We shall now proceed to inquire what was done in every case in which the plague of leprosy was unquestionably and unmistakably defined. The God of Israel could bear with infirmity, blemish, and failure; but the moment it became a case of defilement, whether in the head, the beard, the forehead, or any other part, it could not be tolerated in the holy assembly. "The leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be." (Ver. 45, 46.) Here was the leper's condition, the leper's occupation, the leper's place. With rent garments, bare head, and covered lip; crying, "Unclean, unclean;" and dwelling outside, in the dreary solitude--the dismal desert waste. What could be more humiliating, what more depressing, than this? "He shall dwell alone." He was unfit for communion or companionship. He was excluded from the only spot in all the world in which Jehovah's presence was known or enjoyed. Reader, behold, in the poor, solitary leper, a vivid type of one in whom sin is working. This is really what it means. It is not, as we shall see presently, a helpless, ruined, guilty, convicted sinner, whose guilt and misery have come thoroughly out, and who is, therefore, a fit subject for the love of God and the blood of Christ. No; we see in the excluded leper one in whom sin is actually working--one in whom there is the positive energy of evil. This is what defiles and shuts out from the enjoyment of the divine presence and the communion of saints. So long as sin is working, there can be no fellowship with God or with His people. "He shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be." How long? "All the days wherein _the plague_ shall be in him." This is a great practical truth. The energy of evil is the death-blow to communion. There may be the outward appearance--the mere form--the hollow profession, but communion there can be none so long as the energy of evil is there. It matters not what the character or amount of the evil may be--if it were but the weight of a feather--if it were but some foolish thought, so long as it continues to work, it must hinder communion--it must cause a suspension of fellowship. It is when it rises to a head--when it comes to the surface--when it is brought thoroughly out that it can be perfectly met and put away by the grace of God and by the blood of the Lamb.