Those actions, which are ill begun, can hardly be salved up with late satisfactions; whereas, good entrances give strength unto the proceedings, and success to the end.

The young man's father doth not only consent, but solicit; and is ready to purchase a daughter either with substance, or pain: the two old men would have ended the matter peaceably; but youth commonly undertakes rashly, and performs with passion. The sons of Jacob think of nothing but revenge, and, which is worst of all, begin their cruelty with craft, and hide their craft with religion: a smiling malice is most deadly; and hatred doth most rankle the heart, when it is kept in and dissembled. We cannot give our sister to an uncircumcised man; here was God in the mouth, and Satan in the heart; the bloodiest of all projects have ever wont to be coloured with religion; because the worse any thing is, the better show it desires to make and contrarily, the better colour is put upon any vice, the more odious it is; for as every simulation adds to an evil, so the best adds most evil. Themselves had taken the daughters and sisters of uncircumcised men; yea, Jacob himself did so; why might not an uncircumcised man obtain their sister? Or if there be a difference of giving and taking, it had been well, if it had not been only pretended. It had been a happy ravishment of Dinah, that should have drawn a whole country into the bosom of the Church; but here was a sacrament intended, not to the good of the soul, but to murder of the body: it was a hard task for Hamor and Shechem, not only to put the knife to their own foreskins, but to persuade a multitude to so painful a condition.

The sons of Jacob dissemble with them; they, with the people shall not their flocks and substance be ours? Common profit is pretended, whereas only Shechem's pleasure is meant. No motive is so powerful to the vulgar sort, as the name of commodity: the hope of this, makes them prodigal of their skin and blood; not the love to the sacrament, not the love to Shechem sinister respects draw more to the profession of religion, than conscience: if it were not for the loaves and fishes, the train of Christ would be less. But the sacraments These men are

of God mis-received, never prosper in the end. content to smart, so they may gain.

And now that every man lies sore of his own wound, Simeon and Levi rush in armed, and wound all the males to death : Cursed be their wrath, for it was fierce; and their rage, for it was cruel. Indeed, filthiness should not have been wrought in Israel; yet murder should not have been wrought by Israel. If they had been fit judges, which were but bloody executioners, how far doth the punishment exceed the fault! To punish above the offence, is no less injustice, than to offend: one offendeth and all feel the revenge; yea all, though innocent, suffer that revenge, which he that offended deserved not.

Shechem sinneth, but Dinah tempted him: she, that was so light, as to wander abroad alone, only to gaze, I fear was not over difficult to yield and if, having wrought her shame, he had driven her home with disgrace to her father's tent, such tyrannous lust had justly called for blood; but now he craves, and offers, and would pay dear for but leave to give satisfaction. To execute rigour upon a submissive offender, is more merciless than just; or if the punishment had been both just and proportionable from another, yet from them which had vowed peace and affinity, it was shamefully unjust. To disappoint the trust of another, and to neglect our own promise and fidelity for private purposes, adds faithlessness unto our cruelty. That they were impotent, it was through their circumcision: what impiety was this; instead of honouring a holy sign, to take an advantage by it!

What shrieking was there now in the streets of the city of the Hivites! And how did the beguiled Shechemites, when they saw the swords of the two brethren, die, cursing the sacrament in their hearts, which had betrayed them! Even their curses were the sins of Simeon and Levi; whose fact, though it were abhorred by their father, yet it was seconded by their brethren. Their spoil makes good the others' slaughter. Who would have looked to have found this outrage in the family of Jacob? How did that good patriarch, when he saw Dinah come home blubbered and wringing her hands, Simeon and Levi sprinkled with blood, wish that Leah had been barren as long as Rachel ! Good parents have grief (though they sustain no blame) for their children's sins. What great evils arise from small beginnings! The idle curiosity of Dinah hath bred all this mischief; ravishment follows upon her wandering; upon her ravishment, murder, upon the murder, spoil: it is holy and safe to be jealous of the first occasions of evil, either done or suffered.

CONTEMPLATION IV.-OF JUDAH AND TAMAR.

GENESIS XXXVIII.

I FIND not many of Jacob's sons more faulty than Judah; who yet is singled out from all the rest to be the royal progenitor of Christ, and to be honoured with the dignity of the birthright, that God's election might not be of merit, but of grace; else, howsoever he might have sped alone, Tamar had never been joined with him in this line. Even Judah marries a Canaanite; it is no marvel, though his seed prosper not : and yet, that good children may not be too much discouraged with their unlawful propagation, the fathers of the promised seed are raised from an incestuous bed.

Judah was very young, scarce from under the rod of his father, yet takes no other counsel for his marriage, but from his own eyes, which were like his sister Dinah's, roving and wanton : what better issue could be expected from such beginnings? Those proud Jews, that glory so much of their pedigree and name from this patriarch, may now choose whether they will have their mother a Canaanite, or a harlot.

Even in these things oft-times the birth follows the belly. His eldest son Er, is too wicked to live; God strikes him dead ere he can leave any issue, not abiding any scions to grow out of so bad a stock: notorious sinners God reserves to his own vengeance. He doth not inflict sensible judgments upon all his enemies, lest the wicked should think there were no punishment abiding for them elsewhere: he doth inflict such judgments upon some, lest he should seem careless of evil. It were as easy for him to strike all dead, as one; but he would rather all should be warned by one, and would have his enemies find him merciful, as well as his children, just.

His brother Onan sees the judgment, and yet follows his sins. Every little thing discourages us from good; nothing can alter the heart that is set upon evil. Er was not worthy of any love; but though he were a miscreant, yet he was a brother. Seed should have been raised to him; Onan justly leases his life with his seed, which he would rather spill, than lend to a wicked brother. Some duties we owe to humanity, more to nearness of blood. Ill deserving of others can be no excuse for our injustice, for our uncharitableness. That which Tamar required, Moses afterward, as from God, commanded; the succession of brothers into the barren bed: some laws God spake to his Church, long ere he wrote them: while the author is certainly known, the voice and the finger of God are worthy of equal respect.

Judah hath lost two sons, and now doth but promise the third, whom he sins in not giving. It is the weakness of nature, rather to hazard a sin than a danger; and to neglect our own duty, for wrongful suspicion of others: though he had lost his son in giving him, yet he should have given him: a faithful man's promise is his debt, which no fear of damage can dispense with.

But whereupon was this slackness? Judah feared that some unhappiness in the bed of Tamar was the cause of his son's miscarriage, whereas it was their fault, that Tamar was both a widow and childless. Those, that are but the patients of evil, are many times burthened with suspicions; and therefore are ill thought of, because they fare ill afflictions would not be so heavy, if they did not lay us open unto uncharitable conceits.

What difference God puts betwixt sins of wilfulness and infirmity! The son's pollution is punished with present death; the father's incest is pardoned, and in a sort prospereth.

Now Tamar seeks by subtlety, that which she could not have by award of justice: the neglect of due retributions drives men to indirect courses; neither know I whether they sin more in righting themselves wrongfully, or the other in not righting them. She therefore takes upon her the habit of a harlot, that she might perform the act: if she had not wished to seem a whore, she had not worn that attire, nor chosen that place. Immodesty of outward fashion or gesture bewrays evil desires: the heart, that means well, will never wish to seem ill; for commonly we affect to show better than we are. Many harlots will put on a semblances of chastity, of modesty; never the contrary. It is no trusting those, who do not wish to appear good. Judah esteems her by her habit: and now the sight of a harlot hath stirred up in him a thought of lust; Satan finds well, that a fit object is half a victory.

Who would not be ashamed, to see a son of Jacob thus transported with filthy affections! At the first sight he is inflamed; neither yet did he see the face of her, whom he lusted after: it was enough motive to him that she was a woman; neither could the presence of his neighbour, the Adullamite, compose those wicked thoughts, or hinder his unchaste acts.

That sin must needs be impudent which can abide a witness ; yea, so hath his lust besotted him, that he cannot discern the voice of Tamar, that he cannot foresee the danger of his shame in parting with such pledges. There is no passion which doth not for the time bereave a man of himself.

:

Tamar had learned not to trust him without a pawn: he had promised his son to her as a daughter, and failed; now he promised a kid to her as a harlot, and performeth it: whether his pledge constrained him, or the power of his word, I enquire not: many are faithful in all things, save those which are the greatest and dearest if his credit had been as much endangered in the former promise, he had kept it. Now hath Tamar requited him. She expected long the enjoying of his promised son, and he performeth not; but here he performs the promise of the kid, and she stays not to expect it. Judah is sorry that he cannot pay the hire of his lust, and now feareth lest he shall be beaten with his own staff; lest his signet shall be used to confirm and seal his reproach; resolving not to know them, and wishing they were unknown of others. Shame is the easiest wages of sin, and the surest, which ever begins first in ourselves. Nature is not more forward to commit sin, than willing to hide it.

I hear as yet of no remorse in Judah, but fear of shame. Three months hath his sin slept, and now, when he is securest, it awakes and baits him. News is brought him, that Tamar begins to swell with her conception; and now he swells with rage, and calls her forth to the flame like a rigorous judge, without so much as staying for the time of her deliverance, that his cruelty

in this justice should be no less ill than the injustice of occasioning it. If Judah had not forgotten his sin, his pity had been more than his hatred to this of his daughter's: How easy is it to detest those sins in others, which we flatter in ourselves! Tamar doth not deny the sin, nor refuse punishment, but calls for that partner in her punishment, which was her partner in the sin: the staff, the signet, the handkerchief, accuse and convince Judah; and now he blushes at his own sentence, much more at his act, and cries out, She is more righteous than I. God will find a time to bring his children upon their knees, and to wring from them penitent confessions; and rather than he will not have them soundly ashamed, he will make them the trumpets of their own reproach.

Yet doth he not offer himself to the flame with her, but rather excuse her by himself. This relenting in his own case shamed his former zeal even in the best men nature is partial to itself: it is good so to sentence others' frailties, that yet we remember our own; whether those that have been, or may be with what shame, yea, with what horror, must Judah needs look upon the great belly of Tamar; and on her two sons, the monuments of his filthiness! How must it needs wound his soul, to hear them call him both father and grandfather; to call her mother and sister! If this had not cost him many a sigh, he had no more escaped his father's curse than Reuben did: I see the difference not of sins, but of men: remission goes not by the measure of the sin, but the quality of the sinner; yea, rather the mercy of the forgiver: Blessed is the man (not that sins not, but) to whom the Lord imputes not his sin.

CONTEMPLATION V.-OF JOSEPH.

GENESIS XXXVII, XXXIX.—XLV.

I MARVEL not that Joseph had the double portion of Jacob's land, who had more than two parts of his sorrows : none of his sons did so truly inherit his afflictions; none of them was either so miserable, or so great: suffering is the way to glory.

I see in him not a clearer type of Christ, than of every Christian; because we are dear to our father, and complain of sins, therefore are we hated of our carnal brethren: if Joseph had not meddled with his brothers' faults, yet he had been envied for his father's affection; but now malice is met with envy: there is nothing more thankless or dangerous than to stand in the way of a resolute sinner. That, which doth correct and oblige the penitent, makes the wilful mind furious and revengeful.

All the spite of his brethren cannot make Joseph cast off the