Numbers 19

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XIX.—Behold, how polluted are men, dead in respasses and sins—much more abominable than the beasts that perish! To caral reasoning some of God’s ordinances appear absurd. How strange is it to make ashes, mingled with water, the mean of purification from the deepest deelement! But it is infinitely dangerous to contermin the least of his institutions. These ceremonies are indeed insufficient to take away sin, for the most remarkble of them for atonement or purification spread the defilement! But the meaning here is concerning Christ and his church. Being apprehended by the chief lects and elders of Israel, slam without the camp, burnt in the furnace of his Father’s wrath; and his blood, his life, offered to God for the satisfaction of his justice; the virtue of his death, connected with the clean water, the pure influences of his Spirit, doth, in all generations, purge his people’s consciences, and all their concerns, from dead works to serve the living God. Let it be then the care of my soul to begin, continue, and end my life, with a believing application thereof. It is death; it is damnation, if I neglect it. Having fellowship with him in his resurrection, by justification and regeneration, I shall, in due time, enter on his eternal sabbath, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing