be no unjust weight or balance in the sanctuary above, and yet we are acquitted on the ground of the full measure of righteousness meted out by Jesus!" "In that great hour," says Dr. Owen, on Heb. v. 7, "God was pleased for a while, as it were, to hold the scales of justice in equilibrio, that the turning of them might be more conspicuous, eminent, and glorious. In the one scale, as it were, there was the weight of the first sin and apostasy from God, with all the consequence of it, covered with the sentence and curse of the law, with the exigence of vindictive justice-a weight that all the angels of heaven could not stand under one moment. In the other, were the obedience, holiness, righteousness, and penal sufferings of the Son of God, all having weight and worth given to them by the dignity and worth of his Divine person. Infinite justice kept these things for a season, as it were, at a poise, until the Son of God, by his prayers, tears, and supplications, prevailed to a glorious success in the delivery of himself and us." Glory to the Righteous One!

But here we may stay to reflect how bitter to the Lord Jesus it must have been to come to his own nation, whom he had thus taught, and yet to be treated so unkindly. He was the greatest stranger (ver. 33) that ever traversed earth. It was not his home; he had nowhere to lay his head. Yet his Father's laws, as to strangers, were not kept toward him. "They received him not."

"A pilgrim through this lonely world

The blessed Saviour pass'd;

A mourner all his life below,

A dying lamb at last.

"That tender heart that felt for all,

For us its life-blood gave;

It found on earth no resting-place,
Save only in the grave."

How bitter, also, to the "Holy One and the Just," to be treated with the most glaring injustice! In the hall of the Sanhedrim-in the court of Herod-at the tribunal of Pilate—“ his judgment was taken away." (Acts viii. 33.) Of this he might complain far more truly than Job, who so solemnly protested "by the living God, who hath taken away my judgment !" (Job xxvii. 2; xxxiv. 5.)

The reference to the perverting of law and equity in our Lord's case, is brought out by the rendering of Isaiah liii. 8, given in Acts viii. 33, "In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away." This rendering has been a difficulty to many; but is it not the only true rendering? Throughout Isa. liii., the prefix means most frequently "because of." Thus vers. 5, 8, 12. We would, therefore, expect the same in the case of. What seems

to me probable is, that the "v tñ tanɛiváσs,” of Acts viii. . And then the "àurov” is

32, is to be found in

found attached to . The true collocation of the words would in that case be p? "because

of his oppression," i. e., his oppressed state, his humiliation, "he was taken away from judgment." In Psalm cvii. 39, is found in this sense. In translating Isaiah, the historian Luke, (not the Septuagint,) inserts σε αυτου” after “ ἐν τῆ ταπεινώσει,” showing how he read the Hebrew. But, at all events, their awful perversion of all law and equity towards the Righteous One is set before us in full relief: "In his humiliation, from judgment (the sentence he was entitled to) was he taken

away." The Judge of Israel, who shall yet sit on the great white throne, was hurried away out of sight of justice and equity. Oh! how fearfully deep the descent our Surety made! But thus it was he drew us from the miry clay.

Warnings against

THE SINS OF THE FORMER INHABITANTS.

HAVE NO FELLOWSHIP WITH THE UNFRUITFUL WORKS OF DARKNESS, BUT RATHER REPROVE THEM: FOR IT IS A SHAME EVEN TO SPEAK OF THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE DONE OF THEM IN SECRET. BUT ALL THINGS THAT ARE REPROVED

ARE MADE MANIFEST BY THE LIGHT."-Eph. v. 11-13.

Vers. 1, 2.

CHAPTER XX.

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Again thou shalt say to the children of Israel."

THE Lord, knowing well the deep delusions of the heart, warns Israel against sins which had already been forbidden. But he does it here by a reference, throughout, to the former state of morality and idolatry in the land, lest Israel should say, "Let us try what was once done in the land before." (See ver. 22, which is the key to this chapter.) How thoroughly the Lord knows the readiness of the corrupt heart to adopt a suggestion of evil! and how accurately he saw the tendency to what was afterwards really done by Israel.

Vers. 2, 3. "Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech, he shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. And I will set my face against that

man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name."

Molech

How startling the determination expressed here! The Lord employs the people of the land as his executioners, and then seems to preside himself over the execution, "they shall stone him—and I will cut him off, setting my face against him." And the sentence is fearful, stoning to death. What, then, is the sin? It is the worshipping of the god, Molech, whose imagined qualities seem to be the very antipodes of the true God. was worshipped by revolting cruelties, and the cries of the sufferers were drowned in loud noise. An image of red-hot glowing brass was the form in which he was adored, and his arms received the children offered to him, forthwith consuming them by their red-hot touch. child was put ("sis to xασμα пinges лuços") "into a gaping hole, full of fire," says an historian. Everything was savage and demoniacal; fiendish tyranny and hellish hate. What a contrast to Jehovah-" God is love!? His everlasting arms take up the little child to bless and to save; and never is his heart satisfied with his worshippers till they believe his love to them. Rather than that they should suffer woe, He stretched out his arms on the cross, and opened his side to the spear, and made a way for the streams of the poured-out vial running over his

own soul.

The

The man, therefore, who chose Molech in preference to Jehovah, proved himself to be in a state of most desperate enmity to God-" defiling his sanctuary," casting contempt upon it by preferring Molech's court; and “defiling his name," by his awful choice; as if saying, that the perfections of God were so loathsome to him, that