comb out of the belly of a dead beast. Good may not be refused, because the means are accidentally evil. Honey is honey still, though in a dead lion. Those are less wise, and more scrupulous than Samson, which abhor the graces of God, because they find them in ill vessels. One cares not for the preacher's true doctrine, because his life is evil; another will not take a good receipt from the hand of a physician, because he is given to unlawful studies; a third will not receive a deserved contribution from the hands of an usurer. It is a weak neglect not to take the honey, because we hate the lion. God's children have right to their Father's blessings, wheresoever they find them.

The match is now made; Samson (though a Nazarite) hath both a wedding and a feast. God nevern mislike moderate solemnities in the severest life; and yet this bridal feast was long, the space of seven days. If Samson had matched with the best Israelite, this celebration had been no greater; neither had this perhaps been so long, if the custom of the place had not required it. Now I do not hear him plead his Nazaritism, for a colour of singularity. It is both lawful and fit, in things not prohibited, to conform ourselves to the manners and rites of those with whom we live.

That Samson might think it an honour to match with the Philistines, he, whom before the lion found alone, is now accompanied with thirty attendants: they called them companions, but they meant them for spies. The courtesies of the world are hollow and thankless; neither doth it ever purpose so ill, as when it shews fairest. None are so near to danger, as those whom it entertains with smiles. While it frowns, we know what to trust to; but the favours of it are worthy of nothing but fears and suspicion. Open defiance is better than false love.

Austerity had not made Samson uncivil; he knows how to entertain Philistines with a formal familiarity: and that his intellectual parts might be approved answerable to his arms, he will first try masteries of wit, and set their brains on work with harmless thoughts: his riddle shall oppose them, and a deep wager shall bind the solution; thirty shirts, and thirty suits of raiment; neither their loss nor their gain could be much, besides the victory being divided unto thirty partners: but Samson's must needs be both ways very large, who must give or receive thirty alone. The seven days of the feast are

expiring, and yet they, which had been all this while devouring of Samson's meat, cannot tell who that eater should be, from whence meat should come. In the course of nature, the strong feeder takes in meat, and sends out filthiness; but that meat and sweetness should come from a devouring stomach, was beyond their apprehension.

And as fools and dogs use to begin in jest, and end in earnest, so did these Philistines; and therefore they force the bride to entice her husband to betray himself. Covetousness and pride have made them impatient of loss; and now they threat to fire her and her father's house, for recompense of their entertainment, rather than they will lose a small wager to an Israelite. Somewhat of kin to these savage Philistines, are those choleric gamesters, which, if the dice be not their friend, fall out with God, curse (that which is not) fortune, strike their fellows, and are ready to take vengeance upon themselves those men are unfit for sport, that lose their patience together with their wager.

I do not wonder that a Philistine woman loved herself and her father's family, more than an Israelitish bridegroom; and if she bestowed tears upon her husband, for the ransom of them, Samson himself taught her this difference, "I have not told it my father or my mother, and should I tell it thee?" If she had not been as she was, she had neither done this to Samson, nor heard this from him: matrimonial respects are dearer than natural. It was the law of Him that ordained marriage, (before ever parents were), that parents should be forsaken for the husband or wife: but now Israelitish parents are worthy of more entireness than a wife of the Philistines; and yet, whom the lion could not conquer, the tears of a woman have conquered. Samson never bewrayed infirmity but in uxoriousness. What assurance can there be of him that hath a Philistine in his bosom! Adam the most perfect man, Samson the strongest man, Solomon the wisest man, were betrayed with the flattery of their helpers. As there is no comfort comparable to a faithful yokefellow, so woe be to him that is matched with a Philistine.

It could not but much discontent Samson, to see that his adversaries had ploughed with his heifer, and that upon his own back; now therefore he pays his wager to their cost. Ascalon, the city of the Philistines, is his wardrobe; he fetches thence thirty suits, lined with the lives of their owners.

He might, with as much ease, have slain these thirty companions, which were the authors of this evil; but his promise forbade him, while he was to clothe their bodies, to unclothe their souls; and that Spirit of God, which stirred him up to revenge, directed him in the choice of the subjects. If we wonder to see thirty throats cut for their suits, we may easily know, that this was but the occasion of that slaughter, whereof the cause was their oppression and tyranny. David slew two hundred Philistines for their fore-skins; but the ground of this act was their hostility. It is just with God to destine what enemies he pleases to execution. It is not to be expostulated, why this man is stricken than another, when both are Philistines.

CONTEMPLATION IV.
Samson's Victory.

I CAN no more justify Samson in the leaving of his wife, than in the choosing her: he choose her, because she pleased him; and because she despised him, he left her. Though her fear made her false to him in his riddle, yet she was true to his bed. That weak treachery was worthy of a check, not a desertion. All the passions of Samson were strong like himself; but (as vehement motions are not lasting) this vehement wind is soon allayed; and he is now returning with a kid to win her that had offended him, and to renew that feast which ended in her unkindness. Slight occasions may not break the knot of matrimonial love; and if any just offence have slackened it on either part, it must be fastened again by speedy reconciliation.

Now, Samson's father-in-law shews himself a Philistine, the true parent of her that betrayed her husband; for no sooner is the bridegroom departed, than he changes his son: what pretence of friendship soever he made, a true Philistine will soon be weary of an Israelite. Samson had not so many days' liberty to enjoy his wedding, as he spent in celebrating it. Marriage hath been ever a sacred institution, and who but a Philistine would so easily violate it! One of his thirty companions enjoys his wife, together with his suit, and now laughs to be a partner of that bed, whereon he was an attendant.

The good nature of Samson, having forgotten the first wrong, carried him to a proffer of familiarity, and is repulsed; but with a gentle violence, "I thought thou hadst hated her." Lawful wedlock may not be dissolved by imaginations, but by proofs.

Who shall stay Samson from his own wife! He that slew the lion in the way of his wooing, and before whom thousands of the Philistines could not stand, yet suffers himself to be resisted by him that was once his father-in-law, without any return of private violence.

. Great is the force of duty, once conceived, even to the most unworthy. This thought (I was a son) binds the hands of Samson; else how easily might he, that slew those thirty Philistines for their suits, have destroyed this family for his wife? How unnatural are those mouths that can curse the loins from which they are proceeded, and those hands that dare lift up themselves against the means of their life and being!

I never read, that Samson slew any but by the motion and assistance of the Spirit of God: and the divine wisdom hath reserved these offenders to another revenge. Judgment must descend from others to them, since the wrong proceeded from others by them. In the very marriage, God foresaw and intended this parting, and, in the parting, this punishment upon the Philistines. If the Philistines had not been as much enemies to God as to Samson-enemies to Israel in their oppression, no less than to Samson in this particular injury— that purpose and execution of revenge had been no better than wicked. Now he to whom vengeance belongs, sets him on work, and makes the act justice: when he commands, even very cruelty is obedience.

It was a busy and troublesome project of Samson, to use the foxes for his revenge: for not without great labour, and many hands, could so many wild creatures be got together; neither could the wit of Samson want other devices of hostility but he meant to find out such a punishment as might in some sort answer the offence, and might imply as much contempt as trespass. By wiles, seconded with violence, had they wronged Samson, in extorting his secret, and taking away his wife and what other emblem could these foxes tied together present unto them, than wiliness, combined by force, to work mischief?

These foxes destroy their corn, before he which sent them destroy the persons. Those judgments which begin in outward things, end in the owners. A stranger that had been of neither side, would have said, What pity it is to see good corn thus spoiled! If the creature be considered apart from the owners, it is good; and therefore if it be mispent, the abuse reflects upon the Maker of it; but if it be looked upon, with respect to an ill master, the best use of it is to perish. He therefore that slew the Egyptian cattle with murrain, and smote their fruit with hail-stones; he that consumed the vines of Israel with the palmer-worm, and caterpillar, and cankerworm, sent also foxes, by the hand of Samson, into the fields of the Philistines. Their corn was too good for them to enjoy, not too good for the foxes to burn up. God had rather his creatures should perish any way, than serve for the lust of the wicked.

There could not be such secrecy in the catching of three hundred foxes, but it might well be known who had procured them. Rumour will swiftly fly of things not done: but of a thing so notoriously executed, it is no marvel if fame be a blab. The mention of the offence draws in the provocation; and now the wrong to Samson is scanned and revenged; because the fields of the Philistines are burned for the wrong done to Samson by the Timnite and his daughter, therefore the Philistines burn the Timnite and his daughter. The tying of the firebrand between two foxes was not so witty a policy, as the setting a fire of dissension betwixt the Philistines. What need Samson be his own executioner, when his enemies will undertake that charge? There can be no more pleasing prospect to an Israelite, than to see the Philistines together by the

ears.

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If the wife of Samson had not feared the fire for herself and her father's house, she had not betrayed her husband; her husband had not thus plagued the Philistines: the Philistines had not consumed her and her father with fire: now she leaps into that flame which she meant to avoid. That evil which the wicked feared, meets them in their flight. How many, fear of poverty, seek to gain unconscionably, and die beggars! How many, to shun pain and danger, have yielded to evil, and in the long run have been met in the teeth with that mischief which they had hoped to have left behind them! How many, in a desire to eschew the shame of men, have fallen into the