day; and all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones;" which remained for a long time in this valley, a monument of God's displeasure against sin.

In this portion of sacred history, there are several things highly worthy of particular observation. The first is, that "the love of money is the root of all evil." This man, like Judas, was led away by covetousness. Thousands and tens of thousands are slaves to the same vice. Perhaps no sin is more common in the pale of the Church; for although it often prompts men to rob and steal, and thus expose themselves to infamous punishments, yet this may strike its roots deep, and have entire possession of the man, while no irregularity appears in the outward actions. Often, indeed, covetousness restrains its votaries from vices which can only be practised with expense, because such conflict with its nature.

The next remark is, that however secret men's crimes may be, and however successfully concealed from the eyes of men, there is an eye which strictly marks them; and often, in the providence of God, sins which were committed in darkness, are unexpectedly and wonderfully revealed. In the case of Achan, the appeal seems to have been to the lot, and this mode of detection was ordered by God himself, and was, therefore, infallible; but unless God direct to such means, for the discovery of secret crimes, it would be presumptuous in us to resort to the lot for the detection of the guilt of a culprit. The displeasure of Jehovah against a deliberate transgression of his positive commandment, is here strangely exhibited; and for the sin of one man, his wrath is enkindled against the whole congregation of Israel. Achan seems to have been penitent, but this could not save him from condign punishment. Repentance sometimes comes too late; or to speak more properly, the regrets of a sinner when his crimes are detected, and punishment about to be inflicted, has in it nothing of the nature of true repentance. And if the unhappy man was pardoned, yet it was necessary that a public example should be made, on such an occasion, for a terror to others. We are taught here also, that God punishes a man's family with himself. It does not appear that they personally participated in the crime of Achan; but they must suffer with him. His wife and children, and even the dumb animals, are made partakers of his punishment. Men may pronounce this to be unjust, but God will not subject himself to be judged at our bar. The Judge of all the earth will do right; but little do we know, in many cases, what it becomes him to do. The truth is, that his whole administration by his providence, recognizes this same principle. Children are involved

in the poverty, in the disgrace, and in the diseases of their parents; and who will undertake to arraign the Almighty, and pronounce sentence of condemnation upon him? His ways are always just and equal, although the reasons of his conduct may not be revealed unto us. Burning alive was not one of the punishments usually inflicted in the Jewish commonwealth; but in this case, and some others, the bodies were burned after death.

This translation furnishes the only instance, as far as I recollect, of any thing censurable said or done by Joshua. His confidence in God, and obedience to his will, seems to have approximated near to perfection; but when he saw the people, in a dastardly manner, fleeing before their enemies, his spirit was overwhelmed, and he said, "Would to God that we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan!" This was wrong; for God had promised Canaan to Israel, and had specially commissioned Joshua to invade the land, and had miraculously opened his way to take possession. But Joshua, like Moses, his predecessor, was more concerned for the glory of God's great name, than about his own welfare or reputation. We see what misery and confusion a single sin may produce in a family, and a nation. As to the punishment inflicted on this unhappy man and his family, Joshua had nothing to do with it, but to execute the commandment of Jehovah. In this, as in all the other severe inflictions of vengeance on the inhabitants of Canaan, Joshua can no more be charged with cruelty than the angel who slew the first-born of Egypt, or on him who in one night slew a hundred and four score thousand men in the Assyrian army. Whatever God commands must be done. No obligation can exist to the contrary, when he makes known his will. Even Abraham must consent to slay his only and well beloved son, in whom all the promises concentred, when Jehovah commanded him to make this sacrifice. And as it relates to the divine attributes, there is nothing more derogatory to justice and goodness in taking away the lives of men, women, and children, by the sword of men, than by the hand of an angel; and nothing in either of these methods of putting an end to human life, more inconsistent with these attributes, than accomplishing the same thing by an earthquake, a famine, or a plague. The objection to this part of the sacred history is, therefore, without foundation.

When the wickedness of a nation rises to a certain pitch, or fulness, it seems necessary that they should be exterminated. In the time of Abraham, it is given as a reason why God did not put him in possession of the land of Canaan, "that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full;" but now, in the time of Joshua, they were ripe for destruction. When a people are

universally addicted to unnatural and abominable crimes, it is right-it is best, that they should be swept from the earth. Such was the moral condition of the old world, before the deluge-such was the state of Sodom and Gomorrah; and such now was the moral character of the inhabitants of Canaan.

SECTION VI.

AI AGAIN ASSAULTED AND TAKEN BY STRATEGEM, AND UTTERLY DESTROYED-JOSHUA ERECTS AN ALTAR IN EBAL AND OFFERS SACRIFICES-WRITES A COPY OF THE LAW ON STONES-FROM MOUNT GERIZIM AND EBAL PRONOUNCES THE BLESSINGS AND THE CURSES.

ACHAN being now removed, the obstacle to a successful attack upon Ai no longer existed, and God commanded Joshua to march fearlessly against the place; saying, "I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land; and thou shalt do to Ai, and her king, as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves." Joshua was directed to place an ambush behind the city. Accordingly he selected thirty thousand men, and sent them off by night to take a position near the city, but behind it; with directions, that as soon as he and the main body of the army should come before the city, and by a feigned retreat should draw out the men of the city in pursuit, then they should rise up from their ambush, and seize the city, and set it on fire. That night Joshua lodged in the midst of the people; and early in the morning he arose and marshalled the host, and marched in their front, with the elders of Israel, up to Ai, and pitched on the north side of the city. Between the camp of the Israelites and Ai, there was a valley; here he placed another ambush on the west of the city, of five thousand men; and he himself spent that night in the midst of this valley. The king of Ai, flushed with his former victory, and confident of success, was not backward to commence hostilities; but he was not aware that he was almost encompassed by his enemies; and, especially, he had no suspicion of the ambush which lay concealed behind the city. Joshua and all Israel, as soon as they were attacked, "made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness." All the men of Ai instantly pursued after them, and were drawn away from the city,; so that there "was not a man left in Ai or Beth-el, that went not out after Israel." And fearing nothing, they left the city open. Joshua now gave the preconcerted signal to the men who lay in ambush, and "they arose, and entered into the city, and took it, and hasted, and set the city on fire." And when the men of Ai looked

behind them, they saw, and behold the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way; and the people of Israel who had fled towards the wilderness, turned back upon the pursuers, and seeing the smoke of the city ascending, they fell upon the men of Ai, and slew them. And the men who had seized the city now came forth, and attacked the men of Ai on the other side; so that being hemmed in by two armies, none of them were permitted to escape. But the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him. to Joshua. When the Israelites had smitten the inhabitants of Ai in the field, they proceeded, according to the commandment of the Lord, to put to the sword all who remained in the city. "And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand." "For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the cattle and the spoil, Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according to the word of the Lord, which he commanded Joshua. And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap and desolation for ever. And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree, until eventide; and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcass down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raise thereon a great heap of stones.

Joshua having again proved victorious over his enemies, and being an eminently devout man, who had feared God from his youth, he availed himself of the interval of rest which he now enjoyed, to fulfil the command of God given to Moses, and he erected an altar in mount Ebal, to the Lord God of Israel. "As Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses. An altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lifted up any iron. And they offered thereon burnt-offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace-offerings. And he wrote these upon the stones, a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel. And all Israel, and their elders, and officers, and their judges, stood on this side the ark, and on that side, before the priests the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord; as well the stranger as he that was born among them: half of them over against mount Gerizim, and half of them against mount Ebal; as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them." (Josh. viii.)

SECTION VII.

THE GIBEONITES DECEIVE JOSHUA AND THE PRINCES, AND OBTAIN FROM THEM AN OATH THAT THEY SHOULD NOT BE DESTROYED THE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE HAD THEM ΤΟ VIOLATE THEIR ENGAGEMENT AND DESTROY THIS PEOPLE WHO HAD IMPOSED ON THEM-JOSHUA CONSIDERS THE OATH OBLIGATORY-THE GENERAL SUBJECT OF THE OBLIGATION OF VOWS.

HITHERTO the people of Canaan appear to have been so panicstruck, that they had not the consideration to enter into any league or combination with one another, to make opposition to the formidable host who had invaded the country. But at length, recovering, in a manner, from the stupor into which fear had cast them, they began to concert measures for their own defence. The kings which were in the hills and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, received intelligence of the progress of the invading army, and gathered together, with one accord, to fight with Joshua and with Israel.

But the Gibeonites, who were near, when they heard of the utter destruction of Jericho and Ai, and probably knew that Joshua's orders were to exterminate all the nations of Canaan, resolved to have recourse to deceit and cunning to avoid the impending destruction. "They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors; and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine-bottles, old and rent, and bound up; and old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them. And all the bread of their provisions was dry and mouldy. And they went to Joshua unto the camp at Gilgal, and said unto him and to the men of Israel, We be come from a far country, and therefore make ye a league with us. And the men of Israel said unto the Hivites, (for the Gibeonites belonged to this nation) peradventure ye dwell among us, and how shall we make a league with you? And they said unto Joshua, we are thy servants. And Joshua said, Who are ye? And whence come ye? And they said unto him, From a very far country thy servants are come, because of the name of the Lord thy God; for we have heard the fame of Him, and all that he did in Egypt, and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond Jordan, to Sihon king of Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, which was at Ashtaroth; wherefore our elders, and all the inhabitants of our country, spake unto us, saying, Take victuals with you for the journey, and go to meet them; and say unto them, We are your servants, therefore, now make ye a league with us. This our bread we took hot for our provision out of our houses, in the day we came forth to go unto you; but now behold, it is dry, and it is mouldy.