you now, crouching and creeping to me in the evil day? Surely, O God, it is but justice, if thou be not found of those which were glad to lose thee! It is thy mercy if, after many checks and delays, thou wilt be found at last. Where an

act cannot be reversed, there is no amends, `but confession; and if God himself take up with this satisfaction, "He that confesses, shall find mercy;" how much more should men hold themselves well paid, with words of humility and depreeation!

Jephthah's wisdom had not been answerable to his valour, if he had not made his match beforehand. He could not but know how treacherously Israel had dealt with Gideon. We cannot make too sure work, when we have to do with unfaithful men. It hath been an old policy to serve ourselves of men, and, after our advantage, to turn them up. He bargains therefore for his sovereignty, ere he win it: "Shall I be your head?" We are all naturally ambitious, and are ready to buy honour even with hazard. And if the hope of a troublesome superiority encouraged Jephthah to fight against the forces of Ammon, what heart should we take in the battles of God, against spiritual wickednesses, when the God of heaven hath said, "To him that overcomes, will I give power over nations, and to sit with me in my throne." O that we could bend our eyes upon the recompense of our reward! how willingly should we march forward against those mighty Ammonites! Jephthah is noted for his valour, and yet he treats with Ammon, ere he fights. To make war any other than our last remedy, is not courage, but cruelty and rashness. And now, when reason will not prevail, he betakes himself to his sword.

As God began the war with Jephthah, in raising up his heart to that pitch of fortitude; so Jephthah began his war at God, in craving victory from him, and pouring out his vow to him. His hand took hold of his sword, his heart of God: therefore he, whom the Old Testament styles valiant, the New styles faithful; he who is commended for his strength, dares trust in none but the arm of God: "If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand." If Jephthah had not looked upward for his victory, in vain had the Gileadites looked up to him. This is the disposition of all good hearts; they look to their sword, or their bow, as servants, not as patrons; and, whilst they use them, trust to God. If we could do so in all our business, we should have both more joy in their success, and

less discomfort in their miscarriage. It was his zeal to vow; it was his sin to vow rashly. Jacob his forefather, of whom he learned to vow, might have taught him a better form; “If God will be with me, then shall the Lord be my God." It is well with vows, when the thing promised makes the promise good. But when Jephthah says, "Whatsoever thing cometh out of the doors of my house shall be the Lord's, or I will offer it for a burnt sacrifice;" his devotion is blind, and his good affection overruns his judgment. For what if a dog or a swine, or an ass had met him? where had been the promise of his consecration?

Vows are as they are made, like unto scents; if they be of ill composition, nothing offends more; if well tempered, nothing is more pleasant. Either certainty of evil, or uncertainty of good, or impossibility of performance, makes vows no service to God. When we vow what we cannot, or what we ought not do, we mock God instead of honouring him. It is a vain thing for us to go about to catch God hood-winked. The conscience shall never find peace in any way, but that which we see before us, and which we know safe, both in the kind and circumstances. There is no comfort in, peradventure I may please God. What good child will not take part of the parent's joy? If Jephthah return with trophies, it is no marvel if his daughter meet him with timbrels. O that we could be so affected with the glorious acts of our heavenly Father! Thou subduest thine enemies, and mightily deliverest thy people, O God: a song waiteth for thee in Sion.

Who would have suspected danger in a dutiful triumph? Well might Jephthah's daughter have thought, my sex forbade me to do any thing towards the help of my father's victory; I can do little, if I cannot applaud it. If nature have made me weak, yet not unthankful; nothing forbids my joy to be as strong as the victor's. Though I might not go out with my father to fight, yet I may meet him with gratulations. A timbrel may become these hands which were unfit for a sword: this day hath made me the daughter of the head of Israel: this day hath made both Israel free, my father a conqueror, and myself in him noble; and shall my affection make no difference? What must my father needs think, if he shall find me sitting sullenly at home, whilst all Israel strives who shall run first to bless him with their acclamations? Should I only be insensible of his, and the common happiness?

And now, behold, when she looks for most thanks, her father answers the measure of her feet, with the knockings of his breast, and weeps at her music, and tears his clothes, to look upon her whom he best loved, and gives no answer to her timbrels, but, "Alas, my daughter, thou art of them that trouble me!" Her joy alone hath changed the day, and lost the comfort of that victory which she enjoyed to see won. It falls out often, that those times and occasions which promise most contentment, prove most doleful in the issue. The heart of this virgin was never lifted up so high as now, neither did any day of her life seem happy but this; and this only proves the day of her solemn and perpetual mourning. As, contrarily, the times and events which we have most distrusted, prove most beneficial. It is good, in a fair morning, to think of the storm that may rise ere night, and to enjoy both good and evil fearfully.

Miserable is that devotion which troubles us in the performance. Nothing is more pleasant than the acts of true piety. Jephthah might well see the wrong of this religion, in the distaste of it; yet, while himself had troubled his daughter, he says, "Alas, my daughter, thou art of them that trouble me!" She did but her duty: he did what he should not; yet he would be rid of the blame, though he cannot of the smart. No man is willing to own a sin; the first man shifted it from himself to his wife; this, from himself to his daughter. He was ready to accuse another, which only committed it himself. It were happy, if we could be as loath to commit sin, as to acknowledge it.

The inconsideration of this vow was very tough, and settled; "I have opened my mouth, and cannot go back." If there were just cause to repent, it was the weakness of his zeal to think that a vow could bind him to evil. An unlawful vow is ill made, but worse performed. It were pity this constancy should light upon any but an holy object. No loan can make a truer debt than our vow; which if we pay not in our performance, God will pay us with judgment. We have all opened our mouths to God, in that initial and solemn vow of Christianity. O that we could not go back! So much more is our vow obligatory, by how much the thing vowed is more

necessary.

Why was the soul of Jephthah thus troubled, but because he saw the entail of his new honour thus suddenly cut off? he

saw the hope of posterity extinguished, in the virginity of his daughter. It is natural to us to affect that perpetuity in our succession, which is denied us in our persons; our very bodies would emulate the eternity of the soul. And if God have built any of us an house on earth, as well as prepared us an house in heaven, it must be confessed a favour worth our thankfulness; but as the perpetuity of our earthly houses is uncertain, so let us not rest our hearts upon that, but make sure of the house which is eternal in the heavens.

Doubtless the goodness of the daughter added to the father's sorrow she was not more loving, than religious; neither is she less willing to be the Lord's than her father's; and, as provoking her father to that which he thought piety, though to her own wrong, she says, "If thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do with me as thou hast promised." Many a daughter would have dissuaded her father with tears, and have wished rather her father's impiety, than her own prejudice; she sues for the smart of her father's vow. How obsequious should children be to the will of their careful parents, even in their final disposition in the world, when they see this holy maid willing to abandon the world, upon the rash vow of a father! They are the living goods of their parents, and must therefore wait upon the bestowing of their owners. They mistake themselves, which think they are their own. If this maid had vowed herself to God, without her father, it had been in his power to abrogate it; but now, that he vowed her to God without herself, it stands in force. But what shall we say to those children, whom their parents' vow and care cannot make so much as honest, that will be no other than godless, in spite of their baptism and education? What but that they are given their parents for a curse, and shall one day find what it is to be rebellious?

All her desire is, that she may have leave to bewail that which she must be forced to keep, her virginity. If she had not held it an affliction, there had been no cause to bewail it; it had been no thank to undergo it, if she had not known it to be a cross. Tears are no argument of impatience; we may mourn for that we repine not to bear. How comes that to be a meritorious virtue under the gospel, which was but a punishment under the law? The daughters of Israel had been too lavish of their tears, if virginity had been absolutely good. What injury should it have been, to lament that

spiritual preferment, which they should rather have emulated!

While Jephthah's daughter was two months in the mountains, she might have had good opportunity to escape her father's vow; but as one whom her obedience tied as close to her father, as his vow tied him to God, she returns to take up that burden which she had bewailed to foresee. If we be truly dutiful to our Father in heaven, we would not slip our necks out of the yoke, though we might, nor fly from his com mands, though the door were open,

CONTEMPLATION II.
Samson conceived.

OF extraordinary persons, the very birth and conception is extraordinary; God begins his wonders betimes, in those whom he will make wonderful. There was never any of those which were miraculously conceived, whose lives were not notable and singular. The presages of the womb and the cradle, are commonly answered in the life: it is not the use of God to cast away strange beginnings. If Manoah's wife had not been barren, the angel had not been sent to her. Afflictions have this advantage, that they occasion God to shew that mercy to us, whereof the prosperous are uncapable. It would not beseem a mother to be so indulgent to an healthful child, as to a sick. It was to the woman that the angel appeared, not to the husband; whether for that the reproach of barrenness lay upon her more heavily than on the father, or for that the birth of the child should cost her more dear than her husband; or, lastly, for that the difficulty of this news was more in her conception than in his generation. As Satan lays his batteries ever to the weakest; so, contrarily, God addresseth his comforts to those hearts that have most need: as, at the first, because Eve had most reason to be dejected, for that her sin had drawn man into the transgression; therefore the cordial of God most respecteth her: "The seed of the woman shall break the serpent's head."

As a physician first tells the state of the disease with its symptoms, and then prescribes; so doth the angel of God first tell the wife of Manoah her complaint, then her remedy; "Thou art barren." All our afflictions are more noted of