“And they departed from Dophkah and encamped in Alush” (Num. xxxiii. 13.)
THE Christian Church also encamps at Alush in an evil sense, when persons of all descriptions join themselves to it, induced by temporal advantage, which they expect to reap from it, and, with their unrenewed hearts, bring with them heathenish vices. This is a disease from which we still suffer. If we look at the mass of those who call themselves Christians, what do we see but a rude, perverse, ignorant, unbelieving, and disobedient multitude, differing very little from the heathen in their manner, or even inferior to them; for, with the exception of gross idolatry, and that which is immediately connected with it, where is the heathenish vice which is not practised by Christians? Thus it ought not to be; but every one that names the name of Christ ought to depart from all iniquity. The truths that are preached also suffer a similar decline, since human wit and ordinances of men are so mingled with them that congregations and their preachers will no longer hear sound doctrines, but take an open and decisive part against it. There are also individuals who amalgamate the service of God and the world, and seek to serve these two irreconcilable masters at the same time. They halt between two opinions, receive as much from religion as suits their purpose, and as much of the world as pleases them. One doctrine they accept, another they reject; obey one command and refuse obedience to another. These are amalgamations, and this is an Alush, where the true Christian will not be found lingering. Those amalgamations are also to be dreaded, in which men mingle their own wisdom, or rather their folly, with the wisdom of God; and their chaff with the pure wheat of the divine Word; as likewise that lukewarmness which Christ expressly reproveth in the angel of the Church of Laodicea, in which the individual is neither cold not hot, but a mixture of both. Law and gospel are there mingled together; freewill and grace, and an empty, plausible tolerance, which leaves everyone to believe what he pleases, with the exception of the vivifying truths of the Gospel.—Krummacher.