stolen. The Levite had too many gods, to make conscience of pleasing one. There is nothing more inconstant than a Levite that seeks nothing but himself.

Thus the wild-fire of idolatry, which lay before couched in the private ball of Micah, now flies furiously through all the tribe of Dan, who, like to thieves that have carried away plaguy clothes, have insensibly infected themselves and their posterity to death. Heresy and superstition have small beginnings, dangerous proceedings, pernicious conclusions. This contagion is like a canker, which at the first is scarce visible; afterwards it eats away the flesh, and consumes the body.

BOOK XI.

CONTEMPLATION I.

The Levite's Concubine.

THERE is no complaint of a publicly disordered state, where a Levite is not at one end of it, either as an agent or a patient. In the idolatry of Micah and the Danites, a Levite was an actor: in the violent uncleanness of Gibeah, a Levite suffers. No tribe shall sooner feel the want of government than that of Levi.

The law of God allowed the Levite a wife; human connivance, a concubine: neither did the Jewish concubine differ from a wife, but in some outward compliments; both might challenge all the true essence of marriage. So little was the difference, that the father of the concubine is called the father-in-law to the Levite. She, whom ill custom had of a wife made a concubine, is now, by her lust, of a concubine made an harlot: her fornication, together with the change of her bed, hath changed her abode. Perhaps her own conscience thrust her out of doors; perhaps the just severity of her husband. Dismission was too easy a penalty for that which God had sentenced with death. She that had deserved to be abhorred of her husband, seeks shelter from her father. Why would her father suffer his house to be defiled with an adulteress, though out of his own loins? Why did he not rather say, What, dost thou think to find my house

an harbour for thy sins! While thou wert a wife to thine husband, thou wert a daughter to me; now thou art neither: thou art not mine, I gave thee to thy husband; thou art not thy husband's, thou hast betrayed his bed; thy filthiness hath made thee thine own, and thine adulterer's. Go seek thine entertainment where thou hast lost thine honesty: thy lewdness hath brought a necessity of shame upon thy abettors. How can I countenance thy person, and abandon thy sin? I had rather be a just man, than a kind father. Get thee home therefore to thy husband, crave his forgiveness upon thy knees, redeem his love with thy modesty and obedience; when his heart is once open to thee, my doors shall not be shut. In the mean time, know I can be no father to an harlot. Indulgence of parents is the refuge of vanity, the bawd of wickedness, the bane of children. How easily is that thief induced to steal, that knows his receiver! When the lawlessness of youth knows where to find pity and toleration, what mischief can it forbear!

By how much better this Levite was, so much more injurious was the concubine's sin. What husband would not have said, She is gone, let shame and grief go with her! I shall find one no less pleasing, and more faithful: or, if it be not too much mercy in me to yield to a return, let her that hath offended seek me. What more direct way is there to a resolved looseness, than to let her see I cannot want her! The good nature of this Levite cast off all these terms; and now, after four months' absence, sends to seek for her that had run away from her fidelity; and now he thinks, She sinned against me; perhaps she hath repented; perhaps shame and fear have withheld her from returning; perhaps she will be more loyal for her sin. If her importunity should win me, half the thanks were lost; but now, my voluntary offer of favour shall oblige her for ever. Love procures truer servitude than necessity. Mercy becomes well the heart of any man, but most of a Levite. He that had helped to offer so many sacrifices to God, for the multitude of every Israelite's sins, saw how proportionable it was, that man should not hold one sin unpardonable. He had served at the altar to no purpose, if he, whose trade was to sue for mercy, had not at all learned to practise it.

And if the reflection of mercy wrought this in a servant, what shall we expect from him whose essence is mercy! O

God, we do every day break the holy covenant of our love; we prostitute ourselves to every filthy temptation, and then run and hide ourselves in our father's house, the world! If thou didst not seek us up, we should never return; if thy gracious proffer did not prevent us, we should be incapable of forgiveness. It were abundant goodness in thee to receive us, when we should intreat thee; but, lo, thou intreatest us that we should receive thee! How should we now adore and imitate thy mercy, since there is more reason we should sue to each other, than that thou shouldst sue to us; because we may as well offend as be offended.

I do not see the woman's father make any means for reconciliation; but, when remission came home to his doors, no man could entertain it more thankfully. The nature of many men is forward to accept, and negligent to sue for; they can spend secret wishes upon that which shall cost them no endeavour.

Great is the power of love, which can in a sort undo evils past; if not for the act, yet for the remembrance. Where true affection was once conceived, it is easily pieced again, after the strongest interruption. Here needs no tedious recapitulation of wrongs, no importunity of suit. The unkindnesses are forgotten, their love is renewed; and now the Levite is not a stranger, but a son: by how much more willingly he came, by so much more unwillingly he is dismissed. The four months' absence of his daughter is answered with four days' feasting; neither was there so much joy in the former wedding-feast, as in this; because then he delivered his daughter entire, now desperate: then he found a son; but now that son hath found his lost daughter, and he found both. The recovery of any good is far more pleasant than the continuance.

Little do we know what evil is towards us. Now did this old man, and this restored couple, promise themselves all joy and contentment, after this unkind storm; and said in themselves, Now we begin to live. And now this feast, which was meant for their new nuptials, proves her funeral. Even when we let ourselves loosest to our pleasures, the hand of God, though invisibly, is writing bitter things against us. Since we are not worthy to know, it is wisdom to suspect the worst, while it is least seen.

Sometimes it falls out, that nothing is more injurious than

courtesy. If this old man had thrust his son and daughter early out of doors, they had avoided this mischief; now his loving importunity detains them to their hurt, and his own repentance. Such contentment doth sincere affection find in the presence of those we love, that death itself hath no other name but departing. The greatest comfort of our life is the fruition of friendship, the dissolution whereof is the greatest pain of death. As all earthly pleasures, so this of love is distasted with a necessity of leaving. How worthy is that only love to take up our hearts, which is not open to any danger of interruption, which shall outlive the date even of faith and hope, and is as eternal as that God, and those blessed spirits, whom we love! If we hang never so importunately upon one another's sleeves, and shed floods of tears to stop their way, yet we must be gone hence; no occasion, no force, shall then remove us from our father's house.

The Levite is stayed beyond his time by importunity, the motions whereof are boundless and infinite; one day draws on another; neither is there any reason of this day's stay, which may not serve still for to-morrow. His resolution at last breaks through all those kind hinderances; rather will he venture a benighting, than an unnecessary delay. It is a good hearing, that the Levite makes haste home. An honest man's heart is where his calling is; such a one, when he is abroad, is like a fish in the air, whereinto if it leap for recreation or necessity, yet it soon returns to its own element. This charge, by how much more sacred it is, so much more attendance it expecteth: even a day breaks square with the conscionable.

The sun is ready to lodge before them: his servant advises him to shorten his journey, holding it more fit to trust an early inn of the Jebusites, than to the mercy of the night. And if that counsel had been followed, perhaps they, which found Jebusites in Israel, might have found Israelites in Jebus. No wise man can hold good counsel disparaged by the meanness of the author: if we be glad to receive any treasure from our servant, why not precious admonitions?

It was the zeal of this Levite that shut him out of Jebus; "We will not lodge in the city of strangers." The Jebusites were strangers in religion, not strangers enough in their habitation. The Levite will not receive common courtesy from those which were aliens from God, though home-born in the heart of Israel. It is lawful enough, in terms of civility, to

deal with infidels; the earth is the Lord's, and we may enjoy it in the right of the owner, while we protest against the wrong of the usurper; yet the less communion with God's enemies, the more safety. If there were another air to breathe in from theirs, another earth to tread upon, they should have their own. Those that affect a familiar entireness with Jebusites, in conversation, in leagues of amity, in matrimonial contracts, bewray either too much boldness, or too little conscience.

He hath no blood of an Israelite, that delights to lodge in Jebus. It was the fault of Israel, that an heathenish town stood yet in the navel of the tribes, and that Jebus was no sooner turned to Jerusalem: their lenity and neglect were guilty of this neighbourhood, that now no man can pass from Bethlehem-Judah to Mount Ephraim, but by the city of the Jebusites. Seasonable justice might prevent a thousand evils, which afterwards know no remedy but patience.

The way was not long betwixt Jebus and Gibeah; for the sun was stooping when the Levite was over against the first, and is but now declined when he comes to the other. How his heart was lightened, when he entered into an Israelitish city! and can think of nothing but hospitality, rest, security. There is no perfume so sweet to a traveller as his own smoke. Both expectation and fear do commonly disappoint us: for seldom ever do we enjoy the good we look for, or smart with a feared evil. The poor Levite could have found but such entertainment with the Jebusites. Whether are the posterity of Benjamin degenerated, that their Gibeah should be no less wicked than populous! The first sign of a settled godlessness is, that a Levite is suffered to lie without doors. If God had been in any of their houses, his servant had not been excluded. Where no respect is given to God's messengers, there can be no religion.

Gibeah was a second Sodom; even there also is another Lot; which is therefore so much more hospitable to strangers, because himself was a stranger. The host, as well as the Levite, is of Mount Ephraim. Each man knows best to commiserate that evil in others, which himself hath passed through. All that profess the name of Christ are countrymen, and yet strangers here below. How cheerfully should we entertain each other, when we meet in the Gibeah of this hospital world!