tious should we be to know these things, the knowledge whereof is eternal life!

Many a lewd office are they put to, who serve wicked masters. One while, Saul's servants are sent to kill innocent David; another while, to shed the blood of God's priests; and now they must go seek for a witch. It is no small happiness to attend them, from whom we may receive precepts and examples of virtue.

Had Saul been good, he had needed no disguise: honest actions never shame the doers. Now that he goeth about a sinful business, he changeth himself; he seeks the shelter of the night; he takes but two followers with him: it is true, that if Saul had come in the port of a king, the witch had as much dissembled her condition, as now he dissembleth his ; yet it was not only desire to speed, but guiltiness, that thus altered his habit. Such is the power of conscience, that even those who are most affected to evil, yet are ashamed to be thought such as they desire to be.

Saul needed another face to fit that tongue, which should say, "Conjure to me by the familiar spirit, and bring me up whom I shall name unto thee." An obdurate heart can give way to any thing.

Notwithstanding the peremptory edict of Saul, there are still witches in Israel. Neither good laws, nor careful executions, can purge the church from malefactors; there will still be some that will jeopard their heads upon the grossest sins. No garden can be so curiously tended, that there should not be one weed left in it. Yet so far can good statutes, and due inflictions of punishment upon offenders, prevail, that mischievous persons are glad to pull in their heads, and dare not do ill, but in disguise and darkness. It is no small advantage of justice that it affrights sin, if it cannot be expelled; as, contrarily, woful is the condition of that place, where is a public profession of wickedness.

The witch was no less crafty than wicked: she had before, as is like, bribed officers to escape indictment, to lurk in secrecy; and now she will not work her feats without security. Her suspicion projects the worst: "Wherefore seekest thou to take me in a snare, to cause me to die?" O vain sorceress, that could be wary to avoid the punishment of Saul, careless to avoid the judgment of God! Could we forethink what our sin would cost us, we durst not but be innocent. This is a good and seasonable answer for us to make unto Satan when he solicits us to evil: "Wherefore seekest thou to take me in a snare, to cause

me to die?" Nothing is more sure than this intention in the tempter, than this event in the issue. O that we could but so much fear the eternal pains, as we do the temporary; and be but so careful to save our souls from torment, as our bodies!

No sooner hath Saul sworn her safety, than she addresseth herself to her sorcery: | hope of impunity draws on sin with boldness. Were it not for the delusions of false promises, Satan should have no clients. Could Saul be so ignorant as to think that magic had power over God's deceased saints. to raise them up, yea, to call them down from their rest? Time was, when Saul was among the prophets. And yet now, that he is the impure lodge of devils, how senseless he is to say, "Bring me up Samuel!" It is no rare thing to lose even our wit and judgment, together with graces: how justly are they given to sottishness, that have given themselves over to sin!

The sorceress, it seems, exercising her conjurations in a room apart, is informed by her familiar, who it was that set her on work; she can therefore find time, in the midst of her exorcisms, to bind the assurance of her own safety by expostulation: "She cried with a loud voice, why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul." The very name of Saul was an accusation: yet is he so far from striking his breast, that, doubting lest this fear of the witch should interrupt the desired work, he encourages her whom he should have condemned: "Be not afraid ;" he that had more cause to fear, for his own sake, in an expectation of just judgment, cheers up her that feared nothing but himself. How ill doth it become us to give that counsel to others, whereof we have more need and use in our own persons!

As one that had more care to satisfy his own curiosity, than her suspicion, he asks, "What sawest thou?" Who would not have looked, that Saul's hair should have started on his head, to hear of a spirit raised? His sin hath so hardened him, that he rather pleases himself in that which hath nothing in it but horror: so far is Satan content to descend to the service of his servants, that he will approve his feigned obedience to their very outward senses: what form is so glorious, that he either cannot or dare not undertake? Here gods ascend out of the earth; elsewhere Satan transforms him into an angel of light: what wonder is it, that his wicked instruments appear like saints in their hypocritical dissimulation! If we will be judging by the appearance, we shall be sure to err. eye could distinguish betwixt the true Sa

No

muel and a false spirit. Saul, who was well | worthy to be deceived, seeing those grey hairs, and that mantle, inclines himself to the ground, and bows himself. He that would not worship God in Samuel alive, now worships Samuel in Satan; and no marvel: Satan was now become his refuge instead of God; his Urim was darkness, his prophet a ghost. Every one that consults with Satan worships him, though he bow not, neither doth that evil spirit desire any other reverence, than to be sought unto.

How cunningly doth Satan resemble not only the habit and gesture, but the language of Samuel! "Wherefore hast thou disquieted me, and wherefore dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is gone from thee, and is thine enemy?" Nothing is more pleasing to that evil one, than to be solicited; yet, in the person of Samuel, he can say, "Why hast thou disquieted me?" Had not the Lord been gone from Saul, he had never come to the devilish oracle of Endor; and yet the counterfeiting spirit can say, "Why dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is gone from thee?" Satan cares not how little he is known to be himself: he loves to pass under any form, rather than his own.

The more holy the person is, the more carefully doth Satan act him, that by his stale he may ensnare us. In every motion, it is good to try the spirits, whether they be of God. Good words are no means to distinguish a prophet from a devil. Samuel himself, while he was alive, could not have spoken more gravely, more severely, more divinely, than this evil ghost: "For the Lord will rend thy kingdom out of thy hand, and give it to thy neighbour David, because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon the Amalekites, therefore hath the Lord done this unto thee this day." When the devil himself puts on gravity and religion, who can marvel at the hypocrisy of men? Well may lewd men be good preachers, when Satan himself can play the prophet. Where are those ignorants, that think charitably of charms and spells, because they find nothing in them but good words? What prophet could speak better words than this devil in Samuel's mantle? Neither is there at any time so much danger of that evil spirit, as when he speaks best.

I could wonder to hear Satan preach thus prophetically, if I did not know, that as he was once a good angel, so he can still act what he was. While Saul was in consultation of sparing Agag, we shall never find that Satan would lay any block in his way:

yea, then he was a prompt orator to induce him into that sin; now that it is past and gone, he can lade Saul with fearful denunciations of judgment. Till we have sinned, Satan is a parasite; when we have sinned, he is a tyrant. What cares he to flatter any more, when he hath what he would? Now, his only work is to terrify and confound, that he may enjoy what he hath won: how much better it is serving that master, who, when we are most dejected with the conscience of evil, heartens us with inward comfort, and speaks peace to the soul in the midst of tumult!

CONTEMPLATION V. — ZIK LAG SPOILED AND REVENGED.

HAD not the king of the Philistines sent David away early, his wives and his people and substance, which he left at Ziklag, had been utterly lost: now Achish did not more pleasure David in his entertainment, than in his dismission. Saul was not David's enemy more in the persecution of his person, than in the forbearance of God's enemies: behold, thus late doth David feel the smart of Saul's sin in sparing the Amalekites, who, if God's sentence had been duly executed, had not now survived, to annoy this parcel of Israel.

As in spiritual respects our sins are always hurtful to ourselves, so in temporal, ofttimes prejudicial to posterity. A wicked man deserves ill of those he never lived

to see.

I cannot marvel at the Amalekites' assault made upon the Israelites of Ziklag; I cannot but marvel at their clemency: how just was it, that while David would give aid to the enemies of the church against Israel, the enemies of the church should rise against David, in his peculiar charge of Israel? But while David's roving against the Amalekites, not many days before, left neither man nor woman alive, how strange is it, that the Amalekites, invading and surprising Ziklag, in revenge, kill neither man nor woman! Shall we say that mercy is fled from the breasts of Israelites, and rests in heathens? Or shall we rather ascribe this to the gracious restraint of God, who, having designed Amalek to the slaughter of Israel, and not Israel to the slaughter of Amalek, moved the hands of I-rael, and held the hands of Amalek? This was that alone which made the heathens take up with an unbloody revenge, burning only the walls, and leading away the persons. Israel crossed the revealed will of God in sparing

It was still the lot of Amalek to take Israel at all advantages. Upon their first coming out of Egypt, when they were weary, weak, and unarmed, then did Amalek assault them: and now, when one part of Israel was in the field against the Philistines, another was gone with the Philistines against Israel, the Amalekites set upon the coasts of both, and go away loaded with the spoil. No other is to be expected of our spiritual adversaries, who are ever readiest to assail, when we are the unreadiest to defend.

:

It was a woful spectacle for David and his soldiers, upon their return, to find ruins and ashes instead of houses; and instead of cheir families, solitude: their city was vanished into smoke, their households into captivity; neither could they know whom to accuse, or where to inquire for redress. While they made account that their home should recompense their tedious journey with comfort, the miserable desolation of their home doubles the discomfort of their journey what remained there but tears and lamentations? They lifted up their voices, and wept till they could weep no more. Here was plenty of nothing but misery and sorrow. The heart of every Israelite was brimful of grief: David's ran over for besides that his cross was the same with theirs, all theirs was his alone: each man looked on his fellow as a partner of affliction; but every one looked upon David as the cause of all their affliction; and, as common displeasure is never but fruitful of revenge, they all agree to stone him as the author of their undoing, whom they followed all this while as the hopeful means of their advancement.

Now David's loss is his least grief; neither, as if every thing had conspired to torment him, can he look besides the aggravation of his sorrow and danger. Saul and his soldiers had hunted him out of Israel; the Philistine courtiers had hunted him from the favour of Achish; the Amalekites spoiled him in Ziklag: yet all these are easy adversaries in comparison of his own; his own followers are so far from pitying his participation of the loss, that they are ready to kill him, because they are miserable with him. O the many and grievous perplexities of the man after God's own heart! If all his train had joined their best helps for the mitigation of his grief, their cordials had been too weak; but now the vexation that arises from their fury and malice, drowneth the sense of their loss, and were enough

should it be strange to us that we meet with hard trials, when we see the dear anointed of God thus plunged in evils?

What should the distressed son of Jesse now do? whither should he think to turn him? To go back to Israel he durst not; to go to Achish he might not; to abide among those waste heaps he could not; or, if there might have been harbour in those burnt walls, yet there could have been no safety to remain with those mutinous spirits. But David comforted himself in the Lord his God. O happy and sure refuge of a faithful soul! The earth yielded him nothing but matter of disconsolation and heaviness; he lifts his eyes above the hills, whence cometh his salvation. It is no marvel that God remembereth David in all his troubles, since David in all his troubles did thus remember his God: he knew, that though no mortal eye of reason or sense could discern any evasion from these intricate evils, yet that the eye of Divine Providence had descried it long before; and that, though no human power could make way for his safety, yet that the over-ruling hand of his God could do it with ease. His experience had assured him of the fidelity of his guardian in heaven; and therefore he comforted himself in the Lord his God.

In vain is comfort expected from God, if we consult not with him. Abiathar the priest is called for: David was not in the court of Achish, without the priest by his side; nor the priest without the ephod: had these been left behind in Ziklag, they had been miscarried with the rest, and David had now been hopeless. How well it succeeds to the great, when they take God with them in his ministers, in his ordinances! As, contrarily, when these are laid by, as superfluous, there can be nothing but uncertainty of success, or certainty of mischief. The presence of the priest and ephod would have little availed him, without their use: by them he asks counsel of the Lord in these straits. The mouth and ears of God, which were shut unto Saul, are open unto David: no sooner can he ass, than he receives answer; and the answer that he receives is full of courage and comfort: "Follow, for thou shalt surely overtake them, and recover all." That God of truth never disappointed any man's trust. David now finds, that the eye, which waited upon God, was not sent away weeping.

David, therefore, and his men, are now upon their march after the Amalekites. It

is no lingering when God bids us go. They who had promised rest to their weary limbs, after their return from Achish, in their harbour of Ziklag, are glad to forget their hopes, and to put their stiff joints upon a new task of motion. It is no marvel if two hundred of them were so over-tired with their former toil, that they were not able to pass over the river Besor. David was a true type of Christ: we follow him in these holy wars, against the spiritual Amalekites. All of us are not of an equal strength some are carried by the vigour of their faith through all difficulties; others, after long pressure, are ready to languish in the way. Our leader is not more strong than pitiful; neither doth he scornfully cashier those whose desires are hearty, while their abilities are unanswerable. How much more should our charity pardon the infirmities of our brethren, and allow them to sit by the stuff, who cannot endure the march?

The same Providence which appointed David to follow the Amalekites, had also ordered an Egyptian to be cast behind them. This cast servant, whom his cruel master had left to faintness and famine, shall be used as the means of the recovery of the Israelites' loss, and of the revenge of the Amalekites. Had not his master neglected him, all these rovers of Amalek had gone away with their life and booty: it is not safe to despise the meanest vassal upon earth. There is a mercy and care due to the most despicable piece of all humanity, wherein we cannot be wanting without the offence, without the punishment of God.

:

Charity distinguisheth an Israelite from an Amalekite. David's followers are strangers to this Egyptian; an Amalekite was his master: his master leaves him to die in the field of sickness and hunger; these strangers relieved him and ere they know whether they might, by him, receive any light in their pursuit, they refresh his dying spirits with bread and water, with figs and raisins; neither can the haste of their way be any hinderance to their compassion. He hath no Israelitish blood in him, that is utterly merciless: perhaps yet David's followers might also, in the hope of some intelligence, show kindness to this forlorn Egyptian. Worldly wisdom teacheth us to sow small courtesies, where we may reap large harvests of recompense. No sooner are his spirits recalled, than he requites his lood with information. I cannot blame the Egyptian, that he was so easily induced to descry these unkind Amalekites to merciful Israelites; those that gave him over unto

death, to the restorers of his life; much less that, ere he would descry them, he requires an oath of security from so bad a master. Well doth be match death with such a servitude! Wonderful is the providence of God, even over those that are not in the nearest bonds his own! Three days and three nights had this poor Egyptian slave lain sick and hunger-starved in the fields, and looks for nothing but death, when God sends him succour from the hands of those Israelites whom he had helped to spoil; though not so much for his sake, as for Israel's, is this heathenish straggler preserved.

It pleases God to extend his common favours to all his creatures; but, in miraculous preservations, he hath still wont to have respect to his own. By this means therefore are the Israelites brought to the sight of their late spoilers, whom they find scattered abroad, upon all the earth, eating and drinking, and dancing in triumph, for the great prey they had taken.

It was three days at least since this gainful foraging of Amalek: and now, seeing no fear of any pursuer, and promising themselves safety, in so great and untraced a distance, they make themselves merry with so rich and easy a victory; and now suddenly, when they began to think of enjoying the booty and wealth they had gotten, the sword of David was upon their throats. Destruction is never nearer, than when security hath chased away fear. With how sad faces and hearts had the wives of David, and the other captives of Israel, looked upon the triumphant revels of Amalek! and what a change do we think appeared in them, when they saw their happy and valiant rescuers flying in upon their insolent victors, and making the death of the Amalekites the ransom of their captivity! They mourned even now at the dances of Amalek; now in the shrieks and death of Amalek, they shout and rejoice. The mercy of our God forgets not to interchange our sorrows with joy, and the joy of the wicked with sorrow.

The Amalekites have paid a dear loan for the goods of Israel, which they now restore with their own lives: and now their spoil hath made David richer than he expected: that booty, which they had swept from all other parts, accrued to him.

Those Israelites, that could not go on to fight for their share, are come to meet their brethren with gratulation. How partial are we wont to be to our own causes! Even very Israelites will be ready to fall out for matter of profit. Where self-love hath brea

a quarrel, every man is subject to flatter his own case. It seemed plausible, and but just to the actors in this rescue, that those which had taken no part in the pain and hazard of the journey, should receive no part of the commodity. It was favour enough for them to recover their wives and children, though they shared not in the goods. Wise and holy David, whose praise was no less to overcome his own in time of peace, than his enemies in war, calls his contending followers from law to equity, and so orders the matter, that, since the plaintiffs were detained, not by will, but by necessity, and since their forced stay was useful in guarding the stuff, they should partake equally of the prey with their fellows: : a sentence well beseeming the justice of God's anointed. Those that represent God upon earth, should resemble him in their proceedings. It is the just mercy of our God to measure us by our wills, not by our abilities; to recompense us graciously, according to the truth of our desires and endeavours; and to account that performed by us, which he only letteth us from performing. It were wide with us, if sometimes purpose did not supply actions. While our heart faulteth not, we that, through | spiritual sickness, are fain to bide by the stuff, shall share both in grace and glory with the victors.

CONTEMPLATION VI. THE DEATH OF SAUL.

THE witch of Endor had half slain Saul before the battle: it is just that they who consult with devils should go away with discomfort. He hath eaten his last bread at the hand of a sorceress; and now necessity draws him into that field, where he sees nothing but despair. Had not Saul believed the ill news of the counterfeit Samuel, he had not been struck down on the ground with words: now his belief made him desperate. Those actions, which are not sustained by hope, must needs languish, and are only promoted by outward compulsion: while the mind is uncertain of success, it relieves itself with the possibilities of good. In doubts there is a comfortable mixture; but when it is assured of the worst event, it is utterly discouraged and dejected. It hath therefore pleased the wisdom of God to hide from wicked men his determination of their final estate, that the remainders of hope may hearten them to good.

In all likelihood, one self-same day saw David a victor over the Amalekites, and

Saul discomfited by the Philistines: how should it be otherwise? David consulted with God, and prevailed: Saul with the witch of Endor, and perisheth. The end is commonly auswerable to the way: it is an idle injustice, when we do ill, to look to speed well. The slaughter of Saul and his sons was not in the first scene of this tragical field: that was rather reserved by God for the last act, that Saul's measure might be full. God is long ere he strikes, but when he doth, it is to purpose. First, Israel flies, and falls down wounded in mount Gilboa: they had their part in Saul's sin; they were actors in David's persecution; justly, therefore, do they suffer with him whom they had seconded in offence. As it is hard to be good under an evil prince, so it is as rare not to be enwrapped in his judgments. It was no small addition to the anguish of Saul's death, to see his sons dead, to see his people flying, and slain before him: they had sinned in their king, and in them is their king punished. The rest were not so worthy of pity; but whose heart would it not touch to see Jonathan, the good son of a wicked father, involved in the common destruction? Death is not partial : all dispositions, all merits, are alike to it. If valour, if holiness, if sincerity of heart, could have been any defence against mortality, Jonathan had survived. Now, by their wounds and death, no man can discern which is Jonathan: the soul only finds the difference which the body admitteth not. Death is the common gate both to heaven and hell; we all pass that, ere our turning to either hand. The sword of the Philistines fetcheth Jonathan through it with his fellows; no sooner is his foot over that threshold, than God conducteth him to glory. The best cannot be happy but through their dissolution; now, therefore, hath Jonathan no cause of complaint: he is, by the rude and cruel hand of a Philistine, but removed to a better kingdom than he leaves to his brother; and at once is his death both a temporal affliction to the son of Saul, and an entrance of glory to the friend of David.

The Philistine archers shot at random: God directs their arrows into the body of Saul Lest the discomfiture of his people, and the slaughter of his sons, should not be grief enough to him, he feels himself wounded, and sees nothing before him but horror and death; and now, as a man forsaken of all hopes, he begs of his armour. bearer that death's blow, which else he must, to the doubling of his indignation, receive from a Philistine. He begs this bloody fa