is bound to exclude from town and city those who endanger its moral■• The opium- scller, as such, is righteously exclu~e~; the man who would sell poisons without restriction is disallowed; and an unlimited number of dramshops, with their terrible enticements, is (or, surely, should be) prohibited. A community has the right to say, "We will not allow any man, for the sake of gain, seriously to imperil the morals the health, and the lives of the people; if you want to practise these things, you mu;t go ',dthout the camp.'" II. THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF THE SOCIAL AND THE FAMILY cmoLI!:. 1. We ought not to admit to our intimacy any "unclean" human spirit. We should fence our social circles so that no man sits down to our table or Clllr hearth to infect and poison our own minds. 2. But it is, in an especial degree, both our right and our duty, as parents, to guard the family circle from the intrusion of "the unclean." What untold e,ils, what unimaginable sorrows, have befallen family life, because parents have not, with holy vigilance, saved their sons and daughters from the companionship of the corrupt! Of every "unclean" soul let the human father say, with sternest inflexibility, "Without the camp shall his habitation be." III. THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF THE CHURCH. There can be no doubt of this. 1. It is the divinely appointed way. It was instituted by our Lord himself (Matt. xvi ii. 17, 18). It was enjoined by the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. v. 2, 5, 11; Titus iii. 10); it was also practised by him (1 Tim. i. 20). 2. It is the legitimate and becoming method. Any interference by a Christian Church with civil rights goes beyond the Word of the Lord, brings the Church into conflict with the secular power, and is likely to lead to confusion and trouble. Exclusion from its own fellowship is a natural and incontestable right. 3. It is sometimes the only course that is open. It is needful for the purity of the Church itself; the leaven must not injure the whole lump. It is needful also for the offender. And it is well to remember these two things in such a sad necessity: viz. (1) that excommunication was resorted to in apostolic times with a distinct view to the benefit of the offender (1 Cor. v. 5; 1 'l'im. i. 20); and (2) that of two cases reported in Scripture, one relates the restoration .of the excommunicated member (2 Cor. ii. 6-8). Let t4e Church make paramount the preservation ofitsown purity, but let it encourage, expect, and welcome penitence.-C.
EXPOSITION.
LEPROSY IN CJLOTBEB (vere. 47-59). To tempting but unproved hypothesis, inu- e.ccount for the UBe of the no.me leprosy in much o.e the similarity of appearance pre- ihis connection, e.n ingenious theory has sented by the two affections is enough to been propounded that the same cause pro- account for their going by the same name. duced a like effect in the hnman frame in Leprosy in garments and in lenther is a clothes and in houses. "There is here mildew which co.nnot be got rid of, called <'!escribed a disease whose cause must have leprosy by amilogy. Like other oauses of been of organic growth, capable of living unoleanness, it makes the material unolean, in the human being and of creating there a because it gives a repulsive appearo.noe to foul and painful disease of contagions it, reminding the beholder of the disease character, while it could also live and re- which it resembles. " Leprosy in linen and produce itself in garments of wool, linen, woollen fabrics or clothes consisted in o.11 or skin ; nay, more, it could attach itself to probability in nothing but so-co.lied mildew, the walls of a house and there also effect which commonly arises from damp and want its own reproduction. Animaloules, always of air, and consists, in the case of linen, of capable of choice, would scarcely be found round, partially coloured spots, which spread so tranaferable, and we are therefore justi- and gradually eat up the fabrio, until it falls fied in supposing that green or red fungi, to pieces like mould. In leather, the mildew so oft.en seen in epidemic periods, were the coneists more strictly of• holes eaten in,' and protean di11ease of man and his garment and is of a greenish, reddish, or wbitieh colour, his house" (Dr. Mitchell, 'Five Essays'). according to the Bp80ieeofthe delioateorypto- l t is not nece111ary to have reoourse to this gami by which it has been formed" (Keil). OB. XID. f7-59.] THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 211
Ver. 47.-Whether it be a woollen gar- Vera. 49-59.-The priest ie to deal with ment, or a linen garment. Wool and flax the texture ae nearly ae may be in the same are the two materials for clothes mentioned way that be dealt with the human subject, in Deut. :xxii. 11 ; Prov. xxxi. 13 ; Hoe. ii 7. in order to discriminate between a tempo- Ver. 48.-Whether it be in the warp, or rary discolouration and e. real leprosy. He woof. It is hardly possible that euch e. ehall shut up it that bath the plague seven fault as leprosy or mildew could appear in days (ver. 50), may, as before, mean, HB one set of the threads without affecting the ,hall bind up the p"lac6 affected se?Jen days. others, provided that both were equally good If the priest judges that it is leprosy, he is when they were me.de up into the cloth; but to burn the garment, if not, to tear out the it is quite possible that a heap of yarn, used piece affected, whether it be in the warp, or either for the warp or for the woof, might in the woof, that is, in whatever pa.rt it have been iujuriously affected before it was appears, and to wash the remainder twice. woven, and then the fault would naturally The expression, whether it be bare within or make its appearance where the mischief hlMi without, literally, whethef- it be bald in thti been originally done. Whether in a skin, or head the-reof or in thti forehead. thereof, in anything made of skin. An example of the means, " whether the fault appeal' in the first would be a sheepskin cloak ; the second front or in the baok of the texture." would designate anything made of leather.
HOMILETICS.