that as fuch, they must be the inftruments of his cruelty and if they were not, why are they called bloody? They refused, indeed, to flaughter the priests, at his command; bad as the Benjamites were, they had not yet forgotten to fear God, and to reverence his priests. But is there the leaft colour of reafon to believe, that they were so fcrupulous with regard to the Gibeonites? And if they were not, is there lefs equity in God's deftroying their fons, for the fins of their fathers, which they adopted and shared in, than there was in his destroying Jehoram, the fon of Ahab, for that vineyard, which the father had cruelly and unjustly acquired, and the fon as unjustly detained? And indeed there seems to be no imaginable reason why Saul, when he had destroyed the priests of Nob, fhould, after that, deftroy the inhabitants of that whole city, but because they were moft, if not all of them, Gibe ovites, (who were obliged to attend there upon the altar) whofe fpoils might become a prey.

To this may be added, that three of the Gibeonite cities lay (as I now obferved) within

the

the lot of Benjamin *; and how could Saul fo conveniently enrich his tribe, and his family, as by dividing thefe poffeffions amongst them?

AND now, as I humbly apprehend, was fulfilled, more clearly, more naturally, and more circumftantially than in any or all other events, throughout the whole history of the fcriptures, that prophecy of their father Jacob concerning them, Gen. xlix. 27. Benjamin fhall ravin as a wolf: in the morning, he shall devour the prey, and in the evening he fhall divide the spoil. And indeed what can be a stronger or a clearer emblem of a wolf tearing and ravaging an innocent flock of sheep, than Saul destroying a quiet, fubmitting, unoffending race of Gibeonites, and, when he had done fo, dividing their fpoils among his partners in the prey? It must be owned, that the pretext for doing fo was not unplaufible, inasmuch as these men were spared, contrary to the express

*See Job. ix. 17. compared with chap. xviii. ver. 25, 26. chap. ix. ver. 17. And the children of Ifrael journeyed, and came unto their cities on the third day: now their cities were Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim. Chap. xviii. ver. 25. Gibeon, and Ramah, and Beeroth. Ver. 26. And Mizpeh, and Chephirah, and Mozah.

VOL. III.

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command of GOD. And for whom, do we think, Saul was more folicitous to provide, out of these spoils, than his own fons by Rizpah his concubine, and the children of his daughter? And this reasoning is strengthened by reflecting, that Nob was in the tribe of Benjamin; and when both the priests and Gibeonites were deftroyed out of this city, who then could take poffeffion of it but Benjamin?

:

WHEN the Gibeonites were taken into league, they were left in poffeffion of their cities this fufficiently appears from their fending to Joshua (Joh. x.) to deliver them from the Amorite kings, who befieged their capital, and had combined to destroy them': and he did as they defired. Their complaint against Saul now is, that he devised to defroy them from remaining in any of the coafts of Ifrael (2 Sam. xxi. 5.). Can this complaint mean lefs, than that Saul had taken measures to ftrip them of all their poffeffions? That he stripp'd them of one city, hath fully been fhewn in the preceding part of this history: and their complaint now is, that he devised to strip them of all: and why he did so is, I believe, no longer a que

ftion.

How

How juft are the judgments of God! If Saul destroyed an innocent people to make provifion for the offspring of a concubine, and the offspring of a daughter, which she bare in confequence of his own faith to David violated, could any thing be more equal, than that this very iffue, chief agents of his cruelty, fhould now be called for, to make atonement for that guilt!

LET others find their account, and found their fame, in reviling the divine difpenfations recorded in the fcriptures; be it ever my glory to reverence them! to reverence them in the filence of my closet, and to publish that reverence to the world, (when the revilings of others provoke me to it) without any view to the wages either of vanity or wealth!

GIVE me leave to add, that when I fee fome determined philofophers, of the last and present age, purfuing the reputation of David, with as murderous an intent as Saul

*Merab, the mother of five of thefe victims, was promifed to David, upon a folemn and public com→ pact; the conditions of which were fully performed on his fide, to the great glory and fecurity of the state; and then, in violation of that folemn and repeated engagement, given to another, 1 Sam. ch. xvii, ch. xviii,

did his life, I cannot help imagining, that

I hear this hero crying out to them, as he did to Saul, (1 Sam. xxiv. 12, 13.) The Lord judge between me

Lord avenge me of thee

and thee, and the

As faith the pro

verb of the antients, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked.

CHA P. XVI.

DAVID enters into new Wars with Philiftia. A Conjecture concerning the Caufe of them. The first and laft Edition of the Eighteenth Pfalın (published upon this Occafion) briefly compared. A Digreffion, upon the Ufefulness of Mufic to form the Manners. DAVID's laft prophetic. Words. A bort Conjecture concerning his Worthies.

TH

HE hiftory of the famine, under the reign of David, is fucceeded by a very fhort account of a war with the Phi

liftines;