not yet said, Lord deliver Jsrael: much less had he said, Lord deliver Israel by my hand. The mercy of God prevents the desire of Gideon: if God should not begin with us, we should be ever miserable; if he should not give us till we ask, yet who should give us to ask; if his spirit did not work those holy groans, & sighs in us, we should never make suit to God. He that commonly gives us power to crave, sometimes gives us without craving, that the benefit might be so much more welcome, by how much less it was expected; and we so much more thankful, as he is more forward. When he bids us ask, it is not for that he needs to be entreated; but that he may make us more capable of blessings, by desiring them: And where he sees fervent desires, he stays not for words; and he that gives ere we ask, how much more will he give when we ask.  
He that hath might enough to deliver Israel, yet hath not might enough to keep himself from doubting. The strongest faith will ever have some touch of infidelity. And yet this was not so much a distrust of the possibility of delivering Israel, as an inquiry after the means; Whereby shall I save Israel? The salutation of the Angel to Gideon, was as like to Gabriels' salutation of the blessed Virgin, as their answers were like: Both Angels brought news of deliverance; both were answered with a question of the means of performance; with a report of the difficulties in performing: Ah my Lord, whereby shall I save Israel? How the good man disparages himself! It is a great matter (O Lord) that thou speakest of, and great actions require mighty Agents: As for me, who am I? My Tribe is none of the greatest in Israel; My Father's family, is one of the meanest in his Tribe, and I the meanest in his family; Poverty is a sufficient bar to great enterprises.  
Whereby shall I? Humility is both a sign of following glory, & a way to it, and an occasion of it: Bragging and height of spirit, will not carry it, with GOD: None have ever been raised by him, but those which have formerly dejected themselves; None have been confounded by him, that have been abased in themselves. Thereupon it is that he adds, I will therefore be with thee; as if he had answered, Hadst thou not been so poor in thyself, I would not have wrought by thee. How should God be magnified in his mercies if we were not unworthy? How should he be strong, if not in our weakness?  
All this while, Gideon knew not it was an Angel that spoke with him; He saw a man stand before him like a travailer, with a staff in his hand. The unusualness of those revelations in those corrupted times was such, that Gideon might think of any thing rather than an Angel: No marvel if so strange a promise from an unknown messenger, found not a perfect assent; Feign would he believe, but fain would he have good warrant for his faith. In matters of faith we cannot go upon too sure grounds. As Moses therefore being sent upon the same errand, desired a sign, whereby Israel might know that God sent him: So Gideon desires a sign from this Bearer▪ to know that his news is from God.  
Yet the very hope of so happy news, not yet ratified, stirs up in Gideon both joy and thankfulness. After all the injury of the Midianites, he was not so poor, but he could bestow a Kid, and cakes, upon the Reporter of such tidings. Those which are rightly affected with the glad news of our spiritual deliverance, study to show their loving respects to the messengers.  
The Angel stays for the preparing of Gideons' feast. Such pleasure doth GOD take in the thankful endeavours of his servants, that he patiently waits upon the leisure of our performances. Gideon intended a dinner, the Angel turned it into a sacrifice. He whose meat and drink it was to do his Father's will, calls for the broth and flesh to be poured out upon the stone; And when Gideon looked he should have blessed, and eaten, he touches the feast with his staff, and consumes it with fire from the stone, and departed. He did not strike the stone with his staff (For the attrition of two hard bodies would naturally beget fire) but he touched the meat, and brought fire from the stone: And now whiles Gideon saw and wondered at the spiritual act, he lost the sight of the Agent.  
He that came without entreating, would not have departed without taking leave, but that he might increase Gideons' wonder, and that his wonder might increase his faith. His salutation therefore was not so strange as his farewell. Moses touched the rock with his staff, and brought forth water, and yet a man, and yet continued with the Israelites. This messenger touches the stone with his staff, and brings forth fire, & presently vanishes, that he may approve himself a spirit. And now Gideon, when he had gathered up himself, must needs think, He that can raise fire out of a stone, can raise courage and power out of my dead breast; He that by this fire hath consumed the broth and flesh, can by the feeble flame of my fortitude consume Midian.  
Gideon did not so much doubt before, as now he feared. We that shall once live with, and be like the Angels, in the estate of our impotency think we cannot see an Angel, and live. Gideon was acknowledged for mighty in valour, yet he trembles at the sight of an Angel. Peter, that durst draw his sword upon Malchus, and all the train of judas, yet fears when he thought he had seen a spirit. Our natural courage cannot be are us out against spiritual objects. This Angel was homely & familiar, taking upon him for the time, a resemblance of that flesh whereof he would afterwards take the substance; yet even the valiant Gideon quakes to have seen him: How awful and glorious is the God of Angels, when he will be seen in the state of heaven!  
The Angel that departed for the wonder, yet returns for the comfort of Gideon; It is not the wont of God to leave his children in a maze, but he brings them out in the same mercy which led them in, and will magnify his grace in the one, no less than his power in the other.  
Now Gideon grows acquainted with God, and interchanges pledges of familiarity; He builds an Altar to God, and God confers with him; and (as he uses where he loves) employs him. His first task must be to destroy the god of the Midianites, than the Idolaters themselves. Whiles Baal's Altar & grove stood in the hill of Ophrah, Israel should in vain hope to prevail: It is most just with God that judgement should continue with the sin, and no less mercy, if it may remove after it. Wouldst thou fain be rid of any judgement? Inquire what false Altars & groves thou hast in thy heart; down with them first.  
First must Baal's Altar be ruined ere Gods be built, both may not stand together; The true GOD will have no society with Idols, neither will allow it us. I do not hear him say, That Altar & grove which were abused to Baal, consecreate now to me; but as one whose holy jealousy will abide no worship till there be no idolatry, he first commands down the monuments of superstition, and then enjoins his own service; yet the wood of Baal's grove must be used to burn a sacrifice unto God: When it was once cut down, God's detestation, & their danger ceased. The good creatures of God that have been profaned to Idolatry, may in a change of their use, be employed to the holy service of their Maker.  
Though some Israelites were penitent under this humiliation, yet still many of them persisted in their wont Idolatry. The very household of Gideons' father were still Baalites, and his neighbours of Ophrah were in the same sin: yea if his father had been free, what did he with Baal's grove and Altar? He dares not therefore take his father's servants, though he took his bullocks, but commands his own. The Master is best seen in the servants: Gideons' servants (amongst the Idolatrous retinue of joash) are religious, like their Master; yet the mis-devotion of joash, and the Ophrathites was not obstinate. joash is easily persuaded by his son, and easily persuades his neighbours, how unreasonable it is to plead for such a god, as cannot speak for himself; to revenge his cause, that could not defend himself. Let Baal plead for himself. One example of a resolute onset in a noted person, may do more good than a thousand seconds in the proceeding of an action.  
Soon are all the Midianites in an uproar to lose their god; They need not now be bidden to muster themselves for revenge: he hath no religion that can suffer an indignity offered to his God.   

Gideons' Preparation and Victory.  
OF all the instruments that GOD used in so great a work, I find none so weak as Gideon; who yet (of all others) was styled valiant: natural valour may well stand with spiritual cowardice. Before he knew that he spoke with a God, he might have just colours for his distrust; but after God had approved his presence, and almighty power, by fetching fire out of the stone, then to call for a watery sign of his promised deliverance, was no other than to pour water upon the fire of the spirit. The former trial God gave unwished; this, upon Gideons' choice and entreaty: The former miracle was strong enough to carry Gideon through his first exploit of ruinating the idolatrous grove, and Altar; but now, when he saw the swarm of the Midianites and Amalekites about his ears, he calls for new aid; and not trusting to his Abiezrites, and his other thousands of Israel, he runs to God for a further assurance of victory.  
The refuge was good, but the manner of seeking it, savours of distrust. There is nothing more easy then to be valiant, when no peril appeareth; but when evils assail us upon unequal terms, it is hard, and commendable Not to be dismayed. If GOD had made that proclamation now, which afterwards was commanded to be made by Gideon, Let the timorous depart, I doubt whether Israel had not wanted a Guide: yet how willing is the Almighty to satisfy our weak desires!  
What tasks is he content to be set by our infirmity? The fleece must be wet, and the ground dry; the ground must be wet, and the fleece dry: Both are done; that now Gideon may see whether he would make himself hard earth, or yielding wool. God could at pleasure distinguish betwixt him, and the Midianites, & pour down either mercies or judgement where he lists, and that he was set on work by that God, which can command all the Elements, and they obey him; Fire, Water, Earth, serve both him, and (when he will) his.  
And now when Gideon had this reciprocal proof of his ensuing success, he goes on (as he well may) harnessed with resolution, and is seen in the Head of his troops, and in the face of the Midianites. If we cannot make up the match with God, when we have our own ask, we are worthy to sit out.  
Gideon had but thirty thousand soldiers at his his heels; the Midianites covered all the valley, like Grasshoppers: and now whiles the Israelites think, We are too few; God says, The people are too many. If the Israelites must have looked for victory from their fingers, they might well have said, The Midianites are too many for us; but that God, whose thoughts and words are unlike to men's, says, They are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands. If human strength were to be opposed, there should have needed an equality; but now God meant to give the victory, his care is not how to get it, but how not to lose or blemish the glory of it gotten. How jealous God is of his honour! He is willing to give deliverance to Israel, but the praise of the deliverance he will keep to himself; and will shorten the means, that he may have the full measure of the glory. And if he will not allow lawful means to stand in the light of his honour, how will he endure it to be crossed so much as indirectly? It is less danger to steal any thing from God, than his glory.  
As a Prince, which if we steal or clip his coin, may pardon it; but if we go about to rob him of his crown, will not be appeased. There is nothing that we can give to God, of whom we receive all things; that which he is content to part with, he gives us; but he will not abide we should take aught from him, which he would reserve for himself. It is all one with him to save with many, and with few, but he rather choses to save by few, that all the victory may redound to himself. O God, what art thou the better for our praises, to whom because thou art infinite nothing can be added? It is for our good that thou wouldst be magnified of us; Oh teach us to receive the benefit of thy merciful favours, and to return thee the thanks.  
Gideons' Army must be lessened; Who are so fit to be cashered as the fearful? God bids him therefore proclaim licence for all faint hearts to leave the field. An ill instrument may shame a good work: God will not glorify himself by cowards. As the timorous shall be without the gates of heaven; so shall they be without the lists of of God's field. Although it was not their courage that should save Israel, yet without their courage God would not serve himself of them. Christianity requires men; for if our spiritual difficulties meet not with high spirits, in steed of whetting our fortitude, they quail it. David's royal Band of worthies, was the type of the forces of the Church; all valiant men, and able to encounter with thousands.  
Neither must we be strong only, but acquainted with our own resolutions; not out of any carnal presumption, but out of a faithful reliance upon the strength of God; in whom, when we are weak, than we are strong. Oh thou white liver! doth but a foul word, or a frown scar thee from Christ? Doth the loss of a little land, or silver disquiet the? Doth but the sight of the Midianites in the valley strike thee? Home then, home to the world; thou art not then for the conquering Band of Christ: If thou canst not resolve to follow him through infamy, prisons, racks, ●ibbets, flames; Depart to thine house, & save thy life to thy loss.  
Me thinks now, Israel should have complained of indignity, & have said, Why shouldst thou think, O Gideon, that there can be a cowardly Israelite? And if the experience of the power and mercy of God, be not enough to make us fear less, yet the sense of servitude must needs have made us resolute; for who had not rather to be buried dead, than quick? Are we not fain to hide our heads in the caves of the earth, and to make our graves our houses? Not so much as the very light that we can freely enjoy; the tyranny of death is but short and easy, to this of Midian: and yet what danger can there be of that, sith thou hast so certainly assured us of God's promise of victory, and his miraculous confirmation? No, Gideon, those hearts that have brought us hither after thy Colours, can as well keep us from retiring.  
But now, who can but bless himself, to find of two & thirty thousand Israelites, two & twenty thousand cowards? Yet all these in Gideons' march made as fair a flourish of courage as the boldest. Who can trust the faces of men, that sees in the Army of Israel, above two for one timorous? How many make a glorious show in the warfaring Church, which when they shall see danger of persecution, shall shrink from the standard of God? Hope of safety, examples of neighbours, desire of praise, fear of censures, coaction of laws, fellowship of friends, draw many into the field; which so soon as ever they see the Adversary, repent of their conditions: and if they may cleanly escape, will be gone early from Mount Gilead. Can any man be offended at the number of these shrinkers, when he sees but ten thousand Israelites left of two and twenty thousand in one morning.  
These men that would have been ashamed to go away by day, now drop away by night; And if Gideon should have called any one of them back, and said, Wilt thou flee? would have made an excuse. The darkness is a fit vail for their paleness, or blushing; fearfulness cannot abide the light: None of these thousands of Israel but would have been loath Gideon should have seen his face whiles he said, I am fearful; very shame holds some in their station, whose hearts are already fled. And if we cannot endure that men should be witnesses of that fear which we might live to correct, how shall we abide once to show our fearful heads, before that terrible judge, when he calls us forth to the punishment of our fear? Oh the vanity of foolish hypocrites, that run upon the terrors of GOD, whiles they would avoid the shame of men?  
How do we think the small remainder of Israel looked, when in the next morning-muster they found themselves but ten thousand left? How did they accuse their timorous Countrymen, that had left but this handful to encounter the millions of Midian? And yet still, God complains of too many; and upon his trial, dismisses nine thousand seven hundred more. His first trial was of the valour of their minds: his next is of the ability of their bodies; Those which besides boldness are not strong, patient of labour and thirst, willing to stoop, content with a little (such were those that took up water with their hand) are not for the select Band of God. The Lord of Hosts will serve himself of none but able Champions; If he have therefore singled us into his combat, this very choice argues, that he finds that strength in us, which we cannot confess in ourselves. How can it but comfort us in our great trials, that if the searcher of hearts did not find us fit, he would never honour us with so hard an employment?  
Now, when there is not scarce left one Israelite to every thousand of the Midianites, it is seasonable with God to join battle. When God hath stripped us of all our earthly confidence, then doth he find time to give us victory; and not till then, lest he should be a loser in our gain: Like as at last he unclothes us of our body, that he may cloth us upon with glory.  
If Gideon feared when he had two and thirty thousand Israelites at his heels, is it any wonder if he feared, when all these were shrunk into three hundred? Though his confirmation were more, yet his means were abated. Why was not Gideon rather the Leader of those two and twenty thousand runne-awaies, then of these three hundred soldiers? Oh infinite mercy, and forbearance of God, that takes not vantage of so strong an infirmity, but in stead of casting, encourages him. That wise Providence hath prepared a dream in the head of one Midianite, an interpretation in the mouth of another, and hath brought Gideon to be an auditor of both; and hath made his enemy's Prophets of his victory, encouragers of the attempt, proclaimers of their own confusion. A Midianite dreams, a Midianite interprets. Our very dreams many times are not without God; there is a providence in our sleeping fancies: even the emies of God may have visions, & power to construe them aright; How usually are wicked men forewarned of their own destruction? To foreknow & not avoid, is but an aggravation of judgement.  
When Gideon heard good news (though from an enemy) he fell down and worshipped. To hear, himself but a Barly-cake, troubled him not, when he heard withal, that his rolling down the hill should break the Tents of Midian; It matters not how base we be thought, so we may be victorious. The soul that hath received full confirmation from God, in the assurance of his salvation, cannot but bow the knee, and by all gestures of body, tell how it is ravished.  
I would have thought Gideon should rather have found full confirmation in the promise, and act of GOD, then in the dream of the Midianite. Dreams may be full of uncertainty; Gods undertakings are infallible: well therefore might the miracle of GOD give strength to the dream of a Midianite; but what strength could a Pagans dream give to the miraculous act of God? yet by this is Gideon thoroughly settled. When we are going, a little thing drives us on; when we are come near to the shore, the very tide without sails, is enough to put us into the harbour. We shall now hear no more of Gideons' doubts, but of his achievements: And though God had promised by these three hundred to chase the Midianites, yet he neglects not wise stratagems to effect it. To wait for God's performance in doing nothing, is to abuse that divine Providence, which will so work, that it will not allow us idle.  
Now, when we would look that Gideon should give charge of whetting their swords, & sharpening their spears, and fitting their Armour, he only gives order for empty pitchers, and lights, and trumpets. The cracking of these pitchers shall break in pieces this Midianitish clay: the kindling of these lights, shall extinguish the light of Midian: these trumpets, sound no other than a soule-peale to all the host of Midian: there shall need nothing but noise & light to confound this innumerable Army.  
And if the pitchers, and brands, and trumpets of Gideon, did so daunt & dismay the proud troops of Midian, & Amalecke, Who can we think shall be able to stand before the last terror, wherein the trumpet of the Archangel shall sound, and the heavens shall pass away with a noise, & the elements shall be on a flame about our ears?  
Any of the weakest Israelites would have served to have broken an empty pitcher, to have carried a light, & to have sounded a trumpet, and to strike a flying adversary. Not to the basest use will God employ an unworthy Agent; He will not allow so much as a cowardly torchbearer.  
Those two and twenty thousand Israelites that slipped away for fear, when the fearful Midianites fled, can pursue, and kill them, & can follow them at the heels, whom they durst not look in the face. Our flight gives advantage to the feeblest adversary, whereas our resistance foileth the greatest: How much more, if we have once turned our backs upon a tentation, shall our spiritual enemies (which are ever strong) trample us in the dust? Resist, and they shall flee: stand still, and we shall see the salvation of the Lord.   

The Revenge of Succoth and Penuell.  
GIdeon was of Manasseh: Ephraim and he were brothers, sons of joseph; None of all the Tribes of Jsrael fall out with their victorious Leader, but he: The agreement of brothers is rare; by how much nature hath more endeared them, by so much are their quarrels more frequent and dangerous. I did not hear the Ephraimites offering themselves into the front of the Army, before the fight, and now they are ready to fight with Gideon, because they were not called to fight with Midian: I hear them expostulating after it; After the exploit done, cowards are valiant. Their quarrel was that they were not called; It had been a greater praise of their valour to have gone unbidden: What need was there to call them, when God complained of multitude, and sent away those which were called? None speak so big in the end of the fray, as the fearfullest.  
Ephraim flies upon Gideon, while the Midianites fly from him; when Gideon should be pursuing his enemies, he is pursued by brethren; & now is glad to spend that wind in pacifying of his own, which should have been bestowed in the slaughter of a common Adversary: It is a wonder if Satan suffer us to be quiet at home, whiles we are exercised with wars abroad. Had not Gideon jearned to speak fair, as well as to smite, he had found work enough from the swords of Joseph's sons; his good words are as victorious as his sword; his pacification of friends, better than his execution of enemies.  
For aught I see, the envy of Israelites was more troublesome to Gideon, than the opposition of Midian; He hath left the envy of Ephraim behind him: before him, he finds the envy of Succoth and Penuell. The one, envies that he should overcome without them; the other, that he should but say he had overcome. His pursuit leads him to Succoth, there he craves relief, & is repelled. Had he said, Come forth & draw your sword with me against Zeba and Zalmunna, the motion had been but equal; A common interest challenges an universal aid: Now he says, but, Give morsels of bread to my followers; He is turned off with a scorn; He asks bread, and they give him a stone. Could he ask a more slender recompense of their deliverance, or a less reward of his victory? Give morsels of bread. Before this act, all their substance had been too small an hire of their freedom from Midian; now when it is done, a morsel of bread is too much: Well might he challenge bread, where he gave liberty, and life. It is hard, if those which fight the wars of God, may not have necessary relief; that whiles the enemy dies by them, they should die by famine. If they had laboured for GOD at home in peace, they had been worthy of maintenance; how much more now, that danger is added to their toil? Even very Executioners look for fees: but here were not malefactors, but adversaries to be slain; the sword of power and revenge was now to be wielded, not of quiet justice. Those that fight for our souls against spiritual powers, may challenge bread from us, and it is a shameless unthankfulness to deny it. When Abraham had vanquished the five Kings, & delivered Lot and his family, the King of Salem met him with bread and wine; and now these sons of Abram, after an equal victory, ask dry bread, and are denied by their brethren: Craftily yet, & under pretence of a false title, had they acknowledged the victory of Gideon, with what forehead could they have denied him bread?  
Now, I know not whether their faithlessness, or envy lie in their way; Are the hands of Zeba and Zalmunna in thy hands? There were none of these Princes of Succoth and Penuel, but thought themselves better men than Gideon; That he therefore alone, should do that, which all the Princes of Israel durst not attempt, they hated and scorned to hear. It is never safe to measure events by the power of the instrument; nor in the causes of God (whose calling makes the difference) to measure others by ourselves: There is nothing more dangerous then in holy businesses to stand upon comparisons, and our own reputation; sith it is reason GOD should both choose, and bless where he lists.  
To have questioned so sudden a victory had been pardonable: but to deny it scornfully, was unworthy of Israelites. Carnal men think that impossible to others, which themselves cannot do: From hence are their censures, hence their exclamations.  
Gideon hath vowed a fearful revenge, and now performs it; the taunts of his brethren may not stay him from the pursuit of the Midianites; Common enmities must first be opposed, domestical, at more leisure. The Princes of Succoth feared the tyranny of the Midianitish Kings, but they more feared Gideons' victory. What a condition hath their envy drawn them into? that they are sorry to see God's enemies captive; that Israel's freedom must be their death; that the Midianites & they, must tremble at one and the same Revenger. To see themselves prisoners to Zeba and Zalmunna, had not been so fearful, as to see Zeba & Zalmunna prisoners to Gideon. Nothing is more terrible to evil minds, then to read their own condemnation in the happy success of others: Hell itself would want one piece of his torment, if the wicked did not know those whom they contemned, glorious.  
I know not whether more to commend Gideons' wisdom and moderation in the proceedings, than his resolution and justice in the execution of this business. I do not see him run furiously into the City, and kill the next; His sword had not been so drunken with blood, that it should know no difference: But he writes down the names of the Princes, and singles them forth for revenge.  
When the Leaders of GOD come to a jericho, or Ai, their slaughter was unpartial; not a woman or child might live to tell news: but now that Gideon comes to a Succoth, a City of Israelites, the Rulers are called forth to death, the people are frighted with the example, not hurt with the judgement. To enwrap the innocent in any vengeance, is a murderous injustice: Indeed where all join in the sin, all are worthy to meet in the punishment. It is like, the Citizens of Succoth could have been glad to succour Gideon, if their Rulers had not forbidden: they must therefore escape, while their Princes perish.  
I cannot think of Gideons' revenge without horror; That the Rulers of Succoth should have their flesh torn from their backs with thorns & briars; that they should be at once beaten, and scratched to death. What a spectacle it was to see their bare bones looking somewhere through the bloody rags of their flesh and skin, and every stroke worse than the last; death multiplied by torment! justice is sometimes so severe, that a tender beholder can scarce discern it from cruelty.  
I see the Midianites fare less ill; the edge of the sword makes a speedy and easy passage for their lives, whiles these rebellious Israelites die lingeringly under thorns and briars, envying those in their death, whom their life abhorred. Howsoever men live or die without the pale of the Church, a wicked Israelite shallbe sure of plagues. How many shall unwish themselves Christians, when God's revenges have found them out? The place where jacob wrestled with GOD 
Peni-el.  and prevailed, now hath wrestled against God, and takes a fall; they see God avenging which would not believe him delivering.  
It was now time for Zeba & Zalmunna to follow those their troops to the grave, whom they had led in the field: Those which the day before, were attended with an hundred thirty five thousand followers, have not so much as a Page now left to weep for their death; and have lived only to see all their friends, and some enemies, die for their sakes. Who can regard earthly greatness, that sees one night change two of the greatest Kings of the world into captives? It had been both pity and sin, that the heads of that Midianitish tyranny, into which they had drawn so many thousands, should have escaped that death.  
And yet, if private revenge had not made Gideon just, I doubt whether they had died; The blood of his brothers calls for theirs, and awakes his sword to their execution; He both knew and complained of the Madianitish oppression, under which Israel groaned: yet the cruelty offered to all the thousands of his Father's sons, had not drawn the blood of Zeba and Zalmunna, if his own mother's sons had not bled by their hands. He that slew the Rulers of Succoth and Penuel, & spared the people, now hath slain the people of Midian, and would have spared their Rulers: but that God which will find occasions to wind wicked men into judgement, will have them slain in a private quarrel, which had more deserved it for the public; If we may not rather say, that Gideon revenged these as a Magistrate, not as a brother: For Governors to respect their own ends in public actions, and to wear the sword of justice in their own sheath, it is a wrongful abuse of authority. The slaughter of Gideons' brethren, was not the greatest sin of the Midianitish Kings; this alone shall kill them, when the rest expected an unjust remission. How many lewd men hath God paid with some one sin for all the rest? Some that have gone away with unnatural filthiness, & capital thefts, have clipped off their own days with their coin; Others, whose bloody murders have been punished in a mutinous word; Others, whose suspected felony hath paid the price of their unknown rape. O GOD, thy judgements are just, even when men's are unjust!  
Gideons' young son is bidden to revenge the death of his Uncles; His sword had not yet learned the way to blood, especially of Kings, though in irons: Deadly executions require strength both of heart and face. How are those aged in evil, that can draw their swords upon the lawfully Anointed of God? These Tyrants plead not now for continuance of life, but for the haste of their death; Fall thou upon us. Death is ever accompanied with pain, which it is no marvel if we wish short: We do not more affect protraction of an easeful life, then speed in our dissolution; for here every pang that tends toward death, renews it: To lie an hour under death, is tedious; but to be dying a whole day, we think above the strength of human patience. Oh what shall we then conceive of that death, which knows no end? As this life is no less frail than the body which it animates; so that death is no less eternal than the soul which must endure it: For us to be dying so long as we now have leave to hue, is intolerable; and yet one only minute of that other tormenting death, is worse than an age of this. Oh the desperate infidelity of careless men, that shrink at the thought of a momentany death, and fear not eternal. This is but a kill of the body: that is a destruction of body and soul.  
Who is so worthy to wear the Crown of Israel, as he that won the Crown from Midian. Their Usurpers were gone, now they are headless; It is a doubt whether they were better to have had no Kings, or Tyrants; They sue to Gideon to accept of the Kingdom, & are repulsed; There is no greater example of modesty, than Gideon. When the Angel spoke to him, he abased himself below all Israel; when the Ephraimites contended with him, he prefers their glean to his vintage, and casts his honour at their feet: and now when Israel proffers him that kingdom which he had merited, he refuses it. He that in overcoming would allow them to cry, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon, in governing, will have none but The sword of the Lord. That which others plot, and sue, and swear, and bribe for, Dignity and superiority, he seriously rejects; whether it were, for that he knew God had not yet called them to a Monarchy; or rather, for that he saw the Crown among thorns? What do we ambitiously affect the command of these molehills of earth, when wise men have refused the proffers of Kingdoms? Why do we not rather labour for that Kingdom which is free from all cares, from all uncertainty?  
Yet he that refuses their Crown, calls for their earrings, although not to enrich himself, but religion. So long had God been a stranger to Israel, that now superstition goes currant for devout worship. It were pity that good intentions should make any man wicked; here they did so: Never man meant better than Gideon in his rich Ephod; yet this very act set all Israel on whoring: God had chosen a place, and a service of his own. When the wit of man will be over-pleasing God with better devices then his own, it turns to madness, and ends in mischief.   

Abimelechs' Usurpation.  
GIdeon refused the kingdom of Israel when it was offered; his seventy sons offered not to obtain that Sceptre, which their father's victory had deserved to make hereditary: only Abimelec the concubines son, sues and ambitiously plots for it. What could Abimelec see in himself that he should overlook all his brethren? If he looked to his father, they were his equals; if to his mother, they were his betters. Those that are most unworthy of honour, are horest in the chase of it, whiles the conscience of better deserts bids men sit still, and stay to be either importuned, or neglected; There can be no greater sign of unfitness, then vehement suit: It is hard to say, whether there be more pride, or ignorance in Ambition. I have noted this difference betwixt spiritual and earthly honour, and the Clients of both; we cannot be worthy of the one without earnest prosecution; nor with earnest prosecution worthy of the other: The violent obtain heaven; only the meek are worthy to inherit the earth.  
That which an aspiring heart hath projected, it will find both argument and means to effect; If either bribes or favour will carry it, the proud man will not sit out; The Shechemites are fit brokers for Abimelec; That City which once betrayed itself to utter depopulation in yielding to the suit of Hamor, now betrays itself, and all Israel in yielding to the request of Abimelec; By them hath this Usurper made himself a fair way to the throne: It was an easy question, Whether will ye admit of the sons of Gideon for your Rulers, or of Strangers? If of the sons of Gideon, whether of all, or one? If of one, whether of your own flesh and blood, or of others unknown? To cast off the sons of Gideon for Strangers, were unthankful; To admit of seventy Kings in one small Country, were unreasonable; To admit of any other rather than their own kinsman, were unnatural. Gideons' sons therefore must rule amongst all Israel; One of his sons amongst those seventy: and who should be that one but Abimelec? Natural respects are the most dangerous corrupters of all elections; What hope can there be of worthy Superiors in any free people, where neereness of blood carries it from fitness of disposition? Whiles they say, He is our brother, they are enemies to themselves, and Israel.  
Fair words have won his brethren; they the Sechemites; the Sechemites furnish him with money, money with men; His men begin with murder, and now Abimelec reigns alone; Flattery, bribes and blood, are the usual stairs of the Ambitious: The money of Baal is a fit hire for murderers; that which Idolatry hath gathered, is fitly spent upon Treason: One devil is ready to help another in mischief; Seldom ever is ill-gotten riches better employed. It is no wonder if he that hath Baal his Idol, now make an Idol of Honour. There was never any man that worshipped but one Idol; Woe be to them that lie in the way of the Aspiring: Thomas they be brothers, they shall bleed; yea the nearer they are, the more sure is their ruin. Who would not now think that Abimelec should find an hell in his breast, after so barbarous and unnatural a massacre; and yet behold he is as senseless as the stone upon which the blood of his seventy brethren was spilled. Where Ambition hath possessed itself thoroughly of the soul, it turns the heart into steel, and makes it uncapable of a conscience; All sins will easily down with the man that is resolved to rise.  
Only jotham fell not at that fatal stone with his brethren; It is an hard battle where none escapes. He escapes, not to reign, not to revenge; but to be a Prophet, and a witness of the vengeance of GOD upon the Usurper, upon the Abettors; He lives to tell Abimelec he was but a bramble, a weed rather than a tree. A right bramble indeed, that grew but out of the base hedg-row of a Concubine, that could not lift up his head from the earth, unless he were supported by some bush or pale of Shechem, that had laid hold of the fleece of Israel, and had drawn blood of all his brethren; and lastly, that had no substance in him, but the sap of vainglory, and the pricks of cruelty. It was better than a kingdom to him, out of his obscure Beer, to see the fire out of this bramble to consume those trees; The view of God's revenge, is so much more pleasing to a good heart, than his own, by how much it is more just and full.  
There was never such a pattern of unthankfulness, as these Israelites: They which lately thought a Kingdom too small recompense for Gideon and his sons, now think it too much for his seed to live; and take life away from the sons of him, that gave them both life and liberty. Yet if this had been some hundred of years after, when time had worn out the memory of jerub-baal, it might have borne a better excuse. No man can hope to hold pace with Time; The best names may not think scorn to be unknown to following generations: but ere their Deliverer was cold in his coffin, to pay his benefits (which deserved to be everlasting) with the extirpation of his Posterity, it was more than savage. What can be looked for from Idolaters? If a man have cast off his God, he will easily cast off his friends: When religion is once gone, humanity will not stay long after.  
That, which the people were punished afterwards for but desiring, he enjoys. Now is Abimelec seated in the throne which his Father refused, and no rival is seen to envy his peace: But how long will this glory last? Stay but three years, and ye shall see this bramble withered, and burnt. The prosperity of the wicked is short and fickle; a stolen Crown (though it may look fair) cannot be made of any but brittle stuff. All life is uncertain: but wickedness over-runnes nature.  
The evil spirit thrust himself into the plot of Abimelechs' usurpation and murder, & wrought with the Sechemites for both: and now God sends the evil spirit betwixt Abimelec and the Sichemites, to work the ruin of each other. The first could not have been without God; but in the second, GOD challenges a part: Revenge is his, where the sin is ours. It had been pity that the Sichemites should have been plagued by any other hand than abimelec's; They raised him unjustly to the Throne, they are the first that feel the weight of his sceptre. The foolish Bird limbs herself with that which grew from her own excretion: who wonders to see the kind Peasant stung with his own snake?  
The breach begins at Shechem; His own Countrymen fly off from their promised allegiance; though all Israel should have fallen of from Abimelec, yet they of Shechem should have stuck close: It was their act, they ought to have made it good. How should good Princes be honoured, when even abimelec's once settled cannot be opposed with safety? Now they begin the revolt to the rest of Israel. Yet, if this had been done out of repentance, it had been praiseworthy; but to be done out of a treacherous inconstancy, was unworthy of Israelites. How could Abimelec hope for fidelity of them, whom he had made and found Traitors to his father's blood? No man knows how to be sure of him that is unconscionable; He that hath been unfaithful to one, knows the way to be perfidious, and is only fit for his trust, that is worthy to be deceived; whereas faithfulness, besides the present good, lays a ground of further assurance. The friendship that is begun in evil, cannot stand; wickedness, both of it own nature, and through the curse of God, is ever unsteady: and though there be not a disagreement in hell (being but the place of retribution, not of action) yet on earth, there is no peace among the wicked; whereas that affection which is knit in God, is indissoluble.  
If the men of Shechem had abandoned their false God, with their false King, and out of a serious remorse, & desire of satisfaction for their idolatry & blood, had opposed this Tyrant, & preferred jotham to his throne, there might have been both warrant for their quarrel, and hope of success: but now, if Abimelec be a wicked Usurper, yet the Shechemites are Idolatrous Traitors. How could they think, that God would rather revenge abimelec's bloody intrusion by them, than their treachery & Idolatry by Abimelec? When the quarrel is betwixt God & Satan, there is no doubt of the issue; but when one devil fights with another, what certainty is there of the victory? Though the cause of God had been good, yet it had been safe for them to look to themselves: the unworthiness of the agent many times, curses a good enterprise.  
No sooner is a secret dislike kindled in any people against their Governors, than there is a Gaal ready to blow the coals: It were a wonder if ever any faction should want an Head; As contrarily, never any man was so ill, as not to have some favourers: Abimelec hath a Zebul in the midst of Shechem; Lightly, all treasons are betrayed even with some of their own; His intelligence brings the sword of Abimelec upon Shechem, who now hath demolished the City, & sown it with salt. Oh the just successions of the revenges of God Gideons' Ephod is punished with the blood of his sons; the blood of his sons is shed by the procurement of the Shechemites; the blood of the Shechemites is shed by Abimelec: the blood of Abimelec is spilled by a woman. The retaliations of God, are sure and just, & make a more due pedigree, than descent of nature.  
The pursued Shechemites, fly to the house of their god Berith; now they are safe: that place is at once a fort, and a sanctuary. Whether should we fly in our distress but to our GOD? And now this refuge shall teach them what a God they have served: The jealous God whom they had forsaken, hath them now where he would, & rejoices at once to be revenged of their god, & them: Had they not made the house of Baal their shelter, they had not died so fearfully. Now, according to the prophecy of jotham, a fire goes out of the bramble, and consumes these Cedars, and their eternal flames begin in the house of their Berith: the confusion of wicked men, rises out of the false Deities which they have doted on.  
Of all the Conspirators against Gideons' sons, only Abimelec yet survives, and his day is now coming. His success against Shechem, hath filled his heart with thoughts of victory; He hath caged up the inhabitants of Tebez within their tower also; and what remains for them, but the same end with their neighbours? And behold, while his hand is busy in putting fire to the door of their tower, which yet was not high (for then he could not have discerned a woman to be his Executioner) a stone from a woman's hand strikes his head; His pain in dying, was not so much as his indignation to know by whom he died: & rather will he die twice, than a woman shall kill him. If God had not known his stomach so big, he had not vexed him with the impotency of his Victor: God finds a time to reckon with wicked men for all the arrearages of their sins. Our sins are not more our debts to God, than his judgements are his debts to our sins, which at last he will be sure to pay home. There now lies the greatness of Abimelec; upon one stone had he slain his seventy brethren, & now a stone slays him; His head had stolen the Crown of Israel, & now his head is smitten: And what is Abimelec better that he was a King? What difference is there betwixt him, and any of his seventy brethren whom he murdered, save only in guiltiness? They bear but their own blood; he, the weight of all theirs. How happy a thing is it to live well! that our death, as it is certain, so may be comfortable: What a vanity it is to insult in the death of them, whom we must follow the same way?  
The Tyrant hath his payment, & that time which he should have bestowed in calling for mereie to GOD, and washing his bloody soul with the last tears of contrition, he vainly spends in deprecating an idle reproach; Kill me, that it may not be said, He died by a woman: A fit conclusion for such a life. The expectation of true and endless torment, doth not so much vex him, as the frivolous report of a dishonour; neither is he so much troubled with, Abimelec is frying in hell, as, Abimelec is slain by a woman. So, vain fools are niggardly of their reputation, & prodigal of their souls; Do we not see them run wilfully into the field, into the grave, in●o hell? and all, lest it should be said, They have but as much fear, as wit.    

Contemplations.  
THE TENTH BOOK.  
Containing jeptha. Samson conceived. Sampsons' marriage. Sampsons' victory. Sampsons' end. Michaes Idolatry.   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MY SINGULAR GOOD LORD, SIR Henry Danvers, Knight; Baron of Dantesey: A worthy pattern of all true Nobility, accomplished both for war and peace; A munificent favourer of all learning and virtue; I. H.  
With humble apprecation of all true happiness, Dedicates this part of his poor Labours.   

CONTEMPLATIONS.  

Jeptha.  
ISrael, that had now long gone a whoring from GOD, hath been punished by the regiment of the Concubine's son, and at last seeks protection from the son of an harlot: It is no small misery to be obliged unto the unworthy. The concubines son made suit to them; They make suit to the son of the harlot. It was no fault of jeptha that he had an ill mother, yet is he branded with the indignity of his bastardy; neither would God conceal this blemish of nature, which jeptha could neither avoid, nor remedy. God, to show his detestation of whoredom, revenges it not only upon the actors, but upon their issue: Hence he hath shut out the base-son from the congregation of Israel, to the tenth generation, that a transient evil might have a durable reproach attending it; And that after the death of the Adulterer, yet his shame might live. But, that God who justly ties men to his laws, will not abide that we should tie him to our laws, or his own; He can both rectify and ennoble the blood of jeptha. That no man should be too much discouraged with the errors of his propagation, even the base son of man may be the lawfully begotten of God; & though he be cast out from the inheritance of his brethren upon earth, may be admitted to the kingdom of Israel.  
I hear no praise of the lawful issue of Gilead; only this misbegotten son is commended for his valour, and set at the stern of Israel: The common gifts of God respect not the parentage or blood, but are indifferently scattered where he pleases to let them fall. The choice of the Almighty, is not guided by our rules; As in spiritual, so in earthly things, it is not in him that willeth: If GOD would have men glory in these outward privileges, he would bestow upon them none but the worthy.  
Now, who can be proud of strength or greatness, when he sees him that is not so honest, yet is more valiant, and more advanced? Had not jeptha been base, he had not been thrust out; and if he had not been thrust out from his brethren, he had never been the Captain of Israel. By contrary paces to ours, it pleaseth GOD to come to his own ends: and how usually doth he look the contrary way, to that he moves? No man can measure the conclusion of God's act by his beginning: He that fetches good out of evil, raises the glory of men out of their ruin. Men love to go the nearest way, and often fail: GOD commonly goes about, and in his own time comes surely home.  
The Gileadites were not so forward to expel jeptha, as glad to recall him; No Ammonite threatened them when they parted with such an helper: Now, whom they cast out in their peace, they fetch home in their danger and misery. That God who never gave aught in vain, will find a time to make use of any gift that he hath bestowed upon men; The valour of jeptha shall not rust in his secrecy, but be employed to the common preservation of Israel: Necessity will drive us to seek up all our helps, even those whom our wantonness hath despised.  
How justly are the suits of our need up braided with the errors of our prosperity? The Elders of Gilead now hear of their ancient wrong, and dare not find fault with their exprobration; Did ye not hate me, and expel me out of my Father's house? How then come ye now to me in time of Tribulation? The same expostulation that jeptha makes with Gilead, GOD also at the same time makes with Israel; Ye have for saken me, & served other Gods; wherefore should I deliver you any more: Go & cry unto the gods whom ye have served. As we, so God also finds it seasonable to tell his children of their faults, whiles he is whipping them. It is a safe and wise course, to make much of those in our peace, whom we must make use of in our extremity; else it is but just, that we should be rejected of those, whom we have rejected. Can we look for any other answer from God than this? Did ye not drive me out of your houses, out of your hearts, in the time of your health and jollity? Did ye not plead the strictness of my charge, & the weight of my yoke? Did not your wilful sins expel me from your souls? What do you now crouching & creeping to me in the evil day? Surely, O God, it is but justice, if thou be not found of those, which were glad to lose thee; it is thy mercy, if after many checks, and delays, thou wilt be found at last. Where an act cannot be reversed, there is no amends, but confession; and if God himself take up with this satisfaction, He that confesses, shall find mercy; how much more should men hold themselves well paid with words of humility, and deprecation?  
jeptha's wisdom had not been answerable to his valour, if he had not made his match before hand; He could not but know how treacherously Israel had dealt with Gideon. We cannot make too sure work, when we have to do with unfaithful men: It hath been an old policy to serve ourselves of men; and after our advantage, to turn them up. He bargains therefore for his Soveraignttie ere he win it, Shall I be your Head? We are all naturally ambitious, and are ready to buy honour even with hazard. And if the hope of a troublesome superiority encouraged jeptha to fight against the forces of Ammon, what heart should we take in the battles of God against spiritual wickednesses, when the God of heaven hath said, To him that overcomes, will I give power over nations, and to sit with me in my Throne? Oh that we could bend our eyes upon the recompense of our reward; how willingly should we march forward against these mighty Ammonites! jeptha is noted for his valour, and yet he entreats with Ammon, ere he fights. To make war any other than our last remedy, is not courage, but cruelty and rashness: And now, when reason will not prevail, he betakes himself to his sword.  
As God began the war with jeptha, in raising up his heart to that pitch of fortitude; so jeptha began his war at GOD, in craving victory from him, & pouring out his vow to him: His hand took hold of his sword; his heart, of God: therefore he, whom the old Testament styles valiant, the new, styles faithful; He who is commended for his strength, dares trust in none, but the arm of God: If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand. If jeptha had not looked upward for his victory, in vain had the Gileadites looked up to him: This is the disposition of all good hearts, they look to their sword, or their bow, as servants, not as Patrons; and whiles they use them, trust to God. If we could do so in all our businesses, we should have both more joy in their success, and less discomfort in their miscarriage.  
It was his zeal to vow: it was his sin to vow rashly. jacob his forefather, of whom he learned to vow, might have taught him a better form; If GOD will be with me, then shall the Lord be my God. It is well with vows, when the thing promised makes the promise good: But when jeptha says, Whatsoever thing cometh out of the doors of my house, shall be the Lords, or I will offer it for a burnt sacrifice; his devotion is blind, and his good affection over-runnes his judgement: For what if a dog, or a swine, or an ass had met him, where had been the promise of his consecration?  
Vows are as they are made; like unto scents, if they be of ill composition, nothing offends more; if well tempered, nothing is more pleasant: Either certainty of evil, or uncertainty of good, or impossibility of performance, makes vows no service to God. When we vow what we cannot, or what we ought not do, we mock God instead of honouring him: It is a vain thing for us, to go about to catch God hoodwinked; The conscience shall never find peace in any way, but that which we see before us, and which we know safe both in the kind, and circumstances. There is no comfort in (peradventure I may please God.) What good child will not take part of the Parents joy? If jeptha return with Trophies, it is no marvel if his daughter meet him with Timbrels: Oh that we could be so affected with the glorious acts of our heavenly Father! Thou subduest thine enemies, and mightily deliverest thy people. O GOD, a song waiteth for thee in Zion.  
Who would have suspected danger in a dutiful Triumph? Well might jeptha's daughter have thought; My sex forbade me to do any thing towards the help of my Father's victory; I can do little, if I cannot applaud it; If nature have made me weak, yet not unthankful; nothing forbids my joy to be as strong as the Victors; Though I might not go out with my father to fight, yet I may meet him with gratulations; A Timbrel may become these hands which were unfit for a sword; This day hath made me the daughter of the Head of Israel; This day hath made both Israel free, my father a Conqueror, and myself in him noble: and shall my affection make no difference? What must my father needs think, if he shall find me sitting sullenly at home, whiles all Israel strives who shall run first to bless him with their acclamations? Should I only be insensible of his, and the common happiness?  
And now, behold when she looks for most thanks, her father answers the measures of her feet, with the knockings of his breast, and weeps at her music, & tears his clothes to look upon her, whom he best loved, and gives no answer to her Timbrels, but Alas my daughter, thou art of them that trouble me: Her joy alone hath changed the day, & lost the comfort of that victory, which she enjoyed to see won. It falls out often, that those times and occasions, which promise most contentment, prove most doleful in the issue: The heart of this Virgin was never lifted up so high as now, neither did any day of her life seem happy but this; and this only, proves the day of her solemn, and perpetual mourning: As contrarily the times and events which we have most disinherited, prove most beneficial. It is good in a fair morning, to think of the storm that may rise ere night, and to enjoy both good and evil fearfully.  
Miserable is that devotion which troubles us in the performance; Nothing is more pleasant than the acts of true piety: jeptha might well see the wrong of this religion, in the distaste of it; yet whiles himself had troubled his daughter, he says, Alas my daughter, thou art of them that trouble me. She did but her duty, he did what he should not; yet he would be rid of the blame, though he cannot of the smart. No man is willing to own a sin; the first man shifted it from himself, to his wife; this, from himself to his daughter: He was ready to accuse another, which only committed it himself. It were happy if we could be as loath to commit sin, as to acknowledge it.  
The inconsideration of this vow was very tough, and settled; I have opened my mouth, and cannot go back. If there were just cause to repent, it was the weakness of his zeal, to think that a vow could bind him to evil; An unlawful vow is ill made, but worse performed. It were pity this constancy should light upon any, but an holy object: No loan can make a truer debt, than our vow; which if we pay not in our performance, God will pay us with judgement. We have all opened our mouths to God in that initial, and solemn vow of Christianity; Oh that we could not go back! So much more is our vow obligatory, by how much the thing vowed is more necessary.  
Why was the soul of jeptha thus troubled, but because he saw the entail of his new honour thus suddenly cut off? He saw the hope of posterity extinguished, in the virginity of his daughter. It is natural to us, to affect that perpetuity in our succession, which is denied us in our persons; Our very bodies would emulate the eternity of the soul. And if GOD have built any of us an house on earth, as well as prepared us an house in heaven, it must be confessed a favour, worth our thankfulness: but as the perpetuity of our earthly houses is uncertain; so let us not rest our hearts upon that, but make sure of the house which is eternal in the heavens.  
Doubtless, the goodness of the daughter added to the father's sorrow: She was not more loving, then religious; neither is she less willing to be the Lords, than her fathers: and as provoking her father to that which he thought piety, though to her own wrong, she says, If thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do with me as thou hast promised. Many a daughter would have dissuaded her father with tears, and have wished rather her father's impiety, than her own prejudice; She sues for the smart of her father's vow. How obsequious should children be to the will of their careful Parents, even in their final disposition in the world, when they see this holy maid willing to abandon the world upon the rash vow of a father? They are the living goods of their Parents, and must therefore wait upon the bestowing of their owners: They mistake themselves, which think they are their own; If this maid had vowed herself to God without her Father, it had been in his power to abrogate it; but now that he vowed her to GOD without herself, it stands in force. But what shall we say to those children, whom their Parents vow and care, cannot make so much as honest; that will be no other than godless in spite of their Baptism, and education? What, but that they are given their Parents for a curse, and shall one day find what it is to be rebellious.  
All her desire is, that she may have leave to bewail that which she must be forced to keep, Virginity: If she had not held it an affliction, there had been no cause to bewail it; it had been no thank to undergo it, if she had not known it to be a cross. Tears are no argument of impatience; we may mourn for that we repine not to bear: How comes that to be a meritorious virtue under the Gospel, which was but a punishment under the Law? The daughters of Israel had been too lavish of their tears, if virginity had been absolutely good: What injury should it have been to lament that spiritual preferment, which they should rather have emulated?  
While jeptha's daughter was two months in the mountains, she might have had good opportunity to escape her father's vow; but as one, whom her obedience tied as close to her father, as his vow tied him to God, she returns to take up that burden, which she had bewailed to foresee: If we be truly dutiful to our father in heaven, we would not slip our necks out of the yoke though we might, nor fly from his commands, though the door were open.   

Samson conceived.  
OF extraordinary persons, the very birth & conception is extraordinary; God begins his wonders betimes, in those whom he will make wonderful: There was never any of those which were miraculously conceived, whose lives were not notable, and singular. The presages of the womb, and the cradle, are commonly answered in the life; It is not the use of GOD to cast away strange beginnings. If Manoahs' wife had not been barren, the Angel had not been barren, the Angel had not been sent to her: Afflictions have this advantage, that they occasion GOD to show that mercy to us, whereof the prosperous are uncapable; It would not beseem a mother to be so indulgent to an healthful child, as to a sick. It was to the woman that the Angel appeared, not to the husband; whether for that the reproach of barrenness lay upon her more heavily, then on the father; or for that the birth of the child should cost her more dear than her husband; or lastly, for that the difficulty of this news was more in her conception, then in his generation: As Satan lays his batteries ever to the weakest; so contrarily, God addresseth his comforts to those hearts that have most need; As, at the first, because Eve had most reason to be dejected, for that her sin had drawn man into the Transgression, therefore the Cordial of GOD most respecteth her; The seed of the Woman shall break the Serpent's head.  
As a Physician first tells the state of the disease with his Symptoms, and then prescribes; so doth the Angel of God, first tell the wife of Manoah her complaint, than her remedy; Thou art barren. All our afflictions are more noted of that GOD which sends them, then of the Patient that suffers them: how can it be but less possible to endure any thing that he knows not, than that he inflicteth not? He saith to one, Thou art sick; to an other, Thou art poor; to a third, Thou art defamed; Thou art oppressed, to another: That all-seeing Eye, taketh notice from heaven of every man's condition, no less then if he should send an Angel to tell us he knew it; His knowledge compared with his mercy, is the just comfort of all our sufferings. O GOD, we are many times miserable, and feel it not; Thou knowest even those sorrows which we might have; Thou knowest what thou hast done: do what thou wilt.  
Thou art barren. Not that the Angel would upbraid the poor woman with her affliction; but therefore he names her pain, that the mention of her cure might be so much more welcome; Comfort shall come unseasonably to that heart which is not apprehensive of his own sorrow: We must first know our evils, ere we can quit them. It is the just method of every true Angel of GOD, first to let us see that whereof either we do, or should complain, and then to apply comforts. Like as a good Physician, first pulls down the body, and then raises it with cordials. If we cannot abide to hear of our faults, we are not capable of amendment.  
If the Angel had first said, Thou shalt conceive, and not premised, Thou art barren; I doubt whether she had conceived faith in her soul, of that infant which her body should conceive; Now, his knowledge of her present estate, makes way for the assurance of the future. Thus ever it pleases our good God, to leave a pawn of his fidelity with us; that we should not distrust him in what he will do, when we find him faithful in that which we see done.  
It is good reason that he which gives the son to the barren mother, should dispose of him, and diet him both in the womb first, and after, in the world. The mother must first be a Nazarite, that her son may be so. Whiles she was barren, she might drink what she would: but now that she shall conceive a Samson, her choice must be limited; There is an holy austerity that ever follows the special calling of GOD; The worldling may take his full scope, and deny his back and belly nothing; but he that hath once conceived that blessed burden, whereof Samson was a type, must be strict and severe to himself; neither his tongue, nor his palate, nor his hand may run riot; Those pleasures which seemed not unseemly for the multitude, are now debarred him. We borrow more names of our Saviour then one; As we are Christians, so we are Nazarites, the consecration of our God is upon our heads; and therefore our very hair should be holy. Our appetite must be kerbed, our passions moderated, and so estranged from the world, that in the loss of parents, or children, nature may not make us forget grace. What doth the looseness of vain men persuade them that God is not curious, when they see him thus precisely ordering the very diet of his Nazarites? Nature pleads for liberty; religion for restraint: Not that there is more uncleanness in the grape, then in the fountain; but that wine finds more uncleanness in us, than water, and that the high feed is not so fit for devotion, as abstinence. Who sees not a ceremony in this command? Which yet carries with it this substance of everlasting use, that God and the belly will not admit of one servant; that quaffing and cramming is not the way to heaven: A drunken Nazarite is a monster among men. We have now more scope than the ancient; not drinking of wine, but drunkenness with wine is forbidden to the evangelical Nazarite; wine, wherein is excess. Oh that ever Christian should quench the spirit of GOD, with a liquor of Gods own making; That they should suffer their hearts to be drowned with wine, and should so live, as if the practice of the Gospel, were quite contrary to the rule of the law.  
The mother must conceive the only Giant of Israel, & yet must drink but water; neither must the child touch any other cup. Never wine made so strong a Champion as water did here: The power of nourishment, is not in the creatures, but in their Maker. Daniel and his three companions kept their complexion, with the same diet wherewith Samson got his strength; he that gave that power to the grape, can give it to the stream. O God, how justly do we raise our eyes from our tables unto thee, which canst make water nourish, and wine enfeeble us!  
Samson had not a better mother, than Manoah had a wife; she hides not the good news in her own bosom, but imparts it to her husband: That wife hath learned to make a true use of her Head, which is ever read to consult with him, about the messages of God. If she were made for his helper, he is much more hers. Thus should good women make amends for their first offence; that as Eve no sooner had received an ill motion, but she delivered it to her husband; so they should no sooner receive good, than they should impart it.  
Manoah (like one which in those lend times had not lost his acquaintance with God) so soon as he hears the news, falls down upon his knees: I do not hear him call forth and address his servants to all the coasts of heaven (as the children of the prophets did in the search of Elias) to find out the messenger; but I see him rather look strait up, to that GOD which sent him; My Lord, I pray thee let that man of God come again. As a strait line is the shortest, the nearest cut to any blessing is to go by heaven; As we may not sue to God, and neglect means, so we must sue to GOD for those means which we shall use.  
When I see the strength of Manoahs' faith, I marvel not that he had a Samson to his son; he saw not the messenger, he heard not the errand, he examined not the circumstances; yet now he takes thought, not whether he shall have a son, but how he shall order the son which he must have; and sues to God, not for the son which as yet he had not, but for the direction of governing him, when he should be. Zachariah heard the same message, & craving a sign, lost that voice wherewith he craved it: Manoah seeks no sign for the promise, but counsel for himself; and yet, that Angel spoke to Zachary himself, this only to the wife of Manoah; that, in the Temple like a glorious spirit; this, in the house, or field, like some Prophet, or traveler; that to a Priest, this to a woman. All good men have not equal measures of faith; The bodies of men have not more differences of stature, than their graces: Credulity to men is faulty and dangerous; but in the matters of GOD, is the greatest virtue of a Christian; Happy are they that have not seen, yet believed: True faith takes all for granted, yea for performed, which is once promised.  
He that before sent his Angel unasked, will much more send him again, upon entreaty; those heavenly messengers are ready both to obey their Maker, and to relieve his children. Never any man prayed for direction in his duties to God, and was repulsed: rather will God send an Angel from heaven to instruct us, than our good desires shall be frustrate.  
Manoah prayed, the Angel appeared again; not to him, but to his wife. It had been the shorter way, to have come first to the man whose prayers procured his presence: But as Manoah went directly, and immediately to GOD, so God comes mediately & about to him; and will make her the means to bear the message to her husband, who must bear him the son: Both the blessing and the charge are chiefly meant to her. It was a good care of Manoah, when the Angel had given order to his wife alone, for the governing of the child's diet, to proffer himself to this charge; How shall we order the child? As both the Parents have their part in the being of their children, so should they have in their education; it is both unreasonable and unnatural in husbands, to cast this burden upon the weaker vessel alone: it is no reason that she which alone hath had the pain of their birth, should have the pain of their breeding. Though the charge be renewed to the wife, yet the speech is directed to the husband; the act must be hers, his must be the oversight; Let her observe all that I have commanded her. The head must overlook the body; it is the duty of the husband to be careful that the wife do her duty to God.  
As yet, Manoah saw nothing but the outside of a man, and therefore offers the Angel an answerable entertainment, wherein there is at once Hospitality and Thankfulness. No man shall bring him good news from GOD, and go away unrecompensed; How forward he is to feast him, whom he took for a Prophet: their feet should be so much more beautiful, that bring us news of salvation, by how much their errand is better.  
That Manoah might learn to acknowledge God in this man, he sets off the proffer of his thankfulness from himself, to God; and (as the same Angel which appeared to Gideon) turns his feast into a sacrifice: And now he is Manoahs' solicitor to better thanks than he offered. How forward the good Angels are to incite us unto piety! Either this was the Son himself, which said It was his meat and drink to do his Father's will, or else one of his spiritual attendance of the same diet. We can never feast the Angels better, then with our hearty sacrifices to God; Why do not we learn this lesson of them, whom we propound to ourselves as the patterns of our obedience? We shall be once like the Angels in condition, why are we not in the mean time in our dispositions? If we do not provoke, and exhort one another to godliness, and do care more for a feast, than a sacrifice, our appetite is not Angelical, but brutish.  
It was an honest mind in Manoah, whiles he was addressing a sacrifice to God, yet not to neglect his messenger; fain would he know whom to honour; True piety is not uncivil, but whiles it magnifies the author of all blessings, is thankful to the means: Secondary causes are worthy of regard: neither need it detract any thing from the praise of the agent, to honour the instrument. It is not only rudeness, but injustice in those, which can be content to hear good news from God, with contempt of the bearers.  
The Angel will neither take nor give, but conceals his very name from Manoah. All honest motions are not fit to be yielded to; good intentions are not always sufficient grounds of condiscent. If we do sometimes ask what we know not, it is no marvel if we receive not what we ask. In some cases, the Angel of God tells his name unasked, as Gabriel to the Virgin; here, not by entreaty: If it were the Angel of the covenant, he had as yet no name but jehovah; if a created Angel, he had no commission to tell his name; & a faithful messenger hath not a word beyond his charge: Besides that, he saw it would be of more use for Manoah, to know him really, then by words. Oh the bold presumption of those men, which (as if they had long sojourned in heaven, and been acquainted with all the holy Legions of spirits) discourse of their orders; of their titles, when this one Angels stops the mouth of a better man than they, with Why dost thou ask after my name, which is secret? Secret things to God; revealed, to us and our children. No word can be so significant as actions; The act of the Angel tells best who he was; He did wonderfully: wonderful therefore was his name. So soon as ever the flame of the sacrifice ascended, he mounted up in the smoke of it; that Manoah might see the sacrifice, and the messenger belonged both to one God; and might know, both whence to acknowledge the message, and whence to expect the performance.  
Gideons' Angel vanished at his sacrifice, but this in the sacrifice; that Manoah might at once see both the confirmation of his promise, and the acceptation of his obedience, whiles the Angel of God vouchsafed to perfume himself with that holy smoke, & carry the sent of it up into heaven. Manoah believed before, and craved no sign to assure him; God voluntarily confirms it to him above his desire: To him that hath, shall be given. Where there are beginnings of faith, the mercy of GOD will add perfection.  
How do we think Manoah and his wife looked to see this spectacle? They had not spirit enough left to look one upon another: but in steed of looking up cheerfully to heaven, they fall down to the earth, on their faces; as weak eyes are dazzled with that which should comfort them. This is the infirmity of our nature, to be afflicted with the causes of our joy; to be astonished with our confirmations; to conceive death in that vision of God, wherein our life & happiness consists. If this homely sight of the Angel did so confound good Manoah, what shall become of the enemies of God, when they shall be brought before the glorious Tribunal of the God of Angels?  
I marvel not now, that the Angel appeared both times rather to the wife of Manoah; her faith was the stronger of the two. It falls out sometimes, that the weaker vessel is fuller; and that of more precious liquor: that wife is no helper which is not ready to give spiritual comfort to her husband; The reason was good, and irrefragable, If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering from us; God will not accept gifts, where he intends punishment, and professes hatred. The sacrifice of the wicked, is an abomination to the Lord: If we can find assurance of God's acceptation of our sacrifices, we may be sure he loves our persons. If I incline to wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear me; but the Lord hath heard me.   

Sampsons' marriage.  
OF all the Deliverers of Israel, there is none of whom are reported so many weaknesses, or so many miracles, as of Samson: The news which the Angel told of his conception and education, was not more strange, than the news of his own choice; he but sees a daughter of the Philistims, and falls in love; All this strength begins in infirmity; One maid of the Philistims, over-comes that Champion which was given to overcome the Philistims: Even he that was dieted with water, found heat of unfit desires: As his body was strong notwithstanding that fare, so were his passions; without the gift of continency, a low feed may impair nature, but not inordination. To follow nothing but the eye in the choice of his wife, was a lust unworthy of a Nazarite; This is to make the sense not a Counsellor, but a Tyrant.  
Yet was Samson in this very impotency, dutiful; He did not in the presumption of his strength ravish her forcibly; He did not make up a clandestine match without consulting his Parents, but he makes suit to them for consent; Give me her to wife: As one that could be master of his own act, though not of his passion; and as one that had learned so to be a suitor, as not to forget himself to be a son. Even in this deplored state of Israel, children durst not presume to be their own carvers; how much less is this tolerable in a wel-guided and Christian Commonwealth? Whosoever now dispose of themselves without their Parents, they do wilfully un-child themselves, and change natural affection for violent.  
It is no marvel if Manoah and his wife were astonished at this unequal motion of their son; Did not the Angel (thought they) tell us that this child should be consecrated to God, and must he begin his youth in unholy wedlock? Did not the Angel say that our son should begin to save Israel from the Philistims, and is he now captived in his affections by a daughter of the Philistims? Shall our deliverance from the Philistims begin in an alliance? Have we been so scrupulously careful, that he should eat no unclean thing, & shall we now consent to an heathenish match? Now therefore they gravely endeavour to cool this intemperate heat of his passion, with good counsel; as those which well knew the inconveniences of an unequal yoke; corruption in religion, alienation of affections, distraction of thoughts, connivence at Idolatry, death of zeal, dangerous underminings, and lastly, an unholy seed: Who can blame them if they were unwilling to call a Philistim, daughter?  
I wish Manoah could speak so loud that all our Israelites might hear him; Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all God's people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistims? If religion be any other than a cipher, how dare we not regard it in our most important choice? Is she a fair Philistim? Why is not this deformity of the soul more powerful to dissuade us, than the beauty of the face, or of metal to allure us? To dote upon a fair skin when we see a Philistim under it, is sensual and brutish.  
Affection is not more blind, than deaf. In vain do the Parents seek to alter a young man, not more strong in body, then in will; though he cannot defend his desires, yet he pursues them; Get me her, for she pleases me. And although it must needs be a weak motion that can plead no reason, but appetite; yet the good Parents, sith they cannot bow the affection of their son with persuasion, dare not break it with violence. As it becomes not children to be forward in their choice; so Parents may not be too peremptory in their denial; It is not safe for children to overrun Parents in settling their affections; nor for Parents (where the impediments are not very material) to come short of their children, when the affections are once settled: The one is disobedience; the other may be tyranny.  
I know not whether I may excuse either Samson in making this suit, or his Parents in yielding to it, by a divine dispensation in both: For on the one side, whiles the spirit of God notes, that as yet his parents knew not this was of the Lord, it may seem that he knew it; and is it likely he would know and not impart it? This alone was enough to win, yea to command his Parents; It is not mine eye only, but the counsel of God, that leads me to this choice; The way to quarrel with the Philistims, is to match with them; If I follow mine affection, mine affection follows God, in this project. Surely, he that commanded his Prophet afterwards to marry an harlot, may have appointed his Nazarite to marry with a Philistim: On the other side, whether it were of God permitting, or allowing, I find not; It might so be of God, as all the evil in the City; and then the interposition of God's decree, shall be no excuse of Sampsons' infirmity. I would rather think, that God meant only to make a Treacle of a Viper; and rather appointed to fetch good out of Sampsons' evil, then to approve that for good in Samson, which in itself was evil.  
When Samson went on wooing, he might have made the sluggards excuse, There is a Lion in the way: but he that could not be stayed by persuasion, will not by fear. A Lion, young, wild, fierce, hungry, comes roaring upon him when he had no weapon but his hand, no fence but his strength; the same Providence that carried him to Timnah, brought the Lion to him. It hath been ever the fashion of God, to exercise his Champions with some initiatory encounters: Both Samson & David must first fight with Lions, then with Philistims; & he whose type they bore, meets with that roaring Lion of the wilderness, in the very threshold of his public charge. The same hand that prepared a Lion for Samson, hath proportionable matches for every Christian; God never gives strength, but he employs it: Poverty, meets one like an armed man; Infamy, like some furious mastiff, comes flying in the face of another; the wild Boar out of the forest, or the bloody Tiger of persecution sets upon one; the brawling curs of heretical pravity or contentious neighbourhood, are ready to bait another: and by all these meaner and brutish adversaries, will God fit us for greater conflicts: It is a pledge of our future victory over the spiritual Philistims, if we can say, My soul hath been among Lions. Come forth now thou weak Christian, and behold this preparatory battle of Samson; Dost thou think GOD deals hardly with thee in matching thee so hard, and calling thee forth to so many frays? What dost thou but repine at thine own glory? How shouldst thou be victorious, without resistance?  
If the Parents of Samson had now stood behind the hedge and seen this encounter, they would have taken no further care of matching their son with a Philistim; For who that should see a strong Lion ramping upon an unarmed man, would hope for his life and victory? The beast came bristling up his fearful mane, wafting his raised stern, his eyes sparkling with fury, his mouth roaring out knells of his last passage, and breathing death from his nostrils, and now rejoiced at so fair a prey. Surely, if the Lion had had no other adversary then him whom he saw, he had not lost his hope; but now he could not see that his Maker was his enemy; The spirit of the Lord came upon Samson; What is a beast in the hand of the Creator? He that struck the Lions with the awe of Adam, Noah, and Daniel, subdued this rebellious beast to Samson; What marvel is it, if Samson now tore him, as if it had been a young Kid? If his bones had been brass, and his skin plates of iron, all had been one: The right hand of the Lord bringeth mighty things to pass.  
If that roaring Lion, that goes about continually seeking whom he may devour, find us alone among the vineyards of the Philistims, where is our hope? Not in our heels; he is swifter than we: not in our weapons; we are naturally unarmed: not in our hands, which are weak and languishing; but in the spirit of that GOD, by whom we can do all things: if God fight in us, who can resist him? There is a stronger Lion in us, then that against us.  
Samson was not more valiant than modest; he made no words of this great exploit: the greatest performers ever make the least noise; He that works wonders alone, could say, See thou tell no man; where as those, whose hands are most impotent, are busiest of their tongues. Great talkers show that they desire only to be thought eminent, whereas the deepest waters are least heard.  
But, whiles he concealed this event from others, he pondered it in himself; and when he returned to Timnath, went out of the way to see his dead Adversary, and could not but recall to himself his danger, and deliverance; here the beast met me, thus he fought, thus I slew him. The very dead Lion taught Samson thankfulness: there was more honey in this thought, then in the carcase. The mercies of GOD are ill bestowed upon us, if we cannot step aside to view the monuments of his deliverances; Dangers may be at once past, & forgotten. As Samson had not found his hony-comb, if he had not turned aside to see his Lion; so we shall lose the comfort of God's benefits, if we do not renew our perils by meditation.  
Lest any thing should befall Samson, wherein is not some wonder, his Lion doth more amaze him dead, then alive; For lo, that carcase is made an Hive; & the bitterness of death, is turned into the sweetness of honey. The Bee, a nice & dainty creature, builds her cells in an unsavoury carcase; the carcase that promised nothing but strength, and annoyance, now offers comfort & refreshing; and in a sort, pays Samson for the wrong offered. Oh the wonderful goodness of our GOD, that can change our terrors into pleasure, and can make the greatest evils beneficial! Is any man, by his humiliation under the hand of GOD, grown more faithful, and conscionable? there is honey out of the Lion. Is any man by his temptation or fall become more circumspect? there also is honey out of the Lion: there is no Samson to whom every Lion doth not yield honey: Every Christian is the better for his evils; yea, Satan himself, in his exercise of God's children, advantageth them.  
Samson doth not disdain these sweets, because he finds them uncleanly laid; His diet was strict, and forbade him any thing that savoured of legal impurity; yet he eats the honeycomb out of the belly of a dead beast; Good may not be refused, because the means are accidentally evil; Honey is honey still, though in a dead Lion. Those are less wise, and more scrupulous than Samson, which abhor the graces of God, because they find them in ill vessels: One cares not for the Preachers true doctrine, because his life is evil; Another will not take a good receipt from the hand of a Physician, because he is given to unlawful studies; A 3 d, will not receive a deserved contribution from the hands of a Usurer. It is a weak neglect not to take the honey, because we hate the Lion: Gods children have right to their father's blessings, wheresoever they find them.  
The match is now made; Samson (though a Nazarite) hath both a wedding, and afeast; God never misliked moderate solemnities in the severest life; and yet this Bridall-feast was long, the space of seven days. If Samson had matched with the best Israelite, this celebration had been no greater; neither had this perhaps been so long, if the custom of the place had not required it. Now I do not hear him plead his Nazaritisme, for a colour of singularity: It is both lawful and fit, in things not prohibited, to conform ourselves to the manners and rites of those with whom we live.  
That Samson might think it an honour to match with the Philistims, he whom before the Lion found alone, is now accompanied with thirty attendants; They called them companions, but they meant them for spies: The courtesies of the world are hollow and and thankless; neither doth it ever purpose so ill, as when it shows fairest. None are so near to danger, as those whom it entertains with smiles; whiles it frowns, we know what to trust to; but the favours of it are worthy of nothing but fears & suspicion: Open defiance is better than false love.  
Austerity had not made Samson uncivil; he knows how to entertain Philistims with a formal familiarity: And that his intellectual parts might be approved answerable to his arms, he will first try masteries of wit, and set their brains on work with harmless thoughts; His riddle shall appose them, and a deep wager shall hind the solution; Thirty shirts, and thirty suits of raymem; neither their loss, nor their gain could be much, besides the victory, being divided unto thirty partners: but Sampsons' must needs be both ways very large, who must give or receive thirty alone. The seven days of the feast are expiring, and yet they which had been all this while devouring of Sampsons' meat, cannot tell who that cater should be from whence meat should come. In course of nature, the strong feeder takes-in meat, and sends out filthiness; but, that meat and sweetness should come from a devouring stomach, was beyond their apprehension.  
And as fools and dogs use to begin in jest, and end in earnest, so did these Philistims; and therefore they force the Bride to entice her husband to betray himself. Covetousness & Pride have made them impatient of loss: and now they threat to fire her, and her father's house, for recompense of their entertainment, rather than they will lose a small wager to an Israelite. Somewhat of kin to these savage Philistims, are those choleric Gamesters, which if the dice be not their friend, fall out with GOD, curse (that which is not) Fortune; strike their fellows, and are ready to take vengeance upon themselves: Those men are unfit for sport, that lose their patience together with their wager.  
I do not wonder that a Philistim woman loved herself and her father's family, more than an Israelitish Bridegroom; and if she bestowed tears upon her husband, for the ransom of them. Samson himself taught her this difference, I have not told it my father or my mother, and should I tell it thee? If she had not been as she was, she had neither done this to Samson, nor heard this from him; Matrimonial respects are dearer than natural; It was the law of him that ordained marriage (before ever Parents were) that Parents should be forsaken, for the husband or wife: But now, Israelitish Parents are worthy of more entireness, than a wife of the Philistims; And yet, whom the Lion could not conquer, the tears of a woman have conquered. Samson never bewrayed infirmity but in uxoriousnes; What assurance can there be of him that hath a Philistim in his bosom? Adam, the perfectest man, Samson, the strongest man, Solomon, the wisest man, were betrayed with the flattery of their helpers. As there is no comfort comparable to a faithful yoke-fellow, so woe be to him that is matched with a Philistim.  
It could not but much discontent Samson, to see that his adversaries had ploughed with his heifer, & that upon his own back; now therefore he pays his wager to their cost. Ascalon the City of the Philistims is his wardrobe, he fetches thence thirty suits, lined with the lives of the owners: He might with as much ease have slain these thirty companions, which were the Authors of this evil; but his promise forbade him whiles he was to cloth their bodies, to unclothe their souls; and that spirit of GOD, which stirred him up to revenge, directed him in the choice of the subjects. If we wonder to see thirty throats cut for their suits, we may easily know, that this was but the occasion of that slaughter, whereof the cause was their oppression, and tyranny. David slew two hundred Philistims for their foreskinnes: but the ground of his act was their hostility. It is just with God to destiny what enemies he pleases, to execution: It is not to be expostulated why this man is stricken rather than another, when both are Philistims.   

Sampsons' victory.  
I Can no more justify Samson in the leaving of his wife, then in the choosing her; He chose her because she pleased him; and because she despised him, he left her: Though her fear made her false to him in his Riddle, yet she was true to his bed; That weak treachery was worthy of a check, not a desertion. All the passions of Samson were strong, like himself: but (as vehement motions are not lasting) this vehement wind is soon allayed; and he is now returning with a Kid to win her that had offended him, and to renew that feast which ended in her unkindness. 'Slight occasions may not break the knot of matrimonial love; and if any just offence have slackened it on either part, it must be fastened again by speedy reconciliation.  
Now Sampsons' father in law shows himself a Philistim, the true Parent of her that betrayed her husband; for no sooner is the Bridegroom departed, than he changes his son: what pretence of friendship soever he made, a true Philistim will soon be weary of an Israelite. Samson hath not so many days liberty to enjoy his wedding, as he spent in celebrating it: Marriage hath been ever a sacred institution, and who but a Philistim would so easily violate it? One of his thirty companions enjoys his wife, together with his suit; & now laughs to be a partner of that bed, whereon he was an attendant. The good nature of Samson, having forgotten the first wrong, carried him to a proffer of familiarity, and is repulsed; but with a gentle violence, I had thought thou hadst hated her. Lawful wedlock may not be dissolved by imaginations, but by proofs.  
Who shall stay Samson from his own wife? He that slew the Lion in the way of his wooing, and before whom thousands of the Philistims could not stand, yet suffers himself to be resisted, by him that was once his father in law, without any return of private violence.  
Great is the force of duty once conceived, even to the most unworthy; This thought, I was his son, binds the hands of Samson: Else how easily might he that slew those thirty Philistims for their suits, have destroyed this family for his wife? How unnatural are those mouths, that can curse the loins from which they are proceeded; and those hands that dare lift up themselves against the means of their life and being?  
I never read that Samson slew any but by the motion and assistance of the spirit of GOD: and the Divine wisdom hath reserved these offenders to another revenge; judgement must descend from others to them, sith the wrong proceeded from others, by them. In the very marriage God foresaw and intended this parting, and in the parting this punishment upon the Philistims. If the Philistims had not been as much enemies to God, as to Samson; enemies to Israel in their oppression, no less then to Samson, in this particular injury, that purpose and execution of revenge, had been no better then wicked: Now he to whom vengeance belongs, sets him on work, and makes the act justice: when he commands, even very cruelty is obedience.  
It was a busy and troublesome project of Samson, to use the foxes for his revenge: for not without great labour & many hands could so many wild creatures be got together, neither could the wit of Samson want other devices of hostility; But he meant to find out such a punishment, as might in some sort answer the offence, & might imply as much contempt, as trespass. By wiles, seconded with violence, had they wronged Samson, in extorting his secret, and taking away his wife: & what other Emblem could these foxes tied together present unto them, than wiliness combined by force, to work mischief?  
These foxes destroy their corn, before he which sent them, destroy the persons. Those judgements which begin in outward things, end in the owners; A stranger that had been of neither side, would have said, What pity it is to see good corn thus spoiled: If the creature be considered apart from the owners, it is good; and therefore if it be misspent, the abuse reflects upon the maker of it; but if it be looked upon, with respect to an ill master, the best use of it, is to perish. He therefore that slew the Egyptian cattle with murrain, & smote their fruit with hailstones; he that consumed the vines of Israel with the Palmerworm, and Caterpillar, and canker-worm; sent also foxes by the hand of Samson, into the fields of the Philistims. Their corn was too good for them to enjoy, not too good for the foxes to burn up; God had rather his creature should perish any way, then serve for the lust of the wicked.  
There could not be such secrecy in the catching of three hundred foxes, but it might well be known who had procured them: Rumour will swiftly fly of things not done: but of a thing so notoriously executed, it is no marvel if Fame be a blab. The mention of the offence draws in the provocation: & now the wrong to Samson is scanned & revenged; Because the fields of the Philistims, are burned for the wrong done to Samson by the Timnite in his daughter, therefore the Philistims burn the Timnite & his daughter. The tying of the firebrand between two foxes, was not so witty a policy, as the setting of a fire of dissension betwixt the Philistims: What need Samson be his own executioner, when his enemies will undertake that charge? There can be no more pleasing prospect to an Israelite, then to see the Philistims together by the ears.  
If the wife of Samson had not feared the fire for herself, and her father's house, she had not betrayed her husband, her husband had not thus plagued the Philistims, the Philistims had not consumed her and her father with fire: now she leaps into that flame which she meant to avoid. That evil which the wicked feared, meets them in their flight: How many in a fear of poverty, seek to gain unconscionably, and die beggars? How many to shun pain and danger have yielded to evil, and in the long run have been met in the teeth with that mischief which they had hoped to have left behind them? How many, in a desire to eschew the shame of men, have fallen into the confusion of God? Both good and evil are sure paymasters at the last.  
He that was so soon pacified towards his wife, could not but have thought this revenge more then enough, if he had not rather wielded God's quarrel then his own; He knew that GOD had raised him up on purpose, to be a scourge to the Philistims, whom as yet he had angered more than punished: As if these therefore had been but flourishes before the fray, he stirs up his courage, & strikes them both hip and thigh, with a mighty plague. That God which can do nothing imperfecty, where he begins either mercy or judgement, will not leave till he have happily finished: As it is in his favours, so in his punishments; One stroke draws on another.  
The Israelites were but slaves, & the Philistims were their masters: so much more indignly therefore must they needs take it, to be thus affronted by one of their own vassals: yet shall we commend the moderation of these Pagans; Samson, being not mortally wronged by one Philistim, falls foul upon the whole Nation; the Philistims heinously offended by Samson, do not fall upon the whole Tribe of judah, but being mustered together, call to them for satisfaction from the person offending: the same hand of God which wrought Samson to revenge, restrained them from it; It is no thank to themselves, that sometimes wicked men cannot be cruel.  
The men of judah, are by their fear made friends to their tyrants, & traitors to their friend; it was in their cause that Samson had shed blood, and yet they conspire with ●he Philistims, to destroy their own flesh and blood. So shall the Philistims be quit with Israel, that as Samson by Philistims, revenged himself of Philistims; so they of an Israelite, by the hand of Israelites. That which open enemies dare not attempt, they work by false brethren; and these are so much more perilous, as they are more entire.  
It had been no less easy for Samson to have slain those thousands of judah that came to bind him, than those other of the Philistims, that meant to kill him bound: And what if he had said; Are ye turned Traitors to your Deliverer? your blood be upon your own heads. But the spirit of God (without whom he could not kill either beast, or man) would never stir him up to kill his brethren, though degenerated into Philistims; they have more power to bind him, than he to kill them: Israelitish blood was precious to him, that made no more scruple of killing a Philistim, then a Lion: That bondage and usury that was allowed to a jew from a Pagan, might not be exacted from a jew.  
The Philistims that had before ploughed with Sampsons' heifer in the case of the Riddle, are now ploughing a worse furrow with an heifer more his own. I am ashamed to hear these cowardly jews say, Know'st thou not that the Philistims are Lords over us? Why hast thou done thus unto us? We are therefore come to bind thee: Whereas they should have said; We find these tyrannical Philistims to usurp dominion over us; thou hast happily begun to shake off their yoke, and now we are come to second thee with our service; the valour of such a Captain shall easily lead us forth to liberty; We are ready either to die with thee, or to be freed by thee: A fearful man can never be a true friend; rather than incur any danger, he will be false to his own soul. Oh cruel mercy of these men of juda! We will not kill thee, but we will bind thee, and deliver thee to the hands of the Philistims, that they may kill thee. As if it had not been much worse to die an ignominious and tormenting death, by the hands of Philistims, then to be at once dispatched by them, which wished either his life safe, or his death easy.  
When Saul was pursued by the Philistims upon the mountains of Gilboa, he could say to his Armor-bearer, Draw forth thy sword, and kill me, lest the uncircumcised come and thrust me through, & mock me; and at last, would rather fall upon his own sword, then theirs: And yet these cousins of Samson, can say, We will not kill thee, but we will bind thee, & deliver thee. It was no excuse to these Israelites, that Sampsons' binding had more hope, than his death; It was more in the extraordinary mercy of God, than their will, that he was not tied with his last bonds: Such is the goodness of the Almighty, that he turns the cruel intentions of wicked men to an advantage.  
Now these jews that might have let themselves loose from their own bondage, are binding their Deliverer, whom yet they knew able to have resisted. In the greatest strength, there is use of patience; There was more fortitude in this suffering, then in his former actions; Samson abides to be tied by his own countrymen, that he may have the glory of freeing himself victoriously. Even so, O Saviour, our better Nazarite, thou which couldst have called to thy Father, and have had twelve legions of Angels for thy rescue, wouldst be bound voluntarily, that thou mightst triumph; So the blessed Martyrs were racked, & would not be loosed, because they expected a better resurrection: If we be not as well ready to suffer ill, as to do good, we are not fit for the consecration of God.  
To see Samson thus strongly manacled, and exposed to their full revenge, could not but be a glad spectacle to these Philistims; & their joy was so full, that it could not but fly forth of their mouths in shouting and laughter; whom they saw loose with terror, it is pleasure to see bound. Is is the sport of the spiritual Philistims, to see any of Gods Nazarites fettered with the cords of iniquity; and their Imps are ready to say, Aha, so would we have it. But the event answers their false joy, with that clause of triumph, Rejoice not over me, O mine enemy: though I fall, yet I shall rise again. How soon was the countenance of these Philistims changed, and their shouts turned into shriekings? The spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, and then, what are cords to the Almighty? His new bonds are as flax burnt with fire; and he rouses up himself, like that young Lion whom he first encountered, & flies upon those cowardly adversaries, who if they had not seen his cords, durst not have seen his face. If they had been so many devils, as men, they could not have stood before that spirit, which lifted up the heart & hand of Samson. Wicked men never see fairer prospect, then when they are upon the very threshold of destruction; Security and Ruin, are so close bordering upon each other, that where we see the face of the one, we may be sure the other is at his back. Thus didst thou, O blessed Saviour, when thou wert fastened to the Cross, when thou layest bound in the grave with the cords of death; thus didst thou miraculously raise up thyself, and vanquish thine enemies, and lead captivity captive; Thus do all thy holy ones when they seem most forsaken, & laid open to the insultation of the world, find thy spirit mighty to their deliverance, and the discomfiture of their malicious adversaries.  
Those three thousand Israelites were not so ill advised, as to come up into the rock unweaponed, to apprehend Samson; Samson therefore might have had his choice of swords, or spears, for this skirmish with the Philistims; yet he leaves all the munition of Israel, & finding the new jaw-bone of an Ass, takes that up in his hand, and with that base instrument of death, sends 1000 Philistimes to their place. All the swords and shields of the armed Philistims, cannot resist that contemptible Engine, which hath now left a thousand bodies, as dead as the carcase of that beast, whose bone it was. This victory was not in the weapon, was not in the arm: it was in the spirit of God, which moved the weapon in the arm. O God, if the means be weak, yet thou art strong: Through God we shall do great acts; Yea, I can do all things through him that strengtheneth me. Seest thou a poor Christian, which by weak counsel hath obtained to overcome a tentation, there is the Philistim vanquished with a sorry jaw-bone.  
It is no marvel, if he were thus admirably strong, and victorious, whose bodily strength God meant to make a type of the spiritual power of Christ: And behold, as the three thousands of juda stood still gazing with their weapons in their hands, while Sampson alone subdued the Philistims; so did men and Angels stand looking upon the glorious achievements of the Son of God, who might justly say, I have trodden the winepress alone.  
Both the Sampsons' complained of thirst; The same GOD which gave his Champion victory, gave him also refreshing; and by the same means; The same bone yields him both conquest, & life; and is of a weapon of offence, turned into a well of water: He that fetched water out of the flint for Israel, fetches it out of a bone for Samson. What is not possible to the infinite power of that Almighty Creator, that made all things of nothing? He can give Samson honey from the mouth of the Lion, and water from the mouth of the Ass. Who would not cheerfully depend upon that God, which can fetch moisture out of dryness, and life out of death?   

Sampsons' End.  
I Cannot wonder more at Sampsons' strength than his weakness; He that began to cast away his love upon a wife of the Philistims, goes on to misspend himself upon the harlots of the Philistims: He that did not so much overcome the men, as the women overcome him. His affections blinded him first, ere the Philistims could do it: would he else, after the effusion of so much of their blood, have suffered his lust to carry him within their walls, as one that cared more for his pleasure, than his life? Oh strange debauchedness, and presumption of a Nazarite: The Philistims are up in Arms to kill him; he offers himself to their City, to their stews, and dares expose his life to one of their harlots, whom he had slaughtered. I would have looked to have seen him betake himself to his stronger rock, then that of Etam, and by his austere devotion, to seek protection of him, of whom he received strength: but now, as if he had forgotten his consecration, I find him turned Philistim for his bed, and of a Nazarite, scarce a man. In vain doth he nourish his hair, whiles he feeds these passions. How usually do vigour of body, and infirmity of mind lodge under one roof? On the contrary, a wearish outside is a strong motive to mortification: Sampsons' victories have subdued him, & have made him first a slave to lewd desires, & then to the Philistims. I may safely say, that more vessels miscarry with a fair gale, then with a tempest.  
Yet was not Samson so blinded with lust, as not at all to look before him; he foresaw the morning would be dangerous, the bed of his fornication therefore could hold him no longer than midnight; then he rises, & in a mock of those ambushes which the Azabites laid for him, he carries away the gates wherein they thought to have incaged him. If a temptation have drawn us aside, to lie down to sin, it is happy for us if we can arise ere we be surprised with judgement. Samson had not left his strength in the bed of an harlot; neither had that God which gave it him, stripped him of it with his clothes, when he laid him down in uncleanness: His mercy uses not to take vantage of our unworthiness, but even when we cast him off, holds us fast. That bountiful hand leaves us rich of common graces, when we have misspent our better store: Like as our first Parents, when they had spoiled themselves of the image of their Creator, yet were left wealthy of noble faculties of the soul.  
I find Samson come off from his sin with safety; he runs away lightly with an heavier weight than the gates of Azzah, the burden of an ill act. Present impunity argues not an abatement of the wickedness of his sin, or of the dislike of God; nothing is so worthy of pity, as a sinner's peace: Good is not therefore good because it prospers, but because it is commanded; Evil is not evil because it is punished, but because it is forbidden.  
If the holy Parents of Samson, lived to see these outrages of their Nazarite, I doubt whether they did not repent them of their joy ●o hear news of a son. It is a ●hame to see how he that might not drink wine, is drunk with the cup of fornications; His lust carries him from Azzah to the plain of Sorek, & now hath found a Dalilah, that shall pay him for all his former uncleanness. Sin is steep and slippery; and if after one fall we have found where to stand, it is the praise, not of our footing, but of the hand of God.  
The Princes of the Philistims knew already where Sampsons' weakeness lay, though not his strength; and therefore they would entice his harlot by gifts, to entice him by her dalliance, to betray himself. It is no marvel, if she which would be filthy, would be also perfidious. How could Samson choose but think, if lust had not bewitched him, She whose body is mercenary to me, will easily sell me to others; She will be false, if she will be an harlot? A wide conscience will swallow any sin: Those that have once thralled themselves to a known evil, can make no other difference of sins, but their own loss, or advantage: A liar will steal; a thief can kill; a cruel man can be a Traitor; a drunkard can falsify; wickedness once entertained, can put on any shape: Trust him in nothing, that makes not a conscience of every thing.  
Was there ever such another motion made to a reasonable man? Tell me wherein thy great strength lieth, & wherewith thou mayst be bound to do thee hurt. Who would not have spurned such a suitor out of doors? What will not impudence ask, or stupidity receive? He that killed the thousand Philistims for coming to bind him, endures this harlot of the Philistims to consult with himself of binding him; and when upon the trial of a false answer, he saw so apparent treachery, yet wilfully betrays his life by her, to his enemies: All sins, all passions have power to infatuate a man; but lust most of all. Never man that had drunk flagons of wine, had less reason, than this Nazarite; Many a one loses his life: but this casts it away; not in hatred of himself, but in love to a strumpet. We wonder that a man could possibly be so sottish, & yet we ourselves by tentation become no less insensate; Sinful pleasures like a common Dalilah, lodge in our bosoms, we know they aim at nothing but the death of our soul; we will yield to them, & die: Every willing sinner is a Samson; let us not inveigh against his senselessness, but our own: Nothing is so gross & unreasonable to a well disposed mind, which tentation will not represent fit, and plausible: No soul can out of his own strength, secure himself from that sin which he most detesteth.  
As an hoodwinked man sees some little glimmering of light, but not enough to guide him; so did Samson, who had reason enough left him to make trial of Dalilah, by a crafty misinformation; but not enough upon that trial, to distrust, and hate her; he had not wit enough to deceive her thrice; not enough to keep himself from being deceived by her. It is not so great wisdom to prove them whom we distrust, as it is folly to trust them whom we have found treacherous: Thrice had he seen the Philistims in her chamber, ready to susprise him, upon her bonds; and yet will needs be a slave to his Traitor. Warning not taken, is a certain presage of destruction; and if once neglected it receive pardon, yet thrice is desperate.  
What man would ever play thus with his own ruin? His harlot binds him, and calls-in her executioners to cut his throat; he rises to save his own life, and suffers them to carry away theirs, in peace. Where is the courage of Samson? Where his zeal? He that killed the Philistims for their clothes; He that slew a thousand of them in the field at once; in this quarrel, now suffers them in his chamber unrevenged. Whence is this? His hands were strong, but his heart was effeminate; his harlot had diverted his affection. Whosoever slackens the rains to his sensual appetite, shall soon grow unfit for the calling of God. Samson hath broke the green withies, the new ropes, the woof of his hair, & yet still suffers himself fettered with those invisible bonds of an harlot's love; and can endure her to say, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thy heart is not with me; thou hast mocked me these three times: Whereas he should rather have said to her; How canst thou challenge any love from me, that hast this thrice sought my life? Or canst thou think my mocks a sufficient revenge of this treachery? But contrarily, he melts at this fire; and by her importunate insinuations, is wrought against himself. Weariness of solicitation, hath won some to those actions, which at the first motion they despised; like as we see some suitors are dispatched, not for the equity of the cause, but the trouble of the prosccution; because it is more easy to yield, not more reasonable. It is more safe to keep ourselves out of the noise of suggestions, then to stand upon our power of denial.  
Who can pity the loss of that strength which was so abused? who can pity him the loss of his locks, which after so many warnings can sleep in the lap of Dalilah? It is but just that he should rise up from thence, shaven and feeble; not a Nazarite, scarce a man. If his strength had lain in his hair, it had been out of himself; it was not therefore in his locks, it was in his consecration, whereof that hair was a sign. If the razor had come sooner upon his head, he had ceased to be a Nazarite; and the gift of God had at once ceased, with the calling of GOD; not for the want of that excretion, but for the want of obedience. If God withdraw his graces, when he is too much provoked, who can complain of his mercy? He that sleeps in sin, must look to wake in loss, and weakeness. Could Samson think, Though I tell her my strength lies in my hair, yet she will not cut it; or though she do cut my hair, yet shall I not lose my strength; that now he rises and shakes himself in hope of his former vigour? Custom of success, makes men confident in their sins, and causes them to mistake an arbitrary tenure for a perpetuity.  
His eyes were the first offenders, which betrayed him to lust: and now they are first pulled out; and he is led a blind captive to Azzah, where he was first captived to his lust. The Azzahites, which lately saw him not without terror, running lightly away with their gates at midnight, see him now in his own perpetual night, struggling with his chains: and that he may not want pain, together with his bondage, he must grind in his prison.  
As he passed the street, every boy of the Philistims could throw stones at him, every woman could laugh, and shout at him; and what one Philistim doth not say, whiles he lashes him unto blood, There is for my brother, or my kinsman, whom thou slewest. Who can look to run away with a sin, when Samson a Nazarite is thus plagued? This great heart could not but have broken with indignation, if it had not pacified itself with the conscience of the just desert of all this vengeance.  
It is better for Samson to be blind in prison, then to abuse his eyes in Sorek: yea, I may safely say, he was more blind when he saw licentiously, then now, that he sees not; He was a greater slave when he served his affections, than now in grinding for the Philistims. The loss of his eyes shows him his sin; neither could he see how ill he had done, till he saw not.  
Even yet, still the God of mercy looked upon the blindness of Samson, and in these fetters enlargeth his heart from the worse prison of his sin; His hair grew together with his repentance, & his strength with his hair. God's merciful humiliations of his own, are sometimes so severe, that they seem to differ little from desertions; yet at the worst, he loves us bleeding: & when we have smarted enough, we shall feel it.  
What thankful Idolaters were these Philistims? They could not but know, that their bribes, and their Dalilah, had delivered Samson to them, and yet they sacrifice to their Dagon; and, as those that would be liberal in casting favours upon a senseless Idol (of whom they could receive none) they cry out, Our God hath delivered our enemy into our hands. Where was their Dagon, when a thousand of his clients were slain with an asses jaw? There was more strength in that bone, then in all the makers of this God; and yet these vain Pagans say, Our God. It is the quality of Superstition to misinterpret all events, and to feed itself with the conceit of those favours, which are so far from being done, that their Authors never were. Why do not we learn zeal of Idolaters? And if they be so forward in acknowledgement of their deliverances to a false deity; how cheerfully should we ascribe ours to the true? O God, whatsoever be the means, thou art the Author of all our success: Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and tell the wonders that he doth for the sons of men!  
No Musician would serve for this feast, but Samson; he must now be their sport, which was once their terror; that he might want no sorrow, scorn is added to his misery: Every wit, and hand plays upon him; Who is not ready to cast his bone, and his jest at such a captive? So as doubtless he wished himself no less deaf, then blind, and that his soul might have gone out with his eyes. Oppression is able to make a wise man mad: and the greater the courage is, the more painful the insultation.  
Now Samson is punished, shall the Philistims escape? If the judgement of God begin at his own, what shall become of his enemies? This advantage shall Samson make of their tyranny, that now death is no punishment to him, his soul shall fly forth in this bitterness, without pain; & that his dying revenge shall be no less sweet to him, than the liberty of his former life: He could not but feel God mocked through him; and therefore whiles they are scoffing, he prays; his seriousness hopes to pay them for all those jests. If he could have been thus earnest with God, in his prosperity, the Philistims had wanted this laughing stock: No devotion is so fervent, as that which arises from extremity; O Lord God, I pray thee think upon me; O God I beseech thee strengthen me at this time only. though Sampsons' hair were shorter, yet he knew God's hand was not; as one therefore that had yet eyes ●ow to see him that was invisible, and whose faith was recovered before his strength, he sues to that God, which was a party in this indignity, for power to revenge his wrongs, more than his own: It is zeal that moves him, and not malice; his renewed faith tells him, that he was destined to plague the Philistims: & reason tells him, that his blindness puts him out of the hope of such another opportunity. Knowing therefore, that this play of the Philistims must end in his death, he recollects all the forces of his soul and body, that his death may be a punishment in steed of a disport; and that his soul may be more victorious in the parting, then in the animation: and so addresses himself both to die, and kill; as one, whose soul shall not feel his own dissolution, whiles it shall carry so many thousand Philistims with it to the pit. All the acts of Samson are for wonder, not for imitation: So didst thou, O blessed Saviour, our better Samson, conquer in dying; and triumphing upon the chariot of the Cross, didst lead captivity captive; The law, sin, death, hell, had never been vanquished, but by thy death; All our life, liberty, and glory, springs out of thy most precious blood.   

Michaes Idolatry.  
THE mother of Micha hath lost her silver, and now she falls to cursing: She did afterwards but change the form of her God; her silver was her God, ere it did put on the fashion of an Image: Else she had not so much cursed to lose it, if it had not too much possessed her in the keeping. A carnal heart cannot forego that wherein it delights, without impatience; cannot be impatient, without curses: whereas the man that hath learned to enjoy GOD, and use the world, smiles at a shipwreck, and pities a thief, and cannot curse, but pray.  
Micha had so little grace, as to steal from his mother; and that out of wantonness, not out of necessity; for, if she had not been rich, so much could not have been stolen from her; and now, he hath so much grace as to restore it; her curses have fetched again her treasures; He cannot so much love the money, as he fears her imprecations; Wealth seems too dear bought with a curse; though his fingers were false, yet his heart was tender. Many that make not conscience of committing sin, yet make conscience of facing it: It is well for them, that they are but novices in evil; those whom custom hath fleshed in sin, can either deny and forfweare, or excuse and defend it: their seared hearts cannot feel the gnawing of any remorse; and their forehead hath learned to be as impudent, as their heart is senseless.  
I see no argument of any holiness in the mother of Micha; Her curses were sin to herself, yet Micha dares not but fear them. I know not whether the causeless curse be more worthy of pity, or derifion; it hurts the author, not his adversary: but the deserved curses, that fall even from unholy mouths, are worthy to be feared: How much more should a man hold himself blasted with the just imprecations of the godly? What metal are those made of, that can applaud themselves in the bitter curses which their oppressions have wrung from the poor, and rejoice in these signs of their prosperity?  
Neither yet was Micha more stricken with his mother's curses, then with the conscience of sacrilege: so soon as he finds there was a purpose of devotion in this treasure, he dares not conceal it, to the prejudice (as he thought) of GOD, more than of his mother. What shall we say to the palate of those men, which as they find no good relish but in stolen waters; so best in those, which are stolen from the fountain of God? How soon hath the old woman changed her note? Even now she passed an indefinite curse upon her son for stealing; and now she blesses him absolutely, for restoring, Blessed be my son of the Lord. She hath forgotten the theft, when she sees the restitution; How much more shall the God of mercies be more pleased with our confession, then provoked with our sin?  
I doubt not but this silver, and this superstition came out of Egypt, together with the mother of Micha. This history is not so late in time, as in place; for the Tribe of Dan was not yet settled in that first division of the promised land; so as this old woman had seen both the Idolatry of Egypt, & the golden calf in the wilderness; and no doubt contributed some of her earrings to that Deity; and after all the plagues which she saw inflicted upon her brethren, for that Idol of Horeb, and Baal-Peor, she still reserves a secret love to superstition, and now shows it. Where mis-religion hath once possessed itself of the heart, it is very hardly cleansed out; but (like the plague) it will hang in the very clothes, & after long lurking, break forth in an unexpected infection; and old wood is the aptest to take this fire: After all the airing in the Desert, Michaes mother will smell of Egypt.  
It had been better the silver had been stolen then thus bestowed; for now they have so employed it, that it hath stolen away their hearts from GOD; and yet, while it is molten into an Image, they think it dedicated to the Lord; If Religion might be judged according to the intention, there should scarce be any idolatry in the world. This woman loved her silver enough; and if she had not thought this costly piety, worth thanks, she knew which way to have employed her stock to advantage: Even evil actions have oft-times good meanings, and those good meanings are answered with evil recompenses; Many a one bestows their cost, their labour, their blood, and receives torment in steed of thanks.  
Behold a superstitious son of a superstitious mother; She makes a God, and he harbours it; Yea, (as the stream is commonly broader than the head) he exceeds his mother in evil: He hath an house of Gods, an Ephod, Teraphin; & that he might be complete in his devotion, he makes his son his Priest, and feoffs that sin upon his son, which he received from his mother. Those sins which nature conveys not to us, we have by imitation; Every action and gesture of the Parents, is an example to the child; and the mother, as she is more tender over her son, so by the power of a reciprocal love, she can work most upon his inclination; Whence it is that in the history of the Israelitish Kings, the mother's name is commonly noted: and as civilly, so also morally, The birth follows the belly; Those sons may bless their second birth, that are delivered from the sins of their education.  
Who cannot but think how far Micha over-lookt all his fellow Israelites, and thought them profane and godless in comparison of himself? How did he secretly clap himself on the breast, as the man, whose happiness it was to engross religion from all the tribes of Israel, and little can imagine, that the further he runs, the more out of the way. Can an Israelite be thus Paganish? O Micha! how hath superstition bewitched thee, that thou canst not see rebellion in every of these actions, yea in every circumstance, rebellion? What, more Gods then one? An house of Gods, beside God's house? An Image of silver to the invisible GOD? An Ephod, and no Priest? A Priest besides the family of Levi? A Priest of thine own begetting, of thine own consecration? What monsters doth man's imagination produce when it is forsaken of God? It is well seen there is no King in Israel; If God had been their King, his laws had ruled them: If Moses or joshua had been their King, their sword had awed them; If any other, the courses of Israel could not have been so headless. We are beholden to Government for order, for peace, for religion; Where there is no King, every one will be a King, yea a God to himself; We are worthy of nothing but confusion, if we bless not GOD for authority.  
It is no marvel if Levites wandered for maintenance, whiles there was no King in Israel; The tithes and offerings were their due: if these had been paid, none of the holy Tribe needed to shift his station. Even where royal power seconds the claim of the Levite, the injustice of men shortens his right. What should become of the Levites if there were no King? And what of the Church if no Levites? No King therefore, no Church; How could the impotent child live without a Nurse? King's shall be thy nursing fathers, and Queens thy nurses, saith God. Nothing more argues the disorder of any Church, or the decay of religion, than the forced straggling of the Levites. There is hope of growth, when Micha rides to seek a Levite; but when the Levite comes to seek a service of Micha, it is a sign of gasping devotion.  
Micha was no obscure man; all Mount Ephraim could not but take notice of his domestical Gods. This Levite could not but hear of his disposition, of his mis-devotion; yet want of maintenance, no less than conscience, draws him on, to the danger of an idolatrous patronage: Holiness is not tied to any profession; Happy were it for the Church, if the Clergy could be a privilege from lewdness. When need meets with unconscionableness, all conditions are easily swallowed, of unlawful entrances, of wicked executions: Ten shekels, and a suit of apparel, and his diet, are good wages for a needy Levite. He that could bestow eleven hundred shekels upon his puppets, can afford button to his Priest: so hath he at once a rich Idol, and a beggarly Priest. Whosoever affects to serve God, good cheap, shows, that he makes GOD but a stale to Mammon.  
Yet was Micha a kind Patron, though not liberal; He calls the young Levite his father, and uses him as his son; & what he wants in means, supplies in affection. It were happy, if Christians could imitate the love of Idolaters, towards them which serve at the Altar. Micha made a shift with the Priesthood of his own son; yet that his heart checks him in it, appears, both by the change, & his contentment in the change; Now I know that the Lord will be good to me, seeing I have a Levite to my Priest: Therefore, whiles his Priest was no Levite, he sees there was cause, why GOD should not be good to him. If the Levite had not comen to offer his service, Michaes son had been a lawful Priest; Many times the conscience runs away smoothly with an unwarrantable action, and rests itself upon those grounds, which afterward it sees cause to condemn. It is a sure way therefore to inform ourselves thoroughly ere we settle our choice, that we be not driven to reverse our acts with late shame, and unprofitable repentance.  
Now did Micha begin to see some little glimpse of his own error; He saw his Priesthood faulty, he saw not the faults of his Ephod, of his Images, of his Gods, & yet (as if he thought all had been well, when he had amended one) he says, Now I know the Lord will be good to me. The carnal heart pleases itself with an outward formality; and so delights to flatter itself, as that it thinks, if one circumstance be right, nothing can be amiss.  
Israel was at this time extremely corrupted; yet the spies of the Danites had taken notice even of this young Levite, and are glad to make use of his Priesthood. If they had but gone up to Shilo, they might have consulted with the Ark of God: but worldly minds are not curious in their holy services; If they have a God, an Ephod, a Priest, it suffices them; They had rather enjoy a false worship with ease, then to take pains for the true: Those that are curious in their diet, in their purchases, in their attire, in their contracts, yet in God's businesses are very indifferent.  
The author of lies sometimes speaks truth for an advantage: & from his mouth, this flattering Levite speaks what he knew would please, not what he knew would fall out; The event answers his prediction, and now the spies magnify him to their fellows: Michaes Idol is a God, and the Levite is his Oracle. In matter of judgement, to be guided only by the event, is the way to error; Falsehood shall be truth, and Satan an Angel of light, if we follow this rule; Even very conjectures sometimes happen right; A Prophet, or Dreamer may give a true sign, or wonder, and yet himself say, Let us go after other Gods. A small thing can win credit with weak minds, which where they have once sped, cannot distrust.  
The idolatrous Danites are so besotted with this success, that they will rather steal, than want the gods of Micha; and because the Gods without the Priest can do them less service, than the Priest without the Gods, therefore they steal the Priest with the gods. O miserable Israelites! that could think that a God, which could be stolen; that could look for protection from that, which could not keep itself from stealing; which was won by their theft, not their devotion: Could they worship those Idols more devoutly than Micha that made them? And if they could not protect their maker from robbery, how shall they protect their thieves? If it had been the holy Ark of the true God, how could they think it would bless their violence, or that it would abide to be translated by rapine, and extortion? Now their superstition hath made them mad upon a God, they must have him; by what means they care not, though they offend the true God, by stealing a false. Sacrilege is fit to be the first service of an Idol. The spies of Dan had been courteously entertained by Micha: thus they reward his hospitality. It is no trusting the honesty of Idolaters: if they have once cast off the true God, whom will they respect?  
It seems, Levites did not more want maintenance, than Israel wanted Levites; here was a tribe of Israel without a spiritual guide. The withdrawing of due means, is the way to the utter desolation of the Church; Rare offerings make cold Altars. There needed small force to draw this Levite to change his charge; Hold thy peace, and come, & be our father, & Priest; Whether is it better, etc. here is not patience, but joy; He that was won with ten shekels, may be lost with eleven: When maintenance and honour calls him, he goes undriven; and rather steals himself away, then is stolen. The Levite had too many Gods, to make conscience of pleasing one: There is nothing more in constant, than a Levite that seeks nothing but himself.  
Thus the wild fire of Idolatry, which lay before couched in the private ball of Micha, now flies furiously through all the Tribe of Dan; who (like to thieves that have carried away plaguy clothes) have insensibly infected themselves, and their posterity, to death: Heresy and superstition have small beginnings, dangerous proceedings, pernicious conclusions. This contagion is like a canker, which at the first is scarce visible; afterward it eats away the flesh, and consumes the body.    

Contemplations.  
THE ELEVENTH BOOK.  
Containing The Levites Concubine. The Desolation of Benjamin. Naomi and Ruth. Boaz and Ruth. Anna and Peninna. Anna and Eli. Eli and his sons.   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE Sir Fulke Greville, Knight; Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of his majesties most Honourable Privy Counsellors; A most wise, learned, judicious, ingenuous Censor of Scholarship; a worthy example of Benefactors to Learning, I. H.  
With his unfeigned prayers for the happy success of all his honourable designments, humbly Dedicates this mean piece of his studies.   

CONTEMPLATIONS.  

THE LEVITES Concubine.  
THere is no complaint of a publicly disordered State, where a Levite is not at one end of it; either as an agent, or a patient. In the Idolatry of Micha, and the Danites, a Levite was an actor; In the violent uncleanness of Gibeah, a Levite suffers; No Tribe shall sooner feel the want of government, then that of Levi.  
The law of God allowed the Levite a wife; human connivence, a concubine; neither did the jewish concubine differ from a wife, but in some outward compliments; Both might challenge all the true essence of marriage; so little was the difference, that the father of the concubine, is called the father in law to the Levite. She whom ill custom had of a wife made a concubine, is now by her lust, of a concubine made an harlot: Her fornication, together with the change of her bed, hath changed her abode. Perhaps her own conscience thrust her out of doors, perhaps the just severity of her husband. Dismission was too easy a penalty for that which GOD had sentenced with death: She that had deserved to be abhorred of her husband, seeks shelter from her father. Why would her father suffer his house to be defiled with an adulteress, though out of his own loins? Why did he not rather say; What? Dost thou look to find my house an harbour for thy sin? Whiles thou wert a wife to thine husband, thou wert a daughter to me; Now, thou art neither; Thou art not mine, I gave thee to thy husband; Thou art not thy husbands, thou hast betrayed his bed; Thy filthiness hath made thee thine own, and thine adulterers; Go seek thine entertainment, where thou hast lost thine honesty; Thy lewdness hath brought a necessity of shame upon thine abettors; How can I countenance thy person, and abandon thy sin? I had rather be a just man, than a kind father; Get thee home therefore to thy husband, crave his forgiveness upon thy knees, redeem his love with thy modesty, and obedience; when his heart is once open to thee, my doors shall not be shut: In the mean time, know I can be no father to an harlot; Indulgence of Parents is the refuge of vanity, the band of wickedness, the bane of children. How easily is that Thief induced to steal, that knows his Receiver: When the lawlessness of youth knows where to find pity & toleration, what mischief can it forbear?  
By how much better this Levite was, so much more injurious was the concubines sin: What husband would not have said; She is gone, let shame and grief go with her, I shall find one no less pleasing, and more faithful: Or if it be not too much mercy in me to yield to a return, let her that hath offended, seek me; What more direct way is there to a resolved looseness, then to let her see I cannot want her? The good nature of this Levite casts off all these terms; and now after 4 months absence, sends him to seek for her, that had run away from her fidelity: And now he thinks, She sinned against me: perhaps she hath repent; Perhaps, shame and fear have withheld her from returning; Perhaps she will be more loyal, for her sin; If her importunity should win me, half the thanks were lost; but now, my voluntary offer of favour shall oblige her for ever. Love procures truer servitude than necessity: Mereie becomes well the heart of any man, but most of a Levite. He that had helped to offer so many sacrifices to God for the multitude of every Israelites sins, saw how proportionable it was, that man should not hold one sin unpardonable: He had served at the Altar to no purpose, if he (whose trade was to sue for mercy) had not at all learned to practise it.  
And if the reflection of mercy wrought this in a servant, what shall we expect from him, whose essence is mercy? O God, we do every day break the holy covenant of our love; We prostitute ourselves to every filthy tentation, and then run, and hide ourselves in our father's house, the world; If thou didst not seek us up, we should never return; If thy gracious proffer did not prevent us, we should be uncapable of forgiveness; It were abundant goodness in thee to receive us, when we should entreat thee: but lo, thou entreatest us that we would receive thee. How should we now adore, and imitate thy mercy, sith there is more reason, we should sue to each other, then that thou shouldst sue to us; because we may as well offend, as be offended.  
I do not see the woman's father make any means for reconciliation: but when remission came home to his doors, no man could entertain it more thankfully. The nature of many men is forward to accept, and negligent to sue for; they can spend secret wishes upon that, which shall cost them no endeavour.  
Great is the power of love, which can in a sort undo evils past, if not for the act, yet for the remembrance. Where true affection was once conceived, it is easily peeced again, after the strongest interruption; here needs no tedious recapitulation of wrongs, no importunity of suit; The unkindnesses are forgotten, their love is renewed; and now the Levite is not a stranger, but a son; By how much more willingly he came, by so much more unwillingly he is dismissed. The four months absence of his daughter is answered with four days feasting; Neither was there so much joy in the former wedding feast, as in this; because than he delivered his daughter entire; now, desperate: then he found a son; but now, that son hath found his lost daughter, and he found both: The recovery of any good, is far more pleasant than the continuance.  
Little do we know what evil is towards us; Now did this old man, and this restored couple promise themselves all joy, & contentment after this unkind storm; and said in themselves, Now we begin to live: And now this feast, which was meant for their new nuptials, proves her funeral. Even when we let ourselves losest to our pleasures, the hand of God (though invisibly) is writing bitter things against us: sith we are not worthy to know, it is wisdom to suspect the worst, whilst it is least seen.  
Sometimes it falls out, that nothing is more injurious than curresie; If this old man had thrust his son and daughter early out of doors, they had avoided this mischief; now, his loving importunity detains them to their hurt, and his own repentance. Such contentment doth sincere affection find in the presence of those we love, that death itself hath no other name, but departing; The greatest comfort of our life, is the fruition of friendship, the dissolution whereof, is the greatest pain of death: As all earthly pleasures, so this of love, is distasted with a necessity of leaving. How worthy is that only love to take up our hearts, which is not open to any danger of interruption; which shall outlive the date even of faith and hope, and is as eternal, as that GOD, and those blessed spirits whom we love? If we hang never so importunately upon one another's sleeves, and shed floods of tears to stop their way, yet we must be gone hence; no occasion, no force, shall then remove us from our father's house.  
The Levite is stayed beyond his time by importunity; the motions whereof are boundless, and infinite; one day draws on another; neither is there any reason of this days stay, which may not serve still for to morrow. His resolution at last breaks through all those kind hindrances; rather will he venture a benighting, than an unnecessary delay. It is a good hearing that the Levite makes haste home; An honest man's heart is where his calling is; Such a one, when he is abroad, is like a fish in the air; whereinto if it leap for recreation, or necessity, yet it soon returns to his own element. This charge, by how much more sacred it is, so much more attendance it expecteth; Even a day breaks square with the conscionable.  
The Sun is ready to lodge before them; His servant advises him to shorten his journey, holding it more fit to trust an early In of the jebusites, then to the mercy of the night. And if that counsel had been followed, perhaps they, which found jebusites in Israel, might have found Israelites in jebus: No wise man can hold good counsel disparaged, by the meanness of the author: If we be glad to receive any treasure from our servant, why not precious admonitions?  
It was the zeal of this Levite that shut him out of jebus; We will not lodge in the City of strangers. The jebusites were stranger's in religion, not strangers enough in their habitation; The Levite will not receive common courtesy from those which were aliens from God, though home-born in the heart of Israel. It is lawful enough in terms of civility to deal with Infidels; the earth is the Lords, and we may enjoy it in the right of the Owner, while we protest against the wrong of the Usurper; yet the less communion with God's enemies, the more safety. If there were another air to breath in from theirs, another earth to tread upon, they should have their own: Those that affect a familiar entireness with jebusites, in conversation, in leagues of amity, in matrimonial contracts, bewray either too much boldness, or too little conscience.  
He hath no blood of an Israelite, that delights to lodge in jebus: It was the fault of Israel, that an heathenish town stood yet in the navel of the Tribes, and that jebus was no sooner turned to jerusalem; Their lenity and neglect, were guilty of this neighbourhood, that now no man can pass from Bethleem juda, to mount Ephraim, but by the City of jebusites. Seasonable justice might prevent a thousand evils, which afterwards know no remedy but patience.  
The way was not long betwixt jebus and Gibeah: for the Sun was stooping when the Levite was over against the first, & is but now declined, when he comes to the other. How his heart was lightened, when he was entered into an Israelitish City! and can think of nothing, but hospitality, rest, security. There is no perfume so sweet to a traveler, as his own smoke. Both expectation and feat, do commonly disappoint us; for seldom ever do we enjoy the good we look for, or smart with a feared evil. The poor Levite could have found but such entertainment with the jebusites. Whither are the posterity of Benjamin degenerated, that their Gibeah should be no less wicked than populous? The first sign of a settled godlessness, is, that a Levite is suffered to lie without doors. If God had been in any of their houses, his servant had not been excluded: Where no respect is given to God's messengers, there can be no Religion.  
Gibeah was a second Sodom; even there also is another Lot: which is therefore so much more hospital to strangers, because himself was a stranger. The Host as well as the Levite is of mount Ephraim; Each man knows best to commiserate that evil in others, which himself hath passed through; All that profess the Name of Christ, are Countrymen, and yet strangers here below; how cheerfully should we entertain each other, when we meet in the Gibeah of this inhospitall world?  
This good old man of Gibeah, came home late from his work in the fields; the Sun was set ere he gave over; And now, seeing this man a stranger, an Israelite, a Levite, an Ephraimite, and that in his way to the house of GOD, to take up his lodging in the street, he proffers him the kindness of his house-room. Industrious spirits are the fittest receptacles of all good motions; whereas those which give themselves to idle and loose courses, do not care so much as for themselves. I hear of but one man at his work, in all Gibeah: the rest were quaffing and reveling. That one man ends his work in a charitable entertainment; the other, end their play in a brutish beastliness, & violence. These villains had learned both the actions, and the language of the Sodomites; One unclean devil was the prompter to both: & this honest Ephraimite, had learned of righteous Lot, both to entreat, and to proffer. As a perplexed Mariner, that in a storm must cast away something, although precious; so this good Host, rather will prostitute his daughter, a virgin, together with the concubine, than this prodigious villainy should be offered to a man, much more to a man of God.  
The detestation of a foul sin drew him to overreach in the motion of a lesser; which if it had been accepted, how could he have escaped the partnership of their uncleanness, and the guilt of his daughter's ravishment? No man can wash his hands of that sin, to which his will hath yielded. Bodily violence may be inoffensive in the patient; voluntary inclination to evil (though out of fear) can never be excusable: yet behold this wickedness is too little to satisfy these monsters.  
Who would have looked for so extreme abomination from the loins of jacob, the womb of Rachel, the sons of Benjamin? Could the very jebusites their neighbours be ever accused of such unnatural outrage? I am ashamed to say it, Even the worst Pagans were Saints, to Israel. What avails it that they have the Ark of GOD in Shiloh, while they have. Sodom in their streets? that the law of God is in their sringes, whiles the devil is in their hearts? Nothing but hell itself can yield a worse creature than a depraved Israelite; the very means of his reformation, are the fuel of his wickedness.  
Yet Let sped so much better in Sodom, than this Ephraimite did in Gibeah, by how much more holy guests he entertained. There the guests were Angels; here a sinful man. There the guests saved the host; here the host could not save the guest from brutish violence; Those Sodomites were stricken with outward blindness and defeated; These Beniamites are only blinded with lust, and prevail. The Levite comes forth, perhaps his coat saved his person from this villainy; who now thinks himself well, that he may have leave to redeem his own dishonour with his concubines. If he had not loved her dearly, he had never sought her so far, after so foul a sin; Yet now his hate of that unnatural wickedness overcame his love to her; She is exposed to the furious lust of barbarous ruffians, and (which he misdoubted not) abused to death.  
Oh the just and even course which the Almighty judge of the world holds in all his retributions! This woman had shamed the bed of a Levite, by her former wantonness; she had thus far gone smoothly away with her sin; her father harboured her, her husband forgave her, her own heart found no cause to complain, because she smarted not: now, when the world had forgotten her offence, GOD calls her to reckoning and punishes her with her own sin. She had voluntarily exposed herself to lust; now is exposed forcibly. Adultery was her sin, adultery was her death. What smiles soever wickedness casts upon the heart, while it solicits; it will owe us a displeasure, and prove itself a faithful Debtor.  
The Levite looked to find her humbled with this violence, not murdered; and now, indignation moves him to add horror to the fact: Had not his heart been raised up with an excess of desire to make the crime as odious, as it was sinful, his action could not be excused. Those hands that might not touch a carcase, now carve the corpse of his own dead wife, into morsels; and send these tokens to all the Tribes of Israel; that when they should see these gobbets of the body murdered, the more they might detest the murderers. Himself puts on cruelty to the dead, that he might draw them to a just revenge of her death; Actions notoriously villainous, may justly countenance an extraordinary means of prosecution: Every Israelite hath part in a levites wrong; No Tribe hath not his share in the carcase, and the revenge.   

The Desolation of Benjamin.  
THese morsels could not choose but cut the hearts of Israel with horror, and compassion; horror of the act, and compassion of the sufferer: and now their zeal draws them together, either for satisfaction, or revenge. Who would not have looked that the hands of Benjamin should have been first upon Gibeah; and that they should have readily sent the heads of the offenders, for a second service after the gobbets of the concubine: But now, instead of punishing the sin, they patronize the actors; and will rather die in resisting justice, then live and prosper in furthering it.  
Surely, Israel had one Tribe too many: all Benjamin is turned into Gibeah, the sons not of Benjamin, but of Belial. The abetting of evil, is worse than the commission; This may be upon infirmity, but that must be upon resolution: Easy punishment is too much favour to sin: connivence is much worse: but the defence of it (and that unto blood) is intolerable. Had not these men been both wicked, and quarrelous, they had not drawn their swords in so foul a cause. Peaceable dispositions are hardly drawn to fight for innocence: yet these Beniaminites (as if they were in love with villainy, and out of charity with GOD) will be the wilful. Champions of lewdness. How can Gibeah repent them of that wickedness, which all Benjamin will make good; in spite of their consciences? Even where sin is suppressed, it will rise; but, where it is encouraged, it insults & tyrannizes.  
It was more just that Israel should rise against Benjamin, then that Benjamin should rise for Gibeah; by how much it is better to punish offenders, then to shelter the offenders from punishing; And yet the wickedness of Benjamin, sped better for the time, than the honesty of Israel; Twice was the better part foiled by the less, and worse; The good cause was sent back with shame: the evil returned with victory, and triumph. O GOD! their hand was for thee in the fight, and thy hand was with them in their fall; They had not fought for thee, but by thee; neither could they have miscarried in the fight, if thou hadst not fought against them; Thou art just & holy in both. The cause was thine: the sin in managing of it, was their own; They fought in an holy quarrel, but with confidence in themselves; for, as presuming of victory, they ask of GOD, not what should be their success, but who should be their Captain. Number & innocence made them too secure; It was just therefore with GOD, to let them feel, that even good zeal cannot bear out presumption: And that victory lies not in the cause, but in the God that owns it.  
Who cannot imagine how much the Beniaminites insulted in their double field, and day? And now began to think, God was on their side; Those swords which had been taught the way into forty thousand bodies of their brethren, cannot fear a new encounter. Wicked men cannot see their prosperity a piece of their curse, neither can examine their actions, but the events: Soon after, they shall find what it was to add blood unto filthiness, and that the victory of an evil cause, is the way to ruin and confusion.  
I should have feared lest this double discomfiture should have made Israel, either distrustful, or weary of a good cause: but still I find them no less courageous, with more humility. Now they fast, & weep, and sacrifice; these weapons had been victorious in their first assault; Benjamin had never been in danger of pride for over coming, if this humiliation of Israel had prevented the fight. It is seldom seen, but that which we do with fear, prospereth; whereas confidence in undertaking, lays even good endeavours in the dust.  
Wickedness could never brag of any long prosperity; nor complain of the lack of payment: Still GOD is even with it at the last; Now he pays the Beniaminites both that death which they had lent to the Israelites, and that wherein they stood indebted to their brotherhood of Gibeah: And now that both are metre in death, there is as much difference betwixt those Israelites, and these Beniaminites, as betwixt Martyrs, and malefactors: To die in a sin is a fearful revenge of giving patronage to sin; The sword consumes their bodies, another fire their Cities, whatsoever became of their souls.  
Now might Rachel have justly wept for her children, because they were not; For, behold the men, women, and children of her wicked Tribe, are cut off; only some few scattered remainders, ran away from this vengeance, and lurked in caves, and rocks, both for fear, and shame; There was no difference, but life, betwixt their brethren and them; the earth covered them both: yet unto them, doth the revenge of Israel stretch itself▪ and vows to destroy, if not their persons, yet their succession; as holding them unworthy to receive any comfort by that sex, to which they had been so cruel, both in act, and maintenance. If the Israelites had not held marriage & issue a very great blessing, they had not thus revenged themselves of Benjamin; Now they accounted the withholding of their wives, a punishment second to death: The hope of life in our posterity, is the next contentment to an enjoying of life in ourselves.  
They have sworn, and now upon cold blood repent them. If the oath were not just, why would they take it? and if it were just, why did they recant it? If the act were lustifiable, what needed these tears? Even a just oath may be rashly taken: not only injustice, but temerity of swearing ends, in lamentation. In our very civil actions, it is a weakness, to do that which we would after reverse; but in our affairs with GOD, to check our selves too late, and to steep our oaths in tears, is a dangerous folly; He doth not command us to take voluntary oaths; he commands us to keep them. If we bind ourselves to inconvenience, we may justly complain of our own fetters: Oaths do not only require justice, but judgement; wise deliberation, no less than equity.  
Not conscience of their fact, but commiseration of their brethren, led them to this public repentance. O God, why is this come to pass, that this day one Tribe of Israel shall want? Even the justest revenge of men is capable of pity; Insultation in the rigour of justice, argues cruelty; Charitable minds are grieved to see that done, which they would not wish undone; the smart of the offender doth not please them, which yet are thoroughly displeased with the sin, and have given their hands to punish it. GOD himself takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner, yet loves the punishment of sin: As a good Parent whips his child, yet weeps himself; There is a measure in victory, and revenge, if never so just; which to exceed, leeses mercy in the suit of justice.  
If there were no fault in their severity, it needed no excuse; and if there were a fault, it will admit of no excuse: yet, as if they meant to shift off the sin, they expostulate with God; O Lord God of Israel, why is this come to pass this day? GOD gave them no command of this rigour; yea he twice crossed them in the execution; and now, in that which they entreated of God with tears, they challenge him. It is a dangerous injustice to lay the burden of our sins upon him, which tempteth no man, nor can be tempted with evil; whiles we would so remove our sin, we double it.  
A man that knew not the power of an oath, would wonder at this contrariety in the affections of Israel; They are sorry for the slaughter of Benjamin, and yet they slay those that did not help them in the slaughter. Their oath calls them to more blood; The excess of their revenge upon Benjamin, may not excuse the men of Gilead; If ever oath might look for a dispensation, this might plead it; Now, they dare not but kill the men of jabesh Gilead, lest they should have left upon themselves a greater sin of sparing, then punishing. jabesh Gilead came not up to aid Israel, therefore all the inhabitants must die. To exempt ourselves (whether out of singularity, or stubbornness) from the common actions of the Church, when we are lawfully called to them, is an offence worthy of judgement: In the main quarrels of the Church, neutrals are punished. This execution shall make amends for the former; of the spoil of jabesh Gilead, shall the Beniaminites be stored with wives: that no man may think these men slain for their daughters, they plainly die for their sin; and these Gileadites might not have lived, without the perjury of Israel: and now, sith they must die, it is good to make benefit of necessity. I inquire not into the rigour of the oath; If their solemn vow did not bind them to kill all of both sexes in Benjamin, why did they not spare their virgins? and if it did so bind them, why did they spare the virgins of Gilead? Favours must be enlarged in all these religious restrictions; where breath may be taken in them, it is not fit nor safe they should be strainted.  
Foure-hundred virgins of Gilead have lost parents, and brethren, and kindred, and now find husbands in am of them. An enforced marriage, was but a miserable comfort for such a loss: like wards, or captives they are taken, and choose not. These suffice not, their friendly adversaries consult for more, upon worse conditions. Into what troublesome and dangerous straits do men thrust themselves, by either unjust, or inconsiderate vows?  
In the midst of all this common lawlessness of Israel, here was conscience made on both sides, of matching with Infidels; The Israelites can rather be content their daughters should be stolen by their own, then that the daughters of aliens should be given them. These men which had not grace enough to detest & punish the beastliness of their Gileadites, yet are not so graceless, as to choose them wives of the Heathen: All but Atheists (howsoever they let themselves loose) yet in some things, find themselves restrained, and show to others that they have a conscience. If there were not much danger, & much sin in this unequal yoke, they would never have persuaded to so heavy an inconvenience; Disparity of religion in matrimonial contracts, hath so many mischiefs, that it is worthy to be redeemed with much prejudice.  
They which might not give their own daughters to Benjamin, yet give others, whiles they give leave to steal them. Stolen marriages, are both unnatural, and full of hazard; for love (whereof marriage is the knot) cannot be forced: this was rather rape, than wedlock. What unlikeness (perhaps contrariety) of disposition, what averseness of affection, may there be in not only a sudden, but a forcible meeting? If these Beniaminites had not taken liberty of giving themselves ease by divorcement, they would often have found leisure to rue this stolen booty. This act may not be drawn to example; and yet here was a kind of indefinite consent; Both deliberation, and good liking, are little enough for a during estate, & that which is once done for ever.  
These virgins come up to the feast of the Lord; and now, out of the midst of their dances are carried to a double captivity. How many virgins have lost themselves in dances? and yet this sport was not immodest. These virgins danced by themselves, without the company of them which might move towards unchastity; for if any men had been with them, they had found so many rescuers, as they had assaulters; now, the exposing of their weak sex to this injury, proves their innocence. Our usual dances are guilty of more sin; Wanton gestures, & unchaste touches, looks, motions, draw the heart to folly; The ambushes of evil spirits, carry away many a soul from dances, to a fearful desolation.  
It is supposed, that the Parents thus robbed of their daughters, will take it heavily: There cannot be a greater cross, than the miscarriage of children; They are not only the living goods, but pieces of their Parents; that they should therefore be torn from them by violence, is no less injury, than the dismembering of their own bodies.   

Naomi and Ruth.  
BEtwixt the reign of the judges, Israel was plagued with tyranny; and whiles some of them reigned, with famine; Seldom did that rebellious people want somewhat to humble them; One rod is not enough for a stubborn child: The famine must needs be great, that makes the inhabitants to run their country; The name of home is so sweet, that we cannot leave it for a little; Behold that Land, which had wont to flow with milk and honey, now abounds with want and penury, and Bethleem in stead of an house of bread, is an house of famine; A fruitful land doth God make barren, for the wickedness of them, that dwell therein; The earth bears not for itself, but for us; God is not angry with it, but with men; For our sakes, it was first cursed to thorns and thistles, after that, to moisture, and since that (not seldom) to drought; and by all these to barrenness. We may not look always for plenty; It is a wonder whiles there is such superfluity of wickedness, that our earth is no more sparing of her fruits.  
The whole earth is the Lords, and in him, ours; It is lawful for the owners to change their houses, at pleasure; Why should we not make free use of any part of our own possessions? Elimelech and his family remove from Bethleem juda unto Moab; Nothing but necessity can dispense with a local relinquishing of God's Church; Not pleasure, not profit, not curiosity; Those which are famished out, God calls, yea drives from thence. The creator and possessor of the earth, hath not confined any man to his necessary destruction.  
It was lawful for Elimelech to make use of Pagans, and Idolaters, for the supply of all needful helps; There cannot be a better employment of Moabites, then to be the treasurers and purveyors of God's children; Wherefore serve they but to gather for the true owners? It is too much niceness in them, which forbear the benefit they might make of the faculties of profane, or heretical persons; They consider not that they have more right to the good such men can do, than they that do it, and challenge that good for their own.  
But I cannot see, how it could be lawful for his Sons to match with the daughters of Moab; Had these men heard how far, and under how solemn an oath, their father Abraham sent for a wife of his own tribe, for his son Isaac? Had they heard the earnest charge of holy Isaac, to the son he blessed, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan? Had they forgotten the plagues of Israel for but a short conversation with the Moabitish women? If they plead remoteness from their own people; Did they not remember how far jacob walked to Padan-Aram? Was it further from Moab to Bethleem, then from Bethleem to Moab? and if the care of themselves led them from Bethleem to Moab; should not their care of obedience to God have as well carried them back from Moab to Bethleem? Yet if their wives would have left their Idolatry with their maidenhead, the match had been more safe; but now, even at the last farewell, Naomi can say of Orpah, that she is returned to her gods. These men have sinned in their choice, and it speeds with them accordingly: Where did ever one of these unequal matches prosper? The two sons of Elimelech are swept away childless in the prime of their age, and in steed of their seed they leave their carcases in Moab; their wives widows, their mother childless, and helpless amongst Infidels, in that age which most needed comfort. How miserable do we now find poor Naomi? which is left destitute of her country, her husband, her children, her friends; and turned loose, and solitary to the mercy of the world: Yet even out of these hopeless ruins, will God raise comfort to his servant. The first good news is, that God hath visited his people with bread; now therefore, since her husband and sons were unrecoverable, she will try to recover her country, and kindred; If we can have the same conditions in judah, that we have in Moab, we are no Israelites▪ if we return not; Whiles her husband and sons lived, I hear no motion of retiring home, now these her earthly stays are removed, she thinks presently of removing to her country; Neither can we so heartily think of our home above, whiles we are furnished with these worldly contentments; when God strips us of them, straightways our mind is homeward.  
She that came from Bethleem, under the protection of an husband, attended with her sons, stored with substance; resolves now to measure all that way alone: Her adversity had stripped her of all, but a good heart; that remains with her, and bears up her head, in the deepest of her extremity: True Christian fortitude wades through all evils; and, though we be up to the chin, yet keeps firm footing against the stream: where this is, the sex is not discerned; neither is the quantity of the evil read in the face; How well doth this courage become Israelites, when we are left comfortless in the midst of the Moab of this world, to resolve the contempt of all dangers, in the way to our home; As contrarily, nothing doth more misbeseeme a Christian, then that his spirits should flag with his estate, and that any difficulty should make him despair of attaining his best ends.  
Goodness is of a winning quality wheresoever it is; and even amongst Infidels, will make it self friends; The good disposition of Naomi carries away the hearts of her daughters in law with her; so as they are ready to forsake their kindred, their country, yea their own mother, for a stranger, whose affinity died with her sons: Those men are worse than Infidels, and next to Devils that hate the virtues of God's Saints; and could love their persons well if they were not conscionable.  
How earnestly do these two daughters of Moab plead for their continuance with Naomi; and how hardly is either of them dissuaded from partaking of the misery of her society; there are good natures even among Infidels, and such as for moral disposition, and civil respects cannot be exceeded by the best professors: Who can suffer his heart to rest in those qualities, which are common to them that are without God?  
Naomi could not be so insensible of her own good, as not to know how much comfort she might reap to the so litarinesse, both of her voyage, and her widowhood, by the society of these two younger widows, whose affections she had so well tried; even very partnership is a mitigation of evils; yet so earnestly doth she dissuade from accompanying her, as that she could not have said more, if she had thought their presence irksome, and burdenous: Good dispositions love not to pleasure themselves with the disadvantage of others; and had rather be miserable alone, then to draw in partners to their sorrow; for the sight of another's calamity doth rather double their own; and if themselves were free, would affect them with compassion; As contrarily, ill minds care not how many companions they have in misery, nor how few consorts in good; If themselves miscarry, they could be content all the world were enwrapped with them in the same distress.  
I marvel not that Orpah is by this seasonable importunity persuaded to return; from a mother in law, to a mother in nature; from a toilsome journey to rest, from strangers to her kindred, from an hopeless condition, to likelihoods of contentment. A little entreaty will serve to move nature to be good unto itself: Every one is rather a Naomi to his own soul, to persuade it to stay still, and enjoy the delights of Moab, rather than to hazard our entertainment in Bethleem: Will religion allow me this wild liberty of my actions, this loose mirth, these carnal pleasures? Can I be a Christian, and not live sullenly? None but a regenerate heart can choose rather to suffer adversity with God's people, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.  
The one sister takes an unwilling farewell, and moistens her last kisses with many tears; the other cannot be driven back but repels one entreaty, with another; Entreat me not to leave thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; where thou dwellest I will dwell, thy people shall be my people, thy God my God, where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried; Ruth saw so much upon ten years trial, in Naomi, as was more worth than all Moab; and in comparison whereof, all worldly respects deserved nothing but contempt: The next degree unto goodness is the love of goodness: He is in a fair way to grace, that can value it; If she had not been already a proselyte, she could not have set this price upon Naomi's virtue. Love cannot be separated from a desire of fruition; In vain had Ruth protested her affection to Naomi, if she could have turned her out to her journey alone; Love to the saints doth not more argue our interest in God, than society argues the truth of our love.  
As some tied vessel that holds out against wind and water, so did Ruth against all the powers of a mother's persuasions; The impossibility of the comfort of marriage in following her (which drew back her sister in law) cannot move her; She hears her mother, like a modest matron (contrary to the fashion of these times) say, I am too old to have an husband, and yet she thinks not on the contrary, I am too young to want an husband: It should seem the Moabites had learned this fashion of Israel to expect the brothers raising of seed to the deceased; The widowhood and age of Naomi cuts off that hope; neither could Ruth then, dream of a Boaz that might advance her; It is no love that cannot make us willing to be miserable for those we affect; The hollowest heart can be content to follow one that prospereth: Adversity is the only furnace of friendship; If love will not abide both fire and anvil, it is but counterfeit; so in our love to God we do but crack and vaunt in vain if we cannot be willing to suffer for him.  
But if any motive might hope to speed, that which was drawn from example, was most likely; Behold thy sister in law, is gone back unto her people, and to her Gods; return thou after her: This one artless persuasion hath prevailed more with the world, than all the places of reason: How many millions miscarry upon this ground; Thus did my forefathers; Thus do the most; I am neither the first, nor the last; Do any of the rulers; We strait think that, either safe, or pardonable, for which we can plead a precedent. This good woman hath more warrant for her resolution, than another's practice; The mind can never be steady, whiles it stands upon others feet, and till it be settled upon such grounds of assurance, that it will rather lead, then follow; and can say with joshua, whatsoever become of the world, I and my house will serve the Lord.  
If Naomi had not been a person of eminent note; no knowledge had been taken at Bethleem, of her return; Poverty is ever obscure; and those that have little, may go and come without noise: If the streets of Bethleem had not before used to say, There goes Naomi; they had not now asked, Is not this Naomi? She that had lost all things, but her name, is willing to part with that also; Call me not Naomi, but call me Marah; Her humility cares little for a glorious name, in a dejected estate; Many a one would have set faces upon their want, and in the bitterness of their condition, have affected the name of beauty; In all forms of good, there are more that care to seem, then to be; Naomi hates this hypocrisy, and since God hath humbled her, desires not to be respected of men: Those which are truly brought down, make it not dainty, that the world should think them so; but are ready to be the first proclaimers of their own vileness.  
Naomi went full out of Bethleem to prevent want; and now she brings that want home with her, which she desired to avoid: Our blindness oft times carries us into the perils we seek to eschew; God finds it best many times to cross the likely projects of his dearest children; and to multiply those afflictions, which they feared single.  
Ten years have turned Naomi into Marah; what assurance is there of these earthly things, whereof one hour may strip us? What man can say of the years to come, Thus I will be? How justly do we contemn this uncertainty, and look up to those riches that cannot but endure, when heaven and earth are dissolved?   

Boaz and Ruth.  
WHiles Elimelech shifted to Moab to avoid the famine; Boaz abode still at Bethleem, and continued rich, and powerful; He staid at home, and found that, which Elimelech went to seek, and miss: The judgement of samme doth not lightly extend itself to all; Pestilence and the sword spare none; but dearth commonly plagueth the meaner sort, and balketh the mighty; When Boaz his storehouse was empty, his fields were full; and maintain the name of Bethleem.  
I do not hear Ruth stand upon the terms of her better education, or wealthy Parentage, but now that God hath called her to want, she scorns not to lay her hand unto all homely services; and thinks it no disparagement to find her bread in other men's fields; There is no harder lesson to a generous mind, nor that more beseems it, then either to bear want, or to prevent it; Base spirits give themselves over to idleness, and misery, and because they are crossed, will sullenly perish.  
That good woman hath not been for nothing in the school of patience; she hath learned obedience to a poor stepmother; she was now a widow, passed he reach of any danger of correction, beside, that penury might seem to dispense with awe▪ Even children do easily learn to contemn the poverty of their own Parents; Yet hath she so enured herself to obedience, that she will not so much as go forth into the field to glean, without the leave of her mother in law, and is no less obsequious to March, than she was to Naomi; What shall we say to those children, that in the main actions of their life, forget they have natural Parents: It is a shame to see that in mean families want of substance causeth want of duty; and that children should think themselves privileged for unreverence, because the Parent is poor.  
Little do we know, when we go forth in the morning, what God means to do with us ere night; There is a providence that attends on us in all our ways; and guides us insensibly to his own ends; That divine hand leads Ruth blindfolded to the field of Boaz: That she meets with his reapers, and falls upon his land amongst all the fields of Bethleem, it was no praise to her election, but the gracious disposition of him, in whom we move; His thoughts are above ours; and do so order our actions, as we, if we had known, should have wished.  
No sooner is she come into the field, but the reapers are friendly to her; no sooner is Boaz come into his field, but he invites her to more bounty than she could have desired; now God begins to repay into her bosom, her love and duty to her mother in law; Reverence and loving respects to Parents, never yet went away unrecompensed; God will surely raise up friends amongst strangers, to those that have been officious at home.  
It was worth Ruthes' journey from Moab, to meet with such a man as Boaz, whom we find thrifty, religious, charitable; though he were rich yet he was not careless; he comes into the field to oversee his reapers; Even the best estate requires careful managing of the owner; He wanted not officers to take charge of his husbandry, yet he had rather be his own witness: After all the trust of others, the Master's eye feeds the horse: The Master of this great household of the world gives us an example of this care, whose eye is in every corner of this his large possession; Not civility only, but religion bind us to good husbandry; We are all stewards, and what account can we give to our master, if we never look after our estate? I doubt whether Boaz had been so rich, if he had not been so frugal: Yet was he not more thrifty, then religious: He comes not to his reapers, but with a blessing in his mouth: The Lord be with you, as one that knew, if he were with them, and not the Lord, his presence could avail nothing; All the business of the family speeds the better, for the master's benediction; Those affairs are likely to succeed, that take their beginning at God.  
Charity was well matched with his religion; without which, good words, are but hypocrites; no sooner doth he hear the name of the Moabitesse, but he seconds the kindness of his reapers; and still he rises in his favours▪ First, she may glean in his field; then she may drink of his vessels; then, she shall take her meal with his reapers; and part of it, from his own hand; Lastly, his workmen must let fall sheaves for her gathering: A small thing helps the needy: an handful of glean, a lapful of parched corn, a draft of the servants bottles, a loose sheaf was such a favour to Ruth, as she thought was above all recompense; This was not seen in the estate of Boaz, which yet makes her for the time, happy. If we may refresh the soul of the poor with the very offals of our estate, and not hurt ourselves, woe be to us if we do it not; Our barns shall be as full of curses as of corn, if we grudge the scattered ears of our field to the hands of the needy.  
How thankfully doth Ruth take these small favours from Boaz: perhaps some rich jewel in Moab would not have been so welcome; Even this was a presage of her better estate; those which shall receive great blessings, are ever thankful for little; and if poor souls be so thankful to us, for but an handful, or a sheaf; how should we be affected to our God, for whose fieldsfull, for full barns, full garners?  
Doubtless, Boaz, having taken notice of the good nature, dutiful carriage, and the near affinity of Ruth, could not but purpose some greater beneficence, and higher respects to her; Yet now onwards he fits his kindness to her condition, and gives her that, which to her meanness seemed much, though he thought it little: Thus doth the bounty of our God deal with us; It is not for want of love, that he gives us no greater measure of grace, but for want of our fitness and capacity; He hath reserved greater preferments for us, when it shall be seasonable for us to receive them.  
Ruth returns home wealthy with her Ephah of barley, and thankfully magnifies the liberality of Boaz, her new benefactor: Naomi repays his beneficence with her blessing; Blessed be he of the Lord. If the rich can exchange their alms with the poor for blessings, they have no cause to complain of an ill bargain Our gifts cannot be worth their faithful prayers: Therefore it is better to give then to receive, because he that receives, hath but a worthless alms, he that gives, receives an unvaluable blessing.  
I cannot but admire the modesty and silence of these two women; Naomi had not so much as talked of her kindred in Bethleem, nor till now, had she told Ruth that she had a wealthy kinsman; neither had Ruth inquired of her husband's great alliance; but both sat down meekly with their own wants, and cared not to know any thing else save that themselves were poor: Humility is ever the way to honour.  
It is a discourtesy where we are beholden, to alter our dependency; Like as men of trade take it ill, if customers which are in their books, go for their wares to another shop; Wisely doth Naomi advise Ruth not to be seen in any other field, whiles the harvest lasted. The very taking of their favours is a contentment to those that have already well deserved; and it is quarrel enough that their courtesy is not received; How shall the God of heaven take it, that whiles he gives and proffers largely, we run to the world that can afford us nothing but vanity and vexation?  
Those that can least act, are oft-times the best to advise: Good old Naomi sits still at home, and by her counsel pays Ruth all the love she owes her. The face of that action, to which she directs her, is the worst piece of it; the heart was sound; Perhaps, the assurance, which long trial had given her of the good government, and firm chastity of her daughter in law, together with her persuasion of the religious gravity of Boaz, made her think that design safe, which to others had been perilous, if not desperate; But besides that, holding Boaz next of blood to Elimelech, she made account of him, as the lawful husband of Ruth; so as there wanted nothing but a challenge, and consummation; Nothing was abated but some outward solemnities, which (though expedient for the satisfaction of others) yet were not essential to marriage: And if there were not these colours for a project so suspicious, it would not follow, that the action were warrantable, because Naomi's: Why should her example be more safe in this then in matching her sons with Insidels; then in sending back Orpah to her father's Gods? If every act of an holy person should be our rule, we should have crooked lives: Every action that is reported, is not straightways allowed; Our courses were very uncertain, if God had not given us rules, whereby we may examine the examples of the best Saints, and as well censure, as follow them. Let them that stumble at the boldness of Ruth, imitate the continence of Boaz.  
These times were not delicate; This man (though great in Bethleem) lays him down to rest upon a pallet, in the floor of his barn; when he awakes at midnight, no marvel if he were amazed to find himself accompanied; yet, though his heart were cheered with wine, the place solitary, the night silent, the person comely, the invitation plausible, could he be drawn to a rash act of lust▪ His appetite could not get the victory of reason, though it had wine and opportunity to help it; Herein Boaz showed himself a great master of his affections, that he was able to resist a fit tentation; It is no thank to many that they are free of some evils; perhaps they wanted not will, but convenience; But if a man when he is fitted with all helps to his sin, can repel the pleasure of sin, out of conscience; this is true fortitude.  
In steed of touching her as a wanton, he blesses her as a father, encourageth her as a friend, promiseth her as a kinsman, rewards her as a patron, & sends her away lad with hopes, & gifts, no less chaste, more happy than she came: Oh admirable temperance worthy the progenitor of him, in whose lips and heart was no guile.  
If Boaz had been the next kinsman, the marriage had needed no protraction, but now that his conscience told him, that Ruth was the right of another, it had not been more sensuality than injustice, to have touched his kinswoman; It was not any bodily impotency, but honesty and conscience that restrained Boaz, for the very next night she conceived by him; that good man wished his marriage bed holy, and durst not lie down in the doubt of a sin: Many a man is honest out of necessity, and affects the praise of that, which he could not avoid; but that man's mind is still an adulterer, in the forced continence of his body; No action can give us true comfort, but that which we do out of the grounds of obedience.  
Those which are fearful of sinning, are careful not to be thought to sin; Boaz, though he knew himself to be clear, would not have occasion of suspicion given to others; (Let no man know that a woman came into the floor:) A good heart is no less afraid of a scandal, then of a sin; whereas those that are resolved not to make any scruple of sin, despise others constructions, not caring whom they offend, so that they may please themselves. That Naomi might see her daughter in law was not sent back in dislike; she comes home laden with corn; Ruth hath gleaned more this night, then in half the harvest; The care of Boaz was, that she should not return to her mother empty: Love wheresoever it is, cannot be niggardly; We measure the love of God by his gifts; How shall he abide to send us away empty from those treasures of goodness.  
Boaz is restless in the prosecution of this suit; and hies him from his threshing floor, to the gate; and there convents the nearer kinsman before the Elders of the City; what was it that made Boaz so ready to entertain, so forward to urge this match? Wealth she had none, not so much as bread, but what she gleaned out of his field: Friends she had none, and those she had else where, Moabites; Beauty she could not have much, after that scorching in her travel, in her glean, Himself tells her what drew his heart to her, (All the City of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman:) Virtue in whomsoever it is found, is a great dowry, and where it meets with an heart that knows how to value it, is accounted greater riches than all that is hid in the bowels of the earth: The corn heap of Boaz was but chaff to this, & his money, dross.  
As a man that had learned to square all his actions to the law of God, Boaz proceeds legally with his rival; and tells him of a parcel of elimelec's land (which, it is like upon his removal to Moab, he had alienated;) which he (as the next kinsman) might have power to redeem; yet so, as he must purchase the wife of the deceased, with the land; Every kinsman is not a Bonz, the man could listen to the land, if it had been free from the clog of a necessary marriage; but now he will rather leave the land, then take the wife; Lest, whiles he should preserve elimelec's inheritance, he should destroy his own; for the next seed, which he should have by Ruth, should not be his heir, but his deceased kinsman's; How knew he whether God might not by that wife, send heirs enough for both their estates? rather had he therefore incur a manifest injustice, then hazard the danger of his inheritance; The law of God bound him to raise up seed to the next in blood; the care of his inheritance draws him to a neglect of his duty, though with infamy and reproach, and now he had rather his face should be spit upon, and his name should be called, The house of him whose shoe was pulled off, then to reserve the honour of him, that did his brother right, to his own prejudice; How many are there that do so overlove their issue, as that they regard neither sin, nor shame in advancing it? and that will rather endanger their soul then lose their name? It is a woeful inheritance that makes men heirs of the vengeance of God.  
Boaz is glad to take the advantage of his refusal; and holds that shoe (which was the sign of his tenure) more worth than all the land of Elimelec. And whereas other Wives purchase their husbands, with a large dowry, this man purchaseth his wife, at a dear rate, and thinks his bargain happy; All the substance of the earth, is not worth a virtuous and prudent wife; which Boaz doth now so rejoice in, as if he this day only began to be wealthy.  
Now is Ruth taken into the house of Boaz; she, that before had said, she was not like one of his maidens, is now become their mistress; This day she hath gleaned all the fields and barns of a rich husband; and (that there might be no want in her happiness) by a gracious husband she hath gained an happy seed; and hath the honour, above all the dames of Israel, to be the great grandmother of a King, of David, of the Messiah.  
Now is Marah turned back again to Naomi; and Orpah, if she hear of this in Moab, cannot but envy at her sister's happiness: Oh the sure and bountiful payments of the Almighty; Who ever came under his wing in vain? Who ever lost by trusting him? Who ever forsook the Moab of this world for the true Israel, and did not at last rejoice in the change.   

Anna and Peninna.  
ILL customs where they are once entertained are not easily discharged; Polygamy besides carnal delight might now plead age and example: so as even Elkanah (though a Levite) is tainted with the sin of Lamech; Like as fashions of attire, which at the first were disliked as uncomely, yet when they are once grown common, are taken up of the gravest: Yet this sin (as then currant with the time) could not make Elkanah, not religious; The house of God in Shilo was duly frequented of him; oftentimes, alone, in his ordinary course of attendance; with all his males, thrice a year; and once a year, with all his family; The continuance of an unknown sin cannot hinder the uprightness of a man's heart with God; as a man may have a mole upon his back, and yet think his skin clear; the least touch of knowledge, or wilfulness mars his sincerity.  
He that by virtue of his place was employed about the sacrifices of others, would much less neglect his own; It is a shame for him that teaches God's people that they should not appear before the Lord empty, to bring no sacrifice for himself. If Levites be profane, who should be religious?  
It was the fashion when they sacrificed, to feast; so did Elkanah; the day of his devotion is the day of his triumph; he makes great cheer for his whole family, even for that wife which he loved less; There is nothing more comely, than cheerfulness in the services of God; What is there in all the world, wherewith the heart of man should be so lift up, as with the conscience of his duty done to his maker? Whiles we do so, God doth to us, as our glass, smile upon us, while we smile on him.  
Love will be seen by entertainment; Peninnah and her children shall not complain of want, but Anna shall find her husband's affection in her portion; as his love to her was double, so was her part; She fared not the worse, because she was childless; no good husband will dislike his wife for a fault out of the power of her redress: yea rather, that which might seem to lose the love of her husband, wins it, her barrenness; The good nature of Elkanah laboured by his dear respects, to recompense this affliction; that so she might find no less contentment in the fruit of his hearty love, than she had grief from her own fruitlessness; It is the property of true mercy, to be most favourable to the weakest; Thus doth the gracious spouse of the Christian soul pity the barrenness of his servants; O Saviour, we should not find thee so indulgent to us, if we did not complain of our own unworthiness: Peninnah may have the more children but barren Annah hath the most love; How much rather could Elkanah have wished Peninnah barren; and Annah fruitful; but if she should have had both issue, and love, she had been proud, and her rival despised; God knows how to disperse his favours so, that every one may have cause both of thankfulness and humiliation; whiles there is no one that hath all, no one but hath some; If envy and contempt were not thus equally tempered, some would be over haughty, and others too miserable; But now, every man sees that in himself which is worthy of contempt, and matter of emulation in others, and contrarily sees what to pity and dislike in the most eminent, and what to applaud in himself, and out of this contrariety, arises a sweet mean of contentation.  
The love of Elkanah is so unable to free Anna from the wrongs of her rival, that it procures them rather; The unfruitfulness of Anna had never with so much despite been laid in her dish, if her husband's heart had been as barren of love to her; Envy though it take advantage of our weaknesses, yet is ever raised upon some grounds of happiness, in them whom it emulates; It is ever an ill effect of a good cause: If Abel's sacrifice had not been accepted, and if the acceptation of his sacrifice had not been a blessing, no envy had followed upon it.  
There is no evil of another, wherein it is fit to rejoice, but his Envy; and this is worthy of our joy, and thankfulness, because it shows us the price of that good, which we had, and valued not; The malignity of envy is thus well answered, when it is made the evil cause of a good effect to us; when God and our souls may gain by another's sin. I do now find that Anna insulted upon Peninnah, for the greater measure of her husband's love, as Peninna did upon her, for her fruitfulness; Those that are truly gracious, know how to receive the blessings of God, without contempt of them that want; and have learned to be thankful, without overlinesse.  
Envy when it is once conceived in a malicious heart, is like fire in billers of juniper, which (they say) continues more years than one; Every year was Anna thus vexed with her emulous partner; and troubled, both in her prayers and meals; Amidst all their feastings, she fed on nothing but her tears: Some dispositions are less sensible, and more careless of the despite and ●●●ties of others, and can turn over unkind usages, with contempt; By how much more tender the heart is, so much more deeply is it ever affected with discourtesies▪ As wax receives and retains that impression, which in the hard clay cannot be seen; or, as the eye feels that mote, which the skin of the eyelid could not complain of: Yet the husband of Anna (as one that knew his duty) labours by his love, to comfort her against these discontentments, Why weepest thou? Am not I better to thee then ten sons? It is the weakness of good natures, to give so much advantage to an enemy; what would malice rather have then the vexation of them whom it persecutes? We cannot better please an adversary, then by hurting ourselves; This is no other, then to humour envy, to serve the turn of those, that malign us; and to draw on that malice, whereof we are weary; whereas carelessness puts ill will out of countenance; and makes it withdraw itself in a rage, as that which doth but shame the author, without the hurt of the patient: In causeless wrongs the best remedy is contempt.  
She that could not find comfort in the loving persuasions of her husband, seeks it in her prayers; She rises up hungry from the feast, and hies her to the Temple; there she powers out her tears, and supplications; Whatsoever the complaint be, here is the remedy; There is one universal receipt for all evils, prayer; When all helps fail us, this remains, and whiles we have an heart, comforts it.  
Here was not more bitterness in the soul of Anna, than fervency; she did not only weep and pray, but vow unto God; If God will give her a son, she will give her son to God back again; Even nature itself had consecrated her son to God; for he could not but be borne a Levite; But if his birth make him a Levite, her vow shall make him a Nazarite, & dedicate his minority to the Tabernacle; The way to obtain any benefit, is to devote it in our hearts, to the glory of that God, of whom we ask it; by this means shall God both pleasure his servant, and honour himself; Whereas, if the scope of our desires be carnal, we may be sure either to fail of our suit, or of a blessing.   

Ely and Anna.  
OLd Ely sits on a stool, by one of the posts of the Tabernacle; where should the Priests of God be but in the Temple? whether for action or for oversight; Their very presence keeps God's house in order, and the presence of God keeps their hearts in order.  
It is oft found that those which are themselves conscionable, are too forward to the censuring of others; Good Ely, because he marks the lips of Annah to move without noise, chides her as drunken, and uncharitably misconstrues her devotion; It was a weak ground whereon to build so heavy a sentence; If she had spoken too loud, and incomposedly, he might have had some just colour for this conceit, but now to accuse her silence (notwithstanding all the tears which he saw) of drunkenness, it was a zealous breach of charity.  
Some spirit would have been enraged with so rash a censure; when anger meets with grief, both turn into furie●; but this good woman had been enured to reproaches, and beside, did well see the reproof arose from mesprison, and the mesprison from zeal; and therefore answers meekly, as one that had rather satisfy, then expostulate, Nay my Lord, but I am a woman troubled in spirit; Hely may now learn charity of Annah: If she had been in that distemper, whereof he accused her, his just reproof had not been so easily digested; Guiltiness is commonly clamorous, and impatient, whereas innocence is silent, and careless of misreports; It is natural unto all men to wipe off from their name all aspersions of evil, but none do it with such violence, as they which are faulty; It is a sign the horse is galled, that stirs too much when he is touched.  
She that was censured for drunken, censures drunkenness more deeply than her reprover; Count not thine handmaid, for a daughter of Belial; The drunkard's style begins in lawlessness, proceeds in unprofitableness, ends in misery; and all shut up in the denomination of this pedigree; A son of Belial.  
If Hannah had been tainted with this sin, she would have denied it with more favour, and have disclaimed it with an extenuation; What if I should have been merry with wine, yet I might be devout? If I should have overjoyed in my sacrifice to God, one cup of excess had not been so heinous; now her freedom is seen in her severity; Those which have clear hearts from any sin, prosecute it with rigour; whereas the guilty are ever partial; their conscience holds their hands, and tells them that they beat themselves, whiles they punish others.  
Now Hely sees his error, and recants it; and to make amends for his rash censure, prays for her; Even the best may err, but not persist in it; When good natures have offended, they are unquiet till they have hastened satisfaction; This was within his office, to pray for the distressed; Wherefore serves the Priest but to sacrifice for the people; and the best sacrifices are the prayers of faith.  
She that began her prayers with fasting, and heaviness, rises up from them with cheerfulness, and repast: It cannot be spoken, how much ease and joy the heart of man finds in having unloaded his cares, and powered out his supplications into the ears of God; since it is well assured, that the suit which is faithfully asked, is already granted in heaven: The conscience may well rest, when it tells us, that we have neglected no means of redressing our affliction; for than it may resolve to look either for amendment, or patience.  
The sacrifice is ended, and now Elkanah, and his family rise up early, to return unto Ramah; but they dare not set forward, till they have worshipped before the Lord; That journey cannot hope to prosper, that takes not God with it; The way to receive blessings at home, is to be devout at the Temple.  
She that before conceived faith in her heart, now conceives a son in her womb; God will rather work miracles then faithful prayers shall return empty: I do not find that Peninna asked any son of God, yet she had store; Anna begged hard for this one; and could not till now obtain him: They which are dearest to God do oft-times with great difficulty work out those blessings, which fall into the mouths of the careless: That wise disposer of all things knows it fit to hold us short of those favours which we sue for; whether for the trial of our patience, or the exercise of our faith, or the increase of our importunity, or the doubling of our obligation.  
Those children are most like to prove blessings, which the Parents have begged of God; and which are no less the fruit of our supplications, then of our body; As this child was the son of his mother's prayers, and was consecrated to God ere his possibility of being; so now himself shall know, both how he came, and whereto he was ordained; and lest he should forget it, his very name shall teach him both; (She called his name Samuel); He cannot so much as hear himself named, but he must needs remember both the extraordinary mercy of God in giving him to a barren mother; and the vow of his mother in restoring him back to God by her zealous dedication; and by both of them learn holiness, and obedience: There is no necessity of significant names; but we cannot have too many monitors to put us in mind of our duty.  
It is wont to be the father's privilege to name his child; but because this was his mother's son, begotten more by her prayers, than the seed of Elkanah, it was but reason, she should have the chief hand both in his name▪ and disposing; It had been indeed in the power of Elkanah, to have changed both his name, and profession, and to abrogate the vow of his wife; that wives might know, they were not their own; and that the rib might learn to know the head; but husbands shall abuse their authority, if they shall wilfully cross the holy purposes, and religious endeavours of their yokefellows; How much more fit is it for them to cherish all good desires in the weaker vessels; and as we use, when we carry a small light in a wind, to hide it with our lap, or hand, that it may not go out; If the wife be a Vine, the husband should be an Elm to uphold he● in all worthy enterprises; Els● she falls to the ground, an● proves fruitless.  
The year is now come about; and Elkanah calls his family to their holy journey; to go up to jerusalem, for the anniversary solemnity of their sacrifice; anna's heart is with them, but she hath a good excuse to stay at home, the charge of her Samuel; her success in the Temple, keeps her happily from the Temple; that her devotion may be doubled, because it was respited: God knows how to dispense with necessities; but, if we suffer idle and needless occasions to hold us from the Tabernacle of God, our hearts are but hollow to religion.  
Now at last, when the child was weaned from her hand, she goes up, and pays her vow, and with it, pays the interest of her intermission: Never did Anna go up with so glad an heart to Shilo, as now that she carries God this reasonable present, which himself gave to her, and she vowed to him; accompanied with the bounty of other sacrifices, more in number and measure, than the Law of God required of her; and all this, is too little for her God, that so mercifully remembered her affliction, and miraculously remedied it; Those hearts which are truly thankful, do no less rejoice in their repayment, then in their receipt; and do as much study, how to show their humble and fervent affections, for what they have, as how to compass favours when they want them; Their debt is their burden, which when they have discharged, they are at ease.  
If Anna had repent of her vow, and not presented her son to the Tebernacle, Ely could not have challenged him; He had only seen her lips stir, not hearing the promise of her heart; It was enough, that her own soul knew her vow, and God which was greater than it; The obligation of a secret vow is no less, then if it had ten thousand witnesses.  
Old Hely could not choose but much rejoice to see this fruit of those lips, which he thought moved with wine; and this good proof, both of the merciful audience of God, and the thankful fidelity of his handmaid; this sight calls him down to his knees (He worshipped the Lord); We are unprofitable witnesses of the mercies of God, and the graces of men, if we do not glorify him for others sakes, no less then for our own.  
Hely and Anna grew now better acquainted; neither had he so much cause to praise God for her, as she afterwards for him; For if her own prayers obtained her first child; his blessing enriched her with five more; If she had not given her first son to God, ere she had him; I doubt, whether she had not been ever barren; or if she had kept her Samuel at home, whether ever she had conceived again; now that piety which stripped her of her only child, for the service of her God, hath multiplied the fruit of her womb, and gave her five for that one, which was still no less hers, because he was Gods: There is no so certain way of increase, as to lend, or give unto the owner of all things.   

Ely and his Sons.  
IF the conveyances of grace were natural; holy parents would not be so ill suited with children: What good man would not rather wish his loins dry, then fruitful of wickedness? Now, we can neither traduce goodness, nor choose but traduce sin; If virtue were as well entailed upon us, as sin, one might serve to check the other in our children; but now since grace is derived from heaven on whomsoever it pleases the giver, and that evil which ours receive hereditarily from us, is multiplied by their own corruption, it can be no wonder that good men have ill children, it is rather a wonder that any children are not evil: The sons of Ely are as lewd, as himself was holy; If the goodness of examples, precepts, education, profession could have been preservatives from extremity of sin, these sons of an holy father had not been wicked; now, neither parentage, nor breeding, nor priesthood can keep the sons of Hely from sons of Belial; If our children be good, let us thank God for it; this was more than we could give them; if evil they may thank us, and themselves; us, for their birth-sin, themselves for the improvement of it to that height of wickedness.  
If they had not been sons of Ely, yet being Priests of God, who would not have hoped their very calling should have infused some holiness into them; but now, even their white Ephod covers foul sins; yea rather, if they which serve at the alter degenerate, their wickedness is so much more above others, as their place is holier; A wicked Priest is the worst creature upon earth; Who are Devils but they which were once Angels of light? Who can stumble at the sins of the evangelical Levites, that sees such inpuritie even before the Ark of God? That God which promised to be the Levites portion, had set forth the portion of his Ministers; he will feast them at his own altar; The breast and the right shoulder of the peace offering was their morsel; these bold and covetous Priests will rather have the flesh-hock their arbiter, than God; whatsoever those three teeth fasten upon, shall be for their tooth; They were weary of one joint, and now their delicacy affects variety; God is not worthy to carve for these men, but their own hands; And this they do not receive, but take; and take violently, unseasonably; It had been fit God should be first served; their presumption will not stay his leisure; ere the fat be burned, ere the flesh be boiled, they snatch more than their share from the altar; as if the God of heaven should wait on their palate; as if the Israelites had come thither to sacrifice to their bellies; and (as commonly a wanton tooth is the harbinger to luxurious wantonness) they are no sooner fed, than they neigh after the dames of Israel; Holy women assemble to the door of the Tabernacle; these varlets tempt them to lust, that came thither for devotion; they had wives of their own, yet their unbridled desires rove after strangers, and fear not to pollute even that holy place with abominable filthiness, O sins, to shameful for men; much more for the spiritual guides of Israel! He that makes himself a servant to his tooth, shall easily become a slave to all inordinate affections: That altar which expiated other men's sins, added to the sins of the sacrificers; Doubtless many a soul was the cleaner for the blood of the sacrifices, which they shed, whiles their own were more impure; And as the altar cannot sanctify the Priest, so the uncleanness of the minister cannot pollute the offering; because the virtue thereof is not in the agent, but in the institution; in the representation his sin is his own; the comfort of the sacrament is from God; Our clergy is no charter for heaven; Even those whose trade is devotion, may at once show the way to heaven by their tongue, and by their foot lead the way to hell; It is neither a cowl, nor an Ephod that can privilege the soul.  
The sin of these men was worthy of contempt, yea perhaps their persons; but for the people therefore to abhor the offerings of the Lord, was to add their evil unto the Priests; and to offend God, because he was offended; There can no offence be justly taken, even at men; much less at God for the sake of men: No man's sins should bring the service of God into dislike; this is to make holy things guilty of our profaneness: It is a dangerous ignorance not to distinguish betwixt the work, and the instrument; whereupon it oft comes to pass, that we fall out with God, because we find cause of offence from men; and give God just cause to abhor us, because we abhor his service unjustly. Although it be true (of great men especially) that they are the last that know the evils of their own house, yet either it could not be, when all Israel rung of the lewdness of Elyes sons, that he only should not know it, or if he knew it not, his ignorance cannot be excused; for a seasonable restraint might have prevented this extremity of debauchedness. Complaints are long muttered of the great, ere they dare break forth to open contestation; public accusations of authority argues intolerable extremities of evil; nothing but age can plead for Ely, that he was not the first accuser of his sons; now when their enormities came to be the voice of the multitude, he must hear it perforce; and doubtless he heard it with grief enough, but not with anger enough; he that was the judge of Israel, should have unpartially judged his own flesh, and blood; never could he have offered a more pleasing sacrifice, than the depraved blood of so wicked sons; In vain do we rebuke those sins abroad, which we tolerate at home; That man makes himself but ridiculous, that leaving his own house on fire, runs to quench his neighbours.  
I heard Ely sharp enough to Annah, upon but a suspicion of sin; and now, how mild I find him to the notorious crimes of his own? Why do you so my sons: it is no good report; my sons do no more so; The case is altered with the persons; if nature may be allowed to speak in judgement, and to make difference, not of sins but offenders, the sentence must needs savour of partiality; Had these men but some little slackened their duty, or heedlessly omitted some rite of the sacrifice, this censure had not been unfit; but to punish the thefts, rapines, sacrileges, adulteries, incests of his sons, with Why do ye so, was no other than to s●aue that head, which had deserved cutting off; As it is with ill humours, that a weak dose doth but stir, and anger them, not purge them out; so it fareth with sins; An easy reproof doth but encourage wickedness, and makes it think itself so sleight, as that censure importeth; A vehement rebuke to a capital evil, is but like a strong shower to a ripe field; which lays that corn which were worthy of a sickle. It is a breach of justice not to proportionate the punishment to the offence; To whip a man for a murder, or to punish the purse for incest, or to burn treason in the hand, or to award the stocks to burglairy, is to patronize evil, in steed of avenging it; Of the two extremes, rigour is more safe for the public weal, because the over-punishing of one offender frights many from sinning: It is better to live in a commonwealth where nothing is lawful, then where every thing.  
Indulgent Parents are cruel to themselves, and their posterity Ely could not have devised which way to have plagued himself, and his house so much, as by his kindness to his children's sins; what variety of judgements doth he now hear of from the messenger of God? First, because his old age (which uses to be subject to choler), inclined now to misfavor his sons, therefore, there shall not be an old man left of his house for ever; and because it vexed him not enough, to see his sons enemies to God in their profession, therefore he shall see his enemy in the habitation of the Lord; and because himself forbore to take vengeance of his sons, and esteemed their life above the glory of his Master, therefore God will revenge himself, by killing them both in one day; and because he abused his sovereignty by connivence at sin, therefore shall his house be stripped of this honour, and see it translated to another; and lastly, because he suffered his sons to please their own wanton appetite, in taking meat off from God's trencher, therefore, those which remain of his house shall come to his successors, to beg a piece of silver, and a morsel of bread; in a word, because he was partial to his sons, God shall execute all this severely upon him, and them: I do not read of any fault Ely had, but indulgence; and which of the notorious offenders were plagued more? Parents need no other means to make them miserable, then sparing the rod.  
Who should be the bearer of these fearful tidings to Ely, but young Samuel, whom himself had trained up; He was now grown past his mother's coats, fit for the message of God; Old Ely rebuked not his young sons, therefore young Samuel is sent to rebuke him; I marvel not whiles the Priesthood was so corrupted, if the word of God were precious, if there were no public vision; It is not the manner of God to grace the unworthy; The ordinary ministration in the Temple was too much honour for those that rob the Altar, though they had no extraordinary revelations; Hereupon it was, that God lets old Hely sleep (who slept in his sin) and awakes Samuel, to tell him what he would do with his master: He which was wont to be the mouth of God to the people, must now receive the message of God, from the mouth of another; As great persons will not speak to those, with whom they are highly offended, but send them their checks by others  
The lights of the Temple were now dim, and almost ready to give place to the morning, when God called Samuel; to signify perhaps, that those which should have been the lights of Israel, burned no less dimly, and were near their going out, and should be succeeded with one, so much more lightsome than they, as the Sun was more bright than the lamps: God had good leisure to have delivered this message by day, but he meant to make use of samuel's mistaking; and therefore so speaks, that Ely may be asked for an answer, and perceive himself both omitted, and censured; He that meant to use samuel's voice to Ely, imitates the voice of Ely to Samuel; Samuel had so accustomed himself to obedience, and to answer the call of Ely, that lying in the further cells of the Levites, he is easily raised from his sleep; and even in the night runs for his message, to him, who was rather to receive it from him: Thrice is the old man disquieted with the diligence of his servant, and, though visions were rare in his days, yet is he not so unacquainted with God, as not to attribute that voice to him, which himself heard not; Wherefore like a better Tutor than a Parent, he teaches Samuel what he shall answer, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth.  
It might have pleased God at the first call to have delivered his message to Samuel, not expecting the answer of a novice unseen in the visions of a God; yet doth he rather defer it till the fourth summons, and will not speak till Samuel confessed his audience: God loves ever to prepare his servants for his employments, and will not commit his errands, but to those, whom he hath addressed both by wonder, and attention, and humility.  
Ely knew well the gracious fashion of God, that where he intended a favour, prorogation could be no hindrance; and therefore after the call of God, thrice answered with silence, he instructs Samuel to be ready for the fourth: If samuel's silence had been wilful, I doubt whether he had been again solicited; now God doth both pity his error, and requite his diligence by redoubling his name at the last.  
Samuel had now many years ministered before the Lord, but never till now heard his voice; and now hears it with much terror; for the first word that he hears God speak, is threatening, and that of vengeance to his master; What were these menaces but so many premonitions to himself that should succeed Ely? God begins early to season their hearts with fear, whom he means to make eminent instruments of his glory; It is his mercy to make us witnesses of the judgements of others, that we may be forewarned, ere we have the occasions of sinning.  
I do not hear God bid Samuel deliver this message to Ely; He that was but now made a Prophet, knows, that the errands of God intent not silence; and that God would not have spoken to him of another, if he had meant the news should be reserved to himself: Neither yet did he run with open mouth unto Ely, to tell him this vision, unasked; No wise man will be hasty to bring ill tidings to the great; rather doth he stay till the importunity of his Master should wring it from his unwillingness; and then, as his concealment showed his love, so his full relation shall approve his fidelity: If the heart of Ely had not told him this news, before God told it Samuel, he had never been so instant with Samuel, not to conceal it; His conscience did well presage that it concerned himself; Guiltiness needs no Prophet to assure it of punishment: The mind that is troubled proiecteth terrible things; and though it cannot single out the judgement allotted to it, yet it is in a confused expectation of some grievous evil: Surely, Ely could not think it worse than it was; The sentence was fearful, and such as I wonder the neck, or the heart of old Ely could hold out the report of; That God swears he will judge Elyes house; and that with beggary, with death, with desolation; and that the wickedness of his house shall not be purged with sacrifice, or offerings for ever; And yet, this which every Israelites ear should tingle to hear of, when it should be done, old Ely hears with an unmoved patience, and humble submission, It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good; Oh admirable faith, and more than human constancy and resolution, worthy of the aged presisident of Shiloh, worthy of an heart sacrificed to that God, whose justice had refused to expiate his sin by sacrifice: If Ely have been an ill father to his sons, yet he is a good son to God, and is ready to kiss the very rod he shall smart withal; It is the Lord, whom I have ever found holy, and just, and gracious, and he cannot but be himself; Let him do what seemeth him good; for whatsoever seemeth good to him, cannot but be good; howsoever it seems to me: Every man can open his hand to God while he blesses; but to expose ourselves willingly to the afflicting hand of our maker, and to kneel to him whiles he scourges us, is peculiar only to the faithful.  
If ever a good heart could have freed a man, from temporal punishments, Ely must needs have escaped; God's anger was appeased by his humble repentance, but his justice must be satisfied; Elyes sin and his sons, was in the eye and mouth of all Israel, his glory therefore should have been much wronged by their impunity: Who would not have made these spiritual guides an example of lawlessness? and have said; What care I how I live, if Elyes sons go away unpunished? As not the tears of Ely, so not the words of Samuel may fall to the ground; We may not measure the displeasure of God by his stripes; many times, after the remission of the sin, the very chastisements of the Almighty are deadly; No repentance can assure us that we shall not smart with outward afflictions: That, can prevent the eternal displeasure of God; but still it may be necessary and good we should be corrected: Our care and suit must be, that the evils which shall not be averted, may be sanctified.  
If the prediction of these evils were fearful, what shall the execution be? The presumption of the ill-taught Israelites shall give occasion to this judgement; for being smitten before the Philistims, they send for the Ark into the field; Who gave them authority to command the Ark of God at their pleasure? Here was no consulting with the Ark, which they would fetch; no inquiry of Samuel whether they should fetch it; but an heady resolution of presumptuous Elders to force God into the field, and to challenge success: If God were not with the Ark, why did they send for it, and rejoice in the coming of it? If God were with it, why was not his allowance asked that it should come? How can the people be good where the Priests are wicked? When the Ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts that dwells between the Cherubims, was brought into the host (though with mean and wicked attendance) Israel doth, as it were, fill the heaven, and shake the earth with shouts; as if the Ark and victory were no less unseparable, than they and their sins; Even the lewdest men will be looking for favour from that God, whom they cared not to displease, contrary to the conscience of their deservings; Presumption doth the same in wicked men, which faith doth in the holiest; Those that regarded not the God of the Ark, think themselves safe and happy in the Ark of God; vain men are transported with a confidence in the outsides of religion, not regarding the substance and soul of it, which only can give them true peace; But rather than God will humour superstition in Israelites, he will suffer his own Ark to fall into the hands of Philistims; Rather will he seem to slacken his hand of protection, than he will be thought to have his hands bound by a formal misconfidence. The slaughter of the Israelites was no plague to this; It was a greater plague rather to them that should survive, and behold it. The two sons of Ely which had helped to corrupt their brethren, die by the hands of the uncircumcised, and are now too late separated from the Ark of God by Philistims, which should have been before separated by their father; They had lived formerly to bring God's altar into contempt, and now live to carry his Ark into captivity, and at last, as those that had made up the measure of their wickedness are slain in their sin.  
Ill news doth ever either run, or fly; The man of Benjamin, which ran from the host, hath soon filled the City with outcries; and Elyes ears with the cry of the City; The good old man after ninety and eight years, sits in the gate, as one that never thought himself too aged to do God service; and hears the news of Israel's discomfiture, and his sons death, though with sorrow, yet with patience; but, when the messenger tells him of the Ark of God taken, he can live no longer, that word strikes him down backward from his throne, and kills him in the fall; no sword of a Philistim could have slain him more painfully, neither know I, whether his neck, or his heart were first broken: Oh fearful judgement, that ever any Israelites ear could tingle withal; The Ark lost; what good man would wish to live without God? Who can choose but think he hath lived too long, that hath overlived the Testimonies of God's presence with his Church? Yea the very daughter in law of Ely, a woman, the wife of a lewd husband, when she was at once traveling (upon that tidings) and in that travel, dying (to make up the full sum of God's judgement upon that wicked house) as one insensible of the death of her father, of her husband, of herself, in comparison of this loss, calls her (then unseasonable) son, Ichabod; and with her last breath says, The glory is departed from Israel; The Ark is taken: what cares she for a posterity, which should want the Ark? What cares she for a son, come into the world of Israel, when God was gone from it? and how willingly doth she depart from them, from whom God was departed? Not outward magnificence, not state, not wealth, not favour of the mighty, but the presence of God in his Ordinances, are the glory of Israel; the subducing whereof is a greater judgement, than destruction.  
Oh Israel, worse now than no people; a thousand times more miserable than Philistims; Those Pagans went away triumphing with the Ark of God, and victory; and leave the remnants of the chosen people to lament, that they once had a God:  
Oh cruel and wicked indulgence, that is now found guilty of the death, not only of the Priests, and people, but of Religion. Unjust mercy can never end in less than blood, and it were well if only the body should have cause to complain of that kind cruelty.   
FINIS.   

ERRATA.  
Pag. 97. lin. 19 for wool god, read wool. God: p. 169 l. 19 for entreats, read treats. p▪ 175. 15. for enjoyed, read joyed. p. 222. l. 18. for may be, read may not be. p. 223. l. 15. for strength, read stench. p 268. for had not wit, read had wit p. 346. ult. for strainted, read straightened. p. 434. l. 3. for representation his. r. representation: his.