No doubt it is a very happy thing to realize, to feel, and to experience; but if we put these things in the place of Christ, we shall neither have them nor the Christ that yields them. If I am occupied with Christ, I shall realize; but if I put my realization in place of Christ, I shall have neither the one nor the other. This is the sad condition of thousands. Instead of resting on the stable authority of "the Scriptures," they are ever looking into their own hearts, and hence they are always uncertain and, as a consequence, always unhappy. A condition of doubt is a condition of torture; but how can I get rid of my doubt? Simply by relying on the divine authority of "the Scriptures." Of what do the Scriptures testify? Of Christ. (John v.) They declare that Christ died for our sins, and that He was raised again for our justification. (Rom. iv.) This settles every thing. The self-same authority that tells me I am unjust tells me also that Christ died for me. Nothing can be plainer than this. If I were aught else than unjust, the death of Christ would not be for me at all; but being unjust, it is divinely fitted, divinely intended, and divinely applied to me. If I am occupied with any thing in, of, or about myself, it is plain I have not entered into the full spiritual application of Leviticus xiii. 12, 13--I have not come to the Lamb of God "_just as I am_." It is when the leper is covered from head to foot that he is on the true ground. It is there and there alone that grace can meet him. "Then the priest shall consider; and, behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean." Precious truth! "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." So long as I think there is a single spot which is not covered with the direful disease, I have not come to the end of myself. It is when my true condition is fully disclosed to my view that I really understand the meaning of salvation by grace. The force of all this will be more fully apprehended when we come to consider the ordinances connected with the cleansing of the leper, in chapter xiv. of our book. We shall now briefly enter upon the question of leprosy in a garment, as presented in chapter xiii. 47-59.