Of them that entice, or are enticed, to the service of false gods. 1 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, 2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; 3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. 5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. 6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; 7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; 8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; nei- 10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought theeout of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. 11 And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you. 12 If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying, 13 Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known; 14 Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you; 15 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. 16 And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again. thy fathers; 17 And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: 18 When thou shalt hearken to that the LORD may turn from the voice of the LORD thy God, the fierceness of his anger, and to keep all his commandments shew thee mercy, and have com- which I command thee this day, passion upon thee, and multiply to do that which is right in the thee, as he hath sworn unto eyes of the LORD thy God. LECTURE 328. The duty and advantage of judging our own selves. In almost all times and countries, the anxiety of mankind to pry into the secrets of futurity has given encouragement to false prophets, and workers of false miracles, and pretenders to the arts of divination. Besides the wanton injury which persons of this kind inflict upon those who consult them, by sowing in their minds the seeds of foul suspicion, or fostering the growth of fruitless hope, they are also guilty of a gross offence against the majesty of God, whose attributes they arrogate to themselves, and whose real prophets they bring into discredit. Much more, if such pretended inspiration should be employed to entice the people of the Lord away from his worship to idolatry, "that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams," must be considered as guilty of treason against God, and must be surely put to death. Nay, if a man's own brother, or son, or daughter, or wife, or dearest friend, should say to him, however secretly, "Let us go and serve other gods," it is here ordained that he should shew no pity to the offender, but be the first to put him to death, and afterwards all the neighbours were to join in stoning him. And in like manner, if the inhabitants of any city should be convicted, after full inquiry, of having gone astray to serve false gods, then the rest of the Israelites were to smite them with the edge of the sword, and to destroy that city utterly, and to burn the spoil of it in the midst thereof, and to make it a heap of ruins, never to "be built again." Thus might it be hoped that all Israel would hear, and fear, and do no more any such wickedness; and that the Lord would turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew mercy, and have compassion upon them. We read nothing in their after history of cases in which these laws were put into execution. We hear much of instances in which they ought to have been enforced. And what was the consequence? The whole nation by degrees fell away into these abominable sins. And God brought in another nation, from afar, to execute the laws which were slighted by his people, and to lay waste the whole guilty land at once. Oh, if we would take warning, and faithfully judge our own selves, how often might we escape the severe judgments of the Lord! Oh, if the church could do its part in the chastisement of notorious offenders, and if secret sinners also would humble and mortify their own sinful selves, how much more afraid would others be of sinning, how much more reasonably might we hope for the forgiveness of God! Regulations chiefly concerning food, lawful and unlawful. 1 Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. 2 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth. 3 Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing. 4 These are the beasts which ye shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat, 5 The hart, and the roebuck, and the fallow deer, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois. 6 And every beast that parteth the hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two claws, and cheweth the cud among the beasts, that ye shall eat. 7 Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you. 8 And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase. 9 These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat: 10 And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you. 11 Of all clean birds ye shall eat. 12 But these are they of which ye shall not eat; the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, 13 And the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind, 14 And every raven after his kind, 15 And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, 16 The little owl, and the great owl, and the swan, 17 And the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the cormorant, 18 And the stork, and the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. 19 And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten. 20 But of all clean fowls ye may eat. 21 Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk. LECTURE 329. The privilege of serving God as his beloved children. The commandment against disfiguring the countenance, by way of mourning for the dead, has been previously set forth in the book of Leviticus, 19. 28. In the same book, ch. 11, we also meet with the distinction between those animals which the Israelites might use for food, and those which they might not. The prohibitions of eating any thing that died of itself, and of seething a kid in its mother's milk, have also occurred before. See Lev. 17. 15. Exod. 23. 19. And one of the reasons assigned for these distinctions has likewise been previously insisted on, "thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." See Lev. 11. 45; 20. 26. But the other reason, set forth in the first words of this chapter, is peculiar to this passage in the Law; and is the very same with one of the chief motives most frequently set before us in the Gospel: "Ye are the children of the Lord your God." The relation of a child to a father is one of tender affection and dutiful respect. These are the feelings with which Christians are continually encouraged to draw nigh unto their Father which is in heaven. They have indeed been "bought with a price," 1 Cor. 6. 20, and therefore they are bound by right of purchase to serve the Lord. They are indeed represented as parties to a new and better covenant; and on this ground also they must consider themselves deeply obliged to do all that God has commanded. But whilst this notion of a covenant pervades all the elder dispensation, it is very rarely referred to in the Gospel. Whilst the Israelites of old had to trace every duty to a solemn compact, made in the midst of thunderings and lightnings, with One who then declared Himself "a jealous God," Ex. 20. 5, the people of God are now rather invited to count every duty a privilege, every act of service an enjoyment, and to do all out of love for Him who first loved them; out of love so strong, so constant, so fervent, as almost to overpower every other consideration. It is a matter of no small interest, to find in the elder dispensation this same constraining motive insisted on. It must be a source of joy to us, to think that God's people, in these early times, and for many ages afterwards, were encouraged in any measure to look upon Him as their Father, and upon themselves as his beloved children. But what then must we think of our own unfaithfulness, if we are still apt to approach his footstool, in the abject spirit of bondage, instead of casting ourselves into his ever open arms, in the affectionate confidence of sons? One reason of our not feeling the affection of children is this, that we do not serve God as though He were our Father. If we are in the habit of serving grudgingly, and of necessity, this accounts for our feeling coldly and with distrust. And these unworthy feelings, in their turn, tend to make our service formal, niggardly, and vain. Could we but have the willing heart of true affection, no duty would seem too great for us to undertake with readiness, none too trifling for us to discharge with zeal. Every difficulty, all reluctance, would vanish, before the earnest desire of pleasing God. And whatever we might have to suffer or to do, it would be made amply welcome by this single thought, It is the will of our Father which is in heaven. Of the disposal of the second tithes and firstlings. 22 Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year. 23 And thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the LORD thy God always. money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat there before the LORD thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household, 27 And the Levite that is within thy gates; thou shalt not forsake him; for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee. 28 At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt layit up within thygates: 29 And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of 26 And thou shalt bestow that thine hand which thou doest. LECTURE 330. 24 And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it; or if the place be too far from thee, which the LORD thy God shall choose to set his name there, when the LORD thy God hath blessed thee: 25 Then shalt thou turn it into money, and bind up the money in thine hand, and shalt go unto the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: The wisdom of submission to the ordinances of God. It appears certain from a comparison of different passages in the Law, that the Israelites had two sets of tithes to account for, two tenths of all the increase of their seed to set apart from their own private use, for purposes ordained by God. The one tithe, or tenth, was to be the property of the priests and Levites. For thus it is written in the book of Numbers, 18. 21: "behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation." And of this tithe the Levites had to pay a tenth part to the priests. See Num. 18. 26, 28. The other tithe is referred to in this passage, and elsewhere, see ch. 12. 17; 26. 12; as a thing of which the people were well aware, and which perhaps they had been used to offer unto God, before the institution of the Levites and priests. And in like manner there appear to have been two sets of "firstlings;" to be accounted for; one allotted to the priests, see Num. 18. 15-18; and the other spoken of in this passage before us, as well as in the twelfth and fifteenth chapters. See ch. 12.6; 15. 19-23. These second firstlings the people were to set apart, together with a true tenth of the increase of their seed, of the yearly produce of their land. They were to |