rael: the common gifts of God respect not the parentage of blood, but are indifferently scattered where he pleases to let them fall. The choice of the Almighty is not guided by our rules; as in spiritual, so in earthly things, it is not in him that willeth. If God would have men glory in these outward privileges, he would bestow them upon none but the worthy.

Now, who can be proud of strength or greatness, when he sees him that is not so honest, yet is more valiant, and more advanced? Had not Jephthah been base, he had not been thrust out; and if he had not been thrust out from his brethren, he had never been the captain of Israel. By contrary paces to ours, it pleaseth God to come to his own ends: and how usually doth he look the contrary way, to that he moyes? No man can measure the conclusion of God's act by his beginning: he, that fetches good out of evil, raises the glory of men out of their ruin. Men love to go the nearest way, and often fail; God commonly goes about, and in his own time comes surely home.

The Gileadites were not so forward to expel Jephthah, as glad to recal him: no Ammonite threatened them when they parted with such a helper; now, whom they cast out in their peace, they fetch home in their danger and misery. That God, who never gave aught in vain, will find a time to make use of any gift that he hath bestowed upon men: the valour of Jephthah shall not rust in his secrecy, but be employed to the common preservation of Isracl. Necessity will drive us to seck up all our helps, even those whom our wantonness hath despised.

How justly are the suits of our need, upbraided with the errors of our prosperity! The elders of Gilead now hear of their ancient wrong, and dare not find fault with their exprobration; Did ye not hate me, and expel me out of my father's house? How then come ye now to me, in time of tribulation? The same expostulation that Jephthah makes with Gilead, God also at the same time makes with Israel; Ye have forsaken me, and served other gods; wherefore should I deliver you any more? Go and cry unto the gods whom ye have served. As we, so God also finds it scasonable, to tell his children of their faults, while he is whipping them. It is a safe and wise course, to make much of those in our peace, whom we must make use of in our extremity; else it is but just, that we should be rejected of those, whom we have rejected.

Can we look for any other answer from God than this? "Did ye not drive me out of your houses, out of your hearts, in the time of your health and jollity? Did ye not plead the strictness of my charge, and the weight of my yoke? Did not your wilful sins expel me from your souls? What do you now crouching and creeping to me in the evil day?" Surely, O God, it is but justice, if thou be not found of those which were glad to lose thee; it is thy mercy, if, after many checks and delays, thou wilt be found at last. Where an act cannot be reversed, there is no amends but confession; and if God himself take up with this satisfaction, He that confesses shall find mercy; how much more should mea

VOL. I.

P

hold themselves well paid with words of humility and depreca. tion !

Jephthah's wisdom had not been answerable to his valour, if he had not made his match before-hand. He could not but know how treacherously Israel had dealt with Gideon. We cannot make too sure work, when we have to do with unfaithful men. It hath been an old policy, to serve ourselves of men; and after our advantage, to turn them up. He bargains therefore for his sovereignty, ere he win it; Shall I be your head? We are all naturally ambitious, and are ready to buy honour even with hazard. And if the hope of a troublesome superiority encouraged Jephthah to fight against the forces of Ammon, what heart should we take in the battles of God against spiritual wickednesses, when the God of heaven hath said, To him that overcomes, will I give power over nations, and to sit with me on my throne? Oh that we could bend our eyes upon the recompence of our reward; how willingly should we march forward against these mighty Ammonites! Jephthah is noted for his valour; and yet he intreats with Ammon, ere he fights. To make war any other than our last remedy, is not courage, but cruelty and rashness and now, when reason will not prevail, he betakes himself to his sword.

As God began the war with Jephthah, in raising up his heart to that pitch of fortitude; so Jephthah began his war at God, in craving victory from him, and pouring out his vow to him: his hand took hold of his sword; his heart of God: therefore he, whom the Old Testament styles valiant, the New styles faithful; he, who is commended for his strength, dares trust in none, but the arm of God; If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand. If Jephthah had not looked upward for his victory, in vain had the Gileadites looked up to him. This is the disposition of all good hearts; they look to their sword or their bow, as servants, not as patrons; and whilst they use them, trust to God. If we could do so in all our businesses, we should have both more joy in their success, and less discomfort in their miscarriage.

It was his zeal to vow; it was his sin to vow rashly. Jacob, his forefather, of whom he learned to vow, might have taught him a better form; If God will be with me, then shall the Lord be my God. It is well with vows, when the thing promised makes the promise good; but when Jephthah says, Whatsoever thing cometh out of the doors of my house, shall be the Lord's, or I will offer it for a burnt sacrifice; his devotion is blind, and his good affection overruns his judgment; for what if a dog, or a swine, or an ass had met him? where had been the promise of his consecration?

Vows are as they are made. Like unto scents, if they be of ill composition, nothing offends more; if well tempered, nothing is more pleasant. Either certainty of evil, or uncertainty of good, or impossibility of performance, makes vows no service to God. When we vow what we cannot, or what we ought not to do, we mock God instead of honouring him. It is a vain thing for to go about to catch God hoodwinked. The conscience shall never find peace in any way, but that which we see before us, and which we know

safe, both in the kind and circumstances. There is no comfort in "Peradventure, I may please God.”

What good child will not take part of the parent's joy? If Jeph thah return with trophies, it is no marvel if his daughter meet him with timbrels Oh that we could be so affected with the glorious acts of our heavenly Father! Thou subduest thine enemies, and mightily deliverest thy people, O God; a song waiteth for thee

in Sion.

Who would have suspected danger in a dutiful triumph? Well might Jephthah's daughter have thought; "My sex forbade me to do any thing towards the help of my father's victory; I can do little, if I cannot applaud it: if nature have made me weak, yet not unthankful; nothing forbids my joy to be as strong as the victor's: though I might not go out with my father to fight, yet I may meet him with gratulations; a timbrel may become these hands which were unfit for a sword; this day hath made me the daughter of the head of Israel; this day hath made both Israel free, my father a conqueror, and myself in him noble: and shall my affection make no difference? What must my father needs think, if he shall find me sitting sullenly at home, while all Israel strives who shall run first to bless him with their acclamations? Should I only be insensible of his and the common happiness?

And now, behold when she looks most for thanks, her father an swers the measures of her feet with the knockings of his breast, and weeps at her music, and tears his clothes, to look upon her whom he best loved; and gives no answer to her timbrels, but Alas, my daughter, thou art one of them that trouble me her joy alone hath changed the day, and lost the comfort of that victory, which she enjoyed to see won. It falls out often, that those times and occasions which promise most contentment, prove most doleful in the issue: the heart of this virgin was never lifted up so high as now, neither did any day of her life seem happy but this; and this only proves the day of her solemn and perpetual mourning : as contrarily, the times and events which we have most distrusted, prove most beneficial. It is good, in a fair morning to think of that storm that may arise ere night, and to enjoy both good and evil fearfully.

Miserable is that devotion which troubles us in the performance; nothing is more pleasant than the acts of true piety; Jephthah might well see the wrong of this religion, in the distaste of it; yet, while himself had troubled his daughter, he says, Alas, my daughter, thou art of them that trouble me: she did but her duty; he did what he should not; yet he would be rid of the blame, though he cannot of the smart. No man is willing to own a sin; the first man shifted it from himself to his wife; this, from himself to his daughter: he was ready to accuse another, which only committed it himself. It were happy, if we could be as loath to commit sin, as to acknowledge it.

The inconsideration of this vow was very rough, and settled; I have opened my mouth, and cannot go back. If there were just cause to repent, it was the weakness of his zeal, to think that avow

could bind him to evil: an unlawful vow is ill made, but worse performed. It were pity this constancy should light upon any but a boly object. No loan can make a truer debt than our vow; which if we pay not in our performance, God will pay us with judgment. We have all opened our mouths to God in that initial and solemn vow of Christianity; Ob that we could not go back! So much more is our vow obligatory, by how much the thing vowed is more necessary.

Why was the soul of Jephthah thus troubled, but because he saw the entail of his new honour thus suddenly cut off? He saw the hope of posterity extinguished, in the virginity of his daughter, It is natural to us, to affect that perpetuity in our succession, which is denied us in our persons: our very bodies would emulate the eternity of the soul. And if God have built any of us a house on earth, as well as prepared us a house in heaven, it must be confessed a favour worth our thankfulness; but as the perpetuity of our earthly houses is uncertain, so let us not rest our hearts upon that, but make sure of the house which is eternal in the heavens.

Doubtless, the goodness of the daughter added to the father's sorrow. She was not more loving than religious; neither is she less willing to be the Lord's, than her father's: and as provoking her father to that which he thought piety, though to her own wrong, she says, If thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do with me as thou hast promised. Many a daughter would have dissuaded her father with tears, and would have wished rather her father's impiety than her own prejudice; she sues for the smart of her father's vow. How obsequious should children be to the will of their careful parents, even in their final disposition in the world, when they see this holy maid willing to abandon the world upon the rash vow of a father! They are the living goods of their pa rents, and must therefore wait upon the bestowing of their owners. They mistake themselves, which think they are their own: if this maid had vowed herself to God without her father, it had been in his power to abrogate it; but now that he vowed her to God without herself, it stands in force. But what shall we say to those children, whom their parents' vow and care cannot make so much as honest; that will be no other than godless, in spite of their baptism and education? what, but that they are given their parents for a curse, and shall one day find what it is to be rebellious?

All her desire is, that she may have leave to bewail that which she must be forced to keep, her virginity: if she had not held it an affliction, there had been no cause to bewail it; it had been no thank to undergo it, if she had not known it to be a cross. Tears are no argument of impatience; we may mourn for that we repine not to bear. How comes that to be a meritorious virtue under the Gospel, which was but a punishment under the Law? The daughters of Israel had been too lavish of their tears, if virginity had *been absolutely good: what injury should it have been to lament that spiritual preferment, which they should rather have emulated? ..While Jephthah's daughter was two months in the mountains, she

might have had good opportunity to escape her father's vow; but as one, whom her obedience tied as close to her father, as his vow tied him to God, she returns to take up that burden, which she had bewailed to foresee if we be truly dutiful to our Father in heaven, we would not slip our necks out of the yoke though we might; nor fly from his commands though the door were open. Judges xi.

SAMSON CONCEIVED.

Or extraordinary persons, the very birth and conception is extraordinary. God begins his wonders betimes, in those whom he will make wonderful. There was never any of those which were miraculously conceived, whose lives were not notable and singular. The presages of the womb and the cradle are commonly answered in the life it is not the use of God to cast away strange beginnings. If Manoah's wife had not been barren, the angel had not been sent to her: afflictions have this advantage, that they occasion God to shew that mercy to us, whereof the prosperous are incapable; it would not beseem a mother to be so indulgent to a healthful child, as to a sick. It was to the woman that the angel appeared, not to the husband; whether for that the reproach of barrenness lay upon her more heavily than on the father, or for that the birth of the child should cost her more dear than her husband, or lastly for that the difficulty of this news was more in her conception than in his generation: as Satan lays his batteries ever to the weakest, so contrarily, God addresseth his comforts to those hearts that have most need; as at the first, because Eve had most reason to be dejected, for that her sin had drawn man into the transgression, therefore the cordial of God most respecteth her; The seed of the woman shall break the serpent's head.

As a physician first tells the state of the disease with his symptoms, and then prescribes; so doth the angel of God, first tell the wife of Manoah her complaint, then her remedy; Thou art barren.. All our afflictions are more noted of that God which sends them, than of the patient that suffers them: how can it be but less possi ble to endure any thing that he knows not, than that he inflicteth it not? He saith to one, "Thou art sick;" to another, "Thou art poor;" to a third, "Thou art defamed;" "Thou art oppressed," to another that all-seeing eye takes notice from heaven of every man's condition, no less than if he should send an angel to tell us he knew it: his knowledge compared with his mercy, is the just comfort of all our sufferings. O God, we are many times miserable, and feel it not; thou knowest even those sorrows which we might have; thou knowest what thou hast done: do what thou wilt.

Thou art barren. Not that the angel would upbraid the poor woman with her affliction; but therefore he names her pain, that the mention of her cure might be so much more welcome: comfort shall come unseasonably to that heart, which is not apprehen