least suspected, nets are spread. But there is hope for suddenly-contracted guilt. There is a Saviour waiting to obliterate; there is no stain which He removes not. Pardon found must be the starting-point of new devotedness. The cleansed hands fight with more vigour. But what if deliberate transgression be indulged? The ordinance is silent here, and thus warns solemnly. Where shall he turn who turns presumptuously from God? Grieve not the Spirit's gentle mind. The Nazarite continued only for a fixed time; but grand solemnities attested the completion of this hallowed state. No rite is absent which confesses need of remission, and trust in reconciling blood. (Verses 13-21.) What is the purport of this multitude of rites? They all seek expiation. They graphically show that holiest deeds of holiest men can only find acceptance through the dying Jesus. Believer, is not this the conscious feeling of your humbled soul? Behold the cross. There is your only help; cleanse there the stains of your most holy hours. Live under Vows, as a strict Nazarite; but wrestle for forgiveness as a sad short-comer.Henry Law, D.D. THE PRIESTLY BLESSING. (Verses 22-27.) "The spiritual character of the congregation of Israel culminated in the blessing with which the priests were to bless the people. The directions as to this blessing, therefore, impressed the seal of perfection upon the whole order and organization of the people of God, inasmuch as Israel was first truly formed into a congregation of Jehovah by the fact that God not only bestowed His blessing upon it, but placed the communication of this blessing in the hands of the priests, the chosen and constant mediators of the blessings of His grace, and imposed it upon them as one portion of their official duty. The blessing which the priests were to impart to the people, consisted of a triple blessing of two members each, which stood related to each other thus. The second in each case contained a special application of the first to the people, and the three gradations unfolded the substance of the blessing step by step with ever-increasing emphasis." -Keil and Del. Let us notice-- I. The Divine Direction. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel." It was the duty of the priests ministerially to bless the people by prayer to God on their behalf; they were to entreat Him to bless them. But in this place they are commanded to pronounce His blessing upon them: speaking in His name, and as His representative, they were to declare the people blessed. The blessing which is pronounced in accordance with the Divine direction cannot be a mere form; it must accord with reality. The command to pronounce the blessing may be regarded as an assurance that, when it was pronounced, the blessing itself would be given. The command to the priest to pronounce the blessing is equivalent to the promise of God to bestow that blessing. The Christian minister is required both to pray for the blessing of God upon the people of His charge, and with confidence to pronounce that blessing upon all who sincerely seek God. II. The Divine Benediction. "Saying unto them, The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." Let us notice here 1. The significant form of the Benediction. (1) The triple use of the sacred Name is significant. "The Priestly Un Blessing prescribed for ritual usage in the Book of Numbers," says Canon Liddon, "is spoken of as putting the Name of God, that is to say, a symbol unveiling His nature upon the children of Israel. Here, then, we discover a distinct limit to the number of the Persons Who are internal to the Unity of God. The priest is to repeat the Most Holy Name Three times. The Hebrew accentuation, whatever be its date, shows that the Jews themselves saw in this repetition the declaration of a mystery in the Divine Nature. less such a repetition had been designed to secure the assertion of some important truth, a single mention of the Sacred Name would have been natural in a system, the object of which was to impress belief in the Divine Unity upon an entire people. This significant repetition, suggesting, without distinctly asserting, a Trinity in the Being of God, did its work in the mind of Israel." The same thing has been argued from a consideration of the several members of the Benediction. Thus Richard Watson says, "If the three members of this form of benediction be attentively considered, they will be found to agree respectively with the three Persons taken in the usual order of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father is the Author of blessing and preservation; illumination and grace are from the Son; illumination and peace from the Spirit, the Teacher of truth, and the Comforter." And while in the triple mention of the sacred Name and the threefold blessing, we have suggestions of the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, in the great assurance, "I will bless them," we have a revelation of the Divine Unity-that God is One. (2) The use of the singular number in reference to the subjects of the blessing is significant. "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee," etc. Six times we have the pronoun in the singular number— "thee." According to the Speaker's Comm., the singular number indicates that the blessing is conferred on Israel collectively. May we not view it also as indicating the regard of God for the individual? "If we take the law to ourselves, we may take the blessing to ourselves, as if our names were inserted." So the Christian believer may say, "The son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me" 2. The Divine fulness of the Benediction. "As the threefold repetition of a word or sentence serves to express the thought as strongly as possible (cf. Jer. vii. 4, xxii. 29), the triple blessing expressed in the most unconditional manner the thought, that God would bestow upon His congregation the whole fulness of the blessing enfolded in His Divine Being which was manifested as Jehovah." Man's need of God's blessing is implied. That need arises from his condition as a creature dependent on God for "life, and breath, and all things;" and as a sinful creature, who merits no good from God. Apart from the blessing of God man is utterly undone. First, the blessing of God in general is pronounced, "The Lord bless thee;" and then that blessing is pronounced in some of its particular forms (a). The second clause in each verse of the Benediction defines more closely the general tenor of the preceding one. The blessing includes―(1) The preser vation of God. "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee." Danger is implied. We are weak, inexperienced, prone to sin, exposed to temptation. God is our only sufficient and all-sufficient Guar dian. What subtlety can surprise Him who is infinite in intelligence? What strength can stand against Omnipotence? "Kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation" (b). (2) The favour of God. "The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee." When the Divine face is dark with frowns, distress and death ensue; when it is bright with favours, life and joy flow to man. "They perish at the rebuke of Thy countenance." "Cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved." There seems to be an allusion to the shining of the sun. It gives life, light, heat, beauty, power, joy. "In His favour is life." "The light of (a) When we ask God's blessing, we pray that first He would bless us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We pray that He would bless us with the pardon of every sin, with the healing of every moral disease, with fitness for the world to come, with victory over the trials of the world that now is. We pray that He would stamp upon our hearts that Divine and inexhaustible blessing which will turn our trials into elements of sanctification, our griefs and our tears into a ministry of grace and progress, and education for glory; and all the assaults of Satan and the obstructions of sin into means of ripening and maturing us as the sons of God for a kingdom that fadeth not away. It is God's ble sing laid upon the heart within that alters to a Christian the whole world without. If the world were now to be turned into Paradise by God's breath coming over it again,— yet, if unconverted men were left to tread that Paradise, they would soon reduco it to the desert, polluting, blasting, and destroying all. No outer change for the better will ever do without an inner one. There must not only be a pure and beautiful Paradise, but there must be a holy man and a holy woman to live in it; and it would be in vain that the millennium were to burst upon our world if we had not first a little millennium within to melt into the great millennium without, making the outer world and the inner world in harmony, at peace with God, and therefore at peace with one another. Our constant idea is, that what man wants is something done to his outer circumstances; the real and the Divine one is that something should be done for man in his inner heart. Man is sick and dying; it will be of very little, or of very transient use" to change his bed; what he wants is to be cured of his disease. The great mischief is, not what sin has done to the outer world, but what sin has done to the inner world; and if the inner world can be made right, then all the outer will seem to be altered. If you go forth with a sad, a grieved, and a bruised spirit into the loveliest scenes of nature, they will all lose their charms to you. To a man who is sorrowful, his own fireside will only reflect sorrow; to a heart that is ill at ease, the fairest landscape will communicate no ecstasy. But on the other hand, let a man's heart be overflowing with joy-let the first light of Eden that is to be, shine into his mind, and the very desert itself to that man's eye will grow beautiful, and the blackest scenes of the world will shine bright, and all nature will reflect a joy that is first in his own heart, and repeats itself by a law as beneficent as it is true, wherever he sets his foot, or in whatever path of the world he walks. What we need therefore is, first the blessing pronounced on the heart, and then we shall hear it in multiplying echoes, and reflected in sweet music from every point of the horizon around and without us. John Cumming D D. (b) Christians are kept by the supreme love of their omnipotent Saviour (John x. 28, 29; Jude i.). The Lord Jesus not only redeemed His people; He is at this hour interceding for them; and His intercession keeps the raints. As Peter was kept (Luke xxii. 31) by the Saviour's mediation, so all the good of all lands, in every age, are supported in temptation and brought through to the praise and glory of God. Sublime is the realization of the thought that our LIVING AND DIVINE LORD is standing before the Throne promoting the well-being of His struggling and oftentimes disspirited Church. He knows that we are still in the wilderness as "strangers and pilgrims "still exposed to the attacks of a relentless antagonist-and still possessors of a depraved nature; hence. He "ever liveth to make intercession" for His Church. Would it not comfort our hearts in seasons of distress to ponder the fact of our Saviour's intercession? No longer would we be oppressed with a sense of loneliness, for no spirit can be desolate for which the Son of God is interceding. Am I addressing a faint-hearted disciple of the Lord-one who is ever on the stormy lake of Galilee? Cheer thee! though human sympathy may flow scantily, Divine sympathy is unlimited in abundance. The Saviour, though unseen, is not inaccessible; and though no longer on the CROSS, He stands as the great High priest in the Holy of Holies. He will "keep" His people as the apple of His eye. He has "all power" to curb the rage of the whirlwind, and to pacify the roar of the storm, and to bring His Israel to their "desired haven"! "Kept by the power of God." What more can we need to assure our hearts and to transfuse them with peace? "The power of God" is the stay of the universe-it is the hope of all creation animate and inanimate. Blessed God! they are well kept whom Taou keepest; do Thou in Thy abounding goodness comfort our hearts with the assurance that Thou wilt keep us unto the end! We cannot keep ourselves: we are blind and weak, and ignorant, but Thou art full of help; teach us, therefore, by Thy Spirit, to feel that "our help is in the Name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth."-Jos. Parker, D.D. THE PREACHER'S BLESSING; OR THE HAPPY NEW YEAR New Year's Day so seldom falls on a Sunday, that, when it does, it would be a pity to let it slip, without wishing you all a happy new year, according to the good old English custom. But the world's notion of happiness, and the Gospel notion of happiness, are very dif ferent; and therefore the world's wishes for your happiness, and the preacher's wishes for your happiness must be very different also. The world's good wishes are like itself, worldly: they look chiefly to the body: they reach not beyond earth, and the things of earth. Whereas the good wishes of the preacher are chiefly for your souls: he looks, and by his office is bound to look, first to the one thing needful; his desires for your welfare are guided by the Gospel, and, like that, would raise you up to heaven. Even with regard to this world, the preacher knows full well, that the greatest happiness we can any of us enjoy is a peaceful mind, a quiet conscience, the feeling that God is reconciled to us, and loves us, and cares for us, and watches over us, and will so order and arrange whatever may befall us, that all things shall work together for our good. These are the very best gifts which any man can have in this life; and they are all contained in the text. Therefore, to every one of you I say, "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee," etc. But let us look at the text a little in detail; and let us keep in mind that this solemn blessing was of God's own appointment; so that we may expect to find mention of all those things which He knows to be best for His people. "The Lord bless thee" that is, the Lord give thee every good gift, and pour down on thee in due abundance whatever is wholesome and profitable, for thy soul first, and also for thy body. "The Lord keep thee!" that is, the Lord watch over thee for good, and shield thee from every kind of evil. "The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee." You all know the difference of feel between a sunshiny and a cloudy day. The real heat may be the same-nay, the cloudy may be warmer than the sunshiny-for we often have bright sunshine in the clear frosty days of winter, and heavy clouds in the middle of summer. But though the real heat may be the same--though the thermometer may tell us that the cloudy day is the warmer of the two-yet to our feelings it may be quite the contrary. There is something so enlivening in the sun, that I have often known persons come in from a walk on a bright winter's day, and speak of it as very pleasant; while the same persons on a damp, cloudy evening in July, would be the The away His face from him, and left him in clouds and heaviness. Oh, that you might but know and feel the joy and gladness which the light of God's face can shed on the soul of the Christian! "The Lord be gracious to thee!" that is, the Lord receive thy prayers, as a kind and merciful king hearkens to the petitions of his subjects (comp. Exod. xxii. 27; Neh. ix. 17; Jonah iv. 2; Psa. lxxvii. 7-9). To pray, then, that God will be gracious to His people, is to pray that He will listen to your supplications, and grant your requests, that He will be slow to mark what you have done amiss, and ready to take you into favour when you forsake your sins and cry to Him for pardon. "The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee!" that is, the Lord show forth His favour and love toward you. We may suppose this expression taken from a king sitting on his throne, and looking with eyes of such goodwill on the petitioners who come before him that the by-standers perceive, and the petitioners themselves feel, that he is their friend: they feel that they have the happiness of being esteemed and loved by him, and that they can reckon with certainty on his protection. To be countenanced thus by the King of kings is the highest privilege a son of Adam can enjoy. If the king had looked favourably upon us, we should expect to receive some honour or preferment; or at least we should feel certain that, so far as he could hinder, he would not suffer anyone to hurt us. So is it with those who have God's countenance, but in a far, far higher degree. For the king, great as he is, is only a man. His power is cut short in a thousand ways, and, at the best, can only follow us to the grave. But God is the King of kings: His power has no bounds, except His own wisdom and goodness and will: in the grave, where human rule is at an end, His rule and sovereignty are doubled, etc. "The Lord give thee peace!" Peace is the fruit of God's favour. "The effect of righteousness is peace." If we know we are forgiven for Christ's |