before this, and her enemies having been all subdued and her days of warfare accomplished, her "peace might have flown as a river." But it is not unmixed calamity to the faithful. The unsubdued enemies, whether around or within them, shall be the means of training them to a higher obedience; and "the trial of their faith, which is much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, shall be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." * * 1 Pet. i. 9. PART II. Barak. ORE than a hundred years have passed away M° since the death of Joshua. During that period the chosen nation has not been permitted to remain altogether at peace. True to their hereditary character, the Israelitish people have again and again provoked their God to anger-not merely, as all sinners of mankind do, by individual or secret sins, but by open abandonment of His worship and national revolt against His authority. They intermarried with the families of the Canaanites, who had been permitted to remain in the country; and being thus "unequally yoked with unbelievers," the natural consequences followed. They "served the gods" of the heathen with whom these prohibited alliances had been formed. They deserted the sanctuary of Jehovah, and "served Baalim and the groves." * Again and again have these defections occurred in the century and more which has elapsed since Joshua's death. Again and again has punishment been inflicted on them, with the effect of producing a temporary; but only a temporary, repentance ;-a history * Jud. iii. 7. strangely similar to the secret history of the Christian's heart. Without commenting at length upon every verse of the Book of Judges, it may be sufficient merely to allude to the histories contained in the third and fourth chapters; how the Israelites were delivered for eight years into the hands of the king of Mesopotamia, Chushan-rishathaim, and were rescued by the judge Othniel, who secured for them forty years of rest; how at the expiration of that time they again "did evil," and were brought under the yoke of Eglon, king of Moab, who worsted their army in battle, and reduced them to a state of servitude for eighteen years, until he was put to death by Ehud, the judge, “a man fierce and undaunted,” as Lord Bacon describes him, "and one that in a sort neglected his life for the good of his people," the terror of whose name secured to his country afterwards eighty years of tranquillity; how "in the days of Shamgar," the next judge, through incursions of the Philistines, public security again became endangered; "the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways"* for fear of the invader, until, by feats of unparalleled personal prowess, slaying "six hundred men with an ox goad," Shamgar "also delivered Israel." These punishments and mercies have alike failed to produce more than a transient effect, and the history now brings into view a new condition of disaster and degradation, * Jud. v. 6. |