when he sees headstrong purposes of mischief, chooses rather to be an ill father than an ill host: his intention was good, but his offer was faulty; if through his allowance the Sodomites had defiled his daughters, it had been his sin; if through violence they had defiled his guests, it had been only theirs there can be no warrant for us to sin, lest others should sin: it is for God to prevent sins with judgments, it is not for men to prevent a greater sin with a less the best minds, when they are troubled, yield inconsiderate motions; as water, that is violently stirred, sends up bubbles : God meant better to Lot, than to suffer his weak offer to be accepted: those which are bent upon villany are more exasperated by dissuasion; as some strong streams, when they are resisted by floodgates, swell over the banks.

Many a one is hardened by the good Word of God; and instead of receiving the counsel, rages at the messenger: when men are grown to that pass, that they are no whit better by afflictions, and worse with admonitions, God finds it time to strike. Now Lot's guests begin to shew themselves angels, and first deliver Lot in Sodom, then from Sodom; first strike them with blindness, whom they will after consume with fire. How little did the Sodomites think that vengeance was so near them! While they went groping in the street, and cursing those whom they could not find, Lot with the angels is in secure light, and sees thein miserable, and foresces them burning. It is the use of God to blind and besot those whom he means to destroy: the light which they shall see shall be fiery, which shall be the beginning of an everlasting darkness, and a fire unquenchable.

Now they have done sinning, and God begins to judge wickedness hath but a time, the punishment of wickedness is beyond all time. The residue of the night was both short and dangerous. Yet, good Lot, though sought for by the Sodomites, and newly pulled into his house by the angels, goes forth of his house to seck. his sons-in-law : no good man would be saved alone; faith makes us charitable with neglect of all peril: he warns them like a prophet, and advises them like a father, but both in vain; he seems to them as if he mocked, and they do more than seem to mock him again. "Why should to-morrow differ from other days? Who ever saw it rain fire? or whence should that brimstone come? Or if such showers must fall, how shall nothing burn but this valley?" So to carnal men preaching is foolishness, devotion idleness, the prophets madmen, Paul a babbler : these men's incredulity is as worthy of the fire, as the others' uncleanness. He, that believes not, is condemned already.

The messengers of God do not only hasten Lot, but pull him by a gracious violence, out of that impure city. They thirsted at once after vengeance upon Sodom, and Lot's safety; they knew God could not strike Sodom, till Lot were gone out, and that Lot could not be safe within those walls. We are naturally in Sodom: if God did not hale us out, whilst we linger, we should be con

demned with the world. If God meet with a very good field, he pulls up the weeds, and lets the corn grow; if indifferent, he lets the corn and weeds grow together; if very ill, he gathers the few ears of corn, and burns the weeds.

Oh the large bounty of God, which reacheth not to us only, but to ours! God saves Lot for Abraham's sake, and Zoar for Lot's sake; if Sodom had not been too wicked, it had escaped: were it not for God's dear children, that are intermixed with the world, it could not stand: the wicked owe their lives unto those few good, whom they hate and persecute.

Now at once the sun rises upon Zoar, and fire falls down upon Sodom: Abraham stands upon the hill, and sees the cities burning; it is fair weather with God's children, when it is foulest with the wicked. Those, which burned with the fire of lust, are now consumed with the fire of vengeance: they sinned against nature; and now against the course of nature, fire descends from heaven, and consumes them.

Lot may not so much as look at the flame, whether for the stay of his passage, or the horror of the sight, or trial of his faith, or fear of commiseration. Small precepts from God are of importance; obedience is as well tried, and disobedience as well punished, in little, as in much: his wife doth but turn back her head, whether in curiosity, or unbelief, or love and compassion of the place; she is turned into a monument of disobedience: what doth it avail her not to be turned into ashes in Sodom, when she is turned into a pillar of salt in the plain! He, that saved a whole city, cannot save his own wife. God cannot abide small sins, in those whom he hath obliged. If we displease him, God can as well meet with us out of Sodom. Lot, now come into Zoar, marvels at the stay of her, whom he might not before look back to call; and soon after returning to seek her, beholds this change with wonder and grief: he finds salt instead of flesh, a pillar instead of a wife: he finds Sodom consumed, and her standing; and is more amazed with this, by how much it was both more near him, and less expected.

When God delivers us from destruction, he doth not secure us from all afflictions: Lot hath lost his wife, his allies, his substance, and now betakes himself to an uncomfortable solitariness.

Yet though he fled from company, he could not fly from sin: he, who could not be tainted with uncleanness in Sodom, is overtaken with drunkennness and incest in a cave: rather than Satan shall want baits, his own daughters will prove Sodomites; those, which should have comforted, betrayed him: how little are some hearts moved with judgments! the ashes of Sodom, and the pillar of salt, were not yet out of their eye, when they dare think of lying with their own father. They knew that whilst Lot was sober, he could not be unchaste: drunkenness is the way o all bestial affections and acts. Wine knows no difference either of persons, or No doubt, Lot was afterwards ashamed of his incestuous

seed, and now wished he had come alone out of Sodom; yet even this unnatural bed was blessed with increase; and one of our Saviour's worthy ancestors sprung after from this line. God's election is not tied to our means; neither are blessings or curses ever traduced: the chaste bed of holy parents hath oft-times bred a monstrous generation; and contrarily, God hath raised sometimes a holy seed from the drunken bed of incest or fornication. It hath been seen, that weighty ears of corn have grown out of the compass of the tilled field: thus will God magnify the freedom of his own choice; and let us know that we are not born, but made good. Gen. xiii, xix.

CONTEMPLATIONS.

BOOK III.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE LORD DENNY,

LARON OF WALTHAM, MY SINGULAR GOOD PATRON,
ALL GRACE AND HAPPINESS.

RIGHT HONOURABLE:

I KNOW, and in all humility confess, how weak my discourse is, and how unworthy of this divine subject which I have under taken; which if an angel from heaven should say he could sufficiently comment upon, I should distrust him: yet this let me say, without any vain boasting, that these thoughts, such as they are, through the blessing of God, I have woven out of myself; as holding it after our Saviour's rule, better to give, than to receive. It is easier to heap together large volumes of others' labours, than to work out lesser of our own; and the suggestion of one new thought, is better than many repeated.

This part (which together with the Author is your's) shall present to your Lordship the busiest of all the patriarchs, together with his trials, and success: wherein you shall see Esau stripped by fraud of that which he willingly sold; Jacob's hard adventures for the blessing, and no less hard services for his wives and substance, his dangerous encounters ending joyfully, the rape of his only daughter, seconded with the treacherous murder of his sons; Judah's wrong to Tamar repayed by his own uncleanness; Joseph's sale, imprisonment, honour, piety; the sin of his brethren well bestowed, well answered. I so touch at the uses of all these, as one that knows it is easy to say more, and impossible to say enough. God give a blessing to my endeavours, and a pardon to my weakness, to your Lordship an increase of his graces, and perfection of all happiness.

F

Your Lordship's humbly

and officiously devoted in all duty, JOSEPH HALL.

OF JACOB AND ESAU.

Of all the patriarchs, none make so little noise in the world as Isaac; none lived either so privately, or so innocently: neither know I whether he approved himself a better son or husband. For the one; he gave himself over to the knife of his father, and

mourned three years for his mother: for the other; he sought not to any handmaid's bed, but in a chaste forbearance reserved himself for twenty years' space, and prayed: Rebecca was so long barren: his prayers proved more effectual than his seed. At last she conceived, as if she had been more than the daughter-in-law to Sarah, whose son was given her, not out of the power of nature, but of her husband's faith.

God is oft better to us than we would: Isaac prays for a son; God gives him two at once: now, she is no less troubled with the strife of the children in her womb, than before with the want of children; we know not when we are pleased; that which we desire, oft-times discontents us more in the fruition; we are ready to complain both full and fasting. Before Rebecca conceived, she was at ease before spiritual regeneration there is all peace in the soul; no sooner is the new man formed in us, but the flesh conflicts with the spirit. There is no grace where is no unquietness: Esau alone would not have striven: nature will ever agree with itself. Never any Rebecca conceived only an Esau, or was so happy as to conceive none but a Jacob; she must be the mother of both, that she may have both joy and exercise. This strife began early; every true Israelite begins his war with his being. How many actions which we know not of, are not without presage and signification!

These two were the champions of two nations; the field was their mother's womb; their quarrel precedency and superiority. Esau got the right of nature, Jacob of grace: yet that there might be some pretence of equality, lest Esau should outrun his brother into the world, Jacob holds him fast by the heel: so his hand was born before the other's foot: but because Esau was some minutes the elder, that the younger might have better claim to that which God had promised, he buys that which he could not win: if either by strife, or purchase, or suit, we can attain spiritual blessings, we are happy if Jacob had come forth first, he had not known how much he was bound to God for the favour of his advancement.

There was never any meat, except the forbidden fruit, so dear bought as this broth of Jacob; in both the receiver and the eater is accursed every true son of Israel will be content to purchase spiritual favours with earthly; and that man hath in him too much of the blood of Esau, which will not rather die than forego his birth-right.

But what hath careless Esau lost, if, having sold his birth-right, he may obtain the blessing? Or what hath Jacob gained, if his brother's venison may countervail his pottage? Yet thus hath old Isaac decreed; who was not now more blind in his eyes, than in his affections: God had forewarned him that the elder should serve the younger, yet Isaac goes about to bless Esau.

It was not so hard for Abraham to reconcile God's promise and Isaac's sacrifice, as for Isaac to reconcile the superiority of Jacob with Esau's benediction; for God's hand was in that, in this none but his own: the dearest of God's saints have been sometimes