could have been practised in other heathen countries; for they were practised in defiance of the Lord of Hosts, who had previously manifested himself in the court of Babylon. This was the great charge brought against Belshazzar: "Thou hast not humbled thyself, though thou knewest all this." It was no secret to him, that Jehovah had made himself known by his judgments in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. The dismemberment of the kingdom, and the tragic death of the great men attached to it, were the judgments of God upon heathen who had been made acquainted, far more than most other heathen, with the character of the true God. They had sinned against clearer light, and were therefore doomed to severer judgments, and by those severer judgments was the Lord still further made known.

In order to obtain full possession of all the light which is reflected on the subject now before us, from the history of Daniel's residence in Babylon, we must follow him into the reign of Darius, of whose court he was prime minister. As he was so decided a worshipper of the true God, the distinguished honor bestowed upon him was, in effect, honor given to that divine Being to whom he publicly attributed his excellent spirit of wisdom. Consequently the knowledge of the Lord was more and more extended throughout the great realms of Darius. But there were those high in power, who hated the true religion, and Daniel as its distinguished representative. These men finding nothing in the conduct of Daniel wherein they could accuse him, devised a project for his ruin, which none but heathen could devise or execute. They insidiously gained the assent of Darius to such a decree as enforced idolatry, and cut off Daniel from his wonted privilege of prayer. He was so well known for his stedfast piety, that no doubt existed as to the course he would pursue. enemies, therefore, felt sure that he would be devoured in the lion's den. Here once more is the struggle between idolaters and the true God. Which shall prevail? The persecutors of the Hebrew prophet, having enjoyed, as we have seen, great advantages for knowing the true God, knew equally well the consequences of disobeying him. Shall they not therefore be beaten with many stripes? and shall not the Lord be known yet more signally by the judgments which he shall execute upon them? Darius had been less guilty than his courtiers in this transaction; inasmuch as the scheme was theirs into which he had been unadvisedly

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drawn. Hence the judgment fell upon them; the devouring jaws that had been closed when Daniel came among them, at the entrance of his persecutors were opened by those unseen hands which no adverse power can restrain. The king had been so far enlightened in the knowledge of Israel's God, as to have some expectation that Daniel would be delivered from the murderous design of his enemies; but when this deliverance was actually effected, and vengeance had overtaken those who had hoped to aggrandize themselves by the ruin of the innocent and devout, the king was overwhelmed by a sense of Jehovah's presence and power. The decree which he put forth was in the same spirit with that of Nebuchadnezzar; but it must have had greater influence on the minds of the people, on account of the accumulating instances in which the Lord was making himself known among them by his judgments. "Then king Darius wrote unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied unto you! I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom, men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God, and stedfast forever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end. He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth."

The judgments of God upon idolatrous Babylon have been treated of at the greater length, because they afford the most signal illustration of the manifestation of his perfections, through his vengeance poured out upon the heathen. We can make no mistake in the case, because we have the inspired record of the judgments executed, the reasons of the different degrees of their severity, and of their effect in making Jehovah known.

But the principle is just the same in all the dealings of God with idolaters. Could we know as minutely, and as certainly, all the circumstances attending the judgments of God upon the heathen, as we do those connected with his judgments upon Babylon in the time of Daniel, we should doubtless see clearly, that it is only in consequence of great and inexcusable provocations that the heathen are visited by the vengeance of the Lord. Not even for the sublime purpose of making himself known throughout the world, does he willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.

We are expressly told that the Ammonites and Moabites, and the other nations round about ancient Judea, though they were

frequently made the instruments of executing the divine vengeance on rebellious Israel, were themselves visited with still severer judgments, because they were idolaters, and because they hated and persecuted the worshippers of the true God.

It has been a cause of perplexity to the devout Christian, and a weapon of attack with the infidel, that the Israelites should have been employed to inflict such terrible sufferings on the heathen nations around them, and especially on the Canaanites who were driven from their homes, those pleasant places which God designed as the goodly heritage of his people. The spirit of the gospel is so adverse to exterminating wars, that we shudder at the rehearsal of such deeds as were cominitted by Joshua, and Samuel, and Daniel, and others of whom the world was not worthy. Much more do we shudder at the imprecations on the adversaries of Israel, that they may be utterly destroyed, and their little ones taken and dashed against the stones. We come to the conclusion, that there must be some special reason why the ancient people of God were commanded to destroy their fellow-creatures without mercy. And this conclusion is just. The enemies whom they were commanded to destroy, were enemies both of God and man, wicked beyond the power of language to describe. In their contempt of Israel's God, a contempt which was increased in proportion as they knew more of him through their intercourse with his people, they sought to overthrow the true worship, and to exterminate the saints from the earth. As a necessary consequence of such hatred of God and his people, they were sunk in the most disgusting vices and revolting abominations of idolatry. The Canaanites are described, in various parts of the Old Testament, as being altogether as ripe for the destroying vengeance of heaven as were the inhabitants of Sodom, when the Lord rained fire and brimstone on them out of heaven. Now the instruments of God's vengeance are various. The storm and the earthquake are his, and his are the sword of Gideon and the jaw bone in the hand of Samson. It suited the character of the early dispensation, that God should make known to his servants his purpose to destroy the guilty inhabitants of the land, and that he should designate them as the executioners of his wrath. So ordered, they could not do otherwise than obey. Had Abraham, when God told him of his intention to destroy Sodom, been told also that he was to be the leader of a strong army sent forth for the 33

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purpose, the patriarch would no more have shrunk from the fulfilment of the decree 'than he did from the sacrifice of Isaac. He might have interceded as earnestly as he did when the angels were on their way to the devoted plain; but when he had learned what was the will of God, that would have been the end of his hesitation, though the next thing to be done should have been to bathe his sword in the blood of his own kindred.

It is indeed possible, and may be probable, that some of the Hebrews who went forth from time to time to slay the Canaanites were actuated by feelings which, by the eyes of infinite purity, were seen to be wrong. But however that might be, it is certain that the Canaanites themselves deserved at the hands of God all they ever suffered. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? The Canaanites were surrounded by the manifestations of the divine perfections in the works of creation and providence, and they should have glorified the Godhead; but instead of this, they turned his glory into the image of corruptible things; they caused their children to pass through the fire as an offering to Moloch; they uncovered the nakedness of father, and mother, and sister; the very worst and most nameless pollutions of heathenism were familiar to them. In a word, the whole horrid picture given by Paul of the entire heathen world, belonged preeminently to the Canaanites, who were filled with all unrighteousness, full of envy and murder, deceit and malignity, inventors of evil things, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful; who knowing the judg ment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

It is perfectly obvious, that the Hebrews, who were commissioned to slay the Canaanites, were aware of the cause of the destruction they inflicted; for the Lord had said to his people : "Defile not ye yourselves with any of these things; for in all these the nations are defiled, which I cast out before you; and the land is defiled; therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants."

The armies of Israel, if God saw fit, might just as well be employed in the punishment of such abominations, as might the midnight pestilence. It was enough that the punishment was righteous, and that the means of its infliction were in the hands of a holy and benevolent God. Jehovah here, as elsewhere, was made known by the judgments which he executed.

As to the destruction of little children, and of the comparatively innocent, in the general ruin, it involves the solution of a question far too deep to be hastily decided. Suffice it to say, that such is the divine economy, that children are involved in the miseries which flow from the sins of their parents. This is a fact which cannot be disputed; and every effort to explain it will naturally carry back the mind to the great Scriptural fact of the connection between Adam's transgression and the present condition of his posterity. This fact belongs indeed to the deep things of God, unfathomable by man's intelligence, at least in our present imperfect state. It becomes us to say of all these things: "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou king of saints."

Let us be careful to keep our minds constantly impressed with the serious consideration which has already been brought to view in regard to the doom of the Canaanites, and other heathen nations round about Zion. They practised themselves, and they encouraged in others, those abominations which they knew to be worthy of the severest punishment, even of death. The allegation brought against the whole heathen world by the apostle Paul,that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, was especially applicable to those nations which persisted in their idolatry and shameful vices, notwithstanding that knowledge of the true God which they had gained by their proximity to the Hebrews. It is also applicable both to Egypt and Babylon; and for this reason, they both experienced awful judgments when they rebelled against the Lord. But there were none certainly, in all the earth, who had greater opportunities of knowing the true God by means of contact with the Hebrews, than the Canaanites. The judgments which came upon them from time to time in different forms and dreadful severity, were inflicted because they rejected the God of Israel, whose character was more and more made known to them in every conflict they had with his people. Had they repented and reformed in proportion as their knowledge of the Lord increased, pardon, peace and prosperity would have been granted to them; but inasmuch as they only sinned the more when they had the greater light, they drew upon themselves continually accumulating judgments.

The enemies of Israel were frequently made the instruments in the hands of God, of punishing his people for their sins; but