upon all that believe (whoever they be and whatever they may have been); for there is no difference, let the unbelieving pride of man conceive what it will on its own behalf. For all sinned and do come short of God's glory: being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God set forth a propitiatory through faith in His blood, unto showing forth His righteousness because of the passing over (or, prætermission of) the sins that had been before in His forbearance; for showing His righteousness in the present time that He might be just and justifier of him that is of faith in Jesus (Rom. iii. 21-26). Thus was boasting excluded. The Christian confesses his ruin by sin and his own sins, but has faith in Him Who suffered once for sins that He might bring us to God (1 Pet. iii. 18).

Hence too Christian responsibility is not less real than the Israelite's, but is wholly different. He has life eternal in Christ Who gives it to him; he comes not into judgment which Christ bore for him; and he has passed from death into life. The blood of Christ has cleansed him from every sin, so that he knows himself white as snow in God's sight. He is God's son through faith in Christ Jesus, and sealed with the Holy Spirit given to him, crying, Abba, Father. He is a member of Christ's body in union with the heavenly Head. All this and more create a responsibility not only altogether distinct from that of Israel, but far beyond what the saints had before Christ's redemption and the gift of the indwelling Spirit. For duties depend on

C

relationship; and as the Christian is by grace brought into an entirely new place in Christ, so are we expressly regarded (Eph. ii. 10) as created in Him for good works, prepared before that we should walk in them. The measure and character of Israel's place, excellent as it was, is wholly short of and quite different from ours.

But we may notice in the prefatory words of our chapter how Israel were warned against the doings of both Egypt and Canaan. They were far from deriving a single good institution from the one they left or the other among whom they came. Jehovah's ordinances and statutes they were to observe and walk in: the man that did these should live. When in fact they turned from Him in disobedience, the evil ways of those both were their utter ruin.

ABHORRENT MIXTURE OF RELATIONS.

Lev. xviii. 6-18.

THE divine prohibition in this portion of our chapter refers to near relations and rests simply on the divine will and authority: "I am Jehovah." Marriage was not, save at the beginning, to unite "one's own flesh," naturally united or near already.

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"None of you shall approach to all (or, any) flesh of his flesh to uncover nakedness: I [am] Jehovah. The nakedness of thy father, and the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover (she [is] thy mother); thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. The nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover: it [is] thy father's nakedness. The nakedness of thy sister, daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, born at home or born abroad, their nakedness thou shalt not 10 uncover. The nakedness of thy son's daughter or of thy daughter's daughter, their nakedness thou shalt not uncover; for theirs [is] thy nakedness. 11 The nakedness of thy father's wife's daughter, begotten of thy father (she [is] thy sister), thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 12 The nakedness of thy father's sister shalt thou not uncover; she [is] thy father's own flesh.

13 The nakedness of thy mother's sister shalt thou not uncover; for she [is] thy mother's own flesh. 14 The nakedness of thy father's brother shalt thou not uncover; thou shalt not approach his wife: she [is] thine aunt. 15 The nakedness of thy daughterin-law shalt thou not uncover (she [is] thy son's wife); thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. 16 The nakedness of thy brother's wife shalt thou not uncover; it [is] thy brother's nakedness. 17 The nakedness of a woman and her daughter shalt thou not uncover; thou shalt not take her son's daughter, nor her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness (they [are] her own flesh): it [is] wickedness. 18 And thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to vex [her] (or, be a rival), to uncover her nakedness, beside her during her life" (vers. 6-18).

The opening is singularly emphatic, "Man, man, &c." This the Septuagint follows closely. Man's attention is called for. Marriage is only honourable where God's will is observed. Heb. xiii. 4 in no way sanctions or sanctifies a forbidden union. The true rendering is, Let marriage be honourable (not "among all as the Revisers say, but) "in all things," and the bed be undefiled. The construction is alike before and after. It is an injunction, not an affirmation as in the A.V. with Wiclif, Cranmer, and and the Geneva translators. The

Rhemish is an ungrammatical evasion, meant to correspond with the Vulgate, which would seem to take the Greek like the Peschito, Wiclif, &c. Tyndale alone was right. Against unions or

licences, such as are here indicated, Jehovah sets His face. His name from beginning to end of the chapter is the solemn warrant against them all. If an Israelite allowed passion to carry him away, it was rebellion against Jehovah and at his own peril. But in these near relationships marriage was unnatural and dishonorable in the measure of the And that intercourse which was proper to the married tie, forbidden in every case outside it, was here sinful and shameful in the highest degree, whether in the superior place of father or mother, and the nearest on either side, or in the equal one of sister howsoever born, or in the inferior one of daughter-in-law. And who would be bold

nearness.

enough to deny that the corresponding ones, not here specified, are not really implied? It is the man who is here prohibited: surely the woman is so no less. Further, the prohibition goes beyond blood-relations and extends in like degree to those by marriage connexion. Of great moment it was to cultivate the warmest affection between all that stood together in near kin or connexion. But still more was it essential that their mutual love should be ordered in all purity.

There was a marked exception requisite to keep up tribal inheritance in Israel, which though existing elsewhere applied to no other people as to them, still less to a Christian; a Levirate or brotherin-law marriage. It was when a man died childless, and his brother or next of kin was called to raise up seed to the deceased, the aim being to bind up the family line and the inheritance; so