"And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons, 'Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people: but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord hath kindled. And ye shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die; for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you.' And they did according to the word of Moses." Aaron, Eleazar, and Ithamar were to remain unmoved in their elevated place--their holy dignity--their position of priestly sanctity. Neither the failure nor yet the judgment consequent thereon was to be allowed to interfere with those who wore the priestly robes and were anointed with "the oil of the Lord." That holy oil had placed them in a sacred inclosure, where the influences of sin, of death, and of judgment could not reach them. Those who were outside, who were at a distance from the sanctuary, who were not in the position of priests, they might "bewail the burning;" but as for Aaron and his sons, they were to go on in the discharge of their hallowed functions as though nothing had happened. Priests in the sanctuary were not to bewail, but to worship--they were not to weep, as in the presence of death, but to bow their anointed heads in the presence of the divine visitation. "The fire of the Lord" might act, and do its solemn work of judgment; but to a priest it mattered not what that "fire" had come to do--whether to express the divine approval by consuming a sacrifice, or the divine displeasure by consuming the offerers of "strange fire"--he had but to worship. That "fire" was a well-known manifestation of the divine presence in Israel of old, and whether it acted in "mercy or in judgment," the business of all true priests was to worship. "I will sing of mercy and of judgment; unto Thee, O Lord, will I sing." There is a deep and holy lesson for the soul in all this. Those who are brought nigh to God, in the power of the blood, and by the anointing of the Holy Ghost, must move in a sphere beyond the range of nature's influences. Priestly nearness to God gives the soul such an insight into all His ways, such a sense of the rightness of all His dispensations, that one is enabled to worship in His presence, even though the stroke of His hand has removed from us the object of tender affection. It may be asked, Are we to be Stoics? I ask, Were Aaron and his sons Stoics? Nay, they were priests. Did they not feel as men? Yes; but they worshiped as priests. This is profound. It opens up a region of thought, feeling, and experience in which nature can never move--a region of which, with all its boasted refinement and sentimentality, nature knows absolutely nothing. We must tread the sanctuary of God in true priestly energy, in order to enter into the depth, meaning, and power of such holy mysteries.