From Gaza to Ascalon was an easy march. Ascalon and Ekron, like Gaza, became famous in later history, and have preserved their names from those remote ages to the present day. They are all remarkable for the extreme beauty and profusion of the gardens which surround them. The scarlet blossoms of the pomegranates, the enormous oranges which gild the green foliage of their famous groves, lent attractiveness and fascination to the vices by which they were defiled; and doves "still fill with their cooings the luxuriant gardens which grow in the sandy hollow within the ruined walls." * "Askelon

with the coast thereof, and Ekron with the coast thereof," Ekron being the most northern, as Gaza is the most southern city of Philistia,—were successively taken; thus apparently completing the conquest of that region; for "the Lord was with Fudah." +

Thus far the career of the two tribes had been successful. The mantle of Joshua had fallen upon the captains of Simeon and of Judah, and his parting words were being verified: “One man of you shall chase a thousand; for the Lord your God, He it is that fighteth for you." They had asked and had

* Stanley, p. 257. "In Ascalon was entrenched the hero of the last gleam of history which has thrown light over the plains of Philistia. Within the walls and towers still standing, Richard Cœur de Lion held his court; and the white-faced hill which, seen from their heights, forms so conspicuous an object in the western part of the plain, is the 'Blanche-Garde' of the crusading chroniclers, which witnessed his chief adventures."

† Jud. i. 17.

Josh. xxiii. 10.

received direction from on high. Deprived of their visible head, they had relied upon the power and promise of God; nor had they relied in vain. Like the apostles after the ascension, though deprived of the visible presence of their Lord, these elders of Israel were clothed with power, and advanced from strength to strength. Had they maintained this faith-had they resisted the deceitfulness of unbelief -nothing could have prevented them from effecting the entire subjugation of the country, and realizing all the blessing of that good land which the Lord had promised to their fathers. But they were not thus faithful. After this brief and brilliant career of victory, their annals record a series of failures, all traceable more or less directly to their unbelief. These failures laid a foundation for the miseries and misfortunes of succeeding generations; while indirectly they led to the raising up of those mighty men of faith, the judges of Israel.

A

SECTION II.

THE CANAANITES NOT EXPELLED.

SUCCESSION of brilliant victories, worthy of

the name and fame of Israel, had crowned the arms of the two tribes who had first gone up at the command of the Lord to fight against the Canaanites. The promise which had encouraged Judah at the outset, "Behold, I have delivered the land into his hand," had been fulfilled, as his triumphant army, reducing one great fortress of the enemy after another, went on "from strength to strength." Soon, however, the history assumes a different complexion. The evil heart of unbelief, the "mystery of iniquity," which wrought so early and so fatally in the New Testament Churches,-which, operating in divers forms and under manifold disguises, bewitched the Galatians, seduced the Ephesians from their first love, taught the Churches at Pergamos and Thyatira the doctrines of Balaam and Jezebel, led the Laodiceans into lukewarmness, and raised before the eyes of St. John the spectre of Antichrist already come,—this mystery of iniquity and unbelief operated so early and so powerfully in the Hebrew Church after their

* Jud. i. 2.

settlement in Canaan, that its history, even in the first chapter of the record, ceases to be a history of triumph, and becomes a chronicle of failures.

The first failure recorded is that of the victorious tribe of Judah itself. "The Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." *

The rugged and mountainous parts of Palestine were for the most part conquered and occupied by the men of Israel, while the plains and level tracts* were left to a great extent in possession of the enemy. Looking at the matter otherwise than with the eye of faith, this was easy enough to be understood. The Israelites were a nation of infantry; and they could not deal with an enemy who could bring horses and chariots into action. It is true that some of their first victories after Joshua's death were, as we have seen, achieved in a level country, when Judah and Simeon seized three out of the five great cities of the Philistian plain. But although they took these cities they could neither hold them, nor drive out the inhabitants; for we shortly afterwards find the "five lords of the Philistines" included in an enumeration of the enemies who were left unsubdued. †

* Jud. i. 19: the Hebrew word emek, “valley,” is "not applied to ravines, but to the long broad sweeps sometimes found between parallel ranges of hills."—Stanley's Heb. Vocabulary Syr. and Pal.," p. 481.

66

Jud. iii. 3.

This inability, though so readily explained, was a direct consequence of their unbelief. The sphere of faith lies, not in that which is visible, and calculable according to that lower reason which can only grasp "the things that are seen," but in that which is invisible, and to be calculated according to that higher reason which grasps "the things that are not seen." * Therefore in Judah's inability to drive out the chariots of iron we may trace the first stage of unbelief, and of the consequent powerlessness and degradation of the Church.

Their unbelief was the more inexcusable, inasmuch as a promise had been given expressly to meet this very difficulty: "When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." + Under ordinary circumstances, an army of foot soldiers might reasonably hesitate to engage with horses and chariots. But the warfare of the Israelitish people, like the spiritual warfare of the Christian, was not to be thus calculated. They had a promise from the Unseen God; and that almighty Arm which had divided the Red Sea would be their strength, whatever forces might be arrayed against them, if they would only believe Him. Joshua had thus believed. To him therefore, although he possessed no cavalry, the "horses and chariots very