The king's heart [is] in the hand of the LORD, [as] the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.
Ver. 1. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord.] Be kings never so absolute and unaccountable to any, yet are they ruled and overruled by him "that is higher than the highest,." Ecc 5:8 God's heart is not in the king's hand, as that foolish prince in Mexico pretends, when at his coronation he swears that it shall not rain unseasonably, neither shall there be famine or pestilence during his reign in his dominions; but "the king's heart," that is, his will, desires, devices, resolutions, are God's to dispose of. He turneth them this way or that way with as much ease as the ploughman doth the water course with his paddle, or the gardener with his hand. Thus he turned the heart of Pharaoh to Joseph; of Saul to David; of Nebuchadnezzar to Jeremiah; of Darius to Daniel; of Cyrus, and afterwards of Alexander the Great, to the Jews; of some of the Roman persecutors to the primitive Christians; and of Charles V, who ruled over twenty-eight flourishing kingdoms, to the late reformers, Melanchthon, Pomeran, and other famous men of God, whom, when he had in his power, after he had conquered the Protestant princes, he not only determined not anything extremely against them, but also, entreating them gently, he sent them away, not so much as once forbidding them to publish openly the doctrine that they professed: albeit, all Christendom had not a more prudent prince than he was, saith Mr Foxe, a nor the Church of Christ almost a a sorer enemy.
a Acts and Mon., fol. 1784.