Set aside some particular actions, Joab was a worthy captain, both for wisdom and valour. Who could either exhort or resolve better than he; Be of good courage, and let us play the men, for our people, and for the cities of our God; and the Lord do that which seemeth him good? It is not either private glory or profit, that whets his fortitude, but the respect to the cause of God and his people. That soldier can never answer it to God, that strikes not more as a justicer, than as an enemy. Neither doth he content himself with his own courage, but he animates others. The tongue of a commander fights more than his hand. It is enough for private men, to exercise what life and limbs they have; a good leader must, out of his own abundance, put life and spirits into all others. If a lion lead sheep into the field, there is hope of victory. Lastly, when he hath done his best, he resolves to depend upon God for the issue: not trusting to his sword, or his bow, but to the providence of the Almighty for success; as a man religiously awful, and awfully confident, while there should be no want in their own endea vours. He knew well, that the race was not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; therefore he looks up above the hills, whence cometh his salvation. All valour is cowardice to that which is built upon religion.

I marvel not to see Joab victorious, while he is thus godly. The Syrians flce before him, like flocks of sheep; the Ammonites follow them; the two sons of Zeruiah have nothing to do, but to pursue and execute. The throats of the Ammonites are cut, for cutting the beards and coats of the Israelitish messengers.

Neither doth this revenge end in the field; Rabba, the royal city of Ammon, is strongly beleaguered by Joab. The city of waters, after well near a year's siege, yieldeth: the rest can no longer hold.

Now Joab, as one that desireth more to approve himself a loyal and a careful subject than a happy general, sends to his master David, that he should come personally, and encamp against the city, and take it, Lest, saith he, I take it, and it be called after my name. O noble and imitable fidelity of a dutiful servant, that prefers his lord to himself, and is so far from stealing honour from his master's deserts, that he willingly remits of his own to add unto his. The war was not his; he was only employed by his sovereign. The same person, that was wronged in the ambassadors, revengeth by his soldiers. The praise of the act shall, like fountain-water, return to the sea, whence it originally came. To seek a man's own glory is not glory. Alas, how many are there, who, being sent to sue for God, woo for themselves! O God, it is a fearful thing to rob thee of that which is dearest to thee, glory; which, as thou wilt not give to any creature, so much less wilt thou endure that any creature should filch it from thee, and give it to himself. Have thou the honour of all our actions, who givest a being to our actions and us, and in both hast most justly regarded thine own praise. 2 Sam. x. 1 Chron. xix.

DAVID WITH BATHSHEBA AND URIAH.

WITH what unwillingness, with what fear, do I still look upon the miscarriage of the man after God's own heart! O holy prophet, who can promise himself always to stand, when he sees thee fallen, and maimed with the fall? Who can assure himself of an immunity from the foulest sins, when he sees thee offending so heinously, so bloodily? Let prophane eyes behold thee contentedly, as a pattern, as an excuse of sinning; I shall never look upon thee but through tears, as a woful spectacle of human infirmity.

While Joab and all Israel were busy in the war against Ammon, in the siege of Rabbah, Satan finds time to lay siege to the secure heart of David,

Whoever found David thus tempted, thus foiled, in the days of his busy wars? Now only do I see the king of Israel, rising from his bed in the evening. The time was, when he rose up in the morning to his early devotion; when he brake his nightly rest, with public cares, with the business of the state. All that while he was innocent, he was holy; but now that he wallows in the bed of idleness, he is fit to invite temptation. The industrious man hath no leisure to sin the idle hath neither leisure nor power to avoid sin, Exercise is not more wholesome for the body, than for the soul; the remission whereof breeds matter of disease in both. The water, that hath been heated, soonest freezeth; the most active spirit soonest tireth with slacking. The earth stands still, and is all dregs; the heavens ever move, and are pure. We have no reason to complain of the assiduity of work; the toil of action is answered by the benefit; if we did less, we should suffer more. Satan, like an idle companion, if he find us busy, flies back, and sees it no time to entertain vain purposes with us. We cannot please him better, than by casting away our work, to hold chat with him, We cannot yield so far, and be guiltless,

Even David's eyes have no sooner the sleep rubbed out of them, than they rove to wanton prospects. He walks upon his roof, and sees Bathsheba washing herself; inquires after her, sends for her, solicits her to uncleanness. The same spirit, that shut up his eyes in an unseasonable sleep, opens them upon an enticing object: while sin hath such a solicitor, it cannot want either means or opportu. nity.

I cannot think Bathsheba could be so immodest, as to wash herself openly; especially from her natural uncleanness. Lust is quicksighted: David hath espied her, where she could espy no beholder. His eyes recoil upon his heart, and have smitten him with sinful

desire.

There can be no safety to that soul, where the senses are let loose. He can never keep his covenant with God, that makes not a covenant with his eyes. It is an idle presumption to think the outward man may be free, while the inward is safe. He is more than a man, whose heart is not led by his eyes; he is no regenerate man, whose eyes are not restrained by his heart.

O Bathsheba, how wert thou washed from thine uncleanness, when thou yieldedst to go into an adulterous bed! Never wert thou so foul, as now when thou wert new washed. The worst of nature is cleanliness to the best of sin: thou hadst been clean, if thou hadst not washed; yet for thee, I know how to plead infirmity of sex, and the importunity of a king: but what shall I say for thee, O thou royal prophet, and prophetical king of Israel? Where shall I find ought to extenuate that crime, for which God himself hath noted thee? Did not thy holy profession teach thee, to abhor such a sin more than death? Was not thy justice wont to punish this sin, with no less than death? Did not thy very calling call thee, to a protection and preservation of justice, of chastity, in thy subjects? Didst thou want store of wives of thine own? Wert thou restrained from taking more? Was there no beauty in Israel, but in a subject's marriage-bed? Wert thou overcome by the vehement solicitations of an adultress? Wert thou not the tempter, the prosecutor, of this uncleanness? I should accuse thee deeply, if thou hadst not accused thyself. Nothing wanted to greaten thy sin, or our wonder and fear. O God, whither do we go, if thou stay us not? Whoever, amongst the millions of thy servants, could find himself furnished with stronger preservatives against sin? Against whom could such a sin find less pretence of prevailing? Oh keep thou us, that presumptuous sins prevail not over us; so only shall we be free from great offences.

The suits of kings are imperative. Ambition did now prove a bawd to lust. Bathsheba yieldeth to offend God, to dishonour her husband, to clog and wound her own soul, to abuse her body. Dishonesty grows bold, when it is countenanced with greatness. Eminent persons had need be careful of their demands: they sin by authority, that are solicited by the mighty.

Had Bathsheba been mindful of her matrimonial fidelity, perhaps David had been soon checked in his inordinate desire: her facility furthers the sin. The first motioner of evil is most faulty; but, as in quarrels, so in offences, the second blow (which is the consent) makes the fray. Good Joseph was moved to folly by his great and beautiful mistress: this fire fell upon wet tinder, and therefore soon went out.

Sin is not acted alone; if but one party be wise, both escape. It is no excuse, to say, "I was tempted," though by the great, though by the holy and learned. Almost all sinners are misled, by that transformed angel of light. The action is that we must regard, not the person. Let the mover be never so glorious, if he stir us to evil, he must be entertained with defiance.

The God, that knows how to raise good out of evil, blesses an adulterous copulation with that increase, which he denies to the chaste embracements of honest wedlock. Bathsheba hath conceived by David; and now at once conceives a sorrow and care, how to smother the shame of her conception: he that did the fact must hide it.

( David, where is thy repentance? Where is thy tenderness

and compunction of heart? Where are those holy meditations, which had wont to take up thy soul? Alas! instead of clearing thy sin, thou labourest to cloke it; and spendest those thoughts in the concealing of thy wickedness, which thou shouldest rather have bestowed in preventing it. The best of God's children may not only be drenched in the waves of sin, but lie in them for the time, and perhaps sink twice to the bottom. What hypocrite could have done worse, than study how to cover the face of his sin from the eyes of men, while he regarded not the sting of sin in his soul?

As there are some acts, wherein the hypocrite is a saint, so there are some, wherein the greatest saint upon earth may be a hypocrite. Saul did thus go about to colour his sin, and is cursed. The vessels of mercy and wrath are not ever distinguishable by their actions. He makes the difference, that will have mercy on whom he will, and whom he will, he hardeneth.

It is rare and hard to commit a single sin. David hath abused the wife of Uriah; now he would abuse his person, in causing him to father a false seed. That worthy Hittite is sent for from the wars; and now, after some cunning and far-fetched questions, is dismissed to his house, not without a present of favour. David could not but imagine, that the beauty of his Bathsheba, must needs be attractive enough to a husband, whom long absence in wars had withheld all that while from so pleasing a bed; neither could he think, that, since that face and those breasts had power to allure himself to an unlawful lust, it could be possible, that Uriah should not be invited by them, to an allowed and warrantable fruition.

That David's heart might now the rather strike him, in comparing the chaste resolutions of his servant with his own light incontinence, good Uriah sleeps at the door of the king's palace; making choice of a stony pillow, under the canopy of heaven, rather than the delicate bed of her, whom he thought as honest as he knew fair. The ark, saith he, and Israel, and Judah, dwell in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, abide in the open fields; shall I then go into my house to eat, and drink, and lie with my wife? By thy life, and by the life of thy soul, I will not do this thing.

Who can but be astonished at this change; to see a soldier austere, and a prophet wanton! And how doth that soldier's austerity shame the prophet's wantonness! O zealous and mortified soul, worthy of a more faithful wife, of a more just master, how didst thou overlook all base sensuality, and hatedst to be happy alone! War and lust had wont to be reputed friends. Thy breast is not more full of courage than chastity; and is so far from wandering after forbidden pleasures, that it refuseth lawful.

There is a time to laugh, and a time to mourn; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing. Even the best actions are not always seasonable, much less the indifferent. He, that ever takes liberty to do what he may, shall offend no less, than he that sometimes takes liberty to do what he may not.

If any thing, the ark of God is fittest to lead our tunes. Accordingly as that is either distressed or prospereth, should we frame our mirth or mourning. To dwell in ceiled houses, while the temple lies waste, is the ground of God's just quarrel. How shall we sing a song of the Lord in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right-hand forget her cunning; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem to my chief joy.

As every man is a limb of the community, so must he be affected with the estate of the universal body, whether healthful or languishing. It did not more aggravate David's sin, that, while the ark and Israel was in hazard and distress, he could find time to loose the reins to wanton desires and actions, than it magnifies the religious zeal of Uriah, that he abandons comfort, till he see the ark and Israel victorious. Common dangers or calamities must, like the rapt motion, carry our hearts contrary to the ways of our private

occasions.

He, that cannot be moved with words, shall be tried with wine, Uriah had equally protested, against feasting at home, and society with his wife; to the one, the authority of a king forceth him abroad, in hope that the excess thereof shall force him to the other. It is like, that holy captain intended only to yield so much obedience, as might consist with his course of austerity. But Wine is a mocker. When it goes plausibly in, no man can imagine how it will rage and tyrannise. He, that receives that traitor within his gates, shall too late complain of surprisal. Like unto that ill spirit, it insinuates sweetly, but in the end it bites like a serpent, and hurts like a cockatrice. Even good Uriah is made drunk. The holiest soul may be overtaken. It is hard gainsaying, where a king begins a health to a subject.

Where, oh where, will this wickedness end? David will now procure the sin of another, to hide his own. Uriah's drunkenness is more David's offence, than his. It is weakly yielded to of the one, which was wilfully intended of the other. The one was as the sinner, the other as the tempter.

Had not David known that wine was an inducement to lust, he had spared those superfluous cups. Experience had taught him, that the eye debauched with wine will look upon strange women, The drunkard may be any thing, save good. Yet in this the aim failed. Grace is stronger than wine: while that withholds, in vain shall the fury of the grape attempt to carry Uriah to his own bed. Sober David is now worse than drunken Uriah. Had not the king of Israel been more intoxicate with sin, than Uriah with drink, he had not in a sober intemperance climbed up into that bed, which the drunken temperance of Uriah refused.

If David had been but himself, how had he loved, how had he honoured, this honest and religious zeal, in his so faithful servant; whom now he cruelly seeks to reward with death! That fact which wine cannot hide, the sword shall. Uriah shall bear his own mittimus unto Joab; Put ye Uriah in the fore-front of the strengh of