For the law designs that he should be the partaker of a nature superior to that of man; inasmuch as he approaches more nearly to that of the Deity; being, if one must say the plain truth, on the borders between the two, in order that men may propitiate God by some mediator, and that God may have some subordinate minister by whom he may offer and give his mercies and kindnesses to mankind.


 After he has said this, he immediately proceeds to lay down laws, concerning those who are to use the first fruits,
"If therefore, any one," Leviticus xxi. 17. says he, "should mutilate the priests as to their eyes, or their feet, or any part of their bodies, or if he should have received any blemish, let him not partake of the sacred ministrations by reason of the defects which exist in him, but still let him enjoy those honours which are common to all the priests, because of his irreproachable


 Leviticus xxi. 17. 


 
nobility of birth." "Moreover, if any leprosies break out and attack him or if any one of the priests be afflicted with any flux, let him not touch the sacred table, nor any of the duties which are set apart for his race, until the flux stop, or the leprosy change, so that he become again resembling the complexion of sound flesh." Leviticus xxii. 4. And, if any priest do by any chance whatever touch anything that is unclean, or if he should have impure dreams by night, as is very often apt to be the case, let him during all that day touch nothing that has been consecrated, but let him wash himself the ensuing evening, and after that let him not be hindered from touching them. And let the sojourner in the priest’s house, and the hireling, be prevented from approaching the first fruits; the sojourner, because it is not every one who is a neighbour who shares a man’s hearth and eats at his table; Leviticus xxii. 10. for there is reason to fear that some such person may cast away what is hallowed, using as a cloak for his impiety the pretence of some unseasonable humanity; for one might not give all men a share of all things, but only of such as are adapted to those who are to receive them; otherwise, that which is the most beautiful and most beneficial of all the things in this life, namely order, will be wasted away and destroyed by that which is the most mischievous of all things, namely, confusion.