14. THIRTEENTH LECTURE
LEV. CHAP. XIII.
WE have not yet quite done with the thirteenth chapter of this remarkable book. We have considered leprosy as respects persons; but it also attached to garments, and even to houses.
What relates to clothes-leprosy, is contained in the latter part of the thirteenth chapter, beginning with the 47th verse.
Now, I do not suppose that this leprosy of garments and skins was just the same disease of that name which attacked the human system. It may have been; and one may have sometimes taken it from the other; but we are not required to take this view. It is enough to understand it to be some affection of woven fabrics bearing a general resemblance to a leprous affection of the living body. A cancer is an affection of a living body, and yet we sometimes hear of cancers in trees. Rot is a decomposition of dead substances, and yet we speak of the rot in living sheep. The affections are not the same, although they are known by the same name. They refer to subjects very diverse in their nature. It is by this sort of accommodation, I take it, that God here speaks of leprosy of garments. As the life and comeliness of the leper are fretted away by his disease, so clothes and skins are affected by dampness, mould, or the settling in them of animal-cule, fretting away their strength and substance.
Michaelis, who very thoroughly investigated this whole subject, speaks of dead-wool, that is, the wool of sheep which have died by disease, as particularly liable to damage of this sort. His explanation is, that it loses its points and breeds impurity; and that when made into cloth and warmed by the natural heat of the wearer, it soon becomes bare and falls in holes, as if eaten by some invisible vermin. The unsoundness and unhealthiness of fabrics made of such materials were thought so serious by this learned investigator that he strongly urges the interference of legal enactments to prohibit the use of such wool in the manufacture of cloths. It is evidently to some such affections that God refers in these laws concerning the leprosy of garments; not because they were so particularly noxious or dangerous, but for typical purposes. The proper vindication of all these ceremonial regulations is, their lively signification of moral and religious ideas. Apart from this, many of them appear trifling and inexplicable; but this gives them weight and dignity which fully entitles them to the high place which they occupy in the book of revelation.
We have seen that leprosy in the living body represents sin as it lives and works in man. Leprosy in clothing must therefore refer to disorder and contagion around man. There is disease breeding in everything about us, as well as in us. Jude speaks of "the garment unspotted by the flesh." Christ commends a few names in Sardis because they had "not defiled their garments." The reference in these and like passages plainly is to the matter of external contact with the world, and to the liability of Christians to be tainted by their earthly surroundings. The phraseology, however, is borrowed from these ancient laws. It contemplates the associations of a man as his clothing. Morally speaking, the state of things in which we live, is our garment. It is that which is put upon us when we come into life, which we continually wear while in the world, and which we put off when we die. It includes all the circumstances in which we are placed, the business in which we engage, the social systems under which we act, our comforts and associations in the world, and all the outward every-day occurrences which enter into and shape our external existence.
You will notice that these laws do not prohibit, but rather enjoin, the use of clothing. Christianity is not an exemption of a man from the common duties and associations of life. It does not encourage that moral divesture of one's self which some religionists have so unnaturally practised, by retiring from society and its cares to live in solitudes and secluded retirement. Asceticism, monkery, nunnery, celibacy, withdrawal from the ordinary associations of life, has not the sanction of God. It is a sort of nakedness, which strips life of its comforts and its real design, and goes far to thwart the object for which we have been placed in this world. All natural associations, and all honest pursuits and employments, are for our moral good. All the cares, anxieties, toils and sorrows of this world, are designed to be steps and rounds by which we may ascend to higher excellence and moral greatness. He that cuts himself off from them, cuts himself off from God's natural sacraments of spiritual blessing. They are our proper clothing. They warm us, and protect us, and beautify us, and may be made to us the means of everlasting praise and honor. They are not necessarily degrading. They are all meant to ennoble us, to elevate us, to bless us. They all have a spiritual aim. And they are all regulated by a wise and beneficent hand as means to our highest happiness. Toil is good; and family relations are good; and society in all its complex and varied affairs is good. We cannot sever ourselves from anything which it imposes without interference with God and detriment to ourselves.
But whilst all these natural surroundings are good, they are liable to disease, and may become the sources of infection and evil. They may become tainted, and so help to render us unclean. Society is as capable of corruption as the individual; and with this augmentation of mischief, that it reacts upon the individual, and may contaminate and deprave him still more than he would otherwise be. The fact is, that our social factors have introduced a great deal of dead wool into the fabrics which men in this world are compelled to wear. The signs of leprosy and contaminating uncleanness may be traced at many points.
Take the subject of government. Civil rule is ordained of God. It is meant for good. And when framed upon principles of righteousness, earth knows no higher blessing. It is a defence for the weak, a restraint upon outbreaking passion, a handmaid to social dignity, the bulwark of freedom, the grand regulator of the outward world. And yet, how leprous has government often become! What curses has it inflicted upon man! How has humanity been debased and degraded by the diseases which have fretted their way into it! Though meant to defend the feeble against the strong, to exalt right above might, it has been made, in every age, the prolific source of many of earth's worst wrongs and miseries. Its tyrannies have filled the world with wailing. Its powers, corroded by human passion, have weighed like a millstone on the neck of humanity ever since history began. The corruptions to which it has given birth are legion. So sore and evil a thing has it often been, that the names of emperor and king have become an abhorrence unto men. It has been breeding leprosy and plague for six thousand years.
And not the least among its dreadful contaminations has been its deleterious effects upon the virtue of mankind. An arbitrary and tyrannical government cripples and stunts morality in its very germ, by divesting goodness of its proper reward, and making justice yield to the bribes of power and gain. It makes outward authority or sordid passion, instead of inward conviction and moral principle, the rule of conduct. It depresses the conscience, blunts the moral sense, and transmutes the masses into machines, sycophants and rogues, and the few into incarnations of the demon lust for power. How is it in Italy, in Spain, in Mexico, in the Ottoman dominions? Though occupying the garden-spots of earth, the lands are cursed with the basest of all populations by reason of the governments under which they have been reared. The garment has become leprous, and all who wear it are more or less defiled. Even in our own government, boastful and proud as we are of our political institutions, the cloth in many places is growing prematurely bare, weak and rotten; and the taint of unholy influences is beginning to be felt upon the cause of righteousness and the moral purity of thousands.
Take the domestic relations. God saw that it was not good for the man to be alone. Male and female hath he created us. He has set mankind in families. He has ordained the home, and made it the seat and centre of the mightiest influences that work in society. It is a blessed arrangement. As it is the oldest, it is the holiest, external sanctuary upon earth. It is the nursery of sentiment, the sacred enclosure of balmy affections, the primary school of every virtue. It is our innermost garment of fine linen, which, of all outward things, lies the closest upon, and unites most vitally with the springs of character. Its purity is the guarantee of a peaceful state and a happy world. It was made to be the temple of love, and hence of all that is right in feeling and just in principle.
The dearest spot on earth to me,
Is Home — sweet Home.
It is a fountain flowing with good. It is the foundation on which the best blessings of society chiefly repose. There is no fathoming of its influences. There is no way of computing its silent mightiness. It is not too much to say, that those who rock the cradle rule the world. In the secrecy of home, the pale maternal hand moulds the springs which fashion the ages. Earth's greatest powers, have ever taken their bent from the gentle tones of the mother's voice. And when all effects come to be assigned to their true causes, the nursery chair will after all appear the mightiest throne.
It is exceedingly important, therefore, that the home should remain pure. Transmute the domestic ties into bonds of iniquity, and the race is to that extent bound down to death. Taint these potent surroundings, and it is just so much poison cast into the fountains of life. Yet, how often may we find the leprous plague fretting into the warp and woof of the domestic fabric, and forming a moral atmosphere about the plastic souls of infancy and childhood, more awful than upas shades, and more desolating than Lybian siroccos! I tremble when I think of the responsibility of parents. They tread on ground where every footfall echoes through eternity. And I mourn when I consider how often it is an echo of everlasting accusation.
Take business. It is necessary to engage in it. God himself commands it. Virtue, and religion, and even earthly comfort, require it. But how liable to become corrupt, and a mere instrument of death. "The care of the world and the deceitfulness of riches" are notorious for choking the springing germs of spiritual good. The commercial world is a very trying world upon the health of honor and honesty. It has a climate which is very apt to prove injurious to justice and integrity. The code of moral principles which mostly govern there, are usually set down at a heavy discount. I cannot speak from personal knowledge; but it is easy to see how numerous and powerful are the temptations which beset a man in mercantile life. An old book, which some consider inspired of God, has this remarkable sentence: "As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of stones, so doth sin stick close between buying and selling." Leprosy is exceedingly prone to settle there with all its contaminations.
Take education and literature. We must have schools and books. They are an indispensable part of the great machinery of human progress. But they are apt to become leprous, and to impart contagion. Learning is a blessed thing; its tendency is to elevate and improve. But sometimes it becomes the instrument of demons, and the great plague of men. How is it with the hundred thousand infidel and impure books that are at work in society? How is it with the two millions of volumes of novels and tales which are annually issued from the American press alone? How is it with our systems of collegiate instruction, where the student is directed to feed his pride of learning by joining with the drunken poets of the olden time in their celebrations of the sensualities of the gods? How is it where the power of superior knowledge is not kept in balance by virtuous principles and a benevolent heart? How is it with some of our most elaborate systems of philosophy, which, in their hidden falsehood, are bending thousands from the truth? Oh, what a power of mischief has gone out upon the world from schools and books! How has genius descended from the altars of Heaven, to light her torch at the flames below! Dead wool is in much of the cloth she wears.
Take even the Church—the very pillar and ground of the truth—the ark of salvation itself. By it redemption is conveyed to men; and outside of it man has no Savior and no hope. And yet it is one of those garments around us which is liable to leprous taint. Instead of serving as a house of prayer, it has sometimes been a mere den of thieves. Instead of a
Q nursery of faith, hope, and charity, it has often been a nest for pestilential superstition, narrow self-righteousness, and intolerant bigotry. Though meant to be a school of preparation for heaven, men have often made it a feeder to hell.
But I need not enter further into specifications of this sort. You can see plainly that nothing around us in this world is so holy or so good, but that it may be perverted to base uses, and rendered the instrument of contamination and exclusion from the camp of God's saints. Civil, domestic, economical, educational, and even religious associations, have at times exerted amazing power in the work of human degradation. Though intended and capacitated to be engines of good, they have often tended to develop, mature, and confirm depravity, in all the walks of life. We are clothed on all sides with what is liable to disease and contaminating disorder. It is in the country and in the city—at home and abroad. It is in our schools and colleges; in the stores of our merchants; in the shops of our artisans; on the farms of our agriculturalists; and even on the ships that float in the silent sea. And whilst we continue upon the earth, not one of us shall ever be able to escape liability to become leprous from the social influences which hang upon and beset us continually.
Having thus looked at the disorder, let us now direct our attention to the prescriptions concerning it.
1. The first thing I notice here, is, that God set every Israelite on the look out for it. This must necessarily have been the direct effect of the announcement of these laws. Every article of clothing was at once thrown under suspicion. Whether made of hairs or skins of animals, or of the fibres of vegetables; whether woollen, or linen; whether firs, or naked skins, or skins softened into leather; every sort of cloth or manufacture, intended for purposes of clothing, was declared liable at any time to be seized with the plague, and to become unclean and contaminating. Every serious Hebrew would therefore be impelled to keep the strictest watch for any symptoms of disorder, and to look with great suspicion upon whatever bore the least resemblance to it.
Now there is a kind of suspiciousness—a quality or state of mind, keeping back from confidence—which I would not for anything encourage. There is an affection arising from a bad conscience or a bad heart—a feeling closely akin to ugly jealousy, which mistrusts everything and everybody. It is just the contrary of that charity which “believeth all things, hopeth all things.” It springs from no generous impulse. It is not based upon any dignified admiration for virtue. It proceeds upon no just zeal for the glory of God, or the good of man. It is a sort of surly selfishness and misanthropy, which is base in itself, and always mischievous in its effects. And the farther any one can keep himself from it the better for his own comfort, and for the good of those around him. But there is a suspiciousness which is virtuous and good. It mingles with the deepest piety and goes along with the greatest usefulness. But it is a suspicion of self, rather than a suspicion of others. It is a jealousy for one’s own purity—a holy fear of doing wrong or of being led into evil. It springs from the very heart of charity, and contemplates nothing but good. It is a diligent watchfulness over self—a careful guarding against the contaminations of evil. It is a suspiciousness based upon the clear evidence that everything is liable to corruption, and that there is continual danger of falling into condemnation. It is a sacred dread of sin—the desire of a pure heart to “keep unspotted from the world.” It sets a man upon the look out for dangers in all his earthly surroundings. It does not lead him to repudiate government, but to be on his guard that he may not be betrayed by it into disloyalty to his God. It does not prompt him to abjure domestic ties and cares, but to watch them lest they should wean his affections from heaven. It does not render business mean in his eyes, but causes him to be cautious lest it should crowd out a proper care for his soul. It begets in him no disregard for learning, but impels him above all things towards that which maketh wise unto salvation. It does not lessen his affection for the Church, but moves him to watch his heart against exclusiveness and bigotry. It does not in the least alienate him from the proper associations and pursuits of life, but encourages him to use this world, yet with jealous concern that he may not abuse it.
It is easy to see how essential all this is to moral purity in our relation to earthly surroundings. Let him that heareth, therefore, be wise, and learn to keep his garments.
2. A second particular in this law, to which I will call your attention, is, that whenever any symptoms appeared which might perhaps be leprous, the case was always to be immediately submitted to the judgment of the priest. The record says, “It shall be showed unto the priest; and the priest shall look upon the plague;" that is, with a view to decide whether it is leprosy or not, and to give his directions concerning it. The priest typified Christ; and his office, the office of Christ. And a great Christian lesson here comes to our view.
Human judgment is weak. The wisest of men has said, "He that trusteth to his own heart is a fool." We need light from heaven. Conscience itself is not unerring except it be illuminated by revealed truth. A man may sincerely think he is in the right, when he is in most dangerous error. He may suppose himself pursuing a virtuous course, when he is becoming more and more contaminated every hour. The way of common justice he may easily understand. Reason decides readily against flagrant breaches of morality. But no mere human penetration can find out all the secret lurkings of sin. Jesus is the only reliable arbiter. There are many instances in which nothing can guide us safely but his own decisive word. And this law pointed forward to the fact, that Christ is our teacher and judge—that he is to be our authoritative instructor—and that by his decision we are to know what is not pure. "I am the light of the world," says he; "if I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin." His word is the great "discerner." "This is my beloved Son," saith the Almighty; "hear ye him." True, Jesus is now in heaven, and we cannot hear his personal voice. But his word remains with us. We have only to come to his holy oracles, and we may know the truth.
21 *
"The Law of the Lord is perfect.
The testimony of the Lord is sure.
The statutes of the Lord are right.
The commandment of the Lord is pure.
The fear of the Lord is clean.
The judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether."
Heathen philosophy is a foggy marsh, through which the soul never can find its way to saving truth. Tradition is a wilderness of conflicting records, confounding the inquirer at every step. But the word of the Lord is pure sunshine from the open heavens, making the way of life so clear, that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. And if at any time we have occasion to suspect disease and danger to our souls, our duty is to come at once to consult these oracles of Jesus, and have the matter settled by his own infallible authority.
3. A third particular in these laws relates to the treatment which a garment declared to be leprous was to receive. This varied somewhat with the nature of the symptoms. If the affection was active and rapid in its progress, the article was at once to be burned, "whether warp or woof, in woollen or in linen, or anything of skin." It mattered not how valuable the article was, or how great the inconvenience of its loss, it was to be destroyed by fire. We are bound, as Christians, at once to cut loose for ever from everything infected. Though our renunciation of sin should be to us like cutting off the right hand, or plucking out the right eye, or giving ourselves to complete nakedness, we must give it over to the burning. It is a grand mistake for any one to suppose that sin is in any way essential to him. People plead for leniency in our judgment of the tricks of trade, the corruptions of politics, and the questionable customs of society. They want to know how they are to get along without them. They tell us that these are common things, and have become necessary to success, etiquette, and respectability, and must be yielded to. But what if they are? What if a man cannot prosper in business without equivocation and deceit? What if a man cannot get into office but by meanness? What if we cannot stand fair with the world without introducing into our homes practices at which conscience rebels. That does not alter right and duty. If the High-priest has said it is leprous, it is our business to burn the last robe we have. Better live beggars all our days—better be accounted the very offscourings of the earth—better die in garrets, and be buried in potter's field, and carried with Lazarus into Abraham's bosom—than to flourish a few years in sin, and then go down with Dives to unquenchable flames. If we cannot drink of Esek and Sitnah without strife; we are to relinquish them forever. If we cannot keep out of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace without bowing down to his image on the plains of Dura, we must promptly bid farewell to earth, and welcome the hottest, whitest flames. If we cannot enjoy Egypt's honors without being tainted with Egypt's idolatry, we must abdicate for ever, and choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Though it cost us the fiercest martyrdom, we must not deny our Lord. "For what shall it profit a man, though he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
If the affection, however, was not active and fretting, remedial measures were to be adopted, if possible, to cleanse and save the garment. "If the priest shall look, and the plague (after seven days) be not spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in anything of skin; then the priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the plague is." The natural remedy for defilement was to be applied. And here comes in the whole subject of reform. This is the natural remedy for all manageable social disorders. I say all manageable ones; for as some garments were so badly affected as to be doomed at once to burning, so there are some infections in the surroundings of man in this world which never can be healed. They are beyond remedy, and we must make up our minds to abandon them to their fate, and to have no connection any more with them. Take, for instance, some of our popular amusements. That they are leprous none will deny. What hope is there of reforming them? Theirs is "a fret inward," and there is no help for them. No washing can get them clean. And the only alternative for Christians is, to separate themselves from them entirely. They do not form a subject for their endeavors at reform. They are doomed to come to an end.
Take that church apostasy known in Scripture as "The Man of Sin." What use is there to try to reform such an establishment as that? No passible process could separate between it and the leprous plague that is in it. God himself has abandoned all hope of its recovery. Strong delusion is there, because there is no love of the truth; and that delusion is sent of God to seal its damnation. Here and there a sound thread may be pulled out and saved; but the garment is profoundly leprous. The great High-priest has said it shall be burned with fire.
And the same is true of many governments, especially those now occupying the territory of the old Roman Empire. They are leprous to the deepest interior. It is useless to think of reforming them. They are past hope. They cannot be reclaimed. Prophecy sustains this declaration concerning them. God hath said they are unclean. As Christians we must surrender them to their doom. They shall be utterly consumed.
These, and such like infected articles, are past cleansing. But there are others in which the taint is less malignant and less defiling. The leprosy in them is not so deep but that careful washing may perhaps remove it. These are the legitimate subjects of Christian reform. There are many abuses in society which may be corrected. There are many sources of mischief which may be dried up. There are many affections of Church and State which may be cleansed off. To this end, therefore, are our energies to be directed. Every Christian is a reformer—not an empty vociferous demagogue, crying down everything, with nothing to put in the place—not a Jacobin revolutionist, who would unhinge society, and overturn, overturn, without restraint, limit, compunction, or fear of God or man—but a genuine reformer, whose heart and hand and influence are fully set against what is wrong and corrupting; who would not destroy society, but build it up and establish it upon those strong foundations which God himself has laid for it; and who, in place of putting the child against the parent, the subject against the ruler, and man against his God, bends all his influence to have each one happy in his place by a true harmony with heaven.
But there is one very important peculiarity to be observed in all Christian reforms. The washing of the infected garment was to be done by direction of the priest. "The priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the plague is." Christ's word is to be our guide for getting rid of social disorders, as well as for the detection of them. He is our Priest, and we must conduct our cleansing efforts upon the basis of his Gospel. The world is full of pretended reformers. Society is sick, and the doctors swarm around the patient, and every one has a prescription to offer. The conflict of opinion abroad over the earth, is like the winds that strove together upon the dark bosom of original chaos. The human mind is becoming completely bewildered and confounded. God is cutting the world loose from its old and false connections, and everywhere we hear the shrieks and behold the struggles which result therefrom. There is accordingly a casting about on all sides, such as never has been witnessed in the earth before. And the great danger is of basing our reformative efforts upon vague notions of philosophy, mistaken impulses, or wild schemes of human perfectibility, which can only delude and disappoint. Our eyes must therefore be ever turned to our Priest, who understands the whole case, and move only as his word directs. The Gospel is the chart by which to direct our way on the heaving ocean. Christ has been ordained to be the centre of the world. Around him everything must be made to revolve. From him all goodness radiates. And without coming under the laws of pulsation and attraction, which proceed from his great heart, even the best meaning men shall become mere wandering stars, whirling headlong through eternal emptiness, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. The Gospel alone is the great regenerator of the world.
Finally, along with the washing of a leprous garment, it was to be shut up seven days, after which the priest was to examine it again; and if the bad symptoms had disappeared, it was to be washed again, and it was clean; but if the symptoms had not disappeared, it was then to be finally torn or burned. A vivid picture, this, of God's plans with the social fabrics of this world. Some, in which the disorder was great, have already been quite destroyed. Others, in which the affection is less malignant, are undergoing the efforts of purification. They are shut up now until time shall complete its period. The great High-priest and Judge shall then come forth to give them the last inspection. And as things then are, so shall their eternal portion be. The tyrannies and corruptions then found upon the earth shall be adjudged to immediate destruction. And every plant which the heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out.
May God give us grace against that day!