Nihil est, Antipho, Quin male narrando possit depravarier. TER. Phorm. iv. 4, 17. Ambitionem scriptoris facile adverseris. Obtrectatio et livor pronis auribus A NEW EDITION. OXFORD: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. M.DCCC.LIII. Clar. Press THE PREFACE. THE history of king David is given in Scripture with great simplicity and impartiality, and from it he appears, to those who fairly balance his many virtues and excellent qualities against his faults, to have been a great and good man. All who have given us the character of this prince have not been thus candid. Mr. Bayle, and others who have followed him, have, in many instances, not only aggravated his real faults, but imputed to him crimes of which he was not guilty; and not only slighted his virtues, but by ill-natured hints and suspicions, for which there is no foundation in the history of this prince, endeavoured to make his virtues appear crimes. The author's design in the following history is, by a full and impartial representation, to do justice to an injured character, and to confute the falsehoods and expose the misrepresentations which have been employed to make an excellent prince, and a man of real and great virtue and piety, appear a base hypocrite, and a Nero for cruelty and tyranny. Mr. Bayle, though he treats with great freedom some of David's actions, yet doth not descend to reviling and scandal. He speaks of him at least with a show of respect, allows him to be one of the greatest men that ever lived, abstracted from the consideration |