Contemplations UPON THE HISTORICAL Part of the Old Testament.  
THE EIGHTH and LAST VOLUME.  
In two Books.  
By I. H. Deane of Worcester.  
LONDON Printed by M. Flesher for Nath. Butter.  
1626.   

TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTY MONARCH CHARLES, BY The Grace of God KING of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc.  
My dread Sovereign Lord and Master. May it please your Majesty:  
NOw at last (thanks be to my good God) I have finished the long-taske of my Meditations upon the historical part of the Old Testament: A Work that I foresaw must be the issue both of time, and thoughts; It presumed to entitle itself at first, to your Gracious name, in succession to your immortal Brothers; and now, it brings to your Royal hands, a due account of an happy dispatch.  
Besides my own public engagement, the encouragements of many worthy Divines, both at home, and abroad, drew me on, in this pleasing, though busy, labour; and made me believe the service would not be of more pain, than use.  
I humbly present it to your Majesty; not fearing to say, that in regard of the subject, it is not so fit for any eyes as Princely; For what doth it else but comment upon that, which God hath thought good to say of Kings; what they have done, what they should have done; how they sped in good, in evil? Certainly there can be none such miroir of Princes under heaven, as this, which God hath made for the faces of his Deputies on earth. Neither can the eyes of Sovereign Greatness be better taken up then with this sacred reflection. If my defects have not been notorious, the matter shall enough commend the work; which together with the unworthy Author, humbly casts itself at the feet of your Majesty; with the best vows of fidelity and observance, from him, that prides himself in nothing more, then in the style of  
Your Majesty's most faithfully devoted servant, IOS: HALL..   

Contemplations.  
The 20th Book.  

1 The Shunamite suing to jehoram: Elisha conferring with Hazael.  
2 jehu with jehoram and jezebel.  
3 jehu killing the sons of Abab, and the Priests of Baal.  
4 Athaliah and joash.  
5 joash with Elisha dying.  
6 Vzziah leprous.  
7 Ahaz with his new Altar.  
8 The utter destruction of the Kingdom of Israel.  
9 Hezekiah and Senacherib.  
10 Hezekiah sick, recovered, visited.  
11 Manasseh.  
12 josiahs' reformation.  
13 josiahs' death, with the desolation of the Temple and jerusalem.    

Contemplations.  

The SHUNAMITE suing to JEHORAM; ELISHA conferring with HAZAEL.  
HOw royally hath Elisha 
2 Kings 8.  paid the Shunamite for his lodging! To him already she owes the life of her son, both given, and restored; and now again (after so many years, as might well have worn out the memory of so small a courtesy) herself, her son, her family owe their lives to so thankful a guest. That table, and bed, and stool, and candlestick was well bestowed: That candlestick repaid her the light of her future life and condition, that table the means of maintenance, that stool a seat of safe abode, that bed a quiet rest from the common calamities of her nation: He is a niggard to himself, that scants his beneficence to a Prophet, whose very cold water shall not go unrewarded. Elijah preserved the Sareptan from famine; Elisha the Shunamite; he, by provision of oil and meal; this, by premonition: Arise, and go, thou and thine household, and sojourn wheresoever thou canst sojourn. The Sareptan was poor, and driven to extremes, therefore the Prophet provides for her, from hand to mouth: The Shunamite was wealthy, and therefore the Prophet sends her to provide for herself: The same goodness that relieves our necessity, leaves our competency to the hand of our own counsel; in the one, he will make use of his own power, in the other, of our providence.  
The very Prophet advices this holy Client to leave the bounds of the Church: and to seek life, where she should not find religion: Extremity is for the time a just dispensation with some common rules of our outward demeanour, and motions, even from better to worse. All Israel and judah shall be affamished; The body can be preserved no where, but where the soul shall want; Sometimes the conveniences of the soul must yield to bodily necessities. Wantonness and curiosity can find no advantage from that which is done out of the power of need.  
It is a long famine that shall afflict Israel; He upon whom the spirit of Elijah was doubled, doubled the judgement inflicted by his Master; Three years and an half did Israel gasp under the drought of Elijah; seven years dearth shall it suffer under Elisha: The trials of God are many times not more grievous for their sharpness, then for their continuance.  
This scarcity shall not come alone; God shall call for it: what ever be the second cause, he is the first. The executioners of the Almighty (such are his judgements) stand ready waiting upon his just Throne; and do no sooner receive the watchword, than they fly upon the world, and plague it for sin; Only the cry of our sins moves God to call for vengeance: And if God once call, it must come; How oft, how earnestly are we called to repentance, and stir not? the messengers of God's wrath fly forth at the least beck; and fulfil the will of his revenge upon those, whose obedience would not fulfil the will of his command.  
After so many proofs of fidelity the Shunamite cannot distrust the Prophet; not staying therefore to be convicted by the event, she removes her family into the Land of the Philistims: No nation was more opposite to Israel, none more worthily odious; yet, there doth the Shunamite seek, & find shelter; Even the shade of those trees that are unwholesome, may keep us from a storm; Every where will God find room for his own. The fields of Philistines flourish, whiles the soil of Israel yields nothing but weeds and barrenness: Not that Israel was more sinful, but that the sin of Israel is more intolerable. The offers of grace are so many aggravations of wickedness: In equal offences those do justly smart more, who are more obliged. No pestilence is so contagious as that which hath taken the purest air.  
These Philistine neighbours would never have endured themselves to be pestered with foreigners; especially Israelites, whom they hated (besides religion) for their usurpation: neither were they in all likelihood pressed with multitude: The rest of Israel were led on with hopes; presuming upon the amends of the next harvest, till their want grew desperate, and irremediable; only the forewarned Shunamite prevents the mischief; now she finds what it is to have a Prophet her friend: Happy are those souls that upon all occasions consult with God's Seers; they shall be freed from the plagues, wherein the secure blindness of others is heedlessly overtaken.  
Seven years had this Shunamite sojourned in Palestine, now she returns to her own; and is excluded: She that found harbour among Philistines, finds oppression and violence among Israelites: Those of her kindred, taking advantage of her absence, had shared her possessions. How oft doth it fall out that the worst enemies of a man are those of his own, house? All went by contraries with this Shunamite; In the famine she had enough, in the common plenty she was scanted; Philistines were kind to her, Israelites cruel: Both our fears, and our hopes do not seldom disappoint us; It is safe trusting to that stay which can never fail us; who can easily provide us both of friendship in Palestine, and of justice in Israel. We may not judge of the religion by particular actions; A very Philistine may be merciful, when an Israelite is unjust; The person may be faulty, when the profession is holy.  
It was not long since the Prophet made that friendly offer to the Shunamite, out of the desire of a thankful requital; What is to be done for thee? wouldst thou be spoken for to the King, or to the Captain of the Host? and she answered; I dwell among my brethren. Little did she then think of this injurious measure; else she might have said; I dwell amongst mine enemies, I dwell amongst robbers. It is like they were then friendly, who were now cruel, and oppressive; There is no trust to be reposed in flesh and blood: How should their favours be constant, who are in their nature, and disposition, variable? It is the furest way to rely on him, who is ever like himself; the measure of whose love is eternity.  
Whither should the Shunamite go to complain of her wrong, but to the Court? There is no other refuge of the oppressed, but public authority: All justice is derived from Sovereignty: Kings are not called Gods for nothing; They do both sentence and execute for the Almighty.  
Doubtless, now the poor Shunamite thought of the courteous proffer of Elisha; and missing a friend at the Court, is glad to be the presenter of her own petition.  
How happily doth God contrive all events for the good of his! This suppliant shall fall upon that instant for her suit, when the King shall be talking with Gehezi; when Gehezi shall be talking of her, to the King; The words of Gehezi, the thoughts of the King, the desires of the Shunamite shall be all drawn together by the wise providence of God into the centre of one moment, that his oppressed servant might receive a speedy justice. Oh the infinite wisdom, power, mercy of our God, that insensibly order all our ways, as to his own holy purposes, so to our best advantage.  
What doth jehoram the King talking with Gehezi the Leper? That very presence was an eyesore.  
But if the cohabitation with the infectious were forbidden, yet not the conference. Certainly, I begin to think of some goodness in both these: Had there not been some goodness in jehoram, he had not taken pleasure to hear, even from a leprous mouth, the miraculous acts and praises of God's Prophet; Had there not been some goodness in Gehezi, he had not after so fearful an infliction of judgement, thus ingenuously recounted the praises of his severe Master; He that told that dear-bought lie to the Prophet, tells now all truths of the Prophet, to the King: Perhaps his leprosy had made him clean; If so: Happy was it for him that his forehead was white with the disease, if his soul became hereupon white with repentance. But we may well know that the desire, or report of historical Truths, doth not always argue grace. Still jehoram, after the inquiry of the Prophet's miracles, continues his Idolatry. He that was curious to hearken after the wonders of Elisha, is not careful to follow his doctrine; Therefore are Gehezi and the Shunamite met before him, that he may be convicted, who will not be reform: Why was it else that the presence of the persons should thus inexpectedly make good the relation, if God had not meant the inexcusableness of jehoram; whiles he must needs say within himself; Thus potent is the Prophet of that God, whom I obey not; Were not Elishaes', the true God, how could he work such wonders? And if he be the true God, why is he not mine? But what? Shall I change ahab's God for Iehosaphats? No; I cannot deny the miracles, I will not admit of the author: Let Elisha be powerful, I will be constant. O wretched jehoram; how much better had it been for thee never to have seen the face of Gehezi, and the son of the Shunamite; then to go away unmoved with the vengeance of leprosy in the one, with the merciful resuscitation of the other? Therefore is thy judgement fearfully aggravated, because thou wouldst not yield to what thou couldst not oppose. Had not ahab's obdurateness been propagated to his son, so powerful demonstrations of divine power could not have been uneffectuall. Wicked hearts are so much worse by how much God is better; This anvil is the harder by being continually beaten upon, whether with judgements, or mercy.  
Yet this good use will God have made of this report, and this presence, that the poor Shunamite shall have justice; That son, whose life was restored, shall have his inheritance revived; His estate shall far the better for Elishaes' miracle: How much more will our merciful God second his own blessings, when the favours of unjust men are therefore drawn to us, because we have been the subjects of divine beneficence.  
It was a large, and full award, that this occurrence drew from the King; Restore all that was hers, and all the fruits of the field, since the day that she left the land, even until now. Not the present possession only is given her, but the arerages.  
Nothing hinders, but that outward justice may stand with gross Idolatry. The Widow may thank Elisha for this; His miracle wrought still; and put this new life into her dead estate; His absence did that for the preservation of life, which his presence did for the restoring it from death. She that was so ready to expostulate with the man of God, upon the loss of her son, might perhaps have been as ready to impute the loss of her estate to his advice; Now, that for his sake she is enriched with her own; how doth she bless God for so happy a guest? When we have forgotten our own good turns, God remembers and crownes them: Let us do good to all whiles we have time, but especially to the household of faith.  
Could Israel have been sensible of their own condition, it was no small unhappiness to lose the presence of Elisha: Whether, for the Idolatries, or for the famine of Israel, the Prophet is gone into Syria; No doubt Naaman welcomed him thither; and now would force upon him those thanks for his cure, which the man of God would not receive at home.  
How famous is he now grown that was taken from the Team? His name is not confined to his own Nation; Foreign countries take notice of it; and Kings are glad to listen after him, and woo him with presents: Benhadad the King of Syria, whose counsels he had detected, reioyeeth to hear of his presence; and now, as having forgotten that he had sent a whole host, to besiege the Prophet in Dothan, sends an honourable messenger to him, laden with the burden of forty Camels, to consult with this Oracle, concerning his sickness, and recovery.  
This Syrian belike in his distress dares not trust to his own gods; but having had good proof of the power of the God of Israel, both in Naamans' cure, and in the miraculous defeats of his greatest forces, is glad to send to that servant of God, whom he had persecuted. Wicked men are not the same in health and in sickness: their affliction is worthy of the thanks, if they be well-minded; not themselves.  
Doubtless the errand of Benhadad was not only to inquire of the issue of his disease, but to require the prayers of the Prophet for a good issue: Even the worst man doth so love himself, that he can be content to make a beneficial use of those instruments, whose goodness he hateth.  
Hazael, the chief Peer of Syria is designed to this message; The wealth of his present strives with the humility of his carriage, and speech: Thy son Benhadad King of Syria hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? Not long since, jehoram King of Israel had said to Elisha, My father, shall I smite them; and now Benhadad King of Syria, says, My father, shall I recover: Lo how this poor Meholathite hath Kings to his sons: How great is the honour of God's Prophets with Pagans, with Princes? Who can be but confounded to see evangelical Prophets despised by the meanest Christians?  
It is more than a single answer that the Prophet returns to this message: One answer he gives to Benhadad, that sent it; another he gives to Hazael, that brings it: That to Benhadad, is, Thou mayest surely recover; That to Hazael, The Lord hath showed me that he shall surely dye: What shall we say then? Is there a lie, or an equivocation in the holy mouth of the Prophet? God forbid: It is one thing what shall be the nature, and issue of the disease; Another thing what may outwardly befall the person of Benhadad: The question is moved of the former; whereto the answer is direct; The disease is not mortal; But withal an intimation is given to the bearer, of an event beyond the reach of his demand; which he may know, but either needs not, or may not return: The Lord hath showed me that he shall surely dye; by another means, though not by the disease.  
The Seer of God descries more in Hazael, than he could see in himself; he fixes his eyes therefore steadfastly in the Syrians face, as one that in those lines read the bloody story of his life.  
Hazael blushes, Elisha weeps; The intention of those eyes did not so much amaze Hazael, as the tears; As yet he was not guilty to himself of any wrong that might strain out this juice of sorrow: Why weepeth my Lord?  
The Prophet fears not to foretell Hazael all the villainies which he should once do to Israel; How he should fire their forts, and kill their young men, and rip the mothers, and dash the children. I marvel not now at the tears of those eyes which foresaw this miserable vastation of the inheritance of God; The very mention whereof is abhorred of the future author: What is thy servant a dog, that I should do this great thing? They are savage cruelties whereof thou speakest; It were more fit for me to weep that thou shouldest repute me so brutish; I should no less condemn my self for a beast, if I could suspect my own degeneration so far. Wicked men are carried into those heights of impiety, which they could not in their good mood have possibly believed; Nature is subject to favourable opinions of itself; and will rather mistrust a Prophet of God, than her own good disposition: How many from honest beginnings, have risen to incredible licentiousness, whose lives are now such, that it were as hard for a man to believe they had ever been good, as to have persuaded them once they should prove so desperately ill.  
To give some overture unto Hazael of the opportunity of this ensuing mischief; the Prophet foretells him from God, that he shall be the King of Syria.  
He that shows the event, doth not appoint the means; Far was it from the spirit of God's Prophet to set, or encourage a treason: whiles he said therefore, Thou shalt be King of Syria; he said not, Go home, and kill thy master: The wicked ambition of Hazael draws this damnable conclusion out of holy premises; and now having fed the hopes of his Sovereign with the expectation of recovery; the next day he smothers his Master. The impotent desire of rule brooks no delay: Had not Hazael been gracelesly cruel, after he had received this prediction of the Seer, he should have patiently awaited for the crown of Syria, till lawful means had set it upon his head; now, he will by a close execution make way to the throne; A wet cloth hath stopped the mouth of his sick Sovereign; No noise is heard; the carcase is fair; Who can complain of any thing but the disease?  
O Hazael, thou shalt not thus easily stop the mouth of thine own conscience; that shall call thee Traitor, even in thy chair of state; and shall check all thy royal triumphs, with, Thou hast founded thy throne in blood. I am deceived if this wet cloth shall not wipe thy lips in thy iollyest feasts, and make thy best morsels unsavoury: Sovereignty is painful upon the fairest terms; but upon treachery, and murder, tormenting: Woeful is the case of that man whose public cares are aggravated with private guiltiness; and happy is he, that can enjoy a little with the peace of an honest heart.   

JEHV with JEHORAM and JEZEBEL.  
YEt Hazael began his 
2 Kings 9  cruelty with loss: Ramoth Gilead is won from him; jehoram the son hath recovered that, which Ahab his father attempted in vain; That City was dear-bought of Israel; it cost the life of Ahab, the blood of jehoram; Those wounds were healed with victory; The King tends his health at jezreel, whiles the Captains were enjoying, and seconding their success at Ramoth.  
Old Elisha hath neither cottage, nor foot of land, yet sitting in an obscure corner, he gives order for Kingdoms; Not by way of authority (this usurpation had been no less proud, then unjust) but by way of message, from the God of kings; Even a mean Herald may go on a great errand: The Prophets of the Gospel have nothing to do but with spiritual Kingdoms; To beat down the kingdoms of sin and Satan; to translate souls to the Kingdom of heaven.  
He that renewed the life of the Shunamites son, must stoop to age; That block lies in his way to jehu; The aged Prophet employs a speedier messenger, who must also gird up his loins, for haste: No common pace will serve us when we go on God's message; The very loss of minutes may be unrecoverable. This great Seer of God well saw a present concurrence of all opportunities: The Captains of the Host were then readily combined for this exploit: the Army was on foot; jehoram absent; a small delay might have troubled the work; the dispersion of the Captains, and Host, or the presence of the King, might either have defeated, or slacked the dispatch: He is prodigal of his success, that is slow in his execution.  
The directions of Elisha to the young Prophet, are full, and punctual: whither to go; what to carry; what to do; where to do it; what to say, what speed to make, in his act, in his return: In the businesses of God it matters not how little is left to our discretion; There is no important business of the Almighty, wherein his precepts are not strict, and express; Look how much more specialty there is in the charge of God, so much more danger is in the violation.  
The young Prophet is curiously obedient; in his haste; in his observation and carriage: and finding jehu, according to Elishaes' prediction, set amongst the Captains of the Host, he singles him forth, by a reverend compellation; I have an errand to thee, O Captain; Might not the Prophet have stayed till the table had risen, and then have followed jehu to his lodging? Surely, the wisdom of God hath purposely pitched upon this season, that the public view of a sacred messenger, and the hasty evocation of so noted a person, to such a secrecy, might prepare the hearts of those Commanders of Israel, to the expectation of some great design.  
The inmost room is but close enough for this act; Ere many hours, all Israel shall know that, which yet may not be trusted with one eye; The goodness of God makes wise provision for the safety of his messengers, and whiles he employs their service, prevents their dangers.  
But how is it that of all the Kings of the Ten tribes, none was ever anointed but jehu? Is it for that the God, who would not countenance the erection of that usurped throne, would countenance the alteration? Or is it, that by this visible testimony of divine ordination, the courage of the Israelitish Captains might be raised up to second the high and bold attempt of him, whom they saw destined from heaven to rule?  
Together with the oil of this unction, here was a charge of revenge; A revenge of the blood of the Prophets, upon jezebel; of wickedness and Idolatry, upon Ahab: neither was the extirpation of this lewd family foreprophesied only to jehu, but enjoined.  
Elijah foretold, and the world expected some fearful account of the abominable cruelty, and impiety of that accursed house; Now it is called for, when it seemed forgotten: Ahab shall have no posterity, jezebel shall have no toomb, but the dogs. This woeful doom is committed to jehues' execution.  
Oh the sure, though patient, justice of the Almighty: Not only Ahab and jezebel had been bloody, and idolatrous, but Israel was drawn into the partnership of their crimes; All these shall share in the judgement: Elijahs complaint in the cave now receives this late answer; Hazael shall plague Israel; jehu shall plague the house of Ahab and jezebel; Elishaes' servant thus seconds Elishaes' master: When wickedness is ripe in the field, God will not let it sheed too grow again, but cuts it up by a just, and seasonable vengeance: ahab's drooping under the threat hath put off the judgement from his own days; now it comes, and sweeps away his wife, his issue; and falls heavy upon his subjects. Please yourselves, o ye vain sinners, in the slow pace of vengeance; it will be neither less certain, nor more easy for the delay; rather it will pay for that leisure in the extremity.  
The Prophet hath done his errand, and is gone. jehu returns to his fellows, with his head not more wet with oil, then busied with thoughts: no doubt, his face bewrayed some inward tumults, and distractions of imagination; neither seemed he to return the same he went out. They ask therefore, Is all well? Wherefore came this mad fellow to thee? The Prophets of God were to these idolatrous Israelites, like comets; who were never seen without the portendement of a mischief: When the priests of their Baal were quietly sacrificing, all was well; but now when a Prophet of God comes in sight, their guiltiness asks, Is all well? All would be well but for their sins; they fear not these, they fear their reprover.  
Israel was comen to a good pass, when the Prophets of God went with them for mad men: Oh ye Baalitish Ruffians, whither hath your impiety and profaneness carried you, that ye should thus blaspheme the servants of the living God? Ye that run on madding after vain Idols, tax the sober guides of true worship, for madness. Thus it becomes the godless enemies of truth, the heralds of our patience, to miscall our innocence, to revile our most holy profession: What wonder is it that God's messengers are mad men unto those, to whom the wisdom of God is foolishness?  
The message was not delivered to jehu for a concealment, but for publication: Silence could not effect the word that was told him; common notice must; Ye know the man, and his communication: The habit shows you the man; the calling shows you his errand: Even Prophets were distinguished by their clothes; Their mantle was not the common wear; why should not this sacred vocation be known by a peculiar attire? These Captains had not called him a madman, if they had not known him a Prophet: By the man therefore they might guess at his message; Prophets do not use to appear, but upon serious errands; whether of reproof, or of prediction.  
Nice civilities of denials were not then known to the world; They said, It is false, tell us now: Amongst these Captains no combat, no unkindness follows upon a word so rudely familiar.  
jehu needs not tell them, that the man was a Prophet; he tells them the prophecy of the man; what he had said, what he had done.  
Their eyes had no sooner seen the oil; their ears had no sooner heard, Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee King over Israel, than they rise from their seats, as rapt with a tempest, and are hurled into arms; So do they hast to proclaim jehu, that they scarce stay to snatch up their garments, which they had perhaps left behind them for speed, had they not meant with these rich abiliments to garnish a state for their new Sovereign; To whom having now erected an extemporal Throne, they do by the sound of Trumpets give the style of Royalty, jehu is King.  
So much credit hath that mad fellow with these gallants of Israel, that upon his word they will presently adventure their lives, & change the Crown. God gives a secret authority to his despised servants; so as they which hate their person, yet reverence their truth: Even very scorners cannot but believe them; If when the Prophets of the Gospel tell us of a spiritual Kingdom, they be disinherited of those which profess to observe them, how shameful is the disproportion? how just shall their judgement be?  
Yet I cannot say whether mere obedience to the Prophet, or personal dislikes of jehoram, or partial respects to jehu, drew the Captains of Israel; The will of God may be done thanklesly, when fulfilling the substance, we fail of the intention, and err in circumstance.  
Only Ramoth is conscious of this sudden Inauguration; This new princedom yet reaches no further than the sound of the trumpet: jehu is no less subtle, then valiant; he knew that the notice of this inexpected change might work a busy, and dangerous resistance; he therefore gives order that no messenger of the news may prevent his personal execution, that so he might surprise jehoram in his palace of Izreel, whether tending his late wounds, or securely feasting his friends, and dreaming of nothing less than danger; and might be seen, and felt at once. Secrecy is the safest guard of any design; disclosed projects are either frustrated, or made needlessly difficult.  
Neither is jehu more close, then swift; That very trumpet with the same wind sounds his march; from the top of the stairs, he steps down into his chariot; That man means to speed, who can be at once reserved in his counsels, and resolute and quick in his performances.  
Who could but pity the unhappy and unseasonable visitation of the grandchild of jehosaphat, were it not that he was degenerate into the family of Abab? Ahaziah King of judah is comen to visit jehoram King of Israel; the knowledge of his late received wounds hath drawn thither this kind ill-matched ally: He who was partner of the war, cannot but be a visitor of the wounds.  
The two Kings are in the height of their compliment, and entertainments, when the watchman of the Tower of Izreel espies a troop, a far off. For aught was known, there was nothing but peace in all the Land of Israel; and judah was now so combined with it, that both their Kings were feasting under one roof; yet, in the midst of this supposed safety, the watchtower is not unfurnished with heedy eyes: No security of peace can free wise Governors from a careful suspicion of what may come, and a providence against the worst. Even whiles we know of no enemies, the watchtower of due intelligence may not be empty.  
In vain are dangers fore-seen, if they be not premonished; It is all one to have a blind and a mute watchman; This speaks what he sees; I see a company.  
Doubtless jehorams' head was now full of thoughts; neither knew he what construction to put upon this approaching troop; Perhaps, the Syrians (he thinks) may have recovered Ramoth; and chased the garrison of Israel; neither can he imagine whether these should be hostile victors, or vanquished subjects, or conspiring rebels. Every way this rout was dreadful. Oh jehoram, thou beginst thy fears too late; Hadst thou been afraid to provoke the God of Israel, thine innocency had yielded no room to these terrors.  
An horseman is dispatched to discover the meaning of this descried concourse: He meets them, and inquires of peace; but receives a short answer, What hast thou to do with peace? turn thee behind me? A second is addressed; with the same success: Both attend the train of jehu in stead of returning; Indeed, it is not for private persons to hope to rectify the public affairs, when they are grown to an height of disorder, and from thence to a ripeness of miscarriage: Sooner may a wellmeaning man hurt himself, then redress the common danger.  
These messengers were now within the mercy of a multitude, had they but endeavoured to retire, they had perished as wilfully, as vainly: Whosoever will be striving against the torrent of a just judgement, must needs be carried down in the stream: Sometimes there is as much wisdom in yielding, as courage in resistance.  
Had this troop been far off, the watchman could not have descried the arrival of the messengers, their turning behind, the manner of the march; jehu was a noted Captain, his carriage and motion was observed more full of fire, than his fellows; The driving is like jehues', for he driveth furiously: God makes choice of fit instruments, as of mercy, so of revenge; These spirits were needful for so tragical a scene, as was now preparing in Israel.  
jehoram and Abaziah, as nettled with this forced patience of expectation, can no longer keep their seats; but will needs hasten their charets; and fetch that costly satisfaction, which would not be sent, but given.  
They are infatuated, which shall perish; otherwise jehoram had been warned enough by the forceable retention of his messengers, to expect none but an enemy. A friend, or a subject could not have been unwilling to be known, to be looked for; Now; forgetting his wounds, he will go to fetch death.  
Yet when he sees jehu, whom he left a subject, hopes strive with his doubts, Is it peace, jehu? what may be the reason of this sudden journey? Is the army foiled by the Syrians? Is Ramoth recovered? or hath the flight of the enemy left thee no further work? or is some other ill news guilty of thy haste? What means this unwished presence, and return?  
There needs no stay for an answer; The very face of jehu, and those sparkling eyes of his spoke fury, and death to jehoram; which yet his tongue angrily seconds: What peace, so long as the whordomes of thy mother jezebel, and her witchcrafts are so many?  
Wicked Tyrant, what speakest thou of peace with men, when thou hast thus long waged war with the Almighty? That cursed mother of thine hath nursed thee with blood, and trained thee up in abominable Idolatries.  
Thou art not more hers, than her sin is thine; thou art polluted with her spiritual whoredoms, and enchanted with her hellish witchcrafts: Now that just God whom thou, and thy parents have so heinously despited, sends thee by me this last message of his vengeance; which whiles he spoke, his hand is drawing up that deadly arrow, which shall cure the former wounds with a worse.  
Too late now doth wretched jehoram turn his chariot, and flee; and cry Treason, o Ahaziah; There was treason before, o jehoram; thy treason against the Majesty of God, is now revenged by the treason of jehu against thee.  
That fatal shaft, notwithstanding the swift pace of both the charets, is directed to the heart of jehoram; there is no erring of those feathers which are guided by the hand of destiny.  
How just are the judgements of God It was in the field of Naboth, wherein jehoram met with jehu; That very ground called to him for blood; And now this new avenger remembers that prophecy which he heard from the mouth of Elijah, in that very place, following the heels of Ahab; and is careful to perform it. Little did jehu think, when he heard that message of Elijah, that his hands should act it; now, as zealous of accomplishing the word of a Prophet; he gives charge to Bidkar his Captain, that the bleeding carcase of jehoram should be cast upon that very platt of Naboth: Oh Naboths' blood well paid for! ahab's blood is licked by dogs, in the very place where those dogs licked Naboths'; jehorams' blood shall manure that ground, which was wrung from Naboth; and jezebel shall add to this compost. Oh garden of herbs dearly bought, royally dunged.  
What a resemblance there is betwixt the death of the father, and the son; Ahab and jehoram? Both are slain in their chariot; Both with an arrow; Both repay their blood to Naboth; and how perfect is this retaliation? Not only Naboth miscarried in that cruel injustice, but his sons also; else the inheritance of the vineyard had descended to his heirs, notwithstanding his pretended offence; and now not only Ahab forfeits his blood to this field; but his son jehoram also: Face doth not more answer to face, than punishment to sin.  
It was time for Ahaziah King of juda, to flee: Nay it had been time long before to have fled from the sins, yea from the house of Ahab; That brand is fearful which God sets upon him; He did evil in the sight of the Lord as did the house of Ahab; for he was the 
2 Kings 27  son in law of the house of Ahab; Affinity is too often guilty of corruption; The son of good jehosaphat is lost in ahab's daughter.  
Now he pays for his kind alliance; accompanying the son of Ahab in his death, whom he consorted with in his Idolatry: Young Ahaziah was scarce warm in his throne, when the mis-matched blood of Athaliah is required from him; Nothing is more dangerous then to be imped in a wicked family; this relation too often draws in a share both of sin, and punishment.  
Who would not have looked that jezebel hearing of this bloody end of her son; and pursuit of her ally; and the fearful proceedings of this prosperous conspiracy, should have put herself into sackcloth and ashes; and now finding no means either of defence, or escape, should have cast herself into such a posture of humiliation, as might have moved the compassion of jehu; Her proud heart could not suddenly learn to stoop: rather she recollects her high spirits; and in stead of humbling her soul by repentance, and addressing herself for an imminent death; she pranks up her old carcase, and paints her wrinkled face, and as one that vainly hopes to daunt the courage of an usurper, by the sudden beams of Majesty; she looks out, and thinks to fright him with the challenge of a traitor, whose either mercy, or justice could not be avoided: Extremity finds us such as our peace leaves us; Our last thoughts are spent upon that we care most for; those that have regarded their face more than their soul, in their latter end are more taken up with desire of seeming fair, then being happy: It is no marvel if an heart obdured with the custom of sin shut up gracelesly. Counterfeit beauty agrees well with inward uncleanness.  
jebues resolution was too strongly settled to be removed with a painted face, or an opprobrious tongue; He looks up to the window, and says, Who is on my side, who? There want not those every where, which will be ready to observe prevailing greatness: Two or three Eunuches look out; He bids them, Throw her down: They instantly lay hold on their lately adored Mistress, and notwithstanding all her shrieks and prayers, cast her down headlong into the street.  
What heed is to be taken of the deep professed services of hollow hearted followers; All this while they have with humble smiles, and officious devotions fawned upon their great Queen; now upon the call of a prosperous enemy, they forget their respects, her royalty; and cast her down, as willing executioners, into the jaws of a fearful death: It is hard for greatness to know them whom it may trust: Perhaps the fairest semblance is from the falsest heart; It was a just plague of God upon wicked jezebel, that she was inwardly hated of her own; He whose servants she persecuted, raised up enemies to her from her own elbow.  
Thus must pride fall; Insolent, idolatrous, cruel jezebel besprinkles the walls, and pavement with her blood; and now those brains that devised mischief against the servants of God, are strawed upon the stones; and she that insulted upon the Prophets, is trampled upon by the horses heels: The wicked is kept 
job 21.  for the day of destruction, and shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.  
Death puts an end commonly to the highest displeasure. He that was severe in the execution of the living, is merciful in the sepulture of the dead; Go see now this cursed woman, and bury her, for she is a King's daughter; She that upbraided jehu with the name of Zimri, shall be interred by jehu as Omries' daughter in law, as a Sydonian Princess; Somewhat must be yielded to humanity; somewhat to State.  
The dogs have prevented jehu in this purpose, and have given her a living toomb more ignoble, than the worst of the earth; Only the scull, hands, and feet of that vanished carcase yet remain; The scull which was the roof of all her wicked devices, the hands and feet which were the executioners; these shall remain as the monuments of those shameful exequys: that future times seeing these fragments of a body, might say, The dogs were worthy of the rest; Thus jezebel is turned to dung, and dogs-meat; Elijah is verified, Naboth is revenged; Izreel is purged, jehu is zealous, and in all, God is just.   

JEHV killing the sons of AHAB, and the Priests of BAAL.  
THere were two 
2 Kings 10.  prime Cities of the Ten Tribes, which were the set Courts of the Kingdom of Israel; Samaria and jezreel; The chief palace of the King was jezreel, the mother City of the Kingdom, was Samaria; jehu is possessed of the one, without any sword drawn against him; jezreel willingly changes the master, yielding itself to the victor of two Kings, to the avenger of jezebel; the next care is Samaria; Either policy, or force shall fetch in that head of the Tribes.  
The plentiful issue of Princes is no small assurance to the people; Ahab had sons enough to furnish the Thrones of all the neighbour nations, to maintain the hopes of succession, to all times; How secure did he think the perpetuation of his posterity, when he saw seventy sons from his own loins? Neither was this Royal issue trusted, either to weak walls, or to one roof; but to the strong bulwarks of Samaria, and therein to the several guards of the chief Peers; It was the wise care of their parents not to have them obnoxious to the danger of a common miscarriage, or, of those emulations which wait upon the cloyednesse of an undivided conversation; but, to order their separation so, as one may rescue other from the peril of assault, as one may respect other out of a familiar strangeness. Had Ahab and jezebel been as wise for their souls, as they were for their seed, both had prospered.  
jehu is yet but in his first act; If all the sons of Ahab bleed not, the prophecy is unanswered; There shall be no need of his sword, his pen shall work all this slaughter. He writes a Challenge to Samaria, and therein to the guardians of the sons of Ahab; daring them, out of the confidence in their defenced City, in their charets, and horses, in their associates and arms, to set up the best of their master's sons, on his father's throne, and to fight for his succession.  
All the Governors of ahab's children conspire in one common fear; no doubt there wanted not in that numerous brood of Kings, some great spirits that if, at least they attained to the notice of this design, longed for a revenge, and suggested counsels of resolution to their cowardly guardians; Shall an audacious usurper run thus away with the Crown of Israel? Shall the blood of jezebel be thus traitorously spilt, thus wilfully forgotten? O Israelites, can ye be so base, as to be ruled by my father's servant? Where are the merits of Ahab, and jehoram? What is becomne of the loyal courage of Israel? Doubtless, ye shall not want able seconds to your valour; Do ye think the royal and potent alliances of our mother jezebel; and the remaining heirs of judah, can draw back their hands from your aid? will they endure to swallow so cruel an indignity? Stir up your astonished fortitude, o ye Nobleses of Israel; redeem your bleeding honour, revenge this treacherous conspirator, and establish the right of the undoubted heirs of your Sovereigns; But as warm clothes to a dead man, so are the motions of valour to a fearful heart: Behold two Kings stood not before him, how then shall we stand?  
Fear affrights itself rather then it will want bugs of terror: It is true: Two Kings fell before jehu; but, two Kings unarmed, unguarded; Had not the surprisal of jehu taken advantage of the unsuspitious nakedness of these two Princes, his victory had not been thus successful, thus easy. Half one of those two Kings, upon advertisement and preparation, had abated the fury of that hot Leader. It is the fashion of fear to represent unto us always the worst, in every event: not looking at the inequality of the advantages, but the misery of the success: as contrarily, it is the guise of faith, and valour, by the good issue of one enterprise to raise up the heart to an expectation and assurance of more.  
These men's hearts are dead with their Kings, neither dare entertain the hope of a safe and prosperous resistance, but basely return, We are thy servants, and will do all that thou shalt bid us, we will not make any King; do thou that which is good in thine eyes.  
Well may jehu think, these men which are thus disloyal to their charge, cannot be faithful to me; It is their fear that draws them to this observation: Were they not cowards, they would not be traitors to their Princes, subjects to me: I may use their hands, but I will not trust them: It is a thankless obedience that is grounded upon fear; there can be no true fidelity without love, & reverence. Neither is it other betwixt God and us; if out of a dread of hell we be officious, who shall thank us for these respects to ourselves?  
As one that had tasted already the sweetness of a resolute expedition, jehu writes back instantly, If ye be mine, and if ye will hearken unto my voice; take ye the heads of the men your Master's sons, and come to me to jezreel by to morrow this time. Valiant jehu was so well acquainted with the nature of fear, that he well knew this passion once grown desperate, would be ready to swallow all conditions: so far therefore doth his wisdom improve it, as to make these Peers his executioners; who presently upon the receipt of his charge turn cruel, & by a joint consent fetch off the seventy heads of those Princes, whom they undertook to guard, whom they had flattered with the hopes of greater honour.  
No doubt, but amongst so many sons of Ahab, some had so demeaned themselves, that they had won zealous professions of love from their guardians: Except perhaps death stole upon them in sleep, what tears, what entreaties, what conjurations must here needs have been?  
What have we done, o ye Peers of Israel, that might deserve this bloody measure? We are the sons of Ahab, therefore have ye hitherto professed to observe us; what change is this? why should that which hath hitherto kept you loyal, now make you cruel? Is this the reward of the long peaceable government of our father? are these the Trophies of ahab's victories against Benhadad, jehorams' against Hazael? If we may not reign, yet at least, let us live: Or if we must dye; why will your hands be imbrued in that blood, which ye had want to term royal, and sacred? why will ye of Tutors turn murderers? All pleas are in vain to them that are deafened with their own fears. Perhaps these expostulations might have fetched some dews of pity from the eyes, and kisses from the lips of these unfaithful Tutors, but cannot prevent the stroke of death; These Crocodiles weep upon those, whom they must kill: & if their own sons had been in the place of ahab's, doubtless they had been sacrificed to the will of an usurper, to the paients' safety: It is ill relying upon timorous natures; upon every occasion those crazy reeds will break, and run into our hands. How worthy were Ahab and jezebel of such friends? They had been ever false to God, how should men be true to them? They had sold themselves to work wickedness, and now they are requited with a mercenary fidelity: for a few lines have these men sold all the heads of ahab's posterity: Could ever the policy of jezebel have reached so far, as to suspect the possibility of the extirpation of so ample an issue in one night, by the hands of her trustiest subjects?  
Now she that by her letter sent to the Elders of jezreel, shed the blood of Naboth and his sons, hath the blood of all her sons shed by a letter sent from jezreel, to the Elders of Samaria. At last, God will be sure to come out of the debt of wicked sinners, and will pay them with that coin, which is both most proper, and lest looked for.  
Early in the morning, in that gate of jezreel where Ahab had passed many an unjust sentence, is presented unto jehu, the fearful pledge of his sovereignty, seventy ghastly heads of the sons of Ahab.  
Some carnal eye that had seen so many young and smooth faces besmeared with blood, would have melted into compassion, bemoaning their harmless age, their untimely end: It is not for the justice of God to stand at the bar of our corrupted judgement. Except we include some grandchilds of Ahab within this number, none of these died before they were seasoned with horrible Idolatry; or if they had; they were in the loins of Ahab when he sold himself to work wickedness; & now it is just with God to punish ahab's wickedness in this fruit of his loins. The holy severity of God in the revenge of sin sometimes goes so far that our ignorance is ready to mistake it for cruelty.  
The wonder and horror of those two heaps hath easily drawn together the people of jezreel: jehu meets them in that seat of public judgement; and finding much amazedness & passionate confusion in their faces; he clears them, and sends them to the true original of these sudden and astonishing massacres.  
However his own conspiracy, and the cowardly treachery of the Princes of Israel had been (not without their heinous sin) the visible means of this judgement, yet he directs their eyes to an higher authority; the just decree of the Almighty, manifested by his servant Elijah; who even by the willing sins of men can most wisely, most hostilely fetch about his most righteous and blessed purposes.  
If the Peers of Samaria out of a base fear, if jehu out of an ambition of reigning shed the foul blood of ahab's posterity; the sin is their own, but in the mean time the act is no other than what the infinite justice of God would justly work by their mis-intentions. Let these Israelites but look up from earth to heaven, these tragical changes cannot trouble them; thither jehu sends them; wiping off the envy of all this blood, by the warrant of the divine preordination: In obedience whereunto he sends after these heirs of Ahab, all his kinsfolks, favourites, priests that remained in jezreel: and now having cleared these coasts, he hasts to Samaria: whom should he meet with, in the way, but the brethren of Ahaziah King of judah; they are going to visit their cousins the sons of Ahab: This young troop was thinking of nothing but jollity, and courtly entertainment, when they meet with death: So suddenly, so secretly had jehu dispatched these bold executions, that these Princes could imagine no cause of suspicion: How could they think it might be dangerous to be known for the brethren of Ahaziah, or friends to the brethren of jehoram? The just providence of the Almighty hath brought all this covey under one net; jehu thinks it not safe to let go so many avengers' of Ahaziahs' blood; so many corrivals of his Sovereignty. The unhappy affinity of jehosaphat with Ahab is no less guilty of this slaughter, than jehues' ambition; This match by the inoculation of one bud, hath tainted all the sap of the house of judah. The two & forty brethren of Ahaziah are therefore sent after the seventy sons of Ahab; that they may overtake them in death, whom they came to visit; God will much less brook Idolatry from the loins of a jehosaphat: Our entireness with wicked men feoffs us both in their sins and judgements.  
Doubtless, many Israelites that were devoted to the family and allies of Ahab, looked (what they durst) awry at this common effusion of royal blood; yet in the worst of the depravednes of Israel, there were some which both drouped under the deplored Idolatry of the times, and congratulated to jehu this severe vindication of God's inheritance: Amongst the rest, jonadab the son of Rechab was most eminent. That man was by descent derived from jethro; a Midianite by nation, but incorporated into Israel; a man, whose piety, and strict conversation did both teach, and shame those twelve Tribes to which he was joined; He was the author of an austere rule of civility to his posterity; to whom he debarred the use of wine, cities, possessions: This old and rough friend of jehu, (out of his moving habitations) meets him, and applauds his success; He that allowed not wine to his seed, allows the blood of ahab's seed poured out, by the hand of jehu; He that shunned the city, is carried in jehues' chariot, to the palace of Samaria.  
How easily might jehu have been deceived? Many a one professes uprightness, who yet is all guile: jonadabs' carriage hath been such, that his word merits trust: It is a blessing upon the plaine-hearted, that they can be believed: Honest jonadab is admitted to the honour of jehues' seat; and called (in stead of many) to witness the zeal of the new-anointed King of Israel.  
Whiles jehu had to do with Kings, his cunning and his courage held equal pace together; but now that he is to deal with idolatrous priests, his wile goes alone, and prevails: He calls the people together, and dissembling his intentions, says, Ahad served Baal a little, but jehu shall serve him much: Now therefore call unto me all the Prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests, let none be wanting: for I have a great sacrifice to do to Baal: whosoever shall be wanting, he shall not live.  
What a dead paleness was there now in the faces of those few true-harted Israelites, that looked for an happy restauration of the religion of God? How could they choose but think; Alas, how are we fallen from our hopes? Is this the change we looked for? was it only ambition that hath set this edge upon the sword of jehu? It was not the person of Ahab that we disliked but the sins: If those must still succeed, what have we gained? Woe be to us, if only the author of our misery be changed, not the condition, not the cause of our misery.  
On the other side, what insultations and triumphs sounded every where of the joyful Baalites? What glorying of the truth of their profession, because of the success? what scorns of their dejected opposites? what exprobrations of the disappointed hopes, and predictions of their adverse Prophets? what promises to themselues of a perpetuity of Baalisme? How did the dispersed priests of Baal now flock together, and applaud each others happiness, and magnify the devotions of their new Sovereign? Never had that Idol so glorious a day as this for the pomp of his service; Before, he was adored singlely in corners, now solemn sacrifices shall be offered to him by all his clients, in the great Temple of the mother City of Israel. I can commend the zeal of jehu, I cannot commend the fraud of jehu; We may come to our end even by crooked ways: He that bade him to smite for him, did not bid him to lie for him: Falsehood, though it be but tentative, is neither needed, nor approved by the God of truth: If policy have allowed officious untruths, Religion never.  
By this device, the house of Baal is well furnished, well filled; not one of his Chemarim either might, or would be absent: not one of those which were present, might be unrobed: False Gods have ever affected to imitate the true. Even Baal hath Temples, Altars, Priests, vestments: All religions have allotted peculiar habits to their highest devotions. Those Vestments which they miscalled sacred are brought forth, and put on for the glory of this service.  
jehu and jonadab are first careful that this separation be exact; they search, and see that no servant of the Lord be crept into that throng: What should a religious Israelite do in the Temple of Baal? Were any such there, he had deserved their smart, who would partake with their worship; but if curiosity should have drawn any thither, the mercy of jehu seeks his rescue: How much more favourable is the God of mercies in not taking advantage of our infirmities.  
Well might this search have bred suspicion, were it not that in all those Idolatrous sacrifices, the first care was to avoid the profane: Even Baal would admit no mixture, how should the true God abide it?  
Nothing wanted now, but the sacrifice: No doubt whole herds and flocks were ready for a pretence of some royal hecatombs; whereof some had now already smoked on their Altars. O jehu what means this dilation? If thou abhorrest Baal, why didst thou give way to this last sacrifice? why didst thou not cut off these Idolaters before this upshot of their wickedness? Was it that thou mightst be sure of their guiltiness? was it that their number, together with their sin, might be complete? What acclamations were here to Baal, what joy in the freedom of their revived worship: when all on the sudden, those that had sacrificed, are sacrificed; The Soldiers of jehu by his appointment rush in with their swords drawn, and turn the temple into a slaughter-house. How is the tune now changed? What shrieking was here? what out-cries? what running from one sword, to the edge of another? what scrambling up the walls and pillars? what climbing into the windows? what vain endeavours to escape that death which would not be shunned? whether running, or kneeling, or prostrate, they must dye.  
The first part of the sacrifice was Baal's, the latter is Gods: The blood of beasts was offered in the one, of men in the other; the shedding of this was so much more acceptable to God, by how much these men were more beasts, than those they sacrificed. Oh happy obedience; God was pleased with a sacrifice from the house of Baal; The Idolaters are slain, the Idols burnt, the house of Baal turned to a draught (though even thus less unclean, less noisome, then in the former perfumes;) and in one word, Baal is destroyed out of Israel.  
Who that had seen all this zeal for God, would not have said; jehu is a true Israelite. Yet, he that rooted out Ahab, would not be rid of jeroboam: He that destroyed Baal, maintained the two Calves of Dan and Bethel. That Idolatry was of a lower rank; as being a mis-worship of the true God, whereas the other was a worship of the false: Even the easier of both is heinous; and shall rob jehu of the praise of his uprightness.  
A false heart may laudably quit itself of some one gross sin, & in the mean time hug some lesser evil that may condemn it: As a man recovered of a Fever, may dye of a jaundice, or a Dropsy. We lose the thank of all, if we wilfully fault in one.  
It is an entire goodness that God cares for: Perhaps (such is the bounty of our God) a partial obedience may be rewarded with a temporal blessing; (as jehues' severity to Ahab shall carry the crown to his seed for four generations) but we can never have any comfortable assurance of an eternal retribution, if our hearts & ways be not perfect with God. Woe be to us, o God, if we be not all thine: we cannot but everlastingly depart from thee, if we depart not from every sin: Thou hast purged our hearts from the Baal of our gross Idolatries, oh clear us from the golden Calves of our pety-corruptions also; that thou mayst take pleasure in our uprightness; and we may reap the sweet comforts of thy gracious remuneration.   

ATHALIAH and JOASH.  
OH the woeful ruins 
2 Kings 11, & 12. And 2 Chron. 23. & 24.  of the house of good jehosaphat: jehu hath slain two and forty of his issue; Athaliah hopes to root out the rest: This daughter of Ahab was not like to be other then fatal to that holy Line; One drop of that wicked blood was enough both to impure, and spill all the rest which affinity had mixed with it.  
It is not unlike that Ahaziah betaking himself to the society of jehorams' wars, committed the sway of his Sceptre to his mother Athaliah. The daughter of jezebel cannot but be plotting: when she hears of the death of Ahaziah, and his brethren, inflicted by the heavy hand of jehu, she strait casts for the Kingdom of judah: The true heirs are infants, their minority gives her both colour of rule, and opportunity of an easy extirpation. Perhaps, her ambition was not more guilty than her zeal of Baalisme: she saw jehu out of a detestation of Idolatry, trampling on the blood of jehoram, jezebel, Ahaziah, the sons of Ahab, the brethren of Ahaziah, the priests and prophets of Baal; and in one word, triumphing in the destruction both of Ahab, and his Gods out of Israel: and now she thinks, Why should not I destroy jehosaphat, and his God out of judah?  
Who ever saw an Idolater that was not cruel? Athaliah must needs let out some of her own blood, out of the throat of Ahaziahs' sons; yet she spares not to shed it out of a thirst of sovereignty. O God how worthy of wonder are thy just and merciful dispensations? In that thou sufferest the seed of good jehosaphat to be destroyed by her hand, in whose affinity he offended, and yet savest one branch of this stock of jehosaphat, for the sake of so faithful a progenitor.  
Wicked Athaliah, couldst thou think God would so far forget his Servant David (though no other of those loins had seconded his virtues) as to suffer all his seed to be rooted out of the earth? This vengeance was for thy father Ahab; The man according to Gods own heart shall have a lineal heir to succeed in his Throne, when thou and thy father's house shall have vanished into forgetfulness.  
For this purpose hath the wise providence of God ordained a jehosheba, and matched her in the priestly Tribe: Such reverence did jehoram, King of judah (though degenerated into the Idolatry of his father in law Ahab) bear to this sacred function, that he marries his daughter to jehoiada the Priest. Even Princesses did not then scorn the bed of those that served at God's Altar: Why should the Gospel pour contempt upon that which the Law honoured?  
That good Lady had too much of jehosaphat in her, to suffer the utter extirpation of that royal seed; She could not doubtless, without the extreme danger of her own life, save the life of her nephew joash; With what a loving boldness doth she adventure to steal him from amongst those bleeding carcases, in the chamber of death? Her match gave her opportunity to effect that, which both nature, and religion moved her to attempt: neither know I, whether more to wonder at the cunning of the device, or the courage of the enterprise, or the secrecy of the concealment, or the happiness of the success: Certainly, Athaliah was too cruelly-carefull to forget this so late borne son of Ahaziah; of all the rest, his age would not suffer him to be out of her eye: In all likelihood therefore, she must needs have miss so noted a corpse, had there not been a substitution of some other dead child in his room: In that age, the favour is not so distinguishable; especially of a dead face. Without some pious deceit this work could never have been effected; Else, had the child been secretly subduced, and miss by his bloody grandmother, her perpetual jealousy had both expected a surviving heir, and continued a curious, and unavoidable search: both which were now shunned at once, whilst Athaliah reckons him for dead, whom jehosheba hath preserved. Mischief sometimes fails of those appointments, wherein it thinks to have made the surest work; God laughs in heaven at the plots of Tyrant's; and befools them in their deepest projects. He had said to David, Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy seat; In vain shall earth and hell conspire to frustrate it.  
Six years hath joash, and his nurse been hid in a close cell of the Temple: Those rooms were destined only to the holy Tribe; yet now rejoice to harbour such a guest; The rigour of the ordinary Law must yield to cases of so important necessity.  
All this could not possibly be done and continued without the privity of many faithful Priests & Levites; who were as careful to keep this counsel, as hopeful of the issue of it: It is not hard for many honest hearts to agree in a religious secrecy; Needs must those lips be shut, which God hath sealed up.  
judah had not been used to such a yoke; long had it groaned under the tyranny not of a woman only, but an Idolatrous Sydonian: If any of that sex might have claimed that Sceptre, none had so much right to it, as jehosheba herself; But good jehoiada the Priest, who had rather to be a loyal guardian to the King, than an husband to a Queen, now finds time to set on foot the just title of joash; and to put him into the misusurped throne of his father Ahaziah.  
In the seventh year, therefore, he sends for the Captains, and the Guard; and having sworn them secrecy; by undoubted witnesses makes faith unto them of the truth of their native Prince, thus happily rescued from the bloody knife of his merciless Grandmother; marshal's the great business of his Inauguration; gives every one his charge; sets every one his station; and so disposes of his holy forces, as was most needful for the safety of the King, the revenge of the Usurper, the prevention of tumults, the establishment of the Crown upon the owner's head in Peace and joy..  
There was none of all these agents who did not hold the business to be his own; Every true subject of judah was feelingly interessed in this service; neither was there any of them, who was not secretly heart-burned all this while, with the hateful government of this Idolatrous Tyranness: And now this inward fire is glad to find a vent; How gladly do they address themselves to this welcome employment? The greatest part of this secret band were Levites, who might therefore both meet together with least suspicion, and be more securely trusted by jehoiada, under whom they served; Even that holy Priest of God in stead of teaching the Law, sets the guard, orders the Captains, ranges the troops of judah; and in stead of a Censer, brings forth the Spears and Shields of David; the Temple is for the present, a Field, or an Artillery-yard; and the Ephods are turned into harness. That house, in the rearing whereof not the noise of an hammer might be heard, now admits of the clashing of armour, and the secret murmurs of some military achievement: No circumstances either of place, or calling, are so punctual, as that public necessity may not dispense with their alteration.  
All things are now ready for this solemnity: Each man rejoices to fix upon his own footing; and longs to see the face of their long-concealed Sovereign; and vows his blood to the vindication of the common liberty, to the punishment of a cruel intruder: Now jehoiada brings forth unto them the King's Son, and presents him to the Peers, and people; Hardly can the multitude contain itself from shouting out too soon: One sees in his countenance the features of his Father, Ahaziah; another of his Grandfather, jehoram; a third professes to discern in him some lines, and fashion of his great-grandfather jehosaphat; all find in his face the natural impressions of Majesty; and read in it the hopes, yea the prophecies of their future happiness. Not with more joy, than speed, doth jehoiada accomplish all the rites of the Coronation. Before that young King could know what was done to him, he is anointed, crowned, presented with the book of the Law: Those ceremonies were instructive; and, no doubt, jehoiada failed not to comment upon them in due time, to that royal Pupil.  
The Oil, wherewith he was anointed, signified his designation to that high service; and those endowments from heaven that might enable him to so great a function.  
The Crown, wherewith he was adorned, signified that glory and majesty which should both encourage, and attend his Princely cares.  
The book of the Testimony signified the divine rules and directions, whereto he must frame his heart and actions, in the wielding of that Crown, in the improvement of that oil.  
These three, the oil, the Crown the Testimony, that is, inward powers, outward magnificence, true piety and justice make up a perfect Prince; None of these may be wanting; If there be not a due calling of God, and abilities meet for that greatness, the oil faileth: If there be not a Majestic grace and royalty, that may command reverence, the Crown is missing; If there be not a careful respect to the law of God, as the absolute guide of all counsels, and determinations, the Testimony is neglected; all of them concurring, make both King and people happy.  
Now, it is time for the people to clap their hands, and by their loud acclamations to witness their joy; which must needs break forth with so much more force, by how much it was longer, upon fears and policy, suppressed.  
The Court and the Temple were near together; However it was with Athaliah, and the late revolted Princes of judah, according to the common word, the nearer to the Church, the further from God; their religious predecessors held it the greatest commodity of their house, that it neighboured upon the house of God; From her palace might Athaliah easily hear the joyful shouts of the multitude, the loud noise of the Trumpets; and as astonished with this new tumult of public gratulations, she comes running into the Temple: Never had her foot trod upon that holy pavement, till now that she came to fetch a just revenge from that God whose worship she had contemned.  
It fell out well, that her sudden amazedness called her forth, without the attendance of any strong guard; whose side-taking might have made that quarrel mutually bloody: She soon hears, and sees what she likes not; her ear meets with, God save the King; her eye meets with the unlooked for heir of the Kingdom, sitting on his throne, crowned, and robed, in the royal fashion; guarded with the Captains and soldiers, proclaimed by the Trumpeters, acclamed & applauded by the people.  
Who can say whether this sight drove her more near to frenzy, or death? How could it be otherwise, when those great spirits of hers, that had been long used to an uncontrolled sovereignty, find themselves so inexpectedly suppressed.  
She now rends her clothes, and cries, Treason, treason, as if that voice of hers could still command all hearts, all hands; as if one breath of hers were powerful enough to blow away all these new designs: Oh Athaliah, to whom dost thou complain thyself? they are thy just executioners wherewith thou art encompassed; If it be treason to set up the true heir of Ahaziah, thou appealest to thy Traitors. The treason was thine, theirs is justice; The time is now come of thy reckoning for all the royal blood of judah, which thine ambition shed; wonder rather at the patience of this long forbearance, than the rigour of this execution.  
There needs no formal seat of justice in so apparent offence, jehoiada passes the sentence of death upon her; Have her forth of the ranges; Let her not be slain in the house of the Lord; and him that followeth her, kill with the sword.  
Had not this usurpation been palpable, jehoiada would not have presumed to intermeddle; Now being both the Priest of God, and Uncle and Protector to the lawful King, he doth that, out of the necessity of the state, which his infant Sovereign (if he could have been capable of those thoughts) would have desired.  
Violent hands are laid upon Athaliah, whom no doubt a proud and furious disdain of so quick a charge, and of so rough an usage made miserably impatient; Now she frowns, and calls, and shrieks and commands, and threatens, and reviles, and entreats in vain; and dies with as much ill will from herself, as she lived with the ill will of her repining subjects.  
I see not any one man of all her late flatterers, that follows her, either for pity, or rescue; Every man willingly gives her up to justice; Not one sword is drawn in her defence; Not one eye laments her. Such is the issue of a tyrannical misgovernment; that which is obeyed not without secret hate, is lost not without public joy.  
How like is Athaliah to her mother jezebel, as in conditions and carriage, so even in death: Both killed violently, both killed under their own walls; both slain with Treason in their mouths; both slain in the entrance of a changed government: One trod on by the horses, the other slain in the horse-gate. Both paid their own blood for the innocent blood of others.  
How suddenly, how easily is judah restored to itself, after so long, and so fearful a depravation; The people scarce believe their own eyes, for the wonder of this happy change; neither know I whether they be more joyed in the sight of their new King, thus strangely preserved, or in the sight of jehoiada, that had preserved him.  
No man can envy the protection of the young King unto him, by whose means he lives and reigns: That holy man cares only to improve his authority, to the common good: He makes a covenant between the Lord, and the King, and the people: and after so long & dangerous a disjunction, reunites them to each other. Their revived zeal bestirs itself, and breaks down the Temples, and altars, and images of Baal, and sacrifices his idolatrous Priest; Shortly, both Ahab, and Baal is destroyed out of judah.  
The Sceptre of judah is changed from a woman, to a child; but, a Child trained up, and tutored by jehoiada; This minority so guided was not inferior to the mature age of many predecessors. Happy is that land, the nonage of whose Princes falls into holy and just hands. Yet even these holy and just hands came short of what they might have done; The high places remained still: Those altars were erected to the true God, but in a wrong place: It is marvel if there be not some blemishes found in the best government: I doubt jehoiada shall once abvy it dear that he did not his utmost.  
But for the main, all was well with judah, in all the days of jehoiada; even after that joash was grown past his pupillage: He that was the Tutor to his infancy, was the councillor of his ripe age; and was equally happy in both: How pleasing was it to that good High Priest, to be commanded by that charge of his in the business of God? The young King gives order to the Priests, for the collection of large sums, to the repairing of the breaches of God's House. It becomes him well to take care of that, which was the nursery of his infancy: And now, after three and twenty years he expostulates with his late Guardian, jehoiada, and the rest of his coat, Why repair ye not the breaches?  
Oh gracious and happy vicissitude; jehoiada the Priest had ruled the infancy of King joash in matters of state; and now joash the King commands aged jehoiada the Priest in matter of devotion. In the affairs of God, the action is the Priests, the oversight and coaction is the Princes: By the careful endeavour of both, God's house is repaired, his service flourisheth.  
But alas, that it may too well appear, that the ground of this motion was not altogether inward, no sooner doth the life of jehoiada cease, than the devotion of joash begins to languish: and after some languor, dies.  
The benefit of a truly religious Prelate, or Statesman, is not known till his loss.  
Now some idolatrous Peers of judah have soon miscarried the King from the House of the Lord God of their Fathers, to serve Groves, and Idols. Yea, whither go we wretched men, if we be left by our Maker? King joash is turned, not idolater only, but persecutor; yea, (which is yet more horrible to consider) persecutor of the son of that jehoiada to whom he owes his own life. Zechariah his Cousin german, his foster-brother, the holy issue of those parents, by whom joash lives, and reigns, for the conscionable rebuke of the idolatry of Prince, and people, is unjustly, and cruelly murdered by that unthankful hand: How possible is it for fair and Saintlike beginnings to shut up in monstrous impieties? Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. When did God ever put up so foul ingratitude to himself, to his servants? O joash, what eye can pity the fearful destruction of thee, and thy judah?  
If ye have forgotten the kindness of jehoiada, your unkindness to jehoiada shall not be forgotten: A small army of Syrians came up against judah and jerusalem, and destroyed all the Princes of the people, and sent all the spoil of them to Damascus. Now Hazael revenges this quarrel of God, and his anointed; and plagues that people which made themselves unworthy to be the Lords inheritance.  
And what becomes of joash? He is left in great diseases, when his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of jehoiada, and slew him on his bed, and he died; and they buried him not in the Sepulchre of the Kings. Dying Zechariah had said in the bitterness of his departing soul, The Lord look upon it, and require it: I confess I had rather to have heard him say, The Lord pass it over, and remit it; so said Steven; such difference there is between a Martyr of the Law, and of the Gospel: although I will hope the zeal of justice, not the uncharitable heat of revenge drew forth this word: God hears it, and now gives an account of his notice; Thus doth the Lord require the blood of jehoiadaes' son; even by the like unthankful hand of the obliged servants of joash. He that was guilty of abominable Idolatry, yet (as if God meant to wave that challenge) is called to reckoning for his cruel unthankfulness to jehoiada; This crime shall make him odious alive, and shall abandon him dead from the sepulchre of his fathers; as if this last royalty were too good for him, who had forgotten the law of humanity. Some vices are such, as Nature smiles upon, though frowned at by divine justice: Others are such, as even Nature itself abhors; such is this of Ingratitude, which therefore caries so much more detestation from God, as it is more odious even to them that have blotted out the image of God.   

JOASH with ELISHA dying.  
THe two Kingdoms 
2 Kings 13.  of judah and Israel, how ever divided both in government, and affection, yet loved to interchange the names of their Kings; Even Israel also had their joash, no better than that of judah; he was not more the father of a later jeroboam, then (in respect of mis-worship) he was the son of the first jeroboam, who made Israel to sin; Those Calves of Dan and Bethel, out of a politic mis-devotion, besotted all the succession of the ten usurped Tribes: yet even this Idolatrous King of Israel comes down to visit the sick bed of Elisha, and weeps upon his face.  
That holy Prophet was never any flatterer of Princes, neither spared he invectives against their most plausible sins: yet King joash, that was beaten by his reproofs, washes that face with the tears of love, and sorrow, which had often frowned upon his wickedness.  
How much difference there was betwixt the joash of Israel, and the joash of judah? That of judah having been preserved and nurtured by jehoiada the Priest, after all professions of dearness shuts up in the unkind murder of his son; and that merely for the just reproof of his own Idolatry: This of Israel having been estranged from the Prophet Elisha, and sharply rebuked for the like offence, makes love to his dying reprover, and bedews his pale face with his tears: Both were bad enough, but this of Israel was, however vicious, yet good-natured: That of judah added to his wickedness, an ill disposition, a dogged humour. There are varieties even of evil men; some are worse at the root, others at the branch; some more civilly harmless, others fouler in morality. According to the exercise of the restraining grace, natural men do either rise, or fall in their ill.  
The longest day must have his evening: Good Elisha, that had lived some ninety years, a wonder of Prophets, and had outworn many successions in the thrones of Israel, & judah, is now cast upon the bed of his sickness, yea, of his death: That very age might seem a disease; which yet is seconded with a languishing distemper: It is not in the power of any holiness to privilege us from infirmity of body, from final dissolution: He that stretched himself upon his bed, over the dead carcase of the Shunamites son, and revived it; must now stretch out his own limbs upon his sick bed, and dye: He saw his Master Elijah rapt up suddenly from the earth, and fetched by a fiery chariot from this vale of mortality; himself must leisurely wait for his last pangs, in a lingering passage to the same glory. There is not one way appointed to us, by the divine providence, unto one common blessedness: One hath more pain, another hath more speed: Violence snatcheth away one, another by an insensible pace draws every day nearer to his term: The wisdom and goodness of God magnifies itself in both: Happy is he that after due preparation, is passed through the gates of death, ere he be aware; Happy is he that by the holy use of long sickness is taught to see the gates of death afar off, and addressed for a resolute passage: The one dies like Elijah, the other like Elisha, both blessedly.  
The time was, when a great King sent to Elisha to know if he should recover; now the King of Israel, as knowing that Elisha shall not recover (so had his consumption spent him) comes to visit the dying Prophet; & when his tears would give him leave; breaks forth into a passionate exclamation, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. Yet the Calves of Dan and Bethel have left some goodness in joash: As the best man hath something in him worthy of reproof; so the faultiest hath something commendable. Had not the spirit of God himself told us, that joash did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, we had admired this piety, this reverend respect to the Prophet. The holiest man could not have said more: It is possible for the clients of a false worship, to honour (out of another regard) the professors of Truth; From the hand of Elisha had jehu the grandfather of joash received his unction to the Kingdom: this favour might not be forgotten.  
Visitation of the sick is a duty required both by the law of humanity, and of religion; Bodily infirmity is sad, and comfortless; and therefore needs the presence, and counsel of friends to relieve it; Although, when we draw the curtains of those that are eminently gracious, we do rather fetch (with joash) then bring a blessing.  
How sensible should we be of the loss of holy men, when a joash spends his tears upon Elisha? If we be more affected with the foregoing of a natural friend, or kinsman, then of a noted and useful Prophet, it argues more love to ourselves, then to the Church of God, then to GOD himself.  
What use there was of charets and horsemen in those wars of the Ancient, all Histories can tell us: All the strength of the battle stood in these: There could be neither defence, nor offence, but by them: such was Elisha unto Israel; The greatest safeguard to any nation is the sanctity, and faithfulness of their Prophets; without which, the Church and State lies open to utter desolation.  
The same words that Elisha said of his master Elijah, when he saw him taken up from the earth, doth joash now speak of Elisha, near his dissolution: O my father, my father, the charets of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. The words were good; the tears were pious; but where are the actions? O joash, if the Prophet were thy father, where was thy filial obedience? he cried down thy Calves, thou upheldst them; he counselled thee to good, thou didst evil in the sight of the Lord.  
If the Prophet were the charets and horsemen of Israel, why didst thou fight against his holy doctrine? If thou weepest for his loss, why didst thou not weep for those sins of thine, that procured it?  
Had thine hand answered thy tongue, Israel had been happy in Elisha; Elisha had been happy in Israel, and thee; Words are no good trial of profession: The worst men may speak well: Actions have only the power to descry hypocrites.  
Yet even a joash thus complying, shall not go away unblessed: This outward kindness shall receive an outward retribution; These few drops of warm water shed upon the face of a Prophet, shall not lose their reward; The spirit of prophecy forsakes not the deathbed of Elisha; He calls for bow, and arrows, and puts them into the hand of joash, and putting his hands upon the King's hand, he bids to shoot Eastward: and whiles the shaft flies, and lights, he says, The arrow of the Lords deliverance from Syria; for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them: If the weak and withered hand of the Prophet had not been upon the youthful, and vigorous hand of the King, this bow had been drawn in vain; the strength was from the hand of the King, the blessing from the hand of the Prophet: He whose real parable hath made the earth to be Syria, the arrow, revenge, the archer, joash, hath obtained for his last boon from God to Israel, that this archer shall shoot this arrow of revenge, into the heart of Syria, and wound it to death. When the hand of the King, and of the Prophet draws together, there cannot choose but success must follow.  
How readily doth Elisha now make good the words of joash? How truly is he the Charets, and Horsemen of Israel? Israel had not fought without him, much less had been victorious; If theirs be the endeavour, the success is his: Even the dying Prophet puts life, and speed into the Forces of Israel, and whiles he is digging his own grave, is raising Trophies to God's people.  
He had received kindness from the Syrians; amongst them was he harboured in the dearth; and from some of their Nobles, was presented with rich gifts; but their enmity to Israel drowns all his private respects; he cannot but profess hostility to the public enemies of the Church: Neither can he content himself with a single prediction of their ruin. He bids joash to take the arrows, and smite upon the ground; he sets no number of those strokes; as supposing the frequency of those blows, which joash might well (upon his former parabolical act) understand to be significant. The slack hand of the King smites but thrice. So apt we are to be wanting to ourselves; so coldly do we execute the commands of God: The sick Prophet is not more grieved, then angry at this dull negligence; Doubtless God had revealed to him (for his last gratification) that upon his fervent prayers, so oft as joash should voluntarily (after his general charge) smite the earth, so oft should Israel smite Syria. Elishaes' zeal doth not languish with his body: with a fatherly authority he chides him, who had styled him father; not fearing to spend some of his last wind in a mild reproof, Thou shouldst have smitten five or six times, than thou hadst smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice. Not that the unchangeable decree of the Almighty meant to suspend itself upon the uncertain issue of joashes will; but, he that put this word into the mouth of his Prophet, puts this motion into the hand of the King, which did not more willingly stay, then necessarily obey that providence whereby it was stirred. Even whiles we have our freest choice, we fall upon those actions and circumstances, whereby the just and holy will of our God is brought about. Our very neglects, our ignorances shall fulfil his eternal counsels.  
Elisha dies, and is buried; his miracles do not cease with his life: Who can marvel that his living prayers raised the son of the Shunamite, when his dead bones raise the carcase that touched them. God will be free in his works; he that must dye himself, yet shall revive another; the same power might have continued life to him, that gave it by his bones. Israel shall well see that he lives, by whose virtue, Elisha was both in life, and death, miraculous: Whiles the Prophet was alive, the impetration might seem to be his, though the power were Gods; now that he is dead, the bones can challenge nothing, but send the wondering Israelites to that almighty Agent, to whom it is all one to work by the quick, or dead. Were not the men of Israel more dead than the carcase thus buried, how could they choose but see in this revived corpse, an emblem of their own condition? how could they choose but think, If we adhere to the God of Elisha, he shall raise our decayed estates, and restore our nation to the former glory.  
The Sadduces had as yet no being in Israel, with what face could that heresy ever after look into the world, when before the birth of it, it was so palpably convinced, with an example of the resurrection? Intermission of time, and degrees of corruption add nothing to the impossibility of our rising: The body that is once cold in death, hath no more aptitude to a reanimation, then that which is moldred into dust; Only the divine power of the Maker must restore either, can restore both: When we are dead, and buried in the grave of our sin; it is only the touch of God's Prophets, applying unto us the death and resurrection of the Son of God, that can put new life into us; No less true, though spiritual, is the miracle of our raising up from an estate of inward corruption, to a life of grace.  
Yet all this prevails not with Israel: No bones of Elisha could raise them from their wicked Idolatry: and, notwithstanding their gross sins, joash their King prospers: Whether it were for the sake of jehu, whose grand-chyld he was; or for the sake of Elisha, whose face he wept upon, his hand is notably successful: not only against the son of Hazael, King of Syria, whom he beats out of the Cities of Israel; but, against Amaziah King of judah, whom he took Prisoner, beating down the very walls of jerusalem, and returning laden with the sacred, and rich spoil both of the Temple, and Court, to his Samaria.  
Oh the depth of the divine justice, and wisdom in these outward administrations! The best cause, the best man doth not ever fare best: Amaziah did that which was right in the sight of the Lord; joash, evil: Amaziah follows David (though not with equal paces) joash follows jeroboam, yet is Amaziah shamefully foiled by joash; Whether God yet meant to visit upon this King of judah, the still-odious unthankfulness of his father to jehoiada; or, to plague judah for their share in the blood of Zechariah, and their late revolt to Idolatry; or, whether Amaziahs' too much confidence in his own strength (which moved his bold challenge to joash) were thought fit to be thus taken down, or what ever other secret ground of God's judgement there might be, it is not for our presumption to inquire: Who so by the event shall judge of love, or hatred, shall be sure to run upon that woe, which belongs to them that call good evil, and evil good.  
What a savage piece of justice it is to put the right, whether of inheritance, or honour, to the decision of the sword, when it is no news for the better to miscarry by the hand of the worse?  
The race is not to the swift; the battle is not to the strong; no, not to the good: Perhaps, God will correct his own by a foil; perhaps he will plague his enemy by a victory. They are only our spiritual combats wherein our faithful courage is sure of a crown.   

VZZIAH Leprous.  
EVen the Throne of 
2 Chro. 26 And 2 King, 15.  David passed many changes of good, and evil: Good jehosaphat was followed with three successions of wicked Princes; and those three, were again succeeded with three others godly, and virtuous; Amaziah for a long time shone fair, but at the last, shut up in a cloud; The gods of the Edomites marred him; his rebellion against God, stirred up his people's rebellion against him: The same hands that slew him, crowned his son Vzziah; so as the young King might imagine it was not their spite, that drew violence upon his father, but his own wickedness; Both early did this Prince reign, and late; he began at sixteen; and sat fifty two years in the Throne of judah: They that mutined in the declining age of Amaziah, the father; are obsequious to the childhood of the son, as if they professed to adore sovereignty, whiles they hated lewdness: The unchanged government of good Princes is the happiness, no less of the subjects then of themselves: The hand knows best to guide those reins to which it hath been enured; and even mean hackneys go on cheerfully in their wont road; Custom, as it makes evils more supportable, so where it meets with constant minds, makes good things more pleasing and beneficial.  
The wise and holy Prophet Zechariah, was an happy Tutor to the minority of King Vzziah; That vessel can hardly miscarry where a skilful steersman sits at the helm: The first praise of a good Prince is to be judicious, & just, and pious, in himself; the next is, to give ear, and way, to them that are such: Whiles Zechariah hath the visions of God, and Vzziah takes the counsels of Zechariah, it is hard to say whether the Prophet, or the King, or the State be happier.  
God will be in no man's debt; so long as Vzziah sought the Lord, God made him to prosper. Even what we do out of duty cannot want a reward: Godliness never disappointed any man's hopes, oft hath exceeded them. If Vzziah fight against the Philistims, If against the Arabians, and Mehunims; according to his names, the 
Vzziah, Azariah.  strength, the help of the Almighty is with him: The Ammonites come in with presents, and all the neighbour nations ring of the greatness, of the happiness of Vzziah; His bounty and care makes jerusalem both strong, and proud of her new Towers; yea the very Desert must taste of his munificence.  
The outward magnificence of Princes cannot stand firm, unless it be built upon the foundations of providence and frugality; Vzziah had not been so great a King, if he had not been so great an husband; he had his flocks in the deserts, and his herds in the plains; his ploughs in the fields, his vine-dressers upon the mountains, and in Carmel: neither was this more out of profit, than delight, for he loved husbandry. Who can contemn those callings for meanness, which have been the pleasures of Princes?  
Hence was Vzziah so potent at home, so dreadful to his neighbours; his wars had better sinews than theirs; which of his predecessors was able to maintain so settled an army, of more than of three hundred and ten thousand trained soldiers, well furnished, well fitted for the suddenest occasion? Thrift is the strongest prop of power.  
The greatness of Vzziah, and the rare devices of his artificial Engines for war, have not more raised his fame, than his heart: so is he swollen up with the admiration of his own strength, and glory, that he breaks again; How easy it is for the best man to dote upon himself; and to be lifted up so high, as to lose the sight both of the ground, whence he rises, and of the hand that advanced him: How hard it is for him that hath invented strange engines for the battering of his enemies, to find out any means to beat down his own proud thoughts? Wise Solomon knew what he did, when he prayed to be delivered from too much: Lest, said he, I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? Upon this Rock did the son of Solomon run, and split himself; His full sails of prosperity carried him into presumption & ruin: what may he not now do? what may he not be? Because he found his power otherwise unlimited; overruling in the Court, the Cities, the Fields, the Deserts, the Armies, and Magazines, therefore he thinks he may do so in the Temple too: as things royal, civil, husbandly, military passed his hands, so why should not (thinks he) sacred also? It is a dangerous indiscretion for a man not to know the bounds of his own calling: What confusion doth not follow upon this breaking of ranks?  
Upon a solemn day, King Vzziah clothes himself in Pontifical robes, and in the view of that populous assembly, walks up in state, into the Temple of God, and boldly approaching to the Altar of Incense, offers to burn sweet odours upon it, to the God of heaven: Azariah the Priest is sensible of so perilous an incrochment; he therefore attended with fourscore valiant assistants, of that holy Tribe, hastens after the King, and finding him with the censer in his hand, ready addressed to that sinful devotion, stays him with a free, and grave expostulation: There is no place wherein I could be sorry to see thee, o King, but this, where thou art; neither is there any act, that we should grudge thee so much, as this, which is the most sacred; Is it possible that so great an oversight should fall into such wisdom? Can a religious Prince, trained up under an holy Zechariah, after so many years zealous profession of piety, be either ignorant, or regardless of those limits, which God hath set to his own services?  
Oh, what means this uncouth attempt? Consider, o dear Sovereign, for God's sake, for thy soul's sake, consider, where thou art, what thou dost; it is God's house wherein thou standest, not thine own; Look about thee, and see, whether these veils, these Tables, these Pillars, these Walls, these Pavements, have any resemblance of earth: There is no place in all the world whence thy God hath excluded thee, but only this; this he hath reserved for his own use: And canst thou think much to allow one room as proper to him, who hath not grudged all the rest to thee? But if it be thy zeal of a personal service to God, that hath carried thee hither; alas, how canst thou hope to please the Almighty with a forbidden sacrifice? Which of thine holy Progenitors ever dared to tread, where thy foot now standeth? which of them ever put forth their hand to touch this sacred Altar? Thou knowest that God hath set apart, and sanctified his own attendants; wherefore serves the Priesthood, if this be the right of Kings? Were it not for the strict prohibition of our God, it could seem no other than an honour to our profession, that a King should think to dignify himself by our employment; but now, knowing the severe charge of the great King of heaven, we cannot but tremble to see that censer in thine hand; who ever, out of the holy Tribe, hath wielded it unrevenged? This affront is not to us, it is to the God whom we serve; In awe of that terrible Majesty, as thou wouldst avoid some exemplary judgement, O King, withdraw thyself, not without humble deprecations, from this presence; and lay down that interdicted handful, with fear and trembling; Be thou ever a King, let us be Priests; The Sceptre is thine, let Censers be ours.  
What religious heart could do other than relent at so faithful and just an admonition? But how hard it is for great persons to yield they have offended? Vzziah must not be faulty; what is done rashly shall be born out with power; He was wroth; and thus expresses it: What means this saucy expostulation, O ye sons of Levi? how dare ye thus malapertly control the well-meant actions of your Sovereign? If ye be Priests, remember that ye are subjects; or if ye will needs forget it, how easy is it for this hand to awake your memory? What such offence can it be for me to come into that house, and to touch that Altar, which my royal Progenitors have made, beautified, consecrated? Is the God of this place only yours? Why do ye thus ambitiously engross Religion? If Princes have not intermeddled with these holy affairs, it was because they would not, not because they might not; When those laws were made for the Sanctuary, there were no Kings to grace these divine ceremonies; yet even then, Moses was privileged: The persons of Princes (if ye know not) are no less sacred than your own. It is your presumption to account the Lords anointed, profane: Contest with those, whose dry & unhallowed heads are subject to your power; For me, I will not ask your leave to be devout; Look ye to your own Censers, presume not to meddle with mine; In the mean time, can ye think this insolence of yours shall escape unrevenged? Can it stand with the honour of my sovereignty, to be thus proudly checked by subjects? God do so to me and more also, if. Whiles Vzziah yet speaks, God strikes: Ere the words of fury can come forth of his mouth, the leprosy appears in his forehead: Leprosy was a most loathsome disease; the forehead is the most conspicuous part: Had this shameful scurf broken forth upon his hand, or foot, or breast, it might have been hid from the eyes of men; now the forehead is smitten with this judgement, that God may proclaim to all beholders, Thus shall it be done to the man whose arrogance hath thrust him upon a sacred charge. Public offences must have open shame.  
It is a dangerous thing to put ourselves into the affairs, into the presence of God, unwarranted; There cannot be a more foolish mesprision, then, because we are great on earth, to think we may be bold with heaven: When Gods messengers cannot prevail by counsels, entreaties, threats, it is time for God to show his immediate judgements. Wilful offenders can expect nothing but a fearful revenge.  
Now begins Vzziah to be confounded in himself; and shame strives with leprosy, for a place in his forehead; The hand of God hath done that in an instant, which all the tongues of men had attempted in vain: There needs no further solicitor of his egress, the sense of his plague sends him forth alone: And now he thinks; Wretched man that I am, how have I angered God, and undone myself? I would needs come in like a Priest, I now go forth a leper: the pride of my hart made me think myself worthy the presence of a God; Gods just displeasure hath now made me unworthy of the presence of men: whiles I affected the altar, I have lost my throne; whiles I scornfully rejected the advice and censures of God's ministers, I am now becomne a spectacle of horror, and deformity, to my own servants; I that would be sending up perfumes to heaven, have made my nastiness hateful to my own senses. What do I under this sacred roof? Neither is God's house now, for me, nor mine own; what cell, what dungeon is close enough for me, wherein to wear out the residue of mine unhappy and uncomfortable days? O God thou art just, and I am miserable.  
Thus with a dejected countenance, and sad heart, doth Vzziah haste to retire himself; & wishes, that he could be no less hid from himself, then from others: how easy is it for the God of heaven to bring down the highest pitch of earthly greatness, and to humble the stubbornest pride?  
Upon the leisure of second thoughts, Vzziah cannot but acknowledge much favour in this correction, and confess to have escaped well; Others, he knew, had been struck dead, or swallowed up quick for so presumptuous an intrusion: It is happy for him if his forehad may excuse his soul.  
Vzziah ceased not to be a King, when he began to be a leper; the disease of his forehead did not remove his Crown: his son jotham reigned for him, under him; and whiles he was not seen, yet he was obeyed. The character of sovereignty is indelible, whether by bodily infirmity, or by spiritual censure: Neither is it otherwise, O God, betwixt thee, and us, if we be once a royal generation unto thee, our leprosies may deform us, they shall not dethrone us: still shall we have the right, still the possession of that glorious kingdom, wherein we are invested from eternity.   

AHAZ with his new Altar.  
AFter many unhappy 
2 King. 16.  changes of the two thrones; Ahaz succeeds jotham in the Kingdom of judah: an ill son of a good father; not more the heir of David's seat, then of jeroboam's sin: Though Israel play the harlot, yet who can abide that judah should sin? It is hard not to be infected with a contagious neighbourhood: who ever read that the Kingdom of Israel was seasoned with the vicinity of the true religion of judah? Goodness (such as our nature is) is not so apt to spread: A tainted air doth more easily affect a sound body, than an wholesome air can clear the sick: Superstition hath ever been more successful, than truth; The young years of Ahaz are soon misled to a plausible mis-devotion.  
A man that is once fall'n from truth, knows not where he shall stay: From the Calves of jeroboam is Ahaz drawn to the gods of the heathen; yea, now, bulls and goats are too little for those new deities, his own flesh and blood is but dear enough; He made his son to pass through their fire. Where do we find any religious Israelite thus zealous for God? Neither doth the holiness and mercy of our God require so cruel a sacrifice: neither is our dull, and niggardly hand ready to gratify him with more easy obediences; O God how gladly should we offer unto thee our souls, and bodies, which we may enjoy so much the more, when they are thine; since zealous Pagans stick not to lose their own flesh, and blood in an Idols fire?  
He that hath thus shamefully cast off the God of his fathers, cannot be long without a fearful revenge. The King of Israel galls him on the one side; the King of Syria on the other: To avoid the shock of both, Ahaz doth not betake himself to the God whom he had offended; who was able to make his enemies at peace with him, but to Tiglath Pileser King of Ashur: Him doth he woo with suits, with gifts; and robs God of those presents, which may endear so strong an helper. He that thought not his son too dear for an Idol, thinks not God's silver and gold too dear for an Idolatrous abettor.  
Oh the infinite patience of the Almighty! God gives success a while to so offensive a rivality: This Assyrian King prevails against the King of Syria; kills him, and takes his chief City, Damascus; The quarrel of the King of judah hath enlarged the territories of his assistant, beyond hope; And now, whiles this Assyrian victor is enjoying the possession of his new-won Damascus: Ahaz goes up thither to meet him, to congratulate the victory, to add unto those triumphs, which were drawn on by his solicitation. There he sees a new fashioned Altar, that pleases his eye; That old form of Salomon's, which was made by the pattern showed to Moses in the Mount, is now grown stale, and despicable; A model of this more exquisite frame is sent to Vrijah, the Priest; and must be sampled in jerusalem. It is a dangerous presumption to make innovations, if but in the circumstances of God's worship. Those humane additions which would seem to grace the institution of God, deprave it; That infinite wisdom knows best what will please itself, and prescribes accordingly; The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men; Idolatry and falsehood is commonly more gaudy and plausible, than truth; That hart which can for the outward homeliness despise the ordinances of God, is already aliened from true religion, and lies open to the grossest superstition.  
Never any Prince was so foully idolatrous, at that he wanted a Priest to second him: An Vrijah is fit to humour an Ahaz. Greatness never could command any thing, which some servile wits were not ready both to applaud, and justify.  
Ere the King can be returned from Damascus, the altar is finished; It were happy if true godliness could be so forward in the prosecutions of good: Neither is this strange pile reared only, but thrust up betwixt God's altar, and the temple; in an apparent precedency, as if he said, Let the God of judah come behind the Deities of Syria.  
And now, to make up the full measure of his impiety, this idolatrous King will himself be sacrificing upon his new altar, to his new gods; the gods of Damascus: An usurped priesthood well becomes a false Deity. Because (saith he) the gods of the Kings of Syria help them, therefore will Isacrifice to them, that they may help me.  
Oh blind superstition! how did the gods of Syria help their Kings, when both those Kings, and their gods were vanquished, and taken by the King of Assyria? Even this Damascus, and this altar were the spoil of a foreign enemy; How then did the gods of Syria help their Kings, any other, then to their ruin? what dotage is this to make choice of a foiled protection? But had the Syrians prospered, must their gods have the thanks? Are there no authors of good but blocks or Devils? Or is an outward prosperity the only argument of truth, the only motive of devotion? O foolish Ahaz, it is the God thou hast forsaken, that plagues thee, under whose only arm thou mightst have prevailed. His power beats those Pagan stocks, one against other, so, as one while, one seems victorious, another vanquished; and at last he confounds both, together with their proudest clients: Thyself shall be the best instance.  
Of all the Kings of judah hitherto, there is none so dreadful an example either of sin, or judgement, as this son of good jotham. I abhor to think that such a monster should descend from the loins of David; where shall be the period of this wickedness? He began with the high places, thence he descends to the Calves of Dan and Bethel; from thence he falls to a Syrian altar, to the Syrian god; then from a partnership he falls to an utter exclusion of the true God, and blocking up his Temple; and then to the sacrifice of his own son; and at last, as if hell were broken loose upon God's inheritance, every several City, every high place of judah hath a new god: No marvel if he be branded by the Spirit of God, with, This is that King Ahaz.  
What a fearful plague did this noisome deluge of sin leave behind it, in the land of judah? who can express the horror of God's revenge upon a people that should have been his? Pekah the King of Israel, slew an hundred and twenty thousand of them in one day; amongst whom was Maseiah the son of Ahaz: O just judgement of the Almighty! Ahaz sheds the blood of one son to an idol: The true God sheds the blood of another of his sons, in revenge.  
Yet, the hand of the Lord is stretched out still:  
Two hundred thousand of them were carried away by the Israelites captive to Samaria:  
The Edomites came, and carried away another part of them for bondslaves, to their country:  
The Philistims came up and shared the Cities of the south of judah, and the villages thereof; Shortly, what other is miserable judah, than the prey, and spoil of all the neighbouring Nations? For the Lord brought judah low because of Ahaz King of Israel, for he 
2 Chr. 28. 19  made judah naked, and transgressed sore against the Lord: As for the great King of Ashur, whom Ahaz purchased with the sacrilegious pillage of the house of God, in stead of an aid, he proves a burden; How ever he sped in his first onsets; now, he distressed judah, 
2 Chr. 28. 20.  but strengthened it not: The charge was as great, as the benefit small: sooner shall he eat them out, then rescue them. No arm of flesh can shelter Ahaz from a vengeance.  
Be wise, o ye Kings, be instructed o ye judges of the earth; serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling: Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.  
His subjects complain, that he died so late, and, as repenting that he ever was, deny him a room in the sepulchres of Kings: as if they said; the common earth of jerusalem is too good for him that degenerated from his Progenitors, marred his kingdom, depraved his people, forsook his God.   

The utter Destruction of the Kingdom of ISRAEL.  
IVdah was at a sore 
2 King. 17.  heave, yet Israel shall miscarry before it; such are the sins of both, that they strive whether shall fall first; but this lot must light upon the ten Tribes; though the late King of judah were personally worse than the most of jeroboam's successors, yet, the people were generally less evil: upon whom the encroachments of Idolatry were more by obtrusion, then by consent, besides that the thrones of judah had some interchanges of good Princes, Israel none at all: The same justice therefore that made Israel a scourge to judah, made Assyria a scorpion to Israel.  
It was the quarrel of judah that first engaged the King of Ashur in this war against Israel; now he is not so easily fetched off; So we have seen some eager mastiff, that hath been set on by the least clap of the hand, but could not be loosened by the force of staffs.  
Salmaneser King of Assyria comes up against Hoshea King of Israel, and subdues him; and puts him to his Tribute: This yoke was uncouth and unpleasing; The vanquished Prince was neither able to resist, nor willing to yield; secretly therefore he treats with the King of Egypt for assistance, as desiring rather to hazard his liberty by the hand of an equal, then to enjoy a quiet subjection under the hand of an overruling power; we cannot blame Princes to be jealous of their sovereignties; The detaining of his yearly Tribute, and the whisperings with new confederates, have drawn up the King of Ashur to perfect his own victories: He returns therefore with a strong power, and after three years' siege, takes Samaria, imprisons Hoshea, and in the exchange of a woeful captivity, he peoples Israel with Assyrians, and Assyria with Israelites. Now that abused soil hath upon a surfeit of wickedness, cast out her perfidious owners, and will try how it can far with heathenish strangers: Now the Assyrian gallants triumph in the Palaces of Samaria and jezreel; whiles the Peers and Captains of Israel are driven manacled through the Assyrian streets, and billeted to the several places of their perpetual servitude: Shortly, now the flourishing Kingdom of the ten Tribes is comen to a final and shameful end; and so vanished in this last dissipation, that, since that day, no man could ever say, This was Israel.  
Oh terrible example of vengeance, upon that peculiar people, whom God hath chosen forhimselfe, out of all the world: All the world were witnesses of the favours of their miraculous deliverances, and protections; All the world shall be witnesses of their just confusion.  
It is not in the power of sleight errors to set off that infinite mercy: What was it, o God, what was it, that caused thee to cast off thine own inheritance? What but the same that made thee to cast the Angels out of heaven? Even their rebellious sins. Those sins dared to emulate the greatness of thy mercies, no less, than they forced the severity of thy judgements: They left all the commandments of the Lord their God; and made them molten Images, even two Calves; and made a grove and worshipped all the host of heaven; and served Baal; and caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination, and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.  
Neither were these slips of frailty, or ignorant mistaking, but wilful crimes, obstinate impieties, in spite of the doctrines, reproofs, menaces, miraculous convictions of the holy Prophets, which God sent amongst them: Thy destruction is of thyself, o Israel; what could the just hand of the Almighty do less than consume a nation so incorrigibly flagitious? A nation so unthankful for mercies, so impatient of remedies, so uncapable of repentance: so obliged, so warned, so shamelessly, so lawlessly wicked?  
What nation under heaven can now challenge an undefaisible interest in God; when Israel itself is cast off? what Church in the world can show such dear love-tokens from the Almighty as this, now-abhorred, and adulterous spouse? He that spared not the natural Olive, shall he spare the wild? It is not for us sinners of the Gentiles to be highminded, but awful.  
The Israelites are carried captive into Assyria; those goodly Cities of the ten tribes may not lie waist, and unpeopled: The wisdom of the victor finds it fit to transplant his own Colonies thither; that so he may raise profit thence, with security: From Babylon therefore, and Cuthah, and Avarice, and Hamath, and Sepharuaim, doth he send of his own subjects to possess, and inhabit the Cities of Samaria. The land doth not brook her new Tenants: They feared not the Lord; (how should they, they knew him not?) Therefore the Lord sent Lions amongst them which slew some of them: Not the veriest Pagan can be excused for his ignorance of God; Even the depravedst nature might teach us to tremble at a Deity; It is just with the Almighty not to put up neglect, where he hath bestowed reason.  
The brute creatures are sent to revenge the quarrel of their Maker, upon worse beasts, than themselves. Still hath God left himself Champions in Israel: Lions tear the Assyrians in pieces; and put them in mind, that, had it not been for wickedness, that land needed not to have changed masters. The great Lord of the world cannot want means to plague offenders: If the men be gone, yet the beasts are there; And if the beasts had been gone, yet so long as there were stones in the walls, in the quarries God would be sure of avengers': There is no security but in being at peace with God.  
The King of Assyria is sued to, for remedy: Even these Pagans have learned to know that these Lions were sent from a God; that this punishment is for sin; They know not the manner of the God of the land, therefore he hath sent Lions among them: These blind Heathen that think every land hath a several God; yet, hold that God, worthy of his own worship; yet, hold that worship must be grounded upon knowledge; the want of that knowledge, punishable, the punishment of that want, just, and divine: How much worse than Assyrians are they that are ready to ascribe all calamities to nature to chance? that acknowledging but one God of all the world, are yet careless to know him to serve him?  
One of the Priests of Israel is appointed to be carried back to Samaria, to teach the Assyrian Colony the fashions of the God of the land; not for devotion, but for impunity: vain Politicians think to satisfy God by patching up religions; any forms are good enough for an unknown deity: The Assyrian Priests teach, and practise the worship of their own Gods; The Israelitish Priest prescribes the worship of the true God; The people will follow both; the one out of liking, the other out of fear: What a prodigious mixture was here of religions? true with false, jewish with Paganish, divine with devilish; Every division of these transplanted Assyrians had their several deities, high places, sacrifices; this Priest of Israel intercommons with every of them: So as now these fathers of Samaritanisme, are in at all; They fear the Lord and serve their idols: No beggar's cloak is more pieced than the religion of these new inhabitants of Israel. I know not how their bodies sped for the Lions, I am sure their souls fared the worse for this medley: Above all things God hates a mongrel devotion; If we be not all Israel, it were better to be all Ashur; It cannot so much displease God to be unknown or neglected, as to be consorted with Idols.   

HEZEKIAH and SENACHERIB.  
ISrael is gone, judah 
2 Kings 18. and 19  is left standing; or rather some few sprigs of those two Tribes: so we have seen in the shredding of some large Timber-tree, one or two boughs left at the top to hold up the sap. Who can but lament the poor remainders of that languishing kingdom of David?  
Take out of the two Tribes of judah, and Benjamin, one hundred and twenty thousand, whom Pekah the King of Israel slew in one day. Take out two hundred thousand that were carried away captive to Samaria; Take out those that were transported into the bondage of the Edomites; and those that were subdued in the South parts, by the Philistims; alas, what an handful was left to the king of judah; scarce worth the name of a dominion: Yet, even now, out of the gleeds of judah, doth God raise up a glorious light to his forlorn Church; yea, from the wretched loins of Ahaz, doth God fetch an holy Ezekiah. It had been hard to conceive the state of judah worse than it was; neither was it more miserable, then sinful, and in regard of both, desperate; when beyond hope, God revives this dying stock of David, and out of very ruins builds up his own house. Ahaz was not more the ill son of a good father, than he was the ill father of a good son. He was the ill son of good jotham, the ill father of good Hezekiah. Good Hezekiah makes amends for his father's impiety; and puts a new life into the heartless remnant of God's people.  
The wisdom of our good God knows when his aid will be most seasonable, most welcome; which he then loves to give, when he finds us left of all our hopes: That merciful hand is reserved for a dead lift; then, he fails us not.  
Now, you might have seen this pious Prince busily bestirring himself, in so late and needful a reformation, removing the high places, battering and burning the Idols, demolishing their temples, cutting down their groves, opening the Temple, purging the altars, and vessels, sanctifying the Priests, rekindling the Lamps, renewing the incense, reinstituting the sacrifices, establishing the order of God's service, appointing the courses, settling the maintenance of the ministers, publishing the decrees for the long-neglected Pass-over; celebrating it, and the other feasts, with due solemnity, encouraging the people, contributing bountifully to the offerings, and, in one word, so ordering all the affairs of God, as if he had been sent down from heaven to restore Religion; as if David himself had been alive again in this blessed heir, not so much of his Crown, as of his piety. Oh judah, happy in thy Ezekiah, Oh Ezekiah happy in the gracious restauration of thy judah: Ahaz shall have no thank for such a son; The God that is able of the very stones to raise children to Abraham, raises a true seed of David out of the corrupt loins of an Idolater: That infinite mercy is not tied to the terms of an immediate propagation: For the space of three hundred years, the man after Gods own heart had no perfect heir till now; Till now did the high places stand: the devotions of the best Princes of judah were blemished with some weak omissions; Now the zeal of good Ezekiah clears all those defects, and works an entire change.  
How seasonably hath the providence of God kept the best man for the worst times? When God hath a great work to do, he knows to fit himself with instruments.  
No marvel if the Paganish Idols go to wrack, when even the brazen Serpent that Moses had made by Gods own appointment, is broken in pieces: The Israelites were stung with fiery Serpents, this brazen Serpent healed them, which they did no sooner see, than they recovered: But now, such was the venom of the Israelitish Idolatry, that this Serpent of brass, stung worse than the fiery; That, which first cured by the eye, now by the eye poisoned the soul; That which was at first, the type of a Saviour, is now, the deadly engine of the Enemy. Whiles it helped, it stood; it stood whiles it hurt not, but when once wicked abuse hath turned it into an Idol; what was it but Nehushtan?  
The holiness of the first institution cannot privilege aught from the danger of a future profanation; nor, as the case may stand, from an utter abolition: What antiquity, what authority, what primary service might this Serpent have pleaded? All that cannot keep it out of the dust. Those things which are necessary in their being, beneficial in their continuance, may still remain when their abuse is purged; but those things whose use is but temporary, or whose duration is needless and unprofitable, may cease with the occasion, and much more perish with an inseparable abuse. Ezekiah willingly forgets who made the Serpent, when he fees the Israelites make it an idol: It is no less intolerable for God, to have a rival of his own making.  
Since Hezekiah was thus, above all his Ancestors, pright with the Lord; it is no marvel if the Lord were with him; if he prospered, whither soever he went; The same God that would have his justice magnified in the confusion of the wicked Princes of Issrael, and judah, would have his mercy no less acknowledged, in the blessings of faithful Hezekiah.  
The great King of Assyria had in a sort swallowed up both the Kingdoms of judah, and Israel; yet not with an equal cruelty; He made Israel captive, judah (upon a willing composition) tributary. Israel is vanished in a transportation, judah continues under the homage wherein Ahaz left it: Hezekiah had reigned but six years when he saw his neighbours of Israel packing into a miserable captivity; & the proud Assyrians Lording in their Cities; yet, even then, when he stood alone, in a corner of judah, durst Hezekiah draw his neck out of the yoke of the great, and victorious Monarch of Assyria; and, as if one enemy had not been enough, at the same time, he falls upon the encroaching Philistims, and prevails. It is not to be asked, what powers a man can make, but in what terms he stands with heaven. The unworthy father of Hezekiah had clogged judah with this servile fealty to the Assyrian; what the conditions of that subjection were, it is too late, and needless for us to inquire, If this payment were limited to a period of time, the expiration acquitted him; If upon covenants of aid, the cessation thereof acquitted him; If the reforming of religion, & banishment of Idolatry ran under the censure of rebellion, the quarrel on Ezekiahs' part, was holy, on Senacheribs' unjust: but if the restipulation were absolute, and the withdrawing of this homage upon none but civil grounds, I cannot excuse the good King from a just offence: It was an humane frailty in an obliged Prince by force to affect a free and independent sovereignty.  
What do we mince that fact, which holy Ezekiah himself censures? I have offended, return from me, what thou putst on me will I bear? The comfort of liberty may not be had with an unwarranted violence. Holiness cannot free us from infirmity: It was a weakness to do that act, which must be soon undone with much repentance, and more loss; This revolt shall cost Ezekiah (besides much humiliation) three hundred yearly talents of silver, thirty talents of gold: How much better had it been for the Cities of judah to have purchased their peace with an easy tribute, than war with an intolerable taxation.  
Fourteen years had good Hezekiah fed upon a sweet peace, sauced only with a set pension; now he must prepare his palate for the bitter morsels of war. The King of Assyria is comen up against all the defenced Cities of judah; and hath taken them: Ezekiah: is fain to buy him out with too many talents; The poor Kingdom of judah is exhausted, with so deep a payment; in so much as the King is forced to borrow of God himself, for Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord; yea, at that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which he had over-laid, and gave it to the King of Assyria. How hard was good Hezekiah driven, ere he would be thus bold with his God? Surely if the mines, or coffers of judah could have yielded any supply, this shift had been hateful; to fetch back for an enemy, that which he had given to his Maker: Only necessity excuses that from sacrilege in the son, which will, made sacrilege in the father: That which is once devoted to a sacred use, may not be called back to a profane: But he whose the earth is, and the fullness of it, is not so taken with our metals, that he should more regard our gold, than our welfare: His goodness cannot grudge any outward thing for the price of our peace: To rob God out of covetousness, or wantonness, or neglect is justly damnable; we cannot rob him out of our need; for than he gives us all we take; and bids us ransom our lives, our liberties; The treasures of God's house were precious, for his sake, to whom they were consecrated, but more precious in the sight of the Lord was the life of any one of his Saints.  
Every true Israelite was the spiritual house of God; why should not the door of the material temple be willingly stripped, to save the whole frame of the spiritual Temple. Take therefore, o Hezekiah what thou hast given, no gold is too holy to redeem thy vexation: It matters not so much how bare the doors of the Temple be, in a case of necessity, as how well the insides be furnished with sincere devotion. O the cruel hard heartedness of those men which will rather suffer the living Temples of God to be ruined; then they will ransom their life, with farthings.  
It could not be, but that the store of needy judah must soon be drawn dry with so deep an exaction; that sum cannot be sent, because it cannot be raised: The cruel Tyrant calls for his bricks whiles he allows no straw; His anger is kindled because Ezekiahs' coffers have a bottom; with amighty host doth he come up a 'gainst jerusalem; therefore shall that City be destroyed by him, because by him it hath been impoverished; the inhabitants must be slaves, because they are beggars.  
Oh lamentable, and, in sight, desperate condition of distressed jerusalem: wealth it had none; strength it had, but a little; all the Country round about was subdued to the Assyrian; that proud victor hath begirt the walls of it, with an innumerable army, scorning that such a shovell-full of earth should stand out but one day; Poor jerusalem stands alone, blocked up with a world of enemies, helpless, friendless, comfortless; looking for the worst of an hostile fury; when Tartan and Rabsaris, and Rabshakeh, the great Captains of the Assyrians, call to a parley. Hezekiah sends to them three of his prime officers, his Steward, his Secretary, his Recorder. Lord; What insolent blasphemies doth that foul mouth of Rabshakeh belch out against the living God, against his anointed servant?  
How plausibly doth he discourage the subjects of Ezekiah, how proudly doth he insult upon their impotency, how doth he brave them with base offers of advantage; and lastly, how cunningly doth he forelay their confidence (which was only left them) in the Almighty, protesting not to be comen up hither without the Lord; The Lord said to me, Go up to this land, and destroy it; How fearful a word was this? The rest were but vain cracks, this was a thunderbolt to strike dead the heart of Ezekiah; If Rabshakeh could have been believed, jerusalem could not but have flown open; How could it think to stand out no less against God, than men? Even thus doth the great enemy of mankind; if he can dishearten the soul from a dependence upon the God of mercies, the day is his: Lewd miscreants care not how they belie God for their own purposes.  
Eliakim the steward of Hezekiah well knew, how much the people must needs be affected with this pernicious suggestion; and fain would therefore, if not stop that wicked mouth, yet divert these blasphemies into a foreign expression. I wonder that any wise man should look for favour from an enemy: Speak I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language: What was this but to teach an adversary how to do mischief? Wherefore came Rabshakeh thither but to gall Ezekiah, to withdraw his subjects? That tongue is properest for him which may hurt most; Deprecations of evil to a malicious man are no better than advices. An unknown idiom is fit to keep counsel; they are familiar words that must convey aught to the understanding. Lewd men are the worse for admonitions.  
Rabshakeh had not so strained his throat, to corrupt the citizens of jerusalem, had it not been for the humble obtestation of Eliakim; Now he rears up his voice, and holds his sides, and roars out his double blasphemies; one while affrighting the people with the great power of the mighty king of Assyria; another while debasing the contemptible force of Hezekiah; now smoothly alluring them, with the assurances of a safe and successful yeeldance; then, discouraging them with the impossibility of their deliverance; laying before them the fearful examples of greater nations vanquished, by that sword, which was now shaken over them; triumphing in the impotency, and miscarriage of their gods: Who are they among all the Gods of the countries, that have delivered their Country out of mine hand, that the Lord should deliver jerusalem out of mine hand? Where are the Gods of Arpad, and of Hamath? Where, but in that hellish darkness, that is ordained both for them, and for thee, barbarous Assyrian, that darest thus open thy mouth against thy Maker: And can those Atheous eyes of thine see no difference of Gods? Is there no distance betwixt a stock, or stone, and that infinite Deity that made heaven & earth? It is enough that thou now feelest it; thy torments have taught thee too late, that thou affrontedst a living God.  
How did the fingers & tongues of these jewish Peers and people, itch to be at Rabshakeh; in a revengeful answer to those impieties: All is whusht; not a word sounds from those walls: I do not more wonder at Hezekiahs' wisdom, in commanding silence, then at the subject's obedience, in keeping it; This railer could not be more spighted, then with no answer; and if he might be exasperated, he could not be reform; beside, the rebounding of those multiplied blasphemies, might leave some ill impressions in the multitude; This sulphurous flask, therefore, dies in his own smoke: only leaving an hateful stench behind it.  
Good Hezekiah cannot easily pass over this devilish oratory; no sooner doth he hear of it, than he rends his clothes, and covers himself with sackcloth, and betakes himself to the house of the Lord, and sends his officers, and the gravest of the Priests, clad in sackcloth, to Esay the Prophet of God, with a doleful and querulous message.  
Oh the noble piety of Hezekiah; notwithstanding all the straits of the siege, and the danger of so powerful an enemy; I find not the garments of this good King, any otherwise then whole, and unchanged; but now so soon as ever a blasphemy is uttered against the Majesty of his God, (though by a Pagan dog) his clothes are torn, and turned into sackcloth: There can be no better argument of an upright heart, then to be more sensible of the indignities offered to God, then of our own dangers. Even these desperate reproaches send Ezekiah to the Temple: The more we see God's name profaned, the more shall we, if we be truly religious, love and honour it.  
Whither should Hezekiab run but to the Temple, to the Prophet? There, there is the refuge of all faithful ones, where they may speak with God, where they may be spoken to from God, and fetch comfort from both: It is not possible that a believing heart should be disappointed: Isaiah sends that message to the good King, that may dry up his tears, and cheer his countenance, and change his suit; Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the King of Syria have blasphemed me; Behold I will send a blast upon him; and be shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own Land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own Land.  
Lo; even whiles Senacherib was in the height of his jollity & assurance; God's Prophet foresees his ruin; and gives him for dead, whiles that Tyrant thought of nothing but life and victory. Proud & secure worldlings little dream of the near approach of their judgements: whiles they are plotting their deepest designs, the overruling justice of the Almighty hath contrived their sudden confusion, and sees, and sets them their day.  
Rabshakeh returns, and finding the King of Assyria warring against Libnah, reports to him the silent, (and therein) contemptuous answer, and firm resolutions of Hezekiah; In the mean time God pulls Senacherib by the ear, with the news of the approaching army of Tirhakah King of Ethiopia, which was coming up to raise the siege; and to succour his confederates: That dreadful power will not allow the Assyrian King, in person to lead his other forces up against jerusalem, nor to continue his former Leaguer long before those walls. But now, he writes big words to Hezekiah, and thinks with his thundering menaces to beat open the gates, and level the bulwarks of jerusalem: Like the true master of Rabshakeh, he reviles the God of Heaven; and basely parallels him with the dunghill deities of the heathen.  
Good Ezekiah gets him into his Sanctuary; there he spreads the letters before the Lord; and calls to the God that dwells between the Cherubims, to revenge the blasphemies of Senacherib, to protect and rescue himself, and his people. Every one of those words pierced heaven; which was no less open to mercy unto Hezekiah; then, vengeance to Senacherib; Now is Isaiah addressed with a second message of comfort to him, who doubtless disinherited not the first: only the reiteration of that furious blasphemy made him take faster hold, by his faithful devotion. Now, the jealous God in a disdain of so blasphemous a contestation, rises up in a style of Majesty, and gloriously tramples upon this saucy insolency, Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult is comen up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook into thy nose, and my beidle into thy lips: and will turn this back by the way thou camest. Lod, Senacherib, the God of heaven makes a beast of thee, who hast so brutishly spurned at his name; If thou be a ravenous Bear, he hath an hook for thy nostrils: If thou be a resty horse, he hath a bridle for thy mouth; In spite of thee, thou shalt follow his hook, or his bridle; and shalt be led to thy just shame by either.  
It is not for us to be the Lords of our own actions; Thus saith the Lord concerning the King of Assyria; He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it; by the way that he came shall he return; etc. Impotent men, what are we in the hands of the Almighty? we purpose, he overrules; we talk of great matters, and think to do wonders; he blows upon our projects, and they vanish with ourselves: He that hath set bounds to the Sea, hath appointed limits to the rage of the proudest enemies; yea, even the Devils themselves are confined; Why boast ye yourselves, o ye Tyrant's, that ye can do mischief; ye are stinted: and even within those lists, is confusion.  
O the Trophies of divine justice, That very night the Angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore & five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpse.  
How speedy an execution was this, how miraculous? No humane arm shall have the glory of this victory; It was God that was defied by that presumptuous Assyrian; It is God that shall right his own wrongs; Had the Egyptian, or Ethyopian forces been comen up, though the same God had done this work by them, yet some praise of this slaughter had perhaps cleaved to their fingers. Now an invisible hand sheds all this blood; that his very enemies may clear him from all partnership of revenge. Go now, wicked Senacherib, and tell of the gods of Hamath and Arpad, and Sepharuaim, and Hena, & juah, which thou hast destroyed, and say, that Hezekiahs' God is but as one of these: Go, and add this Deity to the number of thy conquests: Now, say that Ezekiahs' God in whom he trusted hath deceived him, and graced thy Triumphs.  
With shame and grief enough is that sneaped Tyrant returned to his Ninive, having left behind him, all the pride and strength of Assyria, for compost to the jewish fields. Well were it for thee, o Senacherib, if thou couldst escape thus; vengeance waits for thee at home, and welcomes thee into thy place; whiles thou art worshipping in the house of Nisroch thy god, two of thine own sons shall be thine executioners. See now, if that false Deity of thine can preserve thee from that stroke which the true God sends thee by the hand of thine own flesh; He that slew thine host by his Angel, slays thee by thy sons: The same Angel that killed all those thousands, could as easily have smitten thee; but he rather reserves thee for the further torment of an unnatural stroke, that thou mayest see too late, how easy it is for him in spite of thy God, to arm thine own loins against thee.  
Thou art avenged, O God, thou art avenged plentifully of thine enemies▪ Whosoever strives with thee, is sure to gain nothing but loss, but shame, but death, but hell. The Assyrians are slain, Senacherib is rewarded for his blasphemy: jerusalem is rescued, Ezekiah rejoices, the nations wonder and tremble. O love the Lord all ye his Saints, for the Lord preserveth the faithful, & plenteously rewarded the proud doer.   

HEZEKIAH sick, recovered, visited.  
HEzekiah was freed 
2 King. 20.  from the siege of the Assyrians, but he is surprised with a disease: he that delivered him from the hand of his enemies, smites him with sickness: God doth not let us lose from all afflictions, when he redeems us from one.  
To think that Ezekiah was either not thankful enough for his deliverance, or too much lifted up with the glory of so miraculous a favour; were an injurious misconstruction of the hand of God; and an uncharitable censure of an holy Prince: For, though no flesh and blood can avoid the just desert of bodily punishment, yet God doth not always strike with an intuition of sin; sometimes he regards the benefit of our trial; sometimes the glory of his mercy in our cure.  
It was no sleight distemper, that seized upon Ezekiah, but a disease both painful, and fierce, and in nature deadly. O God, how thou lashest even those whom thou lovest: Hadst thou ever any such darling in the throne of judah, as Hezekiah? Yet he no sooner breatheth from a miserable siege, than he panteth under a mortal sickness: when as yet he had not so much, as the comfort of a child, to succeed him, thy Prophet is sent to him with the heavy message of his death, Set thine house in order, for thou shalt dye and not live. It is no small mercy of God that he gives us warning of our end; we shall make an ill use of so gracious a premonition, if we make not a meet preparation for our passage. Even those that have not an house, yet have a soul; no soul can want important affairs to be ordered for a final dissolution; the neglect of this best thrift is desperate. Set thy soul in order, o man, for thou shalt dye, and not live.  
If God had given Ezekiah a son, nature had bequeathed his estate; now, he must study to find heirs: Even these outward things, (though in themselves worthless) require our careful disposition, to those we leave behind us; and if we have delayed these thoughts, till then, our sick beds may not complain of their importunity; We cannot leave to our families a better legacy, than Peace.  
Never was the Prophet Esay unwelcome to this good King, until now: Even sad tidings must be carried by those messengers, which would be faithful: neither may we regard so much how they will be taken, as by whom they are sent.  
It was a bold and harsh word to say to a King, Thou shalt dye, and not live: I do not hear Hezekiah rage, & fret at the message; or threat the bearer, but he meekly turns his face to the wall, and weeps, and prays: Why to the wall? Was it for the greater secrecy of his devotion? was is for the more freedom from all distraction? was it that the passion which accompanied his prayer, might have no witnesses? Or, was it for that this wall looked towards the Temple, which his heart and eyes still moved unto, though his feet could not?  
Howsoever, the patient soul of good Ezekiah turns itself to that holy God, from whom he smarts, and bleeds; and pours out itself into a fervent deprecation, I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect hart; and have done that which is good in thy sight.  
Couldst thou fear, o Ezekiah, that God had forgotten thine integrity? The grace that was in thee, was his own work; could he in thee neglect himself? Or dost thou therefore doubt of his remembrance of thy faithfulness, because he summons thee to receive the crown of thy faithfulness, glory, and immortality? wherein canst thou be remembered, if this be to forget thee? What challenge is this? Is God a debtor to thy perfection? Hath thine holy carriage merited any thing from that infinite justice? far, far were these presumptuous conceits from that humble and mortified soul: Thou hadst hated thine own breast, if it could once have harboured so proud a thought. This perfection of thine was no other, than an honest soundness of hart, & life, which thou knowest God had promised to reward: It was the mercy of the covenant that thou pleadedst, not the merit of thine obedience.  
Every one of these words were steeped in tears: But what meant these words, these tears? I hear not of any suit moved by Hezekiah; only he wishes to be remembered, in that which could never be forgotten, though he should have entreated for an oblivion.  
Speak out Hezekiah, what is it that thy tears crave, whiles thy lips express not? O let me live, and I shall praise thee, O God.  
In a natural man none could wonder at this passionate request; who can but wonder at it, in a Saint? whose happiness doth but then begin, when his life ceaseth: whose misery doth but then end, when his death enters: the word of faith, is, Oh let me dye, that I may enjoy thee. How then doth the good King cry at the news of that death, which some resolute Pagans have entertained with smiles? Certainly, the best man cannot strip himself of some flesh, and whiles nature hath an undeniable share in him, he cannot but retain some smatch of the sweetness of life, of the horror of dissolution; Both these were in Hezekiah, neither of them could transport him into this passion: they were higher respects that swayed with so holy a Prince; a tender care of the glory of God, a careful pity of the Church of God; His very tears said; o God, thou knowest that the eyes of the world are bend upon me, as one that hath abandoned their idolatry, and restored thy sincere worship; I stand alone in the midst of a wicked and idolatrous generation, that looks through all my actions, all my events; If now they shall see me snatched away in the midst of my days, what will these Heathen say; how can thy great name but suffer in this mine untimely extinction?  
Besides, what will become of thy poor Church, which I shall leave feebly religious, and as yet scarce warm, in the course of a pious reformation? how soon shall it be miserably over grown with superstition, and heathenism; how soon shall the wild Boar of Assyria root up this little vineyard of thine? What need I beseech thee, o Lord, to regard thy name, to regard thine inheritance?  
What one tear of Hezekiah can run waist? What can that good King pray for, unheard, unanswered? Senacherib came in a proud confidence to swallow up his city, and people: prayers and tears send him away confounded: Death comes to swallow up his person, (and that not without authority) prayers and tears send him away disappointed. Before Isaiah was gone out into the middle Court, the word of the Lord came to him, saying; Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the Captain of my people; Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father; I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold I will heal thee; On the third day thou shalt go up to the house of the Lord; and I will add to thy days fifteen years.  
What shall we say then, o God, hast thou thus soon changed thy purpose? Was it not thy true message which thy Prophet, even now, delivered to Ezekiah? Is some what fall'n out that thou fore-sawst not? or, dost thou now decree somewhat thou meantst not? The very thought of any of these were no better than blasphemous impiety. Certainly, Hezekiah could not live one day longer, than was eternally decreed; The decree of God's eternal counsel had from everlasting, determined him fifteen years yet longer: Why then doth God say, by his Prophet, Thou shalt dye, and not live? He is not as man that he should repent; the message is changed, the will is not changed; yea rather the message is explicated, not changed; For the signified will of God, though it sound absolutely, yet must be understood with condition; that tells Hezekiah what he must expect from the nature of his disease, what would befall him, without his deprecations: There was nothing but death in the second causes; what ever secret purpose there was in the first; and that purpose shall lie hid for a time, under a reserved condition: The same decree that says, Ninive shall be destroyed, means, if Ninive repent, it shall not be destroyed; he that finds good reason to say, Hezekiah shall dye, yet still means, if the quickened devotion of Hezekiah shall importune me for life, it shall be protracted. And the same God that hath decreed this addition of fifteen years, had decreed to stir up the spirit of Hezekiah, to that vehement and weeping importunity, which should obtain it. O God, thou workest thy good pleasure in us, and with us; and by thy revealed will movest us in those ways, whereby thou effectest thy secret will.  
How wonderful is this mercy? Hezekiahs' tears are not dry upon his cheeks, yea his breath is not passed his lips, when God sends him a comfortable answer. How careful is the God of compassions, that his holy servant should not languish one hour, in the expectation of his denounced death? What speed was here, as in the errand, so in the act of recovery? within three days shall Hezekiah be upon his feet; yea his feet shall stand in the Courts of God's house; he that now in his bed sighs, and groans, & weeps out a petition, shall then sing out a thanksgiving in the Temple. Oh thou that hearest the prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come: With what cheerful assurance should we approach to the throne of that grace, which never failed any suppliant.  
Neither was this grant more speedy, then bountiful; we are wont to reckon seven years for the life of a man; and now, behold, more than two lives hath God added to the age of Hezekiah. How unexampled a favour is this? who ever but Hezekiah knew his period so long before? the fixedness of his term, is no less mercy, than the protraction; we must be content to live or die at uncertainties; we are not worthy to calculate the date of our own times: Teach us, O Lord, so to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.  
There is little joy in many days, if they be evil; Ezekiah shall not be blessed only with life, but with peace; The proud Assyrian threatens an invasion; his late foil still sticks in his stomach, and stirs him to a revenge; the hook is in his nostrils, he cannot move whither he lists; The God of heaven will maintain his own quarrel: I will defend this City for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake. Lo; for his life, Ezekiah is beholden (next under the infinite goodness of God) to his prayers; for his protection, to the dear memory of his father David; surely, for aught we find, Ezekiah was no less upright, and less offensive than David; yet both Ezekiah and jerusalem shall far the better for David's sake, above three hundred years after.  
To that man after his own heart, had God engaged himself, by his gracious promise, to preserve his throne, his seed: God loves to remember his ancient mercies: How happy a thing it is to be faithful with God; this is the way to oblige those which are yet unborn; and to entail blessings upon the successions of future generations.  
It seems it was some pestilent ulcer that thus endangered the life of Hezekiah. Isaiah is not a Prophet only, but a Physician. And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs: He that gave an assurance of recovery, gives a receipt for the recovery. The decree of God includes the means: neither can the medicine work without a word; neither will the word work without the medicine; both of them must meet in the cure: If we so trust the promise, that we neglect the prescript, we presume to no purpose. Happy is that soul, that so regards the promise of God's Prophets, as that withal he receives their counsels.  
Nothing could be more proper for the ripening of hard and purulent tumours, than dried figs; Herein Isaiahs' direction was according to nature; Wherefore should we balk the ordinary road, when it is both fair and near?  
The sudden contradiction of the message causes a just difficulty in the assent. Hezekiah therefore craves a sign; not for that he disinherited, but that he might trust the more; we can never take too fast hold of those promises of God, which have not more comfort in the application, then natural impossibility in the performance. We believe, Lord, help our unbelief.  
The sick King hath his option; His father was offered a sign and refused it; he sues for one, and obtains it: Shall the shadow go for ward ten degrees, or back ten degrees? As if heaven itself lay open to his choice; and were ready either to mend this pace, or retire for his confirmation; What creature is not cheerfully forward to obey the faith of God's servants?  
Hezekiah fastens rather upon that sign which is more hard, more disagreeing from the course of nature; not without good reason; Every proof must be clearer than the thing to be proved, neither may there want a meet proportion betwixt both; now the going forward of the shadow was a motion, no other than natural, the recovery of that pestilent disease was against the stream of nature; the more difficult sign therefore, the surer evidence.  
Whether shall we more wonder at the measure of the love of God to Hezekiah, or at the power of Isaiahs' faith in God? Out of both, either the Sun goes back in heaven that his shadow may go back on earth: or the shadow no less miraculously goes back on earth, whiles the Sun goes forward in heaven. It is true that the Prophet speaks of the shadow, not of the Sun; except perhaps because the motion of the Sun is best discerned by the shadow; and the motion of the shadow is led by the course of the Sun: beside, that the demonstration of this miracle is reported to be local in the Dial of Ahaz, not universal, in the sensible length of the day; withal, the retreat of the Sun had made a public and noted change in the frame of nature, this particular alteration of the shadow in places limited, might satisfy no less without a confusive mutation in the face of the world; Whethersoever; to draw the Sun back together with the shadow; or to draw the shadow back without the Sun was the proof of a divine omnipotency; able therefore to draw back the life of Hezekiah, fifteen degrees, from the night of death; towards which it was hasting.  
O God, thou wilt rather alter the course of heaven and earth, than the faith of thy children shall sink for want of supportation.  
It should seem the Babylonians finding the Assyrian power abated by the revengeful hand of God's Angel, and their own discord, took this advantage of a revolt; and now to strengthen their part, fall in with Hezekiah King of judah, whom they found the old enemy to the Assyrians, & the great favourite of heaven: him they woo with gifts; him they congratulate with Ambassages: The fame of Hezekiahs' sickness, recovery, form, and assurance of cure, have drawn thither messengers, and presents from Berodach Baladan King of Babylon.  
The Chaldees were curious searchers into the secrets of nature, especially into the motions of the celestial bodies; Though there had been no politic relations, this very Astronomical miracle had been enough to fetch them to jerusalem, that they might see the man, for whose sake the Sun forsook his place, or the shadow forsook the Sun.  
How easily have we seen those holy men miscarried by prosperity, against whom no miseries could prevail? He that stood out stoutly against all the Assyrian onsets, clinging the faster to his God, by how much he was harder assaulted by Senacherib, melteth now with these Babylonian favours, and runs abroad into offensive weaknesses.  
The Babylonian Ambassadors are too welcome to Ezekiah; As a man transported with the honour of their respective, and costly visitations, he forgets his tears, and his turning to the wall; he forgets their incompatible Idolatry; so hugging them in his bosom, as if there had been no cause of strangeness: All his doors fly open to them; and in a vainglorious ostentation all his new-gathered treasures, all his strong armoryes entertain their eyes; nothing in his house, nothing in his Dominion is hid from them.  
Oh Ezekiah, what means this impotent ambition? It is not long since thou tarest off the very plates of the Temple doors, to give unto Senacherib; and can thy treasures be suddenly so multiplied, that they can be worthy to astonish foreign beholders? Or, if thy store-house were as rich as the earth, can thy heart be so vain as to be lifted up with these heavy metals? Didst thou not see that heaven itself was at thy beck, whilst thou wert humbled? and shall a little earthly dross have power over thy soul? Can the flattering applause of strangers let thee lose into a proud joy, whom the late message of God's Prophet resolved into tears? Oh God, if thou do not keep us, as well in our sunshine, as in our storm, we are sure to perish: As in all time of our tribulation, so in all time of our wealth, good Lord deliver us.  
Alas, how sleight doth this weakness seem in our eyes, to rejoice in the abundance of God's blessings? to call in foreign friends to be witnesses of our plenty? to raise our conceits, some little, upon the acclamations of others, upon the value of our own abilities?  
Lay thine hand upon thy mouth, o foolish flesh and blood when thou seest the censure of thy Maker.  
Isaiah the Prophet is sent speedily to Hezekiah, with a sharp and heart-breaking message: Behold the days come that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon; nothing shall be left, saith the Lord; And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the Palace of the King of Babylon.  
No sin can be light in Hezekiah: the holiness of the person adds to the unholiness of the act; Eminency of profession doubles both the offence, and the judgement. This glory shall end in an ignominious loss.  
The great and holy God will not digest pride in any, much less, in his own. That which was the subject of Hezekiahs' sin, shall be the matter of his punishment; those with whom he sinned, shall be his avengers'; It was his treasure and munition, wherein he prides himself to these men of Babylon: The men of Babylon shall carry away his treasure and munition; What now doth Hezekiah but tempt them with a glorious booty; as some fond traveler that would show his gold to a Thief?  
These worldly things are furthest off from the heart; Perhaps Hezekiah might not be much troubled with their loss: Lo, God comes closer to him, yet.  
As yet was Ezekiah childless; how much better had it been to continue so still, then to be plagued in his issue? He shall now beget children to servitude; his loins shall yield Pages to the Court of Babylon: Whiles he sees them borne Princes, he shall foresee them made eunuchs in a foreign Palace: What comfort can he take in the wishes and hopes of sons, when ere they be borne, he hears them destined to captivity and bondage?  
This rod was smart, yet good Ezekiah kisses it; his heart struck him no less, than the mouth of the Prophet; meekly therefore doth he yield to this divine correction; Good is the Word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. Thou hast spoken this word, but from the Lord; it is not thine, but his; and being his, it must needs be, like himself, good: Good because it is just, for I have deserved more, and worse; Good, because merciful; for I suffer not according to my deserts. Is it not good, if there be peace and truth in my days? I have deserved a present payment, O God thou deferrest it; I have deserved it in person, thou reservest it for those whom I cannot yet so feel, because they are not; I have deserved war & tumult, thou favorest me with peace; I have deserved to be overrun with superstition, and Idolatry, thou blessest me with truth; shouldst thou continue truth unto me, (though upon the most unquiet terms) the blessing were too good for me; but now thou hast promised, and wilt not reverse it, that both truth and peace shall be in my days; Lord I adore thy justice, I bless thy mercy.  
God's children are neither waspish nor sullen when they are chid or beaten, but patiently hold their backs to the stripes of a displeased mercy; knowing how much more God is to be magnified, for what he might have done, then repined at, for what he hath done; resigning themselves over into the hand of that gracious justice, which in their smart seeks their reformation and glory.   

MANASSEH.  
AT last, some three years after his recovery, 
2 King. 21. And 2 Chor. 33.  Hezekiah hath a son; but such a one, as if he could have foreseen, orbity had been a blessing.  
Still in the throne of judah there is a succession, and interchange of good and evil: Good jotham is succeeded by wicked Ahaz; wicked Ahaz is succeed by good Ezekiah; Good Ezekiah is succeeded by wicked Manasseh: Evil Princes succeed to good, for the exercise of the Church: and good succeed to evil, for the comfort of the Church.  
The young years of Manasseh give advantage to his miscarriage; Even, whiles he might have been under the Ferule, he swayed the Sceptre: Whither may not a child be drawn, especially to a garish, and puppetlike superstition? As infancy is capable of all impressions, so most of the worst.  
Neither did Manasseh begin more early than he held out long; He reigned more years than his good father lived: notwithstanding the miraculous addition to his age; More than ever any King of judah, beside, could reach: Length of days is no true rule of God's favour; As plants last longer than sensitive creatures, and brute creatures outlive the reasonable; so, amongst the reasonable, it is no news for the wickedly great, to inherit these earthly glories, longer than the best.  
There wants not apparent reason for this difference; Good Princes are fetched away to a better Crown; They cannot be losers, that exchange a weak and fading honour, for a perfection and eternity of blessedness: Wicked men live long to their own disadvantage; they do but carry so many more brands to their hell: If therefore there be a just man that perisheth in his righteousness; and there be a wicked man that prolongs his life in his wickedness, far be it from us, either to pity the removal of the just, or to envy the continuance of the wicked; This continues to his loss, that departs to an happy advancement.  
It is very like that Ezekiah marrying so late, in the vigour both of his age, and holiness, made a careful choice of a wife suitable to his own piety; Neither had his delight been so much in her (according to her name) if her delight had not been, as his, in God; Their issue swerves from both, so fully inheriting the vices of his grandfather Ahaz, as if there had been no intervention of an Ezekiah: So we have seen the kernel of a well fruited plant degenerate into that crab, or willow, which gave the original to his stock; yet can I not say that Ezekiah was as free from traducing evil to his son Manasseh, as Ahaz was free from traducing good to his son Hezekiah: Evil is incorporated into the best nature, whereas even the least good descends from above.  
We may not measure grace by means: Was it possible that Manasseh having been trained up in the religious Court of his father Hezekiah, under the eye of so holy Prophets and Priests, under the shadow of the Temple of God, after a childhood seasoned with so gracious precepts, with so frequent exercise of devotion, should run thus wild into all heathenish abominations; as if there had been nothing but Idolatry in the seed of his conception, in the milk of his nourishment, in the rules of his institution, in the practice of his examples? How vain are all outward helps without the influence of God's Spirit? and that spirit breathes where he listeth: good education raiseth great hopes, but the proof of them is in the divine benediction.  
I fear to look at the outrages of this wicked son of Ezekiah: What havoc doth he make in the Church of God? as if he had been borne to ruin Religion, as if his only felicity had been to untwist, or tear, in one day, that holy web which his father had been weaving, nine and twenty years? and contrarily, to set up in one hour that offensive pile, which had been above three hundred years in pulling down: so long had the high places stood; the zeal of Ezekiah in demolishing them honoured him, above all his predecessors; and now the first act of this green head was their reedifiing: That mischief may be done in a day, which many ages cannot redress.  
Fearful were the presages of these bold beginnings; From the mis-building of these chapels of the Hills to the true God, Manasseh proceeds to erecting of altars to a false: even to Baal, the God of Ahab, the stale Idol of the heathen; yet further, not content with so few Deities; he worships all the host of heaven; and, that he might despite God yet more, he sets up altas to these abused rivals of their Maker, in the very house of the Lord; that holy place doth he not fear to defile with the graven Image of the grove, that he had made: Never Amorite did so wickedly as Manasseh; and, which was yet worse, it sufficed not to be thus wicked himself, but he seduced God's people to these abominations; and, that his example might move the more, he spares not his own son from the fire of the Idol sacrifices. Neither were his witcheries less enormous, than his Idolatry; he observed times, he used enchantments, he dealt with familiar spirits, & with wizards: Neither were either of these worse than his cruelty; He shed innocent blood till he had filled jerusalem from one end to another.  
O Manasseh, how no less cruel wert thou to thine own soul, them to thy judah: What an hideous list of monstrous impiety is here; Any one of which were enough to draw judgement upon a world; but what hell is sufficient for all together?  
What brows are not now lifted up to an attentive expectation of some present, and fearful vengeance from God, upon such flagitious wickedness? Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold I am bringing such evil upon jerusalem, & judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle: The person of Manasseh is not capable of revenge enough; as his sin dilated itself by an infectious diffusion to his people, so shall the punishment. We are sensible of the least touch of our own miseries, how rarely are we affected with other men's calamities? yet this evil shall be such, as that the rumour of it shall beat no ear that shall not glow with an astonishing commiseration: What then o God, what shall that plague be, which thou threatnest with so much preface of horror? I will stretch over jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down: And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance; and I will deliver them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil unto all their enemies.  
It is enough o God, it is enough: What ear can but tingle? what eye can but weep? what hair can but start up? what heart can be but confounded at the mention of so dreadful a revenge? Can there be a worse judgement than desolation, captivity, desertion, spoil, and torture of prevailing enemies? but however, other Cities and nations have undergone these disasters, without wonder, that all this should befall to thy jerusalem, the place which thou hast chosen to thyself, out of the whole earth, the lot of thine inheritance, the seat of thine abode, whereof thou hast said, Here shall be my rest for ever, it is able to amaze all eyes, all ears.  
No City could far worse than Samaria, whose inhabitants after a woeful siege, were driven, like cattle, into a wretched servitude; jerusalem shall far no better from Nabuchadnezzar the King of Babylon: jerusalem, the glory of the earth, the darling of heaven, See, o ye vain men, that boast of the privileges of Chairs, and Churches, see, and tremble. There is no place under heaven to which the presence of God is so wedded as that the sins thereof shall not procure a disdainful, & final divorce: The height of former favours shall be but an aggravation of vengeance.  
This total vastation of jerusalem, shall take time: onwards, God begins with the person of wicked Manasseh; against whom he stirs up the Captains of the host of the late friend, and old enemy of judah: Those thorns amongst which he had shrouded his guilty head, cannot shelter him from their violence; they take him, and bind him with fetters of iron, and carry him to Babylon; There he lies loaded with chains, in an uncomfortable dungeon exercised with variety of tortures, fed with such course pittances of bread, and sips of water, as might maintain an un willing life, to the punishment of the owner. What eye can now pity the deepest miseries of Manasseh? What but bondage can befit him, that hath so lawlessly abused his liberty? What but an utter abdication can befit him that hath cast off his God, and doted upon Devils? What but a dying life, and a tormenting death can be fit for a man of blood?  
Who now would not have given this man for lost; and have looked when hell should claim her own? But oh the height, oh the depth of divine mercy! After all these prodigies of sin, Manasseh is a convert; When he was in affliction he besought the Lord his God: and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. How true is that word of the Prophet, Vexation gives understanding; The viper when he is lashed, casts up his poison: The traitor when he is racked, tells that truth which he had else never uttered; If the cross bear us not to heaven, nothing can: What use were there of the grain, but for the edge of the sickle, wherewith it is cut down; the stroke of the flail, wherewith it is beaten; the weight and attrition of the mill, wherewith it is crushed; the fire of the oven wherewith it is baken? Say now, Manasseh, with that grandfather of thine (who was, till now, too good for thee) It is good for me that I was afflicted: Even thine iron was more precious to thee, than thy gold; thy Gaol was a more happy lodging to thee, than thy palace; Babylon was a better School to thee, than jerusalem: what fools are we to frown upon our afflictions? These, how crabbed soever, are our best friends. They are not, indeed, for our pleasure, they are for our profit: their issue makes them worthy of a welcome. What do we care how bitter that potion be which brings health?  
How far a man may go, and yet turn? Could there be fouler sins than these? Lo, here was Idolatry in the height, violation of God's house, sorceries of all kinds, bloody cruelty to his own flesh, to the Saints of God; and all these against the stream of a religious institution, of the zealous counsels of God's Prophets, of the checks of his own heart.  
Who can complain that the way of heaven is blocked up against him, when he sees such a sinner enter? Say the worst against thyself, o thou clamorous foul; Here is one that murdered men, defied God, worshipped Devils; and yet finds the way to repentance; if thou be worse than he, deny (if thou canst) that to thyself, which God hath not denied to thee, capacity of grace: In the mean time; know that it is not thy sin, but thine impenitence that bars heaven against thee.  
Presume not yet, o man, whosoever thou art, of the liberty of thy conversion; as if thou couldst run on lawlessly in a course of sinning, till thou come to the brim or hell; and then couldst suddenly stop, and return at leisure: the mercy of God did never set period to a wilful sinner; neither yet did his own corrupt desires; so as when he is gone the furthest, he could yet stay himself from another step: No man that truly reputes is refused: but many a one sins so long, that he cannot repent. His custom of wickedness hath obdured his hart, & made it flint to all good impressions. There were jeroboam's, and Abijams, and ahab's, and joashes, & Ahazes, in these sacred thrones, there was but one Manasseh: God hath not left in any man's hand the reins of his own hart, to pace, & turn, and stop as he lists; This privilege is reserved to him that made it; It is not of him that wils, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy: and that mercy neglected, justly binds over to judgement.  
I wonder not at Manasseh, either sinning, or repenting, I wonder at thy goodness, o Lord; who after thy just permission of his sin, callest him thus graciously to repent, and so graciously receivest him repenting: So as Manasseh was not a more loathsome and monstrous spectacle of wickedness, than he is now a pleasing and useful pattern of conversion; Who can now despair of thy mercy, o God, that sees the tears of a Manasseh accepted? when we have debauched our worst; our evil cannot match with thy goodness; rather it is the praise of thine infinite store, that where sin abounds, grace abounds much more; O keep us from a presumption of grace, that we may repent; and raise us from a distrust of grace when we have repent.  
No sooner is Manasseh penitent, than he is free; his prayers have at once loosed him from his sins, and from his chains; and of a captive have made him a King; and from the dungeon of Babylon have restored him to the palace of jerusalem: How easy is it for the same hand that wounds to cure: What cannot fervent prayers do, either for our rescuing from evil, or for our investing with good?  
Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God. Then? and not before? Could his younger ears escape the knowledge of God's miraculous deliverance of jerusalem from the Assyrians? Could he but know the slaughter that God's Angel made in one night, of an hundred fourscore and five thousand? Could he but have heard the just revenge upon Senacherib? Could he be ignorant of his father's supernatural recovery? Could he but see that everlasting monument of the noted degrees in the Dial of Ahaz? Could he avoid the sense of those fifteen years, which were superadded to his father's age? What one of these proofs doth not evince a Deity? Yet, till his own smart, and cure, Manasseh knew not that the Lord was God.  
Foolish sinners pay dear for their knowledge; neither will endure to be taught good-cheape: so we have seen resty horses that will not move till they bleed with the spur: So we have seen dull and careless children, that will learn nothing but what is put into them with the rod.  
The Almighty will be sure to be known for what he is: if not by fair means, yet by foul; If our prosperity, and peace, and sweet experience of his mercy can win us to acknowledge him, it is more for our ease, but, if we will needs be taught by stripes, it is no less for his glory.  
Manasseh now returns another man to jerusalem: With what indignation doth he look upon his old follies? and now, all the amends he can make, is to undo what he did; to do that which he undid: He took away the strange Gods, and the Idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in jerusalem, and cast them out of the City. True repentance begins to decline at the ablative; destroying those monuments of shame which former error had reared; The thorns must first be stubbed up, ere the ground can be capable of seed; The true method of grace, is, first, Cease to do evil; then, Learn to do good.  
In vain had Manasseh professed a repentance, if the strange gods had still held possession of jerusalem, if the Idol had still harboured in God's Temple, if foreign altars had still smoked upon the holy mountain; Away with all this trash, when once Manasseh comes to a true sense of piety.  
There is nothing but hypocrisy in that penitent, who after all vows, and tears, retains his old abominations; It is that poor piece of satisfaction which we can give to the divine justice, in an hearty indignation, to fling down that cup of wickedness wherewith we have been bewitched, and to trample upon the shreads: without which, confession is but wind, and the drops of contrition, water.  
The living God loves to dwell clean, he will not come under the roof of Idols, nor admit Idols to come under his: First therefore, Manasseh casts out the strange Gods and Idols, and altars; and then, He repairs the Altar of the Lord, and sacrifices thereon peace-offerings, and thanke-offerings. Not, till he had pulled down, might he build; and when he had pulled down, he must build: True repentance is no less active of good. What is it the better, if when the Idolatrous altars are defaced, the true God hath not an Altar erected to his Name? In many Altars was superstition, in no altars, Atheism.  
Neither doth penitent Manasseh build God a new Altar, but he repairs the old, which by long dis-vse lay waste, and was mossy & mouldered with age & neglect.  
God loves well his own institutions; neither can he abide innovations, so much as in the outsides of his services. It is an happy work to vindicate any ordinance of God from the injury of times, and to restore it to the original glory.  
What have our pious governors done other in religion? had we gone about to lay a new foundation, the work had been accursed; now we have only scraped off some superfluous moss, that was grown upon these holy stones, we have cemented some broken pieces, we have pointed some crazy corners with wholesome mortar, in stead of base clay, wherewith it was disgracefully patched up: The altar is old, it is God's altar: It is not new, not ours: If we have laid one new stone in this sacred building, let it fly in our faces, and beat out our eyes.  
On this repaired altar doth Manasseh send up the sacrifices of his peace, of his thankfulness; and doubtless the God of heaven smells a sweet savour of rest; No perfume is so pleasing to God, as that which is cast in by a penitent hand.  
It had not served the turn that Manasseh had approached alone to this renewed altar; As his lewd example had withdrawn the people from their God; so now he commands judah to serve the Lord God of Israel; Had he been silent, he could not have been unfollowed: Every act of greatness is preceptive; but now that religion is made Law, what Israelite will not be devout?  
The true God hath now no competitour in judah; All the Idols are pulled down, the high places will not be pulled down; An ill guise is easily taken up, it is not so easily left. After a common depravation of religion, it is hard to return unto the first purity: as when a garment is deeply soiled, it cannot without many laver recover the former cleanness.   

IOSIAH'S Reformation.  
YEt, if we must alter 
2 King. 22. And 23.  from ourselves, it is better to be a Manasseh, than a joash: joash began well, and ended ill: Manasseh began ill, and ended well; his age varied from his youth, no less, than one man's condition can vary from another; His posterity succeeded in both; Amnon his son succeeded in the sins of Manassehs' youth; josiah his grandchild succeeded in the virtues of his age. What a vast difference doth grace make in the same age? Manasseh began his reign at twelve years; josiah at eight; Manasseh was religiously bred under Hezekiah; josiah was mis-nurtured under Amnon; and yet Manasseh runs into absurd Idolatries, josiah is holy and devout. The Spirit of God breathes freely; not confining itself to times, or means.  
No rules can bind the hands of the Almighty; It is in ordinary proof too true a word, that was said of old, Woe be to thee, O Land, whose King is a child: the goodness of God makes his own exceptions; judah never fared better, then in the green years of a josiah: If we may not rather measure youth, and age by government, and disposition, then by years: Surely thus, josiah was older with smooth cheeks, than Manasseh with grey hairs. Happy is the infancy of Princes, when it falls into the hands of faithful Counsellors.  
A good pattern is no small help for young beginners; josiah sets his father David before him, not Amnon, not Manasseh: Examples are the best rules for the inexperienced; where their choice is good, the directions are easiest: The laws of God are the ways of David; Those laws were the rule, these ways were the practice; Good josiah walks in all the ways of his Father David.  
Even the minority of josiah was not idle; we cannot be good too early: At eight years it was enough to have his ear open to hear good counsel; to have his eyes & hart open to seek after God: At twelve, he begins to act: and shows well that he hath found the God he sought: Then he addresses 
2. Chro 34. 3.  himself to purge judah, and jerusalem, from the high places, groves, images, altars, wherewith it was defiled; burning the bones of the idolatrous Priests upon their altars; strawing the ashes of the idols upon the graves of them that had sacrificed to them, striving by those fires, and mattocks to testify his zealous detestation of all idolatry.  
The house must first be cleansed, ere it can be garnished; no man will cast away his cost upon unclean heaps; so soon as the Temple was purged, josiah bends his thoughts upon the repairing, and beautifying of this house of the Lord.  
What stir was there in judah, wherein God's Temple suffered not? Six several times was it pillaged, whether out of force, or will: First, jehoash King of judah is fain by the spoil of it to stop the mouth of Hazael; Then, joash King of Israel fills his own hands with that sacred spoil, in the days of Amaziah; after this, Ahaz rifles it for Tiglath Pileser, King of Assyria; then Hezekiah is forced to ransack the treasures of it for Senacherib; yet after, the sacrilege of Manasseh makes that booty of it, which his later times endeavoured to restore; and now lastly, Amnon his son neglects the frame, embeazels the furniture of this holy place: The very pile began to complain of age and unrespect: Now comes good josiah, and in his eighteenth year (when other young Gallants would have thought of nothing but pleasure, and jollity) takes up the latest care of his father David, and gives order for the repairing of the Temple.  
The keepers of the door have received the contribution of all faithful jews, for this pious use; the King sends Shaphan the scribe to Hilkijah the Priest to sum it up, and to deliver it unto Carpenters, and Masons, for so holy a work.  
How well doth it beseem the care of a religious Prince, to set the Priests and Scribes in hand with re-edifying the Temple? The command is the Kings, the charge is the high-Priests, the execution is the workmen's; when the laborers are faithful in doing the work, and the high Priest in directing it, and the King in inioining it, God's House cannot fail of an happy perfection; but when any of these slackens, the business must needs languish.  
How God blesses the devout endeavours of his servants? Whiles Hilkijah was diligently surveying the breaches and the reparation of the Temple, he lights upon the book of the Law: The authentic and original Book of 
Deut. 31. 26.  God's Law was by a special charge appointed to be carefully kept within a safe shrine, in the Sanctuary: In the depraved times of idolatry, some faithful Priest (to make sure work) had locked it fast up, in some secret corner of the Temple, from the reach of all hands, of all eyes: as knowing how impossible it was, that divine monument could otherwise escape the fury of profane guiltiness: Some few transcripts there were doubtless, (parcels of this sacred Book) in other hands; neither doubt I, but as Hilkijah had been formerly well acquainted with this holy volume (now of long time hid) so the ears of good josiah had been enured to some passages thereof; but the whole body of these awful Records, since the late night of Idolatrous confusion, and persecution saw no light, till now; This precious treasure doth Hilkijah find, whiles he digs for the Temple: Never man laboured to the reparation of God's Church, but he met with a blessing more than he looked for.  
Hilkijah the Priest, and Shaphan the scribe do not engross this invaluable wealth into their own hands, nor suppress these more than sacred rolls, for their own advantage; but transmit them, first to the ears of the King, then by him, to the people: It is not the praise of a good scribe, to lay up, but to bring forth, both old and new: And if the Priest's lips shall keep knowledge, they keep it to impart, not to smother: The people shall seek the Law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts.  
So soon as the good King hears the words of the book of the Law, and in special, those dreadful threats of judgement, denounced against the Idolatries of his judah; he rends his clothes, to show his heart rend with sorrow, and fearful expectation of those plagues; and washes his bosom with tears. Oh gracious tenderness of josiah: he doth but once hear the Law read, and is thus humbled; humbled for his father's sins, for the sins of his people: how many of us, after a thousand hammerings of the menaces of God's Law, upon our guilty souls, continue yet insensible of our danger? The very reading of this Law doth thus affect him; the preaching of it stirs not us; The sins of others struck thus deep with him; our own are slighted by us: A soft hart is the best tempered for God: So Physicians are wont to like those bodies best, which are easiest to work upon: O God make our clay, wax, and our wax pliable to thine hand; so shall we be sure to be free either from sin, or from the hurt of sin.  
It is no holy sorrow that sends us not to God; josiah is not moped with a distractive grief, or an astonishing fear, but in the height of his passion, sends five choice messengers to Huldah the Prophetess, to inquire of the Lord, for himself, for judah: It is an happy trouble that drives us to this refuge. I do not hear any of these Courtier's reply to this godly motion of their young King: Alas, Sir, what means this deep perplexity? What needs all this busy inquisition? If your father were idolatrous, what is that to you, who have abandoned his sins? If your people were once idolatrous, what is that to you, yea to them, who have expiated these crimes by their repentance? Have you not carefully reform all those abuses? hath not your happy reformation made an abundant amends for those wrongs? Spare your tears, and save the labour of your messengers; All is well, all shall be well; these judgements are for the obstinate; had we been still guilty, these fears had been just: were we still in danger, what had we gained by our conversion? Rather, as glad to second the religious cares of their young King, they feed his holy anxieties with a just aggravation of peril; and by their good counsel, whet these his zealous desires of a speedy resolution: That state cannot but be happy, whose Priests and Peers are ready as to suggest, so to cherish, and execute the devout projects of their Sovereigns.  
The grave Priest, the learned scribe, the honourable Courtiers do not disdain to knock at the door of a Prophetess: Neither doth any of them say; It were hard if we should not have as much acquaintance with God, as a woman; but in an humble acknowledgement of her Graces, they come to learn the will of God, from her mouth: True piety is modest, and stands not upon terms of reputation, in the businesses of God; but willingly honours his gifts in any subject, lest of all in itself.  
The sex is not more noted in Huldah, than the condition; As she was a woman, so a wife; the wife of Shallum: Holy matrimony was no hindrance to her divine revelations; she was at once a Prophetess in her college, an huswife in her family; It was never the practice of God to confine his graces to virginity: At this very time the famous Prophet jeremy flourished, some years had he already spent in this public service; why was not he rather consulted by josiah? It is not unlike that some prophetical employments called him away, at this time from jerusalem: His presence could not have been balked: purposely, doubtless doth God cast this message upon the point of that absence, that he might honour the weaker vessel with his divine oracle; and exercise the humility of so great clients: In the answers of God, it is not to be regarded, who speaks, but from whom: The injury redounds to God, if the weaknesses of the person cause us to undervalue the authority of the function.  
As josiah and his messengers do not despise Huldah, because she was a woman; so Huldah doth not flatter josiah, because a King: Go tell the man that sent you; Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring evil upon this place. Lo, he that was as God to his subjects, is but as a man to the Prophetess: neither is the message ever the sweeter, because it is required by a Prince: No circumstance may vary the form of divine truth.  
Evil must befall jerusalem and judah, yea, all the words of that book, must alight upon the inhabitants of both: In how bad a case we may be, and yet think ourselves not safe only, but happy? These jews had forgotten their old revolts; and now having framed themselves to holy courses; promised themselves nothing but peace, when the Prophetess foresees, and foretells their approaching ruin: Even their old score must be paid, after the opinion of a clear agreement. In vain shall we hope to quit our arrearages by prorogation. This Prophetess had immediate visions from God, yet she must speak out of the Book; There was never any revelation from the Lord, that crossed his writings: His hand, and his tongue agree eternally: If that book have cursed judah, she may not absolve it.  
Yet, what a gracious mixture was here of mercy, with soverity; severity to judah, mercy to josiah; judah shall be plagued, and shall become a desolation, and a curse; josiah shall be quietly housed in his grave, before this storm fall upon judah: His eye shall not see, what his people shall feel: It is enough that the expectation of these evils afflicts him, the sense shall not.  
Whence is this indulgence? Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord. How happy a thing it is to be a reed unto God's judgements, rather than an oak, the meek and gentle reed stoops and therefore stands, the oak stands stiffly out against the strongest gust, and therefore is turned up by the roots: At least, let us lament those sins we have not avoided; and mourn for the sins of others, whiles we hate our own.  
He that found himself exempted from this vengeance, by his repentance and deep humiliation, would fain find the fame way for the deliverance of his people: The same words of the Law therefore, that had wrought upon his heart, are by him caused to be publicly read in the ears of judah, and jerusalem; The assembly is universal, of Priests, Prophets, people, both small and great; because the sin was such, the danger was such: that no man may complain to want information, the Law of God sounds in every ear. If our ear be shut to the Law, the sin is ours; but if the Law be shut to our ears, the sin is of our governors: Woe be to them that hide God's book from the people, as they would do ratsbane from the eye of children: Ignorant souls cannot perish without their murder: There is no fear of knowing too much, there is too much fear of practising too little: Now, if the people do not imitate their King in relenting, they are not worthy to partake with him in his impunity. Howsoever, they shall not want a great example; as of sorrow, so of amendment. Good josiah stands by the pillar, and solemnly renews his Covenant with his God; the people cannot for shame refuse to second him: Even they that looked for a destruction, yet do not withdraw their obedience; God's Children may not be sullen under his corrections, but whether they expect or feel smart, are no other than dutiful to his awful hand. As a man that finds he hath done something that might endanger the forfeit of his favour, puts himself into some deserving action, whereby he may hope to re-indeare himself, so doth josiah here; No endeavour is enough to testify his zeal to that name of God which was so profaned by his people's Idolatry; What ever monuments were yet remaining of wicked Paganism, he defaces with indignation; he burns the vessels of Baal, and puts down his Chemarim, destroys the houses of the Sodomites, straws the powder of their idols in the brook Kedron, defiles Topheth, takes away the horses, of the Sun, burns the charets of the Sun with fire, and omits nothing that might reconcile God, clear judah, perfect a reformation.  
Neither is this care confined to jerusalem, and the neighbouring Towns, but stretches itself to the utmost coasts of josiahs' Kingdom; Bethel was the infamous seat of the pollution of Israel; it seems the heirs of jeroboam (who set up his golden calf there) enjoyed it not long; the Kings of judah recovered it to their crown, but, it had not yet recovered itself from that ancient infection: Thither doth good josiah send the unhallowed ashes of Baal's Relics, to stain that altar first, which he will soon after deface.  
The time was, and it was no less than three hundred and fifty years since, that the man of God, out of judah, cried against jeroboam's altar;  
O Altar, Altar; Thus saith the 
1 Kin. 13. 2  Lord; Behold a Child shall be borne, unto the House of David, josiah by name, and upon thee shall he offer the Priests of the high-places, that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.  
And now is the hour come, wherein every of those words shall be accomplished: It could not but be a great confirmation to josiah, to see that God had so long ago fore-markt him for his own; and forenamed him to so zealous a service.  
All our names are equally fore-known of that divine providence, though not fore-spoken: neither can any act pass from us, which was not pre-determined in that eternal Counsel of the Almighty: neither can any act that is there pre-determined be unfulfilled upon earth: Intervention of time breaks no square in the divine decrees: Our purblind eyes see nothing, but that which toucheth their lids; the quick sight of God's prescience sees that, as present, which is a world off: According to the prediction, the stench of dead men's bones is a fit perfume to send up from this altar to heaven; whose best sacrifices savoured worse in the nostrils of God. And the blood of the idolatrous sacrificers was a meet oblation to that God, who had been dishonoured by their burnt-offerings to his base corrivals.  
Even that Prophet who foretell this, had his toomb in Bethel, and that toomb had his inscription; His last weakness might not rob him of the honour of his sepulture: How palpably do these Israelites condemn themselves, whiles they reserve so famous a monument of their own conviction. It was no prejudice to this holy Prophet, that his bones lay amongst the sepulchres of idolaters. His Epitaph preserved those bones from burning, upon that altar, which he had accursed; As the Lion might not tear his carcase, when he died, so now, the fury of the multitude may not violate his very bones, in the grave.  
I do not see josiah: save them for relics; I hear him command they shall rest in peace; it is fit the dead bodies of God's Saints should be as free from contempt, as from superstition.  
After the removal of these rites of false worship, it is time to bring in the true: Now a solemn Passover shall be kept unto the Lord, by the charge of josiah: That book of the Law sets him, the time, place, circumstances of this sacrament, his zeal so carefully follows it, that since the days of Samuel, this feast was never so gloriously, so punctually celebrated. jerusalem is the place, the fourteenth day of the first month is the time, the Levites are the actors, a yearling and spotless Lamb is the provision; no bone of it is broken, the blood is sprinkled upon the door-posts, it is roasted whole, eaten with sour herbs, with bread unleavened; the remainder is consumed by fire. The law, the sacrifices, had been in vain, if the Passover had been neglected. No true Israelite might want, whether this monument of their deliverance past, or this Type of the Messiah to come. Rather than fail, josiahs' bounty shall supply to judah Lambs for their paschal devotion: No alms is so acceptable, as that whereby the soul is furthered.   

JOSIAH 'S Death; with the desolation of the Temple, and jerusalem.  
IOsiah hath now happily settled the 
2 King. 23. verse 29. And 2 Chro. 35. verse 20. 2 Chr. 36.  affairs both of God, & the state: and now hath sweet leisure to enjoy himself, and his people: his conscience doth not more cheer him at home, than his subjects abroad; Never King reigned with more officious piety to God, with more love, and applause of men: But what stability is there in these earthly things? how seldom is excellency in any kind long-lived? In the very strength of his age, in the height of his strength, is josiah withdrawn from the earth; as not without a merciful intention of his glory, on God's behalf, so, not without some weakness, on his own. Pharaoh Necho King of Egypt comes up to fight against the King of Assyria: What is that to josiah? Perhaps the Egyptians attempted to pass through the land of judah, towards Carchemish the seat of his war; but, as a neighbour, not as an enemy: josiah resists him; as neither holding it safe to admit a foreign power into the bosom of his Country, nor daring to give so fair an occasion of provoking the Assyrian hostility against him.  
The King of Egypt mildly deprecates this enmity, he sends Ambassadors to josiah, saying, What have I to do with thee thou King of judah, I come not against thee, this day, but against the house wherewith I have war; for God commanded me to make haste; forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not.  
What friend could have said more? what Prophet could have advised more holily? why doth not good josiah say with himself; There may be truth in this suggestion; God may have sent this man, to be a scourge of mine old enemy, of Ashur: If the hand of the Almighty be in this design, why do I oppose it? The quarrel is not mine, why do I thrust my finger into this flame, unbidden? Wherefore should I hazard the effusion of blood, upon an harmless passage? Can I hear him plead a command from God, and not inquire into it? How easy is it for me to know the certainty of this pretended commission? Have not I the Priests, and Prophets of God about me? Let me first go and consult his oracle; If God have sent him, and forbidden me, why should my courage carry me against my piety?  
It is strange that the good hart of josiah could escape these thoughts; these resolutions: Yet, he that upon the general threats of God's Law against judah, sends messengers to inquire of a Prophetess; now, upon these particular threats of danger to himself, speaks not, stirs not. The famous Prophet jeremy was then living, and Zephaniah; besides a whole College of Seers, josiah doth not so much as send out of doors, to ask, Shall I go up against the King of Egypt? Sometimes, both grace and wit are asleep in the holiest and wariest breasts: The best of all God's Saints may be sometimes miscarried by their passions, to their cost.  
The wise providence of God hath mercifully determined to leave josiah to his own counsels, that by the weakness of his servant, he might take occasion to perfect his glory: Even that wherein josiah was wanting unto God, shall concur to the making up of God's promise to josiah: when we are the most blindfolded, we run on the ways of God's hidden decrees; and, what ever our intents be, cannot, if we would, go out of that unknown path.  
Needs will josiah put himself into arms against an unwilling enemy; and, to be less noted, disguises himself. The fatal arrow of an Egyptian archer finds him out, in the throng, and gives him his deaths-wound; Now, too late he calls to a retreat; his changed Chariot is turned to a Bier, to carry his bleeding corpse to his grave, in jerusalem.  
What eye doth not now pity and lament the untimely end of a josiah? Whom can it choose but affect, to see a religious, just, virtuous Prince snatched away in the vigour of his age? After all our foolish moan, the providence that directed that shaft to his lighting place, intends that wound for a stroke of mercy: The God whom josiah serves, looks through his death, at his glory: and by this sudden violence will deliver him from the view, and participation of the miseries of judah, which had been many deaths; and fetches him to the participation of that happiness, which could countervail more deaths, than could be incident into a josiah. Oh the wonderful goodness of the Almighty, whose very judgements are merciful; Oh the safe condition of God's children, whom very pain easeth, whom death revives, whom dissolution unites, whom lastly their very sin and temptation glorifies.  
How happily hath josiah gained by this change? In stead of a froward people, he now is sorted with Saints and Angels; in stead of a fading, and corruptible crown, he now enjoys an eternal. The orphan subjects are ready to weep out their eyes, for sorrow; their loss cannot be so great, as his gain: he is glorious, they, as their sins had deserved, miserable. If the separated soul could be capable of passion, could josiah have seen, after his departure, the calamities of his sons, of his people, it could not but have laid siege to his peace.  
The sad subjects proclaim his son jehoahaz, King, in stead of so lamented a father; He both doth ill, and fares ill: By that time he hath sat but three months in the throne, Pharaoh Nechoh King of Egypt seconds the father's death, with the son's captivity: This victorious enemy puts down the wicked son of josiah, and jades him with chains at Riblath, in the land of Hamath; and jades his people with the tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talon of gold: Yet, as if he that was unwilling to fight with josiah, were no less unwilling to root out his posterity, this Egyptian sets Eliakim, the second son of josiah, upon the seat of his father; &, that he might be all his, changes his name to jehoiakim: oh the woeful & unworthy succession of josiah; one son is a prisoner, the other is a tributary; both are wicked. After that jehoiakim hath been some years Pharaohs Baylive, to gather, and rack the dear rents of judah; Nabuchadnezzar the great King of Babylon comes up, and sweeps away both the Lord, and his Feodary, Pharaoh, and jehoiakim.  
So far was the ambitious Egyptian from maintaining his encroachment upon the territories of judah, that he could not now hold his own: From Nilus to Euphrates, all is lost: So subject are the lesser powers still to be swallowed up of the greater; so just it is with God, that they which will be affecting undue enlargement of their estates, should fall short of what they had.  
jehoiakim is carried in fetters to Babylon: and now in that dungeon of his captivity, hath more leisure, than grace, to bethink himself of all his abominations; and whiles he inherits the sad lodging of his great grandfather, Manasseh, inherits not his success.  
Whiles he is rotting in this Goal, his young son jehoiachin starts up in his throne; like to a mushroom that rises up in a night, and withers in a day: Within three months, and ten days, is that young Prince (the meet son of such a father) fetched up in irons to his father's prison; Neither shall he go alone; his attendance shall add to his misery; His mother, his wives, his officers, his peers, his craftsmen, his warriors accompany him, manacled, and chained, to their perpetual bondage.  
Now, according to Isaiahs' word, it would have been great preferment for the fruit of Hezekiahs' loins to be Pages in the Court of Babylon.  
One only branch yet remains of the unhappy stock of holy josiah, Mattaniah, the brother of jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezar (changing his name to Zedekiah) sets up in that forlorn, and tributary throne; There might he have lived (though an underling) yet peaceable; This man (to make up the measure of God's just judgements) as he was ever a rebel to God, so proves rebellious to his Sovereign master, the King of Babylon: The Prophet jeremy hath forewarned him in vain; nothing could teach this man, but smart.  
Who can look for other than fury from Nabuchadnezzar, against jerusalem, which now had affronted him with three several successions of revolts, and conspiracies against his government; and thrice abused his bounty, and indulgence? with a mighty army doth he therefore come up against his seditious deputy; and besieges jerusalem, and blocks it up with forts round about. After two years' siege, the Chaldees without, and the famine within, have prevailed; King Zedekiah and his soldiers are fled away by night, as thinking themselves happy, if they might abandon their walls, and save their lives.  
The Chaldees (as caring more for the birds, then for the nest) pursue them, and overtake Zedekiah, forsaken of all his forces, in the plain of jericho, and bring him to Nabuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. What can so unthankful and perfidious a vassal expect, but the worst of revenge? The sentence is fearful: First, the sons of Zedekiah are slain before his eyes; then those eyes of his (as if they had seen enough, when they had seen him childless) are put out: His eyes are only lent him so long, as to torment him with the sight of his own utmost discomfort; Had his sons but over-lived his eyes, the grief had been so much the less, as the apprehension of it had been less lively, and piercing; Now, this woeful object shall shut up his sight, that, even when his bodily eyes are gone, yet the eyes of his mind might ever see what he last saw; That thus his sons might be ever dying before him, and himself in their death ever miserable.  
Who doth not now wish that the blood of Hezekiah and josiah could have been severed from these impure dregs of their lewd issue? no man could pity the offenders, were it not for the mixture of the interest of so holy progenitors.  
No more sorrow can come in at the windows of Zedekiah, more shall come in at his doors; his care shall receive what more to rue for his jerusalem: Nebuzaradan the great Marshal of the King of Babylon comes up against that deplored City, and breaks down the walls of it, round about, and burns the Temple of the Lord, and the King's house, and every fair Palace of jerusalem, with fire; drives away the remainder of her inhabitants, into Captivity, caries away the last spoils of the glorious Temple. Oh jerusalem, jerusalem, the wonder of all times, the paragon of nations, the glory of the earth, the favourite of heaven, how art thou now become heaps of ashes, hills of rubbish, a spectacle of desolation, a monument of ruin? Iflater, yet no less deep haste thou now pledged that bitter cup of God's vengeance, to thy sister Samaria; How carefully had thy God forwarned thee? Though Israel play the harlot, yet, let not judah sin: Lo now, as thine iniquities, so thy judgements have overtaken her: Both lie together in the dust, both are made a curse to all posterities: Oh God, what place shall thy justice spare, if jerusalem have perished? If that delight of thine were cut off for her wickedness, Let not us be high minded but fear.  
What pity it was to see those goodly Cedars of the Temple flaming up higher than they stood in Lebanon? to see those curious marbles, which never felt the dint of the pickax, or hammer, in the laying, wounded with mattocks, and wounding the earth in their fall? to see the holy of holies, whereinto none might enter but the highpriest, once a year, thronged with Pagans; the veils rend, the sacred Ark of God vilated, and defaced, the Tables over-turned, the altars broke down, the pillars demolished, the pavements digged up, yea, the very ground, where that famous pile stood, deformed. O God, thou wouldst rather have no visible house upon earth, then endure it defiled with Idolatries.  
Four hundred thirty and six years had that Temple stood, and beautified the earth, and honoured heaven, now it is turned into rude heaps; There is no prescription to be pleaded for the favour of the Almighty: Only that Temple, not made with hands, is eternal in the heavens. Thither he graciously bring us, that hath ordained us thither, for the sake of that glorious high-Priest, that hath once for all entered into that holy of holies,   
Amen.   

Contemplations ON THE HISTORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.  
The 21th. and last Book.   

Wherein are,  

1 Zerubbabel and Ezra.  
2 Nehemiah building the walls of jerusalem.  
3 Nehemiah redressing the extortion of the jews.  
4 Abasuerus feasting; Vashti cast off: Esther chosen.  
5 Haman disrespected by Mordecai; Mordecai's message to Esther.  
6 Esther suing to Ahasuerus.  
7 Mordecai honoured by Haman.  
8 Haman hanged; Mordecai advanced.    


ZERUBBABEL and EZRA.  
THE first transportation into Babylon, under jehoiakim, (wherein Daniel, Ezekiel, and many other of the best note, were driven into captivity,) was (some eleven years after) followed with a second, under Zedekiah; wherein the remnant of the, now-ruined, jerusalem, and judah, were swept away. Seventy years was the period of their longest servitude; whiles Babylon was a Queen, judah was her vassal: when that proud Tyranness fell, God's people began to rise again: The Babylonian Monarchy was no sooner swallowed up of the Persian, than the jews felt the comfort of liberty.  
For Cyrus' conquering Babylon, and finding the jews groaning under that miserable captivity, strait releases them, and sends them, under the conduct of their Captain Zorobabel, back to their almost-forgotten country.  
The world stands upon vicissitudes; Every Nation hath her turn, and must make up her measure: Threescore and ten years ago, it was the course of judah, the iniquity of that rebellious people was full. Some hundred and thirty years before that, was the turn of Samaria, and her Israelites: Now the staff is come to the doors of Babylon, even that wherewith judah was beaten: and those Persians which are now victorious, must have their term also. It is in vain for any earthly state to promise to itself an immutable condition. At last, the rod that scourged Gods children, is cast into the fire: Thou hast remembered, O Lord, the Children of Edom in the day of jerusalem, how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground: O daughter of Babylon wasted with misery, how happy is he that rewardeth thee as thou hast served them: It is Cyrus that hath wrought this revenge, this rescue.  
Doubtless, it did not a little move Cyrus to this favour, that he found himself honourably forenamed in these jewish prophecies, and fore appointed to this glorious service, no less than an hundred and seventy years, before 
Esay 44 vlt  he was: Who would not be glad to make good so noble and happy a destiny? O God, if we hear that thou hast ordained us to life, how gladly, how carefully, should we work out our salvation? if to good works, how should we abound?  
In the first year of his Monarchy, doth Cyrus both make proclamations, and publish them in writing, through all his Kingdom; wherein he both professeth his zealous resolutions, and desires to build up God's house, in jerusalem, and enjoins, and incourages all the jews, through his dominions, to address themselves to that sacred work; and incites all his subjects to aid them with silver, and gold, and goods, and beasts. How gracious was the command of that, whereof the very allowance was a favour?  
Was it Cyrus that did this? was it not thou, O God, in whose hands are the hearts of Kings, that stirredst up the spirit of this Persian; as if he had been more than a son of thy Church, a father? How easy is it for thee to make very Pagan's protectors to thy Church; enemies, benefactors?  
Not with an empty grace doth this great King dismiss the jews, but with a royal bounty; He brings forth the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nehuchadnezzar had brought forth out of jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods; and causes them to be numbered by his Treasurer to the hands of Sheshbazzar the Prince of judah, for the use of the Temple; no fewer than five thousand and four hundred vessels of gold and silver.  
Certainly, this great Monarch wanted not wit to think; It is a rich booty that I find in the Temples of Babylon; by the law of conquest it is mine; having vanquished their gods, I may well challenge their spile; how seasonably doth it now fall into my hands, upon this victory, to reward my soldiers, to settle my new Empire: what if this treasure came from jerusalem? the propriety is now altered; the very place (according to the conceit of jews) hath profaned it; The true God, I have heard, is curious; neither will abide those vessels, which have been polluted with idolatrous uses: It shall be enough if I lose the bonds of this miserable people: If I give liberty, let the next give wealth: they will think themselves happy in bare walls, in their native earth: To what purpose should I pamper their penury with a sudden store? But the Princely hart of Cyrus would admit of no such base sacrilegious thoughts; Those vessels that he finds stamped with God's mark, he will return to their owner; neither his own occasions, nor their abuse shall be any colour of their detention. O Cyrus, how many close-handed, griple-minded Christians shall once be choked in judgement with the example of thy just munificence? thou restoredst that which we purloin: woe be to those houses that are stored with the spoils of God's Temple: woe be to those fingers that are tainted with holy treasures.  
King's can hardly do good alone; their laws are not more followed, than their examples: No sooner do the chief of the fathers of judah and Benjamin, and the Priests, and Levites set their faces towards jerusalem for the building of the Temple, than the liberal hands of their Pagan neighbours furnish them with gold, and silver, and precious things. Ever Persian is glad to be at the charge of laying a stone, in God's house. The same God that had given them these metals, out of his coffers of the earth, gives it out of their coffers to his Temple. He that took away by the Chaldees, gives by the Persians: Where the Almighty intends a work, there cannot be any want of means.  
Thus heartened, thus laded, do the joyful families of judah return to their old home; How many thousands of them were worn out, and lost in that seventy years' servitude? How few of them yet survived, that could know the place of their birth, and habitation; or, say, Here stood the Temple, here the Palace? Amongst those forty and two thousand, three hundred & threescore jews, that returned in this first expedition; there were whom the confusion of their long captivity 
Besides servants 7337.  had robbed of their pedigree; They knew themselves jews, but could not derive their line: these were yet admitted, without difficulty; But those of the Priestly tribe, which could not deduce their genealogy from the register, are cashiered as unclean. Then, God would be served in a blood, now in a due succession: If we could not fetch the line of our pedigree from Christ, and his Apostles, we were not fit for the evangelical altars. Their calling was by nature, ours by grace; The grace of inward abilities, of outward ordination; if we cannot approve both these, we are justly abandoned; now had the children of Israel taken down their Harps from the Willows, which grew by the waters of Babylon, & could, unbidden, sing the true songs of their recovered Zion: They are newly settled in their old mansions, when upon the first public feast, in the Autumn, immediately following their return, they flock up to jerusalem: their first care is their public sacrifice; That school of their Captivity, wherein they have been long trained, hath taught them to begin with God: A forced discontinuance, makes devotion more savoury, more sweet to religious hearts; whereas in an open freedom, piety doth too often languish.  
jeshua the Priest, and Zorobabel the Prince are fitly joined in the building of the Altar: neither of their hands may be out of that sacred work: no sooner is that set upon the bases, than it is employed to the daily burnt-offerings: The Altar may not stay the leisure of the Temple; God's Church may not want her oblations; He can be none of the sons of Israel, that doth not every day renew his acknowledgements of God.  
How feelingly do these jews keep their feast of Tabernacles, whiles their sojourning in Babylon was still in their thoughts; whiles as yet their Tents must supply their ruined houses? The first motions of zeal are commonly strong, and fervent; How carefully do these Governors and Priests make preparation for God's Temple? Carpenters and Masons are hired; Tyrian workmen are again called for, and Lebanon is now anew solicited for Cedar trees. The materials are ready; Every Israelite, with such courage addresses himself to this service, as if his life lay in those stones: And now, whiles the foundation of the Temple was laying, the Priests stand in their habits, with Trumpets, the Levites with Cymbals, interchanging their holy Music, and melodiously singing praises to the God of Israel, who had turned their captivity as the streams in the South, and honoured their eyes and hands with the first stones of his house: The people second their songs with shouts; The earth sounds, and heaven rings with the joyful acclamations of the multitude; It is no small comfort, in a good action, to have begun well; The entrance of any holy enterprise is commonly encountered with many discouragements, which if we have once overcome, the passage is smooth.  
How would these men have shouted at the laying on of the last stone of the battlements, who are thus joyed with laying the first stones of the foundation? The end of any thing is better than the beginning: that hath certainty, this danger; this labour, that rest: little did these men think that, for all this, few of them should live to see the roof.  
What different affections shall we see produced in men by the same occasion? The younger jews shouted at this sight, the elder wept: The younger shouted to see a new foundation; The elder wept to remember the old: They who had seen no better, thought this goodly; They who had seen the former, thought this mean, and homely; more sorrowing for what they had lost, then rejoicing in so unequal a reparation.  
As it may fall out, it is some piece of misery to have been happier; every abatement of the degrees of our former height lays siege to our thankfulness, for lesser mercies. Sometimes, it proves an advantage to have known no better; he shall more comfortably enjoy present benefits, who takes them as they are, without any other comparisons, then of the weakness of his own deservings. It is nothing to me what myself or others have been, so I be now well: Neither is it otherwise in particular Churches, if one be more gloriously built then another, yet if the foundation be rightly laid in both; one may not insult, the other may not repine: Each must congratulate the truth to other, each must thankfully enjoy itself.  
The noise was not more loud, then confused; here was a discordant mixture of lamentation, and shouting; it was hard to say whether drowned the other.  
This assembly of jews was a true image of God's Church on earth; one sings, another cries; never doth it all either laugh or mourn at once. It shall be in our triumph that all tears shall be wiped from our eyes; till then, our passions must be mixed, according to the occasions.  
The jews are busy at work, not more full of joy, than hopes; and now that the walls begin to overlook the earth; their thoughts seem to overlook the walls. But what great enterprise was ever set on foot for God, which found not some crosses?  
There was a mongrel brood of Samarit-Assyrians, which ever since the days of Senacherib dwelled in the land of Israel; whose religion was a patched coat of several shreds; some little part jewish, the rest Pagan, not without much variety of idolatry. These hollow neighbour's proffer their assistance to the children of the captivity; Let us build with you, for we seek your God, as ye do: and do sacrifice to him. Might men be their own judges, there would be no heresy in the world, no mis-worship. It is true; these men did sacrifice to the true God; The Lions taught them to seek, and the Israelitish Priest taught them to find the fashions of the God of the land: Some of these jews knew their devotion of old; They served Israel's God; but with their own: As good no God, as too many. In a just indignation therefore do these jewish governors repel the partnership of such helpers: You have nothing to do with us, to build an house to our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel. The hand of an idolater is contagious. Yet, had it been to the building of some fortress, or common-hall, perhaps their aid had not been refused, but when the walls of God's house are to be raised, this society had been piacular.  
Those that may not be allowed to help the work, will ask no leave to hinder it: their malicious suggestions weaken the hands of the people of judah, and stir up authority to suppress them.  
Cyrus was far off; neither lived he long after that gracious commission; and beside was so taken up the while with his wars, that he could not have leisure to sift those querulous accusations. Now therefore, during the last years of Cyrus, and the reign of his son Cambyses, and the long government of Darius Hystaspides, and of his son Xerxes, or Ahasuerus, and lastly of his son Artaxerxes, until the days of Darius Nothus, (which was no less than five successions of Kings, (besides Cyrus) do the walls of the Temple stand still, yea lie waste; subject to the wrongs of time, and wether: the fit matter of sorrow to the jews, insultation to the enemies, derision to passengers.  
What a wide gap of time was here betwixt the foundation of God's house, and the battlements? How large a trial doth God now secondly take of the faith, of the patience of his people? How large a proof doth he give of his own long-suffering? Oh God, when thou hadst but one house upon earth, thou wert content to put up delays, yea affronts in the building of it; now thou hast many, it is no marvel if thy longanimity and justice, abide some of them to lie desolate: They are not stones, or metals, or men that can make thee more glorious; thou best knowest when to serve thyself of all these; when to honour these with thy service.  
A small matter hinders the worthiest action; as a little fish (they say) stays the greatest ship: Before, the jews were discouraged with words, but now they are stopped by commands.  
These envious Samaritans have corrupted the governors which the Persian Kings set over those parts; and from their hands have obtained letters of deep calumniation, to Ahasuerus the King; and after him, to his son Artaxerxes; wherein jerusalem is charged with old rebellion to Kings; and for proof, appellation is made to the records; from which evidence, is spitefully inferred, that if these walls be once built, the King shall receive no tribute on this side the river. Never was God's Church but subject to reproaches.  
Princes have reason to be jealous of their rights. The records are searched; It soon appears that within one Century of years, jerusalem had rebelled against Nabuchadnezzar, and held out two years' siege of that great Babylonian. The scandal of disloyalty is perpetual: although indeed they held him rather a prevailing enemy, than a lawful Sovereign; One act disparages either place, or person, to all posterities. Therefore shall the walls of jerusalem lie waste, because it had once been treacherous; After an hundred years doth that City rue one perfidious act of Zedekiah. Fidelity to our governors is ever both safe, and honourable.  
Command is now sent out from 
* Surnamed Long-hand.  Artaxerxes, (even the son of Queen Esther) to restrain the work: All respects must cease with carnal minds, when their honours, or profits are in question. Rehum the Chancellor, and Shimshai the Scribe, come now armed with authority: The sword hath easily prevailed against the trowel. Still do the jews find themselves as it were, captives at home, and in silence, and sorrow, cease from their labours, until the days of the next successor, Darius Nothus.  
As those that had learned to sow after a bad crop, these jews, upon the change of the Prince, by the encouragement of the Prophets of God, Haggai, and Zechariah, take new heart to build again: If others power hinder us in the work of God, our will may not be guilty.  
Their new governors come, as before; to expostulate; Who hath commanded you to build this house, and to make up this wall? and what are your names? They wisely and modestly plead the service of the God of heaven, the decree of Cyrus; still persisting to build, as if the prohibition of Artaxerxes had died with the author. The unpartial Governors do neither claw, nor exasperate; but relating the humble and just answer of the jews, move the King that search may be made in the rolls of Babylon, whether such an Edict were made by Cyrus; and require his royal pleasure, concerning the validity of such pretended decree. Darius' searches, finds, ratifies, enlargeth it, not only charging his officers not to hinder the work, but commanding to levy sums of his own Tribute, beyond the river, for the expenses of the building, for the furnishing of sacrifices; threatening utter ruin to the house of that man, and death to his person, who should offer to impeach this bounty: and shutting up with a zealous imprecation; The God of heaven that hath caused his name to dwell there, destroy all Kings and people that shall put to their hand to alter, and to destroy this house of God which is at jerusalem: I Darius have made a decree, let it be done with speed.  
Who would have looked for such an edict from a Persian? No Solomon, no David could have said more.  
The ruler of all hearts makes choice of his own instruments, and when he pleaseth, can glorify himself by those means, which are least expected: That sacred work which the husband, and son of an Esther crossed, shall be happily accomplished by a Darius: In the sixth year of his reign, is the Temple of God fully finished; and now the Dedication of it, is celebrated, by a joyful feast: An hundred bullocks, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, in a meet proportion, smoke upon their altars: And now the children of the captivity think this day a sufficient payment for all their sorrows: We have reason to think it the fairest day that ever shone forth to us, wherein the spiritual building of God's house is raised up in our souls. How should we shout at the laying of this foundation, and feast at the laying on of the roof? What other, what better sacrifice can we offer up to God in the sense of our joy, than our selves? Let our hearts be at once, the Temple, the Altar, the sacrifice; Oh God, be thou glorified in all these, who hast graciously honoured all these with thyself.  
Every holy feast is now duly kept, the Priests know their divisions, the Levites their courses; and the whole service of God is put into a settled order; But, as there can be no new beginnings without imperfection, nor long continuance, without corruption; reformation is no less necessary than good institutions; Ataxerxes 
* The windfull.  Mnemon hath learned of his father Darius to befriend God's people; and strives to inherit his beneficence: under his government, is Ezra the Priest, & learned scribe, sent with a large commission from Babylon, to jerusalem, to inquire into the wants, and redress the disorders of the jews; with full power not only to carry with him all the voluntaries of his nation; and the treasures contributed in all the province of Babylon; but to raise such sums, out of the King's revenues, as should be found requisite; and withal to ordain Magistrates and judges, and to crown the Laws with due execution, whether to death, or banishment, or confiscation; and lastly, with a large exemption of the Priests and Levites, and all the inferior officers of the Temple, from all tolls, tributes, customs. Nothing wanted here, whether for direction, or encouragement. It is a sign of God's great favour to any nation, when the hearts of Sovereign governors are raised up, both to the choice of worthy agents, and to the commanding of pious, and restaurative actions.  
Holy and careful Ezra gathers a new colony of jews, takes view of them, at the river of Ahava; and finding a miss of the sons of Levi (without whom no company, no plantation can be complete) sends for their supply; And now, fully furnished, he proclaims a fast in the way.  
I do not hear him say, The journey is long and dangerous; the people have need of all their strength. I could well wish us all afflicted with a religious fast, were it not that the abatement of the courage, and vigour of the multitude may endanger our success; But without all these carnal consultations, he begins with this solemn act of humiliation; It is better to have God strong in our weakness, then to have flesh and blood strong in his neglect.  
Artaxerxes was a Patron of the jews, yet a Pagan by profession; wise Ezra was afraid of quenching those sparks of piety which he descried in this semi-proselite. Rather therefore then he will seem to imply a distrust in the providence of that God, in whose service he went by seeking a convoy of soldiers from the King; Ezra chooses to put himself upon the hazard of the way, and the immediate protection of the Almighty. Any death were better then to hear Artaxerxes say, Is this the man that so confidently told me, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him? Doth he believe himself that he thus doubts ere he begin? Dare he not trust his God with his own businesses?  
The resolutions of faithful hearts are heroical: No heathen man shall stumble at Ezraes' fear: He can find more assurance in his fast, then in a Persian band: with a courageous reliance upon the hand of his God he puts himself into the journey; and finds nothing but safety and success: The fidelity of the Almighty never disappointed the confidence of his servants. All the army of Artaxerxes could not have been so strong a guard to the jews, as their invisible protection.  
In the space of four months is Ezra, and his company happily arrived at jerusalem: where he joys to see the new Temple, and his old Colleagues: and now having delivered up the charge of his treasure, by weight, in the chambers of the house of the Lord, he applies himself to his work, and delivers the King's Commissions to the Lieutenants and Governors, for their utmost assistance.  
The Princes of judah do not (for aught I hear) repine at the large Patent granted to this Priest, nor say, What doth a man of this robe meddle with placing, or displacing Magistrates? with execution of judgements to death, bonds, banishment? but rather as congratulating this power to sacred hands, gladly present unto him all their grievances. Truly religious hearts cannot grudge any honour to their spiritual guides.  
This holy Commissioner is soon welcomed with a sad Bill of complaint, from some good Peers of Israel; wherein they charge diverse of the Priests, Levites, people, not to have separated themselves from the idolatrous inhabitants of the lands, nor (therefore) from their abominations, even from Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, and the rest of those branded nations; That they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: So that the holy seed have mingled themselves with those forbidden people; and, (which made the matter so much more heinous, less remediable) that the hand of the Princes, and Rulers, hath been chief in this trespass.  
Oh hypocritical jews, did ye refuse to suffer your Samaritan neighbours to join with you in building a liveless house unto God, and do ye now join affinity with a more accursed generation for the building of living houses unto posterity? for the pulling down of the lively house of God?  
How could Ezra hear this with his clothes, his hair, his beard untorne? What grief, what astonishment must this news needs bring to a zealous heart? And, were it not that the conscience of his sincere respect to Gods glory relieved him, how could Ezra choose but repent him of his journey; and say; Am I comen from Babylon to find Paganism in judah? Did I leave Persians, to meet with Canaanites? what do I here, if jerusalem be removed? How much better were a clear captiutie, than an idolatrous freedom? Woe is me, that having left many jewish hearts in Babylon, I now am forced to find heathen blood in jerusalem.  
As a man distracted with sorrow, Ezra sits down upon the earth with his garments rend, with the hair of his head, and beard plucked off, wring his hands, knocking his breast, not moving from his place until the evening sacrifice. It is hard to be too much affected with the public sins of God's people. Those who find themselves in the ship of God's Church, cannot but be much troubled with every dangerous leak that it takes: Common cases are not more neglected by the careless, then taken to heart by the wise, and godly.  
There, and thus, Ezra sits astonished until the evening sacrifice: others resorted to him the while; even all that trembled at the words of the God of Israel; but to help on his sorrow, not to relieve it; neither doth any man with a mitigation of his own, or others grief. At last, he rises up from his heaviness, and casts himself upon his knees, and spreads out his hands unto the Lord his God: Wherefore was all that pensiveness, fasting, silence, tearing of hair and clothes, but to serve as a meet preface to his prayers? wherein he so freely pours out his hart, as if it had been all dissolved into devotion; professing his shame to lift up his face towards the throne of God; confessing the iniquities of his people, which were increased over their heads, and grown up unto heaven; fetching their trespass far, and charging them deep; feelingly acknowledging the just hand that had followed them, in all their judgements, and the just confusion wherein they now stand before the face of their God.  
Tears, and sighs, and grovelings accompanied his prayers; the example and noise whereof drew Israel into a participation of this public mourning, For the people wept very sore: How can they choose but think, If he thus lament for us, how should we grieve for ourselves?  
All judah went away merrily with their sin, till this check of Ezra, now they are afflicted: Had not the hands of the Peers been in this trespass, the people had not been guilty; had not the cheeks of Ezra been first drenched with tears, the people had not been penitent. It cannot be spoken, what power there is in a great example, whether to evil, or good.  
Prayers and tears are nothing without endeavours. Shechaniah, the son of jehiel puts the first life into this business. Having seconded the complaint of Ezra, he now adds, Yet there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are borne of them. Arise, for this matter belongeth to thee, we also will be with thee; Be of good courage, and do it.  
When mischief is once done, the chief care is how to redress it. The best way of redress is the deliberate undoing of that which we have rashly committed; The surest obligation to the undoing of an evil act, is an oath or covenant made with God for the performance.  
There is no man so wise, but he may make use of good counsel; there is no man so forward, but he may abide incitation. It is no small encouragement to see an hearty assistance in an envious and difficult service. Then arose Ezra, and made the chief Priests, the Levites and all Israel to swear that they should do according to this word.  
It is half done that is thus assured. There was need of a strong power to dissolve a matrimonial, though inordinate love: Doubtless, these men had married out of affection; their hearts were no less set upon these wives (though heathenish) then if they had been of their own Tribes; neither were their children, thus begotten less dear unto them, then if they had lain in jewish wombs: Nothing less than an oath of God, therefore could quit these passions; That is both required and taken  
Now begins Ezra to conceive some hope of present redress; the comfort whereof, yet, cannot turn off his sorrow for the offence passed; He neither eats bread, nor drinks water; willingly punishing himself, because Israel had sinned: Now shall his Countrymen easily read in his face their own penance, and just humiliation; and say; This man takes no joy in our sufferings; he would not smart thus for us, if he did not descry more danger towards us than we can apprehended.  
Proclamation is made through judah and jerursalem, under pain of forfeiture of substance, and excommunication from God's people; that all the children of the captivity should gather themselves together unto jerusalem. They are met accordingly; The Courts of God's house are thronged with penitents; and now, as if the heaven would teach them what to do, the clouds rain down abundance of tears. What with those sad showers, what with their inward remorse, the people sit trembling in the open Courts; and humbly wait for the reproof, for the sentence of Ezra. He rises up; and with a severe countenance, lays before them their sin, their amends: The sin of their strange wives; the amends of their confession, of their separation: not sparing to search their wound; not neglecting the meet plaster for their cure.  
The people, as willing to be healed, yield themselves patiently to that rough hand; not shrinking at the pain, not favouring the sore; As thou hast said, so must we do; Only craving a fit proportion of time, and a due assistance for the dispatch of so long and important a work. Ezra gladly harkens to this, not so much request, as counsel of Israel; The charge is divided to men, and days; For two months space the commissioners sit close; and within that compass, finish this business, not more thankless than necessary: Doubtless much variety of passion met with than in this busy service; Here you should have seen an affectionate husband bitterly weeping at the dismission of a loving wife, and drowning his last farewell in sobs: there you might have seen a passionate wife, hanging upon the arms of her beloved husband, and on her knees, conjuring him by his former vows, and the dear pledges of their loves; and proffering with many tears, to redeem the loss of her husband with the change of her religion: Here, you might have seen, the kindred and parents of the dismissed, shutting up their denied suits with rage and threats. There, the abandoned children kneeling to their seemingly-cruell father, beseeching him not to cast off the fruit of his own loins; and expostulating, what they have offended in being his: The resolved Israelites must be deaf, and blind to these moving objects; and so far forget nature, as to put off part of themselves. Personal inconveniences have reason to yield to public mischiefs Long entertainment makes that sin hard to be ejected; whose first motions might have been repelled with ease.  
Had not the prohibition of these marriages been express, and their danger and mischief palpable, the care of their separation had not bred so much tumult in Israel. He that ordained matrimony, had upon fearful curses forbidden an unequal yoke with Infidels. Besides the marring of the Church by the mixture of an unholy seed, religion suffered for the present, and all good hearts with it. Many tears, many sacrifices needed to expiate so foul an offence, and to set Israel strait again.  
All this while even these mesline jews were yet forward to build the Temple; The worst sinners may yield an outward conformity to actions of piety: Ezra hath done more service in pulling down, than the jews in building; without this act, the temple might have stood, religion must needs have fall'n. Bebel had been translated to jerusalem; jews had turned Gentiles. Oh happy endeavours of devout and holy Ezra that hath at once restored judah to God, and to itself.   

NEHEMIAH building the walls of jerusalem.  
THirteen years were 
Nehemiah 1, 2, 3, 4, Chapt.  now passed since Ezraes' going up to jerusalem, when Nehemiah the religious Courtier of Artaxerxes, inquires of the estate of his Country, and brethren of judaea: He might well find that holy scribe had not been idle: The commission of Artaxerxes had been improved by him to the utmost; Disorders were reform, but the walls lay waste; The Temple was built, but the City was ruinous; and if some streets were repaired, yet they stood ungarded; open to the mercy of an enemy, to the infestation of ill neighbourhood: Great bodies must have slow motions; As jerusalem, so the Church of God, whose type it was, must be finished by leisure.  
Nehemiah sat warm in the Court at Shushan, favoured by the great King Artaxerxes; nothing could be wanting to him, whether for pleasure, or state; what needed he to trouble his head with thoughts for jerusalem? what if those remote walls lay on heaps whiles himself dwelled fair? what if his far-distant countrymen be despised, whiles himself is honoured, by the great Monarch of the world?  
It is not so easy for gracious dispositions to turn off the public calamities of God's Church; neither can they do other then lose their private felicities in the common distresses of the universal body. If I forget thee, O jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.  
Many jews went up from Babylon, and Shushan, to jerusalem, few ever returned voluntarily from their native home to the region of their captivity: Some occasion drew Hanani with certain others of judah, to this voyage. Of them doth Nehemiah carefully inquire the present condition of jerusalem: It was no news that the people were afflicted, and reproached, the walls broken down, the gates burnt with fire. Ever since the furious vastation of Nebuzaradan, that City knew no better terms: seldom when doth the spiritual jerusalem fare otherwise in respect of outward estate: external glory and magnificence is an unsure note of the Church.  
Well had Nehemiah hoped that the gracious edict, and beneficence of Darius, and the successive patronage of his Lord Artaxerxes had by the continuance of twenty years' favour advanced the strength and glory of jerusalem, but now, finding the holy City to lie still in the dust of her confusion, neglected of God, despised of men, he sits down and weeps, and mourns, and fasts, and prays to the God of heaven. How many saw those ruins, and were little affected? he hears of them a far off, and is thus passionate? How many were upon this sight affected with a fruitless sorrow, his mourning is joined with the endeavours of redress. In vain is that grief which hath no other end then itself.  
Nehemiah is resolved to kneel to the King, his master, for the repair of his jerusalem; he dares not attempt the suit till he have begun with God; This good Courtier knew well that the hearts of these earthly Kings are in the overruling hand of the King of heaven to incline whither he pleaseth: Our prayers are the only true means to make way for our success; If in all our occasions we do not begin with the first mover, the course is preposterous and commonly speeds thereafter.  
Who dares censure the piety of Courtiers, when he finds Nehemiah standing before Artaxerxes? Even the Persian Palace is not uncapable of a Saint: No man that waits on the Altar at jerusalem can compare for zeal, with him, that waits on the cup of a Pagan Monarch: The mercies of God are unlimited to places, to callings.  
Thus armed with devotions, doth Nehemiah put himself into the presence of his master Artaxerxes. His face was overclouded with a deep sadness, neither was he willing to clear it. The King easily notes the disparity of the countenance of the bearer, & the wine that he bears: and in a gracious familiarity asks the reason of such unwonted change; How well it becomes the great to stoop unto a courteous affability, and to exchange words of respect, even with their humble vassals.  
Nehemiah had not been so long in the Court but he knew that Princes like no other than cheerful attendants; neither was he wont to bring any other face into that presence, then smooth, and smiling.  
Greatness uses to be full of suspicion, and where it sees a dejection, and sourness of the brows, is ready to apprehend some sullen thoughts of discontentment, or, at the least, construes it for a disrespect to that sovereignty, whose beams should be of power to disperse all our inward mists: Even good manners forbid a man to press into the presence of a Prince, except he can either lay by these unpleasing passions, or hide them: So had Nehemiah hitherto done: Now, he purposely suffers his sorrow to look through his eyes, that it may work both inquiry, and compassion from his master; neither doth he fail of his hopes in either; Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick. How sensible do we think the father of mercies is of all our pensive thoughts, when an heathen master is so tender of a servants grief? How ready should our tongues be to lay open our cares to the God of all comfort, when we see Nehemiah so quick in the expressions of his sorrow to an uncertain ear?  
Let the King live for ever: Why should not my countenance, be sad when the City the place of my father sepulphres lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burnt with fire. Not without an humble preface doth Nehemiah lay forth his grievance; Complaints have ever an unpleasing harshness in them which must be taken off by some disscreet insinuation: Although it could not but sound well in the generous ear of Artaxerxes, that his servant was so careful for the honour of his Country; As nature hath made us all members of a community and hath given us common interests, so, it is most pleasing to us, to see these public cares divide us from our own.  
The King easily decryes a secret supplication wrapped up in this moanefull answer, which the modest suitor was afraid to disclose, and therefore he helps that bashful motion into the light; For what dost thou make request? It is the praise of bounty to draw on the just petitions of fearful suppliants.  
Nehemiah dares not open his mouth of the King, till his heart hath opened itself by a sudden ejaculation to his God; No business can be so hasty, but our prayer may prevent it; the wings whereof are so nimble, that it can fly up to heaven, and solicit God, and bring down an answer, before ever our words need to come forth of our lips. In vain shall we hope that any design of ours can prosper, if we have not first sent this messenger on our errand.  
After this silent, and insensible preparation; Nehemiah moves his suit to the King; not yet at once; but by meet degrees; first he craves leave for his journey, and for the building: then he craves aid for both; Both are granted; Nehemiah departs furnished with letters to the governors, for a convoy; with letters to the keeper of the King's forest for timber. Not more full of desire, than hope.  
Who ever put his hand to any great work for the behoof of God's Church, without opposition? As the walls of the Temple found busy enemies, so shall the walls of the City; and these so much more; as they promise more security and strength to jerusalem: Sanballat the Deputie-Lieutenant of the Moabites, and Tobiab, the like officer to the Ammonites, and Geshem, to the Arabians, are galled with envy at the arrival of a man authorized to seek the welfare of the children of Israel: There cannot be a greater vexation to wicked hearts, then to see the spiritual jerusalem in any likelihood of prosperity. Evil spirits and men need no other torment, than their own despite.  
This wise Courtier hath learned that secrecy is the surest way of any important dispatch. His errand could not but be known to the governors; their furtherance was enjoined for the provision of materials; else the walls of jerusalem had over-lookt the first notice of their heathen-neighbors. Without any noise doth Nehemiah arise in the dead of night, and taking some few into his company, none into his counsel, he secretly rounds the decayed walls of jerusalem, and views the breaches, and observes the gates; and returns home in silence, joying in himself to foresee those reparations, which none of the inhabitants did once dream of: At last, when he had fully digested this great work in his own breast, he calls the rulers and Citizens together, and having condoled with them, the common distress, and reproach, he tells them of the hand of his God, which was good upon him; he shows them the gracious commission of the King, his master, for that good work. They answer him with a zealous encouragement of each other, Let us rise up and build▪ Such an hearty invitation countenanced by authority hath easily strengthened the hands of the multitude; with what observance and dearness do they now look upon their unexpected patron? how do they honour him as a man fent from heaven, for the welfare of jerusalem? Every man flies to his hodde, and trowel, and rejoices to second so noble a leader, in laying a stone in that wall of their common defence.  
Those emulous neighbours of theirs, Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem, the chief commanders of Moab, Ammon, Arabia, have soon espied the first mortar, that is laid upon that old foundation. Envy is usually more quicksighted than love: And now they scornfully apply themselves to these despised jews, and think to scoff them out of their work: The favourablest persecution of any good cause is the lash of lewd tongues; whether by bitter taunts or by scurrilous invectives: which it is as impossible to avoid, as necessary to contemn. The barking of these dogs doth not hinder Nehemiah from walking on his way; professing his confidence in the God of heaven, whose work that was; he shakes off their impotent malice, and goes on cheerfully to build: Every Israelite knows his station. Eliashib the high Priest, and the rest of that sacred tribe put the first hand to this work; they build the sheep-gate, and sanctify it; and in it, all the rest. As the first fruits of the field, so the first stones of the wall, are hallowed to God, by the consecration of those devout agents: That business is like to prosper which begins with God.  
No man was idle, no part was intermitted; All jerusalem was at once encompassed with busy labourers. It cannot be, but the joint-indeavors of faithful hearts must raise the walls of the Church.  
Now Sanballat, and his brethren, find some matter to spend their scoffs upon; What do these feeble jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish which are burnt?  
How basely do carnal minds think of the projects, and actions of God's children; therefore vilifying them, because they measure them by no other line, then outward probability. Oh foolish Moabites, this work is Gods, and therefore in despite of all your tongues and hands, it shall prosper: He hears you whom ye have blasphemed, and shall turn your reproach upon your own heads.  
And, thou proud Ammonite, that couldst say, If a Fox go upon their stone-wall, he shall break it down; shalt well find, that all the wolvish troops of your confederates shall not be able to remove one stone of this sure fortification; Whiles Moab and Ammon repine and bluster in vain this wall shall rise, & when Moab & Ammon shall lie in the dust, this wall shall stand. The mortar that hath been tempered with so many tears, and laid with so many prayers, cannot but outlast all the flints, and marbles of humane confidence.  
Now the growth of this wall hath turned the mirth of the adversaries into rage: These Moabites, Ammonites, Arabians, Ashdodites conspire all together, to fight against jerusalem; and whiles the mortar is yet green, to demolish those envied heaps.  
What hath this City offended in desiring to be defenced? what wrong could it be to wish a freedom from wrongs? Were this people so mighty, that there could be danger in overpowering their neighbours, or in resisting a common sovereign, there might have appeared some colour for this hostile opposition; but, alas; what could a despised handful do to the prejudice of either? It is quarrel enough to jerusalem that it would not be miserable.  
Neither is it otherwise with the head of these hellish complices; there needs no other cause of his utmost fury, then to see a poor soul struggling to get out of the reach of his tyranny. So do savage beasts bristle up themselves, and make the most fierce assaults when they are in danger of losing the prey, which they had once seized on.  
In the mean while, what doth Nehemiah with his jews for their common safety? They pray, and watch; they pray unto God, they watch against the enemy.  
Thus, thus shall we happily prevail against those spiritual wickednesses, which war against our souls: No evil can surprise us if we watch; no evil can hurt us, if we pray; This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.  
There was need of a continued vigilancy; the enemy was not more malicious, then subtle, and had said; They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them. Open force is not so dangerous, as close dissimulation; They meant to seem jews, whiles they were Moabites and Ammonites; and in the clothes of brethren purposed to hide murderers. Never is Satan so prevailent, as when he comes transformed into an Angel of light.  
It was a merciful providence of God, that made these men's tongues the blabs of their own counsel. Many a fearful design had prospered, if wickedness could have been silent. Warning is a lawful guard to a wise adversary: Now doth Nehemiah arm his people; and for the time, changes their trowels into swords, & spears, and bows; raising up their courage with a vehement exhortation, to remember the Lord, which is great, and terrible, and to fight for their brethren, their sons, their daughters, their wives, and their houses. Nothing can so hearten us to the encountering of any evil, as the remembrance of that infinite power and wisdom which can either avert, or mitigate, or sanctify it: we could not faint if we did not forget God.  
Necessity urges a man to fight for himself, love enables his hand to fight for those which challenge a part in him; where love meets with necessity, there can want no endeavour of victory; Necessity can make even cowards, valiant; love makes the valiant, unresistable: Nehemiah doth not therefore persuade these jews to fight for themselves, but for theirs: The enlargement of the interest, and danger, cannot but quicken the dullest spirits.  
Discovered counsels are already prevented; These serpents die by being first seen; When the enemies heard that it was known unto us, they let fall their plot. Could we descry the enterprises of Satan, that tempter would return ashamed.  
It is a safe point of wisdom to carry a jealous eye over those, whom we have once found hollow, and hostile: From that time forth Nehemiah divided the task, betwixt the trowel, and the sword; so disposing of every Israelite, that whiles one hand was a Mason, the other was a soldier: one is for work, the other for defence. Oh lively image of the Church militant, wherein every one labours, weaponed; wherein there is neither an idle soldier, nor a secure workman: every one so builds, as that he is ready to ward temptations; every one so wields the sword of the spirit, for defence, that, withal, he builds up himself in his most holy faith; here is neither a fruitless valour, nor an unsafe diligence.  
But what can our weapons avail us, if there be not means to warn us of an enemy? Without a Trumpet we are armed in vain. The work is great and large, and we are separated upon the wall, one far from another: Yea, so far as the utmost bounds of the earth, are we separated one from another, upon the walls of the spiritual jerusalem; only the sacred Trumpets of God, call us, who are distant in place, to a combination in profession. And who are those Trumpets, but the public messengers of God, of whom God hath said; If the Watchmen see the 
Ezee. 33. 6.  sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. Woe be to us if we sound not; if the sound we give be uncertain: woe be to our people, if when we premonish them of enemies, of judgements, they sit still unmoved, not buckling themselves to a resistance, to a prevention.  
It is a mutual aid, to which these Trumpets invite us; we might fight apart, without the signals of war; In what place ye hear the sound of the Trumpet, resort ye thither unto us. There can be no safety to the Church, but where every man thinks his life, and welfare consists in his fellows; Conjoined forces may prosper, single oppositions are desperare: All hearts and hands must meet in the common quarrel.   

NEHEMIAH redressing the extortion of the jews.  
WIth what difficulty do these miserable jews settle in their jerusalem? The fear of foreign enemies doth not more afflict them, than the extortion of their own: Dearth is added unto war: Miseries do not stay for a mannerly succession to each other, but in a rude importunity throng in, at once. Babel may be built with ease, but whosoever goes about to raise the walls of God's City, shall have his hands full: The incursion of public enemies may be prevented with vigilancy and power; but there is no defence against the secret gripes of oppression.  
There is no remedy, the jews are so taken up with their trowel, and sword, for the time, that they cannot attend their trades; so as, whiles the wall did rise, their estates must needs impair: Even in the cheapest season they must needs be poor, that earned nothing but the public safety, how much more in a common scarcity? their houses, lands, vineyards are therefore mortgaged, yea their very skins are sold, for corn, to their brethren: Necessity forces them to sell that, which it was cruelty to buy; What will we not, what must we not part with, for life? The covetous rulers did not consider the occasions of this want, but the advantage. Sometimes, a bargain may be as unmerciful as a robbery: Charity must be the rule in all contracts; the violation whereof, whether in the matter, or the price, cannot but be sinful.  
There could not be a juster ground of expostulation than this of the oppressed jews: Our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children; and lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters: whiles there is no difference in nature, why should there be such an injurious disproportion in condition. Even the same flesh may bear a just inequality; Some may be rulers, whiles others are subject; Some wealthy, others poor; but why those wealthy rulers should tyrannize over those poor inferiors, and turn brotherhood into bondage no reason can be given but lawless ambition; If there were one flesh of Peers, another of Peasants, there should be some colour for the proud impositions of the great, as because the flesh of beasts is in a lower rank than ours, we kill, we devour it at pleasure; but now, since the large body of mankind consists of the same flesh, why should the hand strike the foot? And if one flesh may challenge meet respects from us, how much more one spirit; The spirit is more noble, than the flesh is base; the flesh is dead without the spirit; the spirit without the flesh, active and immortal; Our soul, though shapeless, and immaterial, is more apparently one, than the flesh; And if the unity of our humane spirit call us to a mutual care, and tenderness in our carriage, each to other, how much more of the divine? by that we are men, by this we are Christians: As the soul animates us to a natural life, so doth God's Spirit animate the soul to an heavenly; which is so one; that it cannot be divided. How should that one spirit cause us so far to forget all natural, and civil differences, as not to contemn, not to oppress any whom it informeth?  
They are not Christians, not men, that can enjoy the miseries of their brethren, whether in the flesh or spirit.  
Good Nehemiah cannot choose but be much moved at the barbarous extortion of the people; and now, like an unpartial governor, he rebukes the Rulers and Nobles, whose hand was thus bloody with oppression. As of fishes, so of men, the lesser are a prey to the great: It is an ill use made of power, when the weight of it serves only to crush the weak. There were no living amongst men had not God ordained higher than the highest; and yet higher than they. Eminency of place cannot be better improved, then by taking down mighty offenders.  
If nobility do embase itself to any foul sin, it is so much more worthy of coercion, by how much the person is of greater mark.  
The justice of this reproof could not but shame impudence itself; We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the jews which were sold to the heathen, and will you sell your brethren, or shall they be sold to us? Shall they find at home that yoke of bondage which they had put off abroad? whiles they are still jews, shall we turn Assyrians? If they must be slaves, why not rather to enemies, then to brethren? How much more tolerable were a foreign servitude, than a domestical: Be ashamed, o ye Nobleses of Israel, to renew Babylon in jerusalem. I marvel not if the offenders be stricken dumb with so unanswerable an expostulation; Guiltiness, and confusion have stopped their mouths.  
Many of those who have not had grace enough to refrain sin, yet are not so utterly void of grace as to maintain sin; Our after-wits are able to discern a kind of unreasonableness in those wicked actions, which the first appearance represents unto us plausible. Gaine leads in sin, but shame follows it out. There are those that are bold and witty to bear out commodious, or pleasant evils; neither could these jewish enormities, have wanted some colours of defence; Their stock was their own, which might have been otherwise improved, to no less profit; The offer, the suit of these bargains was from the sellers; These escheates fell into their hands, unsought; neither did their contract cause the need of their brethren, but relieve it: But their conscience will not bear this plea. I know not whether the maintenance of the least evil be not worse, than the commission of the greatest; This may be of frailty, that argues obstinacy: There is hope of that man that can blush, and be silent.  
After conviction of the fact, it is seasonable for Nehemiah, to persuade reformation: No oratory is so powerful, as that of mildness: especially when we have to do with those, who either through stomach, or greatness, may not endure a rough reproof: The drops that fall easily upon the corn, ripen, and fill the ear, but the stormy showers that fall with violence, beat down the stalks flat to the earth, and lay whole fields, without hope of recovery. Who can resist this sweet & sovereign reprehension; Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God, because of the reproach of the heathen, our enemies? Did we dwell alone in the midst of the earth, yet the fear of our God should over-awe our ways; but now that we dwell in the midst of our enemies, whose eyes are bend upon all our actions, whose tongues are as ready to blaspheme God, as we to offend him, how carefully should we avoid those sins, which may draw shame upon our profession?  
Now, the scandal is worse than the fact; Thus, shall religion suffer more from the heathen, than our brethren do from us: If justice, if charity cannot sway with us, yet, let the scornful insultations of the profane Gentiles, affright us from these pressures. No ingenuous disposition can be so tender of his own disgrace, as the true Israelite is of the reproach of his God: What is it that he will not rather refrain, do, suffer, than that glorious name shall hazard a blemish? They cannot want outward retentives from sin, that live either among friends, or enemies; if friends, they may not be grieved, if enemies, they may not be provoked: Those that would live well, must stand in awe of all eyes; Even those that are without the Church yet may not be without our regard: No person can be so contemptible, as that his censure should be contemned.  
In dissuading from sin, reason itself cannot prevail more than example. I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants might exact of them money, and corn. But from the time that I was appointed to the charge of judah, I, and my brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor. He shall never rule well, that doth all that he may: It is not safe for either part, that a Prince should live at the height of his power: And if the greatest abate of their right, is it for inferiors to extort? Had Nehemiah aimed at his own greatness, no man could have had fairer pretences for his gain.  
The former governors that were before him were chargeable unto the people, and had taken of them bread and wine, besides forty shekels of silver. His foot had not first trod in this commodious path; it was beaten by the steps of his predecessors; neither did any of them walk beside it: How ever it might be envious to raise new taxations, yet to continue those he found unrepined at, had been out of the reach of exception: A good Governor looks not so much what hath been done, as what should be; Precedents are not the rule, whereby he rules, but justice, but piety. So did not I, because of the fear of the Lord: Laws are not a straighter curb to subjects, than conscience is to good Princes.  
They dare not do what they cannot do charitably: what advantage can they think it to be from under the controlment of men, when the God of heaven notes, and punishes their offences. Who so walketh by this rule, can neither err, nor miscarry; It is not trusting to the external remedies of sin, either they are not always present; or if present, not powerful enough; but if the fear of God have once taken up the heart, it goes ever with us, and is strong enough to overmaister the forceablest temptation.  
Therefore must these jews follow this example of Nehemiah, because he followed not the example of his predecessors; because he left their evil, they must imitate his good. In vain shall rulers advise against their own practice; when they lead the way, they may well challenge to be followed: Seldom hath it been ever seen that great persons have not been seconded in evil, why should not their power serve to make patterns of their virtues?  
Thus well did it speed with Nehemiah; his merciful carriage, and zealous suit have drawn the Rulers to a promise of restitution; We will restore them, and will require nothing of them, so will we do as thou sayest.  
It is no small advantage that these Nobles must forgo, in their releaseth: there cannot be a better sign of a sound amendment, than that we can be content to be loser's by our repentance; Many formal penitents have yielded to part with so much of their sin, as may abate nothing of their profit; as if these Rulers should have been willing to restore the persons, but withal should have stood stiffly to require their sums: This whining and partial satisfaction had been thankless. True remorse enlargeth the heart, and openeth the hand to a bountiful redemption of our errors.  
Good purposes do too often cool in time, and vanish into a careless forgetfulness; Nehemiah feared this issue of these holy resolutions; and therefore he prosecutes them in their first heat; not leaving these promises, till he had secured them, with an oath; The Priests are called for, that in their mouths, the adjuration may be more solemn, & sacred; It is the best point of wisdom to take the first opportunity of fixing good motions, which otherwise are of themselves light, & slighty. To make all yet more sure, their oaths are crosse-barred with his execration. Also I shook my lap, and said, so God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied, and all the Congregation said, Amen. A promise, an oath, a curse, are passed upon this act; now, no Israelite dares falter in the execution: When we have a sin in chase, it is good to follow it home, not slackening our pursuit till we have fully prevailed; and when it is once fall'n under our hands, we cannot kill it too much.  
Now Nehemiah having thus happily delivered his people from a domestical captivity, commends his service to the gracious remuneration of the Almighty; Think upon me my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people; Therefore doth he refuse the bread of the Governor, that he may receive the reward of the Governor of heaven: Had he taken a temporary recompense, both he and it had been forgotten, now he hath made an happy change for eternity. Not that he pleads his merit, but sues for mercy; neither doth he pray to be remembered for his work, but according to his work.  
Our good deeds as they are well accepted of God, so they shall not go unrewarded; and what God will give, why may not we crave. Doubtless, as we may offer up our honest obediences unto God, so we may expect and beg his promised retributions; not out of a proud conceit of the worth of our earnings, who at the best are no other than unprofitable servants; but out of a faithful dependence upon his pact of bounty, who cannot be less than his word: O God, if we do aught that is good, it is thine act, and not ours; crown thine own work in us, and take thou the glory of thine own mercies.  
Whiles Nehemiah is busy in reforming abuses, at home; the enemy is plotting against him, abroad; Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arabian conspire against his life, and in him, against the peace of jerusalem: What open hostility could not do, they hope to effect by pretence of treaties: Four several messages call Nehemiah to a friendly meeting. Distrust is a sure guard. The wise governor hath learned to suspect the hollow favours of an enemy; and to return them, with safe and just excuses. I cannot come down, why should the work cease whiles I leave it, and come down to you? I do not hear him say, You intent mischief to me; I will not come forth to you; though this were the proper cause of his forbearance, but he he turns them off with an answer, that had as much truth, as reservedness. Fraud is the fitliest answered with subtlety: Even innocence is allowed a lawful craft; That man is in an ill case, that conceals no truth from an adversary.  
What entreaties cannot do, shall be attempted by threats; Sanballats' servant comes now the fifth time, with an open letter, importing dangerous intimation, wherein is written, It is reported among the heathen and Gashmu saith it, that the jews think to rebel; for which cause thou buildest the wall that thou mayest be their King. It is reported: and what falsehood may not plead this warant●● What can be more lying then report? Among the beathen: and who is more Ethnic than Sanballat? what Pagan can be worse than a mongrel Idolater? And Gashmu saith it, Ask my fellow else; This Arabian was one of those three heads of all the hostile combination, against jerusalem, against Nehemiah; It would be wide with innocence if enemies might be allowed to accuse.  
That the jews think to rebel: A stale suggestion, but, once, powerful; Malice hath learned to miscall all actions; where the hands cannot be taxed, very thoughts are prejudged: For which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their King; He was never true Israelite that hath not passed spiteful slanders, and misconstructions: Artaxerxes knew his servant too well, to believe any rumour, that should have been so shameless; The ambition of Nehemiah was well known to reach only to the cup, not to the Sceptre of his Sovereign: And yet, to make up a sound tale, Prophets are suborned to preach, There is a King in judah: as if that loyal governor had corrupted the pulpits also; and had taught them the language of treason.  
But what of all this? what if some false tongue have whispered such idle tales? It is not safe for thee, O Nehemiah, to contemn report: Perhaps this news shall fly to the Court, and work thee a deadly displeasure ere thou canst know thyself traduced; Come therefore, and let us take counsel together: Surely that man cannot be sparing of any thing, that is prodigal of his reputation. If aught under heaven can fetch Nehemiah out of his hold, it is the care of his fame. But, that wary governor sees a net spread near unto this stall; and therefore keeps aloof, not without contempt of those sly devices. There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou fainest them out of thine own heart: Some imputations are best answered with a neglective denial: It falls out often that plain dealing puts craft out of countenance,  
Since neither force nor fraud can kill Nehemiah, they will now try to draw him into a sin, and thereby into a reproach; O God, that any Prophet's tongue should be mercenary! Shemaiah the Seer, is hired by Tobiah, and Sanballat, to affright the Governor, with the noise of his intended murder; and to advise him for shelter, to fly to the forbidden refuge of the Temple. The colour was fair. Violence is meant to thy person, no place but one can promise thee safety; The City hath as yet no gates; come therefore, and shut thyself up in the Temple, there only shalt thou be free from all assaults.  
And what if Nehemiah had hearkened to this counsel? Sin, and shame had followed; That holy place was for none but persons sacred; such as were privileged by blood, and function; others should presume, and offend in entering; and now, what would the people say? What shall become of us whiles our Governor hides his head for fear? When shall we find a Temple to secure us? What do we depending upon a cowardly leader?  
Well did Nehemiah forecast these circumstances, both of act, and event, and therefore resolving to distrust a Prophet that persuaded him to the violation of a Law, he rejects the motion with scorn; Should such a man as I flee? Should I go into the Temple to save my life? I will not go: It is fit for great persons to stand upon the honour of their places; Their very stations should put those spirits into them, that should make them hate to stoop unto base conditions.  
Had God sent this message, we know he hath power to dispense with his own Laws; but well might the contradiction of a Law argue the message not sent of God. God as he is one, so doth he perfectly agree with himself. If any private spirit cross a written word, let him be accursed.   

AHASVERUS Feasting, VASHTI cast off, ESTHER chosen.  
WHat bounds can 
Ester 1, 2.  be set to humane ambition? Ahasuerus, that is, Xerxes, the son of Darius is already the King of an hundred, and seven and twenty Provinces, and now is ready to fight for more. He hath newly subdued Egypt, and is now addressing himself for the conquest of Greece. He cannot hope ever to see all the land that he possesseth, and yet he cannot be quiet, whiles he hears of more. Less than two else of earth shall ere long serve him, whom, for the time, a whole world shall scarce satisfy; In vain shall a man strive to have that which he cannot enjoy, and to enjoy aught by mere relation; It is a windy happiness that is sought in the exaggeration of those titles, which are taken upon others credit, without the sense of the owner: Nothing can fill the heart of man, but he that made it.  
This great Monarch, partly in triumph of the great victories, that he hath lately won in Egypt, and partly, for the animation of his Princes, and soldiers, to his future exploits, makes a feast, like himself, royal and magnificent.  
What is greatness if it be not showed? And wherein can greatness be better shown, then in the atcheiuments of war, and the intertainments of peace?  
All other feasts were but hunger to this of Ahasuerus, whether we regard the number of guests, or the largeness of preparation, or continuance of time: During the space of a whole half year, all the tables were sumptuously furnished for all comers from India, to Ethyopia; A world of meat was every day dressed for a world of men; Every meal was so set on, as if it should have been the last: Yet all this long feast hath an end; and all this glory is shut up in forgetfulness; What is Ahasuerus the better, that his Peers then said, he was incomparably great? What are his Peers the better, that they were feasted? Happy is he that eats bread, and drinks new wine in the Kingdom of God; this banquet is for eternity, without intermission, without satiety.  
What variety of habits, of languages, of manners, met at the boards of Ahasuerus? What confluence of strange guests was there now to Shushan? And, lest the glory of this great King might seem, like some course picture, only fair a far off; after the Princes and Nobles of the remote Provinces, all the people of Shushan are entertained, for seven days with equal pomp and state; The spacious Court of the Palace is turned into a Royal Hall, the walls are rich hangings, the pillars of marble, the beds of silver and gold, the pavement of porphyry curiously chequered; The wine and the vessels strove whether should be the richer; no man drunk in worse than gold; and whiles the mettle was the same, the form of each cup was diverse; the attendants was answerable to the cheer; and the freedom matched both: Here was no compulsion, either to the measure, or quality of the draught; every man's rule was his own choice. Who can but blush to see forced healths in Christian banquets, when the civility of very pagans commands liberty.  
I cannot but envy the modesty of heathen Dames; Vashti the Queen, and her Ladies, with all the several ranks of that sex, feast apart; entertaining each other, with a bashful courtesy, without wantonness, without that wild scurrility, which useth to haunt promiscuous meetings: Oh shameful unchastity of those loose Christians, who must feed their lust, whiles they fill their bellies; and think the feast unperfit, where they may not sat their eye no less than their palate.  
The last day of this pompous feast is now come: King Ahasuerus is so much more cheerful, by how much his guests are nearer to their dismission. Every one is wont to close up his courtesy with so much more passion, as the last acts use to make the deeper impression; And now, that he might at once amaze, and endear the beholders, Vashti the Queen in all her royalty, is called for; Her sight shall shut up the feast, that the Princes and people may say, How happy is King Ahasuerus, not so much in this greatness, as in that beauty.  
Seven officers of the chamber are sent to carry the message, to attend her entrance, and are returned with a denial: Perhaps Vashti thought; What means this uncouth motion? More than six months hath this feast continued; and, all this while we have enjoyed the wont liberty of our sex; Were the King still himself, this command could not be sent; it is the wine, and not he, that is guilty of this errand; Is it for me to humour him in so vain a desire? Will it agree with our modest reservedness, to offer ourselves to be gazed at by millions of eyes? Who knows what wanton attempts may follow upon this vngouerned excess? This very message argues that wit, and reason have yielded their places to that besotting liquor. Nothing but absence can secure us from some unbeseeming proffer; neither doubt I, but the King when he returns to himself, will give me thanks for so wise a forbearance.  
Thus, upon the conceit (as is likely) that her presence would be either needless, or unsafe. Vashti refuseth to come. Although perhaps her great spirits thought much to receive a command from the hand of officers.  
The blood that is once inflamed with wine, is apt to boil with rage: Ahasuerus is very wroth with this indigne repulse: It was the ostentation of his glory, and might, that he affected, before those Princes, Peers, people; and now that seems eclipsed, in the shutting up of all his magnificence, with the disgraceful affront of a woman. It vexes him to think, that those Nobles, whom he meant to send away astonished with the admiration of his power, and majesty, should now say: What boots it Ahasuerus to rule afar off, when he cannot command at home? In vain doth he boast to govern Kings, whiles he is checked by a woman.  
What ever were the intentions of Vashti, surely her disobedience was inexcusable; it is not for a good wife to judge of her husband's will, but to execute it: neither wit, nor stomach may carry her into a curious inquisition into the reasons of an enjoined charge, much less to a resistance: but in an hoodwinked simplicity she must follow, whither she is led; as one that holds her chief praise to consist in subjection.  
Where should the perfection of wisdom dwell, if not in the Courts of great Princes? or what can the treasures of Monarches purchase more invaluably precious, then learned and judicious attendance? Or who can be so fit for honour as the wisest.  
I doubt how Ahasuerus could have been so great, if his throne had not been still compassed with them that knew the times, and understood the law, and judgement. These were his Oracles in all his doubts: These are now consulted in this difficulty; neither must their advice be secretly whispered, in the King's ear, but publicly delivered in the audience of all the Princes. It is a perilous way that these sages are called to go, betwixt an husband and wife; especially of such power, and eminency; yet Memucan fears not to pass an heavy sentence against Queen Vashti. Vashti, the Queen hath not done wrong to the King only, but also to all the Princes, and all the people, that are in all the Provinces of the King Ahasuerus. A deep and sore commination; injuries are so much more intolerable, as they are dilated unto more; those offences which are of narrow extent, may receive an easy satisfaction; the amends are not possible, where the wrong is universal: For this deed of the Queen shall come abroad to all women, so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes: Indeed so public a fact must needs fly; That concourse gave fit opportunity to diffuse it all the world over; The examples of the great are easily drawn into rules. Bad lessons are apt to be taken out; as honour, so contempt falls down from the head to the skirts; never ascends from the skirts to the head.  
These wise men are so much the more sensible of this danger, as they saw it more likely, the case might prove their own. Likewise shall the Ladies of Persia and Media say this day unto all the King's Princes. The first precedents of evil must be carefully avoided, if we care to keep a constant order in good. Prudence cannot better bestir itself, then in keeping mischief from home.  
The foundation of this doom of Memucan is not laid so deep for nothing; If it please the King let there go a royal commandment from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians, and Medians, that it be not altered, that Vashti come no more before Ahasuerus; and let the King give her royal estate to another that is better than she. How bold a word was this, and how hazardous? Had Ahasuerus more loved the beauty of Vashti, than his honour, Memucan had spoken this against his own life: Howsoever, a Queen of so great spirit, could not want strength of favour, and faction, in the Persian Court; which could not but take fire at so desperate a motion. Faithful statesmen, overlooking private respects, must bend their eyes upon public dangers, labouring to prevent a common mischief, though with the adventure of their own. Nature had taught these Pagans the necessity of a female subjection; and the hate and scorn of a proud disobedience. They have unlearned the very dictates of Nature, that can abide the head to be set below the rib.  
I cannot say but Vashti was worthy of a sharp censure; I cannot say she was worthy a repudiation. This plaster drew too hard; It was but heathen justice to punish the wife's disobedience in one indifferent act, with a divorce: Nothing but the violation of the marriage-bed, can either break, or untie the knot of marriage. Had she not been a Queen, had not that contemptuous act been public, the sentence had not been so hard; now the punishment must be exemplary, lest the sin should be so. Many a one had smarted less, if their persons, if their places had been meaner.  
The King, the Princes approve this heavy judgement of Memucan; It is not in the power of the fair face of Vashti, to warrant her stomach: No doubt many messages passed ere the rigour of this execution: That great hart knows not to relent, but will rather break, then yield to an humble deprecation. When the stone, and the steel meet, fire is stricken; it is a soft answer that appeaseth wrath. Vashti is cast off, Letters are sent from the King, into all his Provinces, to command that every man should rule at home; The Court affords them an awful pattern of authority: Had not Ahasuerus doted much upon Vashties beauty, he had not called her forth at the feast, to be wondredat, by his Peers & people; yet now he so feels the wound of his reputation, that he forgets he ever felt any wound of his affection. Even the greatest love may be over-strained; It is not safe presuming upon the deepest assurances of dearness: There is no heart that may not be estranged. It is not possible that great Princes should want soothing up in all their inclinations, in all their actions: Whiles Ahasuerus is following the chase of his ambition, in the wars of Greece, his followers are providing for his lust at home; Nothing could sound more pleasing to a carnal ear, then that all the fair young virgins, throughout all his dominions, should be gathered into his palace at Shushan, for his assay, and choice: The decree is soon published; The charge is committed to Hege, the King's Chamberlain, both of their purification, and ornaments.  
What strife, what emulation was now, amongst all the Persian damosels, that either were, or thought themselves fair? Every one hopes to be a Queen; and sees no reason why any other should be thought more excellent; How happy were we, if we could be so ambitious of our espousals to the King of heaven?  
Amongst all this throng of Virgins, God hath provided a wife for Ahasuerus; having determined his choice, where most advantage shall rise to his forlorn people.  
The jews were miserably scattered over the world, in that woeful deportation under jechoniah; scarce an handful of them returned to jerusalem; the rest remain still dispersed where they may but have leave to live. There are many thousands of them turned over with the Babylonian Monarchy, to the Persian; amongst the rest, was Mordecai, the son of jair, of the tribe of Benjamin; a man of no mean note, or ability; who, living in Shushan, had brought up Hadassah, or Esther, his uncle's daughter, in a liberal fashion; It was happy for this orphan, that in a region of captivity, she light into such good hands; Her wise kinsman finds it fit, that her breeding, and habit should be Persian-like; In outward and civil forms, there was no need to vary from the heathen; her religion must be her own; the rest was so altogether theirs, that her very nation was not discerned.  
The same God that had given incomparable beauty to this jewesse, gave her also favour in the eyes of Hegai, the keeper of the women; She is not only taken into the Persian Court, as one of the selected virgins, but observed with more than ordinary respect; all necessaries for her speedy purification are brought to her; Seven maids are allowed for her attendance, and the best & most honourable place in that Seraglio is allotted to her; As if this great officer had designed her for a Queen, before the choice of his master.  
What strange preparation was here for the impure bed of an heathen? Every Virgin must be six months purified with oil of myrrh, and six other months perfumed with sweet odours, besides those special receipts, that were allowed to each, upon their own election: O God, what care, what cost is requisite to that soul which should be addressed a fit Bride for thine holy and glorious Majesty?  
When we have scoured ourselves with the most cleansing oil of our repentance, and have perfumed ourselves with thy best graces, and our perfectest obedience, it is the only praise of thy mercy, that we may be accepted.  
The other Virgins passed their probation, unregarded; when esther's turn came, though she required nothing; but took what was given her; though she affected nothing, but brought that face, that demeanour, which nature had cast upon her, no eye sees her without admiration; the King takes such pleasure in her beauty, that, contemning all the other vulgar forms, his choice is fully fixed upon her; All things must prosper, where God hath intended the suceesse: the most wise providence of the Almighty fetches his projects from far; The preservation and advantage of his own people is in hand; for the contriving of this, Vashti shall be abandoned; the virgins shall be chosen; Esther only shall please Ahasuerus; Mordecai shall displease Haman; Hamans' ruin shall raise Mordecai: The purposes of God cannot be judged by his remote actions; only the accomplishment shows his designs; In the mean time, it pleaseth him to look another way, than he moves; and to work his own ends, by arbitrary, and unlikely accidents.  
None but Esther shall succeed Vashti; she only caries the heart of Ahasuerus from all her sex; The royal Crown is set upon her head; And, as Vashti was cast off at a feast, so, with a solemn feast shall Esther be espoused; Here wanted no triumph, to express the joy of this great Bridegroom; and that the world might witness he could be no less loving, then severe, all his Provinces shall feel the pleasure of this happy match, in their immunities, in their rich gifts.  
With what envious eyes do we think Vashti looked upon her glorious rival? How doth she now (though too late) secretly chide her peevish will, that had thus stripped her of her royal crown, and made way for a more happy successor? Little did she think her refusal could have had so heinous a construction: Little did she fear, that one word (perhaps not ill meant) should have forfeited her husband, her crown, and all that she was. Who so is not wise enough to forecast the danger of an offence, or indiscretion, may have leisure enough of an unseasonable repentance.  
That mind is truly great and noble, that is not changed with the highest prosperity; Queen Esther cannot forget her cozen Mordecai; No pomp can make her sleight the charge of so dear a kinsman: In all her royalty, she casts her eye upon him, amongst the throng of beholders, but she must not know him; her obedience keeps her in awe, and will not suffer her to draw him up with her, to the participation of her honour; It troubles her, not a little, to forbear this duty; but she must; It is enough for her, that Mordecai hath commanded her not to be acknown, who, or whose she was.  
Perhaps the wise jew feared, that whiles her honour was yet green, and unsettled, the notice of her nation, and the name of a despised captive might be some blemish to her in that proud Court; when as afterwards, upon the merit of her carriage, and the full possession of all hearts, her name might dignify her nation, and countermand all reproaches  
Mordecai was an officer in the Court of Ahasuerus; his service called him daily to attend in the King's gate; Much better might he, being a jew, serve a Pagan Master, than his foster-daughter might ascend to a Pagans bed.  
If the necessity or convenience of his occasions called him to serve; his piety and religion called him to faithfulness in his service: Two of the King's Chamberlains, Bigthana, and Teresh, conspire against the life of their Sovereign. No greatness can secure from treachery, or violence: He that ruled over millions of men, through an hundred, and seven and twenty Provinces, cannot assure himself from the hand of a villain; He that had the power of other men's lives, is in danger of his own. Happy is that man, that is once possessed of a crown incorruptible, unfadable, reserved for him in heaven: no force, no treason can reach thither, there can be no peril of either violence, or forfeiture.  
The likeliest defence of the person of any Prince, is the fidelity of his attendants: Mordecai overhears the whispering of these wicked conspirators; and reveals it to Esther; she (as glad of such an opportunity to commend unto Ahasuerus the loyalty of him whom she durst but secretly honour) reveals it to the King; The circumstances are examined, the plot is discovered, the traitors executed, the service recorded, in the Persian Annals. A good foundation is thus laid for Mordecays advancement, which yet is not over-hastened, on either part; Worthy dispositions labour only to deserve well, leaving the care of their remuneration, to them, whom it concerns; It is fit that God's leisure should be attended in all his designments; The hour is set, when Mordecai shall be raised: If in the mean time there be an intervention, not only of neglect, but of fears, and dangers, all these shall make his honour so much more sweet, more precious.   

HAMAN disrespected by MORDECAI. MORDECAIS message to ESTHER.  
BEsides the charge of his 
Ester 3. 4.  office, the care of esther's prosperity calls Mordecai to the King's gate; and fixes him there: With what inward contentment did he think of his so royal pupil? Here I sit among my fellows; little doth the world think, that mine adopted child sits in the Throne of Persia: that the great Empress of the world owes herself to me; I might have more honour, I could not have so much secret comfort, if all Shushan knew what interest I have in Queen Esther.  
Whiles his hart is taken up with these thoughts, who should come ruffling by him, but the new-raised favourite of King Ahasuerus, Haman the son of Ammedatha the Agagite? Him hath the great King inexpectedly advanced, and set his seat above all the Princes that were with him: The gracious respects of Princes are not always led by merit, but by their own will; which is ever affected to be so much the freer, as themselves would be held more great.  
When the Sun shines upon the Dial, every passenger will be looking at it; There needed no command of reverence, where Ahasuerus was pleased to countenance; All knees will bow alone even to forbidden Idols of honour; how much more where royal authority enjoins obeisance? All the servants, all the subjects of King Ahasuerus are willingly prostrate before this great mignon of their Soverayn; only Mordecai stands stiff, as if he saw nothing more than a man in that proud Agagite.  
They are not observed that do as the most; but if any one man shall vary from the multitude, all eyes are turned upon him: Mordecai's fellow-officers note this palpable irreverence, and expostulate it; Why transgressest thou the King's commandments?  
Considerest thou not how far this affront reacheth? It is not the person of Haman, whom thou refusest to adore, but the King in him: Neither do we regard so much the man, as the command; Let him be never so vile whom the King bids to be honoured, with what safety can a subject examine the charge, or resist it? his unworthiness cannot dispense with our loyalty.  
What a dangerous wilfulness should it be to incur the forfeiture of thy place, of thy life for a courtesy? If thou wilt not bow with others, expect to suffer alone; Perhaps (they thought) this omission was unheedy; In a case of ignorance, or incogitancy, it was a friendly office to admonish; the sight of the error had been the remedy.  
Mordecai hears their challenge, their advice; and thinks good to answer both, with silence; as willing they should imagine, his inflexibleness proceeded from a resolution; and that resolution from some secret grounds, which he needed not impart: at last yet he imparts thus much: Let it suffice, that I am a jew, and Haman an Amalekite.  
After a private expostulation, the continuance of that open neglect is construed for a sullen obstinacy; and now, the monitors themselves grow sensible of the contempt: Men are commonly impatient to lose the thank of their endeavours, and are prone to hate whom they cannot reform. Partly therefore to pick a thank, and partly to revenge this contumacy, these officers turn informers against Mordecai, neither meant to make the matter fairer than it was; they tell Haman how proud, and stubborn a jew sat amongst them, how ill they could brook so saucy an affront to be offered to his greatness; how seriously they had expostulated, how stomackfully the offender persisted; and beseech him, that he would be pleased in his next passage, to cast some glances that way, and but observe the fashion of that intolerable insolency.  
The proud Agagite cannot long endure the very expectation of such an indignity; On purpose doth he stalk thither, with higher than his ordinary steps; snuffing up the air, as he goes, and would see the man, that durst deny reverence to the greatest Prince of Persia.  
Mordecai holds his old posture; only he is so much more careless, as he sees Haman more disdainful, and imperious; neither of them goes about to hide his passion; one looked, as if he said, I hate the pride of Haman; the other looked, as if he said, I will plague the contempt of Mordecai: how did the eyes of Haman sparkle with fury, and as it were dart our deadly beams in the face of that despiteful jew? How did he swell with indignation; and then again wax pale with anger? shortly, his very brow and his motion bad Mordecai look for the utmost of revenge.  
Mordecai foresees his danger, and contemns it; no frowns, no threats can supple those joints: he may break, he will not bow.  
What shall we say then to this obfirmed resolution of Mordecai? What is it, what can it be, that so stiffens the knees of Mordecai, that death is more easy to him, than their incuruation? Certainly, if mere civility were in question, this wilful irreverence to so great a Peer, could not pass without the just censure of a rude perverseness; It is religion that forbids this obeisance, & tells him, that such courtesy could not be free from sin; Whether it were, that more than humane honour was required to this new-erected image of the great King, as the Persians' were ever wont to be noted for too much lavishness in these courtly devotions: Or whether it were, that the ancient curse wherewith God had branded the blood, and stock of Haman, made it unlawful for an Israelite to give him any observance: For the Amalekites (of whose royal line Haman was descended) were the nation, with which God had sworn perpetual hostility; and whose memory he had straight charged 
Ex. 17. 16. Deu. 25. 19  his people to root out, from under heaven; How may I (thinks he) adore, where God command's me to detest? How may I profess respect, where God professeth enmity? How may I contribute to the establishment of that seed upon earth, which God hath charged to be pulled up from under heaven? Outward actions of indifferency, when once they are felt to trench upon the conscience, lay deep obligations upon the soul; even whiles they are most slighted by careless hearts.  
In what a flame of wrath doth Haman live this while? wherewith he could not but have consumed his own heart, had he not given vent to that rage in his assured purposes of revenge: Great men's anger is like to themselves, strong, fierce, ambitious of an excessive satisfaction. Haman scorns to take up with the blood of Mordecai; This were but a vulgar amends; Poor men can kill where they hate, and expiate their own wrong, with the life of a single enemy: Hamans' fury shall fly an higher pitch; Millions of threats are few enough to bleed for this offence: It is a jew that hath despighted him; all the whole nation of the jews shall perish for the stomach of this one: The Monarchy of the world was now in the hand of the Persian, as judaea was within this compass, so there was scarce a jew upon earth, without the verge of the Persian dominions: The generation, the name shall now dye at once; Neither shall there be any memory of them; but this; There was a people, which having been famous through the world, for three thousand, four hundred, and fourscore years, were in a moment, extinct by the power of Haman for default of a courtesy.  
Perhaps, that hereditary grudge, and old antipathy, that was betwixt Israel, and Amalek, stuck still in the heart of this Agagite; he might know that God had commanded Israel to root out Amalek from under heaven; and now therefore an Amalekite will be ready to take this advantage against Israel. It is extreme injustice to dilate the punishment, beyond the offence; and to enwrap thousands of innocents within the trespass of one: How many that were yet unborn when Haman was unsaluted, must rue the fact they lived not to know? How many millions of jews were then living, that knew not there was a Mordecai? all of them are fetched into one condition, and must suffer, ere they can know their offence. Oh the infinite distance betwixt the unjust cruelty of men, and the just mercies of the Almighty; Even Caiphas himself could say, It is better that one man dye, then that all the people should perish; and here Haman can say, It is better that all the people should perish then that one man should dye. Thy mercy, o God, by the willing death of one that had not sinned, hath defrayed the just death of a world of sinners: Whiles the injurious rigour of a man, for the supposed fault of one, would destroy a whole nation, that had not offended: It is true, that by the sin of one, death reigned over all; but it was, because all sinned in that one: had not all men been in Adam, all had not fall'n in him, all had not died in him; It was not the man, but mankind that fell into sin, and by sin, into death: No man can complain of punishment, whiles no man can exempt himself from the transgression: Unmerciful Haman would have imbrued his hands in that blood, which he could not but confess innocent.  
It is a rare thing, if the height of favour cause not presumption; Such is Hamans': greatness, that he takes his design for granted, ere it can receive a motion; The fittest days for this great massacre, are determined by the lots of their common divination; according whereunto, Haman chooseth the hour of this bloody suit; and now, waited on by opportunity, he addresseth himself to King Ahasuerus. There is a certain people scattered abroad, and dispersed among the people, in all the Provinces of the Kingdom, and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the King's laws, therefore it is not for the King's profit to suffer them; If it please the King, let it be written that they may be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of the officers. With what cunning hath this man couched his malice? He doth not say, There is a jew that hath affronted me, let me be avenged of his nation; this rancour was too monstrous to be confessed; perhaps this suggestion might have bred in the mind of Ahasuerus a conceit of Hamans' ill nature, and intolerable immanity; but his precences are plausible, and such as drive at no other, than the public good; Every word hath his insinuation: It is a scattered people; were the nation entire, their maintenance could not but stand with the King's honour; but now since they are but stragglers, as their loss would be insensible, so their continuance, and mixture cannot but be prejudicial; It was not the fault, it was the misery of these poor jews, that they were dispersed; and now their dispersion is made an argument of their extirpation; therefore must they be destroyed, from the earth, because they were scattered over the earth. As good, so evils draw on each other; That which should plead for pity in the well-affected, is a motive to cruelty in savage minds. Seldom ever hath extremity of mischief seized, where easier afflictions have not been billeted before.  
All faith full jews had wont to say unto God, Have mercy upon us, O God, and save us, for our soul is full of contempt, and we are scattered amongst the heathen; and here this enemy can say of them, to Ahasuerus, Destroy them for they are scattered; Root them out, for they are contemned; How much better is it to fall into the hands of God, them of men; since that which whets the sword of men, works commiseration in the Almighty: Besides the dissipation of the persons, Their laws are diverse from all people: All other people live by thy laws, they only by their own: and how can this singularity of their fashions, but breed disorder, and inconvenience? Did they live in some corner of the earth apart, their difference in religion and government could not import much; now, that they are dispersed amongst all thy subjects, what do these uncouth forms of theirs, but teach all the world to be irregular? why should they live under thy protection, that will not be governed by thy laws?  
Wicked Haman! what were the laws of Israel, but the laws of God? if this be a quarrel, what shall the death of the jews be other, than martyrdom?  
The diversity of judgement, and practice from the rest of the world hath been an old, and envious imputation cast upon God's Church: What if we be singled from others, whiles we walk with God? In matters lawful, arbitrary, indifferent, wisdom teacheth us to conform ourselves to all others; but, where God hath laid a special imposition upon us, we must either vary, or sin: The greatest glory of Israel was their laws, wherein they as far exceeded all other nations, as heaven is above earth; yet, here their laws are quarrelled, and are made the inducements of their destruction; It is not possible the Church of God should escape persecution, whiles that which it hath good is maligned; whiles that offends which makes it happy.  
Yet, that they have laws of their own, were not so unsufferable, if withal, they did observe thine, o King, but these jews, as they are unconformable; so they are seditious: They keep not the King laws: Thou slanderest Haman; they could not keep their own laws, if they kept not the Kings; for their laws call them to obedience unto their sovereigns; and adjudge hell to the rebellious: In all those hundred and seven and twenty provinces, King Ahasuerus hath no subjects, but them; They obey out of conscience, others out of fear: why are they charged with that, which they do most abhor? What can be the ground of this crimination? Ahasuerus commanded all knees to bow to Haman; A jew only refuses; Malicious Haman; He that refused to bow unto thee, had sufficiently approved his loyalty to Ahasuerus; Ahasuerus had not been, if Mordecai had not been a good subject; Hath the King no laws, but what concern thine adoration? Set aside religion (wherein the jew is ready to present if not active, yet passive obedience) and name that Persian law, which a jew dares break.  
As I never yet read, or heard of a conscionable Israelite, that hath not passed under this calumniation, so I cannot yield him a true Israelite, that deserves it.  
In vain doth he profess to acknowledge a God, in heaven, that denies homage to his deputy on earth.  
It is not for the King's profit to suffer them. Worldly hearts are not led by good, or evil, but by profit, or loss; neither have they grace to know that nothing is profitable but what is honest, nothing so desperately incommodious, as wickedness; They must needs offend by rule that measure all things by profit, & measure profit by their imagination. How easy is it to suggest strange untruths, when there is no body to give an answer? False Haman, how is it not for the King's profit to suffer the jews? If thou construe this profit, for honour, The King's honour is in the multitude of subjects, and what people more numerous than they? If for gain, The King's profit is in the largeness of his Tributes; and what people are more deep in their payments? If for services? what people are more officious? How can it stand with the King's profit to bereave himself of subjects, his subjects of their lives, his Exchequer of their tributes, his state of their defence? He is a weak politician that knows not to gild over the worst project, with a pretence of public utility. No name under heaven hath made so many fools, so many villains, as this of profit.  
Lastly, as Ahasuerus reaps nothing but disprofit by the lives of the jews, so he shall reap no small profit by their deaths: I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the King's treasuries for this execution. If revenge were not very sweet to the malicious man, he could not be content to purchase it at so high a rate; How do we see daily that the thirst hereof caries men to a riotous prodigality of estate, body, soul?  
Cruel Haman, if thou couldst have swim'd in a whole Sea of jewish blood, if thou couldst have raised mountains of their carcases; if thou couldst have made all Persia thy shambles; who would have given thee one farthing for all those piles of flesh, for all those streams of blood? yea who would not rather have been at charge for the avoiding of the annoyances of those slaughtered bodies, which thou offerest to buy at ten thousand talents? It were an happy thing, if charity could enlarge itself, but so much as malice; if the preservation of mankind could be so much beholden to our bounty, as the destruction.  
Now when all these are laid together, the baseness and dispersednesse of the people, the diversity of their laws, the irregularity of their government, the rebellion of their practice, the inconvenience of their toleration, the gain of their extirpation; what could the wit or art of man devose more insinuative, more likely to persuade? How could it be but Ahasuerus must needs think (since he could not suspect the ground of this suit;) What a zealous patriot have I raised that can be content to buy off the incommodity of the state, at his own charge? How worthy is he rather of the aid both of my power, and purse? why should I be feed to ease my Kingdoms of rebels: The silver is given to thee, the people also, to do with them as seemeth good to thee: Without all delay, the secretaries are called to write the warrants, the King's ring is given to seal them, the posts are sent out to carry them into all Provinces; The day is set wherein all jews, of all ages, of both sexes, through the hundred and seven and twenty provinces of the King, shall be sacrificed to the wrath of Haman.  
In all the carriage of Ahasuerus, who sees not too much heddinesse of passion? Vashti is cast off for a trifle; the jews are given to the slaughter for nothing, his rage in the one, his favour in the other is too impotent: He is not a worse husband than a King; the bare word of Haman is enough to kill so many subjects: No disposition can be more dangerous in great persons, than violence of affection mixed with credulity. Oh the seeming inequality of humane conditions: The King and Haman sat down to drink, but the City of Shushan was perplexed: It is a woeful thing to see great ones quaff the tears of the oppressed; & to hear them make music of shrieks.  
With what lamentation do we think all the Synagogues of jews through the world received this fatal message of their proclaimed destruction? How do they bemoan themselves, each to other? How do their conjoined cries fill heaven, and earth? But above all, what sackcloth and ashes could suffice woeful Mordecai, that found in himself the occasion of all this slaughter? What soul could be capable of more bitterness, than he felt? Whiles he could not but think, Wretched man that I am; It is I, that have brought all this calamity upon my nation; It is I, that have been the ruin of my people: woe is me that ever I put myself into the Court, into the service of a Pagan; how unhappy was I to cast myself into these straits, that I must either honour an Agagite, or draw a vengeance upon Israel? Yet how could I imagine, that the flame of Hamans' rage would have broken out so far? might that revenge have determined in my blood, how happy should I have been? now, I have brought death upon many thousands of innocents, that cannot know wherefore they die; Why did I not hide myself rather from the face of that proud Amalekite? Why did I stand out in contestation with so over-powerfull an enemy? Alas, no man of Israel shall so much as live to curse me, only mine enemies shall record my name, with ignominy, and say, Mordecai was the bane of his nation. Oh, that my zeal should have reserved me for so heavy a service! Where now are those vain ambitions, wherewith I pleased myself in this great match of Esther? How fond did I hope by this undue means to raise myself, and my people? Yea, is not this carnal presumption the quarrel that God hath against me? Do I not therefore smart from these Pagans, for that I secretly affected this uncircumcised alliance? Howsoever it be, yet, o God, what have thy people done? Oh let it be thy just mercy that I may perish alone!  
In these sad thoughts did Mordecai spend his hart, while he walked mournfully in sackcloth, before that gate, wherein he was wont to sit; now his habit bars his approach; no sackcloth might come within the Court: Lo, that which is welcomest in the court of heaven, is here excluded from the presence of this earthly royalty: A broken and a contrite hart, O God, thou wilt not despise.  
Neither did it a little add to the sorrow of Mordecai, to hear the bitter insultations of his former monitors: Did we not advise thee better? Did we not foreadmonish thee of thy danger? see now the issue of thine obstinacy: now see, what it is for thine earthen pitcher to knock with brass? now, where is the man that would needs contest with Haman? hast thou not now brought thy matters to a fair pass? Thy stomach had long owed thee a spite, and now it hath paid thee; who can pity thy wilfulness? since thou wouldst needs deride our counsel, we will take leave to laugh at thy sackcloth. Nothing but scorns, and griefs, and terrors present themselves to miserable Mordecai: All the external buffets of adversaries were sleight to the wounds that he both made, and felt in his own heart.  
The perpetual intelligences that were closely held betwixt Esther, and Mordecai, could not suffer his public sorrow to be long concealed from her; The news of his sackcloth afflicts her ere she can suspect the cause; her crown doth but clog her head, while she hears of his ashes; True friendship transforms us into the condition of those we love; and if it cannot raise them to our cheerfulness, draws us down to their dejection: Feign would she uncase her foster-father of these mournful weeds; and change his sackcloth for tissue; that yet, at least, his clothes might not hinder his access to her presence, for the free opening of his griefs.  
It is but a sleight sorrow that abides to take in outward comforts; Mordecai refuses that kind offer; and would have Esther see that his affliction was such, as that he might well resolve to put off his sackcloth and his skin at once; that he must mourn to death rather than see her face to live.  
The good Queen is astonished with this constant humiliation of so dear a friend; and now she sends Hatach, a trusty (though a Pagan) attendant, to inquire into the occasion of this so irremediable heaviness: It should seem Esther inquired not greatly into matters of state; that which perplexed all Shushan, was not yet known to her; her followers, not knowing her to be a jewesse, conceived not how the news might concern her, and therefore had forborn the relation: Mordecai first informs her, by her messenger, of the decree that was gone out against all her nation, of the day wherein they must all prepare to bleed, of the sum which Haman had proffered for their heads, & delivers the copy of that bloody Edict; charging her, now, if ever, to bestir herself; and to improve all her love, all her power with King Ahasuerus, in a speedy and humble supplication for the saving of the life (not of himself so much, as) of her people.  
It was tidings able to confound a weak heart; and hers, so much the more, as she could apprehended nothing but impossibility of redress: she needs but to put Mordecai in mind of that, which all the King's servants and subjects knew well enough, that the Persian law made it no less than death for whom soever, man, or woman, that should press into the inner court of the king, uncalled. Nothing but the royal sceptre extended, could keep that presumptuous offender from the grave. For her, thirty days were now passed since she was called in to the King; an intermission, that might be justly suspicious; Whether the heat of his first affection were thus soon (: of it self) allayed towards her; or whether some suggestions of a secret enemy (perhaps his Agagite) may have set him off; or whether some more pleasing object may have laid hold on his eyes; what ever it might be, this absence could not but argue some strangeness, and this strangeness must needs imply a danger in her bold intrusion: She could bewail therefore, she could not hope to remedy this dismallday of her people. This answer in the ears of Mordecai sounded truth, but weakness; neither can he take up with so feeble a return; These occasions require other spirits, other resplutions, which must be quickened by a more stirring reply:) Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the King's house, more than all the jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement, & deliverance arise to the jews from another place, but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed. And who knoweth whether thou art comen to the Kingdom for such a time as this.  
The expectation of death had not quailed the strong heart of faithful Mordecai; even, whiles he mourns, his zeal droops not; there could have been no life in that breast, which this message could not have roused.  
What then? is it death that thou fearest in this attempt of thy supplication; what other than death awaits thee in the neglect of it? there is but this difference, sue, & thou mayst die, sue not, and thou must dye: what blood hast thou but jewish? and if these unalterable edicts exempt no living soul, what shall become of thine? and canst thou be so vainly timorous, as to die for fear of death? to prefer certainty of danger, before a possibility of hopes? Away with this weak cowardice unworthy of an Israelite, unworthy of a Queen: But if faint heartedness or private respects shall seal up thy lips, or withhold thine hand from the aid of thy people; if thou canst so far neglect God's Church, know thou that God will not neglect it; it shall not be in the power of Tyrant's to root out his chosen seed; that holy one of Israel shall rather work miracles from heaven, than his inheritance shall perish upon earth? and how just shall it then be for that jealous God, to take vengeance upon thee, and thy father's house for this cold unhelpfulnesse to his distressed Church? Suffer me therefore to adjure thee by all that tenderness of love, wherewith I have trained up thine orphan infancy; by all those dear and thankful respects which thou hast vowed to me again; by the name of the God of Israel whom we serve, that thou awaken and stir up thine holy courage, and dare to adventure thy life, for the saving of many; It hath pleased the Almighty to raise thee up to that height of honour, which our progenitors could little expect; why shouldst thou be wanting to him, that hath been so bountiful to thee? yea why should I not think that God hath put this very act into the intendment of thine exaltation? having on purpose thus seasonably hoist thee up to the throne, that thou mayst rescue his poor Church from an utter ruin?  
Oh the admirable faith of Mordecai, that shines through all these clouds, and in the thickest of these fogs, descries a cheerful glimpse of deliverance; He saw the day of their common destruction enacted, he knew the Persian decrees to be unalterable; but, withal, he knew there was a Messias to come; he was so well acquainted with Gods covenanted assurances to his Church, that he can through the midst of those bloody resolutions foresee indemnity to Israel; rather trusting the promises of God, than the threats of men. This is the victory that overcomes all the fears, and fury of the world, even our faith.  
It is quarrel enough against any person, or community not to have been aidful to the distresses of God's people. Not to ward the blow, if we may, is construed for little better than striking. Till we have tried our utmost, we know not whether we have done that we came for.  
Mordecai hath said enough; These words have so put a new life into Esther, that she is resolute to hazard the old; Go gather together all the jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink, three day's night or day; I also and my maidens will fast likewise, and so will I go in unto the King, (which is not according to the law) and if I perish, I perish. Heroical thoughts do well befit great actions. Life can never be better adventured, then where it shall begaine to lose it.  
There can be no law against the humble deprecation of evils; where the necessity of God's Church calls to us, no danger, should withhold us from all honest means of relief. Deep humiliations must make way for the success of great enterprises, we are most capable of mercy, when we are throughly empty: A short hunger doth but whet the appetite, but so long an abstinence meets death half way, to prevent it; Well may they enjoin sharp penances unto others, who practise it upon themselves.  
It was the face of Esther that must hope to win Ahasuerus, yet that shall be macerated with fasting, that she may prevail. A carnal heart would have pampered the flesh, that it might allure those wanton eyes; she pines it, that she may please.  
God, and not she, must work the hart of the King; Faith teaches her rather to trust her devotions, than her beauty.   

ESTHER suing to AHASVERUS.  
THE jews are easily 
Esther. 5.  entreated to fast, who had received in themselves the sentence of death; what pleasure could they take in meat, that knew what day they must eat their last? The three days of abstinence are expired; now Esther changes her spirits, no less than her clothes; Who that sees that face, and that habit, can say she had mourned, she had fasted? Never did her royal apparel become her so well. That God before whom she had humbled herself, made her so much more beautiful, as she had been more dejected; And now, with a winning confidence, she walks into the inner court of the King, and puts herself into that forbidden presence: as if she said; Here I am with my life in my hand, if it please the King to take it, it is ready for him; Vashti, my predecessor, forfeited her place for not coming when she was called; Esther shall now hazard the forfeiture of her life, for coming when she is not called: It is necessity, not disobedience that hath put me upon this bold approach; according to thy construction, O King, I do either live or dye, either shall be welcome. The inexpectednesse of pleasing objects makes them many times the more acceptable: the beautiful countenance, the graceful demeanour, and goodly presence of Esther, have no sooner taken the eyes, than they have ravished the hart of King Ahasuerus: Love hath soon banished all dreadfulness; And the King held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand: Moderate intermission is so far from cooling the affection, that it inflames it: had Esther been seen every day, perhaps that satiety had abated of the height of her welcome; now, three and thirty days retiredness hath endeared her more to the surfeited eyes of Ahasuerus.  
Had not the golden Sceptre been held out, where had Queen Esther been? The Persian Kings affected a stern awfulness to their subjects; It was death to solicit them, uncalled; How safe, how easy, how happy a thing it is to have to do with the King of heaven, who is so pleased with our access, that he solicits suitors; who, as he is unweariable with our requests, so is infinite in his beneficences!  
How gladly doth Esther touch the top of that Sceptre, by which she holds her life? and now, whiles she thinks it well that she may live, she receives beside pardon, favour: What wilt thou Queen Esther, and what is thy request? it shall be given thee, even to the half of the Kingdom. Commonly, when we fear most, we speed best; God then most of all magnifies his bounty to us, when we have most afflicted ourselves. Ouer-confident expectations are seldom but disappointed; whiles humble suspicions go laughing away: It was the benefit and safety of but one piece of the Kingdom that Esther comes to sue for, and behold, Ahasuerus offers her the free power of the half: He that gave Haman, at the first word, the lives of all his jewish subjects, is ready to give Esther half his Kingdom, ere she ask: Now she is no less amazed at the loving munificence of Ahasuerus, than she was before afraid of his austerity; The King's hart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water; he turneth it whithersoever he will.  
It is not good to swallow favours too greedily, lest they either choke us in the passage, or prove hard of digestion. The wise Queen, however she might seem to have a fair opportunity offered to her suit, finds it not good to apprehend it too suddenly; as desiring by this small dilation, to prepare the ear and hart of the King for so important a request.  
Now, all her petition ends in a banquet; If it seem good unto the King, let the King and Haman come this day unto the banquet, that I have prepared for him. It is an easy favour to receive a small courtesy, where we offer to give great. Haman is called, the King comes to esther's table; and now highly pleased with his entertainment, he himself solicits her to propound that suit, for which her modesty would, but durst not solicit him: Bashfulness shall lose nothing at the hand of wel-governed greatness.  
Yet still esther's suit sticks in her teeth, and dares not come forth without a further preface of time, and expectation; Another banquet must pass, ere this reckoning can be given in. Other suitors wait long for the delivery of their petition; longer for the receipt of their answer: Here the King is fain to wait for his suit: Whether esther's hart would not yet serve her to contest with so strong an adversary, as Haman, without further recollection; or whether she desired to get better hold of the King, by endearing him with so pleasing entertainments; or whether she would thus ripen her hopes, by working in the mind of king Ahasuerus a fore-conceit of the greatness, and difficulty of that suit, which was so loath to come forth; or, whether she meant thus to give scope to the pride, and malice of Haman, for his more certain ruin: Howsoever it were, to morrow is a new day, set for esther's second banquet, & third petition.  
The King is not invited without Haman; Favours are sometimes done to men, with a purpose of displeasure; Doubtless Haman tasted of the same cates with his master; neither could he in the forehead of Esther read any other characters, then of respect, and kind applause, yet had she then, in her hopes, disigned him to a just revenge. Little do we know, by outward carriages, in what terms we stand with either God or men.  
Every little wind raiseth up a bubble; How is Haman now exalted in himself with the singular grace of Queen Esther; and begins to value himself so much more, as he sees himself higher in the rate of others opinion.  
Only surly, and sullen Mordecai is an allay to his happiness; No edict of death can bow the knees of that stout jew: yea the notice of that bloody cruelty of this Agagite, have stiffened them so much the more: Before, he looked at Haman as an Amalekite, now, as a persecutor. Disdain and anger look out at those eyes, and bid that proud enemy do his worst. No doubt, Mordecai had been listening after the speed of Queen Esther; how she came in to the King, how she was welcomed with the golden sceptre, and with the more precious words of Ahasuerus; how she had entertained the King, how she pleased; the news had quit his sackcloth, and raised his courage to a more scornful neglect of his professed adversary.  
Haman comes home, I know not whether more full of pride, or of rage; calls an inward counsel of his choice friends, together with his wife; makes a glorious report of all his wealth, magnificence, height of favour, both with the King and Queen; and at last, after all his sunshine, sets in this cloudy epilogue, Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the jew sitting at the King's gate. It is seldom seen that God allows even to the greatest darlings of the world, a perfect contentment; something they must have to complain of, that shall give an unsavoury verdure to their sweetest morsels; and make their very felicity, miserable.  
The wit of women hath wont to be noted for more sudden and more sharp. Zeresh the wife of Haman sets on foot that motion of speedy revenge, which is applauded by the rest. Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high, and to morrow, speak thou to the King, that Mordecai may be hanged thereon; then go thou in merrily with the King, unto the banquet. I do not hear them say; Be patient a while, thou hast already set Mordecai his last day; the month Adar will not be long in coming; the determination of his death hath made him desperate, let him in the mean time eat his own heart in envy at thy greatness; but they rather advice of a quick dispatch. Malice is a thing full of impatience, and hates delay of execution, next unto mercy. Whiles any grudge lies at the heart, it cannot be freely cheerful. Forced smiles are but the hypocrisy of mirth. How happy were it for us, if we could be so zealously careful to remove the hindrances of our true spiritual joy, those stubborn corruptions, that will not stoop to the power of grace.   

MORDECAI honoured by HAMAN.  
THe wit of Zeresh had like to have 
Esther. 6.  gone beyond the wit of Esther; had not the working providence of the Almighty contrived these events, beyond all hopes, all conceits, Mordecai had been dispatched, ere ester's second banquet. To morrow was the day pitched for both their designs; had not the stream been inexpectedly turned, in vain had the Queen blamed her delays; Mordecai's breakfast had prevented esther's dinner: for certainly, he that had given to Haman so many thousand lives, would never have made dainty, upon the same suit, to anticipate one of those, whom he had condemned to the slaughter: But, God meant better things to his Church, and fetches about all his holy purposes, after a wonderful fashion, in the very instant of opportunity: He that keepeth Israel, and neither slumbreth, nor sleepeth, causeth sleep to depart that night from him that had decreed to root out Israel. Great Ahasuerus, that commanded an hundred and seven and twenty provinces, cannot command an hour's sleep. Poverty is rather blessed with the freedom of rest, than wealth, and power: Cares and surfeit withhold that from the great, which presseth upon the spare diet, and labour of the meanest. Nothing is more tedious than an eager pursuit of denied sleep: which (like to a shadow) flies away so much faster, as it is more followed: Experience tells us, that this benefit is best solicited by neglect; and soon found when we have forgotten to seek it.  
Whether to deceive the time, or to bestow it well; Ahasuerus shall spend his restless hours in the Chronicles of his time. Nothing is more requisite for Princes, then to look back upon their own actions, and events, and those of their predecessors; The examination of forepast actions makes them wise, of events, thankful, and cautelous.  
Amongst those voluminous registers of Acts & Monuments, which so many scores of provinces must needs yield, the book shall open upon Mordecays discovery of the late treason of the two Euruches: the reader is turned thither, by an insensible sway of providence: Our most arbitrary or casual actions are overruled by an hand in heaven.  
The King now feels afresh the danger of that conspiracy; and (as great spirits abide not to smother or bury good offices) in quires into the recompense of so loyal a service, What honour and dignity bathe been done to Mordecai for this? Surely Mordecai did but his duty; he had heinously sinned, if he had not revealed this wicked treachery; yet Ahasuerus takes thought for his remuneration: How much more careful art thou, o God of all mercies, to reward the weak obediences of thine (at the best) unprofitable servants?  
That which was intended to procure rest, sets it off; King Ahasuerus is unquiet in himself, to think that so great a merit should lie, but so long, neglected; neither can he find any peace in himself, till he have given order for a speedy retribution: hearing therefore by his servants, that Haman was below in the Court, he sends for him up, to consult with him, What should be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honour: O marvelous concurrence of circumstances, drawn together by the infinite wisdom, and power of the Almighty: Who but Haman should be the man? And when should Haman be called to advise of Mordecays honour, but in the very instant, when he came to sue for Mordecays hanging? Had Ahasuerus but slept that night, Mordecai had been that morning advanced fifty cubits higher than the earth, ere the king could have remembered to whon he was beholden.  
What shall we say then to reconcile these crosse-passions in Ahasuerus? Before he signed that decree of killing all the jews, he could not but know that a jew had saved his life; and now, after that he hath enacted the slaughter of all jews, as rebels, he is giving order to honour a jew, as his preserver. It were strange if great persons in the multitude of their distractions should not let fall some incongruities.  
Yet, who can but think that king Ahasuerus meant upon some second thoughts to make amends to Mordecai? neither can he choose but put these two together; The jews are appointed to death, at the suit of Haman; This Mordecai is a jew; how then can I do more grace to him, that hath saved my life, then to command him to be honoured by that man who would spill his?  
When Haman heard himself called up to the bedchamber of his master, he thinks himself too happy in so early an opportunity of presenting his suit; but yet more in the pleasing question of Ahasuerus; wherein he could not but imagine that favour forced itself upon him with strange importunity; For how could he conceive that any intention of more than ordinary honour could fall besides himself? Self-love, like to a good stomach, draws to itself what nourishment it likes; and casts off that which offends it. Haman will be sure to be no niggard in advising those ceremonies of honour, which he thinks meant to his own person. Could he have once dreamt that this grace had been purposed to any under heaven, besides himself, he had not been so lavish in counselling so pompous a show of excessive magnificence. Now the Kings own royal apparel, and his own Steed is not sufficient, except the royal Crown also make up the glory of him, who shall thus triumph in the king's favour. Yet all this were nothing in base hands: The actor shall be the best part of this great pageant. Let this apparel, and this horse, be delivered to one of the Kings most noble Princes, that they may array the man withal, whom the King delighteth to honour, and bring him on horse back through the streets of the City, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honour. Honour is more in him that gives, then him that receives it: To be honoured by the unworthy is little better than disgrace; No meaner person will serve to attend this Agagite, in his supposed greatness, than one of the noblest Princes. The ambition is too high flown that seeks glory in the servility of equals.  
The place adds much to the act; There is small hart in a concealed honour; It is nothing unless the streets of the city Shushan be witnesses of this pomp, and ring with that gracious acclamation.  
The vain hearts of proud men can easily devose those means, whereby they may best set out themselves. Oh that we could equally affect the means of true and immortal glory. The heart of man is never so cold within him, as when from the height of the expectation of good, it falls into a sudden sense of evil: So did this Agagites. Then the King said to Haman, make haste, and take the apparel, and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the jew, that sitteth at the King's gate; Let nothing fail of all that thou hast said. How was Haman thunder-stricken with this kill word? Do thou so to Mordecai? I dare say all the honours that Ahasuerus had heaped upon Haman, cannot countervail this one vexation: Doubtless, at first, he distrusts his ear, and then muzes whether the King be in earnest; at last, when he hears the charge so seriously doubled, and finds himself forced to believe it, he begins to think, What means this unconceivable alteration? Is there no man in all the Court of Persia to be picked out for extraordinary honour, but Mordecai? Is there no man to be picked out for the performance of this honour to him, but Haman? have I but one proud enemy in all the world, and am I singled out to grace him? Did it gall me to the heart, and make all my happiness tedious unto me, to see that this jew would not bow to me, & must I now bow to him? That which he would rather dye, and forfeit the life of all his nation, then do to me, notwithstanding the King's command; shall I be forced by the King's command to do unto him? Yea, did he refuse to give but a cap, and a knee to my greatness; and must I lackey so base a fellow through the streets, must I be his herald to proclaim his honour through all Shushan? Why do I not let the King know the insolent affronts that he hath offered me? Why do I not signify to my Sovereign, that my errand now was for another kind of advancement to Mordecai? If I obtain not my desired revenge, yet, at least, I shall prevail so far, as to exempt myself from this officious attendance upon so unequal an enemy. And yet, that motion cannot be now safe; I see the King's heart is (upon what ground so ever) bend upon this action; should I fly off never so little (after my word so directly passed) perhaps my coldness, or opposition might be construed as some wayward contestation with my master: Especially, since the service that Mordecai hath done to the King, is of an higher nature, than the despite which he hath done to me. I will, I must give way for the time; mine humble yeeldance, (when all the carriage of this business shall be underderstood) shall (I doubt not) make way for mine intended revenge: Mordecai, I will honour thee now, that by these steps, I may ere long raise thee many cubits higher. I will obey the command of my sovereign in observing thee, that he may reward the merit of my loyalty, in thine execution.  
Thus resolved, Haman goes forth, with a face and heart full of distraction, full of confusion; and addresses himself to the attyring, to the attending of his old adversary, and new master, Mordecai; What looks do we now think were cast upon each other, at their first greeting? their eyes had not forgotten their old language; Certainly, when Mordecai saw Haman come into the room where he was, he could not but think; This man hath long thirsted for my blood, and now he comes to fetch it; I shall not live to see the success of Esther, or the fatal day of my nation: It was known that morning in the Court, what a lofty gibbet Haman had provided for Mordecai; and why might it not have comen to Mordecai's ear? What could he therefore now imagine other, then that he was called out to that execution? But, when he saw the royal robe that Haman brought to him; he thinks, Is it not enough for this man to kill me, but he must mock me too, What an addition is this to the former cruelty? thus to insult, and play upon my last distress? But, when he yet saw the royal crown ready to be set on his head, and the Kings own horse richly furnished, at his gate, and found himself raised by Princely hands, into that royal seat, he thinks; what may all this mean? Is it the purpose of mine adversary that I shall dye in state? Would he have me hanged in triumph? At last, when he sees such a train of Persian Peers attending him, with a grave reverence; and hears Haman proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honour; finding this pomp to be serious, & well meant, he imagines (in all likelihood) that this inexpected change proceeds from the suit of his Esther; now, he begins to lift up his head, and to hope well of himself, and his people, and could not but say within himself, that he had not fasted for nothing. O the wondrous alteration that one morning hath made in the court of Persia; he that was yesternight despised by Hamans' footmen, is now waited on by Haman, and all his fellow-Princes; He that yesternight had the homage of all knees but one, and was ready to burst for the lack of that, now doth obeisance to that one, by whom he was wilfully neglected; It was not Ahasuerus that wrought this strange mutation, it was the overruling power of the Almighty, whose immediate hand would thus prevent esther's suit, that he might challenge all the thank to himself. Whiles Princes have their own wills, they must do his; and shall either exalt, or depress according to divine appointment.  
I should commend Hamans' obedience in his humble condiscent to so unpleasing, and harsh a command of his master, were it not, that either he durst do no other, or that he thus stooped for an advantage. It is a thankless respect that is either forced, or for ends: True subjection is free and absolute; out of the conscience of duty, not out of fears, or hopes.  
All Shushan is in an amaze at this sudden glory of Mordecai, and studies how to reconcile this day with the thirteenth of Adar; Mordecai had reason to hope well; It could not stand with the honour of the King, to kill him whom he saw cause to advance; neither could this be any other, than the beginning of a durable promotion; otherwise, what recompense had at hours riding been to so great a service?  
On the other side, Haman droops, and hath changed passions with Mordecai; Neither was that jew ever more deeply afflicted with the decree of his own death, than this Agagite was with that jews honour. How heavy doth it lie at Hamans' heart, that no tongue, but his, might serve to proclaim Mordecai happy: Even the greatest mignons of the world must have their turns of sorrow.  
With a covered head, and a dejected countenance, doth he hasten home, and longs to impart his grief, where he had received his advice: It was but cold comfort that he finds from his wife Zeresh, and his friends. If Mordecai be of the seed of the jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him: Out of the mouth of Pagans, O God, hast thou ordained strength, that thou mayst still the enemy, and the avenger. What credit hath thy great name won with these barbarous nations, that they can out of all experience make maxims of thine undoubted protection of thy people, and the certain ruin of their adversaries? Men find no difference in themselves; the face of a jew looks so like other men's, that Esther and Mordecai were not (of long) taken for what they were: He that made them, makes the distinction betwixt them; so as a jew may fall before a Persian, & get up, and prevail; but if a Persian (or whosoever of the Gentiles) begin to fall before a jew, he can neither stay, nor rise: There is an invisible hand of omnipotency that strikes in for his own, and confounds their opposites. O God, neither is thine hand shortened, nor thy bowels straitened in thee; thou art still and ever thyself; If we be thy true spiritual Israel, neither earth nor hell shall prevail against us; we shall either stand sure, or surely rise, whiles our enemies shall lick the dust.   

HAMAN hanged. MORDECAI advanced.  
Hamans' day is now comen; That vengeance 
Esther 7. 8.  which hath hitherto slept, is now awake, and rouzeth up itself to a just execution; That heavy morning was but the preface to his last sorrow, and the sad presage of his friends is verified in the speaking; While the word was in their mouths, the messengers were at the door to fetch Haman to his funerall-banquet.  
How little do we know what is towards us? As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the 
Eccles. 9 12  birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.  
It was (as Haman conceived) the only privilege of his dearness, and the comfort of his present heaviness, that he only was called with the King, to esther's banquet, when this only was meant for his bane: The face of this invitation was fair, and promised much; and now the ingenuous man begins to set good constructions upon all events. Surelv (thinks he) the King was tied in his honour to give some public gratification to Mordecai; so good an office could deserve no less, than an hour's glory; But little doth my master know what terms there are betwixt me, and Mordecai; had he fully understood the insolences of this jew, and should notwithstanding have enjoined me to honour him, I might have had just cause to complain of disgrace, and disparagement; but now, since all this business hath been carried in ignorance, and casualty, why do I wrong myself in being too much affected with that which was not ill meant? Had either the King, or Queen, abated aught of their favour to me, I might have dined at home; now this renewed invitation argues me to stand right in the grace of both: And why may not I hope, this day, to meet with a good occasion of my desired revenge? How just will it seem to the King, that the same man whom he hath publicly rewarded for his loyalty, should now be publicly punished for his disobedience?  
With such like thoughts Haman cheers up himself; and addresses himself to the royal banquet, with a countenance that would fain seem to forget his morning's task: Esther works her face to an unwilling smile upon that hateful guest; and the King (as not guilty of any indignity that he hath put upon his favourite) frames himself to as much cheerfulness, as his want of rest would permit. The table is royally furnished with all delicate confections, with all pleasing liquors: King Ahasuerus so eats, as one that both knew he was, and meant to make himself, welcome: Haman so pours in, as one that meant to drown his cares; And now, in this fullness of cheer, the King hungers for that long-delayed suit of Queen Esther; Thrice, hath he graciously called for it; and (as a man constant to his own favours) thrice hath he, in the same words vowed the performance of it, though to the half of his Kingdom: It falls out oftentimes, that when large promises fall suddenly from great persons, they abate by leisure; and shrink upon cold thoughts; here King Ahasuerus is not more liberal in his offer, then firm in his resolutions; as if his first word had been, like his law, unalterable. I am ashamed to miss that steadiness in Christians, which I find in a Pagan. It was a great word that he had said, yet he eats it not, as over-lavishly spoken: but doubles, and trebles it with hearty assurances of a real prosecution; whiles those tongues which profess the name of the true God, say, and unsay at pleasure; recanting their good purposes, contradicting their own just engagements upon no cause, but their own changeableness.  
It is not for Queen Esther to drive off any longer, the same wisdom that taught her to defer her suit, now teaches her to propound it; A well chosen season is the greatest advantage of any action; which as it is seldom found in haste, so is too often lost in delay: Now therefore with an humble and graceful obeisance, and with a countenance full of modest fear, and sad gravity, she so delivers her petition, that the King might see, it was necessity that both forced it upon her, & wrung it from her. If I have found favour in thy sight O King, and if it please the King, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: Epectation is either a friend or an enemy, according to the occasion: Ahasuerus looked for some high and difficult boon; now, that he hears his Queen beg for her life, it could not be, but that the surplusage of his love to her must be turned into fury against her adversary; and his zeal must be so much more to her, as her suit was more meek & humble. For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish; but if we had been sold for bondmen, & bondwome, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the King's damage. Crafty men are sometimes choked with their own plots. It was the proffer of ten thousand talents wherewith Haman hoped both to purchase his intended revenge, and the reputation of a worthy patriot; that sum is now laid in his dish, for a just argument of malicious corruption; for, well might Esther plead; If we Iewes deserved death, what needed our slaughter to be bought out? and if we deserved it not, what horrible cruelty was it to set a price upon innocent blood? It is not any offence of ours, it is the only despite of an enemy that hath wrought our destruction.  
Besides, now it appears the King was abused by misinformation; the adversary suggested that the life of the jews could not stand with the King's profit; whereas their very bondage should be more damage to the state, than all Hamans' worth could countervail. Truth may be smothered, but it cannot dye; it may be disguised, but it will be known; it may be suppressed, but it will triumph.  
But what shall we say to so harsh an aggravation? Could Esther have been silent in a case of decreed bondage; who is now so vehement in a case of death? Certainly, to a generous nature, death is far more easy than bondage; why would she have endured the greater, and yet so abhors the less? Was it for that the jews were already too well enured to captivity; and those evils are more tolerable wherewith we are acquainted: Or, was it, for that there may be hopes in bondage, none in death? Surely, either of them were lamentable, and such as might deserve her humblest deprecation.  
The Queen was going on, to have said, But, alas, nothing will satisfy our bloody enemy, save the utter extirpation of me, and my nation; when the impatient rage of the King interrupts her sentence in the midst, and (as if he had heard too much already, and could too easily supply the residue of her complaint) snatches the word out of her mouth, with a furious demand; Who is he, and where is he that durst presume in his heart to do so? It was the interest of Queen esther's person that raised this storm in Ahasuerus; set that aside, how quietly, how merrily was the determined massacre of the jews formerly digested? Actions have not the same face when we look upon them with contrary affections.  
Now Queen Esther musters up her inward forces, and with an undaunted courage, fixing her angry eyes upon that hated Agagite, she says, The adversary, and enemy is this wicked Haman. The word was loath to come forth, but it strikes home at the last. Never till now did Haman hear his true title; Before some had styled him, noble; others great; some, magnificent, and some perhaps, virtuous; only Esther gives him his own, wicked Haman; Ill-deserving greatness doth in vain promise to itself a perpetuity of applause: If our ways be foul, the time shall come, when after all vain flattery, after all our momentany glory, our sins shall be ripped up; and our iniquities laid before us to our utter confusion. With what consternation did Haman now stand? How do we think he looked to hear himself thus enstyled, thus accused, yea, thus condemned? Certainly, death was in his face, and horror in every of his joints; no sense, no limb knows his office: Feign would he speak, but his tongue falters, and his lips tremble; fain would he make apologies upon his knees, but his hart fails him; and tells him the evidence is too great, and the offence above all pardon: Only guiltiness, and fear look through his eyes upon the enraged countenance of his master; which now bodes nothing to him but revenge, and death.  
In what a passionate distemper doth this banquet shut up? King Ahasuerus flies from the table, as if he had been hurried away with a tempest. His wrath is too great to come forth at his mouth; only his eye tells Haman that he hates to see him, & vows to see his dispatch: For solitariness, and not for pleasure, doth he now walk into his garden; and thinks with himself; What a monster have I favoured? Is it possible that so much cruelty and presumption should harbour in a breast that I thought ingenuous? Could I be so bewitched as to pass so bloody a decree? Is my credulity thus abused by the treacherous subtlety of a miscreant whom I trusted? I confess it was my weak rashness to yield unto so prodigious a motion, but it was the villainy of this Agagite, to circumvent me by false suggestions; He shall pay for my error; the world shall see, that as I exceeded in grace, so I will not come short in justice. Haman, thy guilty blood shall expiate that innocent blood, which thy malice might have shed.  
In the mean time, Haman, so soon as ever he could recover the qualm of his astonishment, finding himself left alone with Queen Esther, looseth no time, spareth no breath to mitigate her anger, which had made way to his destruction. Doubtless, with many vows, and tears, and deierations, he labours to clear his intentions to her person; bewailing his danger, imploring her mercy, confessing the unjust extent of his malice, proffering endeavours of satisfaction: Wretched man that I am, I am condemned before I speak, and when I have spoken, I am condemned: Upon thy sentence, O Queen, I see death awaits for me, in vain shall I seek to avoid it; It is thy will that I should perish; but let that little breath I have left, acquit me so far with thee, as to call heaven and earth to record, that in regard of thee, I die innocent: It is true that mine impetuous malice miscarried me against the nation of the jews, for the sake of one stubborn offender; but did I know there was the least drop of Israelitish blood in thy sacred person? could I suspect that Mordecai, or that people, did aught concern thee? Let not one death be enough for me if I would ever have entertained any thought of evil against nation, or man, that should have cost but a frown from thee: All the court of Persia can sufficiently witness how I have magnified and adored thee, ever since the royal crown was set on thy head; neither did I ever fail to do thee all good offices unto that my Sovereign Master, whom thou hast now mortally incensed against me. O Queen, no hand can save my life, but thine, that hath as good as bereaved it: show mercy to him, that never meant but loyalty to thee: As ever thou wouldst oblige an humble and faithful vassal to thee, as ever thou wouldst honour thy name, and sex, with the praise of tender compassion, take pity upon me, and spare that life which shall be vowed to thy service: and, whereas thy displeasure may justly allege against me that rancorous plot for the extirpation of that people, whom I, too late, know to be thine, let it suffice that I hate, I curse mine own cruelty; and only upon that condition shall beg the reprivall of my life, that I shall work, and procure by thy gracious aid, a full defeasance of that unjust execution. O let fall upon thy despairing servant one word of favour to my displeased Master, that I may yet live.  
Whiles he was speaking to this purpose, having prostrate himself (for the more humility) before the queen, and spread his arms in a vehement imploration up to her bed; the King comes in, and, as not unwilling to misconstrue the posture of him, whom he now hated, says, what, will he force the Queen also before me in the house? That which Haman meant as an humble suppliant, is interpreted as from a presumptuous offender; How oftmight he have done so, and more, while he was in favour, uncensured? Actions are not the same when the man altars. As charity makes a good sense of doubtful occurrents, so prejudice and displeasure takes all things (though well-meant) at the worst. It is an easy thing to pick a quarrel, where we intent a mischief.  
The wrath of the King is as a messenger of death: Whiles these words were yet in the mouth of Ahasuerus, Haman, in turning his head towards the King, is suddenly muffled for his execution; he shall no more see either face, or Sun: he shall be seen no more but as a spectacle of shame, and horror: and now he thinks, Woe is me whose eyes serve me only to foresee the approach of a dishonourable, and painful death! what am I the better to have been great? O that I had never been, Oh that I could not be: How too truly have Zeresh and my friends foretold me of this heavy destiny? Now am I ready to feel what it is that I meant to thousands of innocents; I shall dye with pain and ignominy: Oh that the conscience of mine intended murder could die with me. It is no marvel if wicked men find nothing but utter discomforts in their end: rather than fail, their former happiness shall join with their imminent miseries, to torment them. It is the just judgement of God that presumptuous sinners should be swallowed up of those evils, which they would not fear; Happy is that man, who hath grace to foresee, and avoid those ways, which will lead him to a perfect confusion. Happy is he that hath so lived that he can either welcome death as a friend, or defy it as an enemy.  
Who was ever the better for favour past? those that had before kissed the feet, and smiled in the face of Haman, are now as ready to cover his head, and help him to the gallows. Harbonah one of the Chamberlains, seasonably tells the King how stately a gibbet Haman had newly set up for well-deserving Mordecai, within his own palace.  
I hear not one man open his mouth to intercede for the offender, to pacify the King, to excuse or less the fact; every one is ready to pull him down that is falling, to trample on him that is down; yet no doubt, there were some of these Courtiers whom Haman had obliged; Had the cause been better, thus it would have been. Every cur is ready to fall upon the dog that he sees werryed; But here, it was the just hand of God to set off all hearts from a man that had been so unreasonably merciless; and to raise up enemies (even among friends) to him, that had professed enmity to God's Church: So let thine enemies perish, o Lord, unsuccored, unpitied. Then the King said, hang him thereon: There can be no truer justice then in retaliation; who can complain of his own measure: Behold the wicked travaileth 
Psal. 7. 14.  with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. He made a pit and digged it, & is fall'n into the ditch that he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.  
There hangs Haman, in more reproach, than ever he stood in honour; and Mordecai (who is now first known for what he was) succeeds his favour, and changes inheritances with his enemy; for whiles Haman inherits the gibbet of Mordecai, Mordecai inherits the house and honour of Haman. O Lord, let the malice of the wicked come to an end, but establish thou the just.  
One hour hath changed the face of the Persian Court; what stability is there in earthly greatness? He who in the morning all knees bowed unto, as more than a man, now hangs up like a despised vermin, for a prey to the ravens: He, who this morning was destined to the gallows, now rules over Princes; neither was it for nothing, that he this day road in triumph: The King's ring that was taken from Haman, is now given to Mordecai, as the pledge of his authority; and he that even now sat in the gate, is called up next to the throne. Wickedness, and honest innocence have now paid their debts to both their clients.  
Little joy would it yet have been to Esther, that her enemy was dead, her kinsman advanced, if still her people must for all this expect their fatal day: Her next suit therefore is for the safety of her nation, in the countermand of that bloody decree, which Haman had obtained against them: That which was surrepticiously gotten, and rashly given, is so much more gladly reversed; by how much mercy is more pleasing to a good nature, then cruel injustice. Mordecai hath power to indite, seal, send out letters of favour to the jews, which were causelessly sentenced to the slaughter. If a Persian law might not be reversed, yet it might be countercharged: Mordecai may not write, Let no jew be slain, he may write, Let the jews meet, and stand for their lives against those that would slay them. This command flies after the former, so fast, as if it would overtake that, which it cannot recall; The jews are revived with this happy tidings, that they may have protection as well as enmity; that authority will not be their executioner; that their own hands are allowed to be their avengers'.  
Who would imagine that after public notice of this alteration at the Court; when the world could not choose but know the malicious ground of that wrongful edict, the shameful death of the procurer, the power of the party opposite; any one should be found, throughout all the provinces, that would once lift up his hand against a jew? that, with his own danger, would endeavour to execute a controlled decree? The Church of God should cease to be itself, if it wanted malicious persecution; there needs no other quarrel than the name, the religion of Israel.  
Notwithstanding the known favour of the King, and the patronage of Mordecai, the thirteenth of Adar is meant to be a bloody day; Haman hath too many abettors in the Persian dominions; these join together to perform that sentence, whereof the author repented: The jews take hart to defend themselves, to kill their murderers. All the provinces are turned into a field of civil war; wherein innocence vanquisheth malice. The jews are victors, & not only are alive, but are feared; the most resist them not, many assist them, & some become theirs: The countenance of the great leads the world at pleasure; fear of authority sways thousands that are not guilty of a conscience.  
Yea, besides the liberty of defence, the jews are now made their own justicers; That there may be none left from the loins of that accursed Agagite, (who would have left none of the jewish seed) they slay the ten sons of Haman; & obtain new days of further executions; Neither can death satisfy their revenge; those ten sons of Haman shall, in their very carcases bear the reproach of their father, and hang aloft upon his gallows.  
Finally, no man doth, no man dares frown upon a jew; they are now becomne Lords in the midst of their captivity; no marvel if they ordain, and celebrate their joyful Purim, for a perpetual memory, to all posterities, of their happy deliverance. It were pity that the Church of God should not have sunshines, as well as storms, and should not meet with interchanges of joy in their warfare, before they enter upon the unchangeable joy of their endless triumph.   
FINIS.   

Postscript to the READER.  
I May not but tell my Reader, there was a mistaking in the Postscript of my late large volume; Wherein the Printer undertook the Author's promise, to publish no more, till he should finish his whole labour, in a full second Tome. Whereas I only yielded, for the encouragement of the buyer, to add nothing to the first. Should these have stayed the leisure of my meditations upon the new Testament; Some readers would have complained to be held too long fasting; Even this small intermission hath been called on with no small importunity of many; whose suggestion was no other than just; that, as on the one side I might provide for the ease of many buyers by an entire publication: So, on the other side, I should discontent no fewer, who having furnished themselves with the several volumes of my Contemplations already published, should be forced to break the suit, and to want the remaining parts. Out of these considerations, I was not unwilling to send forth these thoughts, after their fellows; beseeching my reader not to hasten his expectation of my labours upon the residue of the new Testament, which, upon some private reasons, have resolved to place more slowly towards the public light. God make these, and them, as profitable, as they are well meant to the Common good.   

Faults of the Press.  
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