2 Samuel 17

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XVII.**—Some men have large capacities for contriving or executing mischief, or for imposing on their neighbours: yea, when men are once involved in sin, they drive deeper and deeper, till the most horrid crimes become, as it were, necessary for their own safety. Dangerous is the case of those princes who have rebellious subjects and unnatural children: but vain is their counsel who aim at the ruin of God’s church and people. By the most secret ways He can divert their blows, and make them unanimously to alter their mind, and applaud what is for his glory and their own ruin: and the weakest instruments in his hand can answer the greatest of purposes. Good intelligence in war is as necessary as good advice. In my spiritual warfare, let the all-knowing Jesus, whose dispatches neither hell nor earth can stop, communicate to me my necessary informations. While we depend on God’s protection, we must give all diligence to save ourselves. But not one follower of Jesus Christ shall be lost in the Jordan of trouble or death. The prayers of his saints are often indeed answered in a more awful manner than they could have wished.—Disappointed pride produces self-murder to such as sought their life. But how much more terrible is their disappointment, who meet with everlasting shame and destruction by fleeing to death as their refuge from present contempt or hazard! In the time of their greatest trouble God unexpectedly provides for his people. And it is very honourable to assist a sovereign or a saint when almost every body is become his enemy. 3