The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 269

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. &cret sins. Ch. xv.; cf. Ps. xix. 12; 1 Tim. i. 13. We have already had occasion to discern as a clear lesson of the old ritual that sin is a nature. The old law did not confine itself to overt acts, but insisted on " sins of ignorance" being regarded as elements of guilt (cf. eh. iv.). Then again we have sin shown to originate in birth (eh. xii.); we have its tangible effects strikingly illustrated in the law of the leprosy (chs. xiii., xiv.); and now we have the analysis of sin completed in these laws about issues. I. IT 18 A PHYSICAL FACT THAT MEN AND WOMEN MAY BECOME UNCLEAN WITHOUT ANY ACT OF VOLITION ON THEm PART. Into the particulars of menstrUJ1tion and of gono"heu. benigna it is unnecessary to enter. The chapter before us states the fact, e.nd asserts the legal uncleanness which is thereby entailed. If involuntary resnlts entail uncleanness, it is clear that voluntary elements entering in (ver. 18) must incree.se ~e sense of uncleanness. Experience confirms the Divine decision. '!'here is a sense of uncleanness which arises as soon as the man or woman becomes conscious of the issue. II. IT IS EVIDENT FROM THIS THAT sm IIAB A SPHERE OF OPERATION BEYOND CONSCIOUS VOLITION. .Just as physically a me.nor woman contracts uncleanness during the un- consciousness of sleep, so morally we find sinful issues coming forth from the evil heart and nature ere ever we are a.we.re. In strict conformity with this fact, Jonathan Edwards was accustomed to analyze his dreams, believing that, in these involuntary movements of the mind, the moral tendencies of the indwelling spirit may often be detected, and by greater watchfulness subdued. "No mind," says Dr. Shedd, "tlmt thinks e.t all upon sin can possibly stop with the outward act. Its own rational reflection hurries it away, almost instantaneously, from the blow of the murderer- from the momentary gleam of the knife-to the volition within that strung the muscle and nerved the blow. But the mind cannot stop here in its search for the essential reality of sin, When we have reached the sphere-the inward sphere-of vclitions, we have by no means reached the ultimate ground and form of sin. We may suppose that because we have gone beyond the outward act-because we are now within the 234 TRE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. rCII. XV. 1-83.