should mention it was precluded from all exercise of mercy, and was constrained to proceed against him according to this law ? Thus then provision was made to prevent the possibility, as it should seem, of the nation ever yielding to idolatry, or pro- voking God to abandon them according to the threatenings which he had denounced against them. We are informed in the text that the very execution of this law was designed to produce this salutary effect a ; and therefore much more must the enact- ment of it be an expression of love and mercy to the whole nation.]
This law indeed was only temporary : it was to continue in force only during the continuance of the Jewish polity : but it is nevertheless most instructive to us,
II. As a lasting admonition —
To the very end of time it will speak loudly to us ; it declares to us, in the strongest terms,
1. The evil of departing from God — [The annexing of the penalty of death, and of so cruel a death as that of stoning, is of itself no slight intimation of the evil of idolatry : but the requiring a man to execute this sen- tence against the wife of his bosom, or the friend that is as his own soul ; the requiring him to do it even on account of a mere proposal, though the proposal was never carried into effect ; the not suffering him to overlook or conceal the matter, but constraining him instantly to enforce the law without pity; how was it possible for God himself to mark the evil of this sin in blacker colours, or to shew his abhorrence of it in a stronger manner, than by such an enactment as this? The command to destroy a whole city for idolatry was scarcely a more awful demonstration of his anger than this13.
But it may be said, " This was idolatry, a sin to which we have no temptation." It was idolatry : but permit me to ask, wherein the great evil of idolatry consists ? Is it not in alien- ating our affections from God, and placing them on some creature ? Is it not justly described by the Apostle as " loving and serving the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for evermore ?" Is it not in this very view of the subject that covetousness is called idolatry, and that men are said to make " a god of their belly ? " Is it not in this view that St. John says to all the Christian Church, " Little children, keep yourselves from idols ? " What then does it signify, that we are not bowing down to stocks and stones, if there be idols enthroned hi our hearts ? God is equally provoked to jealousy,
a ver. 11. b ver. 12 — 18.