one that consults with Satan worships him, though he bow not, neither doth that evil spirit desire any other reverence, than to be sought unto.

How cunningly doth Satan resemble not only the habit and gesture, but the language of Samuel: "Wherefore hast thou disquieted me, and wherefore dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is gone from thee, and is thine enemy?" Nothing is more pleasing to that evil one, than to be solicited; yet, in the person of Samuel, he can say, "Why hast thou disquieted me?" Had not the Lord been gone from Saul, he had never come to the devilish oracle of Endor; and yet the counterfeiting spirit can say, Why dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is gone from thee?" Satan cares not how little he is known to be himself; he loves to pass under any form, rather than his own.

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The more holy the person is, the more carefully doth Satan act him, that by his stale he may ensnare us. In every motion it is good to try the spirits, whether they be of God. Good words are no means to distinguish a prophet from a devil. Samuel himself, while he was alive, could not have spoken more gravely, more severely, more divinely, than this evil ghost: "For the Lord will rend thy kingdom out of thy hand, and give it to thy neighbour David, because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon the Amalekites, therefore hath the Lord done this unto thee this day." When the devil himself puts on gravity and religion, who can marvel at the hypocrisy of men? Well may lewd men be good preachers, when Satan himself can play the prophet. Where are those ignorants, that think charitably of charms and spells, because they find nothing in them but good words? What prophet could speak better words than this devil in Samuel's mantle? Neither is there at any time so much danger of that evil spirit, as when he speaks best.

I could wonder to hear Satan preach thus prophetically, if I did not know, that as he was once a good angel, so he can still act what he was. While Saul was in consultation of sparing Agag, we shall never find that Satan would lay any block in his way; yea, then he was a prompt orator to induce him into that sin; now, that it is past and gone, he can lade Saul with fearful denunciations of judgment. Till we have sinned, Satan is a parasite; when we have sinned, he is a

tyrant. What cares he to flatter any more, when he hath what he would? Now his only work is to terrify and confound, that he may enjoy what he hath won: how much better it is serving that master, who, when we are most dejected with the conscience of evil, heartens us with inward comfort, and speaks peace to the soul in the midst of tumult.

CONTEMPLATION V.

Ziklag spoiled and revenged.

HAD not the king of the Philistines sent David away early, his wives, and his people, and substance, which he left at Ziklag, had been utterly lost; now Achish did not more pleasure David in his entertainment, than in his dismission. Saul was not David's enemy more in the persecution of his person, than in the forbearance of God's enemies: behold, thus late doth David feel the smart of Saul's sin in sparing the Amalekites, who, if God's sentence had been duly executed, had not now survived, to annoy this parcel of Israel.

As in spiritual respects our sins are always hurtful to ourselves, so in temporal, ofttimes prejudicial to posterity. A wicked man deserves ill of those he never lived to see.

I cannot marvel at the Amalekites' assault made upon the Israelites of Ziklag; I cannot but marvel at their clemency; how just was it, that while David would give aid to the enemies of the church against Israel, the enemies of the church should rise against David, in his peculiar charge of Israel. But while David's roving against the Amalekites, not inany days before, left neither man nor woman alive, how strange is it, that the Amalekites, invading and surprising Ziklag, in revenge, kill neither man nor woman! Shall we say that mercy is fled from the breasts of Israelites, and rests in heathens? Or shall we rather ascribe this to the gracious restraint of God, who, having designed Amalek to the slaughter of Israel, and not Israel to the slaughter of Amalek, moved the hands of Israel, and held the hands of Amalek; this was that alone which made the heathens take up with an unbloody revenge, burning only the walls, and leading away the persons. Israel crossed the revealed will of God in sparing Amalek; Amalek fulfils the secret will of God in sparing Israel,

It was still the lot of Amalek to take Israel at all advantages; upon their first coming out of Egypt, when they were weary, weak, and unarmed, then did Amalek assault them. And now, when one part of Israel was in the field against the Philistines, another was gone with the Philistines against Israel; the Amalekites set upon the coasts of both; and go away loaded with the spoil. No other is to be expected of our spiritual adversaries, who are ever readiest to assail when we are the unreadiest to defend.

It was a woeful spectacle for David and his soldiers, upon their return, to find ruins and ashes instead of houses, and instead of their families, solitude; their city was vanished into smoke, their households into captivity; neither could they know whom to accuse, or where to enquire for redress. While they made account that their home should recompense their tedious journey with comfort, the miserable desolation of their home doubles the discomfort of their journey: what remained there but tears and lamentations? They lifted up their voices, and wept till they could weep no more. Here was

every

plenty of nothing but misery and sorrow. The heart of Israelite was brinful of grief; David's ran over; for, besides that his cross was the same with theirs, all theirs was his alone: each man looked on his fellow as a partner of affliction; but every one looked upon David as the cause of all their affliction; and, as common displeasure is never but fruitful of revenge, they all agree to stone him as the author of their undoing, whom they followed all this while as the hopeful means of their advancements.

Now David's loss is his least grief; neither, as if every thing had conspired to torment him, can he look besides the aggravation of his sorrow and danger. Saul and his soldiers had hunted him out of Israel; the Philistine courtiers had hunted him from the favour of Achish; the Amalekites spoiled him in Ziklag: yet all these are easy adversaries in comparison of his own; his own followers are so far from pitying his participation of the loss, that they are ready to kill him, because they are miserable with him. O the many and grievous perplexities of the man after God's own heart! If all his train had joined their best helps for the mitigation of his grief, their cordials had been too weak; but now the vexation, that arises from their fury and malice, drowneth the sense of their loss, and were enough to distract the most resolute heart. Why

should it be strange to us that we meet with hard trials, when we see the dear anointed of God thus plunged in evils?

What should the distressed son of Jesse now do? whither should he think to turn him? To go back to Israel he durst not; to go to Achish he might not; to abide among those waste heaps he could not; or, if there might have been harbour in those burnt walls, yet there could be no safety to remain with those mutinous spirits. But David comforted himself in the Lord his God. O happy and sure refuge of a faithful soul! The earth yielded him nothing but matter of disconsolation and heaviness; he lifts his eyes above the hills, whence cometh his salvation. It is no marvel that God remembereth David in all his troubles, since David in all his troubles did thus remember his God: he knew that though no mortal eye of reason or sense could discern any evasion from these intricate evils, yet that the eye of Divine Providence had descried it long before; and that, though no human power could make way for his safety, yet that the over-ruling hand of his God could do it with ease. His experience had assured him of the fidelity of his guardian in heaven; and therefore he comforted himself in the Lord his God.

In vain is comfort expected from God, if we consult not with him. Abiathar the priest is called for; David was not in the court of Achish, without the priest by his side; nor the priest without the ephod: had these been left behind in Ziklag, they had been miscarried with the rest, and David had now been hopeless. How well it succeeds to the great, when they take God with them in his ministers, in his ordinances! As, contrarily, when these are laid by, as superfluous, there can be nothing but uncertainty of success, or certainty of mischief. The presence of the priest and ephod would have little availed him, without their use; by them he asks counsel of the Lord in these straits. The mouth and ears of God, which were shut unto Saul, are open unto David; no sooner can he ask, than he receives answer; and the answer that he receives, is full of courage and comfort; "Follow, for thou shalt surely overtake them, and recover all." That God of truth never disappointed any man's trust. David now finds, that the eye, which waited upon God, was not sent away weeping.

David therefore and his men are now upon their march after the Amalekites. It is no lingering when God bids us

go. They who had promised rest to their weary limbs, after their return from Achish, in their harbour of Ziklag, are glad to forget their hopes, and to put their stiff joints upon a new task of motion. It is no marvel, if two hundred of them were so over-tired with their former toil, that they were not able to pass over the river Besor. David was a true type of Christ; we follow him in these holy wars, against the spiritual Amalekites. All of us are not of an equal strength; some are carried, by the vigour of their faith, through all difficulties; others, after long pressure, are ready to languish in the way. Our leader is not more strong than pitiful; neither doth he scornfully cashier those whose desires are hearty, while their abilities are unanswerable. How much more should our charity pardon the infirmities of our brethren, and allow them to sit by the stuff, who cannot endure the march !

The same Providence which appointed David to follow the Amalekites, had also ordered an Egyptian to be cast behind them. This cast servant, whom his cruel master had left to faintness and famine, shall be used as the means of the recovery of the Israelites' loss, and of the revenge of the Amalekites. Had not his master neglected him, all these rovers of Amalek had gone away with their life and booty: it is not safe to despise the meanest vassal upon earth. There is a mercy and care due to the most despicable piece of all humanity, wherein we cannot be wanting without the offence, without the punishment of God.

Charity distinguisheth an Israelite from an Amalekite. David's followers are strangers to this Egyptian; an Amalekite was his master; his master leaves him to die in the field of sickness and hunger; these strangers relieved him and ere they know whether they might, by him, receive any light in their pursuit, they refresh his dying spirits with bread and water, with figs and raisins: neither can the haste of their way be any hindrance to their compassion. He hath no Israelitish blood in him, that is utterly merciless: perhaps yet David's followers might also, in the hope of some intelligence, shew kindness to this forlorn Egyptian. Worldly wisdom teacheth us to sow small courtesies where we may reap large harvests of recompense. No sooner are his spirits recalled, than he requites his food with information. I cannot blame the Egyptian, that he was so easily induced to descry these unkind Amalekites to merciful Israelites; those that gave him over