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vertence.

cated in Holy Writ by the temporal confequences annexed even to fins of inadSo facred is the obligation of an oath impofed lawfully, however rafhly, by the fovereign authority, that the breach of it by Jonathan, though arising not from wilful difregard, but from unfufpicious ignorance, entails upon the people marks of the divine displeasure. The Supreme Being, when Saul afks counsel of Him whether the purfuit of the Philiftines fhall be continued, returns not an answer. The king is inftantly aware that the oath which he imposed on the whole army has been broken and pronounces that the offender, even if that offender be his own fon Jonathan, has forfeited his life. After public fupplication to God, the lot is caft for the discovery of the tranfgreffor. It falls on Jonathan. His father condemns him to death: God do fo, and more alfo : for thou fhalt furely die, Jonathan. The people, however, will not endure the execution of the fentence. Jonathan led them on to the victory which has just been atchieved. Shall Jonathan die, they exclaim, who has wrought this great falvation in Ifrael? As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground: for he hath wrought

with God this day. So they rescue him, that he dies not. Let it be obferved that the guilt of Saul, with refpect to this tranfaction, is not confined to the blind fury, which impelled him to impose the oath on the people. If the crime of Jonathan was one which the king had authority to pardon; why was he so obstinately barbarous as to condemn his fon? But if, in his apprehenfion, divine justice indifpenfably required the life of the of fender why did not Saul at all perfonal hazards adopt fuitable measures afterwards for carrying the irrevocable fentence into effect?

Though Saul by his difobedience respecting the facrifice has incurred the forfeiture of the kingdom; yet God, ever merciful and long-fuffering, forbears to commiffion Samuel to anoint a fucceffor to the throne and is willing to grant to the unworthy prince an opportunity of reinftating himself in the divine favour. When the children of Ifrael were coming up from Egypt, the Amalekites, though defcended from Efau the brother of Jacob, laid wait to destroy them in their march. In confequence of this unprovoked and unnatural hoftility, the Lord God, after discomfiting X 2

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the Amalekites before his people, as the event is recorded in the seventeenth chapter of Exodus, iffues the following injunction to Moses: Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua; I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. The Lord hath fworn, that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. In the twenty-fourth chapter of Numbers, God repeats by the mouth of Baalam his determined purpose: Amalek was the first of the nations: but his latter end shall be, that he perish for ever. be In the twenty-fifth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, God delivers this exprefs command to Ifrael: Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt: how he met thee by the way, and fmote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou waft faint and weary: and he feared not God. Therefore it fhall be, when the Lord thy God bath given thee reft from all thine enemies round about in the land which the Lord thy God' giveth thee for an inheritance to poffefs it; that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. Samuel, by the direction of the Moft High, now commands

mands Saul to execute the long predicted vengeance. Having folemnly reminded him of his univerfal obligation to hearken to the voice of the Lord, who had exalted him from obfcurity to the throne; the prophet in the name of Jehovah declares, that the original crime of Amalek was present in the divine remembrance; and orders him to go, and fmite the finners the Amalekites, men, women, and children: and utterly to destroy every thing belonging to them, whether ox or fheep, camel or afs. Saul affembles his armies, and exterminates the Amalekites; with the exception, however, of their king Agag, whom, for the purpose of exhibiting him in triumph through the land of Ifrael, or from fome other worldly motive, he prefumes to referve alive. Nor was this tranfgreffion the extent of his difobedience. Saul and the people fpared the best of the Sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings and of the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly deftroy them: but every thing that was wile and refuse, that they deAtroyed utterly. The ungrateful monarch, ftubborn in rebellion against the will of his heavenly Benefactor, is now decifively informed

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informed that God has rejected him (d). At first, with daring falfehood he steadily avers to Samuel, that he has obeyed the commandment of the Lord. Then he charges the disobedience upon the people: then pretends that the sheep and oxen have been faved for the purposes of sacrifice. Driven from evafion to evafion, he can no longer diffemble his guilt: but is conftrained to confefs that he has flown upon the spoil, that he has feared the people inftead of God, that he has obeyed their voice instead of the voice of God. extreme folicitude with which, after this confeffion, he importunes Samuel to turn with him and honour him before the elders of the people, demonftrates that the respect of men is ftill the darling object of his heart. To the conduct of Saul throughout the whole of this tranfaction can a name more appropriate than folly be afcribed? Can Can any fact be ascertained more clearly than the identity of folly and fin?

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Saul is now an outcast from the divine favour. He is permitted to retain the kingdom during his life: but judgement

(d) See alfo 1 Sam. xxviii. 18.

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