Judah 29, all Israel 22. God reserved to himself, and a violation of one of the standing David over laws of the kingdom; for the capitation tax, that God had appointed to be taken whenever they were numbered, was ordered to be paid for the service of the tabernacle, as a memorial that God was their supreme Governor and King. But God, to support the dignity of his own constitution, and to put David in mind that, though king, he was still to limit the exercise of his power by the precepts of the law, gives him by the prophet the option of three punishments, of which David chose the plague; recollecting probably, at last, that this was the very punishment threatened by God to the violation of this statute concerning the numbering the people, as well as for the reason he himself alleges, Let us fall now into the hands of the Lord: for his mercies are great. It is evident from the history that this action of David was looked upon as a very wrong step even by Joab, who remonstrated against it, as apprehensive of the bad consequences that might attend it; for he says, The Lord make his people 1 Chron. xxi. 3, 6. an hundred times so many more as they be: but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? why then doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel? And therefore Joab counted not Levi and Benjamin, because the king's word was abominable to him. Probably we do not understand all the circumstances of this affair; but Joab's censure of it, who was no scrupulous man, shows that David's conduct in it was extremely imprudent, and might subject his people to very great inconveniencies. But is it not strange, that because David sinned in numbering and the revenues of the Roman people were subject to their will and pleasure. Liv. ibid. Censoris officium erat omnia patrimonii, dignitatis ætatis, artium, officiorumque discrimina in tabulas referre. L. Flor. I. 6. Censores populi ævitates, soboles, familias, pecuniasque censento. Cicer. de Leg. III. 3. This high power was lodged in Augustus, who made this census three times, and was one of the principal circumstances that contributed to render him absolute lord over the Roman empire. Sueton. Vit. August. xxvii. 8. But in the Jewish kingdom ab solute power was vested only in God all Israel 22. David over the people, therefore the people should be punished; since of Judah 29, the three punishments propounded to David for his choice, one of them must necessarily fall upon his subjects? Possibly this difficulty may be eased, when I put my reader in mind, that kings are no otherwise to be punished in their regal capacities, nor oftentimes to be brought to correct the errors of their administration, but by public calamities, by famine, pestilence, foreign wars, domestic convulsions, or some other like distresses that affect their people. This David thought a punishment; and if it be right at all for God to animadvert on the conduct of princes, or to show his displeasure against them for the public errors of their administration, it must be right and fit for him to afflict their people; and indeed this is what continually happens in the common course of providence; and the observation that Quicquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi, is an old and a true one. And if this be a difficulty, it affects natural religion as well as revealed; and the same considerations that will obviate the difficulty in one case will solve it also in the other. As to the thing itself, that kings are no otherwise to be punished in their regal capacities but by public calamities which affect their people, it is, I apprehend, so selfevident and certain, as that it can need no proof. Whether princes profit more or less, or nothing, by the misfortunes of their subjects, is nothing to this argument. Some bad kings may not profit by it: all good kings will. The people's welfare, however, is necessary to the prince's prosperity, and secures the principal blessings of his reign, which can never be enjoyed without it. On the other hand, kings must be affected with and deeply share in the misfortunes of their people, because a plague, or a famine, or an hostile invasion, or any national calamity, tends to destroy the peace of government, or to subvert the foundations of it; lessens the revenues of princes, the number of their subjects, the profits of labour and industry; and interrupts the enjoyment of these advantages and pleasures which regal power and plenty can otherwise secure to the possessors of them. David was most sensibly affected with his people's sufferings under that pestilence, which his imprudence and their neglect had brought upon them. How tenderly, how affectionately doth he plead with God in their Judah 29, behalf! Even I it is that have sinned; but as for these sheep, David over what have they done? What a noble instance of public spirit, and generous concern for the safety of his people, doth that moving and pathetic expostulation manifest, which he made when he saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem, and fell down with his elders, all clothed in sackcloth, upon their faces, and thus affectionately interceded for them: Let thine hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my father's house; but not on thy people, that they should be plagued. Here is the real language and spirit of a genuine Toǹv λaŵv, a true shepherd of the people, devoting himself and family as a sacrifice to God for the salvation of his subjects. Besides, in this case, the people were themselves very culpable; for the command was absolute: When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul. And therefore, as they knew, or might have known, that, upon being numbered, they were to pay the prescribed ransom, which yet they neglected or refused to do, as partners in the offence they justly shared in the penalty inflicted. It is allowed that the tax was not at this time demanded by David; and this was his sin, in setting aside a positive command of God, to gratify his own vanity and pride. The demanding this tax by his own authority might have created a national disturbance, and therefore should have prevented him from numbering his people. But they submitted to be numbered, and were therefore bound to pay the tax, whether David demanded it of them or not; for the law did not exempt them from the payment, if he who numbered them did not demand it. They were to pay it as a ransom for their lives, and to exempt themselves from the plague; and were therefore punished with a plague for their neglect and disobedience. David indeed takes the guilt upon himself, and declares his people innocent of it: As for these sheep, what have they done? Quid meruere Argi? me, me, divum optime, solum Objecisse caput fatis præstabit. . . . Satis est: merui; ne parcere velles. STAT. Theb. I. 651. And it is true that the order to number the people was all Israel 22. David over David's, of which his people were wholly innocent. But they Judah 29, should have remonstrated against the thing, or voluntarily paid the capitation tax required of them; and as they did neither, David was, as Joab foretold him, a cause of trespass to Israel; and they could not plead innocence as a reason for their exemption from punishment. And even supposing they were entirely free from all blame in this affair, were they so entirely free from all other transgressions, as that it was injustice in God to visit them by a pestilence? If not, God did them no injustice by sending that pestilence; and therefore not by sending it at that time, and as an immediate punishment of David's sin b. God, by virtue of his supreme authority over mankind, may resume life whenever he pleases. If there be no sin, the resumption of life will be no punishment; if there be, the resumption of it will not be unjust, though the immediate reason of that resumption may be for the punishment of another; especially as all such instances have a real tendency to promote the public good, and to preserve alive, in the minds both of princes and people, that reverence for Deity, without which neither public nor private virtue can subsist, nor the prosperity of kingdoms ever be secured and established upon solid and lasting foundations. Upon this solemn humiliation of David, and intercession with God for his people, the prophet Gad was sent to him the same day, with an order that he should rear up an altar unto the Lord in the threshingfloor of Arauna the Jebusite, the hill where Solomon's temple was afterwards built. David accordingly purchased the ground, built an altar unto the Lord, offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, whereby the Lord was entreated for the land, and the plague, which had raged from Dan to Beer-sheba, was stayed from Israel, the city of Jerusalem being mercifully spared and exempted from this dreadful calamity. After this, David, encouraged by the gracious token God had given him of his acceptance at this threshingfloor of Arauna, by the fire from heaven that consumed his burnt offering, continued to offer upon the altar he had erected b Deus quidem ob Davidis peccatum, populum pestilentia confecit; et quidem, ut David censet, innocen Sed Deus in vitam ipsorum jus habet plenissimum. Interim, hæc tem. pœna erat non populi, sed Davidis. Nam ut ait scriptor Christianus, Acerbissimum est delinquentibus regibus supplicium, id quod populis infligitur. Grot. de J. B. et P.II. xxi.17. Judah 29, in this place, and publicly declared, This is the house of the David over Lord God, this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel; all Israel 22. hereby consecrating this place for the erection of the temple, 1 Chron. and to be the seat and centre of the public worship for all the xxii. 1. tribes of Israel. On the whole, if they who object credit the history of the Old Testament in this part of it, and think it true that one of these three plagues was offered to David as the punishment of his offence; that he chose the pestilence; that it came accordingly, and was removed upon David's intercession; they are as much concerned to account for the difficulties of the affair as I or any other person can be. If they do not believe this part of the history, as the sacred writings represent it, let them give us the account of it as it stands in their own imagination, and tell us whether there was any plague at all, how and why it came, and how it went and disappeared so all of a sudden. In their account, whatever it be, David will stand certainly clear of every imputation; and according to the Scripture narration he will be an offender, but only against the statute law of the kingdom, as usurping an authority and dispensing power that did not belong to him; but not against any law of God of original, intrinsic, and immutable obligation, as far as we can judge by the short and imperfect account that is left us of this transaction; and so may still be the man after God's own heart. CHAP. X. Of David and the Shunamite. Judah 40, all Israel 33. I Kings i. I, &c. DAVID being now grown into years, in his seventieth year, David over or ready to enter on it, experienced a great decay in his natural vigour and warmth, insomuch that, though he was well covered with clothes, he could get no heat. His servants took what they thought the most effectual method to relieve him. What that was, no one is ignorant of. The fault that some persons find in this account is not with David, but his physicians; for though it is allowed that "the application of a young woman to an old man may be a proper remedy to impart some juvenile heat to him," yet it is thought "difficult to conceive why beauty should be a necessary quality in the medicine." Whether it be a necessary quality or not, I suppose the medicine |