The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 411

How little had Abraham to begin with I But, using whnt he had, it grew more, nud was enough to do more for him than light a thousand times as clear does for somo ()f us to-day. A man who has light upon his next step of duty bas really nn "abundance of rnelation." Do not go in for beiug omniscient, postponing all obeclience until you get light on all truth. Use yom little light well whatever it is, and so you will get more. (2) Obedience is the mode of self-enlightenment. "If nny man will do God's will, he shall know God's doctrine," So says Christ. I loing duty is the way of discoYering truth. Since the creation of the world there lias been no other. Take this. (3) All the sacraments are means of grace, not conditions of sa/.vab-0n. The Church has always been tempted to exaggerate the hclJ~fu,/ into the essential, until it says, "Extra ecclesiam, nulla salus." Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, arguing with those who held the sacrament of circumcision essential to salvation, quotes Abraham as reaching all his spirituality and accept- ance with God, "not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision," i.e., not hy sacra- ments, but without them altogether. Sacraments are aids. The mercy that gave them to he such will, in the absence of them through error or inadvertence, use some other way of enriching and enlightening the obedient heart. (4) However sunk in superstition the -heathen may be, they are capable of religion. The difference between the Christian and the heathen in the matter of spiritual advantages is not a difference between haYing all and having nothing, but between having more and having less. They have the Christian inward light-movings of God's spirit, lessons of God's prondence. God speaks to them, and "wakes their ear in the morning." They lack the testimony of_ God'8 saints, their examples, the revelation of God's highest law, a clear light on immortality ; above all, the light which comes from the life and death of the Son of God-" the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesns Christ." This fuller light would multiply vastly the number of the devout amongst them, and give a higher character to their devotion. But they may be saved, as we are .taught explicitly both by Peter and by Paul, by a Savi-lur they feel and follow, though they do not know the story of His love. (5) The heathen being thus capable cf religon, and our higher advantages being infiuential to produce it, we uught to extend to them the full light of the Saviour's glory. On.r neglect of Christian missions grows from our despair of heathen men. We ought to think of the millions in heathen darkness as Abraham's brethren, and capable of appreciating and responding to all that is true and gracious. If we riglitly reverence them, we should not eat our morsel of the bread of life alone, but sliould share it with them. Let us· seek to extend the knowledge of the gospel of Christ, and we shall yet behold many an Abraham rising up in heathen lands.-G. Yers. 14, 15.-The great appeal. From the trembling lips of one within e. step of death comes the appeal which through all the centuries since has pierced and moved and won the hearts of men. Often urged, it is not always represented accmately. Elijah may address a more degenerate generation with a challenge_ to sen-e God or to serve Baal, insisting on this as if the chances of either alternative being adopted were even. Joshua does not say, "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve-God or another," but bids them serve God, urging His claims. In the event of their being unwilling to yield to these claims, be urges with some iron~-. that shows the keenness of moral energy still in Him, that in that case they should choose amongst the deities whose feebleness they bad witnessed the one least helpless. There are several things here worthy of notice. Observe, first, an assumption underlying this appeal, viz.: J. SOME PLAN OF LIFE SHOULD BE SOBERLY THOUGHT OUT AND FOLLOWED WITH DECISION. Our "mi.t;cellaneous impulses'' always prove a poor guide. There can be neither progress, peace, strength, nor usefulness if life is desultory. We cannot e~ploy anything to good advantage, much less life, unless we know its nature, what lt lS made for, what can be done with it, its resources and its proper ends. The first question of the ' Shorter Catechism,' " What is the chief end of man ? " stands i.s tht first question of the catechism of life. Until we form some aim and keep CB. XXIV. 1-28,] THE BOOK OF .:·osHUA.