Of free justification

It was verily a great Miracle of Victory, but whence happened this Victory? What shall we say? Because the Israelites were more in number: I suppose it was not so: was it because they were stronger? Neither was that the cause: What, did they then excel all the other Nations in Virtues? Yea, what Nation was ever ⟨p. 261⟩more perverse? But you will say, they obliged God to befriend them by observance of his Worship. Yea, how often and how grievously did they exasperate God with their sins? How wickedly did they murmur against their Leaders, and so provoked the anger of God against themselves? How often was the Clemency of God by their Perfidious Rebellion, Wicked Contrivances, Untractable Stubbornness, Murmuring Concupiscence and Perverseness, not only provoked, but also almost overcome, so that he would have utterly destroyed the Rebellious People with all their Posterity, unless Moses, the meekest of Men, by Humble Prayer with hands lifted up, had turned the provoked Anger of God into Mercy? But it is better to take notice, what the ¹Lord himself speaks against this People with his own Mouth: Say not, saith he, in thy Heart, when the Lord thy God shall destroy those Nations before thee; For my Righteousness the Lord brought me in, to possess this Land, whereas those Nations were destroyed for their own Abominations: For thou shalt not enter in to possess their Lands, for thy own Righteousness, nor for the uprightness of thy Heart, but because they did wickedly, they were destroyed at thy entering in: And that the Lord might fulfil the Word which he promised by Oath to thy Fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Know therefore, that the Lord thy God hath not given thee this Land for thy Righteousness, for thou art a stiff-necked People, &c.

It was verily a great Miracle of Victory, but whence happened this Victory? What shall we say? Because the Israelites were more in number: I suppose it was not so: was it because they were stronger? Neither was that the cause: What, did they then excell all the other Nations in Vertues? Yea, what Nation was ever ⟨p. 261⟩more perverse? But you will say, they obliged God to befriend them by observance of his Worship. Yea, how often and how grievously did they exasperate God with their sins? How wickedly did they murmur against their Leaders, and so provoked the anger of God against themselves? How often was the Clemency of God by their Perfidious Rebellion, Wicked Contrivances, Untractable Stubbornness, Murmuring Concupiscence and Perverseness, not only provoked, but also almost overcome, so that he would have utterly destroyed the Rebellious People with all their Posterity, unless Moses, the meekest of Men, by Humble Prayer with hands lifted up, had turned the provoked Anger of God into Mercy? But it is better to take notice, what the