true God put it up thus? Shall Dagon escape with a harmless fall? Surely, if they had let him lie still upon the pavement, perhaps that insensible statue had found no other revenge; but now, they will be advancing it to the rood-loft again, and affront God's ark with it, the event will shame them, and let them know how much God scorns a partner, either of his own making or theirs.

The morning is fittest for devotion; then do the Philistines flock to the temple of their god. What a shame is it for us to come late to ours! Although not so much piety as curiosity did now hasten their speed, to see what rest their Dagon was allowed to get in his own roof; and now behold their kind god is come to meet them in the way: some pieces of him salute their eyes upon the threshold. Dagon's head and hands over-run their fellows, to tell the Philistines how much they were mistaken in a god.

This second fall breaks the idol in pieces, and threats the same confusion to the worshippers of it. Easy warnings neglected end ever in destruction.

The head is for devising, the hand for execution in these two powers of their god, did the Philistines chiefly trust; these are therefore laid under their feet, upon the threshold, that they might afar off see their vanity, and that, if they would, they might set their foot on that best piece of their god, whereon their heart

was set.

There was nothing wherein that idol resembled a man, but in his head and hands; the rest was but a scaly portraiture of a fish; God would therefore separate from this stone, that part which had mocked man, with the counterfeit of himself, that man might see what an unworthy lump he had matched with himself, and set up above himself. The just quarrel of God is bent upon those means and that parcel, which have dared to rob him of his glory.

How can the Philistines now miss the sight of their own folly? How can they be but enough convicted of their mad idolatry, to see their god lie broken to morsels, under their feet; every piece whereof proclaims the power of him that brake it, and the stupi dity of those that adored it? Who would expect any other issue of this act, but to hear the Philistines say, "We now see how superstition hath blinded us:-Dagon is no god for us; our hearts shall never more rest upon a broken statue: that only true God, which hath beaten ours, shall challenge us by the right of conquest. ---But here was none of this; rather a further degree of their dotage follows upon this palpable conviction: they cannot yet suspect that god whose head they may trample upon; but, instead of hating their Dagon, that lay broken upon their threshold, they honour the threshold, on which Dagon lay, and dare not set their foot on that place which was hallowed by the broken head and hands of their deity. Oh the obstinacy of idolatry; which, where it hath got hold of the heart, knows neither to blush nor yield, but rather ga thers strength from that which might justly confound it!

The hand of the Almighty, which moved them not in falling upon their god, falls now nearer them upon their persons, and

strikes them in their bodies, which would not feel themselves stricken in their idol. Pain shall humble them whom shame cannot. Those, which had entertained the secret thoughts of abominable idolatry within them, are now plagued in the inwardest and : most secret part of their bodies, with a loathsome disease; and .now grow weary of themselves, instead of their idolatry.

I do not hear them acknowledge it was God's hand which had stricken Dagon their god, till now, they find themselves stricken. God's judgments are the rack of godless men: if one strain make them not confess, let them be stretched but one wrench higher, and they cannot be silent. The just avenger of sin will not lose the glory of his executions, but will have men know from whom they

smart.

The emerods were not a disease beyond the compass of natural i causes; neither was it hard for the wiser sort, to give a reason of their complaint, yet they ascribe it to the hand of God. The knowledge and operation of secondary causes should be no prejudice to the first: they are worse than the Philistines, who, is when they see the means, do not acknowledge the first Mover ; whose active and just power is no less seen in employing ordinary agents, than in raising up extraordinary; neither doth he less smite by a common fever, than a revenging angel.

They judge right of the cause; what do they resolve for the cure? Let not the ark of the God of Israel abide with us; where they should have said, "Let us cast out Dagon, that we may pa-, cify and retain the God of Israel." They determine to thrust out, the ark of God, that they might peaceably enjoy themselves and Dagon, Wicked men are upon all occasions glad to be rid of God, but they can with no patience endure to part with their sins; and while they are weary of the hand that punisheth them, they hold: fast the cause of their punishment.

Their first and only care is to put away him, who, as he hath corrected, so can ease them. Folly is never separated from wickedness.

Their heart told them, that they had no right to the ark. A council is called of their princes and priests. If they had resolved to send it home, they had done wisely; now they do not carry it away,, but they carry it about from Ebenezer to Ashdod, from Ashdod to Gath, from Gath to Ekron. Their stomach was greater than their conscience. The ark was too sore for them, yet it was too good for Israel; and they will rather die than make Israel happy.

Their conceit, that the change of air could appease the ark, God useth to his own advantage; for by this means his power is known, and his judgment spread over all the country of the Philistines. What do these men. now, but send the plague of God to their fellows? The justice of God can make the sins of men their mutual executioners. It is the fashion of wicked men, to draw their neighbours into the partnership of their condemnation. Wheresoever the ark goes, there is destruction. The best of

God's ordinances, if they be not proper to us, are deadly. The Israelites did not more shout for joy when they saw the ark come to them, than the Ekronites cry out for grief to see it brought amongst them: spiritual things are either sovereign or hurtful, according to the disposition of the receivers. The ark doth either save or kill, as it is entertained.

At last, when the Philistines are well weary of pain and death, they are glad to be quit of their sin: the voice of the princes and people is changed to the better; Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to his own place. God knows how to bring the stubbornest enemy upon his knees; and makes him do that out of fear, which his best child would do out of love and duty.

How miserable was the estate of these Philistines! Every man was either dead, or sick: those that were left living, through their extremity of pain envied the dead; and the cry of their whole cities went up to heaven. It is happy that God hath such store of plagues and thunderbolts for the wicked: if he had not a fire of judgment, wherewith the iron hearts of men might be made flexible, he would want obedience, and the world peace. 1 Sam. v.

THE ARK'S REVENGE AND RETURN.

It had wont to be a sure rule, "Wheresoever God is among men, there is the Church:" here only it failed. The testimony of God's presence was many months amongst the Philistines; for a punishment to his own people whom he left; for a curse to those foreigners which entertained it.

Israel was seven months without God. How do we think faithful Samuel took this absence? How desolate and forlorn did the tabernacle of God look, without the ark! There were still the altars of God; his priests, Levites, tables, veils, censers, with all the legal accoutrements. These without the ark, were as the sun without light, in the midst of an eclipse. If all these had been taken away, and only the ark had been remaining, the loss had been nothing to this, that the ark should be gone and they left; for what are all these without God, and how all-sufficient is God without these!

There are times wherein God withdraws himself from his Church, and seems to leave her without comfort, without protection. Sometimes we shall find Israel taken from the ark; otherwhiles the ark is taken from Israel: in either, there is a separation betwixt the ark and Israel: heavy times to every true Israelite, yet such as whose example may relieve us in our desertions.

Still was this people, Israel; the seed of him, that would not be left of God without a blessing; and therefore without the testimony of his presence, was God present with them: it were wide with the faithful, if God were not oftentimes with them, when there is no witness of his presence.

3

One act was a mutual penance to the Israelites and PhilisI know not to whether more. Israel grieved for the loss of

tines;

that, whose presence grieved the Philistines; their pain was therefore no other than voluntary.

It is strange that the Philistines would endure seven months' smart with the ark, since they saw that the presence of the prisoner would not requite, no nor mitigate to them, one hour's misery: foolish men will be struggling with God, till they be utterly either breathless or impotent. Their hope was, that time might abate displeasure, even while they persisted to offend: the false hopes of worldly men cost them dear; they could not be so miser rable, if their own hearts did not deceive them, with mis-expectations of impossible favour.

IT

In matters that concern a God, who is so fit to be consulted with, as the priests? The princes of the Philistines had before given their voices; yet nothing is determined, nothing is done, without the direction and assent of those whom they accounted sacred. Nature itself sends us in divine things, to those persons whose calling is divine. It is either distrust, or presumption, or contempt, that carries us our own ways in spiritual matters, without advising with C them whose lips God hath appointed to preserve knowledge. There cannot but arise many difficulties in us about the ark of God: whom should we consult with, but those which have the tongue of the learned?

Doubtless, this question of the ark did abide much debating. There wanted not fair probabilities on both sides. A wise Philistine might well plead," If God had either so great care of the ark, or power to retain it, how is it become ours?" A wiser than he would reply, "If the God of Israel had wanted either care or power, Dagon and we had been still whole: why do we thus groan and die, all that are but within the air of the ark, if a divine hand do not attend it?" Their smart pleads enough for the dismission of the ark.

The next demand of their priests and soothsayers, is, how it should be sent home. Affliction had made them so wise as to know, that every fashion of parting with the ark would not satisfy the owner. Oftentimes the circumstance of an action mars the substance. In divine matters, we must not only look, that the body of our service be sound, but that the clothes be fit.

Nothing hinders, but that sometimes good advice may fall from the mouth of wicked men. These superstitious priests can counsel them, not to send away the ark of God empty, but to give it a sin-offering. They had not lived so far from the smoke of the Jewish altars, but that they knew God was accustomed to manifold oblations, and chiefly to those of expiation. No Israelite could have said better. Superstition is the ape of true devotion; and if we look not to the ground of both, many times it is hard by the very outward acts to distinguish them.

Nature itself teacheth us, that God loves a full hand. He, that hath been so bountiful to us as to give us all, looks for a return of some offering from us: if we present him with nothing but our sins, how can we look to be accepted? The sacrifices under the Gos

pel are spiritual; with these must we come into the presence of God, if we desire to carry away remission and favour.

The Philistines knew well, that it were bootless for them to offer what they listed their next suit is to be directed in the matter of their oblation. Pagans can teach us how unsafe it is to walk in the ways of religion without a guide; yet here their best teachers can but guess at their duty, and must devise for the people, that which the people durst not impose upon themselves: the golden emerods and mice were but conjectural prescripts: with what security may we consult with them, which have their directions from the mouth and hand of the Almighty!

God struck the Philistines at once, in their god, in their bodies, in their land in their god, by his ruining and dismembering; in their bodies, by the emerods; in their land, by the mice: that base vermin did God send among them on purpose to shame their Dagon and them, that they might see how unable their god was (which they thought the victor of the ark) to subdue the least mouse, which the true God did create, and command to plague them.

This plague upon their fields began together with that upon their bodies: it was mentioned, not complained of, till they think of dismissing the ark. Greater crosses do commonly swallow up the less at least, lesser evils are either silent or unheard, while the ear is filled with the clamour of greater.

Their very princes were punished with the mice, as well as with the emerods: God knows no persons in the execution of judg ments the least and meanest of all God's creatures is sufficient to be the revenger of his Creator.

God sent them mice and emerods of flesh and blood: they return him both these of gold, to imply, both, that these judgments came out from God and that they did gladly give him the glory of that whereof he gave thein pain and sorrow, and that they would willingly buy off their pain with the best of their substance: the proportion betwixt the complaint and satisfaction is more precious to him than the metal. There was a public confession in this resemblance, which is so pleasing unto God, that he rewards it, even in wicked men, with a relaxation of outward punishment.

The number was no less significant, than the form: five golden emerods and mice, for the five princes and divisions of Philistines. As God made no difference in punishing, so they make none in their oblation: the people are comprised in them, in whom they are united, their several princes: they were one with their prince, their offering is one with his; as they were ringleaders in their sin, so they must be in the satisfaction. In a multitude it is ever seen, as in a beast, that the body follows the head. Of all others, great men had need to look to their ways; it is in them, as in figures, one stands for a thousand. One offering serves not all; there must be five, according to the five heads of the offence. Generalities will not content God; every man must make his several peace, if not in himself, yet in his head. Nature taught them a shadow of