and to rot by inches. — Let us remember beside this, that, amongst the Jews, the leper was reckoned unclean, and was cut off from the congregation of Israel and the ordinances of religion. He was obliged to dwell in a separate house. None might touch him or minister to him. Let us remember all this, and then we may have some idea of the remarkable wretchedness of a leprous person. To use the words of Aaron, when he interceded for Miriam, he was " as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed." (Numbers xii. 12.)
But is there nothing like leprosy among ourselves ? Yes ! indeed there is. There is a foul soul-disease which is engrained into our very nature, and cleaves to our bones and marrow with deadly force. That disease is the plague of sin. Like leprosy, it is a deep-seated disease, infecting every part of our nature, heart, will, conscience, understanding, memory, and affections. Like leprosy, it makes us loathsome and abominable, unfit for the company of God, and unmeet for the glory of heaven. Like leprosy, it is incurable by any earthly physician, and is slowly but surely dragging us down to the second death. And, worst of all, far worse than leprosy, it is a disease from which no mortal man is exempt. " We are all," in God's sight, " as an unclean thing." (Isaiah lxiv. 6.)
Do we know these things ? Have we found them out ? Have we discovered our own sinfulness, guilt, and corrup- tion ? Happy indeed is that person who has been really taught to feel that he is a " miserable sinner," and that there is " no health in him !" Blessed indeed is he who has learned that he is a spiritual leper, and a bad, wicked, sinful creature ! To know our disease is one step towards
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a cure. It is the misery and the ruin of many souls that they never yet saw their sins and their need.
Let us learn, in the second place, from these verses, the wondrous and almighty power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are told that the unhappy leper came to our Lord, " beseeching Him, and kneeling down," and saying, " If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean/' We are told that " Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth His hand and touched him, and said to him, I will, be thou clean." At once the cure was effected. That very instant the deadly plague departed from the poor sufferer, and he was healed. It was but a word, and a touch, and there stands before our Lord, not a leper, but a sound and healthy man.
Who can conceive the greatness of the change in the feelings of this leper, when he found himself healed ? The morning sun rose upon him, a miserable being, more dead than alive, his whole frame a mass of sores and corruption, his very existence a burden. The evening sun saw him full of hope and joy, free from pain, and fit for the society of his fellow-men. Surely the change must have been like life from the dead.
Let us bless God that the Saviour with whom we have to do is almighty. It is a cheering and comfortable thought that with Christ nothing is impossible. No heart-disease is so deep-seated but He is able to cure it. No plague of soul is so virulent but our Great Physician can heal it. Let us never despair of any one's salvation, so long as he lives. The worst of spiritual lepers may yet be cleansed. No cases of spiritual leprosy could be worse than those of Manasseh, Saul, and Zacchaeus, yet