hear Ahab, as bad as he was, revile or threaten the prophet, but he rends his clothes, and wears and lies in sackcloth, and fasts, and walks softly. Who that had seen Ahab, would not have deemed him a true penitent? All this was the vizard of sorrow, not the face; or if the face, not the heart; or if the sorrow of the heart, yet not the repentance: a sorrow for the judgment, not a repentance for the sin. The very devils howl to be tormented. Grief is not ever a sign of grace. Ahab rends his clothes, he did not rend his heart; he puts on sackcloth, not amendment; he lies in sackcloth, but he lies in his idolatry; he walks softly, he walks not sincerely. Wordly sorrow causeth death; happy is that grief for which the soul is the holier. Yet what is this I see? this very shadow of penitence carries away mercy. It is no small mercy to defer an evil; even Ahab's humiliation shall prorogue the judgment: such as the penitence was, such shall be the reward; a temporary reward of a temporary penitence. As Ahab might be thus sorrowful, and never the better, so he may be thus favoured, and never the happier. O God, how graciously art thou ready to reward a sound and holy repentance, who art thus indulgent to a carnal and servile dejection! own bounds. Justly doth Ahab challenge his own, justly doth he move a war to recover his own from a perfidious tributary: the lawfulness of actions may not be judged by the events, but by the grounds. The wise and holy Arbiter of the world knows why, many times, the better cause hath the worst success. Many a just business is crossed, for a punishment to the agent. Yet Israel and Judah were now pierced in friendship. Jehoshaphat, the good king of Judah, had made affinity with Ahab, the idolatrous king of Israel; and, besides a personal visitation, joins his forces with his new kinsman, against an old confederate. Judah had called in Syria against Israel; and now Israel calls in Judah against Syria: Thus rather should it be: it is fit that the more pure church should join with the more corrupt, against a common paganish enemy. He Jehoshaphat hath matched with Ahab; not with a divorce of his devotion. will fight, not without God: Inquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord to-day." Had he done thus sooner, I fear Athaliah had never called him father: this motion was news in Israel. It was wont to be said, “Inquire of Baal.” The good king of Judah will bring religion into fashion in the court of Israel. Ahab had inquired of his counsellor: what needed he be so devout as to inquire of his prophets? Only Jeho CONTEMPLATION III. — AHAB AND MICAIAH; shaphat's presence made him thus godly. OR, THE DEATH OF AHAB. It is an happy thing to converse with the virtuous; their counsel and example cannot but leave some tincture behind them of a good profession, if not of piety. Those that are truly religious dare not but take God with them in all their affairs; with they can be as valiant, as timorous without him. WHO would have looked to have heard any more of the wars of the Syrians with Israel, after so great a slaughter, after so firm a league; a league not of peace only, but of brotherhood: the halters, the sack-him cloth of Benhadad's followers, were worn out, as of use, so of memory, and now they are changed for iron and steel. It is but three years that this peace lasts; and now that war begins which shall make an end of Ahab. The king of Israel rues his unjust mercy according to the word of the prophet, that gift of a life was but an exchange; because Ahab gave Benhadad his life, Benhadad shall take Ahab's: he must forfeit in himself what he hath given to another. There can be no better fruit of too much kindness to infidels. It was one article of the league betwixt Ahab and his brother Benhadad, that there should be a speedy restitution of all the Israelitish cities: the rest are yielded; only Ramoth-Gilead is held back, unthankfully, injuriously. He that begged but his life, receives his kingdom, and now rests not content with his Ahab had clergy enough, such as it was. Four hundred prophets of the groves were reserved from appearing to Elijah's challenge: these are now consulted by Ahab; they live to betray the life of him who saved theirs. These care not so much to inquire about what God would say, as what Ahab would have them say: they saw which way the king's heart was bent; that way they bent their tongues: "Go up, for the Lord shall deliver it into the hands of the king." False prophets care only to please: a plausible falsehood passes with them above a harsh truth. Had they seen Ahab fearful, they had said, “Peace, peace;" now they see him resolute, "War and victory." It is a fearful presage of ruin, when the prophets conspire in assentation. Their number consent: confidence hath easily won credit with Ahab; we do all willingly believe what we wish. Jehoshaphat is not so soon satisfied: these prophets were, it is like, obtruded to him (a stranger) for the true prophets of the true God. The judicious king sees cause to suspect them, and now, perceiving at what altars they served, hates to rest in their testimony: Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might inquire of him?" One single prophet, speaking from the oracles of God, is more worth than four hundred Baalites: truth may not ever be measured by the poll. It is not number, but weight, that must carry it in a council of prophets. A solid verity in one mouth is worthy to preponderate light falsehood in a thousand. Even king Ahab, as bad as he was, kept tale of his prophets, and could give account of one that was missing: "There is yet one man, Micaiah, the son of Imlah, by whom they may inquire of the Lord; but I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. It is very probable, that Micaiah was that disguised prophet, who brought to Ahab the fearful message of displeasure and death, for dismissing Benhadad, for which he was ever since fast in prison, deep in disgrace. O corrupt heart of self-condemned Ahab! If Micaiah spake true to thee, how was it evil? If others said false, how was it good? And if Micaiah spake from the Lord, why dost thou hate him? This hath wont to be the ancient lot of truth, censure and hatred: censure of the message; hatred of the bearer. To carnal ears, the message is evil, if unpleasing; and, if plausible, good: if it be sweet, it cannot be poison; if bitter, it cannot be wholesome. The distemper of the receiver is guilty of this misconceit: in itself, every truth, as it is good, so amiable; every falsehood, loathsome, as evil. A sick palate cries out of the taste of those liquors which are well allowed of the healthful. It is a sign of a good state of the soul, when every verdure can receive his proper judgment. Wise and good Jehoshaphat dissuades Ahab from so hard an opinion, and sees cause so much more to urge the consultation of Micaiah, by how much he finds him more unpleasing. The king of Israel, to satisfy the importunity of so great and dear an ally, sends an officer for Micaiah: he knew well, belike, where to find him; within those four walls, where unjust cruelty had disposed of that innocent seer. Out of the obscurity of the prison is the poor prophet fetched in the light of so glorious a confession of two kings, who thought this convocation of prophets not unworthy of their greatest representation of state and majesty: there he finds Zedekiah, the leader of that false crew, not speaking only, but acting his prediction. Signs were no less used by the prophets than words: this arch flatterer hath made him horns of iron; the horn is forcible, the iron irresistible: by an irresistible force shall Ahab push the Syrians, as if there were more certainty in this man's hands, than in his tongue. If this son of Chenaanah had not had a forehead of brass for impudency, and a heart of lead for flexibleness to humours and times, he had never devised these horns of iron where with his king was gored unto blood. However, it is enough for him that he is believed, that he is seconded. All this great inquest of these prophets gave up their verdict to this foreman; not one of four hundred dissented. Unanimity of opinion in the greatest ecclesiastical assemblies, is not ever an argument of truth; there may be as common, and as firm, agreement in error. The messenger that came from Micaiah, like a carnal friend, sets him in a way of favour; tells him what the rest had said; how they pleased; how unsafe it would be for him to vary, how beneficial to assent. Those that adore earthly greatness, think every man should doat upon their idols, and hold no terms too high for their ambitious purchases. Faithful Micaiah scorns the motion; he knows the price of the word, and contemns it: " As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak." Neither fears, nor favours, can tempt the holily resolute; they can trample upon dangers or honours with a careless foot; and, whether they be smiled or frowned on by the great, dare not either alter or conceal their errand. The question is moved to Micaiah: he at first yields, then he contradicts; yields in words, contradicts in pronunciation: the syllables are for them, the sound against them: ironies deny strongest in affirming. And now, being pressed home, he tells them, that God had showed him those sheep of Israel should, ere long, by this means, want their shepherd. The very resemblance, to a good prince, had been effective: the sheep is a helpless creature, not able either to guard or guide itself; all the safety, all the direction of it, is from the keeper, without whom every cur chases and worries it, every tract seduceth it: such shall Israel soon be, if Ahab be ruled by his prophets. The king of Israel doth not believe, but quarrel; not at himself, | who had deserved evil, but at the prophet, who foresignified it; and is more careful that the king of Judah should mark how true he had foretold concerning the prophet, than how the prophet had foretold concerning him. Bold Micaiah, as no whit discouraged with the unjust checks of greatness, doubles his prediction, and, by a second vision, particularizeth the means of this dangerous error. While the two kings sat majestically on their thrones, he tells them of a more glorious throne than theirs, whereon he saw the King of gods sitting: while they were compassed with some hundreds of prophets, and thousands of subjects and soldiers, he tells them of all the host of heaven attending that other throne: while they were deliberating of a war, he tells them of a God of heaven justly decreeing the judgment of a deadly deception to Ahab. The decree of the Highest is not more plainly revealed, than expressed parabolically. The wise and holy God is represented, after the manner of men, consulting of that ruin which he intended to the wicked king of Israel. That uncreated and infinite Wisdom needs not the advice of any finite and created powers to direct him, needs not the assent or aid of any spirit for his execution, much less of an evil one; yet here an evil spirit is brought in. by way of vision mixt with parable, proffering the service of his lie, accepted, employed, successful. These figures are not void of truth: the action and event are reduced to a decree; the decree is shadowed out by the resemblance of human proceedings. All evil motions and counsels are originally from that malignant spirit: that evil spirit could have no power over men, but by the permission, by the decree, of the Almighty. That Almighty, as he is no author of sin, so he ordains all evil to good: it is good that is just; it is just that one sin should be punished by another: Satan is herein no other than the executioner of that God, who is as far from infusing evil, as from not revenging it. Now Ahab sees the ground of that applauded consent of his rabble of prophets; one evil spirit hath no less deceived them, than they their master: he is one, therefore he agrees with himself; he is evil, therefore both he and they agree in deceit. O the noble and undaunted spirit of Micaiah! Neither the thrones of the kings, nor the number of the prophets, could abate one word of his true, though displeasing message: the king of Israel shall hear that he is misled by liars, they by a devil. Surely, Jehoshophat cannot but wonder at so unequal a contention, to see one silly prophet affronting four hundred; with whom, lest confidence should carry it, behold Zedekiah, more bold, more zealous: if Micaiah have given him, with his fellows, the lie, he gives Micaiah the fist. Before these two great guardians of peace and jus tice, swaggering Zedekiah smites Micaiah on the face; and with the blow expostulates: "Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me, to speak unto thee?" For a prophet to smite a prophet, in the face of two kings, was intolerably insolent; the act was much unbeseeming the person, more the presence: prophets may reprove, they may not strike. It was enough for Ahab to punish with the hand; no weapon was for Zedekiah, but his tongue: neither could this rude presumption have been well taken, if malice had not made magistracy insensible of this usurpation. Ahab was well content to see that hated mouth beaten by any hand. It is no new condition of God's faithful messengers to smart for saying truth. Falsehood doth not more bewray itself in any thing than in blows: truth suffers, while error persecutes. None are more ready to boast of the Spirit of God, than those that have the least; as in vessels, the full are silent. Innocent Micaiah neither defends nor complains. It would have well beseemed the religious king of Judah to have spoken in the cause of the dumb, to have checked insolent Zedekiah. He is content to give way to this tide of peremptory and general opposition. The helpless prophet stands alone, yet lays about him with his tongue: 66 Behold, thou shalt see, in that day when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself." Now the proud Baalite showed himself too much; ere long, he shall be glad to lurk unseen; his horns of iron cannot bear off his danger. The son of Ahab cannot choose but, in the zeal of revenging his father's deadly seducement, call for that false head of Zedekiah. In vain shall that impostor seek to hide himself from justice; but, in the meanwhile, he goes away with honour, Micaiah with censure: "Take Micaiah, and carry him back to Amon, the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son, and say, Thus saith the king, put this fellow in prison, and feed him with bread of affliction, and with water of affliction, until I come in peace." A hard doom of truth! the jail for his lodging, coarse bread and water for his food, shall but reserve Micaiah for a further revenge: the return of Ahab shall be the bane of the prophet. Was not this he that cries deliver him—his cries, not to his puradvised Benhadad not to boast in the put-suers, but to his God; whose mercy takes ting on his armour, as in the ungirding it; and doth he now promise himself peace and victory, before he buckle it on? No warning will dissuade the wilful: so assured doth Ahab make himself of success, that he threatens, ere he go, what he will do when he returns in peace. How justly doth God deride the misreckonings of proud and foolish men! If Ahab had no other sins, his very confidence shall defeat him; yet the prophet cannot be overcome in his resolution; he knows his grounds cannot deceive him, and dares, therefore, cast the credit of his function upon this issue: "If thon return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me ;" and he said, "Hearken, O people, every one of you." Let him never be called a prophet, that dare not trust his God. This was no adventure, therefore, of reputation or life: since he knew whom he believed, the event was no less sure, than if it had been past. He is no God, that is not constant to himself: hath he spoken, and shall he not perform? What hold have we for our souls, but his eternal word? The being of God is not more sure than his promises, than his sentences of judgment. Well may we appeal to the testimony of the world in both: if there be not plagues for the wicked, if there be not rewards for the righteous, God hath not spoken by us. Not Ahab only, but good Jehoshaphat, Is carried with the multitude: their forces are joined against Ramoth. The king of Israel doth not so trust his prophets, that he dares trust himself in his own clothes; thus shall he elude Micaiah's threat: I wist the judgment of God, the Syrian shafts, cannot find him out in this unsuspected disguise. How fondly do vain men imagine to shift off the just revenges of the Almighty! The king of Syria gives charge to his captains to fight against none but the king of Israel. Thus doth the unthankful infidel repay the mercy of his late victor; ill was the snake saved, that requites the favour of his life with a sting: thus, still the greatest are the fairest mark to envious eyes. By how much more eminent any man is in the Israel of God, so many more and more aangerous enemies must he expect: both earth and hell conspire in their opposition to the worthiest. Those who are advanced above others, have so much more need of the guard, both of their own vigilancy, and others' prayers. Jehoshaphat had like to nave paid dear for his love: he is pursued for him, in whose amity he offended; his not advantage of our infirmity, but rescues us from those evils which we wilfully provoke. It is Ahab against whom, not the Syrians only, but God himself, intends this quarrel; the enemy is taken off from Jehoshaphat. O the just and mighty hand of that divine Providence, which directeth all our actions to his own ends, which takes order where every shaft shall light, and guides the arrow of the strong archer into the joints of Ahab's harness! It was shot at a venture, falls by a destiny; and there falls, where it may carry death to a hidden debtor. In all actions, both voluntary and casual, thy will, O God, shall be done by us, with whatever intentions. Little did the Syrian know whom he had stricken, no more than the arrow wherewith he struck: an invisible hand disposeth of both, to the punishment of Ahab, to the vindication of Micaiah. How worthily, O God, art thou to be adored in thy justice and wisdom! to be feared in thy judgments! Too late doth Ahab now think of the fair warnings of Micaiah, which he unwisely contemned; of the painful flatteries of Zedekiah, which he stubbornly believed: that guilty blood of his runs down out of his wound into the midst of his chariot, and pays Naboth his arrearages. O Ahab, what art thou the better for thine ivory house, while thou hast a black soul? what comfort hast thou now in those flattering prophets, which tickled thine ears, and secured thee of victories? what joy is it to thee now, that thou wast great? Who had not rather be Micaiah in the jail, than Ahab in the chariot? Wicked men have the advantage of the way; godly men of the end. The chariot is washed in the pool of Samaria; the dogs come to claim their due; they lick up the blood of the great king of Israel. The tongues of those brute creatures shall make good the tongue of God's prophet. Micaiah is justified, Naboth is revenged, the Baalites confounded, Ahab judged. "Righteous art thou, O God, in all thy ways, and holy in all thy works!" CONTEMPLATION IV.-AHAZIAH SICK, AND AHAZIAH succeeded his father Ahab, both in his throne and in his sin. Who could look for better issue of those loins, of those examples? God follows him with a double judgment—of the revolt of Moab, and of his own sickness. All the reign of Ahab, had Moab been a quiet tributary, and furnished Israel with rich flocks and fleeces; now their subjection dies with that warlike king, and will not be inherited. This rebellion took advantage, as from the weaker spirits, so from the sickly body of Ahaziah, whose disease was not natural, but casual: walking in his palace of Samaria, some grate in the floor of his chamber breaks under him, and gives way to that fall, whereby he is bruised, and languisheth. | The same hand that guided Ahab's shaft, cracks Ahaziah's lattice. How infinite variety of plagues hath the just God for obstinate sinners! whether in the field or in the chamber, he knows to find them out. How fearlessly did Ahaziah walk on his wonted pavement! The Lord hath laid a trap for him, whereinto, while he thinks least, he falls irrecoverably. No place is safe for the man that is at variance with God. The body of Ahaziah was not more sick, than his soul was graceless: none but chance was his enemy, none but the god of Ekron must be his friend. He looks not up to the omnipotent hand of Divine Justice for the disease, or of mercy for the remedy; an idol is his refuge, whether for cure or intelligence. We hear not till now of Baal-zebub: this new god of flies is, perhaps, of his making, who now is a suitor to his own erection. All these heathen deities were but a devil, with change of appellations; the influence of that evil spirit deluded those miserable clients; else, there was no fly so impotent as that outside of the god of Ekron. Who would think that any Israelite could so far doat upon a stock or a fiend? Time gathered much credit to this idol insomuch as the Jews afterwards styled Beel-zebub the prince of all the regions of darkness. Ahaziah is the first that brings his oracle in request, and pays him the tribute of his devotion: he sends messengers, and says, "Go, inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease." The message was either idle or wicked: idle, if he sent it to a stock; if to a devil, both idle and wicked. What can the most intelligent spirits know of future things, but what they see either in their causes, or in the light of participation? What a madness was it in Ahaziah to seek to the postern, while the fore-gate stood open! Could those evil spirits truly foretell events no way pre-existent, yet they might not, without sin, be consulted: the evil of their nature debars all the benefits of their information; if not as intelligencers, much less may they be sought to as gods. Who cannot blush to hear and see that even the very evangelical Israel should yield pilgrims to the shrines of darkness! How many, after this clear light of the gospel, in their losses, in their sicknesses, send to these infernal oracles, and damn themselves wilfully in a vain curiosity! The message of the jealous God intercepts them with a just disdain, as here by Elijah: "Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron?" What can be a greater disparagement to the true God than to be neglected, than to stand aside, and see us make love to a hellish rival? Were there no God in Israel, in heaven, what could we do other, what worse? This affront, of whatever kind, Ahaziah cannot escape without a revenge: "Therefore thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die." It is a high indignity to the true God, not to be sought to in our necessities; but so to be cashiered from our devotions, as to have a false God thrust in his room, is such a scorn, as it is well if it can escape with one death: let now the famous god of Ekron take off that brand of feared mortality which the living God hath set upon Ahaziah; let Baal-zebub make good some better news to his distressed supplicant: rather the king of Israel is himself, without his repentance, hasting to Baal-zebub. This errand is soon done: the messengers are returned, ere they go. Not a little were they amazed to hear their secret message from another's mouth. neither could choose but think, he that can tell what Ahaziah said, what he thought, can foretell how he shall speed. We have met with a greater God than we went to seek; what need we inquire for another answer? With this conceit, with this report, they return to their sick lord, and astonish him with so short, so sad a relation. No marvel, if the king inquired curiously of the habit and fashion of the man that could know this, that durst say this. They describe him a man, whether of a hairy skin, or of rough, coarse, careless attire; thus drest, thus girded. Ahaziah readily apprehends it to be Elijah, the old friend of his father Ahab, of his mother Jezebel: more than once had he seen him, an unwelcome guest, in the court of Israel. The times had been such, that the prophet could not at once speak true, and please: nothing but reproofs and menaces sounded from the mouth of Elijah · Micaiah and he were still as welcome to the eyes of that guilty prince, as the Syrian arrow was into his flesh. Too well, therefore, had Ahaziah noted that querulous |