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cursed, who refuse to assist the people of God in their warfare against their spiritual enemies. Mark how the Lord chooseth the humble who are mean and little in their own eyes, for the greatest enterprise; by this we see that God will not choose for his instruments in great achievements, which depend purely on his grace, such as through pride and self-conceit, will take the glory to themselves. O, my friends, beware of this pride and glory which is so prevalent in this world. See Gideon and his men who lapped the water; those were preferred who took the water up in their hands and so lapped it, before those who laid themselves quite down to the water to drink, which argued a more eager and sensual disposition.
Observation of dreams is commonly superstitious, and as such is condemned by some people, but in some extraordinary cases, as we see here, God is pleased by dreams, to foretell what he is about to do. Judg. 7: 13. In a mystical sense the preachers of the gospel, in order to spiritual conquests, must not only sound with the trumpet of the word of God, but must also break their earthern petition by the mortification of the flesh and its passions, and carry lamps in their hands by the light of their virtue: a meek and humble answer to God, otherwise they might have come to extremities, so great is the power of humility, both with God and man. The olive tree is introduced, speaking in this manner, because oil was used both in the worship of the true God and in that of the false gods, whom the Schemites served. Wine is represented as agreeable to God, because he had appointed it to be offered up with his sacrifice, but we are not obliged to take these words, spoken of by the trees in a parable, according to the strict rigor of divinity, but only in a sense accommodated to the design of the parable expressed in the conclusions of it; however, this may suffice for the present; but we understand that the feminine gender determineth to the mother, but then, the child was also to refrain from the like things, because he was to be from his infancy a Nazarite of God. Judg. 13: 5. That is once set aside in a particular manner and consecrated to God. Now the Nazarites by the law were to abstain from all these things, not in his own person, but in the person of
