auengers It was his treasure and munitiō wherin he prides himselfe to these men of Babylon The men of Babylon shall cary away his treasure and munition What now doth Hezekiah but tempt them with a glorious booty as some fond traueler that would show his gold to a Thiefe These worldly things are furthest off from the heart Perhaps Hezekiah might not bee much troubled with their losse Loe God comes closer to him yet As yet was Ezekiah childlesse how much better had it beene to continue so still then to bee plagued in his issue He shall now beget children to seruitude his loines shall yeeld Pages to the Court of Babylon Whiles he sees them borne Princes he shal foresee them made Eunuches in a forraigne Palace What comfort can he take in the wishes and hopes of sonnes when ere they bee borne hee heares them destin'd to captiuitie and bondage This rod was smart yet good Ezekiah kisses it his heart strucke him no lesse then the mouth of the Prophet meekly therefore doth he yeeld to this diuine correction Good is the Word of the Lord which thou hast spoken Thou hast spoken this word but from the Lord it is not thine but his and being his it must needs bee like himselfe good Good because it is iust for I haue deserued more and worse Good because mercifull for I suffer not according to my deserts Is it not good if there be peace and truth in my daies I haue deserued a present paymēt O God thou deferrest it I haue deserued it in person thou reseruest it for those whom I cannot yet so feele because they are not I haue deserued war tumult thou fauorest me with peace I haue deseru'd to be ouer-run with superstition and Idolatry thou blessest me with truth shouldst thou continue truth vnto me though vpon the most vnquiet termes the blessing were too good for me but now thou hast promised and wilt not reuerse it that both truth and peace shall bee in my dayes Lord I adore thy iustice I blesse thy mercy Gods children are neither waspish nor fullen whē they are chid or beaten but patiently hold their backes to the stripes of a displeased mercy knowing how much more God is to be magnified for what he might haue done then repined at for what hee hath done resigning themselues ouer into the hand of that gracious iustice which in their smart seekes their reformation and glory MANASSEH AT last some three yeares after his recouery Hezekiah hath a sonne but such a one as if he could haue foreseene orbity had beene a blessing Still in the throne of Iudah there is a succession and interchange of good and euill Good Iotham is succeeded by wicked Ahaz wicked Ahaz is succeed by good Ezekiah Good Ezekiah is succeeded by wicked Manasseh Euill Princes succeed to good for the exercise of the Church and good succeed to euill for the comfort of the Church The young yeares of Manasseh giue aduantage to his mis-cariage Euen whiles he might haue been vnder the Ferule hee swayed the Scepter Whither may not a child be drawne especially to a garish and puppet-like superstition As infancy is capable of all impressions so most of the worst Neither did Manasseh beginne more earely thē he held out long He raigned more yeares then his good father liu'd notwithstanding the miraculous addition to his age More then euer any King of Iudah besides could reach Length of daies is no true rule of Gods fauour As plants last longer then sensitiue creatures and brute creatures out-liue the reasonable so amongst the reasonable it is no newes for the wickedly great to inherit these earthly glories longer then the best There wants not apparent reason for this difference Good Princes are fetcht away to a better Crowne They cannot bee losers that exchange a weake and fading honor for a perfection and eternity of blessednesse Wicked men liue long to their owne disaduantage they do but cary so many more brands to their hell If therefore there be a iust man that perisheth in his righteousnesse and there bee a wicked man that prolongs his life in his wickednesse farre be it from vs either to pity the remouall of the iust or to enuie the continuance of the wicked This continues to his losse that departs to an happy aduancement It is very like that Ezekiah marrying so late in the vigour both of his age and holinesse made a carefull choyce of a wife sutable to his owne piety Neither had his delight beene so much in her according to her name if her delight had not beene as his in God Their issue swarues from both so fully inheriting the vices of his grandfather Ahaz as if there had beene no interuention of an Ezekiah So wee haue seene the kernell of a well fruited plant degenerate into that crab or willow which gaue the originall to his stocke yet can I not say that Ezekiah was as free from traducing euill to his sonne Manasseh as Ahaz was free from traducing good to his sonne Hezekiah Euill is incorporated into the best nature whereas euen the least good descends from aboue We may not measure grace by meanes Was it possible that Manasseh hauing beene trained vp in the religious Court of his father Hezekiah vnder the eye of so holy Prophets and Priests vnder the shadow of the Temple of God after a childhood seasoned with so gracious precepts with so frequent exercise of deuotiō should run thus wild into all heathenish abominations as if there had bin nothing but Idolatry in the seed of his conception in the milke of his nourishment in the rules of his institution in the practice of his examples How vaine are all outward helpes without the influence of Gods Spirit and that spirit breathes where he listeth good educatiō raiseth great hopes but the proofe of them is in the diuine benediction I feare to looke at the out-rages of this wicked sonne of Ezekiah What hauocke doth hee make in the Church of God as if hee had beene borne to ruine Religion as if his onely felicity had beene to vntwist or teare in one day that holy web which his father had beene weauing nine and twenty yeares and contrarily to set vp in one houre that offensiue pile which had beene aboue three hundred yeares in pulling down so long had the high places stood the zeale of Ezekiah in demolishing them honored him aboue all his predecessors and now the first act of this greene head was their reedifiyng That mischiefe may be done in a day which many ages cannot redresse Fearefull were the presages of these bold beginnings From the mis-building of these chappels of the Hills to the true God Manasseh proceeds to erecting of altars to a false euen to Baal the God of Ahab the stale Idoll of the heathen yet further not content with so few Deities he worships all the hoast of heauen and that hee might despight God yet more he sets vp altas to these
had detected reioyeeth to heare of his presence and now as hauing forgotten that he had sent a vvhole host to besiege the Prophet in Dothan sends an honorable messenger to him laden with the burden of fourty Camels to consult with this Oracle concerning his sicknesse and recouery This Syrian belike in his distresse dares not trust to his owne gods but hauing had good proofe of the power of the God of Israel both in Naamans cure and in the miraculous defeats of his greatest forces is glad to send to that seruant of God whom he had persecuted Wicked men are not the same in health and in sicknesse their affliction is worthy of the thankes if they be well-minded not themselues Doubtlesse the errand of Benhadad was not onely to inquire of the issue of his disease but to require the prayers of the Prophet for a good issue Euen the worst man doth so loue himselfe that hee can be content to make a beneficiall vse of those instruments whose goodnesse he hateth Hazael the chiefe Peere of Syria is designed to this message The wealth of his present striues with the humility of his cariage and speech Thy sonne Benhadad King of Syria hath sent me to thee saying Shall I recouer of this disease Not long since Iehoram King of Israel had said to Elisha My father shall I smite them and now Benhadad King of Syria sayes My father shall I recouer Lo how this poore Meholathite hath Kings to his sons How great is the honor of Gods Prophets with Pagans with Princes Who can bee but confounded to see Euangelicall Prophets despised by the meanest Christians It is more then a single answer that the Prophet returnes to this message One answer he giues to Benhadad that sent it another hee giues to Hazael that brings it That to Benhadad is Thou maiest surely recouer That to Hazael The Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely dye What shall we say then Is there a lye or an equiuocation in the holy mouth of the Prophet God forbid It is one thing what shall be the nature and issue of the disease Another thing what may outwardly befall the person of Benhadad The question is moued of the former wherto the answer is direct The disease is not mortall But withall an intimation is giuen to the bearer of an euent beyond the reach of his demand which hee may know but eyther needs not or may not returne The Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely dye by another meanes though not by the disease The Seer of God descries more in Hazael then hee could see in himselfe hee fixes his eyes therefore stedfastly in the Syrians face as one that in those lines read the bloody story of his life Hazael blushes Elisha weepes The intention of those eyes did not so much amaze Hazael as the teares As yet he vvas not guilty to himselfe of any wrong that might straine out this iuyce of sorrow Why weepeth my Lord The Prophet feares not to foretell Hazael all the villanies which he should once do to Israel How he should fire their forts and kill their yong men and rip the mothers and dash the children I maruell not now at the teares of those eies which foresaw this miserable vastation of the inheritance of God The very mention whereof is abhorred of the future author What is thy seruant a dog that I should doe this great thing They are sauage cruelties whereof thou speakest It were more fit for mee to weepe that thou shouldest repute mee so brutish I should no lesse condemne my selfe for a beast if I could suspect my owne degeneration so farre Wicked men are caryed into those heights of impiety which they could not in their good mood haue possibly beleeued Nature is subiect to fauourable opinions of it selfe and will rather mistrust a Prophet of God then her owne good disposition How many from honest beginnings haue risen to incredible licentiousnesse whose liues are now such that it were as hard for a man to beleeue they had euer beene good as to haue perswaded them once they should proue so desperately ill To giue some ouerture vnto Hazael of the oportunitie of this ensuing mischiefe the Prophet foretells him from God that hee shall be the King of Syria He that shewes the euent doth not appoint the meanes Far was it from the spirit of Gods Prophet to set or encourage a treason whiles hee said therefore Thou shalt be King of Syria he said not Goe home and kill thy master The wicked ambition of Hazael drawes this damnable conclusion out of holy premises and now hauing fed the hopes of his Soueraigne with the expectation of recouery the next day he smothers his Master The impotent desire of rule brookes no delay Had not Hazael been gracelesly cruell after hee had receiued this prediction of the Seer hee should haue patiently awaited for the crowne of Syria till lawfull meanes had set it vpon his head now he will by a close execution make way to the throne A wet cloth hath stopt the mouth of his sicke Soueraigne No noyse is heard the carcasse is faire Who can complaine of any thing but the disease O Hazael thou shalt not thus easily stop the mouth of thine owne conscience that shall call thee Traytor euen in thy chaire of state and shall checke all thy royall triumphs with Thou hast founded thy throne in blood I am deceiued if this wet cloth shall not wipe thy lips in thy iollyest feasts and make thy best morsells vnsavory Soueraignty is painfull vpon the fairest termes but vpon trechery and murder tormenting Wofull is the case of that man whose publike cares are aggrauated with priuate guiltinesse and happy is he that can inioy a little with the peace of an honest heart IEHV with IEHORAM and IEZEBEL YEt Hazael began his cruelty with losse Ramoth Gilead is won from him Iehoram the son hath recouered that which Ahab his father attempted in vaine That City was dear-bought of Israel it cost the life of Ahab the blood of Iehoram Those wounds were healed with victory The King tends his health at Iezreel whiles the Captaines were enioying and seconding their successe at Ramoth Old Elisha hath neither cotage nor foot of land yet sitting in an obscure corner he giues order for Kingdomes Not by way of authority this vsurpation had been no lesse proud then vniust but by way of message from the God of kings Euen a meane Herald may goe on a great errand The Prophets of the Gospell haue nothing to doe but with spirituall Kingdoms To beate downe the kingdomes of sinne and Satan to translate soules to the Kingdome of heauen Hee that renued the life of the Shunamites sonne must stoope to age That blocke lies in his way to Iehu The aged Prophet imployes a speedier messenger who must also gird vp his loynes for hast No common pace will serue vs when we goe on Gods message The very losse of minutes
Bidkar his Captaine that the bleeding carkasse of Iehoram should be cast vpon that very platt of Naboth Oh Naboths blood well paid for Ahabs blood is licked by dogs in the very place where those dogs lickt Naboths Iehorams blood shall manure that ground which was wrung from Naboth and Iezebel shall adde to this compost Oh garden of hearbes dearly bought royally dunged What a resemblance there is betwixt the death of the father and the sonne Ahab and Iehoram Both are slaine in their charet Both with an arrow Both repay their blood to Naboth and how perfit is this retaliation Not only Naboth miscaried in that cruell iniustice but his sonnes also else the inheritance of the vineyard had descended to his heires notwithstanding his pretended offence and now not onely Ahab forfaits his blood to this field but his sonne Iehoram also Face doth not more answer to face then punishment to sinne It was time for Ahaziah King of Iuda to flee Nay it had beene time long before to haue fled from the sins yea from the house of Ahab That brand is fearfull which God sets vpon him Hee did euill in the sight of the Lord as did the house of Ahab for he was the sonne in law of the house of Ahab Affinity is too often guilty of corruption The son of good Iehosaphat is lost in Ahabs daughter Now hee payes for his kinde alliance accompanying the son of Ahab in his death whom hee consorted with in his Idolatry Yong Ahaziah was scarce warme in his throne when the mis-matched blood of Athaliah is required from him Nothing is more dangerous then to be imped in a wicked family this relation too often drawes in a share both of sin and punishment Who would not haue lookt that Iezebel hearing of this bloody end of her son and pursuit of her allye and the fearfull proceedings of this prosperous conspiracy should haue put her selfe into sack-cloth and ashes and now finding no meanes either of defence or escape should haue cast her selfe into such a posture of humiliation as might haue moued the compassion of Iehu Her proud heart could not suddenly learne to stoope rather she recollects her high spirits and in stead of humbling her soule by repentance and addressing her selfe for an imminent death she pranks vp her old carkasse and paints her wrinkled face and as one that vainly hopes to daunt the courage of an vsurper by the sudden beames of Maiesty she lookes out and thinks to fright him with the challenge of a traitor whose either mercy or iustice could not be auoided Extremitie findes vs such as our peace leaues vs Our last thoughts are spent vpon that wee care most for those that haue regarded their face more then their soule in their latter end are more taken vp with desire of seeming faire then being happy It is no maruell if an heart obdured with the custome of sinne shut vp gracelesly Counterfait beauty agrees well with inward vncleannesse Iebues resolution was too strongly setled to bee remoued with a painted face or an opprobrious tongue He lookes vp to the window and sayes Who is on my side who There want not those euery where which will be ready to obserue preuailing greatnesse Two or three Eunuchs looke out He bids them Throw her downe They instantly lay hold on their lately adored Mistris and notwithstanding all her shrieks and prayers cast her downe headlong into the street What heed is to be taken of the deepe professed seruices of hollow harted followers All this while they haue with humble smiles and officious deuotions fawned vpon their great Queene now vpon the call of a prosperous enemy they forget their respects her royalty and cast her downe as willing executioners into the iawes of a fearfull death It is hard for greatnesse to know them whom it may trust Perhaps the fairest semblance is from the falsest heart It was a iust plague of God vpon wicked Iezebel that shee was inwardly hated of her owne He whose seruants she persecuted raised vp enemies to her from her owne elbow Thus must pride fall Insolent idolatrous cruell Iezebel besprinkles the walls and pauement with her blood and now those braines that deuised mischiefe against the seruants of God are strawed vpon the stones and she that insulted vpon the Prophets is trampled vpon by the horses heeles The wicked is kept for the day of destruction and shall be brought forth to the day of wrath Death puts an end commonly to the hyest displeasure He that was seuere in the execution of the liuing is mercifull in the sepulture of the dead Goe see now this cursed woman and bury her for she is a Kings daughter She that vpbrayded Iehu with the name of Zimri shall be interred by Iehu as Omries daughter in law as a Sydonian Princesse Somewhat must bee yeelded to humanity somewhat to State The dogs haue preuented Iehu in this purpose and haue giuen her a liuing toomb more ignoble then the worst of the earth Onely the scull hands and feet of that vanished carkasse yet remaine The scull which was the roofe of all her wicked deuices the hands and feet which were the executioners these shall remaine as the monuments of those shamefull exequies that future times seeing these fragments of a body might say The dogges were worthy of the rest Thus Iezebel is turned to dung and dogs-meat Elijah is verified Naboth is reuenged Izreel is purged Iehu is zealous and in all God is iust IEHV killing the sonnes of AHAB and the Priests of BAAL THere were two prime Cities of the Ten Tribes which were the set Courts of the Kingdome of Israel Samaria and Iezreel The chiefe palace of the King was Iezreel the mother City of the Kingdome was Samaria Iehu is possessed of the one without any sword drawne against him Iezreel willingly changes the master yeelding it selfe to the victor of two Kings to the auenger of Iezebel the next care is Samaria Either policy or force shall fetch in that head of the Tribes The plentifull issue of Princes is no small assurance to the people Ahab had sonnes enough to furnish the Thrones of all the neighbour nations to maintaine the hopes of succession to all times How secure did he think the perpetuation of his posterity when he saw seuenty sons from his owne loynes Neither was this Royall issue trusted either to weake walls or to one roofe but to the strong bulwarkes of Samaria and therein to the seuerall guards of the chiefe Peeres It was the wise care of their parents not to haue them obnoxious to the danger of a common mis-cariage or of those emulations which wait vpon the cloyednesse of an vndiuided conuersation but to order their separation so as one may rescue other from the perill of assault as one may respect other out of a familiar strangenesse Had Ahab and Iezebel beene as wise for their soules as they were for their seed both had prospered Iehu is
mutually bloody Shee soone heares and sees what shee likes not her eare meets with God saue the King her eye meets with the vnlooked for heyre of the Kingdome sitting on his throne crowned and robed in the royall fashion guarded with the Captaines and souldiers proclaimed by the Trumpeters acclamed applauded by the people Who can say whether this sight draue her more neer to frenzie or death How could it bee otherwise when those great spirits of hers that had beene long vsed to an vncontrolled soueraigntie find themselues so inexpectedly suppressed Shee now rends her cloathes and cryes Treason treason as if that voice of hers could still command all hearts all hands as if one breath of hers were powerfull enough to blow away all these new designes Oh Athaliah to whom dost thou complaine thy selfe they are thy iust executioners wherewith thou art incompassed If it be treason to set vp the true heire of Ahaziah thou appealest to thy Traitors The treason was thine theirs is iustice The time is now come of thy reckoning for all the royall blood of Iudah which thine ambition shed wonder rather at the patience of this long forbearance then the rigor of this execution There needs no formall seat of Iustice in so apparent offence Iehoiada passes the sentence of death vpon her Haue her forth of the ranges Let her not be slaine in the house of the Lord and him that followeth her kill with the sword Had not this vsurpation beene palpable Iehoiada would not haue presumed to intermedle Now being both the Priest of God and Vnckle and Protector to the lawfull King he doth that out of the necessity of the state which his infant Soueraigne if hee could haue beene capable of those thoughts would haue desired Violent hands are layd vpon Athaliah whom no doubt a proud and furious disdaine of so quicke a charge and of so rough an vsage made miserably impatient Now she frownes and cals and shrieks and commands and threatens and reuiles and intreats in vaine and dyes with as much ill will from her selfe as she liued with the ill will of her repining subiects I see not any one man of all her late flatterers that followes her either for pitty or rescue Euery man willingly giues her vp to iustice Not one sword is drawn in her defence Not one eye laments her Such is the issue of a tyrannicall mis-gouernment that which is obeyed not without secret hate is lost not without publique ioy How like is Athaliah to her mother Iezebel as in conditions and carriage so euen in death Both killed violently both killed vnder their owne walls both slaine with Treason in their mouthes both slaine in the entrance of a changed gouernment One trod on by the horses the other slaine in the horse-gate Both paid their owne blood for the innocent blood of others How suddenly how easily is Iudah restored to it selfe after so long and so fearfull a deprauation The people scarce beleeue their owne eyes for the wonder of this happy change neither know I whether they bee more ioyed in the sight of their new King thus strangely preserued or in the sight of Iehoiada that had preserued him No man can enuy the protection of the young King vnto him by whose meanes hee liues and raignes That holy man cares onely to improue his authority to the common good He makes a couenant betweene the Lord and the King and the people and after so long dangerous a disjunction reunites them to each other Their reuiued zeale bestirs it selfe and breakes downe the Temples and altars and images of Baal and sacrifices his idolatrous Priest Shortly both Ahab and Baal is destroyed out of Iudah The Scepter of Iudah is changed from a woman to a child but a Child trained vp and tutored by Iehoiada This minority so guided was not inferiour to the mature age of many predecessors Happy is that land the non-age of whose Princes falls into holy and iust hands Yet euen these holy and iust hands came short of what they might haue done The high places remained still Those altars were erected to the true God but in a wrong place It is maruell if there be not some blemishes found in the best gouernment I doubt Iehoiada shall once abuy it deare that hee did not his vtmost But for the mayne all was wel with Iudah in all the dayes of Iehoiada euen after that Ioash was growne past his pupillage Hee that was the Tutor to his infancie was the councellor of his ripe age and was equally happy in both How pleasing was it to that good High Priest to be commanded by that charge of his in the businesse of God The yong King giues order to the Priests for the collection of large summs to the repayring of the breaches of Gods House It becomes him well to take care of that which was the nursery of his infancy And now after three and twentie yeares he expostulates with his late Guardian Iehoiada and the rest of his coate Why repayre ye not the breaches Oh gracious and happy vicissitude Iehoiada the Priest had ruled the infancy of King Ioash in matters of state and now Ioash the King commands aged Iehoiada the Priest in matter of deuotion In the affaires of God the action is the Priests the ouersight and coaction is the Princes By the carefull indeuor of both Gods house is repayred his seruice flourisheth But alas that it may too well appeare that the ground of this motion was not altogether inward no sooner doth the life of Iehoiada cease then the deuotion of Ioash begins to languish and after some languor dyes The benefit of a truly religious Prelate or States-man is not knowne till his losse Now some idolatrous Peeres of Iudah haue soone mis-carryed the King from the House of the Lord God of their Fathers to serue Groues and Idols Yea whither goe we wretched men if we be left by our Maker King Ioash is turned not idolater onely but persecutor yea which is yet more horrible to consider persecutor of the sonne of that Iehoiada to whom he owes his owne life Zechariah his Cosen german his foster-brother the holy issue of those parents by whom Ioash liues and raignes for the conscionable rebuke of the idolatry of Prince and people is vniustly and cruelly murthered by that vnthankfull hand How possible is it for faire and Saint-like beginnings to shut vp in monstrous impieties Let him that thinkes hee stands take heed lest he fall When did God euer put vp so foule ingratitude to himselfe to his seruants O Ioash what eye can pitty the fearfull destruction of thee and thy Iudah If ye haue forgotten the kindnesse of Iehoiada your vnkindness to Iehoiada shall not be forgotten A small army of Syrians came vp against Iudah and Ierusalem and destroyed all the Princes of the people and sent all the spoyle of them to Damascus Now Hazael reuenges this quarrell of God and his anointed and plagues that
people which made themselues vnworthy to bee the Lords inheritance And what becomes of Ioash Hee is left in great diseases when his owne seruants conspired against him for the blood of the sonnes of Iehoiada and slew him on his bed and he dyed and they buryed him not in the Sepulcher of the Kings Dying Zechariah had sayd in the bitternesse of his departing soule The Lord looke vpon it and require it I confesse I had rather to haue heard him say The Lord passe it ouer and remit it so said Steuen such difference there is betweene a Martyr of the Law and of the Gospell although I will hope the zeale of iustice not the vncharitable heate of reuenge drew forth this word God heares it and now giues an account of his notice Thus doth the Lord require the blood of Iehoiadaes son euen by the like vnthankfull hand of the obliged seruants of Ioash He that was guilty of abhominable Idolatry yet as if God meant to waue that challenge is called to reckoning for his cruell vnthankfulnesse to Iehoiada This crime shall make him odious aliue and shall abandon him dead from the sepulcher of his fathers as if this last royalty were too good for him who had forgotten the law of humanity Some vices are such as Nature smiles vpon though frowned at by diuine Iustice Others are such as euen Nature it selfe abhorres such is this of Ingratitude which therefore caries so much more detestation from God as it is more odious euen to them that haue blotted out the image of God IOASH with ELISHA dying THe two Kingdoms of Iudah and Israel how euer diuided both in gouernement and affection yet loued to interchange the names of their Kings Euen Israel also had their Ioash no better then that of Iudah he was not more the father of a later Ieroboam then in respect of mis-worship he was the son of the first Ieroboam who made Israel to sin Those Calues of Dan and Bethel out of a politick mis-deuotion besotted all the succession of the ten vsurped Tribes yet euen this Idolatrous King of Israel comes downe to visit the sicke bed of Elisha and weeps vpon his face That holy Prophet was neuer any flatterer of Princes neyther spared he inuectiues against their most plausible sinnes yet King Ioash that was beaten by his reproofes washes that face with the teares of loue and sorrow which had often frowned vpon his wickednesse How much difference there was betwixt the Ioash of Israel and the Ioash of Iudah That of Iudah hauing beene preserued and nurtured by Iehoiada the Priest after all professions of dearnesse shuts vp in the vnkinde murther of his sonne and that meerly for the iust reproofe of his own Idolatry This of Israel hauing beene estranged from the Prophet Elisha and sharply rebuked for the like offence makes loue to his dying reprouer and bedewes his pale face with his teares Both were bad enough but this of Israel was howeuer vicious yet good-natur'd That of Iudah added to his wickednesse an ill disposition a dogged humor There are varieties euen of euill men some are worse at the root others at the branch some more ciuilly harmlesse others fouler in morality According to the exercise of the restraining grace naturall men doe eyther rise or fall in their ill The longest day must haue his euening Good Elisha that had liued some ninety yeares a wonder of Prophets and had outworne many successions in the thrones of Israel Iudah is now cast vpon the bed of his sicknesse yea of his death That very age might seeme a disease which yet is seconded with a languishing distemper It is not in the power of any holinesse to priuiledge vs from infirmity of body from finall dissolution He that stretched himselfe vpon his bed ouer the dead carkasse of the Shunamites sonne and reuiued it must now stretch out his owne limmes vpon his sicke bed and dye Hee saw his Master Elijah rapt vp suddenly from the earth and fetcht by a fiery chariot from this vale of mortalitie himselfe must leasurely wait for his last pangs in a lingring passage to the same glory There is not one way appointed to vs by the diuine prouidence vnto one common blessednesse One hath more paine another hath more speed Violence snatcheth away one another by an insensible pace drawes euery day neerer to his terme The wisedome and goodnesse of God magnifies it selfe in both Happy is he that after due preparation is past through the gates of death ere he be aware Happy is he that by the holy vse of long sicknesse is taught to see the gates of death afarre off and addressed for a resolute passage The one dyes like Elijah the other like Elisha both blessedly The time was when a great King sent to Elisha to know if he should recouer now the King of Israel as knowing that Elisha shall not recouer so had his consumption spent him comes to visit the dying Prophet when his teares would giue him leaue breakes forth into a passionate exclamation O my father my father the chariot of Israel and the horsmen thereof Yet the Calues of Dan and Bethel haue left some goodnesse in Ioash As the best man hath something in him worthy of reproofe so the faultiest hath somthing commendable Had not the spirit of God himselfe told vs that Ioash did that which was euill in the sight of the Lord wee had admired this piety this reuerent respect to the Prophet The holiest man could not haue said more It is possible for the clients of a false worship to honor out of another regard the professors of Truth From the hand of Elisha had Iehu the grandfather of Ioash receiued his vnction to the Kingdome this fauour might not be forgotten Visitation of the sicke is a duty required both by the law of humanity and of religion Bodily infirmity is sad and comfortlesse and therefore needs the presence and counsell of friends to relieue it Although when wee draw the curtaines of those that are eminently gracious wee doe rather fetch with Ioash then bring a blessing How sensible should wee bee of the losse of holy men when a Ioash spends his teares vpon Elisha If we be more affected with the forgoing of a naturall friend or kinsman then of a noted and vsefull Prophet it argues more loue to our selues then to the Church of God then to GOD himselfe What vse there was of charets and horsemen in those warres of the Ancient all Histories can tell vs All the strength of the battell stood in these There could bee neither defence nor offence but by them such was Elisha vnto Israel The greatest safegard to any nation is the sanctity and faithfulnesse of their Prophets without which the Church and State lyes open to vtter desolation The same words that Elisha said of his master Elijah when he saw him taken vp from the earth doth Ioash now speake of Elisha neere his dissolution O my
euill Amaziah followes Dauid though not with equall paces Ioash followes Ieroboam yet is Amaziah shamefully foyled by Ioash Whether God yet meant to visit vpon this King of Iudah the still-odious vnthankfulnes of his father to Iehoiada or to plague Iudah for their share in the blood of Zechariah and their late reuolt to Idolatry or whether Amaziahs too much confidence in his own strength which moued his bold challenge to Ioash were thought fit to be thus taken downe or what euer other secret ground of Gods iudgment there might be it is not for our presumption to inquire Who so by the euent shall iudge of loue or hatred shall be sure to run vpon that woe which belongs to them that call good euill and euill good What a sauage peece of Iustice it is to put the right whether of inheritance or honor to the decision of the sword when it is no newes for the better to mis-cary by the hand of the worse The race is not to the swift the battell is not to the strong no not to the good Perhaps God will correct his owne by a foyle perhaps he will plague his enemy by a victory They are only our spirituall combats wherein our faithfull courage is sure of a crowne VZZIAH Leprous EVen the Throne of Dauid passed many chāges of good and euill Good Iehosaphat was followed with three successions of wicked Princes and those three were again succeeded with three others godly and vertuous Amaziah for a long time shone fair but at the last shut vp in a cloud The gods of the Edomites marred him his rebellion against God stirr'd vp his peoples rebellion against him The same hands that slew him crowned his sonne Vzziah so as the yong King might imagine it was not their spight that drew violēce vpō his father but his owne wickednesse Both early did this Prince raigne and late he began at sixteene and sat fifty two yeares in the Throne of Iudah They that mutined in the declining age of Amaziah the father are obsequious to the childhood of the sonne as if they professed to adore souerainty whiles they hated lewdnesse The vnchanged gouernment of good Princes is the happinesse no lesse of the subiects then of themselues The hand knowes best to guide those reines to which it hath beene inured and euen meane hackneyes goe on cheerfully in their wonted rode Custome as it makes euils more supportable so where it meets with constant mindes makes good things more pleasing and beneficiall The wise and holy Prophet Zechariah was an happy Tutor to the minority of King Vzziah That vessell can hardly mis-cary where a skilfull steres-man sits at the helme The first praise of a good Prince is to be iudicious iust and pious in himselfe the next is to giue eare and way to them that are such Whiles Zechariah hath the visions of God and Vzziah takes the counsels of Zechariah it is hard to say whether the Prophet or the King or the State be happier God will be in no mans debt so long as Vzziah sought the Lord God made him to prosper Euen what we doe out of duty cannot want a reward Godlinesse neuer disappointed any mans hopes oft hath exceeded them If Vzziah fight against the Philistims If against the Arabians and Mehunims according to his names the strength the help of the Almighty is with him The Ammonites come in with presents and all the neighbour nations ring of the greatnesse of the happinesse of Vzziah His bounty and care makes Ierusalem both strong and proud of her new Towers yea the very Desert must tast of his munificence The outward magnificence of Princes cannot stand firme vnlesse it be built vpon the foundations of prouidence and frugality Vzziah had not beene so great a King if he had not been so great an husband he had his flockes in the deserts and his heards in the plaines his plowes in the fields his vine-dressers vpon the mountaines and in Carmel neither was this more out of profit then delight for he loued husbandry Who can contemne those callings for meannesse which haue beene the pleasures of Princes Hence was Vzziah so potent at home so dreadfull to his neighbours his warres had better sinewes then theirs which of his predecessors was able to maintaine so setled an army of more then of three hundred and tenne thousand trained souldiers well furnished well fitted for the suddenest occasion Thrift is the strongest prop of power The greatnesse of Vzziah and the rare deuices of his artificiall Engines for war haue not more raised his fame then his heart so is hee swolne vp with the admiration of his owne strength and glory that he breaks againe How easie it is for the best man to dote vpon himselfe and to bee lifted vp so high as to lose the sight both of the ground whence he rises and of the hand that aduanced him How hard it is for him that hath inuented strange engines for the battering of his enemies to find out any meanes to beat downe his owne proud thoughts Wise Salomon knew what he did when hee prayed to bee deliuered from too much Lest said he I be full and deny thee and say Who is the Lord Vpon this Rocke did the sonne of Salomon run and split himselfe His full sayles of prosperity caryed him into presumption ruine what may he not now doe what may he not be Because hee found his power otherwise vnlimited ouer-ruling in the Court the Cities the Fields the Deserts the Armies and Magazins therefore he thinkes hee may doe so in the Temple too as things royall ciuill husbandly military passed his hands so why should not thinkes hee sacred also It is a dangerous indiscretion for a man not to know the bounds of his owne calling What confusion doth not follow vpon this breaking of rankes Vpon a solemne day King Vzziah clothes himselfe in Pontifical robes and in the view of that populous assembly walkes vp in state into the Temple of God and boldly approching to the Altar of Incense offers to burne sweet odours vpon it to the God of heauen Azariah the Priest is sensible of so perillous an incrochment he therefore attended with fourscore valiant assistants of that holy Tribe hastēs after the King and finding him with the censer in his hand readie addressed to that sinfull deuotion stayes him with a free and graue expostulation There is no place wherein I could be sory to see thee ô King but this where thou art neither is there any act that wee should grudge thee so much as this which is the most sacred Is it possible that so great an ouersight should fall into such wisedome Can a religious Prince trained vp vnder an holy Zechariah after so many yeares zealous profession of piety be either ignorant or regardlesse of those limits which God hath set to his owne seruices Oh what meanes this vncouth attempt Consider ô deare Soueraigne for Gods sake for thy
calamities to nature to chance that acknowledging but one God of all the world are yet carelesse to know him to serue him One of the Priests of Israel is appointed to bee caried backe to Samaria to teach the Assyrian Colony the fashions of the God of the land not for deuotion but for impunity vaine Politicians thinke to satisfie God by patching vp religions any formes are good enough for an vnknowne deity The Assyrian Priests teach and practise the worship of their own Gods The Israelitish Priest prescribes the worship of the true God The people will follow both the one out of liking the other out of feare What a prodigious mixture was here of religions true with false Iewish with Paganish diuine with diuellish Euery diuision of these transplanted Assyrians had their seuerall deities high places sacrifices this Priest of Israel intercommons with euery of them So as now these fathers of Samaritanisme are in at all They feare the Lord and serue their idols No beggers cloak is more peeced then the religion of these new inhabitants of Israel I know not how their bodies sped for the Lyons I am sure their soules fared the worse for this medlie Aboue all things God hates a mungrell deuotion If we be not all Israel it were better to bee all Ashur It cannot so much displease God to bee vnknowne or neglected as to bee consorted with Idols HEZEKIAH and SENACHERIB ISrael is gone Iudah is left standing or rather some few sprigs of those two Tribes so we haue seene in the shredding of some large Timber-tree one or two boughes left at the top to hold vp the sap Who can but lament the poore remainders of that languishing kingdome of Dauid Take out of the two Tribes of Iudah and Beniamin one hundred and twenty thousand whom Pekah the King of Israel slew in one day Take out two hundred thousand that were caried away captiue to Samaria Take out those that were transported into the bondage of the Edomites and those that were subdued in the South parts by the Philistims alas what an handfull was left to the king of Iudah scarce worth the name of a dominion Yet euen now out of the gleeds of Iudah doth God raise vp a glorious light to his forlorne Church yea from the wretched loynes of Ahaz doth God fetch an holy Ezekiah It had beene hard to conceiue the state of Iudah worse then it was neither was it more miserable then sinfull and in regard of both desperate when beyond hope God reuiues this dying stocke of Dauid and out of very ruines builds vp his owne house Ahaz was not more the ill sonne of a good father then he was the ill father of a good sonne He was the ill sonne of good Iotham the ill father of good Hezekiah Good Hezekiah makes amends for his fathers impietie and puts a new life into the hartlesse remnant of Gods people The wisedome of our good God knowes when his ayd will bee most seasonable most welcome which hee then loues to giue when he findes vs left of all our hopes That mercifull hand is reserued for a dead lift then he failes vs not Now you might haue seene this pious Prince busily bestirring himselfe in so late and needfull a reformation remouing the high places battering and burning the Idolls demolishing their temples cutting downe their groues opening the Temple purging the altars and vessells sanctifying the Priests rekindling the Lampes renuing the incense reinstituting the sacrifices establishing the order of Gods seruice appointing the courses setling the maintenance of the ministers publishing the decrees for the long-neglected Pass-ouer celebrating it and the other feasts with due solemnity incouraging the people contributing bountifully to the offerings and in one word so ordering all the affayres of God as if hee had beene sent downe from heauen to restore Religion as if Dauid himself had been aliue againe in this blessed heyre not so much of his Crowne as of his piety Oh Iudah happy in thy Ezekiah Oh Ezekiah happy in the gratious restauration of thy Iudah Ahaz shall haue no thanke for such a sonne The God that is able of the very stones to raise children to Abraham rayses a true seed of Dauid out of the corrupt loynes of an Idolater That infinite mercy is not tyed to the termes of an immediate propagation For the space of three hundred yeares the man after Gods owne heart had no perfect heyre till now Till now did the high places stand the deuotions of the best Princes of Iudah were blemished with some weake omissions Now the zeale of good Ezekiah cleares all those defects and workes an intyre change How seasonably hath the prouidence of God kept the best man for the worst times When God hath a great worke to doe hee knowes to fit himselfe with instruments No maruell if the Paganish Idolls goe to vvracke vvhen euen the brazen Serpent that Moses had made by Gods owne appointment is broken in peeces The Israelites were stung with fiery Serpents this brazen Serpent healed them which they did no sooner see then they recouered But now such was the venome of the Israelitish Idolatry that this Serpent of brasse stung worse then the fiery That which first cured by the eye now by the eye poysoned the soule That which was at first the type of a Sauiour is now the deadly engine of the Enemy Whiles it helped it stood it stood whiles it hurt not but when once wicked abuse hath turned it into an Idoll what was it but Nehushtan The holinesse of the first institution cannot priuiledge ought from the danger of a future profanation nor as the case may stand from an vtter abolition What antiquity what authoritie what primary seruice might this Serpent haue pleaded All that cannot keepe it out of the dust Those things which are necessarie in their being beneficiall in their continuance may still remaine when their abuse is purged but those things whose vse is but temporary or whose duration is needlesse and vnprofitable may cease with the occasion and much more perish with an inseparable abuse Ezekiah willingly forgets who made the Serpent when he fees the Israelites make it an idoll It is no lesse intolerable for God to haue a riuall of his owne making Since Hezekiah was thus aboue all his Ancestors pright with the Lord it is no maruell if the Lord were with him if he prospered whither soeuer hee went The same God that would haue his iustice magnified in the confusion of the wicked Princes of Issrael and Iudah would haue his mercy no lesse acknowledged in the blessings of faithfull Hezekiah The great King of Assyria had in a sort swallowed vp both the Kingdomes of Iudah and Israel yet not with an equall cruelty He made Israel captiue Iudah vpon a willing composition tributary Israel is vanished in a transportation Iudah continues vnder the homage wherein Ahaz left it Hezekiah had raigned but sixe yeares when he saw his neighbours
a receit for the recouery The decree of God includes the meanes neither can the medicine worke without a word neither will the word worke without the medicine both of them must meet in the cure If we so trust the promise that we neglect the prescript we presume to no purpose Happy is that soule that so regards the promise of Gods Prophets as that withall he receiues their counsells Nothing could bee more proper for the ripening of hard and purulent tumors then dryed figs Herein Isaiahs direction was according to nature Wherefore should wee balke the ordinary road when it is both fayre and neere The sudden contradiction of the message causes a iust difficulty in the assent Hezekiah therefore craues a signe not for that he distrusted but that hee might trust the more wee can neuer take too fast hold of those promises of God which haue not more comfort in the application then naturall impossibility in the performance We beleeue Lord helpe our vnbeleefe The sicke King hath his option His father was offred a signe and refused it hee sues for one and obtaines it Shall the shadow goe for ward ten degrees or backe ten degrees As if heauen it selfe lay open to his choyce and were ready either to mend this pace or retire for his confirmation What creature is not cheerfully forward to obey the faith of Gods seruāts Hezekiah fastens rather vpon that signe which is more hard more disagreeing from the course of nature not without good reason Euery proofe must bee clearer then the thing to bee proued neither may there want a meet proportion betwixt both now the going forward of the shadow was a motion no other thē naturall the recouery of that pestilent disease was against the streame of nature the more difficult signe therefore the surer euidence Whether shall we more wonder at the measure of the loue of God to Hezekiah or at the power of Isaiahs faith in God Out of both either the Sun goes backe in heauen that his shadow may goe backe on earth or the shadow no lesse miraculously goes backe on earth whiles the Sunne goes forward in heauen It is true that the Prophet speakes of the shadow not of the Sun except perhaps because the motion of the Sun is best discerned by the shadow and the motion of the shadow is led by the course of the Sunne besides that the demonstration of this miracle is reported to be locall in the Diall of Ahaz not vniuersall in the sensible length of the day withall the retrait of the Sunne had made a publike and noted change in the frame of nature this particular alteration of the shadow in places limited might satisfie no lesse without a confusiue mutation in the face of the world Whethersoeuer to draw the Sun backe together with the shadow or to draw the shadow backe without the Sunne was the proofe of a diuine omnipotency able therefore to draw backe the life of Hezekiah fifteene degrees from the night of death towards which it was hasting O God thou wilt rather alter the course of heauen and earth then the faith of thy children shall sinke for want of supportation It should seeme the Babylonians finding the Assyrian power abated by the reuengefull hand of Gods Angell and their owne discord tooke this aduantage of a reuolt and now to strengthen their part fall in with Hezekiah King of Iudah whom they found the old enemy to the Assyrians the great fauourite of heauen him they wooe with gifts him they congratulate with Ambassages The fame of Hezekiahs sicknesse recouery forme and assurance of cure haue drawne thither messengers and presents from Berodach Baladan King of Babylon The Chaldees were curious searchers into the secrets of nature especially into the motions of the celestiall bodies Though there had beene no politicke relations this very Astronomicall miracle had beene enough to fetch them to Ierusalem that they might see the man for whose sake the Sun forsooke his place or the shadow forsooke the Sun How easily haue we seene those holy men mis-caried by prosperity against whom no miseries could preuaile Hee that stood out stoutly against all the Assyrian onsets clinging the faster to his God by how much he was harder assaulted by Senacherib melteth now with these Babylonian fauours and runnes abroad into offensiue weaknesses The Babylonian Ambassadors are too welcome to Ezekiah As a man transported with the honor of their respectiue and costly visitations he forgets his teares and his turning to the wall he forgets their incompatible Idolatry so hugging them in his bosome as if there had beene no cause of strangenesse All his doores fly open to them and in a vainglorious ostentation all his new-gathered treasures all his strong armoryes entertaine their eyes nothing in his house nothing in his Dominion is hid from them Oh Ezekiah what meanes this impotent ambition It is not long since thou tarest off the very plates of the Temple doores to giue vnto Senacherib and can thy treasures be suddenly so multiplied that they can be worthy to astonish forraine beholders Or if thy store-house were as rich as the earth can thy heart be so vain as to be lifted vp with these heauie metals Didst thou not see that heauen it selfe was at thy becke whilest thou wert humbled and shall a little earthlie drosse haue power ouer thy soul Can the flattering applause of strangers let thee loose into a proud ioy whom the late message of Gods Prophet resolued into teares Oh God if thou do not keepe vs as well in our sun-shine as in our storme wee are sure to perish As in all time of our tribulation so in all time of our wealth good Lord deliuer vs. Alas how sleight doth this weaknesse seeme in our eyes to reioyce in the abundance of Gods blessings to call in forraine friēds to be witnesses of our plenty to raise our conceits some little vpon the acclamations of others vpon the value of our owne abilities Lay thine hand vpon thy mouth ô foolish flesh and blood when thou seest the censure of thy Maker Isaiah the Prophet is sent speedily to Hezekiah with a sharpe and heart-breaking message Behold the dayes come that all that is in thine house and that which thy fathers haue layd vp in store vnto this day shall be caried into Babylon nothing shall be left saith the Lord And of thy sonnes that shall issue from thee which thou shalt beget shall they take away and they shall bee Eunuches in the Palace of the King of Babylon No sinne can bee light in Hezekiah the holinesse of the person addes to the vnholinesse of the act Eminency of profession doubles both the offence and the iudgement This glory shall end in an ignominious losse The great and holy God will not digest pride in any much lesse in his owne That which was the subiect of Hezekiahs sin shall be the matter of his punishment those with whom he sinned shall be his
vp it is not so easily left After a common deprauation of religion it is hard to returne vnto the first purity as when a garmēt is deeply soiled it cannot without many lauers recouer the former cleannesse IOSIAH'S Reformation YEt if wee must alter from our selues it is better to bee a Manasseh then a Ioash Ioash beganne well and ended ill Manasseh began ill and ended well his age varied from his youth no lesse then one mans condition can varie from another His posterity succeeded in both Amnon his sonne succeeded in the sinnes of Manassehs youth Iosiah his grandchild succeeded in the vertues of his age What a vast differēce doth grace make in the same age Manasseh began his reigne at twelue yeares Iosiah at eight Manasseh was religiously bred vnder Hezekiah Iosiah was mis-nurtured vnder Amnon and yet Manasseh runs into absurd Idolatries Iosiah is holie and deuout The Spirit of God breathes freely not confining it selfe to times or meanes No rules can bind the hands of the Almightie It is in ordinarie proofe too true a word that was said of old Woe be to thee O Land whose King is a child the goodnesse of God makes his owne exceptions Iudah neuer fared better then in the green years of a Iosiah If wee may not rather measure youth and age by gouernment and disposition then by yeares Surely thus Iosiah was older with smooth cheekes then Manasseh with gray haires Happy is the infancie of Princes when it falls into the hands of faithfull Counsellors A good patterne is no small helpe for young beginners Iosiah sets his father Dauid before him not Amnon not Manasseh Examples are the best rules for the inexperienced where their choice is good the directions are easiest The lawes of God are the wayes of Dauid Those lawes were the rule these wayes were the practice Good Iosiah walkes in all the wayes of his Father Dauid Euen the minority of Iosiah was not idle we cannot be good too early At eight yeares it was enough to haue his eare open to heare good counsaile to haue his eies hart opē to seek after God At twelue he begins to act and showes well that hee hath found the God he sought Then he addresses himselfe to purge Iudah and Ierusalem from the high places groues images altars wherewith it was defiled burning the bones of the idolatrous Priests vpon their altars strawing the ashes of the idols vpon the graues of them that had sacrificed to them striuing by those fires and mattocks to testifie his zealous detestation of all idolatry The house must first be clensed ere it can bee garnished no man will cast away his cost vpon vncleane heaps so soone as the Temple was purged Iosiah bends his thoughts vpon the repayring and beautifying of this house of the Lord. What stir was there in Iudah wherein Gods Temple suffered not Sixe seuerall times was it pillaged whether out of force or will First Iehoash King of Iudah is faine by the spoile of it to stop the mouth of Hazael Then Ioash King of Israel fils his owne hands with that sacred spoile in the dayes of Amaziah after this Ahaz rifles it for Tiglath Pileser King of Assyria then Hezekiah is forced to ransacke the treasures of it for Senacherib yet after the sacriledge of Manasseh makes that booty of it which his later times indeuoured to restore and now lastly Amnon his sonne neglects the frame embeazels the furniture of this holy place The very pile began to complaine of age and vnrespect Now comes good Iosiah and in his eighteenth yeare when other young Gallants would haue thought of nothing but pleasure and iollity takes vp the latest care of his father Dauid and giues order for the repayring of the Temple The keepers of the doore haue receiued the contribution of all faithfull Iewes for this pious vse the King sends Shaphan the scribe to Hilkijah the Priest to summe it vp and to deliuer it vnto Carpenters and Masons for so holy a worke How well doth it beseeme the care of a religious Prince to set the Priests and Scribes in hand with reedifying the Temple The command is the Kings the charge is the high-Priests the execution is the workmens when the laborers are faithfull in doing the worke and the high Priest in directing it and the King in inioining it Gods House cannot faile of an happy perfection but when any of these slackens the businesse must needs languish How God blesses the deuout indeuours of his seruants Whiles Hilkijah was diligently suruaying the breaches and the reparation of the Temple hee lights vpon the booke of the Law The authenticke and originall Booke of Gods Law was by a speciall charge appointed to be carefully kept within a safe shrine in the Sanctuary In the depraued times of idolatry some faithfull Priest to make sure worke had locked it fast vp in some secret corner of the Temple from the reach of all hands of all eyes as knowing how impossible it was that diuine monument could otherwise escape the fury of prophane guiltinesse Some few transcripts there were doubtlesse parcels of this sacred Book in other hands neither doubt I but as Hilkijah had been formerly well acquainted with this holy volume now of long time hid so the eares of good Iosiah had beene inured to some passages thereof but the whole body of these awfull Records since the late night of Idolatrous confusion and persecution saw no light till now This precious treasure doth Hilkijah find whiles he digs for the Temple Neuer man laboured to the reparation of Gods Church but he met with a blessing more thē he looked for Hilkijah the Priest and Shaphan the scribe do not ingrosse this invaluable wealth into their owne hands nor suppresse these more then sacred roles for their owne aduantage but trans-mit them first to the eares of the King then by him to the people It is not the praise of a good scribe to lay vp but to bring forth both old and new And if the Priests lips shall keepe knowledge they keep it to impart not to smother The people shall seeke the Law at his mouth for hee is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts So soone as the good King heares the words of the booke of the Law and in speciall those dreadfull threats of iudgement denounced against the Idolatries of his Iudah he rends his clothes to show his heart rent with sorrow and fearfull expectation of those plagues and washes his bosome with teares Oh gracious tendernesse of Iosiah he doth but once heare the Law read and is thus humbled humbled for his fathers sins for the sins of his people how many of vs after a thousand hammerings of the menaces of Gods Law vpon our guilty soules continue yet insensible of our danger The very reading of this Law doth thus affect him the preaching of it stirs not vs The sinnes of others strucke thus deepe with him our owne are sleighted by vs
himselfe speaks not stirs not The famous Prophet Ieremy was then liuing and Zephaniah besides a whole Colledge of Seers Iosiah doth not so much as send out of doores to aske Shall I goe vp against the King of Egipt Sometimes both grace and wit are asleepe in the holiest and wariest brests The best of all Gods Saints may bee sometimes miscaried by their passions to their cost The wise prouidence of God hath mercifully determined to leaue Iosiah to his owne counsels that by the weaknesse of his seruant hee might take occasion to perfit his glory Euen that wherein Iosiah was wanting vnto God shall concurre to the making vp of Gods promise to Iosiah when we are the most blind-folded we run on the waies of Gods hidden decrees and what euer our intents be cannot if wee would goe out of that vnknowne path Needs will Iosiah put himselfe into armes against an vnwilling enemie and to bee lesse noted disguises himselfe The fatall arrow of an Egyptian archer findes him out in the throng and giues him his deaths-wound Now too late hee calls to a retrait his changed Charet is turned to a Biere to carie his bleeding corps to his graue in Ierusalem What eye doth not now pitie and lament the vntimely end of a Iosiah Whom can it choose but affect to see a religious iust vertuous Prince snatcht away in the vigour of his age After all our foolish moane the prouidence that directed that shaft to his lighting place intends that wound for a stroke of mercy The God whō Iosiah serues looks through his death at his glorie and by this sudden violence will deliuer him from the view and participation of the miseries of Iudah which had beene many deaths and fetches him to the participation of that happinesse which could countervaile more deathes then could be incident into a Iosiah Oh the wonderfull goodnesse of the Almighty whose verie iudgements are mercifull Oh the safe condicion of Gods children whom very paine easeth whom death reuiues whom dissolutiō vnites whom lastly their verie sinne and temptation glorifies How happily hath Iosiah gained by this change In stead of a froward people he now is sorted with Saints and Angels in stead of a fading and corruptible crowne he now inioyes an eternall The orphane subiects are readie to weepe out their eyes for sorrow their losse cannot be so great as his gaine he is glorious they as their sins had deserued miserable If the separated soule could be capable of passion could Iosiah haue seene after his departure the calamities of his sons of his people it could not but haue laid siege to his peace The sad subiects proclaime his sonne Iehoahaz King in stead of so lamented a father He both doth ill and fares ill By that time he hath sat but three moneths in the throne Pharaoh Nechoh King of Egypt secōds the fathers death with the sonnes captiuity This victorious enemy puts downe the wicked sonne of Iosiah and lades him with chains at Riblath in the land of Hamath and lades his people with the tribute of an hundred talents of siluer and a talent of gold Yet as if he that was vnwilling to fight with Iosiah were no lesse vnwilling to root out his posterity this Egyptian sets Eliakim the second sonne of Iosiah vpon the seat of his father that he might be al his changes his name to Iehoiakim oh the woful vnworthy successiō of Iosiah one son is a prisoner the other is a tributary both are wicked After that Iehoiakim hath been some yeares Pharaohs Bayliue to gather and racke the deare rents of Iudah Nebuchadnezzar the great King of Babylon comes vp and sweepes away both the Lord and his Feodary Pharaoh and Iehoiakim So farre was the ambitious Egyptian from maintaining his incroachment vpon the territories of Iudah that hee could not now hold his owne From Nilus to Euphrates all is lost So subiect are the lesser powers still to bee swallowed vp of the greater so iust it is with God that they which will bee affecting vndue inlargement of their estates should fall short of what they had Iehoiakim is caried in fetters to Babylon and now in that dungeon of his captiuity hath more leasure then grace to bethinke himselfe of all his abominations and whiles hee inherits the sad lodging of his great grandfather Manasseh inherits not his successe Whiles hee is rotting in this Goale his young sonne Iehoiachin starts vp in his throne like to a mushrom that rises vp in a night and withers in a day Within three moneths and ten dayes is that young Prince the meet son of such a father fetcht vp in irons to his fathers prison Neither shall he goe alone his attendance shal adde to his misery His mother his wiues his officers his peeres his craftsmen his warriours accompany him manicled and chained to their perpetuall bondage Now according to Isaiahs word it would haue been great preferment for the fruit of Hezekiahs loynes to bee Pages in the Court of Babylon One only branch yet remaines of the vnhappy stocke of holy Iosiah Mattaniah the brother of Iehoiakim whom Nebuchadnezar changing his name to Zedekiah sets vp in that forlorne and tributary throne There might hee haue liued though an vnderling yet peaceable This man to make vp the measure of Gods iust iudgments as he was euer a rebell to God so proues rebellious to his Soueraigne master the King of Babylon The Prophet Ieremy hath forewarn'd him in vain nothing could teach this man but smart Who can looke for other then fury frō Nebuchadnezzar against Ierusalem which now had affronted him with three seuerall successions of reuolts and conspiracies against his gouernment and thrice abused his bounty and indulgence with a mighty army doth he therfore come vp against his seditious deputy and besieges Ierusalem and blockes it vp with forts round about After two yeares siege the Chaldees without and the famine within haue preuailed King Zedekiah and his souldiers are fled away by night as thinking themselues happy if they might abandon their walls and saue their liues The Chaldees as caring more for the birdes then for the nest pursue them and ouertake Zedekiah forsaken of all his forces in the plaine of Iericho and bring him to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon What can so vnthankfull and perfidious a vassall expect but the worst of reuenge The sentence is fearfull First the sonnes of Zedekiah are slaine before his eyes then those eyes of his as if they had seene enough when they had seene him childlesse are put out His eyes are onely lent him so long as to torment him with the sight of his owne vtmost discomfort Had his sonnes but ouer-liued his eies the griefe had beene so much the lesse as the apprehension of it had beene lesse liuely and piercing Now this wofull obiect shall shut vp his sight that euen when his bodily eyes are gone yet the eyes of his minde might euer see what he last saw
place according to the cōceit of Iewes hath profaned it The true God I haue heard is curious neither will abide those vessels which haue beene polluted with idolatrous vses It shall bee enough if I loose the bonds of this miserable people If I giue liberty let the next giue wealth they will think themselues happy in bare walls in their natiue earth To what purpose should I pamper their penurie with a sudden store But the Princely hart of Cyrus would admit of no such base sacrilegious thoughts Those vessels that hee finds stampt with Gods marke he will returne to their owner neither his owne occasions nor their abuse shall be any colour of their detention O Cyrus how manie close-handed griple-minded Christians shall once be choked in iudgement with the example of thy iust munificence thou restoredst that which wee purloine woe bee to those houses that are stored with the spoiles of Gods Temple woe bee to those fingers that are tainted with holy treasures Kings can hardly doe good alone their lawes are not more followed then their examples No sooner doe the chiefe of the fathers of Iudah and Beniamin and the Priests and Leuites set their faces towards Ierusalem for the building of the Temple then the liberall hands of their Pagan neighbours furnish them with gold and siluer and precious things Euer Persian is glad to be at the charge of laying a stone in Gods house The same God that had giuen them these mettals out of his cofers of the earth giues it out of their cofers to his Temple He that tooke away by the Chaldees giues by the Persians Where the Almighty intends a worke there cannot bee any want of meanes Thus hartened thus laded doe the ioyfull families of Iudah returne to their old home How many thousands of them were worne out and lost in that seuenty yeares seruitude How few of them yet suruiued that could know the place of their birth and habitation or say Here stood the Temple here the Palace Amongst those fourty and two thousand three hundred threescore Iewes that returned in this first expedition there were whō the confusion of their long captiuity had robbed of their pedigree They knew themselues Iewes but could not deriue their line these were yet admitted without difficulty But those of the Priestly tribe which could not deduce their genealogy from the register are cashiered as vncleane Then God would bee serued in a blood now in a due succession If we could not fetch the line of our pedigree from Christ and his Apostles we were not fit for the Euangelicall altars Their calling was by nature ours by grace The grace of inward abilities of outward ordination if we cannot approue both these we are iustly abādoned now had the children of Israel taken down their Harpes from the Willowes which grew by the waters of Babylon could vnbidden sing the true sōgs of their recouered Zion They are newly setled in their old māsions when vpō the first publike feast in the Autumne immediately following their return they flock vp to Ierusalē their first care is their publike sacrifice That school of their Captiuity wherin they haue been long trained hath taught them to begin with God A forced discontinuance makes deuotion more sauoury more sweet to religious hearts whereas in an open freedome piety doth too often languish Ieshua the Priest and Zorobabel the Prince are fitly ioyned in the building of the Altar neither of their hands may be out of that sacred worke no sooner is that set vpon the bases then it is imployed to the daily burnt-offerings The Altar may not stay the leisure of the Temple Gods Church may not want her oblations He can be none of the sons of Israel that doth not euery day renue his acknowledgements of God How feelingly doe these Iewes keepe their feast of Tabernacles whiles their soiourning in Babylon was still in their thoughts whiles as yet their Tēts must supply their ruined houses The first motions of zeale are commonly strong and feruent How carefully doe these Gouernours and Priests make preparatiō for Gods Temple Carpenters and Masons are hyred Tyrian workmen are againe called for and Lebanon is now anew solicited for Cedar trees The materials are ready Euery Israelite with such courage addresses himselfe to this seruice as if his life lay in those stones And now whiles the foundation of the Temple was laying the Priests stand in their habits with Trumpets the Leuites with Cymbals interchanging their holy Musicke and melodiously singing praises to the God of Israel who had turned their captiuity as the streames in the South and honoured their eyes and hands with the first stones of his house The people second their songs with shouts The earth sounds and heauen rings with the ioyfull acclamations of the multitude It is no small comfort in a good action to haue begun wel The entrance of any holy enterprise is commonly encountred with many discouragements which if wee haue once ouercome the passage is smooth How would these men haue shouted at the laying on of the last stone of the battlements who are thus ioyed with laying the first stones of the foundation The end of any thing is better then the beginning that hath certainty this danger this labour that rest little did these men thinke that for all this few of them should liue to see the roofe What different affections shall wee see produced in men by the same occasion The younger Iewes shouted at this sight the elder wept The yonger shouted to see a new foundation The elder wept to remember the old They who had seene no better thought this goodly They who had seen the former thought this meane and homely more sorrowing for what they had lost then reioycing in so vnequal a reparation As it may fall out it is some peece of misery to haue beene happier euery abatement of the degrees of our former height laies siege to our thankfulnesse for lesser mercies Sometimes it proues an aduantage to haue knowne no better he shall more comfortably inioy present benefits who takes them as they are without any other comparisons then of the weakenesse of his owne deseruings It is nothing to mee what my selfe or others haue beene so I bee now well Neither is it otherwise in particular Churches if one be more gloriously built then another yet if the foundation be rightly layd in both one may not insult the other may not repine Ech must congratulate the truth to other each must thankfully inioy it selfe The noise was not more loud then confused here was a discordant mixture of lamentation and shouting it was hard to say whether drowned the other This assembly of Iewes was a true image of Gods Church on earth one sings another cries neuer doth it all either laugh or mourne at once It shall bee in our triumph that all teares shall be wipt from our eyes till then our passions must bee mixed according to the occasions
vveeds and change his sackcloth for tissue that yet at least his cloathes might not hinder his accesse to her presence for the free opening of his griefes It is but a sleight sorrow that abides to take in outward comforts Mordecai refuses that kinde offer and vvould haue Esther see that his afflictiō was such as that hee might well resolue to put off his sackcloth and his skin at once that he must mourne to death rather then see her face to liue The good Queene is astonisht with this constāt humiliatiō of so deare a friend and now she sends Hatach a trusty though a Pagan attendant to inquire into the occasion of this so irremediable heauinesse It should seeme Esther inquired not greatly into matters of state that which perplexed all Shushan was not yet knowne to her her followers not knowing her to be a Iewesse conceiued not how the newes might concerne her and therefore had forborne the relation Mordecai first informes her by her messenger of the decree that was gone out against all her nation of the day wherein they must all prepare to bleed of the summe which Haman had profered for their heads deliuers the copy of that bloody Edict charging her now if euer to bestirre her selfe and to improue all her loue all her power with King Ahasuerus in a speedy and humble supplication for the sauing of the life not of himselfe so much as of her people It was tydings able to confound a weake heart and hers so much the more as shee could apprehēd nothing but impossibility of redresse she needs but to put Mordecai in mind of that which all the Kings seruants and subiects knew well enough that the Persian law made it no lesse then death for whom soeuer man or woman that should presse into the inner court of the king vncalled Nothing but the royall scepter extended could keepe that presumptuous offender from the graue For her thirty dayes were now passed since shee was called in to the King an intermission that might bee iustly suspicious Whether the heate of his first affection were thus soone of it selfe allayed towards her or whether some suggestions of a secret enemie perhaps his Agagite may haue set him off or whether some more pleasing obiect may haue laid hold on his eyes what euer it might be this absēce could not but argue some strangenesse and this strangenesse must needs imply a danger in her bold intrusion Shee could bewaile therfore she could not hope to remedy this dismallday of her people This answer in the eares of Mordecai sounded truth but weaknesse neither can he take vp with so feeble a returne These occasions require other spirits other resplutions which must bee quickened by a more stirring reply Thinke not with thy selfe that thou shalt escape in the Kings house more then all the Iewes For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time then shall their inlargement deliuerance arise to the Iewes from another place but thou and thy fathers house shall bee destroyed And who knoweth whether thou art comne to the Kingdome for such a time as this The expectation of death had not quailed the strong heart of faithfull Mordecai euen whiles hee mournes his zeale droupes not there could haue beene no life in that brest which this message could not haue rouzed What then is it death that thou fearest in this attempt of thy supplication what other thē death awaits thee in the neglect of it there is but this difference sue thou maist die sue not and thou must dye what blood hast thou but Iewish and if these vnalterable edicts exempt no liuing soule what shall become of thine and canst thou be so vainly timerous as to die for feare of death to preferre certaintie of danger before a possibility of hopes Away with this weake cowardise vnworthy of an Israelite vnworthy of a Queene But if faint heartednesse or priuate respects shall seale vp thy lippes or with-hold thine hand from the ayde of thy people if thou canst so farre neglect Gods Church know thou that God will not neglect it it shall not be in the power of Tyrans to root out his chosen seed that holy one of Israel shall rather worke miracles from heauen thē his inheritance shall perish vpon earth and how iust shall it then be for that iealous God to take vengeance vpon thee and thy fathers house for this cold vnhelpfulnesse to his distressed Church Suffer me therefore to adiure thee by all that tendernesse of loue wherewith I haue trained vp thine orphane infancie by all those deare and thankfull respects which thou hast vowed to mee againe by the name of the God of Israel whom wee serue that thou awaken and stirre vp thine holy courage and dare to aduenture thy life for the sauing of many It hath pleased the Almighty to raise thee vp to that height of honor which our progenitors could little expect why shouldst thou bee wanting to him that hath beene so bountifull to thee yea why should I not thinke that God hath put this very act into the intendement of thine exaltation hauing on purpose thus seasonably hoysed thee vp to the throne that thou maist rescue his poore Church from an vtter ruine Oh the admirable faith of Mordecai that shines through all these cloudes and in the thickest of these fogges descries a cheerfull glimpse of deliuerance Hee saw the day of their common destruction enacted he knew the Persian decrees to be vnalterable but withall hee knew there was a Messias to come he was so well acquainted with Gods couenanted assurances to his Church that he can through the midst of those bloody resolutions foresee indemnity to Israel rather trusting the promises of God then the threats of men This is the victory that ouercomes all the feares and fury of the world euen our faith It is quarrell enough against any person or community not to haue been aidfull to the distresses of Gods people Not to ward the blow if wee may is construed for little better then striking Till we haue tryed our vtmost wee know not whether wee haue done that we came for Mordecai hath said enough These words haue so put a new life into Esther that she is resolute to hazard the old Goe gather together all the Iewes that are present in Shushan and fast ye for me and neither eate nor drinke three daies night or day I also and my maidens will fast likewise and so will I goe in vnto the King which is not according to the law and if I perish I perish Heroicall thoughts doe well befit great actions Life can neuer be better aduentured then where it shall begaine to leese it There can bee no law against the humble deprecation of euils where the necessity of Gods Church calls to vs no danger should with-hold vs from all honest meanes of releife Deepe humiliations must make way for the successe of great enterprises wee are most capable of mercy