nors. He that found himself exempted from this vengeance, by his repentance and deep humiliation, would fain find the same way for the deliverance of his people. The same words of the law, therefore, that had wrought upon his heart, are by him caused to be publicly read in the ears of Judah and Jerusalem. The assembly is universal, of priests, prophets, people both small and great; because the sin was such, the danger was such that no man may complain to want information, the law of God sounds in every ear. If our ears be shut to the law, the sin is ours: but, if the law be shut to our ears, the sin is of our goverWoe be to them that hide God's book from the people, as they would do ratsbane from the eyes of children. Ignorant souls cannot perish without their murder. There is no fear of knowing too much, there is too much fear of practising too little. Now, if the people do not imitate their king in relenting, they are not worthy to partake with him in his impunity. Howsoever, they shall not want a great example, as of sorrow, so of amendment. Good Josiah stands by the pillar, and solemnly renews his covenant with his God; the people cannot for shame refuse to second him: even they that looked for a destruction, yet do not withdraw their obedience.-God's children may not be sullen under his corrections, but, whether they expect or feel smart, are no other than dutiful to his awful hand. As a man, that finds he hath done something that might endanger the forfeit of his favour, puts himself into some deserving action, whereby he may hope to re-endear himself, so doth Josiah here. No endeavour is enough to testify his zeal to that name of God which was so profaned by his people's idolatry ; whatever monuments were yet remaining of wicked paganism, he defaces with indignation: he burns the vessels of Baal, and puts down his Chemarim, destroys the houses of the Sodomites, strews the powder of their idols in the brook Kidron, defiles Tophet, takes away the horses of the sun, burns the chariots of the sun with fire, and omits nothing that might reconcile God, clear Judah, perfect a reformation. Neither is this care confined to Jerusalem, and the neighbouring towns, but stretches itself to the utmost coasts of Josiah's kingdom; Bethel was the infamous seat of the pollution of Israel: it seems the heirs of Jeroboam, who set up his golden calf there, enjoyed it not long ; the kings of Judah recovered it to their crown, but it had not yet recovered itself from that ancient infection. Thither doth good Josiah send the unhallowed ashes of Baal's relics, to stain that altar first, which he will soon after deface. The time was, and it was no less than three hundred and fifty years since, that the man of God, out of Judah, cried against Jeroboam's altar : "O altar, altar! thus saith the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places, that burnt incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee." And now is the hour come, wherein every of those words shall be accomplished. It could not but be a great confirmation to Josiah, to see, that God so long ago foremarked him for his own, and forenamed him to so zealous a service. All our names are equally foreknown of that divine Providence, though not forespoken; neither can any act pass from us, which was not predetermined in that eternal counsel of the Almighty: neither can any act, that is predetermined, be unfulfilled upon earth. Intervention of time breaks no square in the divine degree: our purblind eyes see nothing, but that which toucheth their lids; the quicksight of God's prescience sees that, as present, which is a world off.-According to the prediction, the stench of dead men's bones is a fit perfume to send up from this altar to heaven, whose best sacrifices savoured worse in the nostrils of God: and the blood of the idolatrous sacrifices was a meet oblation to that God, who had been dishonoured by their burnt-offerings to his base corrivals. Even that prophet, who foretold this, had his tomb in Bethel, and that tomb had his inscription; his weakness might not rob him of the honour of his sepulchre. How palpably do these Israelites condemn themselves, while they reserve so famous a monument of their own conviction! It was no prejudice to this holy prophet, that his bones lay amongst the sepulchres of idolaters. His epitaph preserved those bones from burning upon that altar, which he had accursed: as the lion might not tear his carcass when he died, so now the fury of the multitude may not violate the very bones in his grave. I do not see Josiah save them for relics; I hear him command they shall rest in peace. It is fit the dead bodies of God's saints should be as free from contempt, as from superstition. After the removal of these rites of false worship, it is time to bring in the true. Now a solemn passover shall be kept unto the Lord, by the charge of Josiah: that book of the law sets him the time, place, circumstances, of this sacrament; his zeal so carefully follows it, that since the days of Samuel, this feast was never so gloriously, so punctually celebrated. Jerusalem is the place, the fourteenth day of the first month is the time, the Levites are the actors, a yearly and spotless lamb is the provision; no bone of it is broken, the blood is sprinkled upon the doorposts, it is roasted whole, eaten with sour herbs, with bread unleavened; the remainder is consumed by fire. The law, the sacrifices, had been in vain, if the passover had been neglected. No true Israelite might want, whether this monument of their deliverance past, or this type of the Messiah to come. Rather than fail, Josiah's bounty shall supply to Judah lambs for their paschal devotion. No alms is so acceptable, as that whereby the soul is furthered. CONTEMPLATION XIII-JOSIAH'S DEATH, WITH THE DESOLATION JOSIAH hath now happily settled the affairs, both of God, and the state; and now hath sweet leisure to enjoy himself and his people: his conscience doth not more cheer him at home, than his subjects abroad: never king reigned with more officious piety to God, with more love and applause of men. But what stability is there in these earthly things? how seldom is excellency in any kind long-lived! In the very strength of his age, in the height of his strength, is Josiah withdrawn from the earth; as not without a merciful intention of his glory on God's behalf, so not without some weakness on his own. Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, comes up to fight against the king of Assyria. What is that to Josiah? Perhaps the Egyptians attempted to pass through the land of Judah towards Carchemish, the seat of his war; but as a neighbour, not as an enemy: Josiah resists him, as neither holding it safe to admit a foreign power into the bosom of his 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 have 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 hand 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 a 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 most 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 unwilling 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, snatched 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 the 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 a 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. 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 encroachment 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 greatgrandfather 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 Baby lon. 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 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 ears 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 de |