Page:Devotions - Donne - 1840.djvu/153



Y God, my God, thy blessed servant Augustine begged of thee, that Moses might come and tell him hat he meant by some places of Genesis: may I have leave to ask of that Spirit that writ that book, why, when David expected news from Joab's army, and that the watchman told him that he saw a man running alone, David concluded out of that circumstance, that if he came alone, he brought good news ? I see the grammar, the word signifies so, and is so ever accepted, good news; but 1 see not the logic nor the rhetoric, how David would prove or persuade that his news was good because he was alone, except a greater company might have made great impressions of danger, by imploring and importuning present supplies: howsoever that be, I am sure, that that which thy apostle says to Timothy, Only Luke's with me, Luke, and nobody but Luke, hath a taste of complaint and sorrow in it: though Luke want no testimony of ability, of forwardness, of constancy, and perseverance, in assisting that great building which St. Paul laboured in, yet St. Paul is affected with that, that there was none but Luke to assist. We take St. Luke to have been a physician, and it admits the application the better, that in the presence of one good physician we may be glad of more. It was not only a civil spirit of policy, or order, that moved Moses's father-in-law to persuade him to divide the burden of government and judicature with others, and take others to his assistance, but it was also thy immediate Spirit, O my God, that moved Moses to present unto