And he shall be as the light when the sun ariseth, even as a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by the clear shining after rain.”*

The most essential quality in a virtuous administration, is justice. This property is most conspicuous in the government of Christ over his people. He confers no benefit upon them but what is compatible with the strictest rectitude, having previously made a sufficient atonement for their transgressions. And in every part of his administration, "righteousness is the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins."† With perfect equity he apportions the degrees of his favour to the respective measures of their attachment and obedience. He will render to such of his subjects rewards, not properly on account of their works, but "according to their works." He employs the pure and holy law of God, as the invariable rule of their conduct, and shews how to make such a use of its terrors and sanctions, as is subservient to his gracious designs; restraining by fear those who are not susceptible of more liberal and generous motives. As it first convinced them of sin, so it is, in his hands, the instrument of such convictions as the measure of their offence may require; and, by alarming and awakening the conscience, it excites to repentance, vigilance, and prayer: "As many as I love, I rebuke," is his language; "be zealous therefore, and * 2 Sam. xxiii. 3, 4. † Isaiah xi. 5. Matt. xvi. 27.

"*

repent, " for I have not found thy works perfect before God."+

His dominion is at the same time most gentle, gracious, and benign. Grace, as I have said, is the sceptre of his empire; and that grace is imparted by the Spirit. His reign is indeed "the reign of grace." He reveals his glory, he manifests ineffable majesty and beauty, whereby he captivates the hearts of his subjects, and "draws them with the cords of a man, and the bands of love." § With the most tender compassion he " delivers the needy when he crieth, the poor, and him that hath no helper. He spares the poor and the needy, and saves the souls of the needy:"|| "When the poor and the needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." T

In earthly kingdoms the subjects are governed merely by general laws, which are, of necessity, very imperfectly adapted to the infinite variety of cases that occur. The combinations of human action are too numerous and diversified to be adequately included in any general regulation or enactment; whence has arisen the maxim, "Summum jus summa injuria," that a strict adherence to

*Rev. iii. 19. § Hos. xi. 4.

† Rev. iii. 2.

Rom. v. 21.

Psalm lxxii. 13.

Isaiah xli. 17, 18.

the letter of the law would often be the greatest injustice. But this divine dominion subsists under no such imperfections; for the Prince is intimately acquainted with the secrets of the heart. He also pervades every part of his empire by his presence, and can, consequently, make a specific and personal application to each individual; can impart his smiles and his favours, the expression of his kindness or of his displeasure to each individual soul, as distinctly as though it were the only subject of his empire.

In human government the law extends to outward actions only, but the good and the evil which are produced by it are almost entirely confined to sensible objects-to such objects as bear a relation to our corporeal state.

XVII.

ON SPIRITUAL LEPROSY.

LEV. xiii. 45. And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.*

By superficial thinkers, it has been objected to several parts of the Mosaic law, that its injunctions are frivolous and minute, and of a nature that ill comports with the majesty and wisdom

*Preached at Leicester, December, 1810.

of the Supreme Being. The exact specification of the different sorts of sacrifice, the enumeration of the different sorts of creatures, clean and unclean, and the various species of ceremonial defilement, have been adduced as examples of this kind. To this it may be replied, that, at this distance of time, we know too little of the superstitions among pagan nations, and consequently of the peculiar temptations to which the ancient Israelites were exposed, to enable us to form an accurate judgement respecting the expediency or necessity of those provisions. Many legal enactments, which appear unseasonable and unnecessary to a distant observer and a remote age, on close investigation of the actual circumstances in which they were, are discovered to be replete with propriety, and to be founded on the highest reason. But the most satisfactory answer to this, and to most other objections raised against the law of Moses, is derived from a consideration of the peculiar nature of that institute, which was throughout figurative and typical. In the infancy of revealed religion, and when the minds of men were but little accustomed to refined reflection, it became necessary to communicate moral and religious instruction by actions and observances, and to address their reason through the medium of their senses. The people of Israel, at the time they came out of the land of Egypt, having been long surrounded by idolatry, and in a state of depression and

slavery, were a people, we have the utmost reason to believe, of very gross conceptions, deeply sunk in carnality and ignorance; a nation peculiarly disqualified to receive any lasting impression from didactic discourses, or from any sublime system of instruction. Their minds were in an infantine state; and divine wisdom was imparted to them, not in that form which was best in itself, but in that in which they were best able to bear it: and being very much the creatures of sense, religious principles were communicated through the medium of sensible images. Thus they were reminded of the eternal difference betwixt right and wrong, betwixt actions innocent and criminal, by the distinction of animals and meats into clean and unclean. Their attention was called to a reflection on their guilt, on their just desert of destruction, and of the necessity of a real expiation of sin hereafter to be made in the person of the Saviour, by the institution of sacrifices, without the shedding of whose blood there was no remission. To convince them of the inherent defilement attached to sin, and of the necessity of being purified from it by a method of God's devising, it was enjoined that several incidents, such as touching a dead body, the disease of leprosy, and some others, should be considered as polluting the person whom they befell; in consequence of which, they were pronounced unclean, and separated from the camp