battle, who, though they may, yet will not put all their enemies to the edge of the fword, but will take fome captives, and others they will keep alive against their day of triumph, and then to fuffer death, to the greater fhame of the conquered, and the greater glory of the conqueror. When Jofhua had difcomfited thefe five kings that fought against Gibeon, chap. x. he would not flay them inftantly, but fhut them up in a cave closely, intending, when the battle was fully ended, to put them to death openly: fo our great General and Captain, the Lord Jefus Chrift, he strikes through kings in the day of his wrath; he leads captivity captive; he fhuts up fome of the kings and commanders of the hellish nations, into the cave of the heart, where they may rage, yet they cannot rule any more; and at laft crowns the folemnity of his triumph, by making a fhew of them openly, and destroying them utterly. 6. He deftroys them by little and little, that he may counterplot the enemies in their own plot, and fight them with their own weapons. It is the plot of hell, by little and little, to destroy finners; yea, and to wear out the faints of the most High, Dan. vii. 25. by one temptation on the back of another; therefore, by little and little the Lord will defeat the defign of the devil, and take the wife in their own craftinefs. The wisdom of heaven can easily counterplot the policy of hell yea, thus he fights the enemy, and beats him with his own weapons. The tempter comes fometimes, and bruifes the believer's heel, as he did Chrift's; upon which the believer is ftirred up to look again to him that was bruised for his iniquity, and then the devil is fure to get as good as he gave; for the bruifed heel, he gets a broken head. Perhaps, fome temptation gives the believer a trip, and down he falls; but the wife Captain makes ufe of that very fall, for giving the devil, and his hofts, a greater foil than ever; for, after that fall, the believer goes alone, with Peter, and weeps it out and watches, and prays, and fights better than he did before. 7. It is by little and little that the Lord conquers the nations of enemies in the way to the heavenly Canaan, because, by little and little, his people must be made ready ready for it; "By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, till thou be increafed, and inherit the land," Exod. xxiii. 30. As the Canaanites had kept poffeffion till Ifrael was grown into a people; fo there were to be fome remains of them, till Ifrael fhould grow fo numerous, as to replenifh the whole. The land. of Canaan had room enough to receive Ifrael, but Ifrael was not yet numerous enough to poffefs Canaan: even fo here, the true Ifrael of God must be made ready for the heavenly. Canaan, before they come there. They are not always in actual readinefs, therefore there is fome fervice they have to do for their Captain, fome battle they have to fight with the enemy: they must have fome more experience, and learn fome more leffons; therefore their poffeflion of Canaan is delayed till they be ready for it. 8. It is by little and little that the Lord drives out the nations before them, left the beafts of the field increase upon them; to allude to that word which immediately follows the text, which we have alfo, Exod. xxiii. 9. "I will not drive them out before thee in one year, left the land become defolate, and the beafts of the field multiply against thee." And thus it is with the children of God; if they had not enemies without and within, and oppofitions in their way, there are fome dangerous beafts that would be ready to increafe upon them: For inftance, there is a beaft they call pride, that might grow upon you, if you had no enemies to fight with; and while yet you are not ready for heaven, and fanctification is incomplete. Hence a thorn in the flesh was given to Paul, that he might not be exalted above measure. Is not the thorn in the flesh well ordered, that prevents confidence in the flesh? There is a beast, they call fecurity, might grow upon you; but now enemies are on all hands of you, to prevent your falling asleep, and to keep you both watching and waking, and conftantly on your guard. There is a beaft they call prefumption, that might grow upon you, and make you think you were able to go forward to heaven upon your own legs, and in your own ftrength, if you found no fuch enemy in the way. There is another beaft, they call worldlyVOL. III. + Ee mind. mindedness, that might grow upon you; if you get no adverfaries and adverfities to vex you, and wean you from the world; you would be in danger of faying, It is good to be here but now the wars and battles, in your way to heaven, make you fay with your heart, O it is better to be there.-There is a beaft, a filthy brute beaft, that they call fenfuality, that might grow upon you, believer, that might make you lukewarm and formal in all your duties, as well as carnal, and light, and vain in the intervals of duties: but the fight of your spiritual enemies on the field will make you fee a need to be fpiritual, zealous, earnest, and fervent in spirit, ferving the Lord.-There is alfo a filthy dumb beaft, that they call forgetfulnefs, that would certainly grow upon your hand, and be very dangerous to your foul and spiritual welfare, if your enemies were all deftroyed; therefore God favs, Pfal. lix. 11. Slay them not, left my people forget. If the execution were quick and hafty, the impreffions of it would not be deep and durable. Swift deftructions ftartle men for the prefent, but they are foon forgotten; therefore, when we think that God's judgments upon the nations of our fpiritual enemies come on but very flowly, we must conclude that God hath wife and holy ends in that gradual procedure; Slay them not, left my people forget. They would forget to pray, if they had not enemies to pray againft; they would forget to praife, if they had not ftill new deliverances to praife him for: they would forget to pity thefe that are afflicted and toffed with tempefts like themselves: they would forget their Captain, and their duty of living by faith and dependence on him: they would forget to take with their proper name, faying, Truth, Lord, I am a dog they would forget to mourn for fin, and repent; they would forget their own weaknefs, and their deliverer's power; and, like Jefhurun, in profperity would wax fat, and forget God that made them, and lightly esteem the rock of their falvation: they would forget to fing the fong of Mofes and the Lamb, at the fide of the Red-fea of the Lamb's blood, where their enemies are always drowned; even to fing, faying, "The Lord hath triumphed glorioufly, the horfe and his rider hath he thrown : into the fea; the Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name," Exod. xv. 1. &c.; they would forget to fpeak of the wonders of his mercy from time to time, and to give him the glory due unto his name: they would forget to employ him upon every new attack of the enemy, faying, "Lord, thou haft delivered; and in thee we truft that thou wilt deliver." Better the enemy live and rage, and be not utterly deftroyed, than that Chrift want employment at your hand, and get not the glory of executing his faving office in your time of need. You would hardly think that fo much advantage fhould accrue to the Ifrael of God, by the nations of their enemies not being deftroyed at once, but by little and little.You fee fome of the filthy beafts that would increafe upon you, if the Lord did not fpare fome of your fpiritual enemies, devils, and lufts; which, though they may be called all beafts together, yet herein fhines infinite wisdom in fparing one beast to destroy another: he may let carnality live in a believer fometimes, to kill his pride; much ignorance remain, to kill his felf-wifdom; much wandering in, and indifpofition for duty, to kill his felf-righteoufnefs. Now, as it is with believers in particular, fo with the church in general; why does God fuffer tyrants, and Atheists, and hypocrites, and heretics to live among them, and vex them, but for reaching many, if not all, of thefe ends that I have been naming. When the church was in adverfity under the primitive ten perfecutions, then religion flourished; the life of the tyrants tended to the life of religion in the perfecuted church: but when the Roman emperors became Chriftian, and friendly to the church, then pride and fecurity crept in with their profperous ftate; the beafts of the field increafed fo much, that, by degrees, a blafphemous beast affumed the very name and office of being the head of the church, even a beaft with feven heads and ten horns, mentioned, Rev. xiii. 1.; I mean, the Roman Antichrift. And then, why hath a nation of heretics, with erroneous principles and doctrines, been fpared and continued in the church from time to time, but that the friends of truth might have occafion to clear and vindicate it, and to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the faints?" There must be herefies," fays the apoftle, "that they that are approven may be made manifeft;" there must be errors, that truth may be more clearly difcovered and maintained. Some precious truths had never been fet into fuch a clear light, if oppofite errors had not been vented for darkening the fame. Thus our Covenant-obligations in Scotland are denied by fome, that their obligation may be the more afferted by others: thus alfo there is an ungodly nation left alive, that the godly may be diflinguifhed from them, and exercifed the more unto godlinefs; and a hypocritical nation, that true Ifraelites, that are fo indeed, may try themselves, and become the more fincere and upright. VII. The Application now remains to be spoken to. Is it fo, that as the true Ifrael of God have nations in their way to the poffeffion of the heavenly Canaan, fo the Lord their God will conquer thefe nations by little and little? Ift, It may be applied in a word of dehortation and caution in these four particulars: 1. Beware of thinking that you may fafely neglect the means, because this work of putting out the nations belongs wholly to the Lord. This were a lazy Antinomian conclufion, drawn from fuch promifes, as rather bear the greateft encouragement in the world to make a diligent ufe of the means. If it be a good reafon of working out our falvation with fear and trembling, that the Lord works in us both to will and to do, which is the apoftle's argument, Phil. ii. 12, 13.; then it is as good a reafon for warring, and ufing all the means neceffary for accomplishing this fpiritual warfare, that it is the Lord our God that conquers the enemy for us by little and little. Yea, this is fuch a neceffary confideration, that, take away this argument, and there remains no encouragement to ufe the means at all: and hence it is only believers that are capable of this fpiritual warfare; and only believers in Chrift that are capable of the right and diligent ufe of the means that relate thereunto: for they cannot be ufed duly, but in the faith of this en cou |