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not here the secureft and the fteadieft ftations: tempefts and temptations encompass them; which fuffer nothing ferene and permanent, in this frail, unstable state.

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THE feafon of warfare returned ; Ammonites were the enemies; and indignities, perfonal to David, were to be vindicated; decency and dignity more naturally referred them to the chastisement of others. Joab therefore, and all Ifrael with him, were fent into the field, and David continued at home.

JOAB, altho' he came off victorious in the laft expedition, had however been reduced to great streights; seemingly from fome defect in his own conduct. And therefore David feems to have been now more than ordinarily careful, to fend him out well attended. Inafmuch as he fent out not only all the flower of the Ifraelite forces, but likewife his own life-guard (his worthies, as I apprehend, included) along with him *. And the effects were answerable: for the text tells us, that they deftroyed the children of Ammon, and

*So I think we are well warranted to understand thofe words, 2 Sam. xi. 1. David fent Joab, and his fervants with him, and all Ifrael.

befieged

befieged Rabbab, (their capital) but David tarried ftill at Jerufalem.

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And it came to pass, that whilst he was there, rifing one evening from his afternoon's reft, and walking upon the roof of his house, to enjoy the refreshment of the evening air the ufual relief of warmer climates; he hap→ pened unfortunately to caft his eye upon a most beautiful woman, who was batheing herself for health and refreshment, in that cool and feasonable hour: but whether in her garden, or court-yard, overlooked by the palace, or in fome apartment of her house, whose windows opened that way, is not certain. Tradition points out the place of a fountain, ftill called after her name: which fhould make it probable, that the bathed in a garden, did not Jofephus exprefly declare, that it was in her own house. And indeed the natural modefty and decency of the fex, and circumftance of the time, (the evening) make his account much more credible. And it is certain, that the declining rays of the fun, fhooting into the inmost receffes of her chamber, at that time of the day, and throwing a great luftre around her, might difcover her very clearly, to very B 2

diftant

diftant eyes, without the least suspicion on her part, of any poffibility of her being seen: and, of confequence, confiftently with all the referve of modefty. However, this only is undoubted; that David, ftruck with her person and beauty, which, fuppofing it under the conduct of the most guarded modesty, might yet, in the action of batheing, be, to him, a fight new, extraordinary, and furprifing, (and fuch perhaps, as few modest men have ever beheld but by accident) fuffered himself to be too much transported with it, and fell at once under the temptation. For, inquiring in the inftant, and learning who fhe was, he fent, and had her brought into his apartment: where he had criminal commerce with her; and foon after fuffered her to return to her house.

ALL this was a fudden, and, as it should feem from Nathan's parable, a secret tranfaction.

I SHALL not take upon me to account for this quick impetuous paffion, (the starts of paffion are perhaps the strangest phænomena in our frame) and much lefs will I prefume either to excufe, or infult it: one thing only we know, that whatever in any degree im

pairs the power of reafon, adds fo much to the power of paffion; and poffibly that numbness of reason, that ftupidity which never fails to attend an afternoon's fleep, upon a full meal, might have been one ingredient, or fome way or other an addition to the extravagance of this; at least, the humane reader will pardon me the weakness of wishing to alleviate it.

THE woman was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of the king's worthies, and then with Joab in the field. And it was easy for the king to fend for her, under the pretext of conveying some dispatches to her husband, thro' her hands.

WHAT the ftate of David's mind was, when the tumult of paffion was laid, BathSheba departed, and reason returned, I shall not take upon me to paint. The calm reflections of a spirit truly religious, will best imagine the horrors of fo complicated a guilt, upon the recoil of confcience. When all those paffions, whose blandishments, but a few moments before, deluded, feduced, and overset his reason, now resumed their full deformity or rushed into their contrary extremes; defire, into distraction; the sweets

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of pleasure, into bitterness of foul; love, into self-deteftation; and hope, almost into the horrors of defpair! The wife of one of his own worthies, apparently an innocent and a valuable woman, abused, and tainted, and brought to the very brink of ruin and infamy! A brave man bafely dishonoured! and a faithful fubject irreparably injured! The laws of GOD trampled under foot of that God, who had fo eminently diftinguished, exalted, and honoured him! Well might he cry out in the anguish of this diftracted condition; Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. In one word, his condition was now fo dreadful, that it was not eafy for him to bring himfelf to the presumption of even petitioning for mercy! And this I take to be the true reafon, why we find no Pfalm. of David's penn'd upon this occafion. Not that he continued any time, and much less a long time, (as fome have weakly imagined) in a state of impenitence: that is, the ftupidity, not of an initiating finner, but a feared confcience.

BESIDES, had that been his cafe, the intercourfe had been continued, and the

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