XX. RIDDLE UNRIDDLED.

WE read, (1 Sam. xv. 11,) that when Absalom aspired to his father’s kingdom, 259with him went two hundred men out of Jerusalem, that were called, and they went in their simplicity, and they knew not anything. If any have so little charity as to call these persons traitors, I will have so much confidence as to term them loyal traitors, and (God willing) justify the seeming contradiction.

For they lodged not in their hearts the least disloyal thought against the person and power of King David. But alas! when these two hundred were mixed among two thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand of active and designing traitors, these poor men might in the violent multitude be hurried on, not only beyond their intentions, but even against their resolutions.

Such as are sensible with sorrow that their well-intending simplicity hath been imposed on, abused, and deluded by the subtlety of others, may comfort and content themselves in the sincerity of their own souls; God, no doubt, hath already forgiven them, and therefore men ought to revoke their uncharitable censures of them. And yet Divine justice will have its full tale of intended stripes, taking so many off from the back of the deceived, and laying them on the shoulders of the deceivers.