brow; the nails of his bony fingers are discolored and tainted. He moves his body slowly, tottering along on feet that are nearly powerless, and men "hide their faces from him" (Isa. liii. 3) as he draws near. Even the wild Arab, that scours past on his swift steed, starts at the loathsome spectacle and hastens away. The leper himself feels life ebbing slowly; the blood still flows, but it is not with the freedom of health, and the arteries have no longer their full floods, like rushing torrents, but are clogged with thick, clammy, sluggish, moisture.

Here is the state of the sinner, not in the second death, but in this world, in his exclusion from the Lord's pres ence, and dead in sin. The inner man has lost every principle of holiness; his powers are withered, every sinew shrunk. Any attempts at spiritual motions are slow and lifeless. Streams of putrid impurity burst forth in his soul. His eye has none of the brightness of one gazing on a holy God and a reconciled countenance, but indicates an absence of all that can really cheer or delight. The death-like hue of the whole form proclaims the total departure of the breath of God and the Divine nature. From such a soul, God turns away his face. Nor can the sinner pretend to any fellowship with the saints, or any right to a place in the camp of Israel. Often he sees their joy; he is present in their solemnities, and looks on from afar, and feels his misery deepened by the contrast of these happy multitudes. His own conscience compels him to cry, "Unclean, unclean."

Such was Isaiah's experience for a time, when, with no more than the remnants and remembrance of his leprosy, he entered the holy sanctuary above. Such is every convinced soul's experience in the day of the Spirit's dealing with it; when the High Priest has begun

his treatment of the sin-sick soul, compelling it to uncover its head and rend its garment, and, with lips covered up, to take the position of one exposed to death and curse.

Convictions

Yet all this is but the shadow of death. here, and fears and terrors here, are only faint shadows. Death itself the second death-which casts this shadow, is behind. And then the leprous soul is eternally loathsome, eternally abhorred, eternally dead and corrupt, eternally excluded from the fellowship of saints, eternally hid from the face of God, and eternally within hearing and sight of happy Israel, though there is a gulf that cannot be passed, between! And none will or can offer sympathy to the eternally exiled man!

Oh, leprous soul, a High Priest passes through thy country now, who could deliver thee from thy diseases. Come, come, though thou hast sat alone under thy juniper-tree, apart from men, these many, many days! Come, though in vain thou hast hitherto looked for any abatement of thy disease! Perhaps no man ever cared for thy soul? Perhaps thou hast looked on the right hand, and there was no man that would know thee? Perhaps it is long since refuge failed thee? But a High Priest is in the land, who can deliver thee. He takes thee as thou art; he pronounces thee as thou really art, Unclean, unclean," and then he stoops down and says, "Look unto me and be saved?" He passes by; he walks on the outside of the city, where the lepers are sitting, wistfully looking in through its gates, yet not daring to enter; he will soon enter in, and shut its everlasting gates! Invite him near; nay, he is near. "He it is that talketh with thee!" He has blood that cleanses from all sin. His touch is healing; his look is life! But

if once in hell, thou art forever and forever miserable. No balm in Gilead is there; no tidings of a leaf of the healing tree! The High Priest that can deliver never passes through that cursed land. Leprosy is eternal there; and therefore wailing and woe never end. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!"

LEPROSY IN GARMENTS.

Vers. 47, 48. "The garment also that the plague of leprosy is in, whether it be a woollen garment or a linen garment, whether it be in the warp, or woof, of linen, or of woollen: whether in a skin, or in anything made of skin."

This leprosy in garments is to represent something quite different from leprosy in the man himself. It is to be a type of sin and defilement, not in his person, but in the things around him. Anything round about the man is this garment; the circumstances in the midst of which he is placed, the business he engages in, the comforts that impart a warmth to his person, the occurrences that affect his daily feeling. When Jude (ver. 23) speaks of" the garment spotted by the flesh," he evidently means the person's external contact with the world around him; and when the few names in Sardis are commended because "they have not defiled their garments" (Rev. iii. 4), reference is made to the allurements and sinful habits of all around them.

A clothes-leprosy and house-leprosy may have existed then, though it does not now; just like the case of the demoniacs, in the time of our Lord. And the plague that was called leprosy in garments, was co-relative to that disease in the human subject. It is like (as observed by others) the application of the term "cancer," to a disease in trees, and of "rot," to a disease among sheep

As the skin of the leper is fretted away, so there is a mode in which garments may be affected analogous to this-when vermin or animalculæ settle secretly in the garment, and fret away the threads. Michaëlis mentions, what is called "dead-wool," that is, wool of sheep that died by disease; and it is found to be bad, losing the points, and ready to be settled in by vermin. Cloth made of it soon becomes very bare, and then full of holes. Such is the literal circumstance from which the type is taken. Learn, reader, to wear no garment that is exposed to corrosive influences. Frequent no company that has a fretting leprosy-unsound at heart, and communicating its unsoundness to you. Withdraw from the wells. of Esek and Sitnah (Gen. xxvi. 20, 21), like Isaac, when you feel that there is evil in the situation, and the men who are there. If much prosperity is apt to make you settle on your lees, like Israel (Deut. viii. 11) when they had eaten to the full, and walked among their countless flocks, and heaped up silver and gold-then, shake the garment; beware of Atheism; "beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God."

It was of little consequence how goodly the garment appeared. Be not deceived by a fair show. Whether the garment was wrought of material got from the animal creation ("wool"), or from the vegetable world ("linen"); or whether it was composed of a mixture of threads, those in the warp being of wool, those in the woof of linen or flax; nay, though it were a strong garment of skin, or of some manufacture of skin*-whether of simple, primeval strength and roughness, or fashioned into a finer texture-still, if there was the least ground

*ins; “work-manufacture of skin.”

for suspicion, it must be subject to instant examination, however costly and however esteemed for comfort. You must not judge of the innocuous nature of an employment or a possession by its appearance only, nor by its suitableness to your taste, nor by the estimation in which it is held; you must be prepared to admit examination.

"And if the plague be

:

Vers. 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 greenish or reddish in the garment, or in the skin, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in anything of skin; it is a plague of leprosy, and shall be showed unto the priest and the priest shall look upon the plague, and shut up it that hath the plague seven days: and he shall look on the plague on the seventh day: if the plague be spread in the garment, either in the warp or in the woof, or in a skin, or in any work that is made of skin; the plague is a fretting leprosy; it is unclean. He shall therefore burn that garment, whether warp or woof, in woollen or in linen, or anything of skin, wherein the plague is: for it is a fretting leprosy; it shall be burnt in the fire. And if the priest shall look, and, behold, the plague 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, and he shall shut it up seven days more: and the priest shall look on the plague, after that it is washed: and, behold, if the plague have not changed his color, and the plague be not spread; it is unclean; thou shalt burn it in the fire; it is fret inward, whether it be bare within or without.t And if the priest look, and, behold, the plague be somewhat dark after the washing of it, then he shall rend it out of the garment, or out of the skin, or out of the warp, or out of the woof: and if it appear still in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin, it is a spreading plague: thou shalt burn that

*" And if." Connect this verse with verse 47, "The garment, if there be in it and if the plague be greenish." The Hebrew is so,

;intense green יְרַקְרַק The word for greenish is . וְהָיָה and נִי יִהְיֶה בוֹ

such as is seen in the wings of a peaoock, or leaf of a palm-tree. (Maimonides apud Patr.)

Rosenmüller renders this rightly. It is a fretting leprosy, whether on the left side of the cloth (the bare side), or on the right side (the shaggy side)-whether on one side or other.