all the court that is not set on to be an executioner. Jonathan himself is solicited to imbrue his hand in the blood of his friend, of his brother. Saul could not but see Jonathan's clothes on David's back; he could not but know the league of their love; yet, because he knew withal how much the prosperity of David would prejudice Jonathan, he hoped to have found him his son in malice. Those that have the jaundice see all things yellow: those, which are overgrown with malicious passions, think all men like themselves.

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I do not hear of any reply that Jonathan made to his father, when he gave him that bloody charge; but he waits for a fit time to dissuade him from so cruel an injustice. Wisdom had taught him to give way to rage, and in so hard an adventure to crave aid of opportunity. If we be not careful to observe good moods, when we deal with the passionate, we may exasperate instead of reforming. Thus did Jonathan, who, knowing how much better it is to be a good friend than an ill son, had not only disclosed that ill counsel, but, when he found his father in the fields, in a calmer temper, laboured to divert it. And so far doth the seasonable and pithy oratory of Jonathan prevail, that Saul is convinced of his wrong, and swears, "As God lives, David shall not die." deed, how could it be otherwise, upon the plea of David's innocence and well-deservings? How could Saul say, he should die, whom he could accuse of nothing but faithfulness? Why should he design him to death, which had given life to all Israel? Oftimes wicked men's judgments are forced to yield unto that truth, against which their affections maintain a rebellion. Even the foulest hearts do sometimes entertain good motions: like as, on the contrary, the holiest souls give way sometimes to the suggestions of evil. The flashes of lightning may be discerned in the darkest prisons. But if good thoughts look into a wicked heart they stay not there; as those that like not their lodging, they are soon gone: hardly any thing distinguishes betwixt good and evil, but continuance. The light that shines into a holy heart is constant, like that of the sun, which keeps due times, and varies not his course for any of these sublunary occasions.

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The Philistines' wars renew David's victories, and David's victory renews Saul's envy, and Saul's envy renews the plots of David's death. Vows and oaths are forgotten. That evil spirit which vexes Saul hath found so much favour with him, as to win him to these bloody machinations against an innocent his own hands shall first be employed in this execution; the spear, which hath twice before threatened death to David, shall now once again go upon that message. Wise David, that knew the danger of a hollow friend, and reconciled enemy, and that found more cause to mind Saul's earnest, than his own play, gives way by his nimbleness to that deadly weapon, and, resigning that stroke unto the wall, flies for his life. No man knows how to be sure of an unconscionable man. If either goodness, or merit, or affinity, or reasons, or oaths, could secure a man, David had been safe; now, if his heels do no more befriend him than all these, he is a dead man. No sooner is he gone than messengers are sped after him. It hath been seldom seen that wickedness wanted executioners: David's house is beset with murderers, which watch at all his doors for the opportunity of blood. Who can but wonder, to see

how God hath fetched from the loins of Saul a remedy for the malice of Saul's heart? His own children are the only means to cross him in the sin, and to preserve his guiltless adversary. Michal hath more than notice of the plot, and with her subtle wit countermines her father, for the rescue of a husband: she taking the benefit of the night, lets David down through a window; he is gone, and disappoints the ambushes of Saul. The messengers begin to be impatient of this delay, and now think it time to inquire after their prisoner: she puts them off, with the excuse of David's sickness, so as now her husband had good leisure for his escape, and lays a statue in his bed. Saul likes the news of any evil befallen to David; but fearing he is not sick enough, sends to aid his disease. The messengers return, and rushing into the house with their swords drawn, after some harsh words to their imagined charge, surprise a sick statue lying with a pillow under his head; and now blush to see they have spent all their threats upon a senseless stock, and made themselves ridiculous, while they would be serviceable.

But how shall Michal answer this mockage unto her furious father? Hitherto she hath done like David's wife; now she begins to be Saul's daughter; "He said to me, Let me go, or else I will kill thee." She, whose wit had delivered her husband from the sword of her father, now turns the edge of her father's wrath from herself to her husband. His absence made her presume of his safety. If Michal had not been of Saul's plot, he had never expostulated with her in those terms, "Why hast thou let mine enemy escape?" Neither had she framed that answer, "He said, Let me go." I do not find any great store of religion in Michal for, both she had an image in the house, and afterward mocked David for his devotion: yet nature hath taught her to prefer husband to a father; to elude a father, from whom she could not fly, to save a husband, who durst not but fly from her. The bonds of ma trimonial love are, and should be, stronger than those of nature. Those respects are mutual, which God appointed in the first institution of wedlock, that husband and wife should leave father and mother for each other's sake. Treason is ever odious; but so much more in the mar riage-bed, by how much the obligations are deeper.

As she loved her husband better than her father, so she loved herself better than her husband; she saved her husband by a wile, and now she saves herself by a lie, and loses half the thank of her deliverance by an officious slander. Her act was good, but she wants courage to maintain it; and therefore seeks to the weak shelter of untruth. Those that do good offices, not out of conscience, but good nature or civility, if they meet an affront of danger, seldom come off cleanly, but are ready to catch at all excuses, though base, though injurious: because their grounds are not strong enough to bear them out in suffering for that which, they have well done.

Whither doth David fly, but to the sanctuary of Samuel? He doth not (though he knew himself gracious with the soldiers) raise forces, or take some strong fort, and there stand upon his own defence, and at defiance with his king: but he gets him to the college of the prophets, as a man that would seek the peaceable protection of the King of heaven, against the unjust fury of a king on earth: only the wing of God shall

hide him from that violence.

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God intended to make David not a warrior, and a king only, but a prophet too. As the field fitted him for the first, and the court for the second, so Najoth shall fit him for the third. Doubtless, such was David's delight in holy meditations, he never spent his time so contentedly, as when he was retired to that divine academy, and had so full freedom to enjoy God, and to satiate himself with heavenly exercises. The only doubt is, how Samuel can give harbour to a man fled from the anger of his prince; wherein the very persons of both give abundant satisfaction; for both Samuel knew the counsel of God, and durst do nothing without it; and David was by Samuel anointed from God. This unction was a

mutual bond. Good reason had David to sue to him, which had poured be the oil on his head, for the hiding of that head which he had anointed; and good reason had Samuel to hide him whom God by his means had chosen, from him whom God had by his sentence rejected; besides that, the cause deserved commiseration. Here was not a malefactor running away from justice, but an innocent avoiding murder; not a traitor countenanced against his sovereign, but the deliverer of Israel harboured in a sanctuary of prophets, till his peace might be made.

Even thither doth Saul send to apprehend David. All his rage did not incense him against Samuel as the abettor of his adversary; such an impression of reverence had the person and calling of the prophet left in the mind of Saul, that he cannot think of lifting up his hand against him. 5 The same God, who did at the first put an awe of man in the fiercest creatures, hath stamped in the cruellest hearts a reverend respect to his own image in his ministers; so as even they that hate them do yet honour them.

Saul's messengers came to lay hold on David; God lays hold on them. No sooner do they see a company of prophets busy in these divine exercises, under the moderation of Samuel, than they are turned from executioners to prophets. It is good going up to Najoth, into the holy assemblies; who knows how we may be changed, beside our intentions? Many a one hath come into God's house to carp, or scoff, or sleep, or gaze, that hath returned a convert.

The same heart, that was thus disquieted with David's happy success, is now vexed with the holiness of his other servants. It angers him that God's Spirit could find no other time to seize upon his agents, than when he had sent them to kill; and now, out of an indignation at this disappointment, himself will go, and be his own servant; his guilty soul finds itself out of the danger of being thus surprised; and, behold, Saul is no sooner come within the smell of the smoke of Najoth, than he also prophesies; the same spirit that, when he went first from Samuel, enabled him to prophesy, returns in the same effect, now that he was going his last unto Samuel. This was such a grace as might well stand with rejection: an extraordinary gift of the Spirit, but not sanctifying. Many men have had their mouths opened to prophesy unto others, whose hearts have been deaf to God. But this, such as it was, was far from Saul's purpose, who, instead of expostulating with Samuel, falls down before him; and, laying aside his weapons and his robes, of a tyrant proves for the time a disciple. All hearts are in the hands of their Maker; how easy is it for him that gave them their being, to frame them to his own

bent! Who can be afraid of malice, that knows what hooks God hath in the nostrils of men and devils? what charms he hath for the most serpentine hearts?

CONTEMPLATION VII-DAVID AND AHIMELECH.

WHO can ever judge of the children by the parents, that knows Jonathan was the son of Saul! There was never a falser heart than Saul's there was never a truer friend than Jonathan: neither the hope of a kingdom, nor the frowns of a father, nor the fear of death, can remove him from his vowed amity. No son could be more officious and dutiful to a good father; yet he lays down nature at the foot of grace, and, for the preservation of his innocent rival for the kingdom, crosses the bloody designs of his own parent. David needs no other counsellor, no other advocate, no other intelligencer, than he. It is not in the power of Saul's unnatural reproaches, or of his spear, to make Jonathan any other than a friend and patron of innocence. Even, after all these difficulties, doth Jonathan shoot beyond David, that Saul might shoot short of him. In vain are those professions of love, which are not answered with action. He is no true friend, that, besides talk, is not ready both to do and suffer.

Saul is no whit the better for his prophesying; he no sooner rises up from before Samuel, than he pursues David. Wicked men are rather the worse for those transitory good motions they have received. If the swine be never so clean washed, she will wallow again. That we have good thoughts, it is no thank to us; that we answer them not, it is both our sin and judgment.

David hath learned not to trust these fits of devotion, but flies from Samuel to Jonathan, from Jonathan to Ahimelech; when he was hunted from the prophet, he flies to the priest, as one that knew justice and compassion should dwell in those breasts which are consecrated unto God.

The ark and the tabernacle were then separated; the ark was at Kirjath-jearim, the tabernacle at Nob; God was present with both. Whither should David fly for succour, but to the house of that God which had anointed him?

Ahimelech was wont to see David attended with the troops of Israel, or with the gallants of the court; it seems strange therefore to him, to see so great a peer and champion of Israel come alone. These are the alterations to which earthly greatness is subject. Not many days are passed, since no man was honoured at court but Jonathan and David: now they are both for the time in disgrace: now dare not the king's sonin-law, brother to the prince both in love and in marriage, show his head at the court: nor any of those that bowed to him dare stir a foot with him. Princes are as the sun, and great subjects are like to dials; if the sun shine not on the dial, no man will look at it.

Even he that overcame the bear, the lion, the giant, is overcome with fear. He that had cut off two hundred foreskin of the Philistines, had

not circumcised his own heart of the weak passions that follow distrust: now that he is hard driven, he practises to help himself with an unwarrantable shift. Who can look to pass this pilgrimage without infirmities, when David dissembleth to Ahimelech ? A weak man's rules may be better than the best man's actions. God lets us see some blemishes in his holiest servants, that we may neither be too highly conceited of flesh and blood, nor too much dejected when we have been miscarried into sin. Hitherto hath David gone upright, now he begins to halt with the priest of God; and, under pretence of Saul's employment, draws that favour from Ahimelech, which shall afterwards cost him his head.

What could Ahimelech have thought too dear for God's anointed, God's champion? It is not like but that, if David had sincerely opened himself to the priest as he hath done to the prophet, Ahimelech would have seconded Samuel in some secret and safe succour of so unjust a distress, whereas he is now, by a false colour, led to that kindness which shall be prejudicial to his life. Extremities of evil are commonly inconsiderate; either for that we have not leisure to our thoughts, or perhaps (so as we may be perplexed) not thoughts to our leisure. What would David have given afterwards to have redeemed this oversight.

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Under this pretence he craves a double favour of Ahimelech, the one of bread for his sustenance, the other of a sword for his defence. was no bread under the hands of the priest, but that which was consecrated to God, and whereof none might taste but the devoted servants of the altar; even that which was, with solemn dedication, set upon the holy tables before the face of God; a sacramental bread presented to God with incense, figuring that true bread that came done from heaven: yet even this bread might, in case of necessity, become common, and be given by Ahimelech, and received by David and his followers. Our Saviour himself justifies the act of both. Ceremonies must give place to substance. God will have mercy and not sacrifice. Charity is the sum and the end of the law, that must be aimed at in all our actions, wherein it may fall out, that the way to keep the law may be to break it; the intention may be kept, and the latter violated; and it may be a dangerous transgression of the law to observe the words, and neglect the scope of God. That which would have dispensed with David for the substance of the act, would have much more dispensed with him for the circumstance: the touch of their lawful wives had contracted a legal impurity, not a moral; that could have been no sufficient reason, why in an urgent necessity they might not have partaken of the holy bread. Ahimelech was no perfect casuist; these men might not famish, if they were ceremonially impure. But this question bewrayed the care of Ahimelech in distributing the holy bread. There might be in these men a double incapacity, the one as they were seculars, the other as unclean; he saw the one must be, he feared lest the other should be; as one that wished as little indisposition as possible might be, in those which should be fed from God's table.

It is strange that David should come to the priest of God for a sword; Who in all Israel was so unlikely to furnish him with weapons, as a man of peace, whose armour was only spiritual? Doubtless David knew well where Goliah's sword lay, as the noble relic of God's victorious deliver