ordinance: but we shall gain a still clearer insight
into it by considering,
II. Its instructive tendency —
We do not apprehend that any Jew, perhaps not even Moses himself, could discover in it all that we do. Yet we would be extremely cautious of indulging our fancy, or of deducing from the ordinance any in- struction which it is not well fitted to convey. We certainly keep within the bounds of sober interpreta- tion, when we say, that we may learn from it,
1 . Our universal need of a remedy against the de- filement of sin — -
[The contracting of defilement from the touch of a dead body, or a bone, or a grave, and the communicating of that defilement to every thing that was touched, and the rendering of that also a means of communicating defilement to others, intimated, that in our present state we cannot but receive de- filement from the things around us ; and that, whether inten- tionally or not, we are the means of diffusing the sad contagion of sin. " There is not a man that liveth, and sinneth not:" " in many things we all offend : " so that we may well adopt the language of the Psalmist, " Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse thou me from my secret faults b " Now as every
one who was defiled, needed the purification that was appointed, so do we, even the most pure amongst us, need deliverance from guilt and corruption. However careful we are, we can- not plead exemption from the common lot of all : we are " corrupted and corrupters0," every one of us; and are greatly indebted to our God, who has graciously appointed means for the purifying of our souls.]
2. The mysterious nature of that remedy prescribed
to us in the Gospel—
[Some have said, Where mystery begins, religion ends. We rather would say, that Christianity is altogether a mystery in every part. Look at this typical representation, and say, whether there be no mystery in it. Can we fathom all its depths ? or, if enabled by the light of the New Testament to declare its import, can we reduce it all to the dictates of reason ? Look at the truths that are shadowed forth ; is there nothing mysterious in them? Think of God's only dear Son, " in whom was no sin, becoming sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Think of the Holy Ghost, the third Person in the ever-blessed Trinity, concurring
b Ps. xix. 12. c Isai. i. 4.