ISRAEL'S HOLINESS.

Lev. xix. 19-37.

IT is remarkable that here they are called to observe Jehovah's statutes, when three prohibitions are laid on Israel of a seemingly minor importance, not moral like that which follows.

19 Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind; thou shalt not sow thy field with two kinds of seed; nor shall there come upon thee a garment of two kinds of stuff mingled together. 20 And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman that [is] a bondmaid betrothed to a husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her: there shall be punishment; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free. 21 And he shall bring his guilt-offering unto Jehovah to the door of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt-offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt-offering before Jehovah for his sin which he hath sinned, and he shall be forgiven for his sin which he hath sinned. 28 And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as their uncircumcision: three years shall they be as uncircumcised to you; it shall not be eaten. 24 But in

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the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy for giving praise unto Jehovah. 25 And in the fifth year eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield to you the increase thereof: I [am] Jehovah your God. Ye shall not eat [anything] with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantments, nor practise augury. "Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, nor shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. 28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I [am] Jehovah. 29 Profane not thy daughter to make her a harlot ; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of enormity. 30 Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I [am] Jehovah. 31 Turn ye not to those that have familiar spirits, nor to the wizards; seek them not to be defiled by them: I [am] Jehovah, your God. 2 Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and thou shalt fear thy God: I [am] Jehovah. And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not do him wrong. 34 The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be to you as the homeborn among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt I [am] Jehovah your God. Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in weight, or in measure. 36 Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I [am] Jehovah your God that brought you out of the land of Egypt. And ye shall observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I [am] Jehovah" (vers. 19-37).

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Peremptorily, but in wisdom, was divine order impressed, and mixture of different kinds forbidden. He is a faithful Creator, and gave to each creature its species. Hence as it was sin to separate what He joined, it was not less to join what He separated. Their cattle must gender according to the respective kind; their field must not be sown with different kinds of seed; nor was a garment woven of two materials to come on the Israelite. To the Christian the words are full of importance. It was Satan that sowed darnel with the wheat; and the Spirit warns against every incongruous communion (2 Cor. vi). There must be no diverse yoking with unbelievers, no touching what is unclean, no compromise of truth by mixed principles. In matters of this life compromise is amiable and right; but where God's will is in question, it is a ruse of the devil.

The case that is next provided for (vers. 20–22) supposes the imperfect state which the law contemplates; for if she had been free, death was the penalty. But being a bond woman and espoused, she was scourged, and he brought a guilt or trespassoffering; by which ram the priest made atonement, and the sin was forgiven. Jew or Greek, bond or free, is all gone now: Christ abides for faith.

Again, it was the day of earthly things; but Jehovah would have His people bear in mind the ruin of the earth through man's sin. A full time must pass during which the fruit of their planted trees lay" as uncircumcised unto them "; the fourth year "all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise

Jehovah"; after which they are free to eat, "that it may increase to you its produce." It is the right principle of the first-fruits for Jehovah (vers. 23-25). God's rights have the first place.

Then not only is the eating of anything with the blood forbidden, but enchantments and auguries, and heathenish ways in trimming of heads and beards, cutting of the flesh and tattooing, as opposed to Jehovah. So too the devoting of a daughter to whoredom, as not immoral only but "profane.” So as His sabbaths were to be kept, and His sanctuary reverenced, they were to shun necromancers and soothsayers as polluting (vers. 26-31). The same authority of Jehovah, which proscribed those heathen enormities, calls for honour to the hoary head and the face of the old man, coupling them with the fear of "thy God" (32). And what strikingly cuts off by anticipation the narrow and base pride of the Talmud, "a stranger" that might sojourn in their land was, not only to be allowed there unmolested, but to be loved as one born among them. "Thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I [am] Jehovah your God" (33, 34). How touching to remember their oppression in Egypt, not for resentment but for compassion!

Lastly, strict equity is enjoined in all dealings of trade and commerce. "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measure of length, in weight, and in measure of capacity: just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin shall ye have: I [am] Jehovah your God, that

brought you out of the land of Egypt" (36). It is a great aggravation, because it is not transient but deliberate wrong, when the scales and weights are unfair, when solids and liquids have a falsified criterion. "Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes and all my judgments, and do them: I [am] Jehovah" (37). The least things of daily life. fall under His eye.

One of the prevalent errors in Christendon is to confound the divine aim of Israel's calling with that that is by the gospel and in His church. The one was His kingdom regulated by the law, which failed utterly through the disobedience and at length apostasy of that people. But now in Christ rejected and glorified above the centre is transferred from earth to heaven, man as he is is treated as lost, and if any one be in Christ, as all saints now are, it is a new creation: the old things are passed; behold, new things are come in; and all things are of the God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

It is not therefore an effort to achieve the moral improvement of mankind, nor the hope still less of incorporating all the nations in one body, a contradiction of both letter and spirit, but all to Christ as head over all things to the church which is His body, already united to Him by the Holy Spirit, and about to join Him on high at His coming for an administration of the fulness of the times, when all things shall be summed, or headed, up in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the