interknow one another! how kindly do they communicate their visions! Seldom ever was any knowledge given to keep, but to impart the grace of this rich jewel is lost in concealment. The removal of an Elijah is so important a business, that it is not fit to be done without noise. Many shall have their share in his loss; he must be missed on the sudden it was meet, therefore, that the world should know his rapture should be divine and glorious. I do not find where the day of any natural death is notified to so many; by how much more wonder there was in this assumption, by so much more shall it be fore-revealed. It is enough for ordinary occurrents to be known by their event: supernatural things have need of premonition, that men's hearts may both be prepared for their receipt, and confirmed in their certainty. Thrice was Elisha entreated, thrice hath he denied to stay behind his now departing master; on whom both his eyes and his thoughts are so fixed, that he cannot give allowance so much as to the interpellation of a question of his fellowprophets together, therefore, are this wonderful pair come to the last stage of their separation, the banks of Jordan. Those, that were not admitted to be attendants of the journey, yet will not be debarred from being spectators of so marvellous an issue. Fifty men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view afar off. I marvel there were no more: how could any son of the prophets stay within the college walls that day, when he knew what was meant to Elijah? Perhaps, though they knew that to be the prophet's last day, yet they might think his disparition should be sudden and insensible; besides, they found how much he affected secresy in this intended departure yet the fifty prophets of Jericho will make proof of their eyes, and with much intention essay who shall have the last sight of Elijah. Miracles are not purposed to silence and obscurity: God will not work wonders without witnesses; since he doth them on purpose to win glory to his name, his end were frustrate without their notice. Even so, O Saviour, when thou hadst raised thyself from the dead, thou wouldst be seen of more than five hundred brethren at once; and when thou wouldst raise up thy glorified body from earth into heaven, thou didst not ascend from some close valley, but from the mount of Olives; not in the night, not alone, but in the clear day, in the view of many eyes, which were so fixed upon that point of thine heaven, that they could scarce be removed by the check of angels. Jordan must be crossed by Elijah in his way to heaven. There must be a meet parallel betwixt the two great prophets, that shall meet Christ upon Tabor, Moses and Elias: both received visions on Horeb; to both God appeared there in fire, and other forms of terror: both were sent to kings; one to Pharaoh, the other to Ahab: both prepared miraculous tables; the one of quails and manna in the desert, the other of meal and oil in Sarepta: both opened heaven; the one for that nourishing dew, the other for those refreshing showers: both revenged idolatries with the sword; the one upon the worshippers of the golden calf, the other upon the four hundred Baalites: both quenched the drought of Israel; the one out of the rock, the other out of the cloud: both divided the waters, the one of the Red Sea, the other of Jordan: both of them are forewarned of their departure; both must be fetched away beyond Jordan: the body of Elijah is translated; the body of Moses is hid: what Moses doth by his rod, Elijah doth by his mantle; with that he smites the waters, and they, as fearing the Divine Power which wrought with the prophet, run away from him, and stand on heaps, leaving their dry channel for the passage of those awful feet: it is not long since he mulcted them with a general exsiccation: now he only bids them stand aside, and give way to his last walk, that he might with dry feet mount up into the celestial chariot. The waters do not now first obey him: they know that mantle of old, which hath oft given laws to their falling, rising, standing: they are past over, and now, when Elijah finds himself treading on his last earth, he proffers a munificent boon to his faithful servant: "Ask what I shall do for thee, before I am taken from thee." I do not hear him say, Ask of me when I am gone: in my glorified condition, I shall be more able to bestead thee; but, Ask before I go. We have a communion with the saints departed, not a commerce: when they are enabled to do more for us, they are less apt to be solicited by us: it is safe suing where we are sure to be heard. Had not Elijah received a peculiar instinct for this proffer, he had not been thus liberal: it were presumption to be bountiful on another's cost, without leave of the owner. The mercy of our good God allows his favourites not only to receive, but to give; not only to receive for themselves, but to convey blessings to others: what can that man want, that is befriended of the faithful? Elisha needs not go far to seek for a suit; Y the master, when he comes, shall find so doing. it was in his heart, his mouth: Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me." Every prophet must be a son to Elijah; O the singular glory of Elijah! What but Elisha would be his heir, and craves the mortal creature ever had this honour, to happy right of his primogeniture, the double be visibly fetched by the angels of God to share to his brethren. It was not wealth, his heaven? Every soul of the elect is atnor safety, nor ease, nor honour, that Elisha tended and carried to blessedness by those cares for the world lies open before him; | invisible messengers; but what flesh and he take his choice; the rest he conmay blood was ever graced with such a convoy? temneth; nothing will serve him but a large | There are three bodily inhabitants of heameasure of his master's spirit. No carnal ven: Enoch, Elijah, our Saviour Christ; thought was guilty of this sacred ambition. the first before the law, the second under Affectation of eminence was too base a con- the law, the third under the Gospel; all ceit to fall into that man of God. He saw three in a several form of translation. Our that the times needed strong convictions; blessed Saviour raised himself to and above he saw that he could not otherwise wield the heavens, by his own immediate power: the succession to such a master; therefore he ascended as the Son, they as servants: he sues for a double portion of spirit; the he as God, they as creatures. Elijah asspirit of prophecy to foreknow, the spirit cended by the visible ministry of angels; of power to work. We cannot be too Enoch insensibly. Wherefore, O God, hast covetous, too ambitious, of spiritual gifts, thou done this, but to give us a taste of such especially as may enable us to win what shall be? to let us see that heaven most advantage to God in our vocations. was never shut to the faithful? to give us Our wishes are the true touchstone of our assurance of the future glorification of this estate such as we wish to be, we are. mortal and corruptible part? Worldly hearts affect earthly things; spiritual, divine. We cannot better know what we are indeed, than by what we would be. Elijah acknowledges the difficulty, and promises the grant of so great a request, suspended yet upon the condition of Elisha's eye-sight: "If thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be." What are the eyes to the furniture of the soul? what power is there in those visive beams to draw down a double portion of Elijah's spirit? God doth not always look at efficacy and merit in the conditions of our actions, but at the freedom of his own appointments. The eye was only to be employed as the servant of the heart, that the desires might be so much more intended with the sight. Vehemence is the way to speed, both in earth and in heaven. If but the eyelids of Elisha fall, if his thoughts slacken, his hopes are dashed. There must be fixedness and vigilance in those that desire double graces. Even thus, O Saviour, when thou shalt descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, we that are alive and remain shall be caught up, together with the raised bodies of thy saints, into the clouds, to meet thee in the air, to dwell with thee in glory. Many forms have those celestial spirits taken to themselves, in their apparitions to men: but, of all other, most often hath the Almighty made his messengers "a flame of fire;" never more properly than here. How had the Spirit of God kindled the hot fires of zeal in the breast of Elijah! How had this prophet thrice commanded fire from heaven to earth! How fitly now at last do these seraphical fires carry him from earth to heaven! What do we see in this rapture of Elijah, but violence and terror, whirlwind and fire? two of those fearful representations which the prophet had in the rock of Horeb. Never any man entered into glory with ease; even the most favourable change hath some Elijah was going on and talking, when equivalency to a natural dissolution. Althe chariot of heaven came to fetch him: though, doubtless, to Elijah this fire had a surely, had not that conference been need-lightsomeness and resplendence, not terror; ful and divine, it had given way to meditation, and Elijah had been taken up rather from his knees, than from his feet. There can be no better posture or state, for the messenger of our dissolution to find us in, than in a diligent prosecution of our calling. The busy attendance of our holy vocation is no less pleasing to God, than an immediate devotion. Happy is the servant whom this whirlwind had speed, not violence. Thus hast thou, O Saviour, bidden us, when the elements shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be flaming about our ears, to lift up our heads with joy, because our redemption draweth nigh. Come death! come fire! come whirlwind! they are wor thy to be welcome, that shall carry us to immortality! 66 This arreption was sudden; yet Elisha | sees both the chariot, and the horses, and the ascent; and cries to his now changed master, between heaven and earth, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." Shaphat of Abelmeholah hath yielded this title to Elijah, the natural father of Elisha, to the spiritual: neither of them may be neglected; but, after the yoke of oxen killed at the farewell, we hear of no more greetings, no more bewailings of his bodily parent; and now, that Elijah is taken from him, he cries out, like a distressed orphan, My father! my father!” and, when he hath lost the sight of him, he rends his clothes in pieces, according to the fashion of the most passionate mourners: that Elisha sees his master half way in heaven, cannot take away the sorrow of his loss. The departure of a faithful prophet of God is worthy of our lamentation: neither is it private affection that must sway our grief, but respects to the public. Elisha says not only, "My father,” but, "the chariot and horsemen of Israel." That we have foregone a father, should not so much trouble us, as that Israel hath lost his guard. Certainly the view of this heavenly chariot and horses, that came for Elijah, puts Elisha in mind of that chariot and horsemen which Elijah was to Israel. These were God's chariots, Elijah was theirs: God's chariot and theirs are, upon the same wheels, mounted into heaven. No forces are so strong as the spiritual; the prayers of an Elijah are more powerful than all the armies of flesh. The first thing that this seer discerns, after the separation of his master, is the nakedness of Israel in his loss. If we muster soldiers, and lose zealous prophets, it is but a woful exchange. Elijah's mantle falls from him in the rising: there was no use of that whither he was going; there was, whence he was taken. Elisha justly takes up this dear monument of his glorified master: a good supply for his rent garments. This was it which, in presage of his future right, Elijah invested him withal upon the first sight, when he was ploughing with the twelve yoke of oxen; now it falls from heaven to his possession. I do not see him adore so precious a relic: I see him take it up, and cast it about him. Pensive and masterless doth he now come back to the banks of Jordan, whose stream he must pass in his return to the schools of the prophets. Erewhile he saw what way that river gave to the mantle of Elijah; he knew that power was not in the cloth, but in the spirit of him that wore it. To try, therefore, whether he were no less the heir of that spirit, than of that garment, he took the mantle of Elijah, and smote the waters, and said, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" Elisha doth not expostulate and challenge, but pray; as if he had said, 'Lord God, it was thy promise to me by my departed master, that if I should see him in his last passage, a double portion of his spirit should be upon me: I followed him with my eyes in that fire and whirlwind: now therefore, O God, make good thy gracious word to thy servant; show some token unto me for good: make this the first proof of the miraculous power wherewith thou shalt endue me; let Jordan give the same way to me that it gave to my master." Immediately the stream, as acknowledging the same mantle, though in another hand, divides itself, and yields passage to the successor of Elijah. The fifty sons of the prophets, having been afar off witnesses of these admirable events, do well see that Elijah, though translated in body, hath yet left his spirit behind him: they meet Elisha, and bow themselves to the ground before him. It was not the outside of Elijah which they had wont to stoop unto with so much veneration; it was his spirit, which, since they now find in another subject, they entertain with equal reverence: no envy, no emulation, raiseth up their stomachs against Elijah's servant, but, where they see eminent graces, they are willingly prostrate. Those that are truly gracious, do no less rejoice in the riches of other's gifts, than humbly undervalue their Own. These men were trained up in the schools of the prophets, Elisha at the plough and cart; yet, now they stand not upon terms of their worth, and his meanness, but meekly fall down before him whom God had honoured: it is not to be regarded who the man is, but whom God would make him. The more unlikely the means are, the more is the glory of the workman: it is the praise of a holy ingenuity to magnify the graces of God wherever it finds them. These young prophets are no less full of zeal than reverence; zeal to Elijah, reverence to Elisha. They see Elijah carried up in the air; they knew this was not the first time of his supernatural removal: imagining it therefore possible, that the Spirit of God had cast him upon some remote mountain, or valley, they proffer the labour of their servants to seek him. In some things, even professed seers are blind: could they think God would send such a chariot and horses for a less voyage than heaven? Elisha, knowing his master beyond all the sphere of mortality, forbids them; goodwill makes them unmannerly; their importunity urges him till he is ashamed: not his approbation, but their vehemence, carries at last a condescent, else he might perhaps have seemed enviously unwilling to fetch back so admired a master, and loath to forego that mantle. Some things may be yielded for the redeeming of our own vexation, and avoidance of others' misconstruction, which, out of true judgment, we see no cause to affect. so foul an annoyance: not therefore the ancient malediction of Joshua, not the neighbourhood of that noisome lake of Sodom, was guilty of this disease of the soil and the waters, but the late sins of the inhabitants : "He turneth the rivers into a wilderness, and water-springs into a dry ground; a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein." How oft have we seen the same field both full and famishing! how oft the same waters both safe, and, by some eruption, or new tincture, hurtful! Howsoever natural causes may concur, heaven and earth, and air and waters, follow the temper of our souls, of our lives, and are therefore indisposed because we are so. Jericho began now to make itself capable of a better state, since it was now become a receptacle of prophets. Elisha is willing to gratify his hosts; it is reason that any place should fare the better for the presence of divines. The medicine is more strange than the disease: "Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein." Why a cruse? why new? why salt in that new cruse? How should salt make water potable? or, if there were any such virtue in it, what could a cruseful do to a whole current? or, if that measure were sufficient, what was the age of the cruse to the force of the salt? Yet Elisha calls for salt in a new cruse. God, who wrought this by his WATERS, CURSING THE CHILDREN,-RE- prophet, is a free agent ; as he will not bind ments. The messengers, tired with three days' search, turn back as wise as they went. Some men are best satisfied when they have| wearied themselves in their own ways: nothing will teach them wit but disappointTheir painful error leads them to a right conceit of Elijah's happier transportation. Those that would find Elijah, let them aspire to the heavenly paradise; let them follow the high steps of his sincere faithfulness, strong patience, undaunted courage, fervent zeal: shortly, let them walk in the ways of his holy and constant obedience; at last, God shall send the fiery chariot of death to fetch them up to that heaven of heavens, where they shall triumph in everlasting joys. CONTEMPLATION VI.-ELISHA HEALING THE LIEVING THE KINGS. Ir is good making use of a prophet while we have him. Elisha staid somewhile at Jericho ; the citizens resort to him with a common suit their structure was not more pleasant than their waters un wholesome, and their soil by those corrupt waters: they sue to Elisha for the remedy. Why had they not all this while made their moan to Elijah? Was it that they were more awed with his greater austerity? or was it, that they met not with so fit an opportunity of his commoration amongst them? It was told them what power Elisha had exercised upon the waters of Jordan, and now they ply him for theirs. Examples of beneficence easily move us to a request and expectation of favours. What ailed the waters of Jericho? Surely, originally they were not ill affected: no men could be so foolish as to build a city where neither earth nor water were useful: mere prospect could not carry men to the neglect of health and profit. Hiel the Bethelite would never have re-edified it with the danger of a curse, so lately as in the days of Ahab, if it had been of old notorious for his power to means, so will he, by his power, bind unlikely means to perform his will. Natural properties have no place in miraculous works: no less easy is it for God to work by contrary, than subordinate powers. The prophet doth not cast the salt into the channel, but into the spring of the waters. If the fountain be redressed, the stream cannot be faulty; as, contrarily, the purity and soundness of the stream avail nothing to the redress of the fountain. Reformation must begin at the well-head of the abuse. The order of being is a good guide to the method of amending. Virtue doth not run backward. Had Elisha cast the salt into the brooks and ditches, the remedy must have striven against the streamin to reach up to the spring; now it is but one labour to cure the fountain. Our heart is a well of bitter and venomous water; our actions are the streams: in vain shall we cleanse our hands, while our hearts are evil. The cruse and the salt must be their own; the act must be his, the power God's. He cast the salt into the spring," and said, " Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these 46 waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barrenness." Far was it from Elisha to challenge aught to himself. Before, when he should divide the waters of Jordan, he did not say, Where is the power of Elisha, but, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? And now, when he should cure the waters of Jericho, he says not, Thus saith Elisha, but, Thus saith the Lord, "I have healed these waters." How careful is the man of God that no part of God's glory should stick to his own fingers! Jericho shall know to whom they owe the blessing, that they may duly return the thanks. Elisha professes he can do no more of himself than that salt, than that cruse: only God shall work by him, by it; and whatever that Almighty hand undertakes, cannot fail, yea, is already done: neither doth he say, I will heal, but, "I have healed." Even so. O God, if thou cast into the fountain of our hearts but one cruseful of the salt of thy Spirit, we are whole; no thought can pass between the receipt and the remedy. not heard of this: God had crowned that head with honour, which the Bethelitisn children loaded with scorn. Who would have thought the rude terms of waggish boys worthy of any thing but neglect! Elisha looks at them with severe brows, and, like the heir of him that called down fire upon the two captains and their fifties, curses them in the name of the Lord. Two she-bears out of the wood, hasten to be his executioners, and tear two-and-forty of them in pieces. O fearful example of Divine justice! This was not the revenge of an angry prophet, it was the punishment of a righteous judge. God and his seer looked through these children at the parents, at all Israel; he would punish the parents' misnurturing their children, to the contemptuous usage of a prophet, with the death of those children which they had mistaught. He would teach Israel what it was to misuse a prophet; and, if he would not endure these contumelies unrevenged in the mouths of children, what vengeance was enough for aged persecutors ? As the general visitor of the schools of the prophets, Elisha passeth from Jericho Doubtless some of the children escaped to that other college at Bethel. Bethel was to tell the news of their fellows. What a place of strange composition: there were lamentation do we think there was in the at once the golden calf of Jeroboam, and streets of Bethel! how did the distressed the school of God; true religion and ido- mothers wring their hands for this woful latry found a free harbour within those walls. orbation! and now, when they came forth I do not marvel that God's prophets would to fetch the remnants of their own flesh, plant there; there was the most need of what a sad spectacle it was to find the fields their presence, where they found the spring-strewed with those mangled carcasses! It head of corruption: physicians are of most use where diseases do abound. "As he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said to him, Go up, thou baldhead; Go up, thou bald-head." Even the very boys of Bethel have learned to scoff at a prophet; the spite of their idolatrous parents is easily propagated: children are such as their institution; infancy is led altogether by imitation; it hath neither words nor actions, but infused by others; if it have good or ill language, it is but borrowed, and the shame or thank is due to those that lent it them. What was it that these ill-taught children upbraided to the prophet, but a slight natural defect, not worthy the name of a blemish, the want of a little hair; at the best a comely excrement, no part of the body. Had there been deformity in that smoothness of the head, which some great wits have honoured with praises, a faultless and remediless eye-sore had been no fit matter for a taunt. How small occasions will be taken to disgrace a prophet! If they could have said aught worse, Elisha had is an unprofitable sorrow that follows a In Elisha knew the success, yet doth he not baulk the city of Bethel. Do we not wonder that the furious impatience of those parents whom the curse of Elisha robbed of their children, did not break forth to some malicious practice against the prophet? Would we not think the prophet might misdoubt some hard measure from those exasperated citizens! There lay his way; he follows God without fear of men, as well knowing that either they durst not, or they could not act violence. They knew there were bears in the wood, and fires in heaven, and if their malice would have ventured above their courage, they could have no more power over Elisha in the streets, than those hungry beasts had in the way, |