Contemplations UPON THE Principal passages of the Holy STORY.  
 
By IOS. HALL..  
LONDON Printed by Edward Griffin for Henry Fetherstone. 1618.    

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, MY SINGULAR GOOD LORD, the LORD HAY, Baron of SALEY, one of his majesties most Honourable Privy COUNSELL.  
RIGHT HO:  
Upon how just reason these my Contemplations go forth so late after their fellows, it were needless to give account to your LO: in whose train I had the honour (since my last) to pass both the SEA, and the TWEDE. All my private studies have gladly veiled to the public services of my Sovereign Master: No sooner could I recover the happiness of my quiet thoughts, than I renewed this my divine task: Wherein I cannot but profess to place so much contentment, as that I wish not any other measure of my life, than it; What is this other, than the exaltation of ISAAC'S delight to walk forth into the pleasant fields of the Scriptures, and to meditate of nothing under heaven? Yea what other than Jacob's sweet vision of Angels, climbing up and down that sacred ladder, which GOD hath set betwixt heaven and earth? Yea (to rise yet higher) what other then an imitation of holy MOSES, in his conversing with GOD himself, on the Horeb of both Testaments? And if I may call your LO: forth a little from your great affairs of Court and State, to bless your eyes with this prospect, how happy shall you confess this change of objects? and how unwillingly shall you obtain leave of your thoughts to return unto these sublunary employments? Our last discourse left God's ARK amongst the Philistims; now we return to see what it doth there, and to fetch it thence: Wherein your LO: shall find the revenges of God never so deadly, as when he gives most way unto men; The vain confidence of wickedness ending in a late repentance; The fearful plagues of a presumptuous sauciness with God, not prevented with the honesty of good intentions; The mercy of God accepting the services of an humble faithfulness in a meaner dress. From thence you shall see the dangerous issue of an affected innovation, although to the better; The errors of credulity, and blind affection in the holiest governors, guilty of the people's discontentment; The stubborn heddinesse of a multitude that once finds the reins slack in their necks, not capable of any pause, but their own fall; The untrusty promises of a fair outside, and a plausible entrance, shutting up in a woeful disappointment. What do I forestall a discourse so full of choice; your LO: shall find every line useful, and shall willingly confess that the story of God can make a man not less wise, then good.  
Mine humble thankfulness knows not how to express itself otherwise, then in these kind of presents, and in my hearty prayers for the increase of your Honour, and Happiness, which shall never be wanting from  
Your Lo: sincerely and thankfully devoted, IOS: HALL..   

Contemplations.  

THE ARK and DAGON.  
MEN could not arise to such height of impiety, if they did not mistake God: The acts of his just judgement are imputed to impotence; that God would send his Ark captive to the Philistims, is so construed by them, as if he could not keep it: The wife of Phinehas cried out, that glory was departed from Israel; The Philistims dare say in triumph, that glory is departed from the God of Israel; The Ark was not Israel's, but Gods, this victory reaches higher than to men. Dagon had never so great a day, so many sacrifices, as now that he seems to take the God of Israel prisoner; Where should the captive be bestowed, but in the custody of the Victor: It is not love, but insultation, that lodges the Ark close beside Dagon: What a spectacle was this, to see uncircumcised Philistims laying their profane hands upon the testimony of God's presence? to see the glorious mercy seat under the roof of an Idol? to see the two Cherubins spreading their wings under a false God?  
OH the deep and holy wisdom of the Almighty, which over-reaches all the finite conceit of his creature, who while he seems most to neglect himself, fetches about most glory to his own name; He winks, and sits still on purpose, to see what men would do, and is content to suffer indignity from his creature, for a time, that he may be everlastingly magnified in his justice, and power: That honour pleaseth God and men best, which is raised out of contempt.  
THE Ark of God was not used to such porters; The Philistims carry it unto Ashdod, that the victory of Dagon may be more glorious: What pains superstition puts men unto, for the triumph of a false cause? And if profane Philistims can think it no toil to carry the Ark where they should not, what a shame is it for us, if we do not gladly attend it where we should? How justly may Gods truth scorn the imparity of our zeal?  
IF the Isralites did put confidence in the Ark, can we marvel that the Philistims did put confidence in that power which (as they thought) had conquered the Ark? The less is ever subject unto the greater; What could they now think, but that heaven and earth were theirs? Who shall stand out against them, when the God of Israel hath yielded? Security and presumption attend ever at the threshold of ruin.  
GOD will let them sleep in this confidence; in the morning they shall find, how vainly they have dreamt. Now they begin to find they have but gloried in their own plague, and overthrown nothing but their own peace: Dagon hath an house, when God hath but a Tabernacle; It is no measuring of religion by outward glory: Into this house the proud Phoenitians come, the next morning, to congratulate unto their god, so great a captive, such divine spoils, and in their early devotions to fall down before him, under whom the God of Israel was fallen: and lo, where they find their god, fallen down on the ground upon his face, before him, whom they thought both his prisoner, and theirs: Their god is forced to do that, which they should have done voluntarily; although God casts down that dumb rival of his, for scorn, not for adoration. Oh ye foolish Philistims, could ye think that the same house could hold GOD & DAGON? could ye think a senseless stone, a fit companion and guardian, for the living GOD? Had ye laid your Dagon upon his face, prostrate before the Ark, yet would not God have endured the indignity of such a lodging; but now, that ye presume to set up your carved stone, equal to his Cherubins, go read your folly in the floor of your temple, and know that he which cast your god so low, can cast you lower.  
THE true God owes a shame to those which will be making matches betwixt himself and Belial.  
BUT this perhaps, was only a mischance, or a neglect of attendance, lay to your hands, o ye Philistims, and raise up Dagon into his place; It is a miserable god that needs helping up; Had ye not been more senseless than that stone, how could you choose but think, How shall he raise us above our enemies, that cannot rise alone? how shall he establish us in the station of our peace, that cannot hold his own foot? If Dagon did give the foil unto the God of Israel, what power is it, that hath cast him upon his face, in his own Temple? It is just with God, that those which want grace shall want wit too; it is the power of superstition, to turn men into those stocks, and stones, which they worship: They that make them are like unto them; Doubtless, this first fall of Dagon was kept as secret, and excused as well as it might, and served rather for astonishment, than conviction; there was more strangeness than horror in that accident; that whereas Dagon had wont to stand, and the Philistims fall down, now Dagon fell down, and the Philistims stood, and must become the patrons of their own god; their god worships them upon his face, and craves more help from them, than ever he could give: But if their sottishness can digest this all is well. Dagon is set in his place, and now those hands are lift up to him, which helped to lift him up; and those faces are prostrate unto him, before whom he lay prostrate. Idolatry and superstition are not easily put out of countenance; But will the jealousy of the true God put it up thus? Shall Dagon escape with an harmless fall? Surely, if they had let him lie still upon the p●●ement, perhaps that insensible statue had found no other revenge; but now, they will be advancing it to the rood-loft again, and affront God's Ark with it, the event will shame them, and let them know, how much God scorns a partner, either of his own making, or theirs.  
THE morning is fittest for devotion, then do the Philistims flock to the temple of their god; What a shame is it for us to come late to ours? Although, not so much piety as curiosity did now hasten their speed, to see what rest their Dagon was allowed to get in his own roof; and now behold their kind god is come to meet them in the way; some pieces of him salute their eyes upon the threshold. Dagons' head and hands are overrun their fellows, to tell the Philistims how much they were mistaken in a god.  
THIS second fall breaks the Idol in pieces, and threats the same confusion to the worshippers of it. Easy warnings neglected end ever in destruction. The head is for devising, the hand for execution; In these two powers of their god, did the Philistims chiefly trust; these are therefore laid under their feet, upon the threshold, that they might a far of see their vanity, and that (if they would) they might set their foot on that best piece of their god, whereon their heart was set.  
THERE was nothing wherein that Idol resembled a man, but in his head, and hands, the rest was but a scaly portraiture of a fish, God would therefore separate from this stone, that part, which had mocked man, with the counterfeit of himself; that man might see what an unworthy lump he had matched with himself, and set up above himself: The just quarrel of God is bend upon those means, and that parcel which have dared to rob him of his glory.  
How can the Philistims now miss the sight of their own folly? how can they be but enough convicted of their mad idolatry, to see their god lie broken to morsels, under their feet? every piece whereof proclaims the power of him that broke it, and the stupidity of those that adored it? Who would expect any other issue of this act, but to hear the Philistims say, we now see how superstition hath blinded us? Dagon is no god for us, our hearts shall never more rest upon a broken statue: That only true God, which hath beaten ours, shall challenge us by the right of conquest: But here was none of this; rather a further degree of their dotage follows upon this palpable conviction: They cannot yet suspect that god, whose head they may trample upon, but in steed of hating their Dagon, that lay broken upon their threshold, they honour the threshold, on which Dagon lay; and dare not set their foot on that place, which was hallowed by the broken head, and hands of their Deity: Oh the obstinacy of Idolatry, which where it hath got hold of the heart, knows neither to blush, nor yield, but rather gathers strength from that which might justly confound it. The hand of the Almighty, which moved them not in falling upon their god, falls now nearer them upon their persons, and strikes them in their bodies, which would not feel themselves stricken in their Idol: Pain shall humble them, whom shame cannot. Those which had entertained the secret thoughts of abominable Idolatry within them, are now plagued in the inwardest and most secret part of their bodies, with a loathsome disease; and now grow weary of themselves, in stead of their idolatry. I do not hear them acknowledge it was God's hand, which had stricken Dagon their god, till now, they find themselves stricken: Gods judgements are the rack of godless men; If one strain make them not confess, let them be stretched but one wrench higher, and they cannot be silent. The just avenger of sin will not lose the glory of his executions, but will have men know from whom they smart.  
THE emerods were not a disease beyond the compass of natural causes, neither was it hard for the wiser sort, to give a reason of their complaint, yet they ascribe it to the hand of God: The knowledge and operation of secondary causes should be no prejudice to the first; They are worse than the Philistims, who when they see the means, do not acknowledge the first mover; whose active and just power is no less seen in employing ordinary agents, then in raising up extraordinary; neither doth he less smite by a common fever, than a revenging Angel.  
THEY judge right of the cause, what do they resolve for the cure? (Let not the Ark of the God of Israel abide with us) where they should have said, let us cast out Dagon, that we may pacify and retain the God of Israel, they determine to thrust out the Ark of God, that they might peaceably enjoy themselves, and Dagon: Wicked men are upon all occasions glad to be rid of God, but they can with no patience, endure to part with their sins, and whiles they are weary of the hand that punishes them, they hold fast the cause of their punishment.  
THEIR first and only care is to put away him, who as he hath corrected, so can ease them. Folly is never separated from wickedness.  
THEIR heart told them that they had no right to the Ark. A counsel is called of their Princes, and Priests: If they had resolved to send it home, they had done wisely; Now they do not carry it away, but they carry it about from Ebenezer to Ashdod, from Ashdod to Gath, from Gath to Ekron: Their stomach was greater than their conscience; The Ark was too sore for them, yet it was too good for Israel; and they will rather die, then make Israel happy. Their conceit that the change of air could appease the Ark, God useth to his own advantage; for by this means his power is known, and his judgements spread over all the country of the Philistims: What do these men now, but send the plague of God to their fellows? The justice of God can make the sins of men their mutual executioners; It is the fashion of wicked men to draw their neighbours into the partnership of their condemnation.  
Wheresoever the Ark goes, there is destruction; the best of God's ordinances, if they be not proper to us, are deadly. The Israelites did not more shout for joy, when they saw the Ark come to them, than the Ekronites cry out for grief, to see it brought amongst them: Spiritual things are either sovereign, or hurtful, according to the disposition of the receivers. The Ark doth either save, or kill, as it is entertained.  
AT last, when the Philistims are well weary of pain & death, they are glad to be quit of their sin; The voice of the Princes and people is changed to the better, (Send away the Ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to his own place,) God knows how to bring the stubbornnest enemy upon his knees, and makes him do that out of fear, which his best child would do out of love and duty: How miserable was the estate of these Philistims? Every man was either dead, or sick: those that were left living (through their extremity of pain) envied the dead, and the the cry of their whole Cities went up to heaven. It is happy that God hath such store of plagues and thunderbolts for the wicked: If he had not a fire of judgement, wherewith the iron-hearts of men might be made flexible, he would want obedience, and the world peace.   

THE arks Revenge and Return.  
IT had wont to be a sure rule, wheresoever God is among men, there is the Church: Here only it failed: The testimony of God's presence was many months amongst the Philistims, for a punishment to his own people, whom he left; for a curse to those foreigners, which entertained it; Israel was seven months without God: How do we think faithful Samuel took this absence? How desolate, and forlorn did the tabernacle of God look, without the Ark? There were still the Altars of God, his Priests, Levites, tables, veils, censers, with all the legal accoutrements: These without the Ark, were as the Sun without light, in the midst of an eclipse: If all these had been taken away, and only the Ark had been remaining, the loss had been nothing to this, that the Ark should be gone, and they left: For what are all these without God, and how all-sufficient is God without these? There are times, wherein God withdraws himself from his Church, and seems to leave her without comfort, without protection: Sometimes we shall find Israel taken from the Ark, otherwhiles the Ark is taken from Israel: In either, there is a separation betwixt the Ark and Israel: Heavy times to every true Israelite, yet such, as whose example may relieve us in our desertions: Still was this people Israel; the seed of him, that would not be left of God without a blessing; and therefore without the testimony of his presence, was God present with them: It were wide with the faithful, if God were not oftentimes with them, when there is no witness of his presence.  
ONE act was a mutual penance to the Israelites and Philistims, I know not to whether more: Israel grieved for the loss of that, whose presence grieved the Philistims, their pain was therefore no other than voluntary: It is strange, that the Philistims would endure seven months smart with the Ark, since they saw, that the presence of that prisoner would not requite, no nor mitigate to them, one hours misery: Foolish men will be struggling with God, till they be utterly either breathless, or impotent. Their hope was, that time might abate displeasure, even whiles they persisted to offend: The false hopes of worldly men cost them dear, they could not be so miserable, if their own hearts did not deceive them with mis-expectations of impossible favour.  
IN matters, that concern a God, who is so fit to be consulted with, as the Priests? The Princes of the Philistims had before given their voices, yet nothing is determined, nothing is done without the direction, and assent of those, whom they accounted sacred: Nature itself sends us in divine things, to those persons, whose calling is divine: It is either distrust, or presumption, or contempt, that carries us our own ways in spiritual matters, without advising with them, whose lips God hath appointed to preserve knowledge: There cannot but arise many difficulties in us about the Ark of God, whom should we consult with but those, which have the tongue of the learned?  
DOUBTLESS, this question of the Ark did abide much debating: There wanted not fair probabilities on both sides: A wise Philistim might well plead, If God had either so great care of the Ark, or power to retain it, how is it become ours? A wiser than he would reply; If the God of Israel had wanted either care or power, Dagon, and we had been still whole; why do we thus groan, and die, all that are but within the air of of the Ark, if a divine hand do not attend it? Their smart pleads enough for the dismission of the Ark: The next demand of their Priests and Soothsayers, is, how it should be sent home: Affliction had made them so wise, as to know, that every fashion of parting with the Ark would not satisfy the owner: oftentimes the circumstance of an action mars the substance: In divine matters we must not only look, that the body of our service be sound, but that the clothes be fit: Nothing hinders, but that sometimes good advise may fall from the mouth of wicked men. These superstitious Priests can counsel them not to send away the Ark of God empty, but to give it a sin-offering: They had not lived so far from the smoke of the jewish Altars, but that they knew, God was accustomed to manifold oblations, and chiefly to those of expiation. No Israelite could have said better: Superstition is the ape of true devotion, and if we look not to the ground of both, many times it is hard by the very outward acts to distinguish them: Nature itself teacheth us, that God loves a full hand: He that hath been so bountiful to us, as to give us all, looks for a return of some offering from us; If we present him with nothing but our sins, how can we look to be accepted? The sacrifices under the gospel are spiritual, with these must we come into the presence of God, if we desire to carry away remission and favour.  
THE Philistims knew well, that it were bootless for them to offer, what they listed, their next suit is to be directed in the matter of their oblation: Pagans can teach us, how vnsaf●● it is to walk in the ways of religion, without a guide, yet here, their best teachers can but guess at their duty, and must devise for the people, that, which the people durst not impose upon themselves: The golden Emerods' and Miso were but conjectural prescripts: With what security may we consult with them, which have their directions from the mouth and hand of the Almighty?  
GOD struck the Philistims at once in their god, in their bodies, in their land: In their god, by his ruin, and dismembering: nI their bodies by the Emerods': In their land, by the Mice: That base vermin did God send among them on purpose to shame their Dagon, and them, that they might see, how unable their god was (which they thought the Victor of the Ark) to subdue the least Mouse, which the true God did create, and command to plague them: This plague upon their fields, began together with that upon their bodies, it was not mentioned, not complained of, till they think of dismissing the Ark: Greater crosses do commonly swallow up the less: At least, lesser evils are either silent or unheard, while the ear is filled with the clamour of greater. Their very Princes were punished with the mice, as well as the emerods; God knows no persons in the execution of judgements, the least and meanest of all God's creatures is sufficient to be the revenger of his Creator.  
GOD sent them mice, and emerods of flesh, and blood: they return him both these of gold, to imply, both, that these judgements came out from God, and that they did gladly give him the glory of that, whereof he gave them pain and sorrow, and that they would willingly buy off their pain, with the best of their substance: The proportion betwixt the complaint and satisfaction is more precious to him, than the metal. There was a public confession in this resemblance, which is so pleasing unto God, that he rewards it, even in wicked men, with a relaxation of outward punishment. The number was no less significant, than the form: Five golden emerods, and mice for the five Princes, and divisions of Philistims: As God made no difference in punishing, so they make none in their oblation; The people are comprised in them, in whom they are united, their several Princes: They were one with their Prince, their offering is one with his; as they were ringleaders in the sin, so must they be in the satisfaction: In a multitude, it is ever seen, as in a beast, that the body follows the head. Of all others great men had need to look to their ways, it is in them, as in figures, one stands for a thousand: One offering serves not all, there must be five, according to the five heads of the offence. Generalities will not content God; every man must make his several peace, if not in himself, yet in his head: Nature taught them a shadow of that, the substance and perfection whereof is taught us by the grace of the Gospel; Every soul must satisfy God, if not in itself, yet in him, in whom we are both one, and absolute: we are the body, whereof Christ is the head, our sin is in ourselves, our satisfaction must be in him.  
SAMVEL himself could not have spoken more divinely, than these Priests of Dagon; they do not only talk of giving glory to the God of Israel, but fall into an holy and grave expostulation (wherefore then should ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians, and Pharaoh hardened their hearts, when he wrought wonderfully among them? etc.) They confess a supereminent, & revenging hand of God over their gods, they parallel their plagues with the Egyptian, they make use of Pharaohs sin, and judgement; What could be better said? All religions have afforded them, that could speak well: These good words left them still both Philistims, and superstitious: How should men be hypocrites, if they had not good tongues? yet (as wickedness can hardly hide itself) these holy speeches are not without a tincture of that Idolatry, wherewith the heart was infected: For they profess care not only of the persons, and lands of the Philistims, but of their gods; (that he may take his hand from you, and from your gods.) Who would think, that wisdom and folly could lodge so near together? that the same men should have care both of the glory of the true God, and the preservation of the false? that they should be so vain, as to take thought for those gods, which they granted to be obnoxious unto an higher Deity? Oft-times even one word bewrayeth a whole pack of falsehood, and though superstition be a cleanly counterfeit, yet some one slip of the tongue discovers it, as we say of Devils, which though they put on fair forms, yet are they known by their cloven feet.  
WHAT other warrant these superstitious Priests had for the main substance of their advise, I know not, sure I am, the probability of the event was fair; that two kine never used to any yoke, should run from their calves (which were newly shut up from them) to draw the Ark home in a contrary way, must needs argue an hand above nature; What else should overrule brute creatures to prefer a forced carriage unto a natural burden? What should carry them from their own home, towards the home of the Ark? What else should guide an untamed and untaught team, in as right a path toward Israel, as their teachers could have gone? What else could make very beasts more wise, than their masters? There is a special providence of God in the very motions of brute creatures; Neither Philistims nor Israelites saw aught that drove them, yet they saw them so run, as those that were led by a divine conduct. The reasonless creatures also do the the will of their Maker; every act that is done either by them, or to them, makes up the decree of the Almighty; and if in extraordinary actions and events his hand is more visible, yet it is no less certainly present in the common.  
LITTLE did the Israelites of Bethshemesh look for such a sight, whiles they were reaping their wheat in the valley, as to see the Ark of God come running to them, without a convoy; neither can it be said, whether they were more affected with joy, or with astonishment, with joy at the presence of the Ark, with astonishment at the miracle of the transportation: Down went their sickles, and now every man runs to reap the comfort of this better harvest, to meet that bread of Angels, to salute those Cherubims, to welcome that God, whose absence had been their death: But, as it is hard not to over-ioy in a sudden prosperity, and, to use happiness is no less difficult, then to forbear it; These glad Israelites cannot see, but they must gaze; they cannot gaze on the glorious outside, but they must be (whether out of rude jollity, or curiosity, or suspicion of the purloining some of those sacred implements) prying into the secrets of God's Ark: Nature is too subject to extremities, and is ever either too dull in want, or wanton in fruition: It is no easy matter to keep a mean, whether in good, or evil.  
BETHSHEMESH was a City of Priests, they should have known better, how to demean themselves towards the Ark; this privilege doubled their offence: There was no malice in this curious inquisition, the same eyes that looked into the Ark, looked also up to heaven in their offerings, and the same hands, that touched it, offered sacrifice to the God that brought it. Who could expect any thing now but acceptation? who would suspect any danger? It is not a following act of devotion, that can make amends for a former sin: There was a death owing them, immediately upon their offence, God will take his own time for the execution; In the mean while, they may sacrifice, but they cannot satisfy, they cannot escape. The kine are sacrificed, the cart burns them that drew it: Here was an offering of praise, when they had more need of a trespasse-offering; many an heart is lifted up in a conceit of joy, when it hath just cause of humiliation: God lets them alone with their sacrifice, but when that is done, he comes over them with a back reckoning for their sin: Fifty thousand & seventy Israelites are stroke dead for this unreverence to the Ark: A woeful welcome for the Ark of God into the borders of Israel; It killed them for looking into it, who thought it their life to see it; It dealt blows, and death on both hands; to Philistims, to Israelites; to both of them for profaning it: The one with their Idol, the other with their eyes. It is a fearful thing to use the holy ordinances of God with an unreverent boldness. Fear and trembling becomes us in our access to the Majesty of the Almighty: Neither was there more state, than secrecy in God's Ark; some things the wisdom of God desires to conceal: The unreverence of the Israelites was no more faulty, than their curiosity; secret things to God, things revealed to us, and to our children.   

THE REMOVE of the Ark.  
I HEAR of the Bethshemites lamentation, I hear not of their repentanc, they complain of their smart, they complain not of their sin, and for aught I can perceive, speak, as if God were curious, rather than they faulty: (Who is able to stand before this holy Lord god, and to whom shall he go from us?) as if none could please that God, which misliked them: It is the fashion of natural men to justify themselves in their own courses; If they cannot charge any earthly thing with the blame of their suffering, they will cast it upon heaven: That a man pleads himself guilty of his own wrong, is no common work of God's spirit. Bethshemesh bordered too near upon the Philistims; If these men thought the very presence of the Ark hurtful, why do they send to their neighbours of Kiriathiearim, that they might make themselves miserable? Where there is a misconceit of God, it is no marvel, if there be a defect of charity: How cunningly do they send their message to their neighbours? They do not say, the Ark of God is come to us of it own accord, lest the men of Kiriath-iearim should reply, It is come to you, let it stay with you; They say only, the Philistims have brought it; they tell of the presence of the Ark, they do not tell of the success, lest the example of their judgement should have discouraged the forwardness of their relief; and after all, the offer was plausible; Come ye down and take it up to you, as if the honour had been too great for themselves; as if their modesty had been such, that they would not forestall and engross happiness from the rest of Israel.  
IT is no boot to teach nature, how to tell her own tale; smart and danger will make a man witty: He is rarely constant, that will not dissemble for ease. It is good to be suspicious of the evasions of those, which would put off misery: Those of Bethshemesh were not more crafty, than these of Kiriathiearim (which was the ground of their boldness) faithful: So many thousand Bethshemites could not be dead, and no part of the rumour fly to them; they heard, how thick, not only the Philistims, but the bordering Israelites fell down dead before the Ark; yet they durst adventure to come, and fetch it, even from amongst the carcases of their brethren: They had been formerly acquainted with the Ark, they knew it was holy, it could not be changeable, and therefore they well conceived this slaughter to arise from the unholiness of men, not from the rigour of God, and thereupon can seek comfort in that, which others found deadly: Gods children cannot by any means be discouraged from their honour, and love to his ordinances: If they see thousands struck down to Hell by the sceptre of God's kingdom, yet they will kiss it upon their knees, and if their Saviour be a rock of offence, and the occasion of the fall of millions in Israel, they can love him no less: They can warm them at the fire, wherewith they see others burned; they can feed temperately of that, whereof others have surfeited to death etc.  
BETHSHEMESH was a City of Priests, the Levites: Kiriathiearim a City of juda, where we hear but of one Levite, Abinadab; yet this City was more zealous for God, more reverent, and conscionable in the entertainment of the Ark, than the other. We heard of the taking down of the Ark by the Bethshemites, when it came miraculously to them, we do not hear of any man sanctified for the attendance of it, as was done in this second lodging of the Ark: Grace is not tied either to number, or means. It is in spiritual matters, as in the estate: Small helps with good thrift enrich us, when great patrimonies lose themselves in the neglect. Shiloh was wont to be the place, which was honoured with the presence of the Ark; Ever since the wickedness of Elies' sons, that was forlorn, and desolate, and now Kiriath-iearim succeeds into this privilege: It did not stand with the royal liberty of God, no not under the law, to tie himself unto places and persons: Unworthiness was ever a sufficient cause of exchange. It was not yet his time to stir from the jews, yet he removed from one Province to another: Less reason have we to think, that so God will reside amongst us, that none of our provocations can drive him from us etc.  
ISRAEL, which had found the misery of God's absence, is now resolved into tears of contrition, and thankfulness, upon his return: There is no mention of their lamenting after the Lord, while he was gone, but when he was returned, and settled in Kiriath-iearim; The mercies of God draw more tears from his children, than his judgements do from his enemies: There is no better sign of good nature, or grace, then to be won to repentance with kindness: Not to think of God, except we be beaten unto it, is servile: Because God was come again to Israel, therefore Israel is returned to God; If God had not come first, they had never come: If he, that came to them, had not made them come to him, they had been ever parted. They were cloyed with God, while he was perpetually resident with them, now that his absence had made him dainty, they cleave to him fervently, and penitently in his return: This was it, that God meant in his departure, a better welcome at his coming back.  
I heard no news of Samuel all this while, the Ark was gone: Now when the Ark is returned, and placed in Kiriath-iearim, I hear him treat with the people. It is not like, he was silent in this sad desertion of God; but now he takes full advantage of the professed contrition of Israel, to deal with them effectually, for their perfect conversion unto God, It is great wisdom in spiritual matters, to take occasion by the forelock, and to strike whiles the iron is hot: We may beat long enough at the door, but till God have opened, it is no going in, and when he hath opened, it is no delaying to enter: The trial of sincerity is the abandoning of our wont sins: This Samuel urgeth (If ye be come again unto the Lord with all your heart, put away the strange gods from among you, and Ashtaroth): In vain had it been to profess repentance, whilst they continued in Idolatry; God will never acknowledge any convert, that stays in a known sin: Graces and virtues are so linked together, that he, which hath one, hath all: The partial conversion of men unto God is but hateful hypocrisy. How happily effectual is a word spoken in season? samuel's exhortation wrought upon the hearts of Israel, and fetched water out of their eyes, suits, and confessions, & vows out of their lips, and their false gods out of their hands; yet it was not merely remorse, but fear also, that moved Israel to this humble submission.  
THE Philistims stood over them still, and threatened them with new assaults, the memory of their late slaughter, & spoil, was yet fresh in their minds, sorrow for the evils passed, and fear of the future fetched them down upon their knees: It is not more necessary for men to be cheered with hopes, then to be awed with dangers; where God intends the humiliation of his servants, there shall not want means of their dejection: It was happy for Israel that they had an enemy. Is it possible, that the Philistims after those deadly plagues, which they sustained from the God of Israel, should think of invading Israel? Those, that were so mated with the presence of the Ark, that they never thought themselves safe, till it was out of sight, do they now dare to thrust themselves upon the new revenge of the Ark? It slew them, whiles they thought to honour it, and do they think to escape, whilst they resist it? It slew them in their own coasts, and do they come to it to seek death? yet behold no sooner do the Philistims hear, that the Israelites are gathered to Mizpeh, but the Princes of the Philistims gather themselves against them: No warnings will serve obdurate hearts, wicked men are even ambitious of destruction; judgements need not to go find them out, they run to meet their bane.  
THE Philistims come up, and the Israelites fear; they that had not the wit to fear, whilst they were not friends with God, have not now the grace of fearelesnes, when they were reconciled to God: Boldness and fear are commonly misplaced in the best hearts; when we should tremble, we are confident, and when we should be assured, we tremble: Why should Israel have feared, since they had made their peace with the God of hosts? Nothing should affright those, which are upright with God. The peace, which Israel had made with God, was true, but tender; They durst not trust their own innocency so much, as the prayers of Samuel; Cease not to cry to the Lord our God for us. In temporal things nothing hinders, but we may far better for other men's faith, then for our own: It is no small happiness to be interessed in them, which are favourites in the court of heaven; one faithful man in these occasions is more worth than millions of the wavering and uncertain.  
A good heart is easily won to devotion: Samuel cries, and sacrificeth to God; he had done so, though they had entreated his silence, yea his forbearance: Whiles he is offering, the Philistims fight with Israel, and God fights with the Philistims. (The Lord thundered with a great thunder that day upon the Philistims, and scattered them): Samuel fought more upon his knees, than all Israel beside: The voice of God answered the voice of Samuel, and speaks confusion and death to the Philistims: How were the proud Philistims dead with fear, ere they died, to hear the fearful thunderclaps of an angry God against them? to see, that heaven itself fought against them? He that slew them secretly in the revenges of his Ark, now kills them with open horror in the fields: If presumption did not make wicked men mad, they would never lift their hand against the Almighty; what are they in his hands, when he is disposed to vengeance.   

THE MEETING of Saul and Samuel.  
SAMVEL began his acquaintance with God early, and continued it long: He began it in his long coats, and continued to his grey hairs: (He judged Israel all the days of his life.) God doth not use to cast off his old servants; their age indeereth them to him the more; If we be not unfaithful to him, he can not be unconstant to us: At last his decayed age met witly ill partners, His sons for deputies, and Saul for a King; The wickedness of his sons gave the occasion of a change: Perhaps Israel had never thought of a King, if samuel's sons had not been unlike their father; Who can promise himself holy children, when the loins of a Samuel, and the education in the Temple, yielded monsters? It is not likely; that good Samuel was faulty in that indulgence, for which his own mouth had denounced God's judgement against Hely: yet this holy man succeeds Hely in his cross, as well as his place, though not in his sin, and is afflicted with a wicked succession: God will let us find, that grace is by gift, not by inheritance.  
I fear Samuel was too partial to nature in the surrogation of his sons, I do not hear of God's allowance to this act: If this had been God's choice, as well as his, it had been like to have received more blessing. Now all Israel had cause to rue, that these were the sons of Samuel; For now the question was not of their virtues, but of their blood, not of their worthiness, but their birth; even the best heart may be blinded with affection. Who can marvel at these errors of parents love, when the that so holily judged Israel all his life, misjudged of his own sons?  
IT was Gods ancient purpose to raise up a King to his people: How doth he take occasion to perform it, but by the unruly desires of Israel? even as we say of human proceedings, that ill manners beget good laws. That Monarchy is the best form of government, there is no question: Good things may be ill desired, so was this of Israel; If an itching desire of alteration had not possessed them, why did they not rather sue for a reformation of their governors, then for a change of government? Were samuel's sons so desperately evil, that there was no possibility of amendment? Or if they were past hope, were there not some others to have succeeded the justice of Samuel, no less than these did his person? What needed Samuel to be thrust out of place? What needed the ancient form of administration to be altered? He that raised up their judges, would have found time to raise them up Kings: Their curious, and inconstant newfanglenes, will not abide to stay it, but with an heady importunity labours to over-hasten the pace of God. Where there is a settled course of good government (howsoever blemished with some weaknesses) it is not safe to be overforward to a change, though it should be to the better. He, by whom King's reign, says, they have cast him away, that he should not reign over them, because they desire a King to reign over them: judges were his own institution to his people, as yet Kings were not; after that Kings were settled, to desire the government of judges, had been a much more seditious inconstancy: God hath not appointed to every time & place those forms, which are simply best in themselves, but those, which are best to them, unto whom they are appointed; which we may neither alter, till he begin, nor recall, when he hath altered.  
THIS business seemed personally to concern Samuel, yet he so deals in it, not as a party, not as a judge of his own case, but as a Prophet of God, as a friend of his opposite; He prays to God for advise, He foretells the state and courses of their future King: Wilful men are blind to all dangers, are deaf to all good counsels. Israel must have a King, though they pay never so dear for their longing: The vain affectation of conformity to other Nations overcomes all discouragements; there is no readier way to error, then to make others examples the rule of our desires, ●●●nctions: If every man have ●●ot grounds of his own, whereon to stand, there can be no stability in his resolutions, or proceedings.  
SINCE than they choose to have a King, God will choose the King, which they shall have. The kingdom shall begin in Benjamin, which was to endure in juda: It was no probability, or reason, this first King should prove well, because he was abortive; their humour of innovation deserved to be punished with their own choice: Kish the father of Saul was mighty in estate; Saul was mighty in person, overlooking the rest of the people in stature, no less than he should do in dignity: The senses of the Israelites could not but be well pleased for the time, howsoever their hearts were afterwards; when men are carried with outward shows, it is a sign, that God means them a delusion.  
How far God fetches his purposes about? The asses of Kish Saul's father, are strayed away: What is that to the news of a kingdom? God lays these small accidents for the ground of greater designs: The asses must be lost, none but Saul must go with his father's servant to seek them: Samuel shall meet them in the search: Saul shall be premonished of his ensuing royalty; Little can we, by the beginning of any action, guess at God's intention in the conclusion.  
OBEDIENCE was a fit entrance into soveraingty: The service was homely for the son of a great man, yet he refuseth not to go, as a fellow to his father's servant, upon so mean a search: The disobedient and scornful are good for nothing, they are neither fit to be subjects nor governors: Kish was a great man in his country, yet he disdaineth not to send his son Saul upon a thrifty errand, neither doth Saul plead his disparagement from a refusal. Pride and wantonness have marred our times: Great parents count it a disreputation to employ their sons in courses of frugality; & their pampered children think it a shame to do any thing; and so bear themselves as those, that hold it the only glory to be either idle or wicked  
NEITHER doth Saul go fashionably to work, but does this service heartily & painfully, as a man, that desires rather to effect the command, then please the commander: He passed from Ephraim to the land of Shalisha, from Shalisha to Salim, from Salim to jemini, whence his house came; from jemini to Zuph, not so much as staying with any of his kindred, so long as to victual himself: He that was afterward an ill King, approved himself a good son. As there are diversity of relations, and offices; so there is of dispositions; those, which are excellent in some, attain not to a mediocrity in other: It is no arguing from private virtues to public; from dexterity in one station, to the rest: A several grace belongs to the particular carriage of every place, whereto we are called, which if we want, the place may well want us.  
THERE was more praise of his obedience in ceasing to seek, then in seeking; he takes care, lest his father should take care for him, that whilst he should seem officious in the less, he might not neglect the greatest. A blind obedience in some cases doth well, but it doth far better, when it is led with the eyes of discretion; otherwise we may more offend in pleasing, then in disobeying.  
GREAT is the benefit of a wise and religious attendant, such a one puts us into those duties and actions, which are most expedient, and least thought of. If Saul had not had a discreet servant, he had returned but as wife as he came; now he is drawn in, to consult with the man of God, and hears more, than he hoped for. Saul was now a sufficient journey from his father's house, yet his religious servant in this remoteness, takes knowledge of the place, where the Prophet dwells, and how honourably doth he mention him to his Master? Behold, in this City is a man of God, and he is an honourable man, all that he saith cometh to pass: Gods prophets are public persons, as their function, so their notice concerns every man: There is no reason God should abate any of the respect due to his Ministers under the Gospel: St Paul's suit is both universal and everlasting; I beseech you, brethren, know them that labour amongst you.  
THE chief praise is to be able to give good advise; the next is to take it. Saul is easily induced to condescend; He, whose curiosity led him voluntarily at last, to the witch of Endor, is now led at first by good counsel to the man of God; neither is his care in going, less commendable, than his will to go. For as a man, that had been catechized not to go unto God empty-handed, he asks, What shall we bring unto the man? What have we? The case is well altered in our times: Every man thinks, what may I keep back? There is no gain so sweet, as of a rob altar; yet God's charge is no less under the Gospel, Let him that is taught, make his teacher partaker of all. As this faithful care of Saul was a just presage of success, more than he looked for, or could expect; so the sacrilegious unthankfulness of many, bodes that ruin to their soul and estate, which they could not have grace to fear.  
HE that knew the Prophet's abode, knew also the honour of his place, he could not but know, that Samuel was a mixed person: The judge of Israel, and the Seer; yet both Saul and his servant purpose to present him with the fourth part of a shekel, to the value of about our five pence: They had learned, that thankfulness was not to be measured, of good men, by the weight, but by the will of the retributor: How much more will God accept the small offerings of his weak servants, when he sees them proceed from great love?  
THE very maids of the City can give direction to the Prophet, they had listened after the holy affairs, they had heard of the sacrifice, and could tell of the necessity of samuel's presence: Those that live within the sun shine of religion, cannot but be somewhat coloured with those beams: Where there is practise and example of piety in the better for't, there will be a reflection of it upon the meanest: It is no small benefit to live in religious and holy places, we shall be much to blame, if all goodness fall beside us: Yea so skilful were these damsels in the fashions of their public sacrifices, that they could instruct Saul and his servant, unasked, how the people would not eat, till Samuel came to bless the sacrifice. This meeting was not more a sacrifice, than a feast: These two agree well, we have never so much cause to rejoice in feasting, as when we have duly served our God: The sacrifice was a feast to God, the other to men: The body may eat and drink with contentment, when the soul hath been first fed, and hath first feasted the maker of both: Go eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy drink with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works. The sacrifice was before consecrated, when it was offered to God, but it was not consecrated to them, till Samuel blessed it, his blessing made that meat holy to the guests, which was formerly hallowed to God: All creatures were made good, & took holiness from him, which gave them their being; Our sin brought that curse upon them (which unless our prayers remove it) cleaves to them still, so as we receive them not without a curse: We are not our own friends, except our prayers help to take that away, which our sin hath brought, that so to the clean all may be clean: It is an unmannerly godlessnes to take God's creatures without the leave of their maker, and well may God withhold his blessing from them, which have not the grace to ask it.  
THOSE guests, which were so religious, that they would not eat their sacrifice unblessed, might have blessed it themselves: Every man might pray, though every man might not sacrifice; yet would they not either eat, or bless, whiles they looked for the presence of a Prophet. Every Christian may sanctify his own meat, but where those are present, that are peculiarly sanctified to God, this service is fittest for them: It is commendable to teach children the practice of thanksgiving, but the best is ever most mere to bless our tables, and those especially, whose office it is to offer our prayers to God.  
LITTLE did Saul think, that his coming, and his errand was so noted of God, as that it was foresignified unto the Prophet, and now, behold Samuel is told a day before of the man, the time, the place of his meeting. The eye of God's providenc is no less over all our actions, all our motions: We cannot go any whither without him, he tells all our steps; since it pleaseth God therefore to take notice of us, much more should we take notice of him, & walk with him, in whom we move? Saul came beside his expectation to the Prophet, he had no thought of any such purpose, till his servant made this sudden motion unto him of visiting Samuel, and yet God says to his Prophet, I will send thee a man out of the land of Benjamin. The over ruling hand of the Almighty works us insensibly, and all our affairs to his own secret determinations; so as whiles we think we do our own wills, we do his: Our own intentions we may know, God's purposes we know not; we must go the way that we are called, let him lead us to what end he pleaseth; It is our duty to resign ourselves, and our ways to the disposition of God, and patiently and thankfully to await the issue of his decrees. The same God, that foreshowed Saul to Samuel, now points to him (See this is the man), and commands the Prophet to anoint him governor over Israel: He, that told of Saul before he came, knew before he came into the world, what a man, what a King he would be; yet he chooseth him out, and enjoins his inunction. It is one of the greatest praises of God's wisdom, that he can turn the evil of men to his own glory: Advancement is not ever a sign of love, either to the man, or to the place: It had been better for Saul, that his head had been ever dry, some God raiseth up in judgement, that they may fall the more uneasily; there are no men so miserable, as those, that are great and evil.  
IT seems that Samuel bore no great port in his outside, for that Saul not discerning him, either by his habit, or attendants, comes to him, and asks him for the Seer; yet was Samuel as yet the judge of Israel, the substitution of his sons had not displaced himself: There is an affable familiarity, that becometh greatness; It is not good for eminent persons to stand always upon the height of their state, but so to behave themselves, that as their sociable carriage may not breed contempt, so their over-highnes may not breed a servile fearfulness in their people.  
How kindly doth Samuel entertain, and invite Saul, yet it was he only, that should receive wrong by the future royalty of Saul? Who would not have looked, that aged Samuel should have emulated rather the glory of his young rival, and have looked churlishly upon the man, that should rob him of his authority? yet now, as if he came on purpose to gratify him, he bids him to the feast, he honours him with the chief seat, he reserves a select morsel for him, he tells him ingenuously the news of his ensuing sovereignty (On whom is set the desire of all Israel, is it not upon thee, and thy father's house?) Wise and holy men, as they are not ambitious of their own burden, so they are not unwilling to be eased, when God pleaseth to discharge them; neither can they envy those whom God lifteth above their heads: They make an Idol of honour, that are troubled with their own freedom, or grudge at the promotion of others.  
DOUBTLESS Saul was much amazed with the strange salutation, and news of the Prophet, and how modestly doth he put it off, as that, which was neither fit, nor likely; disparaging his Tribe in respect of the rest of Israel, his father's family in respect of the Tribe, and himself in respect of his father's family; neither did his humility stoop below the truth: For, as Benjamin was the youngest son of Israel, so he was now by much the least Tribe of Israel; they had not yet recovered that universal slaughter, which they had received from the hands of their brethren, whereby a Tribe was almost lost to Israel; yet even out of the remainder of Benjamin doth God choose the man, that shall command Israel; out of the rubbish of Benjamin doth God raise the throne. That is not ever the best and fittest, which God chooseth, but that, which God chooseth is ever the fittest; the strength or weakness of means is neither spur, nor bridle to the determinate choices of God, yea rather he holds it the greatest proof of his freedom, and omnipotency to advance the unlikeliest. It was no hollow and feigned excuse, that Saul makes to put of that, which he would fain enjoy, and to cause honour to follow him the more eagerly: It was the sincere truth of his humility, that so dejected him under the hand of God's prophet. Fair beginnings are no found proof of our proceedings and ending well: How often hath a bashful childhood ended in an impudence of youth, a strict entrance in licentiousness, early forwardness in Atheism? There might be a civil meekness in Saul, true grace there was not in him; they that be good, bear more fruit in their age.  
SAUL had but five pence in his purse to give the Prophet: The Prophet after much good cheer gives him the kingdom, he bestows the oil of royal consecration on his head, the kisses of homage upon his face, and sends him away rich in thoughts, and expectation; and now lest his astonishment should end in distrust, he settles his assurance, by forewarnings of those events, which he should find in his way: He tells him whom he shall meet, what they shall say, how himself shall be affected; that all these, and himself might be so many witnesses of his following coronation; every word confirmed him. For well might he think, He that can foretell me the motions and words of others, cannot fail in mine; especially when (as Samuel had prophesied to him) he found himself to prophesy; His prophesying did enough foretell his kingdom. No sooner did Samuel turn his back from Saul, but God gave him another heart, lifting up his thoughts and disposition to the pitch of a King: The calling of God never leaves a man unchanged, neither did God ever employ any man in his service, whom he did not enable to the work he set him; especially those, whom he raiseth up to the supply of his own place, and the representation of himself. It is no marvel, if Princes excel the vulgar in gifts, no less then in dignity: Their crowns and their hearts are both in one and the same hand; If God did not add to their powers, as well as their honours, there would be no equality.   

The Inauguration of SAUL.  
GOD hath secretly destined Saul to the kingdom; it could not content Israel, that Samuel knew this, the lots must so decide the choice, as if it had not been predetermined; That God, which is ever constant to his own decrees, makes the lots to find him out, whom Samuel had anointed: If once we have notice of the will of God, we may be confident of the issue: There is no chance to the Almighty; even casual things are no less necessary, in their first cause, than the natural. So far did Saul trust the prediction, and oil of Samuel, that he hides him among the stuff: He knew, where the lots would light, before they were cast: This was but a modest declination of that honour, which he saw must come; His very withdrawing showed some expectation, why else should he have hid himself, rather than the other Israelites? yet could he not hope his subducing himself, could disappoint the purpose of God: He well knew, that he, which found out and designed his name amongst the thousands of Israel, would easily find out his person in a tent: When once we know God's decree, in vain shall we strive against it; Before we know it, it is indifferent for us to work to the likeliest.  
I cannot blame Saul for hiding himself from a kingdom, especially of Israel: Honour is heavy, when it comes upon the best terms: How should it be otherwise, when all men's cares are cast upon one? but most of all in a troubled estate? No man can put to sea without danger, but he that launcheth out in a tempest, can expect nothing, but the hardest event; such was the condition of Israel: Their old enemy the Philistims were stilled with that fearful thunder of God, as finding what it was to war against the Almighty. There were adversaries enough beside in their borders: It was but an hollow truce, that was betwixt Israel and their heathenish neighbours; and Nahash was now at their gates. Well did Saul know the difference between a peaceful government, and the perilous and wearisome tumults of war: The quietest throne is full of cares, but the perplexed of dangers. Cares & dangers drove Saul into this corner to hide his head from a crown: These made him choose rather to lie obscurely among the baggage of his tent, then to sit gloriously in the throne of State. This hiding could do nothing but show, that both he suspected, lest he should be chosen, and desired he should not be chosen: That God, from whom the hills and the rocks could not conceal him, brings him forth to the light, so much more longed for, as he was more unwilling to be seen, and more applauded, as he was more longed for.  
Now then when SAUL is drawn forth in the midst of the eager expectation of Israel, modesty and goodliness show'd themselves in his face: The press cannot hide him, whom the stuff had hid; As if he had been made to be seen, he overlookes all Israel in height of stature, for presage of the eminence of his estate, (from the shoulders upward was he higher than any of the people.) Israel sees their lots are fallen upon a noted man; one, whose person showed, he was borne to be a King, and now all the people shout for joy; they have their longing, and applaud their own happiness, and their King's honour: How easy is it for us to mistake our own estates? to rejoice in that, which we shall find the just cause of our humiliation? The end of a thing is better than the beginning; the safest way is to reserve our joy, till we have good proof of the worthiness and fitness of the object. What are we the better for having of a blessing, if we know not how to use it? The office and observance of a King was uncouth to Israel: Samuel therefore informs the people of their mutual duties, and writes them in a book, and lays it up before the Lord; otherwise, novelty might have been a warrant for their ignorance, & ignorance for neglect: There are reciprocal respects of Princes and people, which if they be not observed, government languisheth into confusion; these Samuel faithfully teacheth them. Though he may not be their judge, yet he will be their Prophet; he will instruct, if he may not rule; yea he will instruct him that shall rule: There is no King absolute, but he, that is the King of all gods: Earthly Monarches must walk by a rule, which if they transgress, they shall be accountable to him, that is higher than the highest, who hath deputed them. Not out of care of civility, so much as conscience, must every Samuel labour to keep even terms betwixt Kings and subjects, prescribing just moderation to the one; to the other obedience and loyalty, which who ever endeavours to trouble, is none of the friends of God, or his Church.  
THE most and best applaud their new King, some wicked ones despised him, and said, How shall he save us? It was not the might of his parents, the goodliness of his person, the privilege of his lot, the same of his prophesying, the Panegyric of Samuel, that could shield him from contempt, or win him the hearts of all: There was never yet any man, to whom some took not exceptions; It is not possible either to please or displease all men, while some men are in love with vice, as deeply, as others with virtue, and some (as ill) dislike virtue, if not for itself, yet for contradiction They well saw, Saul chose not himself, they saw him worthy to have been chosen, if the election should have been carried by voices, and those voices by their eyes; they saw him unwilling to hold, or yield, when he was chosen; yet they will envy him: What fault could they find in him whom God had chosen? His parentage was equal, his person above them, his inward parts more above them, than the outward; Malcontents will rather devise than want causes of flying out, and rather than fail, the universal approbation of others is ground enough of their dislike. It is a vain ambition of those, that would be loved of all: The spirit of God, when he enjoins us peace with all, he adds (if it be possible,) and favour is more than peace; A man's comfort must be in himself, the conscience of deserving well.  
THE neighbouring Ammonites could not but have heard of God's fearful vengeance upon the Philistims, and yet they will be taking up the quarrel against Israel: Nahash comes up against jabesh Gilead: Nothing but grace can teach us to make use of others judgements; wicked men are not moved with aught, that falls beside them; they trust nothing, but their own smart: What fearful judgements doth God execute every day? resolute sinners take no notice of them, and are grown so peremptory, as if God had never showed dislike of their ways.  
THE Gileadites were not more base, than Naash the Ammonite was cruel: The Gileadites would buy their peace with servility, Nahash would sell them a servile peace for their right eyes. jephtha the Gileadite did yet stick in the stomach of Ammon, and now they think their revenge cannot be too bloody: It is a wonder, that he, which would offer so merciless a condition to Israel, would yield to the motion of any delay; He meant nothing, but shame and death to the Israelites, yet he condescends to a seven days respite: Perhaps his confidence made him thus careless. Howsoever, it was the restraint of God that gave this breath to Israel, and this opportunity to Saul's courage and victory: The enemies of God's Church can not be so malicious, as they would, cannot approve themselves so malicious, as they are; God so holds them in sometimes, that a stander-by would think them favourable. The news of Gileads distress had ●●oone filled and afflicted Israel, ●●he people think of no remedy, but their pity and tears; Evils are easily grieved for, not easily redressed: Only Saul is more stirred with indignation, than sorrow; That God, which put into him a spirit of prophesy, now puts into him a spirit of fortitude: He was before appointed to the throne, not settled in the throne, he followed the beasts in the field, when he should have commanded men. Now as one, that would be a King no less by merit, than election, he takes upon him, and performs the rescue of Gilead; he assembles Israel, he leads them, he raiseth the siege, breaks the troops, cuts the throats of the Ammonites: When God hath any exploit to perform, he raiseth up the heart of some chosen instrument with heroical motions for the atcheivement: When all hearts are cold and dead, it is a sign of intended destruction.  
THIS day hath made Saul a complete King, and now the thankful Israelites begin to inquire after those discontented mutineers, which had refused allegiance unto so worthy a commander, (Bring those men, that we may slay them:) This sedition had deserved death, though Saul had been foiled at Gilead; but now his happy victory whets the people much more to a desire of this just execution. Saul, to whom the injury was done, hinders the revenge, (There shall no man die this day, for to day the Lord hath saved Israel) that his fortitude might not go beyond his mercy. How noble were these beginnings of Saul? His prophesy showed him miraculously wise, his battle and victory no less valiant, his pardon of his rebels, as merciful: There was not more power showed in overcoming the Ammonites, then in overcoming himself, and the impotent malice of these mutinous Israelites. Now Israel sees, they have a King, that can both shed blood, and spare it; that can shed the Ammonites blood, and spare theirs: His mercy wins those hearts, whom his valour could not; As in God, so in his Deputies mercy and justice should be inseparable; wheresoever these two go asunder, government follows them into distraction, and ends in ruin. If it had been a wrong offered to Samuel, the forbearance of the revenge had not been so commendable, although upon the day of so happy a deliverance, perhaps it had not been seasonable: A man hath reason to be most bold with himself; It is no praise of mercy (since it is a fault in justice) to remit an other man's satisfaction, his own he may.   

samuel's contestation.  
EVERY one can be a friend to him that prospereth; By this victory hath Saul as well conquered the obstinacy of his own people: Now there is no Israelite, that rejoiceth not in Saul's kingdom. No sooner have they done objecting to Saul, than Samuel begins to expostulate with them: The same day, wherein they began to be pleased, God shows himself angry; All the passages of their proceedings offended him, he deferred to let them know it till now, that the kingdom was settled, and their hearts lifted up; Now doth God cool their courage and joy, with a back reckoning for their forwardness. God will not let his people run away with the arrearages of their sins, but when they least think of it, calls them to an account: All this while was God angry with their rejection of Samuel; yet (as fi there had been nothing, but peace) he gives them a victory over their enemies, he gives way to their joy in their election, now he lets them know, that after their peace-offerings, he hath a quarrel with them. God may be angry enough with us, whiles we outwardly prosper: It is the wisdom of God to take his best advantages; He suffers us to go on, till we should come to enjoy the fruit of our sin, till we seem passed the danger, either of conscience, or punishment; then (even when we begin to be past the feeling of our sin) we shall begin to feel his displeasure for our sins: This is only where he loves, where he would both forgive, and reclaim; He hath now to do with his Israel: But where he means utter vengeance, he lets men harden themselves to a reprobate senselessnes, and make up their own measure without contradiction, as purposing to reckon with them but once for ever.  
SAMVEL had dissuaded them before, he reproves them not, until now: If he had thus bend himself against them, ere the settling of the election, he had troubled Israel in that, which God took occasion by their sin to establish; His opposition would have savoured of respects to himself, whom the wrong of this innovation chiefly concerned: Now therefore, when they are sure of their King, and their King of them, when he hath set even terms betwixt them mutually, he lets them see, how they were at odds with God: We must ever dislike sins, we may not ever show it; Discretion in the choice of seasons for reproving, is no less commendable and necessary, than zeal and faithfulness in reproving: Good Physicians use not to evacuate the body in extremities of heat or cold; wise mariners do not hoist sails in every wind.  
FIRST doth Samuel begin to clear his own innocence, ere he dare charge them with their sin: He that will cast a stone at an offender must be free himself, otherwise he condemns, and executes himself in another person: The conscience stops the mouth of the guilty man, and chokes him with that sin, which lies in his own breast, and having not come forth by a penitent confession, cannot find the way out in a reproof; or if he do reprove, he doth more shame himself, then reform another. He that was the judge of Israel, would not now judge himself, but would be judged by Israel; Whose ox have I taken? whose ass have I taken? or to whom have I done wrong? No doubt Samuel found himself guilty before God of many private infirmities, but for his public carriage, he appeals to men: A man's heart can best judge of himself; others can best judge of his actions. As another man's conscience & approbation can not bear us out before God; so cannot our own before men: For oft-times that action is censured by the beholders, as wrong full, wherein we applaud our own justice. Happy is that man, that can be acquitted by himself in private, in public by others, by God in both; standers by may see more: It is very safe for a man to look into himself by others eyes; In vain shall a man's heart absolve him, that is condemned by his actions.  
IT was not so much the trial of his carriage, that Samuel appealed for, as his justification, not for his own comfort, so much as their conviction: His innocence hath not done him service enough, unless it shame them, and make them confess themselves faulty. In so many years wherein Samuel judged Israel, it cannot be, but many thousand causes passed his hands, wherein both parties could not possibly be pleased; yet so clear doth he find his heart, and hands, that he dare make the grieved part judges of his judgement: A good conscience will make a man vndauntedly confident, and dare put him upon any trial; where his own heart strikes him not, it bids him challenge all the world, and take up all comers: How happy a thing is it for a man to be his own friend, and patron? He needs not to fear foreign broils, that is at peace at home: Contrarily, he that hath a false and foul heart, lies at every man's mercy; lives slavishly, and is fain to daub up a rotten peace with the basest conditions. Truth is not afraid of any light, and therefore dare suffer her wares to be carried from a dim shop-bord unto the street door: Perfect gold will be but the purer with trying, whereas falsehood being a work of darkness, loves darkness, and therefore seeks, where it may work closest.  
THIS very appellation cleared Samuel, but the people's attestation cleared him more: Innocency & uprightness becomes every man well, but most public persons, who shall be else obnoxious to every offender. The throne and the pulpit (of all places) call for holiness, not more for example of good, then for liberty of controlling evil: All Magistrates swear to do that, which Samuel protesteth he hath done; if their oath were so verified, as samuel's protestation, it were a shame for the State not to be happy: The sins of our Teachers are the teachers of sin; the sins of governors do both command, and countenance evil This very acquitting of Samuel was the accusation of themselves: For how could it be but faulty to cast off a faultless governor? If he had not taken away an ox, or an ass from them, why do they take away his authority? They could not have thus cleared Saul at the end of his reign, It was just with God, since they were weary of a just ruler, to punish them with an unjust.  
HE that appealed to them for his own uprightness, durst not appeal to them for their own wickedness, but appeals to heaven from them. Men are commonly flatterers of their own cases: It must be a strong evidence, that will make a sinner convicted in himself; Nature hath so many shifts to cozen it self in this spiritual verdict, that unless it be taken in the manner, it will hardly yield to a truth; either she will deny the fact, or the fault, or the measure; And now in this case they might seem to have some fair pretences: For though Samuel was righteous, yet his sons were corrupt. To cut of all excuses therefore, Samuel appeals to God (the highest judge) for his sentence of their sin, and dares trust to a miraculous conviction. It was now their wheat harvest: The hot and dry air of that climate did not wont to afford in that season so much moist vapour, as might raise a cloud, either for rain, or thunder: He that knew God could, and would do both these, without the help of second causes, puts the trial upon this issue. Had not Samuel before consulted with his Maker, and received warrant for his act, it had been presumption and tempting of God, which was now a noble improvement of faith: Rather than Israel shall go clear away with a sin, God will accuse and arraign them from heaven. No sooner hath samuel's voice ceased, than God's voice begins: Every crack of thunder spoke judgement against the rebellious Israelites, and every drop of rain was a witness of their sin, and now they found they had displeased him, which ruleth in the heaven, by rejecting the man that ruled for him on earth: The thundering voice of God, that had lately in their sight confounded the Philistims, they now understood to speak fearful things against them. No marvel, if now they fell upon their knees, not to Saul, whom they had chosen, but to Samuel, who being thus cast off by them, is thus countenanced in heaven.   

Saul's sacrifice.  
GOD never meant the kingdom should either stay long in the tribe of Benjamin, or remove suddenly from the person of Saul; Many years did Saul reign over Israel, yet God computes him but two years a King: That is not accounted of God to be done, which is not lawfully done; when God, which chose Saul, rejected him, he was no more a King, but a Tyrant: Israel obeyed him still, but God makes no reckoning of him, as his deputy, but as an usurper.  
SAUL was of good years, when he was advanced to the kingdom: His son jonathan, the first year of his father's reign, could lead a thousand Israelites into the field, and give a foil to the Philistims: And now Israel could not think themselves less happy in the●●r Prince, then in their King; jonathan is the heir of his father's victory, as well as of his valour, and his estate. The Philistims were quiet after those first thunderclaps, all the time of samuel's government, now they begin to stir under Saul. How utterly is Israel disappointed in their hopes? That security and protection, which they promised themselves in the name of a King, they found in a Prophet, failed of in a warrior; They were more safe under the mantle, then under arms: both enmity and safeguard are from heaven, goodness hath been ever a stronger guard, than valour: It is the surest policy always to have peace with God.  
WE find by the spoils, that the Philistims had some battles with Israel, which are not recorded; After the thunder had scared them into a peace, and restitution of all the bordering Cities, from Ekron to Gath, they had taken new heart, and so beslaved Israel, that they had neither weapon, nor Smith left amongst them, yet even in this miserable nakedness of Israel, have they both fought, and overcome. Now might you have seen the unarmed Israelites marching with their slings, and ploughstaves, and hooks, and forks, and other instruments of their husbandry against a mighty & well furnished enemy, and returning laded both with arms and victory. No armour is of proof against the Almighty, neither is he unweapned, that carries the revenge of God: There is the same disadvantage in our spiritual conflicts, we are turned naked to principalities, and powers; whilst we go under the conduct of the Prince of our peace, we cannot but be bold & victorious.  
VAIN men think to overpower God with munition, and multitude: The Philistims are not any way more strong, then in conceit; Thirty thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen, footmen like the sand for number, makes them scorn Israel no less, than Israel fears them. When I see the miraculous success, which had blessed the Israelites, in all their late conflicts with these very Philistims, with the Ammonites, I cannot but wonder, how they could fear: They, which in the time of their sin found God to raise such trophies over their enemies, run now into caves, and rocks, and pits, to hide them from the faces of men, when they found God reconciled, and themselves penitent. No Israelite but hath some cowardly blood in him: If we had no fear, faith would have no mastery, yet these fearful Israelites shall cut the throats of those confident Philistims; Doubt and resolution are not meet measures of our success: A presumptuous confidence goes commonly bleeding ●●ome when an humble fear retu●●nes in triumph. Fear drives those Israelites, which dare show their heads out of the caves unto Saul, and makes them cling unto their new King: How troublesome were the beginnings of Saul's honour? Surely, if that man had not exceeded Israel no less in courage, then in stature, he had now hid himself in a cave, which before hid himself among the stuff: But now, though the Israelites ran away from him, yet he ran not away from them; It was not any doubt of Saul's valour, that put his people to their heels, it was the absence of Samuel; If the Prophet had come up, Israel would never have run away from their King: Whiles they had a Samuel alone, they were never well, till they had a Saul, now they have a Saul, they are as far from contentment, because they want a Samuel; unless both join together, they think there can be no safety. Where the temporal and spiritual state combine not together, there can follow nothing but distraction in the people: The Prophets receive and deliver the will of God, Kings execute it; The Prophets are directed by God, the people are directed by their Kings. Where men do not see God before them in his ordinances, their hearts cannot but fail them, both in their respects to their superiors, and their courage in themselves. Piety is the mother of perfect subjection: As all authority is derived from heaven, so is it thence established; Those governors that would command the hearts of men, must show them God in their faces.  
No Israelite can think himself safe without a Prophet: Saul had given them good proof of his fortitude, in his late victory over the Ammonites, but then proclamation was made before the fight through all the country, that every man should come up after Saul, and Samuel: If Samuel had not been with Saul, they would rather have ventured the loss of their oxen, than the hazard of themselves: How much less should we presume of any safety in our spiritual combats, when we have not a Prophet to lead us? It is all one (saving that it favours of more contempt) not to have God's Seers, and not to use them: He can be no true Israelite, that is not distressed with the want of a Samuel.  
As one, that had learned to begin his rule in obedience, Saul stays seven days in Gilgal, according to the Prophet's direction, and still he looks long for Samuel, which had promised his presence; six days he expects, and part of the seventh, yet Samuel is not come: The Philistims draw near, the Israelites runneaway, Samuel comes not, they must fight, God must be supplicated, what should Saul do? rather than God should want a sacrifice, and the people satisfaction, Saul will command that, which he knew Samuel would, if he were present, both command, and execute: It is not possible (thinks he) that God should be displeased with a sacrifice, he cannot but be displeased with indevotion: Why do the people run from me, but for want of means to make God sure? What would Samuel rather wish, then that we should be godly? The act shall be the same, the only differences shall be in the 〈◊〉: If Samuel be wanting to us, we will not be wanting to God; It is but an holy prevention to be devout unbidden: Upon this conceit, he commands a sacrifice; Saul's sins make no great show, yet are they still heinously taken, the impiety of them was more hidden, and inward from all eyes, but Gods. If Saul were among the Prophets before, will he now be among the Priests? Can there be any devotion in disobedience? O vain man! What can it avail thee to sacrifice to God against God? Hypocrites rest only in formalities; If the outward act be done, it sufficeth them, though the ground be distrust, the manner unreverence, the carriage presumption.  
WHAT then should Saul have done? Upon the trust of God & Samuel he should have stayed out the last hour, and have secretly sacrificed himself, and his prayers unto that God, which loves obedience above sacrifice. Our faith is most commendable in the last act; It is no praise to hold out, until we be hard driven: Then, when we are forsaken of means, to live by faith in our God, is worthy of a crown: God will have no worship of our devising, we may only do, what he bids us, not bid, what he commands not. Never did any true piety arise out of the corrupt puddle of man's brain; If it flow not from heaven, it is odious to heaven: What was it, that did thus taint the valour of Saul with this weakness, but distrust? He saw some Israelites go, he thought all would go, he saw the Philistims come, he saw Samuel came not, his diffidence was guilty of his mis-devotion: There is no sin, that hath not his ground from unbelief; This, as it was the first infection of our pure nature, so is the true source of all corruption, man could not sin, if he disinherited not.  
THE sacrifice is no sooner ended, than Samuel is come, and why came he no sooner? He could not be a Seer, and not know, how much he was looked for, how troublesome and dangerous his absence must needs be; He, that could tell Saul, that he should prophesy, could tell, that he would sacrifice; yet he purposely forbears to come, for the trial of him, that must be the champion of God. Samuel durst not have done thus, but by direction from his master: It is the ordinary course of God to prove us by delays, and to drive us to exigents, that we may show what we are: He that anointed Saul, might lawfully from God control him: There must be discretion, there may not be partiality in our censures of the greatest: God makes difference of sins, none of persons, if we make differences of sins according to persons, we are unfaithful both to God, and man. Scarce is Saul warm in his kingdom, when he hath even now lost it: samuel's first words after the inauguration, are of Saul's rejection, and the choice and establishment of his successor: It was ever God's purpose to settle the kingdom in judah; He that took occasion by the people's sin to raise up Saul in Benjamin, takes occasion by Saul's sin to establish the crown upon David. In human probability the kingdom was fixed upon Saul, and his more worthy son: In God's decree it did but pass through the hands of Benjamin to judah. Besides trouble, how fickle are these earthly glories? Saul doubtless looked upon jonathan, as the inheritor of his crown, and behold, ere his peaceable possession, he hath lost it from himself: Our sins strip us not of our hopes in heaven only, but of our earthly blessings; The way to entail a comfortable prosperity upon our seed after us, is our conscionable obedience unto God.   

JONATHANS' victory and Saul's oath.  
IT is no wonder if Saules courage were much cooled with the heavy news of his rejection: After this he stays under the pomegranate tree in Gibeah, He stirs not toward the garrison of the Philistims: As hope is the mother of fortitude, so nothing doth more breed cowardliness, than despair: Every thing dismays that heart, which God hath put out of protection: Worthy jonathan (which sprung from Saul, as some sweet imp grows out of a crabstock) is therefore full of valour, because full of faith: He well knew, that he should have nothing, but discouragements from his father's fear; as rather choosing therefore, to avoid all the blocks, that might lie in the way, then to leap over them, he departs secretly without the dismission of his father, or notice of the people; only God leads him, and his armour-bearer follows him. O admirable faith of jonathan, whom neither the steepness of rocks, nor the multitude of enemies can dissuade from so unlikely an assault! Is it possible, that two men, whereof one was weaponless, should dare to think of encountering so many thousands? O divine power of faith, that in all difficulties, and attempts, makes a man more than men, and regards no more armies of men, than swarms of flies! There is no restraint to the Lord, (saith he) to save with many, or by few: It was not so great news, that Saul should be amongst the Prophets, as that such a word should come from the son of Saul.  
IF his father had had but so much divinity, he had not sacrificed: The strength of his God is the ground of his strength in God; The question is not, what jonathan can do, but what God can do, whose power is not in the means, but in himself: That man's faith is well under-layed, that upholds itself by the omnipotency of God; thus the father of the faithful built his assurance upon the power of the Almighty. But many things God can do, which he will not do; How knowest thou, jonathan, that God will be as forward, as he is able, to give thee victory? For this (saith he) I have a watchword from God, out of the mouths of the Philistims: If they say, Come up, we will go up; for God hath delivered them into our hands: If they say, Tarry, till we come to you, we will stand still. jonathan was too wise to trust unto a casual presage: There might be some far fetched conjectures of the event from the word; We will come to you, was a threat of resolution; Come you to us, was a challenge of fear; or perhaps, Come up to us was a word of insultation, from them, that trusted to the inaccessiblenes of the the place, & multitudes of men. Insultation is from pride, Pride argued a fall, but faith hath nothing to do with probabilities, as that, which acknowledgeth no argument, but demonstration; If there had not been an instinct from God of this assured warrant of success, jonathan had presumed in steed of believing, and had tempted that God, whom he professed to glorify by his trust.  
THERE can be no faith, where there is no promise, and where there is a promise, there can be no presumption: Words are voluntary, The tongues of the Philistims were as free to say, Tarry, as Come: That God, in whom our very tongues move, overruled them so, as now they shall speak that word, which shall cut their own throats: They knew no more harm in Come, then Tarry, both were alike safe for the sound, for the sense; but he, that put a signification of their slaughter in the one, not in the other, did put that word into their mouth, whereby they might invite their own destruction: The disposition of our words are from the providence of the Almighty, God and our hearts have not always the same meaning in our speeches: In those words, which we speak at random, or out of affectation, God hath a further drift of his own glory, and perhaps our judgement. If wicked men say, our tongues are our own, they could not say so, but from him, whom they defy in saying so, and who makes their tongue their executioner.  
No sooner doth jonathan hear this invitation, than he answers it: He, whose hands had learned never to fail his heart, puts himself upon his hands and knees to climb up into this danger, the exploit was not more difficult, than the way, the pain of the passage was equal to the peril of the enterprise; that his faith might equally triumph over both, he doth not say, how shall I get up? much less, which way shall I get down again? but, as if the ground were level, and the action dangerles, he puts himself into the view of the Philistims: Faith is never so glorious, as when it hath most opposition, and will not see it: Reason looks ever to the means, Faith to the end, and in steed of consulting, how to effect, resolves, what shall be effected. The way to heaven is more steep, more painful: O God how perilous a passage hast thou appointed for thy labouring pilgrims? If difficulties will discourage us, we shall but climb to fall: When we are lifting up our foot to the last step, there are the Philistims of death, of temptations, to grapple with; give us but faith, & turn us lose to the spite either of earth, or hell.  
JONATHAN is now on the top of the hill, and now, as if he had an Army at his heels, he flies upon the host of the Philistims, his hands that might have been weary with climbing, are immediately commanded to fight, and deal as many deaths, as blows to the amazed enemy: He needs not walk far for this execution; Himself, and his armour-bearer in one half acres space have slain 20 Philistims: It is not long since jonathan smote their garrison in the hill of Geba, perhaps, from that time his name & presence carried terror in it, but sure if the Philistims had not seen, and felt more than a man in the face, and hands of jonathan, they had not so easily groveled in death: The blows and shrieks cannot but affect the next, who with a ghastly noise ran away from death, and affright their fellows no less, than themselves are affrighted: The clamour & fear runs on like fire in a train to the very foremost ranks; Every man would fly, and thinks there is so much more cause of flight, for that his ears apprehend all, his eyes nothing: Each man thinks his fellow stands in his way, and therefore in steed of turning upon him, which was the cause of their flight, they bend their swords upon those, whom they imagine to be the hinderers of their flight; and now a miraculous astonishment hath made the Philistims, Jonathan's champions and executioners; He follows, and kills those, which helped to kill others; and the more he killed, the more they feared, and fled, and the more they killed each other in the flight; and that fear itself might prevent jonathan in killing them, the earth itself trembles under them. Thus doth God at once strike them with his own hand, with Jonathan's, with theirs, & makes them run away from life, whiles they would fly from an enemy: Where the Almighty purposes destruction to any people, he needs not call in foreign powers, he needs not any hands or weapons, but their own; He can make vast bodies die no other death, than their own weight: We cannot be sure to be friends among ourselves, whiles God is our enemy.  
THE Philistims fly fast, but the news of their flight over-runnes them even unto Saul's pomegranate tree: The watchmen discern a far of, a flight and execution; search is made, jonathan is found missing, Saul will consult with the Ark: Hypocrites, while they have leisure, will perhaps be holy; For some fits of devotion they cannot be bettered. But when the tumult increased, Saul's piety decreases: It is now no season to talk with a Priest; withdraw thine hand Ahaiah, the Ephod must give place to arms: It is more time to fight, then to pray; what needs he God's guidance, when he sees his way before him? He that before would needs sacrifice, ere he fought, will now in the other extreme, fight in a wilful indevotion: Worldly minds regard holy duties no further, then may stand with their own carnal purposes; Very easy occasions shall interrupt them in their religious intentions; like unto children, which if a bird do but fly in their way, cast their eye from their book.  
BUT if Saul serve not God in one kind, he will serve him in another, if he honour him not by attending on the Ark, he will honour him by a vow; His negligence in the one is recompensed with his zeal in the other. All Israel is adjured not to eat any food until the evening: Hypocrisy is ever masked with a blind and thankless zeal: To wait upon the Ark, and to consult with God's Priest in all cases of importance was a direct commandment of God; To eat no food in the pursuit of their enemies was not commanded: Saul leaves that, which he was bidden, and does that, which he was not required: To eat no food all day was more difficult, then to attend an hour upon the Ark; The voluntary services of hypocrites are many times more painful, than the duties enjoined by God.  
In what awe did all Israel stand of the oath even of Saul? It was not their own vow, but Saul's for them; yet coming into the wood, where they saw the honey dropping, and found the meat as ready, as their appetite; they dare not touch that sustenance, and will rather endure famine, and fainting, than an indiscreet curse: Doubtless God had brought those bees thither on purpose to try the constancy of Israel; Israel could not but think (that, which jonathan said) that the vow was unadvised, and injurious, yet they will rather die, then violate it: How sacred should we hold the obligation of our own vows, in things just and expedient, when the bonds of another's rash vow is thus indissoluble?  
THERE was a double mischief followed upon Saul's oath, an abatement of the victory, and eating with the blood: For, on the one side, the people were so faint, that they were more likely to die, then kill, they could neither run, nor strike in this emptiness; Neither hands nor feet can do their office, when the stomach is neglected: On the other, an unmeet forbearance causes a ravenous repast: Hunger knows neither choice, nor order, nor measure: The one of these was a wrong to Israel, the other was a wrong done by Israel to God: Saul's zeal was guilty of both: A rash vow is seldom ever free from inconvenience; The heart that hath unnecessarily entangled itself, draws mischief either upon itself, or others.  
JONATHAN was ignorant of his father's adjuration, he knew no reason, why he should not refresh himself in so profitable a service, with a little taste of honey upon his spear: Full well had he deserved this unsought dainty; and behold this honey is turned into gall: If it were sweet in the mouth, it was bitter in the soul; if the eyes of his body were enlightened, the light of God's countenance was clouded by this act. After he heard of the oath, he pleads justly against it, the loss of so fair an opportunity of revenge, and the trouble of Israel; yet neither his reasons against the oath, nor his ignorance of the oath, can excuse him from a sin of ignorance in violating that, which first he knew not, & then knew unreasonable: Now Saul's leisure would serve him to ask counsel of God; As before Saul would not inquire, so now God will not answer: Well might Saul have found sins enough of his own, whereto to impute this silence: He hath grace enough to know that God was offended, and to guess at the cause of his offence: Sooner will an hypocrite find out another man's sin, than his own, and now he swears more rashly to punish with death, the breach of that, which he had sworn rashly: The lots were cast, and Saul prays for the decision, jonathan is taken: Even the prayers of wicked men are sometimes heard, although in justice, not in mercy: Saul himself was punished not a little, in the fall of this lot upon jonathan; Surely Saul sinned more in making this vow, than jonathan in breaking it unwittingly, and now the father smarts for the rashness of his double vow, by the unjust sentence of death upon so worthy a son: God had never singled out jonathan by his lot, if he had not been displeased with his act: Vows rashly made may not be rashly broken; If the thing we have vowed be not evil in itself, or in the effect, we cannot violate it without evil; Ignorance cannot acquit, if it can abate our sin: It is like, if jonathan had heard of his father's adjuration, he had not transgressed; his absence at the time of that oath, cannot excuse him from displeasure: What shall become of those, which may know the charge of their heavenly father, and will not? which do know his charge, and will not keep it? Affectation of ignorance, and willing disobedience is desperate.  
DEATH was too hard a censure for such an unknown offence: The cruel piety of Saul will revenge the breach of his own charge, so as he would be loath, God should avenge on himself the breach of his divine command: If jonathan had not found better friends than his father, so noble a victory had been recompensed with death; He that saved Israel from the Philistims, is saved by Israel from the hand of his father: Saul hath sworn Jonathan's death, the people contrarily swear his preservation; His kingdom was not yet so absolute, that he could run away with so unmerciful a justice; their oath that savoured of disobedience, prevailed against his oath, that savoured too strong of cruelty: Neither doubt I, but Saul was secretly not displeased with this loving resistance: So long as his heart was not false to his oath, he could not be sorry that jonathan should live.    

Contemplations.  
THE THIRTEENTH BOOK.  
Containing  

Saul and Agag.  
The Rejection of Saul, and the choice of David.  
David called to the Court.  
David and Goliath.  
Jonathan's love & Saul's envy.  
michal's wile.  
David and Ahimelec.    

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE Sr THOMAS edmond's Knight, Treasurer of his Ma.tie Household, and of his most Honourable Privy COUNSELL.  
RIGHT HO:  
After your long and happy acquaintance with other Courts & Kingdoms, may it please you to compare with them the estate of old ISRAEL; You shall find the same hand swaying all sceptres; and you shall meet with such a proportion of dispositions, and occurrences, that you will say, men are still the same, if their names and faces differ; You shall find Envy and Mutability ancient Courtiers; and shall confess the vices of men still alive, if themselves die; You shall see God still honouring those that honour him, and both rescuing innocence, and crowning it. It is not for me to anticipate your deeper, and more judicious observations. I am bold to dedicate this piece of my labour to your HONOUR, in a thankful acknowledgement of those noble respects, I have found from you, both in FRANCE, and at home. In am of all which, I can but pray for your happiness, and vow myself  
Your Honours in all humble observance, IOS. HALL..   

Contemplations.  

SAUL & AGAG.  
GOD holds it no derogation from his mercy to bear a quarrel long, where he hates: He, whose anger to the vessels of wrath is everlasting, even in temporal judgement revengeth late: The sins of his own children are no sooner done, and repent of, then forgotten; but the malicious sins of his enemies stick fast in an infinite displeasure. (I remember what Amalek did to Israel, how they laid wait for them by the way, as they came up from Egypt): Alas Lord, (might Amalek say) they were our forefathers, we never knew their faces, no not their names, the fact was so far from our consent, that it is almost past the memory of our histories: It is not in the power of time to raze out any of the arrearages of God; we may lay up wrath for our posterity: Happy is that child, whose progenitors are in heaven, he is left an inheritor of blessing together with estate, whereas wicked ancestors lose the thank of a rich patrimony, by the curse, that attends it: He that thinks, because punishment is deferred, that God hath forgiven, or forgot his offence, is unacquainted with justice, and knows not, that time makes no difference in eternity.  
THE Amalekites were wicked Idolaters, and therefore could not want many present sins, which deserved their extirpation: That God, which had taken notice of all their offences, picks out this one noted sin of their forefathers, for revenge: Amongst all their indignities, this shall bear the name of their judgement. As in legal proceedings with malefactors, one indictment found, gives the style to their condemnation: In the lives of those, which are notoriously wicked, God cannot look besides a sin, yet when he draws to an execution, he fastens his sentence upon one evil as principal, others as accessaries, so as at the last, one sin, which perhaps we make no account of, shall pay for all.  
THE paganish Idolatries of the Amalekites could not but be greater sins to God, than their hard measure to Israel, yet God sets this upon the file, whiles the rest are not recorded; Their superstitions might be of ignorance, this sin was of malice: Malicious wickednesses of all other, as they are in greatest opposition to the goodness and mercy of God, shall be sure of the payment of greatest vengeance. The detestation of God may be measured by his revenge, (slay both man, and woman, both infant, and suckling, both ox, and sheep, camel, and ass) not themselves only, but every thing that drew life either from them, or for their use, must die: When the God of mercies speaks such bloody words, the provocation must needs be vehement: sins of infirmity do but mutter; spiteful sins cry loud for judgement in the ears of God: Prepensed malice in courts of human justice aggravates the murder, and sharpens the sentence of death.  
WHAT then was this sin of Amalek, that is called unto this late reckoning? What? but their envious and unprovoked onsets upon the back of Israel; this was it, that God took so to heart, as that he not only remembers it now by Samuel, but he bids Israel ever to remember it, by Moses: Remember how Amalek met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of you, all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint & weary. Besides this, did Amalek meet Israel in a pitched battle openly, in Rephidim, for that God paid them in the present; The hand of Moses lifted up on the hill, slew them in the valley: He therefore repeats not that quarrel, but the cowardly, and cruel attempts upon an impotent enemy, stick still in the stomach of the Almighty: Oppression and wrong upon even terms, are not so heinous unto God, as those, that are upon manifest disadvantage: In the one, there is an hazard of return; In the other, there is ever a tyrannous insulation; God takes still the weaker part, and will be sure therefore to plague them, which seek to put injuries on the unable to resist.  
THIS sin of Amalek slept all the time of the judges, those governors were only for rescue, and defence; now, so soon as Israel hath a King, and that King is settled in peace, God gives charge to call them to account: It was that, which God had both threatened & sworn, and now he chooses out a fit season for the execution; As we use to say of winter, the judgements of God do never rot in the sky, but shall fall (if late, yet) surely, yet seasonably: There is small comfort in the delay of vengeance, whiles we are sure it shall lose nothing in the way, by length of protraction.  
THE Kenites were the offspring of Hobab, or jethro, father in law to Moses; the affinity of him, to whom Israel owed their deliverance, and being, was worthy of respect; but it was the mercy of that good and wise Midianite showed unto Israel in the wilderness, by his grave advise, cheerful gratulation, and aid, which won this grateful forbearance of his posterity: He that is not less in mercy, then in justice, as he challenged Amaleks' sin of their succeeding generations, so he derives the recompense of jethros kindness, unto his far-descended issue: Those, that were unborn many ages after Iethro's death, receive life from his dust, and favour from his hospitality; The name of their dead grandfather saves them from the common destruction of their neighbours. The services of our love to God's children are never thankless, when we are dead and rotten, they shall live, and procure blessings to those, which never knew perhaps, nor heard of their progenitors: If we sow good works, succession shall reap them, and we shall be happy in making them so.  
THE Kenites dwelled in the borders of Amalek, but in tents, (as did their issue the Rechabites) so as they might remove with ease: They are warned to shift their habitations, left they should perish with ill neighbours: It is the manner of God, first to separate, before he judge, as a good husband weeds his corn, ere it be ripe for the sickle, and goes to the fan, ere he go to the fire: When the Kenites pack up their farthels, it is time to expect judgement; Why should not we imitate God, and separate ourselves that we may not be judged? separate, not one Kenite from another, but every Kenite from among the Amalekites, else if we will needs live with Amalek, we cannot think much to die with him.  
THE Kenites are no sooner removed, than Saul falls upon the Amalekites: He destroys all the people, but spares their King: The charge of God was universal, for man and beast: In the corruption of partiality, lightly the greatest escape: Covetousness, or mis-affection are commonly guilty of the impunity of those, which are at once most eminent in dignity, and in offence: It is a shameful hypocrisy to make our commodity the measure and rule of our executions of God's command, and under pretence of godliness to pretend gain: The unprofitable vulgar must die; Agag may yield a rich ransom: The lean and feeble cattle, that would but spend stover, and die alone, shall perish by the sword of Israel, the best may stock the grounds, and furnish the markets. O hypocrites, did God send you for gain, or for revenge? Went you to be purveyors, or executioners? If you plead, that all those wealthy herds had been but lost in a speedy death, think ye that he knew not this, which commanded it? Can that be lost, which is devoted to the will of the owner, & creator? Or can ye think to gain any thing by disobedience? That man can never either do well, or farewell, which thinks, there can be more profit in any thing, then in his obedience to his maker: Because Saul spared the best of the men, the people spared the best of the cattle, each is willing to favour other in the sin: The sins of the great command imitation, and do as seldom go without attendants, as their persons.  
SAUL knew well, how much he had done amiss, and yet dare meet Samuel, and can say, Blessed be thou of the Lord, I have fulfilled the commandment of the Lord: His heart knew, that his tongue was as false, as his hands had been, and if his heart had not been more false, then either of them, neither of them had been so gross in their falsehood: If hypocrisy were not either foolish, or impudent, she durst not show her head to a Seer of God. Could Saul think, that Samuel knew of the asses that were lost, and did not know of the oxen and sheep, that were spared? Could he foretell his thoughts, when it was, and now not know of his open actions? Much less when we have to do with God himself, would dissimulation presume either of safety or secrecy? Can the God that made the heart not know it? Can he, that comprehends all things, be shut out of our close corners? Saul was otherwise crafty enough, yet herein his simplicity is palpable: Sin can besot even the wisest man, and there was never but folly in wickedness.  
No man brags so much of holiness, as he that wants it: True obedience is joined ever with humility, and fear of unknown errors; Falsehood is bold, and can say, I have fulfilled the commandment of the Lord; If Saul had been truly obsequious, and holy, he had made no noise of it: A gracious heart is not a blab of his tongue, but rests and rejoiceth silently in the conscience of a secret goodness, those vessels yield most sound, that have the least liquor: Samuel had reason to believe the sheep, and oxen above Saul; their bleating and lowing was a sufficient conviction of a denied, and outfaced disobedience: God opened their mouths to accuse Saul of their life, and his falsehood; but, as sin is crafty, and never wanted a cloak, where with both to hide and deck itself, even this very rebellion is holy: First the act, if it were evil, was not mine, but the peoples; and secondly, their intention makes it good. For these flocks and herds were preserved, not for gain, but for devotion: What needs this quarrel? If any gain by this act, it is the Lord thy God: His Altars shall smoke with these sacrifices, ye, that serve at them, shall far so much the better; this godly thriftiness looks for thanks rather than censure. If Saul had been in samuel's clothes, perhaps this answer would have satisfied him: Surely himself stands out in it, as that whereto he dare trust, and after he hears of Gods angry reproof, he avows, and doubles his hold of his innocency; as if the commanders should not answer for the known sins of the people; as if our intentions could justify us to God, against God. How much ado it is to bring sinners upon their knees, & to make their tongues accuse their hands? But it is no halting with the maker of the heart: He knew, it was covetousness, and not piety, which was accessary to this forbearance; and if it had been as was pretended, he knew it was an odious impiety to raise devotion out of disobedience: Saul shall hear and find, that he hath dealt no less wickedly in sparing an Agag, then in killing an innocent Israelite, in sparing these beasts for sacrifice, then in sacrificing beasts that had been unclean: Why was sacrifice itself good, but because it was commanded? What difference was there betwixt slaughter and sacifice, but obedience? To sacrifice disobediently is wilfully to mock God in honouring him.   

The rejection of Saul and the choice of David.  
EVEN when Saul had abandoned God in disobedience, he would not forego Samuel, yea though he reproved him; when he had forsaken the substance, yet he would maintain the formality; If he cannot hold the man, he will keep the pledge of his garment, such was the violence of Saul's desire, that he will rather rend samuel's coat, than part with his person. Little did Saul think, that he had in his hand the pawn of his own rejection, that this act of kind importunity should carry in it a presage of his judgement, yet so it did; This very rending of the coat was a real prophesy, and did bode no less, than the rending of the kingdom from him, and his posterity: Wicked men, whiles they think by carnal means to make their peace, plunge themselves deeper into misery.  
ANY slander by would have said, what a good King is this? how dear is God's Prophet unto him? how happy is Israel in such a Prince, as thus loves the messengers of God? Samuel, that saw the bottom of this hollow affection, rejects him, whom God had rejected; he was taught to look upon Saul, not as a King, but as an offender, and therefore refuses with no less vehemency, than Saul entreated: It was one thing, what he might do, as a subject, another what he must do, as a Prophet; Now he knows not Saul any otherwise, then as so much the greater trespasser, as his place was higher; and therefore he doth no more spare his greatness, than the God against whom he sinned; Neither doth he countenance that man with his presence, on whom he sees God to frown.  
THERE needs no other Character of hypocrisy, than Saul in the carriage of this one business with Agag and Samuel: First he obeys God where there is no gain in disobedience, than he serves God by halves, and disobeys, where the obedience might be loss: He gives God of the worst; he doth that in a colour, which might seem answerable to the charge of God; He respects persons in the execution; He gives good words, when his deeds were evil; He protests his obedience against his conscience; He faces out his protestation against a reproof; When he sees no remedy he acknowledges the fact, denies the sin, yea he justifies the act by a profitable intention; When he can no longer maintain his innocence, he casts the blame from himself upon the people; He confesseth not, till the sin be wrung from his mouth; He seeks his peace out of himself, and relies more upon another's virtue, than his own penitency; He would cloak his guiltiness with the holiness of another's presence; He is more tormented with the danger & damage of his sin, then with the offence; He cares to hold in with men, in what terms soever he stands with God; He fashionably serves that God, whom he hath not cared to reconcile by his repentance: No marvel if God cast him off, whose best was dissimulation.  
OLD Samuel is forced to do a double execution, and that upon no less than two Kings: The one upon Saul, in dividing the kingdom from him, who had divided himself from God; The other upon Agag, in dividing him in pieces, whom Saul should have divided. Those holy hands were not used to such sacrifices, yet did he never spill blood more acceptably: If Saul had been truly penitent, he had in a desire of satisfaction prevented the hand of Samuel in this slaughter; Now he coldly stands still, and suffers the weak hands of an aged Prophet to be imbrued with that blood, which he was commanded to shed. If Saul might not sacrifice in the absence of Samuel, yet Samuel might kill in the presence of Saul: He was yet a judge of Israel, although he suspended the execution: In Saul's neglect, this charge reverted to him; God loves just executions so well, that he will hardly take them ill at any hands.  
I do not find, that the slaughter of Agag troubled Samuel; that other act of his severity upon Saul, though it drew no blood, yet struck him in the striking, and fetched tears from his eyes. Good Samuel mourned for him; that had not grace to mourn for himself: No man in all Israel might seem to have so much reason to rejoice in Saul's ruin, as Samuel, since that he knew him raised up in despite of his government; yet he mourns more for him, than he did for his sons, for himself; It grieved him to see the plant, which he had set in the garden of Israel, thus soon withered: It is an unnatural senselessnes not to be affected with the dangers, with the sins of our governors: God did not blame this sorrow, but moderated it; How long wilt thou mourn for Saul? It was not the affection he forbade, but the measure; In this is the difference betwixt good men and evil, that evil men mourn not for their own sins, good men do so mourn for the sins of others, that they will hardly be taken off.  
IF Samuel mourn because Saul hath cast away God by his sin, he must cease to mourn, because God hath cast away Saul from reigning over Israel in his just punishment: A good heart hath learned to rest itself upon the justice of God's decree, and forgets all earthly respects, when it looks up to heaven. So did God mean to show his displeasure against the person of Saul, that he would show favour to Israel, he will not therefore bereave them of a King, but change him for a better: Either Saul had slandered his people, or else they were partners with him in the disobedience; yet (because it was their ruler's fault, that they were not overruled) we do not hear of their smarting, any otherwise, then in the subjection to such a King, as was not loyal to God: The loss of Saul is their gain; the government of their first King was abortive, no marvel if it held not. Now was the maturity of that State, and therefore God will bring them forth a kindly Monarchy settled where it should: Kings are of Gods providing, it is good reason he should make choice of his own deputies; but where goodness meets with sovereignty, both his right, and his gift are doubled: If Kings were merely from the earth, what needs a Prophet to be seen in the choice, or inauguration? The hand of Samuel doth not now bear the sceptre to rule Israel, but it bears the horn for the anointing of him, that must rule: Saul was sent to him, when the time was to be anointed; but now, he is sent to anoint David: Then Israel sought a King for themselves, now God seeks a King for Israel: The Prophet is therefore directed to the house of Ishai the Bethleemite, the grandchild of Ruth; now is the faithful love of that good Moabitess crowned with the honour of a kingdom, in the succeeding generation: God fetched her out of Moab, to bring a King unto Israel: Whiles Orpah wants bread in her own country, Ruth is grown a great Lady in Bethleem, and is advanced to be great grandmother to the King of Israel. The retributions of God are bountiful; never any man forsook aught for his sake, and complained of an hard bargain.  
EVEN the best of God's saints want not their infirmities; He that never replied, when he was sent to reprove the King, moveth doubts, when he is bidden to go, and anoint his successor. (How can I go? If Saul hear it he will kill me.) Perhaps desire of full direction drew from him this question, but not without a mixture of diffidence; For the manner of doing it, doth not so much trouble him, as the success: It is not to be expected, that the most faithful hearts should be always in an equal height of resolution. God doth not chide Samuel, but instruct him: He, which is wisdom itself, teacheth him to hide his counsels in an honest policy: (Take an Heifar with thee, and say, I am come to do sacrifice to the Lord). This was to say true, not to say all: Truth may not be crossed by denials, or equivocations, it may be concealed in a discreet silence: except in the case of an oath, no man is bound to speak all he knows; we are not only allowed, but commanded to be innocently serpentine. There were doubtless heifers enough in Bethleem, Ishai had both wealth and devotion enough to have bestowed a sacrifice upon God, and his Prophet: But to give a more perfect colour to his intention, Samuel must take an heifar with him: The act itself was serious and necessary; There was no place, no time, wherein it was not fit for a Samuel to offer peace-offerings unto God; but when a King should be anointed, there was no less than necessity in this service. Those, which must represent God to the world, aught to be consecrated to that majesty, whom they resemble, by public devotions: Every important action requires a sacrifice to bless it, much more that act, which imports the whole Church, or Commonwealth.  
IT was great news to see Samuel at Bethleem, he was no gadder abroad, none but necessary occasions could make him stir from Ramah: The Elders of the City therefore, welcome him with trembling, not for that they were afraid of him, but of themselves; they knew, that guest would not come to them for familiarity, straight do they suspect, it was the purpose of some judgement, that drew him thither: Comest thou peaceably? It is a good thing to stand in awe of God's messengers, and to hold good terms with them upon all occasions: The Bethlemites are glad to hear of no other errand, but a sacrifice; and now must they sanctify themselves for so sacred a business: We may not presume to sacrifice unto God unsanctified, this were to mar an holy act, and make ourselves more profane, by profaning that, which should be holy.  
ALL the Citizens sanctify themselves, but Ishai & his sons were in a special fashion sanctified by Samuel: This business was most theirs, and all Israel in them; the more God hath to do with us, the more holy should we be. With what desire did Samuel look upon the sons of Ishai, that he might see the face of the man, whom God had chosen? And now, when Eliab the eldest son came forth, a man of a goodly presence, whose person seemed fit to succeed Saul, he thinks with himself; This choice is soon made, I have already espied the head, on which I must spend this holy oil; This is the man, which hath both the privilege of nature in his primogeniture, and of outward goodliness in proportion: Surely the Lords anointed is before him. Even the holiest Prophet, when he goes without God, runs into error: The best judgement is subject to deceit; It is no trusting any mortal man, when he speaks of himself: Our eyes can be led by nothing but signs and appearances, and those have commonly in them either a true falsehood, or uncertain truth.  
THAT which should have forewarned Samuel, deceived him; he had seen the proof of a goodly stature unanswerable to their hopes, and yet his eye errs in the shape: He, that judges by the inside both of our hearts and actions, checks Samuel in this misconceit: (Look not on his countenance, nor on the height of his stature, because I have refused him; for God seeth not as man seeth): The King, with whom God meant to satisfy the untimely desires of Israel, was chosen by his stature, but the King with whom God meant to please himself is chosen by the heart. All the seven sons of Ishai are presented to the Prophet, no one is omitted whom their father thought capable of any respect; If either Samuel or Ishai should have chosen, David should never have been King: His father thought him fit to keep sheep, his brethren fit to rule men; yet even David (the youngest son) is fetched from the fold, and by the choice of God destined to the throne: Nature, which is commonly partial to her own, could not suggest aught to Ishai, to make him think David worthy to be remembered in any competition of honour, yet him hath God singled out to the rule.  
GOD will have his wisdom magnified in the unlikelihoods of his election: David's countenance was ingenuous, and beautiful, but if it had promised so much as Eliab's, or Abinadab's, he had not been in the fields, whiles his brethren were at the sacrifice: If we do altogether follow our eye, and suffer ourselves to be guided by outward respects in our choice for God, or ourselves, we cannot but go amiss. What do we think the brethren of David thought, when they saw the oil powered upon his head? surely (as they were envious enough) they had too much repined, if they had either fully apprehended the purpose of the Prophet, or else had not thought of some improbability in the success: Either they understood not, or believed not, what God would do with their brother; They saw him graced with God's spirit above his wont, but perhaps foresaw not, whither it tended: David (as no whit changed in his condition) returns to his sheep again, and with an humble admiration of God's gracious respect to him, casts himself upon the wise and holy decree of the Almighty, resigning himself to the disposition of those hands, which had chosen him; when suddenly a messenger is sent from Saul to call him in all haste, to that Court, whereof he shall once be master: The occasion is no less from God, than the event.   

David called to the covert.  
THAT the kingdom is (in the appointment of God) departed from Saul, it is his least loss; Now the spirit of God is also departed from him; One spirit is no sooner gone, but another is come; both are from God: Even the worst spirits have not only permission, but commission from heaven, for the infliction of judgement. He that at first could hide himself among the stuff, that he might not be King, is now so transported with this glory, that he grows passionate with the thought of foregoing it: Satan takes vantage of his melancholic dejection, and turns this passion into frenzy. God will have even evil spirits work by means; A distempered body, and an unquiet mind are fit grounds for Satan's vexation: Saul's courtiers, as men that were more witty, then religious, advise him to music: They knew the strength of that skill in allaying the fury of passions, in cheering up the dejected spirits of their master: This was done like some fond Chirurgeon, that when the bone is out of joint, lays some soupling poultices to the part, for the assuaging of the ache, in the mean time not caring to remedy the luxation.  
IF they had said, Sr, you know this evil comes from that God, whom you have offended, there can be no help but in reconcilement; how easy is it for the God of spirits to take off Satan? labour your peace with him by a serious humiliation; make means to Samuel to further the atonement; they had been wise counsellors, divine Physicians; whereas now they do but skin over the sore, and leave it rankled at the bottom: The c●●mu●● must ever proceed in the same steps with the disease, else in vain shall we seem to heal; There is no safety in the redress of evils, but to strike at the root. Yet since it is no better with Saul and his courtiers, it is well it is no worse; I do not hear either the master, or servants say, This is an ill spirit, send for some Magician, that may countermand him: There are forcible enchantments for these spiritual vexations; If Samuel will not, there are witches, that may give ease: But as one, that would rather be ill, then do worse, he contents himself to do that, which was lawful, if unsufficient. It is a shame to say, that he, whom God had rejected for his sin, was yet a Saint to some, that should be Christians, who care not, how much they are beholden to the Devil in their distresses, affecting to cast out Devils by Beelzebub: In cases of loss, or sickness they make Hell their refuge, and seek for no patronage, but of an enemy: Here is a fearful agreement; Satan seeks to them in his temptations, they in their consultations seek to him, and now they have mutually found each other, if they ever part, it is a miracle.  
DAVID had lived obscurely in his father's house, his only care and ambition was the welfare of the flock he tended, and now, whiles his father and his brothers neglected him as fit for nothing but the field, he is talked of at Court: Some of Saul's followers had been at Ishai's house, and taken notice of David's skill, and now that harp, which he practised for his private recreation, shall make him of a shepherd a Courtier: The music, that he meant only to himself and his sheep, brings him before Kings: The wisdom of God thought fit to take this occasion of acquainting David with that Court, which he shall once govern. It is good, that our education should perfect our children in all those commendable qualities, whereto they are disposed: Little do we know, what use God means to make of those faculties, which we know not how to employ. Where the Almighty purposes an advancement, obscurity can be no prejudice; small means shall set forward that, which God hath decreed.  
DOUBTLESS old Ishai noted (not without admiration) the wonderful accordance of God's proceedings, that he, which was sent for out of the field to be anointed, should now be sent for out of the country into the Court, and now he perceived, God was making way for the execution of that which he purposed; he attends the issue in silence, neither shall his hand fail to give furtherance to the project of God: He therefore sends his son laden with a present to Saul: The same God, which called David to the Court, wellcoms him thither; His comeliness, valour, and skill have soon won him favour in the eyes of Saul. The giver of all graces hath so placed his favours, that the greatest enemies of goodness shall see somewhat in the holiest men, which they shall affect, and for which they shall honour the persons of them, whose virtues they dislike; as contrarily the Saints on earth see somewhat to love in the worst creatures.  
No doubt David sung to his Harp; His Harp was not more sweet, than his song was holy: Those Psalms alone had been more powerful to chase the evil spirit, than the music was to calm passions; both together gave ease to Saul; and God gave this effect to both, because he would have Saul train up his successor: This sacred music did not more dispel Satan, then wanton music invites him, and more cheers him, then us: He plays and danceth at a filthy song, he sings at an obscure dance: Our sin is his best pastime, whereas Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs are torment unto the tempter, and music to the Angels in heaven, whose trade is to sing Alleluiahs in the Chore of glory.   

David and Goliath.  
AFTER the news of the Philistims army, I hear no more mention of Saul's frenzy: Whether the noise of war diverted those thoughtful passions; or whether God for his people's sake took off that evil spirit, lest Israel might miscarry under a frantic governor. Now David hath leisure to return to Bethleem: The glory of the Court cannot transport him to ambitious vanity; He had rather be his father's shepherd, than Saul's armour-bearer: All the magnificence and state, which he saw, could not put his mouth out of the taste of a retired simplicity; yea rather he loves his hook the better, since he saw the Court; and now his brethren serve Saul in his steed. A good heart hath learned to frame itself unto all conditions, & can change estates without change of disposition, rising and falling according to occasion: The worldly mind can rise easily, but when it is once up, knows not how to descend either with patience, or safety.  
FORTY days together had the Philistims & Israelites faced each other, they pitched on two hills one in the sight of the other, nothing but a valley was betwixt them: Both stand upon defence and advantage; If they had not meant to fight, they had never drawn so near; and if they had been eager of fight, a valley could not have parted them: Actions of hazard require deliberation; not fury but discretion must be the guide of war.  
So had joshua destroyed the giantly Anakims' out of the land of Israel, that yet some were left in Azzah, Gath, and Ashdod: both to show Israel, what adversaries their forefathers found in Canaan, & whom they mastered; as also that God might win glory to himself by these subsequent executions: Of that race was Goliath, whose heart was as high as his head, his strength was answerable to his stature, his weapons answerable to his strength, his pride exceeded all: Because he saw his head higher, his arms stronger, his sword and spear bigger, his shield heavier than any Israelite, he defies the whole host, and walking between the two armies, braves all Israel with a challenge; (Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? Am not I a Philistim? and you servants to Saul? Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me: give me a man, that we may fight together). Carnal hearts are carried away with presumption of their own abilities, and not finding matches to themselves in outward appearance, insult over the impotency of inferiors; and as those, that can see no invisible opposition, promise themselves certainty of success: Insolence and selfe-confidence argues the heart to be nothing, but a lump of proud flesh.  
THE first challenge of Duel, that ever we find, came out of the mouth of an uncircumcised Philistim; yet was that in open war, and tended to the saving of many lives, by adventuring one or two; and whosoever imitateth, nay surpasseth him in challenge to private Duel, in the attempt partaketh of his uncircumcision, though he should overcome, and of his manner of punishment, if in such private combats he cast away his life. For of all such desperate prodigals we may say, that their heads are cut off by their own sword, if not by their own hand. We cannot challenge men, and not challenge God, who justly challengeth to himself both to take vengeance, and to give success. The more Goliath challenges, and is unanswered, the more is he puffed up in the pride of his own power: And is there none of all Israel, that will answer this champion otherwise then with his heels? Where is the courage of him that was higher than all Israel from the shoulders upward? The time was, when Nahash the Ammonite had made that tyrannous demand of the right eyes of the Gileadites, that Saul could ask unasked, What aileth the people to weep? and could hew his oxen in pieces to raise the spirits of Israel, and now he stands still, and sees the host turn their back, and never so much as asks, what aileth the people to flee? The time was, when Saul slew forty thousand Philistims in one day, and perhaps Goliath was in that discomfiture, and now one Philistim is suffered by him to brave all Israel forty days; whence is this difference? The spirit of God (the spirit of fortitude) was now departed from him: Saul was not more above himself, when God was with him, than he is below others, now that he is left of God; Valour is not merely of nature: Nature is ever like itself, by this rule, he that is once valiant, should never turn coward: But now we see the greatest spirits inconstant; and those, which have given good proofs of magnanimity, at other times, have bewrayed white livers unto their own reproach; He that is the God of hosts, gives and takes away men's hearts at his pleasure: Neither is it otherwise in our spiritual combats, sometimes the same soul dare challenge all the powers of darkness, which otherwhiles gives ground to a temptation; We have no strength, but what is given us, and if the author of all good gifts remit his hand for our humiliation, either we fight not, or are foiled.  
DAVID hath now lain long enough close amongst his flock in the fields of Bethleem, God sees a time to send him to the pitched field of Israel: Good old Ishai, that was doubtless joyful to think, that he had afforded three sons to the wars of his King, is no less careful of their welfare, and provision; and who (amongst all the rest of his seven sons, shall be picked out for this service, but his youngest son David, whose former & almost worn-out acquaintance in the Court, and employment under Saul, seemed to fit him best for his errand▪ Early in the morning is David upon his way, yet not so early, as to leave his flock unprovided: If his father's command dismiss him, yet will he stay, till he have trusted his sheep with a careful keeper; we cannot be faithful shepherds, if our spiritual charge be less dear unto us; if when necessity calls us from our flocks, we depute not those, which are vigilant and conscionable.  
ERE David's speed can bring him to the valley of Elah, both the Armies are on foot ready to join: He takes not this excuse to stay without, as a man daunted with the horror of war, but leaving his present with his servant, he thrusts himself into the thickest of the host, and salutes his brethren, which were now thinking of nothing but killing or dying, when the proud champion of the Philistims comes stalking forth before all the troops, and renews his insolent challenge against Israel: David sees the man, and hears his defiance, and looks about him, to see what answer would be given, and when he espies nothing but pale faces, and bucks turned, he wonders, not so much, that one man should dare all Israel, as that all Israel should run from one man: Even while they flee from Goliath, they talk of the reward, that should be given to that encounter, and victory, which they dare not undertake; so those which have not grace to believe; yet can say, there is glory laid up for the faithful. Ever since his anointing, was David possessed with God's spirit, and thereby filled both with courage, and wisdom: The more strange doth it seem to him, that all Israel should be thus dastardly: Those, that are themselves eminent in any grace cannot but wonder at the miserable defects of others, and the more shame they see in others imperfections, the more is their zeal in avoiding those errors in themselves.  
WHILES base hearts are moved by example, the want of example is encouragement enough for an heroical mind: Therefore is David ready to undertake the quarrel, because no man else dare do it: His eyes sparkled with holy anger, and his heart rose up to his mouth, when he heard this proud challenger: (Who is this uncircumcised Philistim, that he should revile the host of the living God?) Even so, o Saviour, when all the generations of men ran away affrighted from the powers of death and darkness, thou alone hast undertaken, and confounded them.  
WHO should offer to daunt the holy courage of David, but his own brethren? The envious heart of Eliab construes this forwardness, as his own disgrace: Shall I (thinks he) be put down by this puisne? shall my father's youngest son dare to attempt that, which my stomach will not serve me to adventure? Now therefore he rates David for his presumption; and in steed of answering to the recompense of the victory, (which others were ready to give) he recompenseth the very inquiry of David with a check: It was for his brethren's sake, that David came thither, and yet his very journey is cast upon him by them, for a reproach; Wherefore cam'st thou down hither? and when their bitterness can meet with nothing else to shame him, his sheep are cast in his teeth: Is it for thee, an idle proud boy, to be meddling with our martial matters? doth not yonder Champion look, as if he were a fit match for thee? what mak'st thou of thyself? or what dost thou think of us? iwis it were fitter for thee to be looking to thy sheep, then looking at Goliath; the wilderness would become thee better than the fields: Wherein art thou equal to any man thou seest, but in arrogance and presumption? The pastures of Bethleem could not hold thee, but thou thought'st it a goodly matter to see the wars: I know thee, as if I were in thy bosom; This was thy thought, There is no glory to be got among fleeces, I will go seek it in arms; Now are my brethren winning honour in the troops of Israel, whiles I am basely tending on sheep, why should not I be as forward as the best of them? This vanity would make thee straight of a shepherd, a soldier, and of a soldier a champion; get thee home, foolish stripling, to thy hook, and thy harp; let swords & spears alone to those, that know how to use them.  
IT is quarrel enough amongst many to a good action, that it is not their own; there is no enemy so ready, or so spiteful, as the domestical: The hatred of brethren is so much more, as their blood is nearer: The malice of strangers is simple, but of a brother is mixed with envy: The more unnatural any quality is, the more extreme it is; A cold wind from the south is intolerable: David's first victory is of himself, next of his brother; He overcomes himself in a patient forbearance of his brother, he overcomes the malicious rage of his brother with the mildness of his answer: If David had wanted spirit, he had not been troubled with the insultation of a Philistim; If he had a spirit to match Goliath, how doth he so calmly receive the affront of a brother? What have I now done? is there not a cause? That, which would have stirred the choler of another, allayeth his: It was a brother, that wronged him, and that his eldest; neither was it time to quarrel with a brother, whiles the Philistims swords were drawn, and Goliath was challenging. O that these two motives could induce us to peace; If we have injury in our person, in our cause, it is from brethren, and the Philistims look on: I am deceived, if this conquest were less glorious, than the following: He is fit to be God's champion, that hath learned to be victor of himself.  
IT is not this sprinkling of cold water, that can quench the fire of David's zeal, but still his courage sends up flames of desire, still he goes on to inquire, and to proffer: He, whom the regard of others envy can dismay, shall never do aught worthy of envy: Never man undertook any exploit of worth, and received not some discouragement in the way, This courageous motion of David was not more scorned by his brother, then by the other Israelites applauded: The rumour flies to the ears of the King, that there is a young man desirous to encounter the giant; David is brought forth: Saul, when he heard of a champion, that durst go into the lists with Goliath, looked for one as much higher than himself, as he was taller than the rest; he expected some stern face, and brawny arm; young and ruddy David is so far below his thoughts, that he receives rather contempt, than thanks: His words were stout, his person was weak; Saul doth not more like his resolution, then distrust his ability, (Thou art not able to go against this Philistim to fight with him; for thou art a boy, and he is a man of war from his youth): Even Saul seconds Eliab in the conceit of this disparity, and if Eliab speak out of envy, Saul speaks out of judgement; both judge (as they were judged of) by the stature: All this cannot weaken that heart, which receives his strength from faith: David's greatest conflict is with his friends; The overcoming of their dissuasions, that he might fight, was more work, then to overcome his enemy in fight: He must first justify his strength to Saul, ere he may prove it upon Goliath; Valour is never made good, but by trial: He pleads the trial of his puissance upon the Bear and the Lion, that he may have leave to prove it upon a worse beast than they; Thy servant slew both the Lion and the Bear, therefore this uncircumcised Philistim shall be as one of them.) Experience of good success is no small comfort to the heart, this gives possibility and hope, but no certainty: Two things there were on which David built his confidence, on Goliahs' sin, and God's deliverance, (seeing he hath railed on the host of the living God: The Lord that delivered me out of the paws of the Lion and the Bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistim). Well did David know, that if this Philistims skin had been as hard as the brass of his shield, his sin would make it penetrable by every stroke. After all brags of manhood he is impotent, that hath provoked God: Whiles other labour for outward fortifications, happy and safe were we, if we could labour for innocence: He that hath found God present in one extremity, may trust him in the next; Every sensible favour of the Almighty, invites both his gifts, and our trust.  
RESOLUTION thus grounded, makes even Saul himself confident: David shall have both his leave, and his blessing: If David came to Saul, as a shepherd, he shall go toward Goliath, as a warrior: The attire of the King is not too rich for him, that shall fight for his King and country; Little did Saul think, that his helmet was now on that head, which should once wear his crown: Now that David was arrayed in the warlike habit of a King, and girded with his sword, he looked upon himself, and thought this outside glorious; but when he offered to walk, and found that the attire was not so strong, as unweeldy, and that it might be more for show, then use, he lays down these accoutrements of honour, and as caring rather to be an homely victor, than a glorious spoil; he craves pardon to go in no clothes, but his own; he takes his staff in steed of the spear, his shepherd's scrip in steed of his brigandine, and in steed of his sword he takes his sling, and in steed of darts and javelins, he takes five smooth stones out of the brook: Let Saul's coat be never so rich, and his armour never so strong, what is David the better, if they fit him not? It is not to be inquired, how excellent any thing is, but how proper: Those things which are helps to some may be encumbrances to others: An unmeet good may be as inconvenient, as an accustomed evil: If we could wish another man's honour, when we feel the weight of his cares, we should be glad to be in our own cote.  
THOSE, that depend upon the strength of faith, though they neglect not means, yet they are not curious in the proportion of outward means to the effect desired: Where the heart is armed with an assured confidence, a sling and a stone are weapons enough; To the unbelieving no helps are sufficient: Goliath, though he were presumptuous enough, yet had one shield carried before him, another he carried on his shoulder, neither will his sword alone content him, but he takes his spear too. David's armour is his plain shepherds russet, and the brook yields him his artillery, and he knows, there is more safety in his cloth, then in the others brass; and more danger in his pebbles, than the others spear. Faith gives both heart, & arms: The inward munition is so much more noble, because it is of proof for both soul and body: If we be furnished with this, how boldly shall we meet with the powers of darkness, and go away more than conquerors?  
NEITHER did the quality of David's weapons bewray more confidence, than the number: If he will put his life and victory upon the stones of the brook, why doth he not fill his scrip full of them? why will he content himself with five? Had he been furnished with store, the advantage of his nimbleness might have given him hope; If one fail, that yet another might speed: But now this paucity puts the dispatch to a sudden hazard, and he hath but five stones cast either to death or victory; still the fewer helps the stronger faith: David had an instinct from God, that he should overcome, he had not a particular direction, how he should overcome. For had he been at first resolved upon the sling and stone, he had saved the labour of girding his sword: It seems, whiles they were addressing him to the combat, he made account of hand-blows, now he is purposed rather to send, then bring death to his adversary: In either, or both, he durst trust God with the success, and before hand (through the conflict) saw the victory: It is sufficient, that we know the issue of our fight: If our weapons and wards vary according to the occasion given by God, that is nothing to the event; sure we are, that if we resist, we shall overcome, and if we overcome, we shall be crowned.  
WHEN David appeared in the lists to so unequal an adversary, as many eyes were upon him, so in those eyes, divers affections: The Israelites looked upon him with pity and fear, and each man thought; Alas, why is this comely stripling suffered to cast away himself upon such a monster? why will they let him go unarmed to such an affray? why will Saul hazard the honour of Israel on so unlikely an head? The Philistims, especially their great Champion, looked upon him with scorn, disdaining so base a combatant; (Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves?) What could be said more fitly? Hadst thou been any other, than a dog (o Goliath) thou hadst never opened thy fowl mouth to bark against the host of God, and the God of hosts: If David had thought thee any other than a very dog, he had never come to thee with a staff and a stone.  
THE last words, that ever the Philistim shall speak, are curses and brags: (Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field). Seldom ever was there a good end of ostentation: Presumption is at once the presage, and cause of ruin: He is a weak adversary, that can be killed with words: That man, which could not fear the giants hand, cannot fear his tongue: If words shall first encounter, the Philistim receives the first foil, and shall first let in death into his ear, ere it enter into his forehead: (Thou comest to me with a sword, and a spear, and a shield; but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the host of Israel, whom thou hast railed upon: This day shall the Lord close thee in my hand, and I shall smite thee, and take thine head from thee). Here is another style, not of a boaster, but of a Prophet: Now shall Goliath know, whence to expect his bane, even from the hands of a revenging God, that shall smite him by David, and now shall learn too late, what it is to meddle with an enemy, that goes under the invisible protection of the Almighty. No sooner hath David spoken, than his foot & hand second his tongue: He runs to fight with the Philistim; It is a cold courage that stands only upon defence: As a man, that saw no cause of fear, and was full of the ambition of victory, he flies upon that monster, and with a stone out of his bag smites him in the forehead: There was no part of Goliath, that was capable of that danger, but the face, and that piece of the face; the rest was defenced with a brazen wall, which a weak sling would have tried to batter in vain: What could Goliath fear to see an adversary come to him without edge or point? And behold, that one part hath God found out for the entrance of death: He that could have caused the stone to pass through the shield and breastplate of Goliath, rather directs the stone to that part, whose nakedness gave advantage: Where there is power, or possibility of nature, God uses not to work miracles, but chooses the way that lies most open to his purposes.  
THE vast forehead was a fair mark, but how easily might the sling have miss it, if there had not been another hand in this cast besides David's? He that guided David into this field, and raised his courage to this combat, guides the stone to his end, and lodges it in that seat of impudence: There now lies the great defier of Israel groveling and grinning in death, and is not suffered to deal one blow for his life, and bites the unwelcome earth for indignation, that he dies by the hand of a shepherd: earth and Hell share him betwixt them; such is the end of insolence, and presumption. O God, what is flesh and blood to thee, which canst make a little pebble-stone stronger than a Giant, and when thou wilt, by the weakest means canst straw thine enemies in the dust? Where now are the two shields of Goliath, that they did not bear off this stroke of death? or wherefore serves that weavers beam, but to strike the earth in falling? or that sword, but to behead his Master? What needed David load himself with an unnecessary weapon? one sword can serve both Goliath, and him; If Goliath had a man to bear his shield, David had Goliath to bear his sword, wherewith that proud blasphemous head is severed from his shoulders: Nothing more honours God, than the turning of wicked men's forces against themselves: There is none of his enemies, but carries with them their own destruction. Thus didst thou, O son of David, foil Satan with his own weapon, that, whereby he meant destruction to thee and us, vanquished him through thy mighty power, and raised thee to that glorious triumph, and super-exaltation, wherein thou art, wherein we shall be with thee.   

JONATHANS' love, and SAULS' envy.  
BESIDES the discomfiture of the Philistims, David's victory had a double issue; Jonathan's love, and Saul's envy, which God so mixed, that the one was a remedy of the other; A good son makes amends for a wayward father: How precious was that stone, that killed such an enemy as Goliath, and purchased such a friend as jonathan? All Saul's Courtiers looked upon David, none so affected him, none did match him but jonathan: That true correspondence, that was both in their faith and valour hath knit their hearts: If David did set upon a Bear, a Lion, a Giant; jonathan had set upon a whole host, and prevailed: The same spirit animated both, the same faith incited both, the same hand prospered both: All Israel was not worth this pair of friends, so zealously confident, so happily victorious: Similitude of dispositions and estates ties the fastest knots of affection: A wise soul hath piercing eyes, and hath quickly discerned the likeness of itself in another, as we do no sooner look into the glass or water, but face answers to face; and where it sees a perfect resemblance of itself, cannot choose but love it with the same affection, that it reflects upon itself.  
No man saw David that day, which had so much cause to disaffect him; none in all Israel should be a loser by David's success, but jonathan: Saul was sure enough settled for his time, only his successor should forego all that, which David should gain; so as none but David stands in Jonathan's light, and yet all this cannot abate one jot, or dram of his love: Where God uniteth hearts, carnal respects are too weak to dissever them, since that, which breaks off affection, must needs be stronger, then that which conjoineth it.  
JONATHAN doth not desire to smother his love by concealment, but professes it in his carriage and actions: He puts off the rob, that was upon him, and all his garments even to his sword, and bow, and girdle, and gives them unto his new friend: It was not perhaps without a mystery, that Saul's clothes fitted not David, but Jonathan's fitted him, and these he is as glad to wear, as he was to be disburdened of the other: That there might be a perfect resemblance, their bodies are suited, as well as their hearts: Now the beholders can say, there goes Jonathan's other self; If there be another body under those clothes, there is the same soul: Now David hath cast off his russet coat, and his scrip, and is a shepherd no more, he is suddenly become both a Courtier, and a Captain, and a companion to the Prince; yet himself is not changed with his habit, with his condition: yea rather (as if his wisdom had reserved itself for his exaltation) he so manageth a sudden greatness, as that he winneth all hearts: Honour shows the man, and if there be any blemishes of imperfection, they will be seen in the man, that is inexpectedly lifted above his fellows: He is out of the danger of folly, whom a speedy advancement leaveth wife.  
JONATHAN loved David, the soldiers honoured him, the Court favoured him, the people applauded him, only Saul stomached him, and therefore hated him, because he was so happy in all besides himself: It had been a shame for all Israel, if they had not magnified their champion: Saul's own heart could not but tell him, that they did owe the glory of that day, and the safety of himself and Israel, unto the sling of David, who in one man slew all those thousands at a blow: It was enough for the puissant King of Israel to follow the chase, and to kill them, whom David had put to flight; yet he, that could lend his clothes and his armour to this exploit, cannot abide to part with the honour of it to him, that hath earned it so dearly: The holy songs of David had not more quieted his spirits before, then now the thankful song of the Israelitish women vexes him: One little ditty (of Saul hath slain his thousand, and David his ten thousand) sung unto the timbrels of Israel, fetched again that evil spirit, which David's music had expelled: Saul needed not the torment of a worse spirit, than envy. Oh the unreasonableness of this wicked passion! The women gave Saul more, and David less, than he deserved: For Saul alone could not kill a thousand, and David in that one act of kill Goliath, slew in effect, all the Philistims that were slain that day; & yet because they give more to David, then to himself, he that should have indited, and begun that song of thankfulness, repines & grows now as mad with envy, as he was before with grief: Truth & justice are no protection against malice; Envy is blind to all objects, save other men's happiness: If the eyes of men could be contained within their own bounds, & not rove forth into comparisons, there could be no place for this vicious affection; but when they have once taken this lawless scope to themselves, they lose the knowledge of home, & care only to be employed abroad in their own torment.  
NEVER was Saul's breast so fit a lodging for the evil spirit, as now, that it is dressed up with envy: It is as impossible, that Hell should be free from Devils, as a malicious heart; Now doth the frantic King of Israel renew his old fits, and walks, and talks distractedly; He was mad with David, and who but David must be called to allay his madness? Such as David's wisdom was, he could not but know the terms, wherein he stood with Saul; yet in the am of the harsh & discordous notes of his master's envy, he returns pleasing music unto him: He can never be good Courtier, nor good man, that hath not learned to repay, if not injuries with thanks, yet evil with good. Whiles there was a harp in David's hand, there was a spear in Saul's, wherewith he threatens death, as the recompense of that sweet melody: He said (I will smite David through to the wall). It is well for the innocent, that wicked men cannot keep their own council: God fetcheth their thoughts out of their mouths, or their countenances for a seasonable prevention, which else might proceed to secret execution: It was time for David to withdraw himself, his obedience did not tie him to be the mark of a furious Master; He might ease Saul with his music, with his blood he might not: Twice therefore doth he avoid the Presence, not the Court, not the service of Saul.  
ONE would have thought rather, that David should have been afraid of Saul, because the Devil was so strong with him, then that Saul should be afraid of David, because the Lord was with him; yet we find all the fear in Saul of David, none in David of Saul: Hatred and fear are ordinary companions: David had wisdom and faith to dispel his fears, Saul had nothing but infidelity, & dejected, selfe-condemned, distempered thoughts, which must needs nourish them; yet Saul could not fear any hurt from David, whom he found so loyal, and serviceable: He fears only too much good unto David; and the envious fear is much more, than the distrustful: Now David's presence begins to be more displeasing, than his music was sweet; Despite itself had rather prefer him to a remote dignity, then endure him a nearer attendant: This promotion increaseth David's honour & love; and this love and honour aggravates Saul's hatred and fear.  
SAULS' madness hath not bereaved him of his craft: For perceiving how great David was grown in the reputation of Israel, he dares not offer any personal, or direct violence to him, but hires him into the jaws of a supposed death, by no less price, than his eldest daughter, (Behold mine eldest daughter Merab: her will I give thee to wife, only be a valiant son to me, and fight the Lords battles). Could ever man speak more graciously, more holily? What could be more graciously offered by a King, than his eldest daughter? What care could be more holy, then of the Lords battles? yet never did Saul intend so much mischief to David, or so much unfaithfulness to God, as when he spoke thus: There is never so much danger of the falsehearted, as when they make the fairest weather: Saul's spear bad David be gone, but his plausible words invite him to danger: This honour was due to David before, upon the compact of his victory; yet he, that twice inquired into the reward of that enterprise, before he undertook it, never demanded it after that atchieument; neither had Saul the justice to offer it, as a recompense of so noble an exploit, but as a snare to an envied victory. Charity suspects not: David construes that, as an effect and argument of his Master's love, which was no other but a child of envy, but a plot of mischief; and though he knew his own desert, and the justice of his claim to Merab; yet he in a sincere humility disparageth himself, and his parentage with a Who am I?  
As it was not the purpose of this modesty in David to reject, but to solicit the proffered favour of Saul; so was it not in the power of this bashful humiliation to turn back the edge of so keen an envy: It helps not that David makes himself mean, whiles others magnify his worth: Whatsoever the colour was, Saul meant nothing to David but danger and death; and since all those battles will not effect that which he desired, himself will not effect that which he promised: If he cannot kill David, he will disgrace him; David's honour was Saul's disease: It was not likely therefore, that Saul would add unto that honour, whereof he was so sick already: Merab is given unto another, neither do I hear David complain of so manifest an injustice; He knew, that the God, whose battles he fought, had provided a due reward of his patience: If Merab fail, God hath a Michal in store for him, she is in love with David; his comeliness and valour have so won her heart, that she now emulates the affection of her brother jonathan: If she be the younger sister, yet she is more affectionate: Saul is glad of the news, his daughter could never live to do him better service, then to be a new snare to his adversary: She shall be therefore sacrificed to his envy, and her honest and sincere love shall be made a bait for her worthy and innocent husband (I will give him her, that she may be a snare unto him, that the hand of the Philistims may be against him): The purpose of any favour is more than the value of it: Even the greatest honours may be given with an intent of destruction; Many a man is raised up for a fall. So forward is Saul in the match, that he sends spokesmen to solicit David unto that honour, which he hopes will prove the highway to death: The dowry is set; An hundred foreskins of the Philistims; not their heads, but their foreskins, that this victory might be more ignominious; still thinking, why may not one David miscarry, as well as an hundred Philistims? And what doth Saul's envy all this while, but enhance David's zeal, and valour, and glory? That good Captain little imagining, that himself was the Philistim, whom Saul maligned, supererogates of his master, and brings two hundred for one, and returns home safe, and renowned: Neither can Saul now fly off for shame; There is no remedy but David must be a son, where he was a rival, and Saul must feed upon his own heart, since he cannot see David's; God's blessing graces equally together with men's malice, neither can they devise, which way to make us more happy, then by wishing us evil.   

michal's wile.  
THIS advantage can Saul yet make of David's promotion, that as his adversary is raised higher, so he is drawn nearer to the opportunity of death; Now hath his envy cast off all shame, and since those crafty plots succeed not, he directly suborns murderers of his rival: There is none in all the Court that is not set on to be an executioner; jonathan himself is solicited to imbrue his hand in the blood of his friend, of his brother. Saul could not but see Jonathan's clothes on David's back; he could not but know the league of their love, yet because he knew withal, how much the prosperity of David would prejudice jonathan, he hoped to have found him his son in malice; Those that have the jaundice see all things yellow; those which are overgrown with malicious passions, think all men like themselves.  
I do not hear of any reply that jonathan made to his father when he gave him that bloody charge; but he waits for a fit time to dissuade him from so cruel an injustice: Wisdom had taught him to give way unto rage, and in so hard an adventure to crave aid of opportunity: If we be not careful to observe good moods when we deal with the passionate, we may exasperate, in steed of reforming; Thus did jonathan, who knowing how much better it is to be a good friend, than an ill son, had not only disclosed that ill counsel, but when he found his father in the fields, in a calmer temper, laboured to divert it: And so far doth the seasonable and pithy Oratory of jonathan prevail, that Saul is convinced of his wrong, and swears, As God lives, David shall not die; Indeed, how could it be otherwise, upon the plea of David's innocence, and well deservings? How could Saul say he should die, whom he could accuse of nothing but faithfulness? Why should he design him to death, which had given life to all Israel? Oft-times wicked men's judgements are forced to yield unto that truth, against which their affections maintain a rebellion: Even the foulest hearts do sometimes entertain good motions; like as on the contrary, the holiest souls give way sometimes to the suggestions of evil: The flashes of lightning may be discerned in the darkest prisons. But if good thoughts look into a wicked heart, they stay not there; as those that like not their lodging, they are soon gone; Hardly any thing distinguishes betwixt good and evil, but continuance; The light that shines into an holy heart is constant, like that of the sun, which keeps due times, and varies not his course for any of these sublunary occasions.  
THE Philistims wars renew David's victories, and David's victory renews Saul's envy, and Saul's envy renews the plots of David's death: Vows & oaths are forgotten: That evil spirit which vexes Saul hath found so much favour with him, as to win him to these bloody machinations against an innocent; His own hands shall first be employed in this execution; The spear, which hath twice before threatened death to David, shall now once again go upon that message: Wise David that knew the danger of an hollow friend, and reconciled enemy, and that found more cause to mind Saul's earnest, than his own play, gives way by his nimbleness, to that deadly weapon, and resigning that stroke unto the wall, flees for his life. No man knows how to be sure of an unconscionable man; If either goodness, or merit, or affinity, or reasons, or oaths could secure a man, David had been safe; now if his heels do not more befriend him then all these, he is a dead man. No sooner is he gone then messengers are sped after him; It hath been seldom seen that wickedness wanted executioners; David's house is beset with murderers, which watch at all his doors, for the opportunity of blood: Who can but wonder to see how God hath fetched from the loins of Saul a remedy for the malice of Saul's heart? His own children are the only means to cross him in the sin, and to preserve his guiltless adversary; Michal hath more than notice of the plot, and with her subtle wit countermines her father, for the rescue of an husband: She taking the benefit of the night lets David down through a window; He is gone, and disappoints the ambushes of Saul: The messengers begin to be impatient of this delay, and now think it time to inquire after their prisoner; She whiles them off, with the excuse of David's sickness, (so as now her husband had good leisure for his escape) and lays a statue in his bed; Saul likes the news of any evil befallen to David, but fearing he is not sick enough, sends to aid his disease; The messengers return, and rushing into the house with their swords drawn, after some harsh words to their imagined charge, surprise a sick statue lying with a pillow under his head; and now blush to see they have spent all their threats upon a senseless stock; and made themselves ridiculous, whiles they would be serviceable.  
BUT how shall Michal answer this mockage unto her furious father? Hitherto she hath done like David's wife; now she begins to be Saul's daughter; (He said to me, Let me go, or else I will kill thee). She whose wit had delivered her husband from the sword of her father, now turns the edge of her father's wrath from herself to her husband; His absence made her presume of his safety: If Michal had not been of Saul's plot, he had never expostulated with her in those terms, Why hast thou let mine enemy escape? neither had she framed that answer, He said, Let me go: I do not find any great store of religion in Michal, for both she had an image in the house, and afterwards mocked David for his devotion; yet nature hath taught her to prefer an husband to a father; to elude a father from whom she could not flee, to save an husband, which durst not but flee from her: The bonds of matrimonial love are, and should be stronger than those of nature; Those respects are mutual which God appointed in the first institution of wedlock; That husband and wife should leave father and mother for each others sake. Treason is ever odious, but so much more in the marriage-bed by how much the obligations are deeper.  
As she loved her husband better than her father, so she loved herself better than her husband; she saved her husband by a wile, and now she saves herself by a lie; and loses half the thank of her deliverance, by an officious slander; Her act was good, but she wants courage to maintain it; and therefore seeks to the weak shelter of untruth: Those that do good offices not out of conscience, but good nature or civility; if they meet an affront of danger, seldom comes off cleanly, but are ready to catch at all excuses, though base, though injurious; because their grounds are not strong enough to bear them out in suffering for that, which they have well done.  
WHITHER doth David flee but to the Sanctuary of Samuel? He doth not (though he knew himself gracious with the soldiers) raise forces, or take some strong fort, and there stand upon his own defence, and at defiance with his King: but he gets him to the College of the Prophets; as a man that would seek the peaceable protection of the King of heaven against the unjust fury of a King on earth: Only the wing of God shall hide him from that violence.  
GOD intended to make David not a warrior, and a King only, but a Prophet too; As the field fitted him for the first, and the Court for the second, so Naioth shall fit him for the third. Doubtless (such was David's delight in holy meditations) he never spent his time so contentedly, as when he was retired to that divine Academy, and had so full freedom to enjoy God, and to satiate himself with heavenly exercises: The only doubt is how Samuel can give harbour to a man fled from the anger of his Prince; wherein, the very persons of both give abundant satisfaction: for both Samuel knew the counsel of God, and durst do nothing without it; and David was by Samuel anointed from God: This unction was a mutual bond; Good reason had David to sue to him, which had powered the oil on his head, for the hiding of that head which he had anointed; and good reason had Samuel to hide him, whom God by his means had chosen, from him whom God had by his sentence rejected: Besides, that the cause deserved commiseration; Here was not a malefactor running away from justice, but an innocent avoiding murder; not a traitor countenanced against his sovereign, but the deliverer of Israel harboured in a Sanctuary of Prophets till his peace might be made.  
EVEN thither doth Saul send to apprehend David: All his rage did not incense him against Samuel as the abettor of his adversary; Such an impression of reverence had the person, and calling of the Prophet left in the mind of Saul, that he cannot think of lifting up his hand against him; The same God which did at the first put an awe of man in the fiercest creatures, hath stamped in the cruelest hearts a reverent respect to his own image in his Ministers; so as even they that hate them, do yet honour them.  
SAULS' messengers came to lay hold on David, God lays hold on them: No sooner do they see a company of Prophets busy in those divine exercises, under the moderation of Samuel, than they are turned from executioners to Prophets. It is good going up to Naioth, into the holy assemblies, who knows how we may be changed beside our intention? Many a one hath come into God's house to carp, or scoff, or sleep, or gaze, that hath returned a convert.  
THE same heart that was thus disquieted with David's happy success, is now vexed with the holiness of his other servants. It angers him that God's spirit could find no other time to seize upon his agents, then when he had sent them to kill: And now out of an indignation at this disappointment, himself will go, and be his own servant; His guilty soul finds itself out of the danger of being thus surprised; And behold Saul is no sooner come within the smell of the smoke of Naioth, than he also prophesies: The same spirit that, when he went first from Samuel, enabled him to prophesy, returns in the same effect now that he was going (his last) unto Samuel: This was such a grace as might well stand with rejection; an extraordinary gift of the spirit, but not sanctifying: Many men have had their mouths opened to prophesy unto others, whose hearts have been deaf to God; But this (such as it was) was far from Saul's purpose, who in steed of expostulating with Samuel, falls down before him; and laying aside his weapons, and his robes, of a Tyrant proves (for the time) a disciple: All hearts are in the hand of their maker; how easy is it for him that gave them their being, to frame them to his own bent? Who can be afraid of malice, that knows what hooks God hath in the nostrils of men and Devils? what charms he hath for the most serpentine hearts?   

DAVID & AHIMELEC.  
WHo can ever judge of the children by the Parents, that knows jonathan was the son of Saul? There was never a falser heart than Saul's; there was never a truer friend than jonathan; Neither the hope of a kingdom, nor the frowns of a father, nor the fear of death can remove him from his vowed amity: No son could be more officious, and dutiful to a good father; yet he lays down nature at the foot of grace; and for the preservation of his innocent rival for the kingdom, crosses the bloody designs of his own parent: David needs no other counsellor, no other advocate, no other intelligencer than he; It is not in the power of Saul's unnatural reproaches, or of his spear, to make jonathan any other than a friend, and patron of innocence: Even after all these difficulties, doth jonathan shoot beyond David, that Saul may shoot short of him: In vain are those professions of love, which are not answered with action; He is no true friend that (besides talk) is not ready both to do, and suffer.  
SAUL is no whit the better for his prophesying; he no sooner rises up from before Samuel, than he pursues David. Wicked men are rather the worse for those transitory good motions they have received. If the swine be never so clean washed, she will wallow again: That we have good thoughts, it is no thank to us; that we answer them not, it is both our sin and judgement.  
DAVID hath learned not to trust these fits of devotion, but flies from Samuel to jonathan, from jonathan to Ahimelech; when he was hunted from the Prophet, he flees to the Priest; as one that knew justice and compassion should dwell in those breasts which are consecrated unto God.  
THE Ark and the Tabernacle were then separated; The Ark was at Kiriath-iearim, the Tabernacle at Nob; God was present with both: Whither should David flee for succour but to the house of that God, which had anointed him.  
AHIMELECH was wont to see David attended with the Troops of Israel, or with the Gallants of the Court; it seems strange therefore to him, to see so great a Peer and Champion of Israel come alone; These are the alterations to which earthly greatness is subject; Not many days are past, since no man was honoured at Court but jonathan and David; now they are both for the time in disgrace; Now dare not the King's son in law, brother to the Prince both in love and marriage, show his head at the Court; nor any of those that bowed to him, dare stir a foot with him; Princes are as the Sun, and great subjects are like to dials, if the Sun shine not on the Dial, no man will look at it.  
EVEN he that overcame the Bear, the Lion, the Giant, is overcome with fear: He that had cut off two hundred foreskins of the Philistims had not circumcised his own heart of the weak passions that follow distrust; Now that he is hard driven, he practices to help himself with an unwarrantable shift: Who can look to pass this pilgrimage without infirmities, when David dissembleth to Ahimelec? A weak man's rules may be better than the best man's actions; God lets us see some blemishes in his holiest servants, that we may neither be too highly conceited of flesh and blood, nor too much dejected when we have been miscarried into sin. Hitherto hath David gone upright, now he begins to halt with the Priest of God; and under pretence of Saul's employment, draws that favour from Ahimelech which shall afterwards cost him his head.  
WHAT could Ahimelech have thought too dear for Gods anointed, for God's Champion? It is not like but that if David had sincerely opened himself to the Priest as he had done to the Prophet, Ahimelech would have seconded Samuel in some secret and safe succour of so unjust a distress; whereas he is now by a false colour led to that kindness which shall be prejudicial to his life: Extremities of evil are commonly inconsiderate; either for that we have not leisure to our thoughts, or perhaps (so as we may be perplexed) not thoughts to our leisure: What would David have given afterwards to have redeemed this oversight?  
UNDER this pretence he craves a double favour of Ahimelech; The one of bread for his sustenance, the other of a sword for his defence: There was no bread under the hands of the Priest but that which was consecrated to God; and whereof none might taste, but the devoted servants of the Altar; Even that which was with solemn dedication set upon the holy Tables before the face of God; a sacramental bread presented to God with incense, figuring that true bread that came down from heaven; Yet even this bread might in case of necessity become common and be given by Ahimelech, and received by David and his followers: Our Saviour himself justifies the act of both; Ceremonies must give place to substance; God will have mercy and not sacrifice; Charity is the sum and the end of the law; That must be aimed at in all our actions; wherein it may fall out, that the way to keep the law may be to break it; the intention may be kept, and the letter violated; and it may be a dangerous transgression of the law to observe the words, and neglect the scope of God; That which would have dispensed with David for the substance of the act, would have much more dispensed with him for the circumstance; The touch of their lawful wives had contracted a legal impurity, not a moral; That could have been no sufficient reason why in an urgent necessity they might not have partaked of the holy bread: Ahimelech was no perfect Casuist; these men might not famish, if they were ceremonially impure, But this question bewrayed the care of Ahimelech in distributing the holy bread; There might be in these men a double incapacity, the one, as they were seculars, the other, as unclean; he saw the one must be, he feared least the other should be; as one that wished as little indisposition (as possibly might be) in those which should be fed from God's table.  
IT is strange that David should come to the Priest of God for a sword; Who in all Israel was so unlikely to furnish him with weapons, as a man of peace, whose armour was only spiritual? Doubtless David knew well where Goliahs' sword lay; as the noble relic of God's victorious deliverance, dedicated to the same God, which won it; at this did that suit aim? None could be so fit for David, none could be so fit for it as David: Who could have so much right to that sword as he against whom it was drawn, and by whom it was taken? There was more in that sword than metal and form; David could never cast his eye upon it, but he saw an undoubted monument of the merciful protection of the Almighty; there was therefore more strength in that sword, than sharpness; neither was David's arm so much strengthened by it as his faith; nothing can overcome him, whiles he carries with him that assured sign of victory: It is good to take all occasions of renewing the remembrance of God's mercies to us, and our obligations to him.  
DOEG the master of Saul's herdsmen (for he that went to seek his father's asses before he was King, hath herds & droves now that he is a King) was now in the court of the Tabernacle, upon some occasion of devotion; Though an Israelite in profession, he was an Edomite no less in heart then in blood; yet he hath some vow upon him, and not only comes up to God's house, but abides before the Lord: Hypocrites have equal access to the public places, and means of God's service: Even he that knows the heart, yet shuts his doors upon none, how much less should we dare to exclude any, which can only judge of the heart by the face?  
DOEG may set his foot as far within the Tabernacle, as David; he sees the passages betwixt him, and Ahimelech, and lays them up for an advantage; Whiles he should have edified himself by those holy services, he carps at the Priest of God, & (after a lewd misinterpretation of his actions) of an attendant, proves an accuser; To incur favour with an unjust master, he informs against innocent Ahimelech; and makes that his act, which was drawn from him by a cunning circumvention: When we see our auditors before us, little do we know with what hearts they are there; nor, what use they will make of their pretended devotion: If many come in simplicity of heart to serve their God, some others may perhaps come to observe their teachers, and to pick quarrels where none are; Only God and the issue can distinguish betwixt a David, and a Doeg, when they are both in the Tabernacle. Honest Ahimelech could little suspect that he now offered a sacrifice for his executioner; yea for the murderer of all his family: Oh the wise and deep judgements of the Almighty! God owed a revenge to the house of Eli, and now by the delation of Doeg, he takes occasion to pay it; It was just in God, which in Doeg was most unjust; Saul's cruelty, and the treachery of Doeg do not lose one dram of their guilt by the counsel of God; neither doth the holy counsel of God gather any blemish by their wickedness; If it had pleased God to inflict death upon them sooner without any pretence of occasion, his justice had been clear from all imputations; now, if Saul and Doeg be in steed of a pestilence or fever, who can cavil? The judgements of God are not always open, but are always just; He knows how by one man's sin to punish the sin of another, and by both their sins and punishments to glorify himself. If his word sleep, it shall not die; but after long intermissions breaks forth in those effects which we had forgotten to look for, and ceased to fear. O Lord, thou art sure when thou threatenest, and just when thou judgest; Keep thou us from the sentence of death, else in vain shall we labour to keep ourselves from the execution.    

Contemplations UPON THE HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.  
THE FIRST BOOK:  

Containing 


The Angel and Zachary.  
The Annunciation.  
The Birth of CHRIST.  
The Sages and the Star.  
The Purification.  
Herod and the Infants.       

TO MY MUCH HONOURED, AND RIGHT WOR full FRIEND, Sr HENRY YELUERTON Knight, Attorney General to his Majesty.  
Right Worshipful,  
IT is not out of any satiety, that I change from the old Testament to the new; These two, as they are the breasts of the Church, so they yield milk equally wholesome, equally pleasant unto able nurselings. Herein I thought good to have respect unto my reader, in whose strength there may be difference. That other breast perhaps, doth not let down this nourishing liquor, so freely, so easily: Even so small a variety refresheth a weak infant; Neither wid there perhaps want some palates, which will find a more quick and pleasing relish in this fresher sustenance; These I thought good to please with a taste, ere they come to sat themselves with a full meal of this divine nourishment; in emulation of the good Scribe, that brings forth both old, and new. If it please God to enable my life and opportunities, I hope at last, to present his Church, with the last service of the History of either page: wherein my joy, and my crown shall be the edification of many. In the mean time, I dedicate this part unto your name, whom I have so much cause to observe, and honour: The blessing of that God (whose Church you have ever made your chief Client) be still upon your head, and that honourable Society which rejoices in so worthy a leader. To it, and yourself, I shall be ever (as I have cause) humbly and unfeignedly devoted  
IOS. HALL..   


The Angel and Zachary.  
WHEN things are at the worst, then God begins a change: The state of the jewish Church was extremely corrupted, immediately before the news of the Gospel; yet, as bad as it was, not only the priesthood, but the courses of attendance continued, even from David's time till Christ's: It is a desperately depraved condition of a Church, where no good orders are left: judea passed many troubles, many alterations, yet this orderly combination endured above an eleven hundred years: A settled good will not easily be defeated, but in the change of persons will remain unchanged, and if it be forced to give way, leaves memorable footsteps behind it: If David foresaw the perpetuation of this holy ordinance, how much did he rejoice in the knowledge of it? who would not be glad to do good, on condition, that it may so long outlive him?  
The successive turns of the legal ministration held on in a line never interrupted: Even in a forlorn and miserable Church there may be a personal succession: How little were the jews better for this, when they had lost the urim and Thummim, sincerity of doctrine and manners? This stayed with them, even whiles they and their sons crucified Christ; What is more ordinary, then wicked sons of holy parents? It is the succession of truth and holiness, that makes or institutes a Church, what ever become of the persons: Never time's were so barren, as not to yield some good: The greatest dearth affords some few good ●●ares to the gleaners: Christ would not have come into the world, but he would have some faithful to entertain him: He, that had the disposing of all times and men, would cast some holy ones into his own times: There had been no equality, that all should either overrun, or follow him, and none attend him. Zachary and Elizabeth are just; both of Aaron's blood, and john Baptist of theirs: whence should an holy seed spring, if not of the loins of Levi? It is not in the power of parents to traduce holiness to their children: It is the blessing of God, that feoffs them in the virtues of their parents, as they feoff them in their sins: There is no certainty, but there is likelihood, of an holy generation, when the parents are such: Elizabeth was just, as well as Zachary, that the fore runner of a Saviour might be holy on both sides: If the stock and the griffe be not both good, there is much danger of the fruit: It is an happy match, when the husband and the wife are one, not only in themselves, but in God, not more in flesh, then in the spirit: Grace makes no difference of sexes, rather the weaker carries away the more honour, because it hath had less helps: It is easy to observe, that the new Testament affordeth more store of good women, than the old: Elizabeth led the ring of this mercy, whose barrenness ended in a miraculous fruit both of her body, & of her time.  
This religious pair made no less progress in virtue, then in age, and yet their virtue could not make their best age fruitful: Elizabeth was barren: A just soul and a barren womb may well agree together: Amongst the jews barrenness was not a defect only, but a reproach, yet while this good woman was fruitful of holy obedience, she was barren of children: As john, which was miraculously conceived by man, was a fit forerunner of him, that was conceived by the Holy Ghost, so a barren matron was meet to make way for a virgin.  
None, but a son of Aaron, might offer incense to God in the Temple; and not every son of Aaron, and not any one at all seasons: God is a God of order, & hates confusion no less than irreligion: Albeit he hath not so straightened himself under the Gospel, as to tie his service to persons, or places, yet his choice is now no less curious, because it is more large: He allows none, but the authorized; He authorizeth none but the worthy: The Incense doth ever smell of the hand, that offers it; I doubt not but that perfume was sweeter, which ascended up from the hand of just Zachary: The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination to God: There were courses of ministration in the legal services: God never purposed to burden any of his creatures with devotion: How vain is the ambition of any soul, that would load itself with the universal charge of all men? How thankless is their labour, that do wilfully overspend themselves in their ordinary vocations? As Zachary had a course in God's house, so he carefully observed it; The favour of these respites doubled his diligence: The more high and sacred our calling is, the more dangerous is our neglect: It is our honour, that we may be allowed to wait upon the God of heaven in these immediate services: Woe be to us, if we slacken those duties, wherein God honours us more, than we can honour him.  
Many sons of Aaron, yea of the same family served at once in the Temple, according to the variety of employments: To avoid all difference, they agreed by lot to assign themselves to the several offices of each day; The lot of this day called Zachary to offer incense in the outer Temple: I do not find any prescription they had from God of this particular manner of designment: Matters of good order in holy affairs may be ruled by the wise institution of men, according to reason and expediency.  
It fell out well, that Zachary was chosen by lot to this ministration, that God's immediate hand might be seen in all the passages, that concerned his great Prophet, that as the person, so the occasion might be of Gods own choosing: In lots and their seeming cusuall disposition, God can give a reason, though we can give none: Morning and evening, twice a day their law called them to offer Incense to God, that both parts of the day might be consecrate to the maker of time: The outer Temple was the figure of the whole Church upon earth, like as the holy of holiest represented heaven: Nothing can better resemble our faithful prayers, then sweet perfume: These, God looks, that we should (all his Church over) send up unto him morning and evening: The elevations of our hearts should be perpetual, but if twice in the day we do not present God with our solemn invocations, we make the Gospel less officious, than the law.  
That the resemblance of prayers and incense might be apparent, whiles the Priest sends up his incense within the Temple, the people must send up their prayers without: Their breath and that incense, though remote ●●n the first rising, met, ere ●●hey went up to heaven: The people might no more go into the holy place to offer up the incense of prayers unto God, than Zachary might go into the holy of holies: Whiles the partition wall stood betwixt jews and Gentiles, there were also partitions betwixt the jews, and themselves: Now every man is a Priest unto God; Every man (since the vail was rend) prays within the Temple: What are we the better for our greater freedom of access to God under the Gospel, if we do not make use of our privilege?  
Whiles they were praying to God, he sees an Angel of God As Gedeons' Angel went up in the smoke of the sacrifice, s●● did Zacharies' Angel (as it were) come down in the fragrant smoke of his incense: It was ever great news to see an Angel of God, but now more; because God had long withdrawn from them all the means of his supernatural revelations: As this wicked people were strangers to their God in their conversation, so was God grown a stranger to them in his apparitions; yet now, that the season of the Gospel approached, he visited them with his Angels, before he visited them by his son: He sends his Angel to men in the form of man, before he sends his son to take human form: The presence of Angels is no novelty, but their apparition; they are always with us, but rarely seen, that we may awfully respect their messages, when they are seen; In the mean time our faith may see them, though our senses do not; their assumed shapes do not make them more present, but visible.  
There is an order in that heavenly Hierarchy, though we know it not: This Angel, that appeared to Zachary was not with him in the ordinary course of his attendances, but was purposely sent from God with this message: Why was an Angel sent? and why this Angel? It had been easy for him to have raised up the prophetical spirit of some Simeon to this prediction; the same Holy Ghost, which revealed to that just man, that he should not see death, ere he had seen the Messias, might have as easily revealed unto him the birth of the forerunner of Christ, and by him to Zachary: But God would have this voice, which should go before his son, come with a noise; He would have it appear to the world, that the harbinger of the Messiah should be conceived by the marvelous power of that God, whose coming he proclaimed: It was fit the first herald of the Gospel should begin in wonder: The same Angel, that came to the blessed Virgin with the news of Christ's conception, came to Zachary with the news of john's, for the honour of him, that was the greatest of them, which were borne of women, and for his better resemblance to him, which was the seed of the woman: Both had the Gospel for their errand, one as the messenger of it, the other as the author; Both are foretold by the same mouth.  
When could it be more fit for the Angel to appear unto Zachary, then when prayers and incense were offered by him? Where could he more fitly appear, then in the Temple? In what part of the Temple more fitly, then at the Altar of Incense? and whereabouts rather, then on the right side of the Altar? Those glorious spirits as they are always with us, so most in our devotions, and as in all places, so most of all in God's house: They rejoice to be with us, whiles we are with God, as contrarily they turn their faces from us, when we go about our sins.  
He that had wont to live, and serve in the presence of the master, was now astonished at the presence of the servant; so much difference there is betwixt our faith, and our senses, that the apprehension of the presence of the God of spirits by faith goes down sweetly with us, whereas the sensible apprehension of an Angel dismays us: Holy Zachary, that had wont to live by faith, thought he should die, when his sense began to be set on work; It was the weakness of him, that served at the Altar without horror, to be daunted with the face of his fellow servant: In vain do we look for such ministers of God, as are without infirmities, when just Zachary was troubled in his devotions with that, where with he should have been comforted: It was partly the suddenness, and partly the glory of the apparition, that affrighted him: The good Angel was both apprehensive, and compassionate of Zacharies' weakness, and presently encourages him with a cheerful excitation: (Fear not Zacharias). The blessed spirits, though they do not often vocally express it, do pity our human frailties, and secretly suggest comfort unto us, when we perceive it not: Good and evil Angels, as they are contrary in estate, so also in disposition; The good desire to take away fear, the evil to bring it: It is a fruit of that deadly enmity, which is betwixt Satan and us, that he would, if he might, kill us with terror; whereas the good spirits affecting our relief and happiness, take no pleasure in terrifying us, but labour altogether for our tranquillity and cheerfulness.  
There was not more fear in the face, than comfort in the speech; Thy prayer is heard: No Angel could have told him better news; Our desires are uttered in our prayers: What can we wish, but to have what we would? Many good suits had Zachary made, & amongst the rest for a son: Doubtless it was now some space of years, since he made that request: For he was now slricken in age, and had ceased to hope; yet had God laid it up all the while, and when he thinks not of it, brings it forth to effect: Thus doth the mercy of our God deal with his patient, and faithful suppliants: In the fervour of their expectation he many times holds them off, and when they least think of it, and have forgotten their own suit, he graciously condescends: Delay of effect may not discourage our faith, It may be God hath long granted, ere we shall know of his grant. Many a father reputes him of his fruitfulness, and hath such sons, as he wishes unborn: But to have so gracious, and happy a son, as the Angel foretold, could not be less comfort, than honour to the age of Zachary: The proof of children makes them either the blessings, or crosses of their parents: To hear what his son should be before he was; to hear that he should have such a son; A son, whose birth should concern the joy of many; A son, that should be great in the sight of the Lord; A son, that should be sacred to God, filled with God, beneficial to man; An harbinger to him, that was God and man, was news enough to prevent the Angel, and to take away that tongue with amazement, which was after lost with incredulity.  
The speech was so good, that it found not a sudden belief: This good news surprised Zachary; If the intelligence had taken leisure, that his thoughts might have had time to debate the matter, he had easily apprehended the infinite power of him that had promised; the pattern of Abraham and Sara; and would soon have concluded the appearance of the Angel more miraculous than his prediction: Whereas now, like a man maskered with the strangeness of that he saw and heard, he misdoubts the message, and asks: How shall I know? Nature was on his side, and alleged the impossibility of the event, both from age and barrenness; Supernatural tidings at the first hearing astonish the heart, and are entertained with doubts by those, which upon further acquaintance give them the best welcome.  
The weak apprehensions of our imperfect faith are not so much to be censured, as pitied: It is a sure way for the heart, to be prevented with the assurance of the Omnipotent power of God, to whom nothing is impossible: so shall the hardest points of faith go down easily with us: If the eye of our mind look upward, it shall meet with nothing to avert, or interrupt it; but if right forward, or downward, or round about, every thing is a block in our way.  
There is a difference betwixt desire of assurance, & unbelief, we cannot be too careful to raise up to ourselves arguments to settle our faith; although it should be no faith, if it had no feet to stand upon, but discursive: In matters of faith, if reasons may be brought for the conviction of the gainsayers, it is well, if they be helps, they cannot be grounds of our belief: In the most faithful heart there are some sparks of infidelity; so to believe, that we should have no doubt at all, is scarce incident into flesh and blood: It is a great perfection, if we have attained to overcome our doubts. What did mislead Zachary, but that, which uses to guide others, Reason? (I am old; and my wife is of great age,) as if years, and dry loins could be any let to him, which is able of very stones to raise up children unto Abraham: Faith and reason have their limits; where reason ends, faith begins; and if reason will be encroaching upon the bounds of faith, she is strait taken captive by infidelity: We are not fit to follow Christ, if we have not denied ourselves; and the chief piece of ourselves is our reason: We must yield God able to do that, which we cannot comprehend, and we must comprehend that by our faith, which is disclaimed by reason; Hagar must be driven out of doors, that Sara may rule alone.  
The authority of the reporter, makes way for belief in things, which are otherwise hard to pass; although in the matters of God, we should not so much care, who speaks, as what is spoken, & from whom: The Angel tells his name, place, office, unasked, that Zachary might not think any news impossible, that was brought him by an heavenly messenger: Even where there is no use of language, the spirits are distinguished by names, and each knows his own appellation, & others: He that gave leave unto man his image, to give names unto all his visible and inferior creatures, did himself put names unto the spiritual; and as their name is, so are they mighty and glorious: But lest Zachary should no less doubt of the style of the messenger, then of the errand itself: He is at once both confirmed, and punished with dumbness: That tongue, which moved the doubt, must be tied up: He shall ask no more questions for forty weeks, because he asked this one distrustfully.  
Neither did Zachary lose his tongue for the time, but his ears also, he was not only mute, but deaf; For otherwise, when they came to ask his allowance for the name of his son, they needed not to have demanded it by signs, but by words: God will not pass over slight offences, and those which may plead the most colourable pretences in his best children, without a sensible check: It is not our holy entireness with God, that can bear us out in the least sin; yea rather the more acquaintance we have with his majesty, the more sure we are of correction, when we offend: This may procure us more favour in our well-doing, not less justice in evil.  
Zachary stayed, and the people waited; whether some longer discourse betwixt the Angel and him, than needed to be recorded, or whether astonishment at the apparition & news, withheld him, I inquire not; the multitude thought him long, yet though they could but see a far off, they would not depart, till he returned to bless them: Their patient attendance without, shames us, that are hardly persuaded to attend within, whiles both our senses are employed in our divine services, and we are admitted to be coagents with our Ministers.  
At last Zachary comes out speechless, and more amases them with his presence, then with his delay: The eyes of the multitude, that were not worthy to see his vision, yet see the signs of his vision, that the world might be put into the expectation of some extraordinary sequel: God makes way for his voice, by silence; His speech could not have said so much, as his dumbnes: Zachary would fain have spoken, and could not; with us too many are dumb, and need not: Negligence, Fear, Partiality stop the mouths of many, which shall once say, Woe to me, because I held my peace. His hand speaks that, which he cannot with his tongue, and he makes them by signs to understand that, which they might read in his face; Those powers we have, we must use: But though he have ceased to speak, yet he ceased not to minister; He takes not this dumbnes for a dismission, but stays out the eight days of his course, as one, that knew the eyes, and hands, and heart would be accepted of that God, which had bereaved him of his tongue: We may not straight take occasions of withdrawing ourselves from the public services of our God, much less under the Gospel: The Law, which stood much upon bodily perfection, dispensed with age for attendance: The Gospel, which is all for the soul regards those inward powers, which whiles they are vigorous, exclude all excuses of our ministration.   

The Annunciation of CHRIST.  
THE spirit of God was never so accurate in any description, as that which concerns the incarnation of God: It was fit no circumstance should be omitted in that story, whereon the faith and salvation of all the world dependeth: We cannot so much as doubt of this truth, and be saved; no not the number of the month, not the name of the Angel is concealed: Every particle imports not more certainty, than excellence: The time is the sixth month after john's conception, the prime of the spring: Christ was conceived in the spring, borne in the Solstice: He, in whom the world received a new life, receives life in the same season, wherein the world received his first life from him; and he which stretches out the days of his Church, and lengthens them to eternity, appears after all the short and dim light of the Law, and enlightens the world with his glory: The messenger is an Angel; A man was too mean to carry the news of the conception of God: Never any business was conceived in heaven, that did so much concern the earth, as the conception of the God of heaven in a womb of earth: No less than an Archangel was worthy to bear this tidings, and never any Angel received a greater honour, then of this embassage.  
It was fit our reparation should answer our fall; an evil Angel was the first motioner of the one to Eve a Virgin, then espoused to Adam in the garden of Eden: A good Angel is the first reporter of the other to Mary a Virgin espoused to joseph, in that place, which (as the garden of Galilee, had a name from flourishing: No good Angel could be the author of our restoration, as that evil Angel was of our ruin; But that, which those glorious spirits could not do themselves, they are glad to report as done by the God of Spirits: Good news rejoices the bearer; with what joy did this holy Angel bring the news of that Saviour, in whom we are redeemed to life, himself established in life and glory? The first preacher of the Gospel was an Angel, that office must needs be glorious, that derives itself from such a predecessor: God appointed his Angel to be the first preacher, and hath since called his Preachers Angels: The message is well suited; An Angel comes to a Virgin, Gabriel to Mary; He that was by signification the strength of God, to her that was by signification exalted by God, to the conceiving of him, that was the God of strength: To a maid but espoused; a maid for the honour of Virginity, espoused, for the honour of marriage: The marriage was in a sort made, not consummate, through the instinct of him, that meant to make her not an example, but a miracle of women: In this whole work God would have nothing ordinary; It was fit, that she should be a married Virgin, which should be a Virgin-mother: He that meant to take man's nature without man's corruption, would be the son of man without man's seed, would be the seed of the woman without man; and amongst all women of a pure Virgin; but amongst Virgins, of one espoused, that there might be at once a witness, and a guardian of her fruitful Virginity: If the same God had not been the author of Virginity and Marriage, he had never countenanced Virginity by marriage.  
Whither doth this glorious Angel come to find the mother of him, that was God, but to obscure Galilee? A part, which even the jews themselves despised, as forsaken of their privileges, (Out of Galilee ariseth no Prophet). Behold an Angel comes to that Galilee, out of which no Prophet comes, and the God of Prophets and Angels descends to be conceived in that Galilee, out of which no Prophet ariseth: He that filleth all places, makes no difference of places; It is the person, which gives honour and privilege to the place, not the place to the person; as the presence of God makes the heaven, the heaven doth not make the owner glorious: No blind corner of Nazareth can hide the blessed Virgin from the Angel; The favours of God will find out his children, wheresoever they are withdrawn.  
It is the fashion of God to seek out the most despised, on whom to bestow his honours, we cannot run away as from the judgements, so not from the mercies of our God: The cottages of Galilee are preferred by God to the famous palaces of jerusalem, he cares not how homely he converse with his own: Why should we be transported with the outward glory of places, whiles our God regards it not? We are not of the Angel's diet, if we had not rather be with the blessed Virgin at Nazareth, then with the proud dames, in the Court of jerusalem: It is a great vanity to respect any thing above goodness, and to disesteem goodness for any want. The Angel salutes the Virgin, he prays not to her; He salutes her as a Saint, he prays not to her as a Goddess: For us to salute her, as he did, were gross presumption; For neither are we, as he was, neither is she, as she was: If he that was a spirit saluted her, that was flesh and blood here on earth, it is not for us, that are flesh and blood to salute her, which is a glorious spirit in heaven: For us, to pray to her in the Angel's salutation, were to abuse the Virgin, the Angel, the salutation.  
But how gladly do we second the Angel in the praise of her, which was more ours, than his? How justly do we bless her, whom the Angel pronounceth blessed? How worthily is she honoured of men, whom the Angel proclaimeth beloved of God? O blessed MARY, he cannot bless thee, he cannot honour thee too much, that deifies thee not: That which the Angel said of thee, thou hast prophesied of thyself, we believe the Angel, and thee: All generations shall call thee blessed, by the fruit of whose womb all generations are blessed: If Zachary were amazed with the sight of this Angel, much more the Virgin: That very sex hath more disadvantage of fear: If it had been but a man, that had come to her in that secrecy and suddenness, she could not but have been troubled; how much more, when the shining glory of the person doubled the astonishment.  
The troubles of holy minds end ever in comfort: joy was the errand of the Angel, and not terror. Fear (as all passions) disquiets the heart, and makes it for the time unfit to receive the messages of God: Soon hath the Angel cleared these troublesome mists of passions, and sent out the beams of heavenly consolation into the remotest corner of her soul by the glad news of her Saviour: How can joy, but enter into her heart, out of whose womb shall come salvation? what room can fear find in that breast, that is assured of favour? Fear not Mary; for thou hast found favour with God: Let those fear, who know they are in displeasure, or know not they are gracious: Thine happy estate calls for confidence, and that confidence for joy: What should, what can they fear, who are favoured of him, at whom the Devils tremble? Not the presence of the good Angels, but the temptations of the evil strike many terrors into our weakness; we could not be dismayed with them, if we did not forget our condition: We have not received the spirit of bondage to fear again, but the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba Father: If that spirit (O God) witness with our spirits, that we are thine, how can we fear any of those spiritual wickednesses? Give us assurance of thy favour, and let the powers of Hell do their worst.  
It was no ordinary favour, that the Virgin found in heaven: No mortal creature was ever thus graced, that he should take part of her nature, that was the God of nature; that he, which made all things, should make his human body of hers; that her womb should yield that flesh, which was personally united to the Godhead; that she should bear him, that upholds the world: Lo, thou shalt conceive and bear a Son, and shalt call his name jesus. It is a question, whether there be more wonder in the conception, or in the fruit; the conception of the Virgin, or jesus conceived: Both are marvelous, but the former doth not more exceed all other wonders, than the latter exceedeth it. For the child of a Virgin is the reimprovement of that power, which created the world: but that God should be incarnate of a Virgin, was an abasement of his majesty, and an exaltation of the creature beyond all example. Well was that child worthy to make the mother blessed: Here was a double conception; one in the womb of her body, the other of the soul: If that were more miraculous, this was more beneficial; That was her privilege, this was her happiness: If that were singular to her, this is common to all his chosen: There is no renewed heart, wherein thou, O Saviour, art not form again. Blessed be thou, that hast herein made us blessed. For what womb can conceive thee, and not partake of thee? Who can partake of thee, and not be happy?  
Doubtless the Virgin understood the Angel, as he meant, of a present conception, which made her so much more inquisitive into the manner & means of this event: How shall this be, since I know not a man? That she should conceive a son by the knowledge of man after her marriage consummate, could have been no wonder: But how then should that son of hers be the son of God? This demand was higher, how her present virginity should be instantly fruitful, might be well worthy of admiration, of inquiry: Here was desire of information, not doubts of infidelity; yea rather this question argues faith: It takes for granted, that, which an unbelieving heart would have stuck at: She says not, who and whence art thou? what kingdom is this, where, & when shall it be erected? But smoothly supposing all those strange things would be done, she insists only in that, which did necessarily require a further intimation, and doth not distrust, but demand: Neither doth she say, this cannot be, nor how can this be; but how shall this be? so doth the Angel answer, as one, that knew he needed not to satisfy curiosity, but to inform judgement, and uphold faith: He doth not therefore tell her of the manner, but of the author of this act; The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee: It is enough to know, who is the undertaker, and what he will do: O God, what do we seek a clear light, where thou wilt have a shadow? No mother knows the manner of her natural conception; what presumption shall it be for flesh and blood, to search how the son of God took flesh and blood of his creature? It is for none, but the Almighty to know those works, which he doth immediately concerning himself; those that concern us, he hath revealed: Secrets to God, things revealed to us.  
This answer was not so full, but that a thousand difficulties might arise out of the particularities of so strange a message, yet after the Angel's solution, we hear of no more objections, no more interrogations: The faithful heart, when it once understands the good pleasure of God, argues no more, but sweetly rests itself in a quiet expectation; Behold the servant of the Lord, be it to me according to thy word. There is not a more noble proof of our faith, then to captivate all the powers of our understanding and will to our Creator, and without all sciscitations to go blindfold, whither he will lead us: All disputations with God (after his will known) arise from infidelity: Great is the mystery of godliness, and if we will give nature leave to cavil, we cannot be Christians. O God, thou art faithful, thou art powerful: It is enough, that thou hast said it; In the humility of our obedience we resign ourselves over to thee: Behold the servants of the Lord, be it unto us, according to thy word.  
How fit was her womb to conceive the flesh of the son of God by the power of the spirit of God, whose breast had so soon by the power of the same spirit conceived an assent to the will of God; and now of an handmaid of God, she is advanced to the mother of God: No sooner hath she said (be it done) than it is done, the Holy Ghost overshadowes her, and forms her Saviour in her own body. This very Angel, that talks with the blessed Virgin could scarce have been able to express the joy of her heart in the sense of this divine burden: Never any mortal creature had so much cause of exultation: How could she, that was full of God be other then full of joy in that God? Grief grows greater by concealing; joy by expression: The holy Virgin had understood by the Angel, how her cousin Elizabeth was no less of kin to her in condition; the fruitfulness of whose age did somewhat suit the fruitfulness of her virginity: Happiness communicated doubles itself; Here is no straining of courtesy; The blessed maid, whom vigour of age had more fitted for the way, hastens her journey into the hill-country to visit that gracious Matron, whom God had made a sign of her miraculous conception: Only the meeting of Saints in heaven can parallel the meeting of these two Cousins: The two wonders of the world are met under one roof, and congratulate their mutual happiness: When we have Christ spiritually conceived in us, we cannot be quiet, till we have imparted our joy: Elizabeth that holy Matron did no sooner welcome her blessed Cousin, than her babe welcomes his Saviour; Both in the retired closerts of their mother's womb are sensible of each others presence; the one by his omniscience, the other by instinct: He did not more forerun Christ, then overrun nature: How should our hearts leap within us, when the son of God vouchsafes to come into the secret of our souls, not to visit us, but to dwell with us, to dwell in us.   

The birth of CHRIST.  
AS all the actions of men, so especially the public actions of public men are ordered by God to other ends then their own: This Edict went not so much out from Augustus, as from the court of heaven. What did Caesar know joseph and Mary? His charge was universal to a world of subjects, through all the Roman Empire: God intended this Cension only for the blessed Virgin and her son, that Christ might be borne, where he should: Caesar meant to fill his coffers, God meant to fulfil his prophecies, and so to fulfil them, that those, whom it concerned might not feel the accomplishment: If God had directly commanded the Virgin to go up to Bethleem, she had seen the intention, & expected the issue; but that wise moderator of all things, that works his will in us, loves so to do it, as may be least with our foresight, and acquaintance, and would have us fall under his decrees unawares, that we may so much the more adore the depths of his providence: Every creature walks blindfold, only he that dwells in light, sees whither they go.  
Doubtless, blessed Mary meant to have been delivered of her divine burden at home, and little thought of changing the place of conception for another of her birth: That house was honoured by the Angel, yea by the over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost, none could equally satisfy her hopes, or desires: It was fit, that he, which made choice of the womb, wherein his son should be conceived, should make choice of the place, where his son should be borne: As the work is all his, so will he alone contrive all the circumstances to his own ends: O the infinite wisdom of God in casting all his designs! There needs no other proof of Christ, than Caesar & Bethleem, and of Caesar's, than Augustus; his government, his Edict pleads the truth of the Messias: His government, now was the deep peace of all the world under that quiet sceptre, which made way for him, who was the Prince of peace: If wars be a sign of the time of his second coming, peace was a sign of his first: His Edict, now was the sceptre departed from JUDA: It was the time for Shilo to come; No power was left in the Jews, but to obey: Augustus is the Emperor of the world, under him Herod is the King of judea; Cyrenius is precedent of Syria; jury hath nothing of her own. For Herod, if he were a King, yet he was no jew, and if he had been a jew, yet he was no otherwise a King, than tributary and titular: The Edict came out from Augustus, was executed by Cyrenius; Herod is no actor in this service: Gain and glory are the ends of this taxation, each man professed himself a subject, and paid for the privilege of his servitude: Now their very heads were not their own, but must be paid for to the head of a foreign State: They which before stood upon the terms of their immunity, stoop at the last: The proud suggestions of judas the Galilean might shed their blood, and swell their stomachs, but could not ease their yoke, neither was it the meaning of God, that holiness (if they had been as they pretended) should shelter them from subjection: A tribute is imposed upon God's free people: This act of bondage brings them liberty: Now when they seemed most neglected of God, they are blessed with a Redeemer; when they are most pressed with foreign sovereignty, God sends them a King of their own, to whom Caesar himself must be a subject: The goodness of our God picks out the most needful times for our relief, and comfort: Our extremities give him the most glory.  
Whither must joseph & Mary come to be taxed, but unto Bethleem David's City? The very place proves their descent: He that succeeded David in his throne, must succeed him in the place of his birth: So clearly was Bethleem designed to this honour by the Prophets, that even the Priests and the Scribes could point Herod unto it, and assure him, the King of the jews could be no where else borne. Bethleem justly the house of bread, the bread that came down from heaven is there given to the world; whence should we have the bread of life, but from the house of bread? O holy David, was this the well of Bethleem, whereof thou didst so thirst to drink of old, when thou saidst; O that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethleem! Surely that other water, when it was brought thee by thy Worthies, thou pouredst it on the ground, and wouldst not drink of it: This was that living water, for which thy soul longed, whereof thou saidst elsewhere; As the heart brayeth after the water brooks, so longeth my soul after thee O God: My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.  
It was no less than four days journey from Nazareth to Bethleem: How just an excuse might the blessed Virgin have pleaded for her absence? What woman did ever undertake such a journey so near her delivery? and doubtless joseph, which was now taught of God to love and honour her, was loath to draw forth a dear wife in so unwieldy a case, into so manifest hazard: But the charge was peremptory, the obedience exemplary; Their desire of an inoffensive observance even of heathenish authority, digests all difficulties: We may not take easy occasions to withdraw our obedience unto supreme commands; yea how didst thou (O Saviour) by whom Augustus reigned, in the womb of thy mother yield this homage to Augustus: The first lesson, that ever thy example taught us, was obedience.  
After many steps are joseph and Mary come to Bethleem: The plight, wherein she was, would not allow any speed, and the forced leisure of the ionrney causeth disappointment: the end was worse than the way; there was no rest in the way, there was no room in the Inn: It could not be, but that there were many of the kindred of joseph & Mary at that time in Bethleem: For both there were their ancestors borne, if not themselves; and thither came up all the cousins of their blood: yet there and then doth the holy Virgin want room to lay either her head, or her burden. If the house of David had not lost all mercy and good nature, a daughter of David could not so near the time of her travel, have been destitute of lodging in the City of David. Little did the Bethleemites think, what a guest they refused. Else they would gladly have opened their doors to him, which was able to open the gates of heaven to them. Now their in hospitality is punishment enough to itself: They have lost the honour and happiness of being host to their God: Even still, O blessed Saviour, thou standest at our doors and knockest; Every motion of thy good spirit tells us, thou art there: Now thou comest in thy own name, and there thou standest, whiles thy head is full of the dew, and thy locks wet with the drops of the night: If we suffer carnal desires, and worldly thoughts to take up the lodgings of our heart, and revel within us, whiles thou waitest upon our admission, surely our judgement shall be so much the greater, by how much better we know, whom we have excluded? What do we cry shame on the Bethleemites, whilst we are wilfully more churlish, more unthankful?  
There is no room in my heart for the wonder at this humility: He, for whom heaven is too straight, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, lies in the straight cabin of the womb, and when he would enlarge himself for the world, is not allowed the room of an Inn: The many mansions of heaven were at his disposing, the earth was his, and the fullness of it, yet he suffers himself to be refused of a base cottage, and complaineth not: What measure should discontent us wretched men, when thou (O God) farest thus from thy creatures? How should we learn both to want and abound, from thee, which abounding with the glory and riches of heaven, wouldst want a lodging in thy first welcome to the earth? Thou camest to thy own, & thy own received thee not: How can it trouble us to be rejected of the world, which is not ours? What wonder is it, if thy servants wandered abroad in sheep's skins, and goat's skins, destitute & afflicted, when their Lord is denied harbour? How should all the world blush at this indignity of Bethleem? He that came to save men, is sent for his first lodging to the beasts: The stable is become his Inn, the cratch his bed: O strange cradle of that great King, which heaven itself may envy! O Saviour, thou that wert both the maker and owner of heaven, of earth, couldst have made thee a palace without hands, couldst have commanded thee an empty room in those houses, which thy creatures had made? When thou didst but bid the Angels avoid their first place, they fell down from heaven like lightning; and when in thine humbled estate thou didst but say, I am he, who was able to stand before thee? How easy had it been for thee to have made place for thyself in the throngs of the stateliest Courts? Why wouldst thou be thus homely, but that by contemning worldly glories thou mightst teach us to contemn them? that thou mightst sanctify poverty to them, whom thou callest unto want? that since thou, which hadst the choice of all earthly conditions, wouldst be borne poor and despised, those, which must want out of necessity, might not think their poverty grievous.  
Here was neither friend to entertain, nor servant to attend, nor place wherein to be attended, only the poor beasts gave way to the God of all the world: It is the great mystery of godliness, that God was manifested in the flesh, and seen of Angels, but here, which was the top of all wonders, the very beasts might see their maker: For those spirits to see God in the flesh, it was not so strange, as for the brute creatures to see him, which was the God of spirits: He, that would be led into the wilderness amongst wild beasts to be tempted, would come into the house of beasts to be borne, that from the height of his divine glory his humiliation might be the greater: How can we be abased low enough for thee (O Saviour) that hast thus neglected thyself for us?  
That the visitation might be answerable to the homeliness of the place, attendants, provision, who shall come to congratulate his birth, but poor shepherds? The Kings of the earth rest at home, and have no summons to attend him, by whom they reign: God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty: In an obscure time (the night) unto obscure men (shepherds) doth God manifest the light of his Son, by glorious Angels: It is not our meanness (O God) that can exclude us from the best of thy mercies; yea thus far dost thou respect persons, that thou hast put down the mighty, and exalted them of low degree.  
If these shepherds had been snorting in their beds, they had no more seen Angels, nor heard news of their Saviour, than their neighbours; Their vigilancy is honoured with this heavenly vision: Those which are industrious in any calling, are capable of further blessings, whereas the idle are fit for nothing but temptation. No less than a whole Chore of Angels are worthy to sing the hymn, of Glory to God for the incarnation of his Son: What joy is enough for us, whose nature he took, and whom he came to restore by his incarnation? If we had the tongues of Angels, we could not raise this note high enough to the praise of our glorious Redeemer.  
No sooner do the shepherds hear the news of a Saviour, than they run to Bethleem to seek him: Those, that left their beds to tend their flocks, leave their flocks to inquire after their Saviour: No earthly thing is too dear to be forsaken for Christ: If we suffer any worldly occasion to stay us from Bethleem, we care more for our sheep, than our souls: It is not possible, that a faithful heart should hear where Christ is, & not labour to the sight, to the fruition of him. Where art thou (O Saviour) but at home in thine own house, in the assembly of thy Saints? Where art thou to be found, but in thy word and sacraments? yea there thou seekest for us, if there we haste not to seek for thee, we are worthy to want thee, worthy that our want of thee here, should make us want the presence of thy face for ever.   

The SAGES and the STAR.  
THE shepherds and the cratch accorded well; yet even they saw nothing, which they might not contemn; neither was there any of those shepherds that seemed not more like a King, than that King, whom they came to see. But oh the divine majesty, that shined in this baseness! There lies the babe in the stable, crying in the manger, whom the Angels came down from heaven to proclaim, whom the Sages come from the East to adore, whom an heavenly star notifies to the world, that now men might see, that heaven & earth serves him, that neglected himself. Those lights, that hang low are not far seen, but those which are high placed are equally seen in the remotest distances. Thy light, O Saviour, was no less than heavenly: The East saw that, which Bethleem might have seen: Oft-times those, which are nearest in place, are farthest off in affection: Large objects, when they are too close to the eye, do so overfill the sense, that they are not discerned. What a shame is this to Bethleem? The Sages came out of the East to worship him, whom that village refused: The Bethleemites were jews; The wisemen Gentiles: This first entertainment of Christ was a presage of the sequel; The Gentiles shall come from far to adore Christ, whiles the jews reject him.  
Those Easterlings were great searchers of the depths of nature, professed Philosophers, them hath God singled out to the honour of the manifestation of Christ: human learning well improved makes us capable of divine: There is no knowledge, whereof God is not the author; he would never have bestowed any gift, that should lead us away from himself; It is an ignorant conceit, that inquiry into nature should make men Atheous: No man is so apt to see the star of Christ, as a diligent disciple of Philosophy: Doubtless this light was visible unto more, only they followed it, which knew it had more than nature: He is truly wise, that is wise for his own soul: If these wise men had been acquainted with all the other stars of heaven, and had not seen the star of Christ, they had had but light enough to lead them into utter darkness: Philosophy without the star is but the wisp of error.  
These Sages were in a mean between the Angels and the shepherds: God would in all the ranks of intelligent creatures have some to be witnesses of his Son: The Angels direct the shepherds, the star guides the Sages; the duller capacity hath the more clear and powerful helps: The wisdom of our good GOD proportions the means unto the disposition of the persons: Their Astronomy had taught them this star was not ordinary, whether in site, or in brightness, or in motion? The eyes of nature might well see, that some strange news was portended to the world by it: But that this star designed the birth of the Messias, there needed yet another light: If the star had not beside had the commentary of a revelation from God, it could have led the wisemen only into a fruitless wonder: Give them to be the offspring of Balaam, yet the true prediction of that false Prophet was not enough warrant: If he told them the Messiah should arise, as a star out of jacob, he did not tell them, that a star should arise far from the posterity of jacob, at the birth of the Messiah: He that did put that prophesy into the mouth of Balaam, did also put this illumination into the heart of the Sages: The spirit of God is free to breathe where he listeth: Many shall come from the East and the West to seek Christ, when the children of the kingdom shall be shut out: Even than God did not so confine his election to the pale of the Church, as that he did not sometimes look out for special instruments of his glory.  
Whither do these Sages come, but to jerusalem? where should they hope to hear of the new King, but in the mother City of the kingdom? The conduct of the star was first only general to judea; the rest is for a time left to inquiry: They were not brought thither for their own sakes, but for juries, for the worlds; that they might help to make the jews inexcusable, and the world faithful: That their tongues therefore might blazon the birth of Christ, they are brought to the head City of judea, to report, & inquire: Their wisdom could not teach them to imagine, that a King could be borne to judea, of that note and magnificence, that a star from heaven should publish him to the earth, and that his subjects should not know it: and therefore as presupposing a common notice, they say, Where is he, that is borne King of the jews? There is much deceit in probabilities, especially when we meddle with spiritual matters. For God uses still to go a way by himself.  
If we judge according to reason and appearance, who is so likely to understand heavenly truths, as the profound Doctors of the world? these God passeth over, and reveals his will to babes: Had these Sages met with the shepherds of the villages near Bethleem, they had received that intelligence of Christ which they did vainly seek from the learned Scribes of Jerusalem: The greatest Clarks are not always the wisest in the affairs of God; these things go not by discourse, but by revelation.  
No sooner hath the star brought them within the noise of jerusalem, than it is vanished out of sight: God would have their eyes lead them so far, as till their tongues might be set on work to win the vocal attestation of the chief Priests, and Scribes to the foreappointed place of our saviours nativity: If the star had carried them directly to Bethleem, the learned jews had never searched the truth of those prophecies, wherewith they are since justly convinced: God never withdraws our helps, but for a further advantage: Howsoever our hopes seem crossed, where his name may gain, we cannot complain of loss.  
Little did the Sages think, this question would have troubled Herod; they had (I fear) concealed their message, if they had suspected this event: Sure, they thought it might be some son, or grandchild of him, which then held the throne, so as this might win favour from Herod, rather than an unwelcome fear of rivality. Doubtless they went first to the Court; where else should they ask for a King? The more pleasing this news had been, if it had fallen upon Herod's own loins, the more grievous it was to light upon a stranger: If Herod had not overmuch affected greatness, he had not upon those indirect terms aspired to the crown of jewry; so much the more therefore did it trouble him to hear the rumour of a successor, and that not of his own. Settled greatness cannot abide either change, or partnership: If any of his subjects had moved this question, I fear, his head had answered it. It is well, that the name of foreigners could excuse these Sages: Herod could not be brought up among the jews, and not have heard many and confident reports of a Messias, that should ere long arise out of Israel; and now when he hears the fame of a King borne, whom a star from heaven signifies and attends; he is nettled with the news: Every thing affrights the guilty: Usurpation is full of jealousies, and fear no less full of projects, and imaginations; it makes us think every bush a man, and every man a thief.  
Why art thou troubled (O Herod)? A King is borne, but such a King, as whose sceptre may ever concur with lawful sovereignty; yea such a King, as by whom Kings do hold their sceptres, not lose them: If the wise men tell thee of a King, the star tells thee, he is heavenly: Here is good cause of security, none of fear: The most general enmities and oppositions to good arise from mistake; If men could but know, how much safety and sweetness there is in all divine truth, it could receive nothing from them but welcomes & gratulations: Misconceits have been still guilty of all wrongs, and persecutions. But if Herod were troubled (as Tyranny is still suspicious) why was all jerusalem troubled with him? jerusalem, which now might hope for a relaxation of her bonds, for a recovery of her liberty, and right? jerusalem, which now only had cause to lift up her drooping head in the joy and happiness of a redeemer? yet not Herod's Court, but even jerusalem was troubled; so had this miserable City been overtoyled with change, that now they were settled in a condition quietly evil, they are troubled with the news of better: They had now got an habit of servility, and now they are so acquainted with the yoke, that the very noise of liberty, (which they supposed would not come with ease) began to be unwelcome.  
To turn the causes of joy into sorrow argues extreme deiectednes, and a distemper of judgement no less than desperate: Fear puts on a visor of devotion; Herod calls his learned Council, and as not doubting, whether the Messiah should be borne, he asks, where he shall be borne? In the disparition of that other light, there is a perpetually fixed star, shining in the writings of the Prophets, that guides the chief Priests & Scribes directly unto Bethleem: As yet envy, and prejudice had not blinded the eyes, and perverted the hearts of the jewish teachers; so as now, they clearly justify that Christ, whom they afterwards condemn, and by thus justifying him condemn themselves in rejecting him: The water, that is untroubled yields the visage perfectly: If God had no more witness, but from his enemies, we have ground enough of our faith.  
Herod feared, but dissembled his fear, as thinking it a shame, that strangers should see, there could any power arise under him, worthy of his respect or awe: Out of an unwillingness therefore to discover the impotency of his passion, he makes little ado of the matter, but only, after a privy inquisition into the time, employs the informers in the search of the person; Go, and search diligently for the babe etc. It was no great journey from jerusalem to Bethleem, how easily might Herod's cruelty have secretly suborned some of his bloody Courtiers to this inquiry, and execution? If God had not meant to mock him, before he found himself mocked of the wisemen, he had rather sent before their journey, then after their disappointment: But that God, in whose hands all hearts are, did purposely besot him, that he might not find the way to so horrible a mischief.  
There is no villainy so great, but it will mask itself under a show of piety: Herod will also worship the babe; The courtesy of a false Tyrant is death; A crafty hypocrite never means so ill, as when he speaks fairest: The wisemen are upon their way, full of expectation, full of desire; I see no man either of the City, or Court to accompany them; Whether distrust, or fear hindered them, I inquire not, but of so many thousand jews, no one stirs his foot to see that King of theirs, which strangers came so far to visit: yet were not these resolute Sages discouraged with this solitariness, and small respect, nor drawn to repent of their journey, as thinking, What do we come so far to honour a King, whom no man will acknowledge? What mean we to travel so many hundred miles to see that, which the inhabitants will not look out to behold? but cheerfully renew their journey to that place, which the ancient light of prophesy had designed; And now behold, God encourages their holy forwardness from heaven, by sending them their first guide, as if he had said, What need ye care for the neglect of men, when ye see heaven honours the King, whom ye seek? What joy these Sages conceived, when their eyes first beheld the re-appearance of that happy star, they only can tell, that after a long and sad night of tentation, have seen the loving countenance of God shining forth upon their souls: If with obedience and courage we can follow the calling of God, in difficult enterprises, we shall not want supplies of comfort. Let not us be wanting to God, we shall be sure, he cannot be wanting to us.  
He that led Israel by a pillar of fire into the land of promise, leads the wisemen by a star, to the promised seed: All his directions partake of that light, which is in him; For God is light: This star moves both slowly and low, as might be fittest for the pace, for the purpose of these pilgrims: It is the goodness of God, that in those means wherein we cannot reach him, he descends unto us. Surely when the wisemen saw the star first stand still, they looked about to see, what Palace there might be near unto that station, fit for the birth of a King, neither could they think that sorry shed was it, which the star meant to point out; but finding their guide settled over that base roof, they go in to see, what guest it held. They enter, and, O God, what a King do they find! how poor? how contemptible? wrapped in clouts, laid in straw, cradled in the manger, attended with beasts! what a sight was this, after all the glorious promises of that star, after the predictions of Prophets, after the magnificence of their expectation?  
All their way afforded nothing so despicable, as that babe, whom they came to worship: But as those, which could not have been wisemen, unless they had known, that the greatest glories have arisen from mean beginnings, they fall down, and worship that hidden majesty: This baseness hath bred wonder in them, not contempt; they well knew, the star could not lie: They, which saw his star a far off in the East, when he lay swaddled in Bethleem, do also see his royalty further of, in the despised estate of his infancy: A royalty more than human: They well know, that stars did not use to attend earthly Kings; and if their aim had not been higher, what was a jewish King to Persian strangers? answerable therefore hereunto was their adoration. Neither did they lift up empty hands to him, whom they worshipped, but presented him with the most precious commodities of their country, Gold, Incense, Myrrh; not as thinking to enrich him with these, but by way of homage acknowledging him the Lord of these: If these Sages had been Kings, and had offered a princely weight of gold, the blessed Virgin had not needed in her purification to have offered two young pigeons, as the sign of her penury: As God loves not empty hands, so he measures fullness by the affection: Let it be Gold, or Incense, or Myrrh, that we offer him, it cannot but please him, who doth not use to ask, how much, but how good.   

The PURIFICATION.  
THere could be no impurity in the son of God, and if the best substance of a pure Virgin carried in it any taint of Adam, that was scoured away by sanctification in the womb, and yet the Son would be circumcised, and the mother purified: He that came to be sin for us, would in our persons be legally unclean, that by satisfying the law, he might take away our uncleanness: Though he were exempted from the common condition of our birth, yet he would not deliver himself from those ordinary rites, that implied the weakness, and blemishes of humanity: He would fulfil one law to abrogate it, another to satisfy it; He that was above the law, would come under the Law, to free us from the Law: Not a day would be changed, either in the circumcision of CHRIST, or the purification of MARY. Here was neither convenience of place, nor of necessaries for so painful a work, in the stable of Bethleem, yet he that made, and gave the Law, will rather keep it with difficulty, then transgress it with ease.  
Why wouldst thou, O blessed Saviour, suffer that sacred foreskin to be cut off, but that by the power of thy circumcision, the same might be done to our souls, that was done to thy body? we cannot be therefore thine, if our hearts be uncircumcised: Do thou that in us, which was done to thee for us; cut off the superfluity of our maliciousness, that we may be holy in, and by thee, which for us wert content to be legally impure.  
There was shame in thy birth, there was pain in thy circumcision; After a contemptible welcome into the world, that a sharp razor should pass through thy skin for our sakes, (which can hardly endure to bleed for our own) it was the praise of thy wonderful mercy, in so early humiliation: What pain, or contempt should we refuse for thee, that hast made no spare of thyself for us? Now is Bethleem left with too much honour, there is Christ borne, adored, circumcised: No sooner is the blessed Virgin either able, or allowed to walk, than she travels to jerusalem, to perform her holy rites for herself, for her son; to purify herself, to present her son: She goes not to her own house at Nazareth, she goes to God's house at Jerusalem: If purifying were a shadow, yet thanksgiving is a substance; Those whom God hath blessed with fruit of body, and safety of deliverance, if they make not their first journey to the Temple of God, they partake more of the unthankfulness of Eve, than Mary's devotion.  
Her forty days therefore were no sooner out, then Mary comes up to the holy City: The rumour of a new King borne at Bethleem, was yet fresh at jerusalem, since the report of the wisemen, and what good news had this been for any pickthank to carry to the Court, Here is the babe, whom the star signified, whom the Sages inquired for, whom the Angels proclaimed, whom the shepherds talked of, whom the Scribes and high Priests notified, whom Herod seeks after? yet unto that jerusalem, which was troubled at the report of his birth, is Christ come, and all tongues are so locked up, that he, which sent from jerusalem to Bethleem to seek him, finds him not, who (as to countermine Herod) is come from Bethleem to jerusalem. Dangers that are aloof of, and but possible, may not hinder us from the duty of our devotion: GOD saw it not yet time to let loose the fury of his adversaries, whom he holds up, like some eager mastiffs, and then only lets go, when they shall most shame themselves, and glorify him.  
Well might the blessed Virgin have wrangled with the law, and challenged an immunity from all ceremonies of purification; what should I need purging, which did not conceive in sin? This is for those mothers, whose births are unclean, mine is from God, which is purity itself: The law of Moses reaches only to those women, which have conceived seed, I conceived not this seed, but the Holy Ghost in me: The law extends to the mothers of those sons, which are under the law, mine is above it: But as one, that cared more for her peace, than her privilege, and more desired to be free from offence, then from labour and charge, she dutifully fulfils the law of that God, whom she carried in her womb, and in her arms: Like the mother of him, who though he knew the children of the kingdom free, yet would pay tribute unto Caesar: Like the mother of him, whom it behoved to fulfil all righteousness: And if she were so officious in ceremonies, as not to admit of any excuse in the very circumstance of her obedience, how much more strict was she in the main duties of morality? That soul is fit for the spiritual conception of Christ, that is conscionably scrupulous in observing all God's commandments, whereas he hates all alliance to a negligent, or froward heart.  
The law of purification proclaims our uncleanness: The mother is not allowed after her childbirth to come unto the Sanctuary, or to touch any hallowed thing, till her set time be expired; What are we, whose very birth infects the mother that bears us? At last, she comes to the Temple, but with sacrifices, either a lamb, and a pigeon, or turtle, or (in the meaner estate) two turtle doves, or young pigeons: Whereof one is for a burnt offering, the other for a sin-offering: The one for thanksgiving, the other for expiation: For expiation of a double sin, of the mother, that conceived, of the child, that was conceived. We are all born sinners, and it is a just question, whether we do more infect the world, or the world us? They are gross flatterers of nature, that tell her, she is clean: If our lives had no sin, we bring enough with us; the very infant, that lives not to sin as Adam, yet he sinned in Adam, and is sinful in himself. But oh the unspeakable mercy of our God we provide the sin, he provides the remedy: Behold an expiation well near, as early, as our sin; the blood of a young lamb, or dove, yea rather the blood of him, whose innocence was represented by both, cleanseth us presently from our filthiness. First went circumcision, than came the sacrifice, that by two holy acts; that which was naturally unholy, might be hallowed unto God; Under the Gospel our baptism hath the force of both: It does away our corruption by the water of the spirit; It applies to us the sacrifice of Christ's blood, whereby we are cleansed: Oh that we could magnify this goodness of our God, which hath not left our very infancy without redress, but hath provided such helps, as whereby we may be delivered from the danger of our hereditary evils.  
Such is the favourable respect of our wise God, that he would not have us undo ourselves with devotion, the service he requires of us is ruled by our abilities: Every poor mother was not able to bring a lamb for her offering, there was none so poor, but might procure a pair of turtles or pigeons. These doth God both prescribe, and accept from poorer hands, no less, than the beasts of a thousand mountains; He looks for somewhat of every one, not of every one alike: Since it is he, that makes differences of abilities (to whom it were as easy to make all rich) his mercy will make no difference in the acceptation: The truth and heartiness of obedience is that, which he will crown in his meanest servants: A mite from the poor widow is more worth to him, than the talents of the wealthy.  
After all the presents of those Eastern worshippers (who intended rather homage, than ditation) the blessed Virgin comes in the form of poverty with her two doves unto God; she could not without some charge lie all this while at Bethleem, she could not without charge travel from Bethleem to jerusalem; Her offering confesseth her penury; The best are not ever the wealthiest: Who can despise any one for want, when the mother of Christ was not rich enough to bring a lamb for her purification? We may be as happy in russet, as in tissue.  
While the blessed VIRGIN brought her son into the Temple, with that pair of doves, here were more doves than a pair: They, for whose sake that offering was brought, were more doves, than the doves that were brought for that offering: Her son, for whom she brought that dove to be sacrificed, was that sacrifice, which the dove represented: There was nothing in him, but perfection of innocence, and the oblation of him is that, whereby all mothers and sons are fully purified: Since in ourselves we cannot be innocent, happy are we, if we can have the spotless dove sacrificed for us to make us innocent in him.  
The blessed Isa had more business in the Temple then her own; she came, as to purify herself, so to present her son: Every male, that first opened the womb was holy unto the Lord: He that was the son of God by eternal generation before times, and by miraculous conception in time, was also by common course of nature consecrate unto God: It was fit the holy mother should present God with his own: Her first borne was the first borne of all creatures: It was he, whose Temple it was, that he was presented in, to whom all the first borne of all creatures were consecrated, by whom they were accepted, and now is he brought in his mother's arms to his own house, and as man is presented to himself as God: If Moses had never written law of God's special propriety in the first borne, this son of God's essence and love had taken possession of the Temple; His right had been a perfect law to himself: Now his obedience to that law, which himself had given, doth no less call him, thither, than the challenge of his peculiar interest.  
He that was the Lord of all creatures (ever since he struck the first borne of the Egyptians) requires the first male of all creatures, both man and beast, to be dedicated to him; wherein God caused a miraculous event to second nature, which seems to challenge the first and best for the maker: By this rule, God should have had his service done only by the heirs of Israel: But since God for the honour and remuneration of LEVI, had chosen out that Tribe to minister unto him, now the first borne of all Israel must be presented to God, as his due, but by allowance redeemed to their parents: As for beasts, the first male of the clean beasts must be sacrificed, of unclean exchanged for a price: So much morality is there in this constitution of God, that the best of all kinds is fit to be consecrated to the Lord of all. Every thing we have is too good for us, if we think any thing we have too good for him.  
How glorious did the Temple now seem, that the owner was within the walls of it? Now was the hour, and guest come, in regard whereof the second Temple should surpass the first: This was his house built for him, dedicated to him: There had he dwelled long in his spiritual presence, in his typical: There was nothing either placed, or done within those walls, whereby he was not resembled, and now the body of those shadows is come, & presents himself, where he had been ever represented: jerusalem is now every where: There is no Church, no Christian heart, which is not a Temple of the living God: There is no Temple of God, wherein Christ is not presented to his father: Look upon him (O God) in whom, thou art well pleased, and in him, and for him be well pleased with us.  
Under the Gospel we are all first borne, all heirs: Every soul is to be holy unto the Lord, we are a royal generation, an holy priesthood: Our baptism as it is our circumcision, and our sacrifice of purification, so is it also our presentation unto God: Nothing can become us but holiness. O God, to whom we are devoted, serve thyself of us, glorify thyself by us, till we shall by thee be glorified with thee.   

HEROD and the INFANTS.  
WELL might these wise men have suspected Herod's secrecy; If he had meant well, what needed that whispering? That which they published in the streets, he asks in his privy chamber; yet they not misdoubting his intention, purpose to fulfil his charge: It could not in their apprehension but be much honour to them, to make their success known, that now both King and people might see, it was not fancy that led them, but an assured revelation: That God, which brought them thither, diverted them, and caused their eyes shut to guide them the best way home.  
These Sages made a happy voyage: For now they grew into further acquaintance with God: They are honoured with a second messenger from heaven: They saw the star in the way, the Angel in their bed: The star guided their journey unto Christ, the Angel directed their return: They saw the star by day, a vision by night: God spoke to their eyes by the star, he speaks to their heart by a dream: No doubt, they had left much noise of Christ behind them: They, that did so publish his birth by their inquiry at jerusalem, could not be silent, when they found him at Bethleem: If they had returned by Herod, I fear they had come short home; He that meant death to the babe for the name of a King, could mean no other to those, that honoured and proclaimed a new King, and erected a throne besides his: They had done what they came for; and now that God, whose business they came about, takes order at once for his sons safety, and for theirs: God, which is perfection itself, never begins any business, but he makes an end, & ends happily; When our ways are his, there is no danger of miscarriage.  
Well did these wisemen know the difference, as of stars, so of dreams; they had learned to distinguish between the natural and divine, and once apprehending God in their sleep, they follow him waking, and return another way. They were no subjects to Herod, his command pressed them so much the less, or if the being within his dominions had been no less bond, then native subjection, yet where God did countermand Herod, there could be no question, whom to obey: They say not, we are in a strange country, Herod may meet with us, it can be no less than death to mock him in his own territories, but cheerfully put themselves upon the way, and trust God with the success: Where men command with God, we must obey men for God, and God in men, when against him, the best obedience is to deny obedience, and to turn our backs upon Herod.  
The wisemen are safely arrived in the East, & fill the world full of expectation, as themselves are full of wonder: JOSEPH and MARY are returned with the babe to that jerusalem, where the wisemen had inquired for his birth. The City was doubtless still full of that rumour, and little thinks, that he, whom they talk of, was so near them: From thence they are, at least, in their way to Nazareth, where they purpose their abode: God prevents them by his Angel, and sends them for safety into Egypt; joseph was not wont to be so full of visions: It was not long since the Angel appeared unto him to justify the innocency of the mother, and the deity of the son; now he appears for the preservation of both, & a preservation by flight: Could joseph now choose, but think, Is this the King, that must save Israel, that needs to be saved by me? If he be the son of God, how is he subject to the violence of men? How is he Almighty, that must save himself by flight? or how must he fly to save himself out of that land, which he comes to save? But faithful joseph having been once tutored by the Angel, and having heard, what the wisemen said of the star, what SIMEON and ANNA said in the Temple, labours not so much to reconcile his thoughts, as to subject them, and as one, that knew it safer to suppress doubts, then to assoil them, can believe, what he understands not, and can wonder, where he cannot comprehend.  
Oh strange condition of the King of all the world! He could not be borne in a base estate, yet even this he cannot enjoy with safety. There was no room for him in Bethleem, there will be no room for him in judea: He is no sooner come to his own, than he must fly from them; that he may save them, he must avoid them: Had it not been easy for thee (O Saviour) to have acquit thyself from Herod, a thousand ways? What could an arm of flesh have done against the God of spirits? What had it been for thee to have sent Herod five years sooner unto his place? what to have commanded fire from heaven on those, that should have come to apprehend thee? or to have bidden the earth to receive them alive, whom she meant to swallow dead? We suffer misery, because we must, thou, because thou wouldst: The same will that brought thee from heaven into earth, sends thee from jury to Egypt; as thou wouldst be borne mean and miserable, so thou wouldst live subject to human vexations, that thou, which hast taught us, how good it is to bear the yoke even in our youth, mightst sanctify to us early afflictions. Or whether (O Father) since it was the purpose of thy wisdom to manifest thy Son by degrees unto the world, was it thy will thus to hide him for a time, under our infirmity? and what other is our condition? we are no sooner borne thine, than we are persecuted. If the Church travel, and bring forth a male, she is in danger of the Dragon's streams: What do the members complain of the same measure, which was offered to the head? both our births are accompanied with tears.  
Even of those, whose mature age is full of trouble, yet the infancy is commonly quiet, but here life and toil began together. O blessed Virgin! even already did the sword begin to pierce thy soul: Thou which wert forced to bear thy Son in thy womb from Nazareth to Bethleem, must now bear him in thy arms from jury into Egypt; yet couldst thou not complain of the way, whilst thy Saviour was with thee; His presence alone was able to make the stable a temple, Egypt a paradise, the way more pleasing than rest. But whither then? O whither dost thou carry that blessed burden, by which thyself and the world are upholden? To Egypt, the slaughter-house of God's people, the furnace of Israel's ancient affliction, the sink of the world: Out of Egypt have I called my son (saith God). That thou calldst thy Son out of Egypt, O God, is no marvel; It is a marvel, that thou calld'st him into Egypt; but that we know, all earth's are thine, and all places and men are like figures upon a table, such as thy disposition makes them: What a change is here? Israel the first borne of God, flies out of Egypt into the promised land of judea; Christ the first borne of all creatures flies from judea into Egypt: Egypt is become the Sanctuary, judea the Inquisition-house of the Son of God: He, that is every where the same, makes all places alike to his: He makes the fiery furnace a gallery of pleasure, the lions den an house of defence, the Whale's belly a lodging chamber, Egypt an harbour.  
He flees, that was able to preserve himself from danger, to teach us, how lawfully we may flee from those dangers, we cannot avoid otherwise: It is a thankless fortitude to offer our throat unto the knife: He, that came to die for us, fled for his own preservation, and hath bid us follow him; When they persecute you in one City, flee into another: We have but the use of our lives, and we are bound to husband them to the best advantage of God and his Church: God hath made us, not as butts to be perpetually shot at, but as the marks of rovers movable, as the wind & sun may best serve.  
It was warrant enough for joseph and Mary that God commands them to flee, yet so familiar is God grown with his approved servants, that he gives them the reason of his commanded flight: (For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him): What wicked men will do, what they would do, is known unto God before hand: He that is so infinitely wise to know the designs of his enemies before they are, could as easily prevent them, that they might not be, but he lets them run on in their own courses, that he may fetch glory to himself out of their wickedness.  
Good JOSEPH having this charge in the night, stays not till the morning; no sooner had God said Arise, than he starts up, and sets forward: It was not diffidence, but obedience that did so hasten his departure; The charge was direct, the business important: He dares not linger for the light, but breaks his rest for the journey, and taking vantage of the dark, departs toward Egypt: How knew he this occasion would abide any delay? We cannot be too speedy in the execution of God's commands, we may be too late: Here was no treasure to hide, no hangings to take down, no lands to secure; The poor Carpenter needs do no more, but lock the doors, and away: He goes lightly, that wants a load: If there be more pleasure in abundance, there is more security in a mean estate: The Bustard or the Ostrich, when he is pursued, can hardly get upon his wings, whereas the Lark mounts with ease; The rich hath not so much advantage of the poor in the enjoying, as the poor hath of the rich in leaving.  
Now is joseph come down into Egypt: Egypt was beholden to the name, as that whereto it did owe no less than their universal preservation: Well might it repay this act of hospitality to that name and blood: The going down into Egypt had not so much difficulty, as the staying there: Their absence from their country was little better, than a banishment; but what was this other, then to serve a prenticeship in the house of bondage? To be any where save at home, was irksome, but to be in Egypt so many years amongst idolatrous pagans, must needs be painful to religious hearts: The command of their God, & the presence of Christ makes amends for all: How long should they have thought it to see the Temple of God, if they had not had the God of the Temple with them? How long to present their sacrifices at the Altar of God, if they had not had him with them, which made all sacrifices accepted, and which did accept the sacrifice of their hearts?  
HEROD was subtle in mocking the wisemen, whiles he promised to worship him, whom he meant to kill; now God makes the wisemen to mock him in disappointing his expectation: It is just with God to punish those, which would beguile others with illusion: Great spirits are so much more impatient of disgrace; How did Herod now rage and fret, and vainly wish to have met with those false spies, and tells, with what torments he would revenge their treachery, & curses himself for trusting strangers in so important a business?  
The tyrant's suspicion would not let him rest long: Ere many days he sends to inquire of them, whom he sent to inquire of Christ. The notice of their secret departure increaseth his jealousy, and now his anger runs mad, and his fear proves desperate: All the infants of Bethleem shall bleed for this one; And (that he may make sure work) he cuts out to himself large measures both of time, and place: It was but very lately that the star appeared, that the wisemen re-appeared not: They asked for him, that was borne, they did not name, when he was borne: Herod for more security over-reaches their time, and fetches into the slaughter, all the children of two years age: The Priests & Scribes had told him, the town of Bethleem must be the place of the Messiah's nativity: He fetches in all the children of the coasts adjoining; yea his own shall for the time be a Bethleemite: A tyrannous guiltiness never thinks itself safe, but ever seeks to assure itself in the excess of cruelty: Doubtless he, which so privily inquired for Christ, did as secretly brew this massacre: The mothers were set with their children on their laps, feeding them with the breast, or talking to them in the familiar language of their love, when suddenly the executioner rushes in, and snatches them from their arms, and at once pulling forth his commission & his knife, without regard to shrieks or tears, murders the innocent babe, and leaves the passionate mother in a mean between madness and death. What cursing of Herod? what wring of hands? what condoling? what exclaiming was now in the streets of Bethleem?  
O bloody Herod, that couldst sacrifice. so many harmless lives to thine ambition! What could those infants have done? If it were thy person, whereof thou wert afraid, what likelihood was it, thou couldst live, till those sucklings might endanger thee? This news might affect thy successors, it could not concern thee, if the heat of an impotent and furious envy had not made thee thirsty of blood: It is not long, that thou shalt enjoy this cruelty; After a few hateful years thy soul shall feel the weight of so many innocents, of so many just curses.  
He, for whose sake thou killed'st so many, shall thee strike with death, and then what wouldst thou have given to have been as one of those infants whom thou murderest? In the mean time, when thine executioners returned, and told thee of their unpartial dispatch, thou smiledst to think, how thou hadst defeated thy rival, and beguiled the star, and deluded the prophecies; whiles God in heaven, and his Son on earth laugh thee to scorn, and make thy rage an occasion of further glory to him, whom thou meantest to suppress.  
He that could take away the lives of others, cannot protract his own: Herod is now sent home; The coast is clear for the return of that holy family; Now God calls them from their exile: Christ and his mother had not stayed so long out of the confines of the reputed visible Church, but to teach us continuance under the cross: Sometimes God sees it good for us not to sip of the cup of affliction, but to make a diet-drink of it, for constant and common use: If he allow us no other liquor for many years, we must take it off cheerfully, and know, that it is but the measure of our betters.  
JOSEPH and MARY stir not without a command; their departure, stay, removal is ordered by the voice of God: If Egypt had been more tedious unto them, they durst not move their foot, till they were bidden: It is good in our own business to follow reason, or custom, but in God's business, if we have any other guide but himself, we presume, & cannot expect a blessing.  
O the wonderful dispensation of God in concealing of himself from men! Christ was now some five year old; he bears himself as an infant, and knowing all things, neither takes nor gives notice of aught concerning his removal, and disposing, but appoints that to be done by his Angel, which the Angel could not have done, but by him: Since he would take our nature, he would be a perfect child, suppressing the manifestation & exercise of that Godhead, whereto that infant nature was conjoined. Even so, O Saviour, the humility of thine infancy was answerable to that of thy birth: The more thou hidest and abasest thyself for us, the more should we magnify thee, the more should we deject ourselves for thee.  
Unto Thee with the Father & the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory now and for ever. Amen.  
FINIS.    


Contemplations UPON THE Principal passages of the Holy STORY.  
The FOURTH VOLUME.  
By IOS. HALL..  
LONDON Printed by Edward Griffin for Henry Fetherstone. 1618.    

Contemplations.  
THE TWELFTH BOOK.  
Containing  

The Ark and Dagon.  
The arks Revenge & Return.  
The Remove of the Ark.  
The meeting of Saul and Samuel.  
The Inauguration of Saul.  
samuel's Contestation.  
Saul's sacrifice.  
Jonathan's victory & Saul's oath.    

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, MY SINGULAR GOOD LORD, the LORD HAY, Baron of SALEY, one of his majesties most Honourable Privy COUNSELL.  
RIGHT HO:  
Upon how just reason these my Contemplations go forth so late after their fellows, it were needless to give account to your LO: in whose train I had the honour (since my last) to pass both the SEA, and the TWEDE. All my private studies have gladly veiled to the public services of my Sovereign Master: No willingly confess that the story of God can make a man not less wise, then good.  
Mine humble thankfulness knows not how to express itself otherwise, then in these kind of presents, and in my hearty prayers for the increase of your Honour, and Happiness, which shall never be wanting from  
Your Lo: sincerely and thankfully devoted, IOS: HALL..   


Contemplations.  
THE ARK and DAGON.  
MEN could not arise to such height of impiety, if they did not mistake God: The acts of his just judgement are imputed to impotence; that God would send his Ark captive to the Philistims, is so construed by them, as if he could not keep it: The wife of Phinebas cried out, that glory was departed from Israel; The Philistims dare say in triumph, that glory is departed from the God of Israel; The Ark was not Israel's, but Gods, this victory reaches higher than to men. Dagon had never so great a day, so many sacrifices, as now that he seems to take the God of Israel prisoner; Where should the captive be bestowed, but in the custody of the Victor: It is not love, but insultation, that lodges the Ark close beside Dagon: What a spectacle was this, to see uncircumcised Philistims laying their profane hands upon the testimony of God's presence? to see the glorious mercy seat under the roof of an Idol? to see the two Cherubins spreading their wings under a false God?  
OH the deep and holy wisdom of the Almighty, which over-reaches all the finite conceit of his creature, who while he seems most to neglect himself, fetches about most glory to his own name; He winks, and sits still on purpose, to be what men would do, and is content to suffer indignity from his creature, for a time, that he may be everlastingly magnified in his justice, and power: That honour pleaseth God and men best, which is raised out of contempt.  
THE Ark of God was not used to such porters; The Philistims carry it unto Ashdod, that the victory of Dagon may be more glorious: What pains superstition puts men unto, for the triumph of a false cause? And if profane Philistims can think it no toil to carry the Ark where they should not, what a shame is it for us, if we do not gladly attend it where we should? How justly may Gods truth scorn the imparity of our zeal?  
IF the Israelites did put confidence in the Ark, can we marvel that the Philistims did put confidence in that power which (as they thought) had conquered the Ark? The less is ever subject unto the greater; What could they now think, but that heaven and earth were theirs? Who shall stand out against them, when the God of Israel hath yielded? Security and presumption attend ever at the threshold of ruin.  
GOD will let them sleep in this confidence; in the morning they shall find, how vainly they have dreamt. Now they begin to find they have but gloried in their own plague, and overthrown nothing but their own peace: Dagon hath an house, when God hath but a Tabernacle; It is no measuring of religion by outward glory: Into this house the proud Phoenitians come, the next morning, to congratulate unto their god, so great a captive, such divine spoils, and in their early devotions to fall down before him, under whom the God of Israel was fallen: and lo, where they find their god, fallen down on the ground upon his face, before him, whom they thought both his prisoner, and theirs: Their god is forced to do that, which they should have done voluntarily; although God casts down that dumb rival of his, for scorn, not for adoration. Oh ye foolish Philistims, could ye think that the same house could hold GOD & DAGON? could ye think a senseless stone, a fit companion and guardian for the living GOD? Had ye laid your Dagon upon his face, prostrate before the Ark, yet would not God have endured the indignity of such a lodging; but now, that ye presume to set up your carved stone, equal to his Cherubins, go read your folly in the floor of your temple, and know that he which cast your god so low, can cast you lower.  
THE true God owes a shame to those which will be making matches betwixt himself and Belial.  
BUT this perhaps, was only a mischance, or a neglect of attendance, lay to your hands, o ye Philistims, and raise up Dagon into his place; It is a miserable god that needs helping up; Had ye not been more senseless than that stone, how could you choose but think, How shall he raise us above our enemies, that cannot rise alone? how shall he establish us in the station of our peace, that cannot hold his own foot? If Dagon did give the soil unto the God of Israel, what power is it, that hath cast him upon his face, in his own Temple? It is just with God, that those which want grace shall want wit too; it is the power of superstition, to turn men into those stocks, and stones, which they worship: They that make them are like unto them; Doubtless, this first fall of Dagon was kept as secret, and excused as well as it might, and served rather for astonishment, than conviction; there was more strangeness than horror in that accident; that whereas Dagon had wont to stand, and the Philistims fall down, now Dagon fell down, and the Philistims stood, and must become the patrons of their own god; their god worships them upon his face, and craves more help from them, than ever he could give: But if their sottishness can digest this all is well. Dagon is set in his place, and now those hands are lift up to him, which helped to lift him up; and those faces are prostrate unto him, before whom he lay prostrate. Idolatry and superstition are not easily put out of countenance; But will the jealousy of the true God put it up thus? Shall Dagon escape with an harmless fall? Surely, if they had let him lie still upon the pavement, perhaps that insensible statue had found no other revenge; but now, they will be advancing it to the roodlost again, and affront God's Ark with it, the event will shame them, and let them know, how much God scorns a partner, either of his own making, or theirs.  
THE morning is fittest for devotion, then do the Philistims flock to the temple of their god; What a shame is it for us to come late to ours? Although, not so much piety as curiosity did now hasten their speed, to see what rest their Dagon was allowed to get in his own roof; and now behold their kind god is come to meet them in the way; some pieces of him salute their eyes upon the threshold. Dagons' head and hands are overrun their fellows, to tell the Philistims how much they were mistaken in a god.  
THIS second fall breaks the Idol in pieces, and threats the same confusion to the worshippers of it. Easy warnings neglected end ever in destruction. The head is for devising, the hand for execution; In these two powers of their god, did the Philistims chiefly trust; these are therefore laid under their feet, upon the threshold, that they might a far of see their vanity, and that (if they would) they might set their foot on that best piece of their god, whereon their heart was set.  
THERE was nothing wherein that Idol resembled a man, but in his head, and hands, the rest was but a scaly portraiture of a fish, God would therefore separate from this stone, that part, which had mocked man, with the counterfeit of himself; that man might see what an unworthy lump he had matched with himself, and set up above himself: The just quarrel of God is bend upon those means, and that parcel which have dared to rob him of his glory.  
How can the Philistims now miss the sight of their own folly? how can they be but enough convicted of their mad idolatry, to see their god lie broken to morsels, under their feet? every piece whereof proclaims the power of him that broke it, and the stupidity of those that adored it? Who would expect any other issue of this act, but to hear the Philistims say, we now see how superstition hath blinded us? Dagon is no god for us, our hearts shall never more rest upon a broken statue: That only true God, which hath beaten ours, shall challenge us by the right of conquest: But here was none of this; rather a further degree of their dotage follows upon this palpable conviction: They cannot yet suspect that god, whose head they may trample upon, but in steed of hating their Dagon, that lay broken upon their threshold, they honour the threshold, on which Dagon lay; and dare not set their foot on that place, which was hallowed by the broken head, and hands of their Deity: Oh the obstinacy of Idolatry, which where it hath got hold of the heart, knows neither to blush, nor yield, but rather gathers strength from that which might justly confound it. The hand of the Almighty, which moved them not in falling upon their god, falls now nearer them upon their persons, and strikes them in their bodies, which would not feel themselves stricken in their Idol: Pain shall humble them, whom shame cannot. Those which had entertained the secret thoughts of abominable Idolatry within them, are now plagued in the inwardest and most secret part of their bodies, with a loathsome disease; and now grow weary of themselves, in stead of their idolatry. I do not hear them acknowledge it was God's hand, which had stricken Dagon their god, till now, they find themselves stricken: Gods judgements are the rack of godless men; If one strain make them not confess, let them be stretched but one wrench higher, and they cannot be silent. The just avenger of sin will not lose the glory of his executions, but will have men know from whom they smart.  
THE emerods were not a disease beyond the compass of natural causes, neither was it hard for the wiser sort, to give a reason of their complaint, yet they ascribe it to the hand of God: The knowledge and operation of secondary causes should be no prejudice to the first; They are worse than the Philistims, who when they see the means, do not acknowledge the first mover; whose active and just power is no less seen in employing ordinary agents, then in raising up extraordinary; neither doth he less smite by a common fever, than a revenging Angel.  
THEY judge right of the cause, what do they resolve for the cure? (Let not the Ark of the God of Israel abide with us) where they should have said, let us cast out Dagon, that we may pacify and retain the God of Israel, they determine to thrust out the Ark of God, that they might peaceably enjoy themselves, and Dagon: Wicked men are upon all occasions glad to be rid of God, but they can with no patience, endure to part with their sins, and whiles they are weary of the hand that punishes them, they hold fast the cause of their punishment.  
THEIR first and only care is to put away him, who as he hath corrected, so can ease them. Folly is never separated from wickedness▪  
THEIR heart told them that they had no right to the Ark. A counsel is called of their Princes, and Priests: If they had resolved to send it home, they had done wisely; Now they do not carry it away, but they carry it about from Ebenezer to Ashdod, from Ashdod to Gath, from Gath to Ekron: Their stomach was greater than their conscience; The Ark was too sore for them, yet it was too good for Israel; and they will rather die, then make Israel happy. Their conceit that the change of air could appease the Ark, God useth to his own advantage; for by this means his power is known, and his judgements spread over all the country of the Philistims: What do these men now, but send the plague of God to their fellows? The justice of God can make the sins of men their mutual executioners; It is the fashion of wicked men to draw their neighbours into the partnership of their condemnation.  
Wheresoever the Ark goes, there is destruction; the best of God's ordinances, if they be not proper to us, are deadly. The Israelites did not more shout for joy, when they saw the Ark come to them, than the Ekronites cry out for grief, to see it brought amongst them: Spiritual things are either sovereign, or hurtful, according to the disposition of the receivers. The Ark doth either save, or kill, as it is entertained.  
AT last, when the Philistims are well weary of pain & death, they are glad to be quit of their sin; The voice of the Princes and people is changed to the better, (Send away the Ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to his own place,) God knows how to bring the stubbornnest enemy upon his knees, and makes him do that