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Expositor's Bible Commentary 00000000 LAW AND RELIGION Deuteronomy 12:1-32 ; Deuteronomy 13:1-18 ; Deuteronomy 14:1-29 ; Deuteronomy 15:1-23 ; Deuteronomy 16:1-22 ; Deuteronomy 17:1-20 ; Deuteronomy 18:1-22 ; Deuteronomy 19:1-21 ; Deuteronomy 20:1-20 ; Deuteronomy 21:1-23 ; Deuteronomy 22:1-30 ; Deuteronomy 23:1-25 ; Deuteronomy 24:1-22 ; Deuteronomy 25:1-19 ; Deuteronomy 26:1-19 WITH this section (chapters 12-26) we have at length reached the legislation to which all that has gone before is, in form at least, a prelude. But in its general outline this code, if it can be so called, has a very unexpected character. When we speak of a code of laws in modern days, what we mean is a series of statutes, carefully arranged under suitable heads, dealing with the rights and duties of the people, and providing remedies for all possible wrongs, then behind these laws there is the executive power of the Government, pledged to enforce them, and ready to punish any breaches of them which may be committed. In most cases, too, definite penalties are appointed for any disregard or transgression of them. Each word has been carefully selected, and it is understood that the very letter of the laws is to be binding. Every one tried by them knows that the exact terms of the laws are to be pressed against him, and that the thing aimed at is a rigorous, literal enforcement of every detail. Tried by such a conception, this Deuteronomic legislation looks very extraordinary and unintelligible. In the first place, there is very little of orderly sequence in it. Some large sections of it have a consecutive character; but there is no perceptible order in the succession of these sections, and there has been very little attempt to group the individual precepts under related heads. Moreover in many sections there is no mention of a penalty for disobedience, nor is there any machinery for enforcing the prescriptions of the code. There is, too, much in it that seems rather to be good advice, or direction for leading a righteous life, a life becoming an Israelite and a servant of Yahweh, than law. For instance, such a prescription as this, "If there be with thee a poor man, one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates, in thy land which Yahweh thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother," can in no sense be treated as a law, in the hard technical sense of that word. It stands exactly on a level with the exhortations of the New Testament, e.g. , "Be not wise in your own conceits," "Render to no man evil for evil," and rather sets up an ideal of conduct which is to be striven after than establishes a law which must be complied with. There is no punishment prescribed for disobedience. All that follows if a man do harden his heart against his poor brother is the sting of conscience, which brings home to him that he is not living according to the will of God. In almost every respect, therefore, this Deuteronomic code differs from a modern code, and in dealing with it we must largely dismiss the ideas which naturally occur to us when we speak of a code of laws. Our conception of that is, clearly, not valid for these ancient codes; and we need not be surprised if we find that they will not bear being pressed home in all their details, as modern codes must be, and are meant to be. Great practical difficulties have arisen in India, Sir Henry Maine assures us, from applying the ideas of Western lawyers to the ancient and sacred codes of the East. He says that the effect of a procedure under which all the disputes of a community must be referred to regular law-courts is to stereotype ascertained usages, and to treat the oracular precepts of a sacred book as texts and precedents that must be enforced. The consequence is that vague and elastic social ordinances, which have hitherto varied according to the needs of the people, become fixed and immutable, and an Asiatic society finds itself arrested and, so to speak, imprisoned unexpectedly within its own formulas. Inconsistencies and contradictions, which were never perceived when these laws were worked by Easterns, who had a kind of instinctive perception of their true nature, became glaring and troublesome under Western rule, and much unintentional wrong has resulted. May it not be that the same thing has happened in the domain of literature in connection with these ancient Hebrew laws? Discrepancies, small and great, have been the commonplace of Pentateuch criticism for many years past, and on them very far-reaching theories have been built. It may easily be that some of these are the result rather of our failure to take into account the elastic nature of Asiatic law, and that a less strained application of modern notions would have led to a more reasonable interpretation. But granting that ordinary ancient law is not to be taken in our rigorous modern sense, yet the fact that what we are dealing with here is Divine law may seem to some to imply that in all its details it was meant to be fulfilled to the letter. If not, then in what sense is it inspired, and how can we be justified in regarding it as Divinely given? The reply to that is, of course, simply this, that inspiration makes free use of all forms of expression which are common and permissible at the time and place at which it utters itself. From all we know of the Divine methods of acting in the world, we have no right to suppose that in giving inspired laws God would create entirely new and different forms for Himself. On the contrary, legislation in ancient Israel, though Divine in its source, would naturally take the ordinary forms of ancient law. Moreover in this case it could hardly have been otherwise. As has already been pointed out, a large part of the Mosaic legislation must have been adopted from the customs of the various tribes who were welded into one by Moses. It cannot be conceived that the laws against stealing, for example, the penalties for murder, or the prescriptions for sacrifice, can have been first introduced by the great Lawgiver. He made much ancient customary law to be part and parcel of the Yahwistic legislation by simply taking it over. If so, then all that he added would naturally, as to form, be molded on what he found pre-existing. Consequently we may apply to this law, whether Divinely revealed or adopted, the same tests and methods of interpretation as we should apply to any other body of ancient Eastern law. Now of ancient Eastern codes the laws of Manu are the nearest approach to the Mosaic codes, and their character is thus stated by themselves (chapter 1., ver. 107): "In this work the sacred law has been fully stated, as well as the good and bad qualities of human actions and the immemorial rule of conduct to be followed by all." That means that in the code are to be found ritual laws, general moral precepts, and a large infusion of immemorial customs. And its history, as elicited by criticism, has very interesting hints to give us as to the probable course of legal development in primitive nations. It is sometimes said that the results of the criticism of the Old Testament, if true, present us with a literature which has gone through vicissitudes and editorial processes for which literary history elsewhere affords absolutely no parallel. However that may be as regards the historical and prophetical books, it is not true with regard to the legal portions of the Pentateuch. The very same processes are followed in Professor Buhler’s Introduction to his translation of the "Laws of Manu," forming Vol. 25. of "The Sacred Books of the East." as are followed, in the critical commentaries on the Old Testament law codes. Pages 67, seq. of Buhler’s Introduction read exactly like an extract from Kuenen or Dillmann: and the analysis of the text, with its resultant list of interpolations, runs as much into detail as any similar analysis in the Old Testament can do. Moreover the conjectures as to the growth of Manu’s code are, in many places, parallel to the critical theories of the growth of the Mosaic codes. The foundation of Manu is, in the last resort, threefold - the teaching of the Vedas, the decisions of those acquainted with the law, and the customs of virtuous Aryas. At a later time the teachers of the Vedic schools gathered up the more important of these precepts, decisions, and customs into manuals for the use of their pupils, written at first in aphoristic prose, and later in verse. These, however, were not systematic codes at all. As the name given them implies, they were strings of maxims or aphorisms. Later, these were set forth as binding upon all, and were revised into the form of which the "Laws of Manu" is the finest specimen. In Israel the process would appear to have been similar, though much simpler. It was similar; for though there are radical differences between the Aryan and the Semitic mind which must not be overlooked, the former being more systematic and fond of logical arrangement than the latter, a great many of the things which are common to Moses and Manu are quite independent of race, and are due to the fact that both legislations were to regulate the lives of men at the same stage of social advancement. But Manu was much later than Moses. Indeed, as we now have them, the laws of Manu are as late as the post-Ezraite Judaic code, and in temper and tone these two codes very nearly resemble each other. Consequently the earlier codes of the Pentateuch are simpler than Manu. When Israel left Egypt, custom must have been almost alone the guide of life. Moses’ task was to promulgate and force home his fundamental truths; in this view he must adopt and remodel the customary law so as to make it innocuous to the higher principles he introduced, or even to make it a vehicle for the popularizing of them. So far as he made codes, he would make them with that end. Consequently he would take up mainly such prominent points as were most capable of being, or which most urgently needed to be, moralized, leaving all the rest to custom where it was harmless. This is the reason, too, most probably, why the earlier codes are so short and so unsystematic. They are selections which needed special attention, not complete codes covering the whole of life. In fact the form and contents of all the Old Testament codes can be accounted for only on this supposition. As the codes lengthen, they do so simply by taking up, in a modified or unmodified form, so much more of the custom; and under the pressure of Yahwistic ideas these selected codes became more and more weighted with spiritual significance and power. That would seem to have been the process by which the inspired legislators of Israel did their work; and if it be so, some of the variations which are now taken to be certain indications of different ages and circumstances may simply represent local varieties of the same custom. Custom tends always to vary with the locality within certain narrow limits. It would be quite in accord with the general character of ancient customary law to believe that, provided the law was on the whole observed, there would be no inclination to insist upon excluding small local variations; and equally so that in a collection like the Pentateuch the custom of one locality should appear in one place, that of another in another. In that case, to insist that a certain sacrifice, for example, shall always consist of the same number of animals, and that any variation means a new and later legislation on the subject, is only to make a mistake. The discrepancy is made important only by applying modern English views of law to ancient law. Professor A. B. Davidson has shown in the Introduction to his "Ezekiel" (p. 53.) that this latter was probably Ezekiel’s view. "On any hypothesis of priority," he says, "the differences in details between him ( i.e. , Ezekiel) and the law ( i.e. , P) may be easiest explained by supposing that, while the sacrifices in general and the ideas which they expressed were fixed and current, the particulars, such as the kind of victims and the number of them, the precise quantity of meal, oil, and the like, were held non-essential and alterable when a change would better express the idea." The same principle would apply to the differences between Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, e.g. , the omission of the feast of weeks and of the law of the offering of the firstlings of the flock. If so, then obviously Ezekiel must have thought that the previous ritual law was not meant to be as binding as we make it. But, as has already been remarked, this law was elastic in more important matters; often, even when it seems to legislate, it is only setting up ideals of conduct. Before we leave this subject an example should be given, and the law of war may serve, especially if we compare it with the corresponding section of Manu. The provisions in Deuteronomy, chapter 20, according to which on the eve of a battle the officers should proclaim to the army that any man who had built a new house and had not dedicated it, or who had planted a vineyard and had not yet used the fruit of it, or who had betrothed a wife and not yet taken her, or who was afraid, should retire from the danger, as also the provisions that forbid the destruction of fruit-trees belonging to a besieged city, cannot have been meant as absolute laws. Yet that is no ground for supposing that they could have been introduced only after Israel, having ceased to be a sovereign state, waged no war, and that consequently they are interpolations in the original Deuteronomy. For the similar provisions of the laws of Manu were given while kings reigned, and were addressed to men constantly engaged in war. Yet this is what we find: "When he (the king) fights with his foes in battle, let him not strike with weapons concealed (in wood), nor with (such as are) barbed, poisoned, or the points of which are blowing with fire. Let him not strike one who (in flight) has climbed on an eminence, nor a eunuch, nor one who joins the palms of his hands (in supplication), nor one (who flees) with flying hair, nor one who sits down, nor one who says ‘I am thine,’ nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat of mail, nor one who is naked, nor one who is disarmed, nor one who looks on without taking part in the fight, nor one who is fighting with another foe, nor one whose weapons are broken, nor one afflicted (with sorrow), nor one who has been grievously wounded, nor one who is in fear, nor one who has turned to flight; but in all these cases let him remember the duty (of honorable warriors)." With an exact and unremitting obligation to observe these precepts war would be impossible, and we may be sure that in neither case were they meant in that sense. They simply set forth the conduct which a chivalrous soldier would desire to follow, and would on fitting occasions actually follow; but by no means what he must do, or else break with his religion. Only by hypotheses like these can the form and the character of such laws be properly explained, and if we keep them constantly in mind, some at least of the difficulties which result from a comparison of the law and the histories may be mitigated. Such being the character of the Deuteronomic code, the question has been raised whether its introduction and acceptance by Josiah was not a falling away from the spirituality of ancient religion. Many modern writers, supported by St. Paul’s dicta concerning the law, say that it was. Indeed the very mention of law seems to depress writers on religion in these days, and Deuteronomy appears to be to them a name of fear. But whatever tendencies of modern thinking may have brought this about, it is nevertheless true that experience embodied in custom and law is the kindly nurse, not the deadly enemy, of moral and spiritual life. Without law a nation would be absolutely helpless; and it is inconceivable that at any stage of Israel’s history they were without this guide and support. As we have seen, they never were. First they had customary law; then along with that short special codes, e.g. , the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic code; and even when the whole Pentateuchal law as we have it had been elaborated, a good deal must still have been left to custom. Consequently there was nothing so startling and revolutionary in the introduction of Deuteronomy as many have combined to represent. Indeed it is difficult to see how it altered anything in this respect. Of all forms of law, customary law is perhaps that which demands and receives most unswerving obedience. Under it, therefore, the pressure of law was heavier than it could be in any other form. It does not appear how the fact that those observing it did not think of that which they obeyed as law, but simply custom, altered the essential nature of their relation to it. They were guided by ordinances which did not express their own inward conviction, and were not a product of their own thought. They obeyed ordinances from without, and these ought therefore to have had the same effect upon the moral and spiritual life as written laws. For they cannot be said to have regulated only civil life. Religious life (even if the Book of the Covenant be Mosaic or sub-Mosaic, as I believe; much more if it be post-Davidic, as many say) must have been largely regulated by the customs of Israel. If law then be in its own nature, as the antinomians tell us, destructive of spontaneity and progress, if it necessarily externalizes religion, then there would have been as little room for the religion of the prophets before Deuteronomy as after it. But, as a matter of fact, no falling off in spirituality took place after Deuteronomy. Wellhausen says that with law freedom came to an end, and this was the death of prophecy. But he can support his thesis only by denying the name of prophet to all the prophets after Jeremiah. It is difficult to see the basis of such a distinction. It is judged by this, if by nothing else-that it compels Wellhausen to deny that the author of Second Isaiah is a prophet. That he wrote anonymously is held to prove that he felt this himself. Now a view so extraordinarily superficial has no root, and every reader of that most touching and sublime of all the Old Testament books will simply stand amazed at the depth of the critical prejudice which could dictate such a judgment. If the post-Deuteronomic prophets are not prophets, then there are no prophets at all, and the whole discussion becomes a useless logomachy. But even if Ezekiel and Second Isaiah and the rest are not prophets, they are at least full of spiritual life and power, so that the decay of spiritual religion which the adoption of Deuteronomy is supposed to have brought about must be considered purely imaginary on that ground also. And this contention is strengthened by the theories of the critical school themselves. If the bulk of the Psalms, as all critics incline to believe, or all of them, as some say, are post-exilic, then the first centuries of the post-exilic period must have been the most spiritually minded epoch in Israelite history. The depth of religious feeling exhibited in the Psalms, and the comprehension of the inwardness of man’s true relation to God by which they are penetrated, are the exact contrary of the externality and superficiality which the introduction of written law is said to have produced. So long as the Psalms were being written religious life must have been vigorous and healthy, and to date the beginnings of Pharisaic externalism from Josiah’s day must consequently be an error. After what has been said it is scarcely necessary to discuss Duhm’s views of the opposition between prophecy and Deuteronomy, It will be sufficient to ask how the latter can have turned against prophecy, when it is in its essence an embodiment of prophetic principles in law, and was introduced and supported by prophets. But, it may be said, after all prophecy did decay, and ultimately die, and that too during the period after Deuteronomy. Is there not in that admitted fact a presumption that this law did work against prophecy? If so, then it is more than met by the fact that the decay of spiritual religion became noticeable only some centuries after this, and that the immediate effect of Deuteronomy was rather to deepen and intensify religion, and to keep it alive amid all the vicissitudes of the Captivity and Return. Moreover the break-up of the national life was sufficient to account for the slow decay and final cessation of prophecy. From the first, prophecy had been concerned with the building up of a nation which should be faithful to Yahweh. Its main function had been to interpret and to foretell the great movements and crises of national life-to read God’s purpose in the great world movements and to proclaim it. With Israel’s death as a nation the field of prophecy became gradually circumscribed, and ultimately its voice ceased. Consequently, though in the main the final cessation of prophecy was connected with the rise of externalism in religion and with the great decay of spiritual life in the two or three centuries before Christ, the destruction of the nation would account for the feebleness of prophecy during a period when the inner spiritual life was flourishing as it flourished after Deuteronomy. Moreover, as religion became more inward and personal, prophecy, in the Old Testament sense, had less place. Though in New Testament times spiritual life and spiritual originality and power were more present than at any time in the world’s history, prophecy did not revive. In the whole New Testament there is not one purely prophetic book save the Revelation, and that is apocalyptic more than simply prophetic; and though there was an order of prophets in the early Church, if they had any special function other than that of preachers their office soon died out. If then the denationalizing of religion and its growth in individualism and inwardness in New Testament times prevented the revival of prophecy, we may surely gather that the same things, and not the introduction of written law, brought it to an end in the Old Testament. Nor does St. Paul’s judgment as to the meaning and use of law, in Galatians, when rightly understood, contradict this. No doubt he seems to say that the Mosaic law by its very nature as law is incompatible with grace, that it necessarily stands out of relation to faith, and that its principle is a purely external one, so much wages for so much work: Further, he clearly regards it as having been interpolated into the history of Israel between the promises given to Abraham and the fulfillment of them in the redemption by Christ, and as having served only to increase sin and to drive men thus to Christ. But when he says this he is replying mainly to the Pharisaic view of the law which was represented by the Judaizers, and finds himself all the more at home in refuting it that it was his own view before he became a Christian. According to that view, the whole law, both the moral and ceremonial provisions of it, was necessary to obtain moral righteousness, and the mere doing of the legally prescribed things gave a claim to the promised reward. So interpreted, law had all the evil qualities he states, and stood in absolute hostility to grace and faith, the great Christian principles. The only difficulty is that St. Paul does not say, as we should expect him to do, that originally the law was not meant to be so regarded. He seems to admit by his silence that the Pharisaic view of the law was the right one. But if he does, he cannot have meant to include Deuteronomy. For there law is made to have its root and ground in grace. It is given to Israel as a token of the free love of God, and it is a law of life which, if kept, would make them a peculiar people unto God. Further, love to God is to be the motive from which all obedience springs, so that this law is bound up with both grace and faith. But the probability is that St. Paul admits the Pharisaic view only because it is that view with which alone he has to contend in the case in hand. For in Romans 7:1-25 he gives us quite another conception of the Mosaic law. There he is thinking of it mainly from an ethical point of view, and he regards it as full of the Spirit of God, as a norm of moral life which not only continues to be valid in Christianity, but which finds in the Christian life the very fulfillment which it was intended to have. It presses home too the moral ideal upon the man with extraordinary power, and marks and emphasizes the terrible divergence between his aspirations and his actual performance. This is a much higher office than that which he assigns to law in Galatians; and hence one gathers that he is not speaking in Galatians exhaustively and conclusively, but is condemning rather a way of regarding the Mosaic law with which he had once sympathized than that law in its own essential character. In its moral aspects, as represented by the Decalogue, the law is of eternal obligation. From it comes the light which brings to the Christian that moral unrest and dissatisfaction which is one of God’s Divinest gifts to His people. In this aspect, the law is holy and just and good: instead of favoring the critical view St. Paul leaves it without any fragment of real support. Our conclusion is, therefore, that the anti-nomianism, which makes the acknowledgment of Deuteronomy by Josiah and his people the turning-point for the worse in the religious history of Israel, is unfounded. The nation had always been under law, and previous to Deuteronomy under even written law. This code was not in any previously unheard-of way made the law of the kingdom. Its very contents are conclusive against that view, for it contains much that could not be enforced by the State. Instead of trying to do by external means that which the persuasions of the prophets had failed to do, Josiah and his people did just what they would have had to do, when they became convinced that the prophetic principles ought to be carried out. They made an agreement to follow these Divine commands, these God-given principles, in actual life. But there is no hint that they regarded Deuteronomy as the sum of the Divine ordinances for the life of men. Indeed there are many references to other Divine laws; and the priestly oracle remained, after Deuteronomy as before it, a source of Divine guidance. Deuteronomy therefore did not destroy prophecy; the post-exilic Psalms are proof that it did not destroy spiritual life: and the Pauline view of the law, in at least one series of passages, coincides entirely with the view that law stated as it is stated in Deuteronomy may be one of the mightiest influences to mould, and enrich, and deepen, moral and spiritual life. Deuteronomy 12:1 These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. LAWS OF SACRIFICE Deuteronomy 12:1-32 . IT is a characteristic of all the earlier codes of law-the Book of the Covenant, the Deuteronomic Code, and the Law of Holiness-that at the head of the series of laws which they contain there should be a law of sacrifice. Probably, too, each of the three had, as first section of all, the Decalogue. The Book of the Covenant and Deuteronomy undeniably have it so, and the earlier element which forms the basis of Leviticus 17:1-16 ; Leviticus 18:1-30 ; Leviticus 19:1-37 ; Leviticus 20:1-27 ; Leviticus 21:1-24 ; Leviticus 22:1-33 ; Leviticus 23:1-44 ; Leviticus 24:1-23 ; Leviticus 25:1-55 ; Leviticus 26:1-46 , not improbably had originally the same form. If so, we may assume that the order of the precepts has in a measure been determined by the order of the commandments. On this account the laws for the cultus would naturally come first. For just as the first commandment is, "Thou shalt have no other god before Me," and the second forbids all idolatrous images, so the laws begin with provisions meant in the main to ward off idolatry. Israel’s great calling was to receive and to spread the truth concerning God. That was the center of the sacred deposit of Divine and revealed truth committed to that nation; and it is most instructive to see how, not only in historical statements, but even in the form in which early Israelite legislation is handed down to us, the Decalogue dominates all the details of it. It formulated in as concrete a shape as was possible the Divine demand that Israelites should love God and their neighbor, and therefore the legislative provisions and statutes begin with ordinances dealing with sacrifice. To us in modern times it may seem almost bathos to connect such an antecedent with such a consequent; but it seems so, only because we have difficulty in apprehending the meaning and importance of sacrifice in primitive religion. For sacrifice had in Israel a meaning and importance of its own, and a present value at every period, which in no way depended upon its typical or prophetic value as pointing forward to the sacrifice of Christ. It supplied the religious needs of men even apart from the clearness of their knowledge about its ultimate purpose. Sacrifice, especially in its simplest meaning, was in heathenism absolutely essential as a means of approach to God. To come before a great man without a gift was in ancient days an outrage. It was therefore inevitable that men should approach their gods in the same manner. Sacrificial gifts expressed the dependent’s joy in a gracious lord, and also the homage and reverence due from a subject to a king. Further, as all good things were regarded as the gifts of the gods to their worshippers, the sacrifices conveyed thanks for good gifts received, and joined the gods and their worshippers by a common participation in the Divine gift which connected them as eaters at the same table. But sacrifices had a higher reach of expression even than that. As they were brought to the gods they were the symbols of the self-devotion of the offerer to the service of his god; and where there was need of propitiation because of offence consciously given, or offence felt by the deity for unknown reasons, these gifts took on in some measure a reconciling or propitiatory quality. Now the Old Testament sacrifices had in them, unquestionably, all these elements: but as Yahweh was high above all heathen deities in moral character, they also took on a depth and intensity of meaning which they could never have on the soil of heathen religious conceptions. Along this line of sacrificial ritual, therefore, all the spiritual emotions of Israel flowed; and to hold that sacrifice had no real place in the religion of Yahweh would be almost equivalent to saying that neither love, nor penitence, nor prayer, had any real place in it either. All these found utterance in sacrifice and along with it; and it has yet to be shown that they had any regular and acceptable utterance otherwise. To regulate sacrifice and keep it pure must, therefore, have been one chief means of guarding against the degradation of Yahweh to the level of the gods of the heathen. But there is another and very important reason for it. Both in the days when Moses parted from his people, and also in the time of Manasseh, the people stood confronted by very special danger just at this point. At the earlier period they were about to enter upon intimate contact with the Canaanites, their superiors in culture and in all the arts of civilized life, but corrupted to the core. Further, the Canaanite corruption was focused in their religious rites and worship, and evil could not fail to follow if the people suffered themselves to be drawn into any participation in it. For if Professor Robertson Smith be right, the central point of ancient sacrifice was the communion between the god and his worshippers in the sacrificial feast. They became of one kin with each other and with the god, and this close relationship made the communication of spiritual and moral infection almost a certainty. In Manasseh’s day again it was natural that legislation on the same subject, and warnings of even a more solemn kind, should be repeated. A prophetic lawgiver writing at that date had before him, not only the possibility of evil, but actual experience of it. The laws and warnings of the earlier code had been defied and neglected. The faith of the chosen people had been miserably perverted by contact with the Canaanites; the whole history of prophecy had been a struggle against corrupt and insincere worship; and now the monstrous sacrifices to Moloch and the invasion

Destroy all the places. Deuteronomy 12:2 Destruction of evil J. Parker D. D. The first thing Israel had to do appears to be a work of violence. All idols were to be destroyed. Israel could understand no other language. This is not the language of today; but the thing inculcated upon Israel is the lesson for the present time: words change, but duties remain. Violence was the only method that could commend itself to infantile Israel. The hand was the reasoner; the breaking hammer was the instrument of logic in days so remote and so unfavoured. Forgetting this, how many people misunderstand instructions given to the ancient Church; they speak of the violence of those instructions, the bloodthirstiness even of Him who gave the instructions to Israel. Hostile critics select such expressions and hold them up as if in mid-air, that the sunlight may get well round about them; and attention is called to the barbarity, the brutality, the revolting violence of so-called Divine commandments. It is false reasoning on the part of the hostile critic. We must think ourselves back to the exact period of time and the particular circumstances at which and under which the instructions were delivered. But all the words of violence have dropped away. "Destroy," "overthrow," "burn," "hew down," are words which are not found in the instructions given to Christian evangelists. Has the law then passed away? Not a jot or tittle of it. Is there still to be a work of this kind accomplished in heathen nations? That is the very work that must first be done. This is the work that is aimed at by the humblest and meekest teacher who shoulders the Gospel yoke and proceeds to Christianise the nations. Now we destroy by reasoning, and that is a far more terrible destruction than the supposed annihilation that can be wrought by manual violence. You cannot conquer an enemy by the arm, the rod, or the weapon of war; you subdue him, overpower him, or impose some momentary restraint upon him; fear of you takes possession of his heart, and he sues for peace because he is afraid. That is not conquest; there is nothing eternal in such an issue. How, then, to destroy an enemy? By converting him — by changing his motive, by penetrating into his most secret life, and accomplishing the mystery of regeneration in his affections. That mystery accomplished, the conquest is complete and everlasting; the work of destruction has been accomplished; burning and hewing down, and all actions indicative of mere violence have disappeared. ( J. Parker D. D. ) Unto His habitation shall ye seek. Deuteronomy 12:5, 6 The Gospel of the holy places S. Mather. I. God was pleased to choose out certain places to stand in A SPECIAL RELATION OF HOLINESS UNTO HIMSELF under the Old Testament. This holiness of places was two-fold, either transient and merely for the present time, or else more permanent. 1. The transient holiness of places was where the Lord gave visible appearances of Himself in His glorious majesty to the eyes of His servants; such places were holy during the time of such Divine appearances ( Exodus 3:5 ; Exodus 19:11-25 ; Joshua 5:15 2 Peter 1:18 ). 2. There was also a more abiding holiness of places under the law.(1) The land of Canaan ( Zechariah 2:12 ).(2) The cities of refuge.(3) The tabernacle, the temple, the ark, and all the places where they came ( 2 Chronicles 8:11 ).(4) Jerusalem was very eminent as being the place of the temple, and ark, and all the public worship thereunto belonging ( Psalm 76:2 ; Psalm 87:2 ). II. What is THE GROUND OF THIS HOLINESS OF THESE PLACES, AND HOW ARE WE TO CONCEIVE OF IT? 1. The Lord is said to choose these places to set His name there, and therefore they are called His habitation.(1) Here were the standing symbols and tokens of His presence.(2) In these places were visible appearances of His glory upon special occasions ( Exodus 40:34 ; Numbers 12:5 ; 1 Kings 8:10, 11 ; Isaiah 6:1 ).(3) These places had their typical significations of Christ and Gospel mysteries.(4) These places were appointed by God to be parts, yea, principal parts, of His worship ( Exodus 20:24 ; Ezekiel 20:40 ).(5) They were, by God's appointment, the seat of all the public church worship of those times. 2. "Thither shalt thou seek," i.e. for answers and oracles from the holy places, and from the priest by Urim and Thummim ( Exodus 25:22 ; Numbers 7:8, 9 ; Numbers 27:21 ). 3. "Thither shalt thou come," i.e. at all the appointed festivals, three times a year ( Exodus 23:14, 17 ), and whensoever they offered sacrifice (ver. 6).Lessons: 1. The cessation of this holiness of places under the New Testament ( John 4:21-23 ; Matthew 18:22 ; 1 Timothy 2:8 ; Malachi 1:11 ). Every place is now a Judaea, every house a Jerusalem, every congregation a Zion. 2. Learn to present your worship unto God by Jesus Christ, for He is the true Temple and Tabernacle ( Hebrews 7:25 ; 1 Peter 1:21 ; John 14:6 ; Colossians 3:17 ). 3. Remember that there is a church worship ( Acts 2:42 ; Acts 20:7 ). 4. Labour everyone, that his soul may be a habitation for the Lord, a temple of the Holy Ghost. ( S. Mather. ) Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day. Deuteronomy 12:8 Restraint the Christian's blessing Plain Sermons by Contributors to, Tracts for the Times. The blessing, of which it is now proposed to speak more particularly, is that of being more under control — of having our lives and ways more exactly ordered — than as if we were not Christians. We are now come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord our God was so long preparing for us, and therefore we are no longer to think of doing every man what is right in his own eyes. And therefore the gate, into which we must strive to enter, is called "strait," and the way which leadeth unto life, "narrow." And our Saviour, inviting us to the blessings of the Gospel, describes them as a yoke and a burthen; easy indeed, and light, yet still a yoke and a burthen. And this very circumstance He mentions as a blessing; as the very reason why, coming to Him, the weary and heavy laden might find rest ( Matthew 11:28 ). So that it appears that both the law and the Gospel, both Moses and Jesus Christ, consider it a great blessing, a great increase of comfort and happiness, to be kept under strict rules. The Gospel was more strict than the law; and on that very account its subjects were happier. Canaan was a place where men could not do what pleased themselves so much as they could in the wilderness: and it was the more entirely and truly a place of rest. But now this way of thinking is by no means the way of the world. People in general like nothing so much as having their own choice in all things. They account it a burthen, and not a privilege, to be under the government of others. And there is not, one may venture to say, one man in a thousand who would not rather be rich than poor, for this very reason — that a rich man is much more his own master, has much more of his own way in choosing how to spend his time, what company to keep, what employments to follow, than a poor man generally can have. Again, everyone has observed, I might say has experienced, the hurry which children are usually in to get out of the state of childhood and to be left to judge and act for themselves. But the worst, and, unfortunately, the most common instance of this ungovernable temper in mankind is, our unwillingness to let God choose for us, and our impatience under the burthens He lays upon us. How very commonly does it happen that the very condition people chose beforehand, the very place they wished to live in, and the persons they wished to live among, being obtained, becomes the ground of continual complaint and vexation. If they could but change at will, they say, they should like their situation well enough, but now they are tied down to it they cannot, that is, they will not, help being fretful and impatient. Yet this very circumstance of being tied down to rules and not having the power to change at will, is, as we have seen, reckoned a great blessing, both in the Old and New Testament, both by Moses and Jesus Christ. And the contrary (the having to choose for ourselves, and to do what is right in our own eyes), is spoken of as a great disadvantage. So different is the judgment of God from the judgment of men. To have this thought steadily fixed within us, will prove, indeed, the greatest of all blessings, both as to our rest in this world, and as to our inheritance in that which is to come. In whatever counsel and pursuit we are sure we are guided by God, that, we are equally sure, must turn out well in the end; and soberly speaking, what can we wish for more? Once make up your mind to this most certain truth, that what is right in God's eyes is far better for you than what is right in your own eyes, and you will have but one care in the whole world, i.e. how to please God in making the best use of the present time, a care in which, by His gracious assistance, you are sure not to fail. But it was further said, that this temper of not choosing for ourselves leads directly to our everlasting inheritance in the other world, as well as making sure of our rest and refreshment in this. For it helps us greatly in the performance of our duty, because, in truth, it leaves us nothing else to do. It prepares and trains us for everlasting happiness in heaven. For the very secret of our enjoyment there will be that God's will shall be ours. We shall behold His works and ways, especially the glory which He has given to His beloved Son our Saviour, and shall rejoice in them as in so much good done to ourselves, more and more thankfully forever. What a beautiful and comfortable thought is this, of the high and noble uses to which, if we will, we may turn all our worst disappointments — the bitterest thoughts of shame and remorse which ever come upon us. We may consider them as part of our heavenly Father's way of breaking us in, as it were, and training us to the desire and enjoyment of His own blessed presence in heaven. And if even the bitter thought of our past sins may be accompanied with so much of what is comfortable and hopeful, surely we may well leave it to Almighty God to do what He will with us in every other respect. ( Plain Sermons by Contributors to " Tracts for the Times. ") Life a transitional state of being Frederick Field, LL. D. "Ye are not as yet come to your rest." The present is a temporary and provisional state of things. Such is the reason (ver. 9) assigned by the great lawgiver of the Jews for the nonobservance of many, and the imperfect observance of nearly all the statutes and ordinances which he was delivering to them. We are all, he says, to blame. Your leader is no more exempt from human infirmities than yourselves. He is as fond of having his own way, of doing what is right in his own eyes, as any of you. We have all done amiss, and we must all try to do better; and so prepare ourselves for that entirely altered state of circumstances which awaits us as soon as we have crossed the narrow dividing stream; you of Jordan, I of death. In applying these words to the objects of Christian instruction, observe — I. THE UNIFORMITY OF HUMAN CHARACTER. What describes the natural man in one age or country will suit him equally well at all times and in all countries. What were the Israelites doing in the wilderness? "Every man whatsoever was right in his own eyes." This is human nature. We like to have our own way. Restraint is irksome to us. We seek to be independent in our circumstances, in order that we may be so in our actions, and have no one's wishes or feelings to consult but our own. But if human wilfulness shows itself in one direction more than another, it is in our relations to God. Here we meet with no such checks as hem us in on every other side. Here the freedom of our will is not interfered with by the claims of family or the obligations of society. The world looks on, but never thinks of interfering. A man's religion, it holds, is something entirely between God and his conscience. In the concerns of the soul it is commonly said that every man ought to do whatever is right in his own eyes, without any regard to the opinions or feelings of others. What is most agreeable to our feelings, we easily persuade ourselves, is most profitable to our souls; and where we are most profited, where we "get most good," as it is called, there we feel sure it is God's will that we should go. So we "wrap it up" ( Micah 7:3 ). We settle the matter nominally between God and our consciences, but really between ourselves and our own wayward and corrupt wills. II. THE IMPROPRIETY OF THIS PRINCIPLE of doing "every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes." No day passes without some matters arising which involve the question of not what is right in our own eyes, but what is right in itself, and what is right in the sight of God and man. We are reasonable and accountable creatures. There is a sense of right and wrong implanted in us by nature. We cannot act contrary to it without violating our conscience, and causing a sensible disturbance to our peace of mind. Besides moral, there is also such a thing as positive right, arising out of the declared will of God; and this is just as binding upon our consciences as the other. When it pleased God to promulgate the Fourth Commandment, by that very act He made it a right thing to keep holy the seventh day, and a wrong thing to do our ordinary work thereon, in the eyes of every man who believes in the existence and attributes of the Creator of the world. Unhappily, moral disorder is not attended with the same inconveniences as civil. Men may be "lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents," and many other things equally offensive to piety and virtue, without any particular shock to the peaceful and prosperous course of this world. Still, "these things ought not so to be." Wrong can never be right. There is one Lawgiver, and one holy and righteous and perfect law. To do as we like is to violate the fundamental law of our being. "For none of us liveth to himself," etc. To do that which is right in our own eyes is too often to do that which is abominable in the sight of God. III. THE NECESSARY IMPERFECTION OF OUR PRESENT STATE OF BEING. Perfect order and perfect happiness are not to be found on earth, but are reserved for that eternal existence to which this world is but a passage. 1. This thought will reconcile us, in a great degree, to the troubles of life. 2. It will encourage us under our moral failings and imperfections. It may be a poor consolation, but a consolation it certainly is, when we have done amiss, to know that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God"; and that so long as man is man he will do "whatsoever is right in his own eyes." Hereafter it will be otherwise. In another world "we shall not do after all the things that we do here this day." 3. It will make us tolerant and indulgent to the failings of others. We must take the world as we find it. We must deal with things as they are, not as they ought to be. To bear and to forbear is no small part of our trial. And we cannot be required to show greater forbearance towards others than God is continually exercising towards us. IV. THERE IS NO SENTIMENT SO JUST AS NOT TO BE LIABLE TO PERVERSION AND ABUSE. The necessary imperfection of our present state might be urged as an excuse for those evils and disorders which need not exist, and therefore are inexcusable. But this must not be allowed. Sin must always be protested against. Our nature is corrupt; but that is a reason for striving against it, not for giving way to it. We live in a wicked world; but that should put us on our guard against an unreserved association with the world, or an undue compliance with its ways. Is this all that is required of us — to contend against the evil of our own hearts, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world? Not so. A Christian has a higher vocation: to make the world better; to season it with the salt of a pure and uncorrupt conversation; to set an example of that self-denying, self-sacrificing spirit which leads to conduct the very opposite of that described in the text. The Christian must be continually reminding both himself and others that what we are all doing here this day may be excused by considerations arising out of the frailty of human nature, but can never be justified. Let us take every opportunity of mortifying those deeds of the body, those sinful desires and depraved inclinations which, if they do not actually deprive us of "the rest and the inheritance which the Lord our God giveth us," cannot but make us less fit for it. Let us learn the pleasure of giving up our wills, instead of indulging them; of looking "not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others"; of doing, not "every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes," but every man whatsoever is right for him to do — what religion teaches, what conscience justifies, and what God approves. V. LET US LEARN FROM THIS SUBJECT TO UNDERSTAND MORE PERFECTLY, AND TO APPRECIATE MORE JUSTLY, THE GOSPEL METHOD OF SALVATION. Moses, we are told, "was faithful in all his house"; as the mediator of that former covenant, he performed his part on the whole faithfully and well; but that was all. He was no redeemer; he could not "save his people from their sins." He was a sinner like themselves: the things which, by reason of their frailty, they did there that day, he also did. Christ alone could say, "Ye shall not do after all the things which ye do here this day"; ye, not we, — excluding Himself from the number of those who do "every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes." Of Himself He says, "I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which sent Me." "I do always those things that please Him." On this principle of seeking God's glory, not His own — He acted through life, and also "became obedient unto death." Without this act we should never have come to that rest, never have attained to that inheritance at all. We should have continued all our lives, as many do to this day, doing "every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes"; because we should have had no motive or inducement to do otherwise. If we have learnt better things, it is only because we have learnt Christ; learnt Him as "the way, the truth, and the life"; "heard Him, and been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus." It remains that we should turn our lessons into practice, by "putting off the old man," etc. So shall we leave off by degrees to "do after all the things which we do here this day"; and under the renewing and sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit we shall become daily more and more "meet for the inheritance of the saints in light," and ripe for that "rest which remaineth for the people of God." ( Frederick Field, LL. D. ) Ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance. Deuteronomy 12:9 Not as yet J. Parker, D. D. That is the beginning — the refrain — the very soul of a hymn. "Not as yet" — it is a blossom-like word — an unfulfilled prophecy. "Not as yet" — why, then, it may be some day. The meaning is that we are on the road: How far have we travelled? Are we home? The voice answers in the night, Not yet. But if we were on the wrong road the voice would not answer so; the voice would then say: Home: why, we are lost, we are on the wrong road; every mile we have travelled these last two days has been a mile in the opposite direction. But the very tone of the voice itself is a gospel. "Not as yet": presently; nearer and nearer. "Not as yet": every step is a battle won; every step is one more difficulty past. "Not as yet; but sufficiently near to be getting ready. What is the meaning of all this stir on the ship, this running to and fro, this calling out from one to another? We have passed something, we have passed a signal, we shall land tonight! Getting ready, saying in effect, It is all over now, what remains to be done is a mere matter of detail; we are waiting, and presently we shall be there. How do we measure our journey? By the middle mile. We seem not to have begun the journey whilst we are on the first half of it, but as soon as we got in the middle of the sea, and are told that the middle mile has been passed, we say, It is all downhill now. Many people are more than half way through life's road: what is it to be during the remainder of the days? Are we leaving heaven behind us, or are we going to it? Many men are leaving behind them the only heaven they have ever prepared for: what wonder if they do not sing during the last half of the voyage or the journey? Others have had a dreary time, a melancholy experience, a troubled disciplinary lot, and when they are told about half-way through that it is all home going and the distance may in some unaccountable way be shortened, behold their faces are alight with a new expression, their soul has come up to look out of the window to see if it be even so. I heard a great voice from heaven saying: Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord: for they shall rest. Rest is promised, not as the reward of selfishness or self-indulgence, but as the crown of service. No man can rest who has not toiled. No man can have real joy who has not had real sorrow. What right have we to rest if we have been resting all the time? The week has Sunday in front of it. Cheer thee! It is Friday. When is Sunday? The day after tomorrow. Is Sunday in every week? Yes. Herein is the goodness of God. We need frequent Sabbaths, we need refreshment by the road, yea, at every seventh step of the journey we must sit down awhile. Sometimes we have a lift by the way. Does the Shepherd not need Himself to be carried sometimes? No: because He is not a shepherd, one of many, but The Shepherd, out of whose shepherdliness all other pastors are struck. The little candle dies, the sun burneth evermore. You need rest — why not have it? You are a very little one, and you are soon tired, and He, I repeat, carrieth the lambs in His bosom. The very principle that Christ went upon was the principle of "Not as yet." "A little while" is the length of time Christ gave Himself. He endured the Cross, despising the shame, because He looked for the joy that lay beyond. Men draw themselves through earth by laying hold of heaven. That is how the earth drags itself along; it is all looped up to the sun. No man has seen the filaments, the threadlets, but the sun feeds them everyone. The tiny earth is hooked on by invisible tentacles to the great central chariot. It is so that life is drawn forward, it is so that life is sanctified; because that by which we are connected with the sun is that through which the centre also communicates to us. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) The imperfection of the believer's earthly happiness S. Venables. I. Let us notice THE TERMS IN WHICH THE END OF THE ISRAELITES' JOURNEY IS SPOKEN OF. They are the very same terms which are used in the New Testament as applicable to the Christian's everlasting home, and they point out respectively its blessedness, its certainty, its freeness. 1. For it is called a rest: "Ye are not as yet come to the rest." And this it is well known St. Paul applies to our eternal home, when he says to the Hebrews, "There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God." And in this expression, I repeat, is conveyed to us the great blessedness of that our eternal portion. For if there is one word which seems to contain within it an idea of what is really grateful and enjoyable in this world, it is the word "rest." Condemned, as we are, to eat our bread by the sweat of our brow, "and being born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward," rest is one of the greatest earthly blessings that God can bestow. The believer, then, is one day, and that perhaps no distant day, to rest completely and eternally from all that pains and grieves him here. He shall rest from suffering, "for there shall be no more pain": he shall rest from sorrowing, for "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying"; but above all he shall rest from sin. 2. But there is another expression here used, which the New Testament warrants us to apply to the rest that remaineth to the people of God, namely "inheritance." This expression denotes the certainty of the believer's portion. There are only three things in the dealings of this world which can disappoint the heir of his inheritance; and, if it can be shown that these cannot take place as regards the believer, the ease is clear. For, in the first place, in earthly things, the parent or the person owning the property may, from some cause or other, change his mind, and cut off the heir from the inheritance. But, in the case now before us, "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." Or, secondly, the heir may rebel or run away, and so forfeit and give up all claim to the inheritance. But in this case this is provided against; for one part of the adoption into the family of God is the gift of the Spirit, to keep the heir in the love and fear of God, according as it is written: "I will put My fear within them, that they shall not depart from Me." Or, thirdly, the heir may die before the time appointed of the father, and so be disappointed. But, as regards the heavenly inheritance, this can never be: "The soul once quickened shall never die": "The heirs of God are kept by His power through faith unto salvation": "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish": "Because I live, ye shall live also." 3. But there is yet another expression hers used, which appears to denote the freeness with which it is offered, and which we find used in the New Testament to denote the same idea. It is spoken of as a gift: "Ye are not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you." Now, the New Testament invariably speaks of this as a gift: St. Paul says, particularly, "The wages of sin" — i.e. the just reward of sin — "is death; but the gift of God" — observe, not the wages, nor the reward, but the free, undeserved gift of God — "is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." God is a sovereign: He has a right to do what He will: He is our Sovereign, and He has a right to our services: He is our Maker, and He has a right to ourselves. And there is no obedience, no service, which it is in our power to render Him, to which He has not already an undoubted right; and, consequently, we can never do anything for which God is bound in the least degree to bless us. All His gifts, therefore, to us are free and undeserved, and whatever He gives He gives of His own free and sovereign grace; and as such we must receive it or perish. II. Such being the terms in which the heavenly inheritance is spoken of, let us turn to THE PROOFS WHICH THE CHRISTIAN HAS THAT HE HAS NOT YET COME TO THE REST WHICH IS RESERVED FOR HIM. These are various, but we will take only a few which come more immediately in connection with the text. 1. The imperfection and vanity of, every thing connected with this life — its sorrows, disappointments, pain, and bereavements — all these things are enough to remind us, as I believe they are graciously intended to remind us, that this is not our home. Thus the Israelites, wherever they rested, wherever they went, were still in the wilderness: turn where they would, the same barren scene would probably present itself, and remind them that this is not Canaan, this is still the wilderness. Let us be blessed with whatever joy or advantage we will, there is a worm at the root; and, with all its capabilities of affording happiness, still it is not permanent, it perishes in the using. Friends disappoint, children and those dear are removed, health decays, riches make to themselves wings, and fly away; so that, with all our earthly comforts, and they are not few, we are still reminded by them, and it is the crowning mercy of them all that we are reminded by them, that this is not our resting place, and we are strangers and pilgrims here. 2. But the Israelites would be reminded, from time to time, that they had not entered into rest, by the continual attacks to which they were exposed from their enemies, and perhaps also by the continued murmurings and rebellions which arose among themselves. True it is, that even in Canaan, the nations greater and mightier than they, were to be dispossessed; still, even on their road they would feel that they had not yet attained what Moses had promised: "When the Lord God shall have given you rest from all your enemies round about." And this is an especial mark to a Christian that his rest and his inheritance is not here. Wherever he looks the enemy meets his view; whether he look around or within him, the scene is the same. I mean not that he takes a gloomy view of all these things, but he cannot deny the fact that "the world lieth in wickedness." His own experience tells him that he has not yet reached that place or that state where ignorance shall not exist, where every murmuring disposition shall be forever hushed, where every rebellious feeling shall be forever slain, and every thought of his heart shall be brought in complete and eternal captivity to the obedience of Christ. 3. But I think it may be said that our very spiritual blessings are calculated to remind us of this. All our means of grace, and all our privileges, many and blessed as they are, are yet adapted for a state of ignorance and imperfection. The manna which the Israelites gathered from day to day, and the "spiritual Rock that followed them," would especially remind them of the truth adverted to in the text. How different from the grapes of Eshcol! how far short of the land flowing with milk and honey, to which they were repeatedly encouraged to look! and yet they were marvellous blessings in themselves. And so it is with us. The spiritual life is but a small foretaste of that fulness of life which is hid in Christ with God; and the very supplies of the Spirit are but the distant branchings of that river which "makes glad the city of God," issues from the living fountains to which the Lamb shall one day lead His people. How inferior, too, is the very written or preached word on earth to what the believer will hear in glory! How inferior the worship in the earthly courts to the worship of the redeemed! How inferior is that feast of the Lord's Supper, to which we are often invited, to that supper at which the bride of Christ is one day to be present. III. What, then, are THE LESSONS OF WARNING, OF DUTY, OR OF ENCOURAGEMENT WHICH WE ARE TO LEARN FROM THESE CONSIDERATIONS? 1. We learn a lesson of warning, not to fix our habitation here, still less to look back upon the world which we have left. God give you grace to be wise in time, that you may be happy in eternity. 2. But, again, we learn a large lesson of duty. We learn that we must not lay aside our armour while we are in the enemy's neighbourhood; we must not cease our watchfulness while we are beset by foes within and without; we must not be contemplating the length of road we have passed, but looking on to what remains. 3. And, lastly, whenever the following propositions are true, that is — 1. When he cannot see any hope of supporting himself at home. 2. When prospects abroad are decidedly good, and likely to continue such. 3. When the journey can probably be performed free from accident. 4. When the means of paying the emigration expenses are secure; and — 5. When family ties are of such a sort that they may with propriety be severed, or when those dearest to you can accompany you.I am not intending to say much more about emigration. Yet I have some valuable advice to offer you upon the subject. Agents, from various motives, often deceive men about the goodness of the distant country, or the cheapness of the voyage by their ship, or the certainty of employment at high wage when they reach the place of destination. You need not fear deceit in this case. There can be no motive for any deception. I say, then, you will be wise to go thither, for these two reasons —(1) Because sooner or later, you must leave here. "The longest life is but a lingering death," and your life may not be even long enough to prove the saying. "This is not your rest." "Ye are not as yet come to the inheritance, which the Lord your God giveth you."(2) But then again, even if you could live here forever, it would not make you happy. I am sure that if your days were prolonged, you could not, as now constituted, enjoy life. It is really a melancholy sight to see an aged person who has outlived his friends and kinsfo

12:1-4 Moses comes to the statutes he had to give in charge to Israel; and begins with such as relate to the worship of God. The Israelites are charged not to bring the rites and usages of idolaters into the worship of God; not under colour of making it better. We cannot serve God and mammon; nor worship the true God and idols; nor depend upon Christ Jesus and upon superstitious or self-righteous confidences. 12:5-32 The command to bring ALL the sacrifices to the door of the tabernacle, was now explained with reference to the promised land. As to moral service, then, as now, men might pray and worship every where, as they did in their synagogues. The place which God would choose, is said to be the place where he would put his name. It was to be his habitation, where, as King of Israel, he would be found by all who reverently sought him. Now, under the gospel, we have no temple or altar that sanctifies the gift but Christ only: and as to the places of worship, the prophets foretold that in every place the spiritual incense should be offered, Mal 1:11. Our Saviour declared, that those are accepted as true worshippers, who worship God in sincerity and truth, without regard either to this mountain or Jerusalem, Joh 4:21. And a devout Israelite might honour God, keep up communion with him, and obtain mercy from him, though he had no opportunity of bringing a sacrifice to his altar. Work for God should be done with holy joy and cheerfulness. Even children and servants must rejoice before God; the services of religion are to be a pleasure, and not a task or drudgery. It is the duty of people to be kind to their ministers, who teach them well, and set them good examples. As long as we live, we need their assistance, till we come to that world where ordinances will not be needed. Whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we are commanded to do all to the glory of God. And we must do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to the Father through him. They must not even inquire into the modes and forms of idolatrous worship. What good would it do them to know those depths of Satan? And our inward satisfaction will be more and more, as we abound in love and good works, which spring from faith and the in-dwelling Spirit of Christ.