Small offers towards the service of the tabernacle in the wilderness four discourses accommodated…

SECT. II.

TO do some, and gain more Service for our God, the Text now before us is to be Discoursed on.

These words are among the last words of Joshua, the servant of the Lord; they are a Devout and a Divine sentence uttered by the renowned Joshua in a Speech to The Parliament of Israel. The Dying Words of all Great and Good men, have usually been esteemed Remarkable by the Survivors; and those books which contain Apo•• thegmata morientium have been reckoned perhaps among the most useful in the world. Tho the Dying Songs of Swans have not been such things as the Vulgar▪ Error has reputed them; yet the Dying Words of Saints have afforded a fit Moral for the Fable. The speech of a Dying Saint has as deep a favour of Heaven, as the Breath of a dying man has of Earth. But methinks, the Dying Words of a Joshua should be peculiar Oracles; peruse them, and you will find them so. He had been first, the Lord-General of Israels Army; and ⟨p. 3⟩was now the Lord Protector of Israels Common-Wealth. In this Capacity, a few months before he died, he issued our orders for a Convention of States, to meet at Shechem, a place about forty miles from his own Abode. The Senate, the Judges, & the Officers, and all the Representatives of the people being assembled, before the Tabernacle, which on this extraordinary occasion was removed hither, this famous Prince endeavours to settle & confirm them in the Service of the living God. It is likely he seared a secret Retaining of Idolatry among many, while he was yet alive; but it is certain, he fore-saw an open Defection to Idolatry hastening upon them, when he should be dead and gone. Wherefore, he lays in against it, by a most powerful and pathetic Speech, which has in it,