Wesley Corpus

Nothing will make them see how wretched they are, so much as to see, how happy they might have been." Might have been! What on the supposition of absolute decrees How happy might a person not elected have been And if he was elected, how could he be wretched for ever What art of man can reconcile these things Again, shall any of the elect perish for ever or has God made to any others, a free and sure grant of the heavenly Canaan If not, how can the misery of those that perish be aggravated, by a free and sure grant which they never had any share in Chapter XXIV Joshua assembling the people, recounts what great things God had done for them, ver. 1 - 13. Exhorts them to serve God, which they engage to do, ver. 14 - 28. His age, death, and burial, ver. 29 - 31. The burying of Joseph's bones, ver. 32. The death and burial of Eleazar, ver. 33. All Israel - Namely, their representatives. Shechem - To the city of Shechem, a place convenient for the purpose, not only because it was a Levitical city, and a city of refuge, and a place near Joshua's city, but especially for the two main ends for which he summoned them thither. For the solemn burial of the bones of Joseph, and the rest of the patriarchs, for which this place was designed. For the solemn renewing of their covenant with God; which in this place was first made between God and Abraham, Gen 12:6,7, and afterwards renewed by the Israelites at their first entrance into the land of Canaan, between the two mountains of Ebal and Gerizzim, Jos 8:30, &c. which were very near Shechem: and therefore this place was most proper, both to remind them of their former obligations to God, and to engage them to a farther ratification of them.