are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and labour, working with our own hands; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: we are counted as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things to this day." Their book opens with the story of their Master's birth in a stable, with the manger for his cradle; and one of its last pictures is that of his venerable apostle chained in a dungeon, and begging his friend to bring his old cloak from Troas, and to do his diligence to come before winter. Unpopular, pure, and penniless, if the gospel story were not true, how could it have had preachers? They at least believed it. The last and most convincing testimony which any man can give to the truth of a statement of fact, is to suffer rather than deny it. Many have wondered why God allowed his dear servants to suffer so much persecution in the first ages of the Church. One principal reason was to give future ages an irresistible proof of the sincerity and faithfulness of the witnesses for Christ. The apostles lived lives of persecution and suffering for the name of Jesus-sufferings which they might have avoided if they had only abstained from preaching any more in this name. But, said they, "We cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard." One who had no personal acquaintance with Jesus, and whose first interview with him was while he was breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, is converted and called to be an apostle; and behold the prospect Jesus presents to him; "I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name." "The Holy Ghost testifieth," says Paul, "that in every city bonds and afflictions abide me. Yet none of these things move me." That at least was a true prophecy. "Seven times," says Clement, "he was in bonds, he was whipped, he was stoned; he preached both in the East and West, leaving behind him the glorious report of his faith, and so having taught the whole world righteousness, and for that end travelled even to the utmost bounds of the West, he at last suffered martyrdom by the command of the governors, and went to his holy place, having become a most eminent pattern of patience to all ages.' ""* Hear his own appeal to those who envied his authority in the Church: "Are they ministers of Christ? I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness" (2 Cor. xi. 23-27.) Man can give no higher proof of his veracity than a life such as this, unless it be to seal it with his blood; and this crowning testimony to the truth the apostles gave. Save the aged disciple who, after torments worse than death, survived to address the persecuted Church as "Your companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ," they all suffered martyrdom for the truth of the gospel history. Let me again remind you that the gospel is not a collection of dogmas, but a relation of facts-that these twelve men did not preach the death and resurrection of Jesus, because they had read them in a creed, but because they had seen them with their own eyes-that they lived holy lives of toil, and hardship, and poverty, and suffering, in preaching these facts to the world: and that they died painful and shameful deaths, as martyrs for their truth. You admit these things. Then I demand of you, "What more could either God or man do to convince you of their truthfulness!" The faithful and true Witness himself has given you this last, undeniable test of veracity. With the certainty of an ignominious death before him, he solemnly swears to the truth of this fact, and dies for it." And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Unbeliever, are you prepared to meet him there, and prove him a perjured impostor? THOUGHTS ON THE GOSPEL OF LEVITICUS. IN TWO PAPERS. T is now that the Sin-offering comes into view, and only now. (Lev.iv.) Is its postponement accidental-a disarrangement merely, which we are at liberty to correct by transposition? We can Wake's Trans. of Clement, Ep. ad Cor. v. II. | hardly think so. Accepting its position as significant, we must view it as the offering, not of the sinner, but of the saint; not as that which avails to justify, but as that which cleanses anew the conscience of one justified already. Instead of symbolizing a first approach to God, we must view it as the washing of the feet on the part of one who, having bathed already in the opened fountain, is clean every whit (John iii. 10). Let us see how far this agrees with the restriction of the offering to sins of ignorance; for that it was specifically for such sins is plain from the law of the offering, the preface to which runs thus-"If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord, concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them," &c. (Lev. iv. 2.) Such is the preamble; and in every one of the illustrative cases that follow, the offering is expressly declared to be for sins committed in ignorance (Lev. iv. 13, 22, 27). ings of a child, who, froin want of care and watchfulness, stumbles into sin. Not the less culpable, however, are they, but the more, because of the new relation in which he now stands to God, and because often and plainly taught his duty. Nevertheless, being in the hands of a Father, not of a Judge, he is chastened, but not condemned: though visited with the rod, the parental loving-kindness is not taken from him (Ps. lxxxix. 30-33), and the kiss of reconciliation ever follows on repentance. Such we think to be the interpretation of the term "ignorance" in the Mosaic ritual. While comprehending all the sins of the believer, it is at the same time descriptive of their character. That there should be any limitation whatever This interpretation is corroborated by the fact in the design of this oblation may well occasion that afterwards we find sins of ignorance set surprise; still more, that the limitation should in contrast with wilful or presumptuous sin; be to sins of ignorance-an expression in its very and this in a manner the most striking. The terms contradictory, sin being the violation of a two classes are placed side by side, as if there law or known rule (Rom. iv. 18). It cannot, were but the two, and no other. The chartherefore, be taken literally. Is it, then, to be acter of each is exhibited, and emphasized by understood of sin committed unconsciously; or repetition: for the one class, pardon is proof sin committed under a mistaken apprehension mised; the other is declared to be unpardonableof the will of God, as in the case of Paul before a sin unto death. Thus, in God's own wordsconversion? (1 Tim. i. 13.) The interpretation" If any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall must needs be wider, else were the Israelite in evil case. To avail even for the secondary cleansing of God's children, the virtue of the offering must be plenary. What, then, is the explanation? Is it not that we have here the Old Testament form of a New Testament paradox-to wit, that "whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin,......and cannot sin, because he is born of God" (1 John iii. 9). In effect, both the ignorance and the inability mean the same thing; for if by the latter we are to understand that the believer cannot sin wilfully, by the former we must understand that he does not sin knowinglythat is, of forethought or purpose. On the contrary, his sins are the result of infirmity, surprise, or temptation: they are falls, rather than deliberate acts, and take place so unexpectedly, and with such an absence of intention or foreknowledge, as to make them in a sense sins of ignorance. There is thus a certain fitness in the Old Testament designation. For, however flagrant the transgressions of the believer, they are never the defiant acts of the rebel, but the offend bring a she-goat of the first year, and the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ignorantly, when he sinneth by ignorance before the Lord, to make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him." The other offence, and its doom, is then set forth with like solemnity and emphasis: "But"-the transition is direct and immediate-" but the soul that doeth ought presumptuously" (or, as in the margin, "with an high hand"), "the same reproacheth the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him" (Numb. xv. 27, 28, 30, 31). And, as if to prevent the possibility of doubt or misconception as to the nature of presumptuous sin, there follows immediately (in the very next verse) an illustrative case-that of the man who gathered sticks upon the Sabbath-day. The act of this man has been viewed as trivial-one where the rigour of the penalty was altogether disproportioned to the offence; but here, as in the case ates. of the primeval sin, it is the motive, not the deed, that must be looked at. Here, as there, the thing done was trivial-anything more trivial can hardly be imagined; and this, no doubt, on very purpose to teach the more impressively that sin is to be estimated, not by the magnitude of the act, but by the feeling in which the act originThus viewed, the transgression of the Sabbath-breaker, so far from being a venial offence, was a wilful, contemptuous insult to God—the ne plus ultra of rebellion. For manifestly it was not a sin of appetite; nor was it a sin of passion; neither was it from an urgent necessity; for He who had said to Israel, "Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations on the Sabbath day" (Exod. xxxv. 3), had also, by peculiarity of food and climate, rendered fuel unnecessary. The offence was therefore entirely gratuitous: it was the act of one spurning authority, and bidding defiance to the Divine Majesty a repetition of the old challenge, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?" (Exod. v. 2); or What is the Almighty, that I should serve him?" (Job xxi. 15). And accordingly the transgressor, because he thus wilfully and with an high hand despised and set at nought the commandment of the Lord, was put to death (Numb. xv. 32-36). Have we not here again the Old Testament shadow of a truth afterwards plainly declared in the New Testament-a dread and solemn truth -that "there is a sin unto death" (1 John v. 17); a sin unpardonable, because to the very last God continues to be resisted? Over against this illustration of presumptuous sin, let us place the sin of ignorance as exemplified in the life of a believer. Let us take the case of David. But can sin like his, so grievous, so prolonged, and involving the preconcerted sacrifice of life, by any possibility belong to the category of ignorance? It is startling to think so. But is it less startling to be told that the child of God does not and cannot commit sin? Surely if the inability admits of explanation, the ignorance may. Outwardly, what contrast can be greater than between the case of David and that of the Sabbath-breaker? The sin of the one is a chain of many links; of which lust is the first-the last, murder: it is an enormity so foul that all men cry out against it. The sin of the other is a solitary act; and that, neither in its own nature immoral, nor in its consequences hurtful to any one. Inwardly, and in the sight of God, it is far otherwise. While the sin of David is not less, but more heinous than it appears to human eye, that of the Sabbath-breaker is of quite a different type, having a malignancy all its own. For David in heart loves the law of the Lord, and has no forethought of transgressing it; but walking unwarily, his footsteps slide, and in a moment he is precipitated, falling from sin to sin with frightful rapidity. But the Sabbath-breaker scorns the divine law, and tramples it under foot. In the one man a spark has kindled passion; and because not stamped out instantly, there follows the resistless conflagration. In the other, there is no passion, but the coolness of a deliberate purpose. Like the wild vibrations of the magnetic needle when rudely tossed and shaken, the actings of the one are in violent contradiction of his inner nature; but, like the needle too, that nature will reassert its power, and, through the agonies of a terrible repentance, will turn again to God and rest in him when the maddening circumstances cease.* With the other it is not so. He is self-moved, and acts from within. When asserting his independence, and bidding God defiance, he but acts out the enmity of his nature. The cases, so opposite in principle, how different in result! The one offender comes anew to the blood of sprinkling, and is forgiven; the other, by the judgment of God, is cut off, and that without remedy. In the law of the leper-which is singularly * "With the defence of David's backslidings-which he hath himself more keenly scrutinized, more clearly decerned against, and more bitterly lamented, than any of his censors - we do not charge ourselves, because they were in a manner necessary that he might be the full-orbed man which was needed to utter every form of spiritual feeling. But if, when of these acts he became convinced, he be found less true to God and to righteousness, indisposed to repentance and sorrow and anguish, exculpatory of himself, stout-hearted in his courses, a formalist in his peni tence, or in any way less worthy of a spiritual man in those than in the rest of his infinite moods, then verily strike him from the canon.....But if these penitential psalms discover the soul's deepest hell of agony, and lay bare the iron ribs of misery whereon the very heart dissolveth,-and if they, expressing the same in words which melt the soul that conceiveth and bow the head that uttereth them, then, we say, let us keep these records of the psalmist's grief and despondency as the most precious of his utterances, and sure to be needed in the case of every man who essayeth to live a spiritual life."-EDWARD IRVING. illustrative of this subject-we seem to have yet another of the many Old Testament teachings of New Testament truth. Thus, when the leprosy broke out, "covering all the skin of him that had the plague, from his head to his foot"-making the man a spectacle from which all other men turned aside he was pronounced clean! (Lev. xiii. 12, 13). But when the disease appeared in the head, though but as a spot, he was pronounced unclean, "utterly unclean;" and as if to mark the malignity of the case, it was added, "his plague is in his head" (Lev. xiii. 42-44). And what but the very same is the lesson of our Lord's parable touching the eye? (Matt. vi. 22, 23.) Is it not that, as the ruling principle within a man is light or darkness, so is the man in the sight of God? When evil is held to be good, and good evil,-when intellect and will are perverted, and the very light that should guide has become darkness," how great is that darkness!" But it is not thus with the child of God. His sins are never committed with approving consent of the will, but are lapses and aberrations from the law he loves. Though his life be a leprosy and an abhorrence, it is most of all abhorrent to himself; and because he is ever coming back to God through the blood of the Atonement, he is clean in God's sight, however vile in the eyes of his fellows. As pointing to the one great Sacrifice, the Sin-offering consisted always of a single victim, and when presented with other oblations, ever had precedence. Its primary and fundamental character was thus indicated. Most of all was the supremacy of the offering set forth on the great day of annual atonement, when "the high priest entered that mysterious shrine which but one man in each generation, and but once he in each year, was suffered to set his foot in," and with the blood of the victim sprinkled the mercy-seat seven times, "because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins." The infinite efficacy of the Sacrifice was then made manifest. But it was never less than infinite; for the limitation at other times to sins of ignorance denoted the changed relation of the worshipper and the change in the character of 66 It is important to remark that the Sin-offering was not of a sweet savour unto the Lord." In this respect it differed from all the offerings. going before. It was the setting forth of God's strange work"-of what was strange to the essential benignity of the Divine nature”*. Christ the Holy One "made sin" and "a curse." It prefigured the crucifixion, when darkness overspread the land—when the earth quaked and the rocks were rent-when the Father's face was hid, and the voice which before had testified of complacent regard, was silent to the agonizing cry of the Forsaken. To educate the conscience being one great end of the Mosaic ritual, occasions of ceremonial uncleanness were purposely multiplied; and this in so many ways that the Jew was constantly contracting defilement, often unconsciously. Hence the need of unceasing circumspection and continual review. And is there no meaning in all this for the Christian, surrounded as he too is by things which contaminate? Is not he also amid dangers that appear not-in a world where things innocent and even good are not seldom perverted, and in a way so specious as to draw him unawares into doubtful or wrong compliances? Nor is it, perhaps, till, in the solitude of his chamber, the thoughts and the doings of the day are reviewed in the presence of the Holy One, that he comes to know the guilt that is upon him. The Sin-offering thus speaks of watchfulness and self-examination; while it provides for the daily cleansing of God's children, on whom, as a holy people, sin must not be allowed to rest. wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin' (Heb. x. 26)." We quote again also from "The Tree of Promise," by the late Mr. Stewart of Cromarty, a work eminently deserving of study: "Beyond doubt, sins of ignorance comprehended far more than merely errors and inadvertencies.......The opposite of sins of ignorance are presumptuous sins-sins of reproach and defiance of the Lord. ......For presumptuous sin no atonement was provided. The New Testament proceeds on the same principle. Pardonable sins are described as sins of ignorance (1 Peter i. 14; 1 Tim. i. 13)." against thee, leave there thy gift, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (Matt. v. 23, 24). Repentance and its fruits were thus the lessons of the Trespass-offering: repentance towards God, evidenced by sacrifice; and towards man, evidenced by immediate overtures of reconciliation and ample recompense. We have now completed our attempted delineation of the sacrificial system of Judaism— that marvellous gospel of prophetic symbols delivered to Moses from the mercy-seat. First of all, and as the foundation of the entire system, we have the atonement, in its fulness and ever-living efficacy, set forth in the continual Burnt-offering. Next, we have faith's appropriation of the great sacrifice, in the Meat-offering. Next again, the sense of reconciliation, in the Peace-offering. And, finally, we have the daily cleansing of the conscience, and the evidences of repentance, set forth in the Sin and the Trespass offerings. As a system of doctrine, how compact! Ob 5. The Trespass-offering (Lev. v., vi.; Numb. v. 6-8)—the last of the group-appears to have been but a modified and secondary form of the Sin-offering: "As is the sin-offering, so is the trespass-offering, there is one law for them" (Lev. vii. 7). The one law, however, does not hold throughout; yet it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw the discriminating line between them. But besides sins of ignorance, the Trespass-offering covered wrongs done to a neigh-jective and subjective, it exhibits the great fact bour, and legal pollutions. For such wrongs the fullest compensation was required; but the sacrifice that followed showed that the offence, in its deepest shade of guilt, was against God, for his law was broken, and the heaviest penalty lay there. For this there could be no recompense; nothing could avail but a sacrifice of blood and fire. If unable to bring even the two turtle-doves or young pigeons prescribed by the law, a small quantity of flour sufficed for the poor man's offering. Of this a handful was burned as "a memorial." "The priest shall burn it on the altar,......it is a sin-offering,......and the priest shall make an atonement for him as touching his sin,......and it shall be forgiven him" (Lev. v. 11-13). Here the term "sin-offering Here the term "sin-offering" is applied to what, throughout the chapter, is treated as "trespass-offering ;" and in verse sixth the one sacrifice receives both names (Lev. v. 6). The place of the Trespass-offering in the Christian life may be learned from our Lord's words: "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought of vicarious propitiation, and the faith that lays hold of it; it exhibits the peace which comes from this faith, and the tenderness of conscience which comes of this peace; in short, we have in it acceptance with God and the peaceful holy life-the life that strives to be without offence, both as regards God and man. All this is in it; and the order in which it is set forth is precisely the order of the Christian experience. It has been ours to trace but the outline: how rich the field within, others have shown. That the complex and curiously intricate ritual of Judaism should thus, after the lapse of ages, find its fulfilment in Christianity, is proof surely that the one is the counterpart of the other, and that both are divine. "Each fits into, completes, explains each; backward and forward, through both, circulates the life-blood of grace and truth: Christ is all in all.”* We might now stop. But in a time when the fundamental doctrine of the Atonement is so greatly controverted-denied by some and ex * Dr. C. J. Vaughan. |