remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. Moreover, it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto themc." Joshua also, at the close of his life, reminded them, that " no man had been able to stand be- fore them :" and then assured them, that " one man of them should be able to chase a thousand, if only they would take heed to themselves to love the Lord their God : but that, if they did in any wise go back, and cleave unto the nations which remained among them, and make marriages with them ; then know for a certainty," says he, " that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you d." Accordingly, this prediction was soon verified ; and God punished them, as he had said : for, on their " making leagues with the inhabitants of the land," they were induced at last to " forsake the Lord, and worship Baal and Ashteroth :" and " the Lord's anger was kindled against them ; and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies : and they were greatly distressed. Therefore the Lord left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua6."
Thus in this dispensation there was a mixture of mercy and of judgment: of mercy primarily; of judgment through their own fault.]
This view of God's dealings with his people of old affords us a fit occasion to inquire into,
II. His design in a corresponding dispensation to- wards his people at this day — The redemption which he has vouchsafed to us through the blood of his only dear Son might justly lead us to expect, that when once we are truly brought out from the dominion of sin and Satan, our triumphs over them would be complete. But it is not so: for though the yoke with which we were oppressed is loosened, a measure of our bondage still remains : there is yet " the flesh lusting against the spirit, so that we cannot do the things that we would f ; " yea more, "there is yet a law in our members
c Numb, xxxiii. 55. d Josh, xxiii. 9 — 13.
« Judg. ii. 2, 12—15, 23. f Gal. v. 17.