vour of his servant, and is denied. Such an awfulness hath God placed in sovereignty, that no entreaty, no extremity, can move the hand against it. What metal are those men made of, that can suggest or resolve, and attempt the violation of majesty? Wicked men care more for the shame of the world than the danger of their souls. Desperate Saul will now supply his armour-bearer; and as a man that bore arms against himself, he falls upon his own sword. What if he had died by the weapon of a Philistine? so did his son Jonathan, and lost no glory: these conceits of disreputation prevail with carnal hearts above all spiritual respects. There is no greater murderer than vain-glory. Nothing more argues a heart void of grace, than to be transported by idle popularity into actions prejudicial to the soul. : Evil examples, especially of the great, never escape imitation: the armour-bearer of Saul follows his master, and dares do that to himself which to his king he durst not; as if their own swords had been more familiar executioners, they yielded unto them what they grudged to their pursuers. From the beginning was Saul ever his own enemy; neither did any hands hurt him but his own and now his death is suitable to his life; his own hand pays him the reward of all his wickedness. The end of hypocrites and envious men is commonly fearful. Now is the blood of God's priests, which Saul shed, and of David, which he would have shed, required and requited. The evil spirit had said, the evening before, "To-morrow thou shalt be with me ;" and now Saul hasteth to make the devil no liar: rather than fail, he gives himself his own mittimus. O the woful extremities of a despairing soul, plunging him ever into a greater mischief, to avoid the less! He might have been a patient in another's violence, and faultless; now, while he will needs act the Philistine's part upon himself, he lived and died a murderer: the case is deadly, when the prisoner breaks the jail, and will not stay for his delivery; and though we may not pass sentence upon such a soul, yet upon the fact we may: the soul may possibly repent in the parting; the act is heinous, and such as, without repentance, kills the soul. It was the next day ere the Philistines knew how much they were victors; then, finding the dead corpse of Saul and his sons, they begin their triumphs. The head of king Saul is cut off in lieu of Go- | liah's, and now all their idol temples ring of their success. Foolish Philistines! if they had not been more beholden to Saul's sins than their gods, they had never car. ried away the honour of those trophies; instead of magnifying the justice of the true God, who punished Saul with deserved death, they magnify the power of the false. Superstition is extremely injurious to God: it is no better than theft to ascribe unto the second causes, that honour which is due unto the first; but to give God's glory to those things which neither act, nor are, it is the highest degree of spiritual robbery. Saul was none of the best kings; yet so impatient are his subjects of the indignity offered to his dead corpse, that they will rather leave their own bones amongst the Philistines, than the carcase of Saul. Such a close relation there is betwixt a prince and subject, that the dishonour of either is inseparable from both. How willing should we be to hazard our bodies or substance for the vindication either of the person or name of a good king, while he lives to the benefit of our protection! It is an unjust ingratitude in those men which can endure the disgrace of them under whose shelter they live; but how unnatural is the villany of those miscreants that can be content to be actors in the capital wrongs offered to sovereign authority! It were a wonder, if, after the death of a prince, there should want some pickthank to insinuate himself into his successor. An Amalekite young man rides post to Ziklag to find out David, whom even common rumour had notified for the anointed heir to the kingdom of Israel, to be the first messenger of that news, which he thought could. be no other than acceptable, the death of Saul; and, that the tidings might be so much more meritorious, he adds to the report what he thinks might carry the greatest retribution. In hope of reward or honour, the man is content to belie himself to David: it was not the spear, but the sword of Saul, that was the instrument of his death; neither could this stranger find Saul, but dying, since the armour-bearer of Saul saw him dead ere he offered that violence to himself: the hand of this Amalekite, therefore, was not guilty; his tongue was. Had not this messenger measured David's foot by his own last, he had forborne this piece of the news, and not hoped to advantage himself by this falsehood. he thinks the tidings of a kingdom cannot but please; none but Saul and Jonathan stood in David's way: he cannot choose but like to hear of their removal, especially since Saul did so tyrannously persecute his innocence. If I shall only report the fact Now done by another, I shall go away with but | the recompense of a lucky post; whereas, if I take upon me the action, I am the man to whom David is beholden for the kingdom; he cannot but honour and requite me as the author of his deliverance and happiness. Worldly minds think no man can be of any other than of their own diet; and because they find the respects of selflove and private profit so strongly prevailing with themselves, they cannot conceive how these should be capable of a repulse from others. : anointed." It is a just supposition, that every man is so great a favourer of himself, that he will not misreport his own actions, nor say the worst of himself. In matter of confession, men may, without injury, be taken at their words: if he did it, his fact was capital; if he did it not, his lie. It is pity any other recompense should befall those false flatterers, that can be content to father a sin to get thanks. Every drop of royal blood is sacred; for a man to say that he hath shed it, is mortal. O how far different spirits from this of David, are those men which suborn the death of princes, and celebrate and canonize the murderers ! "Into their secret, let not my soul come; my glory, be not thou joined to their assembly." CONTEMPLATION VII. ABNER AND JOAB. How much was this Amalekite mocked of his hopes! While he imagined that David would now triumph and feast in the assured expectation of the kingdom, and possession of the crown of Israel, he finds him rending his clothes, and wringing his hands, and weeping and mourning as if all his comfort had been dead with Saul and Jonathan and yet perhaps he thought, this sorrow of David is but fashionable, How merciful and seasonable are the prosuch as great heirs make show of in the visions of God! Ziklag was now nothing fatal day they have longed for: these tears but ruins and ashes: David might return will be soon dry; the sight of a crown will to the soil where it stood, to the roofs and soon breed a succession of other passions. walls he could not; no sooner is he disapBut this error is soon corrected; for when pointed of that harbour, than God provides David had entertained this bearer with a him cities of Hebron: Saul shall die to give sad fast all the day, he calls him forth in the him elbow-room. Now doth David find evening to execution: How, wast thou the comfort that his extremity sought in not afraid," saith he, "to put forth thy the Lord his God; now are his clouds for hand to destroy the anointed of the Lord?" a time passed over, and the sun breaks Doubtless the Amalekite made many fair gloriously forth: David shall reign after his pleas for himself, out of the grounds of his sufferings: So shall we, if we endure to the own report. Alas! Saul was before fallen end, find a crown of righteousness, which upon his own spear; it was but mercy to the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give kill him that was half dead, that he might us at that day. But though David well die the shorter besides, his entreaty and knew that his head was long before anointimportunate prayers moved me to hasten ed, and had heard Saul himself confidently him through those painful gates of death: avouching his succession, yet he will not had I stricken him as an enemy, I had stir from the heaps of Ziklag, till he has deserved the blow I had given; now I consulted with the Lord. It did not conlent him the hand of a friend; why am I tent him, that he had God's warrant for punished for obeying the voice of a king, the kingdom, but he must have his instrucand for perfecting what himself had begun, tions for the taking possession of it. How and could not finish? And if neither his safe and happy is the man that is resolved own wound, nor mine, had despatched him, to do nothing without God! Neither will the Philistines were at his heels, ready to do generalities of direction be sufficient; even this same act with insultation, which I did particular circumstances must look for a in favour; and if my hand had not pre-word; still is God a pillar of fire and cloud vented him, where had been the crown of to the eye of every İsraelite: neither may Israel, which I now have here presented to there be any motion or stay but from him; thee? I could have delivered that to king that action cannot but succeed, which proAchish, and have been rewarded with ho- ceeds upon so sure a warrant. nour: let me not die for an act well meant to thee, however construed by thee. But no pretence can make his own tale not deadly: Thy blood be upon thine own head, for thine own mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the Lord's : God sends him to Hebron, a city of Judah; neither will David go up thither alone, but he takes with him all his men, with their whole households: they shall take such part as himself; as they had shared with him in his misery, so they shall now in his prosperity neither doth he take advantage of their late mutiny, which was yet fresh and green, to cashier those unthankful and ungracious followers; but pardoning their secret rebellions, he makes them partakers of his good success. Thus doth our heavenly leader, whom David prefigured, take us to reign with him, who have suffered with him. Passing by our manifold infirmities, as if they had not been, he removeth us from the land of our banishment, and the ashes of our forlorn Ziklag, to the Hebron of our peace and glory: the expectation of this day must, as it did with David's soldiers, digest all our sorrows. Never any calling of God was so conspicuous, as not to find some opposites. What Israelite did not know David appointed by God to the succession of the kingdom? Even the Amalekite could carry the crown to him as the true owner: yet there wants not an Abner to resist him, and the title of an Ishbosheth to colour his resistance. If any of Saul's house could have made challenge to the crown, it should | have been Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, who, it seems, had too much of his father's blood to be a competitor with David: the question is not, who may claim the most right, but who may best serve the faction: neither was Ishbosheth any other than Abner's stale. Saul could not have a fitter courtier: whether in the imitation of his master's envy, or the ambition of ruling under a borrowed name, he strongly opposed David. There are those who strive against their own hearts, to make a side with whom conscience is oppressed by affection. An ill quarrel, once undertaken, shall be maintained, although with blood: now, not so much the blood of Saul, as the engagement of Abner, makes the war. The sons of Zeruiah stand fast to David. It is much how a man placeth his first interest: if Abner had been in Joab's room, when Saul's displeasure drove David from the court, or Joab in Abner's, these actions, these events, had been changed with the persons: it was the only happiness of Joab that he fell on the better side. Both the commanders under David and Ishbosheth were equally cruel: both are so inured to blood, that they make but a sport of killing. Custom makes sin so familiar, that the horror of it is to some turned into pleasure "Come, let the young men play before us." Abner is the challenger, and speeds thereafter; for though, in the matches of duel, both sides miscarried, yet, in the following conflict, Abner and his men are beaten. By the success of those single combats no man knows the better of the cause: both sides perish, to show how little God liked either the offer or the acceptation of such a trial; but when both did their best, God punisheth the wrong part with discomfiture. O the misery of civil dissension! Israel and Judah were brethren; one carried the name of the father, the other of the son. Judah was but a branch of Israel; Israel was the root of Judah: yet Israel and Judah must fight, and kill each other, only upon the quarrel of an ill leader's ambition. The speed of Asahel was not greater than his courage. It was a mind fit for one of David's worthies, to strike at the head, to match himself with the best. He was both swift and strong; but "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." If he had gone never so slowly, he might have overtaken death: now he runs to fetch it. So little lust had Abner to shed the blood of a son of Zeruiah, that he twice advises him to retreat from pursuing his own peril. Asahel's cause was so much better as Abner's success. Many a one miscarries in the rash prosecution of a good quarrel, when the abettors of the worst part go away with victory. Heat of zeal sometimes, in the indiscreet pursuit of a just adversary, proves mortal to the agent, prejudicial to the service. Abner, while he kills, yet he flies; and runs away from his own death, while he inflicts it upon another. David's followers had the better of the field and day. The sun, as unwilling to see any more Israelitish blood shed by brethren, hath withdrawn himself: and now both parties, having got the advantage of a hill under them, have safe convenience of parley. Abner begins, and persuades Joab to surcease the fight: "Shall the sword devour for ever? Knowest thou not, that it will be bitterness in the end? How long shall it be ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren?" It was his fault that the sword devoured at all; and why was not the beginning of a civil war bitterness? why did he call forth the people to skirmish, and invite them to death? Had Abner been on the winning hand, this motion had been thank-worthy. It was a noble disposition in a victor, to call for a cessation of arms; whereas necessity wrings this suit from the over-mastered. There cannot be a greater praise to a valiant and wise commander, than a propension to all just terms of peace; for war, as it is sometimes necessary, so it is always evil; and if fighting have any other end proposed besides peace, it proves ૨ murder. Abner shall find himself no less | overcome by Joab in clemency, than power: he says not, I will not so easily leave the advantage of my victory; since the dice of war run on my side, I will follow the chance of my good success: thou shouldest have considered of this before thy provocation; it is now too late to move unto forbearance. But, as a man that meant to approve himself equally free from cowardice in the beginning of the conflict, and from cruelty in the end, he professeth his forwardness to entertain any pretence of sheathing up the swords of Israel; and swears to Abner, that if it had not been for his proud irritation, the people had in the morning before ceased from that bloody pursuit of their brethren. As it becomes public persons to be lovers of peace, so they must show it upon all good occasions; letting pass no opportunity of making spare of blood. Ishbosheth was, it seems, a man of no great spirits; for being no less than forty years old when his father went into his last field against the Philistines, he was content to stay at home. Abner hath put ambition into him, and hath easily raised him to the head of a faction, against the anointed prince of God's people. If this usurped crown of Saul's son had any worth or glory in it, he cannot but acknowledge to owe it all unto Abner; yet how forward is unthankful Ishbosheth to receive a false suggestion against his chief abettor! "Wherefore hast thou gone into my father's concubine?" He that made no conscience of an unjust claim to the crown, and a maintenance of it with blood, yet seems scrupulous of a less sin, that carried in it the colour of a disgrace: the touch of her, who had been honoured by his father's bed, seemed an intolerable presumption, and such as could not be severed from his own dishonour. Self-love sometimes borrows the face of honest zeal. Those who, out of true grounds, dislike sins, do hate them all indifferently, according to their heinousness; hypocrites are partial in their detestation, bewraying ever most bitterness against those offences, which may most prejudice their persons and reputations. It is as dangerous as unjust for princes to give both their ears and their heart to misgrounded rumours of their innocent followers. This wrong hath stripped Ishbosheth of the kingdom. Abner, in the meantime, cannot be excused from a treacherous inconstancy: if Saul's son had no true title to the crown, why did he maintain it? if he had, why did he forsake the cause and person. Had Abner, out of remorse for furthering a false claim, taken off his hand, I know not wherein he could be blamed, except for not doing it sooner; but now to withdraw his professed allegiance, upon a private revenge, was to take a lewd leave of an ill action. If Ishbosheth were his lawful prince, no injury could warrant a revolt. Even betwixt private persons, a return of wrongs is both uncharitable and unjust, however this go current for the common justice of the world: how much more should we learn, from a supreme hand, to take hard measures with thanks! It had been Abner's duty to have given his king a peaceable and humble satisfaction, and not to fly out in a snuff: "If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding pacifieth great offences." Now, his impatient falling, although to the right side, makes him no better than traitorously honest. So soon as Abner hath entertained a re solution of his rebellion, he persuades the elders of Israel to accompany him in the change; and whence doth he fetch his main motive, but from the oracle of God?" The Lord hath spoken of David, saying, By the hand of my servant David will I save my people Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, and out of the hand of all their enemies." Abner knew this full well before, yet then was well content to smother a known truth for his own turn; and now, that the publication of it may serve for his advantage, he wins the heart of Israel, by showing God's charter for him whom he had so long opposed. Hypocrites make use of God for their own purposes, and care only to make divine authority a colour for their own designs. No man ever heard Abner godly till now; neither had be been so at this time, if he had not intended a revengeful departure from Ishbosheth. Nothing is more odious, than to make religion a stalking-horse to policy. Who can but glorify God in his justice, when he sees the bitter end of this treacherous dissimulation? David may, upon considerations of state, entertain his new guest with a feast; and well might he seem to deserve a welcome, that undertakes to bring all Israel to the league and homage of David; but God never meant to use so unworthy means for so good a work. Joab returns from pursuing a troop, and finding Abner dismissed in peace, and expectation of a beneficial return, follows him; and, whether out of envy at a new rival of honour, or out of the revenge of Asahel, he repays him both dissimulation and death. God doth most justly by Joab, that which carried that sacred burden. God's businesses must be done after his own forms, which if we do, with the best intentions, alter, we presume. Joab did for himself most unjustly. I know not, setting the quarrel aside, whether we can worthily blame Abner for the death of Asahel, who would needs, after fair warnings, run himself upon Abner's spear; yet this fact shall procure his payment for the worse. Now is Ishbosheth's wrong revenged by an enemy. We may not always measure the justice of God's proceedings by present occasions: he needs not make us acquaint-wielding the sword and spear, strike upon ed, or ask us leave, when he will call for the arrearages of forgotten sins. BOOK XV. CONTEMPLATION I.— UZZAH, AND THE ARK REMOVED. THE house of Saul is quiet, the Philistines beaten : victory cannot end better than in devotion. David is no sooner settled in his house at Jerusalem, that he fetcheth God to be his guest there: the thousands of Israel go now, in a holy march, to bring up the ark of God to the place of his rest. The tumults of war afforded no opportunity of this service: only peace is a friend to religion; neither is peace ever our friend, but when it is a servant of piety. The use of war is not more pernicious to the body, than the abuse of peace is to the soul. Alas! the riot, bred of our long ease, rather drives the ark of God from us; so the still sedentary life is subject to diseases, and standing waters putrefy. It may be just with God to take away the blessing, which we do so much abuse, and to scour off our rust with bloody war. The ark of God had now many years rested in the obscure lodge of Abinadab, without the honour of a tabernacle. David will not endure himself glorious, and the ark of God contemptible: his first care is to provide a fit room for God, in the head of the tribes, in his own city. The chief care of good princes must be the advancement of religion: what should the deputies of God rather do, than honour him whom they represent! It was no good that Israel could learn of Philistines; those pagans had sent the ark back in a new cart; the Israelites saw that God blessed that conduct, and now they practise it at home: but that which God will take from Philistines, he will not brook from Israel: aliens from God are no fit patterns for children. Divine institution had made this a carriage for the Levites, not for oxen; neither should those sons of Abinadab have driven the cart, but It is long since Israel saw so fair a day as this, wherein they went, in this holy triumph, to fetch the ark of God. Now their warlike trumpets are turned into harps and timbrels; and their hands, instead of those musical strings, whereby they might express the joy of their hearts: here was no noise but of mirth, no motion but pleasant. O happy Israel, that had a God to rejoice in! that had this occasion of rejoicing in their God, and a heart that embraced this occasion! There is nothing but this wherein we may not joy immoderately, unseasonably; this spiritual joy can never be either out of time, or out of measure: "Let him that rejoiceth, rejoice in the Lord." But now, when the Israelites were in the midst of this angel-like jollity, their hearts lifted up, their hands playing, their feet moving, their tongues singing and shouting, God sees good to strike them into a sudden damp by the death of Uzzah. They are scarce set into the tune, when God mars their music by a fearful judgment, and changes their mirth into astonishment and confusion. There could not be a more excellent work than this they were about; there could not be more cheerful hearts in the performing of it; yet will the most holy God rather dash all this solemn service, than endure an act of presumption or infidelity. Abinadab had been the faithful host of God's ark for the space of twenty years: even in the midst of the terrors of Israel, who were justly affrighted with the vengeance inflicted upon Bethshemesh, did he give harbour unto it; yet even the son of Abinadab is stricken dead, in the first departing of that blessed guest. The sanctity of the parent cannot bear out the sin of his son. The Holy One of Israel will be sanctified in all that come near him he will be served like himself. What, then, was the sin of Uzzah? what was the capital crime for which he so fearfully perished? That the ark of God was committed to the cart, it was not his device only, but the common act of many; that it was not carried on the shoulders of the Levites, was no less the fault of Ahio, and the rest of their brethren. Only Uzzah is stricken: the rest sinned in negligence; he in presumption: the ark of God shakes with the agitation of that carriage; he puts forth his hand to hold it steady. Huinan judgment would have found herein nothing |