Death in both Parties, by the Law of Moses; nay, the Guilt of this horrid Crime was underftood to lye at the Door of the Congregation, and was threatned to be avenged upon the People themselves, if they did not expiate it by the Death of the Offenders. Deut. 27.22. If a Man be found lying with a Woman,married to an Huf band, then they shall both of them die, both the Man that lay with the Woman, and the Woman, fo fhalt thou put away Evil from Ifrael. And this was ftill a more criminal fort of Adultery, because it was a Levites Wife, a Perfon dedicated and fet apart to the Service of God, and to the Miniftry of that Temple in which he had placed His Name, and whether all the Tribes of Ifrael were to repair for Sacrifice and Worship. It was much the more hainous Offence in both of the Delinquent Parties upon this. account, and therefore the Obligation to punifh it was fo much the stronger, but this not being to be done without a formal Procefs, in which the Criminals were to be first convict, and then adjudged to undergo the legal Sentence in cafes of that nature, at a time when there was no Judge in Ifrael, no Supreme, nor by confequence any fubordinate Magiftrate to hear and determine Caufes, there could be no Pro

cess,

cess, no Sentence, no Execution. And fo it came to pass, not long after, either, by a Return of Affection on the Husbands Part, or by fome advantagious Overtures of Reconciliation on that of the Wife and her Relations, that the Business, as foul as it was, was made up, and they affociated together again; but this continued but for a very little while, when leav ing Bethlehem Judah, where the Father of the Woman dwelt, and going homewards through Gibeah of Benjamin, and lodging there in the House of an hofpitable Ephraimite, the Man was firft demanded by the lewd and lawless Inhabitants of the Place, to be used as the Sodomites would have ferved the Guests of Lot, and at laft, the least thing that would appease their Belluine and Brutal Luft, was the abufing his Wife to fuch a degree, that he died upon the Place, and being divided by her Hufband into twelve Pieces, which were fent fe verally to so many several Tribes, to be an horrid Spectacle and Monument of what had happened, and to incite them the more effectually to a juft Revenge of so flagitious and villanous an Action upon the execrable Authors. of it, this occafioned that dreadful Civil War which followed betwixt the Tribe of Benjamin.

and

and the rest of the Tribes, who being under no legal Tye of Obligation to one another,and being now destitute of a common Head that might command and influence them all, yet met together by common Confent at Mizpeh, and from thence demanded fatisfaction of the Benjamites, for the horrid Wickedness committed by the Gibeathites their Brethren, and for the Scandal that was brought by it, upon the Name and Nation of Ifrael, which nothing could wipe off, but the Death of those Mifcreants that were guilty of it; but the Benjamites were fo far from delivering up their Brethren to be punish'd as they deferv'd, that they appeared in their Defence, and were refolved, as bad as they were, to ftand up in the Protection of their Lives, with the Hazard of their own, upon which, immediately ensued that bloody War, in which forty thousand of the Ifraelites, and of the Benjamites, the whole Tribe, without sparing either Age or Sex, bateing only fix hundred, were deftroyed; nay, their very Cattle and their Cities were not exempted, but a deadly Infection ran through all they poffeft, and overwhelm'd every thing in the common Ruine. So that in this one Story, though we go no farther, we have a promis

e

cuous

cuous Luft, a brutal Concupifcence, and a deftructive War, Crimes not to be named without confufion and blufhing, and Judgments not to be mentioned without trembling, and all for want of a Judge and a King in Ifrael, whofe Authority might prevent the Perpetra tion of fuch Villany, or at leaftwife punish the beginnings of it, before it proceeded to fuch a bloody Confequence, and tragical Conclufion.

But this is not all neither, for if I am not very much mistaken, there was a Famine likewife happened upon this occafion, for in the Book of Ruth we read that in the Days when the Judges rul'd, there was a Famine in the Land, upon which Elimelech and his Wife Naomi, and his two Sons Mahlon and Chilion went and fojourned in the Country of Moab, where Elimelech and his two Sons died, and Naomi, after having dwelt there ten years, arofe with her Daughters in Law, that she might return from the Country of Moab, for fhe had heard in the Country of Moab, how that the Lord had vifited his People in giving them Bread. Now though it be faid that this happened in the Days when the Judges rul'd, all that is meant by it is no more than this, that the infpired Writer who wrote this Book, wrote it a

confide.

rable time afterwards, in the time of the Kings, and by the Days of the Judges, or when the Judges rull'd, all that Period or Interval of time is understood, which paffed between Joshua, or rather between Mofes the firft Judge, and Saul the firft King of Ifrael; and the Age of Ruth falls juft upon the Close of this Account, for her Son was Obed, who was the Father of Jeffe, the Father of David; so that the Times of Obed and Jeffe must be coincident with those of Eli and Samuel, the laft Judges of Ifrael, and the beginning of the Reign of Saul, the firft King; and fince we have no mention of any Judge of Ifrael after Sampfon, before Eli, it muft needs appear very likely, that this Famine hapned after the Death of Sampfon, when there was no King or Judge in Ifrael, when the want of Laws made Industry to cease, and Husbandry to fall to Ruine and Decay, and when the Animofities and Contentions that hapned in those days, were a Difcouragement to the Husband-man from setting his Hand to the Plow, or scattering the Seeds upon the Earth in their Season, when he had fo little fecurity that he should reap the Encrease. And otherwise than this it will feem utterly impoffible, without a perpetual Miracle all that while,

e 2.