We shall now briefly glance at the third point in the precious chapter before us. We shall do little more than quote the passage for the reader. The Israelite, having presented his basket and distributed his tithes, was further instructed to say, "I have not eaten thereof in my _mourning_, neither have I taken away aught thereof for any _unclean_ use, nor given aught thereof for _the dead_; but I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord my God, and have done according to all that Thou hast commanded me. Look down from Thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Thy people Israel, and the land which Thou hast given us, as Thou swarest unto our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey. This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments; thou shalt therefore _keep_ and _do_ them, _with all thine heart_ and _with all thy soul_. Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to _walk in His ways_, and to keep His statutes and His commandments and His judgments, and to hearken unto His voice: and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar people"--that is, a people of His own special possession--"as He hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep _all_ His commandments; and to make thee high above all nations which He hath made, in praise and in name and in honor; and that thou mayest be _a holy people_ unto the Lord thy God, as He hath spoken." (Ver. 14-19.) Here we have personal holiness, practical sanctification, entire separation from every thing inconsistent with the holy place and relationship into which they had been introduced, in the sovereign grace and mercy of God. There must be no mourning, no uncleanness, no dead works. We have no room, no time, for any such things as these; they do not belong to that blessed sphere in which we are privileged to live and move and have our being. We have just three things to do: We look up to God, and offer the sacrifice of praise; we look around at a needy world, and do good; we look in upon the circle of our own being--our inner life, and seek, by grace, to keep ourselves unspotted. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (Jas. i. 27.) Thus, whether we hearken to Moses in Deuteronomy xxvi, or to Paul in Hebrews xiii, or to James in his most wholesome, needed, practical epistle, it is the same Spirit that speaks to us, and the same grand lessons that are impressed upon us--lessons of unspeakable value and moral importance--lessons loudly called for in this day of easy-going profession, in the which the doctrines of grace are taken up and held in a merely intellectual way, and connected with all sorts of worldliness and self-indulgence.