by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my feed after me, and that thou wilt not deftroy my name out of my father's house. And David fware unto Saul: and Saul went home; but David and his men gat them up unto the bold.

SAUL knew, that fuch magnanimity could not but predominate in the end; he knew how much this act of heroism, added to fo many preceding, would make him amiable and admired by the whole world, and therefore he predicted his fuccefs.

I SHALL trouble the reader but with two short obfervations upon this most pathetick speech of Saul's.

THE firft is, that his fenfe of David's generofity must be very strong, when he befeeches GOD to reward it. Indeed, Saul had no equivalent to give David for the kindness fhewn him; and therefore he refers

<< by thofe coals of kindness, which David had heaped "upon his head, poureth out himself in a flood of paf

fionate expreffions, and, for the prefent, fpake as he "thought: but good thoughts make but a thorough-fare "of wicked hearts; they ftay not there, as those that «like not their lodging; their purpofes, for want of per"formance, are but as clouds without rain; or, as Hercules's club in the tragedy, of a great bulk, but stuffed "with mofs and rubbish.

him to GOD for retribution. For if, after this, he should even fave David's life, yet ftill he could only fave the life of his best benefactor; whereas David both spared and faved the life of his most mortal enemy.

THE fecond is, that David, by fparing his enemy, found himself poffefs'd of the proudest pleasure human vanity could wish, to fee his prince his petitioner ! to see his foe his fupplicant ! conscious, and confeffing his own guilt, and David's fuperiority! and begging that mercy to his iffue, which he himself had just experienced, and had not deferved. Who would not fave an enemy, for the joy of fo glorious a triumph!

T

HE laft chapter fhewed us Saul convinced, overwhelmed with David's generafity, repentant, and feemingly recon

ciled but it was a reconcilement which David could not confide in. He had too well experienced Saul's unsteadiness in his reconcilements, or, to fpeak more plainly, his inveterate envy, and invincible aversion; and credulity had now been excess of folly. And therefore, the text tells us, that when Saul went home, David and his men gat them up into the bold but whether by this be meant fome fastness in the mountains of the wild goats, or that hold which he had before poffeffed in the hill of Hackilah, I cannot fay. If he returned to Hackilah, doubtlefs he did it to the confufion, and perhaps, in fome measure, for the punishment of the Ziphites, who bafely betrayed him, and now must receive him again, (and, it may be, subsist him) reconciled to his king. But my opinion is, that he returned with new pleasure, to finish his vineyard, and his other improvements, at Engedi.

ABOUT this time died the great prophet Samuel, in the ninety-feventh or ninetyeighth year of his age; and all the Ifraelites were gathered together, and lamented him, (lamented him for many days, fays Jofephus) and buried him in his house at Ramah.

HERE

HERE we are to take notice, that the Jews had no places of publick fepulture; each family had its private fepulchres. And this appears to have been the practice from Abraham to Jofeph of Arimathea. They were, indeed, mostly in fields, and in rocks; and Samuel is the first we read of who was buried in his own house *; though we are afterwards told, that Joab was buried in the fame manner, 1 Kings ii. 34. And the practice might, for aught we know, have been frequent amongst them; as, we are told, it was enjoined the Thebans, before they built a house, to build a sepulchre in the place.

SAMUEL had now ruled Ifrael fixteen, or, as others think, twenty years, before the reign of Saul; and judged them (that is, was their principal judge) for about forty years after. And it is no wonder, that fo righteous a ruler, and fo juft a judge, fhould be uncommonly and univerfally lamented; efpecially when the wisdom and equity of his government, compared with Saul's tyranny

* No more, as I apprehend, is meant by this, but that he was buried at his house, in his garden, probably; for, in 1 Sam. xxviii. 3. he is faid to have been buried in his own city.

and

and extravagance, made his memory more dear, and his lofs more regretted.

HE was now attended by all Ifrael to his grave; and his remains were, many centuries after, removed, with incredible pomp, and almost one continued train of attendants, from Ramah to Conftantinople by the emperor Arcadius, A. D. 401. How fingular was the character and the felicity of Samuel!

DEVOTED to GOD from the womb * and worthy to be fo! Early dedicated to the Divinity, and hallowed with his influence! Defcended from prophets; himself a greater!

THE fervice of his God made the early bufinefs of his life; nor ever interrupted by any thing, but the service of his country. THE Scriptures are, I own, the delight my life but the pleasure of perufing them is always heightened, when they demonstrate their own veracity.

of

No man, in his fenfes, in the vigour of life, and in the age of ambition and avarice,

*Of him might be faid, what was only more applicable to one other man: Thou art he that took me out of my mother's womb: thou waft my hope, when I banged yet upon my mother's breafts. I have been left unto thee ever fince I was born: thou art my God, even from my mother's womb, Pfal. xxii. 9, 10.

forced