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 Jephthah 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 answers 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 a vow

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 holy 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; Oh 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 parents, 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.

Of 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 possible 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

sive of his own sorrow: we must first know our evils, ere we can quit them. It is the just method of every true angel of God, first to let us see that whereof either we do or should complain, and then to apply comforts; like as a good physician first pulls down the body, and then raises it with cordials. If we cannot abide to hear of our faults, we are not capable of amendment.

If the angel had first said, Thou shalt conceive, and not premised, Thou art barren, I doubt whether she had conceived faith in her soul, of that infant which her body should conceive; now, his knowledge of her present estate, makes way for the assurance of the future. Thus ever it pleases our good God, to leave a pawn of his fidelity with us; that we should not distrust him in what he will do, when we find him faithful in that which we see done.

It is good reason, that he, which gives the son to the barren mother, should dispose of him and diet him, both in the womb first and after in the world. The mother must first be a Nazarite, that her son may be so. While she was barren, she might drink what she would; but now, that she shall conceive a Samson, her choice must be limited. There is a holy austerity that ever follows the special calling of God: the worldling may take his full scope, and deny his back and belly nothing; but he, that hath once conceived that blessed burthen, whereof Samson was a type, must be strict and severe to himself; neither his tongue, nor his palate, nor his hand, may run riot: those pleasures, which seemed not unseemly for the multitude, are now debarred him.

We borrow more names of our Saviour than one; as we are Christians, so we are Nazarites; the consecration of our God is upon our heads, and therefore our very hair should be holy, Our appetite must be curbed, our passions moderated, and so estranged from the world, that in the loss of parents or children, nature may not make us forget grace. What doth the looseness of vain men persuade them that God is not curious, when they see him thus precisely ordering the very diet of his Nazarites?

Nature pleads for liberty; religion for restraint: not that there is more uncleanness in the grape, than in the fountain; but that wine finds more uncleanness in us than water; and that the high feed is not so fit for devotion as abstinence. Who sees not a ceremony in this command? Which yet carries with it this substance of everlasting use, that God and the belly will not admit of one servant; that quaffing and cramming is not the way to heaven: a drunken Nazarite is a monster among men.

We have now more scope than the ancient: not drinking of wine but drunkenness with wine is forbidden to the evangelical Nazarite; Wine, wherein is excess. Oh that ever Christians should quench the Spirit of God, with a liquor of God's own making! That they should suffer their hearts to be drowned with wine, and should so live, as if the practice of the Gospel were quite contrary to the rule of the Law!

The mother must conceive the only giant of Israel, and yet