Laken God with them, it had been com- | mendable; establishing of societies is pleasing to him that is the God of order: but a tower whose top may reach to heaven, was a shameful arrogance, an impious presumption. Who would think, that we little ants, that creep upon this earth, should think of climbing up to heaven, by multiplying of earth? laying of the first stone, and might as easily have made a trench for the foundation, the grave of the builders; but he loves to see what wicked men would do, and to let fools run themselves out of breath. What monument should they have had of their own madness, and his powerful interruption, if the walls had risen to no height? To stop them, then, in the midst of their Pride ever looks at the highest. The course, he meddles not with either thei first man would know as God; these would hands or their feet, but their tongues; not dwell as God: covetousness and ambition | by pulling them out, not by loosing their know no limits. And what if they had strings, not by making them say nothing, reached up to heaven? Some hills are as but by teaching them to say too much. Here high as they could hope to be, and yet are is nothing varied but the sound of letters; no whit the better; no place alters the even this frustrates the work, and befools condition of nature. An angel is glorious, the workmen. How easy is it for God ten though he be upon earth; and man is but thousand ways to correct and forestall the earth though he be above the clouds. The greatest projects of men! He that taught nearer they had been to heaven, the more Adam the first words, taught them words subject they had been to the violences of that never were. One calls for brick, the heaven, to thunders, lightnings, and those other looks him in the face, and wonders other higher inflammations: what had this what he commands, and how and why he been, but to thrust themselves into the speaks such words as were never heard, hands of the revenger of all wicked inso- and instead thereof brings him mortar, lences! God loves that heaven should be returning him an answer as little underlooked at, and affected with all humble de- stood; each chides with other, expressing sires, with the holy ambitions of faith, not his choler, so as he only can understand with the proud imaginations of our own himself. From heat they fall to quiet enachievements. treaties, but still with the same success. At first every man thinks his fellow mocks him; but now perceiving this serious confusion, their only answer was silence, and ceasing: they could not come together, for no man could call them to be understood; and if they had assembled, nothing could be determined, because one could never attain to the other's purpose: no, they could not have the honour of a general dismission, but each man leaves his trowel and station, more like a fool than he undertook it: so commonly actions begun in glory shut up in shame. All external actions depend upon the tongue. No man can know another's mind, if this be not the interpreter. Hence, as there were many tongues given to stay the building of Babel, so there were as many given to build the New Jerusalem, the evangelical church. How dear hath Babel cost all the world! At the first, when there was but one language, men did spend their time in arts; (so was it requisite at the first settling of the world, and so came early to perfection): but now we stay so long (of necessity) upon the shell of tongues, that we can hardly have time to chew the sweet kernel of knowledge. Surely men would have grown too proud, if there had been no Babel. It falls out ofttimes that one sin is a remedy of a greater. Division of tongues must But wherefore was all this? not that they loved so much to be neighbours to heaven, as to be famous upon earth. It was not commodity that was here sought, not safety, but glory. Whither doth not thirst of fame carry men, whether in good or evil? It makes them seek to climb to heaven; it makes them not fear to run down headlong to hell. Even in the best things, desire of praise stands in competition with conscience, and brags to have the more clients. One builds a temple to Diana, in hope of glory, intending it for one of the great wonders of the world; another, in hope of fame, burns it. He is a rare man that hath not some Babel of his own, whereon he bestows pains and cost, only to be talked of. If they had done better things in a vain-glorious purpose, their act had been accursed: if they had built houses to God, if they had sacrificed, prayed, lived well; the intent poisons the action: But now both the act and the purpose are equally vain, and the issue is as vain as either. God hath a special indignation at pride above all sins, and will cross our endeavours, not for that they are evil, (what hurt could be in laying one brick upon another?) but for that they are proudly undertaken. He could have hindered the needs slacken any work. Multiplicity of languages had not been given by the Holy Ghost, for a blessing to the church, if the world had not been before possessed with multiplicity of languages for a punishment. Hence it is, that the building of our Sion rises no faster, because our tongues are divided. Happy were the church of God, if we all spake but one language: while we differ, we can build nothing but Babel; difference of tongues caused their Babel to cease, but it builds ours. CONTEMPLATION III.-OF ABRAHAM. Ir was fit that he which should be the father and pattern of the faithful, should be thoroughly tried; for in a set copy every fault is important, and may prove a rule of error. Often trials which Abraham passed, the last was the sorest. No son of Abraham can hope to escape temptations, while he sees that bosom in which he desires to rest, so assaulted with difficulties. Abraham must leave his country and kindred, and live amongst strangers. The calling of God never leaves men where it finds them. The earth is the Lord's, and all places are alike to the wise and faithful. If Chaldea had not been grossly idolatrous, Abraham had not left it; no bond must tie us to the danger of infection. But whither must he go? To a place he knew not, to men that knew not him. It is enough comfort to a good man, wheresoever he is, that he is acquainted with God: we are never out of our way, while we follow the calling of God. Never any man lost by his obedience to the Highest. Because Abraham yielded, God gives him the possession of Canaan. I wonder more at his faith in taking this possession, than in leaving his own. Behold, Abraham takes possession for that seed which he had not; which in nature he was not like to have: of that land whereof he should not have one foot, wherein his seed should not be settled for almost five hundred years after. The power of faith can prevent time, and make future things present. If we be the true sons of Abraham, we have already (while we sojourn here on earth) the possession of our land of promise; while we seek our country, we have it. Yet even Canaan doth not afford him bread, which yet he must believe shall flow with milk and honey to his seed. Sense must yield to faith. Woe were us, if we must judge of our future estate by the present. Egypt gives relief to Abra In outward ham, when Canaan cannot. things, God's enemies may fare better than his friends. Thrice had Egypt preserved the church of God; in Abraham, in Jacob, in Christ. God ofttimes makes use of the world for the behoof of his, though without their thanks; as contrarily he uses the wicked for scourges to his own inheritance, and burns them; because in his good they intended evil. But what a change is this! Hitherto hath Sarah been Abraham's wife; now Egypt hath made her his sister; fear hath turned him from a husband to a brother: no strength of faith can exclude some doubt. ings. God hath said, I will make thee a great nation: Abraham saith, the Egyptians will kill me. He that lived by his faith, yet shrinketh and sinneth. How vainly shall we hope to believe without all fear, and to live without infirmities! Some little aspersions of unbelief cannot hinder the praise and power of faith. Abraham believed, and it was imputed to him for righteousness. He that through inconsiderateness doubted twice of his own life, doubted not of the life of his seed, even from the dead and dry womb of Sarah; yet it was more difficult that his posterity should live in Sarah, than that Sarah's husband should live in Egypt: this was above nature, yet he believes it. Sometimes the believer sticks at easy trials, and yet breaks through the greatest temptations without fear. Abraham was old, ere this promise and hope of a son, and still the older, the more incapable; yet God makes him wait twenty-five years for performance. No time is long to faith, which hath learned to defer hopes without fainting and irk someness. Abraham heard this news from the angel, and laughed; Sarah heard it, and laughed: they did not more agree in their desire, than differ in their affection. Abraham laughed for joy; Sarah for distrust. Abraham laughed, because he believed it would be so; Sarah, becasue she believed it could not be. The same act varies in the manner of doing, and the intention of the doer. Yet Sarah laughed but within herself, and is bewrayed. How God can find us out in secret sins! How easily did she now think, that he, which could know of her inward laughter, could know of her conception! and now she that laughed, and believed not, believeth and feareth. What a lively pattern do I see in Abraham, and Sarah, of a strong faith, and a weak; of strong in Abraham, and weak in Sarah! She to make God good of his word to Abraham, knowing her own barrenness, | obedience. Many years had that good substitutes an Hagar; and, in an ambition patriarch waited for his Issac; now at last of seed, persuades to polygamy. Abraham he hath joyfully received him, and that had never looked to obtain the promise by with this gracious acclamation, "In Isaac any other than a barren womb, if his own shall thy seed be called, and all nations wife had not importuned him to take an- blessed." Behold the son of his age, the other. When our own apparent means fail, son of his love, the son of his expectation; weak faith is put to the shifts, and pro- he that might not endure a mock from his jects strange devices of her own, to attain brother, must now endure the kmife of his her end. She will rather conceive by an- father: "Take thine only son Isaac whom other womb, than be childless. When she thou lovest, and get thee to the land of hears of an impossibility to nature, she Moriah, and offer him there for a burntdoubteth, and yet hides her diffidence; and, offering." when she must believe, feareth, because she did distrust. Abraham hears and believes, and expects and rejoices: he saith not, I am old and weak; Sarah is old and barren where are the many nations that shall come from these withered loins? It is enough to him that God hath said it: he sees not the means, he sees the promise. He knew that God would rather raise him up seed from the very stones that he trode upon, than himself should want a large and happy issue. There is no faith where there is either means or hopes. Difficulties and impossibilities are the true objects of belief. Hereupon God adds to his name, that which he would fetch from his loins, and made his name as ample as his posterity. Never any man was a loser by believing: faith is ever recompensed with glory. Neither is Abraham content only to wait for God, but to smart for him. God bids him cut his own flesh; he willingly sacrifices this parcel of his skin and blood to him that was the owner of all. How glad he is to carry this painful mark of the love of his Creator! How forward to seal this covenant with blood, betwixt God and him! not regarding the soreness of his body, in comparison of the confirmation of his soul. The wound was not so grievous as a signification was comfortable. For herein he saw, that from his loins should come that blessed seed, which should purge his soul from all corruption. Well is that part of us lost which may give assurance of the salvation of the whole. Our faith is not yet sound, if it have not taught us to neglect pain for God, and more to love his sacraments than our own flesh. CONTEMPLATION IV.-OF ISAAC SACRIFICED. BUT all these are but easy tasks of faith: all ages have stood amazed at the next; not knowing whether they should more wonder at God's command, or Abraham's Or if Never any gold was tried in so hot a fire. Who but Abraham would not have expostulated with God? What! doth the God of mercies now begin to delight in blood? Is it possible that murder should become piety? Or if thou wilt needs take pleasure in a human sacrifice, is there none but Isaac fit for thine altar? none but Abraham to offer him? Shall these hands destroy the fruits of mine own loins? Can I not be faithful, unless I be unnatural? I must needs be the monster of all parents, will not Ishmael yet be accepted? O God! where is thy mercy? where is thy justice? Hast thou given me but one only son, and must I now slay him? Why did I wait so long for him? Why didst thou give him me? Why didst thou promise me a blessing in him? What will the heathen say, when they shall hear of this infamous massacre? How can thy name, and my profession, escape a perpetual blasphemy? With what face shall I look upon my wife Sarah, whose son I have murdered? How' shall she entertain the executioner of Isaac? Or who will believe that I did this from thee? How shall not all the world spit at this holy cruelty, and say, There goes the man that cut the throat of his own son! Yet if he were an ungracious or rebellious child, his deserts might give some colour to this violence: but to lay hands on so dear, so dutiful, so hopeful a son, is incapable of all pretences. But grant that thou, which art the God of nature, mayest either alter or neglect it; what shall I say to the truth of thy promises? Can thy justice admit contradictions? Can thy decrees be changeable? Canst thou promise and disappoint? Can these two stand together-Isaac shall live to be the father of nations, and Isaac shall now die by the hand of his father? When Isaac is once gone, where is my seed, where is my blessing? O God, if thy commands and purposes be capable of alteration, alter this bloody sentence, and let thy first word stand. These would have been the thoughts of a weak heart. But God knew that he spake to an Abraham, and Abraham knew that he had to do with a God: faith had taught him not to argue but obey. In a holy wilfulness he either forgets nature or despises her: he is sure that what God commands is good, that what he promises is infallible; and therefore is careless of the means, and trusts to the end. In matters of God, whosoever consults with flesh and blood, shall never offer up his Isaac to God. There needs no counsellor when we know God is the commander; here is neither grudging, nor deliberating, nor delaying; his faith would not suffer him so much as to be sorry for that he must do. Sarah herself may not know of God's charge and her husband's purpose, lest her affection should have overcome her faith; lest her weakness, now grown importunate, should have said, Disobey God, and die. That which he must do, he will do; he that hath learned not to regard the life of his son, had learned not to regard the sorrow of his wife. It is too much tenderness to respect the censures and constructions of others, when we have a direct word from God. The good patriarch rises early, and addresses himself to his sad journey. And now must he travel three whole days to this execution; and still must Isaac be in his eye, whom all this while he seems to see bleeding upon the pile of wood which he carries. There is nothing so miserable as to dwell under the expectation of a great evil. That misery which must be, is mitigated with speed, and aggravated with delay. All this while, if Abraham had repented him, he had leisure to return. There is no small trial, even in the very time of trial. Now, when they are come within sight of the chosen mountain, the servants are dismissed. What a devotion is this that will abide no witnesses! He will not suffer two of his own vassals to see him do that, which soon after all the world must know he hath done; yet is not Abraham afraid of that piety, which the beholders could not see without horror, without resistance, which no ear could hear of without abomination. What stranger could have endured to see the father carry the knife and fire, instruments of that death which he had rather suffer than inflict; the son securely carrying that burden which must carry him? But if Abraham's heart could have known how to relent, that question of his dear, innocent. and religious son had melted it into compassion: "My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the sacrifice?" I know not whether that word (my father) did not strike Abraham as deep as the knife of Abraham could strike his son: yet doth he not so much as think, O miserable man, that may not at once be a son to such a God, and father to such a son! Still he persists, and conceals; and, where he meant not, prophesies, " My son, God shall provide a lamb for the burntoffering." The heavy tidings were loath to come forth. It was a death to Abraham to say what he must do. He knows his own faith to act this; he knows not Isaac's to endure it. But now when Isaac hath helped to build the altar, whereon he must be consumed, he hears (not without astonishment) the strange command of God, the final will of his father: My son, thou art the lamb, which God hath provided for this burnt-offering. If my blood would have excused thee, how many thousand times had I rather to give thee my own life, than take thine! Alas! I am full of days, and now, of long, lived not but in thee. Thou mightest have preserved the life of thy father, and have comforted his death; but the God of us both hath chosen thee. He, that gave thee unto me miraculously, bids me, by an unusual means, return thee unto him. I need not tell thee that I sacrifice all my worldly joys, yea and myself, in thee; but God must be obeyed: neither art thou too dear for him that calls thee. Come on, my son, restore the life that God hath given thee by me. thyself willingly to these flames; send up thy soul cheerfully unto thy glory; and know, that God loves thee above others, since he requires thee alone to be consecrated in sacrifice to himself. Offer Who cannot imagine with what perplexed mixtures of passions, with what changes of countenance, what doubts, what fears, what amazement, good Isaac received this sudden message from the mouth of his father! how he questioned, how he pleaded! But when he had somewhat digested his thoughts, and considered that the author was God, the actor Abraham, the action a sacrifice, he now approves himself the son of Abraham: now he encourages the trembling hands of his father, with whom he strives in this praise of forwardness and obedience: now he offers his hands and feet to the cords, his throat to the knife, his body'to the altar; and, growing ambitious of the sword and fire, entreats his father to do that which he would have done, though he had dissuaded him. noly emulation of faith! O blessed agreement of the sacrificer and oblation! Abraham is as ready to take as Isaac to give: he binds those dear hands, which are more straitly bound with the cords of duty and resolution; he lays his sacrifice upon the wood, which now before-hand burnt inwardly with the heavenly fire of zeal and devotion. And now having kissed him his last, not without mutual tears, he lifts up his hand to fetch the stroke of death at once, not so much as thinking, perhaps, God will relent after the first wound. Now the stay of Abraham, the hope of the church, lies bleeding under the hand of a father. What bowels can choose but yearn at this spectacle! Which of the savagest heathens, that had been now upon the hill of Moriah, and had seen (through the bushes) the sword of a father hanging over the throat of such a son, would not have been more perplexed in his thoughts than that unexpected sacrifice was in those briars? Yet he, whom it nearest concerned, is least touched: faith hath wrought the same in him which cruelty would in others, not to be moved. He contemns all fears, and overlooks all impossibilities. His heart tells him, that the same hand which raised Isaac from the dead womb of Sarah, can raise him again from the ashes of his sacrifice. With this confidence was the hand of Abraham now falling upon the throat of Isaac, who had given himself for dead, and rejoiced in the change; when suddenly the angel of God interrupts him, forbids him, commends him. The voice of God was never so welcome, never so sweet, never so seasonable as now: it was the trial that God intended, not the fact: Isaac is sacrificed, and is yet alive; and now both of them are more happy in that they would have done, than they could have been distressed if they had done it. God's charges are ofttimes harsh in the beginnings and proceeding, but in the conclusion always comfortable. True spiritual comforts are commonly late and sudden. God defers on purpose, that our trials may be perfect, our deliverance welcome, our recompense glorious. Isaac had never been so precious to his father, if he had not been recovered from death; if he had not been as miraculously restored as given. Abraham had never been so blessed in his seed, if he had not neglected Isaac for God. The only way to find comfort in an earthly thing, is to surrender it (in a faithful carelessness) into the hands of God. Abraham came to sacrifice: he may not go away with dry hands. God cannot abide that good purposes should be frustrate, lest either he should not do that for which he came, or should want means of speedy thanksgiving for so gracious a disappoint ment. Behold, a ram stands ready for the sacrifice, and, as it were, proffers himself to this happy exchange. He that made that beast, brings him thither, fastens him there. Even in small things there is a great providence. What mysteries there are in every act of God! The only Son of God, upon this very hill, is laid upon the altar of the cross, and so becomes a true sacrifice for the world; that yet he is raised without impeachment, and exempted from the power of death. The Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world, is here really offered and accepted. One Saviour in two figures; in the one dying, restored in the other. So Abraham, while he exercises his faith, confirms it; and rejoices more to foresee the true Isaac in that place offered to death for his sins, than to see the carnal Isaac preserved from death for the reward of his faith. Whatsoever is dearest to us upon earth, is our Isaac: happy are we, if we can sacrifice it to God. Those shall never rest with Abraham, that cannot sacrifice with Abraham. CONTEMPLATION V.-OF LOT AND SODOM. BEFORE Abraham and Lot grew rich, they dwelt together; now their wealth separates them; their society was a greater good than their riches. Many a one is a loser by his wealth. Who would account those things good which make us worse. It had been the duty of young Lot to offer rather than to choose, to yield rather than contend. Who would not here think Abraham the nephew, and Lot the uncle? It is no disparagement for greater persons to begin treaties of peace. Better doth it beseem every son of Abraham to win with love, than to sway with power. Abraham yields over this right of his choice; Lot takes it: and behold, Lot is crossed in that which he chose, Abraham was blessed in that which was left him. God never suffers any man to lose by an humble remission of his right in a desire for peace. Wealth had made Lot not only undutiful but covetous: he sees the goodly plains of Jordan, the richness of the soil, the commodity of the rivers, the situation of the cities; and now not once inquiring into the conditions of the inhabitants, he is |