It is a solemn truth that a kind of inverted holiness is known to Scripture. Men “sanctify themselves” (it is this very word), “and purify themselves to go into the gardens, ... eating swine’s flesh and the abomination and the mouse” (Isa. lxvi. 17). The same word is also used to declare that the whole fruit of a vineyard sown with two kinds of fruit shall be _forfeited_ (Deut. xxii. 9), although the notion there is of something unnatural and therefore interdicted, which notion is carried to the utmost extreme in another derivative from the same root, expressing the most depraved of human beings. Just so, the Greek word “anathema” means both “consecrated” and “marked out for wrath” (Luke xxi. 5; 1 Cor. xvi. 22: the difference in form is insignificant.) And so again our own tongue calls the saints “devoted,” and speaks of the “devoted” head of the doomed sinner, being aware that there is a “separation” in sin as really as in purity. The gods of the heathen, like Jehovah, claimed an appropriate “holiness,” sometimes unspeakably degraded. They too were separated, and it was through long lines of sphinxes, and many successive chambers, that the Egyptian worshipper attained the shrine of some contemptible or hateful deity. The religion which does not elevate depresses. But the holiness of Jehovah is noble as that of light, incapable of defilement. “Who among the gods is like Thee ... glorious in holiness?” And Israel soon learned that the worshipper must become assimilated to his Ideal: “Ye shall be holy men unto Me” (xxii. 31). It is so with us. Jesus is separated from sinners. And we are to go forth unto Him out of the camp, bearing His reproach (Heb. vii. 26, xiii. 13). The remainder of the song is remarkable chiefly for the confidence with which the future is inferred from the past. And the same argument runs through all Scripture. As Moses sang, “Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance,” because “Thou stretchedst out Thy right hand, the earth[29] swallowed” their enemies, so David was sure that goodness and mercy should follow him all the days of his life, because God was already leading him in green pastures and beside still waters. And so St. Paul, knowing in Whom he had believed, was persuaded that He was able to keep his deposit until that day (2 Tim. i. 12). So should pardon and Scripture and the means of grace reassure every doubting heart; for “if the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not have ... showed us all these things” (Judg. xiii. 23). And in theory, and in good hours, we confess that this is so. But after our song of triumph, if we come upon bitter waters we murmur; and if our bread fail, we expect only to die in the wilderness. _SHUR._ xv. 22–7.