four-footed beasts and creeping things. They changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever."* While drawing in such terms the affecting portraiture of heathen superstitions, Paul appears, as in surveying the idolatries of Athens, to have felt the irrepressible risings of boly and indignant zeal for the divine glory : "The big round tear hung trembling in his eye." He could not contemplate the prostrate honours of the infinite God with an unmoved and tranquil heart. He could not behold this world, which ought to have been one great temple to the exclusive worship of Jehovah," whose he was, and whom he served," crowded with rival deities, the offspring of the depraved fancy of apostate creatures, with which the very thought of bringing him, even for an instant, into comparison, makes the heart thrill and shudder with detestation. "They changed the truth of God into A LIE." Every view that can be taken of the worship of idols is a lie against the Supreme Majesty. Their number is a lie against his unity; their corporeal nature is a lie against his pure invisible spirituality; their confined and local residence, a lie against his omnipresence and immensity; their limited and subdivided departments of operation, a lie against his universal proprietorship and dominion; their follies and weaknesses, a lie against his infinite wisdom; their defects and vices and crimes, a lie against his unsullied purity and perfection. In what a strange unhallowed state must that man's heart be, who can contemplate without emotion this sacrilegious robbery of heaven,- this universal slander upon the character of Deity! Yet there are some (would I could say with truth that they are few in number!) who feel it very lightly. They can contemplate the whole scene with a careless smile; or, if their spirits are at all stirred in them, if their indignation is at all moved, it is against those officious, intrusive intermeddlers, that would disturb the idolaters by their attempts to enlighten * Rom. i. 21-23, 26. them! With an affectation of sentimental feeling, they fancy the universal parent equally pleased with all descriptions of worship from his erring children. "Father of all, in every age, In every clime ador'd; By saint, by savage, and by sage, How revolting such a thought to the spirit of true piety and reverence for God! to identify the worship of Baal, and Jupiter, and Jehovah! to convert into acceptable service the grossest insults that ever were offered to the character of God! How opposite this to the universal language of the Bible! How opposite to the sentiments and feelings of the devout Apostle of the Gentiles! Estimating the glory of God aright, as the first and highest end of all things, the survey of the world, as wholly given to idolatry, stirred his spirit, and it cannot but stir the spirit of every Christian, with indignant grief. II. The contemplation of heathen idolatry may well fill us with amazement at the weakness and folly of the human mind. Search the annals of our world, in every age and in every country; I question if you will find a more affecting and bumbling exemplification of human imbecility, than that which is afforded by the history of idolatry. It is such, indeed, as we hardly know how to believe. To be set down amidst the likenesses of "corruptible men, and of birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things," which form the immense museum of heathen mythology, one might be tempted to fancy, that some satirical defamer of our nature had been exhausting an inventive imagination, to slander and to vilify it. And it matters but little in this view, whether the images themselves be the objects of direct worship, or whether they be only the representations of such objects; for what sort of deities must they be, that are conceived to be "like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device?" and especially, what sort of deities must they be, of which images so ridiculously fan с tastic, so monstrously uncouth, so frightfully distorted, as many of the heathen idols are, are considered by their worshippers as the appropriate and worthy representatives? Surely a single look at such objects of worship, should be equivalent to volumes of argumentation in reply to the advocates for the sufficiency of human reason in the things of God. Those who have themselves served such "vanities," and have been brought to the knowledge of the true God, are the first to own their former folly. It was to impress on the minds of British Christians the humbling lesson of human weakness and infatuation, that Pomarre sent to this country the deities of his house and of his kingdom; "to show them," in his own simple phrase," what foolish gods Taheite formerly worshipped." And who, that looks at such images, or that turns over a pantheon of heathen mythology, does not "blush, and hang his head, to think himself a man ?" But where, on this part of my subject, can I find language more appropriate and impressive than that of the inspired prophet Isaiah? Turn with me to that cutting and indignant exposure of the folly and brutal stupidity of idolaters, in the forty-fourth chapter of his prophecies, from the 10th to the 20th verse. "Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image, that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they are of men: let them all be gathered together, let them stand up: yea, they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together. The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms: yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth: he drinketh no water, and is faint. The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house. He heweth him down oedars, 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 shall it 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 eateth 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 prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god. They have not known nor understood; for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree? He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand ?"-O, my brethren, is it possible for us to conceive of a smaller measure of intellect, than what seems to be requisite for drawing the inference here stated? for discovering the extreme and palpable absurdity of the conduct here exposed? The failure to discover it is surely with good reason represented as the very lowest point in the scale of human folly. How just the saying of the Psalmist," They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them."* And how true the representation of the Apostle, "Professing theraselves to be wise, they became fools." For it is a fact, on this subject, which has often been remarked, and which Deism has never been able satisfactorily to set aside, that to whatever heights of attainment men have risen in the wisdom of this world, they have never, of themselves, made a single step of decided progress towards rational and wor thy views of the nature and character of God. The trial of many ages warranted the apostolic decision, that "the world by wisdom knew not God."* The powers of the buman mind were vigorously and successfully employed in every other department of human knowledge. There was no deficiency of intellectual acuteness and energy in other investigations. But the masters of science and philosophy were but dark and feeble and perplexed conjecturers on the things of God. The contrast in this respect could not fail, in such a place as Athens, to strike most forcibly the mind of the Apostle. When he saw the wonderful results of human wisdom and power and skill, in the arts and sciences, in philosophy and literature, which existed there in such profusion and splendour; when he beheld a people raised to the very pinnacle of eminence for all that was great and excellent in human attainments; and then viewed the same people sunk in the abyss of ignorance and stupidity as to all that related to the higher concerns of God and of eternity!—how striking, how affecting the contrast! Can we wonder that "his spirit was stirred in him?” But whence, we are tempted to ask, did this difference arise? Whence the thick darkness that covered spiritual things, while light was on every thing else? To find an answer to this inquiry, we must go on to our next particular : III. Paul's spirit was stirred in him, and the contemplation of heathen idolatry should stir ours, with abhorrence of human impiety. Idolatry, like infidelity, has not been so much an error of the head, as of the heart. Here it had its origin; here it still has its power, and its seat, and its great authority." The head has been the dupe of the heart; the folly has sprung from the corruption; the infatuation of the judgment from the depravation of the affections. The veil bas not been upon the evidences themselves of the existence and perfections of God, but upon the hearts of his fallen creatures. The wretched votaries of idolatry are described as "walking in the vanity of their minds; having their * 1 Cor. i. 21. |