in all circumstances, such ready charity, such active benevolence, ever appear in you, as that God's hand and grace may be seen in the buds blossoms and fruits of your productiveness, that so the objections and murmurings of all men against the ways of the gospel may be for ever removed, and God be justified, admired, and venerated by all.

SERMON III.

THE RED HEIFER.

NUMBERS XIX. 17, 18.

And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel: and a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that toucheth a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave.

THE ordinance, of which these words furnish a part of the description, and which we now come to consider, was a very extraordinary one, and any meaning to be attached to it would have been perfectly undiscoverable by us, had we not been instructed by the light of the gospel, that all the ceremonies of the

fulfilled all its righteousness, yet was this altogether on our account, and not through any delinquency of his own: neither was there any compulsion laid on him, for he gave himself for our sins, a voluntary offering to his Father's justice. He says of himself, "I lay down my life, that I might take it again; no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." Thus in all these particulars may our thoughts be led, by comparison, to the great divine deliverer of mankind.

Pursuing the account of the law respecting the heifer, we find that being thus selected, it was to be taken by Eleazar, not by Aaron, because this was not a sacrifice, and also, we suppose, because uncleanness, as we shall see, would be contracted in the ceremony, which the high priest was to avoid. By him it was to be taken without the camp, and there killed in his presence: he should sprinkle the blood with his finger seven times before the tabernacle, and then the heifer was to be wholly consumed by fire, and the priest

was moreover to take cedar-wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer. He was then to wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh, and be unclean until the evening. The person also who had burned the heifer was to wash and bathe in like manner, and be unclean until the evening. Finally, the ashes were to be gathered up by a person previously clean, but who by doing even this would be rendered unclean; and the ashes were to be laid up in a clean place without the camp, and kept for use as long as they lasted. Now here we recall to our minds the violent and painful death of the divine Saviour, who moreover, that he might answer to these ceremonies even in minute circumstances, suffered without the gate; and here also we remember his blood of sprinkling. These are comparisons which were frequently drawn for you as we passed through the book of Leviticus.

II. I now proceed, in the second place, to consider the use of this water of separation. It is said to be "a purification for sin," and it was to be applied for the purifying of those

who had contracted uncleanness by the touching of the dead body of any person, or of a human bone, or a grave, and for the purifying of all those persons and things that might be in the tent in which any one had died. Very burdensome were the appointments of the Jewish law respecting uncleanness. The acts which rendered unclean were so numerous, and in many cases so unavoidable that they must have been continually contracting it, and thus had often tedious and expensive modes of purification to observe. But we see in these the defiling nature of sin; and while we bless God that we are not placed under the yoke of so many ceremonial observancies, we should be the more careful to avoid that inward defilement which the soul contracts by unholy thoughts, and sinful desires, and evil passions and tempers, and wicked acts. We should carry the spirit of all these ceremonial cleansings into our dispensation of spiritual things, and learn from them to "cleanse ourselves from all

filthiness of the

flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." This will render the reading