behold thee contentedly, as a pattern, as an excuse of sinning; I shall never look upon thee but through tears, as a woful spectacle of human infirmity.

While Joab and all Israel were busy in the war against Ammon, in the siege of Rabbah, Satan finds time to lay siege to the secure heart of David. Who ever found David thus tempted, thus foiled in the days of his busy wars? Now only do I see the king of Israel rising from his bed in the evening: the time was, when he rose up in the morning to his early devotions, when he brake his nightly rest with public cares, with the business of the state; all that while he was innocent, he was holy: but now that he wallows in the bed of idleness, he is fit to invite temptation. The industrious man hath no leisure to sin. The idle hath neither leisure nor power to avoid sin. Exercise is not more wholesome for the body than for the soul, the remission whereof breeds matter of disease in both. The water that hath been heated soonest freezeth. The most active spirit soonest tireth with slacking. The earth stands still and is all dregs: the heavens ever move, and are pure. We have no reason to complain of the assiduity of work; the toil of action is answered by the benefit; if we did less, we should suffer more. Satan, like an idle companion, if he finds us busy, flies back, and sees it no time to entertain vain purposes with us: we cannot please him better than by casting away our work, to hold chat with him; we cannot yield so far and be guiltless.

Even David's eyes have no sooner the sleep rubbed out of them, than they rove to wanton prospects: he walks upon his roof, and sees Bathsheba washing herself, inquires after her, sends for her, solicits her to uncleanness. The same spirit that shut up his eyes in unseasonable sleep, opens them upon an enticing object; while sin hath such a solicitor, it cannot want either means or opportunity. I cannot think Bathsheba could be so immodest as to wash herself

openly, especially from her natural uncleanness. Lust is quick-sighted. David hath espied her, where she could espy no beholder. His eyes recoil upon his heart, and have smitten him with sinful desire.

There can be no safety to that soul, where the senses are let loose. He can never keep his covenant with God, that makes not a covenant with his eyes. It is an idle presumption to think the outward man may be free, while the inward is safe. He is more than a man whose heart is not led by his eyes; he is no regenerate man whose eyes are not restrained by his heart.

O Bathsheba, how wert thou washed from thine uncleanness, when thou yieldest to go into an adulterous bed! never wert thou so foul, as now when thou wert new washed. The worst of nature is cleanliness to the best of sin. Thou hadst been clean, if thou hadst not washed; yet for thee, I know how to plead infirmity of sex, and the importunity of a king: but what shall I say for thee, O thou royal prophet, and prophetical king of Israel? Where shall I find ought to extenuate that crime, for which God himself hath noted thee? Did not thy holy profession teach thee to abhor such a sin more than death? Was not thy justice wont to punish this sin with no less than death? Did not thy very calling call thee to a protection and preservation of justice, of chastity in thy subjects? Didst thou want store of wives of thine own? Wert thou restrained from taking more? Was there no beauty in Israel, but in a subject's marriagebed? Wert thou overcome by the vehement solicitations of an adulteress? Wert thou not the tempter, the prosecutor of this uncleanness? I should accuse thee deeply, if thou hadst not accused thyself; nothing wanted to greaten thy sin, or our wonder and fear. O God, whither do we go, if thou stay us not? Who ever, amongst the millions of thy servants, could find himself furnished with stronger preservatives against sin? Against whom could such a sin find

less pretence of prevailing? Oh keep thou us, that presumptuous sins prevail not over us; so only shall we be free from great offences.

The suits of kings are imperative: ambition did now prove a bawd to lust. Bathsheba yielded to offend God, to dishonour her husband, to clog and wound her own soul, to abuse her body. Dishonesty grows bold, when it is countenanced with greatness. Eminent persons had need be careful of their demands: they sin by authority, that are solicited by the mighty.

Had Bathsheba been mindful of her matrimonial fidelity, perhaps David had been soon checked in his inordinate desire; her facility furthers the sin. The first motioner of evil is most faulty; but as in quarrels, so in offences, the second blow (which is the consent) makes the fray. Good Joseph was moved to folly by his great and beautiful mistress; this fire fell upon wet tinder, and therefore soon went out.

Sin is not acted alone; if but one party be wise, both escape. It is no excuse to say, I was tempted, though by the great, though by the holy and learned: almost all sinners are misled by that transformed angel of light. The action is that we must regard, not the person. Let the mover be never so glorious, if he stirs us to evil, he must be entertained with defiance.

The God, that knows how to raise good out of evil, blesses an adulterous copulation with that increase, which he denies to the chaste embracements of honest wedlock. Bathsheba hath conceived by David; and now at once conceives a sorrow and care how to smother the shame of her conception: he, that did the fact, must hide it.

O David, where is thy repentance ? where is thy tenderness and compunction of heart; where are those holy meditations, which had wont to take up thy soul? Alas, instead of clearing thy sin, thou labourest to cloke it, and spendest those thoughts in the concealing

of thy wickedness, which thou shouldest rather have bestowed in preventing it. The best of God's children may not only be drenched in the waves of sin, but lie in them for the time, and perhaps sink twice to the bottom: what hypocrite could have done worse, than study how to cover the face of his sin from the eyes of men, while he regarded not the sting of sin in his soul?

As there are some acts wherein the hypocrite is a saint, so there are some wherein the greatest saint upon earth may be a hypocrite. Saul did thus go about to colour his sin, and is cursed. The vessels of mercy and wrath are not ever distinguishable by their actions: he makes the difference, that will have mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth.

It is rare and hard to commit a single sin. David hath abused the wife of Uriah, now he would abuse his person, in causing him to father a false seed. That worthy Hittite is sent for from the wars; and now, after some cunning and far-fetched questions, is dismissed to his house, not without a present of favour. David could not but imagine, that the beauty of his Bathsheba must needs be attractive enough to a husband, whom long absence in wars had withheld all that while from so pleasing a bed; neither could he think, that since that face and those breasts had power to allure himself to an unlawful lust, it could be possible, that Uriah should not be invited by them to an allowed and warrantable fruition.

That David's heart might now the rather strike him, in comparing the chaste resolutions of his servant with his own light incontinence, good Uriah sleeps at the door of the king's palace, making choice of a stony pillow, under the canopy of heaven, rather than the delicate bed of her whom he thought as honest as he knew fair. "The ark (saith he) and Israel, and Judah, dwell in tents, and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord abide in the open fields: shall I then go into my house to eat and drink, and

VOL. II.

C

lie with my wife? by thy life, and by the life of thy soul, I will not do this thing."

Who can but be astonished at this change, to see a soldier austere, and a prophet wanton? And how doth that soldier's austerity shame the prophet's wantonness! O zealous and mortified soul, worthy of a more faithful wife, of a more just master, how didst thou overlook all base sensuality, and hatedst to be happy alone! War and lust had wont to be reputed friends; thy breast is not more full of courage than chastity, and is so far from wandering after forbidden pleasures, that it refuseth lawful.

"There is a time to laugh, and a time to mourn; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embracing." Even the best actions are not always seasonable, much less the indifferent. He, that ever takes liberty to do what he may, shall offend no less, than he that sometimes takes liberty to do what he may not.

If any thing, the ark of God is fittest to lead our tunes; according as that is either distressed or prospereth, should we frame our mirth or mourning. To dwell in ceiled houses, while the temple lies waste, is the ground of God's just quarrel.

"How shall we sing a song of the Lord in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem to my chief joy."

As every man is a limb of the community, so must he be affected with the estate of the universal body, whether healthful or languishing; it did not more aggravate David's sin, that while the ark and Israel were in hazard and distress, he could find time to loose the reins to wanton desires and actions, than it magnifies the religious zeal of Uriah, that he abandons comfort, till he see the ark and Israel victorious.

Common dangers or calamities must (like the raptmotion) carry our hearts contrary to the ways of our private occasions. He that cannot be moved with