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While Saul was in consultation of sparing Agag, we shall never find that Satan would lay any block in his way: yea, then he was a prompt orator, to induce him into that sin; now that it is past and gone, he can load Saul with fearful denunciations of judgment. Till we have sinned, Satan is a parasite; when we have sinned, he is a tyrant. What cares he to flatter any more, when he hath what he would? Now, his only work is to terrify and confound, that he may enjoy what he hath won. How much better is it serving that Master, who, when we are most dejected with the conscience of evil, heartens us with inward comfort, and speaks peace to the soul in the midst of tumult! 1 Sam. xxviii.

ZIKLAG SPOILED AND REVENGED.

HAD not the king of the Philistines sent David away early, his wives and his people and substance, which he left at Ziklag, had been utterly lost; now Achish did not more pleasure David in his entertainment, than in his dismission.

Saul was not David's enemy more, in the persecution of his person, than in the forbearance of God's enemies. Behold, thus late doth David feel the smart of Saul's sin, in sparing the Amalekites; who, if God's sentence had been duly executed, had not now survived, to annoy this parcel of Israel.

As, in spiritual respects, our sins are always hurtful to ourselves; so, in temporal, oft-times prejudicial to posterity. A wicked man deserves ill of those, he never lived to see.

I cannot marvel at the Amalekites' assault made upon the Israelites of Ziklag: I cannot but marvel at their clemency. How just was it, that, while David would give aid to the enemies of the Church against Israel, the enemies of the Church should rise against David in his peculiar charge of Israel! But, while David, roving against the Amalekites, not many days before, left neither man nor woman alive, how strange is it, that the Amalekites, invading and surprising Ziklag, in revenge, kill neither man nor woman! Shall we say that mercy is fled from the breasts of Israelites, and rests in hea thens? or shall we rather ascribe this to the gracious restraint of God, who, having designed Amalek to the slaughter of Israel, and not Israel to the slaughter of Amalek, moved the hands of Israel, and held the hands of Amalek? This was that alone, that made the heathens take up with an unbloody revenge; burning only the walls, and leading away the persons. Israel crossed the revealed will of God, in sparing Amalek; Amalek fulfils the secret will of God, in sparing Israel.

It was still the lot of Amalek, to take Israel at all advantages. Upon their first coming out of Egypt, when they were weary, weak, and unarmed, then did Amalek assault them; and now, when one part of Israel was in the field against the Philistines, another was gone with the Philistines against Israel, the Amalekites set upon the coasts of both, and go away laden with the spoil:

no other is to be expected of our spiritual adversaries, who are ever readiest to assail, when we are the unreadiest to defend.

It was a woeful spectacle for David and his soldiers upon their return, to find ruins and ashes, instead of houses; and instead of their families, solitude. Their city was vanished into smoke, their households into captivity; neither could they know whom to accuse, or where to inquire for redress. While they made account, that their home should recompense their tedious journey with comfort, the miserable desolation of their home doubles the discomfort of their journey. What remained there, but tears and lamentations? They lifted up their voices, and wept, till they could weep no more. Here was plenty of nothing, but misery and sorrow.

The heart of every Israelite was brimful of grief. David's ran over; for, besides that his cross was the same with theirs, all theirs was his alone: each man looked on his fellow as a partner of affliction, but every one looked upon David as the cause of all their affliction; and, as common displeasure is never but fruitful of revenge, they all agree to stone him, as the author of their undoing, whom they followed all this while, as the hopeful means of their advancements.

Now David's loss is his least grief. Neither, as if every thing had conspired to torment him, can he look besides the aggravation of his sorrow and danger. Saul and his soldiers had hunted him out of Israel; the Philistine courtiers had hunted him from the favour of Achish; the Amalekites spoiled him in Ziklag; yet all these are easy adversaries, in comparison of his own: his own fol lowers are so far from pitying his participation of the loss, that they are ready to kill him, because they are miserable with him. Oh the many and grievous perplexities of the man after God's own heart! If all his train had joined their best helps for the mitigation of his grief, their cordials had been too weak; but now, the vexation, that arises from their fury and malice, drowneth the sense of their loss, and were enough to distract the most resolute heart. Why should it be strange to us, that we meet with hard trials, when we see the dear anointed of God thus plunged in evils?

What should the distressed son of Jesse now do? whither should he think to turn him? To go back to Israel, he durst not; to go to Achish, he might not; to abide amongst those waste heaps, he could not; or, if there might have been harbour in those burnt walls, yet there could be no safety to remain with those mutinous spirits. But David comforted himself in the Lord his God. O happy and sure refuge of a faithful soul! The earth yielded him nothing, but matter of disconsolation and heaviness: he lifts his eyes above the hills, whence cometh his salvation.

It is no marvel, that God remembereth David in all his troubles, since David in all his troubles did thus remember his God! He knew, that, though no mortal eye of reason or sense could discern any evasion from these intricate evils, yet that the eye of divine Providence had descried it long before; and that though no human power could make way for his safety, yet that the over-ruling

hand of his God could do it with ease. His experience had assured him of the fidelity of his Guardian in heaven, and therefore he comforted himself in the Lord his God.

In vain is comfort expected from God, if we consult not with him. Abiathar the priest is called for. David was not in the court of Achish, without the priest by his side; nor the priest without the ephod. Had these been left behind in Ziklag, they had been miscarried with the rest, and David had now been hopeless. How well it succeeds to the great, when they take God with them, in his ministers, in his ordinances! As contrarily, when these are laid by, as superfluous, there can be nothing but uncertainty of success, or certainty of mischief. The presence of the priest and ephod would have little availed him without their use by them he asks counsel of the Lord, in these straits.

The mouth and ears of God, which were shut unto Saul, are open unto David: no sooner can he ask, than he receives answer; and the answer that he receives is full of courage and comfort; Follow, for thou shalt surely overtake them, and recover all. That God of truth never disappointed any man's trust. David now finds, that the eye which waited upon God was not sent away weeping.

David therefore, and his men, are now upon their march after the Amalekites. It is no lingering, when God bids us go. They, which had promised rest to their weary limbs, after their return from Achish, in their harbour of Ziklag, are glad to forget their hopes, and to put their stiff joints unto a new task of motion. It is no marvel, if two hundred of them were so over-tired with their former toil, that they were not able to pass over the river Besor.

David was a true type of Christ. We follow him in these holy wars, against the spiritual Amalekites. All of us are not of an equal strength some are carried by the vigour of their faith, through all difficulties; others, after long pressure, are ready to languish in the way. Our leader is not more strong than pitiful; neither doth he scornfully cashier those, whose desires are hearty, while their abilities are unanswerable. How much more should our charity pardon the infirmities of our brethren; and allow them to sit by the stuff, who cannot endure the march!

The same Providence, which appointed David to follow the Amalekites, had also ordered an Egyptian to be cast behind them. This cast servant, whom his cruel master had left to faintness and famine, shall be used as the means, of the recovery of the Israelites' loss, and of the revenge of the Amalekites. Had not his master neglected him, all these rovers of Amalek had gone away with their life and booty. It is not safe, to despise the meanest vassal upon earth. There is a mercy and care due to the most despicable piece of all humanity; wherein we cannot be wanting without the offence, without the punishment of God.

Charity distinguisheth an Israelite from an Amalekite. David's followers are strangers to this Egyptian. An Amalekite was his master. His master leaves him to die (in the field) of sickness and hunger; these strangers relieved him: and, ere they know whe

ther they might by him receive any light in their pursuit, they refresh his dying spirits with bread and water, with figs and raisins; neither can the haste of their way be any hindrance to their compassion. He hath no Israelitish blood in him, that is utterly merciless.

Perhaps yet David's followers might also, in the hope of some intelligence, shew kindness to this forlorn Egyptian. Worldly wisdom teacheth us, to sow small courtesies, where we may reap large harvests of recompence.

No sooner are his spirits recalled, than he requites his food with information. I cannot blame the Egyptian, that he was so easily induced, to descry these unkind Amalekites to merciful Israelites; those that gave him over unto death, to the restorers of his life: much less, that, ere he would descry them, he requires an oath of security from so bad a master. Well doth he match death with such a servitude.

Wonderful is the providence of God, even over those that are not, in the nearest bonds, his own. Three days and three nights, had this poor Egyptian slave lain sick and hunger-starved in the fields, and looks for nothing but death, when God sends him succour from the hands of those Israelites, whom he had helped to spoil though not so much for his sake, as for Israel's, is this heathenish straggler preserved.

It pleases God, to extend his common favours to all his creatures; but in miraculous preservations, he hath still wont to have respect to his own. By this means, therefore, are the Israelites brought to the sight of their late spoilers; whom they find scattered abroad, upon all the earth, eating and drinking, and dancing in triumph, for the great prey they had taken.

It was three days, at least, since this gainful foraging of Amalek; and now, seeing no fear of any pursuer, and promising themselves safety, in so great and untraced a distance, they make themselves merry with so rich and easy a victory; and now suddenly, when they began to think of enjoying the beauty and wealth they had gotten, the sword of David was upon their throats. Destruction is never nearer, than when security hath chased away fear. With how sad faces and hearts, had the wives of David, and the other captives of Israel, looked upon the triumphal revels of Amalek; and what a change, do we think, appeared in them, when they saw their happy and valiant rescuers, flying in upon their insolent victors, and making the death of the Amalekites, the ransom of their captivity! They mourned even now at the dances of Amalek: now, in the shrieks and death of Amalek, they shout and rejoice. The mercy of our God forgets not to interchange our sorrows with joy, and the joy of the wicked with sorrow.

The Amalekites have paid a dear loan for the goods of Israel, which they now restore with their own lives. And now their spoil hath made David richer than he expected: that booty, which they had swept from all other parts, accrued to him.

Those Israelites, that could not go on to fight for their share,

are come to meet their brethren with gratulation. How partial are we wont to be to our own causes! Even very Israelites will be ready to fall out for matter of profit. Where self-love hath bred a quarrel, every man is subject to flatter his own case. It seemed plausible and but just to the actors in this rescue, that those, which had taken no part in the pain and hazard of the journey, should receive no part of the commodity. It was favour enough for them to recover their wives and children, though they shared not in the goods. Wise and holy David, whose praise was no less to overcome his own in time of peace than his enemies in war, calls his contending followers from law to equity; and so orders the matter, that, since the plaintiffs were detained not by will but by necessity, and since their forced stay was useful in guarding the stuff, they should partake equally of the prey with their fellows: a sentence well beseeming the justice of God's anointed. Those, that represent God upon earth, should resemble him in their pro ceedings. It is the just mercy of our God, to measure us by our wills, not by our abilities; to recompense us graciously, according to the truth of our desires and endeavours; and to account that performed by us, which he only letteth us from performing. It were wide with us, if sometimes purpose did not supply actions. While our heart faulteth not, we, that through spiritual sickness are fain to abide by the stuff, shall share both in grace and glory with the victors. 1 Sam. xxx.

THE DEATH OF SAUL.

THE Witch of Endor had half slain Saul, before the battle: it is just, that they, who consult with devils, should go away with discomfort. He hath eaten his last bread, at the hand of a sorceress: and now necessity draws him into that field, where he sees nothing but despair. Had not Saul believed the ill news of the counterfeit Samuel, he had not been struck down on the ground with words: now his belief made him desperate. Those actions, which are not sustained by hope, must needs languish; and are only promoted by outward compulsion. While the mind is uncertain of success, it relieves itself with the possibilities of good: in doubts, there is a comfortable mixture; but when it is assured of the worst event, it is utterly discouraged and dejected. It hath therefore pleased the wisdom of God, to hide from wicked men his determination of their final estate, that their remainders of hope may hearten them to good.

In all likelihood, one self-same day saw David a victor over the Amalekites, and Saul discomfited by the Philistines. How should it be otherwise? David consulted with God, and prevailed; Saul with the Witch of Endor, and perisheth. The end is commonly answerable to the way. It is an idle injustice, when we do ill, to look to speed well.

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