people scarce believe their own eyes for the wonder of this happy change: neither know I, whether they be more joyed in the sight of their new king thus strangely preserved, or in the sight of Jehoiada that had preserved him.

No man can envy the protection of the young king unto him by whose means he lives and reigns. That holy man cares only to improve his authority to the common good: "He makes a covenant between the Lord and the king, and the people :" and after so long and dangerous a disjunction, reunites them to each other. Their revived zeal bestirs itself, and breaks down the temples, and altars, and images of Baal, and sacrifices his idolatrous priests. Shortly both Ahab and Baal are destroyed out of Judah.

The sceptre of Judah is changed from a woman to a child; but, a child trained up and tutored by Jehoiada. This minority, so guided, was not inferior to the mature age of many predecessors. Happy is that land, the non-age of whose princes falls into holy and just hands: : yet, even these holy and just hands came short of what they might have done. The high places remained still; those altars were erected to the true God, but in a wrong place. It is marvel, if there be not some blemishes found in the best government: I doubt Jehoiada shall once buy it dear, that he did not his utmost.

But for the main, all was well with Judah, in all the days of Jehoiada, even after that Joash was grown past his pupillage. He, that was the tutor to his infancy, was the counsellor of his ripe age, and was equally happy in both. How pleasing was it to that good high priest to be commanded by that charge of his in the business of God! The young king gives order to the priests, for the col lection of large sums, to the repairing of the breaches of God's house. It becomes him well to take care

of that, which was the nursery of his infancy: and now, after three and twenty years, he expostulates with his late guardian Jehoiada, and the rest of his coat, "Why repair ye not the breaches ?"

O gracious and happy vicissitude! Jehoiada the priest had ruled the infancy of king Joash in matters of state, and now Joash the king commands aged Jehoiada the priest in matter of devotion. In the affairs of God, the action is the priest's, the oversight and coaction is the prince's. By the careful endeavour of both, God's house is repaired, his service flourisheth.

But alas! that it may too well appear, that the ground of this devotion was not altogether inward, no sooner doth the life of Jehoiada cease, than the devotion of Joash begins to languish; and, after some languor, dies.

The benefit of a truly religious prelate, or statesman, is not known till his loss.

Now, some idolatrous peers of Judah have soon miscarried the king, from the house of the Lord God of their fathers, to serve groves and idols. Yea, whither go we wretched men, if we be left by our Maker? King Joash is turned not idolater only, but persecutor; yea, which is yet more horrible to consider, persecutor of the son of that Jehoiada to whom he owes his own life. Zechariah his cousingerman, his foster brother, the holy issue of those parents by whom Joash lives and reigns, for the conscionable rebuke of the idolatry of prince and people, is unjustly and cruelly murdered by that unthankful hand. How possible is it for fair and saint-like beginnings to shut up in monstrous impieties! Let him that thinks he stands, take heed Ïest he fall. When did God ever put up so foul ingratitude to himself, to his servants? O Joash! what eyes can pity the fearful destruction of thee and thy Judah?

If ye have forgotten the kindness of Jehoiada,

your unkindness to Jehoiada shall not be forgotten. "A small army of Syrians came up against Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of the people, and sent all the spoil of them to Damascus." Now Hazael revenges this quarrel of God, and his anointed, and plagues that people which made themselves unworthy to be the Lord's inheritance.

And what becomes of Joash? he is left in great diseases, when his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada, and slew him on his bed, and he died, and they buried him not in the sepulchre of the kings." Dying Zechariah had said in the bitterness of his departing soul, "The Lord look upon it and require it." I confess, I had rather to have heard him say, "The Lord pass it over, and remit it:" so said Stephen. Such difference there is between a martyr of the Law and of the Gospel; although I will hope the zeal of justice, not the uncharitable heat of revenge, drew forth this word. God hears it, and now gives an account of his notice. Thus doth the Lord require the blood of Jehoiada's son, even by the like unthankful hand of the obliged servants of Joash. He, that was guilty of abominable idolatry, yet, as if God meant to wave that challenge, is called to reckoning for his cruel unthankfulness to Jehoiada: this crime shall make him odious alive, and shall abandon him dead from the sepulchre of his fathers; as if this last royalty were too good for him, who had forgotten the law of humanity. Some vices are such, as nature smiles upon, though frowned at by divine justice. Others are such as even nature itself abhors; such is this of ingratitude, which therefore carries so much more detestation from God, as it is more odious even to them that have blotted out the mage of God.

CONTEMPLATION V.

JOASH, WITH ELISHA DYING.

THE two kingdoms of Judah and Israel, however divided both in government and affection, yet loved to interchange the names of their kings: even Israel also had their Joash, no better than that of Judah; he was not more the father of the latter Jeroboam, than, in respect of misworship, he was the son of the first Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin. Those calves of Dan and Bethel, out of a politic misdevotion, besotted all the succession of the ten usurped tribes. Yet even this idolatrous king of Israel comes down to visit the sick-bed of Elisha, and weeps upon his face.

That holy prophet was never any flatterer of princes, neither spared he invectives against their most plausible sins: yet king Joash, that was beaten by his reproofs, washes that face with the tears of love and sorrow, which had often frowned upon his wickedness.

How much difference there was betwixt the Joash of Israel, and the Joash of Judah! That of Judah, having been preserved and nurtured by Jehoiada the priest, after all professions of dearness, shuts up in the unkind murder of his son, and that merely for the just reproof of his own idolatry; this of Israel, having been estranged from the prophet Elisha, and sharply rebuked for the like offence, makes love to his dying reprover, and bedews his pale face with his tears. Both were bad enough: but this of Israel was, however vicious, yet good natured: that of Judah added to his wickedness an illdisposition, a dogged humour. There are varieties even of evil men; some are worse at the root, others at the branch; some more civilly harmless, others fouler in morality. According to the exercise of the

restraining grace, natural men do either rise or fall in their ill.

The longest day must have its evening. Good Elisha, that had lived some ninety years, a wonder of prophets, and had out-worn many successions in the thrones of Israel and Judah, is now cast upon the bed of his sickness, yea, of his death. That very age might seem a disease, which yet is seconded with a languishing distemper. It is not in the power of any holiness to privilege us from infirmity of body, from final dissolution. He that stretched himself upon his bed, over the dead carcase of the Shunammite's son, and revived it, must now stretch out his own limbs upon his sick-bed, and die. He saw his master Elijah rapt up suddenly from the earth, and fetched by a fiery chariot from this vale of mortality; himself must leisurely wait for his last pangs, in a lingering passage to the same glory. There is not one way appointed to us, by the Divine providence, unto one common blessedness: one hath more pain, another hath more speed; violence snatcheth away one; another, by an insensible pace, draws every day nearer to his term: the wisdom and goodness of God magnifies itself in both. Happy is he, that after due preparation, is passed through the gates of death ere he be aware. Happy is he, that by the holy use of long sickness, is taught to see the gates of death afar off, and is addressed for a resolute passage: the one dies like Elijah, the other like Elisha; both blessedly.

The time was, when a great king sent to Elisha to know if he should recover: now the king of Israel, as knowing that Elisha shall not recover, so had his consumption spent him, comes to visit the dying prophet; and, when his tears would give him leave, breaks forth into a passionate exclamation; "O my father, my father, the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" Yet the calves of Dan and Bethel have left some goodness in Joash: as the best