terms were simply, Do this and liveh: and, for an example of its inexorable rigour, Moses himself was, for one unadvised word, excluded from the land of promise. The office of saving men must belong to another ; and, for this reason, it was trans- ferred to Joshua, who had been both appointed to it, and thoroughly qualified by God for the discharge of it l.
Jesus also was commissioned to bring his followers into the Canaan that is above. He, probably in reference to Joshua, is styled the Captain of our salvationk: and he appeared to Joshua himself in this very character, proclaiming himself to be the Captain of the Lord's host1. "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh," the Lord Jesus Christ came to effect m. He has been divinely qualified for the work; and, like Joshua, was " encouraged to it, and strengthened in it," by an assurance of God's continual pre- sence, and support". He leads his people on from grace to grace, from strength to strength, from victory to victory0. Nor will he ever desist from his work, till he shall have sub- dued his enemies, and established his people in their promised inheritance.]
Happily for us the resemblance may be likewise traced,
3. In his success —
[Nothing could oppose any effectual bar to Joshua's pro- gress. Though Jordan had overflowed its banks, its waters were divided, to open him a path on dry landp. The im- pregnable walls of Jericho, merely at the sound of rams' horns, were made to fallq. Confederate kings fled before himr. City after city, kingdom after kingdom, were subjected to his all- conquering arms : and almost the whole accursed race of Ca- naanites were extirpated, and destroyed8. The promised land was divided by him amongst his followers1: and he appealed to them with his dying breath, that not so much as one, of all the promises that God had given them, had ever failed ".
And shall less be said respecting our adorable Emmanuel ? He " triumphed over all the principalities and powers" of hell; and causes his followers to trample on the necks of their mightiest foesx. He leads them safely through the swellings of Jordan, when they come to the border of the promised landy ; and, having given them the victory, he divides among
h Rom. x. 5. * Deut. xxxiv. 9. k Heb. ii. 10.
i Josh. v. 13—15. m Rom. viii. 3. n Isai. xlii. 1, 4, 6.
0 Ps. lxxxiv. 7. 2 Cor. iii. 18. Rev. vi. 2. p Josh. hi. 17. q Josh. vi. 20. r Josh. x. 16. s Josh. xii. 7.
1 Josh. xi. 23. and x viii. 10. u Josh, xxiii. 14. x Rom. xvi. 20. with Josh. x. 24. y Isai. xliii. 2.