were safe on the other fide of the Jordan : which, as it required a confiderable number of boats, or floats of fome kind, to convey them over a river not fordable, muft, in all probability, have been attended with some circumstances of felicity, favoured by Providence. And we need not doubt, but he now took as much care to retard the paffage of his enemies, in cafe they purfued him, as he had before done, to dispatch his own.

I HAVE often thought, that a history of David's piety, in all the various events of his life, could it be regularly pursued, and clearly connected, would, under the conduct of a masterly pen, make one of the most curious and entertaining (as well as ufeful) relations, the world ever beheld.

WE have already feen him fending back the ark of GOD, as from one unworthy the divine prefence and protection: we have seen him ascending Mount Olivet, in all the diftrefs of humiliation and penitence; his head covered, and his feet bare, and weeping as he went. We have seen him prostrate on the fummit of it, pouring out his fupplications, and proclaiming his confidence in GOD.

LET

LET us now follow him to the wilderness, and there we shall see him again (upon finding that his enemies took counfel against him, and laid wait for his foul) renewing his fupplications in the most affecting and pathetic strains, that ever were penned*. Although his enemies had faid, ver. 11. God hath forfaken him: pursue him, and take him; for there is none to deliver him; yet was his hope still strong, in that GOD, that he would deliver him out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. GOD, who had protected him in the vigour of youth, he prayed, and he confided, would not now fail him, in the infirmities of age. What tho' his own ftrength was decayed? he would go against his enemies, in the ftrength of the Lord Godt. Now also, when I am old and grey-headed, O God, forfake me not, until I have fhewed thy ftrength unto this generation, and thy power unto all them that are yet to

come.

* Pfalm lxxi. In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust. Deliver me in thy righteoufnefs, and cause me to escape. -Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. -Caft me not off in the time of old age: forfake me not, when my ftrength faileth.

Ver. 16, 17, 18.

IT could neither be denied nor diffembled, that he was now reduced to great distress; but, great as his diftreffes were, he had been redeemed from greater. His enemies looked upon him as a dead man; but they forgot, how eafily the hand of GoD could raise him up again, as from the grave; and not only renew, but augment his grandeur. Thou which haft fhewed me great and fore troubles, fhalt quicken me again; and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth Thou fhalt increase my greatness I will also praise thee upon the pfaltery, &c.— &c.—For they are confounded, they are brought into shame, that feek my hurt.

So he confided, and so it came to`pass; and Achitophel, the enemy's arch-counsellor, was the first inftance of God's vengeance upon that rebel-race. For, finding his hellish, but falutary advice to Abfalom, despised, and foreseeing from thence, that David must quickly prevail against his infatuated enemies, he immediately returned to his own city, put his houshold in order, and (in defperation) banged himself, fays the text, and died.

WHEN he had contrived, infpired, diffufed, and propagated evil, through an innumerable

numerable multitude, and loaded his foul with all the horrors of complicated guilt, that hell could devife; treachery, rebellion, incest, parricide! he hurried it to all the vengeance due to it from eternal justice; to prevent all poffibility of reparation and repentance, he died in the act of selfmurder. So perished the great Machiavel of that age; the very wifest of the very wifemen of this world! whofe God is their belly, whofe glory is their fhame, and whofe end is deftruction.

BUT it is time to return to David

;

DAVID and his fon now fet themselves to make the best preparations they could the one to carry on his unnatural rebellion, and the other to defeat it.

AND here, perhaps, the reader may not think it amifs to leave them a-while, and employ a few moments in reflections, not foreign from the affair before us.

AND first: It is remarkable, that this rebellion was, in all appearance, the real, although remote confequence of David's adultery. For Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam *, and we find Eliam, the fon of 2 Sam. xi. 3.

Achitophel, among David's worthies +; confequently, this Eliam was, in all probability, the father of Bathsheba; and if so, then may we fairly conclude, that Achitophel engaged in this confpiracy, in revenge for the dishonour done to his family, in the perfon of Bathsheba, which no fubfequent marriage could repair or efface and I think, we may plainly perceive, in the determined cruelty of Achitophel's advice and refolution to destroy David with his own hands, all the malice and rancour of a particular and perfonal revenge. And if this be the true ftate of the cafe, which I am far from adventuring to pronounce, (for indeed there are ftrong probabilities on the other fide) then was verified that fine observation, in the Wisdom of Solomon, (recounted among the appointments of Providence) That wherewithal a man finneth, by the fame also shall be be punished.

IN the next place, I cannot but reflect with astonishment, upon the applause which Mr. Bayle hath gained; and with horror, upon the evil errors he hath spread by his casuistry! and particularly in the article of

+ 2 Sam. xxiii. 34.

David.