civil magistrate. If a wilful murderer had fled to a city of re- fuge, or even to the altar itself, neither the one nor the other was to prove a sanctuary to him; he must be taken thence, and be carried forth for execution3. In the event of a slain man being found, and the murderer being unknown, this law was to be carried into effect : the elders of the city that was nearest to the slain man, (which, if doubtful, was to be ascer- tained by measurement,) were, together with the priests, to go to a rough valley, and there slay a heifer, and wash their hands over him, protesting their own innocence, and their inability to discover the offender ; and in that manner to im- plore forgiveness for the guilty landb. Now this had a tendency to strike a terror into the minds of all the people, to fill them with an abhorrence of murder, to shew them what pains would be taken to discover the person who should be guilty of it, and what terrible vengeance he must expect at the hands of God, though he should escape the punishment that he deserved from man. Somewhat of a similar process obtains amongst us : a coroner's inquest is taken whenever a suspicion of murder or of suicide appears to have any just foundation. But there is no comparison between our law and that which existed amongst the Jews ; so far superior was the solemnity of their proceedings; and so much more calculated to beget in the minds of men an abhorrence of the dreadful sin of murder.
But besides this more obvious end of the law, God de- signed also to provide means for removing guilt from his land. No sooner had the whole world sinned in Adam, than He devised means for their restoration to his favour through the incarnation and death of his only dear Son. And when " all flesh had corrupted their way before him," and determined him to execute vengeance upon them, he still waited to be gracious unto them, and sent them messages of mercy by the hands of Noah for the space of an hundred and twenty years. When the destruction of Nineveh was so imminent, that there re- mained but forty days before its completion, he sent them a prophet to warn them of their danger, and to bring them to repentance. Thus at all times has God been slow to anger, whilst the exercise of mercy was his delight. Now considering the wickedness of the human heart, it could not be but that some- times murder should have been committed: and he had declared that, in that case, " the land could not be cleansed from blood but by the blood of him that shed it." Yet, as it must some- times happen that the criminal could not be discovered, here was a method provided for expiating the guilt, so that his judgments might not fall upon any in this world, but only on
a See Numb. xxxv. 31,33. Deut. xix. 11 — 13. and Exod.xxi. 14.
b ver. 1—9. vol. II. c c