tmime.ls, unless it hns been wetted by water to avoid uncleanness, because God is holy, being put on it, in which case the moisture and they were God's. 'l'hey were thus would oonvey the corruption into the seeds. tnught tho.t ceremonial cleanness of the Vere. 39, 40.-The loe.thsomeness of the body was a symbol of holiness of heart, and bodies of even clean animals thnt have died a means of attaining to the latter. Jl'or I am a natural death, makes them also the means the Lord that bri.ngeth yon up out of the land of conveying defilement to any one who of Egypt. It is poeeible tho.t Egypt may be t.oucbes them. ne.med as being the land of animal-worship. Vere. 41-43.-The last class is that of To be your God; ye Bhall therefore be holy, vermin, which constitute a part of the un- for I am holy. The only way by which there winged creeping cl11Bs already spoken of can be communion between God and man is .(vers. 29, 30). Whatsoever goeth upon the the way of holiness. • belly indicates snakes, worms, maggots ; Jewish industry and ea.re has counted the whatsoever goeth upon all four, things that number of letters in the Pentateuch, and grovel, as moles, rats, hedgehogs ; whatso- marked by the use ()( the letter , in larger ever hath more feet, or doth muUiply feet, type, in the word Jin¾, whioh occurs in centipedes, ca.terpillars, spiders. ver. 42, that that letter is the middle Vera. 44-47.-These concluding verses letter oft.he whole work, from the beginning give a religious sanction to the previous of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy. It regulations, and me.ke them matters of sacred, is easy to see what a protection to the text .not merely sanitary or political, obligation. such minute and scrupulous care must be. They were to sanotify themselves, that is,
HOMILETICS. Meats distinguished into clean and unclean now for the first time. L ORIGINALLY 11.AN'S LIBERTY WITH RESPECT TO EATING FLESH WAB UNRESTRICTED, Such is St. Paul's teaching: " Meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is -good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received .with thanksgiving" (1 Tim. iv. 3, 4). "Unto the pure all things are pure" (Titus i. 15). "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulnese thereof" (1 Cor. L 26). "I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself" (Rom. xiv. 14). And our Lord has taught, that " there is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him" (Mark vii. 15). II. 'l'HE RESTBAilITB NOW INTRODUCED WERE ONLY TEMPORARY. They were only intended to serve a purpose for a time, while the principle underlying them is of perma- •nent application. So the sabbatical law is of permanent obligation, but the form which that law took in the Mosaic dispensation was temporary, and has been abro- gated without injury to the binding force of the sabbatical law, that one seventh of our time should be given to God. ill. THE PURPOSE OF THESE BEBTllAINTB. Their object was educational. They were intended to teach, in a manner that the Israelites were capable of apprehending, ,and that was consonant with the rest of the Mosaic legislation, an abhorrence of spiritual evil, by fostering au.abborreuce of physical foulness which was taken as the represen- tative of moral eviL IV. THEIR LESSON WAS TAUGHT. When the time of the institution of the new dis- pensation had arrived, the distinction between good and evil bad been taught by the difference between fair and foul, or if not taught, it could be now taught in a better way than by sensible types and figures. 'l'eaching by word had taken the place of teaching by images. V. 'l'HEm INTENTION WAS PERVERTED. The more carnal minded among the Jews rested in the letter of the command, and added other material injunctions to it, " in the washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and tables" (Mark vii. 4). With them the -co=and had failed in its purpose, and they satisfied themselves with a mere external -0~servance of the letter. This our Lord sharply reproved: " There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of_him, those are they that defile the man, ..• Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thrng from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; because it entcrcth not ffll. XI. 1-47.] THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 173