“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, ‘Take the Levites from among the children of Israel, and cleanse them. And thus shalt thou do unto them, to cleanse them: Sprinkle water of purifying upon them, and let them shave all their flesh, and let them wash their clothes, and so make themselves clean.’” (Chap. viii. 5-7.) Here we have, in type, the only divine principle of cleansing. It is the application of death to nature and all its habits: it is the Word of God brought to bear upon the heart and conscience, in a living way. Nothing can be more expressive than the double action presented in the above passage. Moses was to sprinkle water of purifying upon them; and then they were to shave off all their hair, and wash their garments. There is great beauty and precision here. Moses, as representing the claims of God, cleanses the Levites according to those claims; and they, being cleansed, are able to bring the sharp razor to bear upon all that was the mere growth of nature, and to wash their garments, which expresses, in typic form, the cleansing their habits according to the Word of God. This was God’s way of meeting all that appertained to Levi’s natural state—the self-will, the fierceness, and the cruelty. The pure water and the sharp razor were called into action—the washing and shaving had to go on ere Levi was fit to approach the vessels of the sanctuary. Thus it is in every case. There is, there can be, no allowance of nature among God’s workers. There never was a more fatal mistake than to attempt to enlist nature in the service of God. It matters not how you may endeavor to improve or regulate it; it is not improvement, but death that will avail. It is of the very last possible importance for the reader to lay hold, with clearness and force, of this great practical truth. Man has been weighed in the balance and found wanting: the plummet has been applied to him, and he has been found crooked. It is of no possible use seeking to reform. Nothing will do save the _water_ and the _razor_. God has closed up man’s history; He has brought it to an end in the death of Christ. The first grand fact that the Holy Ghost presses upon the human conscience is, that God has delivered His solemn verdict upon human nature, and that each one must accept that verdict against himself personally. It is not a matter of opinion, or a matter of feeling. A person may say, I do not see, or I do not feel, that I am so bad as you seem to make out. We reply, That does not affect the question in the least. God has declared His judgment about us, and it is man’s first duty to fall in with and bow to that. Of what use would it have been for Levi to say that he did not agree with what God’s Word had said about him? Would that, could that, have altered the question as to him? In no wise. The divine record remained the same whether Levi felt it or not; but clearly it was the first step in wisdom’s pathway to bow down under the weight of that record.