as did the people, a continuation of the overruling guidance which hitherto had directed them. There was no change implied; neither was any felt. The divine authority was the same; the only alteration was in the person of the instrument. It was once Moses; it is now Joshua. But the Lord was, throughout, one.

By the influence which he was enabled to exert, the waters of Jordan, like formerly the depths of the Red Sea, are divided and passed. A memorial is set up by the twelve tribes of the deliverance, and long continued mercies which they had experienced since their departure from the land of their servitude; and Israel sees their oft-delayed hope completed in their entrance into the land of promise. But war is still before them. Hostile nations are in array against them; and the chieftains of Canaan, in the imminency of a common danger, forget their own rivalry and hatred, and unite in firm and well-knit confederacies against the invaders. Scarcely have they planted a standard in the land, before the walls of Jericho present an obstacle to their progress. They gird themselves for the battle; and prepare to storm them. But while Joshua lay encamped before the city,-meditating perhaps on the best mode of attacking it; endeavouring perhaps to reconcile the minds of those who might still waver and feel disheartened at the prospect of continued warfare before them, he was startled by the sudden appearance of one without the camp, whom he took to be "a man over against him with his drawn sword in his hand and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him; Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?

And he said; Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come.

And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him; What saith my Lord unto his servant?" *

However mistaken, in the first view, as to his real character, it required but a second glance for his conviction, that He who stood before him was no armed warrior from the hosts of the king of Jericho ; but a Being far exalted above the sons of men; to whom obedience was a necessity, and homage a right. He saw in him, the LORD from whom he had previously received his credentials of command. He saw in him, the Divine Person who had emancipated the nation from their state of thraldom; and seeing, fell on his face and worshipped.

The very sufferance of this worship is a sufficient guarantee, that the object of it was no inferior minister of Heaven ;-but a descent of God under an outward form. It was not said to Joshua, as in a subsequent age to St. John,-when in an extacy at the greatness of the things revealed to him he was about to fall down before a created angel-" See thou do it not; I am thy fellow servant," + but a direct command was given that homage should not only be offered to him; but that it should be done with that awe and trembling, which man ought to feel in the presence of the Deity. And it is sufficiently remarkable, as indicating the identity of the two Beings, that the command was delivered in precisely the same terms as that which Christ gave to Moses on Mount Horeb. "Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so."

* Josh. v. 13.

Revel. xix. 10.

This coincidence may not unreasonably be considered decisive of the question of the innate divinity of the angel; but it may still be strengthened, forcible as it is in itself, by the promise which is subjoined to it; the commencement of Israel's triumphs under Joshua in the land of Canaan. "And the Lord said; See I have given unto thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour."

During some succeeding chapters, in which the conquests of Joshua over various kings are recorded, the same Power is introduced as giving his sanction to the warfare, and delivering the promise of victory in precisely the same form of expression, "I have given them into your hands, &c." The angel however, as far as we are enabled to judge, does not again visibly appear. The object of his first appearance, in giving strength and confidence to the mind of Joshua and the Israelites, has been accomplished. They advanced boldly, as to certain victory; and the responses to Joshua are now made by the usual channel of communication between the Deity and Israel; either by Urim and Thummim; or by a voice sounding from the mercy-seat; or by some of those various modes through which God was wont to manifest his will and counsels to the High Priest. The influence exerted is still the same. We have only to run through the conquests of Joshua with the slightest degree of attention to see how admirably the assertion of Christ, that he was come “as captain of the Lord's host," is borne out by the conquests of Israel over the Lord's enemies. The varied means of his open interposition in their favour; the inadequacy of their own forces, when placed in

array against the combination of their enemies ;the supernatural character of the overthrow of the opposing nations ;-these and many other proofs of the same tendency not only expose the agency of the promise which had been given to Joshua ;-but also, that the dominion over animate and inanimate nature which He displayed in the fulfilment, was such as could only be asserted by One who verily was God. Take for instance the "great stones" cast down from heaven upon their enemies ;-the sun and moon stopped in their apparent course, while the slaughter of their foes continued ;-the " "hardening the hearts" of the nations that they might be utterly extirpated ;-join these with the assurances of the angel, and we cannot well resist an assent to that opinion of the Jews;-applying it however as we are warranted by our more extended knowledge to the person of Christ,-that they triumphed under Joshua, because "the Lord God fought for Israel." And passing from these things to the end of the career of Joshua, when their most active state of warfare had ceased, we apply it still more unhesitatingly to Christ, in fulfilment of his previous promises to Moses, when we find that "the Lord (JEHOVAH) gave them rest round about, according to all that he sware unto their fathers; and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass."*

The Israelites, however, now freed from actual

* Josh. xxi. 44.

pressure, and the violence of their enemies, gradually relapse into that system of idolatry and provocation of God, which drew down upon them the divine wrath in those fearful and repeated judgments, which characterize the remaining portions of their history until their double captivity. Neither do they fulfil the will of God, and the command which they had received of utterly destroying and extirpating the nations of Canaan; but suffering themselves to be lured into a state of effeminate inactivity, think they have achieved enough for God in being contented in themselves.

He

This was a delusion in which they were not suffered long to remain. An interposition was required, and it was given :-"An angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim*," and reproached them bitterly for their disobedience. recalled to their remembrance the great things which he had done for them; and the advantage which he had conferred upon them. He menaced them with his wrath. The language in which these rebukes are conveyed; the peculiar strain of authority with which they are invested, clearly delineate again the angel-Christ-who had formerly presided over their destinies; and show the vigilance with which he guarded, those whom his power had saved. “I made you”— he exclaims, "to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars; but ye have not obeyed my voice; * Judges ii. 1.