merit for the children of Israel f." He was the presumptive heir to the high-priesthood : and with his own hand he here offered an atonement to his offended God, for whose honour he was deeply in- terested, and whose wrath he laboured to avert. In this so far as his zeal for God's honour was concerned, he is a pattern for ministers in all future ages. As to the act itself, that was peculiar to the situation and circumstances in which he stood : nor is any man now authorized to follow his example. Not the first man on earth is at liberty to take the law into his own hand, and to execute its sentence in the sum- mary way that he did. Every thing now must be transacted through a legal process, and by officers specially appointed to that end. But the same zeal as animated the soul of Phinehas, should glow in the bosom of every minister of Christ. The aboundings of iniquity should occasion " great heaviness and continual sorrow of heart" in all who serve in God's sanctuary; yea, " rivers of tears should run down their eyes night and day" because of the dis- honour which is done to God by a thoughtless and rebellious world.
But to exercise a becoming zeal for God is no easy matter ; and any person standing forth, as Phinehas, to stem the torrent of wickedness which flows around him, will be exposed to much obloquy as a bold fanatical enthusiast. In every age such ministers have " been for signs and for wonders" in the Church of God. At the time of the deluge we hear of but one person, Noah, who dared to enter his protest against the impiety of the world around him. In Elijah's time, though there were seven thousand who were not addicted to the reigning sin, there was but one who openly declaimed against it. And so it is now. There are doubtless many thousands of persons in the land, both of ministers and people, who with- stand in secret the corruptions of the world ; but yet any man, who, like Phinehas, should stand up with becoming zeal to arrest the progress of iniquity,
f Numb. xxv. 11—13.