A SERMON PREACHED Before the Right Honourable THE LORD MAYOR, AND COURT of ALDERMEN; ΑΤ St. Mary Le Bow, July the 185 2 Sam. xviii. 28. And Abimaag called and faid unto the King, All is well. And be fell down to the Earth upon his Face before the King, and Said, Blef fed be the Lord thy God; which bath delivered up the Men that lift up their Hand against my Lord the King. T HIS Abimaaz was a Soldier under Joab, in the Battle which he fought with Abfalom, the rebellious Son of his too kind and indulgent Father, King David 5 who having newly par don'd him that unnatural Murder of his Brother Amnon, and received him into Grace and Favour, and furnished him with a plentiful Revenue, and 2 a fplendid Equipage; fo that if he had pleafed he might have lived in Peace and Glory, and been a Comfort to his Father, a Patriot to his Country, and a Bleffing to his Family: And after he had finished the Circle of a happy and profperousLife, might have gone down with Honour to his Grave. The foolish ungrateful young Man, being thereto excited, partly perhaps by the Infinuations of a Company of crafty Malecontents, but chiefly by his own Ambition, imbarques himself in a wicked and defperate Defign against his Father's Life and Crown; in order whereunto he industriously fets himself,by mean and poor Condefcenfions, to cajole and inveagle the rude and giddy Mobile; which, partly by declaiming against the Maleadministrations of his Father's Government partly by promising them a through Reformation if ever he arrived to be a Judge in Ifrael, he at length accomplished. And now having formed to himself a strong and numerous Party, he gets his Father's Leave to make a Progrefs to Hebron, (a factious Town without Doubt, and it lay Weft-ward of Jerufalem) under Pretence of paying a Vow there; for fo Religion is the the ufual Sham of Rebellion 30 where being arrived with two hundred. Men out of Jerufalem, who followed him blindfold without either Fear or Wit, he fends for one Achitophel, who had been a Councellor to his Father, but at this time, as it seems probable, was difcarded the Court for some high Mifdemeanour: This canker'd old Wretch, glad of the Opportunity to revenge himself apon his Master, immediately joins Interests with his undutiful Son, and thereby encreases his Party into a ftrong and numerous Army, with which he marches against his King and Father, and is overthrown in a pitch'd Battle and notwithstanding his Father's Orders to the contrary, is flain by the Hand of Joab, who wifely forefaw that David could hever hope to reign in Peace fo long as the Rebel Abfalom was alive. Hereupon Ahimaaz the Son of Zadock, a valiant Soldier, and swift and nimble Foot-Man, defires Joab his General, that he may be the Meffenger of the good Tidings to the King; but Joab having a Kindness for the Man, and wifely confidering that the News of Abfalom's Death would be very unwelcome to David, and in all Probabi |