fortable, how happy shall we be in the light of the glorious face of God our heavenly Father! of that our blessed Redeemer whom we sold to death by our sins; and which now, after that noble triumph, hath all power given him in heaven and earth!

Thus did Jacob rejoice, when he was to go out of the land of promise to a foreign nation for Joseph's sake; being glad that he should lose his country for his son. What shall our joy be, who must go out of this foreign land of our pilgrimage, to the home of our glorious inheritance, to dwell with none but our own; in that better and more lightsome Goshen, free from all the incumbrances of this Egypt, and full of all the riches and delights of God!

The guilty conscience can never think itself safe: so many years experience of Joseph's love could not secure his brethren of remission: those, that know they have deserved ill, are wont to misinterpret favours, and think they cannot be beloved: all that while his goodness seemed but concealed and sleeping malice; which they feared in their father's last sleep would awake, and betray itself in revenge: still therefore they plead the name of their father, though dead, not daring to use their own, Good meanings cannot be more wronged than with suspicion: it grieves Joseph to see their fear, and to find they had not forgotten their own sin, and to hear them so passionately crave that which they had.

Forgive the trespass of the servants of thy father's God: What a conjuration of pardon was this! What wound could be either so deep, or so festered, as this plaster could not cure! They say not, "the sons of thy father;" for they knew Jacob was dead, and they had degenerated; but the servants of thy father's God: how much stronger are the bonds of religion than of nature! If Joseph had been rancorous, this deprecation had charmed him; but now it resolves him into tears: they are not so ready to acknowledge their old offence, as he to protest his love; and if he chide them for any thing, it is for that they thought they needed to intreat; since they might know, it could not stand with the fellow-servant of their father's God, to harbour maliciousness, to purpose revenge; Am not I under God? And, fully to secure them, he turns their eyes from themselves to the decree of God; from the action to the event; as one that would have them think, there was no cause to repent of that which proved so successful.

Even late confession finds forgiveness: Joseph had long ago seen their sorrow, never but now heard he their humble acknowledgment: mercy stays not for outward solemnities. How much more shall that infinite Goodness pardon our sins, when he finds the truth of our repentance !

Gen. xxxvii, xxxix, xl, xli, xlii, xliii, xliv, xlv.

CONTEMPLATIONS.

BOOK IV.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JAMES, LORD HAY,

ALL GRACE AND HAPPINESS.

RIGHT HONOURABLE:

ALL that I can say for myself, is a desire of doing good; which if it were as fervent in richer hearts, the Church, which now we see comely, would then be glorious. This honest ambition hath carried me to neglect the fear of seeming prodigal of my little; and while I see others' talents rusting in the earth, hath drawn me to traffic with mine in public. I hope, no adventure, that ever I made of this kind, shall be equally gainful to this my present labour, wherein I take God's own history for the ground, and work upon it by what meditations my weakness can afford the divineness of this subject shall make more than amends for the manifold defects of my discourse; although also the blame of an imperfection is so much the more, when it lighteth upon so high a choice. This part, which I offer to your Lordship, shall shew you Pharaoh impotently envious and cruel; the Israelites of friends become slaves, punished only for prospering; Moses in the weeds, in the court, in the desert, in the Hill of Visions; a courtier in Egypt, a shepherd in Midian, an ambassador from God, a leader of God's people: and when you see prodigious variety of the plagues of Egypt, you shall not know whether more to wonder at the miracles of Moses, or Pharaoh's obstinacy. Finally, you shall see the same waves made both a wall and a gulf in one hour; the Egyptians drowned, where no Israelite was wet-shod and if these passages yield not abundance of profitable thoughts, impute it (not without pardon) to the poverty of my weak conceit; which yet may perhaps occasion better unto others. In all humble submission I commend them (what they are) to your Lordship's favourable acceptation, and yourself with them to the gracious blessing of our God.

Your Lordship's in all dutiful observance at command,
JOSEPH HALL.

THE AFFLICTION OF ISRAEL.

EGYPT was long a harbour to the Israelites; now it proves a gaol the posterity of Jacob finds too late, what it was for their forefathers to sell Joseph a slave into Egypt. Those whom the Egyp

tians honoured before as lords, now they contemn as drudges: one Pharaoh advances whom another labours to depress: not seldom the same man changes copies; but if favours out-live one age, they prove decrepit and heartless. It is a rare thing to find posterity heirs of their father's love. How should men's favour be but like themselves, variable and inconstant? There is no certainty but in the favour of God, in whom can be no change; whose love is entailed upon a thousand generations.

Yet if the Israelites had been treacherous to Pharaoh, if disobedient, this great change of countenance had been just; now the only offence of Israel is, that he prospereth: that, which should be the motive of their gratulation and friendship, is the cause of their malice. There is no more hateful sight to a wicked man, than the prosperity of the conscionable. None but the spirit of that true harbinger of Christ, can teach us to say with contentment, He must increase, but I must decrease.

And what if Israel be mighty and rich? If there be war, they may join with our enemies, and get them out of the land. Behold, they are afraid to part with those whom they are grieved to entertain either staying or going is offence enough to those that seek quarrels. There were no wars, and yet they say, If there be wars the Israelites had never given cause of fear to revolt, and yet they say, Lest they join to our enemies, to those enemies which we may have; so they make their certain friends slaves, for fear of uncertain enemies. Wickedness is ever cowardly, and full of unjust suspicions; it makes a man fear, where no fear is; fly, when no one pursues him. What difference there is betwixt David and Pharaoh! the faith of the one says, I will not be afraid for ten thousand that should beset me; the fear of the other says, Lest if there be war, they join with our enemies; therefore should he have made much of the Israelites, that they might be his; his favour might have made them firm; why may they not as well draw their swords for him?

Weak and base minds ever incline to the worse; and seek safety, rather in an impossibility of hurt, than in the likelihood of just advantage. Favours had been more binding than cruelties; yet the foolish Egyptians will rather have impotent servants, than able friends.

For their welfare alone, Pharaoh owes Israel a mischief; and how will he pay it? Come, let us work wisely: lewd men call wicked policies wisdom, and their success happiness: herein Satan is wiser than they; who both lays the plot, and makes them such fools, as to mistake villainy and madness, for the best virtue.

Injustice is upheld by violence, whereas just governments are maintained by love. Task-masters must be set over Israel; they should not be the true seed of Israel, if they were not still set to wrestle with God in afflictions. Heavy burdens must be laid upon them: Israel is never but loaded; the destiny of one of Jacob's sons is common to all, to lie down betwixt their burdens. If they had seemed to breathe them in Goshen sometimes, yet even there

it was no small misery to be foreigners, and to live among Idolaters; but now the name of a slave is added to the name of a stranger. Israel had gathered some rust in idolatrous Egypt, and now he must be scowered : they had borne the burden of God's anger, if they had not borne the burdens of the Egyptians.

As God afflicted them with another mind than the Egyptians; (God to exercise them, the Egyptians to suppress them ;) so causes he the event to differ. Who would not have thought, with these Egyptians, that so extreme misery should not have made the Israelites unfit both for generation and resistance? Moderate exercise strengthens, extreme destroys nature. That God, which many times works by contrary means, caused them to grow with depression; with persecution to multiply: how can God's Church but fare well, since the very malice of their enemies benefits them? Oh the sovereign goodness of our God, that turns all our poisons into cordials ! God's vine bears the better with bleeding.

And now the Egyptians could be angry with their own maliciousness, that this was the occasion of multiplying them whom they hated and feared; to see that this service gained more to the workmen, than to their masters: the stronger therefore the Israelites grew, the more impotent grew the malice of their persecutors; and since their own labour strengthens them, now tyranny will try what can be done by the violence of others: since the present strength cannot be subdued, the hopes of succession must be prevented; women must be suborned to be murderers, and those, whose office is to help the birth, must destroy it.

There was less suspicion of cruelty in that sex, and more opportunity of doing mischief. The male children must be born, and die at once; what can be more innocent, than the child that hath not lived so much as to cry, or to see light? it is fault enough to be the son of an Israelite. The daughters may live for bondage, for lust; a condition so much (at the least) worse than death, as their sex was weaker. O marvellous cruelty, that a man should kill a man for his sex's sake! Whosoever hath loosed the reins unto cruelty, is easily carried into incredible extremities.

From burdens they proceed to bondage, and from bondage to blood; from an unjust vexation of their body, to an inhuman destruction of the fruit of their body. As the sins of the concupiscible part, from slight motions, grow on to foul executions, so do those of the irascible: there is no sin, whose harbour is more unsafe, than that of malice; but oft-times the power of tyrants answers not their will: evil commanders cannot always meet with equally mischievous agents.

The fear of God teaches the midwives to disobey an unjust command; they well knew, how no excuse it is for evil," I was bidden." God said to their hearts, Thou shalt not kill: this voice was louder than Pharaoh's. I commend their obedience in disobeying ; I dare not commend their excuse: there was as much weakness in their answer, as strength in their practice: as they feared God in not killing, so they feared Pharaoh in dissembling; oft-times those, that

make conscience of greater sins, are overtaken with less. It is well and rare, if we can come forth of a dangerous action without any foil; and if we have escaped the storm, that some after-drops wet

us not.

Who would not have expected, that the midwives should be murdered, for not murdering! Pharaoh could not be so simple to think these women trusty; yet his indignation had no power to reach their punishment. God prospered the midwives, who can harm them? Even the not doing of evil is rewarded with good. And why did they prosper? Because they feared God; not for their dissimulation, but their piety. So did God regard their mercy, that he regarded not their infirmity. How fondly do men lay the thank upon the sin, which is due to the virtue. True wisdom teaches to distinguish God's actions, and to ascribe them to the right causes: pardon belongs to the lie of the midwives, and remuneration to their goodness, prosperity to their fear of God.

But that which the midwives will not, the multitude shall do. It were strange, if wicked rulers should not find some or other instruments of violence. All the people must drown whom the women saved. Cruelty had but smoked before, now it flames up; secret practising hath made it shameless, that now it dare proclaim tyranny. It is a miserable state, where every man is made an executioner. There can be no greater argument of an ill cause, than a bloody persecution; whereas, truth upholds herself by mildness, and is promoted by patience. This is their act, what was their issue? the people must drown their males, themselves are drowned: they died by the same means, by which they caused the poor Israelitish infants to die; that law of retaliation which God will not allow to us, because we are fellow creatures, he justly practiseth in us. God would have us read our sins in our judgments, that we might both repent of our sins and give glory to his justice.

Pharaoh raged before; much more now, that he received a message of dismission; the monitions of God make ill men worse: the waves do not beat nor roar any where so much, as at the bank which restrains them. Corruption, when it is checked, grows mad with rage; as the vapour in a cloud would not make that fearful report, if it met not with opposition. A good heart yields at the stillest voice of God; but the most gracious motions of God harden the wicked. Many would not be so desperately settled in their sins, if the word had not controlled them. How mild a message was this to Pharaoh, and yet how galling! We pray thee let us go. God commands him that which he feared. He took pleasure in the present servitude of Israel: God calls for a release. If the suit had been for mitigation of labour, for preservation of their children, it might have carried some hope, and have found some favour: but now God requires that which he knows will as much discontent Pharaoh, as Pharaoh's cruelty could discontent the Israelites; Let us go. How contrary are God's precepts to natural minds! and indeed, as they love to cross him in their practice, so he loves to cross them in their commands before, and his punishments