2. Our choice is between the God of this world and Him who is called "the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Why should we choose the latter ?
(1) He is one. — Suppose that we worshipped a plurality of gods, as the heathen nations do and ever have done ; then we have at once a divided duty : one man chooses this god as his patron and makes his vows and prayers to him, and another man chooses that god, according to the fancy or caprice of the worshipper. In the midst of a multitude of gods, as here supposed, a person would be situated almost as he is amongst his fellow-men; he owes a duty to this man, and a duty to that ; there is every kind and degree of human duty, there is that of son to father and father to son, of husband to wife and wife to husband, of servant to master and master to servant; and besides all such definite duties, there is the universal duty of love and benevolence, which binds each member of the human family to all the rest ; but there is no one person amongst men, of whom we can assert that we owe to him a duty or allegiance paramount to all other cousidera- * Hugh Macmillan, George Frederick Watts, 194,
I KINGS XVIII. 21 419
tions. God is but one, and because He is one, duty to Him is different from all other duties ; and in reminding the Israelites of their duty towards God, Moses took in reality the deepest and most philosophical ground when he used these words, "Hear, O Israel : the Lord our God is one Lord : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."
^ The Sin of all Sins, or the Heresy of all Heresies, is a Worldly Spirit. We are apt to consider this Temper only as an Infirmity, or pardonable Failure; but it is indeed the great Apostasy from God and the Divine Life. It is not a Single Sin, but the whole Nature of all Sin. Every Sin, be it of what kind it will, is only a Branch of the worldly Spirit that lives in us. " There is but one that is good," saith our Lord, " and that is God." In the same Strictness of Expression it must be said, that there is but one Life that is good, and that is the Life of God and Heaven. Depart in the least Degree from the Goodness of God, and you depart into Evil ; because nothing is good but His goodness.^
(2) He is a support in time of t7vuble.—'Wha,t do we expect in a God ? We expect that our God should be one who, in conse- quence of the relation of amity established between ourselves and Him, will be ready to stand up for us, to take hold of our hand, and lead us along the way of life, to support us in our trouble, animate us with hope in the dark passages of our experience, give us courage when fees are pressing on our heart, and comfort when the scalding tear is trickling down the cheek ! Is not that what we would expect of a God ? Do we not naturally look for something of this kind in a God? Can we believe in a God who is of no practical use, or help — who has no real sympathy with those who worship Him ?
He doth give His joy to all: He becomes an infant small, He becomes a man of woe, He doth feel the sorrow too.
Think not thou canst sigh a sigh, And thy Maker is not by : Think not thou canst weep a tear. And thy Maker is not near. ^ William Law.
420 HALTING BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS
Oh, He gives to us His joy, That our grief He may destroy: Till our grief is fled and gone He doth sit by us and moan.^
(3) He is an wplift to moral character. — Again, what do we expect in a God? We expect that all the intercourse that we have with Him shall have a tendency to elevate our moral character. We expect that the more we know of Him, the more we shall become like His own glorious nature. We expect that there will be roused within us such an enthusiasm towards Him, that, drawn on as by an irresistible attraction, and following wherever He leads, enduring any hardship He may appoint, we shall wake up in His likeness, and gain that glorious ideal of moral perfectness, after which He has Himself bidden us to aspire. Is not that what we expect in a God ? Can we expect less?
^ Baal or Jehovah — it is often the choice between purity and sensuality. It was the sensual pollutions of Baal that awoke the most terrible denunciations of the Hebrew prophets, and sensuality is one of the first results of a life which has lost righteousness of thought. Do not mistake me. I do not say that impurity is the certain or inevitable result of loss of faith; but I do say that the man who loses righteousness of thought at least challenges the demon of sensuality to enter in and possess him. Shall I draw a modern sketch of what this aspect of Baalism means ? It is a task I would thankfully evade, but it is a duty from which the minister of Christ dare not be recreant. It is a story with which every student of modern life is only too familiar, and it is written on a thousand broken hearts and miserable lives. Here is a youth reared in the ordered quiet of some country home, familiar with its domestic sanctities, its household affections and pieties. At length he leaves the home where the fragrance of prayer and love has sweetened daily life, and enters the great city ; and then the spell of Baal begins to fall on him. He hears in the office, the warehouse, stories at which he blushes, but which he will soon learn eagerly to devour without blushing. The moral sensitiveness becomes deadened, and the influence of comradeship begins to tell. Through the ear-gate the enemy enters in, and soon the citadel is captured. One by one his small habitual pieties disappear ; the Testament his mother gave him lies unused ; the habit of prayer is dropped, for perhaps he shares a room with one who does not