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clear David's character of the cruelty feemingly charged upon him, in this account; others allowing the fact, but poorly vindicating his conduct in that point; and others charging it upon the hardness of his heart, in that state of impenitence in which they fuppofe him to have ftill continued, from his criminal commerce with Bathsheba.

BEFORE I prefume to pafs any judgment upon these opinions, give me leave to premife, that when David left Shobi in the government of Rabbah, it must be prefumed, that he left fome, befides female fubjects, under his dominion: and therefore it is no way unreasonable to fuppofe, that when Joab took the royal city, or City of Waters, it was furrendered to him by the bulk of the people, who fubmitted, and were received into mercy inafmuch as we find not the leaft mention or hint of any one human creature's being either chastized, or put to death, on that occafion. May we not then naturally infer, from this filence of the facred writers, that the king, who was taken in the upper city, retired thither upon the furrender of the royal city, with the accomplices and inftruments of his tyranny; and that they only

only fuffered the chastisements due to their guilt, from the hand of David?

I Now proceed to examine the opinions of commentators upon. this point.

AND first, That David's fuppofed cruelty to the Ammonites, was the confequence of his having ftill continued in a state of impenitence, is an opinion which, I think, I have already fhewn to be wholly without foundation and altho' the other opinion, that he inflicted no capital punishment upon them, is, I think, justifiable * from the text, and hath been fhewn to be fo; yet that he did chastize them with the fevereft kinds of death, generally understood by the text, I take to be the true opinion; not only, because the text hath always been understood in that sense, by all Jewish writers; but because I apprehend that conduct in David to.

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* The expreffion in 1 Chron. xx. 3. is, in our tranf lation, And he cut them with faws. Now the word them is not in the original; and the expreffion might, in my apprehenfion, be as properly tranflated, And they (i. e. the people whom David brought out of the city) cut with faws, &c. In the fecond book of Sam. xii. 31. the text is, And put them under faws, &c. Now fubjecting men to labour, may, as I apprehend, be as properly expreffed, by putting them under it, as fubjecting them to tribute is; and is the known idiom of the Irish language, and perhaps of others.

be more agreeable to the command of GOD; the command of extirpating all the males of every city that refifted; and the command of retaliating, upon every offender, the evils he was guilty of.

THAT the punishments now inflicted upon Ammon, were Ifraelite punishments, is not pretended: that they were punishments known in fome other countries of the Eaft, (in Perfia, and in Damafcus) is undoubted: that the Ammonites were monftrously cruel, cannot be denied. The Ifraelites, it is confeffed, received all people to mercy, that fubmitted to them. The Ammonites refused the submiffion of the people of Jabefb-Gilead (who offered to become their fervants) upon any lefs cruel condition than that of thrusting out every one of their right eyes*. If these were the gentlest terms, on which they would receive Ifraelites into protection, what treatment might they expect, if the Ammonites had obtained an unconditional dominion over them? In fhort: this one inftance (to fay nothing of their brutal behaviour to David's embaffadors) is

* 1 Sam. xi. 1, 2. The very expreffion carries the idea of the greatest cruelty in it.

in the place of ten thousand proofs, to demonftrate that people very monsters of cruelty! What then can we so naturally infer from this conduct of David's towards them, as that he now retaliated, upon them, every instance of their own cruelty to others? Nor can we have the leaft doubt of this, when we confider, that this was the established practice of the people of GoD, towards all those of their enemies whom they conquered. Let me mention two inftances: When Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord, (facrificed him to justice) his reason was, that he retorted his own murders upon him: As thy fword bath made women childless, fo fhall thy mother be childless among women. When Judah and Simeon cut off Adonibezek's thumbs and great-toes, he himself acknowledged the divine justice, in that righteous retribution of his own cruelty upon himself, crying out, (Judg. i. 7.) Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and great-toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table. As I have done, fo God hath requited me.

I AM fenfible, that fome fhort-fighted,

fuperficial people have looked upon the Jews as the cruelleft of all conquerors; little con

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fidering that they were raised by GoD, on purpose to be a scourge upon every vice and villainy all around them. And perhaps no imaginable method could be found out, more effectual to repress the enormities of a people every way profligate, and utterly abandoned, as the Canaanites then were, than to raise up a people eminently distinguished by the divine favour and protection, to whom it thould be an inviolable law, and a fixed point of duty to God, to chastize, in every man that came into their power, every enormity which they themselves had committed; and to retort, in a particular manner, their cruelties upon their own heads. For this was, in effect, little lefs than if GOD himfelf had bared his arm, to take fignal vengeance on their monstrous enormities.

Now, it is beyond all doubt, that this was the cafe of the Ifraelites in the midst of the abandoned world about them: and it is also beyond all doubt, from Pfalm xxi. unquestionably written upon this occafion, that this was the very reason of David's conduct in the cafe before us: Thine hand fball find out all thine enemies, thy rightband fhall find out thofe that hate thee. Thou

fhalt

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