endeavour to investigate this import; and I shall begin with considering the different modes in which legal defilement might be contracted; secondly, I shall explain what the penal consequences, civil and religious, were, to which an individual so circumstanced was conceived to be subject.

First then, legal defilement might be contracted from bodily distempers, as was the case more especially with the leprous persona; to which we might add numerous other instances of corporeal affections, which were supposed to produce the same effect of defiling the subject of them while they lasted.

Legal pollution too might be contracted from the touch of any of those substances, whether animate or inanimate, which the law had pronounced unclean as for instance, from the contact of a dead body, whether of man or beast: "Whosoever "toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the

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open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, "or a grave, shall be unclean seven daysb." From which passage we learn, that not merely the contact of a dead body, but even that of the sepulchre wherein it had been entombed, was a source of uncleanness to the individual touching it. This leads me to mention another mode of contracting legal impurity; viz. from the contact of things already rendered unclean by previous pollution.

a Lev. xiii. 43, 44.

b Numb. xix. 16.

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Thus not merely were the garments which a leprous person had worn reputed unclean, but the very house in which he had sojourned; the law enacting after the following manner: "Moreover "he that goeth into the house," (meaning of course that in which a person affected with leprosy had been dwelling,) "all the while that it "is shut up, shall be unclean until the even":" again, “He that lieth in the house shall wash his clothes, and he that eateth in the house shall "wash his clothes d;" from which passages it is evident, that not merely were the walls of the dwelling where a leprous person, or one affected with any similar plague, had been domesticated, supposed to have contracted the legal pollution, and acquired the power of communicating it; but even, if I may so say, the very air within it, and which a person entering there might chance to breathe.

The following passage is of similar import; where the Law, referring to the case of one who had died in his tent, adds, "All that come into the "tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean

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seven dayse." And to specify no more instances, we might refer generally to those numerous other provisions, which, speaking of things or persons already rendered unclean, enacted that not merely those who had touched them should be unclean, d Verse 47. e Numb. xix. 14.

c Lev. xiv. 46.

but those likewise, who might have touched such as by that contact had been previously rendered so; it being in all cases the statute or determination of the Law, that whomsoever the unclean person touched should be unclean, and the soul that touched it, viz. what in that way had last contracted impurity, should be unclean likewise f.

If it is next inquired what were the penal consequences to which persons so situated were rendered liable: I answer, that they were serious indeed. For, first, such persons were excluded from joining in any of the ceremonies of religious worship,

f Nor were the distinctions of clean and unclean things confined to the Jewish community in particular. Among the funereal rites made use of by the Greeks and Romans, we are told it was usual when the solemnity was over, to sprinkle those who had assisted at it with drops of clean water. Now as the object of this ceremony was to purify such persons, it supposes among them likewise the prevalence of the same belief, that the contact or even neighbourhood of dead bodies communicated defilement to every thing which came within the sphere of their influence.

Among the Gentiles also, as well as among the Jews, women after childbirth were supposed to be unclean, and to stand in need of some process of lustration to qualify them for mingling in society again. In like manner, whatever had been struck with lightning in particular, was regarded by them with feelings of more than usual horror, as a thing proscribed and rendered accursed by what they considered a visible mark of the Divine displeasure. The classical reader will recollect also that persons guilty of homicide were reputed unclean, and to require some lustral ceremony before they could be readmitted into society.

under the penalty of instant death: "Whosoever," says Moses, "toucheth the dead body of any man "that is dead," (and by parity of reason we may extend the provision to every other mode of contracting legal impurity,) "and purifieth not himself, "defileth the tabernacle of the Lord; and that "soul shall be cut off from Israels:" consequently, we may conclude that such a person was debarred, while this state of exclusion lasted, from all the privileges, civil as well as religious, to which as a child of Abraham he had been entitled. His title to his inheritance in Canaan, his title to the undisturbed enjoyment of its productions, his title to the forgiveness of his sins by the sacrifice of a sin or trespass offering; in short, his claim to whatever benefits were capable of resulting to him from the ministration of Aaron and his sons in the priesthood, while this disability lasted, were all forfeited or suspended. He stood in the relation of an excommunicated person, of a stranger and alien to the commonwealth of Israel.

Nor was this the only inconvenience to which a state of legal uncleanness exposed a person: he was debarred from all civil intercourse with his countrymen, while it continued. Thus we read that women, during the term of their uncleanness after childbirth, were required to dwell g Numb. xix. 13.

alone, and that the leprous person, so long as his infection lasted, was subjected to a similar necessity; the provision of the Law in the last case being this: "Without the camp shall his "habitation be h" On the same principle we must extend the provision to every case of persons labouring under legal uncleanness, in whatever particular way that uncleanness had been contracted. And this necessity, under which such persons were placed, of dwelling alone, till the period of their uncleanness should be expired, explains the reason of that particular command, which our Saviour is represented as giving to the leper, whom he had just cleansed; "Go thy way, "shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift "that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto

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them;" viz. that in consequence of the public scrutiny and examination which he should thus undergo, (for it was the duty of the priest to inquire into the merits of such cases, before the person previously infected with leprosy could be pronounced clean,) being convinced of the certainty of the cure, they might admit the contaminated individual into the pale of society again, without scruplek.

i Matth. viii. 4.

8 Lev. xii. 2, 4. h Chap. xiii. 46. k In this instance also we find that similar notions prevailed among the Gentile nations of antiquity. No person labouring under any kind of impurity, was supposed to be fit to mingle in the ceremonies of religious worship; on which account it