And we are warned against : 1. All unbelief. S. John viii. 24. Ps. xiv. 1. 2. All hypocrisy. S. Matt. xxiii. 5, 14. 3. All careless indifference to sacred things. Exod. v. 2. Ps. x. 4, 6. 4. All pride. S. James iv. 6. 5. Presumption. Job xv. 25. 6. Despair. Ps. xlii. 6, 7, 8. S. Matt. xxvii. 3, 5. 7. Deism-Where God is regarded not, as the object of affection and worship but as an abstraction-not as an object of living faith but as a conception-a creed if it can be called so in which is no heart, no life, no love. 2 S. Peter ii, 1. 8. Polytheism. Rom. i. 23. 9. Heresy. Tit. iii. 10, 12. 10. Scepticism, doublemindedness, and worldliness. S. Matt. vi. 24. 1 S. John ii. 15, 17. "He that spared not His own son, but gave Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things." Let us cultivate with all the powers of our souls. A frequent recollection, an attention, at least an habitual tendency, a desire for God, a loving and reverential looking of the mind and heart towards Him, an intimate language, a familiar speaking with, an universal dependance on Him, an opening of the heart, in order to consult Him in all things, to hearken to Him, to act beneath His eye, and to turn ourselves from the busy language of creatures and of our own passions which might distract that attention we owe to Him." "What art Thou, O my God; what art Thou, I beseech Thee, but the Lord my God ? For who is Lord beside our Lord, or who is God besides our God? Thou lovest, and yet Thou art not transported; Thou art jealous, and yet Thou art void of fear; Thou dost repent, yet Thou art free from sorrow; Thou art angry, and yet never art unquiet; Thou takest what Thou findest, yet didst Thou never lose anything; Thou art never poor, and yet Thou art glad of gain; never covetous, and yet Thou exactest profit at our hands; Thou payest debts when Thou owest nothing; Thou forgivest debts, and yet Thou losest nothing. And what shall I say, O my God, my life, my joy, my holy, dear delight? or what can any man say, when he speaketh of Thee ? and woe to them that speak not of Thee but are silent in Thy praise; for ever they who speak most of Thee, may be accounted to be but dumb. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, that I may speak unto Thee, and praise Thy Name. Amen." O, my spirit longs and faints,- Sun and shield alike Thou art, Amen. CHAPTER III. COMMANDMENT II. "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. "Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them; for I the Lord Thy God am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and shew mercy unto thousands in them that love Me and keep My Commandments." The first Commandment having_asserted the self-existence of God and that He is one and that there is none other but He, the second proceeds to guard against any violation of His holiness. He is invisible; no man hath seen God at any time. He is hidden from the eyes of mortal men, and will be seen only when the veil of sin is removed and the new body and the newly fashioned soul shall be ours, when man is changed like unto Christ's glorious body and is thus prepared for the Beatific vision, when being pure in heart and washed in the blood of Jesus he shall be privileged to enter into the holiest of Holies and see God. Until then, and especially now in this world of grosser sense, He will be adored as invisible and seen only with the eye of faith. So while the first Commandment fixes our belief, the second defines our adoration. The first, states who is the object of worship; the second, how He is to be worshipped, spiritually and by the soul. 66 The warning against attempting any representation of the Diety, or of making that which is to convey the sense of Divine Presence,would hardly have seemed declared sufficiently in the command alone, for it is over and over again repeated with awful significance. 'Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold" Ex. xx. 23. And "thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images" Ex. xxiii. 24, and again in verses 32, 33. So "if thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly saying, let us go and serve other gods; thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him ;" and not only so, but further, in most clear language, showing without a possibility of doubt what was God's will on this matter, "neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him; but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.' Deut. xiii. The Israelites in their long sojourn in Egypt had become familiar with every species of the grossest idolatry. And having, as we have seen, morally and socially sunk as a people had ceased to regard idolatry as a sin. Hence perhaps the very decided words of Scripture. At any rate we know that "the Egyptian priests, with an affectation of mysterious wisdom, expressed the attributes of God, the operations of the elements, the motions and influences of the heavenly bodies, the rising and falling of the Nile, and its effects, by symbolical representations derived from the known and familiar properties of animals, and even vegetables. Thence these became, first, representations of their divinities, and, afterwards, the direct objects of divine reverence. Thus man was taught to bow down to birds, and beasts, and creeping things; to plants and herbs, to sticks and stones. Nothing was too base for grovel |