gines of America. The further men have departed from the teachings oi divine revelation, however made, and the more they have relied on their own understanding, tne more deplorably besotted and foolish have they become. And it matters little under what external circumstances this departure is made, the result is always the same. In the midst of all the light of modern science, and of the reflection from the word of God which illuminates the whole atmosphere, the modern materialists of France, and pantheistical idealists of Germany, while professing them- selves to be wise, have become fools, as conspicuously and as fully as any of the ancient deniers of the only living and true God ; and for the very same reason : ' they do not like to retain God in their knowledge.'
(23) And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man, &c. Herein consisted their amazing folly, that they should worship the lowest of his creatures instead of the glorious Creator. The glory of the incorruptible God is equivalent to the glorious in corruptible God. The phrase rendered change the glory into, &c. may more correctly be rendered exchanged the glory for, he. ' They exchange the glorious God for senseless idols.' Compare Ps. 106 : 20, which may be translated, 'they exchanged their glory for the similitude of an ox that eateth grass;' Jer. 2 : 11, " my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit;" Hosea 4 : 7. Greater folly than this exchange of the living and glorious God for the mere image of birds, beasts, and reptiles, the world has never seen. That the heathen really worshipped such objects is well known. Philo says that the whole land of Egypt was covered with temples and groves, dedicated to dogs, wolves, lions, land and water animals, crocodiles, birds, &c. "With regard to the vast majority of the people, the homage terminated on the animal or the idol ; and the case was but little better with the pantheistical refiners and defenders of this system, who professed to worship the great and univer- sal divine principle, in these particular manifestations. Why should the higher manifestation of God in the human soul, do homage to the lower development of the universal principle in a reptile ? We never find the sacred writers making any account of this common subterfuge and apo- logy for idolatry. All who bowed down before a stock or stone, they denounced as worshipping gods which their own hands had made, which had eyes but saw not, ears but heard not, and hands that could not save.
The universal idolatry of the heathen world, committed under a degree of light which rendered it inexcusable, is the evidence which Paul adduces to prove that they are "ungodly," and consequently exposed to the wrath of God. In the passage which follows, from v. 24 to the end of the chapter, he designs to show that the Gentiles are not only ungodly but unrighteous. He traces their immorality to their impiety.
(24) Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, &c. They having abandoned God, he abandoned them. He not only permitted them to take their course, but he judicially, that is, as a punishment, withdrew and withheld the restraints of his pro-