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guilt repeated, which there is not the least colour of reason to believe, or even fufpect. Quite the contrary: I am fatisfied, nothing fucceeded this first act of guilt, but fincere repentance, the rack of confcience, and a religious habit of abftinence from the repetition of it. The indulgence in guilt was an impetuous, unruly act of paffion: the abstinence from repeating it, a calm continued habit of religion.

HOLY and bleffed abftinence! fure teft of virtue, and proof of penitence! Could any merit in mortals atone for guilt, in the fight of GOD, I own, I fhould feek no other fatisfaction for this, than the facrifice of fuch an abstinence. But, alas! mortal guilt is not fo expiated; nor its dreadful confequences to be evaded, or escaped!

BATHSHEBA was with child; the proof of her adultery inconteftable; and the punish-. ment due to it, inevitable, otherwise than from the cover of a subsequent commerce with her husband. Accordingly Uriah is fent for, and Joab fecretly directed to difpatch him to the king, as from himself; probably, as a fit perfon to inform his majesty of the condition of the army; and to

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receive his further commands in relation to the fiege. And it is certain, that if Uriah were Joab's armour-bearer, as Jofephus affures us he was, a fitter perfon could not have been chofen.

WHEN he arrived, the king received him kindly; inquired how Joab and the people with him did, and how the war profpered: And when he had examined him as he thought fit, directed him to go home, and refresh himself, after the fatigue of his journey; and when he was departed from the palace, ordered (as a fingular mark of his favour) that a mefs of meat from the king's table fhould follow him to his houfe. It followed accordingly, but found him not there. For the text tells us, Uriah flept at the door of the king's house, with all the fervants of his lord, and went not down to his boufe.

WHEN David heard, that Uriah had not gone home to his house, but stayed all night in the palace with those of his fellow foldiers, who then kept the ward of the king's house, he fent for him the next morning, and rebuked him in a kind manner, for not having taken proper care of himself after the toil of

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his journey. Uriah, in return, gave the king to understand, that ease and indulgence would ill become him, in the present situation of his majesty's affairs, and hard fervice of his troops ---The answer, in the original, is truly heroic And Uriah faid unto David, The Ark, and Ifrael, and Judah, abide in tents, and my lord Joab, and the fervants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As thou liveft, and as thy foul liveth, I will not do this thing.

THE reader, I believe, can have no doubt, that this disappointment threw the king into great perplexity: he was evidently at a loss what to do, or how to conduct himself: and in that doubt, commanded Uriah to continue at Jerusalem one day more: Tarry here, faid the king, to-day also, and tomorrow Iwill let thee depart. Accordingly, we learn from the text, that he abode there that day, and the next alfo. David was doubtless still at a loss what to do: and probably not without hopes, that Uriah's being fo long in the fame city, with fo amiable a woman as Bathsheba, might soften the feve

rity of his refolution, and induce him to

make her a visit

But in vain: Uriah was

determined, and inflexible.

DAVID had but one thing left to gain his point and that was, to try what effect wine and good chear might have upon the foldier's fpirit: Men of that profeffion do not think themselves bound (out of their seafons of discipline) to be strictly upon their guard, against fuch occafional refreshments, and reliefs of toil; which sometimes make the wifeft men forget their feverest refolutions, and might naturally be hoped to have the fame effect upon Uriah; efpecially with regard to a refolution against nature, and too ftrictly severe.

DAVID tried the experiment; but to no purpose. We are given to understand from the text, that he made Uriah drink to some excefs, enough to disturb his reason, but not to shake his resolution: for when he left the palace in the evening, he again resorted to the king's guard, and paffed his night with them: but went not down to his house.

WHAT horrors feized the foul of David, upon hearing this news, the next morning, is much easier to be imagined, than expreffed. He.

He had injured a brave man: to undo, or to repair the evil, was impoffible; all that he could hope, was, to hide the injury, and not to aggravate by expofing it. He had done all in his power, to effect that; but to no purpose - If the infamy were expofed, it were in all appearance impoffible to protect Bathsheba: it is not clear, that he could protect himself. An affair of that confequence would doubtless be brought before the fupreme council of the Seventy, eftablished by Mofes *: from its nature, the

* Some people infer, from the filence of the Scriptures, that the Sanhedrim had ceased under their kings: but they forget how abfurd it is to fuppofe, that a council fo folemnly inftituted by Go D, and in the continuance of which, every tribe was fo nearly interested, Thould ever ceafe, tho' perhaps its power might, at certain periods, have been confiderably leffened, and poffibly was fo now.

Befides, there is, I think, a plain proof of its fubfifting, deducible from chap. viii. of Ezekiel, where we find feventy antients of the people with Paazaniah the fon of Shaphan (a famous fcribe in the days of Jofiah) in the midft of them, offering incenfe to idols: who could these seventy antients be, but the Sanhedrim?

What their power was in the days of David, we cannot fay; but what it was after the captivity, will best be learn'd from Jofephus's Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 17. Where we find them calling Herod before them, for putting a notorious robber to death, without their sentence; when he was tetrarch of Galilee, and his father procurator of Judea. And it was as much as king Hyrcanus could do, to fave his life.

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