HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vere. 41-50.-The pri,esthood still f1trther honoured and e.tabluhed. I. Trrz PEOPLE REMAIN UlllCHANUED IN HEART. They had been terrified for the moment, and fled to what they thought a safe distance, but by the morrow all their audacity has returned. It would seem as if men soon become accustomed to even the most terrible visitations of God ; nnd the more they see of his doings, the less able they are to understand them. There wns a time when such destruction as they had gazed on would have taught them caution for more than a day, but now a day is quite sufficient to make them bolder than ever. The evidential value which Moses had pointed out in vers. 28-30 is quite lost upon them. Perverse minds disregard the clearest evidence. It may be a good thing for some purposes to multiply evidences of Christianity, but if the whole earth were filled with books written on the subject, mnny would remain unconvinced. The conduct of these people, so quickly murmur- ing again, may seem scarcely credible llB we read it, yet aro they in reality worse th1rn unbelievers now? If we also read of these things that happened to Israel of old, and are not in the least impressed by them, then what are we different in our folly and audacity? The lapse of more than three thousand years hns not mnde God less jealous of his ordinances, less able and determined to punish thoae who slight them. Fearful things are spoken of those who crucify the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame. Instead of marvelling at Israel, we shall do well to see in it, as in n mirror, the perversity, blindness, and frivolity of the natural man every- where. As Israel was, so are we, until and unless God puts within us n new and different life. IL A STILL FURTHER RECOGNITION OF THE PRIESTLY OJ.l'FICE. One is not astonished to read that simultaneously with the gathering of the murmuring people, the glory of the Lord appeared again. Hitherto there has been some little interval, some time as it were for repentance, but now along with this high pitch of audacity, it is fitting that the revelation of the glory should be prompt, and prompt also the vindication of what God had but lately done. Once again he warns Moses and Aaron out of the way of death. And now what can Moses do, for his pleas are exhausted? The people have gone on sinning, until nt last the ingenuity of his pitying heart has nothing left to say. In this extremity he turns where all must turn at last, namely, to the atonement for sin which God has solemnly appointed. Probably in the first institution of the priestly office he did not comprehend all the power and blessing it "222 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [en. nn. 1-13.
-eould confer. He was now to know, and Israel with him thllt atonement for sin made through the appointed officer, had a most certain eff;ct in destroying some at least, of the coneequences of sin. The atonement made under the law sets forth that more efficacious and searching atonement lying at the foundation of the gospel but it was not, therefore, a mere form. It could not indeed cleanse the conec1en~e or change the life, but it was effectual to keep back the plague that brought physical death. In the ligllt of the honour which God here puts upon hie priest and the real -effect produced by this offering for sin, how clearly we see the real eff~ct that must come from the work of Jesus I If Aaron, the feeble, sinful type, could do ao much, liow much more we are bound to ex~ect from Jesus, the sinless, perfect antitype I III. THE SIGNIFICANCE OP' AARON s POSITION. He stood between the dead and the living. What a qwicldy datr'I.IJ;tjm power sin has I The language indicates that Moses and Aaron v-·ere full of alacnty. Not a moment was lost in interposing the a.toning service, but even so more than fourteen thousand of the people had already perished. The connection between sin and death is very close, and in such a visita- tion as this the closeness is made very clear. It may seem constantly contradicted that in the day men eat of the forbidden fruit they shall surely die, but the con~ tradiction is in appearance only. In the sinful act death is begun, and if God so -chooses, its full power may be very quickly manifested. Thus when Aaron went in .he found death had been before him, and he had to stand between the dead and the living. It was from the dead that the plague passed greedily on to the living, like the licking fire from the black ruins where it has done its work to the things still -unconsumed. But the moment Aaron enters, the atonement begins to work. The very fact that so many had perished, and so rapidly, glorifies the efficacy of his intervention. Sin is then at once in check. It was a noble position for the priest to occupy, and we should think of it as occupied by Jesus. He indeed stands between the dead and the living. Aa we gaze upon those wrecked and ruined ones, fast -settled in despair, and beyond any succour that we can discem, Christ stands be- tween us and them to give assurance that with him there is power to deliver us from such a fate. It is his great and glorious power to deliver us from death by giving to ns a new and higher life, and giving it more abundantly, that mortality may be tmJ<Jl,lowed up of life (2 Cor. v. 4).-Y.