USE OF IDOLS PROHIBITED. 225 superior nature to inferior ones; and impossible to attain the notion of God otherwise than by the understanding." Varro, a most learned ancient Roman author, is quoted to the same effect; and then remarks the archbishop, so much wiser were these heathen Romans, than the Christian Romans now are." 66 But when some of the eastern kingdoms had fallen into this corruption, particularly the Egyptians, who claimed the invention as an honor (Herodotus, 1. ii. § 4), the great care of God was to preserve or free his own people from it, by issuing the precept now under consideration. 520. The principal reason, perhaps, why any representation of God is forbidden in this precept, is, that whenever such a practice commences, it infallibly ends in adoring the image itself, instead of the object it was intended to represent; or, in other words, the breach of this commandment uniformly leads, in most cases, to a breach of the first. 521. Some have maintained that the second precept only forbids the making, and worshiping, the representations of false gods; but this is not a correct view of the subject. It clearly forbids the use of all sensible representations not only of false gods, but of the true God. See Deuteronomy, iv. 12-15, 16. Beside this proof, when the Israelites made a golden calf, about the time of the delivery of the law, though evidently their design was to represent by it, not a false object of worship, but Jehovah, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt; they are charged with a most heinous offense, and severely punished; and in the book of Acts, vii. 41, this offense is stigmatized as idolatry. It is remarkable that the feast which they proclaimed is called by them a feast to Jehovah. Again, in after-times, when the kings of Israel set up the same representation of the same true God, at Dan and Bethel, the Scripture invariably speaks of it as the leading sin from which all the rest of their idolatries proceeded; for, from worshiping the true God by an image, they soon came to worship the images of false gods too, and thence fell into all sorts of superstition and wickedness. Yet the church of Rome maintains that we may now very lawfully and commendably practice what the K* 226 THE ONLY PROPER IMAGES OF GOD. Jews were forbidden to do. But, in opposition to this sentiment, let it be observed, that not only the Jews, but the heathens also, who never were subject to the law of Moses, are condemned in Scripture for this mode of worship; as in Romans, the first chapter, and in Acts xvii. 29, 30, where it is said—“ Forasmuch, then, as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the time of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.' 522. The folly of making images or pictures of Christ is evident, because they are not true representations of the object, and have their origin solely in the imagination of the statuary or painter. The only account which antiquity has transmitted to us of the personal appearance of our Savior is of altogether doubtful authority. Beside this, however, there are more serious objections to such representations. 523. The prohibition extends yet further. On the principle already explained, that when one species of a sin is forbidden, all the other species of the same sin are forbidden, the prohibition in the second precept must extend to all superstitious usages and mere human inventions in the matter of divine worship. The design of the prohibition seems to have been, to establish this principle, that as God is the sole object of religious worship, so it is his prerogative to dictate the mode of it. To the mind of man, blinded as it is by depravity, and misled by the imagination and the passions, observances might recommend themselves by the pretext of fitness and decency, which the Supreme Being would reject as unworthy of his nature and character. Deut. xii. 30-"What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." 524. The only NATURAL IMAGE or representative of God, which is set before us for our contemplation, is the boundless universe which his hands have formed; and his MORAL IMAGE is displayed in the laws which he has published, in the movements of his providence, and in the face of Jesus Christ, his Son, who is "the image of the invisible God, and the brightness of his glory." All these exhibitions of the Divine Majesty we are commanded to contemplate; and it is requisite to our obtaining SEMI-IDOLATRY OF CHRISTIANS. 227 the most full and comprehensive views of the object of our adoration, that no one of these displays of God should be overlooked. It may be admitted as an axiom, both in natural and revealed theology, that our conceptions of God will nearly correspond with the conceptions we acquire of the nature and extent of his operations. In the immense universe which he has opened to our view, assisted by the most powerful telescopes, he has given us an image of his infinity—an infinity of power, of wisdom, and of benevolence. And hence the great mass of Christians may almost be regarded as half-idolators, for want of those expanded conceptions of God, which a knowledge of his works is adapted to afford. It was chiefly owing to such criminal inattention to the displays of the divine character in the works of creation, that the inhabitants of the pagan world at first plunged themselves into all the absurdities and abominations of idolatry. "In reason's ear they all rejoice, 'The hand that made us is divine."" But the heathen world did not listen to these instructions, and hence "became wise in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened." Wherefore they were given up by God to the indulgence of vile affections-to the worship and service of the creature, instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever. And, even under the Christian dispensation, we have too much reason to fear that effects somewhat analogous to these have been produced, and a species of mental idolatry practiced by thousands, owing to their inattention to the grand visible operations of Jehovah, and to their not connecting them with the displays of his character and agency as exhibited in the revelations of his word. II.-Requirements in the Second Precept. 525. (1.) This precept requires us to entertain worthy ideas of God, as a spiritual Being, of whom no representation should be formed, either with the hand or by the imagination, and to honor him with spiritual worship, the worship of the understanding and affections. (2.) In particular, it requires us to adhere to his own 228 SANCTION OF THE SECOND PRECEPT. institutions, in opposition to all human devices; to receive them with due submission to his authority; to observe them with outward reverence, and inward sentiments of devotion; to maintain them in their purity and integrity, exactly as he has delivered them to us, neither adding to them, nor taking from them. 526. The ordinances of religion are, prayer, and praise, the preaching of Scripture truths, and the celebration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper: to these may be added, church government, the exercise of discipline, and other particulars which it is not necessary here to mention. It is evident that while the prescribed forms of worship are to be punctually observed, the precept calls for those dispositions and exercises of mind of which they are significant, and which only can give them value, and render them acceptable to the omniscient God, who looks not upon the countenance, but upon the heart. III.-Particular Sanction of this Precept. 527. "For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” 528. The considerations enforcing obedience to the precept, as here set forth, are, chiefly, a threatening of evil upon themselves and upon their posterity if they disobeyed it; and a promise of liberal reward to those who should obey it. There is some difficulty in coming to an exact conception of the import of the punishment here threatened; and writers have differed much in their explanation of it. It is to be observed, that no other sin but idolatry is threatened in this particular manner; that the Jews were placed under a peculiar form of government, of which Jehovah was the civil as well as religious magistrate and king: that idolatry under that government, beside its moral enormity, was the highest civil offense, similar to high treason under other governments, and utterly subversive of the government unless restrained by suitable rewards and punishments; that idolatry is an offense peculiarly contagious as well as demoralizing, as SANCTION OF THE SECOND PRECEPT. 229 the history of nations fully shows; that it was proper for the King of Israel to make a strong appeal not only to personal interest, but to parental partialities in order to check so enormous an evil, by informing the Jews that not themselves only, but their descendants to the third and fourth generations, should feel the effects of divine displeasure, upon their perpetration of idolatry. We have abundant proof, not only in the history of the Jews, but of other nations, that it is a principle of the divine administration so to order events in this life that effects of sin are not confined to the original perpetrator, but extend to his children, and to others connected with him; and this probably is one of the most powerful means of discipline; furnishing, as it does, the strongest imaginable motive to every man of common sensibility and benevolence, to pursue an upright and correct course of action, since not himself only, but others are to be materially affected by his line of conduct. It is supposed that the hereditary evils of idolatry are restricted to the third or fourth generation, because some transgressors might live to see the punishment inflicted to that extent, and we are more affected by what we see than by remote evils. The limits of the promise of reward to the obedient are not so restricted; they extend to the thousandth. The good conduct of Abraham, the pious ancestor of the Jews, was followed, in successive ages, by great blessings conferred, for his sake, upon his descendants. On the whole, the sanction implies that not only personal, but domestic evils, for several generations, would be experienced, should the Jews fall into idolatry; while great blessings, personal, domestic, and national, would be conferred upon those who continued to worship the true God, in a spiritual and affectionate manner ; not by the use of visible representations, which are an insult to the infinite one, a debasement of his character and worship, and a certain introducer of the crime of idolatry and of all its bad effects. The history of the Jews, in subsequent periods, verifies the correctness of this exposition. [Professor Dick's Lectures; Archbishop Secker's Works; Dick's Philosophy of Religion.] 514. How is the second distinguished from the first precept? 515. What is to be understood by the terms "graven image," and "likeness," here employed? |