THE following little work is an attempt to unfold the spiritual and experimental signification of the disease of leprosy, with the God given rites appointed for its cleansing. The author has succeeded in writing an interesting and instructive book. He has shirked no difficulty, and carefully explains every point, setting forth his views with becoming modesty, where differences of opinion may exist. The chapters on the offerings, which were the means ordained for the removal of the leprosy, contain many suggestive and original thoughts, rendering them especially worthy of careful study.

The subject is of the greatest importance. All the people of God know and feel they are leprous sinners, and need the healing application of the Saviour's blood for the removal of their sins and the cleansing of their souls. These pages describe the malady clearly and distinctly, and they also unfold the glorious remedy as provided by God and revealed in the Scriptures of truth.

May the Holy Spirit bless their perusal, and use Mr. Warburton's words to convince of sin, and to lead leprous souls to Jesus, there to find pardon and peace through the blood of atonement.

E. C.

Bath.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

WHEN first undertaken, to while away a few hours of time and to follow up the course which a solitary ray of light had first revealed, the following work was in a form much different to that in which it now stands. Feeling, however, when the subject had grown to some considerable length, and further lessons still appeared, that it might not be unacceptable to a larger circle of readers than those for whom it was first intended, it was remodeled in the form which now appears before the reader.

To some few, perhaps, the lawfulness of treating the account of the leper and his cleansing in the deeply spiritual way in which it is treated in the following pages may appear a matter of question ; but to this objection, on whatever grounds made, we would simply point out the close parallel which is at once seen to exist between the natural account and the spiritual lesson which is found in it; a parallel so close that it at once shuts out every suggestion of incidental coincidence, and stamps itself to be a designed similarity. A further answer might be given by referring to the teaching of Christ with regard to the Old Testament containing a record of Him and His work, together with the truths of His kingdom. Again and again He pointed out to the Jews that all those things concerning Himself were to be found in the Scriptures which they were then in possession of. If we turn, however, to those Scriptures to verify Christ's words, and search out all those things which have a primary and an unmistakable reference to Christ's Person, work, and kingdom, we shall find how short the few passages, which are of such 'a nature, come of expressing those things which we know were contained in this great subject. We are therefore compelled to admit that the teaching which Christ asserted to be contained in the Old Testament lay in something more than in clear and express declarations ; that, in fact, it must have been contained in those symbols and ceremonies with which the old dispensation abounded. Granting this, which we find to be the very method of procedure adopted by the Apostle Paul, we are then obliged to admit that the subject contained in the following pages comes under the same head as any of those contained in the Levitical law, since in it are to be found many things which in other parts are plainly shown to be typical.

The presence of these, therefore, at once declares the whole to be a typical subject, containing in its depths those spiritual truths which had reference to the Redeemer's kingdom, and which in this way were preached unto the Jews prior to Christ's coming upon earth.

On these grounds alone, therefore, is it that we have taken upon ourselves to treat the subject in the spiritual way which forms the groundwork of the following pages. It was with no preconceived ideas that we entered upon it, nor with the intention of making the inspired account fit in with the views already held, as is very often the case in matters of Scripture exegesis. We were quite content to let the natural account form the groundwork upon which the spiritual must be built up, showing by the closeness with which it corresponded what reality existed in the interpretation of it in this way. How close the analogy is the honest reader must confess, and we must ourselves also acknowledge that, as we pursued the subject step by step, the closeness of the similarity between the natural and spiritual was matter of much surprise and wonder to us, and caused us to feel with impressive solemnity how deep, how wonderful, and how glorious was the revealed Word of God.

It may, perhaps, not be amiss to say that up to the time of the first drafting of the subject no work or publication upon the subject had come under our notice. In the midst of it, however, a friend kindly placed in our hands two sermons by the late J. C. Philpot having reference to it. Feeling, however, unwilling to plough with other men's oxen, and having found on previous occasions that it is much more profitable in spiritual matters to search out for one's self, we placed these on one side till the work was fully drafted out and had proceeded well on its way. On having recourse to these sermons we were much surprised, as well as gratified, to find that in some parts an almost identical similarity of thought existed. In others, we must acknowledge, a difference was found; but these were of such a nature that we did not feel warranted to make any alteration, but rather preferred to leave them, and especially as in some of the cases the form in which Mr. Philpot's labours were cast, by limiting the subject, seemed also to have lamed the interpretation in some measure. Where differences of a pronounced nature existed we have left them also, but have attempted to give the reasons which have induced us to vary from so gracious and learned a man. Those of our readers who are in possession of the sermons, The Leper Diseased and The Leper Cleansed, will be able to examine these places for themselves ; but to those who have not got them, we hasten to say that the disagreement is upon nothing of vital importance.

With regard to other works upon the subject, we know not any, nor yet have sought for any ; while the remarks of such commentators as we have had the opportunity of glancing through during the later progress of the work, have been too misty and undecided in their real meaning to be of any worth. In Mr. Philpot's sermons alone have we found anything approaching a clear and consistent interpretation, and these are but brief and fragmentary, while in some parts matter upon which we have felt constrained to enter has been entirely passed over.

The thought of this, therefore, that, so far as we are aware, the present volume occupies the position of a pioneer upon this subject, fills us with much diffidence and fear in committing it into the hands of the people of God, many among whom, from their long traveling in the way to the kingdom, are better able to speak of that path treated of, into which our feet, in comparison to them, has but newly entered. If, however, it but leads them into sweetness of thought, or increases the beauty and preciousness of the Word of God unto them, we shall be contented to know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord. Humbly craving, then, that this blessing at least may rest upon it, and earnestly desiring that God would graciously accept this mite thrown into His treasury, and use it for His own glory and the good of His chosen, we now leave it in His hands and in those of the reader.

CONTENTS.

L. H. Green, Wigan,
July, 1905.

B. A. W.

To by far the greater number of present-day Christians the sacrificial laws and ceremonies of the Levitical institution contain little more than the record of an ancient and long since abrogated form of religious worship. This at least, if not the professed, is the impressed opinion which one is bound to form from any conversation which may take place upon the subject. The deep spiritual truths underlying the outward covering of ritual and ceremony are but dimly seen and far more dimly understood, even if understood at all. But that all these observances which God enjoined upon the people of Israel were deeply figurative and typical of the great truths of the gospel is abundantly evident from the oft-repeated and varied assertions made in the New Testament writings, and especially in that book which forms, as it were, the key to the whole body of Levitical ceremonies -the Epistle to the Hebrews. No one after reading carefully through this book can doubt for one moment that the law was "the shadow of good things to come," and that though it was not in God's purpose for it to contain the substance, it yet pointed forward with wonderful clearness to the great antitypical fulfillment of all its shadowy ordinances. The great gospel truth of redemption through the blood of Christ shines out most clearly in the sacrifices which were appointed. The voice of God sounded out in marked decision over every sacrifice, that without shedding of blood was no remission. Sin brought guilt, and since guilt disturbed the covenant relationship which God had with Israel, each soul comprising that nation was taught to see in the sacrifice which he had to bring under such circumstances that God's pardon and favour was only to be gained through an appointed sacrifice. How many saw through the type to the great Antitype, who can tell ? but to all the outward truth was made manifest, that suretyship and bloodshedding was necessary to secure God's favour towards them ; and as this truth was thus made manifest, so also every other gospel truth was displayed in type unto them.

Their own sinfulness was revealed to them, and their own helplessness and utter insufficiency to extricate themselves from the perilous position in which they stood by their own plans and schemes was indelibly impressed upon their minds. The methods of service and sacrifice were all appointed by God, and only by coming in the way which He had appointed could acceptance or forgiveness be attained to. How plainly then in these things do we find the truths of the gospel uttered and displayed. How loudly did the blood of the sacrificial lamb speak of the blood of Him who is the Lamb of God; and how clearly did the entering of the priest within the vail tell the story of Him who entered with His own blood into heaven, there to stand as the accepted sacrifice for all His believing people.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty in understanding many of these typical rites, however, is owing to the fact of their great complexity. The earnest reader may acknowledge that all these things spake of Him who was to come in the fullness of time, and endeavour to trace out the analogy existing between the type and the Antitype; but in attempting to do so, he finds so much that appears to be meaningless, or at least unintelligible to him, that he gives up the attempt in despair. He may have managed to elicit some general truth, and have seen the broad features of gospel grace beaming forth from the shadowy confines in which they had been concealed; but when he takes up the separate details and proceeds to examine them, although he feels confident that some spiritual truth lies in them, he is unable to fathom their depth. The general truth which they had to tell they have told, the broad outlines of the message they had to give they have delivered ; but yet there remains left in them features and details which appear above and beyond the spiritual truth.

Through this cause, this deep, confusing complexity, many, no doubt, turn away their attention from these books of the Bible which treat of the ordinances of the Levitical institution. The confession which one candid Christian once made to the writer that they " seldom read Leviticus because it appeared so dry," is doubtless the very expression of many thoughts and also of many actions. But we must remember that as all Scripture was given by inspiration of God, so it is all profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim. iii. i6, 17); and that whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning (Rom. xv. ¢).

Seeing then that these things are so, we ought the more earnestly to seek to know the mind, will, and purposes of God as revealed in these types, and endeavour to trace out the glad tidings of the Gospel as contained in them. Did we follow this course, and by more prayerful consideration seek an entrance into the wondrous things of the law, we should no doubt discover that those complexities were all necessary for a perfect revelation of the spiritual truth, and that those things which appear more than necessary for the spiritual import were each and all essential to the right understanding of those things of which they speak. If we, moreover, stumble now over them, what must have been the case with the children of Israel ? They had the type alone to look upon; the great Antitype was yet in the far distant future. But we now look back to the Antitype ; the dim shadows and pre-figurations of the Mosaic economy have all vanished in the bright sunshine of fulfilled prophecy. What more then can be necessary than what we have got? What further light can be given than what has been bestowed, and how can we trace out the features of the divine portrait better than by comparing them with the original ? But to do this we shall need something more than outside knowledge. The man of the world may possess this ; he gazes on the outlined portrait and carefully considers all its features; he looks also on the original as living and moving before us in the Gospels, and yet he can discover no resemblance. Hearsay and natural knowledge may tell him that both are the same, but he cannot distinguish one feature or identify the original with the copy. Something more then is necessary to enable us to trace out in the shadow the Person, character, and work of the great Substance, and that something is living acquaintance with a personal Christ and vital experience of His grace. This is the great key to unlock the mysteries. If we know not the Christ for which we are searching, if we have not seen Him face to face, how shall we recognize Him when we see Him? and if we have had no vital experience of His love and grace, how shall we be able to trace out their workings when we only see them reproduced in shadows? Vital godliness and personal union and communion with an ever-living Christ is the great essential for all right understanding of the sacred Scriptures, and only as we possess this and these can we hope to recognize the face of our Lord when veiled in the shadows of the Levitical ordinances.

May God bless both reader and writer with an overflowing increase of these divine realities, that we may be enabled, b a-closer and more intimate acquaintance with the Lord Jesus, to penetrate through the shadows of the portion of His Word now before us, and by an enlarged experience of the workings of His Spirit in our souls recognize the features of those workings when set before us in figure. And if any should take up this little work who know nothing of these important realities, who have not been brought into living acquaintance with Christ, and who have felt nothing of His Spirit's work within, we would ask them in all love and tenderness to earnestly consider how solemnly important such things must be in the mind of God, that He should have set forth these truths in so many and diverse ways. And may God plant the living desire in their soul to be brought into practical acquaintance with these things, that their eyes may be enlightened, and that they may see in those things which have been barren and meaningless to them the sweet unveilings of a precious and ever-glorious Christ.

THE plague of leprosy was to the children of Israel one of the most awful and the most dreaded of all inflictions which it was possible to suffer under. In such a light did they regard it, that it was ever looked upon by them as one of the most direct and signal of God's judgments, and the person who was afflicted or smitten with it was also regarded as being in some particular way and manner under the just displeasure and wrath of God.

The very term which was applied to it by them set this feature forth, its Hebrew name signifying "the stroke." That this interpretation was correct, and it was no mere hyperbolical manner of expression on the part of the Jews, may be seen from a careful examination of the cases which are recorded in the Scriptures where this disease was specially inflicted by God. In Numbers xii., we find that when Miriam and Aaron revolted against the divinely given authority of Moses, God smote Miriam, who was plainly the leader, with leprosy. She had rebelled against God's appointments, and had endeavoured to overthrow His decree, and so God in just punishment inflicted upon her that which was not only an awful sign of His anger, but that which was also His own special mark of sin.

Again, when Gehazi sought to make merchandise of God's free mercy, and under a false pretence gained possession of wealth, we find that the prophet, under divine impulse, was moved to inflict upon him the same awful judgment. What a solemn warning is this to all those who seek to make merchandise of the things of the Gospel, and who take up and dispense the ministrations of God's Word simply to make gain and to amass wealth. Though punishment may not be inflicted during this life, how solemn is the thought to know that, unless divine grace prevent, it must be inflicted in another world, where death cannot put an end to the sufferings.

In King Uzziah also we have another instance of the divine infliction of this awful plague. Uzziah had been prospered by God, and great success had been granted unto him. But prosperity is not always the best thing which can befall a man. Pride crept in ; he forgot to whom he was indebted for his greatness, and "his heart was lifted up to his own destruction ; for he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense " (2 Chron. xxvi. r6).

Notwithstanding the fact that he knew the services of the temple were only to be attended to by consecrated hands, and that God had specially set apart a particular family to attend to this sacred office, he in his pride and self-will arrogated to himself the rights pertaining only to those who were divinely appointed and consecrated. Though warned and opposed in the name of God, he still persisted in his perverseness, and then God stretched forth His hand and smote him with the most awful form of that most awful visitation of His wrath, even leprosy in the forehead.

From these three instances we may see how this plague was, so to speak, that which God specially exercised as His prerogative to inflict on those sins which were chiefly directed against Him. Under the law, however, leprosy appears to set forth not only the punishment of sin, but to be also the type of sin. This conclusion, the very rules and regulations which God laid down with regard to it, would cause us to arrive at when examined in a higher light than that of mere natural and sanitary precautions.

Deeply typical all the Levitical law was, as we have expressed in our introduction, and as the leper's restoration called forth the performing of a deeply significant part of the ritual which God had given, it must have been because the position of the leper was typically corresponding to the typical meaning of the ceremony enjoined. The working

of this out in detail, with the explanation of the typical meaning of the whole ritual, is that which will be treated of in the following pages; but we may say at the outset that the position of the leper, as typically corresponding to the ceremony of his cleansing, was that of being a sinner before God.

And how closely analogous do we find the plague of leprosy to be with the still more awful plague of sin! Slow in its operation, loathsome in its true appearance, and deadly in its ultimate end ; how clearly does it speak of the state of every unawakened sinner who, "born in sin," shows by his actions the workings of sin within, until when sin bath conceived it bringeth forth death.

But let us now examine a little more closely the parallel which exists between the natural disease and its spiritual counterpart, so that having traced out the analogy in this respect, we may be able the more easily to recognize the deep spiritual import of all the regulations laid down concerning it. Like sin, leprosy, unless inflicted in divine judgment, was a taint in the blood. The child might be born, according to all outward appearances, perfectly healthy. Not a sign of that awful curse which should confine it to a living death was manifest, and in this state perhaps the first few years of life might pass away. But though outwardly free, the curse still lurked in the very nature. It had been communicated by birth, and was a very part of the child's nature, sooner or later to make itself manifest in those livid and movable risings which at once proclaimed in an outward manner that no exemption had been granted to the cursed family.

And how strikingly does this set forth the nature and workings of sin ! Very often we hear the days of childhood spoken of as the days of innocence. But this is only outwardly. The divine testimony of Scripture asserts that all men are conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity. This has been so ever since sin intruded its cursed presence into Eden's garden. Robbed by it of the image which God had created him in, Adam begat a son in his likeness, after his image (Gen. v. 3). In the likeness of the Fall and in the image of sin he was begotten, and so is every other son and daughter of the fallen, sin-cursed family of Adam. In the so-called days of innocency, indeed, no outward sign may be clearly given of the presence of this curse; but as years pass by the fact becomes often painfully manifest to every eye, and if the eyes of our fellow-creatures do not behold it, the loathsome plague is clearly seen by the eye of God, for "the Lord seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart "

(I Sam. xvi. 7), and while all the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes (Prov. xvi. 2) the Lord pondereth the hearts (Prov. xxi. 2), and out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies (Matt. xv. zg). And though these may not be openly indulged in, yet the cherished thought constitutes the same guilt, and brings under the same condemnation " (Matt. V. 28 ; Prov. xxiv. 9). How piercingly then does the light of God's holy law search out and make manifest unto us the leprous state of our nature owing to the presence of sin ! Who among us can claim exemption from the plague, or assert that those risings which betoken its presence have never taken place in us ?

Once the dreaded curse had made its appearance, no human power could eradicate it. All means might be tried, but all proved futile and in vain. Nothing but the power of God could remove it or make the leper clean again, and we notice how fully this was exemplified during the life of our Lord upon earth. Time and time again the lepers came to Him beseeching Him to heal them, and though the ceremonial law declared that contact with these masses of loathsomeness was defiling, our great Healer, rising up far above all the ceremonial restrictions by the infinite purity of His holy nature, touched them, and with a word cleansed them. The Socinian, or Unitarian, who refuses to accept the Deity of the Lord Jesus, may explain this to his own satisfaction, but certain it is that if the Lord Jesus had not been the God-man He could not in such a way have accomplished this divine work, and brought health and freshness and new life to those putrid and half-wasted forms which came unto Him.

And as the natural leprosy was incurable by any human power, so the leprosy of sin which is in our nature is incurable by every earthly means which we may try. "Though we wash us with nitre and take thee much sope, yet our iniquity is marked before God " (Jer. ii. 22). Nothing can take out the stain, and no power on earth remove the roots of the disease. In every drop of blood which courses through our veins the seed of sin lurks. In every breath we draw the corruption of sin is hidden, and in every action we perform the workings of sin are often secretly, if not openly, present. Nothing but that same power which brought cleansing to the leper can free us from the plague of sin or its ultimate punishment. "The wages of sin," says the Apostle, " is death," and under this sentence we by nature each stand, for we read that God hath concluded or shut all up under sin, and consequently, unless some deliverance is effected for us, we must each and all suffer the punishment due to the state which we are in.

Again, we find that the leper, immediately he was found to be afflicted with the plague, was shut out of the camp. He was deprived of all the privileges and advantages which were bestowed upon and in the possession of those who were still within the camp. He had no longer access to the courts of the tabernacle, nor could he enter among the congregation of the people. He was entirely shut out and cut off as one consigned to a living death. And in this how clearly we see the repetition of that which transpired when sin entered Eden, causing Adam to be thrust forth out of all those blessings and favours which he had been in possession of while in the garden in a state of innocency. In our individual case, no thrusting forth and shutting out is necessary. This was done to us when it was done to Adam, and it is as without the camp, and as deprived of all those blessings and privileges belonging to those within, that we are born.

The leper also, when thrust out, had to wear the signs of mourning upon him, intimating that, so far as they within the camp were concerned, he was dead. And is this not also the very position into which sin has brought us ? " Dead in sin " is the divine comment of the Apostle with regard to our state by nature. We are dead to every hope of deliverance, and dead to every hope of restoration or of being brought into the possession of the camp privileges by every ordinary means. Shut out of God's camp upon earth, shut out from union and communion with Him, we are also shut out of heaven, and must ever be so, unless God in His mercy stretch forth His hand and heal us.

Such are some of the similarities between leprosy as a disease, with its results and its spiritual counterpart. Such also, whether we realize it or not, is our position by nature. We are sinners in the sight of a just and holy God. The leper's awful malady, in its figurative and far more awful import, is that under which we are suffering, is that from which our death must come. 0 that this truth in all its awful solemnity might be burned into our hearts as we consider, step by step, the leper and his cleansing, with its deep spiritual import ! The disease we have found in itself speaks of that plague which man's disobedience in Eden has brought upon every one of his descendants, that it sets forth before us the position which we occupy in the sight of God, if not in the sight of men, nor yet in our own experience. May we then, as we pursue our way, be brought to feel this ourselves, and as we follow the leper in his cleansing, may it be God's will to grant unto us a personal realization of the spiritual truth of those things which we shall consider.

AT the very outset we find our path to be obstructed with a somewhat serious difficulty, and one upon the satisfactory removal of which depends all our future progress. That difficulty is as to who we are to understand by the leper under the law. Granting the truth of what we have remarked in our opening chapter, and in measure endeavoured to show-that the plague of leprosy was a typical representation of the plague of sin, we should, carrying out our figure to the fullest extent, and still remembering the Old Testament dispensation was the shadow of the New, expect to find that all they under the Old dispensation were lepers. Startling as this may seem, the laws of analogy, on which all typical relations hang, demand it. Such, however, we do not find to be the case. Only a small percentage of the people were smitten with the plague, and these were they for whom the laws in the first place were ordained. On the surface this fact would seem to point to one of two conclusions-either, granting the Levitical institutions to be typical, that all are not sinners, a thing which the whole teaching of the Bible plainly asserts to be the case, and which none have yet dared to oppose, or that the Levitical institutions are not typical, and that leprosy is not a type of sin, nor the leper the type of our position and standing as sinners in the sight of God. This difficulty has caused many, while otherwise granting the typical nature of all those things connected with the rites and sacrifices of the Levitical law, to exempt from this class the leper. With this, however, we cannot agree, owing to the fact that those rites which had to be performed at the cleansing of the leper were some of the most typical which existed under the whole dispensation, and thus, if one part is typical, essentially so by God's command for typical ceremonies to be performed over it, the other must of necessity be typical also.

This, then, is the difficulty which lies before us, and which it is necessary for us to have an answer to before we can proceed any further with our subject. If leprosy is typical of sin, and if the dispensation of the law is typical of the truth of God as revealed in the gospel, how is it that all under the law were not smitten with leprosy, and its typical character thus made fully manifest ? This not being the case, then we ask, Who does the leper represent ? An answer has been given to this question to the effect that though leprosy is the type of sin, and the leper the type of the sinner, it is only as sin revealed by the Spirit of God, and the sinner awakened out of his nature state and regenerated by the power of God. This answer would undoubtedly have solved many of the difficulties which the subject possesses, were it not for the fact that it must of necessity call for the cleansing of every one of those who were afflicted with the awful plague. Of this we have no evidence, but rather proof to the contrary. All that were shut out of the camp were not re-admitted again. With many no cleansing ever took place, but they lived and died as wretched outcasts and miserable sufferers under that terrible curse which had come upon them. For these no ceremony of cleansing was ever performed, and thus under the typical character of the subject they must have been strangers to the reality of that which these ceremonies typified. Out of the camp they lived, out of the camp they died, and out of the camp they were buried and ever remained-striking figure, not of the regenerate but of the unregenerate soul, who, shut out of the assemblies of the faithful in life, is shut out of them in death and through eternity. Thus we see that it is impossible for the leper to typify a soul born again of the Spirit of God, and thus brought to the knowledge of his true state and condition before God, since this view, explanatory as it is in part of some of the difficulties surrounding the subject, would involve us in difficulties of much greater magnitude, and cause us, by carrying out the type, to assert that God, after having regenerated a soul, left it to perish in its sin or under the punishment of sin. This we cannot, dare not, grant, and thus we are compelled to look somewhat further to see if we can find another explanation of what and who the leper was really a type of as we find him existing under the law, and set forth in those rules and regulations which God laid down concerning him.

In doing this we shall return to our original standpoint, that the leprosy was the type of sin and the leper that of the sinner. But instead of these types being meant solely for us, or for the individual affected, let us look upon them as being meant for the children of Israel in general, as was indeed the case. Looked at from this standpoint, the plague of leprosy was to the children of Israel just as much as what any of the other typical objects of the law was, a lesson unto them. In it they saw that which was the curse of their own nature, their own position through sin was set before them in the awful infliction from which the leper suffered, and when they beheld the plague-stricken form taken forth and shut out of the camp, they were brought face to face with what their own sins called forth from a God of truth and justice. In the re-admission of the leper back into the camp, they were brought to see that it was only by God's power being manifested in that peculiar way which the ceremony of the leper's cleansing typified, that they could be brought into the true camp of God's chosen, and the full pardon of all their sins granted unto them. And when also they saw one shut out of the camp, there to live and die, they saw what their own position must be if God did not have mercy upon them, how they must for ever suffer under sin, shut out from God's camp throughout their life, and shut out also in their death.

Looked at from this standpoint, the typical character both of leprosy and of the leper himself is at once made visible. The one truly set forth sin and the other the sinner, but the type was chiefly to set before others their own state, and not only to make the person suffering the plague conscious of it. Were this latter the only lesson it contains, then there are insuperable difficulties in the way of carrying out the type, but the moment we regard the leper as being a type for the whole nation by means of which God designed to show them their own position by nature-the ultimate end which must come upon them if God did not have mercy upon them, and also the only way by which He could have mercy upon them, then we at once find that every difficulty is removed, and the whole typical nature of the subject at once stands out clear before our eyes. The difficulty has arisen, we believe, by looking upon the leper in his typical character as being such unto himself, and not the instrument, conscious or unconscious, by means of which God taught His truths to the whole people of Israel.

We would here have it noticed that we are not saying that God afflicted with leprosy in order to teach this lesson, but that He made use of a natural disease which more than any other typified sin, and which, from its peculiar character, was regarded as the special sign of God's anger against sin. In themselves many of the regulations laid down with regard to it may have been of a sanitary nature, but in giving those regulations God had also in view the teaching of spiritual lessons, and so in the very ceremonies which He enjoined as attending the disease, both in its manifestation and also in its cure when He was pleased to put forth His almighty power and heal the leper, He set forth the typical character which it was to bear before the eyes of the people of Israel, ever calling them to the remembrance of what sin was, what it did, and what their own position was through it, unless they had experimentally proved the spiritual reality of that which they saw typically set before them whenever any leper was restored again and brought into the camp.

Thus we see who the leper is really meant to typify that he is the sinner in the abstract only, who, suffering under a peculiar disease with highly figurative connections, is used by God to set forth before His ancient people the gospel in a figure, making manifest in those who were healed again His love and mercy, and in those who were left to suffer and die under the plague His truth and justice.

As we have remarked in our preceding chapter, there is doubtless much in the laws which God gave concerning the detection of the plague of leprosy which is only of a sanitary nature, given by God for the protection of His people, and in order that none should suffer by being wrongfully shut out of the camp. Inattention to this, we believe, has resulted in much ingenuity being spent to find a spiritual meaning to that for which no spiritual meaning in reality exists ; every detail in those rules and regulations which God laid down being made to set forth some deep spiritual truth of general religious or experimental import. That deep spiritual truths underlie much of that which is set forth in the laws and in the various regulations laid down we are convinced of, but that we are to spiritualize every item is a matter that we are not so sure about. The rules and regulations of the Mosaic economy were not meant to reveal unto us all the various matters connected with the gospel and with spiritual experience. In them much of this is certainly to be found, but if we examine carefully we shall find that those things wherein this is contained are those which were openly visible to the children of Israel ; that is, that the gospel which the Apostle Paul declares was also preached unto them was not contained in the details and the minutia with which the laws, the rules and the regulations which God laid down concerning such matters as those before us abounded, but in the more salient features and the more public ceremonies which were attached to them. To treat, therefore, as spiritual those laws which were given by God to enable the priests to separate between real leprosy and that which was only similar in its outbreak but contrary in its nature, we believe to be carrying the subject of spiritual interpretation somewhat too far. A spiritual lesson it is certainly permissible for us to obtain from them, but we do not think a spiritual interpretation is primarily contained in them, and especially since, if so, it would not be made manifest to the children of Israel in the same manner as what those things which had reference to the true leper would be. For these reasons, therefore, we are more inclined to think that those laws which were given to the priests for the detection of the plague, and which made manifest that which was only an ordinary sore or wound in the flesh, were primarily of a precautionary nature, protecting those not suffering in reality from this awful plague from being placed under the same ban which they were placed under who were found really suffering from it.

The laws concerning this latter class, however, we believe to be deeply significant, and especially as the sending forth of the leper to his living death outside the camp was more or less of a public character, thus bringing forth before the whole people the lesson which was contained both in the disease and also in the position which the leper now occupied as being shut out of the camp. In the former class no such public ceremony attended the examination of the priest, and thus the spiritual lesson, if any was contained in it, could not have been given to those for whom it was intended. Our spiritual interpretation, therefore, of the law of the leper must begin with the time when he was really discovered to be such, when the priest, after having shut the person up again and again, found every sign there which testified to the presence of the awful plague. Here it was that leprosy first assumed its deep spiritual signification before the mind of the people of Israel, here it was they received the lesson which it was meant to convey unto them, and here it is at this point that we wish to enter more particularly into that spiritual meaning which the children of Israel were meant by God to behold in it.

After having found unmistakable evidence that the one who had hitherto been shut up under suspicion was indeed suffering from that most dreaded of all plagues, the priest was to pass sentence upon him, which consisted in his being shut out of the camp, or banished from all those privileges which belonged to those who were in the camp. From Jewish writings we also learn that the leper's name was struck off the registers of his house, and that he was henceforth regarded as dead. The same lesson is meant to be conveyed to us in the custom or practice to which the leper was to conform during the time he was suffering under the plague. " The leper in whom the plague is," we read, "his clothes shall be rent and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip." (Lev. xiii. 45.) All these customs were those which were observed among the Jews on the occasion of a death among them, and thus, by the leper being called upon to practise them during the period which he was shut out of the camp, he was taught by God to look upon himself as dead, and to mourn also because of it. The people also were taught the same solemn truth. He who hitherto had been one among them, and one with them, was now dead in every sense of the word to them as regarded everything of a practical nature.

Brought home to them in its spiritual signification, of what solemn importance was the law of the leper to the children of Israel, and of what solemn importance also is it unto us.

Here they, and here we also, can see in what light God regards all those who are sinners before Him. Here He made manifest the separating power of sin ; that like as the leper was shut out from the services of the sanctuary, and from meeting in the place where the presence of God was revealed ; like as he was also shut out from participation in the blessings derived from those ceremonies which were attended to, so also all they who spiritually occupied his position as sinners must be shut out from all those privileges and blessings which were bestowed only upon those whose sins were forgiven, and who were brought experimentally into union and communion with Him. More than this, also, was made manifest unto them in the law of the leper, for they saw pictured before them in the custom which he was to observe their own true condition. If he, through this plague, was to be struck off the registers of his house, was to be looked upon as dead, and was to mourn for himself also as dead, under what light must they regard themselves who were suffering under the plague of sin? Was it possible for them in God's sight to occupy a less awful position than that which their leprous brother occupied in theirs ? If leprosy meant to him a living death, must not that which it typified mean a living death to all those who were found under its power-a living death on earth as being shut out from the enjoyment of God's spiritual blessings, and a more awful living death hereafter as being shut out of God's presence and shut up under the punishment of their sin ?

Thus in the law of the leper the Israelite had set before him the most solemn truths of God's law with regard to sin. Not merely was it taught hint, but it was enacted in living reality before his eyes. In that loathsome form, shrinking away from his brethren with unkempt head, torn garments, and covered lip, crying out in anguish and misery, " Unclean ! unclean ! " he saw, if he had had given unto him a spiritual perception, a picture of his own state and condition before God. The loathsomeness of the leper, hideous as it was, was no greater than that which rendered him odious in the sight of God, nav it was far less, for that of the leper's only existed in the body, while his was in his soul. The state of death also in which the leper was regarded was but a type of his own spiritual condition-dead in sin, dead to every hope of mercy, dead to every true spiritual feeling, and dead as regarded all inherent power to deliver himself out of that state.

Such then was the lesson which the law of the leper was meant to contain for the children of Israel. Such was the method which God used to teach them their state before Him. Our state is clearly revealed unto us in the preaching of the gospel, but, though under the shadowy dispensation of the law, the state of the children of Israel was no less clearly revealed unto them in the state of, and the laws attending, the leper. Clearly it spoke to them of that death in trespasses and sins which is the spiritual state wherein every unregenerate soul now is. With no uncertainty was there set before them the separation and banishment from the presence of the Lord which sin has procured for us. The first great lesson in the work of redemption, the revelation of their lost and ruined state by nature, was that which the law of the leper taught them, even as it teaches us; and only as they understood this could they hope to understand those subsequent events which were enacted before them whenever any of those who had previously been shut out were brought in again. Had they failed to recognize the meaning contained in this law, and looked upon it simply in its natural light, then everything else connected with it was also without any deeper signification than the natural. Many no doubt there would be to whom this would be its only meaning, who, neither in the plague itself, nor the law of the leper's banishment, nor yet in the ritual of his readmission, would see anything further than that which appeared on the surface. Its deep typical meaning was to them hidden, the voice with which it spake to them of their own deeply similar state under a far more awful plague was by them unheard, and thus unconsciously they were the living realities of that truth which was proclaimed before them in the law of the leper and his being shut out of the camp.

And even under the gospel, how many are there who are in this same awful position, totally unconscious that those things which transpire before them in the manifestations of God's anger against sin have any reference to them or any lessons for them to learn. They will acknowledge that they are sinners, but they are unconscious of what it really is to be sinners before a just and holy God. They believe that a state of sin is a state of death, but they know not that they are dead, and if told they were so would not believe it, though they have never been brought to experience that sense of having been brought into the camp which they must have done had they been made alive. Unlike the leper, we are not born within the camp and then shut out, but we are born outside of the camp, born in that state of death which the leper's shutting out was typical of. This being so, we can know no more experimentally of what true life is within the camp, nor yet of our own real state, which must be the first lesson learned, than what the dead naturally do.

0 let us then each ask ourselves the question as to whether we do know anything experimentally of our state before God ; as to whether we have been brought to see in the leper banished out of the camp the type of ourselves, and of our felt position ; as to whether we too, spiritually, with all the signs of mourning within our souls, have cried out, "Unclean! unclean!" or, with the publican in the temple, have smote upon our breasts and cried, " God be merciful to me, a sinner? " If so, then God has taught us the lesson which the law of the leper contains. In the leper we have learned to see the position which we by nature occupy in the sight of God, and which must ever be our portion unless His grace prevent. But if we have not been brought to this knowledge, then how awful is our position. It is true we are only still in the typical position of the leper, but the awfulness of it is, we are unconscious of it. We are dead in sin and exposed to the wrath of God, and yet we are not so conscious of it as to realize our position, or seek to flee from it. We are dead, dead in sin, and dead to God, and very soon we shall be plunged into that eternal death which means final separation and total banishment from the presence of God and the joys of heaven.

0 reader, meditate upon which is thy position. Art thou so conscious of thy position as to mourn over it, and to seek God's grace that thou shouldst not be left shut out of the camp, or art thou entirely unconscious and totally indifferent with regard to it ? If the first is thy position, there is something more in store for thee. The state of the leper and his banishment from the camp is only thy first lesson upon which others more sweet and pleasant to learn shall follow. But if the latter be thy condition, the law of the leper is not merely a lesson to thee, but the figure of thy real condition before God, loathsome, cast out, and dead in thy filthiness and sin. Dead even while thou livest, and if grace prevent not, dead to all eternity ; dead to all happiness, dead to all peace, dead to all joy, dead to all comfort, and shut out for ever and ever from the felicities of heaven and the presence of God, to be shut up in the everlasting pain and torment of the second death.

" THIS," we read in the opening verses of Lev. xiv., " shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing." Leprosy, however, as we have said, was of an incurable character. The taint was in the blood, from which no human power could eradicate it. Physicians might he sought unto, and all manner of treatment tried, but once the plague had broken out, there was nothing which could stay its workings until the grave closed its mouth upon the miserable sufferer. Thus it is we read in those instances where God inflicted this plague for special sins against Him, that they were lepers until the day of their death. The infliction had been no temporary chastisement, such as Miriam's was, but it was life-long, and sometimes also even made hereditary, breaking out continuously in every succeeding member of the family. It was with regard to this latter form that the laws in Lev. xiii. were given, in order that these hereditary sufferers might be detected and excluded from the camp, there to suffer that living death which must be their portion until death should relieve them from their sufferings.

If leprosy, then, was of this nature, that having once broken out, nothing could cure it, what are we to make of this assertion concerning the law of the leper's cleansing The words in themselves would appear to favour the conclusion which has been drawn by some, that there were cases of leprosy which were only of a temporary character, and which having run their course freed the whilom sufferer from the laws under which he had been shut out of the camp. This conclusion, however, we cannot agree with, as in no instance do we find that leprosy, as a disease, was of a temporary character. When inflicted by God, as we have said, it might be, but when it was present in the ordinary way, it was of a life-long nature. The leper's cleansing, then, as intimated and set forth in Leviticus xiv., could only point to one thing-God's direct intervention on behalf of the sufferer, and His tower being made manifest in the expelling of the awful plague out of the system. Not in every case was this made visible ; not in every one who was shut out of the camp was this work effected. Many lived and died the victims of the dread curse.

From the camp they had been driven, never to enter into it again, never to enjoy the pleasures they had once enjoyed, nor to come again into union and communion with their brethren. But with some few, such was not the case. God's hand was put forth on their behalf, the plague was stayed and driven out from the body, and they were fitted once more to enter into the camp and to partake again of those privileges and enjoyments of which their plague bad deprived them and separated them from.

And what can we see in this but the proclamation of God's free and sovereign grace ? That, as His Word declares, " He will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy." Not one of those shut out of the camp had any claim upon God that He should put forth His power on their behalf. Their disease was no arbitrary manifestation of His anger, but the righteous results of His justice, or the self-inflicted punishment brought upon themselves by the transgression of God's inflexible law. Thus God might have left each and all to suffer and die under the awful curse which had come upon them. But as He had placed a lesson in the plague itself, and also in the one suffering under it, making manifest unto His people in them the nature of sin, and their state and condition thereby, so in this fact of some among those who were inflicted with the plague being healed again, while others were left to suffer and die under it, He had another lesson to teach, even that of His own sovereignty and His free, electing love. Man's boasted free-will and creature-power are here shown to be just what they are-a vain delusion. The leper might will with all his power, and work with all his might, but this did not render him clean, this did not purge out his disease, this did not cause God to put forth His hand. Outwardly, and in all respects, they were the same, the one just as much under the curse as the other, yet, while one was taken, healed, and brought back into the camp, the other was left.

In such manner, then, even under the law, did God make manifest His discriminating grace and sovereign mercy. Here was election plainly spoken of in God healing the one and leaving the other. " Jacob have I loved," He declares, " but Esau have I hated," and yet men set themselves up to oppose this most express declaration, and fight against the solemn testimonies of His Word. Throughout the Scriptures we are given to see that God is a sovereign, that He hath mercy upon whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth ; that while He predestinates some to the adoption of children, He leaves others to perish in their sin, just as He chose some from among the lepers on whom to manifest His healing power, and left the rest to perish, shut out of the camp. Each and all might justly have been left, but He chose out some upon whom He might show forth His power, and to whom He might reveal His mercy and compassion. And what are we that we dare say, Nay ? Hath not God the right to do as He will with His own, even as Nebuchadnezzar was obliged to admit, " that He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth ; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou ? " Sin having entered into the world, death came by sin. In Adam we all died to every hope of mercy and salvation. God's justice demanded our punishment, and when Adam was cast forth out of Eden, we in him were also cast forth out of that which Eden had been typical of. The gates of heaven were closed against us. All communion with God was now at an end. Innocency and happiness were gone, and nothing now on all natural grounds can loom before us but punishment for sin. Such is our position under God's justice. We and the leper in his banishment occupy one level. But as God manifested His mercy towards some of those who were thus shut out of the camp, so also God had designed to show mercy towards some of those who had been banished because of sin. That all were not included we may see in the state of those around us. Some are brought into the knowledge of the Gospel, and are made manifest as God's people, who were quite as unlikely as any others, while they are left, left in the power of sin, and left to perish in sin. The case of the leper also now before us impresses upon us this same truth. The one is healed and restored to all the privileges which re-admission into the camp means, while others who naturally were quite as likely, and quite as deserving also, were left. How are we to interpret this as God giving every man a chance, and of it being man's own fault if hee is not saved? Was it the leper's own fault that he was left out to perish, while another was healed an restored ? Not so ; but all lay in God's free favour and His sovereign mercy. And so also is it spiritually. Men are not saved because of their own free will, but of God's mercy; nor are men lost because they have refused to accept God's mercy. Does that which is dead tend towards life? and is not the sinner dead in his sins? How then can he exert himself in spiritual things? How can he manifest that which the presence of life only can give? The leper did not begin first with the performance of those ceremonies which were enjoined. God commenced first and healed him, and then followed the manifestation of it in those things which were afterwards done by the leper. And so is it with the soul dead in the leprosy of sin. God must begin the work. God must first impart life, and then the working of the soul commences in being brought to realize the grounds of its acceptance before God, and the grounds upon which God has been pleased to have mercy and compassion upon it in its lost and ruined condition. But if this life is not imparted, if God's hand is not put forth for the healing of the plague, if God does not first manifest His mercy, on what ground is it that the sinner has perished? He has perished it is true, but how and why ? Is it not because God has left him in that state in which he was born, not having chosen to show mercy unto him ? while he through sin brings down upon himself the outpouring of the vials of God's wrath. Such is the truth proclaimed in the Word of God itself. God was under no compulsion to have mercy upon any, and He might justly have left all to perish in that state into which sin had brought them. But having chosen to have mercy upon some, He manifests His power towards them, brings them into the camp, and restores unto them those privileges from which sin has really excluded every son and daughter of Adam's posterity.

Such is the lesson, then, which is taught us in that fact which comes before us in the history of leprosy, that, while incurable, shutting up its victim to a living death, God was pleased in some to stay the ravages of the plague and to bring them back into the camp once more, the monuments of His rich, free, and sovereign grace.

WE have now come to a part of our subject where all general truths must be laid aside, and where experimental, personal truths alone can be of any service unto us in unlocking the typical meaning contained in the account of the leper's cleansing. So long as the leper occupied his position of being shut out of the camp, he typified to us the general truth of our position in sin with which we are each and all acquainted, in some measure at least. AVhen the leper, however, had been taken in hand by God, and God had made manifest His power towards him, the typical position of the leper is at once changed. No longer is the general truth before us, but we are brought face to face with particular truths. The leper is now no longer a type of the sinner dead in trespasses and sins, but he is the type of the sinner manifestedly chosen by God, and about to be brought into all the privileges and enjoyments of the Gospel. This then being so, it is necessary for us to know something of experimental truths, and to have a personal acquaintance with the work of salvation in the soul, if we are to understand aright those ceremonies which God commanded to be observed in the law of the leper's cleansing.

And here it may not be out of place to say a few words in reference to the great complexity which our subject has. Being the medium whereby a lesson was to be preached unto others, and that lesson having reference to a sinner's restoration to the favour of God and His complete forgiveness, it was necessary that the ceremonies used in the leper's re-admission into the camp should contain in them the whole body of the Gospel; that, in fact, all those things which it is necessary to know and to experience before we can be assured of our own salvation, must in type be found in those things which were enacted in the eyes of the people when the leper was cleansed. The fact of this causes a deep complexity to rest upon the whole subject from this point. One thing may come before us which, spiritually considered, we can easily understand, but side by side and inseparably bound up with it is something else, the meaning of which is not quite so easy to grasp. Owing to this complexity, the deep spiritual meaning existing under the types of the old dispensation seem much obscured, and many even now, with the great antitypical fulfilment and reality existing before them, fail to understand many parts of those typical rites enjoined under the law. This complexity, however, we find, once the nature of the subject is opened up to us, to be absolutely essential, in order to give a full representation of those spiritual truths bound up in these typical ceremonies, and to set before us in perfect measure that Gospel which, while preached openly to us, was no less preached to the children of Israel in the various sacrificial rites and ceremonies connected with the Levitical law. In order then to rightly understand the meaning of those ceremonies which are to come before us, and of the peculiar turn of much of the phraseology connected with them, it is necessary that we should keep well in mind the typical character which the leper in his present position bears. This we have spoken of above, but in order to render it more clear and make our path as straight as possible, let us speak of it once again, and in doing so we will briefly review the subject so far as we have been enabled to go.

Leprosy then, spiritually considered, is the type which God set before the children of Israel to demonstrate unto them in awful reality what sin was in its nature and workings. In the leper smitten with this terrible plague, and shut out from the camp in bitter loneliness, or only amongst those who like himself were the sufferers from this dread affliction, they were taught to see the position which they occupied in the sight of God through sin ; that they were shut out of heaven and deprived of all those privileges and blessings which God had to bestow, and that they were also shut out to undergo a living death in sin and through sin, both for time and eternity, if God's grace did not prevent. In the case of the leper whose plague had been supernaturally healed, they saw the type of one in whom this grace of God was made manifest, one who was the object of His free and sovereign love, one whom He had chosen and had determined to forgive his iniquities, and to cleanse him from all his sins. Such then was the typical position of the leper as he now stands before us. He is the type of the sinner chosen by God, and now about to experimentally realize his admission into the favour of God, and to be brought to see the grounds upon which this is effected. This truth we must not fail to keep before us, as upon our acknowledgment and remembrance of this will depend our right understanding of those things which are now to come before us. Having thus set forth the standpoint from which the subject is to be viewed, we will now commence our examination of the law which God laid down to be observed in the leper's cleansing, and in doing so let us seek the aid of the Spirit of truth, who alone can guide us into all truth, and reveal unto us the real spiritual import of those typical rites and ceremonies which were performed before the leper was reinstated into the position which they in the camp occupied.

" And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought unto the priest."

Such was the first step which was to be taken with the one to whom God had displayed His almighty power in the healing of his plague. He was to be brought unto the priest. His position and situation had been without the camp, and thus from these words we should gather that he was now to be brought back again into the camp and set before the priest. Such, at first glance, would seem to be the meaning contained in these words, "He shall be brought unto the priest." This meaning, however, the next words show to be wrong, for we there read that the priest shall go out of the camp to him. Had he been brought into the camp to the priest, it would be entirely contradictory to say that the priest was to go out of the camp to him. What then is the meaning of these first words, and how are we to reconcile them with the following clause ? Such a reconciliation is necessary, since it is only by thoroughly understanding the literal facts as they occur in the leper's cleansing, that we shall be able to rightly grasp the spiritual truths which these are meant to convey.

Here then is our first difficulty. On the one side we are told the leper is to be brought to the priest, and on the other that the priest is to go out of the camp unto him; two statements which in their apparent meanings are, as we have said, entirely contradictory to each other. But this contradiction may only be apparent and not real. If by the leper being brought to the priest we understand not the leper in person, but the case of the leper, then we shall see how easily the two statements may be reconciled. The story of the leper's healing was told unto the priest by those interested in him. While the leprosy had remained in him he had been as one dead unto them, but the moment that God commenced His work and healed him of his plague, intercourse and communion was set up between he who had been the leper and they who were within the camp. He himself could not yet enter the camp, inasmuch as, while God had manifested His power towards him, there yet remained those God-appointed rites which must first be performed to declare and make manifest unto him his perfect cleansing. His case, however, could be presented before the priest, and thus, as in the words which we read, while the priest had in reality to go out of the camp unto him, he yet was brought to the priest.

Before we proceed any further, let us examine the matter so far as we have gone, and see what spiritual meaning lies contained in the fact of the case of the leper being brought unto the priest. The truth of the leper's identity, spiritually considered, we think we have already sufficiently established without reiterating those things which constitute this proof. It remains for us then to consider who is set forth by the priest, and what is meant by the leper being brought unto him, in his case being laid before him. As to the priest's identity then, spiritually considered, we have no need to travel far for an answer. The Scriptures themselves supply us with this, and that in such a manner as cannot be refuted. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we find much of the old ceremonial law laid open before us in its spiritual signification, and there we are shown that the priest, under the old dispensation, was the type and shadow, faint and imperfect it is true, but still, in his office and public character, a type of Him who is made a great High Priest over the house of God, even the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. We are well aware that many godly men have interpreted the priest in the case before us to be a representative of a minister of the Gospel, but if we examine carefully the position which the priest occupies in these ceremonies which now come before us, we shall soon see that it can be typical of no minister of the Gospel, unless we are prepared to invest them with privileges which they cannot and dare not wear. Thus we are brought to the conclusion we have expressed, that the priest in the subject before us is the typical representative of our blessed Lord Himself. This, however, will become still more clear as we proceed, and when we see the typical meaning of the ceremonies which ushered in, and followed upon, the leper's admission into the camp.

Thus we have the two great essentials in the truth of a soul being brought into visible union and fellowship with God in Christ. First, we have the sinner upon whom God's power has been made manifest and His grace shown ; and secondly, we have the Saviour of the sinner, the Lord Jesus. Here the two stand, the One as the divinely appointed Priest and Head of those within the camp; the other a sinner, no longer, however, dead in sin, but one upon whom God's work of grace has been commenced, but who has not yet been brought into the privileges of the Gospel, or, to use the term before us, who has not yet been brought into the camp.

Such then is the spiritual illustration of the subject so far as the priest and the leper are concerned, and now let us inquire as to whether there can be a spiritual counterpart to that which is spoken of as the leper being brought to the priest, and which, as we have seen, must have consisted of a remembering of the leper's case unto the priest. To do this, as we have said, a bond of communication must have been set up between the leper and those within the camp. He was no longer looked upon by them as dead, but although not absolutely restored and brought amongst them, that work which had passed upon him had brought with it a restoring of the relationship between them. Though not one with them, he was yet one of them, and in order that he might become one with them, those that were in the camp, who knew of that which had been done for him, brought his case before the priest in order that his full manifestation might take place.

And how beautifully does this set forth that which is so often the case when a soul has been brought into that position typified by the leper, when God had miraculously healed him. How we do see then that the barrier which had existed between him and the saints of God within the camp is in measure taken away, and a relationship which had hitherto been kept secret is now made manifest as existing between them. The fact of God having commenced His work in that soul, proves that they are now all of one family, and that although the soul is as yet without the camp, his true place is within the camp. Union is felt, a spirit of communion is found at work, and often in their prayers and pleadings at a throne of grace, the saints of God who are acquainted with this soul-once leprous and defiled, cast out from among them, and as dead to them, but now making manifest the work of God with him-bring him and plead his case before the Lord, beseeching the Lord that He would continue His work, that He would openly manifest that soul to be his, and would bring him into the camp.

And what is this but the spiritual counterpart of the leper being brought unto the priest? " He shall be brought," is the command of God, and may we not here observe that which He assigns as the duty of His people towards those who, while manifesting that God has put forth His hand and healed them, are yet wandering without the camp. They shall be brought. 0 let the people of God then ever remember this their divinely appointed duty, and fail not to bring before our High Priest, the Lord Jesus, all those who appear to make manifest that the work of grace has been commenced within their souls, earnestly beseeching the Lord that He would look upon them and bring them into the camp for the building up of His people and the establishing of His kingdom upon earth.

IN the next circumstance connected with the cleansing of the leper we seem to have more of a contrast between the type and the anti-type than a similarity. After the case of the leper had been brought unto the priest, the priest, we read, was to go forth out of the camp and look upon the leper in order that he might know for a certainty whether that which those within the camp had assumed was correct. It was quite possible that a mistake might have been made, and that the leprosy, instead of having been healed, had only died down from the surface for a period, and would shortly break forth again in all its virulent power. Under such circumstances the leper could by no means be admitted into the camp. His cure was only such in outward appearance, and that for a short time only. The disease still raged with the same power as formerly, but it was now hidden from sight. Its workings were within, and not outward as before. To prevent, therefore, any mistake being made, the priest was to go forth out of the camp to look upon the one who was supposed to be healed, and to examine him. Unto the priest, by means of those various rules which God had laid down, was given the power of being able to prove whether a cure had really take place, and whether the one before him had been wrought upon by the power of God or no. If he had, then the priest had to perform the ceremony which God had appointed in order that he might be brought into the camp, but if not, and the leprosy still remained in him, though not so visible as before, he must still be left out of the camp and be reckoned as one dead.

Turning from the natural figure to the spiritual interpretation, it may at first sight appear rather difficult to find the spiritual lesson contained in this circumstance. Spiritually considered, it is not necessary for the great High Priest of our profession, the Lord Jesus Christ, to go forth and look upon those cases which we bring before him, since, if the work of grace has been commenced, it has been by His own power, and thus the reality of it is well known unto Him, without having to do that which the priest was commanded to do.

Here then, instead of agreement we have the contrast which exists between the Levitical priesthood and the office which the Lord Jesus now holds. They, as the Apostle Paul observes in his divine commentary upon the Levitical laws, were taken from among men, and were subject to all the infirmities and limitations which pertain to humanity. Thus it was impossible for them to know the reality of the leper's cure without going forth to make examination and to try the case by those rules which God had given them as tests for the same. The Lord Jesus as the God-man equal with the Father, omniscient and omnipresent, knows all things, and thus this regulation which God here lays down to be observed by the priest with regard to the leper, while absolutely necessary for the priest, does not appertain to Him of whom the priest was but an imperfect type and representative.

But while this is so, and this regulation serves to show the great contrast between the office and character of the priest under the Mosaic dispensation, and that of the Lord Jesus under the gospel, there is yet a deep spiritual lesson contained in this circumstance of the priest being commanded to go forth and look upon the leper before he was admitted into the camp, and one which we consider to be of primary import. The object of this regulation was, as we have said, to prevent any mistake being made in the admission of an unhealed leper into the midst of the camp. And how forcibly would this impress upon the minds of the people of Israel the impossibility of their admission into the true privileges of which their national and natural privileges were only figures, without having really been healed of their spiritual malady. There, in the sharp examination to which the leper was subjected, they saw themselves beneath the searching eyes of God, and were taught that it was impossible to deceive Him who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins of the children of men. This lesson also it has for us, warning us against any attempt to deceive ourselves under the vain delusion that we can deceive God or gain the blessings of His heavenly kingdom without having been made the objects of His powerful work. How many are there, however, who seem to pay no regard to this, and go on careless and indifferent, buoying themselves up with false hopes that they shall be alright at last, and that God will receive them, although they cannot now show one proof that God has healed them of the awful plague of sin by implanting His grace in their soul. How awful is the position of these when that day which trieth every man's work shall come upon them, and they shall be found to have been deceived in their presumptuous hope.

But, on the other hand, what a lesson does this convey as to the carefulness which ought to exist among the people of God lest they should admit an unconverted sinner into the camp of the saints upon earth. With the leper the people might be mistaken. They might imagine the plague to have been healed, and importune the priest on behalf of the man, and yet it all be a mistake. And is not such often the case among the people of God ? They see one who has been running in the ways of sin, in whom the spiritual leprosy has been plainly apparent, rendering him odious unto them, one whom they had accounted dead in sin, suddenly change. The old ways are forsaken, and they draw near unto the camp of God's saints, many among whom, thinking that in this they see the commencement of God's work of grace in the soul, are ready to receive them, and make them the subjects of their prayers and petitions before God. In other words, they bring them before the priest and plead that they may be brought into the camp.' But despite that which they take to be a sure sign, no true healing has taken place. The leprosy of sin has just as strong a hold upon them as what it had formerly. The only difference which has taken place is that the disease has changed its course of working. No longer is it to be seen outwardly, but inwardly it rages with the same power. Thus, notwithstanding all the prayers which are made on their behalf, how often is it seen when they are left solely to the decision of the great High Priest of our profession that they are not brought by Him into the camp. Unknown to us, our great High Priest does in a manner go forth and look upon them, but knowing that no real change has taken place in them, they are left where they are ; in their experience is not wrought those figurative ceremonies which the priest was commanded to perform when a true healing had taken place, and thus no admission is divinely given them into the camp. Here it is that this circumstance of the priest's examination contains a solemn lesson for us. Many there are, upon seeing such a character as we have above described, who are ready to bring him on their own accord into the camp. They take the seeming cure to be a real one, and, without waiting for the Lord Jesus Himself to decide the case, which He would in the case of a real cure by giving them to realize that which is contained in the ceremonies next to be considered, hurry them at once into the camp of the saints, and into visible membership with the people of God. How many are there among our churches who have been thus rushed in because one or two have imagined that God's work has been commenced in their souls.

They may perchance have come to an outward knowledge of their state as sinners. They may have realized in some measure that they are without the camp, and so they draw a little nearer to the camp, and, like job of old, scrape off the sores which mark the presence of the foul disease. They make the outside of the cup and platter clean, and thus deceive those of the Lord's people, who, harmless and simple as doves, have not combined with it the wisdom of the serpent, and who thus in zeal without knowledge have brought them into the camp. Deceivers, our Lord said, would creep in unawares, but how much different is this to our bringing them in? If they creep in with the intention of deceiving, knowing at the time that their true position is outside, the sin lies at their own door. But all the deceivers that are in the churches of Christ upon earth have not thus crept in. Many have been rushed in by those who have not been sufficiently careful and strict in the things of God, and upon whose shoulders does the blame of this rest ; not only perchance deceiving others, but deceiving maybe the very ones that are brought in by making them believe that they are the right characters.

Thus we see the lesson which the circumstance of the priest's going forth to look upon the leper has for us. It teaches us that great care ought to prevail as to who we permit to enter the camp ; that mere outward change is not sufficient, but that under every circumstance, when a change is apparent, we ought to leave it for full decision in the hands of the Lord Jesus, who, if it is real and God has commenced His work of grace, will in His own time make it manifest by the performance in the spiritual experience of that character of those things typified in those ceremonies which the priest, having found the leper to have been healed by God, was now enjoined to carry out before he was to be admitted into the camp.

HOLDING the position which they do, midway between the leper having been brought under the power of God and his admission into the camp, we should expect to find in the ceremonies which now come under our notice some typical illustration of the grounds upon which alone a sinner can be admitted into the camp of God. Naturally this was the substance of the ceremonies. In them the children of Israel were led to see the grounds of the leper's admission into the camp, and consequently, spiritually considered, the grounds of their admission into the number of God's chosen. With this thought before us as a key, let us now proceed with our subject, looking first at the natural event from which by analogy the spiritual lesson has to be inferred.

Having found that the case which had been brought to him was a real case wherein the power of God had been made manifest, and that the person before him had been healed of his leprosy, we read that the priest was to " command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet [wool], and hyssop." One of these birds was then to be killed in an earthen vessel over running water, after which the living bird, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet wool, and the hyssop, was to be dipped into the blood of the bird which had been slain, and he that "was to be cleansed " sprinkled seven times therewith, after which the living bird was to be loosed and allowed to soar up into the air. This was the first part of the ceremony of cleansing upon which the leper's admission into the camp depended. And now let us look as to what its spiritual lesson can be.

The first thing which calls for our attention is the peculiar phraseology found in the account. The priest, we read, shall ,command to take for him." Naturally we might have read it, or at least think it ought to read, that the priest shall take for him, or that the leper shall take for himself. But such is not the reading. The words are, " the priest shall command to take for him." Another person is brought into the account, in whose hands the ceremony in part is. The priest, as we have seen, is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the leper is the sinner, but who are we to understand by this other character which now appears, this intermediate one who is to take for the sinner ? Shall we say it is the Holy Spirit ? Such appears to be the only meaning which it is possible to give, but this will appear more clear unto us when we come to consider the ceremony itself. Here, however, it will be necessary for us to say that the ceremony we are about to examine, while being the ground of the leper's admission into the camp in a measure, is not altogether so, spiritually considered, but rather the manifestation of the grounds of admission. Here it is that the real complexity of our subject begins, and it is only perhaps by much repetition and a constant recurring to the standpoint from which we are supposed to view it that we shall be able to render it sufficiently intelligible to our readers. If we do this, however, we feel that the depth of meaning and the clearness of the gospel truth contained in it will well repay both we and they for the close attention which the subject demands. Our standpoint then, spiritually considered, is that in the leper and his cleansing, with all that is connected with that event, we have the type of a regenerated soul being brought manifestly and experimentally into the kingdom of God's dear Son. And now, with this digression, which the extreme complexity of our subject seemed to demand, we will again proceed.

The things commanded to be taken by the priest, as we have seen, were two birds alive and clean, one of which was to be killed, and its blood, with the water over which it had been killed, sprinkled with the living bird and the various other articles upon the one to be cleansed. In this bird which is slain we can have nothing set before us but the death of Christ. And here it is that we must bear in mind the difference between what is implied in the grounds of a sinner's admission, and the manifested grounds. Had it been the grounds of a sinner's admission into the presence of God, the whole ceremony would have been different, and the leper himself would have had no place in the scene. The grounds of admission are Godward, and we see this typified in the law of burnt offerings which God enjoined, and in the great day of atonement. The manifestation of the grounds of admission are necessarily manward, and thus the person of the leper is necessary as the type of the one towards whom this manifestation is represented as taking place. The bird killed, then, is the manifestation by the Spirit of God of the death of Christ. Of this the Apostle Paul speaks in his epistle to the Galatians, and his words will probably afford the best explanation of this part of the ceremony. After chiding them for their change of attitude with regard to the gospel, he testifies to the reality of the work of grace among them in these words : " Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you." It is here not the death of Christ as an event to which the Apostle refers, nor yet the death of Christ in its bearings upon the great work of atonement, but it is the death of Christ as set forth before the eyes of faith and manifested to the sinner as the ground of his admission into the family of God.

Such then is the meaning of the rite before us, and for this reason it is that we read that the priest shall command to take. The Priest, the Lord Jesus, sends forth the Holy Spirit to testify to the sinner that His death is the ground of the sinner's pardon and acceptance among the people of God. " He shall take of Mine," said the Lord Jesus, when promising the gift of the Spirit, " and shall show it unto you." Again, He said concerning the Spirit, " He shall not speak of Himself." Christ alone should be the subject of His work and teaching in the soul, while that work, while powerful, should yet be secret. How fully, then, is the Spirit and His work set forth, though not mentioned, in those few words, " the priest shall command to take."

The bird slain, we have said, is Christ, and now let us look at the points of resemblance manifesting this to be the case, and also at the various things used in order to set this forth before us in its entirety. The very choice of the birds was suggestive. As the inhabitants of the heavens, they speak most clearly of Him who was the Lord from heaven, and who came down to earth to bleed and die. The choice of two was essential, as we shall see later, in order to give a full representation of that which was required. By the command which was given also with regard to the birds, that they were to be alive and clean, we seem to have much gospel truth prefigured. "In Him," we read, with reference to Christ, "was life," life as distinct from the Father ; as we read again, " For as the Father hath life in Himself, so also hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself." (John v. 26.) This was necessary for Christ's work of redemption. He must be a real, self-existent Person, the God-man. By the birds having to be clean we have, as in all the other offerings and sacrifices, the allusion to the spotless humanity of the Lord Jesus as holy, harmless, and undefiled, and separate from sinners. Necessary in the type, it was doubly necessary in the antitype that He should be clean, that no spot or blemish of sin could be found upon Him, or else He could by no means have stood in the sinner's place and laid the grounds of the sinner's admission into the camp.

The bird slain, we read, was to be so in an earthen vessel over running water. At one time we thought the earthen vessel might signify Christ's humanity. Though Son of God He was also the Son of man, made like unto His brethren, and it was in an earthen vessel, in a human body, that He was to be killed. With this interpretation, however, we are not fully satisfied, as indeed we are not with those which have been advanced by commentators and ministers. Some deep spiritual truth beyond doubt lies in it, but it seems somewhat too deep to be successfully grappled with. The running water, or living water, which is spoken of, undoubtedly points us to the Spirit of God and His cleansing operations, which are in various parts of the Scriptures referred to under this figure (cf. John iv. 10 ; Zech. xiii. i, xiv. 8, etc.), and which the work of Christ was the means of dispensing. Thus, in the one bird slain, we have the representation of the death of Christ. But the death of Christ only was not sufficient grounds for His people's deliverance, and thus to show the work of Christ in its fulness another bird was necessary. This second bird, we find, was to be taken after the first had been slain, and, together with the cedar-wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet wool, was to be dipped into the blood of the first. As the first bird was Christ slain, so we see by the second bird being dipped into the blood of the first, that it also is meant to set forth Christ, the dipping, so to speak, providing the bond of connection, and proving the identity of the two birds as setting forth but one character. The meaning of this will be clear shortly, if it is not so already. But now let us enquire as to what can be the figurative meaning of these articles, which were to be taken with the bird and dipped into the blood and water. By cedar-wood in Scripture we are generally given to understand strength. It may also be used to set forth durability and incorruption, and thus would have reference to the incorruptibility of our blessed Lord. As the Scriptures speak, God's Holy One, though going down to the grave, though being swallowed up in death, should not be left there, nor yet see corruption. In its meaning of strength it may also have reference to Christ's power and strength, and speak unto us of Him who, while the Son of God and the mighty God, yet became obedient to death and went down into the grave. By the hyssop, it is somewhat doubtful what we are to understand. Hyssop was used in general for the purpose of sprinkling, especially in the ceremony of purification from sin, and thus, as being so closely connected with this ceremony of cleansing from sin, it might here be used with reference to sin, and the atonement made for sin. The scarlet wool also is somewhat difficult of interpretation. To refer to it, however, as figurative of the blood of Christ is, we think, altogether out of the question, inasmuch as the type of that blood was present in the blood of the bird which had been slain, and therefore the scarlet wool as a type was altogether unnecessary. For ourselves, we are inclined to think that it has more of a reference to the fiery wrath of God, and under this interpretation we shall be able to find a connection running all through, binding each to each in wonderful unity and deep spiritual signification. Recognizing in the cedar the strength of the Godman, in the hyssop as used in the ceremony of purification the type of sin, and in the scarlet wool which, it would seem, was used to bind all together, the wrath of God, what a picture have we of the Lord Jesus going down to death with the sins of His people bound fast unto Him by the wrath of God, because He had offered Himself as their surety. It was by this that sin and wrath were for ever put away. Thus bearing His people's sins and enduring the wrath of God, He gave Himself up to death, and by His own blood purged away those sins under which He was suffering, and appeased the fiery wrath of God against the same.

The dipping of the living bird into the blood of that which had been slain was undoubtedly, as we have said, to prove the oneness of the type, and here we see the necessity of two birds having to be provided. With the bird thus dipped the leper was now to be sprinkled. The dead bird would not suffice for the sprinkling, but it must be the living bird, baptized into the blood of the dead and brought forth again. And what does this bespeak but the resurrection of Christ ? A dead Christ only is of no value. There must be also a risen Christ. By a dead Christ there could be no sprinkling, no cleansing, and no pardon. "If Christ be not raised," saith the Apostle, "your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins." (I Cor. xv. 17.) The resurrection of Christ was a necessity in order that the blessings of redemption might be dispensed, that His blood might be sprinkled and His Spirit bestowed upon His people. How necessary then were the two birds to set this forth, and how fully do we see it to be set forth in these Old Testament shadows. How clearly to the illumined eye of faith, as it gazed upon these rites as performed in the cleansing of the leper, was the work of Christ made manifest. How emphatically was it declared unto them that their admission into the camp, that their adoption into the family of God, was based entirely upon the death and resurrection of Christ, and that only as they had experimental realization of the same, just as the leper had experimental realization of the natural ceremony and the sprinkling, could they hope to enter into and partake of the privileges belonging to the people of God.

The sprinkling of the leper, we read, was to take place seven times, after which the living bird was to be loosed and allowed to fly away into the heavens. The number seven is much used in Scripture, and is generally expressive of completeness. And what does this show unto us but the perfect cleansing which the work of Christ effects, the full forgiveness which it ensures ? "By one offering," says the Apostle, " He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." No more sacrifices are needed. His one offering has completely finished redemption's work, and brought in everlasting righteousness for the people of God. After the sprinkling, the loosing of the bird took place, and here we have set before us the glorious truth of Christ's ascension, when he having, by dying, destroyed death, made an end of sin and appeased the wrath of God, soared up to His seat at the right hand of the Father in eternal glory, there to appear with all the marks of His sufferings-as the bird was marked with the blood of its companion-in the presence of God for us.

Thus we see how the leper, or, spiritually considered, how the regenerated soul, is made to feel and realize that his admission by God into the family of His chosen is solely through the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. How full and clear we may now see the type to be, and how essential is all the complexity of it, in order to set before us the full work of Christ. Even the gift of the Holy Spirit is shown, as we have noticed, to be dependent upon the shedding of the blood, and so for that purpose the blood and the water are together ; the bird slain being so in the earthen vessel over living water, that the blood might drop into the water and both be sprinkled together. And is not such what we find the antitype to be ? Where the blood of Christ is sprinkled the Holy Spirit is also bestowed, and where the Spirit is bestowed the blood of Christ is sprinkled. The one cannot be without the other, since, as is typified in the subject before us, they are bound up together in inseparable union.

And as the work of Christ is so fully and clearly portrayed in this ceremony of the leper's cleansing, so also is the position of the sinner. This we see is an entirely passive one. Not so much as a finger does the leper, uplift, in the matter of his cleansing. The things enjoined for the ceremony are to be taken for him, and slain for him, and the blood and water sprinkled upon him by another. Need we any clearer proof than this of the falsity of those assertions which make the sinner's admission into the family of God dependent upon his own doings, and upon the creature-faith which it is his duty to put in exercise ? Nothing to typify this is found in the ceremony which has passed under our notice, but instead we find everything to be just the contrary. The sinner, typified by the leper, is no working subject, but one entirely passive. His salvation, both in itself and in the manifestation of it to him, is entirely outside of and independent of himself, only so far as he is made the partaker of it.

Such then is the ceremony of the leper's cleansing, and such also is the spiritual interpretation of it so far as we have yet gone. On these grounds only was it that the leper could be admitted into the camp ; and is it not on these grounds only that the true children of God find admittance into God's family ? There must be an experimental realization of Christ's death on their behalf, and upon them, by the work of the Spirit, must be sprinkled of the blood of the atonement. If this experience is not present in some measure ; if the soul has not been made to prove its entire dependence upon the work of Christ, and to see that its sole ground of admission lies in the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Christ, and if its personal interest in this is not made manifest by an application of the blood of sprinkling, then, whatever outward reformation may take place, there is no evidence that such a character has been brought under the powerful work of God. Their position is simply that of those in whom the plague might appear to have been healed, and who were consequently brought unto the priest, but who, on the priest's examination, were found not to have been healed. Over these no such ceremony as that before us was performed, and thus they could not enter into the camp. And, spiritually considered, the same law should exist. The spiritual signification of this typical ceremony should first have transpired in the sinners' experience before, with open arms, they are received into the Church of God. This strictness, it is true, is not fashionable among churches in these days. The very desire to enter into membership is, with many, quite sufficient for them to open their arms, and the doors of the church likewise, and receive them into the same. As in many other things, quantity and not quality seems the prevailing thought, and if they have a large body of members everything is deemed in a prosperous condition. But such is not the rule of conduct contained in the Word of God. Such is not the lesson set before us in this subject. Had the whole camp of Israel been inflicted with this plague, no admission could have been administered only by the carrying out of this rite. God's powerful work must first have taken place, and then the grounds of admission made manifest before one person could have re-entered the camp. What a lesson is here set forth for churches as to the manner of their acting in receiving into membership those who are brought before them. From the testimony of God's own Word we see that strictness is essential, and that it is not every one of those who may be brought forward that are to be admitted, but those only in whose experience has been fulfilled in some measure the typical ceremonies of the leper's cleansing.

This being so, let us now ask ourselves the question, Do we, as members of churches, know anything of this ? The question is no light one, to be hastily put aside, but one of most solemn moment. Into the camp we have been admitted, but upon what grounds has it been done ? Has it been because God put forth His hand to the work of our healing, implanting within us a new principle of life, a new nature, thus making us new creatures, no longer as dead in sin but as dead to sin ? This is the real spiritual parallel of the leper's healing. Sin itself is  never taken out of our old nature, but a new nature is imparted whereby, we being dead to sin, no longer serve sin. Has this then been effected for us ? Has Christ been set forth crucified among us ? Has the blood of atonement been sprinkled upon us, and the water of the Spirit's purifying influences cleansed us? Or, if this has not been granted in full assurance and in a perfect manifestation, have we had the sweet peace-bringing whispers of the Spirit in our soul, cheering us with the hope that we are interested in the work of Christ? Many seem able to testify more to the application of the blood of sprinkling than what others can. They have a solid assurance of their salvation through the appointed sacrifice of Christ. Others seem not to experience this in the same way, but they have instead more of the gentle leadings, teachings, and whispers of the Spirit. If either of these, however, is our experience, our admission into the camp is real and on solid grounds. Though so much different experimentally, both these characteristics testify to the reality of God's work, and the performing of the ceremony of cleansing. The blood and the Spirit are, as we have said, inseparably linked together, and where the one is the other must be also, though, as in the latter case above, the blood is not always realized, and more doubts and fears are apt to prevail. But in either case admission has been upon real grounds, and happy indeed are we if we have been brought into the camp upon these manifested grounds. If, however, such has not been our experience, where is the evidence that the position we occupy is a real one, and that we are truly what we have professed to be ? How solemn is the thought that we may be hypocrites, false pretenders, bastards, and not sons. The hope of the hypocrite, we read, shall perish when God taketh away his soul. We may go through life built up with vain hopes and a false confidence, but when death comes all these must go, and we shall be called upon to face the naked reality, to have the very secrets of our heart revealed, and to stand before God exactly as we are. 0 what searching's of heart ought the consideration of these things to cause, and how earnestly ought we to seek to know whether we have passed through the experience typified in that ordinance enjoined by God for the leper's cleansing, thus obeying the exhortation given by the Apostle Peter to make our " calling and election sure."

NOTWITHSTANDING the fact that the ceremony which afforded the grounds of his admission into the camp had now been effected, the leper was not yet allowed to enter into the camp, until he had himself performed certain other ceremonies or duties assigned unto him. Our next step, therefore, will be to examine these to see if we have in them any deep, significant truths, such as we have found lying under the preceding portion, as contained in our last chapter.

The opening words of the eighth verse, wherein the account of these additional ceremonies is contained, afford us another instance of the peculiar phraseology which, as we have mentioned, is to be found in this subject. And " he that is to be cleansed," we read, " shall wash his clothes." In the preceding verse we read that the priest, after having sprinkled him seven times, was to pronounce him clean, in token of which he was to loose the living bird. This, we said, set forth the regenerated soul's perfect redemption by the blood of Christ, and its perfect cleansing before God by the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. "Know ye not," saith the Apostle, "that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? " and " The temple of God is holy, which ye are" (I Cor. iii. i7). Here, then, is the spiritual counterpart of the priest's declaration that the leper was clean. Yet, as we here find, after this declaration the reference to the leper is made in the words above quoted, " he that is to be cleansed." The spiritual meaning of this we will endeavour to trace out after we have examined those natural ceremonies or duties which the leper himself was now to perform. The first of these, we find, was that he should wash his clothes. Next, he was to shave off all his hair, and after that he was to wash himself in water, in order, as the verse informs us, "that he may be clean." Naturally, the purpose of these ceremonies is plainly apparent. They were essentially necessary, so that every vestige of the plague which might lurk about his person, in his hair, or in his garments, should be purged out. This, in itself, might seem sufficient to account for the peculiar form of the language used ; but this is not so, since we find the same form of expression used at a later period in the case, when all these washings and shavings were ended.

The spiritual signification underlying these duties enjoined upon the leper are almost too plain to need any explanation. Indeed, it is in an almost exact parallel with the natural signification attending them. Hitherto we find that all has been done for him and to him. Now the things done are to be done by him. The sinner has been manifestly acknowledged as a child of God ; as one of those who comprise His family within the camp, by Christ being set forth before Him in His death, resurrection, and ascension, and by having the application of the blood of sprinkling upon his conscience, and being made a partaker of the Holy Spirit. He is thus rendered clean before God, and is divinely declared also to be clean. " Now ye are clean," saith Christ, " through the word which I have spoken unto you " (John xv. 3). But this cleansing is an internal one, or in other words it is the result accruing from the implantation of that principle of the divine nature in the sinner's heart, and which is an altered relationship between God and the sinner, wherein God accounts the sinner just and holy as viewed in Christ. But something more than this internal cleansing is necessary, there must be also an outward, visible conformity with it. And this is that which is signified by these various ceremonies which it was incumbent upon the leper now to perform. That which prefigured the Internal cleansing, the sinner's regeneration, and the manifested grounds of his adoption into the family of God, is done for and to the leper. That which prefigures the fruits and effects of this is done by the leper. He is to shave off his hair, to wash his garments, and to bathe his whole body in water that all the outward marks of his plague might be cleansed away. And such also is that which is enjoined upon the regenerated soul. Having been born again by the power of God, his life and conduct must now be as becometh the gospel. He is to loathe the garment spotted by the flesh, and his actions and outward appearance must in future be clean. We have this clearly set before us by the Apostle Paul in 2 Cor. vii. I: "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." So clearly does this text set forth the spiritual signification of those things enjoined upon the leper, that it is hard to think otherwise than that the Apostle had these very rites of the leper's cleansing in his mind when he wrote. His characters we find are those who were spiritually in the same position as is typified by the leper. They had been brought under the powerful hand of God, and had been made new creatures in Christ (v. 17), their sins having been forgiven them and they declared clean (v. 2I). But now, following the order of the leper's cleansing, and using in effect the very same terms, the apostle bids them to cleanse themselves from the remaining filthiness, perfecting holiness, or, as the word thus translated signifies, completing holiness; that is, making holiness manifestly complete by an outward carriage in agreement with the internal reality. This same truth is brought before us also in other parts of the New Testament. Peter speaks of this having been the conduct of those to whom he wrote (i Peter i. 22), and the Apostle John also in his first Epistle refers to it as being the very conduct which is displayed by those who have been manifested as the sons of God. " Every man," he declares, "that hath this hope purifieth himself, even as He is pure" (I Jno. iii. 3). By this ceremony of self-cleansing, then, being thus linked to the cleansing which had been effected by the priest, and made also one of the conditions upon which the leper's entrance into the camp depended, we see how essential it is that outward evidences should be given as to the reality of the change which has taken place. Though pronounced clean, and made clean by the blood of Christ, the believing soul is yet to be made clean. There are actions which in the past he has been accustomed to do, but which have now to be cut away as containing in them the remains of sin, or as being sinful. Continually is he engaged in this work of purifying himself, perfecting that holiness which God has implanted within him by a becoming walk, endeavouring to walk holily and unblameably before God in love. And unless these signs are seen, where is the evidence that the work of grace is commenced ? Evidences must be given ; they are essential, and thus it is that the washing and selfcleansing of the leper is so closely linked with his cleansing by the priest. Spiritually considered, we have here the two aspects of God's work of grace. In the cleansing by the priest we have it as manifested in the sinner's own experience. This is more or less of a secret nature. It is carried on and performed in the soul of a sinner, and is perchance unknown to those around. But even with these, though the work is real, fruits and effects must be seen; indeed, if the work is real they will be seen. These are the outward testimonies given to those around that the work is indeed real ; that the principle of grace implanted in the soul is working outward in the life, cleansing from all the remaining filthiness of the flesh and spirit, and purging away all the outward marks of the plague under whose dominion he has formerly been. Thus we are taught to look for fruits in the outward life. " By their fruits," said the Lord Jesus Christ, " ye shall know them ; " and this same Divine teaching is conveyed to us in this typical account of the leper's cleansing. By all those who from the leper's former position entered into the camp this cleansing was to be performed ; and so also in its spiritual counterpart, all those who enter into visible fellowship with the people of God ought to be expected to make manifest their Divine cleansing by their self-cleansing-turning from all the ways wherein they walked in time past, and forsaking all those habits in which they indulged. And if this is not done, then we have a perfect right to say from the teaching now before us in these typical lessons, from the teaching of Christ in the Gospels, and from the teaching of the Apostles in their various letters, that no real change has taken place, notwithstanding all the profession which may be made concerning it. " Let every one," saith the Apostle, " that namet