duty, cannot want a reward. Godliness never disappointed any man's hopes, oft hath exceeded them. If Uzziah fight against the Philistines, if against the Arabians, and Mehunims (according to his names), the strength, the help of the Almighty is with him. The Ammonites come in with presents, and all the neighbour nations ring of the greatness, of the happiness of Uzziah: his bounty and care make Jerusalem both strong and proud of her new towers; yea, the very desert must taste of his munificence.

The outward munificence of princes cannot stand firm, unless it be built upon the foundations of providence and frugality. Uzziah had not been so great a king, if he had not been so great a husband; he had his flocks in the deserts, and his herds in the plains; his ploughs in the fields, his vine-dressers upon the mountains, and in Carmel; neither was this more out of profit than delight, for he loved husbandry. Who can contern those callings for meanness, which have been the pleasures of princes?

Hence was Uzziah so potent at home, so dreadful to his neighbours. His wars had better sinew than theirs. Which of his predecessors was able to maintain so settled an army, of more than three hundred and ten thousand trained soldiers, well furnished, well fitted for the suddenest occasions? Thrift is the strongest prop of power.

The greatness of Uzziah, and the rare devices of his artificial engines for war, have not more raised his fame than his heart: so is he swollen up with the admiration of his own strength and glory, that he breaks again. How easy it is for the best man to doat upon himself, and to be lifted up so high, as to lose the sight both of the ground whence he rises, and of the hand that advanced him! How hard it is for him that hath invented strange engines for the battering his enemies, to find out any means to beat down his own proud thoughts! Wise Solomon knew what he did, when he prayed to be delivered from too much: "Lest,” said he, “I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord?" Upon this rock did the son of Solomon run, and split himself. His full sails of prosperity carried him into presumption and ruin. What may he not do? what may he not be? Because he found his power otherwise unlimited, overruling in the court, the cities, the fields, the deserts, the armies, and magazines, therefore he thinks he may do so in the temple too. As things royal, civil, husbandry, military, passed his hands: so why

should not, thinks he, sacred also? It is a dangerous indiscretion for a man not to know the bounds of his own calling. What confusion doth not follow upon this breaking of the ranks!

Upon a solemn day, king Uzziah clothes himself in pontifical robes, and, in the view of that populous assembly, walks up in state into the temple of God, and boldly approaching to the altar of incense, offers to burn sweet odours upon it to the God of heaven. Azariah the priest is sensible of so perilous an encroachment; he therefore, attended with fourscore valiant assistants of that holy tribe, hastens after the king, and finding him with the censer in his hand, ready addressed to that sinful devotion, stays him with a free and grave expostulation. There is no place wherein I could be sorry to see thee, O king, but where thou art; neither is there any act that we should grudge thee so much, as this which is the most sacred. Is it possible that so great an oversight should fall into such wisdom? can a religious prince, trained up under a holy Zechariah, after so many years' zealous profession of piety, be either ignorant or regardless of those limits, which God hath set to his own services?

O! what means this uncouth attempt? Consider, O dear sovereign, for God's sake, for thy soul's sake, consider where thou art, what thou dost! it is God's house wherein thou standest, not thine own! Look about thee, and see, whether these vails, these tables, these pillars, these walls, these pavements, have any resemblance of earth: there is no place in all the world, whence thy God hath excluded thee, but only this: this he hath reserved for his own use; and canst thou think much to allow one room as proper to him, who hath not grudged all the rest to thee? But if it be thy zeal of a personal service to God that hath carried thee thither, alas! how canst thou hope to please the Almighty with a forbidden sacrifice? which of thine holy progenitors ever dared to tread where thy foot now standeth? which of them ever put forth their hand to touch this sacred altar? Thou knowest that God hath set apart, and sanctified his own attendants. Wherefore serves the priesthood, if this be the right of kings? Were it not for the strict prohibition of our God, it could seem no other than an honour to our profession, that a king should think to dignify himself by our employment. But now, knowing the severe charge of the great King of heaven, we cannot but tremble to see that censer in thine hand: who ever, out of the holy tribe, hath wielded it un

revenged? This affront is not to us, it is to the God whom we serve. In awe of that terrible Majesty, as thou wouldst avoid some exemplary judgment, O king, withdraw thyself, not without humble deprecations, from this presence, and lay down that interdicted handful, with fear and trembling. Be thou ever a king; let us he priests: the sceptre is thine, let censers be ours.

What religious heart could do other, than relent at so faithful and just an admonition? but how hard is it for great persons to yield they have offended! Uzziah must not be faulty: what is done rashly, shall be borne out with power; he was wroth, and thus expresseth it: "What means this saucy expostulation, O ye sons of Levi? how dare ye thus malapertly control the well-meant actions of your sovereign? If ye be priests, remember that ye are subjects; or if ye will needs forget it, how easy is it for this hand to awake your memory. What such offence can it be for me to come into that house, and to touch that altar, which my royal progenitors have made, beautified, consecrated? Is the God of this place only yours? Why do ye thus ambitiously engross religion? If princes have not intermeddled with these holy affairs, it was because they would not-not because they might not. When those laws were made for the sanctuary, there were no kings to grace these divine ceremonies; yet even then, Moses was privileged. The persons of princes, if ye know not, are no less sacred than your It is your presumption to account the Lord's anointed profane. Contest with those, whose dry and unhallowed heads are subject to your power; for me, I will not ask your leave to be devout. Look ye to your own censers, presume not to meddle with mine in the meantime, can ye think this insolence of yours shall escape unre venged? Can it stand with the honour of my sovereignty, to be thus proudly checked by subjects? God do so to me, and more also, if While Uzziah yet speaks, God strikes: ere the words of fury can come forth of his mouth, the leprosy appears in his forehead. Leprosy was a most loathsome disease: the forehead is the most conspicuous part. Had this shameful scurf broken forth upon his hand, or foot, or breast, it might have been hid from the eyes of men now the forehead is smitten with this judgment, that God may proclaim to all beholders, Thus shall it be done to the man, whose arrogance hath thrust him upon a sacred charge. Public offences must have open shame.

own.

It is a dangerous thing to put ourselves

into the affairs, into the presence of God, unwarranted. There cannot be a more foolish misprision, than, because we are great on earth, to think we may be bold with Heaven. When God's messengers cannot prevail by counsels, entreaties, threats, it is time for God to show his immediate judg ments. Wilful offenders can expect nothing but a fearful revenge.

Now begins Uzziah to be confounded in himself; and shame strives with leprosy for a place in his forehead: the hand of God hath done that in an instant, which all the tongues of men had attempted in vain. There needs no farther solicitor of his egress; the sense of his plague sends him forth alone. And now he thinks, Wretched man that I am, how have I angered God, and undone myself! I would needs come in like a priest, and now go forth a leper: the pride of my heart made me think myself worthy the presence of a God; God's just displeasure hath now made me unworthy of the presence of men: while I affected the altar, I have lost my throne; while I scornfully rejected the advice and censures of God's ministers, I am now become a spectacle of horror and deformity to my own servants; I, that would be sending up perfumes to heaven, have made my nastiness hateful to my own senses. What do I under this sacred roof? neither is God's house now for me, nor mine own: what cell, what dungeon is close enough for me, wherein to wear out the residue of mine unhappy and uncomfortable days? O God, thou art just, and I am miserable!

Thus, with a dejected countenance, and sad heart, doth Uzziah hasten to retire himself; and wishes that he could be no less hid from himself, than from others. How easy is it for the God of heaven to bring down the highest pitch of earthly greatness, and to humble the stubbornest pride!

Upon the leisure of second thoughts, Uzziah cannot but acknowledge much favour in this correction, and confess to have escaped well: others, he knew, had been struck dead, or swallowed up quick, for so presumptuous an intrusion. It is happy for him, if his forehead may excuse his soul.

Uzziah ceased not to be a king, when he began to be a leper; the disease of his forehead did not remove his crown: his son Jotham reigned for him, under him; and while he was not seen, yet he was obeyed. The character of sovereignty is indelible, whether by bodily infirmity, or by spiritual censure. Neither is it otherwise, O God, betwixt thee and us; if we be once a royal generation unto thee, our leprosies may

deform us, they shall not dethrone us; still shall we have the right, still the possession of that glorious kingdom, wherein we are invested from eternity.

CONTEMPLATION VII. AHAZ WITH HIS NEW

ALTAR.

AFTER many unhappy changes of the two thrones, Ahaz succeeds Jotham in the kingdom of Judah, an ill son of a good father; not more the heir of David's seat, than of Jeroboam's sin. Though Israel play the harlot, yet who can abide that Judah should | sin? It is hard not to be infected with a contagious neighbourhood: who ever read that the kingdom of Israel was seasoned with the vicinity of the true religion of Judah? Goodness, such our nature is, is not so apt to spread. A tainted air doth more easily affect a sound body, than a wholesome air can clear the sick. Superstition hath ever been more successful than truth: the young years of Ahaz are soon misled to a plausible misdevotion.

A man that is once fallen from truth, knows not where he shall stay. From the calves of Jeroboam is Ahaz drawn to the gods of the heathen; yea, now bulls and goats are too little for those new deities; his own flesh and blood is but dear enough: "He made his son to pass through their fire." Where do we find any religious Israelite thus zealous for God! Neither doth the holiness and mercy of our God require so cruel a sacrifice; neither is our dull and niggardly hand ready to gratify him with more easy obediences. O God, how gladly should we offer unto thee our souls and bodies, which we may enjoy so much the more, when they are thine; since zealous pagans stick not to lose their own flesh and blood in an idol's fire!

He, that hath thus shamefully cast off the God of his fathers, cannot be long without a fearful revenge. The king of Israel galls him on the one side, the king of Syria on the other. To avoid the shock of both, Ahaz doth not betake himself to the God whom he had offended, who was able to make his enemies at peace with him, but to Tiglath-pileser king of Ashur: him doth he woo with suits, with gifts, and robs God of those presents, which may endear so strong a helper. He that thought not his son too dear for an idol, thinks not God's silver and gold too dear for an idolatrous

abettor.

O the infinite patience of the Almighty! God gives success awhile to so offensive a

rivality. This Assyrian king prevails against the king of Syria, kills him, and takes his chief city Damascus. The quarrel of the king of Judah hath enlarged the territories of his assistant beyond hope: and now, while this Assyrian victor is enjoying the possession of his new-won Damascus, Ahaz goes up thither to meet him, to congratulate the victor, to add unto those triumphs, which were drawn on by his solicitation. There he sees a new-fashioned altar, that pleases his eye; that old form of Solomon's, which was made by the pattern showed to Moses in the mount, is now grown stale and despicable: a model of this more exquisite frame is sent to Urijah the priest, and must be sampled in Jerusalem.

It is a dangerous presumption to make innovations, if but in the circumstances of God's worship. Those human additions, which would seem to grace the institution of God, deprave it: that infinite wisdom knows best what will please itself, and prescribes accordingly. The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men. Idolatry and falsehood are commonly more gaudy and plausible than truth. That heart which can, for the outward homeliness, despise the ordinances of God, is already alienated from true religion, and lies open to the grossest superstition.

Never any prince was so foully idolatrous, as that he wanted a priest to second him : An Urijah is fit to humour an Ahaz. Greatness could never command any thing, which some servile wits were not ready both to applaud and justify.

Ere the king can be returned from Da. mascus, the altar is finished. It were happy if true godliness could be so forward in the prosecutions of good. Neither is this strange pile reared only, but thrust up betwixt God's altar and the temple, in an apparent precedency, as if he had said, Let the God of Judah come behind the deities of Syria.

And now, to make up the full measure of his impiety, this idolatrous king will himself be sacrificing upon his new altar, to his new gods, the gods of Damascus. An usurped priesthood well becomes a false deity: Because," saith he, “the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help

me.

O blind superstition! How did the gods of Syria help their kings, when both those kings and their gods were vanquished and taken by the king of Assyria? Even this Damascus and this altar were the spoil of a foreign enemy: how then did the gods of

Syria help their kings, any other than to their ruin? What dotage is this, to make choice of a foiled protection? But had the Syrians prospered, must their gods have the thanks? Are there no authors of good but blocks or devils? or is an outward prosperity the only argument of truth, the only motive of devotion? O foolish Ahaz! it is the God thou hast forsaken that plagues thee, under whose only arm thou mightst have prevailed. His power beats those pagan stocks one against another, so as, one while, one seems victorious, another vanquished; and at last he confounds both together with their proudest clients. Thyself shall be the best instance.

Of all the kings of Judah hitherto, there is none so dreadful an example, either of sin or judgment, as this son of good Jotham. I abhor to think that such a monster should descend from the loins of David. Where should be the period of this wickedness? He began with the high places; thence he descends to the calves of Dan and Bethel; from thence he falls to a Syrian altar, to the Syrian god; then, from a partnership, he falls to an utter exclusion of the true God, and blocking up his temple; and then to the sacrifice of his own son; and, at last, as if hell were broken loose upon God's inheritance, every several city, every high place of Judah, hath a new god. No marvel if he be branded by the Spirit of God, with, "This is that king Ahaz."

What a fearful plague did this noisome deluge of sin leave behind it in the land of Judah! Who can express the horror of God's revenge upon a people that should have been his? Pekah the king of Israel slew a hundred and twenty thousand of them in one day, amongst whom was Maaseiah the son of Ahaz. O just judgment of the Almighty! Ahaz sheds the blood of one son to an idol: the true God sheds the blood of another of his sons in revenge.

Yet the hand of the Lord is stretched out still. Two hundred thousand of them were carried away, by the Israelites, captive to Samaria. The Edomites came, and carried away another part of them for bond slaves to their country. The Philistines came up and shared the cities of the south of Judah, and the villages thereof: shortly, what other is miserable Judah, than the prey and spoil of all the neighbouring nations! For the Lord brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel; for he made Judah naked, and transgressed sore against the Lord." As for the great king of Ashur, whom Ahaz purchased with the

sacrilegious pillage of the house of God, instead of an aid, he proves a burden: however he sped in his first onsets, now “he distressed Judah, but strengthened it not." The charge was as great as the benefit small; sooner shall he eat them out, than rescue them. No arm of flesh can shelter Ahaz from a vengeance.

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

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

CONTEMPLATION VIII.—THE UTTER DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL.

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

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

Salmaneser king of Assyria comes up against Hoshea king of Israel, and subdues him, and puts him to his tribute. This yoke was uncouth and unpleasing: the vanquished prince was neither able to resist, nor willing to yield: secretly, therefore, he treats with the king of Egypt for assistance, as desiring rather to hazard his liberty by the hand of an equal, than to enjoy a quiet subjection under the hand of an overruling power. We cannot blame princes to be jealous of their sovereignties. The detain

ing of his yearly tribute, and the whisperings with new confederates, have drawn up the king of Ashur to perfect his own victories. He returns, therefore, with a strong power, and, after three years' siege, takes Samaria, imprisons Hoshea, and, in the exchange of a woful captivity, he peoples Israel with Assyrians, and Assyria with Israelites. Now that abused soil hath, upon a surfeit of wickedness, cast out her perfidious owners, and will try how it can fare with heathenish strangers. Now the Assyrian gallants triumph in the palaces of Samaria and Jezreel, while the peers and captains of Israel are driven manacled through the Assyrian streets, and billeted to the several places of their perpetual servitude. Shortly now the flourishing kingdom of the ten tribes is come to a final and shameful end, and so vanished in this last dissipation, that, since that day, no man could ever say, this was Israel.

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

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

Neither were these slips of frailty, or ignorant mistakings, but wilful crimes, obstinate impieties, in spite of the doctrines, reproofs, menaces, miraculous convictions of the holy prophets, which God sent amongst them. Thy destruction is of thy self, Ŏ Israel! What could the just hand of the Almighty do less than consume a nation so incorrigibly flagitious-a nation so unthankful for mercies, so ir..patient of remedies, so incapable of repentance-so obliged, so warned, so shamelessly, so lawlessly wicked?

What nation under heaven can now

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

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

The brute creatures are sent to revenge the quarrel of their Maker, upon worse beasts than themselves. Still hath God left himself champions in Israel: lions tear the Assyrians in pieces, and put them in mind, that, had it not been for wickedness, that land needed not to have changed masters. The great Lord of the world cannot want means to plague offenders: if the men be gone, yet the beasts are there; and if the beasts had been gone, yet, so long as there were stones in the walls, in the quarries, God would be sure of avengers. There is no security but in being at peace with God.

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

One of the priests of Israel is appoir ted