precise arrangements and relative positions to each. other and to the tabernacle, with their captains, Moses systematized all their movements with mili tary exactness,1 and thereby made them to become both good soldiers and good citizens. They learned subordination, precision, prompt execution; and from long slavery there came out a race of hardy and trusty freemen.

Aaron, Moses' brother and high priest, died at Mount Hor, and his son Eleazer was designated by God, and invested by Moses with the office of high priest; 2 and then, a short time after, when they made their second approach to Canaan, Moses ascended Mount Nebo by God's direction, and from the pinnacle of Pisgah looked westward over the Jordan, and saw the outspread hills and plains of Canaan, and died there alone with God in the mountain, "and the Lord buried

him." 3 Besides particular transgressions of Aaron and Moses, by which they forfeited the favor of personally entering the promised inheritance of Israel, there was a national result to be attained in their successive deaths and the transmission of their offices to other incumbents. It accustomed the people to the necessary succession of magistrates, and habituated them to expect and respect the appointments of God in the places of the dead. Had Moses and Aaron lived to go over Jordan, and added the veneration and affection which would ensue from conquering the land for them to all the influence of their counsel and

1 Num. x. 11-28. 2 Num. xx. 22-29. 3 Deut. xxxiv. 1-6.

command in the forty years' wanderings from the exodus, it would have been a more difficult matter to content the people with any successors of such eminent leaders; but by the removing of their rulers at different times, and dividing the glory of the grand events and achievements from Egypt to the possession of Canaan, the people readily learned submission and obedience to such as Jehovah should appoint for them.

2. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE THEOCRACY UNDER JOSHUA. All the generation which left Egypt were now dead, except Joshua and Caleb, the faithful commissioners who had spied the land thirty-nine years before; and thus, besides these two, all Israel's thousands were under sixty years of age, counting those then under twenty years who had not been numbered at Sinai.1 Here, then, were a people in full vigor, hardy and independent, disciplined and taught by severe experiences to trust and obey their officers, and acknowledge Jehovah as their King and Lord. Joshua had already, by God, been invested with the office of chief captain in Moses' stead, and been specially commissioned to make full conquest of the land of Canaan, and promised the constant presence and counsel of Jehovah.2 Within three days he roused the people to prepare for the expedition; made Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, whose possessions had already been assigned them east of the Jordan, to join in the war of conquest; and sending two men to spy

1 Num. xiv. 29.

2 Josh. i. 1-9.

the land, he marched, and made his military encampment on the east bank of the Jordan. Here again were three days' solemn preparation, and receiving divine directions for following the sacred ark, borne by the priests, in the miraculous passage of the river. Here began the series of divinely assisted successes, which much further disciplined and matured the chosen people for their great mission, in teaching to the idolatrous nations the power and supremacy of the one true God.

After the crossing of the Jordan there occurred the destruction of Jericho, whose walls fell to the ground with no human instrumentality, save the shout of the army and the blowing of the priests' trumpets; and then the manifestation of an omniscient watch which detected the sin of Achan, and the severe punishment which warned against all future appropriating of the accursed wealth of Canaan to private possession. After which followed the perpetual victory of the army, in overcoming one Canaanitish city and people after another, for about seven years of uninterrupted conflict, conquest, and complete extirpation of the native population. The whole land was so brought into possession, that what of its inhabitants were not utterly exterminated, as had been required, were at least so subdued or terrified that they yielded unquestioning service and submission to their resistless invaders.

And here occurs the serious question of the moral

1 Josh. vii.

right of Israel to invade and exterminate the Canaanites. To put it directly, as infidelity affirms it to have been, Was it not cruel, inhuman, and horribly wicked for this foreign people to come and slay old and young, and take permanent possession? If we look to nothing higher than humanity in those transactions, they could not be justified; they must be most sternly rebuked and condemned. No man, and no numbers of men, have the right so to invade and destroy their fellows. But this is not the light in which to put and judge these proceedings. It was not Joshua's command, and the people's ready execution, that stood ultimately responsible. Jehovah was their King and their God, and he commanded that "their eye should not pity, nor their hand spare." And their God was also the God of all flesh, and thus the real question is, May God command one people to exterminate another, and may that people righteously execute such command? We do not look the truth directly in the face, till we question God's right to do what he will with his own. And here we may say, on both sides, reverently and unhesitatingly, that the right of God is not in his mere arbitrary will, nor in this that all flesh is his by creation and power; but it is in this, that God is Absolute Reason, and that he should fix his purpose and execute his will universally in the end of reason. We, who, as human, can only have a finite endowment of reason, may not always, now or ever, be competent to judge the Absolute in all cases; and yet, so far as

'Deut. vii. 16.

divine purposes and acts come within the sphere of human comprehension, we may judge the rightness of such purposes and acts. God himself permits it, and appeals to such reason within the sphere of its finite compass.1

The following considerations sustain the divine equity and benevolence in the transaction. God is the moral governor of all people, and he has in nature given sufficient light to read and know his being and authority.2

The nations of Canaan were notoriously wicked, and had been long spared by God, and were now ripe for judgment; and he might have wholly exterminated them righteously by some providential judgment.

He commissioned Israel to be his authorized executioners, and made this work a discipline for them and for their warning.5 It showed to them and the nations God's abhorrence of idolatry. In this is enough to silence all questioning.

Joshua lived to make the conquest of Canaan, and settle the tribes in it according to their assigned portions, and faithfully and successfully administered the government for several years afterwards, while the people were at peace, cultivating the soil and building up the ruined cities. The tabernacle had been set up at Shechem, and there, when he had lived one hundred and ten years, Joshua summoned a full convocation of the people, and recounted before them the wonders

1 Isa. i. 18, v. 3, 4; Ezek. xviii. 25-29.

2 Rom. i. 19, 20, ii. 14, 15.

Num. xxxiii. 50-56.

3 Gen. xv. 16.

• Deut. vii.