and faith, will He remember our iniquities against us no more.

Let the guilty, that go yet unpunished, make an end of all, in God's privy chamber of mercy by repentance, that so His open judicial proceeding in court may be stopped" (Trapp).

6. God's judicial vengeance to be executed by Israel and on Israel.-(1) Sin seen in its true light must inspire horror. The patience of God appears in His not immediately striking blind the sons of Belial in Gibeah, as He smote those in Sodom. We might have expected that He would consume their city with fre from heaven, as He consumed the similarly guilty cities of the plain. But God gave to Israel the honour of avenging His cause in this present world on the city with the sword, and in the world to come He will consign those who go after strange flesh to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 7). The saints shall share in the honour of judging the ungodly world (Ps. cxlix. 5-9; 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3). The horror of Gibeah's deed of lust and death was intensified by the terrible mode of the Levite's proclamation of it. We cannot too much loathe evil: and if sin were perceived, not in the false light that passion, the world, and Satan represent it, as sweet and attractive, but as it is in reality, viewed in the light of God's coming judgment, and in its blackness, filthiness, and deadliness to body and soul for ever, men would recoil from it with trembling fear. The wages of our sin is indeed death. How we ought to prize "the gift of God," which is "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord;" and love Him who saith to each, "Thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help' (Hos. xiii. 9).

(2) The people of God ought to be zealous in vindicating His honour. The only bright gleam in this sad war in Israel is Israel's holy zeal against the transgressors of God's law. Indifference to evil, easy connivance at its commission, and the absence of jealous care to clear one's self from complicity in it, are sure marks of declension in religion, as the opposite spirit characterises soundness in the faith (see 2 Cor. vii. 11). The Searcher of hearts bestows this praise on the church of Ephesus: "I know, how thou canst not bear them which are evil" (Rev. ii. 2, 20); and censures the church of Thyatira thus:

"I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel to seduce my servants to commit fornication." The child of God must be of the same mind as his Father concerning evil and evil doers; so Samuel (1 Sam. xv. 35, xvi. 1), and David (Ps. cxxxix. 21, 22).

(3) The appeal of the Levite speaks to us." Behold, ye are all children of Israel." Noblesse oblige. Our high vocation is an obligation that we should in nothing dishonour "that worthy name by which we are called" (James ii. 7). A wrong committed against one member affects the whole body, for in the spiritual Israel "we are members one of another" (Eph. iv. 25). As being such, all ought to prefer the common good to individual interests; as the Israelites would not return to their homes, however personal considerations might tempt them, until they had vindicated the honour of God and Israel by exacting justice from the wrong-doer. Nor ought we to defer till to-morrow the work which can be done to-day. Strike whilst the iron is hot; for zeal is apt to cool, if the work to be done is not set about immediately.

(4) Unity is strength.—“ The congregation gathered together as one man"—"all the men of Israel-knit together as one man" (ch. xx. 1, 11). This was their glory and power now, that when the common good was at stake, they were all of one mind. Subsequently it was their weakness and their shame, that in their ever-deepening degeneracy the several tribes became more and more disunited. Thus it is the complaint of Deborah and Barak, in their song concerning the conflict with Canaan: "Reuben abode among the sheepfolds, Gilead beyond Jordan, Dan in ships, Asher on the seashore," when they ought to have been united with their brethren against the common foe (ch. v. 16, 17). How much more ought we as believers to be associated as one man against the great enemy of Christ and mankind, and not with fatal selfishness prefer our grovelling earthly aims to the cause of the Lord and the advancement of His kingdom! Thus originally "the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul" (Acts iv. 32). But soon 'divisions' arose, and with them came weakness and declension from the first purity and love

(Acts xv. 1, 2; 1 Cor. xi. 18, 19). Let us all return back to the primitive simplicity of the faith as it is in Jesus; and so "having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind" (Phil. ii. 2), we shall be to our spiritual foe "terrible as an army with banners" (Song Sol. vi. 4).

(5) Judgment on all may be averted by timely surrender of the guilty one. Before the Israelites proceeded to fight, they first would treat. To arrive at a just decision, both sides must be heard. After hearing the Levite's statement, the Israelites appealed to the Benjamites to give up the criminals, that they might be publicly put to death, and so the national guilt might be removed, the infection of evil be cut off, and national judgments from God averted (compare 1 Cor. v. 6, 7). A sin so like that of Sodom, might, if not judicially punished, bring on all the doom of Sodom. A little concession in time would have saved Benjamin a sanguinary war, ending in the almost total extinction of the tribe. "Only by pride cometh contention, but with the well-advised is wisdom" (Prov. xiii. 10). Pride will not stoop to own a wrong and to surrender the wrong-doers. So "pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Prov. xvi. 18). By screening the guilty from their due punishment, we make ourselves responsible for their sins. By countenancing them, or glossing over their transgressions with soft names, we "have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness," which we ought rather to ' reprove' (Eph. v. 11).

(6) God's holy controversy with both Israel and Benjamin accounts for Benjamin's infatuation in rejecting Israel's appeal.— Benjamin dared in arms to oppose both a righteous cause, which God Himself would espouse for the honour of His justice, and also vastly superior numbers. Self-conceit, relying on that skill, and especially on the expertness of their slingers, tempted them to such a presumptuous venture. Sinners, instead of counting the awful cost (Luke xiv. 31; Isa. xxvii. 4, 5, 7; Amos iv. 12) of meeting God in battle, rush blindly against Him who is infinitely stronger than they (1 Cor. x. 22; see Job xv. 25, 26). Clever as the Benjamite marksmen were to sling stones at an hair-breadth and not miss, they utterly

missed their mark in defending an unrighteous cause. The Hebrew for 'sin' (chata) is the same as that for missing the mark (ch. xx. 16). The glory of God is man's true aim. Man's sin lies in this, he "comes short of the glory of God" (Rom. iii. 23). It is not merely his open offences against his fellowmen, and against his own body and soul, but all things wherein he fails to "glorify the God in whose hands his breath is, and whose are all his ways" (Dan. v. 23; Rom. i. 21; 1 Cor. x. 31) constitute sin; and "the wages of sin is death." But God permitted Benjamin's infatuated obstinacy, so as to subserve His purpose of chastising Israel first by Benjamin, and then sorely judging Benjamin by Israel.

(7) Judgment must begin at the house of God (see 1 Pet. iv. 17). At first sight it seems strange that those vindicating a just cause against the transgressors should be permitted by God to suffer so severely. The Israelites were fighting Jehovah's battles, and with His commission; and yet the guilty Benjamites conquered them once and again. The first lesson to be learned from this case is, we must justify God in His dealings even before we see the reasons of them (Rom. iii. 4, ix. 20). Next, observe "the battle is not to the strong." The Israelites probably relied too much on mere numbers. They must be taught that it is not by might or power of men, but by the Spirit of Jehovah, the victory is to be won (ch. vii. 2–7; Zech. iv. 6). When we lean on an arm of flesh, it proves a disappointing stay, and as a reed that pierces the hand that trusted it. Thirdly and chiefly, the Israelites must be taught bitterly to know their own transgressions, before they execute God's judgment upon other transgressors. It was not for their own righteousness, but for the wickedness of their brethren, that they were employed by God for the latter purpose (Deut. ix. 5). Even with themselves there were sins against the Lord their God (2 Chron. xxviii. 10). Keen as they were to vindicate the public order and law against the filthiness of Gibeah and their Benjamite abettors, they were indifferent in the case of Micah and the Danites to execute the law of God against idolaters (Deut. xiii. 12-17): they must therefore be made to feel their own dereliction of duty first,

before they can be fit instruments of God's justice against their brethren. Lastly, we learn not to judge of the merits of a cause by its present want of success. Wait till the end, and God will vindicate the right at last (see Lam. iii. 26).

(8) Consultation of God, in order to gain God's blessing, must be single-minded. The Israelites asked not, Shall we go up and succeed? They were too confident of success because of the goodness of their cause, and the greatness of their numbers, forgetting that their own hands were not altogether clean, and that success does not always attend a multitude. They slighted their adversary; so they at first suffered severe reverses. We are then most apt to miscarry in our spiritual warfare, when we rely on ourselves, and forget the power of our spiritual enemies. Again, we may profess to consult the Lord, and all the while have made up our own minds as to our course and its issue. They did not pray for success, as if all depended on God, nor did He promise it in answering them "Go up." It is righteous retribution that God should answer the doubleminded inquirer according to the multitude of his idols (Ezek. xiv. 4). When the Israelites, after their first failure, "encouraged themselves, and set their battle again in array" in the same place as before, they evidently were acting under the influence of pique and wounded pride: they will on the same spot avenge their mortification and defeat, retrieve their credit, and humble their Benjamite brethren. This vain-glorious spirit accounts for their second humiliation before those whom they had despised. It is true they had "wept before the Lord," in asking His counsel again; but they wept more for their losses than for their sins which had caused them. Their cry was the cry of anguish, not that of repentance and faith (compare Hos. vii. 14). They "encouraged themselves," but not in the Lord their God, as David did when greatly distressed (1 Sam. xxx. 6); their ground of confidence still was in the justice of their cause and the numbers of their army. They needed yet to be taught by one chastisement more to humble. themselves under the mighty hand of God, that He might exalt them in due time (1 Pet. v. 6). We cannot serve the Lord, unless we forsake all heart-idols, and be thorough in His