The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 355

with the wicked every day" (Ps. vii. 11); "the Lord hath been sore displeased with your fathers" (Zech. i. 2); " they vexed his Holy Spirit" (Isa. !xiii. 10); "he looked on them with anger" (Mark iii. 6); to "them that obey nnrighteousness" God will render "indignation and wrnth" (Rom. ii. 8). 2. It is impoS11ible wholly to separate the act -from the agent. An act has no moral qualities at all apart from the disposition and character of him who does it. If our indignation is aroused by any shameful deed, it ·is because some one has wrought that which is wrong, and our feeling must extend .to the perpetrator as well as to the crime. In theory it must do so; in fact it does so. We cannot see our own children doing that which is guilty without being displeased with them as well as excited with indignation against the wrong they have done. Our feelings of holy o.nger, indignation. righteollll ~rief, etc., may not be pre;:,isely identical with those which are in the heart of God when he looks down on the sins of his human -children, but they answer to them; they correspond with them; they enable us to understand how he, our Divine Father, feels toward us when we do those things which .are offensive and grievous in his sight. Let us lay it well to heart that by (1) our positive transgressions of his holy Law, (2) our keeping back from him the love and the .service which are his due, (3) the continued rejection of his overtures of mercy and reconciliation in Christ Jesus, we are offending, displeasing, grieving God. These our ,sins are drawing down upon our own souls the awful anger, the high displeasure, of that Almighty God in whom we live, who hns ourselves and our future in his right hand of power, whom it is our chief duty, and should be our first desire, to conciliate and please. We glance at- III. THE WELCOME TRIJTH WITB WHICH rr 1s CONSISTENT. While God hates sin and -is divinely displeased with the sinner, he yet pities the sinner and seeks to save him. He condemns, but he invites. "Is Epbraim my dear son? ••• since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still" (Jer. xxxi. 20). As a human father over his lost son .or erring daughter, only with immeasurably deeper love, he yearns over his wayward children, and goes out to welcome them home, when, returning to themselves, they return unto him (Luke xv. 11-24).-C, Ver. 24.-Three aspects of human life, The verse suggests three thoughts concern- ing our human life- I. THE EXCELLENCY OF OUR ESTATE. IC A land that floweth with milk and honey." -God gave the Israelites an excellent inheritance when he led them into the land of promise. For beauty, variety of scenery, fertility, etc., it was nil that could be desired. Our present estate as citizens of time is one rich and full, a "land flowing," etc. We have : 1..The beauty and grandeur of the world. 2. Human love in its manifold forms, -conjugal, parental, filial, fraternal, etc. 3. Sufficiency of all kinds of palatable food. 4. Intellectual gratifications. 6. Spiritual relationships and the sacred, enduring joys which belong to these. u. THE TENURE UlnlER WHICH WE HOLD POSSESSION, " I will give it unto ·you to possess it." We reckon that we " possess " many things. We call them IC ours." We endeavour to secure them to ourselves by carefully drawn documents and witnesses. But what, when all has been done tho.t can be done, is the tenure under which we hold everything? It is not the consent of man, but the will of God. God said to Israel concerning the country of the Canaanites, "Ye shall inherit their land, and I w,11 give it -unto you to possess it." He thought well to take it away from its former occupants ,and give it to them, There were, no doubt, the best reasona for this exchange; but. .Jehovah evidently assumed his perfect right to dispose as seemed well to him of his own. God always has the best grounds on which to deal with us, mising up or laying low; he never acts capriciously; but he often acts without assigning reasona to us, and in such wise that we cannot make any conjecture thereupon that is even probably true. We must recognize the fact that we hold everything at his will, and be perfectly ready to lay it down or to hand it on to another at the bidding of the Supreme. This is true of (1) our property and position, (2) our mental powers, (3) our health, end (4) ,our life on earth. Ill THE PAINFUL NEED TO SEPARATE OURSELVES FROM OTHERS. If I am the Lord -vour God, which have separated you from other people." Dy their daily habits and 10dal custom& (ver. 26), the Jews were cut off from intercourse with other people: 320 THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. [cH. XX, 1-27_