Forgetfulness, that would certainly grow upon your hand, and be very dangerous to your foul and fpiritual welfare, if your enemies were all deftroyed; therefore God fays, 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 muft 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 these that are afflicted and toffed with tempefts like themfelves; 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, &c. they would forget to mourn for fin, and repent: They would forget their own weakness, and their deliverer's power, and, like Jeshurun 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 bath triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider hath be thrown into the fea; the Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name, Exod. xv. 1, 2, 3, &c. They would forget to speak 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 Gg 2 upon upon every new attack of the enemy, faying, Lord, that haft delivered, and doft deliver, and in thee we trust 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 increase upon you, if the Lord did not fpare fome of your fpiritual enemies, devils and lufts; which, tho' they may be called all beafts together, yet herein fhines infinite wisdom in fparing one beast to destroy another, one corruption to devour another: He may let carnality live in a believer fometimes, to kill his pride; much ignorance remain, to kill his felfwifdom; much wandering in, and indifpofition for duty, to kill his felf-righteousness. Now, as it is with believers in particular, fo with the church in general: Why does God fuffer tyrants and atheists, and hypocrites and hereticks 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 christian, and friendly to the church, then pride and fecurity crept in with their profperous state; the beafts of the field increased fo much, that by degrees a blafphemous beaft affumed the very name and office of being the head of the church, even a beast with feven beads beads and ten horns, mentioned Rev. xiii. I mean, the Roman Antichrift. And then, why hath a nation of Hereticks, with their erroneous principles and doctrines, been spared 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 for the faith once delivered to the faints? There must be berefies, fays the apoftle, that they that are approved may be made manifeft; there must be errors, that truth may be more clearly discovered and maintained. Some precious truths had never been set into fuch a clear light, if oppofite errors had not been vented for darkning 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 distinguished from them, and exercised 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. 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? 1. It may be applied in a word of debortation 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 premises as rather bear the greatest encouragement in the world to make a diligent ufe of the means. If it be a good reason 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 use 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 use of the means that relate thereunto; for they cannot be used duly, but in the faith of this encouragement, The Lord thy God will go before thee, to conquer the nations of enemies in your way. Unbelievers indeed ought to use the means, because the Lord commands the use thereof; and therefore, for the Lord's fake, neglect no commanded duty and ordinance wherein the Lord ufes to be found. But yet, I fay again, never will any foul use the means aright, and acceptably, till fomething of the real true faith of this encouragement excite him: Therefore, O believer, neglect not to read, and hear, and pray, and meditate, and ufe all commanded duties and ordinances; for there you must expect to meet with your captain, that hath engaged to put out the nations before thee. 2. Beware of thinking that the stress of the warfare lies upon you, because you are obliged to use the means; and that it is your ufing the means that will do the bufinefs. As the former is a lazy, fo this is a legal thought, and as pernicious and deftructive as the other: For, if you lean upon the means, and think that your reading, praying, hearing, and the like, will drive out the nations, bring down down the body of death, or fubdue one corruption, that were a beating your enemies with a fword of ftraw: Such a fleshly weapon will never draw blood of your spiritual enemies; and, inftead of getting victory over your fins by fuch legal weapons, you are brought under greater bondage: For as many as are under the works of the law are under the curfe; and to be under the law, is to be under the dominion of fin, for the ftrength of fin is the law. This legal method then were to be opening a fore-door to let out the enemy, and at the fame time opening a back-door to let them in, and that with more advantage against you than ever. As it is a dangerous extreme to neglect means, upon pretext that Chrift muft do all, fince his doing all is the greatest encouragement thereunto; fo it is as dangerous on the other hand to use means, upon a notion that you must do all, or that the weight of the warfare depends upon you, and your duties: For your entertaining that notion, is the greateft difcouragement in the world to the use of the means, and gives your enemies the greatest advantage against you, even in that wherein you think to defeat them. 3. Beware of thinking that you may lawfully enter into a league with any of your enemies, because they are not to be deftroyed but by little and little. See what God fays to Ifrael, with refpect to the Canaanites, ver. 2d of this chapter where the text lies, and elsewhere; Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor fhew mercy to them. While we are fhowing that fanctification and mortification is not perfected in the faints while they are here, and that the nations of lufts even in their heart are not all to be destroyed in this world; fome carnal heart may be ready to think, my blefling on the minifler, Gg 4 who |