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the actual persuasion, which then prevailed in the world, no matter whether well or ill founded, how were the neighbouring nations, for whose admonition this dreadful example was intended, how were they to be convinced of the supreme power of the God of Israel above the pretended gods of other nations, and of the righteous character of Jehovah, that is, of his abhorrence of the vices, which prevailed in the land of Canaan; how, I say, were they to be convinced so well, or at all indeed, as by enabling the Israelites, whose God he was known and acknowledged to be, to conquer under his banner, and drive out before them, those, who resisted the execution of that com mission, with which the Israelites declared themselves to be invested, the expulsion and extermination of the Canaanitish nations? This convinced surrounding countries, and all who were observers, or spectators of what passed, first, that the God of Israel was a real God; secondly, that the gods, which other nations worshipped, were either no gods, or had no power against the God of Israel; and thirdly, that it was he, and he alone, who possessed both the power and the will, to punish, to destroy, and to exterminate from before his face, both nations and individuals, who gave themselves up to the crimes and wickedness for which the Canaanites were notorious. Nothing of this sort appeared, or with the same evidence

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n earthquake, or a plague, or any These might not have been atagency at all, or not to the inGod of Israel.

which made this destruction sary and more general than it rwise been, was the consideraof the old inhabitants were left, ve a snare to those, who succeedcountry; would draw and seduce rees into the vices and corruptions, led amongst themselves. Vice of all e most particularly of the licentious,

kind, is astonishingly infectious. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. A small number of persons, addicted to them, and allowed to practise them with impunity or encouragement, will spread them through the whole mass. This rea

son is formally and expressly assigned, not sim ply for the punishment, but the extent to which it was carried, namely, extermination. "Thou shalt utterly destroy them, that they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods

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To conclude in reading the Old Testament account of the Jewish wars and conquests in Canaan, and the terrible destruction brought upon the inhabitants thereof, we are constantly to bear in our minds, that we are reading the execution of a dreadful, but just, sentence, pronounced by God, against the intolerable and incorrigible crimes of these nations-that they were intended to be made an example to the whole world of God's avenging wrath against sins of this magnitude and this kind: sins, which, if they had been suffered to continue, might have polluted the whole ancient world, and which could only be checked by the signal and public overthrow of nations notoriously addicted to them, and so addicted, as to have incorporated them even into their religion and their public institutions; that the miseries, inflicted upon the nations by the invasion of the Jews, were expressly declared to be inflicted on account of their abominable sinsthat God had borne with them long; that God did not proceed to execute his judgments, till their wickedness was full: that the Israelites were mere instruments in the hands of a righteous Providence for the effectuating the extermi. nation of a people, of whom it was necessary to make a public example to the rest of mankind: that this extermination, which might have been accomplished by a pestilence, by fire, by earth. quakes, was appointed to be done by the hands of the Israelites, as being the clearest and most

intelligible method of displaying the power and righteousness of the God of Israel; his power over the pretended gods of other nations, and his righteous hatred of the crimes into which they were fallen.

This is the true statement of the case. It is no forced or inv nted construction, but the idea of the transaction set forth in Scripture and it is an idea, which, if retained in our thoughts, may fairly, I think, reconcile us to every thing which we read in the Old Testament concerning it.

SERMON XXX.

NEGLECT OF WARNINGS.

Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end.-Deut. xxxii. 29.

THERE is one great sin, which, nevertheless, may not be amongst the number of those, of which we are sensible, and of which our consciences accuse us; and that sin is the neglect of warnings.

It is our duty to consider this life throughout as a probationary state: nor do we ever think truly, or act rightly, but so long as we have this consideration fully before our eyes. Now one character of a state, suited to qualify and prepare rational and improveabe creatures for a better state, consists in the warnings, which it is constantly given them; and the providence of God, by placing us such a state, becomes the author of these warnIt is his paternal care, which admonishes and through the events of life and death ss before us. Therefore it is a sin against ence to neglect them. It is hardness and nination in sin: or it is blindness, which in or in part is wilful: or it is giddiness, and and contemptuousness in a subject, which hot of these dispositions towards it, withffence to God.

A serious man hardly ever passes a day, never a week, without meeting with some warning to his conscience; without something to call to his mind his situation with respect to his future life. And these warnings, as perhaps was proper, come the thicker upon us, the farther we advance in life. The dropping into the grave of our acquaintance, and friends and relations; what can be better calculated, not to prove (for we do not want the point to be proved,) but to possess our hearts with a complete sense and perception of the extreme peril and hourly precariousness of our condition: viz. to teach this momentous lesson, that when we preach to you, concerning heaven and hell, we are not preaching concerning things at a distance, things remote, things long before they come to pass; but concerning things near, soon to be decided, in a very short time to be fixed one way or the other? This is a truth of which we are warned by the course of mortality; yet, with this truth confessed, with these warnings before us, we venture upon sin. But it will be said, that the events, which ought to warn us, are out of our mind at the time. But this is not so. Were it that these things came to pass in the wide world only at large, it might be that we should seldom hear of them, or soon forget them. But the events take place, when we ourselves are within our own doors; in our own families; amongst those, with whom we have the most constant correspondence, the closest intimacy, the strictest connexion. It is impossible to say that such events can be out of our mind; nor is it the fact. The fact is, that knowing them, we act in defiance of them: which is neglecting warnings in the worst sense possible. It aggravates the daringness; it aggravates the desperateness of sin but it is so nevertheless. Supposing these warnings to be sent by Providence, or that we believe, and have reason to believe, and ought to believe, that they are so sent, then the aggravation iş very great.

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We have warnings of every kind. Even youth itset is continually warned, that there is no reliance to be placed, either on strength, or constitu 1. or earh age: that, if they count upon life

a thing to be reckoned secure for a considerahir number of years, they calculate most falsely: an. E they act upon this calculation, by allowing themselves in the vices, which are incidental to ther years, under a notion, that it will be long before they shall have to answer for them, and before that time come they shall have abundant season for repenting and amending; if they suf fer suck arguments to enter into their minds, and Det won them, then are they guilty of neglecting Gə, in his warnings-They not only err in point ef ynst reasty mg, but they neglect the warnings which God has expressly set before them Or, it they take upon them-elves to consider religion as a thing not made or calculated for them; as much too serious for their years; as made and intewed for the old and the dying; at least as what is unecessary to be entered upon at present, as what may be postponed to a more suitable time of life: whenever they think thus, they think very presumptuously: they are justly chargeable with negleeting warnings. And what is the event? These stponers never enter upon religion at all, in earor effectually: that is the end and event of the

To account for this, shall we say, that ve so offended God, by neglecting his wars to have forfeited his grace? Certainly say, that this is not the method of obtain grace: that his grace is necessary to our Neglecting warnings is not the way hrain God's grace and God's grace is neces to conversion. at not

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The young, I repeat again, rs. Is it new? Is it unheard of? ntrary, the intelligence of eve. fence of every neighbourhood, young women are cut off; se, a flower of the field. The se cut down in its bloom and

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