I find no defect of wit, though of limbs, in Mephibosheth: he knew himself the grand-child of the king of Israel, the son of Jonathan, the lawful heir of both; yet, in regard of his own impotency, and the trespass and rejection of his house, he thus abaseth himself unto David. Humiliation is a right use of God's affliction. What if he were born great? If the sin of his grand-father hath lost his estate, and the hand of his nurse hath deformed and disabled his person, he now forgets what he was, and calls himself worse than he is, A dog: yet, A living dog is better than a dead lion; there is dignity and comfort in life; Mephibosheth is therefore a dead dog unto David. It is not for us to nourish the same spirits in our adverse estate, that we found in our highest prosperity. What use have we made of God's hand, if we be not the lower with our fall? God intends we should carry our cross, not make a fire of it to warm us. It is no bearing up our sails in a tempest.

Good David cannot disesteem Mephibosheth ever the more for disparaging himself: he loves and honours this humility in the son of Jonathan. There is no more certain way to glory and advancement, than a lowly dejection of ourselves. He, that made himself a dog, and therefore fit only to lie under the table, yea a dead dog, and therefore fit only for the ditch, is raised up to the table of a king; his seat shall be honourable, yea, royal; his fare delicious, his attendance noble. How much more will our gracious God lift up our heads, unto true honour before men and angels, if we can be sincerely humbled in his sight! If we miscal ourselves, in the meanness of our conceits, to him, he gives us a new name, and sets us at the table of his glory. It is contrary with God and men: if they reckon of us as we set ourselves, he values us according to our abasements.

Like a prince truly munificent and faithful, David promises and performs at once. Ziba, Saul's servant, hath the charge given him, of the execution of that royal word; He shall be the bailiff of this great husbandry of his master Mephibosheth. The land of Saul, however forfeited, shall know no other master than Saul's grand-child.

As yet, Saul's servant had sped better than his son. I read of twenty servants of Ziba, none of Mephibosheth. Earthly possessions do not always admit of equal divisions. The wheel is now turned up; Mephibosheth is a prince, Ziba is his officer.

I cannot but pity the condition of this good son of Jonathan. Into ill hands did honest Mephibosheth fall; first, of a careless nurse; then, of a treacherous servant: she maimed his body; he would have overthrown his estate. After some years of eye-service to Mephibosheth, wicked Ziba intends to give him a worse fall than his nurse. Never any court was free from detractors, from delators; who, if they see a man to be a cripple, that he cannot go to speak for himself, will be telling tales of him in the ears of the great such an one was this perfidious Ziba; who, taking the opportunity of David's flight from his son Absalom, follows

him with a fair present and a false tale, accusing his impotent master of a foul and traitorous ingratitude; labouring to tread upon his lame lord, to raise himself to honour.

True-hearted Mephibosheth had as good a will as the best. If he could have commanded legs, he had not been left behind David; now, that he cannot go with him, he will not be well without him, and therefore puts himself to a wilful and sullen penance, for the absence and danger of his king: he will not so much as put on clean clothes for the time, as he that could not have any joy in himself, for the want of his lord David.

Unconscionable miscreants care not how they collogue, whom they slander, for a private advantage. Lewd Ziba comes with a gift in his hand, and a smooth tale in his mouth; "O sir, you thought you had a Jonathan at home, but you will find a Saul. It were pity, but he should be set at your table, that would sit in your throne. You thought Saul's land would have contented Mephibosheth, but he would have all yours. Though he be lame, yet he would be climbing. Would you have thought that this cripple could be plotting for your kingdom, now that you are gone aside? Ishbosheth will never die, while Mephibosheth lives. How did he now forget his impotence, and raised up his spirits in hope of a day; and durst say, that now the time was come, wherein the crown should revert to Saul's true heir." O viper! if a serpent bite in secret when he is not charmed, no better is a slanderer. Honest Mephibosheth in good manners made a dead dog of himself, when David offered him the favour of his board; but Ziba would make him a very dog indeed, an illnatured cur, that, when David did thus kindly feed him at his own table, would not only bite his fingers, but fly at his throat.

But what shall we say to this? Neither earthly sovereignty, nor holiness, can exempt men from human infirmity. Wise and good David hath now but one ear; and that misled with credulity. His charity in believing Ziba makes him uncharitable in distrusting, in censuring Mephibosheth. The detractor hath not only sudden credit given him, but Saul's land. Jonathan's son hath lost, unheard, that inheritance which was given him, unsought. Hearsay is no safe ground of any judgment. Ziba slanders; David believes; Mephibosheth suffers.

Lies shall not always prosper. God will not abide the truth to be ever oppressed. At last, Jonathan's lame son shall be found, as sound in heart as lame in his body. He, whose soul was like his father Jonathan's soul, whose body was like to his grandfather Saul's soul, meets David, as it is high time, upon his return; bestirs his tongue to discharge himself of so foul a slander. The more horrible the crime had been, the more villainous was the unjust suggestion of it, and the more necessary was a just apology; sweetly therefore, and yet passionately, doth he labour to greaten David's favours to him; his own obligations and vileness; shewing himself more affected with his wrong, than with his loss; welcom

ing David home with a thankful neglect of himself, as not caring that Ziba had his substance, now that he had his king. David is satisfied, Mephibosheth restored to favour and lands: here are two kind hearts well met. David is full of satisfaction from Mephibosheth; Mephibosheth runs over, with joy in David: David, like a gracious king, gives Mephibosheth, as before, Saul's lands to halves with Ziba; Mephibosheth, like a king, gives all to Ziba for joy that God had given him David.

All had been well, if Ziba had fared worse. Pardon me, O holy and glorious soul of a prophet, of a king, after God's own heart; I must needs blame thee for mercy: a fault that the best and most generous natures are most subject to. It is pity that so good a thing should do hurt; yet we find that the best, misused, is most dangerous. Who should be the pattern of kings, but the king of God? Mercy is the goodliest flower in his crown, much more in theirs, but with a difference: God's mercy is infinite, theirs limited: he says, I will have mercy on whom I will; they must say, "I will have mercy on whom I should." And ye he, forall his infinite mercy, hath vessels of wrath; so must they of whom his justice hath said, Thine eye shall not spare them. A good man is pitiful to his beast, shall he therefore make much of toads and snakes? Oh that Ziba should go away with any possession, save of shame and sorrow; that he should be coupled with a Mephibosheth in a partnership of estates! Oh that David had changed the word a little!

A division was due here, indeed; but of Ziba's ears from his head, or his head from his shoulders, for going about so maliciously to divide David from the son of Jonathan. An eye for an eye, was God's rule. If that had been true, which Ziba suggested against Mephibosheth, he had been worthy to lose his head with his lands being false, it had been but reason, Ziba should have changed heads with Mephibosheth. Had not holy David himself been so stung with the venomous tongues, that he cries out in the bitterness of his soul, What reward shall be given thee, O thou false tongue? Even sharp arrows, with hot burning coals? He that was so sensible of himself in Doeg's wrong, doth he feel so little of Mephibosheth in Ziba's? Are these the arrows of David's quiver? Are these his hot burning coals, Thou and Ziba divide? fle that had said, Their tongue is a sharp sword, now, that the sword of just revenge is in his hand, is this the blow he gives, Divide the possession? I know not whether excess or want of mercy may prove most dangerous in the great; the one discourages good intentions with fear; the other may encourage wicked practices through presumption: those that are in eminent place must learn the mid-way betwixt both; so pardoning faults, that they may not provoke them; so punishing them, that they may not dishearten virtuous and well-meant actions: they must learn to sing that absolute ditty, whereof David had here forgotten one part, of Mercy and Judgment. 2 Samuel ix.

HANUN, AND DAVID'S AMBASSADORS.

It is not the meaning of religion, to make men uncivil. If the king of Ammon were heathenish, yet his kindness may be acknowledged, may be returned, by the king of Israel. I say not, but that perhaps David might maintain too strait a league with that forbidden nation; a little friendship is enough to an idolater; but even the savage cannibals may receive an answer of outward courtesy. If a very dog fawn upon us, we stroke him on the head, and clap him on the side; much less is the common band of humanity untied by grace. Disparity in spiritual professions is no warrant for ingratitude. He, therefore, whose goodnature proclaimed, to shew mercy to any branch of Saul's house, for Jonathan's sake, will now also shew kindness to Hanun, for the sake of Nahash his father.

It was the same Nahash, that offered the cruel condition to the men of Jabesh Gilead, of thrusting out their right eyes for the admission into his covenant. He, that was thus bloody in his design against Israel, yet was kind to David; perhaps for no cause, so much as Saul's opposition: and yet even this favour is held worthy both of memory and retribution. Where we have the acts of courtesy, it is not necessary we should enter into a strict examination of the grounds of it: while the benefit is ours, let the intention be their own. Whatever the hearts of men are, we must look at their hands; and repay, not what they meant, but what they did.

Nahash is dead. David sends ambassadors to condole his loss, and to comfort his son Hanun. No Ammonite but is sadly affected with the death of a father, though it gain him a kingdom. Even Esau could say, The days of mourning for my father will come. No earthly advantage can fill up the gap of nature. Those children are worse than Ammonites, that can think either gain, or liberty, worthy to countervail a parent's loss.

Carnal men are wont to measure another's foot by their own last: their own falsehood makes them unjustly suspicious of others. The princes of Ammon, because they are guilty to their own hollowness and doubleness of heart, are ready so to judge of David and his messengers; Thinkest thou, that David doth honour thy father, that he hath sent comforters unto thee? Hath not David rather sent his own servants to thee, to search the city, and to spy it out, to overthrow it? It is hard for a wicked heart to think well of any other; because it can think none better than itself, and knows itself evil. The freer a man is from vice himself, the more charitable he uses to be unto others.

Whatsoever David was particularly in his own person, it was ground enough of prejudice, that he was an Israelite. It was an hereditary and deep settled hatred, that the Ammonites had conceived against their brethren of Israel: neither can they forget that shameful and fearful foil, which they received from the res

cuers of Jabesh Gilead; and now still do they stomach at the name of Israel. Malice, once conceived in worldly hearts, is not easily extinguished; but, upon all occasions, is ready to break forth into a йame of revengeful actions.

Nothing can be more dangerous, than for young princes to meet with ill counsel, in the entrance of their government; for both then are they most prone to take it, and most difficultly recovered from it. If we be set out of our way in the beginning of our journey, we wander all the day. How happy is that state, where, both the counsellors are faithful to give only good advice, and the king wise to discern good advice from evil.

The young king of Ammon is easily drawn, to believe his peers, and to mistrust the messengers; and, having now in his conceit turned them into spies, entertains them with a scornful disgrace : he shaves off one half of their beards, and cuts off one half of their garments; exposing them to the derision of all the beholders. The Israelites were forbidden either a shaven beard, or a short garment in despite, perhaps, of their law, these ambassadors are sent away with both; certainly in a despite of their master, and a scorn of their persons.

King David is not a little sensible of the abuse of his messengers, and of himself in them; first, therefore he desires to hide their shame; then, to revenge it.

Man hath but a double ornament of body, the one of nature, the other of art: the natural ornament is the hair, the artificial is apparel; David's messengers are deformed in both; the one is easily supplied by a new suit, the other can only be supplied out of the wardrobe of time, Tarry at Jericho, till your beards be grown. How easily had this deformity been removed, if, as Hanun had shaven one side of their faces, so they had shaven the other. What had this been, but to resemble their younger age, or that other sex, in neither of which do we use to place any imagination of unbeseeming? Neither did there want some of their neighbour nations, whose faces age itself had not wont to cover with this shade of hair. But so respective is good David and his wise senators of their country-forms, that they shall by appointment rather tarry abroad, till time have wrought their conformity, than vary from the received fashions of their own people. Alas, into what a licentious variety of strange disguises are we fallen! The glory of attire is sought in novelty, in mis-shapenness, in monstrousness. There is much latitude, much liberty, in the use of these indifferent things; but because we are free, we may not run wild and never think we have scope enough, unless we out-run modesty.

It is lawful for public persons, to feel their own indignities, and to endeavour their revenge. Now David sends all the host of the mighty men, to punish Ammon, for so foul an abuse. Those, that received the messengers of his love with scorn and insolency, shall now be severely saluted with the messengers of his wrath. It is just, both with God and men, that they, who know not how to take