flatter itself, as that it thinks if one circumstance be right, nothing can be amiss. Israel was at this time extremely corrupted; yet the spies of the Danites had taken notice even of this young Levite, and are glad to make use of his priesthood. If they had but gone up to Shiloh, they might have consulted with the ark of God; but worldly minds are not curious in their holy services. If they have a god, an ephod, a priest, it suffices them. They had rather enjoy a false worship with ease, than to take pains for the true. Those that are curious in their diet, in their purchases, in their attire, in their contracts, yet in God's business are very indifferent. The author of lies sometimes speaks truth for an advantage; and, from his mouth, this flattering Levite speaks what he knew would please, not what he knew would fall out. The event answers his prediction, and now the spies magnify him to their fellows. Micah's idol is a god, and the Levite is his oracle. In matter of judgment, to be guided only by the event, is the way to error. Falsehood shall be truth, and Satan an angel of light, if we follow this rule. Even very conjectures sometimes happen right. A prophet, or a dreamer, may give a true sign or wonder, and yet himself say, "Let us go after other gods." A small thing can win credit with weak minds, which, where they have once sped, cannot distrust. The idolatrous Danites are so besotted with this success, that they will rather steal than want the gods of Micah; and because the gods without the priest can do them less service than the priest without the gods, therefore they steal the priest with the gods. O miserable Israelites, that could think that a god which could be stolen!-that could look for protection from that which could not keep itself from stealing, which was won by their theft, not their devotion! Could they worship those idols more devoutly than Micah that made them? And if they could not protect their maker from robbery, how shall they protect their thieves? If it had been the holy ark of the true God, how could they think it would bless their violence, or that it would abide to be translated by rapine and xtortion? Now their superstition hath made them mad upon a god, they must have him, by what means they care not, though they offend the true God by stealing a false. Sacrilege is fit to be the first service of an idol. The spies of Dan had been courteously entertained by Micah; thus they reward his hospitality. It is no trusting the honesty of idolaters; if they have once cast off the true God, whom will they respect? It seems Levites did not more want maintenance, than Israel wanted Levites. Here was a tribe of Israel without a spiritual guide. The withdrawing of due means is the way to the utter desolation of the church: rare offerings make cold altars. There needed small force to draw this Levite to change his charge: "Hold thy peace, and come, and be our father and priest: whether is it better." &c. Here is no patience, but joy. He that was won with ten shekels, may be lost with eleven: when maintenance and honour call him, he goes undriven, and rather steals himself away, than is stolen. The Levite had too many gods, to make conscience of pleasing one. There is nothing more inconstant than a Levite that seeks nothing but himself. Thus the wild-fire of idolatry, which lay before couched in the private hall of Micah, now flies furiously through all the tribe of Dan, who, like the thieves that have carried away plaguy clothes, have insensibly infected themselves and their posterity to death. Heresy and superstition have small beginnings, dangerous proceedings, perni. cious conclusions. This contagion is like a canker, which at the first is scarce visible; afterwards it eats away the flesh, and consumes the body. BOOK XI. CONTEMPLATION I.—THE LEVITE'S CONCUBINE. THERE is no complaint of a publicly disordered state, where a Levice is not at one end of it, either as an agent or a patient. In the idolatry of Micah and the Danites, a Levite was an actor: in the violent uncleanness of Gibeah, a Levite suffers. No tribe shall sooner feel the want of government than that of Levi. The law of God allowed the Levite a wife; human connivance, a concubine : neither did the Jewish concubine differ from a wife, but in some outward compliments; both might challenge all the true essence of marriage. So little was the difference, that the father of the concubine is called the father-in-law to the Levite. She, whom ill custom had of a wife made a concubine, is now, by her lust, of a concubine made harlot; her fornication, together with the change of her bed, hath changed her abode. Perhaps her own conscience thrust her out of doors; perhaps the just severity of her husband. Dismission was too easy a penalty for that which God had sentenced with death. She that had deserved to be abhorred of her husband, seeks shelter from her father. Why would her father suffer his house to be defiled with an adulteress, though out of his own loins? Why did he not rather say, What, dost thou think to find my house an harbour for thy sins? While thou wert a wife to thine | husband, thou wert a daughter to me; now thou art neither: thou art not mine, I gave thee to thy husband; thou art not thy husband's, thou hast betrayed his bed; thy filthiness hath made thee thine own, and thine adulterer's. Go seek thine entertainment where thou hast lost thine honesty thy lewdness hath brought a necessity of shame upon thy abettors. How can I countenance thy person, and abandon thy sin? I had rather be a just man, than a kind father. Get thee home, therefore, to thy husband, crave his forgiveness upon thy knees, redeem his love with thy modesty and obedience: when his heart is once open to thee, my doors shall not be shut. In the mean time, know, I can be no father to an harlot. Indulgence of parents is the refuge of vanity, the bawd of wickedness, the bane of children. How easily is that thief induced to steal, that knows his receiver! When the lawlessness of youth knows where to find pity and toleration, what mischief can it forbear! By how much better this Levite was, so much more injurious was the concubine's sin. What husband would not have said, She is gone, let shame and grief go with her! I shall find one no less pleasing, and more faithful: or, if it be not too much mercy in me to yield to a return, let her that hath offended seek me. What more direct way is there to a resolved looseness, than to let her see I cannot want her? The good nature of this Levite cast off all these terms; and now, after four months' absence, sends to seek for her that had run away from her fidelity; and now he thinks, She sinned against me; perhaps she hath repented; perhaps shame and fear have withheld her from returning; perhaps she will be more loyal for her sin. If her importunity should win me, half the thanks were lost; but now, my voluntary offer of favour shall oblige her for ever. Love procures truer servitude than necessity. Mercy becomes well the heart of any man, but most of a Levite. He that had helped to : offer so many sacrifices to God, for the multitude of every Israelite's sins, saw how proportionable it was, that man should not hold one sin unpardonable. He had served at the altar to no purpose, if he, whose trade was to sue for mercy, had not at all learned to practise it. And if the reflection of mercy wrought this in a servant, what shall we expect from him whose essence is mercy! O God! we do every day break the holy covenant of our love; we prostitute ourselves to every filthy temptation, and then run and hide ourselves in our father's house, the world! If thou didst not seek us, we should never return; if thy gracious proffer did not prevent us, we should be incapable of forgiveness. It were abundant goodness in thee to receive us, when we should entreat thee; but lo! thou entreatest us that we would receive thee! How should we now adore and imitate thy mercy, since there is more reason we should sue to each other, than that thou shouldst sue to us, because we may as well offend as be offended! I do not see the woman's father make any means for reconciliation; but when remission came home to his doors, no man could entertain it more thankfully. The nature of many men is forward to accept, and negligent to sue for; they can spend secret wishes upon that which shall cost them no endeavour. Great is the power of love, which can in a sort undo evils past; if not for the act, yet for the remembrance. Where true affection was once conceived, it is easily pieced again, after the strongest interruption. Here needs no tedious recapitulation of wrongs; no importunity of suit : the unkindnesses are forgotten, their love is renewed; and now the Levite is not a stranger, but a son: by how much more willingly he came, by so much more unwillingly he is dismissed. The four months' absence of his daughter is answered with four days' feasting; neither was there so much joy in the former wedding-feast, as in this; because then he delivered his daughter entire, now desperate; then he found a son; but now that son hath found his lost daughter, and he found both. The recovery of any good is far more pleasant than the continuance. Little do we know what evil is towards us. Now did this old man and this restored couple, promise themselves all joy and contentment after this unkind storm, and said in themselves, Now we begin to live. And now this feast, which was meant for their new nuptials, proves her funeral. Even when we let ourselves loosest to our pleasures, the hand of God, though invisibly, is writing bitter things against us. Since we are not worthy to know, it is wisdom to suspect the worst, while it is least seen. Sometimes it falls out, that nothing is more injurious than courtesy. If this old man had thrust his son and daughter early out of doors, they had avoided this mischief; now his loving importunity detains them to their hurt, and his own repentance. Such contentment doth sincere affection find in the presence of those we love, that death itself hath no other name but departing. The greatest comfort of our life is the fruition of friendship, the dissolution whereof is the greatest pain of death. As all earthly pleasures, so this of love, is distasted with the necessity of leaving. How worthy is that only love to take up our hearts, which is not open to any danger of interruption, which shall outlive the date even of faith and hope, and is as eternal as that God, and those blessed spirits whom we love! If we hang never so importunately upon one another's sleeves, and shed floods of tears to stop their way, yet we must begone hence: no occasion, no force, shall then remove us from our father's house. The Levite is stayed beyond his time by importunity, the motions whereof are boundless and infinite: one day draws on another; neither is there any reason of this day's stay, which may not serve still for to-morrow. His resolution at last breaks through all those kind hindrances; rather will he venture a benighting, than an unnecessary delay. It is a good hearing, that the Levite makes haste home. An honest man's heart is where his calling is; such a one, when he is abroad, is like a fish in the air, whereinto if it leap for recreation or necessity, yet it soon returns to its own element. This charge, by how much more sacred it is, so much more attendance it expecteth: even a day breaks square with the conscionable. It was the zeal of this Levite that shut him out of Jebus: "We will not lodge in the city of strangers." The Jebusites were strangers in religion, not strangers enough in their habitation. The Levite will not receive common courtesy from those which were aliens from God, though home-born in the heart of Israel. It is lawful enough, in terms of civility, to deal with infidels : the earth is the Lord's and we may enjoy it in the right of the owner, while we protest against the wrong of the usurper; yet the less communion with God's enemies, the more safety. If there were another air to breathe in from theirs, another earth to tread upon, they should have their own. Those that affect a familiar entireness with Jebusites, in conversation, in leagues of amity, in matrimonial contracts, bewray either too much boldness, or too little conscience. He hath no blood of an Israelite, that delights to lodge in Jebus. It was the fault of Israel, that an heathenish town stood yet in the navel of the tribes, and that Jebus was no sooner turned to Jerusalem: their lenity and neglect were guilty of this neighbourhood, that now no man can pass from Bethlehem-Judah to Mount Ephraim, but by the city of the Jebusites. Seasonable justice might prevent a thousand evils, which afterwards know no remedy but patience. The way was not long betwixt Jebus and Gibeah; for the sun was stooping when the Levite was over against the first, and is but now declined when he comes to the other. How his heart was lightened, when he entered into an Israelitish city! and can think of nothing but hospitality, rest, security. There is no perfume so sweet to a traveller as his own smoke. Both expectation and fear do commonly disappoint us: for seldom ever do we enjoy the good we look for, or smart with a feared evil. The poor Levite could have found but such entertainment with the Jebusites. Whether are the posterity of Benjamin degenerated, that their Gibeah should be no The sun is ready to lodge before them: less wicked than populous! The first sign his servant advises him to shorten his jour-of a settled godlessness, is that a Levite is ney, holding it more fit to trust an early inn of the Jebusites, than to the mercy of the night. And if that counsel had been followed, perhaps they, which found Jebusites in Israel, might have found Israelites in Jebus. No wise man can hold good counsel disparaged by the meanness of the author: if we be glad to receive any treasure from our servant, why not precious admonitions suffered to lie without doors. If God had been in any of their houses, his servant had not been excluded. Where no respect is given to God's messengers, there can be no religion. Gibeah was a second Sodom; even there also is another Lot; which is therefore so much more hospitable to strangers, because himself was a stranger. The host, as well as the Levite, is of Mount Ephraim. Each man knows best to commiserate that evil in others, which himself hath passed through. All that profess the name of Christ are countrymen, and yet strangers here below. How cheerfully should we entertain each other, when we meet in the Gibeah of this inhospitable world! This good old man of Gibeah came home late from his work in the fields; the sun was set ere he gave over: and now, seeing this man a stranger, an Israelite, a Levite, an Ephraimite, and that in his way to the house of God, to take up his lodging in the street, he proffers him the kindness of his house-room. Industrious spirits are the fittest receptacles of all good motions; whereas those which give themselves to idle and loose courses, do not care so much as for themselves. I hear of but one man at his work in all Gibeath; the rest were quaffing and revelling. That one man ends his work with a charitable entertainment; the other end their play in a brutish beastliness, and violence. These villains Dad learned both the actions and the language of the Sodomites: one unclean devil was the prompter to both; and this honest Ephraimite had learned of righteous Lot, both to entreat and to proffer. As a perplexed mariner, that in a storm must cast away something, although precious; so this good host rather will prostitute his daughter, a virgin, together with the concubine, than this prodigious villany should be offered to a man, much more to a man of God. The detestation of a fouler sin drew him to overreach in the motion of a lesser; which, if it had been accepted, how could he have escaped the partnership of their uncleanness, and the guilt of his daughter's ravishment! No man can wash his hands of that sin to which his will hath yielded. Bodily violence may be inoffensive in the patient; voluntary inclination to evil, though out of fear, can never be excusable yet behold, this wickedness is too little to satisfy these monsters! Who would have looked for so extreme abomination from the loins of Jacob, the womb of Rachel, the sons of Benjamin? Could the very Jebusites, their neighbours, be ever accused of such unnatural outrage? I am ashamed to say it, even the worst pagans were saints to Israel. What avails it, that they have the ark of God in Shiloh, while they have Sodom in their streets? that the law of God is in their fringes, while the devil is in their hearts? Nothing but hell itself can yield a worse creature than a depraved Israelite; the very means | of his reformation are the fuel of his wickedness. Yet Lot sped so much better in Sodom, than this Ephraimite did in Gibeah, by how much more holy guests he entertained: there the guests were angels, here a sinful man; there the guests saved the host, here the host could not save the guest from brutish violence; those Sodomites were stricken with outward blindness, and defeated; these Benjamites are only blinded with lust, and prevail. The Levite comes forth; perhaps his coat saved his person from this villany; who now thinks himself well, that he may have leave to redeem his own dishonour with his concubine's. If he had not loved her dearly, he had never sought her so far, after so foul a sin; yet now his hate of that unnatural wickedness overcame his love to her; she is exposed to the furious lust of ruffians, and, which he misdoubteth, abused to death. O the just and even course which the Almighty Judge of the world holds in all his retributions! This woman had shamed the bed of a Levite by her former wantonness; she had thus far gone smoothly away with her sin; her father harboured her; her husband forgave her; her own heart found no cause to complain, because she smarted not: now, when the world had forgotten her offence, God calls her to reckoning, and punishes her with her own sin. She had voluntarily exposed herself to lust, now is exposed forcibly. Adul tery was her sin; adultery was her death. What smiles soever wickedness casts upon the heart, while it solicits, it will owe us a displeasure, and prove itself a faithful debitor. The Levite looked to find her humbled with this violence, not murdered; and now indignation moves him to add horror to the fact. Had not his heart been raised up with an excess of desire to make the crime as odious as it was sinful, his action could not be excused. Those hands, that might not touch a carcase, now carve the corpse of his own dead wife into morsels, and send these tokens to all the tribes of Israel; that when they should see these gobbets of the body murdered, the more they might detest the murderers. Himself puts on cruelty to the dead, that he might draw them to a just revenge of her death. Actions notoriously villanous, may justly countenance an extraordinary means o prosecution. Every Israelite hath a part in a Levite's wrong; no tribe hath not his share in the carcase and the revenge. CONTEMPLATION II.-THE DESOLATION OF BENJAMIN. THESE morsels could not choose but cut the hearts of Israel with horror and compassion; horror of the act, and compassion of the sufferer; and now their zeal draws them together, either for satisfaction or revenge. Who would not have looked that the hands of Benjamin should have been first upon Gibeah; and that they should have readily sent the heads of the offenders, for a second service, after the gobbets of the concubine! But now, instead of punishing the sin, they patronised the actors; and will rather die in resisting justice, than live and prosper in furthering it! : Surely, Israel had one tribe too many. All Benjamin is turned into Gibeah; the sons not of Benjamin, but of Belial. The abetting of evil is worse than the commission; this may be upon infirmity, but that must be upon resolution. Easy punishment is too much favour to sin; connivance is much worse but the defence of it, and that unto blood, is intolerable. Had not these men been both wicked and quarrellous, they had not drawn their swords in so foul a cause. Peaceable dispositions are hardly drawn to fight for innocence; yet these Benjamites (as if they were in love with villany, and out of charity with God) will be the wilful champions of lewdness. How can Gibeah repent them of that wickedness which all Benjamin will make good, in spite of their consciences? Even where sin is suppressed, it will rise; but where it is encouraged, it insults and tyrannizes. It was more just that Israel should rise against Benjamin, than that Benjamin should rise for Gibeah; by how much it is better to punish offenders, than to shelter the offenders from punishment: and yet the wickedness of Benjamin sped better for the time, than the honesty of Israel. Twice was the better part foiled by the less and worse: the good cause was sent back with shame; the evil returned with victory and triumph. O God, their hand was for thee in the fight, and thy hand was with them in their fall! They had not fought for thee, but by thee; neither could they have miscarried in the fight, if thou hadst not fought against them: thou art just and holy in both. The cause was thine; the sin in managing of it was their own. They fought in a holy quarrel, but with confidence in themselves; for, as presuming of victory, they ask of God, not what should be their success, but who should be their captain. Number and innocence made them too secure: it was just, therefore, with God to let them feel, that even good zeal cannot bear out presumption; and that victory lies not in the cause, but in the God that owns it. Who cannot imagine how much the Benjamites insulted in their double field and day, and now began to think, God was on their side! Those swords, which had been taught the way into forty thousand bodies of their brethren, cannot fear a new encounter. Wicked men cannot see their prosperity a piece of their curse; neither can examine their actions, but the events. Soon after they shall find what it was to add blood unto filthiness, and that the victory of an evil cause is the way to ruin and confusion. I should have feared lest this double discomfiture should have made Israel either distrustful, or weary of a good cause: but still I find them no less courageous, with more humility. Now they fast and weep, and sacrifice. These weapons had been victorious in their first assault. Benjamin had never been in danger of pride for overcoming, if this humiliation of Israel had prevented the fight. It is seldom seen, but that which we do with fear prospereth; whereas confidence in undertaking, lays even good endeavours in the dust. Wickedness could never brag of any long prosperity, nor complain of the lack of payment: still God is even with it at last. Now he pays the Benjamites both that death which they had lent to the Israelites, and that wherein they stood indebted to their brotherhood of Gibeah: and now, that both are met in death, there is as much difference betwixt those Israelites, and these Benjamites, as betwixt martyrs and malefactors. To die in a sin is a fearful revenge of giving patronage to sin. The sword consumes their bodies, another fire their cities, whatsoever became of their souls. Now might Rachel have justly wept for her children, because they were not; for behold, the men, women, and children of her wicked tribe, are cut off; only some few scattered remainders ran away from this vengeance, and lurked in caves, and rocks, both for fear and shame. There was no difference but life betwixt their brethren and them; the earth covered them both; yet unto them doth the revenge of Israel stretch itself, and vows to destroy, if not their persons, yet their succession, as holding them unworthy to receive comfort by that sex to which they had been so cruel, |