'The extreme cruelty and abominable crimes of those nations were undoubtedly just and sufficient causes, under the righteous government of God, for their being cut off, as they were (not by pestilence or earthquake, but) by a people sent, and avowedly coming, with this executive commission from the only Sovereign of all men and all nations. Yet there was also another and a weighty reason in the case. It was the universal belief that the greatness and honour of a Deity were to be judged of by the standard of great and signal victories which he gave to the nation which he had taken under his protection. The conquest of Canaan, therefore, was a demonstration to the Canaanites of the feebleness, and even nothingness, of their own gods, and of the superior power of the God of Israel. And this impression would be strengthened by the fact of success and reverses occurring in exact proportion to the faithfulness or the disobedience of the Israelites towards their God, their natural leader, protector, and king.' Where is the record of the 'extreme cruelty' and 'abominable crimes' of these nations? Were they more cruel than the Israelites, or did they commit more abominable and cruel crimes than those of Lot, of Onan, of Jacob, of Judah, of Reuben, of Simeon, and Levi, of the people of Benjamin, or of the many other Israelitish men and women whose names we fortunately cannot pollute our pages with, but the record of whose horrible and detestable enormities are still to be found in the legislative enactments which the Deity found it necessary to make for the guidance of his chosen people? And why did the Deity give way to the 'universal belief' of an ignorant and vicious people? Cannot the great Jehovah win men by his mighty and irresistible will rather than by sword and fire? 'The conquests,' says Dr. Smith,' were a demonstration to the conquered of the power of the Deity.' Not so, for in a wholesale massacre, they took away from the {113} Canaanites the capability for appreciating any demonstration however clear; logic has little effect on a man whose throat is cut from ear to ear. *Chapter ix., v. 5. By chap, viii., verses 30 and 31, we find that Gideon had seventy sons, besides Abimelech; yet here are seventy killed by order of Abimelech, and the youngest escapes, and this youngest son makes the confusion worse confounded, when speaking against Abimelech; for he mentions his seventy brethren slain on one stone (verse 18); and the number is again repeated in verses 24 and 56. It is evident that Jotham entertained very different ideas of the Deity from those held by John the Evangelist, for he speaks of the olive, of whose fatness both gods and men make use (_vide_ Douay), and of wine which cheereth God and man. Verse 23. 'God sent an evil spirit.' Out of perfect good, evil cannot come, yet perfection is alleged to be an attribute of the Deity, who sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem.