It certainly seems strange that, at this period of their national history, the Israelites should be chargeable with the folly and sin of idolatry. The admonitions against this offence had been so numerous, and the chastisements following its commission had been so severe, that the reader of Old Testament history is surprised to find that at so late a period the temptation had not been outgrown.

I. THE MULTITUDE AND VARIETY OF THE IDOLATRIES OF ISRAEL. The chosen people were exposed to corruption from neighbouring peoples - from the Phoenicians upon the north, the Syrians and Chaldeans upon the east, and the Egyptians upon the south. Each of these idolatries had its own characteristics, and in some way sprang from, and ministered to, the evil passions of human nature. It would almost seem as if the kings, the great men of the land, and the common people generally, chose such idols as harmonized with their own tastes or suited their own convenience. At all events, the prophet speaks of idols, in the plural, of the multitude of the idols, and of every idolater's own special and peculiar divinities.

II. THE SEAT OF THESE IDOLATRIES. The people are said to have set them up "in their heart." Hills, valleys, groves, high places, and altars and temples, were indeed consecrated, or rather desecrated, by idol worship. But all this was external. There was something much worse; the idols were set up in the inner nature of the worshippers, and there were honoured and served. That is to say, the belief in the government of a righteous and holy God having been abandoned, many of the Israelites exalted the vices and crimes which the deities of the heathen embodied, sanctioned, and encouraged, and came in their hearts to love the evils against which, as a nation, they were called to witness.

III. THE ESTRANGEMENT FROM GOD WHICH IDOLATRY PRODUCED. In setting up the idols in their hearts the people had been patting "a stumbling block of iniquity" before their face. The idols came between them and their God. The house of Israel, Jehovah exclaims, "are all estranged from me through their idols." There can be no rivalry between the false gods and the true. The choice has ever to be made. To exalt an idol, a passion, a taste, a habit, an association, to a position above that occupied by the supreme Lord of all, is to dethrone him from his rightful place, to forfeit his regard, to ensure his displeasure.

IV. THE INDIGNANT RESPONSE OF GOD TO THE DISHONOUR DONE TO HIM. It was presumed that, with wicked inconsistency, some of the Israelites who had been seduced into idolatrous practices would nevertheless in some time of perplexity or affliction resort to the prophets of Jehovah to seek counsel, guidance, and comfort. In such circumstances, how would their conduct be regarded by the Lord? The word of the Lord to the prophet should be attentively considered, "Should I be inquired of at all by them?...I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols." We are not to believe that any sincere, lowly, penitent, and believing suppliant would be rejected. But those who in their hearts cherished the idolatry which was their shame, and yet for some selfish purposes had the effrontery to approach the Lord for counsel and for help, were assured that their application should meet with no favorable response. They were double-hearted and insincere; and for such there is no blessing, and indeed no tolerance.

APPLICATION. It is the same today. If with all your hearts ye truly seek him, the request shall not be offered in vain. But it is useless to draw near to God with the lips while the heart is far from him. - T.

Depend upon it, we have need, and as the years roll away we shall have more and more need, to remind ourselves of the unseen Hand which sends us our blessings or withdraws them from us. New appliances of mechanical skill have a tendency to keep God out of our sight. The simple machinery which depended on the wind or the stream for motion did not suffer men so easily to forget their immediate dependence on God. His agency is half obscured when they become independent of the breath of heaven, and of the moisture which cometh down from above. And so there is a constant danger of our lapsing into practical atheism, if we allow ourselves, in the mere contemplation of a natural law apart from its Divine Author; or attend to its results, without adverting to the revealed cause of its operation. It is no disparagement to natural science to declare that, pursued in any but a godly spirit, it sometimes has a tendency to obscure the vision of God: to interpose hard names and technical phrases between Him and ourselves; and practically to keep Him out of our sight. Nay, the very progress of civilisation, the increase of wealth and refinement and luxury — all have the same tendency. The table daily spread without our care helps to keep God out of sight. And the special value of Scripture is seen in the unconditional and most unceremonious way in which it brushes aside this web of words; puts God, the Giver, prominently forward; and vindicates His absolute Sovereignty in creation. When Christ says, "He maketh His sun to rise," — His language is altogether unscientific, to be sure; but He declares a truth which to the devout soul is of paramount importance; namely, that the heavenly bodies are all His creatures; and that, in reality, the phenomena which attend them are but the visible expression of His will. While thoughtful men are investigating the natural history of a calamity which, unless it be stayed, will inevitably press with terrible severity on the poor; — which, if it spreads, may bring contagion to all our doors, — occasion death within our homes and darken every domestic hearth; — "a more excellent way" is revealed to us in Holy Scripture; a method which is within the reach of us all. I allude, of course, to individual acts of repentance, — personal efforts after holiness, — the heartfelt use of private prayer. The special mention of three of God's chiefest saints "Noah, Daniel, and Job," reminds us that we must as individuals seek to turn away God's anger from this Church and nation. What, above all, shall be said of our unconcern for the spiritual wants of the benighted heathen, — of our own countrymen in foreign parts, of our fellow citizens here at home?

(Dean Burgon.)