1845.] Destruction of Canaanites not sinful. 679 III. The position may be fully established from the recognition of civil government in the New Testament. Rulers are ordained of God. Whoever resisteth them resisteth the ordinance of God, no matter what the form of government may be. Now the very statement of the case shows that it is their right and duty to use forcible means if necessary, in administering the government. They bear not the sword in vain. They are a terror to evil doers. But if this were not directly asserted, it would follow from the nature of the case. If a command be lawful, all those steps which are necessary in order to execute that command are iawful. The indispensable means as well as the end are sanctioned. Now it is the duty of the magistrate, made so by the word of God, to suppress an insurrection, peaceably if he can, forcibly if he must. In this popular tumult, a city or province may be involved. To suppress it may demand a great sacrifice of life both of the innocent as well as the guilty. It may be utterly impracticable to make the discrimination. Every instance of this kind has doubtless led to the destruction of persons who were not guilty. Yet the magistrate was not in fault. He could not maintain his authority and put an end to the mischief without storming a city. Is he to desist because of the hazard to the innocent women and children within its walls? Certainly not, if human government is to be maintained. The right and the duty of maintaining this, the New Testament positively affirms. Now no government has ever existed on earth for any length of time, which has not found it necessary, in the execution of its orders, to inflict suffering even unto death on the innocent as well as on the guilty. Without the power to do this, it could not exist. But if it were wrong, then the Bible has been virtually in opposition to all actual governments, or, in effect, in opposition to its own precepts. It follows that the children of Israel were not necessarily committing sin in extirpating the Canaanites, though innocent children and others not specially in fault were involved in the common doom. IV. It may be shown, from its effects on the Israelites, that the infliction of suffering and death on one's fellow creatures does not of necessity lead to sin. It was the means of salutary moral discipline. Though painful, it produced the peaceable fruits of righteousness. It was, doubtless, a hard task for Sir Matthew Hale to pronounce some of the sentences which he did pronounce,— as they carried extreme sorrow and wretchedness into many families. Yet who can doubt but that the judge was eminent ly conscientious, that his decisions were generally just, and that they contributed to his own moral improvement. There is no doubt but that General Washington assumed the command of the American army as a matter of duty. He had no love for war or military distinction. The sad scenes through which he passed did not harden his heart or enkindle any revengeful or malignant passions. His recorded sayings and his subsequent life most fully confirm this. Yet his was a fearful path. He unsheathed the sword against the native land of his ancestors. He took up arms against his own kindred. He, more than any other American, was the cause of unutterable distress to many families left without husband or father. Not altogether dissimilar was the situation of the leader of the Israelites in the conquest of Canaan. He accepted his commission in obedience to the command of God. He and his immediate associates, performed what they considered to be an unquestionable duty. They found in their career no invincible temptations to the indulgence of malicious or cruel passions. work was conscientiously undertaken and there is not the slightest intimation that the result was in any degree unfavorable to the character of these leaders. The contrary is perfectly obvious. A firmer trust in God, a more entire devotedness to his service, illustrate the last days of him on whom the mantle of the lawgiver descended. He was thus counted worthy to stand in that illustrious company, who through faith subdued kingdoms, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Now what did not prove an incitement to sin in the leaders, could not necessarily be so to the mass of the soldiers. If the one party escaped the fiery trial, unharmed, the other might escape. That which strengthened the virtuous principle, or increased faith in God in one man, might accomplish the same in ten or one hundred individuals, acting in similar circumstances. What now was the great moral effect which God intended to produce on the minds of the Israelites? It was evidently this, -to awaken in them the deepest abhorrence of idolatry, a detestation of the worship of false gods, an inextinguishable hatred of its untold cruelties. Now the destruction of the Canaanites by an immediate divine judgment could not have made the lesson so impressive. The Israelites might have been filled with astonishment in seeing God's wrath descending, as it did on Sodom, in a storm of fire. They might have been overwhelmed 1845.] Salutary Effects on the Israelites. 681 with terror, as some of their fathers were when the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up Korah and his company; and yet in the space of a month or a year, they might have been ripe for the same rebellion and the same end. A slower process, a more detailed exhibition of God's punitive justice was needed. Idolatry must be seen in its horrid particulars. No impression could be so deep as that made by personal observation. Long-continued inspection of the pagan rites must have taught lessons that could never be effaced. "Here," the invading army might say, "the Supreme God was publicly dethroned in mock solemnity; yonder in that valley, Moloch was worshipped -besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice and parents' tears; on that high hill, under that lofty oak we saw abominations practised for which happily we have no name. The bestiality of Sodom infected the land. The very soil seemed to cry aloud for purification and the air itself loathed the corruption that it was compelled to sustain." In such circumstances, much of the horror which commonly accompanies warlike scenes would disappear. The dreadful human sacrifices offered up by the Mexicans, greatly diminish the sympathy which we should otherwise feel for them when attacked by Cortez. Those who demolished the Bastile in Paris, and the prisons of the inquisition in Spain, were really laborers in the cause of humanity, though human life was to some extent sacrificed. The Hebrews-worshippers of one God and taught to hold idolatry in the greatest abhorrence-might regard themselves as innocent executioners of a richly deserved punishment. A virtuous indignation might have been the predominant feeling in their breasts. Every sentiment of compassion towards the Canaanites must have been shocked, if not wholly paralyzed, by the cruel and obscene rites, the proofs or the actual performance of which, they were often compelled to witness. They were not dealing with personal foes, nor gratifying private malice. They were the appointed ministers of Him whose pe 1 The moral corruption of the descendants of some of the Canaanitish tribes that were spared, e. g. the Carthaginians, was proverbial throughout the pagan world. Increasing refinement had almost annihilated among other nations the cruel practice of offering human sacrifices, but nothing could prevail upon the Carthaginians to abandon it, though thereby they became an abhorrence to all civilized men. The licentiousness of the Syrians was equally proverbial with their cruelty. See Hengstenberg Beiträge I1. 506. culiar glory the people of Canaan were foully desecrating. The invading army were under no more necessity of indulging in personal ill-will or cruelty than the individual judge or magistrate of the present day when called to pronounce or execute the sentences of the law. If the temptation to sin were greater in the former case, so would the rewards of successfully resisting it be correspondingly greater. That the temptation in question was resisted, we have incontrovertible evidence from the history. The age of Joshua was the golden age of the Jewish people in respect to true piety or obedience to the laws of God. In confirmation of this, we might advert to the circumstances and happy settlement of the difficulty which occurred between the warriors of the two tribes and the half tribe whose abode was on the east of the Jordan and their brethren who lived west of the river. Both parties were actuated by fraternal feelings and by a high regard for the true religion. So in Judges 2: 7, there is the following decisive testimony: "And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that he did for Israel." This passage proves that the people came out of the war true and zealous worshippers of Jehovah, and it also indicates the manner in which they maintained their integrity and derived moral benefit from the scenes through which they had passed. It was a holy war which they had waged. They were the soldiers of the Lord of hosts. They had taken up arms not so much against human life, or a public enemy, as against a most revolting form of polytheism. They boasted not as if their own arm had gotten them the victory. It was "the great works of the Lord" that had secured the triumph. The stars in their courses fought for Israel. For them the sun had stood still on Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. To their Almighty Deliverer, they felt disposed to raise, at the close of the strife, the grateful song of thanksgiving. 1845.] Elements of Success in Pulpit Eloquence. 683 ARTICLE VI. ON CERTAIN ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS IN PULPIT ELOQUENCE. An Address delivered before the Porter Rhetorical Society, Andover Theological Seminary, Sept. 2, 1845. By Rev. Nehemiah Adams, Boston. WHOEVER undertakes to address the members of his profession on the subject of eloquence seems to think it modest and proper to deprecate the expectation of a perfect conformity in him to his own rules and precepts. Such a graceful and concilatory exordium, though approved by the masters of rhetoric, is peculiarly needless in addressing an assembly of preachers, who never profess to have themselves attained to the high standard of moral excellence which they preach, but would be considered as yet striving after it;-and who also know that bitter experience, and a consciousness of inward evil qualify them to speak with the greater confidence against sin. Being, therefore, defended by the good sense, not to say the consciences, of those of my hearers to whom I owe the greatest deference, from being dealt with by them as they are never willing that their hearers should deal with them, I proceed at once to the main subject of my address. The world has always assigned a high place and great honor to the employment of public speaking. The savage, even, feels reverence for that member of the tribe who by his skill and power is the most effective orator at the council fires. The nations which have attained to the highest point of cultivation have put the employment and the art of public speaking at the head of human accomplishments. Two great names of distinguished orators first present themselves, like mountain summits, when we look towards Greece and to its rival in the West. Philip of Macedon owes much of his celebrity to the orator who inveighed against him, and Catiline, through the eloquence of Cicero, enjoys the good fortune of that one insect in a swarm for whom a drop of amber makes a transparent and imperishable tomb. The speeches of the chieftains of hell do not yield in their power over us to any part of Milton. The conference of the Grecian heroes by night in the tent of Achilles, the fierce and stormy accusations and replies of Achilles and Ulysses, of Agamemnon and Ajax, excite as much interest, as the death of Hector; and when that |