offence, but if they are not exacted, the guilt passes to the community. Yet a certain concession to human frailty is allowed. Moral offences differ in their character, according as they are committed with a determinate resolution to offend, or have arisen from inadvertence or moral weakness. It is for the former class that punishment, either at the hands of rr.an or of God, is a necessity. The latter are regarded more leniently, and may be atoned for by a trespass offering, after the wrong inflicted by theta on others has been compensated. But after every purificati9n for ceremonial and inadvertent moral faults has been made, and all penalties for presumptuous sins and crimes have been duly exacted, there will remain a residue of una.toned-for evil, and for the removal of this the ceremonial of the great Day of Atonement is instituted (see Notes and Homiletics on chs. xi.-xxii.). The Seotion, or Part, on uncleanness and its" putting away," contained in chs. xi.-xxii., consists of four divisions: chs. xi.-xv.; chs. xvi., xvii. ; cbs. xviii.-u.; and chs. ui., xxii. The first division has to do with ceremonial uncleanness, arising from four specified causes, and its purifi- cation; the second with general uncleanness and its purification on the Day of Atonement; the third with moral uncleanness and its pUDishment; the fourth with the ceremonial and moral uncleanness of priests, and their physical disqualifications. First division: Ch. xi. Uncleanness derived from ea.ting or touching unclean flesh, whether of beasts, fishes, birds, insects, or vermin. Cb. xii. Uncleanness derived from the concomitants of childbirth, and its purification. Chs. xiii., xiv. Uncleanness accruing from leprosy to men, clothes, and houses, and its purification. Ch. xv. Un~eanness derived from various issues of the body, and its purification, Second division : Ch. xvi. General uncleanness of the congregation and of the taber- naole, and its purification by the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement. Cb. xvil. Corollary to all the preceding part of the book. That sacrifices ( chs. i.-viil.), which are the means of purifica- tion (chs. xi.-xvi.), are, since the institution of the hereditary priesthood (chs. viii.-x.), to be only offered at the door of the tabernacle. 'l'hird dlvlslon: Ch. xvili. Moral uncleanness connected with marriage forbidden. Ch. xix. Other moral uncleanness forbidden. Ch. xx. Penalties for moral uncleanness, and exhortation to holiness. Fourth division: Chs. xxi., xxii, 1-16. Ceremonial IUld moral cleanness required in an extra degree in priests, and freedom from physical blemish. Oh. xxii. 17-33. Freedom from blemish and from imperfection required in sacrifices. These chapters constitute Part III. § 4. Holy Days and SecuOM. The weekly holy day was the sabbatb. The injunotion to observe it was coeval with the origin_of mankind. It kept in mind the rest of God v! INTRODUCTION TO
nfter his creative work, and foreshadowed the rest of Christ after hie redeeming work. It anticipated the rest of his people in Canaan, and the further rest of the Christian dispensation, and the still further rest of paradise. The monthly holy days were the new moons on the first day of each month ; among which the new moon of the seventh month held a sevenfold f'anctity, and was also observed ae the New Year's Day of the civil year, being sometimes inexactly called the Feast of Trumpets. The yearly holy days began in the first month with the festival of the Passover, to which was closely attached that of Unleavened Bread. These two festivals, united into one, represented historically the fact of Israel's deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, and typically they represented the future deliverance of the spiritual Israel from the bondage of sin, both at the first and at the second coming of Christ. The lamb, the exhibition of whose blood delivered from destruction, was a type of Christ. The festival served also as the spring harvest feast of the year. The Feast of Pentecost, orthe Feast of Weeks, observed seven weeks after the Passover, was the second or summer harvest festival. It might possibly have co=emorated the gift of the Law at Sinai: it certainly was the day on which was instituted the new Law in Jernealem (Acts ii.). The fast of the Day of Atonement, observed on the tenth day of the seventh month, symbolically represented the removal of the sins of tho world by Christ, at once the Sacrifice for sin offered on the cross (the sacrificed goat), and the Deliverer from the consciousness of the power of sin (the scapegoat). It also typified the entry of Christ into heaven in the character of our Great High Priest, with the virtue of his blood of Atonement, there to abide as the prevailing Mediator and Intercessor for hie people. The Feast of Tabernacles, celebrated for a week beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, was the last and most joyous_ harvest-home festival of the year. Historically, it looked back to the day of joy when, safe in their booths at Succoth, the children of Israel felt the happiness of the freedom from Egyptian bondage which they had at last attained (Exod. xii. 37); and it looked forward to the period of peaceful enjoyment which was to come with the institution of Christ's kingdom on earth, and beyond that time, to the glories of the Church triumphant in heaven. The sabbatical year, which required that every seventh year should be a year free from agricultural toil, enforced on a large scale the teaching of the sabbath, and it taught the lesson afterwards illustrated in the contrast of the lives of Mary and Martha (Luke x. 38-42), and the duty of trusting to the providence of God. The jubilee, which restored all things that had been changed or depraved to their original state every fifty years, while it served as a means of preserving the commonwealth from confusion and revolution, foreshadowed the Christian dispensation, and after that the final restitution of all things (sec Notes and Homiletics on cha. xxiii.-xxv.). '.l'llE BOOK OF LI.;Vl'l'lCU8. vii