murder. It mny well be said that in this respect it was the inexorable law or the letter which killetl.1. I. The establishm~nt of cities of refu~e, intended to serve as a sanctuary to the mu.rdcrer who had killed some one by accident, rs LIKE THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS THE NEW LEGISLATION WHICH DEALS RATHER WITH THF. INTENTION THAN WITH THF. ACT, and is aimed primarily at the heart. The last commandment of the Decalog,.rn which prohibits covetousness, carries the Divine law into the inner region of th~ moral life, showing that its scofe is for wider than the sphere of outward action or speech, The man who has umntentionally committed murder, finds in the city of refuge a means of escaping the vengeance of the pursuer. This provision is in itself 11 protest against the Pharisaic spirit which based its judgment upon the outward act alone. The new covenant gives yet fuller application to the same moral prin- ciple, when it declares that hatred in the heart involves the moral guilt of murder, as lust does of adultery. II. The establishment of cities of refuge IS AN ADMIRABLE EMBLElI OF THE CHURCH. The Church is the city set upon a hill, whose gates stand open clay and night to those whom the law condemns. Only those to whom it offers shelter are not exclusively persons who have transgressed unwittingly, as was the case with the Israelitish cities ; all who have broken the law of Goel, even with open eyes, may there find shelter, on the one condition that they enter by the door. "I am the door," says Jesus Christ," no man cometh unto the Father but by me'' (John x. 7). This is a strait gate-so strait that none can pass through it except on beuded knees and laying aside every weight. By repentance and faith everything • that is of seli and sin must be abjured. Bnt so soon as these conditions are fulfilled, the doo1· is opened. No one is too great a sinner to enter the1·e. Publicans and harlots, all the sorrowful and sinful, let them hasten, arise and enter in. The city of refnge is open for all. The Church of the middle ages restored in a literal sense the Jewish cnstom of having cities of refuge. It opened its sanctuaries to murderers and spread over them the shield of its protection. This was called the privilege of sanctuary; but it became a grave abuse. Let us cleave to the one great privilege of fiuuing refuge in the true Church built upon the great Corner-Stone. The old cities of refuge promised safety from the avenging arm of the inflexible law. We have a further pledge of our safety in the blood that was shed for our sins, in the redeeming sacrifice by which our debt was paid. Sheltered beneath this outspread wing of everlasting love, we are safe from the condemnation of the righteous law which we have broken.-E. DE P.
EXPOSITION. CHAPTER XXI. 1-46. threatened (3en. xlix. 7) to "scatter them in Israel " was to be fulfilled for the benefit THE INHERITANCE OF THE LEVITES. of the whole people. Instead of a portion for himself, Levi, as we have been repeatedly Ver. 1.-Tben ea.me near the heads of i::iformed (eh. xiii. 33; xiv. 3; xviii. 7), was the fathers of the Levites. We are not to to have " the Lord God ol Israel for his suppose, with Calvin, that the Levites had inheritance." Since, therefore, their cities been overlooked. Snch a supposition is were to be assigned them within the limits little in keeping with the devout spirit of of the other tribes, it was impossible to him who now directed the offctirs of the apportion them until the other tribes had Israelites, who had been minister tl.l Moses been provided for. Unto Eleaza.r the ~rtest. the Levite, ancl he.cl but lately been con- The close connection between the military cerned with Eleazar, the high priest, in aud the sacerdotal power is kept up through- making a public reco~nition of that God to out the book. Warned by his one act of whose service the Levites had been specially neglect in the case of the Gibeonites, set apart. The delay in appointing to the Joshua never again appears to have neg- Levites their cities arose from the nature of lected to have recourse to the high priest, the arrangement which had to be made for that he might ask counsel of God for him, the Levitioal cities, The p1·ophecy which a~ had been prescribed iu Nwn. :,c:t\ii. 21. THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. [ea. XXI. 1-411.