It is the man contenting himself with passing respectably, perhaps creditably, through his duties for a while, but, so soon as good example ceases, ceasing from the very appearance of goodness, yea, falling into grievous sins, of which the heathen might be ashamed, because the root of the matter is not in him. These things indeed he ought to have done, but not to have left the other undone. If we are in such a case, failing in the lower duties because we have no appreciation of the higher, let us look ourselves to it, lest "the Lord look upon it and require it." That is true which Balaam uttered, of God's threatenings as well as of His promises: "God is not a man that He should lie; neither the son of man that He should repent; hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" If we feel inclined to doubt His word, let us think of Joash, how God looked upon his ingratitude, and how, having looked upon it, He requited it. In like manner He looks upon us. He is about our path, and about our bed, and spieth out all our In vain we fly to our chamber-He is there ways. also ; "Yes, He is there; beneath our eaves; Each sound His wakeful ear receives : 1 Second Sunday in Advent.—Keble. LECTURE V. AMAZIAH; OR, THE UNREASONABLENESS OF IDOLATRY. 2 CHRON. XXV. 14—16.(1) Now it came to pass after that Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought of the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed himself down before them, and burned incense unto them. Wherefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against Amaziah, and He sent unto him a prophet which said unto him, Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand? And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou of the king's counsel? forbear, why shouldest thou be smitten? Then the prophet forbare, and said, I know that God hath determined to destroy thee, because thou hast done this, and because thou hast not hearkened unto my counsel. You will all of you remember, brethren, the terms in which the Hebrew prophets attack the practice of 1 With this Lecture the following chapters should be read2 Kings xiv. 1-20. 2 Chron. xxv. idolatry; how they treat it not merely as offensive to God, and opposed to His direct command, but as a work of doting folly, as abhorrent to common sense, and degrading to the dignity of man. That scene at Carmel when Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal, and in bitter mockery bade them call upon the insensate object of their worship, is one which once read can never glide from the memory. "Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked" (1 Kings xviii. 27). And then there is that description of the maker and adorer of an idol, by Isaiah, which perhaps for calm yet satirical expostulation has never found its equal; "He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. Then it shall be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto. He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he roasteth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied; yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god." I have entitled our subject of to-day AMAZIAH; OR, THE UNREASONABLENESS OF IDOLATRY. I do not, however, intend to treat of idolatry generally. My intention rather is, to examine the special instance of it which characterizes the life of Amaziah. I call it a special instance, because it occurred in the case of one who had been aided greatly by the Invisible and True, and who should, therefore, have been less easily perverted to the sensuous adoration of the false. And I call it special also, because it involved an infatuation, rivalled indeed afterwards by that of Ahaz, but from which ordinary image-worship was exempt. The story itself shall be first sketched as it may be gathered from the Kings and Chronicles. It will then be our duty to consider, whether, removed as the superstition into which Amaziah fell appears to be from the tendencies of this our day, we may not find a parallel to it in our practices and in our hearts. Amaziah was the son and successor of Joash, the man of ingratitude, the victim of his own ingratitude, of whose life and miserable end I spoke to you last Sunday. Though his father had met with a violent death, he seems to have encountered no dispute to his title. Hence we may perhaps surmise that the abrupt termination of the life of Joash was due rather to personal grievances, and to dislike of the man himself, than to any settled design of overturning the royal house. And this indeed is confirmed by the fact that so soon as Amaziah was firmly established in his kingdom, "he slew his servants that had killed the king his father,” without, so far as we are informed, any sympathy for their fate being excited. Joash might have deserved punishment, but these men had no peculiar mission to inflict that punishment. It is added, "But he slew not their children, but did as it is written in the Law in the Book of Moses, where the Lord commanded, saying, The father shall not die for the children, neither shall the children die for the father, but every man shall die for his own sin." This seems, perhaps, an insignificant and purposeless addition, but it is valuable for two reasons. First, it is an incidental disproof of an assertion which some have endeavoured to establish, that the Law of Moses was so much a dead letter during the time of the kings anterior to Josiah's reign, that we may half suspect it to have been forged in the life-time of that king. Many other passages disprove this assertion, but the one before us is most convincingly to the point. And it serves, secondly, another important purpose. It contributes an explanation of the terms in which Amaziah's character is spoken of by the Kings and Chronicles respectively. In the former document we are told, "that he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like David his father he did according to all things as Joash his father did. Howbeit the high places were not taken |