They required no gifts, neither that for their sakes David should kill any man in Israel (which qualifying expressions seems artfully intended; since they only required David to _deliver_ the men to _them_, that _they_ might kill them); but that seven of Saul's sons, should be surrendered to them, that they might hang them up--_unto the Lord_.* David, not withheld by any motives of gratitude toward the posterity of his unhappy father-in-law, but in direct violation of his oath at the cave of En-gedi,** granted the request he must himself have instigated,*** sparing only Mephibosheth, who luckily was so unfortunate as to be a cripple, and so much a dependant on David, and kept under his own eye, that he had no room for apprehension from him. He therefore reserved Mephibosheth, in memory of another oath between him and his father Jonathan. Mephibosheth having such a shocking scene to contemplate, and, considering his decrepitude, might (as he really was) with little hazard be preserved, as an evidence of probity in this pious king. A conscience of convenient flexibility is of great use: thus David being under obligation by two oaths, forgot one, and remembered the other. When Creon, in OEdipus, was interrogated concerning his conscience, he replied-- --"'Tis my slave, my drudge, my supple glove, My upper garment, to put on, throw off, As I think best: 'tis my obedient conscience." David, now thinking himself securely settled, was moved both by God**** and by Satan,(5) to cause his subjects to be numbered: which is, oddly enough, imputed as a great sin in him to require: for, poor man, according to the premises, he was but a passive instrument in the affair. * 2 Sam. 6. ** 1 Sam. xxiv. 21, 22. *** 2 Sam. xxi. 6. **** Chap. xxiv. 1. (5) 1 Chron. xxi. l. Even David should have his due. The prophet Gad called him to account for it; and as a punishment for this sin of compulsion, propounded to him for his choice three kinds of plagues, one of which _his subjects_ thereby necessarily incurred seven years famine, three months persecution from enemies, or three days pestilence.* David chose the latter. It may be as well to decline this story, as to enter into, any more particular consideration of it. From the above state of the case, the intelligent reader will need no assistance in making his own private reflections on it.