God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of His own good
pleasure.' You do not need these external helps. Fling yourself wholly
upon His keeping hand, and also watch and keep yourselves. 'I know in
whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which I have
committed unto Him against that day,' is the complement of the other
words, 'That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the
Holy Ghost.'

So guardianship is, first, unceasing vigilance; and then it is lowly
trust. And besides that, it is _punctilious purity_. 'I said unto
them, Ye are holy unto the Lord; the vessels are holy unto the Lord.
Watch ye, and keep them.'

It was fitting that priests should carry the things that belonged to
the Temple. No other hands but consecrated hands had a right to touch
them. To none other guardianship but the guardianship of the
possessors of a symbolic and ceremonial purity, could the vessels of a
symbolic and ceremonial worship be entrusted; and to none others but
the possessors of real and spiritual holiness can the treasures of the
true Temple, of an inward and spiritual worship, be entrusted. 'Be ye
clean that bear the vessels of the Lord,' said Isaiah using a kindred
metaphor. The only way to keep our treasure undiminished and
untarnished, is to keep ourselves pure and clean.

And, lastly, we have to exercise a guardianship which not only means
unslumbering vigilance, lowly trust, punctilious purity, but also
requires the constant use of the treasure.

'Watch ye, and keep them.' Although the vessels which those priests
bore through the desert were used for no service during all the weary