Use \. Well, then, it showeth us: —
1. What care we should take to be right in worship, both for the object and manner. It is idolatry not only to worship false gods in the place of the true God, but to worship the true God in a false manner, and both sorts do gratify the devil. When he cannot hold the people under utter blindness and paganism, he is glad if he can draw them to undue rites and ceremonies in worship ; therefore let us hate the least kind of idolatry, if we would not prog for the devil's kingdom. David saith, Ps. xvi. 4, ' I will not take their name into my lips ; ' that he would abhor the very mention of idols. So Hosea ii. 16, God would no more be called Baal, though it signified Lord and husband, because the title had been applied to idols. The Israelites, when they took cities, they changed their names if they had any tincture of idolatry : Num. xxxii. 38, ' Nebo and Baalmeon, their names being changed ; ' so exact should we be in keeping from idols.
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2. Let ns beware of idolatry. Satan lovetli it, and that is motive enough. We shoukl hate as Christ liateth, and love as he loveth, Eev. ii. 6 ; and on the contrary, love what Satan hateth, and hate what he loveth. Naturally we are wondrous prone to this sin, and there- fore idolatry is reckoned as a ' work of the flesh,' Gal. v. 20. Man naturally hath a corrupt and working fancy and imagination, which, depending upon sense, formeth fleshly conceptions and notions of God ; and therefore are we so prone to err in this worship. It is not needful, I hope, to speak to you of paganish and popish idolatry ; let me only now dissuade you : —
First, From making the true God an idol in your thoughts, by forming apprehensions unworthy of the glory of his essence : Ps. 1. 21, ' Thou thoughtest that I was altogether like thyself.' Now, thus we do when we conceive him of such a mercy as to hold fellowship with one that continueth under the full power of his sins, so weak as not to be able to help in deep extremities, Zech. viii. 6, of a rigorous and revengeful disposition, as not to pardon injuries and offences upon submission and repentance, Hosea xi. 8, of a fickle nature, so as to fail in his promises, Num. xxiii. 19, Thus it is easy to turn the true God into an idol of our own brains. To remedy this, consider God in his works and in Christ, In his works : Cyril, I remember, ob- serveth, that before the flood we read of no idolatry. Aquinas addeth a reason to the observation, because the memory of the creation was then fresh in their thoughts. Again, look upon God in Christ : you heard before, in Lev. xvii., if they did not bring their sacrifice to the tabernacle, it was called a sacrifice of devils. The tabernacle was a type of Christ. You make God an idol when you worship him out of Christ, for the Father will be honoured in the Son, John v. There- fore, whenever you go to God, take Christ along with you.
Secondly, From setting up any idol against God in your affections. When you set up anything above God in your esteem, especially in your trust, that is an idol. Covetousness is twice called idolatry. Col. iii. 5, Eph. v. 5, because it doth withdraw our affections from God ; yea, our care, our esteem, our trust, which is the chiefest homage and respect which God expecteth from the creature. I mention these things because I would speak somewhat to practice, and because Satan is gratified with spiritual idolatry, as well as with that which is gross and bodily.
Ohs. 6. From that clause, aboiit the hody of Moses, once more observe, that of all kinds of idolatry, the devil abuseth the world most with idolatrous respects to the bodies and relics of dead saints. If you ask why, I answer — Partly because this kind of idolatry is most likely to take, as being the most plausible and suitable to that reverent esteem which we have of those that are departed in the Lord ; and so our religious affections become a snare to us : partly because when men become objects of worship and adoration, the Godhead is made more contemptible, and men's conceits of a divine power run at a lower rate every day : partly because this malicious fiend hopeth this way to beat the Lord with his own weapon, when the bodies and relics of those saints who, by the famousness of their examples, were likely to draw many to God, do as much, or more, withdraw men from
254 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [VeR. 9.
him, and superstition dotli as much hurt as their example did good : partly because the devil, by long experience, hath found this to be a successful way in the world. Lactantius proveth it, that the idolising of famous men was the rise of all idolatry ; and Tertullian, in the end of his Apology, observeth the same, that heathen idolatry came in this way: sab nominihus et imaginihus mortuonim — by a reverence to the images of dead men whose memory was precious amongst them. Ninus, or Nimrod, the first idolater, set up his own dead father, Belus ; whence came the names of Baal and Bel for an idol. The ierapliim, stolen by Eachel, Gen. xxxi. 35, were the images of their ancestors, whom Laban worshipped. So in the primitive times, before any other idolatry was brought into the church, they began with the tombs and shrines of the martyrs.