CONTEMPLATIONS.

BOOK XI.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

SIR FULKE GREVILLE, KNT.

CHANCELLOR of the exchequer,

ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNSELlors; A MOST WISE, LEARNED, JUDICIOUS, INGENUOUS

CENSOR OF SCHOLARSHIP ;

A WORTHY EXAMPLE OF BENEFACTORS TO LEARNING;

J. H.

WITH HIS UNFEIGNED PRAYERS FOR THE HAPPY SUCCESS OF ALL HIS

HONOURABLE DESIGNMENTS,

HUMBLY DEDICATES THIS MEAN PIECE OF HIS STUDIES.

THE LEVITE'S CONCUBINE.

THERE is no complaint of a publicly disordered state, where a Levite is not at one end of it, either as an agent or a patient. In the idolatry of Micah and the Danites, a Levite was an actor; in the violent uncleanness of Gibeah, a Levite suffers. No tribe shall sooner feel the want of government, than that of Levi.

The law of God allowed the Levite a wife; human connivance, a concubine neither did the Jewish concubine differ from a wife, but in some outward compliments: both might challenge all the true essence of marriage; so little was the difference, that the father of the concubine is called the father-in-law to the Levite.

She, whom ill custom had of a wife made a concubine, is now by her lust of a concubine made a harlot: her fornication, together with the change of her bed, hath changed her abode. Perhaps her own conscience thrust her out of doors; perhaps the just severity of her husband. Dismission was too easy a penalty for that, which God had sentenced with death.

She, that had deserved to be abhorred of her husband, seeks shelter from her father. Why would her father suffer his house to be defiled with an adulteress, though out of his own loins? Why did

he not rather say, "What! dost thou think to find my house a harbour for thy sin? While thou wert a wife to thy husband, thou wert a daughter to me; now, thou art neither. Thou art not mine; I gave thee to thy husband: thou art not thy husband's; thou hast betrayed his bed. Thy filthiness hath made thee thne, own, and thine adulterer's: go seek thine entertainment, where thou hast lost thine honesty. Thy lewdness hath brought a necessity of shame upon thine abettors: how can I countenance thy person, and abandon thy sin? I would rather be a just man, than a kind father. Get thee home therefore to thy husband; crave his forgiveness upon thy knees; redeem his love with thy modesty and obedience. When his heart is once open to thee, my doors shall not be shut in the mean time, know, I can be no father to a harlot." Indulgence of parents is the refuge of vanity, the bawd of wickedness, the bane of children. How easily is that thief induced to steal, that knows his receiver! When the lawlessness of youth knows where to find pity and toleration, what mischief can it forbear?

By how much better this Levite was, so much more injurious was the concubine's sin. What husband would not have said, "She is gone, let shame and grief go with her. I shall find one no less pleasing, and more faithful: or, if it be not too much mercy in me to yield to a return, let her, that hath offended, seek me: what more direct way is there to a resolved looseness, than to let her see I cannot want her?"

The good nature of this Levite casts off all these terms; and now, after four month's absence, sends him to seek for her, that had run away from her fidelity: and now he thinks," She sinned against me; perhaps she hath repented; perhaps, shame and fear have withheld her from returning; perhaps she will be more loyal, for her sin if her importunity should win me, half the thanks were lost; but now, my voluntary offer of favour shall oblige her for ever." Love procures truer servitude than necessity: mercy becomes well the heart of any man, but most of a Levite. He, that had helped to offer so many sacrifices to God for the multitude of every Israelite's sins, saw how proportionable it was, that man should not hold one sin unpardonable: he had served at the altar to no purpose, if he, whose trade was to sue for had not at all learned to practise it.

mercy,

And if the reflection of mercy wrought this in a servant, what shall we expect from him whose essence is mercy? O God, we do every day break the holy covenant of our love. We prostitute ourselves to every filthy temptation; and then run, and hide ourselves in our father's house, the world. If thou didst not seek us up, we should never return: if thy gracious proffer did not pres vent us, we should be incapable of forgiveness. It were abundant goodness in thee to receive us, when we should intreat thee; but lo, thou intreatest us that we would receive thee! How should we now adore, and imitate thy mercy: since there is more reason,

we should sue to each other, than that thou shouldest sue to us; because we may as well offend, as be offended!

I do not see the woman's father make any means for reconciliation; but when remission came home to his doors, no man could entertain it more thankfully. The nature of many men is forward to accept, and negligent to sue for: they can spend secret wishes upon that, which shall cost them no endeavour.

Great is the power of love, which can in a sort undo evils past; if not for the act, yet for the remembrance. Where true affection was once conceived, it is easily pieced again, after the strongest interruption. Here needs no tedious recapitulation of wrongs, no importunity of suit. The unkindnesses are forgotten, their love is renewed; and now the Levite is not a stranger, but a son. By how much more willingly he came, by so much more unwillingly he is dismissed. The four months' absence of his daughter is answered with four days' feasting. Neither was there so much joy in the former wedding feast, as in this; because then he delivered his daughter entire; now, desperate: then he found a son; but now, that son hath found his lost daughter, and he found both. The recovery of any good is far more pleasant than the continu

ance.

Little do we know what evil is towards us. Now did this old man and this restored couple, promise themselves all joy and contentment, after this unkind storm; and said in themselves, "Now we begin to live." And now this feast, which was meant for their new nuptials, proves her funeral. Even when we let ourselves loosest to our pleasures, the hand of God, though invisibly, is writing bitter things against us. Since we are not worthy to know, it is wisdom to suspect the worst, while it is least seen.

sy.

Sometimes it falls out, that nothing is more injurious than courte

If this old man had thrust his son and daughter early out of doors, they had avoided this mischief; now, his loving importunity detains them to their hurt, and his own repentance. Such contentment doth sincere affection find in the presence of those we love, that death itself hath no other name but departing. The greatest comfort of our life is the fruition of friendship; the dissolution whereof, is the greatest pain of death. As all earthly pleasures, so this of love, is distasted with a necessity of leaving. How worthy is that only love to take up our hearts, which is not open to any danger of interruption; which shall outlive the date even of faith and hope, and is as eternal, as that God and those blessed spirits whom we love! If we hang never so importunately upon one another's sleeves, and shed floods of tears to stop their way, yet we must be gone hence: no occasion, no force, shall then remove us from our father's house.

The Levite is stayed beyond his time by importunity, the motions whereof are boundless and infinite: one day draws on another; neither is there any reason of this day's stay, which may not serve still for to-morrow. His resolution at last breaks through all

those kind hindrances: rather will he venture a benighting, than an unnecessary delay. It is a good hearing that the Levite makes haste home. An honest man's heart is where his calling is: such a one, when he is abroad, is like a fish in the air; whereinto if it leap for recreation or necessity, yet it soon returns to his own element. This charge, by how much more sacred it is, so much more attendance it expecteth. Even a day breaks square with the conscionable.

The sun is ready to lodge before them. His servant advises him to shorten his journey; holding it more fit to trust an early inn of the Jebusites, than to the mercy of the night. And if that counsel had been followed, perhaps they, which found Jebusites in Israel, might have found Israelites in Jebus. No wise man can hold good counsel disparaged, by the meanness of the author: if we be glad to receive any treasure from our servant, why not precious admonitions?

It was the zeal of this Levite, that shut him out of Jebus; We will not lodge in the city of strangers. The Jebusites were strangers in religion, not strangers enough in their habitation: the Levite will not receive common courtesy from those which were aliens from God, though home-born in the heart of Israel. It is lawful enough in terms of civility to deal with infidels: the earth is the Lord's; and we may enjoy it in the right of the owner, while we protest against the wrong of the usurper: yet the less communion with God's enemies, the more safety. If there were another air to breathe in from theirs, another earth to tread upon, they should have their own. Those, that affect a familiar entireness with Jebusites, in conversation, in leagues of amity, in matrimonial contracts, bewray either too much boldness or too little conscience.

He hath no blood of an Israelite, that delights to lodge in Jebus. It was the fault of Israel, that a heathenish town stood yet in the navel of the tribes, and that Jebus was no sooner turned to Jerusalem. Their lenity and neglect were guilty of this neighbourhood, that now no man can pass from Bethlehem-Judah to Mount Ephraim, but by the city of the Jebusites. Seasonable justice might prevent a thousand evils, which afterwards know no remedy but patience.

The way was not long betwixt Jebus and Gibeah; for the sun was stooping when the Levite was over against the first, and is but now declined when he comes to the other. How his heart was lightened, when he entered into an Israelitish city! and can think of nothing but hospitality, rest, security. There is no perfume so sweet to a traveller, as his own smoke. Both expectation and fear do commonly disappoint us; for seldom ever do we enjoy the good we look for, or smart with a feared evil.

The poor Levite could have found but such entertainment with the Jebusites. Whither are the posterity of Benjamin degenerated, that their Gibeah should be no less wicked than populous? The first sign of a settled godlessness, is, that a Levite is suffered

to lie without doors. If God had been in any of their houses, his servant had not been excluded. Where no respect is given to God's messengers, there can be no religion.

Gibeah was a second Sodom: even there also is another Lot; which is therefore so much more hospitable to strangers, because himself was a stranger. The host, as well as the Levite, is of Mount Ephraim: each man knows best to commiserate that evil in others, which himself hath passed through. All that profess the name of Christ are countrymen, and yet strangers here below. How cheerfully should we entertain each other, when we meet in the Gibeah of this inhospitable world!

This good old man of Gibeah came home late from his work in the fields; the sun was set ere he gave over; and now, seeing this man a stranger, an Israelite, a Levite, an Ephraimite, and that in his way to the house of God, to take up his lodging in the street, he proffers him the kindness of his house-room. Industrious spirits are the fittest receptacles of all good motions; whereas those, which give themselves to idle and loose courses, do not care so much as for themselves. I hear of but one man at his work in all Gibeah; the rest were quaffing and revelling. That one man ends his work with a charitable entertainment; the other end their play in a brutish beastliness and violence.

These villains had learned both the actions and the language of the Sodomites: one unclean devil was the prompter to both; and this honest Ephraimite had learned of righteous Lot, both to entreat and to proffer. As a perplexed mariner, that in a storm must cast away something, although precious; so this good host, rather will prostitute his daughter a virgin, together with the concubine, than this prodigious villany should be offered to a man, much more to a man of God.

The detestation of a fouler sin drew him to over-reach in the motion of a lesser; which if it had been accepted, how could he have escaped the partnership of their uncleanness, and the guilt of his daughter's ravishment? No man can wash his hands of that sin, to which his will hath yielded. Bodily violence may be inoffensive in the patient; voluntary inclination to evil, though out of fear, can never be excuseable: yet behold, this wickedness is too little to satisfy these monsters.

Who would have looked for so extreme abomination from the loins of Jacob, the womb of Rachel, the sons of Benjamin? Could the very Jebusites, their neighbours, be ever accused of such unnatural outrage? I am ashamed to say it, even the worst pagans were saints to Israel. What avails it, that they have the ark of God in Shiloh, while they have Sodom in their streets? that the law of God is in their fringes, while the devil is in their hearts? Nothing but hell itself can yield a worse creature than a depraved Israelite: the very means of his reformation are the fuel of his wickedness.

Yet Lot sped so much better in Sodom than this Ephraimite did in Gibeah, by how much more holy guests he entertained: there, the guests were angels; here, a sinful man: there, the guests saved: