very hottest season of the year, might have added a peftilence to the famine: a danger, which it is impoffible to imagine David would deliberately devise, both against his people and himself; and confequently demonftrates itself impofed upon him by a fuperior power: confuting all the little cavils of mean men, against the conduct of David, upon this occafion; cavils, which are further confuted by the account left us of Rizpah's fingular affection for these unhappy victims. She fpread a tent upon the rock on which they were executed, and kept a continual watch over their remains, night and day; and fuffered neither the birds of the air to reft on them by day, nor the beafts of the field by night. Which when David heard, did he refent this conduct, which might have been a natural means of propagating a peftilence? Quite otherwise, it fufficiently appears from his fubfequent behaviour, that he rather emulated it; for he immediately went to Jabeh Gilead, and caufed the bones of Saul and Jonathan to be removed from thence, and depofited, together with the bones of Saul's feven fons, now executed, in the fepulchre of Kish;

himself attending them in person to the grave: as if Rizpah's kindness to the remains of these unhappy victims, reproached his own long neglect of doing due honour to those of so excellent a man, and fo valuable a friend, as Jonathan.

THE facred historian adds And they performed all that the king commanded, and after that God was intreated for the land. This plainly implies, that God gave no figns of being appeafed, until after the performance of these funeral rites: which grounds a rational belief, that these offices of humanity, to the remains of the dead, are highly acceptable in the fight of GOD. And perhaps this very inftance gave rife to the religion of this duty in the heathen world.

ANOTHER inference is also obvious from this account of God's being intreated for the land, after the discharge of those offices to the dead; viz. that public devotions had been appointed before this, to appease the wrath of GOD, but proved ineffectual. The fame thing is alfo evident from Psalm lxv. agreed on all hands to have been composed upon the ceafing of this calamity, ver. 1. Praife

P. 3

Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion, and unto thee shall the vow be performed.

A COMPLETE Comment upon this facred hymn, is not the work either of my province or genius; and therefore I fhall only obferve, that the five last verses of it are the most rapturous, truly poetic, and natural image of joy, that imagination can form, or comprehend.

THE reader of tafte will fee this, in the simplest translation, ver. 9, &c. Thou haft vifited the earth, thou madeft it to covet, and haft enriched it. The river of God is full of water. Thou shalt provide them corn, because thou hast prepared for it. Saturate * the furrows thereof, make them fink, with Showers: melt it--- blefs its fpringing buds--Thou hast crowned the year with thy goodnefs, and thy orbs fhall drop down fatness; the pastures of the wilderness shall drop: the bills fhall exult, and be girded with gladness The fields have cloathed themselves with cattle; the valleys have covered themselves with corn. They shall shout, yea, they shall fing.

* In Hebrew, Make them drunk.

THE

THE reader will eafily obferve, that when the divine poet had feen the fhowers falling from heaven, and the Jordan overflowing his banks, all the confequent bleffings were that moment present to his quick poeticfight, and he paints them accordingly.

BUT we must quit this pleafing scene, and divert to something as throughly diftafteful and disagreeable, as this is delightful: for I am now called upon, in justice to my subject, to inform the reader, that David's character, not only as a hero, but as a man of honour, and common honesty, is violently affaulted by one * Thomas Chubb †, who imputes the death of Saul's defcendants, procured by the Gibeonites, not to any command of GOD, but to a plaufible pretext of David's, pretending fuch command, to get rid of Saul's pofterity, his rivals in empire; blafting David, at once, with the complicated imputation of the basest of lyars, hypocrites, and murderers! Murderer

See Chubb's pamphlet, on occafion of the oppofition to Dr. Rundle, &c. p. 27, &c.

+ Of whom I know no more, than that the business of his whole life feems to be, to invalidate, to the utmoft of his power, the credibility of the facred hiftorians.

fo

of that family which he had twice lemnly fworn not to destroy; and this, at the very time, when the hand of GoD was heavy upon him and his people! Murderer of that family, whofe murderers he detefted and destroyed!

THE fum of Mr. Chubb's reafoning upon the point stands thus :

Ir is inconfiftent with equity, and with GOD's own declarations, to punish one man, and much more a whole nation, for the faults of another; therefore the history, which tells us, that GOD punished the children of Ifrael with famine, for the crime of Saul, in flaying the Gibeonites, is incredible: confequently GoD's supposed anfwer, upon David's inquiry concerning the cause of the famine, was a forgery of David's.

IN answer to this charge, I own it inconfiftent with equity, and with the divine declarations, to punish one man for the crimes of another, in which he had no share

+1 Sam. xx. 15.

xxiv. 21, 22. Swear now therefore unto me, by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my feed after me; and that thou wilt not destroy my name, out of my father's house.

And David fware unto Șaul.

But