fund, shall be appropriated to the objects for which the society was formed.

Art. 8. The board of directors, at their annual meetings, shall take such measures as they may deem proper, to establish auxiliary societies in any diocese, with the advice and consent of the bishop of the same; to secure patronage, and to enlarge the funds of the institution. The bishop of every diocese shall be president of the auxiliary societies organized within it.

Art. 9. In any diocese or district where there is a bishop, or an ecclesiastical body duly constituted under the authority of the convention of the same, for missionary purposes, aid may be given in money; but the appointment of the missionary shall rest with the bishop or ecclesiastical body aforesaid. He shall act under their direction; and shall render to them a report of his proceedings, copies of which shall be forwarded to this society.

Art. 10. The board of directors shall, at every meeting of the society, present a detailed report of their proceedings; which, if ap proved and adopted by the society, shall, on the next day, be presented by their president to the general convention, as the report of the society.

Art. 11. The present convention shall elect, by ballot, the twentyfour directors and the two secretaries, provided for by the 4th article, to act till the first stated meeting of the society; and the first meeting of the board of directors shall take place at Philadelphia, on the third Wednesday in November instant.

Art. 12. Alterations of the constitution may be proposed either by the society, or by the general convention, at their respective triennial meetings; but no proposed alteration shall be adopted, unless by the concurrent vote of the two bodies.

Art. 13. It is recommended to every member of this society, to pray to Almighty God for his blessing upon its designs, under the full conviction, that unless he direct us in all our doings with his most gracious favour, and further us with his continual help, we cannot reasonably hope either to procure suitable persons to act as missionaries, or expect that their endeavours will be successful.

N. B. The amendments are designated by italicks.

TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

The Report of the Female Society of Boston and vicinity for promoting Christianity among the Jews, was received too late for insertion in this Number.

An advertisement of "Spiritual Gleanings, or Select Essays, with Scripture Mottos, by Mary Grafton," reviewed in our Number for April, will be found on the covers of the present month.

OBSERVATIONS ON SOME REMARKABLE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH TOOK PLACE DURING THE REIGN OF DAVID.

I.

ON THE HISTORY RELATED IN 2 SAM. XXI. 1-14.

THE execution of the children of Saul, here related, together with all the circumstances connected with this extraordinary event, give rise to difficulties which some have considered as insuperable. It has been asked why the descendants of Saul should suffer for their father's offence? Why so long and severe famine should be inflicted on the people for an act of their king? Why, if this punishment were necessary, it should have been so long deferred? The whole transaction, it is said, wears the appearance of a human sacrifice offered to the Lord in order to appease the manes of the Gibeonites; and seems to encourage the exercise of revengeful passions. These difficulties I shall now examine.

It is inquired why the descendants of Saul should suffer for their father's offence?

A direct infliction of punishment on one man solely for the crimes of another, does appear to be irreconcilable with the character of the Supreme being, and totally repugnant to the view of him which the sacred scriptures uniformly presents; "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son," is the doctrine of the bible as well as of sound reason. But that the crimes of one do indirectly, and by consequence bring punishment upon another, no man can deny without questioning plain matter of fact. The murderer who expires on a gibbet, and transmits the infamy of his crime and execution to his family; the traitor, the confiscation of whose estate brings poverty and ruin upon his relations; the debauchee, who entails upon his children the miserable legacy of a constitution enfeebled by vicious indulgence; are illustrations of the principle, and exhibit a lively comment on the passage of the decalogue, where "the sins of the fathers" are said to be "visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." If, therefore, the absolute injustice of this dispensation be maintained, nothing remains but to leap into the chasm of atheism, since the truth of the doctrine is as demonstrable from the constitution of things, as it is asserted in the oracles of inspired truth. The legitimate conclusions

are, that there exists a future state in which all seeming inequalities and apparent aberrations from justice will be fully reconciled, and abundantly made up to the suffering party: and further, that such a state as the present, in which these inequalities and aberrations exist, is the best upon the whole that the situation of created beings, endowed originally with a freedom and a capability of obtaining a habit of virtue, admits of; although its constitution may often involve difficulties which we cannot now fully solve.

Perhaps, however, while the correctness of these remarks may be admitted, it will be said, that they have no relevancy to the case before us? that there is a great difference between the case of a murderer whose infamy is transferred to his connexions merely by the voice of public opinion, or of a votary of dissipation whose children inherit his poverty and debilitated constitution, which, without a miracle, could not be otherwise, and the case of Saul's sons being put to death for their father's crime, when it would have been so easy to have expiated the guilt in the punishment of the guilty object. The difference I am not disposed to deny : still it seems to me to lie in this; that in those cases which are frequently occurring, and which are spoken of by those of the French school, as the operations of nature or chance, we see the effect of Divine appointment or permission displayed by the operation of natural causes, which natural causes have their origin in his will and are guided by his direction, and which might (for any thing we know to the contrary) have been originally arranged otherwise, had it seemed good to Almighty Wisdom, but in the case under review, we see the appointment, or rather the permission itself, expressed through the request of the Gibeonites. The cases then are not altogether dissimilar; they are sufficiently alike to make the reasoning applicable, and I think this will be further evident from bypothesis. Suppose that when "Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites," they had been unexpectedly able to defend themselves, and had actually attacked and put him to death, and not content with this execution had murdered also in revenge, if you will, all his family; the divine permission in this case would be as evident as in the others before stated, and the children would have suffered for the parent's crime, according to the course of nature, as it is usually expressed, but more scripturally, perhaps, according to the dispensation of Providence adapted to the present state of things.

However, it is not necessary to rest the defence of the act upon the above reasoning. Let it be admitted, that the Gibeonites, in demanding the execution of Saul's seven sons, acted from a spirit of revenge. From the narrative, there is no proof that the demand was agreeable to God or directed by him.* The account is brief. It is merely stated that there was a famine which lasted three years; that on application to the Lord it was found to be on account of Saul's cruelty and perfidy towards the Gibeonites; that they, when applied to by

It is the opinion of Grotius, that David was much too bountiful in his offers; that law, and not the wish of the injured party should have determined the punishment.

David to know what would give them satisfaction, demanded the execution of seven of his sons, to which demand David assented; that the execution took place, and that "after" it, the Almighty was induced to remove the famine. Admitting that on account of the execution "God was entreated for the land;" it by no means follows that he approved of the temper which produced it, or indeed of the act itself; but merely that the intention on the part of David to avert from the nation the consequences of Saul's crime and to reconcile the Lord to his people, in which, most probably, he was joined by the people themselves, was acceptable to him; that the design of the action, the principles and feelings which gave birth to it, were what propitiated.

66

Still, if this view of the subject be thought unsatisfactory; if it be asserted that the whole affair appears to be of divine direction; that when the injured party declare, we will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house, neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel," it is evident that they are not actuated by a revengeful disposition; that when they request" the seven sons of Saul to be hanged up unto the Lord," divine direction seems to be conspicuous; if all this be admitted, what is the conclusion necessarily to be drawn? That seven innocent sous of Saul were, at the divine command, put to death for their father's offence? This would be a very rash inference, not justified by any expressions in the sacred narrative, and not warranted by the general view which it gives of the Divine character. Admitting all that is supposed, and that the execution was a divine direction, can it be proved, that these sons of Saul were altogether innocent of their parent's crime? "Cum Deus," says Le Clerc, in an excellent note on this passage, "justissimus sit, vetue ritque homines innoxios debitas noxiis pænas dare, numquam ab eo justitiam violari et innoxios plecti, sine erroris ullo periculo, affirmare possumus." He then proceeds to remark, that it is highly credible, that when Saul, by whatever motives he may have been actuated, spent his rage upon the Gibeonites, these descendants of his attended upon him and sanctioned his conduct;-that the most detestable crimes when perpetrated by the monarch, have usually the concurrence of the royal family, whose prudence suggests the expediency of giving, as far as they can, the authority of law to whatever he commands; that for this reason the family of Saul are stigmatized in the text, as "his bloody house,” language which would not have been used had they disapproved his designs and opposed his sanguinary purpose. He conjec. tures, that as it is usual with descendants of noble ancestors, to defend the reputation of their families, the cruel slaughters of Saul may have been approved of by his posterity, and that thus the expression, "his bloody house," may have been altogether suitable to the character of the family.

This last observation is proper to be kept in view, because it has been asserted, "that the persons condemned to death could not have been personally concerned in the cruelties before exercised on the Gibeonites on account of their infant age." (Dodd. Lect. cxlviii. § vii.

Part 6.) This is the remark of Doddridge, and if the correctness of it be admitted, this last conjecture of Le Clerc will afford a reason for involving in the punishment even those who were not guilty of the very act of criminality, since their defence of it was a proof that they applauded the conduct of their father, and a warning to the Gibeonites, that if they ever acquired the power, a repetition of the same cruelties might be expected: so that on the part of these unhappy people, the demand was an act of self-defence. But it is very doubtful, whether these children of Saul were in infancy when the attempt upon the Gibeonites took place. The author beforementioned has not said one word in defence of it, but seems to have presumed from the connexion in which the narrative occurs, that the famine and its consequences were subsequent to Absalom's rebellion. But it is well known that the sacred writers do not always attend to the chronological order of events in narrating the series of them; and it is not unworthy of remark, that in the case before us it is not said, as is usual when the fact is connected with the preceding history; in those days there was a famine; but, in the days of David-indefinitely. It has been conjectured, that when Saul destroyed Nob, the city of the priests, (1 Sam. xxii. 19,) the Gibeonites, who were there attending to their services, fell in the general slaughter, and that this was the crime that remained unexpiated. But this is mere conjecture, and there are reasons for believing it very ill founded; as it is not at all likely, that the punishment of the slaughter of the Gibeonites should be spoken of as altoge. ther distinct from that of the destruction of the priests; and besides, the transaction seems to have been similar to the plot of Haman against the Jews, as the Gibeonites speak of Saul in the 5th verse, as "the man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel."

These remarks afford, I think, a sufficient reply to the first inquiry, and show, that the presumption, upon which the objection contained in it is founded, is altogether doubtful; and that, if it were even certain, the difficulty may nevertheless be obviated. They are also in some measure applicable to the second inquiry, which asks, why so long and severe a famine should be inflicted on the people for an act of their king? to which it may now be added, even supposing the royal family to have co-operated with him?

It is remarked by the celebrated Jesuite, Cornelius a Lapide, that the Almighty has united men together by a very intimate bond of alliance, so as to make of a large community one consociated body ; that if one member is injured, the rest suffer; that the offences of one part of the association are often atoned for by the punishment of another; and that this arrangement conduces to the general good by promoting mutual support, and by deterring from wickedness not only from motives of personal interest, but also with a view to the interests of others, which occasionally, as in the case of nearest relatives, for instance, is more efficacious in its influence. Hence he conceives it consistent with the present imperfect system of things, that the criminal conduct of the ruler, the head of the body, should sometimes be