individual believers. The resemblance is most interesting, and many of us, I doubt not, have travelled over the pilgrimage of those chosen tribes, stage by stage, again and again, comparing our conflicts and mercies, backslidings and forgivenesses, successively with theirs. But, "blessed be the Lord God of Israel," we are warranted to pursue the analogy yet further, and humbly to hope, and earnestly to believe, that their final success will in like manner eventually be ours. Such is the application which I desire with the Divine assistance, to make of the text. It speaks of the ultimate conquest of the enemies of God's people, and the terms in which the promise is conveyed will lead us to consider

I. THE AUTHOR OF THE VICTORY.

II. THE MANNER OF ITS ACHIEVEMENT.
III. THE COMPLETENESS OF THE TRIUMPH.

I. The AUTHOR of his people's success is none other than God himself. "I will drive them out from before thee." It is the Lord God of Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts who speaks. He is the powerful and faithful ally of his people, and happy indeed are they who can say, "The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge." Mark, dear brethren, for your encouragement and instruction, the terms of this gracious confederacy. You have them stipulated in the 20th and following verses: "Behold I send an angel before thee to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which

I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries."

How adorable, my brethren, is the condescenIsion which thus links and intertwines Jehovah's interests with our own, and enlists Omnipotence itself on our side. With such a helper how sure is victory! If the Lord be for us, who can be against us. The enemies of Israel were many and

mighty

the sons of Anak and the Amorites, Moab and Amalek, Midian and the Philistines. Their cities were great and fenced up to heaven; chariots and horses were with them; they were leagued one with another; but neither by might nor by power could they prevail against the people of God, when he fought for them. Take as an example the conquests which are recorded in the 10th chapter of Joshua. How rapid, how complete, how triumphant! The careless reader may have felt something like weariness in reading such a sameness of success, but not so the soldier of the cross, who is fighting under the banner of the true Joshua. He will regard each victory as a type of his own, and when he is taught in the 42nd verse, "All these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel," he will also learn whither to look for help. He too has enemies, far more numerous

and powerful and deadly than those which were arrayed against the seed of Jacob. The world, the flesh, and the devil-temptation from without, and corruption from within: all these are daily and hourly reminding him, that he is passing through an enemy's country, and that the Canaanite is yet in the land. In himself he is utterly helpless and defenceless. There is neither sword nor spear in his hand, and when the Philistines come upon him they will find him shorn of all his native strength. But if he be indeed a believer, the Lord is his strength and salvation, his shield and buckler, his strong tower and his refuge, his rock, his fortress, and his deliverer, his glory, his defence, and the lifter up of his head. With such an Almighty munition, no marvel to hear the most sorely beset of his children exclaiming, "I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round about."—" The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"-" Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident."

It is important, my brethren, that you should get a clear and simple idea on this subject. If you really love God, and are in covenant with him, you will necessarily hate sin. Your lusts will be realized as your bitterest enemies; and then it will follow, by virtue of that league, offensive and defensive, into which you have been

admitted, that your adversaries being his adversaries, he will subdue your iniquities, and cast all your sins into the depths of the sea. Once confederate with him, and his faithfulness becomes as fully pledged to root out all that is unholy within you, as his justice would otherwise have been to punish it. Yes, brethren, I repeat it, his faithfulness; for he declares in the text, "I will drive them out from before thee." Let that word of promise answer every doubt, and silence every fear. Do you complain that you are weak and your corruptions strong? I grant it. In each case your estimate is correct. But He is Almighty. And what can you object to that? My grace, he says, "is sufficient." How will you think to limit that. You reply, perhaps, that though this is doubtless, true, as regards the ability of God to overthrow your enemies, yet you have forfeited all pretensions to an interest in the promise, and are therefore constrained to distrust his inclination. All this would be very natural, very just, were it not that his declaration is express and absolute. "I will drive them out." And who shall dare to make him a liar? My timid, oppressed, and shrinking brethren, let your hearts be stablished upon this promise, and grievous as may be the opposition, bitter the conflict, and discouraging the disappointments that you meet with, "wait still on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord."

Whilst however the assurance of the text is

eminently calculated to encourage our faith, it is no less suited to warn us against self-confidence. "Since the Lord's is all the victory," it seems to say, "let his be all the glory." There is no point on which he is more jealous than this. "I will drive them out from before thee," is the promise. He claims the undivided praise of the work, and reminds those in whose behalf his power is exerted, that they should ascribe unto him the honour due unto his name. "I will send my angel, and he shall keep thee, and bring thee in. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee. Beware, therefore, lest thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, and thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. I sent the hornet before you which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword nor with thy bow."

Thus carefully in a variety of passages is the creature excluded from all participation in the merit and praise of the achievement. Human instrumentality is indeed employed, but employed in such a manner, and with such conditions, as to evince in the clearest way the Lord's complete independence of all instrumentality. Amalek, for