have been the highest provocation to men that had any feeling of natural affection. David and his soldiers thought it so; and if it be lawful to put to death incendiaries, women and children stealers, thieves, robbers, and vagabonds, David's executing this vengeance on the Amalekites for their treachery in making this invasion, and committing these unprovoked violences, whilst neither the Philistines nor Hebrews could defend their territories, was a deserved and necessary severity.

But " was not the moderation of these poor heathen Amalekites, who slew not any, great or small, but only took the women and children captive, greater than that of the enlightened David, who destroyed them all?" Wherein doth this great moderation consist? The men they could not slay, for there were none in the town: the women and children they spared and took captives, not out of compassion and moderation, but because if they had put them to death they would have lost the fruit of their successful invasion, and because they wanted slaves, either for their own use, or to make money of them by selling them for slaves to any other that would purchase them; a circumstance of all others this the most dreadful to ingenuous women, who have any sense of honour. For though possibly, amongst a large number of female captives, some few of them might become wives, or be treated kindly by those who took or purchased them, yet their condition in general was the most abject and miserable, they being usually condemned to the most servile employments, and frequently abused in their persons by their brutal enslavers at pleasure. There is not, I believe, an instance to be produced in history of women taken captives in war generally becoming the wives of those who enslaved them. It was a circumstance also that greatly enhanced the grief of David and his men, that their sons and daughters were taken captives as well as their wives. This must have been a provocation the most sensibly felt and deeply resented; and the reducing them to perpetual slavery, and their becoming the prey of brutal banditti and robbers, to be abused, prostituted, and cruelly used by them, I could never think of without the highest regret, and should much rather choose to have them entirely cut off at once, and put out of their misery, than preserved alive for these vile and execrable purposes. I own the alternative is terrible, but surely a sud

den death is preferable to a long life which itself is worse than death.

But upon these premises would it not have been more merciful in David to have put the Ammonites to death by the shocking methods of sawing them asunder, tearing them with harrows of iron, and scorching them in burning brick-kilns, as some suppose he did, than to have reduced them to slavery, and destined them to those servile employments? But David did not make war upon women and children as the Amalekites did, but upon men; and who doth not see the infinite difference of the two cases? The generality of men are fit for, and born to labour, and much more capable of enduring it than women; and therefore as death is not accounted by the generality of men preferable to a life of labour, the sparing them for servile employments hath been ever looked on as an act of mercy and generosity in a conqueror, and gratefully accepted as a favour by those who were spared. But women are more incapable of servile labours; and besides, there are peculiar circumstances to render captivity to them dreadful and intolerable, from which men are by nature entirely exempted. It was therefore an act of moderation in David to spare the Ammonitish men, though he condemned them to hard labour, whilst the sparing women for the drudgery of slaves, and the lusts of their enslavers, is real cruelty, and hath been more dreaded by them than being actually put to the swordm.

It should also be remarked, that the number of the Amalekites that fled was equal to all David's forces, and that out of self-preservation he was obliged to put as many of them to the sword as he could, to prevent his being surrounded and de

m Caracalla, having taken a great number of German women prisoners, who could not endure slavery, asked them whether they chose to be put to death, or sold for slaves. They chose death. But the emperor condemning them to slavery, they many of them first killed their children, and all of them at last themselves. Dio Cass. LXXVII. 14. edit. Reim. Thus also the wives of the ancient Cimbri, after a brave resistance of the Roman forces, quum missa ad Marium legatione, liber

tatem ac sacerdotium non impetrassent, suffocatis elisisque partim infantibus, aut mutuis concidere vulneribus, aut vinculo a crinibus suis facto, ab arboribus, jugisque plaustrorum pependerunt. Flor. III. iii. 17. Polyæn. Strategem. VII. 47. "When they could not obtain their liberty from Marius, they first destroyed their children, then slew each other, or hung themselves upon trees, and the beams of their carriages, by a kind of ropes made with their own hair."

26.

stroyed by a force so much superior to his own. I add lastly, that he did well in extirpating them, as they were proscribed by God himself, and as the enemies of the Lord condemned to be utterly cut off.

But had David been at this time in a situation to put such decrees in execution, with respect both to character and ability, and had he urged this proscription to authorize the slaughter, and had not plunder been the sole actuating motive, though the massacre might be justified upon Hebrew principles, yet can these principles be urged in defence of David in this transaction? As to David's situation, he had character enough to execute this decree, as he was anointed king of Israel, was the person injured by this incursion of the Amalekites, and an ally of the Philistines, whose country they had spoiled. That he had ability to do it is certain, because he actually did it. As to his urging their proscription to vindicate his cutting them off, there was no need of it; for he acted in this affair by an immediate express permission and order of God. For previous to the expedition, he inquired of God whether he should pursue and overtake the Amalekites? He was bid to pursue them, and assured he should overtake them, and without fail recover all. And yet that he had the ancient proscription in view, appears from the message he sent, with

1 Sam. xxx. the share of his spoil to his friends, Behold a present for you of the spoil of the enemies of the Lord; referring undoubtedly to the old decree, The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. That plunder was the sole actuating motive to David in this expedition, is a supposition contrary to all the circumstances of this affair; which makes the burning of Ziglag, the grief and rage of his own people for their loss, and the recovery of their wives and children and substance from the Amalekites, the immediate and real cause of his pursuing and destroying them; motives these generous and humane, worthy a father, husband, general, and prince, and that justify his conduct, and show both his generosity and virtue.

I shall only add, that this successful expedition against the Amalekites was another very favourable incident for David, as it showed his resolution and courage, and his zeal in promoting the safety and welfare of his country, though he was in a state

of actual banishment from it, and forced to seek for shelter in the dominions of an enemy. He was further enabled to secure and ingratiate himself with his former friends, the elders of Judah, by the presents which he respectfully sent them; fortunate circumstances these, as they happened just before the death of Saul, who with his three sons were killed in battle against the Philistines, upon the mountains of Gilboa. Saul indeed, finding himself dangerously wounded by the arrows of the enemy, called upon his armour-bearer to despatch him, to prevent his being taken and insulted by the Philistines; and upon his refusal, fell upon his own sword and died. The day after the battle, when the Philistines came to strip the dead bodies, they found those of Saul and his three sons upon mount Gilboa, and cutting off their heads, and stripping them of their armour, they sent messengers throughout all their territories, to publish the good news in the temples of their idols, and amongst all their people. Their armour they hung up as trophies in the temple of their goddess Ashtaroth, their heads they fixed on that of Dagon, and to insult the vanquished Hebrews, fastened the dead bodies to the wall of Bethshan, belonging to the tribe of Manasseh, which they had seized immediately after the battle. Thus Saul died for his trans- 1 Chron. x. gression that he committed against the Lord, even against the 13, 14. word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of; and inquired not of the Lord: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom to David.

CHAP. XIX.

David's return from banishment, and his behaviour on the

death of Saul.

THE third day after David's return to Ziglag from the 2 Sam. i. slaughter of the Amalekites, he was informed by an Amalekite I, &c. of the death of Saul and his sons; owning himself to be the person who killed him, and presenting David with Saul's crown and bracelet. No doubt but this wretch intended to make a merit of this affair, and to ingratiate himself with David, by telling him that he had destroyed Saul, and presenting him with the spoils of royalty, of which he stripped him. But, alas, he knew not David! He knew not that a

crown would be unwelcome to him at the price of treason, and that a throne would not tempt him, if to be purchased by parricide. He who himself thrice spared Saul's life when he had it absolutely in his power, could he endure the man that boasted of having murdered him? No. He rent his clothes, mourned and wept for him, and justly ordered the immediate execution of the boasting assassin, saying, Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the Lord's anointed. Had he embraced him, commended his zeal, and given him a reward for it, he would have shown himself an extremely bad man, deserved the severest censure, and stood condemned by the impartial suffrages of all who are possessed of the least humanity or honour. But he behaved herein with that dignity and justice that sets him. above all deserved reproach".

Instead of receiving the news of Saul's death with joy, David and all his men mourned, and wept, and fasted until even, for Saul and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the Lord, and for the house of Israel; because they were fallen by the sword. All these circumstances concurred to excite David's grief, and not only the death of Saul; reasons these common to David and his men, who shared in his grief, and expressed it by the same tokens. Saul indeed was David's enemy and persecutor, but he was his father and his king also; in whose service he had been employed, by whom he had been brought out of obscurity, and from whom he had formerly received considerable favours. How natural then that, on such an occasion, he should forget the enemy, and mourn over the loss of a man that had been once his friend and patron! Humanity

n But even this noble part of David's conduct hath been imputed to hypocrisy, and every sign of sorrow that he expressed on this mournful occasion reproached as mere grimace, because, as it hath been asserted, "he burst out into a sorrowful lamentation for the death of a man, to whose destruction he had so freely offered to lend his assistance but just before." But as it hath not and cannot be proved, that David ever offered his assistance to Saul's destruction, or ever made,

directly or indirectly, any offer of this kind; the reasons that are expressly mentioned of David's sorrow are such as justify all the expressions of it, and show it to have been without dissimulation and hypocrisy.

When the mangled body of Darius was brought to Alexander, and he had taken a view of it, his historians remark, that he openly expressed his sorrow for his misfortunes, and shed tears over a prince that died in a manner so unworthy