Deuteronomy 20

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XX.—While we remark how carefully piety towards God, tenderness towards others, and prudence towards ourselves, should be carried into war itself, let us ponder how necessary it is that armies and churches should be furnished with faithful ministers, to encourage them in the Lord their God! Hopeful is the most difficult work when we are assured of God’s presence in it, and encouraged with the former experience of what he hath done for us! Then we can triumph, in hopes of being more than conquerors through him that loved us. But there is little hope of men’s prospering in their duty when their affections are engaged elsewhere: and therefore carnal worldlings, who are intoxicated with pleasure in temporal enjoyments, or the fearful and unbelieving, are unfit to fight with principalities and powers. God must be served heartily and willingly, or not at all. And, though every saint ought to be courageous, yet ministers who go before the host in fighting the Lord’s battles, need distinguished boldness. Amazing is the mercy and long-suffering of God; he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance! And surely then we ought to be forward in accepting, or even offering, terms of peace to such as have offended us! But dreadful is the case if men will not hear the calls of God’s mercy, or if the preservation of his people make it necessary to ruin them: for infallibly certain is the success of those enterprizes in which God is the director! It is necessary to remove all occasions and temptations to idolatry, or other wickedness, and to preserve every means of comfort, as God pleases to direct us. 2