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These five, together with two sons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine, are hanged up at once before the Lord, yea, and before the eyes of the world; no place but a hill will serve for this execution. The acts of justice, as they are intended for example, so they should be done in that eminent fashion, that may make them both most instructive and most terrifying. Unwarrantable courses of private revenge seek to hide their heads in secrecy; the beautiful face of justice both affects the light, and becomes it.

not of David's seeking, the wrong is thus | this motion to Satan, which here it attri late avenged upon Saul, Adriel, Merab, butes to God: both had their hand in the Michal, the children. It is a dangerous work; God by permission, Satan by sugges matter to offer injury to any of God's faith- tion; God as a judge, Satan as an enemy; ful ones if their meekness have easily God as in a just punishment for sin, Satan remitted it, their God will not pass it over as in an act of sin; God in a wise ordinawithout a severe retribution. tion of it to good, Satan in a malicious intent of confusion. Thus at once God moved, and Satan moved; neither is it any excuse to Satan or David that God moved; neither is it any blemish to God that Satan moved, the ruler's sin is a punishment to a wicked people: though they had many sins of their own, whereon God might have grounded a judgment; yet as before he had punished them with dearth for Saul's sin, so now he will not punish them with plagues but for David's sin. If God were not angry with a people, he would not give up their governors to such evils, as whereby he is provoked to vengeance; and if their governors be thus given up, the people cannot be safe. The body drowns not while the head is above the water; when that once sinks, death is near: justly, therefore, are we charged to make prayers and supplications, as for all, so especially for those that are in eminent authority: when we pray for ourselves, we pray not always for them; but we cannot pray for them, and not pray for ourselves: the public weal is not comprised in the private, but the private in the public.

It was the general charge of God's law, that no corpse should remain all night upon the gibbet: the Almighty hath power to dispense with his own command, so, doubtless, he did in this extraordinary case; these carcases did not defile, but expiate. Sorrowful Rizpah spreads her a tent of sackcloth upon the rock, for a sad attendance upon those sons of her womb: death might bereave her of them, not them of her love. This spectacle was not more grievous to her, than pleasing to God, and happy to Israel. Now the clouds drop fatness, and the earth runs forth into plenty. The Gibeonites are satisfied, God reconciled, Israel relieved.

How blessed a thing it is for any nation, that justice is unpartially executed, even upon the mighty! A few drops of blood have procured large showers from heaven. A few carcases are a rich compost to the earth; the drought and dearth remove away with the breath of those pledges of the offender. Judgment cannot tyrannize where justice reigns; as, contrarily, there can be no peace where blood cries unheard, unregarded.

CONTEMPLATION VI. THE NUMBERING OF

THE PEOPLE.

ISRAEL was grown wanton and mutinous: God pulls them down; first by the sword, then by famine, now by pestilence. O the wondrous, and yet just ways of the Almighty! Because Israel hath sinned, therefore David shall sin, that Israel may be punished; because God is angry with Israel, therefore David shall anger him more, and strike himself in Israel, and Israel through himself.

The Spirit of God elsewhere ascribes

What, then, was David's sin? He will needs have Israel and Judah numbered. Surely there is no malignity in numbers; neither is it unfit for a prince to know his own strength: this is not the first time that Israel had gone under a reckoning. The act offends not, but the misaffection; the same thing had been commendably done out of a princely providence, which now, through the curiosity, pride, misconfidence of the doer, proves heinously vicious. Those actions, which are in themselves indifferent, receive either their life or their bane from the intentions of the agent. Moses numbereth the people with thanks; David with displeasure. Those sins, which carry the smoothest foreheads, and have the most honest appearances, may more provoke the wrath of God, than those which bear the most abomination in their faces. How many thousand wickednesses passed through the hands of Israel, which we men would rather have branded out for judgment, than this of David's! The righteous judge of the world censures sins, not by their ill looks, but by their foul hearts.

Who can but wonder to see Joab the saint, and David the trespasser? No prophet could speak better than that man of

tlood: "The Lord thy God increase the people a hundred-fold more than they be, and that the eyes of my lord the king may see it; but why doth my lord the king desire this thing?" There is no man so lewd as not to be sometimes in good moods, as not to dislike some evil; contrarily, no man on earth can be so holy, as not sometimes to overlash. It were pity that either Joab or David should be tried by every act. How commonly have we seen those men ready to give good advice to others, for the avoiding of some sins, who, in more gross outrages, have not had grace to counsel their own hearts! The same man, that had deserved death from David for his treacherous cruelty, dissuades David from an act that carried but a suspicion of evil: it is not so much to be regarded who it is that admonisheth us, as what he brings. Good counsel is never the worse for the foul carriage. There are some dishes that we may eat even from sluttish hands.

The purpose of sin in a faithful man is odious, much more the resolution. Notwithstanding Joab's discreet admonition, David will hold on his course, and will know the number of the people, only that he may know it. Joab and the captains address themselves to the work. In things which are not in themselves evil, it is not for subjects to dispute, but to obey. That which authority may sin in commanding, is done of the inferior, not with safety only, but with praise. Nine months and twenty days is this general muster in hand; at last the number is brought in: Israel is found eight hundred thousand strong; Judah five hundred thousand; the ordinary companies, which served by course for the royal guard, four and twenty thousand each month, needed not be reckoned; the addition of them, with their several captains, raises the sum of Israel to the rate of eleven hundred thousand-a power able to puff up a carnal heart but how can a heart that is more than flesh, trust to an arm of flesh? O holy David, whither hath a glorious vanity transported thee!-thou which once didst sing so sweetly," Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, for there is no help in him. His breath departeth, and he re. turneth to his earth, then his thoughts perish. Blessed is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God." How canst thou now stoop to so unsafe and unworthy a confidence?

As some stomachful horse that will not be stopt in his career with the sharpest bit, but runs on headly, til he come to some wall or ditch, and there stands still, and

trembles; so did David: all the dissuasions of Joab could not restrain him from his intended course; almost ten months doth he run on impetuously in a way of his own, rough and dangerous: at last his heart smites him; the conscience of his offence, and the fear of judgment, have fetched him upon his knees: O Lord, I have sinned exceedingly in that I have done; therefore now, Lord, I beseech thee, take away the trespass of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly." It is possible for a sin not to bait only, but to sojourn in the holiest soul: but, though it sojourn there as a stranger, it shall not dwell there as an owner. The renewed heart, after some rovings of error, will once, ere over-long, return home to itself, and fall out with that ill guide wherewith it was misled, and with itself for being misled; and now it is resolved into tears, and breathes forth nothing but sighs, and confessions, and deprecations.

Here needed no Nathan, by a parabolical circumlocution, to fetch in David to a sight and acknowledgment of his sin: the heart of the penitent supplied the prophet; no other tongue could smite him so deep as his own thoughts: but though his reins chastised him in the night, yet his seer scourges him in the morning; "Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do unto thee." But what shall we say to this? When, upon the prophet's reproof for an adultery cloaked with murder, David did but say, "I have sinned," it was presently returned, "God hath put away thy sin;" neither did any smart follow, but the death of a misbegotten infant; and now, when he voluntarily reproved himself for but a needless muster, and sought for pardon unbidden, with great humiliation, God sends him three terrible scourges; famine, sword, or pestilence; that he may choose with which of them he had rather to bleed, he shall have the favour of an election, not of a remission. God is more angered with a spiritual and immediate affront offered to his majesty, in our pride and false confidence in earthly things, than with a fleshly crime, though heinously seconded.

It was a hard and woful choice, of three years' famine added to three fore past; or of three months' flight from the sword of an enemy, or three days' pestilence: the Almighty, that had fore-determined his judgment, refers it to David's will as fully as if it were utterly undetermined. God had resolved, yet David may choose: that infinite wisdom hath foreseen the very will

of his creature; which, while it freely inclines itself to what it had rather, unwittingly wills that which was fore-appointed in heaven.

We do well believe thee, O David, that thou wert in a wonderful strait: this very liberty is no other than fetters: thou needest not have famine, thou needest not have the sword, thou needest not have pestilence; one of them thou must have: there is misery in all; there is misery in any thou and thy people can die but once; and once they must die, either by famine, war, or pestilence. O God, how vainly do we hope to pass over our sins with impunity, when all the favour that David and Israel can receive, is to choose their bane!

the respect of David's offence, they die for themselves.

It was no ordinary pestilence that was thus suddenly and universally mortal. Common eyes saw the botch and the marks, but not the angel: David's clearer sight hath espied him, after that killing peragration throughout the tribes of Israel, shaking his sword over Jerusalem, and hovering over Mount Sion; and now he, who doubtless had spent those three dismal days in the saddest contrition, humbly casts himself down at the feet of the avenger, and lays himself ready for the fatal stroke of justice: it was more terror that God intended in the visible shape of his angel, and deeper humiliation; and what he meant, he wrought. Yet behold, neither sins, nor threats, nor Never soul could be more dejected, more fears, can bereave a true penitent of his anguished with the sense of a judgment, in faith: "Let us fall now into the hands of the bitterness whereof he cries out, "Bethe Lord, for his mercies are great." There hold, I have sinned, yea, I have done can be no evil of punishment wherein God wickedly; but these sheep, what have they hath not a hand; there could be no famine, done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be no sword, without him: but some evils are against me, and against my father's house." more immediate from a divine stroke; such The better any man is, the more sensible was that plague into which David is un- he is of his own wretchedness. Many of willingly willing to fall. He had his choice those sheep were wolves to David. What of days, months, years, in the same num- had they done? They had done that which ber; and though the shortness of time, was the occasion of David's sin, and the prefixed to the threatened pestilence, might cause of their own punishment: but that seem to offer some advantage for the lead-gracious penitent knew his own sin; he ing of his election; yet God meant, and David knew it, herein to proportion the difference of time to the violence of the plague: neither should any fewer perish by so few days' pestilence, than by so many years' famine. The wealthiest might avoid the dearth; the swiftest might run away from the sword: no man could promise himself safety from that pestilence. In likelihood, God's angel would rather strike the most guilty however, therefore, David might well look to be enwrapped in the common destruction, yet he rather chooseth to fall into that mercy which he had abused, and to suffer from that justice which he had provoked: Let us now fall into the hands of the Lord."

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Humble confessions and devout penance cannot always avert temporal judgments: God's angel is abroad, and, within that short compass of time, sweeps away seventy thousand Israelites. David was proud of the number of his subjects; now they are abated, that he may see cause of humiliation in the matter of his glory. In what we have offended, we commonly smart. These thousands of Israel were not so innocent, that they should only perish for David's sin; their sins were the motives both of this sin and punishment: besides

knew not theirs; and therefore can say, "I have sinned, what have they done?" It is safe accusing ourselves, where we may be boldest, and are best acquainted.

O the admirable charity of David, that would have engrossed the plague to himself, and his house, from the rest of Israel, and sues to interpose himself betwixt his people and the vengeance! He that had put himself upon the paws of the bear and lion, for the rescue of his sheep, will now cast himself upon the sword of the angel, for the preservation of Israel. There was hope in those conflicts; in this yieldance there could be nothing but death. Thus didst thou, O Son of David, the true and great Shepherd of thy church, offer thyself to death for them who had their hands in thy blood, who both procured thy death, and deserved their own. Here he offered himself, that had sinned, for those whom he professed to have not done evil; thou that didst no sin, vouchsafedst to offer thyself for us that were all sin: he offered and escaped; thou offeredst and diedst, and by thy death we live, and are freed from everlasting destruction.

But, O Father of all mercies, how little pleasure dost thou take in the blood of sinners! It was thine own pity that inhi- ·

bited the destroyer. Ere David could see the angel, thou hadst restrained him. " It is sufficient, hold now thy hand." If thy compassion did not both withhold and abridge | thy judgments, what place were there for us out of hell?

How easy and just had it been for God, to have made the shutting up of that third evening red with blood! His goodness repents of the slaughter, and calls for that sacrifice wherewith he will be appeased. An altar must be built in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite: lo, in that very hill, where the angel held the sword of Abraham from killing his son, doth God now hold the sword of the angel from killing his people! Upon this very ground shall the temple after stand: here shall be the holy altar, which shall send up the acceptable oblations of God's people in succeeding generations.

O God, what was the threshing-floor of a Jebusite to thee above all other soils? what virtue, what merit was in this earth? As in places, so in persons, it is not to be heeded what they are, but what thou wilt; that is worthiest, which thou pleasest to accept.

with sorrows, what with sickness, decrepit betimes. By that time he was seventy years old; his natural heat was so wasted, that his clothes could not warm him: how many have we known of more strength at more age? The holiest soul dwells not in an impregnable fort. If the revenging angel spared David, yet age and death will not spare him; neither his new altar, nor his costly sacrifice, can be of force against decay of nature; nothing but death can prevent the weaknesses of age.

None can blame a people, if, when they have a good king, they are desirous to hold him. David's servants and subjects have commended unto his bed a fair young virgin; not for the heat of lust, but of life, that by this means they might make an outward supply of fuel for that vital fire which was well near extinguished with age.

As it is in the market, or the stage, so it is in our life; one goes out, another comes in. When David was withering, Adonijah was in his bosom: that son, as he was next to Absalom, both in the beauty of his body, and the time of his birth, so was he, too, like him in practice: he also, taking advantage of his father's infirmity, will be carving himself of the kingdom of Israel; that he might no whit vary from his pattern, he gets him also chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. These two, Absalom and Adonijah, were the darlings of their father: their father had not displeased them from their childhood; therefore they both displeased him in his age: those children had need to be very gracious that are not marred with pampering. It is more than God owes us, if we receive comfort in those children whom we have overloved: the indulgence of parents at last pays them home in crosses.

Rich and bountiful Araunah is ready to meet David in so holy a motion, and munificently offers his Sion for the place, his oxen for the sacrifice, his carts and ploughs, and other utensils of his husbandry, for the wood. Two frank hearts are well met: David would buy, Araunah would give the Jebusite would not sell, David will not take. Since it was for God, and to David, Araunah is loath to bargain: since it was for God, David wisheth to pay dear: "I will not offer burnt-offerings to the Lord my God, of that which doth cost me nothing." Heroical spirits do well become eminent persons. He that knew it was bet- It is true that Adonijah was David's ter to give than to receive, would not re- eldest son now remaining, and therefore ceive, but give. There can be no devotion might seem to challenge the justest title to in a niggardly heart: as unto dainty palates, the crown; but the kingdom of Israel, in so to the godly soul, that tastes sweetest so late an erection, had not yet known the that costs most: nothing is dear enough right of succession. God himself, that had for the Creator of all things. It is a heart-ordained the government, was as yet the less piety of those base-minded Christians that care only to serve God good-cheap.

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immediate elector: he fetched Saul from amongst the stuff, and David from the sheepfold, and had now appointed Solomon from the ferule to the sceptre.

And if Adonijah, which is unlike, had not known this, yet it had been his part to have taken his father with him in this claim of his succession; and not so to prevent a brother, that he should shoulder out a father; and not so violently to preoccupate the throne, that he should rather be a rebel, than an heir.

As Absalom, so Adonijah wants not furtherers in this usurpation, whether spiritual or temporal; Joab the general, and Abiathar the priest, give both counsel and aid to so unseasonable a challenge: these two had been firm to David in all his troubles, in all insurrections; yet now, finding him fastened to the bed of age and death, they show themselves thus slippery in the loose. Outward happiness and friendship are not known till our last act. In the impotency of either our revenge or recompense, it will easily appear who loved us for ourselves, who for their own ends.

Had not Adonijah known that Solomon was designed to the kingdom, both by God and David, he had never invited all the rest of the king's sons, his brethren, and left out Solomon, who was otherwise the most unlikely to have been his rival in this honour; all the rest were elder than he, and might therefore have had more pretence for their competition. Doubtless the court of Israel could not but know that, immediately upon the birth of Solomon, God sent him, by Nathan the prophet, a name and message of love; neither was it for nothing that God called him Jedidiah, and forepromised him the honour of building a house to his name; and, in return of so glorious a service, the establishment of the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever. Notwithstanding all which, Adonijah, backed by the strength of a Joab, and the gravity of an Abiathar, will underwork Solomon, and justle into the not-yet-vacant seat of his father David. Vain men, while like proud, and yet brittle clay, they will be knocking their sides against the solid and eternal decree of God, break themselves in pieces.

I do not find that Adonijah sent any message of threats or unkindness to Zadok the priest, or Nathan the prophet, or Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the other worthies; only he invited them not to his feast with the king's sons and servants: sometimes a very omission is an affront and a menace. They well knew, that since they were not called as guests, they were counted as enemies. Ceremonies of courtesy, though they be in themselves slight and arbitrary, yet the neglect of them, in some cases, may undergo a dangerous construction.

Nathan was the man by whom God had sent that errand of grace to David concerning Solomon, assuring him both to reign and prosper; yet now, when Adonijah's plot was thus on foot, he doth not sit still, and depend upon the issue of God's decree, but he bestirs him in the business, and con

sults with Bathsheba, how at once to save their lives, and to advance Solomon, and defeat Adonijah. God's predetermination includes the means, as well as the end; the same Providence that had ordained a crown to Solomon, a repulse to Adonijah, preservation to Bathsheba and Nathan, had fore-appointed the wise and industrious endeavours of the prophet to bring about his just and holy purposes. If we would not have God wanting to us, we must not be wanting to ourselves; even when we know what God hath meant to us, we may not be negligent.

The prophets of God did not look for revelation in all their affairs; in some things they were left to the counsel of their own hearts. The policy of Nathan was of use, as well as his prophecy: that alone hath turned the stream into the right channel. Nothing could be more wisely contrived, than the sending in of Bathsheba to David, with so seasonable and forcible an expostulation, and the seconding of hers with his own.

Though lust were dead in David, yet the respects of his old matrimonial love lived still; the very presence of Bathsheba pleaded strongly, but her speech more: the time was, when his affection offended in excess towards her, being then another's; he cannot now neglect her, being his own; and if either his age, or the remorse of his old offence, should have set him off, yet she knew his oath was sure: My lord, thou swarest by the Lord thy God unto thine handmaid, saying, Assuredly, Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne." His word had been firm, but his oath was inviolable: we are engaged if we have promised; but if we have sworn, we are bound.

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Neither heaven nor earth have any gyves for that man that can shake off the fetters of an oath; for he cares not for that God whom he dares invoke to a falsehood; and he that cares not for God, will not care for man.

Ere Bathsheba can be over the threshold, Nathan, upon compact, is knocking at the door. God's prophet was never but welcome to the bed-chamber of king David; in a seeming strangeness he falls upon the same suit, upon the same complaint, with Bathsheba: honest policies do not misbecome the holiest prophets; she might seem to speak as a woman, as a mother out of passion; the word of a prophet could not be misdoubted. He, therefore, that had formerly brought to David that chiding and bloody message concerning Bathsheba,

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