Contemplations UPON THE HISTORY of the old TESTAMENT. THE SEVENTH VOLUME. In two Books.  
By IOS. HALL. D. D.  
LONDON, Printed by J. H●●land for Nath. Butter. 1623.   

Contemplations UPON THE OLD TESTAMENT.  
The 18th. Book.  
Wherein are, 

Rehoboam.  
jeroboam.  
The seduced Prophet.  
jeroboam Wife.  
Asa.  
Elijah with the Sareptan.  
Elijah with the Baalites.  
Elijah running before Ahab, flying from jezebel.     

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, JAMES, LORD HAY; Baron of Saley, Viscount Doncaster, Earl of Carlisle, one of the Lords of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy COUNSELL.  
Right Honourable:  
I Cannot but thus gratulate to you your happy return from your many, and noble employments; which have made you, some years, a stranger at home; and so renowned abroad, that all the better parts of Europe know and honour your name, no less, than if you had been borne theirs; Neither is any of them so savage, as not to say, when they hear mention of your worth, that Virtue is a thousand Escutcheons.  
If now your short breathing-time may allow your Lordship the freedom of quiet & holy thoughts, cast your eyes upon Israel and judah, upon the Kings and Prophets of both, in such beneficial variety as profane history shall promise in vain. Your Lordship shall see Rehoboam following Solomon in nothing but his seat, and his fall, as much more wilful than his father, as less wise; all head, no heart; losing those ten Tribes with a churlish breath, whom he would (and might not) recover with blood. jeroboam as crafty, as wicked; plotting a revolt, creating a Religion to his state, marring Israelites to make subjects, branded in his name, smitten in his hand, in his loins. You shall see a faithful messenger of God, after miraculous proof of his courage, fidelity, power, good nature, paying dear for a little circumstance of credulous disobedience; The lion is sent to call for his blood, as the price of his forbidden harbour; You shall see the blind Prophet descrying the disguise of a Queen, the judgement of the King, the removal of a Prince, too good for jeroboam heir. You shall see the right stock of Royal succession flourishing in Asa, whiles that true heir of David (though not without some blemishes of infirmity) inherits a perfect heart; purges his kingdom of Sodomy, of Idolatry, not balking sin, even where he honoured nature. You shall see the wonder of Prophets, Elijah, opening and shutting heaven, as his private chest; catored-for by the Ravens, nor less miraculously catoring for the Sareptan, contesting with Ahab, confronting the Baalites, speaking both fire and water (from heaven) in one evening; meekly lacquaying his Sovereign, weakly flying from jezabel, fed supernaturally by Angels, hid in the rock of Horeb, confirmed by those dreadful apparitions, that had confounded some other; casting his mantle upon his homely successor, and by the touch of that garment, turning him from a ploughman, to a Prophet. But what do I withhold your Lordship in the bare heads of this ensuing discourse? In all these, your piercing eyes shall easily see beyond mine, & make my thoughts but a station for a further discovery. Your Lordship's observation hath studied men, more than books; here it shall study God, more than men; That of books hath made you full, that of men, judicious, this of God shall make you holy, and happy; Hitherto shall ever tend the wishes and endeavours of  
Your Lordships humbly devoted in all faithful observance, IOS. HALL..   

Contemplations.  

REHOBOAM.  
WHo would not but have looked that seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines, should have furnished salomon's Palace with choice of heirs, and have peopled Israel with royal issue? and now behold, Solomon hath by all these but one Son; and him by an Ammonitesse: Many a poor man hath an house-full of children by one wife; whiles this great King hath but one son by many house-fulls of wives; Fertility is not from the means, but from the author; It was for Solomon that David sung of old; Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord; and the fruit of the womb is his reward; How oft doth God deny this heritage of heirs, where he gives the largest heritage of lands; and gives most of these living possessions, where he gives least of the dead? that his blessings may be acknowledged free unto both; entailed upon neither.  
As the greatest persons cannot give themselves children, so the wisest cannot give their children wisdom; Was it not of Rehoboam that Solomon said; I hated all my labour which I had taken under the Sun; because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me; and who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man, or a fool; Yet shall he rule over all my labour, wherein I have laboured, and shown myself wise under the Sun? All Israel found that salomon's wit was not propagated; Many a fool hath had a wiser son, than this wisest father; Amongst many sons it is no news to find some one defective; Solomon hath but one son, and he no miracle of wisdom; God gives purposely so eminent an instance, to teach men to look up to heaven, both for heirs, and graces.  
Solomon was both the King of Israel, and the father of Rehoboam, when he was scarce out of his childhood; Rehoboam enters into the kingdom at a ripe age; yet Solomon was the man, and Rehoboam the child; Age is no just measure of wisdom; There are beardless sages, and gray-headed children; Not the ancient are wise, but the wise is ancient: Israel wanted not many thousands that were wiser than Rehoboam: Yet because they knew him to be the son of Solomon, no man makes question of his government; In the case of succession into Kingdoms we may not look into the qualities of the person, but into the right. So secure is Solomon of the people's fidelity to David's seed, that he follows not his father's example in setting his son by him, in his own throne; here was no danger of a rivality to enforce it; no eminency in the son to merit it; It sufficeth him to know that no bond can be surer than the natural allegiance of subjects; I do not find that the following Kings stood upon the confirmation of their people; but as those that knew the way to their throne, ascended those steps without aid; As yet the sovereignty of David's house was green, and unsettled; Israel therefore doth not now come to attend Rehoboam, but Rehoboam goes up to meet Israel. They come not to his jerusalem, but he goes to their Shechem: To Shechem were all Israel come to make him King; If loyalty drew them together, why not rather to jerusalem? there the majesty of his father's Temple, the magnificence of his palace, the very stones in those walls, (besides the strength of his guard) had pleaded strongly for their subjection; Shechem had been many ways fatal, was every way incommodious: It is an infinite help or disadvantage that arises from circumstances; The very place puts Israel in mind of a rebellion; There Abimelech had raised up his treacherous usurpation over, and against his brethren; There Goal against Abimelech; There was joseph sold by his brethren: As if the very soil had been stained with perfidiousness. The time is no less ill chosen; Rehoboam had ill counsel ere he bewrayed it; For had he speedily called up Israel, before jeroboam could have been sent for out of Egypt, he had found the way clear; A little delay may lose a great deal of opportunity; what shall we say of both, but that misery is led in by infatuation.  
Had not Israel been somewhat predisposed to a mutiny, they had never sent into Egypt for such a spokesman as jeroboam; a fugitive, a traitor to Solomon; long had that crafty conspirator lurked in a foreign court; The alliances of Princes are not ever necessary bonds of friendship: The brother in law of Solomon harbours this snake in his bosom, and gives that heat, which is repaid with a sting to the posterity of so near an ally: And now salomon's death calls him back to his native soil: That Israel would entertain a rebel, it was an ill sign; worse yet that they would countenance him; worst of all that they would employ him: Nothing doth more bewray evil intentions, than the choice of vicious Agents: Those that mean well will not hazard either the success, or credit of their actions upon offensive instruments; None but the sluttish will wipe their faces with foul clothes. Upright hearts would have said, as David did to God, so to his anointed; Do not I hate them that hate thee? Yea I hate them with a perfect hatred. jeroboam head had been a fit present to have tendered unto their new King; and now in stead thereof they tender themselves to jeroboam, as the head of their faction.  
Had not Rehoboam wanted spirits, he had first (after Salomons example) done justice to his father's traitor, and then have treated of mercy towards his subjects; The people soon found the weakness of their new Sovereign, else they durst not have spoken to him by so obnoxious a tongue; Thy father made our yoke grievous, make thou it lighter and we will serve thee; Doubtless the crafty head of jeroboam was in this suit, which his mouth uttered in the name of Israel; Nothing could have been more subtle; It seemed a promise, it was a threat; that which seemed a supplication was a complaint: humility was but a veil for discontentment; One hand held a paper, the other a sword: Had they said, Free us from Tributes, the capitulation had been gross, and strongly savouring of sedition; now they say Ease us, they profess his power to impose, and their willingness to yield; only craving favour in the weight of the imposition; If Rehoboam yield, he blemisheth his father; If he deny, he endangers his kingdom; His wilfulness shall seem worthily to abandon his sceptre, if he stick at so reasonable a suit; Surely Israel came with a purpose to cavil; jeroboam had secretly troubled these waters, that he might fish more gainefully; One malcontent is enough to embroil a whole kingdom.  
How harshly must it needs sound in the ears of Rehoboam, that the first word he hears from his people, is a querulous challenge of his father's government; Thy father made our yoke grievous; For ought I see the suggestion was not more spiteful than unjust: where was the weight of this yoke, the toil of these services? Here were none of the turmoils of war; no trainings, marchings, encamp, entrenching, watchings, minings, sieges, fortifications; none of that tedious world of work that attends hostility; Solomon had not his name for nought; All was calm during that long reign: And if they had paid dear for their peace, they had no cause to complain of an hard match; The warlike times of Saul and David had exhausted their blood, together with their substance; what ingratitude was this to cry out of ease? Yea but that peace brought forth costly and laborious buildings: God's house, and the Kings, the walls of jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, the cities of store, the cities of defence, could not rise without many a shoulder: True, but not of any Israelites; The remainders of Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hiuites, and jebusites, were put to all the drudgery of these great works; the tasks of Israel were easy, and ingenuous; free from servility, free from painfulness. But the charge was theirs, whose-soever was the labour: The diet of so endless a retinue, the attendance of his Seraglio, the purveyance for his forty thousand stables, the cost of his sacrifices, must needs weigh heavy; Certainly, if it had laid on none but his own; But wherefore went salomon's Navy every three years to Ophir? to what use served the six hundred threescore and six Talents of Gold, that came in one year to his Exchequer? wherefore served the large tributes of foreign nations? How did he make silver to be in jerusalem as stones, if the exactions were so pressive? The multitude is ever prone to pick quarrels with their Governors; and whom they feared alive, to censure dead; The benefits of so quiet and happy a reign are passed over in silence; the grievances are recounted with clamour; Who can hope that merit or greatness can shield him from obloquy, when Solomon is traduced to his own loins?  
The proposition of Israel puts Rehoboam to a deliberation; Depart ye for three days, then come again to me: I hear no other word of his that argued wisdom; Not to give sudden resolutions in cases of importance was a point that might well beseem the son of Solomon; I wonder that he who had so much wit as to call for leisure in his answer, should show so little wit in the improving of that leisure, in the return of that answer; Who cannot but hope well to see the grey heads of salomon's secret Counsel called to Rehoboams Cabinet? As Counsellors, as ancient, as salomon's, they cannot choose but see the best, the safest course for their new Sovereign: They had learned of their old master, that a soft answer appeaseth wrath; wisely therefore do they advice him, If thou wilt be a servant to this people this day, and speak good words to them, they will be thy servants for ever; It was an easy condition; with one mouthful of breath to purchase an everlasting homage: with one gentle motion of his tongue, to bind all his people's hearts to his allegiance for ever. Yet (as if the motion had been unfit) a new Counsel Table is called: well might this people say; What will not Rehoboam grudge us, if he think much to give good words for a Kingdom. There is not more wisdom in taking variety of advice, where the matter is doubtful, than folly, when it is plain: The young heads are consulted; This very change argues weakness; Some reason might be pleaded for passing from the younger Counsel to the aged; none, for the contrary; Age brings experience; and, it is a shame, if with the ancient be not wisdom; Youth is commonly rash, heady, insolent, vngouerned, wedded to will, led by humour, a rebel to reason, a subject to passion, fit to execute than to advice: Green wood is ever shrinking and warping, whereas the well-seasoned holds a constant firmness: Many a life, many a soul, many a flourishing state hath been ruined by undisciplined Monitors: Such were these of Rehoboam; whose great stomach tells them that this conditionating of subjects, was no other than an affront to their new master, and suggests to them, how unfit it is for Majesty to brook so saucy a treaty; how requisite and Princely, to crush this presumption in the egg; As scorning therefore to be braved by the base Vulgar, they put words of greatness, and terror into their new Prince, My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins; My father made your yoke heavy, I will add to your yoke; My father hath chastised you with whips, I will chastise you with Scorpions. The very words have stings; Now must Israel needs think; How cruel will this man's hands be, when he thus draws blood with his tongue? Men are not wont to speak out their worst; who can endure the hopes of him that promiseth tyranny? There can be no good use of an indefinite profession of rigour and severity; Fear is an unsafe guardian of any state, much less of an unsettled. Which was yet worse, not the sins of Israel were threatened, nor their purses, but their persons; neither had they desired a remission of justice, but of exactions; and now, they hear of nothing but burdens, and scourges, and Scorpions.  
Here was a Prince and people well met; I do not find them sensible of aught, save their own profit; They do not say; Religion was corrupted in the shutting up of thy father's days; Idolatry found the free favour of Priests, and Temples, and Sacrifices; Begin thy reign with God; purge the Church, demolish those piles of abomination; abandon those Idol-mongers, restore devotion to her purity; They are all for their penny, for their ease; He on the other side, is all for his will, for an imperious Sovereignty; without any regard either of their reformation or satisfaction; They were worthy of load that cared for nothing but their backs; and he worthy of such subjects, who professed to affect their misery and torment.  
Who would not but have looked any whither for the cause of this evil, rather than to heaven? yet, the holy God challenges it to himself; The cause was from the Lord, that he might perform his saying by Abijah the Shilonite to jeroboam; As sin is a punishment of sin, it is a part of justice; The holy one of Israel doth not abhor to use even the grossest sins to his own just purposes; whiles our wills are free to our own choice, his decrees are as necessary, as just; Israel had forsaken the Lord, and worshipped Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Chemosh, and Milchom: God owes them, and Solomon a whipping; The frowardness of Rehoboam shall pay it them; I see jeroboam plot, the people's insolence, the young men's mis-aduice, the Prince's unseasonable austerity, meeting together (through the wise providence of the Almighty) unwittingly to accomplish his most just decree; All these might have done otherwise for any force that was offered to their will; all would no more do otherwise, than if there had been no predetermination in heaven; that God may be magnified in his wisdom, and justice, whiles man wittingly perisheth in his folly.  
That three day's expectation had warmed these smoking Israelites, and made them ready for a combustion; upon so peremptory a resolution of rigour, the flame bursts out, which all the waters of the well of Bethlehem could never quench; The furious multitude flies out into a desperate revolt; What portion have we in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of jesse; To your Tents o Israel; now, see to thine own house David.  
How durst these seditious mouths mention David in defiance? One would have thought that very name had been able to have tempered their fury, and to have contained them within the limits of obedience; It was the father of Rehoboam, and the son of David that had led Israel into Idolatry; Solomon hath drawn contempt upon his father, and upon his son: If Israel have cast off their God, is it marvel that they shake off his anointed? Irreligion is the way to disobedience; There can be no true subjection but out of conscience; They cannot make conscience of civil duties, who make none of divine.  
In vain shall Rehoboam hope to prevail by his Officer, when himself is rejected: The persons of Princes carry in them characters of Majesty; when their presence works not, how should their message? If Adoram solicit the people too late with good words, they answer him with stones. Nothing is more untractable and violent, than an enraged multitude; It was time for Rehoboam to betake himself to his chariot; he saw those stones were thrown at him, in his Adoram: As the messenger suffers for his master; so the master suffers in his messenger; Had Rehoboam been in Adorams clothes, this death had been his: Only flight can deliver him from those that might have been subjects: jerusalem must be his refuge against the conspiracy of Shechem.  
Blessed be God for lawful government; Even a mutinous body cannot want an head: If the rebellious Israelites have cast off their true Sovereign, they must choose a false; jeroboam the son of Nebat must be the man; He had need be skilful, and sit sure, that shall back the horse which hath cast his rider; Israel could not have any where met with more craft, and courage, than they found in this leader.  
Rehoboam returns to jerusalem lighter by a crown than he went forth; judah and Benjamin stick still fast to their loyalty: the example of a general rebellion cannot make them unfaithful to the house of David; God will ever reserve a remnant free from the common contagion; Those tribes, to approve their valour, no less than their fidelity, will fight against their brethren, for their Prince; and will hazard their lives to reduce the crown to the son of Solomon; An hundred and fourscore thousand of them are up in arms, ready to force Israel to their denied subjection: No noise sounded on both parts but military; no man thought of any thing but blood; when suddenly God sends his Prophet to forbid the battle; Shemaiah comes with a message of cessation; Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren, the children of Israel, return every man to his house, for this thing is from me, saith the Lord; The word of one silly Prophet dismisses these mighty armies; He that would not lay down the threats of his rigour, upon the advice of all his ancient Counsellors, will lay down his sword, upon the word of a Seer; Shall we envy, or shame to see how much the Prophets of the old Testament could do; how little those of the new? If our commission be no less from the same God, the difference of success cannot go away unrevenged.  
There was yet some grace in Rehoboam, that he would not spurn against that, which God challenged as his own work: Some godless ruffian would have said; whosoever is the Author, I will be revenged on the instruments; Rehoboam hath learned this lesson of his Grandfather; I held my peace because thou Lord hast done it; If he might strive with the multitude, he knew it was no striving with his Maker; quietly therefore doth he lay down his arms, not daring after that prohibition to seek the recovery of his kingdom by blood.  
Where Gods purposes are hid from us, we must take the fairest ways of all lawful remedies; but where God hath revealed his determinations, we must sit down in an humble submission; our struggling may aggravate, cannot redress our miseries.   

Jeroboam.  
AS there was no public and universal conflict betwixt the Ten Tribes, and the two, so no peace; Either King found reason to fortify the borders of his own territories; Shechem was worthy to be dear to jeroboam; a city as of old seasoned with many treasons, so now auspicious to his new usurpation. The civil defection was soon followed by the spiritual; As there are near respects betwixt God, and his anointed, so there is great affinity betwixt treason and Idolatry: there is a connexion betwixt, Fear God, and Honour the King; and no less betwixt the neglects of both: In vain shall a man look for faith in a mis-religious heart.  
Next to Achitophel, I do not find that Israel yielded a craftier head than jeroboam; so hath he plotted this conspiracy, that (what ever fall) there is no place for a challenge; not his own intrusion, but Israel's Election hath raised him to their throne; neither is his cunning less in holding a stolen sceptre; Thus he thinks in himself; If Israel have made me their king, it is but in a pang of discontentment; these violent thoughts will not last always: Sudden fits have commonly sudden recoveries; their return to their loyalty shall forfeit my head together with my Crown; They cannot return to God, and hold off from their lawful Sovereign; They cannot return to jerusalem, and keep off from God; from their loyalty; Thrice a year will their devotion call them up thither; besides the exigence of their frequent vows; How can they be mine, whiles that glorious Temple is in their eye; whiles the magnificence of the royal Palace of David and Solomon, shall admonish them of their native allegiance; whiles (besides the solicitation of their brethren) the Priests and Levites shall preach to them the necessity of their due obedience, and the abomination of their sacrifices in their wilful disobedience; whiles they shall (by their presence) put themselves upon the mercy, or justice of their lawful, and forsaken Prince; Either therefore I must divert them from jerusalem, or else I cannot live and reign. It is no diverting them by a direct restraint; such prohibition would both endanger their utter distaste, and whet their desire to more eagerness: I may change religion, I may not inhibit it; so the people have a God, it sufficeth them; they shall have so much formality as may content them; their zeal is not so sharp, but they can be well pleased with ease; I will proffer them both a more compendious, and more plausible worship; jerusalem shall be supplied within mine own borders; naturally men love to see the objects of their devotion; I will therefore feed their eyes with two golden representations of their God, nearer home; and what can be more proper than those, which Aaron devised of old to humour Israel?  
Upon this pestilent ground, jeroboam sets up two calves in Dan, and Bethel, and persuades the people; It is too much for you to go up to jerusalem, behold thy Gods o Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Oh the mischief that comes of wicked infidelity; It was God's Prophet that had rend jeroboam garment into twelve pieces, and had given ten of them to him; in token of his sharing the ten Tribes; who with the same breath also told him that the cause of this distraction was their Idolatry, Yet now will he institute an Idolatrous service for the holding together of them, whom their Idolatry had rend from their true Sovereign to him: He says not; God hath promised me this Kingdom, God hath conferred it; God shall find means to maintain his own act; I will obey him, let him dispose of me; The God of Israel is wise and powerful enough, to fetch about his own designs; but, (as if the devices of men were stronger than God's providence, and ordination) he will be working out his own ends by profane policies: jeroboam being borne an Israelite, and bred in the Court of a Solomon, could not but know the express charge of God against the making of Images, against the erecting of any rival altars, to that of jerusalem, yet now that he sees both these may avail much to the advancing of his ambitious projects, he sets up those Images, those Altars; Wicked men care not to make bold with God in cases of their own commodity; If the laws of their Maker lie in the way of their profit, or promotion, they either spurn them out, or tread upon them at pleasure: Aspiring minds will know no God but honour. Israel sojourned in Egypt & brought home a golden calf; jeroboam sojourns there, and brought home two; It is hard to dwell in Egypt untainted; not to savour of the sins of the place we live in, is no less strange, than for wholesome liquor tuned up in a musty vessel, not to smell of the cask; The best body may be infected in a contagious air; Let him beware of Egypt that would be free from Idolatry.  
No sooner are jeroboams calves up, than Israel is down on their knees: their worship follows immediately upon the erection; How easily is the unstable vulgar carried into whatever religion of authority? The weathercock will look which way soever the wind blows; It is no marvel if his subjects be brutish, who hath made a calf his God.  
Every accessary to sin is filthy, but the first authors of sin are abominable; How is jeroboam branded in every of these sacred leaves? how do all ages ring of his fact, with the accent of dishonour, and indignation; jeroboam the son of Nebat, that made Israel to sin? It was a shame for Israel that it could be made to sin by a jeroboam; but, o cursed name of jeroboam that would draw Israel to sin; The followers and abettors of evil are worthy of torment, but no hell is too deep for the leaders of public wickedness.  
Religion is clothed with many requisite circumstances; As a new King would have a new God; so that new God must have new Temples, Altars, Services, Priests, Solemnities; All these hath jeroboam instituted; all these hath he cast in the same mould with his golden calves: False devotion doth not more cross, than imitate the true: Satan is no less a counterfeit than an enemy of God; He knows it more easy to adulterate religion, than to abolish it.  
That which God ordained for the avoidance of Idolatry, is made the occasion of it; a limitation of his holy services to jerusalem; How mischievously do wicked men pervert the wholesome institutions of God to their sin, to their bane?  
jeroboam could not be ignorant how fearfully this very act was revenged upon Israel, in the wilderness; yet he dares renew it in Dan and Bethel: No example of judgement can affright wilful offenders.  
It is not the mettle that makes his Gods, but the worship; the sacrifices: What sacrifice could there be without Priests? No religion could ever want sacred masters of Divine Ceremonies; Gods Clergy was select, and honourable; branches of the holy stem of Aaron; jeroboam rakes up his Priests out of the channel of the multitude; all Tribes, all persons were good enough for his spurious devotion; Leaden Priests are well fitted to golden Deities. Religion receives either much honour, or blemish, by the quality of those that serve at her Altars; We are not worthy to profess ourselves servants of the true God, if we do not hold his service worthy of the best.  
jeroboam Calves must have sacrifices, must have solemn festivities; though in a day, and month of his own devising: In vain shall we pretend to worship a God, if we grudge him the just days, and rites of his worship.  
It is strange that he who thought the dregs of the vulgar good enough for that Priesthood, would grace those Gods, by acting their Priest himself; and yet behold where the new King of Israel stands before his new Altar, with a Sceptre in one hand, and a Censer in the other, ready to sacrifice to his new Gods; when the man of God comes from juda, with a message of judgement; Oh desperate condition of Israel, that was so far gone with impiety, that it yielded not one faithful monitor to jeroboam; The time was, that the erecting of but a new altar (for memory, for monument) on the other side jordan, bred a challenge to the Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasses; and had cost much Israelitish blood, if the quarrelled Tribes had not given a seasonable and pious satisfaction; and now, lo how the stronger stomach of degenerated Israel can digest new Altars, new Temples, new Gods; What a difference there is betwixt a Church and Kingdom newly breathing from affliction, and settled upon the lees of a misused peace?  
But oh the patience, and mercy of our Long-suffering God; that will not strike a very jeroboam unwarned: judgement hovers over the heads of sinners, ere it light; If Israel afford not a bold reprover of jeroboam, juda shall; When the king of Israel is in all the height both of his State, and superstition, honouring his solemn day with his richest devotion, steps forth a Prophet of God, and interrupts that glorious service, with a loud inclamation of judgement. Doubtless the man wanted not wit to know what displeasure, what danger must needs follow so unwelcome a message: yet dares he (upon the commission of God) do this affront to an Idolatrous King, in the midst of all his awful magnificence. The Prophets of God go upon many a thankless errand; He is no messenger for God that either knows, or fears the faces of men.  
It was the Altar, not the person of jeroboam, which the Prophet thus threatens; Yet not the stones are stricken, but the founder; in both their apprehensions: So dear are the devices of our own brain to us, as if they were incorporated into ourselves; There is no opposition whereof we are so sensible, as that of religion.  
That the royal Altar should be thus polluted by dead men's bones, and the blood of the Priests, was not more unpleasing, than that all this should be done by a child of the house of David; for jeroboam well saw that the throne and the altar must stand, or fall together; that a son of David could not have such power over the Altar, without an utter subversion of the government, of the succession; therefore is he thus galled with this comminatory prediction; The rebellious people who had said, What portion have we in David, hear now, that David will perforce have a portion in them: and might well see, what beasts they had made themselves, in worshipping the image of a beast; and sacrificing to such a God, as could not preserve his own Altar from violation, and ruin.  
All this while I do not see this zealous Prophet laying his hand to the demolition of this Idolatrous Altar; or threatening a knife to the Author of this depravation of religion; Only his tongue smites both; not with foul, but sharp words; of menace, not of reproach; It was for josias a King, to shed the blood of those sacrificers, to deface those Altars: Prophets are for the tongue, Princes for the hand; Prophets must only denounce judgement; Princes execute.  
Future things are present to the Eternal; It was some two hundred and sixty years, ere this prophecy should be fulfilled; yet the man of God speaks of it as now in acting; What are some Centuries of years to the Ancient of days? How slow, and yet how sure is the pace of God's revenge? It is not in the power of time to frustrate God's determinations; There is no less justice, nor severity in a delayed punishment.  
What a perfect Record there is of all names in the roll of Heaven; before they be, after they are passed? what ever seeming contingency there is in their imposition, yet they fall under the certainty of a decree; and are better known in heaven, ere they be, than on earth whiles they are. He that knows what names we shall have, before we or the world have a being, doth not oft reveal this piece of his knowledge to his creature; here he doth; naming the man that should be two hundred years after; for more assurance of the event; that Israel may say, this man speaks from a God who knows what shall be: There cannot be a more sure evidence of a true Godhead, than the foreknowledge of those things, whose causes have yet no hope of being; But because the proof of this prediction was not more certain, than remote; a present demonstration shall convince the future; The altar shall rend in pieces, the ashes shall be scattered; How amazedly must the seduced Israelites needs look upon this miracle; and why do they not think with themselves; whiles these stones rend, why are our hearts whole? Of what an overruling power is the God whom we have forsaken, that can thus tear the Altars of his corrivals? How shall we stand before his vengeance, when the very stones break at the word of his Prophet? Perhaps, some beholders were thus affected; but jeroboam, whom it most concerned, in stead of bowing his knees for humiliation, stretcheth forth his hand for revenge, and cries, Lay hold on him: Resolute wickedness is impatient of a reproof, and in stead of yielding to the voice of God, rebelleth: Just and discreet reprehension doth not more reform some sinners than exasperare others.  
How easy is it for God to cool the courage of proud jeroboam? the hand which his rage stretches out, dries up, and cannot be pulled back again: and now stands the King of Israel like some antic statue, in a posture of impotent endeavour; so disabled to the hurt of the Prophet, that he cannot command that piece of himself; What are the great Potentates of the world, in the powerful hand of the Almighty? Tyrant's cannot be so harmful as they are malicious.  
The strongest heart may be brought down with affliction; Now the stout stomach of jeroboam is fallen to an humble deprecation; Entreat now the face of the Lord thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. It must needs be a great straight that could drive a proud heart to beg mercy, where he bent his persecution; so doth jeroboam; holding it no scorn to be beholden to an enemy; In extremities, the worst men can be content to sue for favour, where they have spent their malice.  
It well becomes the Prophets of God to be merciful; I do not see this Seer to stand upon terms of exprobration, and overly contestations with jeroboam, to say, Thine intentions to me were cruel; Had thine hand prevailed, I should have sued to thee in vain; Continue ever a spectacle of the fearful justice of thy Maker, whom thou hast provoked by thine Idolatry, whom thou wouldst have smitten in my persecution; but he meekly sues for jeroboams release; and (that God might abundantly magnify both his power and mercy) is heard and answered with success: We do no whit savour of heaven, if we have not learned to do good for evil.  
When both wind and Sun, the blasts of judgement, and the beams of favour met together to work upon jeroboam, who would not look that he should have cast off this cumbrous, and mis-beseeming cloak of his Idolatry; and have said, Lord thou hast stricken me in justice, thou hast healed me in mercy; I will provoke thee no more; This hand which thou hast restored shall be consecrated to thee in pulling down these bold abominations; Yet now, behold he goes on in his old courses, and, as if God had neither done him good nor evil, lives, and dies idolatrous; No stone is more hard or insensate than a sinful heart; The changes of judgement and mercy do but obdure it, in stead of melting.   

The Seduced Prophet.  
IEroboams hand is amended, his soul is not; that continues still dry, & inflexible; Yet whiles he is unthankful to the Author of his recovery, he is thankful to the instrument; he kindly invites the Prophet, whom he had threatened, and will remunerate him whom he endeavoured to punish: The worst men may be sensible of bodily favours; Civil respects may well stand with gracelessenesse: Many a one would be liberal of their purses, if they might be allowed to be niggardly of their obedience.  
As God, so his Prophet cares not for these waste courtesies, where he sees main duties neglected; More piety would have done well, with less compliment; The man of God returns a blunt and peremptory denial to so bounteous an offer; If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread or drink water in this place. Kindness is more safely done to an Idolater, than taken from him; that which is done to him obligeth him, that which is taken from him obligeth us; his obligation to us may be an occasion of his good, our obligation to him may occasion our hurt; the surest way is to keep aloof from the infectiously wicked.  
The Prophet is not uncivil, to reject the favour of a Prince without some reason; He yields no reason of his refusal but the command of his God; God hath charged him, Eat no bread, nor drink no water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest; It is not for a Prophet to plead humane, or carnal grounds for the actions of his function: He may not move but upon a divine warrant; would this Scer have looked with the eyes of flesh and blood, he might have found many arguments of his yeeldance. He is a King that invites me; his reward, by enriching me, may benefit many; and who knows how much my further conversation may prevail to reform him? how can he be but well prepared for good counsel by my miraculous cure? how gainfully should my receipt of a temporal courtesy be exchanged with a spiritual to him? All Israel will follow him either into Idolatry, or reformation; which way can be devised of doing so great service to God and the Church, as by reclaiming him; what can yield so great likelihood of his reclamation, as the opportunity of my further entireness with him? But the Prophet dares not argue cases, where he had a command; what ever become of jeroboam, and Israel, God must be obeyed; Neither profit, nor hopes may carry us cross to the word of our Maker. How safe had this Seer been, if he had kept him ever upon this sure ward; which he no sooner leaves, than he miscarries.  
So deeply doth God detest Idolatry, that he forbids his Prophet to eat the bread, to drink the water of a people infected with this sin; yea to tread in those very steps which their feet have touched. If this inhibition were personal, yet the grounds of it are common. No pestilence should be more shunned than the conversation of the mis-religious, or openly scandalous; It is no thank to us if their familiarity do not enfeoff us of their wickedness.  
I know not what to think of an old Prophet that dwells in Bethel, within the air of jeroboams Idol, within the noise of his sacrifices; that life's where the man of God dares not eat; that permitted his sons to be present at that Idolatrous service; If he were a Prophet of God, what did he now in Bethel? why did he wink at the sin of jeroboam? what needed a Seer to come out of juda, for the reproof of that sin, which was acted under his nose? why did he lie? why did his family partake with Idolaters? If he were not a Prophet of God; how had he true visions, how had he true messages from God; why did he second the menacing word of that Prophet, whom he seduced? why did he desire that his own bones might be honoured with his Sepulchre? Doubtless he was a Prophet of God, but corrupt, resty, vicious; Prophecy doth not always presuppose sanctification; many a one hath had visions from God, who shall never enjoy the vision of God. A very Balaam in his ecstasies, hath so clear a revelation of the Messiah to come, as scarce ever any of the holiest Prophets; yea, his very Ass hath both her mouth miraculously opened, and her eyes; to see and notify that Angel, which was hid from her Master; Yea, Satan himself sometimes receives notice from God of his future actions; which else that evil Spirit could neither foretell, nor foresee. These kinds of graces are both rare, and common; rare, in that they are seldom given to any; common, in that they are indifferently given to the evil, and to the good; A little holiness is worth much illumination.  
Whether out of envy, to hear that said by the Seer of juda, which he either knew not or smothered; to hear that done by another, which he could not have effected, and could not choose but admire; or whether out of desire to make trial of the fidelity of so powerful a Messenger, the old Prophet hastens to overtake, to recall that man of God. who had so defied his Bethel; whom he finds sitting faint and weary under an Oak, in the way; taking the benefit of that shade which he hated to receive from those contagious groves that he had left behind him; His habit easily bewrayed him, to a man of his own trade: neither doth his tongue spare to profess himself. The old Prophet of Bethel invites him to a return, to a repast: and is answered with the same words, wherewith jeroboams offer was repelled; The man of God varies not a syllable from his message: It concerns us to take good heed of our charge, when we go on God's errand. A denial doth but invite the importunate; what he cannot do by entreaty, the old man tries to do by persuasion; I am a Prophet also as thou art, and an Angel spoke to me, by the word of the Lord, saying; Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread, and drink water; There is no Tentation so dangerous, as that which comes shrouded under a veil of holiness, and pretends authority from God himself; jeroboam threatens, the Prophet stands undaunted; jeroboam fawns, and promises; the Prophet holds constant; now comes a gray-headed Seer, and pleads a counter-message from God, the Prophet yields, and transgresses. Satan may affright us as a fiend, but he seduces us as an Angel of light.  
Who would have looked for a Liar under hoary hairs, and an holy mantle? who would not have trusted that gravity, when there was no colour of any gain in the untruth? Nothing is so apt to deceive as the fairest semblances, as the sweetest words. We cannot err if we believe not the speech for the person, but the person for the speech; Well might this man of God think, An aged man, a Prophet, an old Prophet, will not (sure) belly God unto a Prophet; No man will forge a lie, but for an advantage; What can this man gain by this match, but the entertainment of an unprofitable guest; Perhaps though God would not allow me to feast with jeroboam, yet, pitying my faintness, he may allow me to eat with a Prophet; Perhaps now that I have approved my fidelity in refusing the bread of Bethel, God thinks good to send me a gracious release of that strict charge; Why should I think that God's revelations are not as free to others, as to me? and if this Prophet have received a countermand from an Angel of God, how shall I not disobey God, if I do not follow him?  
Upon this ground he returns with his deceitful host, and when the meat was now in his mouth, receives the true message of death, from the same lips that brought him the false message of his invitation; Thus saith the Lord, for as much as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, but camest back and hast eaten bread, and drunk water in the place forbidden thee, thy carcase shall not come to the Sepulchre of thy fathers. Oh woeful Prophet, when he looks on his host he sees his executioner, whiles he is feeding of his body, he hears of his carcase; at the table, he hears of his denied Sepulchre; and all this, for eating and drinking where he was forbidden by God, though bidden as from God; The violation of the least charge of a God is mortal; No pretences can warrant the transgression of a divine command: A word from God is pleaded on both sides; The one was received immediately from God, the other related mediately by man; One the Prophet was sure of, the other was questionable; A sure word of God may not be left for an uncertain; An express charge of the Almighty admitteth not of any check: His will is but one, as himself is; and therefore is out of the danger of contradiction.  
Me thinks I see the man of God change countenance at this sharp sauce of his pleasing morsels; his face before hand is died with the paleness of death; me thinks I hear him urging many unkind expostulations with his injurious host; who yet dismisses him better provided for the ease of his journey, than he found him. Perhaps, this officiousness was out of desire to make some amends for his late seducement. It is a poor recompense when he hath betrayed the life, and wronged the soul, to cast some courtesies upon the body.  
This old Bethelite that had taken pains to come and fetch the man of God into sin, will not now go back with him to accompany his departure; Doubtless he was afraid to be enwrapped in the judgement, which he saw hanged over that obnoxious head; Thus the mischievous guides of wickedness leave a man, when they have led him to his bane; as familiar Devils forsake their witches, when they have brought them once into fetters.  
The man of God returns alone, careful (no doubt) and pensive for his offence, when a lion out of the wood meets him, assaults him, kills him; Oh the just and severe judgements of the Almighty, who hath brought this fierce beast out of his wild ranges, into the high way, to be the executioner of his offending servant: Doubtless this Prophet was a man of great holiness, of singular fidelity, else he durst not have been God's Herald to carry a message of defiance to jeroboam, King of Israel, in the midst of all his royal magnificence; yet now, for varying from but a circumstance of God's command (though upon the suggestion of a divine warrant) he is given for a prey to the Lion: Our interest in God is so far from excusing our sin, that it aggravates it; Of all others the sin of a Prophet shall not pass unrevenged.  
The very wild beasts are led by a providence; Their wise and powerful Creator knows how to serve himself of them: The Lion's guard one Prophet, kill another, according to the commission received from their Maker; What sinner can hope to escape unpunished, when every creature of God is ready to be an avenger of evil? The beasts of the field were made to serve us, we to serve our Creator; When we forsake our homage to him that made us, it is no marvel if the beasts forget their duty to us, and deal with us not as Masters, but as rebels; When an holy man buys so dear such a sleight frailty, of a credulous mistaking, what shall become of our heinous and presumptuous sins?  
I cannot think but this Prophet died in the favour of God, though by the teeth of the Lion; His life was forfeited for example, his soul was safe; Yea his very carcase was left though torn, yet fair after those deadly grasps; as if God had said; I will only take thy breath from thee, as the penalty of thy disobedience, a Lion shall do that which an apoplexy, or fever might do; I own thee no further revenge than may be satisfied with thy blood.  
Violent events do not always argue the anger of God; Even death itself is, to his servants, a fatherly castigation.  
But oh the unsearchable ways of the Almighty! The man of God sins, and dies speedily; the lying Prophet that seduced him survives; Yea wicked jeroboam enjoys his Idolatry, and treads upon the grave of his reprover: There is neither favour in the delay of stripes, nor displeasure in the haste; Rather whom God love's, he chastises, as sharply, so speedily; whiles the rest prosper to condemnation: Even the rod of a loving father may draw blood; How much happier is it for us that we die now to live for ever; than that we live a while, to die ever?  
Had this Lion set upon the Prophet for hunger, why did he not devour as well as kill him? Why did he not rather kill the beast than the man? since we know the nature of the Lion such, that he is not wont to assail man, save in the extreme want of other prey. Certainly the same power that employed those fangs, restrained them; that the world might see, it was not appetite that provoked the beast to this violence, but the overruling command of God; Even so, o Lord, thy powerful hand is over that roaring Lion, that goes about continually, seeking whom he may devour: thine hand withholds him, that though he may shed the blood of thine elect, yet he cannot hurt their souls; and whiles he doth those things which thou permittest, and orderest to thy just ends, yet he cannot do lesser things, which he desireth, and thou permittest not.  
The fierce beast stands by the carcase, as, to avow his own act, and to tell who sent him; so to preserve that body, which he hath slain; Oh wonderful work of God, the Executioner is turned Guardian; and (as the Officer of the highest) commands all other creatures to stand aloof from his charge: and commands the fearful Ass, that brought this burden thither, not to stir thence, but stand ready pressed, to recarry it to the Sepulchre: And now, when he hath sufficiently witnessed to all passengers, that this act was not done upon his own hunger, but upon the quarrel of his Maker, he delivers up his charge to that old Prophet; who was no less guilty of this blood than himself.  
This old Seducer hath so much Truth, as both to give a right Commentary upon God's intention, in this act, for the terror of the disobedient, and to give his voice to the certainty of that future judgement, which his late guest had threatened to Israel: (sometimes it pleased the wisdom of God to express and justify himself even by the tongues of faulty Instruments.) Withal, he hath so much faith and courage, as to fetch that carcase from the Lion; so much piety and compassion, as to weep for the man of God, to inter him in his own Sepulchre; so much love, as to wish himself joined in death, to that body, which he had hastened unto death; It is hard to find a man absolutely wicked; Some grace will bewray itself in the most forsaken breasts.  
It is a cruel courtesy to kill a man, and then to help him to his grave; to betray a man with our breath, and then to bedew him with our tears; The Prophet had needed no such friend, if he had not met with such an enemy; The mercies of the wicked are cruel.   

Jeroboams Wife.  
IT is no measuring God's favour by the line of outward welfare; jeroboam the idolatrous usurper of Israel prospers better, than the true heirs of David; He life's to see three successions in the Throne of juda; Thus the Iuy life's, when the Oak is dead. Yet could not that misgotten crown of his keep his head always from aching; He hath his crosses too: God whips sometimes more than his own; His enemy's smart from him, as well as his children; his children in love, his enemies in judgement; Not simply the rod argues love, but the temper of the hand, that weelds it, and the back that feels it: First jeroboam hand was stricken, now his Son; Abijah the eldest, the best son of jeroboam, is smitten with sickness; As children are but the pieces of their Parents in another skin, so Parents are no less stricken in their children, than in their natural limbs, jeroboam doth not more feel his arm, than his son; Not wicked men only, but beasts may have natural affections; It is no thank to any creature, to love his own.  
Nature wrought in jeroboam, no grace; He is enough troubled with his son's disgrace, no whit bettered; I would have heard him say; God follows me with his afflictions; it is for mine impiety; what other measure can I expect from his justice? Whiles mine Idols stand, how can I look that my house should prosper? I will turn from my wickedness, O God turn thou from thy wrath; These thoughts were too good for that obdured heart; His son is sick, he is sorrowful; but (as an amazed man seeks to go forth at the wrong door) his distraction sends him to a false help: He thinks not of God, he thinks of his Prophet: He thinks of the Prophet that had foretold him he should be a King; he thinks not of the God of that Prophet who made him a King; It is the property of a carnal heart to confine both his Obligations, and his hopes to the means, neglecting the Author of good. Vain is the respect that is given to the servant, where the Master is contemned.  
Extremity draws jeroboams thoughts to the Prophet; whom else he had not cared to remember. The King of Israel had Divines enough of his own; Else, he must needs have thought them miserable Gods that were not worth a Prophet; And beside, there was an old Prophet (if he yet survived) dwelling within the smoke of his Palace; whose visions had been too well approved; why would jeroboam send so fare to an Ahijah?  
Certainly, his heart despised those base Priests of his high places; neither could trust either to the gods, or the Clergy of his own making; His conscience rests upon the fidelity of that man, whose doctrine he had forsaken; How did this Idolater strive against his own heart, whiles he inwardly despised those, whom he professed to honour; and inwardly honoured them, whom he professed to despise? Wicked breasts are false to themselves; neither trusting to their own choice, nor making choice of that, which they may dare to trust. They will set a good face upon their secretly-unpleasing sins, and had rather be selfe-condemned, than wise and penitent: As for that old Seer, it is like jeroboam knew his skill, but doubted of his fincerity; that man was too much his neighbour to be good; Ahijahs truth had been tried in a case of his own; He whose word was found just in the prediction of his kingdom, was well worthy of credit in the news of his son; Experience is a great encouragement of our trust; It is a good matter to be faithful; this loadstone of our fidelity shall draw to us even hearts of iron, and hold them to our reliance: As contrarily deceit doth both argue, and make a bankrupt; who can trust where he is disappointed? O God, so oft, so ever, have we found thee true in all thy promises, in all thy performances, that if we do not seek thee, if we do not trust thee in the sequel, we are worthy of our loss, worthy of thy desertions.  
Yet I do not see that jeroboam sends to the Prophet for his aid, but for his intelligence, Curiosity is guilty of this message, and not devotion; he calls not for the prayers, not for the benediction of that holy man, but for mere information of the event. He well saw what the prayers of a Prophet could do; That which cured his hand, might it not have cured his son? Yet he that said to a man of God, Entreat the face of the Lord thy God, that he may restore my hand; says not now, in his message to Ahijah, Entreat thy God to restore my Son: Sin makes such a strangeness betwixt God and man, that the guilty heart either thinks not of suing to God, or fears it; What a poor contentment it was to foreknow that evil which he could not avoid, and whose notice could but hasten his misery? Yet, thus fond is our restless curiosity, that it seeks ease in the drawing on of torment; He is worthy of sorrow that will not stay till it comes to him, but goes to fetch it.  
Whom doth jeroboam send on this message, but his wife, and how, but disguised? Why her, and why thus? Neither durst he trust this errand with another, nor with her in her own form: It was a seceet that jeroboam sends to a Prophet of God; none might know it but his own bosom, and she that lay in it; if this had been noised in Israel, the example had been dangerous; Who would not have said, The King is glad to leave his counterfeit deities, and seek to the true; Why should we adhere to them whom he forsakes? As the message must not be known to the people; so she that bears it must not be known to the Prophet, her name, her habit must be changed; she must put off her robes, and put on a russet coat; she must put off the Queen, and put on the peasant; in stead of her Sceptre, she must take up a basket, and go a masked pilgrimage to Shiloh; Oh the fondness of vain men that think to juggle with the Almighty, and to hide their counsels from that allseeing ere! If this change of habit were necessary at Bethel, yet what needs it at Shiloh; though she would hide her face from her subjects, yet why would she not pull off her muffler, and show herself to the Prophet? Certainly, what policy began, guiltiness must continue; Well might she think, there can be no good answer expected of the wife of jeroboam; my presence will do no less, than solicit a reproof; No Prophet can speak well to the consort of a founder of Idolatry, I may perhaps hear good as another, though as myself I can look for nothing, but tidings of evil; Wicked hearts know they deserve ill at God's hands, and therefore they do all they can to avoid the eyes of his displeased justice, and if they cannot do it by colours of dissimulation, they will do it by imploration of shelter; they shall say to the rocks, Fall on us, and cover us.  
But oh the gross folly mixed with the craft of wickedness! could jeroboam think that the Prophet could know the event of his son's disease, and did he think that he could not know the disguise of his Wife? the one was present, the other future; this face was but wrapped up in a clout, that event was wrapped up in the counsel of God; Yet this politic head presumes that the greater shall be revealed, where the lesser shall be hid; There was never wicked man that was not infatuate, and in nothing more than in those things wherein he hoped most to transcend the reach of others.  
Ahijah shunning the iniquity of the times, was retired to a solitary corner of Shiloh; no place could be too private for an honest Prophet, in so extreme depravedness; Yet even there doth the King of Israel take notice of his reclusion, and sends his Wife to that poor cell, laden with presents; presents that dissembled their bearer: had she offered jewels, or gold, her greatness had been suspected; now she brings loaves, and cracknels, and honey, her hand answers her back; She gives as she seems, not as she is: Something she must give, even when she acts the poorest client.  
The Prophets of God were not wont to have empty visitations; they who hated bribes, yet refused not tokens of gratitude; Yea the God of heaven who neither needs our goods, nor is capable of our gratifications, yet would have no man to come to him, giftlesse; Woe to those sacrilegious hands, that in stead of bringing to the Prophets carry from them.  
jeroboam was a bad man, yet, as he had a towardly son, so he had an obedient wife; else she had not wanted excuses to turn off both the journey, and the disguise; against the disguise she had pleaded the unbeseemingnesse for her person and state; against the journey, the perils of so long and solitary a walk; perhaps a Lion might be in the way; the Lion that tore the Prophet in pieces; perhaps robbers; or if not they, perhaps her chastity might be in danger; an unguarded solitariness in the weaker sex might be a provocation to some forced uncleanness: she casts off all these shifting projections of fear; according to the will of her husband, she changes her raiment, she sets upon the journey, and overcomes it: What needed this disguise to an old Prophet whose dim eyes were set with age? All clothes, all faces were alike to a blind Seer; The visions of Ahijah were inward, neither was his bodily sight more dusky, than the eyes of his mind were clear, and piercing; It was not the common light of men whereby he saw, but divine illumination; things absent, things future were no less obvious to those spiritual beams, than present things are to us; Ere the quick eyes of that great Lady can discern him, he hath espied her; and so soon as he hears the sound of her feet, she hears from him the sound of her name, Come in thou Wife of jeroboam; How God laughs in heaven at the frivolous fetches of crafty politicians, and when they think themselves most sure, shames them with a detection, with a defeat? What an idleness it is for foolish Hypocrites to hope they can dance in a net unseen of heaven?  
Never before was this Queen troubled to hear of herself; now she is; her very name struck her with astonishment; and prepares her for the assured horror of following judgements, I am sent to thee with heavy tidings; Go tell jeroboam; Thus saith the Lord God of Israel. Can this Lady less wonder at the mercy of this style of God, than tremble at the sequel of his justice? Lo Israel had forsaken God, yet God still owns Israel. Israel had gone a whoring, yet God hath not divorced her; Oh the infinite goodness of our long-suffering God, whom our foulest sins cannot rob of his compassions.  
By how much dearer Israel was to God, so much more odious is jeroboam that hath marred Israel, Terrible is that vengeance which God thunders against him by his Prophet; whose passionate message upbraids him with his promotions, chargeth him with his sins, and lastly denounceth his judgements; No mouth was fit to cast this royalty in the teeth of jeroboam, than that, by which it was first foretold, forepromised; Every circumstance of the advancement aggravates the sin, I exalted thee; Thou couldst not rise to honour alone. I exalted thee from among the people; not from the Peers; thy rank was but common, before this rise; I exalted thee from among the people, to be a Prince; subordinate height was not enough for thee, no seat would serve thee but a throne; Yea, to be a Prince of my people Israel; No Nation was for thee, but my chosen one; none but my royal inheritance; Neither did I raise thee into a vacant throne; a forlorn and forsaken principality might be thankless; but I rend the kingdom away from another, for thy sake, yea from what other but the grand child of David? out of his hands did I wrest the Sceptre, to give it into thine: Oh what high favours doth God sometimes cast away upon unworthy subjects? How do his abused bounties double both their sin, and judgement?  
The sins of this Prince were no less eminent than his obligations, therefore his judgements shall be no less eminent than his sins: How bitterly doth God express that, which shall be more bitter in the execution; Behold, I will bring evil upon the house of jeroboam, and will cut off from jeroboam, him that pisseth against the wall; and him that is shut up, and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone; Him that dieth of jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat, and him that dieth in the field, shall the fowls of the air eat; Oh heavy load that this disguised Princess must carry to her Husband; but because these evils, though grievous, yet might be remote, therefore for a present handsel of vengeance, she is dismissed with the sad tidings of the death of her son; When thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die; It is heavy news for a mother that she must lose her son, but worse yet that she may not see him; In these cases of our final departures, our presence gives some mitigation to our grief: might she but have closed the eyes, and have received the last breath of her dying son, the loss had been more tolerable; I know not how our personal farewell eases our heart, even whiles it increases our passion; but now she shall no more see, nor beseen of her Abijah; She shall no sooner be in the city, than he shall be out of the world: Yet more, to perfect her sorrow, she hears that in him alone there is found some good; the rest of her issue, are graceless; she must lose the good, and hold the graceless; he shall die to afflict her, they shall live to afflict her.  
Yet what a mixture is here of severity and favour in one act? favour to the son, severity to the father; Severity to the father, that he must lose such a son; favour to the son that he shall be taken from such a father; jeroboam is wicked, and therefore he shall not enjoy an Abijah; Abijah hath some good things, therefore he shall be removed from the danger of the depravation of jeroboam: Sometimes God strikes in favour, but more often forbears out of severity: The best are fittest for heaven; the earth is fittest for the worst; this is the region of sin, and misery, that of immortality; It is no argument of disfavour to be taken early from a well led life; as not of approbation to age in sin.  
As the soul of Abijah is favoured in the removal; so is his body with a burial; he shall have alone both tears and tomb; all the rest of his brethren shall have no grave but dogs and fowls; no sorrow but for their life; Tho the carcase be insensible of any position, yet honest Sepulture is a blessing; It is fit the body should be duly respected on earth, whose soul is glorious in heaven.   

Asa.  
THe two houses of juda, and Israel grow up now together in an ambitious rivality; this split plant branches out so severally, as if it had forgotten that ever it was joined in the root; The throne of David oft changeth the possessors; and more complaineth of their iniquity, than their remove; Abijam inherits the sins of his father Rehoboam, no less than his Crown; and so spends his three years, as if he had been no whit of kin to his grandfathers virtues. It is no news that Grace is not traduced, whiles vice is: Therefore is his reign short because it was wicked; It was a sad case when both the Kings of judah and Israel (though enemies) yet conspired in sin; Rehoboam (like his father Solomon) began graciously, but fell to Idolatry; as he followed his father, so his son, so his people followed him. Oh, what a face of a Church was here, when Israel worshipped jeroboam calves, when judah built them high places, and Images, and groves on every high hill, and under every green tree; On both hands God is forsaken, his Temple neglected, his worship adulterate; and this, not for some short brunt, but during the succession of two Kings; For, after the first three years Rehoboam changed his father's religion (as his shields) from gold to brass; the rest of his seventeen years were led in impiety; His Son Abijam trod in the same miry steps; and judah with them both; If there were any (doubtless there were some) faithful hearts, yet remaining in both kingdoms, during these heavy times, what a corasive it must needs have been to them, to see so deplored, and miserable a depravation?  
There was no visible Church upon earth, but here; and this what a one? Oh God, how low dost thou sometimes suffer thine own flock to be driven? What woeful wanes, and eclipses hast thou ordained for this heavenly body? Yet at last, an Asa shall arise from the loins, from the grave of Abijam,; he shall revive David and reform judah: The gloomy times of corruption shall not last always; The light of truth and peace shall at length break out, and bless the sad hearts of the righteous.  
It is a wonder how Asa should be good; of the seed of Abijam, of the soil of Maachah; both wicked, both Idolatrous; God would have us see that grace is from heaven, neither needs the helps of these earthly conveyances: Should not the children of good parents sometimes be evil, and the children of evil parents, good, virtue would seem natural, and the giver would lose his thankes: Thus we have seen a fair flower spring out of dung; and a well-fruited tree rise out of a sour stock; Education hath no less power to corrupt, than nature; It is therefore the just praise of Asa that being trained up under an Idolatrous Maachah, he maintained his piety; As contrarily, it is a shame for those that have been bred up in the precepts and examples of virtue and godliness, to fall off to lewdness, or superstition; There are four principal monuments of asa's virtue, as so many rich stones in his Diadem: He took away Sodomy, and Idols, out of judah; Who cannot wonder more that he found them there, than that he removed them? What a strange incongruity is this; Sodom in jerusalem? Idols in judah? Surely debauched profession proves desperate; Admit the Idols, ye cannot doubt of the Sodomy; If they have changed the glory of the uncorruptible God, into an Image, made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things, it is no marvel, if God give them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies, between themselves; If they changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever, no marvel, if God give them to vile affections, to change the natural use into that which is against nature; burning in lust one towards another, men with men working that which is unseemly.  
Contrarily, admit the Sodomy, ye cannot doubt of the Idols; unnatural beastliness in manners, is justly punished with a sottish dotage in religion; bodily pollution with spiritual; How should the soul care to be chaste, that keeps a stews in the body? Asa gins with the banishment of both; scouring judah of this double uncleanness: In vain should he have hoped to restore God to his Kingdom, whiles these abominations inhabited it; It is justly the main care of worthy, and religious Princes, to clear their Coasts of the foulest sins; Oh the unpartial zeal of Asa; There were Idols that challenged a prerogative of favour; the Idols that his father had made; all these he defaces; the name of a father cannot protect an Idol: The duty to his Parent cannot win him to a liking, to a forbearance of his mis-devotion; Yea, so much the more doth the heart of Asa rise against these puppets, for that they were the sin, the shame of his father: Did there want (think we) some Courtier of his Father's retinue, to say; Sir, favour the memory of him that begot you; you cannot demolish these statues, without the dishonour of their Erector; Hid your dislike at the least; It will be your glory to lay your finger upon this blot of your father's reputation; If you list not to allow his act, yet wink at it; The godly zeal of Asa turns the deaf ear to these monitors; and lets them see, that he doth not more honour a father, than hate an Idol; No dearness of person should take off the edge of our detestation of the sin. Nature is worthy of forgetfulness, and contempt, in opposition to the God of Nature; Upon the same ground, as he removed the Idols of his father Abijam, so for Idols he removed his Grandmother Maachah; she would not be removed from her obscene Idols, she is therefore removed from the station of her honour; That Princess had aged, both in her regency, and superstition; Under her rod was Asa brought up; and schooled in the rudiments of her Idolatry; whom she could not infect, she hoped to over-awe; so, as if Asa will not follow her gods, yet she presumes that she may retain her own; Doubtless, no means were neglected for her reclamation; none would prevail; Religious Asa gathers up himself; and gins to remember that he is a King, though a son; that she, though a mother, yet is a subject; that her eminence could not but countenance Idolatry; that her greatness suppressed religion; which he should in vain hope to reform, whiles her superstition swayed; forgetting therefore the challenges of nature, the awe of infancy, the custom of reverence, he strips her of that command, which he saw prejudicial to his Maker; All respects of flesh and blood must be trampled on, for God; Can that long-setled Idolatry want abettors? Questionless, some or other would say; This was the religion of your father Abijam, this of your grandfather Rehoboam, this of the latter days of your wise and great grandfather Solomon, this of your grandmother Maachah, this of your great grandmother Naamah; why should it not be yours? Why should you suspect either the wisdom, or piety, or salvation of so many Predecessors? Good Asa had learned to contemn prescription against a direct law; He had the grace to know it was no measuring truth by so modern antiquity; his eyes scorning to look so low, raise up themselves to the uncorrupt times of Solomon, to David, to Samuel, to the judges, to joshua, to Moses, to the Patriarches, to Noah, to the religious founders of the first world, to the first father of mankind; to Paradise, to heaven: In comparison of these, Maachah's God cannot overlook yesterday; the ancientest error is but a novice, to Truth; And if never any example could be pleaded for purity of religion; it is enough that the precept is express: He knew what God said in Sinai, and wrote in the Tables; Thou shalt not make to thyself any graved image, nor any similitude; Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them; If all the world had been an Idolater, ever since that word was given; he knew how little that precedent could avail for disobedience: Practice must be corrected by law, and not the law yield to practise; Maachah therefore goes down from her seat; her Idols from their grove; she to retiredness, they to the fire, and from thence to the water; Woeful deities that could both burn, and drown.  
Neither did the zeal of Asa more magnify itself in these privative acts of weeding out the corruptions of Religion, than in the positive acts of an holy plantation; In the falling of those Idolatrous shrines, the Temple of God flourishes; That doth he furnish with those sacred treasures, which were dedicated by himself, by his Progenitors; Like the true son of David, he would not serve God, cost-free; Rehoboam turned salomon's gold into brass; Asa turns Rehoboams brass into gold: Some of these vessels (it seems) Abijam (asa's father) had dedicated to God; but after his vow, inquired; yea withheld them; Asa, like a good son, pays his father's debts, & his own. It is a good sign of a well-meant devotion, when we can abide it chargeable; as contrarily, in the affairs of God a niggardly hand argues a cold, and hollow heart.  
All these were noble and excellent acts, the extirpation of Sodomy, the demolition of Idols, the removal of Maachah, the bounteous contribution to the Temple; but that which gives true life unto all these, is a sound root; asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days; No less laudable works than these have proceeded from Hypocrisy; which whiles they have carried away applause from men, have lost their thankes with God; All asa's gold was but dross to his pure intentions.  
But oh what great, and many infirmities may consist with uprightness? What allays of imperfection will there be found in the most refined soul? Four no small faults are found in truehearted Asa; First the high-places stood still, unremoved; What high places? There were some dedicated to the worship of false gods; these Asa took away; There were some mis-devoted to the worship of the true God; these he lets stand; There was gross Idolatry in the former; there was a weak will-worship in the latter; whiles he opposes impiety, he winks at mistake; yet even the variety of altars was forbidden by an express charge from God, who had confined his service to the Temple: With one breath doth God report both these; The high-places were not removed, yet nevertheless asa's heart was perfect. God will not see weaknesses, where he sees truth; How pleasing a thing is sincerity, that in favour thereof the mercy of our just God digests many an error: Oh God, let our hearts go upright, though our feet slide, the fall cannot (through thy grace) be deadly; how ever it may shame or pain us.  
Besides, to confront his rival of Israel, Baasha, this religious King of judah fetches in Benhadad the King of Syria into God's inheritance, upon too dear a rate; the breach of his league, the expilation of the Temple. All the wealth wherewith Asa had endowed the house of the Lord, was little enough to hire an Edomite, to betray his fidelity, and to invade Israel: Leagues may be made with Infidels; not at such a price, upon such terms; There can be no warrant for a wilful subornation of perfidiousness: In these cases of outward things, the mercy of God dispenseth with our true necessities, not with the affected: O Asa, where was thy piety, whiles thou robbest God, to corrupt an Infidel for the slaughter of Israelites? O Princes, where is your piety, whiles ye hire Turks to the slaughter of Christians? to the spoil of God's Church?  
Yet (which was worse) Asa doth not only employ the Syrian, but relies on him, relies not on God; A confidence less sinful cost his Grandfather David dear: And when Hanani God's Seer, the Herald of heaven, came to denounce war against him for these sins, Asa, in stead of penitence, breaks into choler: Fury sparkles in those eyes, which should have gushed out with water; Those lips that should have called for mercy, command revenge; How ill do these two agree, The heart of David, the tongue of jeroboam? That holy Grandfather of his would not have done so; when God's messenger reproved him for sin, he condemned it, and himself for it; I see his tears, I do not hear his threats: It ill becomes a faithful heart to rage, where it should sorrow; and in stead of submission, to persecute: Sometimes no difference appears betwixt a son of David, and the son of Nebat; Any man may do ill, but to defend it, to outface it, is for rebels; yet even upright Asa imprisons the Prophet, and crusheth his gainsayers. It were pity that the best man should be judged by every of his actions, and not by all; The course of our life must either allow or condemn us, not these sudden eruptions.  
As the life, so the Deathbed of Asa wanted not infirmities; Long and prosperous had his reign been; now after forty year's health and happiness, he that imprisoned the Prophet, is imprisoned in his bed; There is more pain in those fetters which God put upon Asa, than those, which Asa puts upon Hanani; And now, behold, he that in his war seeks to Benhadad, not to God, in his sickness seeks not to God, but to Physicians: We cannot easily put upon God a greater wrong, than the alienation of our trust; Earthly means are for use, not for confidence; We may, we must employ them; we may not rely upon them; Well may God challenge our trust, as his peculiar; which if we cast upon any creature, we deify it; Whence have herbs, and drugs, and Physicians, their being, and efficacy, but from that divine hand? No marvel then if asa's gout struck to his heart, and his feet carried him to his grave, since his heart was miscarried carried for the cure of his feet, to an injurious misconfidence in the means, with neglect of his Maker.   

ELIjAH with the SAREPTAN.  
WHo should be matched with Moses, in the hill of Tabor, but Elijah? Surely next after Moses, there was never any Prophet of the old Testament more glorious than he: None more glorious, none more obscure; The other Prophets are not mentioned without the name of their parent, for the mutual honour both of the father, and the son; Elijah (as if he had been a son of the earth) comes forth with the bare mention of the place of his birth; Meanness of descent is no block in God's way to the most honourable vocations; It matters not whose son he be whom God will grace with his service: In the greatest honours that humane nature is capable of, God forgets our parents: As when we shall be raised up to a glorious life, there shall be no respect had to the loins whence we came; so it is proportionally in these spiritual advancements.  
These times were fit for an Elijah; an Elijah was fit for them; The eminentest Prophet is reserved for the corruptest age; Israel had never such a King as Ahab, for impiety; never so miraculous a Prophet, as Elijah; This Elijah is addressed to this Ahab; The God of Spirits knows how to proportion men to the occasions; and to raise up to himself such witnesses, as may be most able to convince the world: A mild Moses was for the low estate of afflicted Israel; mild of spirit, but mighty in wonders; mild of spirit, because he had to do with a persecuted, and yet a tetchy and perverse people; mighty in wonders, because he had to do with a Pharaoh: A grave and holy Samuel was for the quiet consistence of Israel; A fierie-spirited Elijah was for the desperatest declination of Israel: And if in the late times of the depraved condition of his Church, God have raised up some spirits that have been more warm, and stirring, than those of common mould, we cannot censure the choice, when we see the service.  
The first word that we hear from Elijah, is an oath, and a threat to Ahab, to Israel: As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew, nor rain these years, but according to my word: He comes in like a Tempest, who went out in a whirlwind; Doubtless he had spoken fair, & peaceable invitations to Israel (though we hear them not) This was but the storm which followed his repulse, their obstinacy; After many solicitations, and warnings, Israel is stricken by the same tongue that had prayed for it; Elijah dares avouch these judgements to their head; to Ahab: I do not so much wonder at the boldness of Elijah, as at his power; Yea, who so sees his power, can no whit wonder at his boldness: How could he be but bold to the face of a man, who was thus powerful with God? As if God had lent him the keys of heaven to shut it up, and open it at pleasure; he can say, There shall be neither dew, nor rain, these years, but according to my word; Oh God, how fare it hath pleased thee to communicate thyself to a weak man? What Angel could ever say thus? Thy hand, o Lord, is not shortened; Why art thou not thus marvelous in the ministers of thy Gospel? Is it for that their miracles were ours? Is it for that thou wouldst have us live by faith, not by sense? Is it for that our task is more spiritual, and therefore more abstracted from bodily helps? we cannot command the sun with joshua, nor the thunder with Samuel, nor the rain with Elijah; It shall content us if we can fix the Sun of righteousness in the soul, if we can thunder out the judgements of God against sin, if we can water the earthen hearts of men with the former, and latter rain of heavenly doctrine.  
Elijahs mantle cannot make him forget his flesh; whiles he knows himself a Prophet, he remembers to be a man; he doth not therefore arrogate this power, as his own, but publisheth it as his masters; This restraint must be according to his word; and that word was from an higher mouth, than his: He spoke from him by whom he swore; whose word was as sure as his life; and therefore he durst say, As the Lord liveth, there shall be no rain: Man only can denounce what God will execute; which when it is once revealed, can no more fail, than the Almighty himself.  
He that had this interest and power in heaven, what needed he flee from an earthly pursuit? Can his prayers restrain the clouds, and not hold the hands of flesh and blood? Yet behold Elijah must flee from Ahab, & hide him by the brook Cherith; The wisdom of God doth not think fit so to make a beaten path of miracles, as that he will not walk beside it; He will have our own endeavours concur to our preservation; Elijah wanted neither courage of heart, nor strength of hand, and yet he must trust to his feet for safety; How much more lawful is it for our impotency to flee from persecution? Even that God sends him to hide his head, who could as easily have protected, as nourished him: He that wilfully stands still to latch dangers, tempteth God in stead of trusting him.  
The Prophet must be gone; not without order taken for his purveyance; Oh the strange Cators for Elijah; I have commanded the Ravens to feed thee there; I know not whether had been more miraculous, to preserve him without meat, or to provide meat by such mouths: The Raven, a devouring and ravenous fowl, that uses to snatch away meat from others, brings it to him: He that could have fed Elijah by Angels, will feed him by Ravens; There was then in Israel an hospital Obadiah, that kept a secret table in two several caves, for an hundred Prophets of God; There were seven thousand faithful Israelites (in spite of the Devil) who had never bowed knee to Baal; Doubtless, any of these would have had a trencher ready for Elijah, and have thought himself happy to have defrauded his own maw, for so noble a Prophet; God rather chooses to make use of the most unlikely fowls of the air, than their bounty; that he might give both to his Prophet, and us a pregnant proof of his absolute command over all his creatures, and win our trust in all extremities. Who can make question of the provisions of God, when he sees the very Ravens shall forget their own hunger, and purvey for Elijah? Oh God, thou that providest meat for the fowls of the air, wilt make the fowls of the air provide meat for man, rather than his dependence on thee shall be disappointed; Oh let not our faith be wanting to thee, thy care can never be wanting to us.  
Elijah might have lived for the time with bread, and water; neither had his fare been worse than his fellows in the caves of Obadijah; but the munificence of God will have his meals better furnished; the Ravens shall bring him both bread, and flesh twice in the day; It is not for a persecuted Prophet to long after delicates; God gives order for competency, not for wantonness; Not out of the dainty compositions in Iezebels kitchen, nor out of the pleasant Wines in her cellar, would God provide for Elijah; but the Ravens shall bring him plain, and homely victuals, and the river shall afford him drink; If we have wherewith to sustain nature (though not to pamper it) we own thankes to the giver; Those of God's family may not be curious, not disdainful: Ill doth it become a servant of the highest, to be a slave to his palate. Doubtless, one bit from the mouth of the Raven was more pleasing to Elijah, than a whole Tablefull of Ahab: Nothing is more comfortable to God's children then to see the sensible demonstrations of the divine care, and providence.  
The brook Cherith cannot last always; that stream shall not for Elijahs sake be exempted from the universal exsiccation; Yea the Prophet himself feels the smart of this drought, which he had denounced; It is no unusual thing with God to suffer his own dear children to be enwrapped in the common calamities of offenders: He makes difference in the use, and issue of their stripes, not in the infliction; The corn is cut down with the weeds, but to a better purpose.  
When the brook fails God hath a Zarephath for Elijah; In stead of the Ravens, a Widow shall there feed him; yea herself by him: Who can enough wonder at the pitch of this selective providence of the Almighty; Zarephath was a town of Sidon, and and therefore without the pale of the Church; Povertie was the best of this Widow, she was a Pagan by birth, heathnishly superstitious by institution; Many Widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heaven was shut up three years, and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land, but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto this Sarepta, a City of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow; He that first fed the Prophet by the mouth of unclean fowls, will now feed him by the hand of an heathenish Hostess: His only command sanctifies those creatures which by a general charge were legally impure.  
There were other birds besides Ravens, other widows besides this Sareptan; none but the Ravens, none but the Sareptan shall nourish Elijah. God's choice is not led in the string of humane reason; his holy will is the guide, and the ground of all his elections. It is not in him that wils, nor in him that runs, but in God that shows mercy.  
The Prophet follows the call of his God; the same hand that brought him to the gate of Sarepta, led also this poor widow out of her doors; she shall then go to seek her sticks, when she shall be found of Elijah; she thought of her hearth, she thought not of a Prophet; when the man of God calls to her, Fetch me a little water (I pray thee) in a vessel, that I may drink. It was no easy suit in so droughty a season; and yet, at the first sight, the Prophet dares second it with a greater; Bring me a morsel of bread in thine hand; That long drought had made every drop, every crumb precious; yet the Prophet is emboldened by the charge of God to call for both water and bread; He had found the Ravens so officious, that he cannot make doubt of the Sareptan: She sticks not at the water; she would not stick at the bread, if necessity had not pressed her; As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and behold I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and dye.  
If she knew not the man, how did she know his God? and if she knew not the God of Elijah, how did she swear by him? Certainly though she were without the bounds of Israel, yet she was within the borders; so much she had gained by her neighbourhood; to know an Israelite, a Prophet by his habit; to know the only living God was the God of the Prophet, the God of Israel; and if this had not been, it is no marvel if the widow knew Elijah, since the Ravens knew him. It was high time for the Prophet to visit the Sareptan; pooresoule, she was now making her last meal; after one mean morsel she was yielding herself over to death. How opportunely hath God provided succours to our distresses? It is his glory to help at a pinch; to begin where we have given over: that our relief might be so much the more welcome, by how much it is less looked for.  
But oh, what a trial is this of the faith of a weak Proselyte, if she were so much; Fear not, go do as thou hast said; but make me thereof a little cake first; and bring it to me, and after make for thee, and thy son; For, thus saith the God of Israel; The barrel of meal shall not waste, nor the cruse of oil fail till the day that God send rain upon the earth; She must go spend upon a stranger part of that little she hath, in hope of more which she hath not, which she may have; she must part with her present food, which she saw, in trust of future which she could not see; she must rob her sense in the exercise of her belief; and shorten her life in being, upon the hope of a protraction of it, in promise; she must believe God will miraculously increase what she hath yielded to consume; she must first feed the stranger with her last victuals, and then after herself, and her son; Some sharp dame would have shaken up the Prophet, and have sent him away with an angry repulse: Bold Israelite, there is no reason in this request, were't thou a friend, or a brother, with what face couldst thou require to pull my last bit out of my mouth? Had I superfluity of provision, thou mightst hope for this effect of my charity; now, that I have but one morsel for myself, and my son, this is an injurious importunity; what can induce thee to think thy life (an unknown traveller) should be more dear to me, than my sons, than my own? How uncivil is this motion that I should first make provision for thee, in this dying extremity? It had been too much to have begged my last scraps; Thou tellest me the meal shall not waste, nor the oil fail; how shall I believe thee? Let me see that done, before thou eatest; In vain should I challenge thee when the remainder of my poor store is consumed; If thou canst so easily multiply victuals, how is it that thou wantest? Do that beforehand, which thou promisest shall be afterwards performed, there will be no need of my little. But this good Sareptan was wrought by God not to mistrust a Prophet; she will do what he bids, and hope for what he promises; she will live by faith rather than by sense; and give away the present, in the confidence of a future remuneration; first, she bakes Elijahs cake, than her own; not grudging to see her last morsels go down another's throat, whiles herself was famishing. How hard precepts doth God lay where he intends bounty; Had not God meant her preservation, he had suffered her to eat her last cake alone, without any interpellation: now the mercy of the Almighty purposing as well this miraculous favour to her, as to his Prophet, requires of her this task, which flesh and blood would have thought unreasonable. So we are wont to put hard questions to those scholars, whom we would promote to higher forms. So in all achievements the difficulty of the enterprise makes way for the glory of the actor.  
Happy was it for this widow, that she did not shut her hand to the man of God; that she was no niggard of her last handful; Never corn or olive did so increase in growing, as here in consuming; This barrel, this cruse of hers had no bottom; the barrel of meal wasted not, the cruse of oil failed not; Behold, not getting, not saving, is the way to abundance, but giving. The mercy of God crownes our beneficence with the blessing of store; who can fear want by a merciful liberality, when he sees the Sareptan had famished, if she had not given, and by giving, abounded? With what thankful devotion must this woman every day needs look upon her barrel, and cruse, wherein she saw the mercy of God renewed to her continually? Doubtless her soul was no less fed by faith, than her body with this supernatural provision. How welcome a guest must Elijah needs be to this widow, that gave her life and her sons to her, for his board? yea, that in that woeful famine gave her and her son their board for his houseroom.  
The dearth thus overcome, the mother looks hopefully upon her only son, promising herself much joy in his life and prosperity; when an inexpected sickness surpriseth him, and doth that which the famine but threatened; When can we hold ourselves secure from evils? no sooner is one of these Sergeants compounded withal, than we are arrested by another.  
How ready we are to mistake the grounds of our afflictions; and to cast them upon false causes; The passionate mother cannot find whither to impute the death of her son, but to the presence of Elijah; to whom she comes distracted with perplexity, not without an unkind challenge of him from whom she had received both that life she had lost, and that she had; What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God, Art thou come to me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?  
As if her son could not have died if Elijah had not been her guest; when as her son had died, but for him; why should she think that the Prophet had saved him from the famine, to kill him with sickness? As if God had not been free in his actions; and must needs strike by the same hands, by which he preserved; She had the grace to know that her affliction was for her sin; yet was so unwise, to imagine the arrearages of her iniquities had not been called for, if Elijah had not been the remembrancer; He, who had appeased God towards her, is suspected to have incensed him; This wrongful misconstruction was enough to move any patience; Elijah was of an hot spirit; yet his holiness kept him from fury; This challenge rather increased the zeal of his prayer, than stirred his choler to the offendent: He takes the dead child out of his mother's bosom, and lays him upon his own bed, and cries unto the Lord; Oh Lord my God, hast thou brought evil also upon the Widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? In stead of chiding the Sareptan, out of the fervency of his soul, he humbly expostulates with his God: His only remedy is in his prayer; that which shut heaven for rain, must open it for life. Every word enforceth; First he pleads his interest in God; Oh Lord my God; then the quality of the patiented; a Widow, and therefore, both most distressed with the loss, and most peculiar to the charge of the Almighty. Then, his interest, as in God, so in this patiented; with whom I sojourn; as if the stroke were given to himself, through her sides; and lastly, the quality of the punishment, By slaying her son, the only comfort of her life; and in all these, implying the scandal, that must needs arise from this event, where ever it should be noised, to the name of his God, to his own; when it should be said; Lo how Elijahs entertainment is rewarded; Surely the Prophet is either impotent, or unthankful.  
Neither doth his tongue move thus only; Thrice doth he stretch himself upon the dead body; as if he could wish to infuse of his own life into the child; and so often calls to his God for the restitution of that soul: What can Elijah ask to be denied? The Lord heard the voice of his Prophet, the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived: What miracle is impossible to faithful prayers? There cannot be more difference betwixt Elijahs devotion, and ours, than betwixt supernatural and ordinary acts; If he therefore obtained miraculous favours by his prayers, do we doubt of those which are within the sphere of nature, and use? What could we want, if we did not slack to ply heaven with our prayers?  
Certainly Elijah had not been premonished of this sudden sickness, and death of the child; He who knew the remote affairs of the world, might not know what God would do within his own roof; The greatest Prophet must content himself with so much of God's counsel, as he will please to reveal; and he will sometimes reveal the greater secrets, and conceal the less, to make good both his own liberty, and man's humiliation. So much more unexpected as the stroke was, so much more welcome is the cure; How joyfully doth the man of God take the revived child into his arms, and present him to his mother? How doth his heart leap within him, at this proof of God's favour to him, mercy to the widow, power to the child?  
What life and joy did now show itself in the face of that amazed mother, when she saw again the eyes of her son fixed upon hers; when she felt his flesh warm, his motions vital? Now she can say to Elijah; By this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth; Did she not till now know this? Had she not said before, What have I to do with thee, o thou man of God? Were not her cruse, and her barrel sufficient proofs of his divine commission? Doubtless what her meal and oil had assured her of, the death of her son made her to doubt; and now the reviving did re-ascertaine. Even the strongest faith sometimes staggereth, and needeth new acts of heavenly supportation; the end of miracles is confirmation of truth; It seems had this widow's son continued dead, her belief had been buried in his grave: notwithstanding her meal and her oil, her soul had languished: The mercy of God is fain to provide new helps for our infirmities, and graciously condescends to our own terms, that he may work out our faith, and salvation.   

ELIjAH with the BAALITES.  
THree yeeares and an half, did Israel lie gasping under a parching drought, and miserable famine: No creature was so odious to them, as Elijah, to whom they ascribed all their misery; methinks I hear how they railed on, and cursed the Prophet; How much envy must the servants of God undergo for their master? Nothing but the tongue was Elijahs, the hand was Gods; the Prophet did but say what God would do: I do not see them fall out with their sins, that had deserved the judgement, but with the messenger that denounced it; Baal had no fewer servants than if there had been both rain, and plenty: Elijah safely spends this storm under the lee of Sarepta; Some three years hath he lain close in that obscure corner, and lived upon the barrel, and cruse which he had multiplied: At last, God calls him forth, Go show thyself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth; No rain must fall till Elijah were seen of Ahab; He carried away the clouds with him, he must bring them again: The King, the people of Israel, shall be witnesses that God will make good the word, the oath of his Prophet; Should the rain have fallen in Elijahs absence, who could have known it was by his procurement? God holds the credit of his messengers precious, and neglects nothing that may grace them in the eyes of the world; Not the necessity of seven thousand religious Israelites could crack the word of one Elijah; There is nothing wherein God is more tender, than in approving the veracity of himself in his ministers.  
Lewd Ahab hath an holy Steward; As his name was, so was he, a servant of God, whiles his Master was a slave to Baal. He that reserved seven thousand in the kingdom of Israel, hath reserved an Obadiah in the Court of Israel: and, by him, hath reserved them: Neither is it likely there had been so many free hearts in the country, if Religion had not been secretly backed in the Court; It is a great happiness when God gives favour, and honour to the Virtuous. Elijah did not lie more close in Sarepta, than Obadiah did in the Court; He could not have done so much service to the Church, if he had not been as secret, as good; Policy and religion do as well together, as they do ill asunder: The Dove without the Serpent is easily caught; the Serpent without the Dove stings deadly; Religion without policy is too simple to be safe: Policy, without religion, is too subtle to be good; Their match makes themselves secure, and many happy.  
Oh degenerated estate of Israel; any thing was now lawful there, saving piety; It is well if God's Prophets can find an hole to hide their heads in; They must needs be hard driven when fifty of them are fain to crowd together into one cave; There they had both shade and repast: Good Obadiah hazards his own life to preserve theirs; and spends himself in that extreme dearth, upon their necessary diet; Bread and water was more now, than other while, wine, and delicates; Whether shall we wonder more at the mercy of God in reserving an hundred Prophets, or in thus sustaining them being reserved; When did God ever leave his Israel unfurnished of some Prophets? When did he leave his Prophet's vnprouided of some Obadiah? How worthy art thou, o Lord, to be trusted with thine own charge? Whiles there are men upon earth, or birds in the air, or Angels in heaven, thy messengers cannot want provision.  
Goodness carries away trust, where it cannot have imitation. Ahab divides with Obadiah the surucy of the whole land; They two set their own eyes on work, for the search of water, of pasture, to preserve the horses, and mules alive: Oh the poor and vain cares of Ahab; He casts to kill the Prophet, to save the cattle; he never seeks to save his own soul, to destroy Idolatry; he takes thought for grass, none for mercy: Carnal hearts are ever either grovelling on the earth, or delving into it; no more regarding God, or their souls, than if they either were not, or were worthless.  
Elijah hears of the progress, and offers himself to the view of them both; Here was wisdom in this courage; First, he presents himself to Obadiah, ere he will be seen of Ahab; that Ahab might upon the report of so discreet an informer, digest the expectation of his meeting; Then he takes the opportunity of Ahabs' presence, when he might be sure jezebel was away.  
Obadiah meets the Prophet, knows him, and (as if he had seen God in him) falls on his face to him, whom he knew his master persecuted: Though a great Peer, he had learned to honour a Prophet. No respect was too much for the precedent of that sacred college; To the poor boarder of the Sareptan, here was no less, than a prostration, and My Lord Elijah; from the great High Steward of Israel; Those that are truly gracious cannot be niggardly of their observances to the messengers of God.  
Elijah receives the reverence, returns a charge; Go tell thy Lord, Behold Elijah is here: Obadiah finds this load too heavy; neither is he more stricken with the boldness, than with the unkindness of this command; boldness in respect of Elijah; unkindness in respect of himself: For, thus he thinks; If Elijah do come to Ahab, he dies; If he do not come, I die; If it be known that I met him, and brought him not, it is death; If I say that he will come voluntarily, and God shall alter his intentions, it is death: How unhappy a man am I, that must be either Elijahs executioner, or my own: Were Ahabs' displeasure but smoking, I might hope to quench it, but now that the flame of it hath broken forth to the notice, to the search of all the kingdoms, and nations round about, it may consume me, I cannot extinguish it; This message were for an enemy of Elijah; for a client of Baal; As for me, I have well approved my true devotion to God, my love to his Prophets: What have I done, that I should be singled out either to kill Elijah, or to be killed for him? Many an hard plunge must that man needs be driven to, who would hold his conscience together with the service, and favour of a Tyrant: It is an happy thing to serve a just master; there is no danger, no strain in such obedience.  
But, when the Prophet binds his resolution with an oath, and clears the heart of Obadiah from all fears, from all suspicions, the good man dares be the messenger of that, which he saw was decreed in heaven: Doubtless Ahab startled to hear of Elijah coming to meet him; as one that did not more hate, than fear the Prophet. Well might he think; thus long, thus fare have I sought Elijah, Elijah would not come to seek me, but under a sure guard, and with some strange commission; His course mantle hath the advantage of my robe and Sceptre; If I can command a piece of the earth, I see he can command heaven: The edge of his revenge is taken off with a doubtful expectation of the issue: and now when Elijah offers himself to the eyes of Ahab; He who durst not strike, yet durst challenge the Prophet, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? jeroboam hand was still in Ahabs' thoughts; he holds it not so safe to smite, as to expostulate: He, that was the head of Israel, speaks out that which was in the heart of all his people, that Elijah was the cause of all their sorrow: Alas what hath the righteous Prophet done? He taxed their sin, he foretold the judgement; he deserved it not, he inflicted it not; yet he smarts, and they are guilty: As if some fond people should accuse the herald or the Trumpet as the cause of their war; or as if some ignorant peasant, when he sees his fowls bathing in his pond, should cry out of them, as the causes of foul weather.  
Oh the heroical Spirit of Elijah! he stands alone a mids all the train of Ahab, and dares not only repel this charge, but retort it; I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim. No earthly glory can daunt him who hath the clear and heartening visions of God; This holy Seer discerns the true cause of our sufferings, to be our sins; Foolish men are plagued for their offences; and it is no small part of their plague that they see it not; The only common disturber of men, families, cities, kingdoms, worlds, is sin; There is no such traitor to any state, as the wilfully wicked; The quietest and most plausible offender is secretly seditious, and stirreth quarrels in heaven.  
The true messengers of God carry authority even where they are maligned; Elijah doth at once reprove the King, and require of him the improvement of his power, in gathering all Israel to Carmel, in fetching thither all the Prophets of Baal. Baal was rich in Israel, whiles God was poor; Whiles God hath but one hundred Prophets, hid closely in Obadiah's caves, Baal hath eight hundred and fifty; four hundred and fifty dispersed over the villages and towns of Israel, four hundred at the Court; God's Prophets are glad of bread and water, whiles the four hundred Trencher-Prophets of jezebel feed on her dainties: They lurk in caves whiles these Lord it in the pleasantest groves. Outward prosperity is a false note of truth: All these with all Israel, doth Elijah require Ahab to summon unto Carmel. It is in the power of Kings to command the assembly of the Prophets; the Prophet sues to the Prince for the indiction of this Synod: They are injurious to Sovereignty who arrogate this power to none but spiritual hands. How is it that Ahab is as ready to perform this charge, as Elijah to move it? I dare answer for his heart, that it was not drawn with love: Was it out of the sense of one judgement, and fear of another? he smarted with the dearth and drought, and well thinks Elijah would not be so round with him, for nothing: Was it out of an expectation of some miraculous exploit which the Prophet would do in the sight of all Israel? Or, was it out of the overruling power of the Almighty; The heart of kings is in the hand of God, and he turns it which way soever he pleaseth.  
Israel is met together, Elijah rates them, not so much for their superstition, as for their unsettledness, and irresolution: One Israelite serves God, another Baal; yea the same Israelite perhaps serves both God & Baal. How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him; Nothing is more odious to God than a profane neutrality in main oppositions of religion; To go upright in a wrong way, is a less eyesore to God, than to halt betwixt right and wrong; The Spirit wisheth that the Laodicean were either hot or cold; either temper would be better borne, than neither, than both; In reconcileable differences nothing is more safe than indifferency both of practice, and opinion; but in cases of so necessary hostility, as betwixt God, and Baal, he that is on neither side is the deadliest enemy to both; Less hateful are they to God that serve him not at all, than they that serve him with a rival.  
Whether out of guiltiness, or fear, or uncertainty, Israel is silent; yet whiles their mouth was shut, their ears were open: It was a fair motion of Elijah; I am only remaining a Prophet of the Lord, Baal's Prophets are four hundred and fifty; Let them choose one bullock, let me choose another; Their devotion shall be combined, mine single; The God that consumes the sacrifice by fire from heaven, let him be God; Israel cannot but approve it; the Prophets of Baal cannot refuse it; they had the appearance of the advantage, in their number, in the favour of King, and people. Oh strange disputation, wherein the argument which must be used is fire; the place whence it must be fetched, heaven; the mood and figure, devotion; the conclusion, death to the overcomne.  
Had not Elijah, by divine instinct, been assured of the event, he durst not have put religion upon such an hazard; That God commanded him this trial, who meant confusion to the authors of Idolatry, victory to the truth; His power shall be approved both by fire and by water; first by fire, then by water; There was no less terror in the fire, than mercy in the rain; It was fit they should be first humbled by his terrors, that they might be made capable of his mercy; and by both, might be won to repentance. Thus still the fears of the law make way for the influences of grace, neither do those sweet and heavenly dews descend upon the soul, till way be mad● for them by the terrible flashes of the law.  
justly doth Elijah urge this trial: Gods sacrifices were used to none but heavenly fires; whereas the base and earthly religion of the heathen contented itself with gross and natural flames.  
The Prophets of Baal durst not (though with faint and guilty hearts) but embrace the condition; they dress their bullock, and lay it ready upon the wood; and send out their cries to Baal from morning until midday; O Baal hear us; What a yelling was here, of four hundred and fifty throats, tearing the skies for an answer? What leaping was here upon the altar, as if they would have climbed up to fetch that fire, which would not come down alone? Mount Carmel might give an Echo to their voice, heaven gave none; In vain do they roar out, and weary themselves in imploring a dumb and deaf deity; Grave and austere Elijah holds it not too ligh to flout their zealous devotion; he laughs at their tears, and plays upon their earnest; Cry aloud, for he is a God, either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is travelling, or he is sleeping, and must be awaked.  
Scorns and taunts are the best answers for serious Idolatry; Holiness will bear us out in disdainful scoffs, and bitterness against wilful superstition; No less in the indignation at these insulting frumps, than zeal of their own safety, and reputation, do these Idolatrous Prophets now rend their throats with inclamations, and that they may assure the beholders they were not in , they cut, and flash themselves, with knives, and lancers, and solicit the fire with their blood; How much painfulness there is in mis-religion? I do not find that the true God ever required or accepted the selfe-tortures of his servants; He love's true inward mortification of our corruptions, he love's the subduing of our spiritual insurrections, by due exercises of severe restraint; he takes no pleasure in our blood, in our carcases: They mistake God that think to please him by destroying that nature, which he hath made; and measure truth by rigour of outward extremities; Elijah drew no blood of himself, the Priests of Baal did; How fain would the Devil (whom these Idolaters adored) have answered the suit of his suppliants? What would that ambitious spirit have given, that as he was cast down from heaven like lightning, so now he might have fallen down in that form upon his altar?  
God forbids it: All the powers of darkness can no more show one flash of fire in the air, than avoid the unquenchable fire in hell: How easy were it for the power of the Almighty to cut short all the tyrannical usurpations of that wicked one, if his wisdom and justice did not find the permission thereof useful to his holy purposes.  
These Idolaters now towards evening, grew so much more vehement, as they were more hopeless; and at last when neither their shrieks, nor their wounds, nor their mad motions could prevail, they sit down hoarse and weary; tormenting themselves afresh with their despairs, and with the fears of better success of their adversary; When Elijah calls the people to him; (the witnesses of his sincere proceed) and taking the opportunity both of the time, (the just hour of the evening sacrifice) and of the place, a ruined Altar of God, now by him repaired, convinces Israel with his miracle, and more ●uts these Baalites with envy, than they had cut themselves with their lancers.  
Oh holy Prophet, why didst thou not save this labour? what needed these unseasonable reparations? Was there not an altar, was there not a sacrifice ready prepared to thine hand? that which the Prophets of Baal had addressed, stood still waiting for that fire from thee, which the founder's threatened in vain: the stones were not more impure, either for their touch, or their intentions; yet such was thy detestation of Idolatry, that thou abhorredst to meddle with aught, which their wickedness had defiled: Even that altar whose ruins thou didst thus repair, was mis-erected; though to the name of the true God; yet didst thou find it better to make up the breaches of that altar, which was mis-consecrated to the service of thy God, than to make use of that pile, which was idolatrously devoted to a false god; It cannot be but safe to keep aloof from participation with Idolaters, even in those things which not only in nature, but in use are   
Elijah lays twelve stones in his repaired altar, according to the number of the Tribes of the Sons of jacob: Alas, ten of these were perverted to Baal: The Prophet regards not their present Apostasy; he regards the ancient covenant, that was made with their Father Israel; he regards their first station, to which he would reduce them: he knew that the unworthiness of Israel could not make God forgetful: he would by this monument put Israel in mind of their own degeneration, and forgetfulness. He employs those many hands for the making a large trench round about the altar; and causes it to be filled with those precious remainders of water, which the People would have grudged to their own mouths; neither would easily have parted with, but (as those that pour down a pail full into a dry pump) in the hope of fetching more. The altar, the trench is full; A barrel full is poured out for each of the Tribes, that every Tribe might be afterwards replenished. Ahab and Israel are no less full of expectation; and now, when Gods appointed hour of the evening sacrifice was come, Elijah comes confidently to his altar, and looking up into heaven, says, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Let it be known this day, that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy Servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word: Hear me, O Lord hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast turned their hearts back again.  
The Baalites prayers were not more tedious, than Elijahs was short; and yet more pithy than short; charging God with the care of his covenant, of his truth, of his glory. It was Elijah that spoke loud; Oh strong cries of faith, that pierce the heavens, and irresistably make their way to the throne of grace; Israel shall well see that Elijahs God whom they have forsaken, is neither talking, nor pursuing, nor travelling, nor sleeping: Instantly, the fire of the Lord falls from heaven and consumes the  sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust, and licks up the water that was in the trench; With what terror must Ahab and Israel needs see this fire rolling down out of the sky, and alighting with such fury so near their heads; heads no less fit for this flame, than the sacrifice of Elijah; Well might they have thought, How easily might this fire have dilated itself, and have consumed our bodies, as well as the wood and stone, & have licked up our blood, as well as that water? I know not whether they had the grace to acknowledge the mercy of God, they could do no less than confess his power, The Lord is God, The Lord is God.  
The iron was now hot with this heavenly fire, Elijah stays not till it cool again, but strikes immediately: Take the Prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape. This wager was for life; Had they prevailed in procuring this fire, and Elijah failed of effect; his head had been forfeited to them: now, in the contrary success, theirs are lost to him. Let no man complain that those holy hands were bloody; This sacrifice was no less pleasing to God, than that other. Both the man and the act were extraordinary, and led by a peculiar instinct; Neither doth the Prophet this without the assent of the supreme Magistrate; who was now so affected with this miraculous work, that he could not in the heat of that conviction, but allow the justice of such sentence. Fare be it from us to accuse God's commands or executions of cruelty; It was the ancient and peremptory charge of God, that the authors of Idolatry and seduction should dye the death; no eye, no hand might spare them: The Prophet doth but move the performance of that Law, which Israel could not without sin have omitted. It is a merciful and thankworthy severity to rid the world of the Ringleaders of wickedness.   

ELIjAH running before AHAB, Flying from JEZEBEL.  
I Hear no news of the four hundred Prophets of the Groves; They lie close under the wing of jezebel under their pleasing shades; neither will be suffered to undergo the danger of this trial; the carkeises of their fellows help to fill up the halfedry channel of K●shon; justice is no sooner done than Ahab hears news of mercy from Elijah; Get thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain: Their meeting was not more harsh, than their parting was friendly; It seems Ahab had spent all that day fasting in an eager attendance of those conflicting Prophets; It must needs be late, ere the execution could be done, Elijahs part began not till the evening; So fare must the King of Israel be from taking thought for the massacre of those four hundred and fifty Baalites, that now, he may go eat his bread with joy, and drink his wine with a cheerful heart: for God accepteth this work, and testifies it in the noise of much rain; Every drop of that Idolatrous blood was answered with a shower of rain, with a stream of water, and plenty poured down in every shower; A sensible blessing follows the unpartial strokes of severe justice: Nothing is more cruel than an unjust pity.  
No ears but Elijahs could as yet perceive a sound of rain; the clouds were not yet gathered, the vapours were not yet risen, yet Elijah hears that which shall be: Those that are of God's Council can discern either favours or judgements afar off; the slack apprehensions of carnal hearts make them hard to believe that, as future, which the quick and refined senses of the faithful perceive as present.  
Ahab goes up to his repast; Elijah goes up to his prayers: That day had been painful to him, the vehemence of his spirit draws him to a neglect of his body; The holy man climbs up to the top of Carmel, that now he may talk with his God alone: neither is he sooner ascended, than he casts himself down upon the earth: He bows his knees to God, and bows his face down to his knees; by this humble posture acknowledging his awful respects to that Majesty which he implored; We cannot prostrate our bodies, or souls, too low to that infinitely-glorious Deity, who is the Creator of both.  
His thoughts were more high than his body was low; what he said we know not, we know that what he said opened the heavens, that for three years and an half had been shut up; God had said before, I will send rain upon the earth; yet Elijah must pray for what God did promise; The promises of the Almighty do not discharge our prayers, but suppose them; he will do what he undertakes, but we must sue for that which we would have him do: Our petitions are included in the decrees, in the engagements of God.  
The Prophet had newly seen and caused the fire to descend immediately out of heaven, he doth not look the water should do so; he knew that the rain must come from the clouds, and that the clouds must arise from vapours, and those vapours from the Sea, thence doth he expect them: But as not willing that the thoughts of his fixed devotion should be distracted, he doth not go himself, only sends his servant to bring him the news of his success: At the first sight nothing appears: Seven times must he walk to that prospect; and not till his last view can discern aught: All that while is the Prophet in his prayers, neither is any whit daunted with that delay: Hope holds up the head of our holy desires, and perseverance crownes it: If we receive not an answer to our suits at the sixth motion, we may not be out of countenance, but must try the seventh: At last, a little cloud arises out of the Sea, of an hand breadth; So many, so fervent prayers cannot but pull water out of heaven as well as fire: Those sighs reflect upon the earth, and from the earth reflect upon heaven, from heaven rebound upon the Sea, and raise vapours up thence to heaven again; If we find that our prayers are heard for the substance, we may not cavil at the quantity; Even an hand-broad cloud contents Elijah, and fills his heart full of joy and thankfulness; He knew well this meteor was not at the biggest, it was newly borne of the womb of the waters, and in some minutes of age must grow to a large stature; stay but a while, and heaven is covered with it; From how small beginnings have great matters arisen? It is no otherwise in all the gracious proceed of God with the soul; scarce sensible are those first works of his spirit in the heart, which grow up at last to the wonder of men, and applause of Angels.  
Well did Elijah know that God, who is perfection itself, would not defile his hand with an inchoate and scanted favour: as one therefore that foresaw the face of heaven overspread with this cloudy spot, he sends to Ahab to hasten his chariot, that the rain stop him not; It is long since Ahab feared this let; never was the news of a danger more welcome: Doubtless the King of Israel whiles he was at his diet, looked long for Elijahs promised showers; where is the rain whose sound the Prophet heard? how is it that his ears were so much quicker, than our eyes? We saw his fire to our terror, how gladly would we see his waters? When now the servant of Elijah brings him news from heaven, that the clouds were setting forward, and (if he hastened not) would be before him: The wind arises, the clouds gather, the sky thickens; Ahab betakes him to his chariot; Elijah girds up his loins, and runs before him: Surely the Prophet could not want the offer of more ease in his passage; but he will be for the time Ahabs lackey, that the King and all Israel may see his humility no less than his power, and may confess that the glory of those miracles hath not made him insolent. He knew that his very sight was monitory; neither could Ahabs' mind be beside the miraculous works of God, whiles his eye was upon Elijah; neither could the King's heart be otherwise than well affected towards the Prophet, whiles he saw that himself, and all Israel, had received a new Life by his procurement. But what news was here for jezebel? Certainly Ahab minced nothing of the report of all those astonishing accidents: If but to salve up his own honour, in the death of those Baalites, he made the best of Elijahs merits; he told of his challenge, conflict, victory, of the fire that fell down from heaven, of the conviction of Israel, of the unavoidable execution of the Prophets, of the prediction and fall of those happy showers, and lastly of Elijabs officious attendance. Who would not have expected that jezebel should have said; It is no striving, no dallying with the Almighty; No reasonable creature can doubt, after so prodigious a decision; God hath won us from heaven, he must possess us: justly are our seducers perished: None but the God that can command fire and water shall be ours; There is no Prophet but his: But she contrarily, in stead of relenting, rageth; and sends a message of death, to Elijah, So let the Gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life, as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time: Neither scourges, nor favours can work any thing with the obstinately wicked; All evil hearts are not equally dis-affectd to good; Ahab and jezebel were both bad enough, yet Ahab yields to that work of God, which jezebel stubbornly opposeth; Ahab melts with that water, with that fire, wherewith jezebel is hardened: Ahab was bashfully, jezebel audaciously impious. The weaker sex is ever commonly stronger in passion; and more vehemently carried with the sway of their desires, whether to good or evil: She swears, and stamps at that whereat she should have trembled. She swears by those gods of hers, which were not able to save their Prophets, that she will kill the Prophet of God, who had scorned her gods, and slain her Prophets.  
It is well that jezebel could not keep counsel: Her threat preserved him, whom she had meant to kill: The wisdom and power of God could have found evasions for his Prophet, in her greatest secrecy; but now, he needs no other means of rescue, but her own lips: She is no less vain, than the gods she swears by: In spite of her fury, and her oath, and her gods, Elijah shall live: At once shall she find herself frustrate, and forsworn: She is now ready to bite her tongue, to eat her heart for anger, at the disappointment of her cruel Vow. It were no living for godly men, if the hands of Tyrants were allowed to be as bloody as their hearts. Men and Devils are under the restraint of the Almighty; neither are their designs more lavish, than their executions short.  
Holy Elijah flees for his life; we hear not of the command of God, but we would willingly presuppose it; So divine a Prophet should do nothing without God; His heels were no new refuge; As no where safe within the ten Tribes, he flees to Beersheba, in the territories of judah; as not there safe, from the machinations of jezebel, he flees alone (one days journey) into the wilderness; there he sits him down under a juniper tree, and (as weary of life, no less than of his way) wishes to rise no more. It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my Fathers: Oh strange and uncouth mutation! What is this we hear? Elijah fainting and giving up? that heroical spirit dejected, and prostrate? He that durst say to Ahabs' face, It is thou, and thy father's house that troubleth Israel; he that could raise the dead, open and shut the heavens, fetch down both fire, and water, with his prayers; he that durst chide and contest with all Israel, that durst kill the four hundred and fifty Baalites, with the sword; doth he shrink at the frowns & threats of a woman? doth he wish to be rid of his life, because he feared to lose it? Who can expect an undaunted constancy from flesh and blood, when Elijah fails? The strongest and holiest Saint upon earth is subject to some qualms of fear, and infirmity: To be always and unchangeably good, is proper only to the glorious Spirits in heaven: Thus the wise and holy God will have his power perfited in our weakness; It is in vain for us, whiles we carry this flesh about us, to hope for so exact health, as not to be cast down sometimes with fits of spiritual distemper. It is no new thing for holy men to wish for death; Who can either marvel at, or blame the desire of advantage? For the weary traveller to long for rest, the prisoner for liberty, the banished for home, it is so natural, that the contrary disposition were monstrous: The benefit of the change is a just motive to our appetition; but to call for death, out of a satiety of Life, out of an impatience of suffering, is a weakness unbeseeming a Saint: It is not enough, O Elijah; God hath more work yet for thee: thy God hath more honoured thee, than thy fathers, and thou shalt live to honour him.  
Toil and sorrow have lulled the Prophet asleep, under his juniper tree; that wholesome shade was well chosen, for his repose: whiles death was called for, the cousin of death comes unbidden: The Angel of God waits on him in that hard lodging; no wilderness is too solitary for the attendance of those blessed spirits; As he is guarded, so is he awaked by that messenger of God; and stirred up from his rest, to his repast; whiles he slept, his breakfast is made ready for him, by those spiritual hands; There was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head: Oh the never-ceasing care and providence of the Almighty, not to be barred by any place, by any condition; when means are wanting to us, when we are wanting to ourselves, when to God, even than doth he follow us with his mercy, and cast favours upon us, beyond, against expectation: What variety of purveyance doth he make for his servant? One while the ravens, than the Sareptan, now the Angel shall be his Cator; none of them without a miracle. Those other provided for him waking, this sleeping; O God, the eye of thy providence is not dimmer, the hand of thy power is not shorter; only teach thou us to serve thee, to trust thee.  
Needs must the Prophet eat, and drink, and sleep with much comfort, whiles he saw that he had such a guardian, attendant, purveyor; and now the second time is he raised, by that happy touch, to his meal, & his way: Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for thee. What needed he to travel further, sith that divine power could as well protect him in the wilderness, as in Horeb? What needed he to eat, since he that meant to sustain him forty days with one meal, might as well have sustained him without it? God is a most free Agent, neither will be tied to the terms of humane regularities: It is enough that he knows, and approves the reasons of his own choice, and commands: Once in forty days and nights shall Elijah eat, to teach us what God can do with little means: and but once, to teach us what he can do without means: Once shall the Prophet eat, Man life's by bread; and but once, Man life's not by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God; Moses, Elijah, our Saviour fasted each of them forty days, and forty nights: the three great fasters met gloriously in Tabor: I find not where God ever honoured any man for feasting; It is abstinence, not fullness, that makes a man capable of heavenly visions, of divine glory.  
The journey was not of itself so long; the Prophet took those ways, those hours which his heart gave him: In the very same mount where Moses first saw God, shall Elijah see him: one and the same cave (as is very probable) was the receptacle to both; It could not be but a great confirmation to Elijah, to renew the sight of those sensible monuments of God's favour, and protection, to his faithful predecessor. Moses came to see God in the bush of Horeb; God came to find Elijah in the cave of Horeb: What dost thou here, Elijah? The place was directed by a providence, not by a command: He is hid sure enough from jezebel; he cannot be hid from the allseeing eye of God. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or Whither shall I fly from thy presence? If I ascend up into Heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in Hell, behold thou art there; If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea, even there shall thine hand find me, and thy right hand shall hold me: Twice hath God propounded the same question to Elijah: Once in the heart, once in the mouth of the cave: Twice doth the Prophet answer, in the same words: Had the first answer satisfied, the question had not been redemanded. Now, that sullen answer which Elijah gave in the darkness of the cave is challenged into the Light, not without an awful preface. The Lord first passeth by him with the terrible demonstrations of his power. A great and strong wind rend the mountains, and broke the rocks in pieces; That tearing blast was from God, God was not in it: So was he in it as in his other extraordinary works; not so in it, as by it to impart himself to Elijah: it was the ushier, not the carriage of God; After the wind came an Earthquake, more fearful than it: That did but move the air, this the earth; that beat upon some prominences of earth, this shook it from the Centre; After the earthquake came a fire more fearful than either. The other affected the ear, the feeling; but this lets in horror into the Soul, by the eye, the quickest, and most apprehensive of the senses. Elijah shall see Gods mighty power in the earth, air, fire, before he hear him in the soft voice; All these are but boisterous harbingers of a meek, and still word; In that God was; Behold, in that gentle and mild breath there was omnipotency; there was but powerfulness in those fierce representations; There is not always the greatest efficacy where is the greatest noise: God love's to make way for himself by terror, but he conuaies himself to us, in sweetness: It is happy for us if after the gusts and flashes of the Law, we have heard the soft voice of Evangelicall mercy.  
In this very mount, with the same horror had God delivered his Law to Moses and Israel: It is no marvel if Elijah wrap his face in his mantle: His obedience draws him forth to the mouth of the cave, his fear still hides his head: Had there not been much courage in the Prophet's faith, he had not stood out these affrightful forerunners of the divine presence, though with his face covered: The very Angels do no less, before that all-glorious Majesty than veil themselves with their wings: Fare be it from us once to think of that infinite, and omnipotent Deity, without an humble awfulness.  
Fear changes not the tenor of Elijahs answer: He hath not left one word behind him in the cave: I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken thy Covenant, thrown down thine Altars, and slain thy Prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away. I hear not a direct answer from the Prophet to the demand of God; then he had said, I run away from the threats of jezebel, and here I hide my head from her malicious pursuit; His guiltiness would not let him speak out all: He had rather say, I have been jealous for the Lord God of Hosts, than, I was fearful of jezebel: We are all willing to make the best of our own case: but what he wants of his own accusation, he spends upon the complaint of Israel. Neither doth he more bemoan himself, than exclaim against them, as Apostates from God's Covenant, Violators of his Altars, murderers of his Prophets: It must needs be a desperate condition of Israel, that drives Elijah to indite them before the throne of God: That tongue of his was used to plead for them, to sue for their pardon, it could not be but a forceable wickedness, that makes it their accuser. Those Idolatrous Israelites were well forward to reformation: The fire and rain from heaven at the prayers of Elijah had won them to a scorn of Baal; only the violence of jezebel turned the stream, and now they are resettled in impiety, and persecute him for an enemy, whom they almost adored for a benefactor; otherwise, Elijah had not complained of what they had been: Who would think it? jezebel can do more than Elijah; No miracle is so prevalent with the vulgar, as the sway of authority, whether to good, or evil.  
Thou art deceived, O Elijah; Thou art not left alone; neither is all Israel tainted; God hath children and Prophets in Israel, though thou see them not; Those clear eyes of the Seer discern not the secret store of God, they looked not into Obadiah's caves, they looked not into the closerts of the religious Israelites; he that sees the heart, can say, I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him: According to the fashion of the wealthy, God pleaseth himself in hidden treasures; it is enough that his own eyes behold his riches: Never did he, never will he leave himself unfurnished with holy clients, in the midst of the foulest depravations of his Church: The sight of his faithful ones hath sometimes been lost, never the being: Do your worst, O ye Gates of Hell, God will have his own; He that could have more, will have some: that foundation is sure, God knoweth who are his.  
It was a true cordial for Elijahs solitariness, that he had seven thousand invisible abettors; neither is it a small comfort to our weakness, to have companions in good: for the wickedness of Israel God hath another receipt; the oil of royal, and prophetical unction; Elijah must anoint Hazael king of Syria, jehu King of Israel; Elisha for his successor; All these shall revenge the quarrels of God, and him; one shall begin, the other shall prosecute, the third shall perfect the vengeance upon Israel.  
A Prophet shall avenge the wrongs done to a Prophet: Elisha is found, not in his study, but, in the field; not with a book in his hand, but a plough; His father Shaphat was a rich farmer in Abel-Meholah, himself was a good husband; trained up, not in the schools of the Prophets, but, in the thrifty trade of tillage: and behold, this was the man, whom God will pick out of all Israel for a Prophet; God seethe not as man seethe: Neither doth he choose men because they are fit, but therefore fits them, because he hath chosen them; his call is above all earthly institution.  
I hear not of aught that Elijah said: Only he casts his cloak upon Elisha in the passage; That mantle, that act was vocal: Together with this sign, God's instinct teacheth the amazed son of Shaphat that he was designed to an higher work, to break up the fallow grounds of Israel, by his prophetical function; He finds a strange virtue in that robe; and (as if his heart were changed with that habit) forgets his teme, and runs after Elijah; and sues for the leave of a farewell to his Parents, ere he had any but a dumb command to follow; The secret call of God offers an inward force to the heart, and insensibly draws us beyond the power of our resistance: Grace is no enemy to good nature; well may the respects to our earthly parents stand with our duties to our Father in heaven. I do not see Elisha wring his hands and deplore his condition, that he shall leave the world, and follow a Prophet, but for the joy of that change, he makes a feast: those oxen, those utensils of husbandry whereon his former labours had been bestowed, shall now be gladly devoted to the celebration of that happy day, wherein he is honoured with so blessed an employment; If with desire, if with cheerfulness we do not enter into the works of our heavenly Master, they are not like to prosper in our hands: He is not worthy of this spiritual station, who holds not the service of God his highest, his richest preferment.    

Contemplations UPON THE OLD TESTAMENT.  
The 19th. Book.  
Wherein are 

Ahab and Benhadad.  
Ahab and Naboth.  
Ahab and Michaiah, or, the death of Ahab.  
Ahaziah sick, Elijah revenged.  
The Rapture of Elijah.  
Elisha Healing the waters, Cursing the Children, Relieving the three kings.  
Elisha with the Shunamite.  
Naaman and Elisha.  
Elisha raising the iron, blinding the Syrians.  
The Famine of Samaria relieved.     

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, EDWARD, Lord DENNY, Baron of WALtham, my bountiful, and dear honoured PATRON.  
Right Honourable,  
NOne can challenge so much right in these Meditations, as your Lordship, under whose happy shade they received their first conception: Under this juniper of yours, have I (not driven by force, but drawn by pleasure) slept thus long, sweetly, safely; and have received these Angelical touches: How justly may your Lordship claim the fruits of your own favours? Your careful studies in this book of God, are fit to be exemplary; which have so enriched you, that your teacher shall gain. In this reach of divine thoughts, you shall see Benhadad's insolence taken down by Ahabs' victory, an humble (though Idolatrous) Israelite carrying it from an insulting Pagan: You shall see in Ahab the impotent passions of greatness, in Naboth, bleeding honesty; in jezebel bloody hypocrisy, cruel craft; plotting from hell, pretending from heaven: You shall see the woeful success of an unjust mercy; Ahab forfaiting what he gave, killed by him, whom he should have killed; You shall see resolute Michaiah opposing the mercenary Synod of Prophets, a beaten victor, an imprisoned freeman; You shall see Ahaziah falling through his grate; Elijah climbing up his mount, mounting up to his glory; fetching fire from heaven, fetched by a fiery chariot to heaven. Elisha the heir of his mantle, of his spirit, no less marvelous in his beneficences, in his revenges. What do I foretell all? Me thinks I feel myself now too like an Italian host, thus to meet your Lordship on the way, and to promise beforehand your fare, and entertainment: Let it please your Lordship rather to see and allow your cheer; Indeed the feast is Gods, and not mine, wherein store strives with delicacy; If my cookery hurt it not, it is enough: Through your hands, I commend it to the world, as I do your Lordship, and my honourable good Lady to the gracious protection of the Almighty; justly vowing myself  
Your Lordships in all faithful observance for ever to command, IOS: HALL..   


AHAB, and BENHADAD.  
THere is nothing more dangerous for any state, than to call in foreign powers, for the suppression of an homebred enemy; the remedy hath oft in this case, proved worse than the disease. Asa King of judah implores the aid of Benhadad, the Syrian, against Baasha King of Israel. That stranger hath good colour to set his foot in some out-skirt-townes of Israel; and now these serve him but for the handsel of more; Such sweetness doth that Edomite find in the soil of Israel, that his ambition will not take up with less than all; He that entered as a Friend, will proceed as a Conqueror; and now aims at no less than Samaria itself, the heart, the head of the ten Tribes: There was no cause to hope for better success of so perfidious a League with an Infidel: Who can look for other than war when he sees Ahab and jezebel in the throne, Israel in the groves and temples of Baalim? The ambition of Benhadad was not so much guilty of this war, as the Idolatry of that wicked nation; How can they expect peace from earth, who do wilfully fight against heaven? Rather will the God of Hosts arm the brute, the senseless creatures against an Israel, than he will suffer their defiance unrevenged. Ahab and Benhadad are well matched; an idolatrous Israelite, with a paganish Idumaean; well may God plague each with other, who means vengeance to them both. Ahab finds himself hard pressed with the siege; and therefore is glad to enter into treaties of peace; Benhadad knows his own strength; and offers insolent conditions, Thy silver and thy gold is mine, thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest are mine. It is a fearful thing to be in the mercy of an enemy; In case of hostility might will carve for itself: Ahab now after the division of judah, was but half a King; Benhadad had two and thirty Kings to attend him; What equality was in this opposition? Wisely doth Ahab therefore, as a reed in a tem●●st, stoop to this violent charge of so potent an enemy: My Lord, O King, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have: It is not for the overpowred to capitulate; Weakness may not argue, but yield. Tyranny is but drawn on by submission; and where it finds fear, and dejection, insulteth. Benhadad not content with the sovereignty of Ahabs goods, calls for the possession; Ahab had offered the Dominion, with reservation of his subordinate interest: he will be a tributary, so he may be an owner: Benhadad imperiously besides the command, calls for the propriety; and suffers not the King of Israel to enjoy those things at all, which he would enjoy but under the favour of that predominancy. Overstrained subjection turns desperate; if conditions be imposed worse than death, there needs no long disputation of the remedy; The Elders of Israel (whose share was proportionably in this danger) hearten Ahab to a denial: which yet comes out so fearfully, as that it appears rather extorted by the peremptory indignation of the people, than proceeding out of any generosity of his Spirit: Neither doth he say, I will not, but, I may not. The proud Syrian (who would have taken it in foul scorn to be denied, though he had sent for all the heads of Israel) snuffs up the wind like a wild Ass in the Wilderness, and brags, and threats, and swears; The gods do so to me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me: Not the men, not the goods, only of Samaria shall be carried away captive, but the very earth whereon it stands; and this, with how much ease? No Soldier shall need to be charged with more than an handful, to make a valley where the mother City of Israel once stood: Oh vain boaster! in whom I know not whether pride or folly be more eminent: Victory is to be achieved, not to be sworn; future events are no matter of an oath; Thy gods (if they had been) might have been called as witnesses of thy intentions, not of that success, whereof thou wouldst be the Author without them: Thy gods can do nothing to thee, nothing for thee, nothing for themselves; all thine Aramites shall not carry away one corn of sand out of Israel, except it be upon the soles of their feet, in their shameful flight; It is well, if they can carry back those skins, that they brought thither: Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off: There is no cause to fear that man that trusts in himself: Man may cast the dice of war, but the disposition of them is of the Lord.  
Ahab was lewd, but Benhadad was insolent; If therefore Ahab shall be scourged with the rod of Benhadad's fear; Benhadad shall be smitten with the sword of Ahabs' revenge; Of all things God will not endure a presumptuous, and selfe-confident vaunter; after Elijahs flight and complaint, yet a Prophet is addressed to Ahab; Thus saith the Lord, Host thou seen all this great multitude? behold I will deliver it into thine hand, this day, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: Who can wonder enough at this unweariable mercy of God? After the fire and rain fetched miraculously from Heaven, Ahab had promised much, performed nothing, yet again will God bless and solicit him with victory; One of those Prophets whom he persecuted to death, shall comfort his dejection with the news of deliverance and triumph: Had this great work been wrought without premonition; either chance, or Baal, or the golden calves had carried away the thankes: Before hand therefore shall Ahab know both the Author and the means of his victory; God for the Author, the two hundred thirty two young men of the Princes for the means; What are these for the Vanguard, and seven thousand Israelites for the main battle, against the troops of three and thirty Kings, and as many centuries of Syrians, as Israel had single soldiers? An equality of number had taken away the wonder of the event; bu● now, the God of hosts will be confessed in this issue, not the valour of men; How indifferent it is with thee, O Lord, to save by many, or by few; to destroy many, or few? A world is no more to thee than a man; How easy is it for thee to enable us to be more than Conquerors over Principalities and Powers: to subdue spiritual wickednesses to flesh and blood? Through thee we can do great things, yea we can do all things through thee that strengthnest us; Let not us want faith, we are sure there can be no want in thy power or mercy.  
There was nothing in Benhadad's pavilions but drink, and surfeit, and jollity; as if wine should make way for blood; Security is the certain usher of destruction: We never have so much cause to fear as when we fear nothing. This handful of Israel dares look out (upon the Prophet's assurance) to the vast host of Benhadad: It is enough for that proud Pagan to sit still, and command amongst his cups: To defile their fingers with the blood of so few, seemed no mastery; that act would be inglorious on the part of the Victors: More easily might they bring in three heads of dead enemies than one alive: Imperiously enough therefore doth this boaster out of his chair of state, and ease, command, Whether they be come out for peace, take them alive; or whether they be come out for war, take them alive; There needs no more, but, Take them; this field is won with a word; Oh the vain and ignorant presumptions of wretched men that will be reckoning without, against their Maker.  
Every Israelite kills his man; the Syrians flee, and cannot run away from death: Benhadad and his Kings are more beholden to their horses than to their gods, or themselves for life and safety; else they had been either taken, or slain, by those whom they commanded to be taken.  
How easy is it for him that made the heart, to fill it with terror, and consternation, even where no fear is? Those whom God hath destined to slaughter, he will smite; neither needs he any other enemy or executioner, than what he finds in their own bosom: We are not the masters of our own courage, or fears; both are put into us by that overruling power that created us: Stay now, O stay, thou great King of Syria, and take with thee those forgotten handfuls of the dust of Israel; Thy gods will do so to thee, and more also, if thy followers return without their vowed burden; Learn now of the despised King of Israel, from henceforth not to sound the triumph before the battle, not to boast thyself in the girding on of thine harness, as in the putting off.  
I hear not of either the public thanksgiving, or amendment of Ahab. Neither danger nor victory can change him from himself: Benhadad and he, though enemies, agree in unrepentance; the one is no more moved with mercy, than the other with judgement: Neither is God any changeling in his proceed towards both; his judgement shall still follow the Syrian, his mercy Israel: Mercy both in forewarning, and re-delivering Ahab; judgement in overthrowing Benhadad. The Prophet of God comes again, and both foretells the intended reencounter of the Syrian, and advices the care, and preparation of Israel: Go, strengthen thyself, and mark, and see what thou dost; for, at the return of the year, the King of Syria will come up against thee: God purposeth the deliverance of Israel, yet may not they neglect their fortifications; The merciful intentions of God towards them may not make them careless; The industry and courage of the Israelites fall within the decree of their victory; Security is the bane of good success; It is no contemning of a foiled enemy; the shame of a former disgrace and miscarriage, whets his valour, and sharpens it to revenge: No power is so dreadful, as that which is recollected from an overthrow.  
The hostility against the Israel of God may sleep, but will hardly die. If the Aramites sit still, it is but till they be fully ready for an assault; Time will show that their cessation was only for their advantage; neither is it otherwise with our spiritual adversaries, sometimes their onsets are intermitted; they tempt not always, they always hate us: their forbearance is not out of favour, but attendance of opportunity; happy are we, if out of a suspicion of their silence, we can as busily prepare for their resistance, as they do for our impugnation.  
As it is a shame to be beaten, so yet the shame is less, by how much the victor is greater; to mitigate the grief, and indignation of Benhadad's foil, his parasites ascribe it to gods, not to men; an humane power could no more have vanquished him than a divine power could by him be resisted; Their gods are gods of the hills; Ignorant Syrians, that name gods, and confine them; varying their deities according to situations; They saw that Samaria (whence they were repelled) stood upon the hill of Shemer: They saw the temple of jerusalem stood upon mount Zion; they knew it usual with the Israelites to sacrifice in their high places, & perhaps they had heard of Eliahs' altar, upon mount Carmel; and now they sottishly measure the effects of the power, by the place of the worship; as if he that was omnipotent on the hill, were impotent in the Valley; What doltish conceits doth blind Paganism frame to itself of a Godhead? As they have many gods, so finite; every region, every hill, every dale, every stream hath their several gods, and each so knows his own bounds, that he dares not offer to encroach upon the other; or, if he do, abvyes it with loss: Who would think that so gross blockishness should find harbour in a reasonable soul? A man doth not alter with his station; He that wrestled strongly upon the hill, loseth not his force in the plain; all places find him alike active, alike valorous; yet these barbarous Aramites shame not to imagine that of God, which they would blush to affirm of their own champions. Superstition infatuates the heart out of measure; neither is there any fancy so absurd or monstrous, which credulous infidelity is not ready to entertain with applause.  
In how high scorn doth God take it to be thus basely undervalved by rude heathen? This very mis-opinion concerning the God of Israel shall cost the Syrians a shameful, and perfect destruction; They may call a Counsel of war, and lay their heads together, and change their Kings into Captains, and their hills into valleys, but they shall find more graves in the plains, than in the mountains; This very mes-prison of God shall make Ahab (though he were more lewd) victorious; An hundred thousand Syrians shall fall in one day, by those few hands of Israel; And a dead wall in Aphek (to whose shelter they fled) shall revenge God upon the rest that remained; The stones in the wall shall rather turn executioners, than a blasphemous Aramite shall escape unrevenged. So much doth the jealous God hate to be robbed of his glory, even by ignorant Pagans, whose tongue might seem no slander. That proud head of Benhadad, that spoke such big words of the dust of Israel, and swore by his gods, that he would kill and conquer, is now glad to hide itself in a blind hole of Aphek; and now in stead of questioning the power of the God of Israel, is glad to hear of the mercy of the Kings of Israel; Behold, now, we have heard that the Kings of the house of Israel are merciful Kings; Let us, I pray thee, put sackcloth on our loins, and ropes on our heads, and go out to the King of Israel, peradventure he will save thy life.  
There can be no more powerful attractive of humble submission, than the intimation and conceit of mercy; We do at once fear, and hate the inexorable; This is it, O Lord, that allures us to thy throne of grace, the knowledge of the grace of that throne; with thee is mercy and plenteous redemption; thine hand is open before our mouths, before our hearts; If we did not see thee smile upon suitors, we durst not press to thy footstool; Behold now we know that the King of heaven, the God of Israel, is a merciful God; Let us put sackcloth upon our loins, and strew ashes upon our heads, and go meet the Lord God of Israel, that he may save our souls.  
How well doth this habit become insolent, and blasphemous Benhadad and his followers? a rope, and sackcloth? A rope for a crown, sackcloth for a robe; Neither is there less change in the tongue, Thy servant Benhadad saith, I pray thee let me live; Even now the King of Israel said to Benhadad, My Lord, o King, I am thine; Tell my Lord the King, all that thou didst send for to thy servant, I will do: Now, Benhadad sends to the King of Israel, Thy servant Benhadad saith, I pray thee let me live: He that was erewhile a Lord and King, is now a servant; and he that was a servant to the King of Syria, is now his Lord: he that would blow away all Israel in dust, is now glad to beg for his own life at the door of a despised enemy; No courage is so haughty, which the God of hosts cannot easily bring under; What are men or Devils in those almighty hands?  
The greater the dejection was, the stronger was the motive of commiseration; That halter pleaded for life; and that plea for but a life, stirred the bowels, for favour; How readily did Ahab see in Benhadad's sudden misery the image of the instability of all humane things? and relents at the view of so deep and passionate a submission. Had not Benhadad said, Thy servant, Ahab had never said, My brother; seldom ever was there loss in humility; How much less can we fear disparagement, in the annihilating of ourselves, before that infinite Majesty?  
The drowning man snatches at every twig; It is no marvel if the messengers of Benhadad catch hastily at that style of grace, and hold it fast, Thy brother Benhadad; Favours are wont to draw on each other; Kindnesses breed on themselves; neither need we any other persuasion to beneficence, than from our own acts. Ahab calls for the King of Syria; sets him in his own chariot; treats with him of an easy (yet firm) league, gives him both his life, and his Kingdom. Neither is the crown of Syria sooner lost, than recovered; Only he that came a free Prince, returns tributary: Only his train is clipped too short for his wings; an hundred twenty seven thousand Syrians are abated of his Guard, homeward. Blasphemy hath escaped too well, Ahab hath at once peace with Benhadad, war with God; God proclaims it by his Herald, one of the sons of the Prophets; not yet in his own form, but disguised, both in fashion and complaint; It was a strange suit of a Prophet, Smite me I pray thee; Many a Prophet was smitten, and would not; never any but this wished to be smitten; The rest of his fellows were glad to say, Save me; this only says, Smite me; His honest neighbour, out of love and reverence, forbears to strike; There are too many (thinks he) that smite the Prophets, though I refrain; What wrong hast thou done that I should repay with blows? Hadst thou sued for a favour, I could not have denied thee; now thou suest for thine hurt, the denial is a favour; Thus he thought; but Charity cannot excuse disobedience; Had the man of God called for blows, (upon his own head) the refusal had been just and thankworthy; but now that he says, In the word of the Lord, Smite me, this kindness is deadly: Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of the Lord, behold, as soon as thou art departed from me a Lion shall slay thee; It is not for us to examine the charges of the Almighty; Be they never so harsh, or improbable, (if they be once known for his) there is no way but obedience, or death. Not to smite a Prophet, when God commands, is no less sin, than to smite a Prophet, when God forbids; It is the divine precept or prohibition, that either makes or aggravates an evil; And if the Israelite be thus revenged, that smote not a Prophet, what shall become of Ahab that smote not Benhadad? Every man is not thus indulgent; an easy request will gain blows to a Prophet from the next hand; yea, and a wound in smiting. I know not whether it were an harder task for the Prophet to require a wound, than for a well-meaning Israelite to give it; Both must be done; The Prophet hath what he would, what he must will, a sight of his own blood; and now disguised herewith, and with ashes upon his face, he way-layes the King of Israel, and sadly complains of himself in a real parable, for dismissing a Syrian prisoner delivered to his hands, upon no less charge than his life; and soon receives sentence of death, from his own mouth; Well was that wound bestowed that struck Ahabs soul through the flesh of the Prophet; The disguise is removed; The King sees not a Soldier, but a Seer; and now finds that he hath unawares passed sentence upon himself. There needs no other doom than from the lips of the offender: Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand, a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people: Had not Ahab known the will of God concerning Benhadad, that had been mercy to an enemy, which was now cruelty to himself, to Israel: His cares had heard of the blasphemies of that wicked tongue: His eyes had seen God go before him, in the example of that revenge, No Prince can strike so deep into his state, as in not striking; In private favour there may be public unmercifulness.   

AHAB, and NABOTH.  
NAboth had a fair vineyard; It had been better for him to have had none; His vineyard yielded him the bitter Grapes of death. Many a one hath been sold to death by his lands and goods; wealth hath been a snare, as to the soul, so to the life; Why do we call those goods, which are many times the bane of the owner? Naboths vineyard lay near to the Court of jezebel; it had been better for him, it had been planted in the wilderness; Doubtless, this vicinity made it more commodious to the possessor; but more envious and unsafe: It was now the perpetual object of an evil eye, and stirred those desires, which could neither be well denied, nor satisfied: Eminency is still joined with peril, obscurity with peace: There can be no worse annoyance to any inheritance, than the greatness of an evil neighbourhood: Naboths vines stood too near the smoke of Iezebels chimneys: too much within the prospect of Ahabs' window; Now lately had the King of Israel been twice victorious over the Syrians; no sooner is he returned home than he is overcome with evil desires; The foil he gave was not worse than that he took: There is more true glory in the conquest of our lusts, than in all bloody Trophies; In vain shall Ahab boast of subduing a foreign enemy, whiles he is subdued by a domestic enemy within his own breast; Opportunity and Convenience is guilty of many a theft: Had not this ground lain so fair, Ahab had not been tempted: His eye lets in this evil guest into the soul, which now dares come forth at the mouth; Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near to my house, and I will give thee a better vineyard for it, or if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money; Yet had Ahab so much civility, and justice, that he would not wring Naboths patrimony out of his hand by force, but requires it upon a fair composition, whether of price, or of exchange: His government was vicious, not tyrannical; Propriety of goods was inviolably maintained by him; No less was Naboth allowed to claim a right in his vineyard, than Ahab in his palace; This we own to lawful Sovereignty to call aught our own; and well worthy is this privilege to be repaid with all humble and loyal respects. The motion of Ahab (had it been to any other than an Israelite) had been as just, equal, reasonable, as the repulse had been rude, churlish, inhuman. It is fit that Princes should receive due satisfaction in the just demands, not only of their necessities, but convenience, and pleasure; well may they challenge this retribution to the benefit of our common peace and protection; If there be any sweetness in our vineyards, any strength in our fields, we may thank their sceptres; justly may they expect from us the commodity, the delight of their habitation; and if we gladly yield not to their full elbowroom, both of site, and provision, we can be no other than ingrateful; Yet dares not Naboth give any other answer to so plausible a motion, than, The Lord forbidden it me, that I should give thee the inheritance of my Fathers: The honest Israelite saw violence in this ingenuity; There are no stronger commands, than the requests of the great; It is well that Ahab will not wrest away this patrimony, it is not well that he desired it; The land was not so much stood upon, as the law; One earth might be as good as another; and money equivalent to either; The Lord had forbidden to alien their inheritance: Naboth did not fear loss, but sin; What Naboth might not lawfully do, Ahab might not lawfully require; It pleased God to be very punctual, & cautelous, both in the distinction, and preservation of the entireness of these jewish inheritances; Nothing but extreme necessity might warrant a sale of land, and that, but for a time; if not sooner, yet at the jubilee, it must revert to the first owner: It was not without a comfortable signification, that whosoever had once his part in the land of Promise, could never lose it; Certainly Ahab could not but know this divine restriction, yet doubts not to say, Give me thy vineyard; The unconscionable will know no other law but their profit, their pleasure; A lawless greatness hates all limitations, and abides not to hear men should need any other warrant but will.  
Naboth dares not be thus tractable; How gladly would he be quit of his inheritance, if God would acquit him from the sin? Not out of wilfulness, but obedience, doth this faithful Israelite hold off from this demand of his Sovereign; not daring to please an earthly King with offending the heavenly: When Princes command lawful things, God commands by them; when unlawful, they command against God; passive obedience we must give, active we may not; we follow then as subordinate, not as opposite to the highest.  
Who cannot but see and pity the straits of honest Naboth; Ahab requires what God forbids; he must fall out either with his God, or his King: Conscience carries him against policy; and he resolves not to sin, that he might be gracious. For a world he may not give his vineyard: Those who are themselves godless, think the holy care of others but idly scrupulous: The King of Israel could not choose but see that only God's prohibition lay in the way of his designs, not the stomach of a froward subject; yet he goes away into his house heavy and displeased; and casts himself down upon his bed, and turns away his face, and refuses his meat; He hath taken a surfeit of Naboths grapes which mars his appetite, and threats his life: How ill can great hearts endure to be crossed, though upon the most reasonable & just grounds? Ahabs' place called him to the guardianship of God's Law; and now his heart is ready to break that this parcel of that Law may not be broken: No marvel if he made not dainty to transgress a local statute of God, who did so shamefully violate the eternal Law of both Tables.  
I know not whether the spleen, or the gall of Ahab be more affected; Whether more of anger, or grief, I cannot say; but sick he is, and keeps his bed, and balks his meat, as if he should die of no other death, than the salads that he would have had: O the impotent passions, and insatiable desires of Covetousness! Ahab is Lord and King of all the territories of Israel; Naboth is the owner of one poor Vineyard; Ahab cannot enjoy Israel, if Naboth enjoy his Vineyard; Besides Samaria, Ahab was the great Lord Paramount of Damascus and all Syria, the victor of him that was attended with two and thirty Kings; Naboth was a plain townsman of jezreel, the good husband of a little Vineyard; Whether is the wealthier? I do not hear Naboth wish for any thing of Ahabs, I hear Ahab wishing (not without indignation of a repulse) for somewhat of Naboths: Riches and poverty is more in the heart, than in the hand; He is wealthy that is contented; he is poor that wanteth more: Oh rich Naboth, that carest not for all the large possessions of Ahab, so thou mayst be the Lord of thine own Vineyard; Oh miserable Ahab, that carest not for thine own possessions whiles thou mayest not be the Lord of Naboths Vineyard.  
He that caused the disease, sends him a Physician; Satan knew of old how to make use of such helpers; jezebel comes to Ahabs' bedside; and casts cold water in his face, and puts into him spirits of her own extracting; Dost thou now govern the Kingdom of Israel? Arise, eat bread, and let thine heart be merry; I will give thee the Vineyard of Naboth. Ahab wanted neither wit, nor wickedness; Yet is he in both, a very novice to this Zidonian dame. There needs no other Devil, than jezebel, whether to project evil, or to work it: She chides the pusillanimity of her dejected husband, and persuades him his rule cannot be free, unless it belicentious; that there should be no bounds for sovereignty, but will; Already hath she contrived to have by fraud and force, what was denied to entreaty; Nothing needs but the name, but the seal of Ahab; let her alone with the rest; How present are the wits of the weaker sex for the devising of wickedness: She frames a letter in Ahabs' name, to the Senators of jezreel, wherein she requires them to proclaim a fast, to suborn two false witnesses against Naboth, to charge him with blasphemy against God and the King, to stone him to death; A ready payment for a rich Vineyard: Whose indignation riseth not to hear jezebel name a fast? The great contemners of the most important Laws of God, yet can be content to make use of some divine, both statutes, and customs, for their own advantage: She knew the Israelites had so much remainder of grace, as to hold blasphemy worthy of death; She knew their manner was to expiate those crying sins with pulike humiliation; She knew that two witnesses at least must cast the offender; all these she urges to her own purpose. There is no mischief so devilish, as that which is cloaked with piety: Simulation of holiness doubleth a villainy; This murder had not been half so foul, if it had not been thus masked with a religious observation; Besides devotion, what a fair pretence of legality is here? Blasphemy against God and his anointed may not pass unrevenged; The offender is convented before the sad and severe bench of Magistracy; the justice of Israel allows not to condemn an absent, an unheard malefactor; Witnesses come forth, and agree in the intentation of the crime; the judges rend their garments, and strike their breasts, as grieved, not more for the sin than the punishment; their very countenance must say, Naboth should not die, if his offence did not force our justice; and now, he is no good subject, no true Israelite, that hath not a stone for Naboth.  
jezebel knew well to whom she wrote; Had not those letters fallen upon the times of a woeful degeneration of Israel, they had received no less strong denials from the Elders, than Ahab had from Naboth; God forbidden that the Senate of jezreel should forge a perjury, belie truth, condemn innocency, broke corruption: Command just things, we are ready to dye in the zeal of our obedience, we dare not imbrue our hands in the blood of an innocent.  
But she knew whom she had engaged; whom she had marred by making conscious. It were strange if they who can countenance evil with greatness, should want factors for the unjustest designs. Miserable is that people whose Rulers (in stead of punishing) plot, and encourage wickedness; when a distillation of evil falls from the head, upon the lungs of any State, there must needs follow a deadly consumption.  
Yet, perhaps there wanted not some colour of pretence for this proceeding; They could not but hear, that some words had passed betwixt the King and Naboth; Haply it was suggested, that Naboth had secretly over-lashed into saucy and contemptuous terms to his Sovereign, such as neither might be well borne, nor yet (by reason of their privacy) legally convinced; the bench of jezreel should but supply a form to the just matter, & desert of condemnation; What was it for them to give their hand to this obscure midwifery of justice? It is enough that their King is an accuser and witness of that wrong, which only their sentence can formally revenge. All this cannot wash their hands from the guilt of blood; If justice be blind, in respect of partiality, she may not be blind in respect of the grounds of execution; Had Naboth been a blasphemer, or a traitor, yet these men were no better than murderers; What difference is there betwixt the stroke of Magistracy, and of manslaughter, but due conviction?  
Wickedness never spoke out of a throne, and complained of the defect of instruments; Naboth was (it seems) strictly conscionable, his fellow Citizens lose, and lawless; they are glad to have gotten such an opportunity of his dispatch: No clause of Ahabs' letter is not observed; A fast is warned, the City is assembled, Naboth is convented, accused, confronted, sentenced, stoned. His vineyard is escheated to the Crown; Ahab takes speedy and quiet possession: How still doth God sit in heaven, and look upon the complots of treachery, and villainies, as if they did not concern him: The success so answers their desires, as if both heaven and earth were their friends. It is the plague, which seems the felicity of sinners, to speed well in their lewd enterprises; No reckoning is brought in the midst of the meal, the end pays for all; Whiles Ahab is rejoicing in his new garden-plot, and promising himself contentment in this commodious enlargement, in comes Elijah, sent from God with an errand of vengeance. Me thinks, I see how the King's countenance changed; with what aghast eyes, and pale cheeks, he looked upon that unwelcome Prophet; Little pleasure took he in his prospect, whiles it was clogged with such a guest: yet his tongue gins first; Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? Great is the power of conscience: upon the last meeting (for aught we know) Ahab and Elijah parted friends: The Prophet had lacquaied his coach, and took a peaceable leave at this Town's end; now Ahabs heart told him (neither needed any other messenger) that God, and his Prophet were fall'n out with him; His continuing Idolatry, now seconded with blood, bids him look for nothing but frowns from heaven: A guilty heart can never be at peace; Had not Ahab known how ill he had deserved of God, he had never saluted his Prophet by the name of an enemy: He had never been troubled to be found by Elijah, if his own breast had not found him out for an enemy to God; Much good may thy vineyard do thee, O thou King of Israel, many fair flowers, and savoury herbs may thy new Garden yield thee; please thyself with thy jezebel, in the triumph over the carcase of a scrupulous subject; let me rather die with Naboth, than rejoice with thee: His turn is over, thine is to come; The stones that overwhelmed innocent Naboth, were nothing to those that smite thee; Host thou killed, and also taken possession? Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine. What meanest thou, O Elijah, to charge this murder upon Ahab? He kept his Chamber; jezebel wrote, the Elders condemned, the people stoned; yet thou sayest, Hast thou killed? Well did Ahab know, that jezebel could not give this vineyard with dry hands; yet was he content to wink at what she would do; He but sits still whiles jezebel works; Only his Signet is suffered to walk for the sealing of this unknown purchase; Those that are trusted with authority, may offend no less in connivency, or neglect, than others in act, in participation: Not only command, consent, countenance, but very permission feoffs public persons in those sins, which they might, and will not prevent. God love's to punish by retaliation; Naboth and Ahab shall both bleed; Naboth by the stones of the jezreelites; Ahab by the shafts of the Aramites; The dogs shall taste of the blood of both; What Ahab hath done in cruelty, he shall suffer in justice; The cause and the end make the difference happy on Naboths side, on Ahabs woeful; Naboth bleeds as a Martyr; Ahab as a murderer: What ever is Ahabs' condition, Naboth changes a vineyard on earth, for a Kingdom in heaven. Never any wicked man gained by the persecution of an innocent; Never any innocent man was a loser by suffering from the wicked.  
Neither was this judgement personal, but hereditary; I will take away thy posterity; and will make thine house like the house of jeroboam: Him that dieth of Ahab in the City, the Dogs shalleat; and him that dieth in the field, shall the Fowls of the air eat; Ahab shall not need to take thought for the traducing of this ill gotten inheritance; God hath taken order for his heirs; whom his sin hath made no less the heirs of his curse, than of his body; Their father's cruelty to Naboth hath made them, together with their mother jezebel, dogs-meat. The revenge of God doth at last make amends for the delay; Whether now is Naboths vineyard paid for?  
The man that had sold himself to work wickedness, yet rues the bargain. I do not hear Ahab (as bad as he was) revile or threaten the Prophet, but he rends his clothes, and wears, and lies in sackcloth, and fasts, and walks softly: Who that had seen Ahab would not have deemed him a true penitent? All this was the visor of sorrow, not the face; or if the face, not the heart; or if the sorrow of the heart, yet not the repentance: A sorrow for the judgement, not a repentance for the sin: The very devils howl to be tormented; Grief is not ever a sign of grace; Ahab rends his clothes, he did not rend his heart; he puts on sackcloth, not amendment; he lies in sackcloth, but he lies in his Idolatry; he walks softly, he walks not sincerely; Worldly sorrow causeth death; Happy is that grief for which the soul is the holier.  
Yet, what is this I see? This very shadow of penitence carries away mercy; It is no small mercy to defer an evil; Even Ahabs humiliation shall prorogue the judgement; such as the penitence was, such shall be the reward; a temporary reward of a temporary penitence: As Ahab might be thus sorrowful, and never the better; so, he may be thus favoured, and never the happier; Oh God, how graciously art thou ready to reward a sound, and holy repentance, who art thus indulgent to a carnal and servile dejection!   

AHAB and MICAIAH: OR, The Death of AHAB.  
WHo would have looked to have heard any more of the wars of the Syrians, with Israel, after so great a slaughter, after so firm a league; a league not of peace only, but of Brotherhood; The halter's, the sackcloth of Benhadad's followers were worn out, as of use, so of memory, and now they are changed for Iron and steel. It is but three years that this peace lasts; and now that war gins which shall make an end of Ahab: The King of Israel rues his unjust mercy; according to the word of the Prophet, that gift of a life, was but an exchange; Because Ahab gave Benhadad his life; Benhadad shall take Ahabs; He must forfeit in himself what he hath given to another. There can be no better fruit of too much kindness to Infidels: It was one Article of the league betwixt Ahab, & his brother Benhadad, that there should be a speedy restitution of all the Israelitish Cities; The rest are yielded, only Ramoth Gilead is held back, unthankfully, injuriously: He that begged but his life receives his Kingdom, and now rests not content with his own bounds: justly doth Ahab challenge his own, justly doth he move a war to recover his own from a perfidious tributary; the lawfulness of actions may not be judged by the events, but by the grounds; the wise and holy arbiter of the world knows why many times the better cause hath the worse success: Many a just business is crossed for a punishment to the agent.  
Yet Israel and juda were now peeced in friendship; jehosaphat the good King of juda had made affinity with Ahab the Idolatrous King of Israel: and, besides a personal visitation, joins his forces with his new Kinsman, against an old confederate; juda had called in Syria against Israel; and now Israel calls in juda against Syria: Thus rather should it be: It is fit that the more pure Church should join with the more corrupt, against a common Paganish enemy.  
jehosaphat hath matched with Ahab; not with a divorce of his devotion. He will fight, not without God; Inquire I pray thee at the Word of the Lord, to day: Had he done thus sooner; I fear Athaliah had never called him father; This motion was news in Israel: It was wont to be said, Inquire of Baal; The good King of judah will bring Religion into fashion in the Court of Israel; Ahab had inquired of his Counsellors, What needed he be so devout, as to inquire of his Prophets? Only jehosaphats presence made him thus godly; It is an happy thing to converse with the virtuous; their counsel and example cannot but leave some tincture behind them of a good profession, if not of piety: Those that are truly religious dare not but take God with them in all their affairs; with him they can be as valiant, as timorous without him.  
Ahab had Clergy enough, such as it was; Four hundred Prophets of the groves were reserved from appearing to Elijahs challenge; these are now consulted by Ahab; they live to betray the life of him who saved theirs. These care not so much to inquire what God would say, as what Ahab would have them say; they saw which way the King's heart was bend, that way they bend their tongues: Go up, for the Lord shall deliver it into the hands of the King: False Prophets care only to please; a plausible falsehood passes with them above an harsh truth. Had they seen Ahab fearful, they had said, Peace, Peace; now they see him resolute, war & victory; It is a fearful presage of ruin when the Prophets conspire in assentation.  
Their number consent, confidence hath easily won credit with Ahab; We do all willingly believe what we wish: jehosaphat is not so soon satisfied; These Prophets were (it is like) obtruded to him (a stranger) for the true Prophets of the true God: The judicious King sees cause to suspect them, and now perceiving at what altars they served, hates to rest in their testimony; Is there not here a Prophet of the Lord, beside, that we might inquire of him? One single Prophet speaking from the Oracles of God, is more worth than four hundred Baalites; Truth may not ever be measured by the poll. It is not number, but weight that must carry it in a Council of Prophets: A solid Verity in one mouth is worthy to preponderate light falsehood in a thousand.  
Even King Ahab (as bad as he was) kept tale of his Prophets; and could give account of one that was missing; There is yet one man (Michaiah the son of Imlah) by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. It is very probable that Micaiah was that disguised Prophet, who brought to Ahab the fearful message of displeasure, and death for dismissing Benhadad, for which he was ever since fast in prison, deep in disgrace: Oh corrupt heart of self condemned Ahab: If Micaiah spoke true to thee, how was it evil? If others said false, how was it good? and if Micaiah spoke from the Lord, why dost thou hate him? This hath wont to be the ancient lot of Truth, censure and hatred; Censure of the message, hatred of the bearer. To carnal ears the message is evil, if unpleasing; and if plausible, good: If it be sweet, it cannot be poison: if bitter, it cannot be wholesome: The distemper of the receiver is guilty of this misconceit: In itself every truth as it is good, so amiable; every falsehood loathsome, as evil: A sick palate cries out of the taste of those liquors, which are well allowed of the healthful. It is a sign of a good state of the soul, when every verdure can receive his proper judgement.  
Wise and good jehoshaphat dissuades Ahab from so hard an opinion, and sees cause so much more to urge the consultation of Michaiah, by how much he finds him more unpleasing: The King of Israel, to satisfy the importunity of so great, and dear an ally, sends an Officer for Michaiah; He knew well (belike) where to find him; within those four walls, where unjust cruelty had disposed of that innocent Seer; Out of the obscurity of the prison, is the poor Prophet fetched into the light of so glorious a Confession of two Kings; who thought this Convocation of Prophets not unworthy of their greatest representation of State and Majesty; There he finds Zedekiah, the leader of that false crew, not speaking only, but acting his prediction: Signs were no less used by the Prophets, than words; this arch-flatterer hath made him horns of iron; the horn is forceable, the iron irresistible; by an irresistible force shall Ahab push the Syrians; as if there were more certainty in this man's hands than in his tongue; If this son of Chenaanah had not had a forehead of brass for impudence, and an heart of Lead for flexiblenesse to humours, and times, he had never devised these horns of iron; wherewith his King was gored unto blood: Howsoever, it is enough for him that he is believed, that he is seconded; All the great Inquest of these Prophets gave up their verdict by this foreman; not one of four hundred dissented: unanimity of opinion in the greatest Ecclesiastical assemblies is not ever an argument of truth; There may be as common, and as firm agreement in error.  
The messenger that came from Micaiah, like a carnal friend, sets him in a way of favour; tells him what the rest said, how they pleased; how unsafe it would be for him to , how beneficial to assent: Those that adore earthly greatness, think every man should dote upon their Idols; and hold no terms too high for their ambitious purchases. Faithful Micaiah scorns the motion; he knows the price of the world, and contemns it, As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak; Neither fears, nor favours can tempt the holily resolute; They can trample upon dangers, or honours, with a careless foot; and whether they be smiled, or frowned on by the great, dare not either alter, or conceal their errand.  
The question is moved to Micaiah; He at first so yields, that he contradicts; yields in words, contradicts in pronunciation; The syllables are for them, the sound against them: Ironies deny strongest in affirming; and now being pressed home, he tells them that God had showed him those sheep of Israel should ere long, by this means, want their Shepherd; The very resemblance, to a good Prince, had been affective; The sheep is an helpless creature, not able either to guard or guide itself; all the safety, all the direction of it, is from the keeper; without whom, every cur chases and werries it, every track seduceth it; Such shall Israel soon be, if Ahab be ruled by his Prophets; The King of Israel doth not believe, but quarrel; not at himself, who had deserved evil, but at the Prophet, who fore-signified it, and is more careful that the King of juda should mark how true he had foretell concerning the Prophet, than how true the Prophet had foretold concerning him.  
Bold Micaiah, (as no whit discouraged with the unjust checks of greatness) doubles his prediction, and by a second vision particularizeth the means of this dangerous error; Whiles the two Kings sat majestically in their thrones, he tells them of a more glorious Throne, than theirs, whereon he saw the King of Gods sitting; Whiles they were compassed with some hundreds of Prophets, and thousands of Subjects, and Soldiers, he tells them of all the host of heaven, attending that other Throne; Whiles they were deliberating of a war, he tells them of the God of heaven justly decreeing the judgement of a deadly deception to Ahab; This decree of the highest is not more plainly revealed, than expressed parabolically: The wise and holy God is represented, after the manner of men, consulting of that ruin, which he intended to the wicked King of Israel; That increated, and infinite wisdom, needs not the advice of any finite, and created powers, to direct him, needs not the assent, and aid of any spirit for his execution; much less of an evil one; yet here an evil spirit is brought in (by way of vision mixed with parable) proffering the service of his lie, accepted, employed, successful; These figures are not void of truth; The action and event is reduced to a decree; the decree is shadowed out by the resemblance of humane proceed; All evil motions, and counsels are originally from that malignant Spirit; That evil spirit could have no power over men, but by the permission, by the decree of the Almighty; That Almighty, as he is no Author of sin, so he ordinates' all evil to good; It is good that is just; it is just that one sin should be punished by another: Satan is herein no other than the executioner of that God, who is as fare from infusing evil, as from not revenging it; Now Ahab sees the ground of that applauded consent of his rabble of Prophets; one evil spirit hath no less deceived them, than they their master; he is one, therefore he agrees with himself; he is evil, therefore both he, and they agree in deceit.  
Oh the noble and undaunted spirit of Michaiah; neither the Thrones of the Kings, nor the number of the Prophets could abate one word of his true (though displeasing) message; The King of Israel shall hear, that he is misled by liars, they by a devil; Surely jehoshaphat cannot but wonder at so unequal a contention; to see one silly Prophet affronting four hundred; with whom lest confidence should carry it, behold Zedekiah more bold, more zealous; If Michaiah have given him (with his fellows) the lie, he gives Michaiah the fist: Before these two great Guardians of peace, and justice, swaggering Zedekiah smites Michaiah on the face; and with the blow expostulates; Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me, to speak unto thee? For a Prophet to smite a Prophet, in the face of two Kings, was intolerably insolent; the act was much unbeseeming the person, more the presence; Prophets may reprove, they may not strike; It was enough for Ahab to punish with the hand; no weapon was for Zedekiah, but his tongue; neither could this rude presumption have been well taken, if malice had not made magistracy insensible of this usurpation: Ahab was well content to see that hated mouth beaten by any hand: It is no new condition of God's faithful messengers to smart for saying true. Falshood doth not more bewray itself in any thing, than in blows; Truth suffers, whiles error persecutes: None are more ready to boast of the Spirit of God, than those that have the least; As in vessels, the full are silent.  
Innocent Michaiah, neither defends, nor complains; It would have well beseemed the religious King of judah, to have spoken in the cause of the dumb, to have checked insolent Zedekiah; He is content to give way to this tide of peremptory, and general opposition; The helpless Prophet stands alone, yet lays about him with his tongue, Behold, thou shalt see in that day, when thou shalt go into an inner chamber, to hide thyself; Now the proud Baalite shown himself too much; ere long he shall be glad to lurk unseen; his horns of iron cannot bear off this danger. The son of Ahab cannot choose, but in the zeal of revenging his father's deadly seducement, call for that false head of Zedekiah; In vain shall that impostor seek to hide himself from justice; But, in the mean while, he goes away with honour; Michaiah with censure. Take Micaiah, and carry him back to Amon, the Governor of the City, and to joash the King's son; and say, Thus saith the King, Put this fellow in prison, and feed him with bread of affliction, and with water of affliction, until I come in peace.  
An hard doom of Truth; The jail for his lodging; course bread and water for his food, shall but reserve Micaiah for a further revenge. The return of Ahab shall be the bane of the Prophet; Was not this he that advised Benhadad, not to boast in putting on his Armour, as in the ungirding it; and doth he now promise himself peace and victory, before he buckle it on? No warning will dissuade the wilful; So assured doth Ahab make himself of success, that he threats ere he go, what he will do when he returns in peace: How justly doth God deride the misreckoning of proud and foolish men; If Ahab had had no other sins, his very confidence shall defeat him; yet the Prophet cannot be overcome in his resolution; he knows his grounds cannot deceive him; and dare therefore cast the credit of his function upon this issue; If thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me; And he said, Harken, O people, every one of you; Let him never be called a Prophet, that dare not trust his God; This was no adventure therefore of reputation, or life; since he knew whom he believed, the event was no less sure, than if it had been past; He is no God that is not constant to himself; Hath he spoken, and shall he not perform? What hold have we for our souls, but his eternal word? The being of God is not more sure, than his promises, than his sentences of judgement; Well may we appeal the testimony of the world in both; If there be not plagues for the wicked, If there be not rewards for the righteous, God hath not spoken by us.  
Not Ahab only, but good jehoshaphat is carried with the multitude; Their forces are joined against Ramoth; The King of Israel doth not so trust his Prophets, that he dares trust himself in his own clothes; Thus shall he elude Michaiah's threat; Iwis the judgement of God, the Syrian shafts cannot find him out in this unsuspected disguise; How fond do vain men imagine to shift off the just revenges of the Almighty?  
The King of Syria gives charge to his Captains to fight against none, but the King of Israel; Thus doth the unthankful Infidel repay the mercy of his late victor; Ill was that Snake saved, that requites the favour of his life, with a sting; Thus still the greatest are the fairest mark to envious eyes. By how much more eminent any man is in the Israel of God, so many more, and more dangerous enemies must he expect; Both earth and hell conspire in their opposition to the worthiest. Those who are advanced above others, have so much more need of the guard, both of their own vigilancy, and others prayers. jehoshaphat had like to have paid dear for his love; He is pursued, for him, in whose amity he offended; His cries deliver him; his cries, not to his pursuers, but to his God; whose mercy takes not advantage of our infirmity, but rescues us from those evils, which we wilfully provoke: It is Ahab against whom, not the Syrians only, but God himself intends this quarrel; The enemy is taken off from jehoshaphat: Oh the just and mighty hand of that divine providence, which directeth all our actions to his own ends; which takes order where every shaft shall light; and guides the arrow of the strong Archer, into the joints of Ahabs' harness; It was shot at a venture, falls by a destiny; and there falls, where it may carry death to an hidden debtor: In all actions, both voluntary and casual, thy will, O God, shall be done by us, with what ever intentions. Little did the Syrian know whom he had stricken, no more than the arrow wherewith he struck; An invisible hand disposed of both, to the punishment of Ahab, to the vindication of Michaiab: How worthily, O God, art thou to be adored in thy justice, and wisdom, to be feared in thy judgements. Too late doth Ahab now think of the fair warnings of Michaiah, which he unwisely contemned; of the painful flatteries of Zedekiah, which he stubbornly believed; That guilty blood of his runs down out of his wound, into the midst of his chariot, and pays Naboth his arrearages: O Ahab, what art thou the better for thine ivory house, whiles thou hast a black soul? What comfort hast thou now, in those flattering Prophets, which tickled thine ears, and secured thee of victories? What joy is it to thee now, that thou wast great? Who had not rather be Michaiah in the jail, than Ahab in the Chariot? Wicked men have the advantage of the way, godly men of the end; The Chariot is washed in the pool of Samaria, the dogs come to claim their due; they lick up the blood of the great King of Israel; The tongues of those brute creatures shall make good the tongue of God's Prophet; Michaiah is justified, Naboth is revenged, the Baalites confounded, Ahab judged; Righteous art thou O God in all thy ways, and holy in all thy works.   

AHAZIAH sick, and ELIJAH revenged.  
AHaziah succeeds his father Ahab, both in his throne, and in his sin: Who could look for better issue of those loins, of those examples? God follows him with a double judgement; of the revolt of Moab; and of his own sickness: All the reign of Ahab, had Moab been a quiet Tributary; and furnished Israel with rich flocks, and fleeces; now their subjection dies with that warlike King, and will not be inherited; This rebellion took advantage, as from the weaker spirits, so from the sickly body of Ahaziah; whose disease was not natural, but casual; Walking in his Palace of Samaria, some grate in the floor of his Chamber, breaks under him, and gives way to that fall, whereby he is bruised, and languisheth; The same hand that guided Ahabs shaft, cracks Ahaziahs lattesse; How infinite variety of plagues hath the just God for obstinate sinners? whether in the field or in the chamber, he knows to find them out; How fearelesly did Ahaziah walk on his wont pavement? The Lord hath laid a trap for him, whereinto, whiles he thinks least, he falls irrecoverably; No place is safe for the man that is at variance with God.  
The body of Ahaziah was not more sick, than his soul was graceless: None but chance was his enemy, none but the God of Ekron must be his friend; He looks not up to the Omnipotent hand of divine justice for the disease, or of mercy for the remedy; An Idoli is his refuge, whether for cure, or intelligence; We hear not till now of Baalzebub; this new God of flies is (perhaps) of his making, who now is a suitor to his own erection; All these heathen deities were but a Devil, with change of appellations; the influence of that evil spirit deluded those miserable clients; else, there was no fly so impotent as that outside of the God of Ekron; Who would think that any Israelite could so far dote upon a stock or a Fiend? Time gathered much credit to this Idol; in so much as the jews afterwards styled Beel-zebub, the Prince of all the regions of darkness: Ahaziah is the first that brings his Oracle in request, and pays him the tribute of his devotion; He sends messengers, and says, Go inquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease; The message was either idle, or wicked; idle, if he sent it to a stock; if to a devil, both idle and wicked. What can the most intelligent spirits know of future things, but what they see either in their causes, or in the light of participation; What a madness was it in Abaziah to seek to the postern, whiles the foregate stood open? Can those evil spirits truly foretell events no way pre-existent, yet they might not, without sin, be consulted; the evil of their nature debars all the benefit of their information; If not as Intelligencers, much less may they be sought to, as gods: who cannot blush to hear and see, that even the very Evangelicall Israel should yield Pilgrims to the shrines of darkness? How many, after this clear light of the Gospel, in their losses, in their sicknesses, send to these infernal Oracles, and damn themselves wilfully, in a vain curiosity; The message of the jealous God intercepts them, with a just disdain, as here by Elijah, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron? What can be a greater disparagement to the true God than to be neglected, than to stand aside, and see us make love to an hellish rival? were there no God in Israel, in heaven, what could we do other? what worse? This affront of what ever Ahaziah cannot escape without a revenge: Therefore thus saith the Lord; Thou shalt not come down from that bed, on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. It is an high indignity to the true God, not to be sought to, in our necessities; but so to be cashiered from our devotions, as to have a false god thrust in his room, is such a scorn, as it is well if it can escape with one death: Let now the famous god of Ekron take off that brand of feared mortality, which the living God hath set upon Ahaziah: Let Baalzebub make good some better news to his distressed suppliant: Rather the King of Israel is himself (without his repentance) hasting to Beel-zebub. This errand is soon done; The messengers are returned, ere they go: Not a little were they amazed to hear their secret message from another's mouth; neither could choose but think; He that can tell what Ahaziah said, what he thought, can foretell how he shall speed; We have met with a greater God than we went to seek; what need we inquire for another answer; With this conceit, with this report, they return to their sick Lord, and astonish him with so short, so sad a relation; No marvel if the King inquired curiously of the habit, and fashion of the man, that could know this, that durst say this; They describe him a man whether of an hairy skin, or of rough, course, careless attire; thus dressed, thus girded; Ahaziah readily apprehends it to be Elijah, the old friend of his father Ahab, of his mother jezebel: More than once had he seen him (an unwelcome guest) in the Court of Israel; The times had been such, that the Prophet could not at once speak true, and please; Nothing but reproofs and menaces founded from the mouth of Elijah; Michaiah and he were still as welcome to the eyes of that guilty Prince, as the Syrian arrow was into his flesh; Too well therefore had Ahaziah noted that querulous Seer, and now is not a little troubled to see himself (in succession) haunted with that bold, and illboding spirit.  
Behold the true son of jezebel; the anguish of his disease, the expectation of death cannot take off the edge of his persecution of Elijah; It is against his will that his deathbed is not bloody: Had Ahaziah meant any other than a cruel violence to Elijah, he had sent a peaceable messenger, to call him to the Court, he had not sent a Captain, with a band of Soldiers, to fetch him; the instruments which he useth, carry revenge in their face: If he had not thought Elijah more than a man, what needed a band of fifty to apprehend one? and if he did think him such, why would he send to apprehend him by fifty? Surely Ahaziah knew of old how miraculous a Prophet Elijah was; what power that man had over all their base Deities; what command of the Elements, of the heavens; and yet he sends to attach him; It is a strange thing to see how wilfully godless men strive against the stream of their own hearts; hating that which they know good, fight against that which they know divine; What a gross disagreement is in the message of this Israelitish Captain? Thou man of God, the King bathe said, Come down; If he were a man of God, how hath he offended? and if he have justly offended the anointed of God, how is he a man of God? And if he be a man of God, and have not offended, why should he come down to punishment? Here is a kind confession, with a false heart, with bloody hands: The world is full of these windy courtesies, real cruelties: Deadly malice lurks under fair compliments, and whiles it flatters, killeth. The Prophet hides not himself from the pursuit of Ahaziah; rather he sits where he may be most conspicuous, on the top of an hill; this band knows well where to find him; and climbs up, in the sight of Elijah, for his arrest; The steepness of the ascent (when they drew near to the highest reach) yielded a convenience both of respiration and parley; thence doth the Captain imperiously call down the Prophet. Who would not tremble at the dreadful answer of Elijah, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume thee, and thy fifty; What shall we say? That a Prophet is revengeful, that Soldiers suffer whiles a Prophet strikes; that a Prince's command is answered with imprecation, words with fire, that an unarmed Seer should kill one and fifty at a blow? There are few tracks of Elijah that are ordinary, and fit for common feet; His actions are more for wonder, than for precedent: Not in his own defence would the Prophet have been the death of so many, if God had not by a peculiar instinct made him an instrument of this just vengeance; The divine justice finds it mere to do this for the terror of Israel, that he might teach them, what it was to contemn, to persecute a Prophet; that they might learn to fear him whom they had forsaken, and confess that heaven was sensible of their insolences, and impieties; If not as visibly, yet as certainly doth God punish the violations of his ordinances, the affronts offered to his messengers still and ever: Not ever with the same speed; sometimes, the punishment overtakes the act; sometimes dogs it afar off, and seizeth upon the offender, when his crime is forgotten. Here, no sooner is the word out of Elijahs mouth, than the fire is out of heaven: Oh the wonderful power of a Prophet! There sits Elijah in his course mantle, on the top of the hill, and commands the heavens, and they obey him, Let fire fall down from heaven; He needs no more but say what he would have done; The fire falls down, as before, upon the sacrifice in Carmel, so now upon the Soldiers of Ahaziah; What is man in the hands of his Maker? One flash of lightning hath consumed these one and fifty; And if all the hosts of Israel, yea of the world, had been in their rooms, there had needed no other force; What madness is it for him whose breath is in his nostrils, to contend with the Almighty? The time was, when two zealous Disciples would fain have imitated this fiery revenge of Elijah, and were repelled with a check; The very place puts them in mind of the judgement: Not fare from Samaria was this done by Elijah, and wished to be done by the Disciples: So churlish a rejection of a Saviour seemed no less heinous, than the endeavour of apprehending a Prophet; Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, as Elias did. The world yielded but one Elias; That which was zeal in him, might he fury in another; the least variation of circumstance may make an example dangerous; presently therefore do they hear, Ye know not of what spirit ye are; It is the calling that varies the spirit; Elijah was God's minister for the execution of so severe a judgement, they were but the Servants of their own impotent anger; there was fire in their breasts, which God never kindled; fare was it from the Saviour of men, to second their earthly fire, with his heavenly; He came indeed to send fire upon earth; but to warm, not to burn; and if to burn, not the persons of men, but their corruptions; How much more safe is it for us to follow the meek Prophet of the New Testament, than that fervent Prophet of the Old: Let the matter of our prayers be the sweet dews of mercy, not the fires of vengeance.  
Would not any man have thought Ahaziah sufficiently warned by so terrible a judgement: Can he choose but say, It is no meddling with a man that can speak lightning and death; What he hath said concerning me, is too well approved by what he hath done to my messengers; Gods hand is with him, mine shall not be against him; Yet now, behold, the rage of Ahaziah is so much the more kindled by this fire from heaven; and a more resolute Captain, with a second band, is sent to fetch Elijah to death; This man is in haste; and commands not only his descent, but his speed; Come down quickly: The charge implies a threat; Elijah must look for force, if he yield not; There needs no other weapon for defence, for offence, than the same tongue, the same breath; God hath fire enough for all the troops of Ahaziah: Immediately, doth a sudden flame break out of heaven, and consume this forward Leader, and his bold followers: It is a just presage and desert of ruin, not to be warned: Worthily are they made examples, that will not take them.  
What Marble, or Flint is harder than a wicked heart? As if Ahaziah would despitefully spit in the face of heaven, and wrestle a fall with the Almighty, he will needs yet again set a third Captain, upon so desperate an employment; How hot a service must this Commander needs think himself put upon? Who can but pity his straits? There is death before him, death behind him: If he go not, the King's wrath is the messenger of death; if he go, the Prophet's tongue is the executioner of death; Many an hard task will follow the service of a Prince wedded to his passion, divorced from God; Unwillingly, doubtless, and fearfully doth this Captain climb up the hill, to scale that impregnable Fort; but now, when he comes near to the assault, the battery that he lays to it, is his prayers; his surest fight is upon his knees; He went up, and came, and fell upon his knees, before Elijah, and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants, be precious in thy sight; he confesses the judgement that befell his Predecessors; the monuments of their destruction were in his eye, and the terror of it, in his heart; of an enemy therefore he is become a suppliant, and sues not so much for the Prophet's yeeldance, as for his own life; This was the way to offer violence to the Prophet of God, to the God of that Prophet, even humble supplications; We must deprecate that evil, which we would avoid; if we would force blessings, we must entreat them; There is nothing to be gotten from God by strong hand, any thing by suit. The life of the Captain is preserved; Elijah is by the Angel commanded to go down with him, speedily, fearelesly. The Prophet casts not with himself: What safety can there be in this journey? I shall put myself into the hands of rude Soldiers, and by them, into the hands of an enraged King; if he did not eagerly thirst after my blood, he had never sought it, with so much loss; But, so soon as he had a charge from the Angel, he walks down resolutely, and (as it were) dares the dangers of so great an hostility: He knew that the same God, who had fought for him, upon the hill, would not leave him in the Valley; he knew that the Angel which bade him go, was guard enough against a world of enemies. Faith knows not how to fear; and can as easily contemn the suggestion of perils, as infidelity can raise them.  
The Prophet looks boldly upon the Court; which doubtless was not a little dis-affected to him; and comes confidently into the bedchamber of Ahaziah; and sticks not to speak over the same words to his head, which he had sent him not long since by his first messengers; Not one syllable will the Prophet abate of his errand; It is not for an Herald of heaven to be out of countenance; or to mince aught of the most kill messages of his God.  
Whether the inexpected confidence both of the man, and of the speech amazed the sick King of Israel, or whether the fear of some present judgement (wherewith he might suspect Elijah to come armed upon any act of violence that should be offered) overawed him; or whether now at the last, upon the sight and hearing of this man of God, the King's heart began to relent, and check itself for that sin, for which he was justly reproved; I know not; but sure I am, the Prophet goes away untouched; neither the furious purposes of Ahaziah, nor the exasperations of a jezebel can hurt that Prophet, whom God hath intended to a fiery Chariot; The hearts of Kings are not their own: Subjects are not so much in their hands, as they are in their Makers: How easily can God tame the fierceness of any creature, and in the midst of their most heady career, stop them on the sudden, & fetched them upon the knees of their humble submission: It is good trusting God with the events of his own commands; who can at pleasure either avert evils, or improve them to good.  
According to the word of the Prophet, Ahaziah dies; not two whole years doth he sit in the throne of Israel; which he now must yield (in the want of children) to his brother. Wickedness shortens his reign; he had too much of Ahab, & jezebel, to expect the blessing, either of length, or prosperity of government: As always in the other, so ofttimes in this world doth God testify his anger to wicked men; Some live long, that they may aggravate their judgement; others die soon, that they may hasten it.   

THE RAPTURE of ELIjAH.  
LOng and happily hath Elijah fought the wars of his God; and now after his noble, and glorious victories, God will send him a Chariot of Triumph: Not suddenly would God snatch away his Prophet without warning, without expectation; but acquaints him before hand with the determination of his glory. How full of heavenly joy was the soul of Elijah, whiles he foreknew, and looked for this instant happiness; With what contempt did he cast his eyes upon that earth which he was now presently to leave, with what ravishments of inward pleasure did he look upon that heaven which he was to enjoy? For a meet farewell to the earth, Elijah will go visit the schools of the Prophets, before his departure: These were in his way; Of any part of the earth they were nearest unto heaven; In an holy progress therefore he walks his last round, from Gilgal, (near jordan) to Bethel, from Bethel to jericho, from jericho to jordan again; In all these sacred Colleges of Divines, he meant to leave the legacy of his love, counsel, confirmation, blessing. How happy a thing it is, whiles we are upon earth to improve our time and gifts to the best behoof of God's Church? And after the assurance of our own blessedness, to help others to the same heaven? But, O God, who can but wonder at the course of thy wise and powerful administrations? Even in the midst of the degeneration, and Idolatries of Israel hast thou reserved to thyself whole societies of holy Prophets; and out of those sinful and revolted Tribes, hast raised the two great miracles of Prophets, Elijah, and Elisha, in an immediate succession: judah itself under a religious jehoshaphat, yielded not so eminent, and clearly illuminated spirits: The mercy of our provident God will neither be confined, nor excluded; neither confined to the places of public profession, nor excluded from the depraved Congregations of his own people; where he hath loved, he cannot easily be estranged: Rather, where sin abounds, his grace aboundeth much more; and raiseth so much stronger helps, as he sees the dangers greater.  
Happy was Elisha in the attendance of so gracious a master, and more happy that he knows it: Feign would Elijah shake him off at Gilgal; if not there, at Bethel; if not yet there, at jericho. A private message (on which Elijah must go alone) is pretended, from the Lord; Whether shall we say the Prophet did this for the trial of the constant affection of his careful and diligent servant, or, that it was concealed from Elijah that his departure was revealed to Elisha: Perhaps he that knew of his own reception into heaven, did not know what witnesses would be allowed to that miraculous act: and now his humble modesty affected a silent and un-noted passage; Even Elisha knew something that was hid from his master, now upon the threshold of heaven: No mere creature was ever made of the whole counsel of the Highest: Some things have been disclosed to babes and novices, that have been closed up to the most wise and judicious: In natural speculations the greater wit, and deeper judgement still caries it; but in the revelations of God, the favour of his choice sways all; not the power of our apprehension: The master may both command and entreat his servants stay, in vain; Elisha must be pardoned this holy and zealous disobedience, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee; His master may be withdrawn from him, he will not be withdrawn from his master. He knew that the blessing was at the parting; and if he had diligently attended all his life, and now slacked in the last act, he had lost the reward of his service. The evening praises the day; and the chief grace of the theatre is in the last Scene; Be faithful to the death, and I will give thee a Crown of life.  
That Elijah should be translated, and what day he should be translated, God would have no secret; The sons of the Prophets at Bethel, at jericho, both know it, and ask Elisha if he knew it not; Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head this day? and he answered, Yea, I know it, hold ye your peace. How familiarly do these Prophet's inter-know one another? How kindly do they communicate their visions? Seldom ever was any knowledge given to keep, but to impart; The grace of this rich jewel is lost in concealment. The removal of an Elijah is so important a business, that it is not fit to be done without noise; Many shall have their share in his loss; he must be miss on the sudden; it was meet therefore that the world should know his rapture should be divine and glorious. I do not find where the day of any natural death is notified to so many; by how much more wonder there was in this Assumption, by so much more shall it be fore-revealed. It is enough for ordinary occurrents to be known in their event: supernatural things have need of premonition, that men's hearts may be both prepared for their receipt, and confirmed in their certainty. Thrice was Elisha entreated, thrice hath he denied, to stay behind his now-departing master; on whom both his eyes and his thoughts are so fixed, that he cannot give allowance so much as to the interpellation of a question of his fellow-Prophets: Together therefore are this wonderful pair comen to the last stage of their separation, the banks of jordan. Those that were not admitted to be attendants of the journey, yet will not be debarred from being spectators of so marvelous an issue; Fifty men of the sons of the Prophets went and stood to view a fare off; I marvel there were no more; How could any son of the Prophets stay within his Colledge-walls that day; when he knew what was meant to Elijah? Perhaps, though they knew that to be the Prophet's last day; yet they might think his disparition should be sudden, and insensible; beside, they found how much he affected secrecy in this intended departure: yet the fifty Prophets of jericho will make proof of their eyes, & with much intention assay who shall have the last sight of Elijah; Miracles are not purposed to silence and obscurity; God will not work wonders without witnesses; since he doth them on purpose to win glory to his name, his end were frustrate without their notice. Even so, O Saviour, when thou hadst raised thyself from the dead, thou wouldst be seen of more than five hundred brethren at once; and when thou wouldst raise up thy glorified body from earth into heaven, thou didst not ascend from some close valley, but from the mount of Olives; not in the night, not alone, but in the clear day, in the view of many eyes; which were so fixed upon that point of thine heaven, that they could scarce be removed by the check of Angels.  
jordan must be crossed by Elijah in his way to heaven: There must be a meet parallel betwixt the two great Prophets, that shall meet Christ upon Tabor; Moses and Elias; Both received visions on Horeb, to both God appeared there in fire, and other forms of terror; both were sent to Kings; one to Pharaoh, the other to Ahab; Both prepared miraculous Tables, the one of Quails and Manna in the Desert, the other of Meal and Oil in Sarepta; Both opened heaven, the one for that nourishing dew, the other for those refreshing showers; Both revenged Idolatries with the sword, the one upon the worshippers of the golden Calf, the other upon the four hundred Baalites; Both quenched the drought of Israel, the one out of the Rock, the other out of the Cloud; Both divided the waters, the one of the Red sea, the other of jordan: Both of them are forewarned of their departure; Both must be fetched away beyond jordan; The body of Elijah is translated, the body of Moses is hid: What Moses doth by his Rod, Elijah doth by his Mantle; with that he smites the waters, and they (as fearing the divine power which wrought with the Prophet) run away from him; and stand on heaps, leaving their dry channel for the passage of those awful feet: It is not long since he mulcted them with a general exsiccation; now he only bids them stand aside, and give way to his last walk; that he might with dry feet mount up into the celestial chariot.  
The waters do not now first obey him; they know that mantle of old; which hath oft given laws to their falling, rising, standing: they are passed over; and now when Elijah finds himself treading on his last earth, he proffers a munificent boon to his faithful servant, Ask what I shall do for thee before I am taken from thee; I do not hear him say, Ask of me when I am gone, In my glorified condition, I shall be more able to bestead thee; but ask before I go. We have a communion with the Saints departed, not a commerce; when they are enabled to do more for us, they are less apt to be solicited by us; It is safe suing where we are sure that we are heard. Had not Elijah received a peculiar instinct for this proffer, he had not been thus liberal: It were presumption to be bountiful on another's cost, without leave of the owner; The mercy of our good God allows his favourites not only to receive, but to give; not only to receive for themselves, but to convey blessings to others; What can that man want that is befriended of the faithful?  
Elisha needs not go fare to seek for a suit; It was in his heart, in his mouth; Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. Every Prophet must be a son to Elijah; but Elisha would be his heir, and craves the happy right of his primogeniture, the double share to his brethren: It was not wealth, nor safety, nor ease, nor honour that Elisha cares for, the world lies open before him, he may take his choice; the rest he contemneth, nothing will serve him but a large measure of his master's spirit; No carnal thought was guilty of this sacred ambition; Affectation of eminence was too base a conceit to fall into that man of God; He saw that the times needed strong convictions, he saw that he could not otherwise wield the succession to such a master, therefore he sues for a double portion of spirit; the spirit of prophecy to foreknow, the spirit of power to work; We cannot be too covetous, too ambitious of spiritual gifts, such especially as may enable us to win most advantage to God in our vocations. Our wishes are the true touchstone of our estate; such as we wish to be, we are; worldly hearts affect earthly things, spiritual, divine; we cannot better know what we are in deed, than by what we would be.  
Elijah acknowledges the difficulty, and promises the grant of so great a request: suspended yet upon the condition of Elishaes' eyesight. If thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be; What are the eyes to the furniture of the soul? What power is there in those visive beams to draw down a double portion of Elijahs Spirit? God doth not always look at efficacy and merit in the conditions of our actions, but at the freedom of his own appointments; The eye was only to be employed as the servant of the heart; that the desires might be so much more intended with the sight; Vehemence is the way to speed both in earth, and in heaven; If but the eyelids of Elisha fall, if his thoughts slacken, his hopes are dashed; There must be fixedness and vigilancy, in those that desire double graces.  
Elijah was going on, and talking, when the Chariot of heaven came to fetch him; Surely, had not that conference been needful & divine, it had given way to meditation; and Elijah had been taken up rather from his knees, than from his feet; There can be no better posture, or state, for the messenger of our dissolution to find us in, than in a diligent prosecution of our calling, The busy attendance of our holy vocation is no less pleasing to God, than an immediate devotion; Happy is the servant whom the master (when he comes) shall find so doing.  
Oh the singular glory of Elijah! What mortal creature ever had this honour to be visibly fetched by the Angels of God to his heaven? Every soul of the elect is attended and carried to blessedness by those invisible messengers, but, what flesh and blood was ever graced with such a convoy? There are three bodily Inhabitants of Heaven; Henoch, Elijah, our Saviour Christ. The first before the Law; the second under the Law; the third under the Gospel; All three in a several form of translation; Our blessed Saviour raised himself to and above the heavens, by his own immediate power; he ascended as the son, they as servants; he as God, they as creatures; Elijah ascended by the visible ministry of Angels; Henoch insensibly; Wherefore, O God, hast thou done thus, but to give us a taste of what shall be? to let us see that heaven was never shut to the faithful; to give us assurance of the future glorification of this mortal and corruptible part?  
Even thus, O Saviour, when thou shalt descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an Archangel, and with the trump of God, we that are alive and remain shall be caught up together with the raised bodies of thy Saints, into the clouds, to meet thee in the air, to dwell with thee in glory.  
Many forms have those celestial Spirits taken to themselves in their apparitions to men; but of all other, most often hath the Almighty made his messengers a flame of fire; never more properly than here; How had the Spirit of God kindled the hot fires of zeal in the breast of Elijah? How had this Prophet thrice commanded fire from heaven to earth? How fitly now at last do these Seraphical fires carry him from earth to heaven?  
What do we see in this rapture of Elijah, but violence and terror, whirlwind and fire? two of those fearful representations which the Prophet had in the rock of Horeb; Never any man entered into glory with ease; Even the most favourable change hath some equivalency to a natural dissolution. Although doubtless to Elijah this fire had lightsomness and resplendence, not terror; this whirlwind had speed, not violence; Thus hast thou, O Saviour, bidden us when the Elements shall be dissolved, & the heavens shall be flaming about our ears, to lift up our heads with joy, because our redemption draweth nigh. Come death, come fire, come whirlwind, they are worthy to be welcome that shall carry us to immortality.  
This arreption was sudden, yet Elisha sees both the Chariot, and the horses, and the ascent; and cries to his now changed master, between heaven and earth, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. Shaphat of Abel-meholah, hath yielded this title to Elijah; the natural father of Elisha, to the spiritual; neither of them may be neglected, but, after the yoke of oxen killed at the farewell, we hear of no more greetings, no more bewailings of his bodily parent; and now that Elijah is taken from him, he cries out, like a distressed Orphan, My father, my father; and when he hath lost the sight of him, he rends his clothes in pieces, according to the fashion of the most passionate mourners; That Elisha sees his master halfway in heaven, cannot take away the sorrow of his loss; The departure of a faithful Prophet of God is worthy of our lamentation; Neither is it private affection that must sway our grief, but respects to the public; Elisha says not only, My father, but the chariot and horsemen of Israel. That we have forgone a father, should not so much trouble us, as that Israel hath lost his guard. Certainly, the view of this heavenly chariot and horses that came for Elijah, puts Elisha in mind of that chariot and horsemen, which Elijah was to Israel. These were God's chariot, Elijah was theirs: God's chariot and theirs are upon the same wheels mounted into heaven; No forces are so strong as the spiritual; the prayers of an Elijah are more powerful than all the Armies of flesh; The first thing that this Seer discerns, after the separation of his master, is, the nakedness of Israel in his loss. If we muster Soldiers, and lose zealous Prophets, it is but a woeful exchange.  
Elijahs Mantle falls from him in the rising; there was no use of that, whither he was going, there was, whence he was taken: Elisha justly takes up this dear monument of his glorified master; A good supply for his rend garments; This was it which (in presage of his future right) Elijah invested him withal, upon the first sight, when he was ploughing with the twelve yoke of oxen; now it falls from heaven to his possession; I do not fee him adore so precious a relic, I see him take it up, and cast it about him; Pensive and masterless doth he now come back to the banks of jordan, whose stream he must pass in his return to the Schools of the Prophets. Ere while he saw what way that river gave to the mantle of Elijah; he knew that power was not in the cloth, but in the Spirit of him that wore it; to try therefore whether he were no less the heir of that spirit, than of that garment, he took the mantle of Elijah and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Elisha doth not expostulate, and challenge, but pray; As if he said, Lord God it was thy promise to me by my departed master, that if I should see him in his last passage, a double portion of his Spirit should be upon me: I followed him with my eyes in that fire, and whirlwind; now therefore, O God, make good thy gracious word to thy servant; show some token upon me for good; make this the first proof of the miraculous power wherewith thou shalt endue me; Let jordan give the same way to me, that it gave to my master. Immediately the stream (as acknowledging the same Mantle, though in another hand) divides itself, and yields passage to the successor of Elijah.  
The fifty sons of the Prophets having been a fare off witnesses of these admirable events, do well see that Elijah (though translated in body) hath yet left his Spirit behind him; they meet Elisha, and bow themselves to the ground before him; It was not the outside of Elijah which they had wont to stoop unto, with so much veneration, it was his Spirit; which since they now find in another subject, they entertain with equal reverence; No envy, no emulation raiseth up their stomaches against Elijahs servant, but where they see eminent graces, they are willingly prostrate. Those that are truly gracious, do no less rejoice in the riches of others gifts, than humbly undervalue their own; These men were trained up in the schools of the Prophets, Elisha at the plough and cart, yet now they stand not upon terms of their worth, and his meanness, but meekly fall down before him whom God will honour; It is not to be regarded who the man is, but whom God would make him; The more unlikely the means is, the more is the glory of the workman: It is the praise of an holy ingenuity to magnify the graces of God where ever it finds them.  
These young Prophets are no less full of zeal, than reverence; zeal to Elijah, reverence to Elisha; They see Elijah carried up into the air; they knew this was not the first time of his supernatural removal; Imagining it therefore possible that the Spirit of God had cast him upon some remote mountain, or valley, they proffer he labour of their servants to seek him; In some things, even professed Seers are blind: Can they think God would send such a chariot and horses for a less voyage than heaven?  
Elisha (knowing his master beyond all the sphere of mortality) forbids them: Good will makes them unmamnerly; their importunity urges him till he is ashamed; not his approbation, but their vehemence carries at last a condescent; Else he might perhaps have seemed enviously unwilling to fetch back so admired a master; & loath to forgo that mantle. Some things may be yielded for the redeeming of our own vexation, & avoidance of others mis-constuction, which out of true judgement we see no cause to affect.  
The messengers tired with three days search, turn back as wise as they went; some men are best satisfied, when they have wearied themselves in their own ways; nothing will teach them wit, but disappointments. Their painful error leads them to a right conceit of Elijahs happier transportation; Those that would find Elijah, let them aspire to the heavenly Paradise; Let them follow the high steps of his sincere faithfulness, strong patience, undaunted courage, fervent zeal; shortly, let them walk in the ways of his holy & constant obedience; at last, God shall send the fiery chariot of death to fetch them up to that heaven of heavens, where they shall triumph in everlasting joys.   

ELISHA 

Healing the Waters.  
Cursing the Children.  
Relieving the Kings.    
IT is good making use of a Prophet whiles we have him. Elisha stayed somewhile at jericho; the Citizen's resort to him with a common suit; Their structure was not more pleasant, than their waters unwholesome, and their soil, by those corrupt waters; They sue to Elisha for the remedy. Why had they not all this while, made their moan to Elijah? was it that they were more awed with his greater austerity? Or was it that they met not with so fit an opportunity of his commoration amongst them? It was told them what power Elisha had exercised upon the waters of jordan, & now they ply him for theirs; Examples of beneficence easily move us to a request, & expectation of favours.  
What ailed the waters of jericho? Surely, originally they were not ill affected; No men could be so foolish as to build a city, where neither earth, nor water could be useful; Mere prospect could not carry men to the neglect of health, & profit. Hiel the Bethelite would never have re-edified it with the danger of a curse, so lately as in the days of Ahab, if it had been of old notorious for so foul an annoyance: Not therefore the ancient malediction of joshua, not the neighbourhood of that noisome lake of Sodom, was guilty of this disease of the soil, & waters, but the late sins of the inhabitants. He turneth the rivers into a wilderness, and water-springs into a dry ground; a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein; How oft have we seen the same field both full and famishing? How oft the same waters both safe, and by some irruption, or new tincture, hurtful? Howsoever natural causes may concur, heaven and earth, and air, and waters follow the temper of our souls, of our lives; & are therefore indisposed because we are so: jericho began now to make itself capable of a better state, since it was now become a receptacle of Prophets; Elisha is willing to gratify his hosts; it is reason that any place should far the better for the presence of Divines: The medicine is more strange than the disease. Bring me a new Cruse and put salt therein: Why a Cruse? why new? why Salt in that new Cruse? How should Salt make water potable? Or, if there were any such virtue in it, what could a Cruse full do to a whole current? Or, if that measure were sufficient, what was the age of the Cruse to the force of the Salt? Yet Elisha calls for Salt in a new Cruse. God (who wrought this by his Prophet) is a free agent; as he will not bind his power to means; so will he by his power bind unlikely means to perform his will.  
Natural proprieties have no place in miraculous works: No less easy is it for God to work by contrary, than subordinate powers.  
The Prophet doth not cast the Salt into the channel, but into the spring of the waters: If the fountain be redressed, the streams cannot be faulty; as contrarily, the purity and soundness of the stream avails nothing to the redress of the fountain: Reformation must begin at the wellhead of the abuse; The order of being is a good guide to the method of amending: Virtue doth not run backward; Had Elisha cast the Salt into the brooks and ditches, the remedy must have striven against the stream, to reach up to the spring; now it is but one labour to cure the fountain; Our heart is a well of bitter and venomous water, our actions are the streams; In vain shall we cleanse our hands, whiles our hearts are evil.  
The Cruse and the Salt must be their own; The act must be his; the power, Gods; He cast the Salt into the spring, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death, or barrenness. Fare was it from Elisha to challenge aught to himself; Before, when he should divide the waters of jordan, he did not say, Where is the power of Elisha, but, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? and now, when he should cure the waters of jericho, he says not, Thus says Elisha, but thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters. How careful is the man of God that no part of God's glory should stick to his own fingers. jericho shall know to whom they own the blessing, that they may duly return the thankes; Elisha professes he can do no more of himself than that Salt, than that Cruse; only God shall work by him, by it: and what ever that almighty hand undertakes, cannot fail, yea is already done; neither doth he say, I will heal, but I have healed; Even so, O God, if thou cast into the fountain of our hearts, but one Cruse-full of the Salt of thy Spirit, we are whole, no thought can pass between the receipt and the remedy.  
As the general visitor of the Schools of the Prophets, Elisha passeth from jericho to that other college at Bethel. Bethel was a place of strange composition; there was at once the golden Calf of jeroboam; and the School of God: True religion and idolatry found a free harbour within those walls; I do not marvel that God's Prophets would plant there; there was the most need of their presence, where they found the spring head of corruption; Physicians are of most use where diseases abound: As he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said to him, Go up thou bald-head; Go up thou bald-head. Even the very boys of Bethel have learned to scoff at a Prophet; The spite of their idolatrous parents is easily propagated; Children are such as their institution; Infancy is led altogether by imitation, it hath neither words, nor actions, but infused by others; If it have good or ill language, it is but borrowed; and the shame or thank is due to those that lent it.  
What was it that these ill-taught children upbraided to the Prophet, but a sleight natural defect, not worthy the name of a blemish, the want of a little hair; at the best, a comely excrement, no part of the body; Had there been deformity in that smoothness of the head, which some great wits have honoured with praises, a faultless and remediless eyesore had been no fit matter for a taunt: How small occasions will be taken to disgrace a Prophet? If they could have said aught worse, Elisha had not heard of this; God had crowned that head with honour, which the Bethelitish children loaded with scorn: Who would have thought the rude terms of waggish boys worthy of any thing but neglect? Elisha looks at them with severe brows, and (like the heir of him that called down fire upon the two Captains and their fifties) curses them in the name of the Lord; Two she-Beares out of the would hasten to be his executioners, and tear two and forty of them in pieces. O fearful example of divine justice! This was not the revenge of an angry Prophet, it was the punishment of a righteous judge: God and his Seer looked through these children, at the Parents, at all Israel; he would punish the parents mis-nurturing their children (to the contemptuous usage of a Prophet) with the death of those children, which they had mis-taught: He would teach Israel what it was to mis-use a Prophet: And if he would not endure these contumelies unrevenged in the mouths of children, what vengeance was enough for aged persecutors?  
Doubtless some of the children escaped to tell the news of their fellows; what lamentation do we think there was in the streets of Bethel? how did the distressed mothers wring their hands for this woeful orbation? And now when they came forth to fetch the remnants of their own flesh, what a sad spectacle it was to find the fields strawed with those mangled carkeises? It is an unprofitable sorrow that follows a judgement; Had these Parents been as careful to train up their children in good discipline, and to correct their disorders, as they are now passionate in bemoaning their loss, this slaughter had never been; In vain do we look for good of those children, whose education we have neglected; In vain do we grieve for those miscarriages which our care might have prevented.  
Elisha knew the success, yet doth he not balk the City of Bethel; Do we not wonder that the furious impatience of those parents, whom the curse of Elisha rob of their children, did not break forth to some malicious practice against the Prophet? Would we not think the Prophet might misdoubt some hard measure from those exasperated Citizens? There lay his way; he follows God, without fear of men; as well knowing that either they durst not, or they could not act violence. They knew there were Bears in the wood, and fires in heaven; and if their malice would have ventured above their courage, they could have no more power over Elisha in the streets, than those hungry beasts had in the way. Whither dare not a Prophet go when God calls him? Having visited the schools of the Prophets, Elisha retires to mount Carmel, and after some holy solitariness, returns to the City of Samaria; He can never be a profitable Seer, that is either always, or never alone; Carmel shall fit him for Samaria; contemplation for action; That mother City of Israel must needs afford him most work: Yet is the throne of Ahaziah succeeded by a brother less ill than himself, than the parents of both: Ahabs impiety hath not a perfect heir of jehoram: That son of his hates his Baal, though he keeps his calves. Even into the most wicked families it pleaseth God to cast his powerful restraints, that all are not equally vicious: It is no news to see lewd men make scruple of some sins; The world were not to live in, if all sins were affected by all. It is no thank to Ahab and jezebel that their son is no Baalite: As no good is traduced from parents, so not all evil; there is an Almighty hand that stops the foul current of nature, at his pleasure: No Idolater can say, that his child shall not be a convert.  
The affinity betwixt the houses of Israel and juda, holds good in succession; jehoram inherits the friendship, the aid of jehoshaphat: whose counsel (as is most likely) had cured him of that Baalisme. It was a just war whereto he solicits the good King of judah: The King of Moah (who had been an ancient Tributary from the days of David) falls now from his homage, and refuses to pay his hundred thousand Lambs, and hundred thousand Rams with fleeces, to the King of Israel; The backs of Israel can ill miss the wool of Moah; they will put on iron to recover their cloth. jehosaphat had been once well chid, well frighted, for joining with Ahab against Aram; yet doth he not stick now again to come into the field with Iehoram against Moab; The case is more favourable, less dangerous; Baal is cast down; The Images of the false gods are gone, though the false Images of the true God stand still; Besides, this rebellious Moab had joined with the Syrians formerly against judah; so as jehoshaphat is interessed in the revenge.  
After resolution of the end, wisely do these King's deliberate of the way. It is agreed to pass through Edom; that Kingdom was annexed to the Crown of judah; well might jehoshaphat make bold with his own: It was (it seems) a march fare about in the measure of the way, but nearest to their purpose: the assault would be thus more easy, if the passage were more tedious; The three Kings of Israel, judah, Edom, together with their Armies, are upon foot. They are no sooner comen into the parching wilds of Edom, than they are ready to die for thirst; If the channels were fare off, yet the waters were further; the scorching beams of the Sun have dried them up; and have left those rivers more fit for walk, than entertainment; What are the greatest Monarches of the world, if they want but water to their mouths? What can their Crowns, and Plumes, & rich Arms avail them when they are abridged but of that which is the drink of beasts? With dry tongues and lips, do they now confer of their common misery; jeboram deplores the calamity, into which they were fallen; but jehoshaphat asks for a Prophet; Every man can bewail a mischief; every man cannot find the way out of it: still yet I hear good jehoshaphat speak too late; He should have inquired for a Prophet, ere he had gone forth; so had he avoided these straits; Not to consult at all with God, is Iehorams sin; to consult late, is jehoshaphats; the former is atheous carelessness, the latter, forgetful oversight; The best man may slacken good duties, the worst contemns them.  
Not without some specialty from God doth Elisha follow the camp: Else, that had been no Element for a Prophet; Little did the good King of judah think that God was so near him; Purposely, was this holy Seer sent for the succour of jehoshaphat, and his faithful followers, when they were so fare from dreaming of their delivery, that they knew not of a danger: It would be wide with the best men, if the eye of divine providence were not open upon them, when the eye of their care is shut towards it; How well did Elisha in the wars? The strongest squadron of Israel was within that breast; All their armours of proof had not so much safety, and protection, as his Mantle; Though the King of Israel would take no notice of the Prophet, yet one of his Courtiers did, Here is Elisha the son of Shaphat, which poured water on the hands of Elijah; This follower of jehoram knows Elisha by his own name, by his fathers, by his masters; The Court of Israel was profane, and Idolatrous enough, yet, even there God's Prophet had both knowledge, and honour; His very service to Elijah was enough to win him reverence; It is better to be an attendant of some man, than to be attended by many: That he had poured water on Elijahs hands, was insinuation enough, that he could power out water for those three Kings: The three Kings walk down (by the motion of jehoshaphat) to the man of God; It was news to see three Kings going down to the servant of him, who ran before the chariot of Ahab: Religion and necessity have both of them much power of humiliation, I know not whether more; Either zeal or need will make a Prophet honoured.  
How sharply dares the man of God to chide his Sovereign, the King of Israel? The liberty of the Prophets was no less singular, than their calling; He that would borrow their tongue, must show their Commission; As God reproved Kings for their sakes, so did not they stick to reprove Kings for his sake: Thus much freedom they must leave to their successors, that we may not spare the vices of them, whose persons we must spare.  
justly is jehoram turned off to the Prophets of his father, and the Prophets of his mother; It is but right, and equal, that those which we have made the comfort and stay of our peace, should be the refuge of our extremity; If our prosperity have made the world our God, how worthily shall our deathbed be choked with this exprobration? Neither would the case bear an Apology, nor the time an expostulation; Iehoram cannot excuse, he can complain; he finds that now three Kings, three Kingdoms are at the mercy of one Prophet; it was time for him to speak fair; nothing sounds from him but lamentations, and entreaties; Nay, for the Lord hath called these three Kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab; jehoram hath so much grace as to confess the impotency of those, he had trusted; and the power of that God whom he had neglected; Every sinner cannot see, and acknowledge the hand of God in his sufferings; Already hath the distressed Prince gained something by this misery; None complains so much as he, none feels so much as he; All the rest suffer for him, & therefore he suffers in them all.  
The man of God, who well sees the insufficiency of Iehorams humiliation, lays on yet more load; As the Lord liveth before whom I stand, Surely, were it not that I regard the presence of jehoshaphat, the King of judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee; Behold the double Spirit of Elijah; the master was not more bold with the father, than the servant was with the son: Elisha was a subject, and a Prophet; He must say that as a Prophet, which he might not as a subject; As a Prophet he would not have looked at him, whom as a subject he would have bowed to: It is one thing when God speaks by him, another, when he speaks of himself; That it might well appear his dislike of sin stood with his honour of Sovereignty, jehoshaphat goes away with that respect, which jehoram miss, No less doth God and his Prophet regard religious sincerity, than they abhor Idolatry, and profaneness: What shall not be done for a jehoshaphat? For his sake shall those two other Princes, and their vast Armies live, and prevail; Edom and Israel, whether single or conjoined, had perished by the drought of the desert, by the sword of Moah; One jehoshaphat gives them both, life, & victory: It is in the power of one good man to oblige a world; we receive true (though insensible) favours from the presence of the righteous; Next to being good, it is happy to converse with them that are so: if we be not bettered by their example, we are blest by their protection.  
Who wonders not to hear a Prophet call for a Minstrel, in the midst of that mournful distress of Israel, and judah? Who would not have expected his charge of tears and prayers, rather than of Music? How unseasonable are songs to an heavy heart? It was not for their ears, it was for his own bosom, that Elisha called for Music: that his spirits after their zealous agitation, might be sweetly composed, and put into a meet temper, for receiving the calm visions of God: Perhaps it was some holy Levite, that followed the Camp of jehoshaphat, whose minstrelsy was required, for so sacred a purpose: None but a quiet breast is capable of divine Revelations; Nothing is more powerful to settle a troubled heart than a melodious harmony; The Spirit of prophecy was not the more invited, the Prophet's Spirit was the better disposed, by pleasing sounds: The same God that will reveal his will to the Prophet, suggests this demand; Bring me a Minstrel; How many say thus when they would put God from them? Profane mirth, wanton music debauches the soul; and makes no less room for the unclean Spirit, than spiritual melody doth for the Divine.  
No Prophet had ever the Spirit at command; The hand of the Minstrel can do nothing without the hand of the Lord; Whiles the Music sounds in the ear, God speaks to the heart of Elisha; Thus saith the Lord, Make this valley full of ditches; Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet that valley shall be full of water, etc. To see wind, and rain in the height of that drought, would have seemed as wonderful, as pleasing; but, to see abundance of water, without wind or rain, was yet more miraculous; I know not how the sight of the means abates our admiration of the effect; Where no causes can be found out, we are forced to confess omnipotency; Elijah relieved Israel with water, but it was out of the clouds, and those clouds rose from the sea; but whence Elisha shall fetch it, is not more marvelous, than secret.  
All that evening, all that night must the faith of Israel and judah be exercised with expectation; At the hour of the morning sacrifice no sooner did the blood of that Oblation gush forth, than the streams of waters gushed forth into their new channels, and filled the Country with a refreshing moisture; Elijah fetched down his fire, at the hour of the evening sacrifice; Elisha fetched up his water, at the hour of the morning sacrifice; God gives respect to his own hours, for the encouragement of our observation; If his wisdom hath set us any peculiar times, we cannot keep them without a blessing; The devotions of all true jews (all the world over) were in that hour combined; How seasonably doth the wisdom of God pick out that instant, wherein he might at once answer both Elishaes' prophecy, and his people's prayers.  
The Prophet hath assured the Kings, not of water only, but of victory; Moab hears of enemies, and is addressed to war; Their own error shall cut their throats; they rise soon enough to beguile themselves; the beams of the rising Sun glistering upon those vaporous, and unexpected waters, carried in the eyes of some Moabites a semblance of blood; a few eyes were enough to fill all ears with a false noise; the deceived sense mis-carries the imagination; This is blood, the Kings are surely slain, and they have smitten one another; now therefore, Moab to the spoil: Civil broils give just advantage to a common enemy; Therefore must the Camps be spoiled, because the Kings have smitten each other. Those that shall be deceived, are given over to credulity; The Moabites do not examine either the conceit, or the report; but fly in, confusedly, upon the Camp of Israel; whom they find, too late, to have no enemies but themselves; As if death would not have hastened enough to them, they come to fetch it, they come to challenge it; It seizeth upon them avoidable; they are smitten, their Cities razed, their Lands marred, their Wells stopped, their trees felled; as if God meant to waste them but once.  
No onsets are so furious as the last assaults of the desperate; The King of Moab now hopeless of recovery, would be glad to shut up with a pleasing revenge; with seven hundred resolute followers, he rushes into the battle, towards the King of Edom; as if he would bid death welcome, might he but carry with him that despighted neighbour; & now, mad with the repulse, he returns: and whether as angry with his destiny, or as barbarously affecting, to win his cruel gods with so dear a sacrifice, he offers them with his own hand the blood of his eldest son in the sight of Israel, and sends him up in smoke to those hellish Deities. O prodigious act, whether of rage, or of devotion! What an hand hath Satan over his miserable vassals? What marvel is it to see men sacrifice their souls, in an unfelt oblation, to these plausible tempters, when their own flesh and blood hath not been spared? There is no Tyrant to the Prince of darkness.   

ELISHA with the Shunamite.  
THE holy Prophets under the old Testament, did not abhor the marriagebed; they did not think themselves too pure for an institution of their Maker; The distressed widow of one of the sons of the Prophets comes to Elisha to bemoan her condition; Her husband is dead; and dead in debt; Death hath no sooner seized on him, than her two sons (the remaining comfort of her life) are to be seized on, by his creditors, for bondmen: How thick did the miseries of this poor afflicted woman light upon her; Her husband is lost, her estate clogged with debts, her children ready to be taken for slaves: Her husband was a religious, and worthy man; he paid his debts to Nature, he could not to his Creditors; they are cruel, and rake in the scarce-closed wound of her sorrow; passing an arrest, worse than death, upon her sons: Widowhood, poverty, servitude have conspired to make her perfectly miserable. Virtue and goodness can pay no debts; The holiest man may be deep in arrearages; and break the bank: Not through lavishness, and riot of expense; (Religion teaches us to moderate our hands; to spend within the proportion of our estate) but through either iniquity of times, or evil casualties; Ahab and jezebel were lately in the throne, who can marvel that a Prophet was in debt? It was well that any good man might have his breath free, though his estate were not: wilfully to over-lash our ability cannot stand with wisdom, and good government; but no providence can guard us from crosses; Holiness is no more defence against debt, than against death; Grace can keep us from unthriftiness, not from want. Whither doth the Prophet's widow come to bewail her case, but to Elisha; Every one would not be sensible of her affliction, or if they would pity, yet could not relieve her; Elisha could do both; Into his ear doth she unload her griefs. It is no small point of wisdom to know where to plant our Lamentation; otherwise, in stead of comfort, we may meet with scorn and insultation.  
None can so feelingly compassionate the hard terms of a Prophet as an Elisha; He finds that she is not querulously impatient, expressing her sorrow without murmuring, and discontentment; making a loving, and honourable mention of that husband, who had left her distressed; readily therefore doth he incline to her succour: What shall I do for thee? Tell me, What hast thou in thine house? Elisha, when he hears of her debt, asks of her substance; Had her house been furnished with any valuable commodity, the Prophet implies the necessity of selling it for satisfaction; Our own abundance can ill stand with our engagement to others; It is great injustice for us to be full of others purses: It is not our own which we own to another; What is it other than a plausible stealth to feed our riot with the want of the owner? He that could multiply her substance, could know it; God and his Prophet love's to hear our necessities out of our own mouths (Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house save a pot of oil.) It is neither news nor shame for a Prophet to be poor; Grief and want perhaps hastened his end; both of them are left for the dowry of his careful widow; She had not complained, if there had been any possibility of remedy, at home; bashfulness had stopped her mouth thus long, and should have done yet longer, if the exigence of her children's servitude had not opened it; No want is so worthy of relief, as that which is loathest to come forth. Then he said, Go borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels, borrow not a few; and when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee, and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full.  
She that owed much, and had nothing, yet must borrow more, that she may pay all: Povertie had not so discredited her with her neighbours, that they should doubt to lend her those vessels empty, which they had grudged full: Her want was too well known; it could not but seem strange to the neighbours, to see this poor widow so busily pestering her house with empty tubs; which they knew she had nothing to fill; they knew well enough she had neither field, nor vineyard, nor orchard, and therefore must needs marvel at such unprofitable diligence; If their curiosity would be enquiring after her intentions, she is commanded secrecy. The doors must be shut upon herself, and her sons; whiles the oil is increasing; No eye shall see the miracle in working, enough shall see it once wrought; This act was no less a proof of her faith, than an improvement of her estate, it was an exercise of her devotion, as well as of her diligence; it was fit her doors should be shut, whiles her heart and lips were opened in an holy invocation; Out of one small jar was poured out so much oil, as by a miraculous multiplication filled all that empty cask: Scarce had that pot any bottom: At least the bottom that it had, was to be measured by the brims of all those vessels; this was so deep, as they were high; Can they have held more, this pot had not been empty: Even so the bounty of our God gives grace, and glory, according to the capacity of the receiver; when he ceaseth to infuse, it is for want of room in the heart that takes it in; Can we hold more, O God, thou wouldst give more; If there be any defect, it is in our vessels, not in thy beneficence; How did the heart of this poor widow run over, as with wonder, so, with joy and thankfulness, to see such a river of oil rise out of so small a spring; to see all her vessels swimming full with so beneficial a liquor; justly is she affected with this sight, she is not transported from her duty; I do not see her run forth into the street, and proclaim her store, nor calling in her neighbours, whether to admire or bargain; I see her running to the Prophet's door, and gratefully acknowledging the favour, and humbly depending on his directions, as not daring to dispose of that, which was so wondrously given her, without the advice of him, by whose powerful means she had received it; Her own reason might have sufficiently suggested what to do; she dares not trust it, but consults with the Oracle of God; If we would walk surely, we must do nothing without a word; Every action, every motion must have a warrant; We can no more err with this guide, than not err without him.  
The Prophet sets her in a right way; Go sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live, thou, and thy children, on the rest; The first care is of her debts, the next, of her maintenance; It should be gross injustice to raise means for herself, and her charge, ere she have discharged the arrearages of her husband; None of the oil was hers, till her creditors were satisfied; all was hers that remained; It is but stealth to enjoy a borrowed substance; Whiles she had nothing, it was no sin to owe; but when once her vessels were full, she could not have been guilt less, if she had not paid, before she stored. God and his Prophets were bountiful; after the debts paid, they provide not only against the thraldom of her charge, but against the want. It is the just care of a religious heart to defend the widow and children of a Prophet from distress and penury.  
Behold the true servant, and successor of Elijah; What he did to the Sareptan widow, this did to the widow of a Prophet; That increase of oil was by degrees, this at once; both equally miraculous, this, so much more charitable, as it less concerned himself.  
He that gives kindnesses, doth by turns receive them, Elisha hath relieved a poor woman, is relieved by a rich. The Shunamite, a religious and wealthy matron, invites him to her house, and now after the first entertainment, finding his occasions to call him to a frequent passage, that way, moves her husband to set up, and furnish a lodging for the man of God; It was his holiness that made her desirous of such a guest; Well might she hope that such an Inmate would pay a blessing for his house-rent; Oh happy Shunamite that might make herself the Hostess of Elisha! As no less dutiful than godly, she imparts her desire to her husband; whom her suit hath drawn to a partnership in this holy hospitality; Blessed of God is that man, whose bed yields him an help to heaven. The good Shunamite desires not to harbour Elisha in one of her wont lodgings, she solicits her husband to build him a chamber on the wall apart: she knew the tumult of a large family unfit for the quiet meditations of a Prophet; retiredness is most meet for the thoughts of a Seer; Neither would she bring the Prophet to bare walls, but sets ready for him, a bed, a table, a stool, and a candlestick, and what ever necessary utensils for his entertainment: The Prophet doth not affect delicacy, she takes care to provide for his convenience; Those that are truly pious, and devout, think their houses, and their hands cannot be too open to the messengers of God; and are most glad to exchange their earthly commodities for the others spiritual. Superfluity should not fall within the care of a Prophet; necessity must; he that could provide oil for the widow, could have provided all needful helps for himself; What room had there been for the charity and beneficence of others, if the Prophet should have always maintained himself out of power?  
The holy man is so far sociable as not to neglect the friendly offer of so kind a benefactor: Gladly doth he take up his new lodging; and, as well pleased with so quiet a repose, and careful attendance, he sends his servant Gebezi, with the message of his thankes, with a treaty of retribution; Behold, thou hast been careful for us, with all this care; What is to be done for thee? Wouldst thou be spoken for to the King, or to the Captain of the Host? An ingenuous disposition cannot receive favours without thoughts of return: A wise debtor is desirous to retribute in such kind, as may be most acceptable to his obligers: without this discretion, we may offer such requirals, as may seem goodly to us, to our friend, worthless: Every one can choose best for himself; Elisha therefore (who had never been wanting in spiritual duties to so hospital a friend) gives the Shunamite the election of her suit, for temporal recompense also; No man can be a loser by his favour to a Prophet; It is a good hearing that an Elisha is in such grace at the Court, that he can promise himself access to the King, in a friend's suit: It was not ever thus; the time was, when his master heard, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy: Now the late miracle which Elisha wrought in gratifying the three Kings, with water, and victory, hath endeared him to the King of Israel; and now, Who but Elisha? Even that rough mantle finds respects amongst those silks and tissues: As bad as jehoram was, yet he honoured the man of God; He that could not prevail with an Idolatrous King, in a spiritual reformation, yet can carry a civil suit; Neither doth the Prophet, in a sullen discontentment, fly off from the Court, because he found his labours unprofitable, but still holds good terms with that Prince, whom he cannot reclaim, and will make use notwithstanding of his countenance in matters, whether of courtesy, or justice; We may not cast off our due respects even to faulty authority; but must still submit and persist, where we are repelled: Not to his own advancement doth Elisha desire to improve the King's favour, but to the behoof, to the relief of others; If the Shunamite have business at the Court, she shall need no other Solicitor; There cannot be a better office, nor more beseeming a Prophet, than to speak in the cause of the dumb, to befriend the oppressed, to win greatness unto the protection of innocence.  
The good matron needs no shelter of the great; I dwell among mine own people; as if she said; The courtesy is not small in itself, but not useful to me; I live here quietly in a contented obscurity, out of the reach either of the glories, or cares of a Court; free from wrongs, free from envies: Not so high as to provoke an evil eye, not so low as to be trodden on; I have neither fears, nor ambitions; my neighbours are my friends; my friends are my protectors; and (if I should be so unhappy, as to be the subject of main injuries) would not stick to be mine Advocates; This favour is for those that either affect greatness, or groan under oppressions; I do neither, for I live among my own people. O Shunamite, thou shalt not escape envy! Who can hear of thine happy condition, and not say, Why am not I thus? If the world afford any perfect contentment, it is in a middle-estate, equally distant from penury, from excess; it is in a calm freedom, a secure tranquillity, a sweet fruition of ourselves, of ours; But what hold is there of these earthly things? How long is the Shunamite thus blessed with peace? slay but a while, you shall see her come on her knees to the King of Israel, pitifully complaining that she was stripped of house, and land; and now Gehezi is fain to do that good office for her, which was not accepted from his master, Those that stand fastest upon earth have but slippery footing; no man can say that he shall not need friends.  
Modesty sealed up the lips of the good Shunamite; she was ashamed to confess her longing; Gehezi easily guessed that her barrenness could not but be her affliction; she was childless, her husband old; Elisha gratifies her with the news of a son: About this season according to the time of life, thou shalt embrace a son; How liberal is God, by his Prophet, in giving beyond her requests; not seldom, doth his bounty overreach our thoughts, and meet us with those benefits, which we thought too good for us to ask. Greatness and inexpectation makes the blessing seem incredible, Nay, my Lord, thou man of God, do not lie to thine handmaid: We are never sure enough of what we desire; We are not more hard to believe, than loath to distrust beneficial events: She well knew the Prophet's holiness could not stand with wilful falsehood; perhaps, she might think it spoken by way of trial, not of serious affirmation; as unwilling therefore that it should not be, and willing to hear that pleasing word seconded, she says, Do not lie to thine handmaid. Promises are made good, not by iteration, but by the effect; The Shunamite conceives, and bears a son, at the set season: How glad a mother she was, those know best, that have mourned under the discomfort of a sad sterility. The child grows up, and is now able to find out his father in the field, amongst his Reapers: His father now grew young again with the pleasure of this sight; and more joyed in this spring of his hopes, than in all the crops of his harvest; But what stability is there in these earthly delights? The hot beams of the Sun beat upon that head which too much care had made tender, and delicate; The child complains to his father, of his pain; Oh that grace could teach us, what nature teaches Infants, in all our troubles to bemoan ourselves to our heavenly father! He sends him to his mother; upon her lap, about noon, the child dies; as if he would return his soul into that bosom, from which it was derived, to his; The good Shunamite hath lost her son, her faith she hath not lost; Passion hath not rob her of her wisdom; As not distracted with an accident so sudden, so sorrowful; she lays her dead child upon the Prophet's bed, she locks the door; she hides her grief, lest that consternation might hinder her design; she hastens to her husband, and (as not daring to be other than officious in so distressful an occasion) acquaints him with her journey, (though not with the cause) requires of him both attendance, and conveyance; she posts to mount Carmel; she cannot so soon find out the man of God, as he hath found her; He sees her a fare off; and like a thankful guest, sends his servant hastily to meet her, to inquire of the health of herself, her husband, her child; Her errand was not to Gehezi, it was to Elisha; no messenger shall interrupt her; no ear shall receive her complaint but the Prophets; Down she falls passionately at his feet, and, forgetting the fashion of her bashful strangeness, lays hold of them, whether in an humble veneration of his person, or in a fervent desire of satisfaction. Gehezi, who well knew how uncouth, how unfit this gesture of salutation was, for his master, offers to remove her, and admonisheth her of her distance; The merciful Prophet easily apprehends that no ordinary occasion could so transport a grave, and well-governed matron; as therefore pitying her unknown passion, he bids, Let her alone, for her soul is vexed within her, and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me. If extremity of grief have made her unmannerly, wise and holy Elisha knows how to pardon it; He dares not add sorrow to the afflicted; he can better bear an unseemliness in her greeting, than cruelty in her molestation; Great was the familiarity that the Prophet had with his God; and as friends are wont mutually to impart their counsels to each other, so had the Lord done to him; Elisha was not idle on mount Carmel; What was it that he saw not from thence? Not heaven only, but the world was before him, yet the Shunamites loss is concealed from him; neither doth he shame to confess it; Oft-times those that know greater matters may yet be ignorant of the less: It is no disparagement to any finite creature not to know something. By her mouth will God tell the Prophet, what by vision he had not; Then she said, Did I desire a son of my Lord? Did I not say, do not deceive me? Deep sorrow is sparing of words; The expostulation could not be more short, more quick, more pithy; Had I begged a son, perhaps my importunity might have been yielded to, in anger; Too much desire is justly punished with loss. It is no marvel if what we wring from God, prosper not; This favour to me was of thine own motion; Thy suit, O Elisha, made me a mother: Couldst thou intent to torment me with a blessing? How much more easy had the want of a son been, than the miscarriage? Barrenness than orbation? Was there no other end of my having a son, than that I might lose him? O man of God, let me not complain of a cruel kindness; thy prayers gave me a son, let thy prayers restore him; let not my dutiful respects to thee be repaid with an aggravation of misery; give not thine handmaid cause to wish that I were but so unhappy as thou foundest me; Oh woeful fruitfulness, if I must now say, that I had a son.  
I know not whether the mother, or the Prophet were more afflicted, the Prophet for the mother's sake, or the mother for her own; Not a word of reply do we hear from the mouth of Elisha: his breath is only spent in the remedy; He sends his servant with all speed, to lay his staff upon the face of the child; charging him to avoid all the delays of the way: Had not the Prophet supposed that staff of his able to beat away death, why did he send it? and if upon that supposition he sent it, how was it that it failed of effect? was this act done out of humane conceit, not out of instinct from God? Or, did the want of the mother's faith hinder the success of that cure? She, not regarding the staff, or the man, holds fast to Elisha; No hopes of his message can lose her fingers: As the Lord liveth, and as they soul liveth, I will not leave thee; She imagined that the servant, the staff might be severed from Elisha, she knew that where ever the Prophet was, there was power; It is good relying upon those helps that cannot fail us.  
Merit and importunity have drawn Elisha from Carmel to Shunem: He finds his lodging taken up by that pale carcase; he shuts his door, and falls to his prayers; this staff of his (what ever became of the other) was long enough (he knew) to reach up to heaven; to knock at those gates, yea to wrench them open; He applies his body to those cold and senseless limbs; By the fervour of his soul he reduces that soul, by the heat of his body he educeth warmth out of that corpse; The child neeseth seven times; as if his spirit had been but hid for the time, not departted, it falls to work afresh; the eyes look up, the lips and hands move; The mother is called in to receive a new life, in her twice-given son: she comes in, full of joy, full of wonder, and bows herself to the ground, and falls down before those feet, which she had so boldly laid hold of in Carmel. Oh strong faith of the Shunamite, that could not be discouraged with the seizure, and continuance of death; raising up her heart still to an expectation of that life, which to the eyes of nature had been impossible, irrcuocable; Oh infinite goodness of the Almighty, that would not suffer such faith to be frustrate, that would rather reverse the laws of nature, in returning a guest from heaven, and raising a corpse from death, than the confidence of a believing heart should be disappointed.  
How true an heir is Elisha of his master, not in his graces only, but in his actions? Both of them divided the waters of jordan, the one as his last act, the other as his first; Elijahs curse was the death of the Captains, and their troops; Elishaes' curse was the death of the children; Elijah rebuked Ahab to his face, Elisha jehoram; Elijah supplied the drought of Israel by rain from heaven; Elisha supplied the drought of the three Kings by waters gushing out of the earth; Elijah increased the oil of the Sareptan, Elisha increased the oil of the Prophet's widow; Elijah raised from death the Sareptans' son; Elisha the Shunamites; Both of them had one mantle, one spirit; both of them climbed up one Carmel, one heaven.   

ELISHA with NAAMAN.  
OF the full showers of grace which fell upon Israel and judah, yet some drops did light upon their neighbours: If Israel be the worse for her nearness to Syria, Syria is the better for the vicinity of Israel. Amongst the worst of God's enemies some are singled out for mercy. Naaman was a great Warrior, an honourable Courtier, yet a Leper; no disease incident to the body is so nasty, so loathsome, as leprosy. Greatness can secure no man from the most odious and wearisome condition; How little pleasure did this Syrian Peer take, to be stooped to by others, whiles he hated to see himself; Even those that honoured him, avoided him; neither was he other than abhorred of those that flattered him; yea his hand could not move to his mouth, without his own detestation; the basest slave of Syria would not change skins with him, if he might have his honour to boot; Thus hath the wise God thought meet to sauce the valour, dignity, renown, victories, of the famous General of the Syrians; Seldom ever was any man served with simple favours; These compositions make both our crosses tolerable, and our blessings wholesome.  
The body of Naaman was not more tainted with his lepry, than his soul was tainted with Rimmon; and, besides his Idolatry, he was a professed enemy to Israel, and successful in his enmity: How fare doth God fetch about his purposes? The leprosy, the hostility of Naaman shall be the occasions of his salvation; That leprosy shall make his soul sound; That hostility shall adopt him a son of God: In some prosperous inroads, that the Syrians under Naaman's conduct, have made into the land of Israel, a little maid is taken captive; she shall attend on Naaman's wife; and shall suggest to her mistress the miraculous cures of Elisha. A small chink may serve to let in much light; Her report finds credit in the Court, & begets both a letter from the King, and a journey of his Peer; whiles the Syrians thought of nothing but their booty, they bring happiness to the house of Naaman; The captivity of a poor Hebrew girl is a means to make the greatest Lord of Syria, a subject to God; It is good to acquaint our children with the works of God, with the praises of his Prophets. Little do we know how they may improve this knowledge, and whither they may carry it; perhaps the remotest Nations may light their candle at their coal: Even the weakest intimations may not be neglected; A child, a servant, a stranger may say that, which we may bless God to have heard: How well did it become the mouth of an Israelite to extol a Prophet; to wish the cure of her master, though an Aramite; to advice that journey, unto the man of God, by whom both body and soul might be cured; True Religion teacheth us pious and charitable respects to our Governors, though Aliens from the Commonwealth of God.  
No man that I hear blames the credulity of Naaman; upon no other ground-doth the King of Syria send this chief Peer, with his letters to the King of Israel; from his hands requiring the Cure; The Syrian supposed, that what ever a subject could do, a Sovereign might command; that such a Prophet could neither be out of the knowledge, nor out of the obedience of his Prince; never did he dream of any exemption, but imagining Iehoram to be no less a King of Prophets, than of people, and Elisha no less a subject, than a Seer, he writes, Now when this letter is comen to thee, behold, I have herewith sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayst recover him of his leprosy. Great is the power of Princes; every man's hand is theirs, whether for skill, or for strength; Besides the eminency of their own gifts, all the subordinate excellencies of their subjects, are no less at their service, than if they were inherent in their persons; Great men are wanting to their own perfections, if they do not both know, and exercise the graces of their inferiors.  
The King of Israel cannot read the letter without amazement of heart, without rending of garments, and says, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends to me, to recover a man of his leprosy? Wherefore consider, and see, I pray you, how he sekeeth a quarrel against me? If God have vouchsafed to call Kings, Gods; it well becomes Kings to call themselves, men; and to confess the distance wherein they stand to their Maker; Man may kill, man cannot kill and make alive; yea, of himself, he can do neither; with God, a Worm, or a fly may kill a man; without God, no Potentate can do it; much less can any created power both kill, and revive; since to restore life is more than to bereave it, more than to continue it, more than to give it; And if leprosy be a death, what humane power can either inflict, or cure it? It is a trouble to a well-affected heart to receive impossible commands; To require that of an inferior which is proper to the highest, is a derogation from that supreme power whose property it is: Had jehoram been truly religious, the injury done to his Maker in this motion, (as he took it) had more afflicted him, than the danger of his own quarrel. Belike, Elisha was not in the thoughts of the King of Israel; He might have heard that this Prophet had made alive, one, whom he killed not: Himself with the two other Kings had been eye-witnesses of what Elisha could do: yet, now, the Calves of Dan and Bethel have so taken up his heart, that there is no room for the memory of Elisha; whom he sued to in his extremity, now his prosperity hath forgotten; Carnal hearts (when need drives them) can think of God, and his Prophet; when their turn is served, can as utterly neglect them, as if they were not.  
Yet cannot good Elisha repay neglect, and forgetfulness; He listens what is done at the Court, and finding the distress of his Sovereign, proffers that service, which should have been required; Wherefore hast thou rend thy clothes; Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a Prophet in Israel. It was no small fright, from which Elisha delivers his King: jehoram was in awe of the Syrians, ever since their late victory, wherein his Father Ahab was slain, Israel and judah discomfited: nothing was more dreadful to him, than the frowns of these Aramites; the quarrel which he suspected to be hatched by them, is cleared by Elisha: their Leper shall be healed; both they, and Israel, shall know they have neglected a God, whose Prophet can do wonders; Many eyes, doubtless, are fastened upon the issue of this message. But what state is this that Elisha takes upon him; he doth not say, I will come to him; but, Let him come now to me; The three kings came down once to his tent, it is no marvel, if he prevent not the journey of a Syrian Courtier; It well beseems him that will be a suitor for favour, to be obsequious; We may not stand upon terms of our labour, or dignity, where we expect a benefit; Naaman comes richly attended with his troops of servants, and horses, and waits in his Chariot at the door of a Prophet; I do not hear Elisha call him in; for though he were great, yet he was leprous; neither do I see Elisha come forth to him, and receive him with such outward courtesies, as might be fit for an honourable stranger; for in those rich clothes the Prophet saw an Aramite; and, perhaps some tincture of the late-shed blood of Israel; Rather, that he might make a perfect trial of the humility of that man, whom he means to gratify, and honour, after some short attendance at his door, he sends his servant with a message to that Peer, who could not but think the meanest of his retinue, a better man than Gehazi's master. What could the Prophet have done other to the lackey of Naaman's man? He that would be a meet subject of mercy, must be thoroughly abased in his own conceit; and must be willingly pliable to all the conditions of his humiliation; Yet, had the message carried in it either respect to the person, or probability of effect, it coudl not have been unwelcome; but now, it sounded of nothing, but sullenness, and unlikelihood; Go, and wash in jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean; What wise man could take this, for any other than a mere scorn, and mockery? Go, wash? Alas, What can water do? It can cleanse from filthiness, not from leprosy; And why in jordan? What differs that from other streams? and why just seven times? What virtue is either in that channel, or in that number? Naaman can no more put off nature, than leprosy; In what a chafe did he fling away from the Prophet's door; and says, Am I comen thus fare to fetch a flout from an Israelite? Is this the issue both of my journey, and the Letters of my King? Can this Prophet find no man to play upon, but Naaman? Had he meant seriously, why did he think himself too good to come forth unto me? Why did he not touch me with his hand, and bless me with his prayers, and cure me with his blessing? Is my misery fit for his derision? If water could do it, what needed I to come so fare for this remedy? Have I not oft done thus in vain? Have we not better streams at home, than any Israel can afford? Are not Abana and Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Folly and pride strive for place in a natural heart, and it is hard to say whether is more predominant. Folly in measuring the power of God's ordinances by the rule of humane discourse, and ordinary event; pride, in a scornful valuation of the institutions of God, in comparison of our own devices. Abana and Pharphar, two for one; Rivers, not Waters; of Damascus, a stately City, and incomparable; Are they not? Who dares deny it? Better, not as good; than the waters, not the rivers; all the waters, jordan, and all the rest; of Israel, a beggarly Region to Damascus. No where shall we find a truer pattern of the disposition of nature; how she is altogether led by sense, and reason; how she fond judges of all objects by the appearance, how she acquaints herself only with the common road of God's proceed; how she sticks to her own principles, how she mis-construes the intentions of God, how she over-conceits her own, how she disdains the mean conditions of others, how she upbraids her opposites with the proud comparison of her own privileges.  
Nature is never but like herself; No marvel if carnal minds despise the foolishness of preaching, the simplicity of Sacraments, the homeliness of ceremonies, the seeming inefficacy of censures: These men look upon jordan with Syrian eyes; One drop of whose water set apart by divine ordination, hath more virtue, than all the streams of Abana, and Pharphar.  
It is a good matter for a man to be attended with wise and faithful followers; Many a one hath had better counsel from his heels, than from his elbows: naaman's servants were his best friends: they came to him, and spoke to him, and said, My Father, If the Prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean. These men were servants not of the humour, but of the profit of their master; Some servile Spirits would have cared only to soothe up, not to benefit their Governor; and would have encouraged his rage, by their own; Sir, will you take this at the hand of a base fellow? Was ever man thus flouted? Will you let him carry it away thus? Is any harmless anger sufficient revenge for such an insolence? Give us leave at least to pull him out by the cares, and force him to do that by violence, which he would not do out of good manners. Let our fingers teach this saucy Prophet what it is to offer an affront to a Prince of Syria: But these men loved more their master's health, than his passion; and had rather therefore to advice, than flatter; to draw him to good, than follow him to evil; Since it was a Prophet from whom he received this prescription, they persuade him not to despise it; intimating there could be no fault in the sleightness of the receipt, so long as there was no defect of power in the commander; that the virtue of the cure should be in his obedience, not in the nature of the remedy: They persuade, and prevail. Next to the Prophet, Naaman may thank his servants that he is not a Leper; He goes down (upon their entreaty) and dips seven times in jordan, his flesh riseth, his leprosy vanisheth; Not the unjust fury and tetchiness of the patient shall cross the cure: lest whiles God is severe, the Prophet should be discredited. Long enough might Naaman have washed there in vain, if Elisha had not sent him; Many a Leper hath bathed in that stream, and hath come forth no less impure; It is the word, the ordinance of the Almighty which puts efficacy into those means, which of themselves are both impotent, and improbable; What can our Font do to the washing away of sin? If God's institution shall put virtue into our jordan, it shall scour off the spiritual leprosies of our hearts; and shall more cure the soul, than cleanse the face.  
How joyful is Naaman to see this change of his skin, this renovation of his flesh; of his life: Never did his heart find such warmth of in ward gladness, as in this stream.  
Upon the sight of his recovery, he doth not post home to the Court, or to his family, to call for witnesses, for partners of his joy; but thankfully returns to the Prophet, by whose means he received this mercy; He comes back with more contentment, than he departed with rage; Now will the man of God be seen of that recovered Syrian, whom he would not see leprous: His presence shall be yielded to the gratulation, which was not yielded to the suit; Purposely did Elisha forbear before, that he might share no part of the praise of this work, with his Maker; that God might be so much more magnified, as the means were more weak, and despicable. The miracle hath his due work; First, doth Naaman acknowledge the God that wrought it; then, the Prophet, by whom he wrought it: Behold, now I know there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel. Oh happy Syrian that was at once cured of his leprosy, and his mes-prison of God; Naaman was too wise, to think that either the water had cured him, or the man; he saw a divine power working in both; such as he vainly sought from his Heathen Deities; with the heart therefore he believes, with the mouth he confesses.  
Whiles he is thus thankful to the author of his cure, he is not unmindful of the instrument, Now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant; Naaman came richly furnished with ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, ten changes of raiment; All these and many more would the Syrian Peer have gladly given to be delivered from so noisome a disease; No marvel if he importunately offer some part of them to the Prophet, now that he is delivered; some testimony of thankfulness did well, where all earthly recompense was too short; The hands of this man were no less full of thanks, than his mouth; Dry and barren professions of our obligations, where is power to requite, are unfit for noble and ingenuous spirits.  
Naaman is not more frank in offering his gratuity, than Elisha vehement in refusing it, As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none. Not that he thought the Syrian gold impure; Not that he thought it unlawful to take up a gift, where he hath laid down a benefit; But the Prophet will remit of Naaman's purse, that he may win of his soul; The man of God would have his new convert see cause to be more enamoured of true piety; which teacheth her Clients to contemn those worldly riches and glories which base worldlings adore: and would have him think, that these miraculous powers are so fare transcending the valuation of all earthly pelf, that those glittering treasures are worthy of nothing but contempt, in respect thereof; Hence it is, that he who refused not the Shunamites table, and stool, and candlestick, will not take naaman's present: There is much use of godly discretion in directing us when to open, when to shut our hands.  
He that will not be allowed to give, desires yet to take: Shall there not, I pray thee, be given to thy servant two mules load of earth? for thy servant will henceforth offer neither  offering, nor sacrifice to other Gods, but unto the Lord. Israelitish mould lay open to his carriage, without leave of Elisha; but Naaman regards not to take it, unless it may be given him, and given him by the Prophet's hand; Well did this Syrian find that the man of God had given a supernatural virtue to the water of Israel; and therefore supposed he might give the like to his earth; Neither would any earth serve him but Elishaes'; else the mould of Israel had been more properly craved of the King, than the Prophet of Israel.  
Doubtless it was devotion that moved this suit; The Syrian saw God had a propriety in Israel, and imagines that he will be best pleased with his own; On the sudden was Naaman half a Proselyte, still here was a weak knowledge with strong intentions; He will sacrifice to the Lord; but where? in Syria, not in Jerusalem: Not the mould, but the Altar is that God respects; which he hath allowed no where but in his chosen Zion; This honest Syrian will be removing God home to his Country; he should have resolved to remove his home, to God; And though he vows to offer no sacrifice to any other god, yet he craves leave to offer an outward courtesy to Rimmon; though not for the Idols sake, yet for his masters: In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon, to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing Naaman goes away resolute to profess himself an Israelite for Religion; all the Syrian Court shall know that he sacrifices upon Israelitish earth, to the God of Israel; they shall hear him protest to have neither heart, nor knee for Rimmon; If he must go into the house of that Idol, it shall be as a servant, not as a suppliant; his duty to his master shall carry him, not his devotion to his master's god; If his master go to worship there, not he; neither doth he say, When I bow myself to the Image of Rimmon; but, in the house: he shall bow, to be leaned upon, not to adore; yet had not Naaman thought this a fault, he had not craved a pardon; his heart told him that a perfect convert should not have abide the roof, the sight, the air of Rimmon; that his observance of an earthly master should not draw him to the semblance of an act of outward observance, to the rival of his master in heaven; that a sincere detestation of Idolatry could not stand with so unseasonable a courtesy.  
Fare therefore is Naaman from being a pattern, save of weakness: since he is yet more than half a Syrian; since he willingly accuses himself, and in stead of defending, deprecates his offence; It is not for us to expect a full stature in the cradle of conversion. As nature, so grace rises by many degrees, to perfection; Leprosy was in Naaman cured at once, not corruption.  
The Prophet, as glad to see him but thus forward, dismisses him with a civil valediction; Had an Israelite made this suit, he had been answered, with a check; thus much from a Syrian was worthy of a kind farewell; They are parted.  
Gehezi cannot thus take his leave; His heart is maled up in the rich chests of Naaman, and now he goes to fetch it: The Prophet and his man had not looked with the same eyes upon the Syrian treasure; the one with the eye of contempt, the other with the eye of admiration, and covetous desire. The disposition of the master may not be measured by the mind, by the act of his servant; Holy Elisha may be attended by a false Gehezi; No examples, no counsels will prevail with some hearts; who would not have thought that the follower of Elisha could be no other than a Saint? yet, after the view of all those miracles, this man is a mirror of worldliness: He thinks his master either too simple, or too kind, to refuse so just a present from a Syrian; himself will be more wise, more frugal; Desire hastens his pace, he doth not go, but run after his booty: Naaman sees him, and, as true nobleness is ever courteous, alights from his Chariot, to meet him; The great Lord of Syria comes forth of his coach to salute a Prophet's servant; not fearing that he can humble himself overmuch to one of Elishaes' family; He greets Gehezi with the same word wherewith he was lately dimitted by his master; Is it peace? So sudden a messenger might seem to argue some change; He so one receives from the breathless bearer news of his master's health; and request; All is well; My master hath sent me, saying, Behold, even now there be come to me from mount Ephraim, two young men of the sons of the Prophets; Give me, I pray thee, a talon of silver, and two changes of garments. Had Gehezi craved a reward in his own name, calling for the fee of the Prophet's servant; as the gain so the offence had been the less, now, reaching at a greater sum, he belies his master, robs Naaman, burdens his own soul. What a sound tale hath the craft of Gehezi devised? Of the number, the place, the quality, the age of his master's guests? That he might set a fair colour upon that pretended request; so proportioning the value of his demand, as might both enrich himself, and yet well stand with the moderation of his master: Love of money can never keep good quarter with honesty, with innocence; Covetousness never lodged in the heart alone; if it find not, it will breed wickedness: What a mint of fraud there is in a worldly breast? How readily can it coin subtle falsehoods for an advantage?  
How thankfully liberal was this Noble Syrian; Gehezi could not be more eager in taking, than he was in giving; As glad of so happy an occasion of leaving any piece of his treasure behind him, he forces two Talents upon the servant of Elisha; and binds them in two bags, and lays them upon two of his own servants; his own train shall yield Porters to Gehezi: Cheerfulness is the just praise of our beneficence: Bountiful minds are as zealous in over-paying good turns, as the niggardly are in scanting retributions.  
What projects do we think Gehezi had all the way? How did he please himself with the waking dreams of purchases, of traffic, of jollity? and now, when they are comen to the tower, he gladly disburdens, and dismisses his two Syrian attendants, and hides their load, and wipes his mouth, and stands boldly before that master, whom he had so foully abused; Oh Gebezi! where didst thou think God was this while? Couldst thou thus long pour water upon the hands of Elisha, and be either ignorant, or regardless of that undeceiveable eye of providence, which was ever fixed upon thy hands, thy tongue, thy heart? Couldst thou thus hope to blind the eyes of a Seer? Hear then thy indictment, thy sentence, from him, whom thou thoughtest to have mocked with thy concealment; Whence com'st thou, Gehezi? Thy servant went no whither. He that had begun a lie to Naaman, ends it to his master; who so lets his tongue once lose to a wilful untruth, soon grows impudent in multiplying falsehoods. Of what metal is the forehead of that man, that dares lie to a Prophet? What is this but to outface the senses? Went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee? Didst thou not till now know, O Gehezi, that Prophets have spiritual eyes, which are not confined to bodily prospects?  
Didst thou not know that their hearts were often, where they were not? Didst thou not know that thy secretest ways were over-looked by invisible witnesses? Hear then, and be convinced; Hither thou goest, thus thou saidst, thus thou didst, thus thou sped'st: What answer was now here but confusion? Miserable Gehezi, how didst thou stand pale and trembling before the dreadful Tribunal of thy severe master, looking for the woeful sentence of some grievous judgement for so heinous an offence? Is this a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and (which thou hadst already purchased in thy conceit) Oliveyards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and men-servants, and maidservants? Did my mouth refuse, that thy hands might take? Was I so careful to win honour to my God, & credit to my profession, by denying these Syrian presents, that thou mightst dash both, in receiving them? Was there no way to enrich thyself, but by belying thy master? by disparaging this holy function in the eyes of a new convert? Since thou wouldst needs therefore take part of Naaman's treasure, take part with him in his leprosy, The leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. Oh heavy Talents of Gehezi! Oh the horror of this one unchangeable suit, which shall never be but loathsomely white, noisomely unclean! How much better had been a light purse, and an homely coat, with a sound body, a clear soul? Too late doth that wretched man now find, that he hath loaded himself with a curse, that he hath clad himself with shame; His sin shall be red ever in his face, in his seed; All passengers, all posterities shall now say; Behold the characters of Gehazi's covetousness, fraud, sacrilege! The act overtakes the word; He went out of his presence, a leper as white as snow; It is a woeful exchange that Gehezi hath made with Naaman; Naaman came a leper, returned a Disciple; Gehezi came a Disciple, returned a leper; Naaman left behind both his disease, and his money; Gehezi takes up both his money and his disease: Now shall Gehezi never look upon himself, but he shall think of Naaman, whose skin is transferred upon him with those talents; and shall wear out the rest of his days in shame, and pain, and sorrow: His tears may wash off the guilt of his sin, shall not (like another jordan) wash off his leprosy; that shall ever remain as an hereditary monument of divine severity. This son of the Prophets shall more loud and lively preach the justice of God by his face, than others by their tongue; Happy was it for him, if whiles his skin was snowwhite with leprosy, his humbled soul were washed white as snow with the water of true repentance.   

ELISHA raising the Iron, blinding the Syrians.  
THere was no loss of Gehezi; when he was gone, the Prophets increased; an ill man in the Church, is but like some shrubby tree in a Garden, whose shade keeps better plants from growing: A blank doth better in a room, than an ill filling: The view of God's just judgements doth rather draw clients unto him, than alienate them; The Kings of Israel had succeeded in Idolatry, and hate of sincere Religion, yet the Prophets multiply; Persecution enlargeth the bounds of the Church; These very tempestuous showers bring up flowers and herbs in abundance: There would have been neither so many, nor so zealous Prophets in the languishments of peace: Besides, What marvel is it, if the immediate succession of two such noble leaders, as Elijah, and Elisha, established, and augmented religion; and bred multitudes of Prophets? Rather, who cannot marvel, upon the knowledge of all their miracles, that all Israel did not prophesy? It is a good hearing that the Prophets want elbowroom; out of their store, not out of the envy of neighbours, or incompetency of provision; Where vision fails, the people perish; they are blessed, where it abounds.  
When they found themselves straitened, they did not presume to carve for themselves, but they craved the leave, the counsel of Elisha; Let us go, we pray thee, unto jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us a place where we may dwell: And he said, Go ye: It well becomes the sons of the Prophets, to enterprise nothing, without the allowance of their Superiors: Here was a building towards, none of the curiousest; I do not see them making means for the procurement of some cunning artificers, nor for the conquisition of some costly marbles, and cedars; but every man shall hue, and square, and frame his own beam. No nice terms were stood upon by these sons of the Prophets; Their thoughts were fixed upon the perfection of a spiritual building: As an homely roof may serve them, so their own hands shall raise it; The fingers of these contemplative men did not scorn the axe, and mallet, and chesell: It was better being there, than in Obadiah's cave; & they that dwell now contentedly under rude sticks, will not refuse the squared stones, and polished contignations of better times. They shall be ill teachers of others, that have not learned both to want, and to abound.  
The master of this sacred Society, Elisha, is not stately, not austere; he gives not only passage to this motion of his Collegiates, but assistance: It was fit the sons of the Prophets should have convenience of dwelling, though not pomp, not costliness. They fall to their work; No man goes slackly about the building of his own house: One of them, more regarding the tree than the tool, let's fall the head of his axe into the river: Poor men are sensible of small losses; He makes his moan to Elisha; Alas master, for it was borrowed; Had the axe been his own, the trouble had been the less to forgo it; therefore doth the miscarriage afflict him, because it was of a borrowed axe: Honest minds are more careful of what they have by loan than by propriety: In lending there is a trust, which a good heart cannot disappoint without vexation: Alas poor novices of the Prophet, they would be building, and were not worth their axes; if they would give their labour, they must borrow their instruments.  
Their wealth was spiritual; Outward poverty may well stand with inward riches; He is rich, not that hath the world, but that can contemn it.  
Elisha love's and cherishes this just simplicity; rather will he work a miracle, than a borrowed axe shall not be restored; It might easily be imagined, he that could raise up the iron out of the bottom of the water, could tell where it fell in; yet even that powerful hand calls for direction; In this one point, the son of the Prophet knows more than Elisha; The notice of all particularities is neither fit for a creature, nor communicable; A mean man may best know his own case; this Novice better knows where his axe fell, than his master; his master knows better how to get it out, than he. There is no reason to be given of supernatural actions: The Prophet borrows an axe to cut an helue for the lost axe; Why did he not make use of that handle which had cast the head? Did he hold it unworthy of respect, for that it had abandoned the metal wherewith it was trusted? Or did he make choice of a new stick, that the miracle might be the more clear, and unquestionable? Divine power goes a contrary way to Art; We first would have procured the head of the axe, and then would have fitted it with an helue; Elisha fits the head to the helue; and causes the wood, which was light, and knew not how to sink, to fetch up the Iron, which was heavy, and naturally uncapable of supernatation. Whether the metal were stripped of the natural weight, by the same power which gave it being; or whether retaining the wont poise, it was raised up by some spiritual operation, I inquire not; Only, I see it swim, like Cork, upon the stream of jordan, and move towards the hand that lost it: What creature is not willing to put off the properties of nature, at the command of the God of Nature; Oh God, how easy is it for thee, when this hard and heavy heart of mine is sunk down into the mud of the world, to fetch it up again by thy mighty word, and cause it to float upon the streams of life, and to see the face of heaven again?  
Yet still do the sides of Israel complain of the thorns of Aram; The children of Ahab rue their father's unjust mercy; From an enemy, it is no making question whether of strength, or wile: The King of Syria consults with his servants, where to encamp for his greatest advantage; their opinion is not more required, than their secrecy; Elisha is a thousand Scouts; he sends word to the King of Israel of the projects, of the removes of his enemy: More than once hath jehoram saved both his life, and his host, by these close admonitions. It is well that in something yet a Prophet may be obeyed; What strange State-seruice was this, which Elisha did, besides the spiritual? The King, the people of Israel own themselves, and their safety to a despised Prophet: The man of God knew, and felt them Idolaters; yet how careful, and vigilant is he, for their rescue; If they were bad, yet they were his own; If they were bad, yet not all; God had his number amongst their worst. If they were bad, yet the Syrians were worse; The Israelites mis-worshipped the true God; the Syrians worshipped a false; That (if it were possible) he might win them, he will preserve them; and if they will needs be wanting to God, yet Elisha will not be wanting to them; their impiety shall not make him undutiful.  
There cannot be a juster cause of displeasure, than the disclosing of those secret counsels, which are laid up in our ear, in our breast. The King of Syria, not without reason, stomaches this supposed treachery. What Prince can bear that an adverse power should have a party, a pensionary in his own Court? How famous was Elisha, even in foreign Regions? Besides Naaman, others of the Syrian Nobility take notice of the miraculous faculties of this Prophet of Israel; He is accused for this secret intelligence: No words can escape him, though spoken in the bedchamber; O Syrian, whosoever thou wert, thou saidst not enough; If thy master do but whisper in thine ear, if he smother his words within his own lips; if he do but speak within his own bosom, Elisha knows it from an infallible information; What counsel is it, O God, that can be hid from thee? What counsel is it, that thou wilt hide from thy Seer? Even this very word that accuseth the Prophet is known to the accused; He hears this tale, whiles it is in telling; he hears the plot for his apprehension: How ill do the projects of wicked men hang together? They that confess Elisha knows their secretest words, do yet confer to take him. There are Spies upon him, whose espials have moved their anger, and admiration; He is descried to be in Dothan, a small Town of Manasses; A whole Army is sent thither to surprise him; The opportunity of the night is chosen for the exploit; There shall be no want either in the number, or valour, or secrecy of these conspired troops: & now when they have fully girt in the village with a strong & exquisite siege, they make themselves sure of Elisha; and please themselves to think, how they have incaged the miserable Prophet, how they should take him at unawares in his bed, in the midst of a secure dream; how they should carry him fettered to their King; what thankes they should have for so welcome a prisoner.  
The successor of Gehezi riseth early in the morning, and sees all the City encompassed with a fearful host of foot, horse, charets: His eye could meet with nothing but woods of pikes, and walls of harness, and lustre of metals; and now he runs in affrighted to his master; Alas, my master, what shall we do? He had day enough to see they were enemies that environed them; to see himself helpless, and desperate; and hath only so much life left in him, as to lament himself to the partner of his misery: He cannot flee from his new master, if he would; he runs to him, with a woeful clamour, Alas, my master, what shall we do?  
Oh the undaunted courage of faith! Elisha sees all this, and sits in his chamber so secure, as if these had only been the guard of Israel, for his safe protection. It is an hard precept that he gives his servant, Fear not; As well might he have bid him not to see, when he saw, as not to fear when he saw so dreadful a spectacle; The operations of the senses are not less certain, than those of the affections, where the objects are no less proper: But the task is easy, if the next word may find belief, [For there are more with us, than with them;] Multitude and other outward probabilities do both lead the confidence of natural hearts, and fix it: It is for none but a David, to say, I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about: Flesh and blood riseth, and falleth, according to the proportion of the strength, or weakness of apparent means.  
Elishaes' man looked about him; yet his master prays, Lord open his eyes that they may see; Naturally we see not, whiles we do see; Every thing is so seen, as it is; Bodily eyes discern bodily objects, only spiritual can see the things of God; Some men want both eyes, and light; Elishaes' servant had eyes, wanted illumination; No sooner were his eyes open, than he saw the mountain full of horses, and charets of fire round about Elisha. They were there before, (neither doth Elisha pray that those troops may be gathered, but that they may be seen) not till now were they descried. Invisible Armies guard the servants of God, whiles they seem most forsaken of earthly aid, most exposed to certain dangers; If the eyes of our Faith be as open as those of our sense, to see Angels as well as Syrians, we cannot be appalled with the most unequal terms of hostility; Those blessed Spirits are ready either to rescue our bodies, or to carry up our souls to blessedness; whether ever shall be enjoined of their Maker: there is just comfort in both, in either.  
Both those charets that came to fetch Elijah, and those that came to defend Elisha, were fiery: God is not less lovely to his own, in the midst of his judgements, than he is terrible to his enemies, in the demonstrations of his mercies. Thus guarded, it is no marvel if Elisha dare walk forth into the midst of the Syrians. Not one of those heavenly Presidiaries struck a stroke for the Prophet; neither doth he require their blows; only he turns his prayer to his God, and says, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness; With no other than deadly intentions did these Aramites come down to Elisha, yet doth not he say, Smite them with the sword, but, Smite them with blindness; All the evil he wishes to them, is their repentance; There was no way to see their error, but by blindness; He that prayed for the opening of his servant's eyes, to see his safeguard; prays for the blinding of the eyes of his enemies, that they might not see to do hurt.  
As the eyes of Elishaes' servant were so shut that they saw not the Angels, when they saw the Syrians; so the eyes of the Syrians shall be likewise shut, that when they see the man, they shall not see the Prophet: To all other objects their eyes are clear, only to Elisha they shall be blind; blind, not through darkness, but through mis-knowledge; they shall see, and mistake both the person and the place: He that made the senses, can either hold, or delude them at pleasure; how easily can he offer to the sight other representations, than those which arise from the visible matter, and make the heart to believe them?  
justly now might Elisha say, This is not the way, neither is this the City, wherein Elisha shall be descried: He was in Dothan, but not as Elisha; he shall not be found but in Samaria; neither can they have any guide to him, but himself. No sooner are they come into the streets of Samaria, than their eyes have leave to know both the place, and the Prophet: The first sight they have of themselves, is in the trap of Israel, in the jaws of death; those stately palaces, which they now wonder at unwillingly, carry no resemblance to them, but of their graves; Every Israelite seems an executioner; every house a jail; every beam a gibbet; and now, they look upon Elisha transformed from their guide, to their common murderer, with horror and paleness: It is most just with God to entangle the plotters of wickedness, in their own snare.  
How glad is a mortal enemy to snatch at all advantages of revenge? Never did the King of Israel see a more pleasing sight, than so many Syrian throats at his mercy; and, as loath to lose so fair a day, (as if his fingers itched to be dipped in blood) he says, My father, shall I smite, shall I smite them? The repetition argued desire, the compellation, reverence: Not without allowance of a Prophet, would the King of Israel lay his hand upon an enemy, so miraculously trained home; His heart was still foul with Idolatry, yet would he not taint his hand with forbidden blood; Hypocrisy will be still scrupulous in something; and in some awful restraints is a perfect counterfeit of conscience.  
The charitable Prophet soon gives an angry prohibition of slaughter; Thou shalt not smite them; Wouldst thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive, with thy sword, and with thy bow? As if he said, These are God's captives, not thine; and if they were thine own, their blood could not be shed without cruelty; though in the hot chaces of war, executions may be justifiable; yet in the coolness of deliberation, it can be no other than inhuman, to take those lives which have been yielded to mercy; But here, thy bow and thy sword are guiltless of the success; only a strange providence of the Almighty hath cast them into thy hands, whom neither thy force, nor thy fraud could have compassed; If it be victory thou aimest at, overcome them with kindness; Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink; Oh noble revenge of Elisha, to feast his persecutors! To provide a Table for those, who had provided a grave for him; These Syrians came to Dothan full of bloody purposes to Elisha; he sends them from Samaria full of good cheer, and jollity; Thus, thus should a Prophet punish his pursuers; No vengeance but this is heroical, and fit for Christian imitation; If thine enemy hunger, give him bread to eat; if he thirst, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head; and the Lord shall reward thee; Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.  
The King of Israel hath done that by his feast, which he could not have done by his sword; The bands of Syria will no more come by way of ambush, or incursion, into the bounds of Israel: Never did a charitable act go away, without the retribution of a blessing; In doing some good to our enemies, we do most good to ourselves: God cannot but love in us this imitation of his mercy, who bids his Sun shine, and his rain fall where he is most provoked; and that love is never fruitless.   

THE FAMINE OF Samaria relieved.  
NOt many good turns are written in Marble: soon have these Syrians forgotten the merciful beneficence of Israel: After the forbearance of some hostile inroad, all the forces of Syria are mustered against jehoram: That very Samaria which had relieved the distressed Aramites, is by the Aramites besieged, and is affamished by those, whom it had fed. The famine within the walls was more terrible than the sword without; Their worst enemy was shut within; and could not be dislodged of their own bowels: Whither hath the Idolatry of Israel brought them? Before, they had been scourged with war, with drought, with dearth; as with single cords; they remain incorrigible, and now God twists two of these bloody lashes together, and galls them even to death: There needs no other executioners than their own maws. Those things which in their nature were not edible, (at least, to an Israelite) were now both dear, and dainty; The Ass was (besides the untoothsomnesse) an impure creature; that which the law of Ceremonies had made unclean, the law of necessity had made delicate, and precious; the bones of so carrion an head could not be picked for less than four hundred pieces of Silver; neither was this scarcity of victuals only, but of all other necessaries for humane use; that the belly might not complain alone, the whole man was equally pinched.  
The King of Israel is neither exempted from the judgement, nor yet yields under it; He walks upon the walls of his Samaria, to oversee the Watches set, the Engines ready, the Guards changed, together with the posture of the enemy; when a woman cries to him out of the City, Help my Lord O King; Next to God, what refuge have we in all our necessities, but his Anointed? Earthly Sovereignty can aid us in the case of the injustice of men, but what can it do against the judgements of God? If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barn floor; or out of the winepress? Even the greatest powers must stoop to afflictions in themselves, how should they be able to prevent them in others? To sue for aid where is an utter impotence of redress, is but to upbraid the weakness, and aggravate the misery of those whom we implore; jehoram mistakes the suit; The suppliant calls to him for a woeful piece of justice; Two mothers have agreed to eat their sons; The one hath yielded hers to be boiled, and eaten; the other, after she hath taken her part of so prodigious a banquet, withdraws her child, and hides him from the knife; Hunger and envy make the Plaintiff importunate; and now she craves the benefit of royal justice; She that made the first motion, withholds her part of the bargain; and flies from that promise, whose trust had made this mother childless. Oh the direful effects of famine, that turns off all respects of nature, and gives no place to horror; causing the tender mother to lay her hands, yea her teeth upon the fruit of her own body; and to receive that into her stomach, which she hath brought forth of her womb; What should jehoram do? The match was monstrous; The challenge was just, yet unnatural; This complainant had purchased one half of the living child, by the one half of hers, dead; The mother of the surviving Infant is pressed by covenant, by hunger; restrained by nature; To force a mother to deliver up her child to voluntary slaughter, had been cruel; To force a Debtor to pay a confessed arrearage, seemed but equal: If the remaining child be not dressed for food, this mother of the devoured child is both rob, and affamished; If he be, innocent blood is shed by authority.  
It is no marvel if the question astonished the judge; not so much for the difficulty of the demand, as the horror of the occasion; To what lamentable distress did jehoram find his people driven? Not without cause did the King of Israel rend his garments, and show his sackcloth; well might he see his people branded with that ancient curse which God had denounced against the rebellious; The Lord shall bring a Nation against thee, of a fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young; And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates; And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons, and of thy daughters; The tender and delicate woman, her eyes shall be evil towards her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and towards the children which she shall bear, for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straightness. He mourns for the plague, he mourns not for the cause of this plague, his sin, and theirs; I find his sorrow, I find not his repentance: The worst man may grieve for his smart, only the good heart grieves for his offence: In stead of being penitent, jehoram is furious, and turns his rage from his sins, against the Prophet; God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, shall stand on him this day: Alas, what hath the righteous done? Perhaps Elisha (that we may imagine some colours of this displeasure) fore-threatned this judgement; but they deserved it, perhaps he might have averted it by his prayers; their unrepentance disabled him; Perhaps he persuaded Iehoram to hold out the siege; though through much hardness, he foresaw the deliverance; In all this how hath Elisha forfeited his head? All Israel did not afford an head so guiltless as this that was destined to slaughter: This is the fashion of the world; the lewd blames the innocent, and will revenge their own sins upon others uprightness.  
In the midst of all this sad estate of Samaria, and these storms of jehoram, the Prophet sits quietly in his own house, amongst his holy Consorts; bewailing no doubt both the sins, and misery of their people; and prophetically conferring of the issue; when suddenly God reveals to him the bloody intent, and message of jehoram, and he at once reveals it to his fellows. See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head. Oh the unimitable liberty of a Prophet! The same God that showed him his danger, suggested his words; He may be bold, where we must be awful; Still is Naboths blood laid in Iehorams dish; The foul fact of Ahab blemisheth his posterity; and now when the son threats violence to the innocent, murder is objected to him as hereditary.  
He that foresaw his own peril, provides for his safety; [Shut the door and hold him fast at the door.] No man is bound to tender his throat to an unjust stroke; This bloody commission was prevented by a prophetical foresight: The same eye that saw the executioner coming to smite him, saw also the King hasting after him, to stay the blow; The Prophet had been no other than guilty of his own blood, if he had not reserved himself a while, for the rescue of authority: Oh the inconstancy of carnal hearts! It was not long since jehoram could say to Elisha, My father, shall I smite them? now he is ready to smite him as an enemy, whom he honoured as a father; Yet again, his lips had no sooner given sentence of death against the Prophet, than his feet stir to recall it; It should seem that Elisha, upon the challenges and expostulations of Iehorams messenger, had sent a persuasive message to the King of Israel, yet a while to wait patiently upon God for his deliverance; The discontented Prince flies off in an impotent anger, Behold, this evil is of the Lord, what should I wait for the Lord any longer? Oh the desperate resolutions of impatient minds! They have stinted God both for his time and his measure; if he exceed either, they either turn their backs upon him, or fly in his face: The position was true, the inference deadly: All that evil was of the Lord; they deserved it, he sent it: What then? It should have been therefore argued, He that sent it, can remove it: I will wait upon his mercy, under whose justice I suffer: Impatience and distrust shall but aggravate my judgement; It is the Lord, let him do what he will; But now to despair because God is just, to defy mercy because it lingers, to reject God for correction, it is a presumptuous madness, an impious pettishness.  
Yet in spite of all these provocations both of King, and people, Elisha hath good news for jehoram; Thus saith the Lord, To morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flower be sold for a Shekell; and two measures of Barley for a Shekell in the gate of Samaria: Miserable Israel now sees an end of this hard trial; One days patience shall free them both of siege, and famine. God's deliverances may over-stay our expectation, not the due period of his own counsels. Oh infinite mercy, when man says, No longer, God says, To morrow; As if he would condescend, where he might judge; and would please them who deserved nothing but punishment. The word seemed not more comfortable, than incredible; A Lord, on whose hand the King leaned, answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? Prophecies, before they be fulfilled, are riddles; no spirit can aread them, but that by which they are delivered. It is a foolish and injurious infidelity to question a possibility, where we know the message is Gods: How easy is it for that omnipotent hand to effect those things, which surpass all the reach of humane conceit? Had God intended a miraculous multiplication, was it not as easy for him to increase the corn or meal of Samaria, as the widow's oil? was it not as easy for him to give plenty of victuals without opening the windows of heaven, as to give plenty of water without wind, or rain? The Almighty hates to be disinherited; This Peer of Israel shall rue his unbelief; Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof; The sight shall be yielded for conviction, the fruition shall be denied for punishment; Well is that man worthy to want the benefit which he would not believe; Who can pity to see Infidelity excluded from the blessings of earth, from the glory of heaven?  
How strange a choice doth God make of the Intelligencers of so happy a change: Four Lepers sit at the entering of the Gate; they see nothing but death before them, famine within the walls, the enemy, without: The election is woeful; at last they resolve upon the lesser evil; Famine is worse than the Syrian; In the famine there is certainty of perishing; amongst the Syrians, hazard; Perhaps the enemy may have some pity, hunger hath none; and, were the death equally certain, it were more easy to die by the sword, than by famine; upon this deliberation they come down into the Syrian camp, to find either speed of mercy, or dispatch. Their hunger would not give them respite till morning; By twilight are they fallen upon the uttermost tents: Behold, there was no man; They marvel at the silence, and solitude; they look, and listen; the noise of their own feet affrighted them; their guilty hearts supplied the Syrians, and expected fearfully those which were as fearfully fled: How easily can the Almighty confound the power of the strong, the policy of the wise? God puts a Panic terror into the hearts of the proud Syrians; he makes them hear a noise of charets, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host; They say one to another, Lo the King of Israel hath hired against us the Kings of the Hittites, and the Kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us; they arise therefore in a confused rout, and leaving all their substance behind them, flee for their lives. Not long before, Elishaes' servant saw charets and horses, but heard none; Now, these Syrians hear charets and horses, but see none; That sight comforted his heart; this sound dismayed theirs; The Israelites heard no noise within the walls, the Lepers heard no noise without the gates; Only the Syrians heard this noise in their camp: What a scorn doth God put upon these presumptuous Aramites? He will not vouchsafe to use any substantial stratagem against them; nothing but an empty sound shall scatter them, and send them home empty of substance, laded with shame, half-dead with fear; the very horses that might have hastened their flight, are left tied in their Tents; their very garments are a burden; all is left behind, save their very bodies, and those breathless for speed.  
Doubtless these Syrians knew well to what miserable exigents the enclosed Israelites were brought, by their siege; and now made full account to sack, and ransack their Samaria; already had they divided, and swallowed the prey; when suddenly God puts them into a ridiculous confusion; and sends them to seek safety in their heels; no booty is now in price with them but their life; and happy is he that can run fastest.  
Thus the Almighty laughs at the designs of insolent men, and shuts up their counsels in shame.  
The fear of the four Lepers began now to give way to security; they fill their bellies, and hide their treasures, and pass from one Tent to another, in a fastidious choice of the best commodities; they who erewhile would have held it happiness enough to have been blessed with a crust, now wantonly rove for dainties; and from necessity leap into excess.  
How fare self-love carries us in all our actions; even to the neglect of the public? Not till their own bellies, and hands, and eyes were filled, did these Lepers think of imparting this news to Israel: at last, when themselves are glutted, they begin to remember the hunger of their brethren; and now they find room for remorse; We do not well, this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace; Nature teaches us that it is an injury to engross blessings: and so to mind the private, as if we had no relation to a community; we are worthy to be shut out of the Citie-gates for Lepers, if the respects to the public good do not oversway with us in all our desires, in all our demeanour; and well may we with these covetous Lepers fear a mischief upon ourselves, if we shall wilfully conceal blessings from others.  
The conscience of this wrong and danger sends back the Lepers into the City; they call to the Porters; and soon transmit the news to the King's household; The King of Israel complains not to have his sleep broken with such intelligence; He ariseth in the night, and not contemning good news, though brought by Lepers, consults with his servants of the business.  
We cannot be too jealous of the intentions of an enemy; jehoram wisely suspects this flight of the Syrians to be but simulatorie, and politic; only to draw Israel out of their City, for the spoil of both; There may be more peril in the back of an enemy, than in the face; the cruelest slaughters have been in retiring: Easily therefore is the King persuaded to adventure some few forlorn Scouts for further assurance; The word of Elisha is out of his head, out of his heart; else there had been no place for this doubt: Timorous hearts never think themselves sure; those that have no saith, had need of much sense.  
Those few horses that remain, are sent forth for discovery; they find nothing but Monuments of frightfulness, pledges of security: Now Israel dares issue forth to the prey; There (as if the Syrians had comen thither to enrich them) they find granaries, wardrobes, treasures, and what ever may serve either for use, or ostentation: Every Israelite goes away filled, laden, wearied with the wealthy spoil.  
As scarcity breeds dearth, so plenty cheapness: To day a measure of fine flower is lower rated, than yesterday of dung.  
The distrustful Peer of Israel sees this abundance, according to the word of the Prophet, but enjoys it not: he sees this plenty can come in at the gate, though the windows of heaven be not open; The gate is his charge; The affamished Israelites press in upon him, and bear him down in the throng; Extreme hunger hath no respect to greatness: Not their rudeness, but his own unbelief hath trampled him under feet. He that abased the power of God by his distrust, is abased worthily to the heels of the multitude; Faith exalts a man above his own sphere; Infidelity depresses him into the Dust, into Hell: He that believes not is condemned already.  
FINIS.