In this thing pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon; when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lone pardon thy servant in this thing. I do solemnly protest unto thee, that I will do no worship to any God, save to the true God of Israel only; and I could well wish, that I never might have occasion to come into any of the temples of those idol gods; but, in this, I shall desire to be dispensed with, that, when, upon the necessity of my place and service, I must wait upon the king, into the temple of his Rimmon, and my master (leaning on my arm) shall bow to his false god; I may then (after public notice given of my free intentions) not out of any respect of devotion to the idol, but out of my due service to my master, bow down under my master in the house of Rimmon; which, however in itself it may be construed as a gesture of adoration to the idol, yet, when the world shall be thoroughly possessed of my hatred of this idolatry, and my unfeigned purpose to reserve myself wholly for the true God, it shall perhaps avoid that offence, which otherwise might be taken at this, not religious, but civil gesture: in this I beseech thee pray to God, that he will not impute sin unto me; as one, that would fain be serviceable, and not idolatrous. And he said unto him, Go in peace. And he said unto him, God speed thee well; Go, and do that which may best stand with the peace of a good conscience: for me, I give thee neither warrant, nor dispensation. Went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot, &c.? Couldst thou vainly hope to elude a prophet? Had not I notice from God of all the way that thou wentest, and of all thy carriage towards Naaman, &c. LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. O Lord, do thou so illuminate and enable the eyes of this my servant, that they may discern this spiritual aid, that thou hast provided for our succour and rescue. And he said, Behold, this evil is of the LORD; what should I wait for the LORD any longer? And when the prophet advised him to wait still patiently upon God, he answered desperately: Do ye not see to what height of misery we are come, that mothers are forced to eat their own children? It is the hand of God, that hath brought us to this extremity: worse we cannot be: to what purpose is it, to expect any favour from that hand, that hath thus plagued us? If ever God would have delivered us, he would have done it, ere we had come to this hopeless condition. Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover; howbeit the LORD hath shewed me that he shall surely die. Go, say unto him, The disease is not in itself deadly; but such as thou mayest well, in course of nature, recover: but withal, I must tell thee, that the Lord hath shewed me, that he shall die by another means; and shall not rise from the bed of his sickness. But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? Why doth my Lord speak so foul, and bloody things of me? He must be extremely savage and cruel, that should do such violences. For me, I do not find in myself any such brutish and tyrannous disposition. If any man trespass against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house. If in a case of some great trespass against a man's life, good name, estate, there cannot be other evidences brought forth, so as the matter must necessarily be determined by the oath of the party accused; and that oath shall be solemnly required of him before thy presence, at thy holy altar. The same day did the king hallow the middle of the court that was before the house of the Lord, &c. because the brazen altar was too little, &c. And Solomon, by command and instinct from God, required the priests to sanctify the pavement of the outer court, which was called the Court of the Priests, to the use of the sacrifices; for that the brazen altar, how great soever it was, could not be capable of these many offerings. A great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt. A great congregation of all the subjects of Solomon, from the eastern borders of his dominions, to the western that reach unto that arm of Nilus, which runs towards Palestine. Wherefore came this mad fellow to thee? And he said unto them, Ye know the man, and his communication. What business hast thou with this cracked-brain, frantic fellow? What can a man of this robe have to do with thee? What cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul unto this day. How mean and base are these towns, which thou hast given me, in lieu of those great things, wherewith I have furnished thee! And he called them, The displeasing land, to this day; being twenty cities in that upper Galilee, which was after called Galilee of the Gentiles. What peace, so long as the whoredoms and witchcrafts of thy mother Jezebel are so many? What possibility is there of holding good terms with thee, while the abominable idolatries and superstition of thy mother Jezebel, both remain, and are maintained and countenanced by thee? There was no more spirit in her. She was so astonished at the exceeding wisdom of Solomon, that she was even transported from herself with admiration. Great plenty of alung trees. Great plenty of the trees of Heben wood; which, for the solidness and shining brightness, were fit for the use and ornament of his building, and for instruments. Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of the land. Thus Jehu destroyed all the idols of Baal, and rooted out all the false gods from Israel. And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and an horse for an hundred and fifty: and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out by their means. And Solomon, through the favour of his father-in-law, the king of Egypt, had the benefit of all the trade of Egypt, for chariots and horses (wherewith that country had wont to furnish the neighbour regions) to pass through the hands of his merchants, to his behoof; so as, if the kings of the Hittites or of Syria would have either chariots or horses, they must obtain them by the means of Solomon's merchants, at a set rate; their chariots must cost them six hundred shekels, their horses a hundred and fifty. Howbeit from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, Jehu departed not from them, the golden calves that were in Dan, and that were in Bethel. But that part of idolatry, which consisted in the false worship of the true God, brought in by Jeroboam in those golden calves of Dan and Bethel, Jehu did not at all oppose; but countenanced and practised it rather. But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, &c. But Solomon, after he had holily and happily reigned five or six and twenty years, at last gave himself over to his inordinate lusts; and added to the daughter of Pharaoh his lawful wife, a number of women that were strangers, both in nation and religion. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, &c. For Solomon gave way and countenance to the idolatry of his wives, whom he willingly admitted to build houses and altars to Ashtoreth. This is the thing which ye shall do; A third part of you that enter in on the sabbath shall even be keepers of the watch of the king's house, &c. Whereas the Levites, being distributed into four-and-twenty courses, are appointed to keep their changes, every sabbath, to the number of about sixteen hundred, in every succession now ye shall so marshal yourselves, that, while the new course enters, the former shall yet continue for this turn undischarged; and those, that come in to succeed, shall divide themselves into three parts, whereof one shall keep the watch of the king's house, &c. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem. Then did Solomon consent to the building of a high place for Chemosh, the abominable Idol of the Moabites; and that, in the very face of the Temple, on a hill over against Jerusalem. That David my servant may have a light alway before me, &c. That David my servant may have one of his seed, eminent in honour and authority, always, &c. My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. The easiest impositions, that I shall lay upon you, shall be more grievous than the heaviest that you complain of, from my father. For this thing is from me. I have ordered and contrived this business, for the just punishment of thy father's defection from me. Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. Behold, O Israel, the remembrances and representations of that God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: in and by these, mayest thou recal and worship that deity. And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people. Instead of God's Temple at Jerusalem, he set up houses of pretended devotion, wherein he appointed God to be worshipped in his own idolatrous fashion; and ordained priests accordingly, men that were of other tribes, besides the sacred tribe of Levi, and men of base condition, fit for the idols he had set up. And Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. Not only did Jeroboam ordain base priests, out of undue tribes, to offer unto God, but himself also would be taking presumptuously upon him the execution of this sacred function; he stood therefore by the altar to burn incense. Thou shouldst have smitten five or six times; thou hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice. Upon my command from God, thou shouldst have smitten, till I had staid thy hand; which if thou hadst done, thy obedience had been rewarded with frequent victories; now, thou shalt overcome, but according to the proportion of thine obedience, diligence, and faith in that word which thou hast received. The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and there passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trod down the thistle, &c. Thou, the king of Judah, who art but as a thistle, sentest to me, the king of Israel, who am a cedar of Lebanon, to give thee aid, and join in an offensive war with thee, against the king of Edom: now, if some lawless rovers on my part, which are as the wild beasts of that forest, have trodden down thy thistle, and made a spoil of thy country, why shouldest thou take it so highly, as to undertake a war hereupon with me? And him that is shut up and left in Israel. As well him, who, for his more sure defence, hath shut up himself within the strong walls of your cities; as he, that is left at liberty in the fields and villages. Give him a lamp in Jerusalem. See chapter xi. verse 36. He turned not aside from any thing, &c. save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. He was not miscarried into any heinous and enormous crime, whereby his profession was notoriously blemished, all the days of his life, save only into that his murder of Uriah the Hittite, and the sins that were appendant unto it. But the high places were not removed. Those high places, wherein altars were built unto God in an ungrounded devotion, contrary to the charge of God who had appropriated his worship to the place which he should choose to put his name there, remained still entire and undemolished, and were put to that unwarrantable use. And the covert for the sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king's entry without, turned he from the house of the LORD. And that covered place of shelter, near to the house of God, which was used for the shade and ease, both of the officers of the temple and of the people, on the occasions of their concourse upon the sabbath days; and the close walk or cloister, which the king had made from his house to the temple, he defaced. There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. There shall not be dew or rain, for the space of these three years, and more, that this drought may bring a just dearth upon Israel; neither shall it then fall, but upon my prayer to that God, who hath thus decreed to punish Israel, and to confirm his mission of me. And they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchman to the finced city. They set up their altars, and sacrificed to God in all high places, which themselves, contrary to God's command, had erected, in all the parts of the kingdom, from one side of the borders to the other: no part was free, whether more solitary or more frequented.