The Spiritual Bee; or, A Miscellany of Divine Meditations

THE SPIRITUAL BEE; OR, A MISCELLANY OF DIVINE MEDITATIONS.

THE SPIRITUAL BEE; OR, A MISCELLANY OF DIVINE MEDITATIONS.

THERE is a very little viper at Amyclae, says SOLINUS, which is disregarded for its smallness, but hurts the more easily because slighted. The Devil often comes to plead for some sins, sub forma pauperis; saying, " Is it not a little one " And being listened to, he can improve the smallest grant to his great advantage in our hurt and discomfort. Therefore when he shooteth this shaft, let us take it up and retort it on himself again. If he makes the smallness of the thing a consideration to tempt us to compliance, let us make use of it to facilitate our resistance. If it be small to yield to, it is little to resist; and it is easiest to deny SATAN in the smallest things, whom we must not gratify in any. So long as we show no kindness to him, he can never hurt us: but if we give him the least corner of our souls, only to sojourn in, he will soon get an absolute rule. If he have admittance at the smallest pass, " behold a troop comes;" as the whole power of an army may break in upon a city at a narrow breach. A little spark may set on fire a whole town. It is therefore an excellent saying of the Son of &RACH, " He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little." Let me crush the cockatrice in the egg, that I feel not the mortal sting of the serpent when engendered; and strangle sin in its infancy, that the first breath it takes may be likewise the last, and that it may expire in the first motions; and that though it be conceived, yet it may prove abortive. Happy shall he be, " O daughter of Babylon," that thus " taketh thy children," while young, " and dasheth them against the stones."

II. I HAVE sometimes seen a blazing light, much out-shining other stars, and attracting the eyes of men to behold it with wonder, which yet, by vanishing a while after, has appeared to have had no true place among the stars; and which, notwithstanding its glorious lustre, secretly sent forth vapours of a malignant nature. How many have been seen and gazed on with admiration, who have shone with glorious beams, which yet have at length discovered themselves to be exhalations only, gilded with rays, and counterfeiting the stars. Many have had a shining zeal in those exercises of religion that he open to the view, and so have gotten and kept up a high esteem and credit; but not trading on a solid stock, no wonder that they prove bankrupts at last. These falling stars shall never shine in the firmament of heaven. Let all there-fore try, and assure to themselves, the fixedness of their station; and, making just abatement for that false light, with which worldly credit and advantage, or slavish fear of GOD, may have vested them, examine what remains which is true and firmly grounded. Let me never deceive myself or others with a false light. I had rather be a true star, though the smallest, and shining undiscerned, like the stars in the milky-way, than be the most glorious comet.

III. FINDING my friend in a passion, d endeavored by some motives to reduce him to moderation; but I perceived that he was the more incensed, and that after the attempts I made to allay his heat, it was become greater than before. Passion is deaf to all advice but what may seem to encourage it. This wild-fire makes that its fuel, which was intended to quench it; and turns that into food, which was designed for remedy. Water cast on the smith's forge makes it burn the fiercer. A torrent is so far from being restrained by what is set to stop it, that it swells the higher, and spreads the farther;—Fontem indignatur. To encounter a man in the boisterousness of his passion, is to enter the combat with such creatures as ST. PAUL fought with at Ephesus;—to cast reins on the waves of the sea when it rages;—and to use rational endeavors to call a soldier to council in the heat and fury of a battle. The method therefore most kind and effectual is, to give place to wrath while the tempest rages;—and not to apply ourselves to the cure of it in its paroxysm, nor, at too great a disadvantage, to meet it with reason and counsel, when it comes forth armed with fury, and hooded with blindness. When the fire has got a full conquest, and the flame is outrageous, we seek not to quench it with water, and to save the house; but rather, by pulling down the next, to make the want of fuel diminish the flame. The violence of anger is best broken by giving way, and yielding to it, as a flint is most easily broken on a cushion; and time is the best lenitive to mollify.

IV. IT has been observed, that those who have the longest freedom from diseases, most hardly escape, when a disease once takes hold of them; and hence it is, that fevers are generally more pernicious in England, than in places about us, because that disease is less familiar to our natures, than to those in our neighboring countries. Temptations are usually most dangerous where least frequent; and their assaults are most effectual on those who have most seldom experienced them. They are then most to be feared, when their power is increased by a strength gathered from a long discontinuance, and the edge of our resistance blunted by long ease. When our shield is laid by, and may have contracted rust, then those fiery darts are with most difficulty repelled; when our bow is unbent, and our hand in our bosom, no wonder if our disadvantage be great, upon the enemy's onset. Hence SATAN has this stratagem amongst others, not to be frequent in his assaults in places where former alarms have excited care and vigilance; but rather to attempt an entrance, where a long quiet has produced security, and lessened the power of defense. Where he bestows his visits most rarely, he is least feared, and consequently least provided against. Let me not think myself secure from those temptations with which I have been little exercised, lest I find myself over-powered where I least suspected assault, and add to the other advantages, of which SATAN has too many over me, that of mine own security.

V. THE deepest waters move silently, and undiscernibly. The stars, though vast and glorious bodies, yet from their distance seem very small; and many stars, as in the galaxy, shine unseen. The moon, when that side towards the earth is darkened, towards heaven shines bright. If in some men's conversation I seem to discern little or no splendor, let me not be forward in my censures of their state. It may be, that I do not approach near enough to them. Perchance, " our heavenly Father " may see that in secret, which does not discover itself openly; —they may have a bright side heaven-ward, though toward earth they seem wholly eclipsed. Perchance they have so much more of the Publican in them, than of the Pharisee, that they will not let their " left hand know what their right hand doth." As most men seem better than they are in truth, so some are better than they seem to be. I had rather be good and not seem so, than seem good and not be so: for the Publican went home justified rather than the Pharisee.

VI. THE Book which ST. JOHN ate, while in his mouth, was sweet and pleasant, but in his belly became bitter. We read of waters in Miletum and elsewhere, which are fresh at the top, and bitter at the bottom; and of a lake in Phrygia, whose water makes those that drink it strangely jocund and full of laughter, but ends in their death. While we are pleasing ourselves in worldly pleasure, we should do well to consider whether it will not be bitterness in the end. There is no earthly pleasure which has not the inseparable attendance of grief,—and that following it as closely as JACOB came after ESAU, " holding it by the heel." Yea, worldly delight is but a shadow; and when we catch after it, all that we grasp is substantial sorrow in its room. The honey should not be very delightful, when the sting is so near; it is better to want it, than to feel the smart and venom that attends it. Let me rest on nothing that has not a real and unmixed pleasure in it; and then I shall find I must leave this world, and take a higher flight; there is no such thing here, on which I can rest the sole of my foot; all earthly things have within them both the saltness and the turbulency of the sea. I will not bid adieu to innocent delight; but neither shall it have any thing of my heart. If I unwarily press too much on roses in the pulling, the prickles may run into my fingers. I will honestly enjoy my delights, but not purchase them at so dear a rate as my own danger. That mortal laughter and dancing which the bite of the tarantula causes, are only cured by music. The best remedy against the madness of laughter, is the voice of that "wise charmer:"—GOD can cure and retrench the exorbitances and profuseness of our spirits in worldly delights.

VII. LET us contemplate prayer in its journey between earth and heaven, as JACOB did the angels ascending and descending. It ascends lightly mounted on the wings of faith; but it always comes laden down again upon our heads. It goes up, it may be, in a shower of tears; but descends in a shower of blessings. It is wafted into heaven with groans; (for these have a force to open heaven's gates, and that prayer flies swiftly that is carried on the wings of a groan;) but those sighs return again laden with comforts, like the south winds in Egypt, whose wings are loaded with the sweet odors of spices. They go out weeping, but never come weeping back; for where the spring and seed-time are wet, the harvest is clear and joyful. " They that sow in tears reap in joy.

VIII. I HAVE sometimes wondered, and almost judged it another miracle, that BALAAM was no more amazed at that most strange and uncouth miracle, when he heard a voice come from that mouth which was wont only to bray, and saw himself out-reasoned by that which was remark-able for nothing so much as its stupidity and dullness. I marvel that his knees did not tremble, and his heart become like a stone; and that he did not so much as alight, on account of it; but, as though no strange thing had fallen out, he gave the beast a wrathful answer, without any symptoms of wonder. although, perchance, being a sorcerer, he might be not wholly a stranger to converse not much different from this, which might make it seem less uncouth; yet I rather think, that the transport of madness which so possessed this Prophet, and the covetousness which blinded his eyes, left no room for reflection. See, then, how senseless and stupid lust and passion make us. Many are so eager in the pursuit of their foolish desires, and so wholly possessed with contrivances to compass, and hopes to attain, their satisfaction, that they regard not any providences, though ever so strange and remarkable, which cross them in their course. Though GOD meet them in the way with a drawn sword, though he speak from heaven in a voice of thunder against them, they are not astonished. They may storm and rage at the impediments which traverse their unlawful pursuit, and at the blocks which are laid in their way; but they take no notice of the hand of Providence which casteth them there, though it be, perhaps, as visible and miraculous as that which wrote BELSHAllAR'S doom on the wall.

IX. WE read in GELLIUS of a soldier, who, riding forth to a muster, with a horse as lean as if he had been newly raised out of a charnel, and being himself so well habited and full, that he might have been a very sufficient burthen for a more able beast, was asked by the Censors whence came such a great disproportion between the meagreness of the one, and the grossness of the other; to which he answered, " That it was because he took care of himself, but his servant took charge of his horse." Most men have languid and infirm souls, while their bodies are in a vigorous habit. And whence is this Because their souls have no share in their care; they do not mind them as their own proper charge. Their time and diligence are all laid out on their bodies; these are the darlings they pamper, and which engross all their thoughts; or if they expend any in the other way, they soon rescue themselves as from an usurpation and encroachment. But, surely, souls so weakened and emaciated will not be able to stand the least brunt in the day of battle, laboring under the pressure and weight of flesh so much indulged. Let me have a lean, unhealthy, deformed body;—no matter, so I may find my soul sound, strong, and beautiful, in the eyes of GOD.

X. SOME are so curious as to conjecture, that CHRIST'S prayer, which he made after his withdrawment from his Disciples, was not merely mental, but vocal; inferring it from the manner in which the Evangelists relate it,--a He prayed, saying,"—which they will have to imply an audible speech and voice.

There is some advantage to be observed in prayer which is vocal, above what is mental only; although it be all one to GOD, who has an ear to hear what the heart prays, as well as what the mouth uttereth. This ad-vantage consists in the following particulars.

1. By joining a voice to our mental prayer, our affections are more awakened and quickened; as we find by experience, that the sense of a misery, when cooped up in our own thoughts, does not always burst into tears, which are the language of grief, but yet, when we vent it to others, in our recounting it, we cannot refrain from weeping.

2. It confines the mind more closely, and keeps it more fixed and intent upon what is spoken.

3. We find sometimes, that vehemency of affection forces us to it; for when our devotion is ardent, and the fire is kindled within us, it breaks forth into outward expressions, complaints, or tears.

4. I may add, lastly, that we can sometimes better form, or at least draw out in better order, our conceptions of what we pray for in an audible voice.

XI. I SAW a painter, who had made the picture of a face smiling, on a sudden, with no more than one dash of his pencil, make it seem to weep. How near are the confines of joy and sorrow, both of which, by the change of a line, may be made to sit on the same countenance! Their nature is much more distant than their abode. In the twinkling of an eye, in the turning of a hand, sadness may jostle out mirth; and deep sighs may be fetched from that breast, whence loud laughter has just made its eruption. Pleasure may die in the same moment that gave it its birth; and a sudden succession of grief may turn its cradle into its grave. The tears, in which an enlarged and vehement passion of joy had run over, may be arrested in the middle of their course, and be made to minister unto grief. In the flight of a minute, or in the beating of a pulse, the dilation of the heart by pleasure may be turned into a contraction of it by sorrow.

XII. LIVY tells us, that the Gauls, when they had once tasted of the wines of Italy, were so much taken with the pleasantness of them, that they would not afterwards rest contented with a bare trade thither for their wine, but firmly resolved to get possession by conquest of the land which produced it. Thus the antepasts of glory do but provoke the desires, and excite the appetite, of the believing soul. He is so far from being satisfied by foretastes, that they do but augment his thirst after a full fruition. He is not content with those small drops which are de-rived unto him at so great a distance from the fountain: nor are those degrees of grace and comfort, which he gains by holding commerce with heaven while upon earth, by means of prayer and faith, in the worship and ordinances of GOD, sufficient to allay his hunger. He cannot drink his fill, nor slake his thirst, at those cisterns. A holy insatiableness does so enlarge the capacity of his soul, that the more he has, the more he longeth for; and the wideness of his increasing desires is proportioned to the largeness of his receivings. He therefore resolves and aims, by a holy violence, to get possession of that spiritual Canaan from whence these grapes are brought; that so he may there drink of that wine of the kingdom, and of those rivers of pleasure.

XIII. IT is strange how ST. PETER, who not long before had been so daring as to draw his sword on a whole regiment, was yet, notwithstanding all his resolves and protestations about not forsaking CHRIST, suddenly infected with the air of the priest's hall. As soon as he had got in thither, his temper was changed, as though a contagion had seized him; and while he did but warm himself at their fire, his zeal and respect for his Master were abated and chilled. As many times, our foot is in the Devil's snare, and we are grievously entangled, where we thought we might have been safe enough. We may venture upon occasions of sin, and put ourselves within SATAN'S circle, thinking we are sufficiently armed by peremptory resolves and engagements; not duly considering, either the plausible and insinuating nature of sin, the treachery and deceit of our hearts, or the craft and importunity of the Tempter. Hard it is to avoid infection in the company of those that have the pestilence; especially as evil men have so much of that quality which is ascribed to those who have the plague,—a desire to taint others. It is hard not to be seized by evil, though by gentle and insensible degrees, in the society of the wicked. Evil converse cannot but leave a tincture upon us, if rare; if more frequent, a deep and double dye. The spirits and manners of men are, by a secret enchantment, transformed into the conditions of those with whom they communicate.

We may say generally of rivers, that they never run within the same banks without mixing their current. Waters, passing through the earth, have a quality and savour derived to them from the nature of the soils and minerals through which they pursue their course.

XIV. I HAVE seen a deception used, to keep some from their meat, so that they dare not eat it, by laying shreds of lute-strings on it, which appeared like worms; and to keep them from their drink, by putting into it the counterfeit of a toad. SATAN often plays this part; and uses such a deception to affright the children of GOD from their Father's table, and to make them out of conceit with duties. He presents to their sight the corruptions of their performances, and so represents them, that they appear formal though ever so zealous, and proud or hypocritical, though attended with ever so much humility and sincerity. When you have done thy work, then he comes with his sophistry, to make thee afraid that what you have done will turn to thy hurt; and, opening the parts of thy duty, tells thee,—" Here thy corruptions wrought, and there thy pride discovered its stirrings; here you wert as cold as if you caredst not whether you went heeded or not, and there you hadst lost thine heart. And is there not death in the pot, thiukest thou Or expectest you wages for what deserveth stripes" These artifices he uses, to dishearten believers from their services; and he has this great advantage, that they are usually apt to suspect themselves; their humors are stirred to his hand, and therefore he may the more easily work on them; they are ready to give credit to any that comply with their pensive apprehensions, and therefore are easily induced to use SATAN'S perspective, which at one end magnifies the evil of their performances, and makes it seem greater than it is, while at the other end, it extenuates the good, and makes it appear less. It is easy for SATAN to press down him that is already sinking, and to dye that soul sable black, which is of a dark and sad hue before. You who art not ignorant of SATAN'S devices, show him that you seest the sophistry, and understand the cheat.

XV. THERE is what we are wont to call good nature, which, however desirable, yet does very much prepare and expose those in whom it is found to temptations. For it is nothing but a pliable, yielding, waxen frame, which is so much the more subject to evil impressions rather than good, as wickedness is more insinuating than virtue. Such flexible twigs are easily bowed into crookedness; such a soft temper of mind is easily wrought and moulded to a compliance with the most dangerous suggestions; as the soft head of the infant is framed into any fashion by the midwife and nurse. Their facility and bashfulness often betray persons of this temper into a grant of that which yet they secretly condemn; and they know not how not to comply with the desires of the boldest and most unreasonable insinuator. That bashfulness is dangerously bold, which dares to offend GOD, lest it displease men. Nothing is more laudable than a firm, inflexible temper, when found in the way of righteousness. Let me never be ashamed to deny, what another is so shameless as sinfully to ask. Let my heart be as wax to the impressions of goodness, but as marble to those of evil; —as pliant as an osier to the hand of virtue, as stiff as an oak to SATAN and his instruments. Let a just request be as a command to me; let me obey it as a law, though it be but a desire; but let an unjust and wicked demand be cast back by me with abhorrence. If my friend be in any thing a factor for SATAN, let me bid him, "Get behind me," as our SAVIOR did ST. PETER. It is better to lose my friend than my innocence; and safest to keep at a distance from him, when he breathes contagion.

XVI. SOMETIMES I have intermitted or deferred the performance of duty, upon apprehension of some present indisposition and unaptness. I have thought, " It is better not to set my hand to GOD'S work, than to spoil it; better to omit my offering, than to give the lame and blind in sacrifice;--the next time I will make amends, when I am fitter to do it:" and the next time, perhaps, the task has been more irksome to me, and my plea of unfitness has seemingly had more strength than before; so that what before I did only defer, now I could be content wholly to neglect.—" Have I found thee, O mine enemy" Here the serpent's head discovers itself. Hereafter, when this plea is put in, it shall be rejected without hearing. I will check the least thought of reluctance toward the performance of the work I have assigned to myself. A lame prayer may get to heaven. I may, by rubbing and chafing my heart, get warmth into it. If I put forth my strength, I may break asunder the cords with which I am bound. THE SPIRIT may come, and fill my sails; and I may have the wind with me, though the tide be against me. That rule of physicians is well applied to practice, in such cases, which advises persons of weak stomachs to eat, though they have no present appetite, because they shall feel the effects thereof in their future increase of strength.

XVII. THE Turks have a saying concerning the Tartars, whom they repute a very wise nation,—that other nations have their wisdom written in their books, but the Tartars have devoured their books, and so have wisdom lodged in their breasts. Many Christians have the word of GOD written in their Bibles, but they never, as ST. JOHN, swallowed the book. The laws of GOD are best inscribed ill the tables of the heart; the soul is the best repository for them, and practice the fairest transcript of them. He is a good text-man, whose life is a comment on Scripture.

What benefit can accrue to us from gold in the mine, or pearls in the bottom of the sea; except we dig for the former, and coin it into money,—and dive for the latter, that we may have them to apply to our use. He to whom the word of GOD is not as his necessary food, or who does not,. GQ tanquam sacer helluo," " as a holy glutton," devour, digest, and convert it into succum et sanguinenc, is like him, who as long as he had PLATO'S book on the immortality of the soul in his hands, was a Platonist, but as soon as he had laid it by, became an Epicure again. As we often say of physicians, that they are better acquainted with GALEN than with the disease; so of such we may say, that they carry their wisdom rather in their book than in their heart.

XVIII. OUR SAVIOR (Luke 4:) would not give the Devil audience, even when he spoke truth, saying, " I know thee who you art, the holy one of GOD;"—refusing to have the rather of Lies to bear witness of him, because he knew that he used the truth, only to countenance error. And on the same account the Apostles (Acts 16: 17,) silenced the spirit of divination, when he would have defiled the Gospel by preaching it. In Matt. 4: 6, we find the Devil quoting Scripture; but he strangely maimed and perverted it, to make it serve his own turn; for one part is left out, the other misapplied. We may be sure this impostor has never any errand but deceit, whatever message he seems to bring. This liar always mixes some truth with his tale, that may make way for it to enter into belief. For vice and falsehood must still borrow the assistance of virtue and truth. There is always true corn strewed under a pit-fall; and they are full and weighty ears, which we daub with lime, to deceive the poor birds in a snow. Even in the dunghill of MAHOMET'S Alcoran there are some jewels; and SERGIUS has bespangled and decked it with some parcels of branches of Scripture and of Christianity. Et part em veri fabula queeque tenet.

This great deceiver, SATAN, deals as cheats are ordinarily wont to do; who, to make their impostures more passable, use some means to gain credit, before they can cozen. Let me beware of SATAN'S hook, though covered with ever so specious and pleasing a bait. Though his pills be gilded, yet they are poisonous. Though he take upon him the covering of an angel of light, yet, by a circumspect eye, the black fiend may be discerned under it. There suspect him most, where his pretences are most plausible.

XIX. MAN that was once in honor, and placed little lower than the angels, having lost his birth-right, is now become lower than the beasts that perish; and the Scripture sends him to school to them;—to the ant to learn industry, to the ox and the ass to learn duty to GOD, to the dove to learn innocency, to the serpent to learn wisdom. But how many descend so far even below their degraded estate, that they transcribe these patterns not is the good but the evil; and whereas they should make use of then, as tutors and monitors, they degenerate into the very nature of beasts, and make NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S punishment their choice. We know that centaurs, made up of half marl and half beast, came not from Thessaly, but had their original in PINDAR'S poetic fancy, which was the Prometheus that fashioned them: and GALEN, considering the utter irreconcileableness of the fiction with the principles of anatomy, is very angry at his vanity in it. But we find many such monsters in morality, if we consider the strange discomposure that is in the souls of men; in which the difference is only this, that here the prodigy is more wonderful, in that the beast is placed before the man, and passion and lust above reason. How much rather should men endeavor to advance their natures above their pre-sent sphere, to recover and raise them, rather than thus depress them; and, if they will needs forsake their humanity, to assume the nature of angels, and succeed to that vacated rank, which the Prince of the Morning was willing to leave.

XX. POPE ALEXANDER 5:, who had been so bountiful to the poor, that he had left little or nothing to himself, (records do not abound with such popes,) would often say of him-self, a That he was a rich bishop, a poor cardinal, and a beggarly pope." Many are thus retrograde in Christianity. Like NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S image, the further they are from the beginning, the more their goodness decays; as in that, the further from the head, the coarser was the metal. Their first commencement in Christianity had a golden beginning; they went on to a silver progress; and in the conclusion they are all earthy.

We should go up the hill to Zion; every day should bear us a step nearer heaven; but these go down the hill, and are further from salvation in the evening of their life than when they first believed. Whereas they should be like the sun going on from strength to strength, till they come to their meridian lustre,—they rather resemble him, as he was in HEZEKIAH'S time, when he went backward; for in this subject the case is one, where non progredi est regredi: he that does not go forward in Christianity, goes backward; he is already come to a decrease of goodness, that does not strive after an increase of it. Many, the higher they rise in the world, the more they fall in goodness; and their true riches decrease by the increase of out-ward accessions; like trees, which, as they advance higher in growth, strike their roots proportionably deeper into the earth; and like stars, which, the higher they are, the more their beams are contracted. The Devil effects on them what he did but tempt our SAVIOR to;—no sooner are they raised to a pinnacle, but straightway they cast themselves down; and being placed on a mountain, where they have a more large and alluring view of the world, they fall down before SATAN.

XXI. I MEET with an excellent advice of a heathen;—so excellent, that I cannot but think it came from a higher dictate than that of his own spirit, as well as many other sayings, both of the same and other stoical authors: " To procure that which all men seek, contentment, *, will nothing but what GOD wills." Methinks this is like a north-west passage, or a shorter cut, to a treasure greater than that of the Indies, and to a haven of rest, at which men generally seek to arrive by a wide compass of vain contrivances. This is such an elixir, that the very touch of it turns all into gold. This is that universal remedy, that prevents and removes all frettings, tumults, disquiets, murmurings, and discouragements of the soul; and puts it into a temper so equal, calm, and serene, that it does in a measure anticipate its future happiness. For when our will is thus, as it were, resolved and melted into the will of GOD, we have all that we desire, and nothing can happen to us but what we will;—and what more needeth there to make us happy This is a higher degree of grace than that of merely submitting ourselves to Coil's will; (which yet is a high attainment;) for it makes the divine will and ours to be the same. This is the ready way to procure riches, and honors, and pleasures; not by using endeavors to add to our wealth, reputation, and carnal enjoyments; (for we find by experience, that he who has most, has greatest want in his store;) but by a more compendious and less tiresome way,—by detracting from our desires, and by reducing them to a due proportion. And thus we shall find it true, that he has most, who has as much as he desires; as he is not rich who has much, but he who has enough; nor he indigent who has little, but he who craves more;—for we are not rich or poor, happy or unhappy, so much according to the proportion of what we possess, as of what w desire. Therefore I commend the answer of one, who, when his friend wished that the GODs would give him whatever he desired, replied, " Nay, rather wish, that they would give me to desire only what they give."

XXII. WHEN NEBUCHADNEZZAR closely besieged Jerusalem, and they were reduced to extremities, the Jews made a solemn covenant with GOD to dismiss their servants, and set them free; but no sooner had the King removed his siege, but they reversed their vow, and brought back their servants to bondage.

How often do those whom GOD has chastened with affliction, and seemed to have marked out for death, make covenants and promises of reformation, and of putting away their sin; and yet, when he withdraws his terrors, or causes the sickness to retreat, those ties do no more bind them, than the withs did Samson; but they arise, and go out, and do as at other times. While they sit on the margin of the grave, their spirits stoop, their passions are broken, their thoughts are humbled; then to be liberal of promises is an easy bounty; but when the storm is over, then they are straitened in performances, and rescind former engagements. The sighs of their sick-bed, which they turned into penitent groans, are now vanished into air; the sad reflections and serious recollections of their ways, to which they were reduced when they dwelt in sorrow, are now as little thought of, as the dolorous accents of their grief. When they come newly out of the furnace, while the smell of fire is yet on them, they are scrupulous and tender; but it is only like those who come out of a hot stove, and shrink from a cold air at first, but by degrees are brought to their former hardiness. If the soul be not changed, though for a while some religious colour may appear in the man's face, he will at last return to his former habit.

It was therefore wise advice which THEODORICUS,Bishop of Cologne, gave to the Emperor SIGISMUND, when he asked how he might be directed in the way to heaven: " Live so as you promisedst to do, in a painful fit of the gout or stone." The Israelites, when they had been humbled with the voice out of the fire, the uproar in all the elements, the thunder, darkness, and terror of Mount Horeb, were very prodigal of their promises: " All these things will we do." But GOD foresaw, though they spoke as they intended in that distress, that they would after-wards be niggardly in their performances: " O that there were such a heart in them!" And what people ever were more rebellious than they Never was a heart harder than PHARAOH'S; and yet upon the repetition of every plague, how couchant is the lion! How he fawns and crouches to the power which his stubbornness incensed! At every stroke how he cries out, " Spare me this once, and I will offend no more!" And at length, when death had made all Egypt to ring at once with passing-bells, and even his palaces were invaded by that King of Terrors,. he suddenly gives the Israelites a dismission, and, as it were, thrusts them forth, as if he could not be soon enough rid of them: " Rise up, get you forth from among us." And yet, no sooner were they gone, but the stream of his passion has a reflux, being only diverted by that judgment; and he goes after them with the whole force of his country, to fetch them back again.

LORD, never let my holy resolutions pass away with my afflictions; nor my health dispense with the vows of my sickness. Let me not, when I have in my distress found sanctuary in thy mercy as a votary, in my enlarged condition indulge myself as a libertine. Let me maintain my credit, and faithfully pay my vows, and discharge the bonds I have entered into with thee, in my necessitous and low state. Let immunity from evil never render me such a stranger to what I was in distress, as to make me recoil from my promises, and disown them.

XXIII. IT is not a new remark, that the SPIRIT OF GOD himself doth, in Scripture, make use of heathenish speeches and observations, and apply them to a spiritual use. Thus ST. PAUL took notice of a pagan inscription on an altar, and began his sermon to the Athenians on that text; and in the same place he quotes one of their poets, ARATUS; as also MENANDER, in 1 Cor. 15: 33; and CALLIMACHUS, Or EPIMENIDES, in Tit. 1: 12. Surely the warrant of such an example will give good ground for our making use of the borrowed helps of human writers in sacred things; if we deal with them as GOD commanded the Israelites to deal with the Canaanitish captives, if they would wed them, —to " shave their heads, and pare off their nails," &c.;—if we divest them of their pagan superfluities. For surely it would reflect upon the wisdom of GOD, to think that he has given the gold and treasures of arts and learning, the spoils of the Egyptians, to be used only for making a golden calf, (and such are all other subjects, compared with divine,) rather than to be applied to the use of the sanctuary, the service of GOD, and, as in Exod. xxxv., to the adorning of the tabernacle. Oply let them be made to pass through the fire, as the Midianitish gold and silver, (Numb. xxxi. 22,) and be thoroughly refined and purged from their heathenish dross. He that furnished CYRUS with treasure and riches of secret places, for the building of his temple, (Ezra 1: 2,) doubtless had an eye to the framing and edifying of his church in that light of knowledge with which he has embellished such writers. ELIJAH did not nauseate or reject the food that was brought to him even by a raven, which was an unclean creature under the law.

XXIV. A VINE, which is one of the most fruitful of trees, (and is used by GOD to illustrate the case of a Christian) if it be left to its natural excrescences, unregarded and unpruned, shoots forth into many superfluous branches and stems, spends its most generous strength in that way, and so becomes weak and fruitless. If GOD should leave the Christian to the vicious exorbitancies of his own heart and affections, and not curb and prune them, and retrench the extravagancy of his desires, his strength would be spent on that which profiteth not, and he would soon grow barren and useless. There is need that both by his restraining grace he should reduce and limit our desires, and by the sharpness of affliction check their excrescences. JONAH grew fond of his gourd, and GOD smote it, and therein nipped and restrained the unruliness of his spirit, which would have spent his love and delight on a silly plant. HEZEKIAH'S pride was grown to such a height, that he must needs vent it by boasting of his treasure; but GOD blasted it, by sending the Chaldeans to plunder him. When my heart irregularly runs out after vanity, let the smart of thy hand correct my wanderings, and tame the wildness of my affections! Better I should bleed by thy pruning hook, than be cut down by thy axe as withered and fruitless, and cast into the burning!

XXV. WE may observe, that lightning works with most force, where it meets with the greatest resistance; and acts more on that which has hard and firmly compacted parts, than on what is soft and yielding, and gives easy passage to it. Hence it is, that it has been sometimes said to pass through the scabbard, without any effect, and to melt the sword in it. Hence also, the hard oak and firm cedar feel its effects, when the bay, which is of a more yielding nature, is passed over untouched by it. The judgments of GOD in their working are much accommodated to the temper of the subjects on which they light. Where they meet with a stubborn, unpliant enemy, they fall with greater force, and are most pressing and heavy; they will break what they cannot bow. " The foolish heart fretteth against the LoRD; he is careless and rageth." (Prov. xix.) But what is the effect "The man that hardeneth his neck when he is rebuked, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." Those that are as wild bulls in the net of GOD, their own rage does but the more entangle, perplex, and weaken; but where GOD meets with souls of a soft and complying temper, his dealings are accordingly gentle, he afflicts them lightly, and does not stir up all his wrath. In this respect, because GOD thus wisely and carefully distinguishes between the different states and tempers of the patients with whom he has to deal, he is said " to correct us in judgment'

XXVI. If salt-petre, which is in itself observed to be of a fiery nature, be mixed with lukewarm water, at first it contesteth with it; but when it is overcome and dissolved by it, the water becomes abundantly more cold than otherwise it could have been. And water which has been warmed, and afterwards returns to its native temperature, becomes more cold, and more subject to be frozen, than that which has not felt the fire. Where the convictions of the SPIRIT OF GOD do not work a thorough change, the heart becomes afterwards benumbed into a greater coldness and deadness. A spiritual relapse is very pernicious. Where GOD has been knocking, and sent away with a repulse, he will suffer another bar to be put on that door. He that has conquered the good motions and de-sires which Heaven kindled in him, is given over to a more reprobate' sense, as the temper of iron is more hardened by being quenched after it has been heated in the forge. No sinner does more eagerly wallow in the mire, than he that returns to it after he was once washed. Where the unclean spirit, after his departure for a season, on his return finds the soul without CHRIST, swept and emptied of all gracious dispositions, and garnished with whatsoever vice may suit the entertainment of so unclean a guest, his re-entrance is with new attendance, and his hold is rendered seven-fold more impregnable than before: "he taketh to himself seven other spirits worse than him-self, and that man's last state is worse than his first." LORD, let me never quench those sparks which I should he always quickening and kindling into a flame; lest, by so doing, I make myself fuel for a flame that shall never be quenched

XXVII. PLINY, as his nephew tells us, out of curiosity prying into the mountain Vesuvius, that he might discover the manner and causes of its fiery eruptions, was devoured by them, and made fuel to that by which he thought to have increased his knowledge; and so found his death in his too bold advance in quest of that mystery of nature. Surely to be too curious in our inquiries and researches into the mysteries of GOD cannot but be dangerous. GOD has drawn a veil over some things; and if we are so bold as to attempt to lift it up, he may justly strike us with blindness, even in those things which were before ex-posed to our view. If we long after such forbidden fruit, GOD may, by a flaming sword, so set as to turn to all points of the compass, keep us not only from the tree of life and knowledge, but from all other trees in his Paradise. MOSES might come to the hill, but not to the burning bush: " Come not hither." If he had, it might have proved a consuming fire to him. If the waves of the sea have limits set to them, " Hitherto shall ye go,"—much more man's curiosity. And what security can he give himself, who will boldly invade the privacies which infinite wisdom has locked up in concealment, and break down the inclosures which the ALMIGHTY has set up Cannot we be content to be admitted into his house, except we ransack his closet and cabinet;—to be of his court, except we be his secretaries If we have an ear to hear where GOD has no tongue to speak, He may justly cause us to have no eye to read where He has a hand to write. It is a dangerous presumption to break open GOD's seal, and to go in quest of the knowledge of that, which he has hidden on purpose that we might not know it. He who is not content to look on the sun, where his rays are refracted through a cloud, will but lose his sight by staring on him in his naked brightness.

XXVIII. THE Rabbins tell us, according to their wonted vanity, that AARON (Exod. 22:) intended not to make a calf, but cast the golden ear-rings into the fire to consume them; but, by the operation of SATAN, the form of a calf came forth. But surely it is very usual for that old Serpent thus to over-act us, and make us unwittingly advance his interest; to use zeal without knowledge, as an instrument to promote his own cause under the pretext of GOD's; and, where men think they are building a church for GOD, to make it a chapel for himself. ST. PETER thought he had uttered that which would have pleased CHRIST, when he said, " Master, pity thyself;" yet the Devil, it seems, had made him his spokesman; for our LORD replied, " Get thee behind me, SATAN." That design, which to gain proselytes and assistants had "Holiness to the LoRD" written on it, when the other side is seen, sometimes proves to be only for the advancement of a carnal interest under that mask. Hence it has proceeded, that what DAVID said, "The zeal of thine house has eaten me up," may be by a prodigious inversion truly applied to some; —their zeal has eaten up the house of GOD.

XXIX. GALEACIUS, the noble Marquis of Pico, was so effectually wrought on by an elegant similitude in a sermon of PETER MARTYR'S, that he soon afterwards laid down all his honors, interests, and relations, at the feet of CHRIST. Perhaps the same thing, nakedly proposed, would not have made so easy and great an impression upon him, as it did when set forth and adorned in that rhetorical dress. The same passage, in a different habit, may be vigorous and piercing, or languid and dispirited.

Hearers are generally like bees, they all go to the flowers; therefore our discourse may be profitably as well as pleasingly strewed with them, provided they yield as much honey as they make a fair show: the food will be received more readily, when thus prepared. The assistance of oratory, if it be duly applied, and brought in only as an auxiliary, is in no wise to be slighted and rejected; for by this chiefly, among secondary means, the preacher reigns in the affection of his auditors;by this he thunders and lightens in them, as PERICLES was said to do. The feathers that imp the arrow, make it fly the faster, and pierce the deeper. Surely it could not be without the help of this art that CHRIST was so graphically de-scribed, and, as it were, painted forth, in his crucifixion, before the eyes of the Galatians. (Gal. 3: 1.) Yet the imposture of that rhetoric deserves more reproof than commendation, which works on the affections alone, and not at all on reason or conscience; and so kindles a strange fire in the heart, through the glass of the fancy rather than the judgment, which GOD will not own in the sacrifice; as likewise does the wantonness of that oratory, which is as gay and gaudy in the dress of every sentence, as a young scribe is in flowering a capital letter. Truth, especially divine truth, will not be decked like a strumpet, although it refuse not a decent and matron-like ornament. The pearls of the kingdom of heaven should be set in gold, not in lead;—though not so curiously wrought and embellished, as that the artifice should hide the lustre of the jewel. Comely and neat apparel is an ornament to the body; but if either gaudy or coarse, a disgrace.

XXX. A SPARTAN having long busied himself about the car-case of a dead man, to try if he could settle it firmly in an upright posture, perceiving how ineffectual his endeavors proved, (sometimes the head falling into the bosom, sometimes the arms flagging downward, and the whole at last falling to the ground,) told the standers-by, " There is wanting something within," meaning a soul. Thus it is in dealing with those who are " dead in trespasses and sins." If we endeavor to hold up their countenances heaven-ward, and would have them fix their eye on eternity, we cannot hold them to it one moment; they presently incline towards the earth again. If we would set them on their feet, and make them upright; if we would set their hands at work in deeds of righteousness, justice, and truth, and have them stretch out their arms to the relief of those that are in distress; all is in vain, while there is no spirit, nor principle of motion; some-thing is wanting within. If GOD’s dreadful threatenings be sounded in their ears with a voice of thunder, they hear it not; if hell be set before their eyes, they see it not; if a scourge be laid on their backs, their dead flesh feels it not.

XXXI. OLD ELI was very mild towards the notorious sacrileges, adulteries, and incests of his sons; but how uncharitably does he misconstrue poor HANNAH'S devotion, and upon what weak ground (only seeing her lips move without noise) Both he build the heavy charge of drunkenness against her! Yet afterwards, perceiving his error, be recants, and turns his condemnation of HANNAH into prayer for her.

Thus it often happens, that those who are most mildly indulgent to their own, are most sharply censorious towards others. He whose judgment is suborned or bribed by affection to a too partial and soft gentleness, will, where the subject is different, be as much warped and biassed to-wards a contrary extreme. For the case is much altered with the persons that are concerned in it. If nature or affection be allowed to pass the sentence, and in judging offences to accept the persons of the offenders, the judgment must needs be partial. The same eye which could not discern a beam in one case, will be so quick-sighted as to spy a mote in the other.

How apt is hasty and inconsiderate zeal to pass a grievous censure, where there is no other ground for it but mere misapprehension Those that are too rash in their reproofs, before they have taken sufficient estimate of the ground on which they are to level them, are often guilty of a zealous breach of charity. Let me imitate ELI, not in committing, but amending, his fault; and if in my haste I have prejudiced or injured another by an unjust censure, let me not persist in my error, but be as unquiet till I have made satisfaction for my offence, as I was till I had committed it. Let me in cool blood make the best reparation I can for the wound I have given in my heat and distempered zeal.

XXXII. WE read of AGRIPPINA, that the course she took to destroy her husband CLAUDIUS, was, by mixing poison at a banquet with the food which he most delighted in,—a mushroom: Boletum medicatum avidissimo talium ciborum obtulit. And we know, that what is venomous, being mingled with wine, works more furiously and incurably than with water. The Devil's great business is, to search into our tempers, thoughts, inclinations, and affections; that, finding which way the pulse of our soul beats, he may apply himself accordingly; that he may suit his temptations so as most effectually to work on the humor that abounds most in us; that he may lay his poison in our daintiest dish, and bait his hook with what he is sure we will swallow with most eagerness. If he finds the heart bent upon riches, he will present to such a man a golden idol for him to fall down to, as NEBUCHADNEZZAR set up an image of gold for his subjects to worship. When he entered JUDAS, to hurry him to that horrid treachery, it was a silver key that let him into his heart; and he knew that the bag which he carried was so closely hugged by him, that poison would be best conveyed to him in a cordial of gold. Are unclean desires accustomed guests to a man's soul The Devil will be the pander to his lust; and, by effectual contrivances, will so order things, that they shall fall in with the current of his affections. Thus he endeavored to compass DAVID'S death by the poison of a look; and when he found AMNON'S soul hot with this fever, he, by JONADAB'S mouth, inspired the crafty contrivance into his head of feigning himself sick, whereby he inveigled his sister. has pride and ambition the throne in his heart How does the Devil sublime his thoughts, and raise them up to high and soaring hopes; engaging him in such designs as cannot be compassed, but by wading through deep and enormous sins Thus HAMAN, that he might engross the favor of his King, and shine with a lustre of glory, free from that shadow with which the contempt of an unbended knee seemed to eclipse it, is drawn to contrive a cruel epidemic plot against the whole nation of the Jews, and which proved in the upshot most fatal to himself, in an advancement which his ambitious thoughts had never proposed to him.

XXXIII. I FIND it to be more hard to combat pleasure than grief, and that I am more easily foiled by the insinuating nature of that, than overthrown by the open and harsh violence of this. For grief, when it makes its onset, cannot hold any intelligence within me, to facilitate a surprisal; but pleasure has a treacherous party in my bosom, which has secret compliances with her; a thousand passions favor her admittance, and by all endeavors seek to frustrate my resistance. The soul barricadoes itself against grief, and by all wards seems to keep off the fury of its assaults; but to pleasure it lies open and naked, and soon hearkens to the summons. It admits of parleys, truces, correspondencies, and compliances here; whereas in the other war, it fights it out to the last, without quarter. That is like the strife between the torrent and the dam, always struggling to force one another; but this is like that between wind and tide, which sometimes strive, sometimes come about, and are both of a side. The will keeps its forces firmly united, when she enters the lists with that; but when pleasure is to be resisted, they are divided and dissipated, and not easily rallied. The soul's resolution will not be borne down by force, but it gently surrenders to delight. It soon comes to a treaty here; but the stormings of grief it firmly opposes. Therefore I will venture to pronounce, though it be a bold aphorism, That it is more easy to live on the dunghill of JOB with patience, than in the midst of SOLOMON's affluence with moderation. Those "paths washed with butter" (as the Scripture phrases them) must needs be more slippery than the way that has blocks and crosses in it, or that is strewed with the salt of affliction.

Surely, if we review the examples of those who have marked the ways that lead to destruction with their blood, we may return with that saying in our own mouths: Adversity " has slain her thousands," but Prosperity " her ten thousands." King JAMES, once asking a gentleman of note, what the people talked of the Spanish navy, was answered, " Sir, the people are more afraid of the Spanish Match, than the Spanish Powder." I morefear SATAN'S kind offers and courting addresses, than his hostile attempts.

XXXIV. THEY who indulge themselves in the diversion of reading romantic stories, experience, that though they know all to be false and fictitious, yet many times they cannot help having as violent passions, as if they were true, and as if they saw that really before their eyes, which they are sure is but painted. Sometimes they are under a transport of joy, sometimes of sorrow, as it pleases the romancer to tell his story; they are in fears when extremity of danger is represented, and in hopes when a good issue of the matter seems to open itself; and that with as lively a sense, as if they were in good earnest interested in the affair. And though still they can reflect on all, as but the dreams and fancies of another man, yet when they find themselves so truly affected, they are ready to think them their own proper concernments. This plainly evidences what vain, irrational things our passions for the most part are, and how eager and vehement they may be in the pursuit of that, which is as empty as shadows and dreams. And it would be a good lesson from this, to learn how little we are to trust the representations of our fancies in cases where the matter is of a more weighty nature; it being an approved rule of prudence, " Never to trust those entirely, who have deceived us, though but once." How great folly is it in us, to commit ourselves to the hurry of these blind and hoodwinked, yet impetuous guides! In this instance, likewise, methinks we have an insight into the unhappiness of our natures, and may learn what a strange and secret violence sense exercises over reason; what a tyrannical power passion usurps in the soul; how extremely contagious the neighborhood of the inferior faculty, the imagination, is to the understanding. Certainly, there is in man more of the earth, out of which he was taken and framed, than of that living spirit which was breathed into his nostrils. There is more body than soul iu this proud creature, who thinks himself created to have do-minion over all others.

XXXV. IT is observable in what. manner the contention between ABRAHAM'S herdsmen and LoT's is related, in Gen. 13: 7: "And there was a strife between ABRAHAM'S herdsmen, and the herdsmen of LoT's cattle;" and then those words immediately follow, in a seemingly strange dependence, " And the Canaanite and Perizzite dwelled in the land;" which surely the SPIRIT of GOD inserted as no small aggravation of the unseasonableness of the strife, that they should fall out while the heathens lived so near them, and were looking on, and so expose their religion to contempt and reproach. How great an aggravation have our dissensions received from the neighborhood of those that are adversaries to the truth, who have delighted to look on, and see our scuffles, and have clapped their hands, saying, " Aha, so would we have it; "—from hence, also, taking occasion to reproach and vilify our religion. As ST. PAUL says of speaking with several are tongues, " Would not he that comes in say, you mad"--so, when those that are without hear of so many dissensions and brawls, and such jangling opinions among us, will they not think us mad They will not easily be induced to believe that there is a church or temple of GOD building, where there is such a noise and clatter from the knocking of hammers and iron instruments. Surely Sion can as ill be built with discord of hearts, as Babel could with discord of tongues. GOD is not wont to be in the whirlwind of dissensions and uproars, but in the " still voice;" and that Heavenly Dove the HOLY GHdsT, like the halcyon, builds his nest only in a calm. Though the garment of the King's daughter, the Church, be of divers colors, though there be variety of gifts, yet it should be like CHRIST'S garment, without seam: In veste varietal sit, scissura non sit Lines, the dearer they approach to the centre, the nearer they come to one another; and those are at greatest distance from GOD, who are furthest off from one another in uncharitable differences.

But have the Canaanite and the Perizzite been merely lookers on Or have they not had another interest in the strife, by strong and secret influences causing and fomenting differences and contentions, and kindling sparks into a flame Surely " the hand of JOAB has been in all this matter." To this " sower of tares " we are in great part to impute the stirs and disturbances which new disciplines, new doctrines, sects, and schisms, have raised among us. He has been diligent in improving that rule in the Machiavelian politics, Divide et inap~era; making divisions, and disuniting us, that he may bring• the broken parties more easily under his own mastery.