position, is most potent for good. Joshua was one w only exhorted to godliness, but put in practice his own tation. Many preach abstinence from covetousness and ness, and yet live for self again, as if gain constitute godliness, instead of godliness being great gain (1 Tim. v But Joshua not only would not bow down to palpabl but kept his heart from "covetousness, which is idolatry sight of God (Col. iii. 5). He served all others be served himself; and then was content with the moun territory of Timnath-Heres as his inheritance. So m Christian be willing to make himself the servant of all, i to gain the more, and must even forego his temporal ri times, lest he should hinder the gospel of Christ (1 Cor. 19). The effect of his disinterested piety, and his last e tions to faithfulness, was, the people served Jehovah du the days of Joshua. Nay more, even after his remova Lord, the remembrance of his godly consistency, and great works which the Lord had done by him, influen elders who had been eye-witnesses of those works to 1 people in the right way, and to keep down the corr which had already begun even before Joshua's death.

So the primitive Christians served the Lord with g and singleness of heart in the age immediately succeed ascension of our Lord (Acts ii. 42-47). But even in th of the apostles there were germs of evil, which were on in check by their vigilant care (1 Cor. xi. 19; Rev. i 15, 20). But after their decease, and the removal apostolic fathers who outlived them, and who had be witnesses of the miracles wrought by them, in the p Jesus, the antitypical Joshua, the evil which, though had been discerned by the apostles, broke out as th foretold (Acts xx. 29, 30): "I know this that, af departing, shall grievous wolves enter in among you, n ing the flock; also of your own selves shall men arise, s perverse things to draw away disciples after them "shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bough and many shall follow their pernicious ways, and

covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you" (2 Pet. ii. 1-3). It was so with the generation that succeeded that of Joshua; they had not seen, and therefore they believed not. How many there are who in spiritual concerns will believe no eyes but their own (John xx. 29). May ours rather be the blessedness of those who "have not seen and yet have believed!"

Israel's lapse into idolatry.-There is given at the outset a general summary of the main features of the book of Judges (ch. ii. 11, iii. 7). The series of events recur throughout in the same spiritual order. The professing people of God apostatise; God's righteousness binds Him to punish them: their distresses constrain them to cry to Him whom they had forsaken in their prosperity: His gracious compassion is moved by their groanings, therefore He raises up a judge to deliver them: then after the judgment is past, and the judge deceased, they relapsed and corrupted themselves again, "according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire" (2 Pet. ii. 22).

Successive steps in their fall.-One sin leads on to another. Evil is a path sloping downward. The first step in Israel's declension was failure to exterminate the Canaanites, in accordance with God's command. This entailed the compromise of living among them, and maintaining intercourse with them. Then followed intermarriages (ch. iii. 6), that prolific source of degeneracy in all ages. Their not throwing lown the altars of the Canaanites soon issued in their bowing own to the gods worshipped at those altars. The motto of Toshua, "the servant of Jehovah," was, "as for me and my ouse, we will serve Jehovah" (Josh. xxiv. 15); but the egenerate people of the next generation "served Baalim and sheroth."

Cause of the evil.-The origin of their apostasy was, "they new not the Lord." If men realised the truth, that whatever il is done, is done "in the sight of the Lord" (ver. 11), hose "eyes are everywhere beholding the evil and the good," ey would not dare to sin. If too they remembered all that

they owe to Him, in the past and in the present, they not but love Him; and knowing His infinite love, they shrink back with horror from the thought of forsaking H any earthly idol. Well might God say of such unnatu suicidal wickedness, "Be astonished, O ye heavens at th be horribly afraid. For my people have committed tw they have forsaken Me the fountain of living wate hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can h water" (Jer. ii. 12, 13).

Their forsaking the Lord consisted not in an open d Jehovah, and opposition to His worship, but in th attempt to combine the outward tabernacle service of t God with the sensuous nature-worship of the heathen latter was more congenial to the corrupt heart, th spiritual religion of Him who is of purer eyes than to iniquity. Conscience was on the side of Jehovah; inc preferred the gross worship of Baal. They persuaded selves, under the plea of liberality, that it would be int and bigotry not to admit that the worship of the neigh heathen had good in it, just as these recognised the other nations. So they compromised the matter by and ceremonial recognition of Jehovah, whilst they ga hearts to the idols. But God warns us, "Go ye, serve one his idols: if ye will not hearken unto me, but po My holy name no more with your gifts and with you (Ezek. xx. 38). We must make our choice between and worldly idols, for we cannot serve both (1 Joh Matt. vi. 24). The steps downward are sure. F Israelites "did not destroy the nations, concerning w Lord commanded them: but were mingled among the and [as the necessary consequence] learned their work they served their idols; which were a snare unto the sin finally became their terrible punishment]. Y sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and daughters" (Ps. cvi. 34-38).

Professing C

Still there is the same scene enacted. are tempted to compromise principle, in order to p

world. Our high calling is to be in the world, not of the world. It is not our being in the world that ruins us, but our suffering the world to be in us: just as ships sink, not by being in the water, but by the water getting into them. Christ "gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people (Tit. ii. 14). Our privilege is to be witnesses for Christ, “the epistle of Christ known and read of all men;" "shining as lights in the world, the sons of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation;""the salt of the earth," seasoning it so as to keep it from utter corruption (Acts i. 8; 2 Cor. iii. 2, 3; Phil. ii. 15; Matt. v. 13, 14). But if professors be as salt that hath lost its savour, through forsaking the Lord for the fashions of the world, and its idols of gain, pleasure, and ambition, they are not only worthless spiritually, but a positive injury to the cause of God on earth.

God's righteous indignation at, and His retributive punishment of, their apostasy.—God loved the people of His choice, yet is jealous for His own holiness. His anger, though 'hot,' is not passion, but judicial righteousness, which will by no means clear the guilty. He marks His retributive justice by making the tempters, to whom Israel yielded, to become Israel's tormentors. The instruments of their sin became the instruments of their punishment. First, when Israel's zeal for the Lord cooled, and they evaded, rather than fulfilled, God's commandment to extirpate the idolatrous inhabitants of the land, Jehovah would not drive out the enemy before them any more, the penalty thus exactly corresponding to the offence. Their career of conquest came to a stand; they barely kept heir own; a compromise took place-the Canaanites dwelling mong the Israelites in some places, and the Israelites by ufferance dwelling among the Canaanites in others. Next, when Israel sank still lower, and actually bowed to the idols which had not been able to save the Canaanites, Jehovah sold hem into the hands of their enemies, the heathen, even as he Israelites had sold themselves to be slaves to heathenish orruptions (compare ver. 14 with 2 Kings xvii. 17; Isa. 1. 1; tom. vii. 14, 25). Had they been faithful to God, He would

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have been faithful to His promise: "There shall no n able to stand before thee" (Deut. vii. 24). But as th forsaken Jehovah, He was faithful to His threats: could not any longer stand before their enemies; for w soever they went out, the hand of Jehovah was agains for evil, as Jehovah had said" (Lev. xxvi. 17).

Let us learn from this, that the threats of God backsliders and unfaithful professors are not empty Those who knowing God yet compromise with the worl be punished by the world and with the world. God all that He saith. The transgressor's sin will find hi "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own (Prov. xiv. 14). "With the froward God will show H forward" (Ps. xviii. 26). And as not one thing hat failed of all the good things which the Lord our Go promised to His faithful people, so shall He bring up unfaithful all the evil which He has threatened xxiii. 14, 15).

Jehovah's compassion because of Israel's distress, an consequent interposition. (1) Though Israel's sore distr the righteous and necessary consequence of the peop and was the fulfilment of Jehovah's word, and thou might have justly left them to reap as they had so their groanings, by reason of them that oppressed them, His compassion. It was not their repentance of sin, repentance because of their cry in distress, that broug to their help. So it was not our foreseen penitence, bu grace, which moved Him to pity lost man, and to dev means for man's salvation (2 Sam. xiv. 14; Isa. lix. 16, 9). (2) His mode of delivering them was by raising up or saviours from among themselves. So when God int to save men, "He took not on Him the nature of ange that of man, even "the seed of Abraham" (Heb. ii. 16). has fallen, so by the Man who is also God our Savio our Judge, salvation for man is secured. As Jehov with the Judges whom He raised up, and by him delive Israelites out of the hand of their enemies (ver. 18); Father was ever with the Son (Acts x. 38, end), wh