that he spent in court every day thirty measures of fine flour, threescore measures of wheat, one hundred sheep, besides stags and fallow deer, bugles and fowl; four thousand stalls of horses he had for his chariots and other uses, and for the twelve thousand horsemen of his guard. For the forty thousand stalls, in 1 Kings iv. are to be taken but for so many horses; whence in 2 Chron. ix. it is written but four thousand stalls or teams, and in every team ten horses, as Junius and the Geneva understand it. He was said to be wiser than any man, yea, than were Ethan the Ezrahite, than Heman, Chalcal, or than Darda, to which Junius addeth a fifth, to wit, Ezrack: for the Geneva maketh Ethan an Ezrahite by nation. Josephus writes them Athan, Æman, Chalceus, and Donan, the sons of Hemon. He spake three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five, whereof either the most part perished in the captivity of Babylon, or else because many acts of Salomon's were written and kept among the public records of civil causes, and not ecclesiastical, therefore they were not thought necessary to be inserted into God's book.

SECT. IV.

Of the fall of Salomon, and how long he lived.

NOW as he had plenty of all other things, so had he no scarcity of women. For besides his seven hundred wives, he kept three hundred concubines, and (forgetting that God had commanded that none of his people should accompany the daughters of idolaters) he took wives out of Egypt, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Zidon, and Heth; and when he fell a doating, his wives turned his heart after other gods, as Ashtaroth of the Zidonians, Milcom or Molech of the Ammonites, and Chemosh of Moab.

These things God punished by Adad of Idumæa, Rezin of Damascus, and by Jeroboam his own servant, and one of the masters of his works, who by the ordinance of God tare from his son Rehoboam ten of the twelve parts of all the territory he had: "Deus dum in peccatores animad

t 1 Kings iv. 31.

"P. Mart. in Reg.

vertit, aliorum peccatis utitur, quæ ipse non fecit; "God "in punishing sinners, useth the sins of others, which he "himself wrought not."

In the reign of Salomon (as in times of long peace) were few memorable actions by him performed, excepting his buildings, with other works of magnificence, and that great Indian voyage already mentioned. Forty years he reigned; how many he lived, it is not written, and must therefore be found only by conjecture. The most likely way to guess at the truth in this case, is by considering the actions of David before and after Salomon's birth, whereby we may best make estimation of the years which they consumed, and consequently learn the true or most likely year of his nativity. Seven years David reigned in Hebron: in his eighth year he took Jerusalem, and warred with the Philistines, who also troubled him in the year following. The bringing home of the ark seems to have been in the tenth year of David, and his intention to build the temple in the * year ensuing, at which time he had sufficient leisure, living in rest. After this he had wars with the Philistines, Moabites, Aramites, and Edomites, which must needs have held him five years, considered that the Aramites of Damasco raised war against him after such time as he had beaten Hadadezer; and that in every of these wars he had the entire y victory. Neither is it likely that these services occupied any longer time, because in those days and places there were no wintering camps in use, but at convenient seasons of the year kings went forth to war, despatching all with violence rather than with temporizing; as maintaining their armies partly upon the spoil of the enemies' country, partly upon the 2 private provision which every soldier made for himself. The seventeenth year of David, in which he took Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan into his court, appeareth to have passed away in quiet, and the year following to have begun the war with Ammon; but somewhat late, in the end of summer perhaps, it came to trial of a battle, (for Joab after the victory returned immediately to * 1 Kings vii, 1. 71 Sam. xvii. 17, 18.

y 2 Sam. xi. 1.

Jerusalem,) the causes and preparations for that war having taken up all the summer. David's personal expedition against the Aramites, wherein he brought all the tributaries of Hadadezer under his own allegiance, appears manifestly to have been the next year's work, wherein he did cut off all means of succour from the Ammonites; all Syria, Moab, and Idumæa being now at his own devotion. By this reckoning it must have been the twentieth year of David's reign, and about the fiftieth of his life, in which he sent forth Joab to besiege Rabba, and finished the war of Ammon; wherein also fell out the matter of Uriah's wife. So one half of David's reign was very prosperous; in the other half he felt great sorrow by the expectation, execution, and sad remembrance of that heavy judgment laid upon him by God for his foul and bloody offence.

Now very manifest it is, that in the year after the death of that child which was begotten in adultery, Salomon was born, who must needs therefore have been nineteen years old, or thereabout, when he began to reign at the decease of his father, as being begotten in the twenty-first year of his father's reign, who reigned in all forty.

This account hath also good coherence with the following times of David, as may be collected out of ensuing actions: for two years passed ere Absalom slew his brother Ammon; three years ere his father pardoned him; and two years more ere he came into the king's presence. After this he prepared horses and men, and laid the foundation of his rebellion, which seems to have been one year's work. So the rebellion itself, with all that happened thereupon, as the commotion made by Sheba, the death of Amasa, and the rest, may well seem to have been in the thirtieth year of David's reign.

Whether the three years of famine should be reckoned apart from the last years of war with the Philistines, or confounded with them, it were more hard than needful to conjecture. Plain enough it is, that in the ten remaining years of David there was time sufficient, and to spare, both for three years of famine, for four years of war, and for num

bering the people, with the pestilence ensuing; as also for his own last infirmity, and disposing of the kingdom. Yet indeed it seems that the war with the Philistines was but one year's work, and ended in three or four fights, of which the two or three former were at Gob, or Nob, near unto Gezer, and the last at Gath. This war the Philistines undertook, as it seemeth, upon confidence gathered out of the tumults in Israel, and perhaps emboldened by David's old age, for he fainted now in the battle, and was afterwards hindered by his men from exposing himself unto danger any more. So David had six or seven years of rest, in which time it is likely that many of his great men of war died, (being of his own age,) whereby the stirring spirit of Adonijah found little succour in the broken party of Joab the son of Zeruiah.

At this time it might both truly be said by a David to Salomon, Thou art a wise man, and by Salomon to God, I am but a young child; for nineteen years of age might well agree with either of these two speeches.

Nevertheless there are some that gather out of Salomon's professing himself a child, that he was but eleven years old when he began to reign. Of these Rabbi Salomon seems the first author, whom other of great learning and judgment have herein followed; grounding themselves perhaps upon that which is said of b Absalom's rebellion, that it was after forty years, which they understand as years of David's reign. But whereas Rehoboam the son of Salomon was forty-one years old when he began to reign, it would follow hereby that his father had begotten him, being himself but a child of nine or ten years old; the difference between their ages being no greater, if Salomon (who reigned forty years) were but eleven years old when his reign began. To avoid this inconvenience, Josephus allows eighty years of reign to Salomon; á report so disagreeing with the scriptures, that it needs no confutation. Some indeed have, in favour of this opinion, construed the words of Josephus, as if they included all the years of Salomon's life. But by

such reckoning he should have been forty years old at his father's death; and consequently should have been born long before his father had won Jerusalem; which is a manifest untruth. Wherefore the forty years remembered in Absalom's rebellion, may either seem to have reference to the space between David's first anointment and the trouble which God brought upon him for his wickedness, or perhaps be read (according to Josephus, Theodoret, and the Latin translation) four years; which passed between the return of Absalom to Jerusalem and his breaking out.

SECT. V.
Of Salomon's writings.

THERE remain of Salomon's works the Proverbs, the Preacher, and the Song of Salomon. In the first, he teacheth good life, and correcteth manners; in the second, the vanity of human nature; in the third, he singeth as it were the epithalamion of Christ and his church. For the book entitled the Wisdom of Salomon, (which some give unto Salomon, and some make the elder Philo the author thereof,) Jerome, and many others of the best learned, make us think it was not Salomon that wrote it: Stylus libri Sapientiæ (saith Jerome) qui Salomonis inscribitur, Græcam redolet eloquentiam; "The style of the Book of Wisdom, "which is ascribed to Salomon, savoureth of the Grecian

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eloquence." And of the same opinion was St. Augustine; and yet he confesseth in the 19th book and 20th chapter of the City of God, that the author of that book hath a direct foretelling of the passion of Christ in these words: dCircumveniamus justum, quoniam insuavis est nobis, &c. "Let "us circumvent the righteous, for he is unpleasing to us, "he is contrary to our doings, he checketh us for offend"ing against the law, he makes his boast to have the know

ledge of God, and he calleth himself the Son of the "Lord," &c. And so doth the course of all the following words point directly at Christ. The books of Ecclesiastes,