The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 318

and to serve him with all their heart and with all tneir soul" (Deut. x. 12; see also Deut. vi. 5 ; xi. 13; nx_. 16, 20).. They were not only to act righteously toward their neighbour, but to love him (eh. x1x. 18). They were to "afflict their souls" on the Day of At::mement and Reconciliation (eh. xvi. 29). There c.an be little doubt that it was the duty of the priests and Levites to instruct the Hebrew worshippers to present their sacrifice unto the Lord, believing and feeling that he was there to receive their offering and to accept their penitence and their faith. II. THAT, UNDER THE GOSPEL, A LIVING FAITH IS CONSTANTLY ASSOCIATED WITH ACTIVE OBEDIEN~ We are not saved ~y wor~s, but by.faith in fesus Christ (Rom. iii. 28; !· 1; Eph. 11. 8, e~)· Yet the faith which saves IS a "faith which worketh by love (Gal. v. 6; Jas. n. 18, 20, 22, etc.). But the primary truth which is taught in this passage is rather this- Ill. THAT SPIBITUAL OBEDIENCE IS THE SECRET AND THE SOURCE OF TBUE HUMAN LIFE. 1. It is the secret of all real life. What is human life ? In what does it actually consist? The life of the brute consists in the performance of its animal functions, in its outward, sensible existence. But the life of a man consists in some- thing higher. We live when our souls live, when we live before God and unto him• if a man wil I tlo God's will and keep his statutes and his judgments, " he shall live in th;m ; " be will find his true life in the doing and the keeping of these; "this is life eternal, to know thee," etc. (John xvii. 3). To know God, to know him as he is revealed to us in Christ Jesus, to worship him, to rejoice in him, to love and to please him, to be gratefully and cheerfully obedient to his will in all things,-this is human life; all else is immeasurably below it. There is nothing worth calling life apart from the holy and happy service of God; a spiritual not a servile obedience is the secret of life on earth. 2. It is also the source of the higher human life which is beyond. The Jew who kept God's statutes not only found a true life in his Dbedience, but he also gained a true life thrO'U!}h his obedience. God bestowed on him his Divine favour, conferred on him all those outward blessings which were then regarded as the highest token of the favour of the Eternal; he lived in the smile and the benediction of Jehovah. Our hope is brighter and more far-reaching than his. He had some glimmering of the blessedness beyond, but it was faint and feeble. We know that if our faith in a Divine Redeemer is manifested in a lasting spiritual obedience, we" shall live" a life of which the Jew had little thought, and of which we ourselves can only form some struggling anticipa- tion. We know that if "we are faithful unto death," we shall have "a crown of life." The obedience of faith, continued to the end, will introduce us to the life which is (1) one of celestial fulness; (2) free from present care, sorrow, sin; (3) everlasting.-C. Vere. 6-23.-Impurity--its extent and source. There are times when and con- ditions nnder which it is both our right and our duty to speak on this subject. We may offend delicacy by speech, and must therefore be careful what we say. But we may neglect obligation and opportunity by silence, and must therefore use fitting occa- sion for speech. There is a time to warn the young against an evil which may slay them with a mortal wound. We may glance, and only glance, at- I. THE FEARFUL LENGTH TO WHICH IMPURITY MAY PASS, God made man male and female that, related to one another thus, they might be happy in one another's fellow• ship; that husband, wife, and child might complete the harmony of human life. But for the confusing and disturbing element of sin, there would have been nothing but holy conjugal affection and happy human homes. How dark and sad a contrast to this does society present I How melancholy the thought that impurity should not only havo tainted so many souls, but should have taken so may forms! that not only have tho natural relations of the sexes been too unliwited, too unrestrained, but that sin of this description has taken unnatural, shocking, and abominable forms I that its dark and shameful manifestations are such as we hardly like to name, and do not dare to think of (vers. 22, 23) I Only a holy compulsion will induce us even to make passing reference to such things. So low, to such dark depths, into such a "far country" of vileness does the sin of impurity extend. II. THAT GUILTY INDULGENCE 18 THE ONLY EXPLANATION OF THIS EVIL PBOGREBB. ~o."'. can BUch things be? is the simple question of the pure heart. How by any pos- ~1 b1lity can human nature sink into such a gulf of depravity? How can we account OD'. XVUL 1-30.] THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. 283