doubly powerful by the mighty assistance of God. We are told that a great victory was achieved; the Amalekites were routed, and because of their unprovoked attack upon the children of Israel, they were condemned to extermination; for we find it written thus: — “Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovahnissi. For he said, Because the Lord has sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”
2. Now, beloved, this scene of warfare is not recorded in Scripture as an interesting circumstance to amuse the lover of history, but it is written for our edification; for we remember the text which says — “Whatever things were written before were written for our profit.” There is some profit to be derived from this — and we believe a peculiar profit, too, since God was pleased to make this the first writing commanded by Divine authority as a record for generations to come. We think that the journeys of the children of Israel furnish us with many emblems of the journey of God’s church through the world; and we believe, that this fight with Amalek is a metaphor and an emblem of that constant and daily fight which all God’s people must carry on with sins without and sins within. This morning I shall more particularly confine myself to sin without; I shall speak of the great battle which at the present moment is being waged for God and for his truth, against the enemies of the cross of Christ. I shall endeavour, first, to make a few remarks upon the war itself, then to review the authorised method of warfare, which is twofold — hard blows and hard prayers, and then I shall finish by stirring up God’s church to great and earnest diligence in the warfare for God and for his truth.
3. I. First, then, we shall make some remarks upon THE GREAT WARFARE which we think is typified by the contest between the children of Israel and Amalek.
4. First of all, note that this crusade, this sacred, holy war of which I speak, is not with men, but with Satan and with error. “We wrestle not with flesh and blood.” Christian men are not at war with any man who walks the earth. We are at war with infidelity, but the infidel people we love and pray for; we are at warfare with any heresy, but we have no enmity against heretics; we are opposed to, and cry war to the death with everything that opposes God and his truth: but towards every man we would still endeavour to carry out the holy maxim, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” The Christian soldier has no gun and no sword, for he does not fight with men. It is with “spiritual wickedness in high places” that he fights, and with other principalities and powers than with those that sit on thrones and hold sceptres in their hands. I have seen, however, that some Christian men — and it is a feeling to which all of us are prone — are very apt to make Christ’s war a war of flesh and blood, instead of a war with wrong and spiritual wickedness. Have you never noticed in religious controversies how men will fall foul of each other! and make personal remarks and abuse each other? What is that but forgetting what Christ’s war is? We are not fighting against men; we are fighting for men rather than against them. We are fighting for God and his truth against error and against sin; but not against men. Woe, woe, to the Christian who forgets this sacred canon of warfare. Do not touch not a man’s person, but strike his sin with a stout heart and with a strong arm. Slay both the little ones and the great; let nothing be spared that is against God and his truth; but we have no war with the poor mistaken people. Rome we hate even as we abhor hell, yet we always pray for her devotees. Idolatry and infidelity we fiercely denounce, but the men who debase themselves by either of them are the objects not of wrath, but pity. We do not fight against the men, but against the things which we consider in God’s sight to be wrong. Let us always make that distinction, otherwise the conflict with Christ’s church will be degraded into a mere battle of brute force and garments rolled in blood; and so the world will again be an Aceldama — a field of blood. It is this mistake which has nailed martyrs to the stake and cast confessors into prison, because their opponents could not distinguish between the imaginary error and the man. While they spoke stoutly against the seeming error; in their ignorant bigotry they felt that they must also persecute the man, which they need not and ought not to have done. I will never be afraid to speak my mind with all the Saxon words I can muster, and I am not afraid of saying hard things against the devil, and against what the devil teaches; but with every man in the wide world I am friends, nor is there one living with whom I am at enmity for a moment any more than with the babe that has just been brought into the world. We must hate error, we must abhor falsehood; but we must not hate men, for God’s warfare is against sin. May God help us always to make that distinction.
5. But now let us observe that the warfare which the Christian carries on, may be said for his encouragement, to be a most righteous warfare. In every other conflict in which men have engaged, there have been two opinions, some have said the war was right, and some have said it was wrong; but in regard to the sacred war in which all believers have been engaged, there has been only one opinion among right-minded men. When the ancient priest stirred up the Crusaders to the fight, he made them shout Deus vult — God wills it. And we may far more truly say the same. A war against falsehood, a war against sin, is God’s war; it is a war which commends itself to every Christian man, seeing he is quite certain that he has the seal of God’s approval when he goes to wage war against God’s enemies. Beloved, we have no doubt whatever, when we lift up our voices like a trumpet against sin, that our warfare is justified by the eternal laws of justice. Would to God that every war had so just and true an excuse as the war which God wages with Amalek — with sin in the world!
6. Let us remember again, that it is a war of the greatest importance. In other wars it is sometimes said — “Britons! fight for your hearths and your homes, for your wives and for your children — fight and repel the foe!” But in this war it is not merely for our hearths and for our homes, for our wives and for our children, but it is for something more than this. It is not against those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; but it is a fight for souls, for eternity, against those who would plunge man into eternal perdition, a fight for God, for the deliverance of men’s souls from wrath to come. It is a war which ought, indeed, to be commenced, to be followed up, and carried out in spirit, by the whole army of God’s elect, seeing that no war can be more important. The instrumental salvation of men is above all things the highest object to which we can attain, and the routing of the foes of truth is a victory beyond all things to be desired. Religion must be the foundation of every blessing which society can hope to enjoy. Little as men think it, religion has much to do with our liberty, our happiness, and our comfort. England would not have been what it now is, if it had not been for her religion; and in that hour when she shall forsake her God, her glory shall have fallen, and “Ichabod” shall be written upon her banners.
7. In that day when the Gospel shall be silenced, when our ministers shall cease to preach; when the Bible shall be chained; in that day — God forbid it should ever come to pass — in that day, England may write herself among the dead, for she has fallen, since God has forsaken her, seeing she has cast off her allegiance to him. Christian men, in this fight for right, you are fighting for your nation, for your liberties, your happiness and your peace; for unless religion, the religion of heaven is maintained, these will most certainly be destroyed.
8. Let us reflect, in the next place, that we are fighting with insidious and very powerful foes, in this great warfare for God and Christ. Let me again make the remark, that while speaking of certain characters, I am not speaking of the men, but of their errors. At this time we have peculiar difficulties in the great contest for truth — peculiar, because very few appreciate them. We have enemies in all classes, and all of them far wider awake than we are. The infidel has his eyes wide open, he is spreading his doctrines everywhere; and while we think — good easy men — that full surely our greatness is a ripening, that frost is nipping many of our fair shoots, and unless we awaken, God help us! In almost every place infidelity seems to have a great sway; not the bold bragging infidelity of Tom Payne, but a more polite and moderate infidelity; not what slays religion with a bludgeon, but what seeks to poison it with
