The book of Leviticus may be termed "The Priest's Guide-book." This is very much its character. It is full of principles for the guidance of such as desire to live in the enjoyment of priestly nearness to God. Had Israel gone on with Jehovah according to the grace in which He had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, they should have been to Him "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." (Ex. xix. 6.) This, however, they failed to do. They put themselves at a distance; they got under law and failed to keep it. Hence, Jehovah had to take up a certain tribe, and from that tribe a certain family, and from that family a certain man, and to him and to his house was granted the high privilege of drawing nigh as priests unto God.
Now, the privileges of such a position were immense; but it had its heavy responsibilities likewise. There would be the ever-recurring demand for the exercise of a discerning mind. "The priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts." (Mal. ii. 7.) The priest was not only to bear the judgment of the congregation before the Lord, but also to expound the ordinances of the Lord to the congregation. He was to be the ever-ready medium of communication between Jehovah and the assembly. He was not merely to know the mind of God for himself, but be able also to interpret that mind to the people. All this would demand, of necessity, constant watching, constant waiting, constant hanging over the page of inspiration, that he might drink in, to his very soul, all the precepts, the judgments, the statutes, the laws, the commandments, and the ordinances of the God of Israel, so as to be able to instruct the congregation in reference to "those things which ought to be done."
There was no room left for the play of fancy, the working of imagination, the introduction of man's plausible inferences, or the cunning devices of human expediency. Every thing was laid down with the divine precision and commanding authority of a "Thus saith the Lord." Minute and elaborate as was the detail of sacrifices, rites, and ceremonies, nothing was left for man's brain to originate. He was not even permitted to decide upon the kind of sacrifice to be offered upon any given occasion, nor yet as to the mode in which such sacrifice was to be presented. Jehovah took care of every thing. Neither the congregation nor the priest had any authority whatsoever to decree, enact, or suggest so much as a single item throughout all the vast array of ordinances in the Mosaic economy. _The word of the Lord settled all_: man had _only to obey_.
This, to an obedient heart, was nothing short of an unspeakable mercy. It is quite impossible to overestimate the privilege of being permitted to betake one's self to the oracles of God, and there find the most ample guidance as to all the details of one's faith and service day by day. All that we need is a broken will, a mortified mind, a single eye. The divine guide-book is as full as we can possibly desire: we want no more. To imagine for a moment that aught is left for man's wisdom to supply, must be regarded as a flagrant insult offered to the sacred canon. No one can read the book of Leviticus and not be struck with the extraordinary painstaking on the part of Israel's God to furnish His people with the most minute instruction upon every point connected with His service and worship. The most cursory reader of the book might at least bear away with him this touching and interesting lesson.
And truly, if ever there was a time when this self-same lesson needed to be read out in the ears of the professing church, this is the time. On all hands, the divine sufficiency of holy Scripture is called in question. In some cases, this is openly and deliberately done; in others, it is with less frankness hinted, insinuated, implied, and inferred. The Christian mariner is told, directly or indirectly, that the divine chart is insufficient for all the intricate details of his voyage--that such changes have taken place in the ocean of life since that chart was made that in many cases it is entirely deficient for the purposes of modern navigation. He is told that the currents, tides, coasts, strands, and shores of that ocean are quite different now from what they were some centuries ago, and that, as a necessary consequence, he must have recourse to the aids which modern navigation supplies, in order to make up for the deficiencies in the old chart, which is, as a matter of course, admitted to have been perfect at the time it was made.