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you indeed leave them a wretched inheritance. Are you fhocked at the cruelty of those parents who of old devoted their children to the murderous Moloch? Tremble, left you be found chargeable with cruelty ftill more fatal, as terminating in the deftruction of their immortal fouls.

What encouragement have you to love that gracious God, who "keepeth mercy for thou"fands!" Let your prayers daily reach the throne in behalf of your beloved children. Let them daily witness your holy converfation. Both may be bleffed of God, as means of their eternal falvation. What comfort muft it afford you, if you be inftrumental in bringing them to the participation of that mercy which he extends to yourfelves!

Let thofe, who are the children of wicked parents, avoid their evil example. Nor is this enough. The Lord requires of you, that you be humbled in his fight on account of their iniquities. He requires, that you should come to his throne with this language in your lips, as procceding from the heart: "We have finned "with our fathers.--We lie down in our fhame, "and our confufion covereth us: for we have

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finned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, "and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our "God 9.??

q Pfal. cvi. 6.; Jer. iii. 25.

SECT

SECTION VI.

On the Deftruction of the Nations of Canaan.Preliminary obfervations.-This Punishment confiftent with Divine Juftice.-Contained a fignal difplay of Wisdom, and even of Goodness.-Objections anfwered.

IT has been commonly urged by Deifts, as a powerful argument against the truth of the Old Teftament, that it is utterly inconceivable that God fhould enjoin the Ifraelites to exterminate the nations of Canaan. The idea, it has been faid, is totally irreconcilable with divine juftice, and with the other perfections of Deity. Hence it has been inferred, that God never gave any fuch command; and of confequence, that those writings, in which it is afcribed to him, must be a grofs impofition upon mankind.

But let us attend to the primary fact. These nations were either deftroyed, in part at leaft, by the Ifraelites, or they were not. It is scarcely fuppofable, that any will adopt the latter hypothefis. How can it otherwise be imagined, that the Ifraelites got poffeffion of the country formerly belonging to the Canaanites? That the Ifraelites were not the first inhabitants, appears unde

niable,

niable, not only from the conftant acknowledgment of this people, but from various veftiges in profane history. Some of thefe have been formerly confidered. Were it neceffary, a variety of others might be produced. According to Procopius, a celebrated writer of the fixth century, many of the Girgafhites, Jebufites, and other Canaanitish nations, fettled at Tingis, now Tangier, in Africa. 66 There," he fays, " nigh a large "fountain, appear two pillars of white ftone, ha"ving this infcription engraved on them in Phe"nician characters, We are those who fled from "the face of Joshua, the fon of Nave, the rob"ber." Whatever may be thought of this infcription, his teftimony with refpect to Canaanites fettling in that part of the country, is confirmed by different writers. Auguftine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa, teftifies, that "if any of the "boors in the neighbourhood of Hippo or Car

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thage was asked who he was, or of what coun

try, he answered that he was a Canaanite "." Eufebius alfo afferts, that the Canaanites, who were routed by Joshua, led colonies into Africa, and fettled at Tripolit. Even Mela the geographer, who flourished in the reign of Claudius Cæfar, and who had been born in the neighbourhood of Tingis, admits that the Tingitanians were Phenicians ". This I need fcarcely fay, was the name by which the inhabitants of Palestine were generally known among other nations. The Greek poet

r Vandalic. lib. 2.

⚫ Chron. lib. a.

s Ap. Bocharti Chanaan, lib. i. c. 24.
u Geog. lib. ii. c. 6.

poet Nonnus, from fome authors whofe works are now loft, affures us, that Cadmus the Phenician made a very fuccefsful expedition into these parts of Africa. "Philiftus of Syracufe, a writer of "good authority, who lived above three hundred "and fifty years before Chrift, relates, that the "firft traces of Carthage, were owing to Zorus "and Charchedon, two Tyrians or Phenicians, thirty years before the destruction of Troy, ac"cording to Eufebius "."

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If it be admitted that the Ifraelites deftroyed or expelled the Canaanites, fo as to get poffeffion of the principal part of their land; to every candid inquirer, it will appear neceffary to adopt the fcriptural narrative of this conqueft as the only true one. For, if this be rejected, it seems impoffible to form any hypothefis on this fubject that will even have the air of probability.

It cannot be fuppofed that the Ifraelites vanquifhed the Canaanites from their fuperior bravery or skill in the ufe of arms. For although every other nation hath difcovered the greatest reluctance to renounce any portion of military glory, to which either in former or later times they could exhibit any claim, the Ifraelites have still afcribed their victories on this occafion to divine power. However zealous for the honour of their ancestors, they have faid in all their fucceeding generations; "We have heard with our ears, O "God, our fathers have told us, what work thou "didft in their days, in the times of old. How

y Anc. Univ. Hift. vol. xvii p. 220.

"thou

"thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, "and plantedft them; how thou didst afflict the "people, and caft them out. For they got not "the land in poffeffion by their own fword, nei"ther did their own arm fave them: but thy

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right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy "countenance, becaufe thou hadft a favour unto "them." Not one of their writers, in a fingle instance, attempts to ingratiate himself with his nation, by employing any other language. This conduct, fo directly contrary to that of every other people, nay, to the fixed principles of human nature, manifefts the fulleft and most impreffive conviction of the truth of what they affert.

It is irrational, indeed, to suppose that the Ifraelites fhould be equal to the Canaanites in military power. The former, it is admitted on all hands, were in a state of flavery in Egypt. The Ifraelites themselves acknowledge, that they were afraid to encounter the Canaanites, because they were mightier than they; that they murmured at the report of the fpies who were fent to view the land; that they refufed to enter into it; and that on this account God' deftroyed them in the wilderness.

No one, furely, will venture to affert, that the Ifraelites overpowered the Canaanites in confequence of their fuperiority as to numbers. An undifciplined multitude could have done little against a variety of nations fo inured to war, as to have chariots of iron, and, according to the ftrong metaphors

Pfal. xliv. 1.-3.

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