Excerpt from The Works of the Right Reverend Joseph Hall, Vol. 2: New Edition, Revised
Right Honourable, - I cannot but thus gratulate to you your happy return from your many and noble employments which have made you some years a stranger at home, and so renowned abroad, that all the better parts of Europe know and honour your name no less than if you had been born theirs; neither is any of them so savage as not to say, when they hear mention of your worth, that Virtue is a thousand escutcheons.
If now your short breathing-time may allow your lordship the freedom of quiet and holy thoughts, cast your eyes upon Israel and Judah; upon the kings and prophets of both, in such beneficial variety, as profane history shall promise in vain. Your lordship shall see Rehoboam following Solomon in nothing but his seat and his fall; as much more wilful than his father, as less wise; all head, no heart; losing those ten tribes with a churlish breath, whom he would, and might not, recover with blood: Jeroboam as crafty as wicked; plotting a revolt, creating a religion to his state, marring Israelites to make subjects, branded in his name, smitten in his hand, in his loins. You shall see a faithful messenger of God, after miraculous proof of his courage, fidelity, power, good-nature, paying dear for a little circumstance of credulous disobedience; the lion is sent to call for his blood, as the price of his forbidden harbour. You shall see the blind prophet descrying the disguise of a queen, the judgment of the king, the removal of a prince too good for Jeroboam"s heir. You shall see the right stock of royal succession flourishing in Asa, while that true heir of David, though not without some blemishes of infirmity, inherits a perfect heart; purges his kingdom of sodomy, of idolatry; not balking sin even where he honoured nature.
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