company. And if we are inclined to think that God dealt hardly with the people of Canaan in. commanding them to be so utterly destroyed, let us but think what might have been our fate, and the fate of every other nation under heaven at this hour, had the sword of the Israelites done its work more sparingly. Even as it was, the small portions of the Canaanites who were left, and the nations around them, so tempted the Israelites by their idolatrous practices, that we read continually of the whole people of God turning away from his service. But had the heathen lived in the land in equal numbers, and still more, had they intermarried largely with the Israelites, how was it possible, humanly speaking, that any sparks of the light of God's truth should have survived to the coming of Christ? Would not the Israelites have lost all their peculiar character, and if they had retained the name of Jehovah as of their national God, would they not have formed as unworthy notions of his attributes, and worshipped him with a worship as abominable as that which the Moabites paid to Clemosh, or the Philistines to Dagon? So had Abraham been called from out his native country in vain; and Israel had in vain been brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and fed with the bread of heaven in the wilderness; the witness to God's truth would have perished; the whole earth would have been sunk in dark

ness; and if Messiah had come, he would not have found one single ear prepared to listen to his doctrine, nor one single heart that longed in secret for the kingdom of God.

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But this was not to be, and therefore the nations of Canaan were to be cut off utterly. The Israelites' sword, in its bloodiest executions, wrought a work of mercy for all the countries of the earth to the very end of the world. They seem of small importance to us now, those perpetual contests with the Canaanites, and the Midianites, and the Ammonites, and the Philistines, with which the Books of Joshua and Judges and Samuel are almost filled. may half wonder that God should have interfered in such quarrels, or have changed the order of nature in order to give one of the nations of Palestine the victory over another. But in these contests, on the fate of one of these nations of Palestine, the happiness of the human race depended. The Israelites fought not for themselves only, but for us. Whatever were the faults of Jephthah or of Samson, never yet were any men engaged in a cause more important to the whole world's welfare. Their constant warfare kept Israel essentially distinct from the tribes around them; their own law became the dearer to them, because they found such unceasing enemies amongst those who hated it. The uncircumcised, who kept not the covenant of God,

were for ever ranged in battle against those who did keep it. It might follow that the Israelites should thus be accounted the enemies of all mankind, it might be that they were tempted by their very distinctness to despise other nations; still they did God's work; still they preserved unhurt the seed of eternal life, and were the ministers of blessing to all other nations, even though they themselves failed to enjoy it.

But still these commands, so forcible, so fearful, -to spare none-to destroy the wicked utterlyto show no mercy,—are these commands addressed to us now? or what is it which the Lord bids us do in these words addressed to his servant Moses? Certainly he does not bid us to shed blood, not to destroy the wicked, not to put on any hardness of heart which might shut out the charity of Christ's perfect law. We must not be cruel, we must do nothing against the law of justice and humanity, even to remove the evil from out of the land. And to do as the Israelites did would be to our feelings, though it was not to theirs, cruelty and injustice. But there is another part of the text which does apply to us now in the letter, thereby teaching us how to apply the whole to ourselves in the spirit. "Be ye not unequally yoked together in marriage with unbelievers," is the command of God through the Apostle Paul to Christians, no less than of God through Moses to the Israelites,

"For what concord," he goes on to say, "hath Christ with Belial? or what communion hath light with darkness?" It is, indeed, something shocking to enter into so near and dear a connexion as marriage, with those who are not the servants of God. It is fearful to think of giving birth to children, whose eternal life may be forfeited through the example and influence of him or of her, through whom their earthly life was given. But though this be the worst and most dreadful case, still it is not the only one. St. Paul does not only speak against marriage with the unbelievers; he speaks also no less strongly against holding friendly intercourse with those who call themselves Christ's, yet in their lives deny him. "I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat; but put away from among yourselves that wicked person.' Here again, it is true, that the altered state of things around us has hindered these words also from applying to us in the letter. The church having no power in our days to shut out unworthy members from its society, individuals cannot take such a power upon themselves; and therefore we do in the world very commonly keep company, as far as the common civilities of life go, with those whose lives we know to be unchristian. Yet here,

too, the spirit of the command applies to us, when we cannot fulfil it in the letter. We need not actually refuse to eat with those whose lives are evil; but woe to us if we do not shrink from any closer intimacy with them; if their society, when we must partake of it, be not painfully endured by us, rather than enjoyed. We may put away from among ourselves that wicked person; put him away, that is, from our confidence, put him away from our esteem, put him altogether away from our sympathy. We are on services wholly different; our masters are God and mammon; and we cannot be united closely with those to whom our dearest hopes are their worst fears, and to whom that resurrection which, to the true servant of Christ, will be his perfect consummation of bliss, will be but the first dawning of an eternity of shame and misery.

But whilst, above all other things, I would desire for every one of us an intense abhorrence of evil, yet we must not forget how fatally we may deceive ourselves by hating evil for our own sake, and not for God's. Here, indeed, we had need to examine ourselves carefully, lest we do but serve our own passions under the name of God. if you ask what this means, I will explain it more clearly. I call it serving our own passions under the name of God, if we shrink from those kinds of evil only which we ourselves happen to dislike,

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