him, and the great displeasure with which he regards the mere suspicion of it. For this ordeal was not merely or primarily to punish guilt or to restore domestic peace but to remove sin and passion from before the eyes of God. Consider, therefore- !. THAT Goo RESERVED HIS MOST AWFUL VISITATION 01!' OLD TIMBS FOB BUCH ADULTERY AS HAD SUCCESSFULLY ESCAPED BUMAN ODSERVATION. & there is no sin which more surely destroys a nation or a class by kindling the wrath of God against it than adulter?, So tbe Jews in the time of the later prophets (Jer. v. 8; Hos. iv, 2), and in the time of our Lord (John viii. 7; the Talmud, as above); so the upper classes in France before the Revolution ; so pernaps our own to-day. lI. THAT GOD DID NOT APPOINT DIVORCE AS A REMEDY AGAINST CONJUGAL UNl!'AITJI• FULNESS. For it is no remedy against the sin, but only against some of its painful consequences. The glosses and traditions of the Jewish lawyers made divorce easy and common, because they no longer believed in the righteousness of God or in the hatefulness of sin, as sin. III. That nothing is more abhorrent from the will of God concerning us THAN TBAT FIERCE JEALOUSY AND CRUEL SUSPIC!Ol>l' SHOULD INVADI!: FAMILIES, and poison the purest source of human happiness. Both, therefore, sin greatly-the wife who gives the least ground for suspicion by levity or carelessness of conduct, the husband who nurses a spirit of jealousy, and does not try to bring it to the test of facts. IV. That the sin of adultery was PUNISHED UNDER THE LAW WITJI MISERADLE DEATH, WHEREAS CHRIST REFUSED TO AWARD ANY SECULAR PUNISHMENT TO IT (John viii. 11). And this is ( 1) because of the greater mercifu]ness of the gospel, calling men to repentance (Rom. ii. 4 ; 2 Pet. iii. 9); but also (2) because of the greater severity of the moral law now revealed, threatening eternal death to all adulterers (Gal. v. 19, 21 ; Heh. xiii. 4). V. THAT THIS SPECIAL AND AWFUL PROVISION WAS MADE ONLY AGAINST THE SIN Oil' THE WIFE, because it is from her sin that jealousy and its consequent crimes do as a fact arise in rude communities. But under the more perfect law of Christ there is no difference made between the same sin in men and women, hut rather the sin of the man is denounced because it is more lightly accounted by the world (Matt. v. 28 i 1 These. iv. 6, "in the matter").
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ven;. 11-31.-The trial of jealousy. Just previously, regulations are laid down ·wi.th respect to offences in general. Here is an offence which needed to be dealt with in a special way, as being one where restitution was impossible. 'l'he offence also destroyed a relation of peculiar sacredness and importance, and the discovery of guilt wae difficult, perhaps impossible of attainment, by ordinary lines of proof. L THE HUSBAND'S POSITION IS RECOGNISED. The spirit of jealousy is not condemned as in itself an evil passion. In it he might be angry and sin not. The spirit of jealousy could not be too much excited or too amply satisfied, if only the f11ct11 corresponderl to Lis feelings. No mention is made of a similar ordeal for the husband to pass tlirough if a spirit of jealousy were awakened in the wife, and so it may seem that more severity was meted out to the woman than the man. But the offence of an unfaithful husbnnd, equally great of course as a sin, might not be equally dangerous as a crime. The principles of human law which compel men to gmduate crime and punishment had to hE; reme!flbered in the theocracy.. An ex~mination of the :Mosaic laws against sexual 1mpunty sl1ows that they prov1de<l stnngenjly for both sexes. The adulterer was punishable with death. A guilty wifo in the discovery of her guilt dragged down her paramour (Levit. :x:x. 10). IL THE Wll"E'B POSITION IS RECOGNISED. 'fo punish her more Se\'erely for 11 lapse of conjugal fidelity was really to honour he~, sl1owing th_nt in one respe~t more_ wna expected from her. It bec:une every Israelite to walk circumspectly; 1t pccuharl,r became the Israelite matron. May we not say that the spirit of jealousy, though 1t might often be numifested on insufficient grounds, was nevertheless in itself a provision of God, through nature? The reputation of a wife is a very delicate thing·, and w1111 meant so to be. The t.enth commandment specifies, " Thou shnlt not covet thy neighbour's wife." Hence we may infer there was some temptation to men en. n. 1-21.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 43
to commit this sin, and wives needed to be specially on their guard. The ordeal to which God called them, hard as it might seem, had a most honourable side. Let it not be said that Mosaic legislation showed the Oriental depreciation of woman. God was caring for her even then, but she had to partake of the severity of the law, even as, long after, represented by the woman taken in adultery, she shared in the clemency and tenderness of the gospel. III. THE UNERRING DIBC0VEilY 01' GUILT. God took the matter away out of the obscurities of circumstantial evidence. The very nature of the offence made it difficult for a suspicious husband to get beyond presumption. "The eye of tl,e adulterer waiteth for the twilight" (Job x.xiv. 15). But God called the accused wife among the solemnities of the tabernacle, and concea!ment and evasion thenceforth became impossible. Notice how the ordeal was painless in itself. There was no walking on burning ploughshares nor demand on physical endurance. It was inde- pendent also of anything like chance, as if the casting of a lot had been held to sett!~ the matter. The bitter water was drunk, and God, who brings all secret things into judgment, showed the indubitable proof in the swollen body and the rotted thigh. Proof, sentence, and punishment were all in one. IV. THE DISCOVERY, EQUALLY UNERRING, 01' INNOCENCE. One wonders what the history of this ordeal was in practice; how often used, and with what results. •. ,v e know not what terrible tragedies it may have prevented, what credulous Othello it may have restored to his peace of mind, what Desdemona it may ha.ve vindicated, and what Iago it may have overthrown in his villanous plots. "God shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday" (Ps. x.x.xvii. 6). There will be a fine.I clearing of all the innocent, however many have been condemned at a human bar. The whole matter assumes its most significant aspect when we note how the apostasy of God's people is figured by gross and shameful breaches of the marriage vow (Ezek. xvi.). The doom of the adulterous wife fore- shadows the doom of the backsliding believer.-Y.
EXPOSITION.