III.

SIN ITS OWN DETECTOR.

Preached at the West London Synagogue of British Jews, Margaret-street, on Sabbath DDD 5616 (July 26, 1856).

NUMBERS XXxii. 23.

ואם לא תעשון כן הנה חטאתם ליי ודעו חטאתכם אשר

תמצא אתכם

And if you do not thus, behold you will have sinned against the Lord; and rest assured that your sin will find you out,"1

Ir is very probable, my hearers, that the text just quoted may have struck you during the reading of the present weekly Parashah, of which it forms a part. Moses has received from God a summons to prepare for his departure from the earth;2 and the

1 The translation of the authorised version, though literal, is not very clear. л as Mendelssohn's Biour explains, means "punishment,” as well as sin." In the translation of the Bible by Dr. Zunz, the latter portion of the verse of the text is thus given :

Und ihr werdet erfahren eure Sündenstrafe, die euch treffen.” ("And you will become aware of the punishment for your sin, when it lights on you.") The Septuag. rendering does not differ materially from that of Zunz. καὶ γνώσεσδη τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ὑμῶν, ὅταν ὑμᾶς καταλάβῃ τὰ κακά.

2 Numb. xxxi. 2.

legislator, desirous of finishing his appointed task before be is gathered to his people, loses no time in completing the arrangement with the Reubenites and the Gadites, by virtue of which, certain lands on the eastern side of the Jordan are conceded to those tribes, in consideration of some specific military service which they bind themselves to render to the commonwealth. Placing reliance in their good faith, Moses apportions to them the particular lands which they desire, and at the same time delivers to them a short address, the substance of which is as follows: "In return for the advantages which have been conceded to your tribes, you solemnly promise to cross the Jordan when required, and to fight side-by-side with your brethren of the other tribes, who have their inheritances yet to conquer. I trust that you will redeem the pledge you have given. For myself, I am descending to the grave, and shall not, therefore, be amongst you at the time when you will be called upon to give effect to your engagements. But, if when in the undisturbed possession of your own estates, you should prefer your ease to the good of your country, and your personal gains to the performance of your word, I warn you that, although your countrymen may not be in a condition to compel you to cross the Jordan, you must not suppose that you can break your faith with impunity, since your wrongdoing will be sure to find you out."

I submit to you, my hearers, that the words here recorded may receive a general application; and, further, that they do not exclusively bear on the detection of our sins by our fellow-men, since punish

ment, or the consequence of sin, is sure to find us out, even in cases, when no human being may be cognizant of our guilt. If the Spirit of God dwell within our breasts, and if the habit of wrong-doing have not entirely blunted our better perceptions, our sin will find us out as soon as we are alone with conscience, and our own accusing heart rehearses to us the emphatic words of Scripture: "Lord, thou searchest me and knowest me thoroughly. Thou knowest my downsitting and my uprising; thou understandest my thoughts from afar off. For there is not a word on my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou dost beset me behind and before, and thou layest thy hand upon

me."3

Whoever so far forgets the relation in which he stands to God here, and hereafter, as to attach to sin no more serious consequence than the fear of being found out by man, raises between himself and moral guilt a very frail partition. He will continue a sinner to the end of his days, because the principle of amendment becomes extinct within him, as soon as he ceases to fear wrong-doing on account of its own native deformity, but rather regards it with apprehension in so far, and in so far only, as it may be brought to the knowledge of mankind, and thus incur the punishment and the disgrace which it deserves. It is a failing common to all, to estimate ourselves from a false point of view; and we often suffer our vanity to delude us into the belief, that we are more free from sin than we should be

3 Psa. cxxxix. 1—3.

compelled to admit, if we could be induced to bring ourselves to the test of a thorough self-examination. Of this weakness the inspired writer warns us, when he emphatically tells us that it is our nature to be insensible to our own failings (). Nay, more, he makes this mortal weakness the basis of a moral lesson, and earnestly exhorts us ba

על משכבכם

"to commune with our hearts upon our beds," so that we may calmly review the events of the day through which we have passed, and bring to mind the errors we may have committed, and the indiscretions into which we may have been betrayed; but which did not strike us in their true light whilst we were immersed in the business of the world, and perhaps wholly occupied in the pursuit of gain.

It scarcely admits of a doubt, that if we followed the wholesome advice of the Psalmist, conscience would reveal to us many acts of which our calm judgment could not approve, and would make manifest our short-comings in more instances than we suppose. Then would sin find us out in our own hearts; and how painful soever such a discovery might prove, we should at least have this consolation, that so long as conscience is active in its office, and reproves us when we do wrong, we have well-founded hopes of our amendment. Much as we may be grieved when our evil doings are brought to remembrance, a ray of light will break upon our darkness, and we shall gather hope from the reflection, that sin has not become to us so

habitual as to blunt our sense of duty, and that God has not abandoned us to our own evil ways.

It denotes a sad, sad time in the moral history of a man, when long habit has so familiarised him with sin that he ceases to call it to mind when he joins in public or private prayer, and when he is alone in companionship with his conscience. Because sin

has failed to find him out in his own heart, he may have deluded himself into the belief that no danger is to be apprehended, and that in the estimation of the world he may continue to pass for the opposite of what he really is. It is much to be feared, that there are many unworthy children of God, whose lives are stained by dishonesty and deceit, and whose success in having escaped detection has betrayed them into the conclusion that they can go on with impunity in their immoral course to the end of their career. But in spite of their fancied security, they are destined to make the bitter experience of the prophetic words, "They lean upon a broken reed," because "they put their trust in lies." There is a supreme intelligence transcending the conceptions of mankind, that takes in at a glance the whole of the creation, or as Scripture forcibly expresses it,

66

The eyes of the » בכל מקום עיני יי צופות רעים וטובים

Lord are in every place, taking note of the good and the bad." Yea, it is the omniscient Lord himself that brings home to the evil-doer the terrors of sin; and it is He who ordains that the most simple occurrences, which men ordinarily speak of as accidents, shall combine and become the means of

6 Isa. xxxvi. 6.

7 Jer. xiii. 25.

8 Prov. xv.

3.