punish with the hand; no weapon was for Zedekiah, but his tongue; neither could this rude presumption have been well taken, if malice had not made magistracy insensible of this usurpation. Ahab was well content to see that hated mouth beaten by any hand. It is no new condition of God's faithful messengers to smart for saying truth. Falsehood doth not

more bewray itself in any thing than in blows; truth suffers, while error persecutes. None are more ready to boast of the Spirit of God, than those that have the least; as in vessels, the full are silent.

Innocent Micaiah neither defends nor complains: it would have well beseemed the religious king of Judah to have spoken in the cause of the dumb, to have checked insolent Zedekiah. He is content to give way to this tide of peremptory and general opposition: the helpless prophet stands alone, yet lays about him with his tongue; "Behold, thou shalt see, in that day when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself." Now the proud Baalite shewed himself too much, ere long he shall be glad to lurk unseen; his horns of iron cannot bear off his danger. The son of Ahab cannot choose, but, in the zeal of revenging his father's deadly seducement, call for that false head of Zedekiah; in vain shall that impostor seek to hide himself froin justice; but, in the mean while, he goes away with honour, Micaiah with censure: "Take Micaiah, and carry him back to Ammon, the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son; and say, Thus saith the king, put this fellow in prison, and feed him with bread of affliction, and with water of affliction, until I come in peace."

An hard door of truth: the jail for his lodging, coarse bread and water for his food, shall but reserve Micaiah for a further revenge: the return of Ahab shall be the bane of the prophet. Was not this he that advised Benhadad not to boast in the putting on his armour, as in the ungirding it; and doth he now promise himself peace and victory, before he buckle it on? No warning will dissuade the wilful; so assured doth Ahab make himself of success, that he threatens ere he go, what he will do when he returns in peace. How justly doth God deride the misreckonings of proud and foolish men! if Ahab had no other sins, his very confidence shall defeat him, yet the prophet cannot be overcome in his resolution; he knows his grounds cannot deceive him, and dares therefore cast the credit of his function upon this issue: "If

thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me:" and he said, "Hearken, O people, every one of you.' Let him never be called a prophet that dare not trust his God. This was no adventure therefore of reputation or life; since he knew whom he believed, the event was no less sure than if it had been past. He is no god that is not constant to himself: hath he spoken, and shall he not perform? what hold have we for our souls, but his eternal word? The being of God is not more sure than his promises, than his sentences of judgment. Well may we appeal the testimony of the world in both if there be not plagues for the wicked, if there be not rewards for the righteous, God hath not spoken by us.

Not Ahab only, but good Jehoshaphat, is carried with the multitude; their forces are joined against Ramoth. The king of Israel doth not so trust his prophets, that he dares trust himself in his own clothes; thus shall he elude Micaiah's threat; I wish the judgment of God, the Syrian shafts, cannot find him out in this unsuspected disguise. How fondly do vain men imagine to shift off the just revenges of the Almighty!

The king of Syria gives charge to his captains to fight against none but the king of Israel. Thus doth the unthankful infidel repay the mercy of his late victor; ill was the snake saved, that requites the favour of his life with a sting: thus still the greatest are the fairest mark to envious eyes. By how much more eminent any man is in the Israel of God, so many more and more dangerous enemies must he expect; both earth and hell conspire in their opposition to the worthiest. Those, who are advanced above others, have so much more need of the guard both of their own vigilancy, and others' prayers. Jehoshaphat had like to have paid dear for his love: he is pursued for him, in whose amity he offended; his cries deliver him, his cries, not to his pursuers, but to his God; whose mercy takes not advantage of our infirmity, but rescues us from those evils which we wilfully provoke. It is Ahab, against whom, not the Syrians only, but God himself, intends this quarrel; the enemy is taken off from Jehoshaphat. O the just and mighty hand of that divine Providence, which directeth all our actions to his own ends, which takes order where every shaft shall light, and guides the arrow of the strong archer into the joints of Ahab's harness! it was shot at a venture, falls by a destiny; and there falls, where it may

carry death to an hidden debtor. In all actions, both voluntary and casual, thy will, O God, shall be done by us, with whatever intentions. Little did the Syrian know whom he had stricken, no more than the arrow wherewith he struck an invisible hand disposeth of both, to the punishment of Ahab, to the vindication of Micaiah. How worthily, O God, art thou to be adored in thy justice and wisdom, to be feared in thy judgments! Too late doth Ahab now think of the fair warnings of Micaiah, which he unwisely contemned; of the painful flatteries of Zedekiah, which he stubbornly believed: that guilty blood of his runs down, out of his wound, into the midst of his chariot, and pays Naboth his arrearages. O Ahab, what art thou the better for thine ivory house, while thou hast a black soul! what comfort hast thou now in those flattering prophets, which tickled thine ears, and secured thee of victories! what joy is it to thee now, that thou wast great! Who had not rather be a Micaiah in the jail, than Ahab in the chariot? Wicked men have the advantage of the way, godly men of the end. The chariot is washed in the pool of Samaria, the dogs come to claim their due; they lick up the blood of the great king of Israel. The tongues of those brute creatures shall make good the tongue of God's prophet: Micaiah is justified, Naboth is revenged, the Baalites confounded, Ahab judged. "Righteous art thou, O God, in all thy ways, and holy in all thy works!"

CONTEMPLATION IV.

Ahaziah sick, and Elijah revenged.

AHAZIAH succeeded his father Ahab, both in his throne and in his sin. Who could look for better issue of those loins, of those examples? God follows him with a double judgment, of the revolt of Moab, and of his own sickness. All the reign of Ahab, had Moab been a quiet tributary, and furnished Israel with rich flocks and fleeces; now their subjection dies with that warlike king, and will not be inherited. rebellion took advantage, as from the weaker spirits, so from the sickly body of Ahaziah, whose disease was not natural, but casual: walking in his palace of Samaria, some grate in the floor of his chamber breaks under him, and gives way to that fall, whereby he is bruised, and languisheth. The same

This

hand that guided Ahab's shaft, cracks Ahaziah's lattice. How infinite variety of plagues hath the just God for obstinate sinners! whether in the field or in the chamber, he knows to find them out. How fearlessly did Ahaziah walk on his wonted pavement! The Lord hath laid a trap for him, whereinto, while he thinks least, he falls irrecoverably. No place is safe for the man that is at variance with God.

The body of Ahaziah was not more sick, than his soul was graceless: none but chance was his enemy, none but the god of Ekron must be his friend. He looks not up to the omnipotent hand of divine justice for the disease, or of mercy for the remedy; an idol is his refuge, whether for cure or intelligence. We hear not till now of Baal-zebub: this new god of flies is, perhaps, of his making, who now is a suiter to his own erection. All these heathen deities were but a devil, with change of appellations; the influence of that evil spirit deluded those miserable clients: else, there was no fly so impotent as that outside of the god of Ekron. Who would think that any Israelite could so far dote upon a stock or a fiend? Time gathered much credit to this idol: insomuch as the Jews afterwards styled Beel-zebub the prince of all the regions of darkness. Ahaziah is the first that brings his oracle in request, and pays him the tribute of his devotion: he sends messengers, and says, "Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease." The message was either idle or wicked; idle, if he sent it to a stock; if to a devil, both idle and wicked. What can the most intelligent spirits know of future things, but what they see either in their causes, or in the light of participation? What a madness was it in Ahaziah to seek to the postern, while the fore-gate stood open! Could those evil spirits truly foretell events no way pre-existent, yet they might not, without sin, be consulted; the evil of their nature debars all the benefits of their information if not as intelligencers, much less may they be sought to as gods. Who cannot blush to hear and see that even the very evangelical Israel should yield pilgrims to the shrines of darkness! How many, after this clear light of the gospel, in their losses, in their sicknesses, send to these infernal oracles, and damn themselves wilfully in a vain curiosity! The message of the jealous God intercepts them with a just disdain, as here by Elijah; "Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of

Ekron?" What can be a greater disparagement to the true God than to be neglected, than to stand aside, and see us make love to an hellish rival! were there no God in Israel, in heaven, what could we do other, what worse! This affront, of whatever kind, Ahaziah cannot escape without a revenge: "Therefore, thus saith the Lord, thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die." It is an high indignity to the true God, not to be sought to in our necessities; but so to be cashiered from our devotions, as to have a false god thrust in his room, is such a scorn, as it is well if it can escape with one death: let now the famous god of Ekron take off that brand of feared mortality, which the living God hath set upon Ahaziah; let Baal-zebub make good some better news to his distressed supplicant: rather the king of Israel is himself, without his repentance, hasting to Beel zebub. This errand is soon done; the messengers are returned ere they go. Not a little were they amazed to hear their secret message from another's mouth; neither could choose but think, he that can tell what Ahaziah said, what he thought, can foretell how he shall speed. We have met with a greater God than we went to seek; what need we inquire for another answer? With this conceit, with this report, they return to their sick lord, and astonish him with so short, so sad a relation. No marvel, if the king inquired curiously of the habit and fashion of the man that could know this, that durst say this. They describe him a man whether of an hairy skin, or of rough, coarse, careless attire; thus drest, thus girded. Ahaziah readily apprehends it to be Elijah, the old friend of his father Ahab, of his mother Jezebel; more than once had he seen him, an unwelcome guest, in the court of Israel. The times had been such, that the prophet could not at once speak true, and please: nothing but reproofs and menaces sounded from the mouth of Elijah: Micaiah and he were still as welcome to the eyes of that guilty prince, as the Syrian arrow was into his flesh. Too well therefore had Ahaziah noted that querulous seer, and now is not a little troubled to see himself, in succession, haunted with that bold and ill-boding spirit.

Behold the true son of Jezebel; the anguish of his disease, the expectation of death, cannot take off his persecution of Elijah it is against his will that his death-bed is not bloody. Had Ahaziah meant any other than a cruel violence to Elijah, he had sent a peaceable messenger to call him to the court;