well perceived it was not an arm of flesh that they must resist; yet they gather their forces, and say, 'Tush, we shall speed better.' It is madness in a man not to be warned, but to run upon the point of those judgments wherewith he sees others miscarry, and not to believe till he cannot recover. Our assent is purchased too late, when we have overstayed prevention, and trust to that experience which we cannot redeem."— [Bp. Hall.] "As once the Canaanites against Israel, so still and ever the foes of God gather themselves together to fight against Him and His Church."[Lange.] MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.-Verses 3-15. We see in these Gibeonites and their history : I. An overwhelming conviction of being on the side of error, and thus, in these hours of danger, on the side of weakness. The Gibeonites did not lack courage. This very mission to Joshua was boldly conceived, boldly executed, and boldly defended. There is a singular freedom from trepidation in the telling of what, perhaps, was necessarily a clumsy story. This is manifest in their reply to the closely pressed question of the Israelites, recorded in the eighth and ninth verses. Nothing but a bold presence could have passed so poor a coinage. Even through the fear in which these men go to treat for their lives, boldness is evident. Moreover, the Gibeonites had a reputation for valour among their own countrymen: "Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities; it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty" (chap. x. 2). But these Gibeonites had become convinced that might and bravery would not avail them. They had heard "what Joshua had done unto Jericho and Ai," and putting the story of these recent triumphs and the tidings of several other marvellous events together, they were convinced that the Israelites were fighting on the side of God and of truth. Men judge their gods from a very utilitarian point of view. Just then the gods of the Gibeonites were manifestly very useless; and these cool-headed people, seeing that the help of Jehovah was something immensely different from the help of Baal or Ashtoreth, determined on a change of place, as a natural outcome of their change of faith. Let who will judge the manner of their change, for that was full of error and meanness; as to the fact, they did what myriads of people have done in all ages; they proved their former religious notions to be useless in the day of trial, and they went over to the side of power. They believed in God because of the prowess of God's people (verses 9, 10, 24). It was a poor, low, selfish faith, no doubt; make a discount for their surroundings, and their previous habits of religious thought and feeling, and they began with God as a great many people begin now-in the day of their trouble they sought the Lord. This view seems to have been common to the four cities of the Gibeonite republic: in this low measure of faith, a nation was born in a day. 1. To some men the mighty works of God bring conviction, while in others they provoke a yet more deliberate rebellion. The same story of Divine triumphs had gone through the whole land; as it was in Rome when Paul preached Christ, so it was in Canaan when God proclaimed Himself by many and marvellous works; "Some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not." It is ever thus, and probably ever will be. The colliery explosion, the railway accident, the ravages of disease, bring some men to meditate and to believe; others, the same providences harden. "Take heed how ye hear." 2. In times of great danger the conviction of error is also the conviction of weakness. Only truth is always strong, and everywhere strong. When Peter asked, "Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" he preached not only to human hearts, but out of a human heart. It does us good to hear such an exultant question from Peter. Peter did not set a problem; he proclaimed an experience. Peter had set himself to seek safety behind the sword: that failed. Peter had followed afar off: that did not answer. Peter had tried to shield himself by lying, and by ungratefully shirking the responsibility of a trying connection: that led, within the same hour, to bitter tears. Peter had tried the other way. He followed embodied Goodness to Galilee, and, lo! it spake of love even to the denier, and said, "Feed my sheep." Peter had followed that which was good at Pentecost, and three thousand were added to the Lord. Peter followed that which was good, and it led him to prison; an angel delivered him. Thus had it been all his life; error had made him weak always, truth and righteousness had been strength everywhere. It is refreshing to hear such a challenge, when it comes to us from such lips. All might has its time of failure, saving the might which goes with truth. The "wooden walls of old England" are as reeds and rushes before the armaments of to-day. A granite fortress is of no good to the man who is dying. A man's intellectual power cannot make him strong to overcome his own fatal accident or fever. A noble imagination can do little in a prison, saving to mark with a keener sensitiveness the narrowness of the limits which confine the man. The "almighty dollar," as our American friends say when they wish to indicate the power of riches, is no match for an outraged and offended conscience. In some emergency or other, all things are weak, saving truth; when life is in danger, nothing but truth can make a man feel secure from harm. Happy is he who long before that trial comes has learned to cry, "Thy truth shall be my shield and buckler." II. An irrepressible desire to preserve life, before which everything else has to give way. These men placed their safety above everything else. 1. Every man thinks life precious. "Life," said a recent writer, "is lovely every way. Even if we look upon it as an isolated thing existing apart from the rest of nature, and using the inorganic world merely as a dead pedestal on which to sustain itself, it is still beautiful." The tallest and sublimest mountain would be simply a gigantic upheaval of desolation, but for the life which clothes its sides. The barren face of the cliff gathers not a little of its beauty from the background of life on which it is set. The long reach of the sea shore could be no holiday resort, but for beautifying life which is behind it. If life around us is esteemed so precious, perhaps it is not wonderful that we value even more highly the life that is within us. 2. Some men will do anything, or almost anything, to preserve their lives. Satan said, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath, will he give for his life." As pertaining to Job, the estimate was wrong. Here was a man who could say, as many others have done, "Though He may slay me, yet will I trust in Him." As pertaining to Satan's own children, the estimate was right. It seems to have been nearly correct as applying to these Gibeonites. (a.) Think of their shameful disguise. Probably they were the wisest and ablest men of this royal city, and yet they could demean themselves to dress up like this in order to be suffered to live. (b.) Think of their low cunning. The attire of their minds was more "clouted" than their sandals, and their manhood more mouldy" and "spotted" than their bread. (c.) Think of their lies. The story which they told had no beginning in truth, and no end of falsehoods. It was a garb of falsities, woven throughout, with hardly a seam of truth to hold it honestly together. (d.) Think of their wretched use of the name of God, and of their new-found faith in God. On the one side, they pleaded their belief in Him; on the other, there was no depth of meanness and hypocrisy to which they did not prove themselves willing to descend. Thus these men, in endeavouring to save their lives, sacrificed everything for which true men would have deemed it worth while to live at all. 3. Life may be purchased too dearly. Dishonour of this deliberate nature was far too much to pay for its preservation. He who has lived long enough to forget that life has any dignity, has lived too long. Milton said rightly: 66 "Nor love thy life, nor hate; but while thou liv'st Every man who professes to believe in God, should be ready to say, with one of the later inhabitants of Canaan, "Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee." III. The unmistakable earnestness of some men triumphing over other men. These Gibeonites succeeded in their purpose by their real and genuine earnestness. We cannot commend their conduct in its details. Their manner of endeavouring to obtain this league was wrong. The earnestness, in itself, was good. The lord of the unjust steward commended him for doing a wise thing; he did not commend the manner in which the provision was made. The steward was commended for his wisdom in providing for the future, but not for his dishonest method. It is thus that these Gibeonites are to be commended: their aim to preserve life was right, their manner was wrong. Addressing the people of Wotton, Rowland Hill exclaimed, "Because I am in earnest, men call me an enthusiast. When I first came into this part of the country, I was walking on yonder hill, and saw a gravel-pit fall in, and bury three human beings alive. I lifted up my voice for help so loud, that I was heard in the town below, at a distance of near a mile. Help came and rescued two of the sufferers. No one called me an enthusiast then; and when I see eternal destruction ready to fall on my fellow men, and about to entomb them irrecoverably in eternal woe, and call aloud on them to escape, shall I be called an enthusiast now?" No man should be disconcerted by the charge of enthusiasm. 1. If we are seeking to save our own lives, we shall do nothing without earnestness. The Bible has no word of blame for the enthusiast. It reserves its reproaches for the indifferent. "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." 2. If we are seeking to save others' lives, earnestness is equally necessary. Simeon, of Cambridge, is said to have kept the portrait of Henry Martyn in his study. Move where he would through the apartments, it seemed to keep its eyes upon him, and ever to say to him, "Be earnest, be earnest! don't trifle, don't trifle!" It is said that Simeon would gently bow to the speaking picture, and with a smile reply, "Yes, I will be earnest; I will, I will be in earnest; I will not trifle, for souls are perishing, and Jesus is to be glorified." If we would not go home alone, we too must be in earnest. The life of the soul is seldom saved, perhaps never, without deep spiritual earnestness. IV. A very low measure of faith tacitly accepted by God. Bp. Hall says: "If the secret counsel of the Almighty had not designed these men to be spared, Joshua could not have been deceived by their entreaty." No doubt that is true. But for the fact that God had resolved to spare them, we may rest assured that something would have betrayed them. Their secret would have come to the light ere the league had been concluded. But for this conclusion we are not left to conjecture. About four hundred years afterwards Saul slew some of the Gibeonites. What came of that breach of this covenant? God sent a famine on Israel for three years; and when David enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered, "It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites." It is not till seven of Saul's sons have been hanged, and the covenant made here at Gilgal has been thus honoured by Israel, that we read, "And after that God was intreated for the land." Thus did God set His own seal to the league which the Israelites made with these Gibeonites. Perhaps there is nothing in the whole word of God more encouraging to the anxious than this incident. The case of the Ninevites is encouraging. The threat of destruction had gone out against them; yet they said, "Who can tell if the Lord will turn from His fierce anger?" In that hope they were saved. Here, the threatening was in specially emphatic terms. The Israelites were solemnly charged to make no covenant with the Canaanites. The slaughter had already begun. Then God saw these poor men believing in His power, believing in the protection He was able to afford. In that faith God saw these men come begging for their lives. He saw the meanness and deception and lying with which these men clothed themselves within and without. But God also saw their faith, and because of that faith, poor and low as it was, His mercy forbore to expose them. He suffered the eyes of Joshua and the princes to be blinded: nay, the story is so clumsy and stupid, that we are almost inclined to feel of these Israelites, that "their eyes were holden that they should not know" this deception as such. This is more encouraging than the case of the penitent thief, for against him there was the divinely appointed vow. God knew the training of these Gibeonites, and He had pity; God heard their lying, and abhorred the deception; God saw their faith, and if He made not haste to deliver, He made no movement to expose them to destruction. Through this incident God says in the Old Testament what Christ says to Jairus in the New: "Only believe." The poor selfish faith of these idolaters is suffered to become life to those who, already, were as good as dead. OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES. Verses 3-6.-DECEPTION AND ITS ADJUNCTS. I. Deception is by putting on appearances which are unreal and false. The garb, and utterances, and conduct of these Gibeonites, furnish a lively and somewhat prolonged illustration of this obvious assertion. The imposition described in this chapter vividly depicts several of the more prominent features which are so often common to cases of deliberate deception. 1. Assistance is often sought from dress. The man who wishes to appear what he is not clothes himself in false garments.. Dress has been distinctive almost ever since it has been worn. Different nations dress each in its own way. Offices, dignities, professions, the classes of society in which men move, are all indicated by distinctive dress. The phrase "plain The phrase "plain clothes" indicates an entire genus of clothing which is official, or professional, to classify the various species of which would probably require an amount of patient perseverance hardly so much as suspected even by the most conscientious and laborious botanist; and then the "plain clothes," themselves, would have to be arranged into endless divisions which may be roughly indicated by the two great "families" of the sexes, and thence by such words as fabric, texture, colour, shape, quality, etc. Language is said to have needed a Babel to confuse it, and to cause it to diverge into the numerous tongues and dialects of the earth; dress has reached a similar diversity by the force of its own inherent power. The practice of dressing in false garments, to aid de ception, is certainly not of modern origin, however common it may be now. Rebekah took the raiment of Esau in which to clothe Jacob, and then put upon the hands of the younger brother the skins of the kids of the goats." When the wife of Jeroboam wished to deceive Ahijah, she disguised herself, and "feigned to be another." Zechariah was bidden to say concerning the prophets: "Neither shall they wear a rough garment to deccive." This easy device of the Gibeonites is one which has probably been practised almost from the beginning. He who seeks to transgress will readily find aids to transgression. 2. To render deception complete, other outward belongings have to be brought into harmony with the dress. The bread and the wineskins were chosen to match the character selected. The expression of the face would have to be one of languor and weariness, and weariness in the tones would be necessary to harmonise with weariness in appearance. To all this, and more, there was added direct and continuous lying. When a man deliberately begins to sin, he should understand that he is only beginning; the new character which has been chosen must be made complete and unique. The more perfect the unity, the less is the danger of exposure. Thus, very literally, he who offends in one point is likely to be guilty in all. 3. Deception sometimes requires, not only that outward things shall be unreal, but that inward graces shall also be assumed. These Gibeonites had to deal with men before whom it was convenient to assume both humility and religious fear. We CHAP. IX. cannot charge them with hypocrisy in their manifestation of godly fear; judging by the way in which they were afterwards protected by God, they should, perhaps, be credited with religious sincerity. Of one thing we may be confident: when men go as far in deceiving others as did these Gibeonites, it will need little more than the necessity to tempt them to feign religious feelings also. 4. Whatever may be the form of its manifestation, the seat of deception is ever in the heart. It is there that truth suffers distortion most severely. The outward guise of a deceiver, however fair it may be, is always ugly morally, because it is false; but the deformity of the heart is ever greater than the deformity of the act. are deceitful when the deceit never takes Hearts shape in actions, and that which we see always represents but a small part of that which is. How divine must be the patience which not only bears with what we see, but with the grosser impurities of the corrupt heart, only a few of which impurities are ever witnessed by men. Young might well regard the hiding of corruption at its source as the outcome of Divine compassion. He tells us truly : "Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but Himself That hideous sight, a naked human heart." Let us not forget that our inmost life is exposed to the gaze of the Lord. As among their fellows, men may say to each other, Let us "Sleek o'er our rugged looks, And make our faces vizards to our hearts, but no outward assumption of innocence will hide us for a moment from Him who searches us, and knows our hearts; who tries us, and knows our thoughts. II. Deception has not only various guises, but many purposes. It lays all external things on earth under tribute for its garments: its purposes are not limited to earth, but enter heaven also. Imitating these "fathers of all modern diplomacy," men practise deception for political objects. Sometimes they seek to deceive in order to preserve life, or to serve ambition, or 190 even to secure so comparatively small a possession as monetary gain. But deception is also attempted even before God. Prayer goeth out of "feigned lips.' Love is not always "without dissimulation," even when it approaches Christ; it may but draw near, like Judas, to inflict the kiss of betrayal. Even at the door of heaven, deceivers dare to stand and say: "When saw we Thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did tion is not merely sin in the present; not minister unto Thee ?" III. Decepthe future. No one who deceives it is usually a pledge to sin also in others for a guilty purpose wishes to be discovered. The very character of such imposition supposes that it shall be repeated as often as may be necessin deliberately proposes as much future sary to prevent exposure. Thus this sin as may be necessary to hide the merely an advance into the territory of wickedness of the past. It is not transgression; it is a "burning of the purity and integrity. The deceiver not bridges," to prevent any retreat into only forfeits his truthfulness for the time being, but mortgages it for the time to come. IV. The guilt of deception is not to be judged by the measure of its success, but rather by its purpose and method. The object of deception may be not only innocent, viding that the manner of misleading but praiseworthy, in which case, probe harmless, only the purist who judges God's law by its letter would hold it to be sinful. No one thinks of calling Joseph wicked, "because he spake roughly" unto his brethren, and took other measures to deceive them, till the time was come to make himself known. The command to place the cup in the hardly justifiable; but the rough bearsack of Benjamin might, to some, seem ing and stern treatment under which Joseph chose to conceal his kinship, till he could win his brethren back to true brotherhood, can scarcely be reckoned blameworthy. Even our Lord, on one occasion, prudently concealed His intention of being present at the Feast of Tabernacles. The language in John vii. 8, may or may not be |