you?" Oh love, like thyself, infinite, incomprehensible; whereat the angels of Heaven stand yet amazed; wherewith thy saints are ravished. Turn away thine eyes from me; for they overcome me. O thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice cause us to hear it; that we may, in our measure, answer thy love, and enjoy it for ever. 2 Sam. xvii, xviii.

SHEBA'S REBELLION.

It was the doom, which God passed upon the man after his own heart, by the mouth of Nathan, that the sword should never depart from his house, for the blood of Uriah: after that wound healed by remission, yet this scar remains; Absalom is no sooner cast down into the pit, than Sheba the son of Bichri is up in arms. If David be not plagued, yet he shall be corrected; first by the rod of a son, then of a subject: he had lift up his hand against a faithful subject; now a faithless dares to lift up his hand against him.

Malice, like some hereditary sickness, runs in a blood: Saul, and Shimei, and Sheba were all of a house. That ancient grudge was not yet dead. The fire of the house of Jemini was but raked up, never thoroughly out; and now, that, which did but smoke in Shimei, flames in Sheba: although even through this chastisement, it is not hard to discern a type of that perpetual succession of enmity, which should be raised against the true king of Israel. 0 Son of David, when didst thou ever want enemies? How wert thou designed by thine eternal Father, For a sign that should be spoken against! How did the gentiles rage, and the people imagine vain things! The kings of the earth assembled, and the rulers came together, against thee. Yea, how do the subjects of thine own kingdom daily conspire against thee! Even now, while thou enjoyest peace and glory at thy Father's right hand, as soon shalt thou want friends as enemies upon earth.

No eye of any traitor could espy a just quarrel in the govern ment of David: yet Sheba blows the trumpet of rebellion; and, while Israel and Judah are striving who should have the greatest part in their re-established sovereign, he sticks not to say, We have no part in David, neither have wwe inheritance in the son of Jesse; and, while he says, Every man to his tents, O Israel, he calls every man to his own: so, in proclaiming a liberty from a just and loyal subjection, he invites Israel to the bondage of a usurper.

That a lewd conspirator should breathe treason, it is no wonder; but is it not wonder and shame, that, upon every mutinous blast, Israel should turn traitor to God's anointed? It was their late expostulation with David, why their brethren the men of Judah should have stolen him from them; now might David more justly expostulate, why a rebel of their brethren should have stolen them from him.

As nothing is more unstable than the multitude, so nothing is

more subject to distastes than sovereignty; for as weak minds seek pleasure in change, so every light conceit of irritation seems sufficient colour of change. Such as the false dispositions of the vulgar are, love cannot be security enough for princes, without the awfulness of power. What hold can there be of popularity, when the same hands, that even now fought for David to be all theirs, now fight against him, under the son of Bichri, as none of theirs? As bees, when they are once up in a swarm, are ready to light upon every bough, so the Israelites, being stirred by the late commotion of Absalom, are apt to follow every Sheba. It is unsafe for any state, that the multitude should once know the way to an insurrection the least track in this kind is easily made a path.

Yet if Israel rebel, Judah continues faithful; neither shall the son of David ever be left destitute of some true subjects in the worst of apostacies, He, that could command all hearts, will ever be followed by some. God would rather glorify himself by a

remnant.

Great commanders must have active thoughts. David is not so taken up with the embroiled affairs of his state, as not to intend domestic justice. His ten concubines, which were shamelessly defiled by his incestuous son, are condemned to ward and widowhood. Had not that constupration been partly violent, their punishment had not been so easy; had it not also been partly voluntary, they had not been so much punished: but how much soever the act did partake of either force or will, justly are they sequestered from David's bed. Absalom was not more unnatural in his rebellion, than in his lust: if now David should have returned to his own bed, he had seconded the incest. How much more worthy of separation are they, who have stained the marriage bed with their wilful sin!

Amasa was one of the witnesses and abettors of Absalom's filthiness; yet is he, out of policy, received to favour and employment, while the concubines suffer. Great men yield many times to those things, out of reasons of state, which, if they were private persons, could not be easily put over.

It is no small wisdom, to engage a new reconciled friend, that he may be confirmed by his own act; therefore is Amasa commanded to levy the forces of Judah.

Joab, after many great merits and achievements, lics rusting in neglect he, that was so intire with David, as to be of his counsel for Uriah's blood, and so firm to David, as to lead all his battles against the house of Saul, the Ammonites, the Aramites, Absalom; is now cashiered, and must yield his place to a stranger late an enemy. Who knows not, that this son of Zeruiah had shed the blood of war in peace? But if the blood of Absalom had not been louder than the blood of Abner, I fear this change had not been now Joab smarteth for a loyal disobedience. How slippery are the stations of earthly honours, and subject to continual mutability! Happy are they, who are in favour with him, in whom there is no shadow of change.

Where men are commonly most ambitious to please with thei first employments, Amasa slackens his pace. The least delay if matters of rebellion is perilous; may be irrecoverable: the sons o Zeruiah are not sullen: Abishai is sent, Joab goes unsent, to the pursuit of Sheba. Amasa was in their way; whom no quarrel but their envy, had made of a brother an enemy. Had the heart of Amasa been privy to any cause of grudge, he had suspected the kiss of Joab: now his innocent eyes look to the lips, not to the hand, of his secret enemy. The lips were smooth; Art thou in health, my brother? The hand was bloody, which smote him under the fifth rib. That unhappy hand knew well this way unto death; which, with one wound, hath let out the souls of two great captains, Abner and Amasa: both they were smitten by Joab; both under the fifth rib; both under a pretence of friendship. There is no enmity so dangerous as that, which comes masked with love; open hostility calls us to our guard; but there is no fence against a trusted treachery: we need not be bidden to avoid an enemy, but who would run away from a friend? Thus, spiritually, deals the world with our souls: it kisses us, and stabs us, at once. If it did not embrace us with one hand, it could not murder us with the other only, God, deliver us from the danger of our trust, and we shall be safe.

Joab is gone; and leaves Amasa wallowing in blood. That spectacle cannot but stay all passengers. The death of great per sons draws ever many eyes. Each man says; "Is not this my lord Amasa? Wherefore do we go to fight, while our general lies in the dust? What a sad presage is this of our own miscarriage?" The wit of Joab's followers hath therefore soon both removed Amasa out of the way, and covered him; not regarding so much the loss, as the eye-sore of Israel. Thus wicked politics care not so much for the commission of villany, as for the notice. Smother ed evils are as not done. If oppressions, if murder, if treasons may be hid from view, the obdured heart of the offender complains not of remorse.

Bloody Joab, with what face, with what heart, canst thou pursue a traitor to thy king, while thou thyself art so foul a traitor to thy friend; to thy cousin-german; and, in so unseasonable a slaughter, to thy sovereign, whose cause thou professest to reyenge? If Amasa were now, in an act of loyalty, justly, on God's part, paid for the arrearages of his late rebellion, yet that it should be done by thy hand, then and thus, it was flagitiously cruel: yet, behold, Joab runs away securely with the fact; hasting to plague. that in another, whereof himself was no less guilty. So vast are the gorges of some consciences, that they can swallow the greatest crimes, and find no strain in the passage.

It is possible, for a man to be faithful to some one person, and perfidious to all others. I do not find Joab other than firm and loyal to David, in the midst of all his private falsehoods; whose just quarrel he pursues against Sheba, through all the tribes of Ismel. None of all the strong forts of revolted Israel, can hide the

rebel from the zeal of his revenge. The city of Abel lends harbour to that conspirator, whom all Israel would and cannot protect. Joab casts up a mount against it; and, having environed it with a siege, begins to work upon the wall; and now, after long chase, is in hand to dig out that vermin, which had earthed himself in this borough of Beth-maachah!

Had not the city been strong and populous, Sheba had not cast himself for succour within those walls; yet, of all the inhabitants, I see not any one man move for the preservation of their whole body only a woman undertakes to treat with Joab, for their safety. These men, whose spirits were great enough to maintain a traitor against a mighty king, scorn not to give way to the wisdom of a matron. There is no reason, that sex should disparage, where the virtue and merit is no less than masculine. Surely the soul acknowledgeth no sex; neither is varied according to the outward frame. How oft have we known female hearts in the breasts of men; and, contrarily, manly powers in the weaker vessels! It is injurious, to measure the act by the person, and not rather to esteem the person for the act.

She, with no less prudence than courage, challengeth Joab for the violence of his assault; and lays to him that law, which he could not be an Israelite and disavow; the law of the God of peace, whose charge it was, that when they should come near to a city to fight against it, they should offer it peace; and if this tender must be made to foreigners, how much more to brethren! so as they must inquire of Abel, ere they battered it. War is the extreme act of vindicative justice; neither doth God ever approve it, for any other than a desperate remedy; and if it have any other end than peace, it turns into public murder. It is therefore an inhuman cruelty, to shed blood, where we have not proffered fair conditions of peace; the refusal whereof is justly punished, with the sword of revenge.

Joab was a man of blood; yet when the wise woman of Abel charged him with going about to destroy a mother in Israel, and swallowing up the inheritance of the Lord, with what vehemency doth he deprecate that challenge; God forbid, God forbid it me, that I should devour, or destroy it! Although that city, with the rest, had engaged itself in Sheba's sedition, yet how zealously doth Joab remove from himself the suspicion of an intended vastation! How fearful shall their answer be, who, upon the quarrel of their own ambition, have not spared to waste whole tribes of the Israel of God!

It was not the fashion of David's captains, to assault any city ere they summoned it: here they did. There be some things, that, in the very fact, earry their own conviction: so did Abel, in the entertaining and abetting a known conspirator. Joab challengeth them for the offence, and requires no other satisfaction, than the head of Sheba. This matron had not deserved the name of wise and faithful in Israel, if she had not both apprehended the justice of the condition, and commended it to her citizens; whom she had

easily persuaded to spare their own heads, in not sparing a traitor's. It had been pity those walls should have stood, if they had been too high to throw a traitor's head over.

Spiritually, the case is ours. Every man's breast is as a city inclosed. Every sin is a traitor, that lurks within those walls. God calls to us for Sheba's head; neither hath he any quarrel to our person, but for our sin. If we love the head of our traitor, above the life of our soul, we shall justly perish in the vengeance. We cannot be more willing to part with our sin, than our merciful God is to withdraw his judgments.

Now is Joab returned with success; and hopes by Sheba's head, to pay the price of Amasa's blood. David hates the murder, entertains the man, defers the revenge. Joab had made himself so great, so necessary, that David may neither miss nor punish him. Policy led the king, to connive at that which his heart abhorred. I dare not commend that wisdom, which holds the hands of princes from doing justice. Great men have ever held it a point of worldly state, not always to pay, where they have been conscious to a debt, of either favour or punishment; but to make time their servant for both. Solomon shall once defray the arrearages of his father. In the mean time, Joab commands and prospers; and David is feign to smile on that face, whereon he hath in his secret destination written the characters of death. 2 Sam. xx.

THE GIBEONITES REVENGED,

THE reign of David was most troublesome towards the shutting up; wherein, both war and famine conspire to afflict him. Almost forty years, had he sat in the throne of Israel, with competency, if not abundance, of all things; now at last, are his people visited with a long dearth.

We are not at first sensible of common evils. Three years' drought and scarcity are gone over, ere David consults with God, concerning the occasion of the judgment: now he found it high time, to seek the face of the Lord. The continuance of an affliction sends us to God, and calls upon us to ask for a reckoning; whereas, like men stricken in their sleep, a sudden blow cannot make us to find ourselves, but rather astonisheth than teacheth us.

David was himself a prophet of God; yet had not the Lord all this while acquainted him with the grounds of his proceedings against Israel. This secret was hid from him, till he consulted with the Urim ordinary means shall reveal that to him, which no vision had descried. And if God will have prophets to have recourse unto the priests for the notice of his will, how much more must the people! Even those that are inwardest with God must have use of the ephod.

Justly it is presupposed by David, that there was never judgment from God, where hath not been a provocation from men; therefore, when he sees the plague, he inquires for the sin. Never