WHEN he had thus cleared himself to the king, and ftruck him with a thorough conviction of his innocence, perhaps too with terror of the divine vengeance for the oppreffion and perfecution of innocence! he then returns to the gentleness and fubmiflion of his first expostulation; urging, that the king debased himself; that it was beneath the dignity of fo great a prince, to pursue so infignificant a creature as he wasAfter whom is the king of Ifrael come out? after a dead dog, after a flea? And then concludes all with a repeated appeal to Almighty God, and an earnest prayer for protection and deliverance.

AND it came to pass, fays the text, (1 Sam. xxiv. 16, &c.) when David had made an end of Speaking these words unto Saul, that Saul faid, Is this thy voice, my fon David? And Saul lift up his voice, and wept. And he faid to David, Thou art more righteous than 1; for thou haft rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil. And thou haft fhewed this day, how that thou haft dealt well with me: forafmuch as, when the Lord had delivered me into thine hand, thou killedft me not. For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away? Wherefore the Lord reward thee good, for that thou haft done unto me this day. And now, behold, I know well, that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Ifrael fhall be established in thine hand*, Swear now therefore unto me. by

* This he knew, fays St. Chryfoftom, from David's manners, from his kingly virtues, as well as his uncommon fuccefs. • Saul, (fays Dr. Trapp) being melted by thofe coals of kindness, which • David

by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my feed after me, and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house. And David fware unto Saul: and Saul went home; but David and his men gat them up unto the hold.

SAUL knew, that fuch magnanimity could not but predominate in the end; he knew how much this act of heroifm, added to fo many preceding, would make him amiable and admired by the whole world; and, above all, he knew his divine defignation to the throne; and therefore he predicted his fuccess.

I SHALL trouble the reader but with two fhort observations upon this moft pathetic fpeech of Saul's.

1

THE firft is, that his fenfe of David's generofity must be very strong, when he befeeches GOD to reward it. Indeed Saul had no equivalent to give David for the kindness fhewn him; and therefore he refers him to God for retribution. For if, after this, he should even fave David's life, yet ftill he could only fave the life of his best benefactor; whereas David both fpared and faved the life of his moft mortal

enemy.

THE fecond is, that David, by fparing his enemy, found himself poffeffed of the proudest

• David had heaped upon his head, poureth out himself in a flood ⚫ of paffionate expreffions, and, for the prefent, fpake as he thought: but good thoughts make but a thorough-fare of wicked hearts; they ftay not there, as those that like not their lodging; their purposes, for want of performance, are but as clouds without rain; or as Hercules's club in the tragedy, of a great bulk, but ⚫ftuffed with moss and rubbish.'

VOL. I.

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pleasure

pleasure human vanity could wish; to see his prince his petitioner! to fee his foe his fupplicant! confcious, and confeffing his own guilt, and David's fuperiority! and begging that mercy to his iffue, which he himself had juft experienced, and had not deferved. Who would not fave an enemy, for the joy of fo glorious a triumph!

CHA P. XVII.

David

Samuel's Death and Character. fojourns in the Wilderness of Paran. A Conjecture concerning Orpheus.

THE

'HE laft chapter fhewed us Saul convinced, overwhelmed with David's generofity, repentant, and feemingly reconciled; but it was a reconcilement which David could not confide in. He had too well experienced Saul's unfteadiness in his reconcilements, or, to speak more plainly, his inveterate envy, and invincible averfion; and credulity had now been excess of folly. And therefore the text tells us, that when Saul went home, David and his men gat them up into the hold: but whether by this he meant fome faftnefs in the mountains of the wild goats, or that hold which he had before poffeffed in the hill of Hackilah, I cannot fay. If he returned to Hackilah, doubtless he did it to the confusion, and perhaps, in fome measure, for the punishment of the Ziphites, who bafely betrayed him,

and

and now must receive him again, (and, it may be, fubfift him) reconciled to his king. But my opinion is, that he returned with new pleafure to finish his vineyard, and his other improvements, at Engedi.

ABOUT this time died the great prophet Samuel, in the ninety-feventh or ninety-eighth year of his age; and all the Ifraelites were gathered together, and lamented him, (lamented him for many days, fays Jofephus) and buried him in his houfe at Ramah.

HERE we are to take notice, that the Jews had no places of public fepulture; each family had its private fepulchres. And this appears to have been the practice from Abraham to Jofeph of Arimathea. They were, indeed, moftly in fields, and in rocks; and Samuel is the firft we read of who was buried in his own houfe *; though we are afterwards told, that Joab was buried in the fame manner, 1 Kings ii. 34. And the practice might, for aught we know, have been frequent amongst them; as, we are told, it was injoined the Thebans, before they built a house, to build a fepulchre in the place.

SAMUEL had now ruled Ifrael fixteen, or, as others think, twenty years, before the reign of Saul; and judged them (that is, was their principal judge) for about forty years after. And it is no wonder, that fo righteous a ruler, and fo just a judge, fhould be uncommonly and

* No more, as I apprehend, is meant by this, but that he was buried at his houfe, in his garden, probably; for in 1 Sam. xxviii. 3. he is faid to have been buried in his own city.

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univerfally

univerfally lamented; efpecially when the wif dom and equity of his government, compared with Saul's tyranny and extravagance, made his memory more dear, and his lofs more regretted.

He was now attended by all Ifrael to his grave; and his remains were, many centuries after, removed, with incredible pomp, and almost one continued train of attendants, from Ramah to Conftantinople, by the emperor Arcadius, A. D. 401. How fingular was the character and the felicity of Samuel!

DEVOTED to GOD from the womb *, and worthy to be fo! Early dedicated to the Divinity, and hallowed by his influence! Defcended from prophets, himself a greater!

THE fervice of his GOD made the early bufinefs of his life; nor ever interrupted by any thing, but the fervice of his country.

THE Scriptures are, I own, the delight of my life; but the pleasure of perusing them is always heightened, when they demonstrate their own veracity..

No man, in his fenfes, in the vigour of life, and in the age of ambition and avarice, forced by no danger, urged by no guilt, and preffed by no infirmity of mind or body, ever yet, voluntarily, and of his own choice, refigned the fupreme power, fecluded his fons from the

Of him might be faid, what was only more applicable to one other man :-Thou art he that took me out of my mother's womb: thou waft my hope, when I hanged yet upon my mother's breafts. I have been left unto thee ever fince I was born: thou art my God even from my mother's womb. Pfal, xxi.

9. 10.

fucceflion,