sleep, it shall not die, but, after long intermissions, breaks forth in those effects which we had forgotten to look for, and ceased to fear. O Lord, thou art sure when thou threatenest, and just when thou judgest. Keep thou us from the sentence of death, else in vain shall we labour to keep ourselves from the execution.

BOOK XIV.

CONTEMPLATION I.

SAUL IN DAVID'S CAVE.

It was the strange lot of David, that those whom he pursued, preserved him from those whom he had preserved. The Philistines, whom David had newly smitten in Keilah, call off Saul from smiting David in the wilderness, when there was but an hillock betwixt him and death. Wicked purposes are easily checked, not easily broken off. Saul's sword is scarce dry from the blood of the Philistines, when it thirsts anew for the blood of David, and now, in a renewed chase, hunts him dry-foot through every wilderness. The very desert is too fair a refuge for innocence. The hills and rocks are searched in an angry jealousy: the very wild goats of the mountains were not allowed to be companions for him, who had no fault but his virtue. O the seemingly unequal distribution of these earthy things! Cruelty and oppression reign in a palace, whilst goodness lurks among the rocks and caves, and thinks it happiness enough to steal a life.

Like a dead man, David is fain to be hid under the earth, and seeks the comfort of protection in darkness and now the wise providence of God leads Saul to his enemy without blood. He, which before brought them within an hill's distance without interview, brings them now both within one roof: so as that, while Saul seeks David and finds him not, he is found of David unsought. If Saul had known his own opportunities, how David and his men had interred themselves, he had saved a treble labour of chase, of execution, and burial; for had he but stopped the mouth of that cave, his enemies had laid themselves down in their own graves. The wisdom of God thinks fit to hide from evil men and spirits, those means and seasons, which might be, if they had been taken, most prejudical to his own. We had been oft foiled, if Satan could but have known our hearts. Sometimes we lie open to evils, and happy it is for us that he only knows it, who pities instead of tempting us.

It is not long since Saul said of David, lodged then in Keilah, God hath delivered him into mine hands, for he is shut in, seeing he is come into a city that hath gates and bars; but now contrarily God delivers Saul, ere he was aware, into the hands of David, and without the help of gates and bars, hath inclosed him within the valley of death. How just is it with God, that those who seek mischief to others, find it to themselves; and, even while they are spreading nets, are ensnared; their deliberate plotting of evil is surprised with a sudden judgment.

How amazedly must David needs look, when he saw Saul enter into the cave where himself was? What is this, thinks he, which God hath done? is this presence purposed or casual? is Saul here to pursue or to tempt me? where suddenly the action. bewrays the intent, and tells David, that Saul sought secrecy and not him. The superfluity of his maliciousness brought him into the wilderness: the ne

cessity of nature led him into the cave. Even those actions, wherein we place shame, are not exempted from a Providence. The fingers of David's followers itched to sieze upon their master's enemy; and, that they might not seem led so much by faction, as by faith, they urge David with a promise from God; the day is come, whereof the Lord saith unto thee, behold I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, and thou shalt do unto him as it shall seem good to thee. This argument seemed to carry such command with it, as that David not only may, but must embrue his hand in blood, unless he will be found wanting to God and himself. Those temptations are most powerful, which fetch their force from the pretence of a religious obedience; whereas those which are raised from arbitrary and private respects admit of an easy dispensation.

If there were such a prediction, one clause of it was ambiguous, and they take it at the worst; thou shalt do to him as shall seem good to thee. That might not seem good to him, which seemed evil unto God. There is nothing more dangerous than to make construction of God's purposes out of eventual appearances. If carnal probabilities might be the rule of our judgment, what could God seem to intend other than Saul's death, in offering him naked into the hands of those whom he unjustly persecuted? How could David's soldiers think, that God hath sent Saul thither on any other errand, than to fetch his bane? And, if Saul could have seen his own danger, he had given himself for dead: for his heart, guilty to his own bloody desires, could not but have expected the same measure which it meant. But wise and holy David, not transported either with misconceit of the event, or fury of passion, or solicitation of his followers, dares make no other use of this accident than the trial of his loyalty, and the inducement of his peace. It had been as easy for him to cut the throat of Saul as his garment; but now his coat only

shall be the worse, not his person; neither doth he in this maiming of a cloak seek his own revenge, but a monument of his innocence. Before Saul rent Samuel's garment; now David cutteth Saul's; both were significant: the rending of the one, signified the kingdom torn out of those unworthy hands; the cutting of the other, that the life of Saul might have been as easily cut off.

Saul needs no other monitor of his own danger than what he wears. The upper garment of Saul was laid aside while he went to cover his feet, so as the cut of his garment did not threaten any touch of the body; yet even the violence offered to a remote garment strikes the heart of David, which finds a present remorse for harmfully touching that which did once touch the person of his master. Tender consciences are moved to regret at those actions, which strong hearts pass over with a careless ease. It troubled not Saul to seek after the blood of a righteous servant. There is no less difference of consciences than stomachs: some stomachs will digest the hardest meats, and turn over substances, not in their nature edible, while others surfeit of the lightest food, and complain even of dainties. Every gracious heart is in some measure scrupulous, and finds more safety in fear than in presumption: and if it be so straight as to curb itself in from the liberty which it might take in things which are not unlawful, how much less will it dare to take scope unto evil? By how much that state is better, where nothing is allowed, than where all things, by so much is the strict and timorous conscience better than the lawless. There is good likelihood of that man who is any way scrupulous of his ways; but he, who makes no bones of his actions, is apparently hopeless.

Since David's followers pleaded God's testimony to him as motive to blood, David appeals to the same God for his preservation from blood: the Lord keep me from doing that thing to my master the

Lord's anointed; and now the good man hath work enough to defend both himself and his persecutor; himself from the importunate necessity of doing violence, and his master from suffering it. It was not more easy to rule his own hands, than difficult to rule a multitude. David's troop consisted of malcontents; all that were in distress, in debt, in bitterness of soul, were gathered to him. Many, if never so well ordered, are hard to command; a few, if disorderly, more hard; many and disorderly must needs be so much the hardest of all, that David never achieved any victory like unto this, wherein he first overcame himself, then his soldiers.

And what was the charm wherewith David allayed those raging spirits of his followers? No other but this, he is the anointed of the Lord. That holy oil was the antidote for his blood; Saul did not lend David so impierceable an armour, when he should encounter Goliath, as David now lent him in this plea of his unction. Which of all the discontented outlaws that lurked in that cave durst put forth his hand against Saul, when they once heard, he is the Lord's anointed? Such an impression of awe hath the divine Providence caused his image to make in the hearts of men, as that it makes traitors cowards, so as instead of striking they tremble; how much more lawless, than the outlaws of Israel, are those professed ringleaders of Christianity, which teach and practise, and encourage, and reward, and canonize the violation of majesty! It is not enough for those, who are commanders of others, to refrain their own hands from doing evil, but they must carefully prevent the iniquity of their heels, else they shall be justly reputed to do that by others, which, in their own persons, they avoided. The laws, both of God and man, presuppose us in some sort answerable for our charge; as taking it for granted, that we should not undertake those reins which we cannot manage.

There was no reason David should lose the thanks