country, nor daring to give so fair an occasion of provoking the Assyrian hostility against him.

The king of Egypt mildly deprecates this enmity; he sends ambassadors to Josiah, saying, "What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war; for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not."

What friend could have said more? what prophet could haye advised more holily? why doth not good Josiah say with himself, There may be truth in this suggestion; God may have sent this man to be a scourge of mine old enemy, of Ashur? If the band of the Almighty be in this design, why do I oppose it? the quarrel is not mine, why do I thrust my finger into this flame unbidden? wherefore should I hazard the effusion of blood upon an harmless passage? can I hear him plead a command from God, and not inquire into it? how easy is it for me to know the certainty of this pretended commission? have not I the priests and prophets of God about me? let me first go and consult his oracle; if God have sent him, and forbidden me, why should my courage carry me against my piety?

It is strange, that the good heart of Josiah could escape these thoughts, these resolutions: yet he that, upon the general threats of God's law against Judah, sends messengers to inquire of a prophetess, now, upon these particular threats of danger to himself, speaks not, stirs not. The famous prophet Jeremiah was then living, and Zephaniah, besides a whole college of seers: Josiah doth not so much as send out of doors to ask, "Shall I go up against the king of Egypt?" Sometimes both grace and wit are asleep in the holiest and wariest breast the best of all God's saints may be sometimes miscarried by their passions to their cost.

The wise providence of God hath mercifully determined to leave Josiah to his own counsels, that, by the weakness of his servant, he might take occasion to perfect his glory. Even that, wherein Josiah was wanting unto God, shall concur to the making up of God's promise to Josiah: when we are the nost blindfolded, we run on the ways of God's hidden decrees; and whatever our intents be, cannot, if we would, go out of that unknown path.

Needs will Josiah put himself into arms against an un

willing enemy; and, to be less noted, disguises himself. The fatal arrow of an Egyptian archer finds him out in the throng, and gives him his death's wound; now too late he calls to a retreat; his changed chariot is turned to a bier to carry his bleeding corpse to his grave in Jerusalem.

What eye doth not now pity and lament the untimely end of a Josiah? whom can it choose but affect, to see a religious, just, virtuous prince, snatcht away in the vigour of his age? After all our foolish moan, the Providence, that directed that shaft to his lighting place, intends that wound for a stroke of mercy. The God whom Josiah serves looks through his death at his glory: and, by this sudden violence, will deliver him from the view and participation of the miseries of Judah, which had been many deaths, and fetches him to the participation of that happiness, which could countervail more deaths than could be incident to a Josiah. O the wonderful goodness of the Almighty, whose very judgments are merciful! O the safe condition of God's children, whom very pain easeth, whom death revives, whom dissolution unites, whom, lastly, their very sin and temptation glorifies!

How happily hath Josiah gained by this change! instead of a froward people, he now is sorted with saints and angels; instead of a fading and corruptible crown, he now enjoys an eternal. The orphan subjects are ready to weep out their eyes for sorrow; their loss cannot be so great as his gain he is glorious, they, as their sins had deserved, miserable. If the separated soul could be capable of passion, could Josiah have seen, after his departure, the calamities of his sons, of his people; it could not but have laid siege to his peace.

The sad subjects proclaim his son Jehoahaz king, instead of so lamented a father; he both doth ill, and fares ill. By that time he hath sat but three months on the throne, Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, seconds the father's death with the son's captivity. This enemy puts down the wicked son of Josiah, and lades him with chains at Riblath, in the land at Hamath; and lades his people with a tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold: yet, as if he, that was unwilling to fight with Josiah, were no less unwilling to root out his posterity, this Egyptian sets Eliakim, the second son of Josiah, upon the seat of his father; and, that he might be all his, changes his name to Jehoiakim. his name to Jehoiakim. O the woeful and unworthy succession of Josiah! one son is a prisoner, the

other is a tributary, both are wicked. After that Jehoiakim hath been some years Pharaoh's bailiff, to gather and rack the dear rents of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylon, comes up, and sweeps away both the lord and his feodary, Pharaoh and Jehoiakim.

So far was the ambitious Egyptian from maintaining his incroachment upon the territories of Judah, that he could, not now hold his own. From Nilus to Euphrates all is lost: so subject are the lesser powers still to be swallowed up of the greater so just it is with God, that they, which will be affecting undue enlargement of their estates, should fall short of what they had.

Jehoiakim is carried in fetters to Babylon; and now, in that dungeon of his captivity, hath more leisure than grace, to bethink himself of all his abominations; and, while he inherits the sad lodging of his great grandfather Manasseh, inherits not his success.

While he is rotting in this gaol, his young son Jehoiakim starts up in his throne, like to a mushroom that rises up in a night, and withers in a day. Within three months and ten days is that young prince, the meet son of such a father, fetched up in irons to his father's prison: neither shall he go alone (his attendance shall add to his misery); his mother, his wives, his officers, his peers, his craftsmen, his warriors accompany him, manacled and chained, to their perpetual bondage.

Now, according to Isaiah's word, it would have been great preferment for the fruit of Hezekiah's loins to be pages in the court of Babylon.

One only branch yet remains of the unhappy stock of holy Josiah Mattaniah, the brother of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar, changing his name to Zedekiah, sets up in that forlorn and tributary throne; there might he have lived, though an underling, yet peaceable. This man, to make up the measure of God's judgments, as he was ever a rebel to God, so proves rebellious to his sovereign master the king of Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah hath forewarned him in vain; nothing could teach this man but smart.

Who can look for other than fury from Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, which now had affronted him with three several successions of revolts, and conspiracies against his government; and thrice abused his bounty and indulgence? with a mighty army doth he therefore come up against his

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seditious deputy, and besieges Jerusalem, and blocks it up with forts round about. After two years' siege, the Chaldees without, and the famine within, have prevailed; king Zedekiah and his soldiers are fled away by night, as thinking themselves happy, if they might abandon their walls, and save their lives.

The Chaldees, as caring more for the birds than for the nest, pursue them, and overtake Zedekiah, forsaken of all his forces, in the plain of Jericho, and bring him to Nebuchadnezzar a king of Babylon. What can so unthankful and perfidious a vassal expect, but the worst of revenge? The sentence is fearful: first, the sons of Zedekiah are slain before his eyes; then those eyes of his, as if they had seen enough, when they had seen him childless, are put out. His eyes are only lent him so long, as to torment him with the sight of his own utmost discomfort; had his sons but over-lided his eyes, the grief had been so much the less, as the apprehension of it had been less lively and piercing; now this woeful object shall shut up his sight, that even when his bodily eyes are gone, yet the eyes of his mind might ever see what he last saw; that thus his sons might be ever dying before him, and himself in their death ever miserable.

Who doth not now wish that the blood of Hezekiah and Josiah could have been severed from these impure dregs of their lewd issue? no man could pity the offenders, were it not for the mixture of the interest of so holy progenitors.

No more sorrow can come in at the windows of Zedekiah, more shall come in at his doors; his ear shall receive what more to rue for, his Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan, the great marshal of the king of Babylon, comes up against that deplored city, and breaks down the walls of it round about, and burns the temple of the Lord, and the king's house, and every fair palace of Jerusalem, with fire; drives away the remainder of her inhabitants into captivity, carries away the last spoils of the glorious temple. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the wonder of all times, the paragon of nations, the glory of the earth, the favourite of heaven, how art thou now become heaps of ashes, hills of rubbish, a spectacle of desolation, a monument of ruin! If later, yet no less deep hast thou now pledged that bitter cup of God's vengeance, to thy sister Samaria; how carefully had thy God forewarned thee. Though Israel play the harlot, yet let not Judah sin: lo now, as thine iniquities, so thy judg

ments have overtaken her. Both lie together in the dust, both are made a curse to all posterities. O God, what place shall thy justice spare, if Jerusalem have perished? if that delight of thine were cut off for her wickedness, "Let us not be highminded, but fear."

What pity it was to see those goodly cedars of the temple flaming up higher than they stood in Lebanon! to see those curious marbles, which never felt the dint of the pick-axe or hammer, in the laying, wounded with mattocks, and wounding the earth in their fall! to see the holy of holies, whereinto none might enter but the high priest once a year, thronged with pagans; the vails rent, the sacred ark of God violated and defaced, the tables overturned, the altars broken down, the pillars demolished, the pavements digged up, yea, the very ground, where that famous pile stood, deformed. O God, thou wouldst rather have no visible house upon earth, than endure it defiled with idolatries.

Four hundred thirty and six years had that temple stood, and beautified the earth, and honoured heaven; now it is turned into rude heaps. There is no prescription to be pleaded for the favour of the Almighty: only that temple, not made with hands, is eternal in the heavens. Thither he graciously brings us, that hath ordained us thither, for the sake of that glorious High-priest, that hath once for all entered into that holy of holies. Amen.

BOOK XXI.

CONTEMPLATION I.

Zerubbabel and Ezra.

THE first transportation into Babylon, under Jehoiakim, wherein Daniel, Ezekiel, and many others of the best note, were driven into captivity, was, some eleven years after, followed with a second, under Zedekiah, wherein the remnant of the now ruined Jerusalem and Judah were swept away. Seventy years was the period of their longest servitude: while Babylon was a queen, Judah was her vassal. When that proud tyranness fell, God's people began to rise again.

The