What, then, could Levi do? Might he not cast himself over upon the mercy of God, with the hope that He would deal lightly with his sins? No; by no means: God had given forth His solemn and unalterable decree, "O my soul, come not thou into their secret;" God could not come into a habitation wherein were "instruments of cruelty." Thus, then, Levi was completely shut up, without a single means of escape; the law nailed him down to this one point, "Answer my demands." And all that Levi had towards the discharge of these demands was, "anger, fierceness, murder, self-will, cruelty," etc.: poor resources, alas! Nor would the law of God enter into any composition with the sinner; it should have "the uttermost farthing," or else the word was, "_cursed art thou_." Therefore Levi, _as a man alive in the flesh_, or, in other words, Levi, as seeking to get life through the law, was judged, condemned, and set aside, and it only remained for him to take thus the place of _one dead_, in order that God might _in grace_ quicken him into new life, which God was ready and willing to do, and which, as we shall see, He graciously did, according to His own marvelous thoughts, and in His own way.[6] Levi, then, had just to see himself as one that was, in God's account, _dead_, as we read, "for they (i.e., the Levites) are wholly given unto me from among the children of Israel; _instead_ of such as open every womb, even _instead_ of the first-born of all the children of Israel, have I taken them unto me: for all the first-born of the children of Israel are mine, both man and beast: on the day that I smote every first-born in the land of Egypt, _I sanctified them for myself_; _and I have taken the Levites for all the first-born of the children of Israel_" (chap. viii. 16-18). [6] The reader will, of course, bear in mind that what is stated about Levi in this paper is to be regarded as _typical_ of that which the believer now knows in _reality_ through the Holy Ghost. The Lord passed through the land of Egypt with the sword of justice unsheathed, to smite _all_ the first-born, nor would Israel's first-born have escaped, had not the sword fallen upon the neck of the spotless victim; and thus, as some one has beautifully observed, "There was death in every house, not only in the houses of the Egyptians, but also in those of the Israelites: in the former, it was the _death of Egypt's first-born_; in the latter, the death of God's Lamb."