he have destroyed thee.”  All these, with other similar threatenings of destruction, are contained in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deut.  See verses 20-25, 45, 48, 51.  In the same chapter God declares that as a punishment for the same transgressions, the Israelites shall “be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth,” thus showing that the terms employed in the other verses, “destroy,” “perish,” “perish quickly,” “consume,” &c., instead of signifying utter, personal destruction doubtless meant their destruction as an independent nation.  In Josh. xxiv. 8, 18, “destroyed” and “drave out,” are used synonymously.]

[Footnote C:  Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the Gibeonites, and of Rahab and her kindred, was a violation of the command of God.  We answer, if it had been, we might expect some such intimation.  If God had straitly commanded them to exterminate all the Canaanites, their pledge to save them alive, was neither a repeal of the statute, nor absolution for the breach of it.  If unconditional destruction was the import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to pass without rebuke?  Would he have established such a precedent when Israel had hardly passed the threshold of Canaan, and was then striking the first blow of a half century war?  What if they had passed their word to Rahab and the Gibeonites?  Was that more binding than God’s command?  So Saul seems to have passed his word to Agag; yet Samuel hewed him in pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had violated God’s command.  When Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites in “his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah,” God sent upon Israel a three years’ famine for it.  When David inquired of them what atonement he should make, they say, “The man that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coast of Israel, let seven of his sons be delivered,” &c. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-6.]

[Footnote D:  If the Canaanites were devoted by God to unconditional extermination, to have employed them in the erection of the temple,—­what was it but the climax of impiety?  As well might they pollute its altars with swine’s flesh or make their sons pass through the fire to Moloch.]

[Footnote E:  Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their territory at the tidings of Israel’s approach, did God’s command require the Israelites to chase them to ends of the earth, and hunt them out, until every Canaanite was destroyed?  It is too preposterous for belief, and yet it follows legitimately from that construction, which interprets the terms “consume,” “destroy,” “destroy utterly,” &c. to mean unconditional, individual extermination.]

[The original design of the preceding Inquiry embraced a much wider range of topics.  It was soon found, however, that to fill up the outline would be to make a volume.  Much of the foregoing has therefore been thrown into a mere series of indices, to trains of thought and classes of proof, which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some facilities to those who have little leisure for protracted investigation.]