' famine for it. In assigning the reason, he
says, "It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he slew the
Gibeonites." When David inquired of them what atonement he should make,
they say, "The man that consumed us, and that devised against us, that
we should the destroyed from _remaining in any of the coasts of Israel_
let seven of his sons be delivered," &c. 2 Samuel xxii. 1-6.]

[Footnote B: If the Canaanites were devoted by God to individual and
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.]

In 1 Sam. 30th chapter, we find the Amalekites at war again, marching an
army into Israel, and sweeping every thing before them--and all this in
hardly more than twenty years after they had _all been_ UTTERLY
DESTROYED!

Deut. xx. 16, 17, will probably be quoted against the preceding view.
"_But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give
thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
but thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the
Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perrizites, the Hivites, and the
Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee_." We argue that this
command to exterminate, did not include all the individuals of the
Canaanitish nations, but only the inhabitants of the _cities_, (and even
those conditionally,) for the following reasons.

I. Only the inhabitants of _cities_ are specified,--"of the _cities_ of
these people thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." The reasons
for this wise discrimination were, no doubt, (1.) Cities then, as now,
were pest-houses of vice--they reeked with abominations little practiced
in the country. On this account, their influence would be far more
perilous to the Israelites than that of the country. (2.) These cities
were the centres of idolatry--the residences of the priests, with their
retinues of the baser sort. There were their temples and altars, and
idols, without number. Even their buildings, streets, and public walks
were so many visibilities of idolatry. The reason assigned in the 18th
verse for exterminating them, strengthens the idea,--"_that they teach
you not to do after all the abominations which they have done unto their
gods_." This would be a reason for exterminating _all_ the nations and
individuals _ar