long as it is not found that a forced construction is put upon any thing cited; or, that it is represented in any other light than what it naturally appears in, when considered with the freedom, which it is our duty to use in the examination of every historical record.

And lest it should be imagined that too great liberties are taken with the biblical writers; it may not be amiss to mention once for all, that innumerable instances might be produced, to shew that the authority of the Lord, so continually quoted to sanctify every transaction related; constituted for the most part, nothing more than national phrases, which obtained universally among so bigotted a people as on all occasions the Jews appear to have been one-twelfth part of whom were appropriated to the priesthood! A phraseology in some measure similar obtained in England, at that time, when shunning the cruel talons of papacy, the people rushed into the jaws of wild enthusiasm. That the sense in which the acts of David are here understood, is the most obvious and natural, appears from the amazing pains it has occasioned his champions, to force another upon them. Of this, the Life of David, by Dr. Delany, is a most remarkable instance; but the gross palliations, puerile conjectures, and mean shifts to which he has been driven, prove the difficulty of the task; while they are too frivolous to bias any, but the most Catholic believers.

Mr. Stackhouse, in his History of the Bible, has urged arguments against particular passages, under the title of Objections; so cogent, that his answers to them, certainly could not be satisfactory even to himself.

Dr. Chandler has lately added his name to the list

of David's apologists. Strange! that so holy a king should need the exertion of so much learned and critical dexterity, to establish his fame for goodness of heart! This gentleman's performance, which was published as a reply to the first edition of the present work, is a very extraordinary piece; and shews that great learning is no security for soundness of judgment. The Doctor's book has been considered in a letter addressed to him, and published separately; to which the reader is referred for an examination into the merits of his arguments. In answering the Doctor, new lights opened on many occurrences, which, as far as they could be detached from that particular controversy, are taken into the present edition.

THE best of kings is a title which adulation and servility have always conferred on the most contemptible, as well as the most detestable tyrants; and the frequency of its application to the object is ever in proportion as he is undeserving of it. Had the flattering sycophants of king David been satisfied with applying to him this common-place appellation, rational men, who form their conclusions from the result of general experience, would have inferred only that he had been one of the numerous herd of bad princes who have oppressed mankind, and there would have been nothing peculiar either in the fact or the inference. But when the extremity of adulation conferred on David the title of The Man after God's own heart, thinking men, who know the source from which such adulation ever flows, are prepared to expect, in the develop

ment of his history, a character pre-eminently wicked, and in this they are not deceived.

All historians of credit agree in describing God's chosen people, the Jews, as the most vicious and detestable of mankind;* their own historians confirm this character of them, and the whole series of facts which constitute their history, prove it beyond a possibility of doubt.

Among the chosen people of God-the most depraved of all nations-it is pretty certain that the worst and wickedest man of that nation was David, The Man after God's own heart. The truth of this proposition will be abundantly proved in the following short history.

A question will here naturally present itself, how the Jews became so much more vicious and depraved than their neighbours? And to resolve that question, it will be necessary to consider in what respects their laws and customs differed from those of others. It will be found that they differed most essentially from all other nations in the world in two particulars: 1st. They had more religion than any other nation; and, 2dly. They had more priests. Other nations among whom superstitious rites and ceremonies prevailed, were satisfied with practising them on solemn festivals,

*Tacitus describes the Jewish people as formed of the worst outcasts of the surrounding nations, collected together by Moses, and kept for ever separated from the rest of mankind, by an opposition of manners, and hostility of sentiment. Nam passimus quisque, spretis religionibus patriis, tributa et stipes illuc congerebant; unde auctæ Judeorum res-adversus omnes alios hostile odium-transgressi in morem eorum, idem usurpant; nec quidquam prius imbuuntur quam contemnere Deos, exuere patriam; parentes, liberos, fratres, vilia habere.-Ticiti Hist. Lib. v.

and occasionally on particular or important events; but the Jews practised their superstition incessantly: none of the common duties. or ordinary functions of life, could be performed by them, without a reference to the rules of their superstition; they were bound to a strict observance of them whenever they ate, drank, or performed any other of the natural functions.*

Other nations had a few priests dedicated to their gods or idols, seldom exceeding a few dozen in a whole nation; but the Jewish priesthood constituted

Moses quo sibi in posterum gentem firmaret, novos ritus contrariosque ceteris mortalibus indidit; profana illic omnia, quæ apud nos sacra; rursum concessa apud illos, quæ nobis incesta.— Seperati epulis, discreti cubilibus, projectissima ad libidinem gens, alienarum cubitu abstinent, inter se nihil illicitum, circumcidere genitalia instituere, ut diversitate noscantur.-Taciti Hist. Lib. v. It is impossible to draw a more disgusting picture of a nation, than this elegant and correct historian, in describing the Jews.

†The Romans, though so numerous and powerful a nation, had but very few priests, compared to the Jews. The Augurs were at first only 3, and in process of time were increased to 15. The Aruspices were 12. The Pontifices were at first but 4, and were afterwards increased to 16. The Flamines were but 3. The Salii 12. The Feciales, who were 20 in number, though classed by authors among the priesthood, were merely civil officers employed as heralds. And the Vestals, or Nuns of Rome, were only 4; altoge ther between 50 and 60. Vide Kennett's Roman Antiq. And yet Saint Austin, De Cevitate Dei, Lib. iv. cap. 15, admits that the Romans were so virtuous, that God gave them the empire of the world because they were more virtuous than other nations, yet, with true Christian charity, he says, that they must nevertheless be damned as heathens. We do not find that the priests of other enlightened nations of antiquity were proportionably much more numerous than among the Romans. In England at present the number of the priesthood cannot be much less than 20,000; there are near 10,000 parishes, each having one priest at least, several two, and some three or inore, exclusive of Deans and Chapters,

a twelfth part of the whole people, and claimed and exercised the privilege of devouring a tenth part of the produce of the country, without contributing any thing to its productive labour.* And it is probable that the Jewish nation alone, though but a miserable handful of semi-barbarous savages, had more priests than the rest of the then known world collectively, and were consequently more vicious and more enslaved than any other people.

Mankind have been too long duped by that universal cant of priests, who, in their language, have ever affected to couple religion and morality together, and to represent them as inseparably united, though the slightest attention must show that they are perfectly distinct, and a full and mature consideration of the subject must prove that they are even extremely opposite. They well knew that man, in the most abject state of mental degradation to which superstition could reduce him, must still acknowledge the force and excellence of virtue and morality, and must perceive

Prebends, &c. &c. and all these in the established church, as it is called, exclusive of a great variety of other sectaries of different denominations.

*The Jewish priesthood being one tribe, or twelfth part of the nation, do not appear to have assumed to themselves much more than an equal proportion, compared to their numbers, in taking the tithe or tenth part of the produce of the land, however unjust it may appear that they should be supported in idleness at the expence of the industry of the rest: but the English priesthood, though abundantly numerous, do not form above one five-hundredth part of the whole nation, yet they have the conscience to take also the tenth of the whole produce, which is near fifty times more than their just share, according to the proportion of their Jewish models, from whose example they pretend to derive their claim.