couragement, "The Lord thy God will go before thee," to conquer the nations of enemies in your way. Unbelievers, indeed, ought to ule the means, because the Lord commands the ufe 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 ufe 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 muft expect to meet with your Captain, that hath engaged to put out the nations before thee.

2. Beware of thinking that the ftrength of the warfare lies upon you, becaufe 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 the body of death, or fubdue one corruption, that were a beating your enemies with a fword of ftraw: fuch a fleshly weapon will never draw blood of your fpiritual enemies; and, instead, of getting victory over your fins by fuch legal weapons, you are brought under greater bondage; For as many as are of 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 Strength 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 muft do all, or that the weight of the warfare depends upon you, and your duties: for your entertaining that notion, is the greatest discouragement in the world to the ufe of the means, and gives your enemies the great

Ee 3

eft

eft 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, becaufe they are not to be deftroyed but by little and little. See what God fays to Ifrael, with refpect to the Canaanites, verse 2. of this chapter where the text lies, and elfewhere; "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 deftroyed in this world; fome carnal heart may be ready to think, My bleffing on the minifter, who, by this doctrine, makes me think I may get to heaven tho' my lufts be not all destroyed, and tho' I indulge myself in fome of the pleasures of the flesh; and, I hope, I may have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my heart, adding drunkennefs to thirft,' and one fin to another. Say you fo, man, woman? I must tell you, that your fpeech bewrays you, that you are not an Ifraelite bound for the heavenly Canaan; for, curfed is that peace that is confiftent with a standing league and covenant with any luft whatfoever. Such are in covenant with death, and at agreement with hell; and, "There is no peace, faith my God, to the wicked." The children of God dare not maintain a league with any luft, nor will they fhew mercy on their most darling lufts: nay, as it is faid of fome, that their tender mercies are cruelty; fo I may fay of the believer, in this cafe, that his moft tender mercy toward his most beloved luft is cruelty; when he acts like himself, he is fo cruel-hearted, he would cut the throat of it, if he could, and even of all his lufts.

4. Beware of thinking that believers have no advantage against the nations of their enemies, fins and lufts, more than others, because they are not utterly destroyed: nor let believers themfelves think, that becaufe their deliverance is not effected prefently, therefore it will never be effected; for the Lord their God is upon the deftroying work, only he will take his own time and his own way to his own work, and his time and

way

way both is the beft: The Lord thy God will do it by little and little. Hence a believer may be getting advantage, and gaining ground upon corruptions and lufts, even when he feels them ftirring and raging molt vio lently it may be they have got a dead firoak for all that; as a beat that hath got a death's blow, may break off from thofe that are holding it, and turn more mad than ever, and yet will die at length of the fame blow. The devil may rage mott, when he nows that his time is fhort, and that he will be foon caft out, and bruifed under feet. Corruption is not always frongcft, when its motions are moit felt; it may be ftrongeft, when the ftrength of it is not feen.

Ufe 2. The fecond ufe may be for Information. Many things might be here inferred; as,

1. Hence we may fee the privilege even of a visible church, whom the Lord hath not utterly forfaken, tho' filled with fin, as it is faid, Jer. li. 5. As they have the Lord for their God, in the fenfe that I explained before, and as Ifrael here was privileged; fo, by virtue of that relation to God as their God, they may have manifold mercies in common among them, as a mixed vifible church, beyond the reft of the world: the Lord may appear for them againft the heathen nations that are about them, and that are among them; and he may do great things for them, by virtue of that relation that he ftands in to them as their God, and they his profeffing people. As this text relates to Ifrael of old literally, it represents a privilege common to all that people, namely, the Lord's driving out the nations of the Canaanites before them; and may we not fay, The Lord hath in like manner dealt with us, particularly in the church of Scotland, feveral times?-As the Lord planted a church here very early, not many years after Chrift's afcenfion; fo by little and little he drove out the heathen nations before us: when our own forefathers were a race of blind Pagans here, the Lord deftroyed that idolatry, and gradually enlarged his church, till, in procefs of time, Popery entering in, we were over-run with Antichriflian nations. But lo, when the time to favour Zien was coine; I mean,

Ee 4

mean, the time of the Reformation from Popery, the Lord was pleafed to drive out thefe other nations before us by little and little, and gradually carried on the Reformation-work, and that by the method of folemn covenanting with him; and this covenanting work was carried on by little and little, again and again, till the whole nation came under folemn obligations this way. As Ifrael avouched the Lord to be their God, by folemn covenants, that were binding and obligatory upon them and their pofterity after them; fo, in this duty of vowing to the Lord, which is a moral duty, and confequently incumbent on the church of God'under the new, as well as old difpenfation, and not like the types and fhadows that were to be done away: in this moral duty, I fay, we in our forefathers followed the example of the church of Ged in fcripture, by entering into folemn covenant with him; which work the Lord, in many fignal ways, countenanced with his prefence, in the remarkable effufion and out-pouring of the Spirit, to the converfion of multitudes. It is the glory of a church, when God avouches them for his people, by the external difpenfation of the covenant of grace; and it is alfo the glory of a church, when they avouch God to be their God, in a moft folemn Covenant of duty and fervice. This was a part of Scotland's glory, attended with internal difplays of the power and glory of God in the fanctuary.-To prove the obligation of thefe Covenants upon pofterity to all generations, were, I fuppofe, needlefs in this auditory; neither would time allow me to infift here: but I think, to difparage thefe Covenants, and to deny the obligation thereof, is to caft dung upon our glory, and to tread our honour in the duft; yea, I think it worfe than the breaking, burning, and burying of them: for a broken covenant may be mended again; a burnt covenant may come forth out of the furnace again; yea, a buried Ccvenant may rife again, when God raifes up a Reformation fpirit: but to befpatter the reputation of them, and impugn the obligation of them, is, I think, to render them odious to all generations, inftead of binding upon them. But now, as our Reformation was carried on

by

by little and little; fo, when it is under a decay in many refpecs, let us look to the Lord our God, that, by little and little, it may be revived again, in the Lord's own time and way.

2. As we fee hence the privileges of a visible church; fo the special and peculiar privilege of the true Ifrael of God, the church fpiritual and invifible, though militant on earth: the Lord their God will caft out the nations before them in a fpiritual fenfe, and that by little and little. May it not be faid of them, as it is, Deut. xxxiii. 29. "Happy art thou, O Ifrael; who is like unto thee, O people faved by the Lord, who is the fhield of thy help, and the fword of thine excellency?" And verfe 27. "The eternal God is thy refuge, underneath are his everlafling arms: He fhall thruft out the enemy before thee, and fhall fay, Deftroy them." What though all the nations of the world were against them, outward and inward; the nations of earth and hell both? Yet he, who is the King of nations, is for them; and if God be for them, who can be againft them? He can deftroy nations for their fake; "I gave Egypt for thy ranfom; Ethiopia and Seba for thee." The nations may fight, but cannot prevail; nay, the gates of hell can never prevail against them. Why? They have the Lord for their God; and their God is their guard. And as the common relation that God ftands in to a mixed vifible church, intitles them to many privileges while that relation ftands; fo the fpecial relation that the true Ifrael of Ged fland in to him, as their God in Chrift, by a fpiritual, indiffolvable union, intitles them to all fpiritual bleflings and deliverances. However difficult and dangerous their way to the heavenly Canaan is, by reafon of the numerous oppofing nations, which they can never deftroy of themselves; yet their God and Captain leads the van, and drives out the nations before them.

3. See here the miferable cafe of the nations that know not God, and are enemies to the people of God. Why, like the curfed Canaanites, they are devoted to destruction; they vex themselves in vain, when they fight against the Lord and his anointed. The Lord God of Ifrael is to drive them out; yea, he will drive them to hell, that

con