privileges; you will share their victories; and enter with them at last into their everlasting glory.

It is a mercy, my Christian brethren, that we have no such commission as that which was given to the Israelites. Our blessed master and leader came "not to destroy men's lives, but to save them :" and we are not to make use of fire and sword to exterminate sinners, but we are to beseech them to be reconciled to God. We are to use every means of instruction and persuasion which we can devise, and even where we do not succeed, we are to pity and pray, and continue to beseech and implore. We must .indeed warn and admonish; we must make known the Lord's threatenings. But our happiest theme is to tell of mercy, to proclaim pardon and peace to the penitent, to set forth the grace of him who receiveth sinners, and is not willing that any should perish. Oh! join with us in prayer that our message of peace may be gladly received, and numbers be converted and live.

SERMON XII.

THE CITIES OF REFUGE.

NUMBERS XXxv. 11, 12.

Then ye shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you; that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares. And they shall be unto you cities of refuge from the avenger; that the manslayer die not, until he stand before the congregation in judgment.

IN pursuing the history of the Jews, contemplating the characters and offices of individuals, or explaining their laws, we must ever bear in mind, that the whole had respect to another and better dispensation. All were preparatory to the introduction of the gospel. Judaism was the infancy, of which Christianity is the manhood; the former the beginning, the latter the completion of God's revelation

respecting the redemption of his fallen creatures. Many persons, offices, events, and circumstances, were directly typical of more spiritual things which were afterwards brought to light, which at that time they served to intimate, and which now they illustrate. The appointment of the cities of refuge was of this description. It was a merciful institution for that state of the people of God; but it had a further intention, and is a striking representation of God's mercy to sinners in Christ. We will endeavour to consider it in the two following particulars.

I. As a merciful appointment for the Jews.

II. As a typical representation of God's mercy in Christ.

To understand this appointment as one of mercy we must enter into a consideration of the law of murder. The original enactment, a most just and necessary one, was that death should be inflicted upon him who had caused the death of his fellow-man. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," and the main reason for this was at

the same time assigned, "for in the image of God made he man." This is far the greatest of all crimes that can be committed against a fellow-creature, for it is one that can never be repaired. The murderer can never again restore the life which he has taken, as the thief might do with the property which he has stolen. And it not only removes the victim from all his present enjoyments and prospects of earthly good, but it cuts him off from any further use of the day of grace and salvation, and sends him to the judgment of God perhaps with sin upon his soul unrepented of and unpardoned. And besides being so great a crime against man, it is an insult of a daring kind against God himself, as an attack upon his visible image in which man was made. Hence it was made an express enactment of the Jewish law that the murderer should be

put to death. No fine was to be imposed upon him; no compensation to be accepted from him; no rank or office was to screen him. Life must answer for life, and blood be given for blood. He who was convicted on the testimony of two or more witnesses,

for one only was not sufficient, was to suffer for his crime by his own death. It is thus declared in the close of the present chapter, "Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses; but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die.Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death but he shall be surely put to death. So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it."

The execution of this sentence might at any time be inflicted by the nearest of kin to the person slain. He is here called the avenger of blood, and in other places the redeemer, and in each of these titles answers strictly to his great antitype, the Lord Jesus. If the crime was notorious, and could be proved by two witnesses, he was justified in his vengeance; but if he took it upon himself without sufficient proof of the murderer's