was acted under his nose? why did he lie? why did his family partake with idolaters? if he were not a prophet of God, how had he true visions? how had he true messages from God? why did he second the menacing word of that prophet, whom he seduced? why did he desire that his own bones might be honoured with his sepulchre ? Doubtless he was a prophet of God, but corrupt, resty, vicious. Prophecy doth not always presuppose sanctification; many a one hath had visions from God, who shall never enjoy the vision of God. A very Balaam, in his ecstasies, hath so clear revelation of the Messiah to come, as scarce ever any of the holiest prophets; yea, his very ass hath both her mouth miraculously opened, and her eyes, to see and notify that angel, which was hid from her master: yea, Satan himself sometimes receives notice from God of his future actions; which else that evil spirit could neither foretell nor foresee. These kinds of graces are both rare and common; rare, in that they are seldom given to any; common, in that they are indifferently given to the evil, and to the good. A little holiness is worth much illumination.

Whether out of envy, to hear that said by the seer of Judah, which he either knew not or smothered; to hear that done by another, which he could not have effected, and could not choose but admire; or whether out of desire to make trial of the fidelity of so powerful a messenger, the old prophet hastens to overtake, to recall that man of God, who had so defied his Bethel, whom he finds sitting faint and weary under an oak in the way, taking the benefit of that shade which he hated to receive from those contagious groves that he had left behind him; his habit easily bewrayed him, to a man of his own trade; neither doth his tongue spare to profess himself. The old prophet of Bethel invites him to return to a repast; and is answered with the same words wherewith Jeroboam's offer was repelled: the man of God varies not a syllable from his message. It concerns us to take good heed of our charge, when we go on God's errand. A denial doth but invite the importunate; what he cannot do by entreaty the old man tries to do by persuasion: "I am a prophet also as thou art, and an angel spake to me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water." There is no temptation so dangerous, as that which comes shrouded under a vail of holiness, and pretends authority from God himself. Jeroboam threatens, the prophet stands undaunted; Jeroboam fawns and promises, the prophet holds constant: now comes a grey-headed seer, and pleads a counter-message from God: the prophet yields and transgresses. Satan may affright us as a fiend, but he seduces us as an angel of light.

Who would have looked for a liar under hoary hairs, and a holy mantle? who would not have trusted that gravity, when there was no colour of any gain in the untruth? Nothing is so apt to deceive as the fairest semblances, as the sweetest words. We cannot err, if we believe not the speech for the person, but the person for the speech. Well might this man of God think, an aged man, a prophet, an old prophet, will not, sure, belie God unto a prophet; no man will forge a lie, but for an advantage. What can this man gain by this match, but the entertainment of an unprofitable guest? Perhaps though God would not allow me to feast with Jeroboam, yet pitying my faintness, he may

allow me to eat with a prophet. Perhaps now that I have approved my fidelity in refusing the bread of Bethel, God thinks good to send me a gracious release of that strict charge. Why should I think, that God's revelations are not as free to others, as to me? and if this prophet hath received a countermand from an angel of God, how shall I not disobey God, if I do not follow him!

Upon this ground he returns with this deceitful host; and, when the meat was now in his mouth, receives the true message of death, from the same lips that brought him the false message of his invitation; thus saith the Lord, "Forasmuch, as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, but camest back, and hast eaten bread, and drunk water in the place forbidden thee, thy carcass shall not come to the sepulchre of thy fathers." O woeful prophet! when he looks on his host, he sees his executioner ; while he is feeding of his body, he hears of his carcass; at the table he hears of his denied sepulchre; and all this for eating and drinking where he was forbidden by God, though bidden as from God. The violation of the least charge of a God is mortal. No pretences can warrant the transgression of a divine command: a word from God is pleaded on both sides; the one was received immediately from God, the other related mediately by man: one the prophet was sure of, the other was questionable. A sure word of God may not be left for an uncertain: an express charge of the Almighty admitteth not of any check: his will is but one, as himself is; and therefore it is out of the danger of contradiction.

Methinks I see the man of God change countenance at this sharp sauce of his pleasing morsels; his face beforehand is dyed with the paleness of death. Methinks I hear him urging many unkind expostulations with his injurious host, who yet dismisses him better provided for the ease of his journey than he found him. Perhaps this officiousness was out of desire to make some amends for this late seducement. It is a poor recompense, when he hath betrayed his life, and wronged the soul, to cast some courtesies upon the body.

This old Bethelite, that had taken pains to come and fetch the man of God into sin, will not now go back with him to accompany his departure. Doubtless he was afraid to be inwrapped in the judgment which he saw hanged over that obnoxious head. Thus the mischievous guides of wickedness leave a man, when they have led him to his bane; as familiar devils forsake their witches, when they have brought them once into fetters.

The man of God returns alone, careful, no doubt, and pensive for his offence, when a lion out of the wood meets, assaults, and kills him. O the just and severe judgments of the Almighty, who hath brought this fierce beast out of his wild ranges into the highway, to be the executioner of his offending servant! Doubtless this prophet was a man of great holiness, of singular fidelity, else he durst not have been God's herald to carry a message of defiance to Jeroboam, king of Israel, in the midst of all his royal magnificence; yet now, for varying from but a circumstance of God's command, though upon the suggestion of a divine warrant, is given for a prey to the lion. Our interest in God is so far

from excusing our sin, that it aggravates it: of all others, the sin of a prophet shall not pass unrevenged.

The very wild beasts are led by a providence; their wise and powerful Creator knows how to serve himself of them. The lions guard one prophet, kill another, according to the commission received from their Maker. What sinner can hope to escape unpunished, when every creature of God is ready to be an avenger of evil? The beasts of the field were made to serve us, we to serve our Creator. When we forsake our homage to him that made us, it is no marvel if the beasts forget their duty to us, and deal with us not as masters, but as rebels. When a holy man buys so dearly such a slight frailty, of a credulous mistaking, what shall become of our heinous and presumptuous sins?

I cannot think but this prophet died in the favour of God: though by the teeth of the lion, his life was forfeited for example, his soul was safe; yea, his very carcass was left, though torn, yet fair, after those deadly grasps; as if God had said, I will only take thy breath from thee, as the penalty of thy disobedience: a lion shall do that which an apoplexy, or fever might do. I owe thee no further revenge than may be satisfied with thy blood.

Violent events do not always argue the anger of God; even death itself is to his servants a fatherly castigation.

But, O the unsearchable ways of the Almighty! the man of God sins, and dies speedily; the lying prophet that seduced him survives; yea, wicked Jeroboam enjoys his idolatry, and treads upon the grave of his reprover. There is neither favour in the delay of stripes, nor displeasure in the haste; rather whom God loves he chastises, as sharply, so speedily, while the rest prospers to condemnation: even the rod of a loving father may draw blood. How much happier is it for us, that we die now to live for ever, than that we live a while to die for ever!

Had this lion set upon the prophet for hunger, why did he not devour, as well as kill him? why did he not rather kill the beast than the man, since we know the nature of the lion such, that he is not wont to assail man, save in the extreme want of other prey? Certainly the same power that employed those fangs restrained them, that the world might see, it was not appetite that provoked the beast to this violence, but the overruling command of God. Even so, O Lord, thy powerful hand is over that roaring lion, that goes about continually seeking whom he may devour! thine hand withholds him, that though he may shed the blood of thine elect, yet he cannot hurt their souls; and while he doth those things which thou permittest and orderest, to thy just ends, yet he cannot do lesser things which he desireth, and thou permittest not.

The fierce beast stands by the carcass, as to avow his own act, and to tell who sent him, so to preserve that body which he had slain. O wonderful work of God the executioner is turned guardian; and, as the officer of the Highest, commands all other creatures to stand aloof from his charge, and commands the fearful ass, that brought this burden thither, not to stir thence, but to stand ready prest, to carry it to the sepulchre and now, when he hath sufficiently witnessed to all passengers that this act was not done upon his own hunger, but upon the quarrel of

his Maker, he delivers up his charge to that old prophet, who was no less guilty of this blood than himself.

This old seducer had so much truth, as both to give a right commentary upon God's intention in this act, for the terror of the disobedient, and to give his voice to the certainty of that future judgment which bis late guest had threatened to Israel: sometimes it pleaseth the wisdom of God to express and justify himself, even by the tongues of faulty instruments. Withal, he hath so much faith and courage, as to fetch that carcass from the lion; so much pity and compassion, as to weep for the man of God, to inter him in his own sepulchre; so much love, as to wish himself joined in death to that body which he had bastened unto death. It is hard to find a man absolutely wicked: some grace will bewray itself in the most forsaken breasts.

It is a cruel courtesy to kill a man, and then to help him to his grave; to betray a man with our breath, and then to bedew him with our tears. The prophet had needed no such friend, if he had not met with such an enemy: "The mercies of the wicked are cruel."

CONTEMPLATION IV.-JEROBOAM'S WIFE.

It is no measuring of God's favour by the line of outward welfare: Jeroboam, the idolatrous usurper of Israel, prospers better than the true heirs of David; he lives to see three successions in the throne of Judah; thus the ivy lives, when the oak is dead. Yet could not that misgotten crown of his keep his head always from aching: he hath his crosses too. God whips sometimes more than his own; his enemies smart from him as well as his children; his children in love, his enemies in judgment. Not simply the rod argues love, but the temper of the hand that wields it, and the back that feels it. First Jeroboam's hand was stricken, now his son; Abijah, the eldest, the best son of Jeroboam, is smitten with sickness. As children are but the pieces of their parents in another skin, so parents are no less stricken in their children, than in their natural limbs; Jeroboam doth not more feel his arm, than his son; not wicked men only, but beasts may have natural affections. It is no thank to any creature to love his own.

Nature wrought in Jeroboam, not grace: he is enough troubled with his son's disease, no whit bettered: I would have heard him say, God follows me with his afflictions, it is for mine impiety; what other measure can I expect from his justice? while mine idols stand, how can I look that my house should prosper? I will turn from my wickedness ; O God, turn thou from thy wrath. These thoughts were too good for that obdurate heart: his son is sick, he is sorrowful; but, as an amazed man seeks to go forth at the wrong door, his distraction sends him to a false help; he thinks not of God, he thinks of his prophet; he thinks of the prophet that had foretold him he should be a king, he thinks not of the God of that prophet who made him a king. It is the property of a carnal heart to confine both his obligations and his hopes to the means, neglecting the Author of good. Vain is the respect that is given to the servant, where the master is contemned.

Extremity draws Jeroboam's thoughts to the prophet, whom else he had not cared to remember. The king of Israel had divines enow of his own, else he must needs have thought them miserable gods that were not worth a prophet: and, besides, there was an old prophet, if he yet survived, dwelling within the smoke of his palace, whose visions had been too well approved: why should Jeroboam send so far, to an Abijah!

Certainly his heart despised those base priests of his high places, neither could he trust either to the gods, or the clergy of his own making: his conscience rests upon the fidelity of that man whose doctrine he had forsaken. How did this idolater strive against his own heart, whilst he inwardly despised those whom he professed to honour, and inwardly honoured them whom he professed to despise ! Wicked breasts are false

to themselves; neither trusting to their own choice, nor making choice of that which they may dare to trust. They will set a good face upon their secretly unpleasing sins, and had rather be self-condemned than wise and penitent. As for that old seer, it is like Jeroboam knew his skill, but doubted of his sincerity; that man was too much his neighbour to be good, Abijah's truth had been tried in a case of his own. He, whose word was found just in the prediction of his kingdom, was well worthy of credit in the news of his son. Experience is a great encouragement of our trust. It is a good matter to be faithful; this loadstone of our fidelity shall draw to us even hearts of iron, and hold them to our reliance; as, contrarily, deceit doth both argue and make a bankrupt. Who can trust where he is disappointed? O God, so oft, so ever have we found thee true in all thy promises, in all thy performances, that, if we do not seek thee, if we do not trust thee in the sequel, we are worthy of our loss, worthy of thy desertions.

Yet I do not see that Jeroboam sends to the prophet for his aid, but for intelligence. Curiosity is guilty of this message, and not devotion; he calls not for the prayers, nor for the benediction of that holy man, but for mere information of the event. He well saw what the prayers of a prophet could do: that which cured his hand, might it not have cured his son? yet he that said to a man of God, "Entreat the face of the Lord thy God, that he may restore my hand," says not now, in his message to Abijah, Entreat thy God to restore my son. Sin makes such a strangeness betwixt God and man, that the guilty heart either thinks not of suing to God, or fears it. What a poor contentment it was to foreknow that evil which he could not avoid, and whose notice could but hasten his misery! Yet thus fond is our restless curiosity, that it seeks ease in the drawing on of torment: he is worthy of sorrow that will not stay till it comes to him, but goes to fetch it.

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Whom doth Jeroboam send on this message but his wife, and how, but disguised? why her, and why thus? Neither durst he trust his errand with another, nor with her in her own form it was a secret that Jeroboam sends to a prophet of God; none might know it but his own bosom, and she that lay in it; if this had been noised in Israel, the example had been dangerous: who would not have said, The king is glad to leave his counterfeit deities, and seek to the true? why should we adhere to them whom he forsakes? As the message must not be known