The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 217

,remembered. There is no moment when it does not stand before us in all its spiritu- ,ality, and its searching for inward conformity. Nor can we pretend that our hearts .are any better, any more in sympathy with God, than those in Israel of old. The :tiuman heart under Christ needs to be provided for just as much as under Moses. Thus we may be sure that if God saw the need then, he sees it equally now. II. Gon's PROVISION FOR 'fHE NEED. He provided somet,hing tl.at should al,ways be before tlie eye. Fringes or tassels on the garments were ever-present remem- brancers. Many times a day the wearer could not but cast his eye on this addition to his garment, and he was at once to recollect that it was something not added by bis own fancy, but that he might ask himself the question, "Am I at this moment ,doing the will of God? " Nor on his own garment only was the fringe of nse; every time his eye rested on the garments of others, similarly adorned, he was reminded to treat them in a just, godly, and brotherly fashion, as being also lsraelites,_holy and :Privileged as himself (Gal. vi. 10). And may we not say that we have reminders, so various, numerous, and increasing, as to the claims of God upon us, that they amount to something like a fringe on our garments? There may be nothing of distinct Divine appointment in many of these reminders, but if they are such as naturally turn ,our attention to holy things, then the presence of them adds very much to our responsibility. Every Bible that we see; every passage of Scripture set in other wnting; every church spire rising to the sky, or even the humblest building given to l'eligious uses ; every known minister of religion, or indeed any one known to be a •Christian; every grave-yard and burial procession-these and many such have all in them something of the fringes. We cannot afford to despise any helps towards knowledge and obedience. He promded the same memorial for all. He did not -count it sufficient there should be any memorial the individual might choose. There was to be no room for individual caprice. The memorial was a fringe, and it was always blue. Thus, while there are many things which may be used to remind us of -God's will, there are some especw.lly designed /01· tllis end. Those who accept the ,permanent obligation of the Lord's Supper are brought, on every observance of it, fa.co to face with him whom only too easily we forget. "Do this in remembrance of me." But since all do not accept this obligation, and those who do meet in different ways and with varying frequency, we can hardly find here tha.t which is to correspond iin the gospel with the fringes in the law. Is there any one settled and definite thing which Christ gives us now the same for us all? May we not answer from John xvi. 13: "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all (the) truth"? Where Moses gave commandments, Christ gave promises, which are only command- ments in another form. We have now to do not with a body of positive precepts, to be understood and obeyed in our natural strength, but with a living and life-giving Spirit, and the more we have the life of that Spirit in us, the more we shall be _preserved from errors in doctrine, and from omissions, exaggerations, and defects in ,duty. We are not now called to manufacture lifeless and merely typical observances .according to a pattern. Obedience now is to be a growth; and if there is heavenly, .pure, and energetic life in us, then we shall not be lacking in strength, beauty, and fruitfulness. Wliat signification, if anv may the-re be in the colour 'I Perhaps it is not fanciful to suppose that it may have been chosen as- having correspondence with -the tint of the sky-something to help in turning the thoughts of the people away .from earth to him who dwells on high. Te11nyson reminds us (' In Memori11m,' Ii.) of " The sinless years That breathed beneath the Syrian blue." III. THE UMlTED USE Oil' Goo's PROVISION. It was as good a monitor as could 1be given in the circumstances, always moving about with the person who had to ,remember. But remembrance, even supposing it exact and opportune, would only reveal more and more the inevitable weakness in action. What could thl! fringes help in the doing? Could they turn men from seeking after their own hearts and their own eyes? By the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom. iii. 20). Hence the better their knowledge of the la.w in itP requirements, and the more exact their ~emembrance, the more painful and deprestiing would be the consciousness of their own 198 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [cII. XV, 37-tlr