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would imagine, should be, to fo good a man, more an object of deteftation than defire ; and must moreover, if he lived, be a perpetual brand of infamy upon his his parents.

THE true way of accounting for it is, by afcribing it, as Le Clerc does, to David's excess of paffion for Bathsheba; which fo strongly attached him to every offspring of hers, and made him forget every thing in this child, but that motive of indearment. Befides this, there is fomething in human nature, which prompts us to rate things after a manner feemingly unaccountable ; and to estimate them, not according to their real worth, but according to the expence, or trouble, or even the distress they have coft us. However, all this availed nothing at prefent dear as this child had coft David, he now was deprived of him.

THUS was the firft inftance of the divine vengeance upon David's guilt, fpeedily and rigidly executed: other inftances of it were fulfilled in their order, before his own eyes; as will abundantly appear in the sequel of this hiftory; and the dreadfulleft of all the reft, The fword fhall never depart from thine house, fadly and fucceffively fulfilled in his pofte

rity; from the death of Amnon, by the order of his own brother, to the flaughter of the fons of Zedekiah, before his own eyes, by the king of Babylon.

GIVE me leave to add, (and let the reader make his own inferences) that David's guilt was more fignally and dreadfully punished, in his own perfon, and in his pofterity, than any guilt I ever heard, or read of, in any other perfon, fince Adam *. THE Jews are of opinion, that his own decree of repaying the robbery four-fold, was ftrictly executed upon him. him. And as he was profeffedly punished by the death of one of his fons, for the murder of Uriah, they imagine, that the other three also, who died violent deaths, fell fo many facrifices to the divine justice, upon the fame account.

WHEN David had fufficiently humbled himself, under this first chastisement of GoD

*The deflowering of Tamar by her own brother; the death of four fons, three of them before his own eyes, and one by the hand of his own brother; the unnatural rebellion of one fon, which brought him almost to the brink of ruin; the proftitution of ten wives in the fight of all his fubjects; and the fucceffive and fignal maffacre of his pofterity; befides the diftrefs of his own public fhame and infamy, added to, at least, one cruel disease.

upon

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upon him, for his fins; and supported himfelf under the lofs of his child, by the spect of finding him one day again in a better world; his next care was, to comfort Bathsheba the best he could, under their common calamity and as fhe appears to have been a meek and reasonable woman, his task (we may well prefume) was so much the eafier. She alfo, without doubt, refigned and submitted, and her refignation was rewarded accordingly; for fhe foon after conceived by David, and bare him a son; and David, as he was now in peace with GOD, and forefaw in the spirit of prophecy, that this fon would be a pacific prince, he called his name Solomon, or Peaceable.

AND as this fon was conceived in innocence, in the happy feafon of GoD's reconcilement to his parents, and their establishment in true religion, by fincere repentance and humiliation before him; it pleased GOD to accept him, in a fingular manner. Which is fignified to us in the text, by that remarkable expreffion: And the Lord loved him. And to manifeft his favour to him, for the confolation of David, he conveyed his benediction to the fon, by the fame hand

which

which had before conveyed his chastisements to the father he sent Nathan to David to

:

bestow upon his fon, in his name, the moft bleffed of all earthly, the most bleffed, but one, of all heavenly appellations, Jedidjab, or, The beloved of God.

CHA P. IV.

The Foolishness of wicked Policy. David, upon Joab's Exhortation, goes to the Siege of Rabbah, and takes it. Depofes Hanun: and puts the remaining Ammonites to Death. His Conduct in this Point justified.

HILST things ftood thus with Da

WHI

vid at Jerufalem, the fiege of Rabbab ftill continued, being now far lengthened out into a fecond year. David had hitherto gone on with uninterrupted fuccefs, till his fins arrested his prosperity, and stopp'd him short. The truth is, all wickedness, befides those curfes and judgments it draws down from heaven, hath a natural tendency to

defeat

defeat the wifeft fchemes, and check the progrefs of the best purposes; as in the case before us the Ifraelites were to make an attack, to fly, and to be defeated, that Uriah might fall: Could any thing more naturally raise the courage of Ammon, or depress that of Ifrael, than fuch a project? Doubtless, there were many men in the army, accustomed to be led out to battle by Uriah, and those brave companions of his who fell with him; and brought back with victory, and glory: Would thefe men be easily brought to follow other, inferior, or untried leaders, with equal ardour? Or would those Ammonites have any terror upon them, to meet thefe leaders, who had defeated and cut off Uriah, and his brave companions? And did not all this naturally tend to deject Ifrael, and infpirit their enemies? Such is the accurfed policy of guilt: selfish, and fhort-fighted! And fuch the truth and wifdom of that noble maxim in the fchools, That evil is not ordinable to good.

THE dejected spirit of the Ifraelite army naturally tended to make their measures flower, and more cautious; and of confequence, to draw the fiege into greater length.

How

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