THE NUMBERING OF THE PEOPLE.

ISRAEL was grown wanton and mutinous. God pulls them down: first, by the sword; then, by famine; now, by pestilence.

Oh the wondrous, and yet just ways of the Almighty! Because Israel hath sinned, therefore David shall sin, that Israel may be punished; because God is angry with Israel, therefore David shall anger him more, and strike himself in Israel, and Israel through himself.

The Spirit of God elsewhere ascribes this motion to Satan, which here it attributes to God. Both had their hand in the work; God by permission, Satan by suggestion; God as a judge, Satan as an enemy; God as in a just punishment for sin, Satan as in an act of sin; God in a wise ordination of it to good, Satan in a malicious intent of confusion. Thus at once, God moved, and Satan moved: . neither is it any excuse to Satan or David, that God moved; neither is it any blemish to God, that Satan moved.

The ruler's sin is a punishment to a wicked people. Though they had many sins of their own, whereon God might have grounded a judgment, yet, as before he had punished them with dearth for Saul's sin, so now he will not punish them with plague but for David's sin. If God were not angry with a people, he would not give up their governors to such evils, as whereby he is provoked to vengeance; and if their governors be thus given up, the people cannot be safe. The body drowns not, while the head is above the water; when that once sinks, death is near: justly therefore are we charged to make prayers and supplications, as for all, so espe cially for those that are in eminent authority. When we pray ourselves, we pray not always for them; but we cannot pray them, and not pray for ourselves: the public weal is not comprised in the private, but the privat in the public.

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What then was David's sin? He will needs have Israel and Judah numbered: surely there is no malignity in numbers; neither is it unfit for a prince to know his own strength: this is not the first time, that Israel had gone under a reckoning. The act offends not, but the misaffection: the same thing had been commendably done out of a princely providence, which now, through the curiosity, pride, mis-confidence of the doer, proves heinously vicious: those actions, which are in themselves indifferent, receive either their life or their bane from the intentions of the agent. Moses numbereth the people with thanks; David, with displeasure. Those sins, which carry the smoothest foreheads and have the most honest appearances, may more provoke the wrath of God, than those that bear the most abomination in their faces. How many thousand wickednesses passed through the hands of Israel, which we men would rather have branded out for judgment, than this of David's! The righteous Judge of the world censures sins, not by their ill looks, but by their foul hearts.

Who can but wonder to see Joab the saint, and David the trespasser? No prophet could speak better than that man of blood;

The Lord thy God increase the people a hundred fold more than they be, and that the eyes of my lord the king may see it; but why doth my lord the king desire this thing? There is no man so lewd, as not to be sometimes in good moods, as not to dislike some evil; contrarily, no man on earth can be so holy as not sometimes to overlash, It were pity, that either Joab or David should be tried by every act. How commonly have we seen those men ready to give good advice to others for the avoiding of some sins, who, in more gross outrages, have not had grace to counsel their own bearts! The same man, that had deserved death from David for his treacherous cruelty, dissuades David from an act that carried but a suspicion of evil. It is not so much to be regarded, who it is that admonisheth us, as what he brings: good counsel is never the worse, for the foul carriage. There are some dishes, that we may eat even from sluttish hands.

The purpose of sin, in a faithful man, is odious; much more the resolution. Notwithstanding Joab's discreet admonition, David will hold on his course; and will know the number of the people, only that he may know it.

Joab and the captains address themselves to the work. In things which are not in themselves evil, it is not for subjects to dispute, but to obey. That, which authority may sin in commanding, is done of the inferior, not with safety only, but with praise.

Nine months and twenty days, is this general muster in hand: at last, the number is brought in. Israel is found eight hundred thousand strong; Judah, five hundred thousand. The ordinary companies, which served by course for the royal guard (four and twenty thousand each month) needed not to be reckoned. The addition of them, with their several captains, raises the sum of Israel to the rate of eleven hundred thousand: a power, able to puff up a carnal heart; but how can a heart, that is more than flesh, trust to an arm of flesh? O holy David, whither hath a glorious vanity transported thee? Thou, which once didst sing so sweetly, Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, for there is no help in him. His breath departeth, and he returneth to his earth; then his thoughts perish. Blessed is he, that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God; how canst thou now stoop, to so unsafe and unworthy a confidence!

As some stomachful horse, that will not be stopt in his career with the sharpest bit, but runs on headily till he come to some wall or ditch, and there stands still and trembles; so did David. All the dissuasions of Joab could not restrain him from his intended course. Almost ten months, doth he run on impetuously, in a way of his own, rough and dangerous: at last, his heart smites him; the conscience of his offence, and the fear of judgment, hath fetched him upon his knees; O Lord, I have sinned exceedingly in that I have done; therefore now, Lord, I beseech thee take away the trespass of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly. It is possible for a sin, not to bait only, but to sojourn, in the holiest soul; but though it sojourn there as a stranger, it shall not dwell there as an

owner. The renewed heart, after some rovings of error, will once, ere overlong, return home to itself; and fall out with that ill guide, wherewith it was misled, and with itself for being misled; and now it is resolved into tears, and breathes forth nothing but sighs, and confessions, and deprecations.

Here needed no Nathan, by a parabolical circumlocution to fetch in David to a sight and acknowledgment of his sin. The heart of the penitent supplied the prophet. No other tongue could smite him so deep, as his own thoughts. But though his reins chastised him in the night, yet his seer scourges him in the morning; Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do unto thee. But what shall we say to this? When, upon the prophet's reproof for an adultery cloked with murder, David did but say, I have sinned, it was presently returned, God hath put away thy sin; neither did any smart follow, but the death of a misbegotten infant: and now, when he vo luntarily reproveth himself for but a needless muster, and sought for pardon unbidden with great humiliation, God sends him the three terrible scourges, famine, sword, or pestilence, that he may choose with which of them he would rather to bleed. He shall have the favour of an election, not of a remission. God is more angered with a spiritual and immediate affront offered to his majesty, in our pride, and false confidence in earthly things, than with a fleshly crime, though heinously seconded.

It was a hard and woeful choice of three years' famine added to three forepast; or of three months' flight from the sword of an enemy; or three days' pestilence. The Almighty, that hath foredetermined his judgment, refers it to David's will, as fully, as if it were utterly undetermined. God had resolved; yet David may choose. That infinite wisdom hath foreseen the very will of his creature, which, while it freely inclines itself to what it would ra ther, unwittingly wills that which was fore-appointed in heaven.

We do well believe thee, O David, that thou wert in a wonderful strait. This very liberty is no other than fetters. Thou needst not have famine; thou needst not have the sword; thou needst not have pestilence: one of them thou must have: there is misery in all; there is misery in any. Thou and thy people can die but once; and once they must die, either by famine, war, or pestilence. O God, how vainly do we hope to pass over our sins with impunity, when all the favour that David and Israel can receive is, to choose their bane!

Yet, behold, neither sins, nor threats, nor fears can bereave a true penitent of his faith; Let us now fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great. There can be no evil of punishment, wherein God hath not a hand: there could be no famine, no sword, without him: but some evils are more immediate from a divine stroke; such was that plague, into which David is unwil lingly willing to fall. He had his choice of days, months, years, in the same number; and, though the shortness of time prefixed to the threatened pestilence might seem to offer some advantage for

the leading of his election, yet God meant, and David knew it, herein to proportion the difference of time to the violence of the plague; neither should any fewer perish, by so few days' pestilence, than by so many years' famine: the wealthiest might avoid the dearth; the swiftest might run away from the sword; no man could promise himself safety from that pestilence. In likelihood, God's angel would rather strike the most guilty; however, therefore, David might well look to be enwrapped in the common de struction, yet he rather chooseth to fall into that mercy which he had abused, and to suffer from that justice which he had provoked; Let us now fall into the hands of the Lord.

Humble confessions and devout penance cannot always avert temporal judgments. God's angel is abroad; and, within that short compass of time, sweeps away seventy thousand Israelites. David was proud of the number of his subjects: now they are abated, that he may see cause of humiliation in the matter of his glory in what we have offended, we commonly smart.

These thousands of Israel were not so innocent, that they should only perish for David's sin: their sins were the motives, both of this sin and punishment: besides the respect of David's offence, they die for themselves.

It was no ordinary pestilence, that was thus suddenly and universally mortal. Common eyes saw the botch and the marks; saw not the angel: David's clearer sight hath espied him, after that killing peragration through the tribes of Israel, shaking his sword over Jerusalem, and hovering over Mount Sion; and now he, who doubtless had spent those three dismal days in the saddest contrition, humbly casts himself down at the feet of the avenger, and lays himself ready for the fatal stroke of justice.

It was more terror, that God intended, in the visible shape of his angel, and deeper humiliation; and what he meant, he wrought. Never soul could be more dejected, more anguished, with the sense of a judgment; in the bitterness whereof he cries out, Behold, I have sinned, yea, I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house. The better any man is, the more sensible he is of his own wretchedness. Many of those sheep were wolves to David. What had they done? They had done that, which was the occasion of David's sin, and the cause of their own punishment: but that gracious penitent knew his own sin; he knew not theirs and therefore can say, I have sinned; What have they done? It is safe accusing, where we may be boldest, and are best acquainted, ourselves.

Oh the admirable charity of David, that would have engrossed the plague to himself and his house, from the rest of Israel; and sues to interpose himself, betwixt his people and the vengeance! He, that had put himself upon the paws of the bear and lion for the rescue of his sheep, will now cast himself upon the sword of the angel, for the preservation of Israel: there was hope in those con

flicts; in this yieldance, there could be nothing but death. Thus didst thou, O son of David, the true and great shepherd of thy Church, offer thyself to death for them who had their hands in thy blood, who both procured thy death and deserved their own. Here, he offered himself that had sinned, for those whom he professed to have not done evil; thou, that didst no sin, vouchsafedst to offer thyself, for us that were all sin: he offered and escaped, thou offeredst and diedst; and by thy death we live, and are freed from everlasting destruction.

But, O Father of all mercies, how little pleasure dost thou take in the blood of sinners! It was thine own pity, that inhibited the destroyer. Ere David could see the angel, thou hadst restrained him; It is sufficient, hold now thy hand. If thy compassion did not both withhold and abridge thy judgments, what place were

there for us out of hell?

How easy and just had it been for God, to have made the shutting up of that third evening red with blood! His goodness repents of the slaughter; and calls for that sacrifice, wherewith he will be appeased.

An altar must be built in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Lo, in that very hill, where the angel held the sword of Abraham from killing his son, doth God now hold the sword of the angel from killing his people. Upon this very ground, shall the temple after stand. Here shall be the holy altar, which shall send up the acceptable oblations of God's people, in succeeding generations.

O God, what was the thrashing-floor of a Jebusite to thee, above all other soils? What virtue, what merit was in this earth? As in places, so in persons, it is not to be heeded, what they are, but what thou wilt. That is worthiest, which thou pleasest to

accept.

Rich and bountiful Araunah is ready to meet David, in so holy a motion; and munificently offers his Sion for the place, his oxen for the sacrifice, his carts and ploughs and other utensils of his husbandry for the wood: two frank hearts are well met: David would buy; Araunah would give. The Jebusite would not sell; David will not take. Since it was for God, and to David, Araunah is loth to bargain: since it was for God, David wisheth to pay dear; I will not offer burnt-offerings to the Lord my God, of that which doth cost me nothing. Heroical spirits do well become eminent persons. He, that knew it was better to give than to receive, would not receive but give. There can be no devotion in a nig gardly heart as unto dainty palates, so to the godly soul, that tastes sweetest, that costs most: nothing is dear enough for the Creator of all things. It is a heartless piety of those base-minded Christians, that care only to serve God good cheap.

2 Sam. xxiv. 1 Chron, xxi.