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WHETHER Mr. Bayle be fufficiently justified, in calling this company a troop of banditti, (that is, ruffians, robbers, and murderers) and confidering them in the fame light with the associates of Cataline, the candid reader will judge for himself.

praife the Lord with me; and let us magnify his name together. I fought the Lord, and he heard me : yea, he delivered me out of all my fear. They had an eye unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed. Lo, the poor crieth, and the Lord heareth bim: yea, and faveth him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord tarrieth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. He then exhorts others to make trial of the fame mercies; to learn the goodness of god from their own experience. O taste and fee how gracious the Lord is: blessed is the man that truffeth in bim. O fear the Lord, ye that are his faints; for they that fear bim lack nothing. He then affures them, that ftrength and magnanimity are no fecurities from want and distress; whereas truft and confidence in God is a never-failing fource of every thing that is good: The lions do lack, and fuffer bunger; but they who seek the Lord fhall want no manner of thing that is good. After which he fums up all in a most pathetic and beautiful exhortation to piety, to virtue, and to confidence in God; in full affurance, that, as be was the guardian and true protector of virtue in distress, fo was he the unerring observer, and steady avenger, of wickedness: Come ye children, and hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he that defireth to live, and would fain fee good days? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak no guile. Efchew evil, and do good: feek peace, and enfue it. The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers. The countenance of the Lord is against them that do evil to root out the remi numbrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry, and the Lord beareth them: and delivereth them out of all their troubles. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart: and will fave fuch as be of an humble spirit. Great are the troubles of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of all. He keepeth all his bones: fo that not one of them is broken. But misfortune fhall flay the ungodly and they that hate the righteous fhall be defolate. The Lord delivereth the fouls of his fervants; and all they that put their trust in him shall not be deftitute.

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In this fituation David's first care was, to place his father and his mother in safety under the protection of the king of Moab, the chief of thofe princes which were at enmity with Saul; which he had the more reafon to hope for, as being defcended from Ruth, a woman of that nation, and supposed of the royal family.

THE king's refidence was at Mizpeh, a strong fortress, where David's parents continued all the time he was in the hold.

His address to the king on this occafion, his refignation, and his dependence upon GOD, are all very remarkable? And he faid unto the king, Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth and be with you, until I know what God will do for me. He could nor bear, that his aged parents should be tied to a cold cave, and a perilous confinement, expofed to all the hardThips of a fiege, to dearths, to damps, and dangers of various kinds; and therefore he begs leave of the king to take them from thence, and place them under his protection. To fay the truth, it were hard to determine which was most confpicuous, his piety to GOD, or to his parents, on this occafion.

THE king received them graciously and honourably, and lodged them in fome of the apartments of his court; for this feems plainly implied, where the text tells us, that he brought them before the king of Moah, (that is, into his prefence) and they dwelt with him all the while that David was in the hold.

CHA P.

CHA P. VII. /31⁄2

David flies to the Foreft at Hareth: His Employment there. Saul's Impatience for Revenge finely painted in the Text. The Priefts at Nob maffacred.

HOW long David continued after this in the

cave of Adullam, is not faid. We only know, that he left it, upon the monition of the prophet Gad; whom GOD feems to have raised up at this time on purpose for his fupport: Abide not in the hold (faid the prophet to him): depart, and get thee into the land of Judah. GOD had other works, and other trials, to exercise him in, and therefore he would fuffer him to lie no longer buried in a cave. Then David departed, and went into the foreft of Hareth.

Of this forest Rabbi Solomon fays, (I prefume upon the credit of antient tradition) that, being before dry, barren, and impaffable, it now became fruitful and irriguous; and that David alludes to this in the xxiiid pfalm, where he confiders GOD as his Shepherd, who would, in his own time, lead him into fruitful pastures; and till then he was fafe, under his protection, in the most dangerous fcenes *.

*He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth befide the waters of comfort Yea, though I walk through the valley of the fhadow of death, I will fear no evil.

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WHEN he calls GOD his Shepherd, he plainly implies, that he followed where-ever it pleased GOD to guide him; alluding to the practice of the Afiatic fhepherds, who do not drive, but lead their flocks; which are trained to follow them, as David evidently did the guidance of GOD at this time.

THIS, I think, is the most rational comment transmitted to us by the Rabbins.

AND, furely, it is not impoffible, but that this, which was before a barren defart, might now, by a fingular bleffing from GOD upon the induftry of David, and his companions, become a green pasture. This conduct, and, in all probability alluding to this very time, he himself numbers among those wonders which GoD doth for the children of men, Pfal. cvii. that he maketh water fprings of a dry ground, and there he fetteth the hungry, that they may build them a city to dwell in; that they may fow their land, and plant vineyards, to yield them fruits of increafe. He bleffeth them, so that they multiply exceedingly; and fuffereth not their cattle to decreafe. And again: When they are minished and brought low through oppression, &c. though be fuffer them to be evil intreated through tyrants, (pouring neglect upon princes) and let them wander in a wayless wilderness; yet helpeth be the poor out of mifery, and maketh kim koufholds like a flock of sheep.

THIS

THIS is a plain defcription of his own cafe, and fuch as can fuit no other *; and it is all spoke in the style of an experienced man. And, indeed, if this were not fo evident from the nature of the thing, his manner of introducing this reflection fufficiently fhews, that it related to himself. He obferves, that GOD maketh a fruitful land barren, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.--Again, fays he: He maketh the wilderness a ftanding water, &c. The nature of the antithefes plainly fhews, that as GOD, for the fins of men, makes a fruitful land barren; fo, for their piety and righteousness, he turns barrennefs into culture. But the cafe being notoriously his own, he carefully forbore the leaft hint of piety or righteousnefs, left he should be thought to vaunt his own merits. And, as to his afcribing all this to the agency of GoD, no man that confiders the piety of his style, will, for that reason, think it neceffary to preclude the interpofition of fecond caufes, or human agency.

IDLENESS, with regard to honeft induftry, is ordinarily the effect of vicious habits; and therefore it is no wonder, if Canaan was, from the days of its antient inhabitants, in the con dition of the fluggard's vineyard, over run with thorns and thiftles; efpecially confidering the

If this opinion needed any fupport, we might derive a probable confirmation of it from what Eufebius tells us, that in his time there was, in the forest of Arith, a village called Arath, to the weft of Elia, (fo Jerufalem was then called) in which, fay, he David resided.

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