Joshua 21:4-42

I include all these verses in one point of view for the sake of shortness. If the Reader be desirous to look at them more particularly, he will discover how admirably they were all arranged and disposed of, so as to scatter the Levites over the whole land. And herein he will discover how great a correspondence this dispersion of God's servants in the old church, bore to the dispersion of God's servants in the new, when Jesus sent his disciples forth to preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:15. If the Reader be curious to remark the division of the Levites further, he may observe, that there were four divisions of the Levites, and that they were placed according to the divine appointment. The first of the house of Aaron, which were the priests; the second the Kohathites, which were Levites; the third was the sons of Gershon, the eldest son of Levi; and the fourth the Merarites his youngest. But what I conceive to be much more important for the Reader ' s attention, in the provision made for all the house of Aaron, was the typical representation it afforded of the gospel church in the interest it holds, in the person of our great and Almighty High Priest, to whom Aaron ministered. Doth not the peculiar reservation, made for this tribe of Levi, of whom it is expressly again and again said, Levi hath no part with his brethren, for the Lord is his portion, doth it not in effect say, that Jesus is the alone portion of his people, who are in him a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people? And is not the circumstance of their being scattered over all the tribes, a figure of the dispersion of Jesus's priests who are made kings and priests to God and the Father? And in the Lord himself dwelling among them as their portion, is there not a beautiful similitude of the everlasting presence of Jesus, amidst his spiritual Levites? Hail! thou Lord God of the true Hebrews: thou priest of the order of Melchisedeck! Grant me, Lord, a portion in thyself, in the true Canaan of thy gospel church here below, as a pledge of being forever in thy church of Canaan which is above. And do thou consecrate and set me a part by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, and the anointings of the Holy Ghost, as thy servant to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5.