blood of one son to an idol: the true God sheds the blood of another of his sons in revenge.

Yet the hand of the Lord is stretched out still.

Two hundred thousand of them were carried away, by the Israelites, captive to Samaria.

The Edomites came, and carried away another part of them for bond-slaves to their country.

The Philistines came up and shared the cities of the south of Judah, and the villages thereof: shortly what other is miserable Judah, than the prey and spoil of all the neighbouring nations? "For the Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he made Judah naked, and transgressed sore against the Lord." As for the great king of Ashur, whom Ahaz purchased with the sacrilegious pillage of the house of God, instead of an aid, he proves a burden: however he sped in his first onsets, now "he distressed Judah, but strengthened it not." The charge was as great, as the benefit small: sooner shall he eat them out than rescue them. No arm of flesh can shelter Ahaz from a vengeance.

"Be wise, O ye kings; be instructed, O ye judges of the earth serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little."

His subjects complain, that he died so late; and, as repenting that he ever was, deny him a room in the sepulchres of kings; as if they had said, the common earth of Jerusalem is too good for him that degenerated from his progenitors, marred his kingdom, depraved his people, forsook his God.

CONTEMPLATION VIII.

THE UTTER DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM OF

ISRAEL.

JUDAH was at a sore heave; yet Israel shall miscarry before it; such are the sins of both, that they strive whether shall fall first: but this lot must light upon the ten tribes. Though the late king of Judah were personally worse than the most of Jeroboam's successors, yet the people were generally less evil, upon whom the incroachments of idolatry were more by obtrusion, than by consent; besides, that the thrones of Judah had some interchanges of good princes, Israel had none at all. The same justice therefore that made Israel a scourge to Judah, made Assyria a scorpion to Israel.

It was the quarrel of Judah that first engaged the king of Ashur in this war against Israel: now he is not so easily fetched off. So we have seen some eager mastiff, that hath been set on by the least clap of the hand, but could not be loosened by the force of

staves.

Salmaneser king of Assyria comes up against Hoshea king of Israel, and subdues him, and puts him to his tribute. This yoke was uncouth and unpleasing the vanquished prince was neither able to resist, nor willing to yield: secretly therefore he treats with the king of Egypt for assistance, as desiring rather to hazard his liberty by the hand of an equal, than to enjoy a quiet subjection under the hand of an over-ruling power. We cannot blame princes to be jealous of their sovereignties: the detaining of his yearly tribute, and the whisperings with new confederates, have drawn up the king of Ashur to perfect his own victories. He returns therefore with a strong power, and, after three years?

siege, takes Samaria, imprisons Hoshea, and, in the exchange of a woful captivity, he peoples Israel with Assyrians, and Assyria with Israelites. Now that abused soil hath, upon a surfeit of wickedness, cast out her perfidious owners, and will try how it can fare with heathenish strangers. Now, the Assyrian gallants triumph in the palaces of Samaria and Jezreel, while the peers and captains of Israel are driven manacled through the Assyrian streets, and billeted to the several places of their perpetual servitude. Shortly now the flourishing kingdom of the ten tribes is come to a final and shameful end, and so vanished in this last dissipation, that, since that day, no man could ever say, this was Israel.

O terrible example of vengeance, upon that peculiar people, whom God hath chosen for himself out of all the world! All the world were witnesses of the favours of their miraculous deliverances and protections; all the world shall be witnesses of their just confusion.

It is not in the power of slight errors to set off that infinite mercy. What was it, O God, what was it that caused thee to cast off thine own inheritance? what but the same that made thee to cast the angels out of heaven, even their rebellious sins? Those sins dared to emulate the greatness of thy mercies, no less than they forced the severity of thy judgments: They left all the commandments of the Lord their God; and made them molten images, even two calves; and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal, and caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, and used divinations and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.'

Neither were these slips of frailty, or ignorant mistakings, but wilful crimes, obstinate impieties, int spite of the doctrines, reproofs, menaces, miraculous convictions of the holy prophets, which God sent

amongst them. Thy destruction is of thyself, O Israel! What could the just hand of the Almighty do less than consume a nation so incorrigibly flagitious? a nation so unthankful for mercies, so impatient of remedies, so incapable of repentance; so obliged, so warned, so shamelessly, so lawlessly wicked?

What nation under heaven can now challenge an indefeasible interest in God, when Israel itself is cast off? what church in the world can show such dear love-tokens from the Almighty, as this now abhorred and adulterous spouse? He, that spared not the natural olive, shall he spare the wild? It is not for us sinners of the Gentiles to be high-minded, but awful.

The Israelites are carried captive into Assyria. Those goodly cities of the ten tribes may not lie waste and unpeopled: the wisdom of the victor finds it fit to transplant his own colonies thither, that so he may raise profit thence, with security. From Babylon, therefore, and Cuthah, and Ava, and Hamath, and Sepharvaim, doth he send of his own subjects, to possess and inhabit the cities of Samaria. The land doth not brook her new tenants: 66 They feared not the Lord;" how should they? they knew him not. "Therefore the Lord sent lions amongst them, which slew some of them." Not the veriest Pagan can be excused for his ignorance of God: even the most depraved nature might teach us to tremble at a Deity. It is just with the Almighty not to put up with neglect, where he hath bestowed to reason.

The brute creatures are sent to revenge the quarrel of their Maker, upon worse beasts than themselves. Still hath God left himself champions in Israel: lions tear the Assyrians in pieces, and put them in mind, that, had it not been for wickedness, that land needed not to have changed masters. The great Lord of the world cannot want means to plague offenders: if the men be gone, yet the beasts are there; and if the beasts had been gone, yet, so long as there were stones in the walls, in the quarries,

God would be sure of avengers. There is no security but in being at peace with God.

The king of Assyria is sued to for remedy. Even these Pagans have learned to know that these lions were sent from a God; that this punishment is for sin: "They know not the manner of the God of the land, therefore he hath sent lions among them. These blind Heathens, that think every land hath a several god, yet hold that god worthy of his own worship; yet hold, that worship must be grounded upon knowledge, the want of that knowledge punishable, the punishment of that want just and divine. How much worse than Assyrians are they that are ready to ascribe all calamities to nature, to chance! that acknowledging but one God of all the world, are yet careless to know him, to serve him!

One of the priests of Israel is appointed to be carried back to Samaria, to teach the Assyrian colony the fashions of the god of the land; not for devotion, but for impunity. Vain politicians think to satisfy God by patching up religions: any forms are good enough for an unknown deity. The Assyrian priests teach, and practise the worship of their own gods. The Israelitish priest prescribes the worship of the true God. The people will follow both; the one out of liking, the other out of fear. What a prodigious mixture was here of religions! true with false, Jewish with paganish, divine with devilish; every division of these transplanted Assyrians had their several deities, high places, sacrifices; this high priest of Israel intercommunes with every of them so that now these fathers of Samaritanism are in at all; "They fear the Lord, and serve their idols." No beggar's cloak is more pierced than the religion of these new inhabitants of Israel. I know not how their bodies sped for the lions; I am sure their souls fared the worse for this medley. Above all things God hates a mongrel devotion; if we be not all Israel, it were better to be all Ashur: it