Let us consider the circumstances here recorded;
and,
I. The proposal made by the people —
[The report given by the spies was very unfavourable : the cities were represented as impregnable, being " walled up to heaven ; " and the people of such a gigantic stature, that the Israelites were no more than as grasshoppers before them. The climate, too, was represented as so unhealthy, that " the land ate up the inhabitants thereof V Hence the people were led to " despise the land" as unworthy of their pursuit0, and to despair of attaining it against such formidable enemies: yea, they impiously wished that they had died in Egypt, when the Egyptian first-born were slain; or in the wilderness, when God sent a plague among the people for worshipping the golden calf.
Under the influence of their unbelieving fears, they proposed to make a captain over them, and to return to Egypt, from whence they had come out. They judged this to be so wise a measure, that no one could doubt of its expediency: " Were it not better for us to return into Egyptd?"
And are we not likely to hear of similar proposals at this time? You profess now to have dedicated yourselves to Al- mighty God, and to be bent on the attainment of the heavenly Canaan. But are you prepared to encounter the discourage- ments which you will meet with in the way ? You have pro- mised, before God, to " renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh ;" but are you girt for the warfare, and ready to go forth, in the strength of Christ, against these mighty foes ? What reports, alas ! will you hear ! The mortality amongst the Canaanites, which the spies represented as arising from the climate, was no other than that occasioned by the hornets, which God, according to his promise, had sent, to weaken the people of the land, and thereby to facilitate the entrance of Israel into ite: yet was that made an additional ground for desisting from the enterprise. In like manner, the very exercises of mind, whereby God weakens the corruptions of his people's hearts, and ensures to them a final victory over all their enemies, are urged, by ignorant and unbelieving men, as reasons for declining all attempts to secure the heavenly inheritance : and you will hear repentance itself decried as melancholy, and denounced as little better than a prelude to insanity. In addition to such obstacles from without, (for I confine myself to those which arise from report only, without
* Numb. xiii. 31—33. c Ps. cvi. 24. " ver. 3.
e Compare Exod. xxiii. 28. Deut. vii. 20. Josh. xxiv. 12.
e2