By the supposition with which we set out, you have solemnly renounced the indulgence of sinful pleasures. But recollect that Siren will return to the charge, she will renew her solicitations a thousand and a thousand times; she will sparkle in your eyes, she will address her honied accents to your ears, she will assume every variety of form, and will deck herself with a nameless variety of meretricious embellishments and charms, if haply at some one unguarded moment she may entangle you in those "fleshly lusts which war against the soul." "Count the cost." Are you prepared to shut your eyes, to close your ears, and to persist in a firm, everlasting denial?

You will meet with injuries, and unjust provocations: "count the cost" in this respect.

5. The cost of the christian profession stands related to the term and duration of the engagement-" Be thou faithful unto death." It is coeval with life.

II. Why, we say, is it expedient for those who propose to become christians to "count the cost?"

1. It will obviate a sense of ridicule and of shame. (See the context.)

2. It will render the cost less formidable when it occurs.

3. If it diminishes the number of those who make a public and solemn profession, this will be more than retrieved by the superior character of those who make it. The church will be spared

much humiliation; Satan and the world deprived of many occasions of triumph.

III. The reasons which should determine our adherence to Christ, notwithstanding the cost which attends it.

1. His absolute right to command or claim our attachment.

2. The pain attending the sacrifices necessary to the christian profession greatly alleviated from a variety of sources.

3. No comparison betwixt the cost and the advantages.

XX.

PARALLEL BETWEEN THE WAR WITH THE CANAANITISH NATIONS, AND THAT OF BELIEVERS WITH THEIR SPIRITUAL ENEMIES.*

JOSHUA v. 13-15.—And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn 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? And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.

JOSHUA was at this time entering upon a most arduous undertaking; that of attacking the * Preached at Leicester, March, 1814.

nations of Canaan, at the command of God, with a view to put the Israelites in possession of that land which God had sworn to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, he would bestow on their posterity. Joshua had just been invested with the office of the leader of the chosen people in the room of Moses, who was dead; he had witnessed their frequent rebellions against his predecessor, who had claims to their obedience peculiar to himself; and he had great reason to apprehend, that the spirit of perverseness and insubordination, which occasioned so much uneasiness, would burst out against him with additional violence. Add to this, the enterprise on which he was entering was, in itself, extremely difficult and formidable.

The miraculous appearance presented to him on this occasion was probably intended to obviate his fears, and to arm him with an undaunted resolution in accomplishing the arduous duties assigned him. It is generally agreed by the most judicious commentators, that the personage who presented himself to Joshua at this time was no other than he who afterwards became incarnate,~ "the Son of God," "the Angel of the Covenant," and "the Captain of our salvation." From his commanding Joshua to pull his shoes from off his feet, assuring him the ground whereon he stood was holy, he could not fail to infer, that he who addressed him was a divine person; these being the identical words addressed to Moses

when God appeared to him in the burning bush.*

We may learn, from various passages in the New Testament, that the Lord Jesus Christ, in his pre-existent state, presided over the Jewish nation, conducted it through the wilderness, and communicated that spirit of inspiration by which its succession of prophets was actuated.

It is to those divine manifestations of himself in the ancient church, there is reason to believe, St. Paul refers, when, contrasting the pre-existent state of Christ with his appearance while on earth, he attributes to him the form of God, 'who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God."+

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Nothing can be conceived more adapted to support the mind of this great man of God, and enable him to encounter every obstacle with fortitude, than such a divine manifestation; by which he was assured the Son of God himself undertook the conduct of the war, and the discomfiture of his foes.

The certainty of God being engaged on their side is, in every age, the chief support of the christian Israel, in the conflict they are called to sustain with their spiritual enemies.

The present state of the church of God is justly styled a militant state, which is the chief distinction between its present and future condition. An everlasting victory is in prospect, + Phil. ii. 6.

* Exod. iii. 5.

when all enemies will be placed under its feet. In the meanwhile, whoever belongs to the true Israel of God is engaged in the serious and momentous contest, which bears, in many points, a striking and designed resemblance to the wars which the tribes of Israel, under the conduct of Joshua, waged with the inhabitants of Canaan.

As I conceive, if we attempt to trace a resemblance, it may possibly minister to our instruction and improvement, I shall confine the following discourse to that point.

I. The war in which the tribes of Israel were engaged was of divine appointment. It was a holy war, not originating in the enmity or ambition of the people who undertook it, but in the sovereign will and pleasure of God, who had promised, ages back, to put them in possession of the land of Canaan; but resolved, for the wisest ends, that the actual possession of it should be the fruit of conquest.

The warfare in which christians are engaged, in like manner, is of divine prescription; it is one to which they are solemnly called. The enemies they are called to combat are God's enemies; and it is his will that we shall yield ourselves as instruments in his hand for their destruction.

In resisting the world, the flesh, and the devil, we are executing his commands, and are consecrating our services to the Most High. To be resolute and determined in this warfare, is to eater into the very essence of our christian calling; and