but many of them driven away to the ends of the earth, agrees best with the expression so often used of God's driving them out before the children of Israel.

And besides there could be no room for such multitudes in Zidon, and a few neighbouring cities; for they, with those that Joshua had slain of them, had before filled all the land of Canaan, north of the tribe of Ephraim, even to monnt Hermon, and to Zidon, and they were under a necessity to seek new seats abroad where they could find them.

[360] Joshua vii. Concerning Achan, the troubler of Israel. Achan was that to the congregation of Israel, that some lust or way of iniquity indulged and allowed, is to particular professors. Sinful enjoyments are accursed things: wherever they are entertained God's curse attends them. The cursed things that Achan took were a goodly Babylonish garment and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge fifty shekels weight, that when he saw, he coveted. So the objects of men's lusts, which they take and indulge themselves in the enjoyment of, are very tempting and alluring, appearing very beautiful, and seeming very precious. Achan took those and hid them in his tent under ground, so that there was no sign or appearance of them above ground, they were concealed with the utmost secrecy. So very commonly the sins that chiefly trouble professors, and provoke God's displeasure, and bring both spiritual and temporal calamities upon them, are secret sins, as David calls them, hidden by some lust, as Achan's, as it were under ground. Lust is exceedingly deceitful, and will hide iniquity, and cover it over with such fair pretences and excuses, that it is exceedingly difficult for persons to discover them, and to be brought fully to see and own their fault in them. The silver and gold was covered over with the goodly Babylonish garment; (as it is said the silver was under it;) so persons are wont to cover their secret wickedness with a very fair hypocritical profession: an hypocritical profession is a Babylonish or antichristian garment. It is the robe of the false church. God charges Israel not only with stealing, but dissembling, when Israel had transgressed in the accursed thing; and God was not among them; they were carnally secure and self-confident, they thought a few of them enough to subdue the inhabitants of Ai; which represents the frame that professors are commonly in when they indulge some secret iniquity. But they could not stand before their enemies, they were smitten down before them; so, when professors secretly indulge some one lust, it makes them universally weak-they lie dreadfully exposed to their spiritual enemies, and easily fall before them. The congregation seem to wonder what is the matter that God hides himself from them; so Christians oftentimes, when they are going on in some evil way that the de

ceitfulness of sin hides from them, wonder what is the reason that God hides himself from them. They lay long upon their faces, crying to God without receiving any answer. So when persons harbour any iniquity, it is wont to prevent any gracious answer to their prayers their prayers are hindered, their iniquity is a cloud through which their prayers cannot pass. When they were troubled and destroyed, they took a wrong course-they betook themselves to prayer and crying to God, as though they had nothing else to do, whereas their first and principal work ought to have been diligently to have inquired whether there was not some iniquity to be found among them, as is implied, v. 10. So Christians, when God greatly afflicts them, and hides his face from them, and manifests his anger towards them, are commonly wont to do: they cry, and cry to God, as if they had nothing else to do, but still secretly entertain the troubler, and it never comes into their hearts to inquire, Am I not greatly guilty with respect to such a practice or way that I allow myself in, in ny covetousness, or in my proud, or contentious, or sensual, or peevish and froward behaviour? God mentions it as an aggravation of the sin of the congregation in Achan that they had even put the accursed thing among their own stuff; so, when professors allow themselves, iu any unlawful gain, or enjoyment, they commonly put it among those things that are theirs, that they may lawfully enjoy or make use of. If men continue in such evil ways, and do not depart from them, they are ruinous to the soul, however they may plead that they think there is no hurt in them. There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. So God says to Israel, ver. 12, "Neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing from among you." God directed the congregation of Israel to make diligent search in order to find out the troubler: all were to be examined, tribe by tribe, and family by family, and man by man. So when God hides his face from us and frowns upon us, we ought diligently and thoroughly to examine all our ways, and to take effectual care that none escape thorough examination; to examine them first in their several kinds, as they may be classed with respect to their objects, views, and otherwise, and then to proceed to a more special examination and inquiry, and never leave until we have thoroughly examined every particular way and practice; yea, to examine act by act, and to bring all before God, to be tried by him, by his word and Spirit, as all Israel was brought before the Lord to be tried by him. By this means Achan was thoroughly discovered, and brought to confess his wickedness; so, if we be thorough in trying our ways, and bringing all to the test of God's word, seeking the direction of his spirit also with his word, it is the way to discover the sin that troubles us, and thoroughly to

convince the conscience, and make it plainly to confess the iniquity. The congregation after they had found out the accursed thing, they brought it out of the earth and out of the tent, and spread it before the Lord. So persons, when they have found out the sin that has troubled them, should confess their sins and spread them before the Lord. And we must not content ourselves only with confessing the sin to God, but must deal with it as the children of Israel did with Achan; we must treat it as a mortal, and most hateful, and pernicious enemy; we must turn inveterate, implacable enemies to it; must have no mercy on it; must not spare it at all, or be afraid of being too cruel to it; must aim at nothing short of the life of it, and must resolve utterly to destroy and extirpate it; we must as it were stone it with stones, and burn it with fire. So Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord. (See Notes on 1 Sam. xv. 32, 33. See also 2 Cor. vii. 11.) And we must not only destroy that sin, but all its offspring, its whole family, and its oxen and asses, and all that belongs to it, every thing that springs from it, every evil that has attended or sprung from it; we must serve them all alike, and as this was done to Achan, not only by a particular individual, but by all Israel, so we must do it with all our hearts and souls; we must be full in it; there must be nothing in our hearts that is favourable to the troubler, or that has not a hand in its death. Israel, after they had thus slain the troubler, raised over him a great heap of stones, as a monument of what had been. So when we have slain the troubler, we must keep a record of the mischief we received. by the sin, to be a constant, everlasting warning to us, to avoid it, and every thing of that nature, for the future. This is the way to have the Lord turn from the fierceness of his anger.

[116.] Josh. xx. 6. "And he shall dwell in that city until he stand before the congregation." The Seventy elders are here called the congregation or church, which are words of the same signification. So the Elders of the church, they are called the Church in the New Testament.

[352] Judg. i. 12, 13, 14, 15. Concerning Othniel and Caleb's daughter. Othniel in this story is a type of Christ, as Othniel, Caleb's nephew, obtained Caleb's daughter, his first cousin, to wife, by war, and the victory he obtained over Caleb's enemies, and taking a city from them to be a possession for Caleb and his heirs; so Christ, who, as nearly related to both God and us, is fit to be a Mediator between God and us, has obtained the church, God's daughter, by war with God's enemies, and the victory he has obtained over them, and by

his redeeming a city, the spiritual Jerusalem, or Zion, out of their hands, to be a pessession for God and his heirs. Achsah, Othniel's wife, moves her husband to ask for her father a blessing, and an inheritance. So it is by the intercession of Christ that the church obtains of God the blessings and the inheritance she needs. She complains to her father that she inherited a south, i. e. a dry, desert land; she asks of him springs of water, and Caleb granted her request; he gave her freely and abundantly; he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs. And if men, being evil, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more shall our heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him! When Caleb's daughter inhabited a south land, and dwelt in the quenched places of the wilderness, she asked springs of water, both the upper and the nether springs. So, when the souls of God's people are in a droughty, pining, languishing condition, it is not a new thing for them to go to their heavenly Father through the mediation of Christ, for all such supplies as they need; he will give them springs of water like the upper and the nether springs. Godliness hath the promise of the things of this life, and that which is to come. God will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from those that walk uprightly. Achsah improved that time to move her husband to intercede for her, when she came to him; which should teach us, when we are brought especially nigh to Christ, and have special seasons of communion with him, to be careful then to improve our interest in him, and to seek his intercession for us with the Father for such blessings as we need.

But this probably has a special respect to some particular seasons of God's blessings on the church, and the accomplishing a glorious alteration in the state of things for her sake; and particularly two seasons.

1. That glorious change that was made at and after Christ's first coming. The church before that did as it were inhabit a south land, was held under weak and beggarly elements, was under the ministration of death, the letter and not the spirit. But when Christ came nigh to the church, he took her nature upon him; he came and dwelt with us, and received his church into a much greater nearness to himself; and through his mediation was obtained of God, a far more glorious dispensation, springs of water in abundance, a ministration of the spirit, the spirit was abundantly poured out upon her, and her inheritance was greatly enlarged. Instead of being confined only to the land of Canaan, she had the Roman empire given with all its wealth and glory, and so had the nether springs, as well as the upper.

2. That glorious change that will be accomplished in favour of the church at the fall of Antichrist. Now the church of Christ does as it were inherit a dry land, and has so done for a long time-dry both upon spiritual and temporal accounts; both as to the upper and nether springs, and is much straitened in her inheritance. But the days will soon come wherein Christ will come in a spiritual sense, and the church shall forsake worldly vanities, and her own righteousness, and shall come to Christ, and then God will gloriously enlarge her inheritance, and will bestow both spiritual and temporal blessings upon her, in abundance.

[211] Judg. v. 20. “ They fought from heaven, the stars in their courses fought against Sisera." The learned Bedford, in his Scripture Chronology, p. 510, supposes that Sisera, with his army, had passed the river Kishon, and that when Barak came to engage him, God appeared against Sisera, in a dreadful storm of thunder and lightning, and the battle continuing all day, and Sisera and his host being at last put to flight, the Israelites pursued in the night, and that the way that the stars fought for them was by shining with an extraordinary brightness to help the Israelites in their pursuing the enemy, who, when they came to the river Kishon, went in; but the storm having swelled the river, the swift stream carried them away, and that there was thunder and lightning. Then he argues from the 15th verse of the foregoing chapter, where it is said that the Lord discomfited Sisera and all his chariots, and all his hosts. He says the word in the original signifies to strike a terror by the noise of thunder and lightning, and the truth is, it is no where said that God discomfited the enemies of God's people where this word was used, but that it appears that God fought against them with thunder and lightning. So 1. Sam. vii. 10, and Joshua x. 10, (vide Notes on Heb. iii. 11,) and 2 Sam. xxii. 15. Ps. xviii. 4.

There are several things that make this opinion of Mr. Bed-ford probable. This was an instance wherein God had extraordinarily appeared against the enemies of Israel, as appears by this song; and this verse of this song seems to intimate something miraculous of God's appearing in it, and it was the more probable that there was something miraculous for a prophetess being at the head of the army of Israel, and then God had in this manner appeared from time to time fighting against the enemies of his people. So he fought against the Egyptians at the Red sea; so he terrified his enemies in all the neighbouring countries with amazing thunders and lightning, when he entered into covenant with his people at Sinai. So God fought against