them distinct and separate from the rest of the nations as his own people and kingdom. 2. Many of these laws were in themselves excellently suited to the advantage of that people, dwelling in that country and under those circumstances. 3. Some of these laws had a moral or spiritual meaning in them, which might partly be known at that time, and which was further discovered afterwards.

*

26 Q. What instances can you give of moral lessons taught by these political laws? A. Thou shalt not take the dam with the young, Deut. xxii. 6, 7. is to teach men mildness and compassion. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn, Deut. xxv. 4. is to shew that ministers who provide us spiritual food, ought to be maintained themselves; 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10. for so the apostle Paul has explained it.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE SINS AND PUNISHMENTS OF THE JEWS IN THE WILDERNESS.

1 QUESTION.

AFTER all this account of the moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws, can you tell me whether the people of Israel obeyed them or no?

A. No; they often broke the laws of God, and sinned against him, and were often punished; Isaiah Ixiii. 10. Psalm 1xxviii. 32-34.

2 Q. What were their most remarkable sins against God in the wilderness?

A. Besides their murmurings at some difficulties in the beginning of their journey, their first remarkable and notorious crime was their making a golden calf, and worshipping it at the foot of mount Sinai; Exodus xxxii. 4, 8.

3 Q. What temptation, or what pretence could they have for such a crime?

A. Moses was gone up into mount Sinai, and tarried there so many days longer than they expected, that they wanted some visible token of God's presence among them; and so they constrained Aaron to make this golden image to be a representation of the presence of God, but without God's appointment; Exodus xxxii. 1.

Note, It is scarcely to be supposed that this was the mere image of a common calf, or that the Jews could fall down and worship such an image: Or that they could suppose an ox or calf, which was the idol of their enemies the Egyptians, was a proper emblem of the God of Israel, their deliverer from Egypt. Probably therefore it was the image of a cherub, partly in the form of a winged ox: And since God was represented immediately afterwards by Moses as dwelling among the cherubims on the mercy-seat, this might be a common opinion or notion beforehand among the people, even of that age:* And it might be made as a visible representation of the presence of God, for they proclaimed a feast to Jehovah, verse 5. in the same manner as Jeroboam, long afterward, made perhaps the same sort of images for the same purpose, which are called calves.

There were some things relating to the worship of God which that people had some general notion of before Moses went up into the mount to learn all the particulars from God; as for instance, they had altars and sacrifices, and sprinkling of blood; Exodus xxiv. 4, 6, 8. They had priests; Exodus xix. 22, 24. and a tabernacle or moveable chapel; Exodus xxxiii. 6, 7. And they might know that God dwelt among angels or some glorious winged beings as his attendants; and these cherubs might be sometimes figured as flying men with calves feet, or as flying oxen, as part of the equipage or attendants of God.

But both this and that being done without God's appointment, it was all idolatry, and in a way of utmost contempt, it was called worshipping a calf, and was accordingly punished as highly criminal. See Chapter V. Question 37.

4 Q. How did God punish them for the golden calf?

A. The children of Levi were commanded to slay their brethren, and they slew three thousand of the children of Israel; Exodus xxxii. 27, 28,

5 Q. What was another of their remarkable sins?

A. In the next stage, after Sinai, they loathed the manna which God sent them, and murmured for want of flesh; Num. xi. 4.

6 Q. How was the murmuring punished?

A. God gave them the flesh of quails in abundance, and sent the plague with it; Num. xi. 31, 33.

7 Q. What was the third of their remarkable sins?

A. Being discouraged by the spies who searched out the land of Canaan, and brought an ill report of that promised land, they were for making a captain to return to Egypt; Num. xiii. 32. and xiv. 3, 4, 36.

8 Q. How was this rebellion chastised?

A. Ten of the spies died immediately of a plague, and all the people were condemned to wander forty years in the wilderness, till all those who were above twenty years old should die by degrees in their travels; Num. xiv. 29-37.

9 Q. Who of the spies were saved?

A. None but Caleb and Joshua, who followed the Lord fully, and gave a good account of the land of promise; Num. xiv. 6, 23, 24, 37, 38. and xxvi. 65.

10 Q. What was their fourth remarkable sin?

A. When Korah, Dathan and Abiram stirred up a rebellion against Moses and Aaron; Num. xvi. 1–11.

11 Q. What was the occasion of this rebellion of Korah, and his companions?

A. They pretended that all Israel were holy, and that Aaron and his family had no more right to the priesthood than they; and that Moses took too much upon him to determine every thing among them; Num. xvi. 3, 10.

12 Q. How were Korah, Dathan and Abiram punished?

A. They and their families were swallowed up by an earthquake,* and their two hundred and fifty companions were burned by a fire which came out from God; verses 31, 35. and when the congregation murmured against Moses and Aaron for the death of these sinners, God smote above fourteen thousand of them, and they died of the plague; verses 41-50.

31 Q. What miracle did God work to shew that he had chosen Aaron's family to the priesthood?

A. He bid the heads of the people choose twelve rods for the twelve tribes of Israel, and write Aaron's name upon Levi's rod, and lay them up in the tabernacle till the morrow: At which time they took each man his rod, and Aaron's rod blossomed and yielded almonds; Num. xvii, 2-6-10.

14 Q. What was done with this rod of Aaron?

Yet in Num. xxvi. 11. the sons of Korah are excepted.

A. It was laid up in the ark to be a lasting testimony against these rebels; verse 10. and to confirm Aaron's right to the priesthood.

15 Q. What was the fifth remarkable sin of the people?

A. They murmured because of the length of the way, and for want of better food than manna; Num. xxi. 4, 5.

16 Q. How was this new murmuring punished?

A. God sent fiery serpents among them, which destroyed many of them; Num. xxi. 6.

17 Q. How were the people healed which were bitten by the serpents?

A. By looking up to a serpent of brass, which Moses put upon a high pole at God's command; Num. xxi. 8, 9.

18 Q. What was a sixth remarkable sin of Israel?

A. Whoredom and idolatry; for they loved the Midianitish women, and worshipped their gods; Num. xxv. 1, 2.

19 Q. How was this whoredom and idolatry punished?

A. By the command of God and Moses, to kill the offenders, and by a plague which slew twenty-four thousand; Num. xxv. 4, 5, 9.

20 Q. Who tempted them to this idolatry?

A. Balaam the wicked prophet and soothsayer; Num. xxxi. 16.

21 Q. Why did he tempt them to it?

A. Because God hindered him from cursing Israel, when Balak the king of Moab had hired him to do it; Num. xxii. 5-12.

22 Q. How did God hinder him?

A. Three ways. 1. By forbidding him to go at first, though afterwards he permitted him. 2. By making his own ass speak to him, to stop him when he was going. 3. By inspiring him with prophecies, and compelling him to bless Israel three or four times instead of cursing them. See Num. xxii. 12, 30, 31. and xxiii. 7—10, 18—24.

23 Q. What became of Balaam at last?

A. He was slain among the Midianites, by the men of Israel, under the conduct of Moses, before they came to the river of Jordan; Num. xxxi. 1—8.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE JEWS ENTRANCE INTO CANAAN, AND THEIR GOVERNMENT BY JUDGES.

SECTION I.

OF THE ISRAELITES POSSESSION OF CANaan.

1 QUESTION.

WHAT became of the people of Israel after all their wanderings in the wilderness?

Answer. Though their sins and punishments were many and great, yet they were not destroyed; but God brought them at last into Canaan, the land which he promised to their fathers; Joshua i. 11.

2 Q. Did Moses lead them into that land? VOL. III.

3 A

A. No; he was only permitted to see it from Mount Pisgah, and there he died, and God buried him; Deut. xxxiv. 1-8.

3 Q. Did Aaron go with them into Canaan?

A. Aaron died before Moses, and Eleazar his son was made high-priest in his room; Num. xx. 24-28.

4 Q. Why were not Moses the lawgiver, nor Aaron the high-priest, suffered to bring the people into the land of promise?

A. Because they had both sinned and offended God in the wilderness, and God would shew his displeasure against sin; Deut. xxxii. 48–51.

5 Q. What other lesson might God design to teach us by this conduct of providence? A. Perhaps God might teach us hereby that neither the laws of Moses, nor the priesthood of Aaron, were sufficient to bring us into the possession of the heavenly country, of which Canaan was a figure.

6 Q. Who was appointed to lead the people of Israel into the promised land?

A. Joshua, whose name is the same with Jesus, and who came to be the governor and captain of Israel after Moses died; Joshua iii. 13—15.

7 Q. How did they get over the river Jordan?

A. As soon as the priests who bore the ark dipped their feet in the brink of the river, the waters which were above rose up in a heap, and the channel was left dry while all the people passed over; Joshua iii. 14, 15.

8 Q. What memorial did they leave of their passing over Jordan on foot?

A. By God's appointment they took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, where the priests stood with the ark while the tribes passed over, and set them up as a monument in the place wherein they lodged the first night; Joshua iv. 3—9, 23.

9 Q. How were they commanded to deal with the Canaanites when they took their land?

A. They were required to destroy them utterly, lest if they should live they might teach Israel their idolatries and their wicked customs; Deut. vii. 16—26.

10 Q. But what right had the Jews to destroy them, and take their country? A. The Canaanites were abominable sinners, and God, by particular inspiration, made the Jews the executioners of his wrath against them, just as he might have used a plague, or the beasts of the earth to have destroyed them; and then, as the Sovereign Lord of all, he gave their forfeited country and possessions to whom he pleased; Lev. xviii. 24, 25. Psalm cxxxvi. 17-22.

Here let it be observed, that this awful instance of one nation's destroying another, and seizing their lands and possessions, was authorised by God himself, the righteous Judge of the world, in and by a long train of most conspicuous and public miracles and prophecies: So that the Israelites could not be deceived in their divine commission for this bloody work; nor is it liable to be made a precedent or a pretence for any other nation or person to treat their neighbours at this rate, be they ever so wicked, unless they can shew such astonishing and undoubted attestations of a plain commission from God, the righteous governor of the world, and the Sovereign Lord of all.

11 Q. What was the first city they took in Canaan?

A. Jericho, whose walls fell down, when by God's appointment they sounded the trumpets made of rams horns; Joshua vi. 5, 20.

12 Q. What did they do when they took the city?

1

A. By God's command they devoted it as the first-fruits, to be a sacrifice to the Lord, and therefore they burned all the goods in it, together with the city, as well as they destroyed all the inhabitants, except Rahab the harlot, and her kindred; Joshua vi. 24, 25. 13 Q. Why was Rahab spared?

A. Because she believed that God would give Israel the land of Canaan, and she hid and saved the spies whom Joshua sent; Joshua ii, 9—14. and vi. 25, 26. Heb. xi. 31. 14 Q. How did the army of Israel succeed against the men of Ai?

A. God suffered Israel to be put to flight before the men of Ai, because Achan an Israelite had stolen and hid some of the spoil of the city Jericho, which was accursed, and devoted to the fire; Joshua vii. 5—9.

15 Q. How was the anger of God appeased for this crime?

A. They mourned humbly before God, they sought out the person who had stolen this accursed thing, and stoned him and his family to death; verses 6, 13, 14, 24. 16 Q. How did they take the city of Ai at last?

A. By counterfeiting a flight, as on the former day; and when the men of Ai were drawn out of the city, the Israelites who lay in ambush entered and burned it; Joshua viii. 13-29.

17 Q. How did the Gibeonites deceive the people of Israel, and save themselves from death?

A. They sent ambassadors, with old sacks upon their asses, and old garments and mouldy bread, to prove that they came from a far country; and the men of Israel rashly made peace with them, and swore to it; Joshua ix. 4-15.

18 Q. What did Joshua do when he found that they dwelt in the midst of Canaan? A. He let them live because the elders had sworn to them, but he made them hewers of wood, and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the Lord;

verse 27.

19 Q. How did Israel conquer the king of Jerusalem, with his four allies?

A, God helped Israel by casting great hailstones from heaven upon their enemies; Joshua x. 10, 11.

20 Q. What remarkable thing did Joshua do that day?

A. He bid the sun and moon stand still, to lengthen out the day for his victory, and they obeyed him; Joshua x. 12-14.

21 Q. What did Joshua do with the five kings when he took them?

A. He called the captains of Israel to set their feet on their necks, and then he slew them, and hanged them up on five trees before the Lord; Joshua x. 24, 26.

22 Q. Did Joshua proceed to conquer the whole country?

A. The Israelites under the conduct of Joshua, went on till they had slain one-andthirty kings, and then the people rested from war for a season; Joshua xi. 23. and xii. 24.

23 Q. Where was the tabernacle first set up after they came to Canaan?

A. In Shiloh, in the tribe of Ephraim, at some distance from Jerusalem, and there it tarried above three hundred years, even till the days of Samuel; Joshua xviii. 1. 1 Sam. i. 3.

24 Q. How came it to be set up there?