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this occasion, was his remitting the head-money always to be paid at such general reviews.* This calls for divine punishment; and who was the proper object for punishment is the question. If we say it is hard, David thus actuated by invisible agency, should suffer as a principal; you reply,† But doth he not know that a man may be hanged for a crime, to which his indictment says he was moved by the Devil; and because the Devil moved him, is he therefore a passive instrument, and free from guilt? Doth he really think, that the Devil ought to be tried and hanged, instead of the man whom he tempted?' In answer to these queries it may be hinted, that by human laws we hang the man, because the man perpetrated the fact; but for God to punish the instrument of a purpose, confessedly over-ruled to the execution of that purpose by supernatural influence; would be just as if we should convict the knife or the pistol at the Old Bailey, and discharge the criminal! If it appears odd that the people (one remove still farther from the author of the crime) should be punished for the fault of their king; you answer, Perhaps it may help to set the thing a little even with him [the writer] 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 convu!sions, or some other like distresses that affect their people.'-Perhaps it would set the subject still more even, were you to establish this position by authority more convincing than mere ipse dixit. Your logic however, is seen in the immediately ensuing words to the former and if it be right at all for God to animadvert on the conduct of princes, or to shew his displeasure against them for the public errors of their administration, it must be right and fit for him to + Page 238.

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afflict their people: and indeed this is nothing more than what continually happens in the common course of providence.'-If then, as you say, from ordinary occurrrences, and from nothing more, it is evident God punishes and admouishes princes by those occurrences; it is no wonder they profit so little by these lessons given to others, and which they now have no infallible oracle to interpret for them. For, as oracles have been long since discredited, and therefore not continued, the common course of providence must either go on in vain, respecting this main purpose of its movement, or else intirely stop.

The opinion of Grotius cited by you, that acerbissimum est delinquentibus regibus supplicium id quod populis infligitur; can be determined only by fact, whether they themselves really think so: and it is pretty evident that Grotius was not a king.

You have, however, other causes to urge for this pestilence; namely,† that it might be a judgment on the people for not remonstrating against the numeration crime of their king; or for their not pressing the payment of the capitation tax, though not demanded of them ; or for their other transgressions! In truth, there is no end of following you through all your shifts, turnings and windings: these suggestions being your own, and no crime being charged on the people in the Bible, the writer does not think himself under obligation to be farther troubled with them.

As to Nathan the prophet, he was certainly nettled at the slight put on him, and some others; in not being invited to Adonijah's feast: else he would not have insisted on that circumstance: which had better been waved. You have been at some pains to render the supposition ridiculous, but the probability of Nathan's being corrupted, was not surely less than that of David's sons; who yet all of them, except Solomon, (who, had he been invited, had some private reasons

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1 Kings i. 9. 19. 25.

to the contrary, which their proceedings shew them to have been aware of) were agreeable to settling the succession on their elder brother; though certainly as much interested in the disposal of the kingdom as Nathan could be.

It must be owned, that you have fairly caught the writer off his guard, when he quoted a verse from a psalm, which happened not to be the production of David. It was in the collection under his name and was carelessly pitched on without due thought of the general tenor of it. Humanum est errare, Doctor, and though you have here an advantage over the writer, it can be converted to but small use toward a general exculpation of David; and inaccuracies of expression still less so though by you greatly insisted on.

You plead, that there are so many traces of a benevolent spirit in David's conduct and psalms, as leave little room for the accusation of his being of a rancorous and implacable spirit even to his worst enemies, for whom he frequently prayed; and to whom he often rendered good for evil.'-The benevolence of David's conduct has been sufficiently examined into, and the good which he returned to his enemies, reasoning from his conduct, was most probably confined wholly to his prayers; like the mercy of the Holy Courts of Inquisition.

The book of psalms being a collection of various composition, many of which have no name prefixed to them, and their expressions so general; little positive can be affirmed about them: at least, if we attended to commentators, among whom we might hope to find agreement, and therefore from whom, if from any, we might expect to gain satisfaction.

Many of those ascribed to David do not, however, warrant your character of them; and there is no arguing against facts to ward off the charge of inconsistency. But, say you, it should be remarked, that in the

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far greater number of those places, where there appear to be direct imprecations in our version, there are none in the original; in which the verb is in the future tense, instead of the imperative; and so is only declarative of what should be the consequence, instead of the Psalmist's wish of what he would have it be.' What a strange translation then are we amused with, if this is universally the case! and if the meaning of the psalms is so injuriously perverted, how can we pretend even to guess at the meaning of any other part? And yet, Doctor, the acceptance and use of our translation through so many generations of Hebrew critics, seem to argue its imperfections not to be quite so gross as, for the sake of your hero, you now choose to represent them.

This argument, though it may be thought sufficient of itself, if established, to clear David from the charge of vindictiveness; yet, as in other cases, you are careful to provide against its failing you, by urging the wickedness of David's enemies, to countenance his bitter denunciations against them; and refer us to David for a character of them.† But it is hardly fair to accept any person's character of his enemy; since resentment makes us see through a wrong medium. The expressions in which wickedness is imputed to these people in the psalms, flows naturally enough from a people who esteemed themselves a nation peculiarly favoured by God; but ought to be looked upon rather as expressive of their own superiority in that respect, and hatred and contempt for their neighbours, than as indications of the real wickedness of these people.

But, you say, no charge of barbarity can lie against

*You refer particularly to the 109th Psalm; as a most remarkable instance:" other Hebrew critics, however, say that those contained in that psalm are imprecations; but that they are only there related by David as those of his enemies on him! What therefore, in the name of criticism, are they?

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David for many descriptive passages of the horrors of war in his Psalms: * for that, if this author wishes his country success against its enemies, he wishes destruction to them, which destruction is attended with all those calamitous consequences mentioned by David. True, Sir, very true; but then it shews a propensity to cruelty to dwell so minutely, and with seeming pleasure, upon circumstances of horror in our songs, like the North-American Indians; which a humane generous mind feels pain in thinking of, and is pleased with being relieved from.

Your next apology for David respects his behaviour to Shimei. You tax him with false accusation against David, in calling him a bloody man: it being, as you observe, before the affair of the Gibeonites: asking+ in what other respect could David be guilty of the blood of Saul's house? Sir! he took up arms against Saul, in virtue of a claim to supersede him: he associated with, and promised assistance to, the enemies of his country; by whom Saul and three of his sons perished: he contested the dominion with Ishbosheth, whom he harassed to the grave. Foundation sufficient to charge him with guilt of the blood of Saul's house. But you add, that Shimei retracts all he had said, owns himself a slanderer and a liar, and begs pardon for his abusive impudence.' He did so, and upon the change in the fortune of David, is in that as justifiable in point of prudence, as he was censurable before in point of rashness. To give David the disinterested merit of sparing his life, you ask,§ what there was in the season to prevent David from punishing a treasonable reviler as he deserved? Enough! David was rather in a disagreeable plight at that time, and Shimei a man of some consideration; as appears afterward : both which considerations rendered it unadviseable to silence this brawler then.

Consequences proving that in David's oath there

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