a manner.

Again: it is recorded in history that 185,000 Assyrians were slain in their camp in one night. This account we read, and we make no murmur. But when we hear it is added that these were slain" by the angel of the Lord,"* then we begin to tax God with the act, and call in question His right to act in so summary We forget that this is God's world, equally when He audibly or sensibly ordains, as when He silently directs, the affairs of men. We forget that our property, our connexions— ay, and our lives also, belong to Him, and that we have no further right to them, after His fiat has gone out against our further enjoyment of them. As it was He who gave us these things, not ourselves, so He has a right to take them away: at least, whatever we may think, He shows His sovereignty in doing so.

Away then with these puerile objections. It is enough if we have good evidences to believe that in the destruction of these Canaanite nations there was a direct commission from God. For a real commission from God must necessarily sanctify and justify its execution, however painful and terrible it may be. And thus, if there is reason to believe from other circum* Isa. xxxvii. 36.

stances that Joshua was divinely commissioned, then are sanctioned and vindicated all the acts done by him.

And so much for the destruction of parts of mankind by Joshua. But the above reasoning will as fully apply to the destruction of the meaner animals by the prophets or apostles of God. "Go," said Jehovah to Saul," and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.' ""* Yes, and God acts in this very manner in the visible creation. "Go," says God in His providence to the storm and to the earthquake, "go and smite man and womon, ox and sheep, camel and ass." And thus the pagan poet, when he is describing the tremendous effects of a flood, does not omit, in his catalogue of disasters, the cattle + which have been swept away by its fury.-I will just add here, that on similar principles is vindicated the destruction of the swine by our Lord, as recorded in the Gospel.‡

Only, in short, let it be shown there is good reason for concluding that acts of terrible exe

* 1 Sam. xv. 3.

+ Horace, Ode iii. 39. Matt. viii. 32.

cution are done by the command of God, then they receive complete vindication, and we are bound to acknowledge them as flowing from His sovereign will. For all creation are under His sway, and He gives and takes away life and all its enjoyments from every creature as seemeth to Him best, and in the manner also which seemeth to Him best. Men are but instruments of His will, and that, too, often unconsciously. Cyrus was but effecting the design of God, when he was fulfilling his own design; for it had been said of him by Jehovah, "He shall perform all my pleasure."*

* Isa. xliv. 28.

SECTION XV.

1 SAM. XXV. 22, and the like; with GEN. xix. 4; HABAK. ii. 16; ROM. i. 26, 27, &c.

It is thought strange that God should have allowed of such expressions and statements as occur in the above passages, knowing that they would be read aloud to congregations, to the discomfiture of female modesty.

But, if we will look into the world of nature, we shall find that the Almighty has not shown (if I may be allowed the expression) such scrupulous and refined nicety in the works of creation, or in the order of His providence, as this objection would suppose. To adduce instances is a matter which itself requires delicacy, and this is a proof how much the Bible here symphonizes with Nature.

Are there no other occasions, then, on which female modesty is offended and put to the blush? Do not the very actions, referred to in the first passage at the head of this section, often supply such occasions, as well as similar

ones which may be predicated also of one of the species of our domestic animals, and of the two most useful of our larger animals? Are there no circumstances connected with the laws of succession in animal nature, as they come almost daily before our eyes, which supply such occasions? Is female modesty never offended in submitting the most painful disclosures to medical men ?-in being obliged to give evidence in court on the most delicate investigations ?-or abruptly and painfully to leave a court at their commencement? And, to extend these remarks to boys, are not expressions in the profane writers read by boys at our public schools, notwithstanding all the attempts at expurgating the text, at variance with the correct remark of the Roman satirist, that the greatest reverence is due to youth? I might add, are no terminations read in Latin words, or idioms in Greek ones, which are strangely offensive to modesty?

It is objected also that there are so many passages in Scripture respecting the travail of mothers, as if nature herself had not already evidenced by visible signs the state antecedent to it.