Acts xii. 21 — 23. And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat rtpon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory : and he was eaten of ivorms, and gave up the ghost.
IN almost all the instances of judicial punishment recorded in Scripture, we see a remarkable corres- pondence between the punishment, and the sin on account of which it was inflicted : and it seems to be especially designed of God, in order that he might be the more manifestly " known in the judgments which he executeth." In the passage before us, we are informed, that Herod was greatly offended with the people of Tyre and Sidon ; but, at the intercession of his own chamberlain, he forgave them. On this occasion he delivered to them an oration, probably in part at least on the subject of his own clemency : and they, struck with the splendour of his appearance, and perhaps with the force of his eloquence, or, more probably, desiring to conciliate him by flattery, ex- claimed, that the voice which they heard, was the voice of a god, rather than a man. With these plaudits Herod was highly gratified: and instantly God, by the instrumentality of an angel, smote him with a disease in his bowels, so acute and terrible, that, as the Jewish historian informs us, he was con- strained to acknowledge before that very assembly, that God had punished him for not rejecting with abhorrence their impious acclamations, and that they would soon see an end of their god. — Accordingly, the worms that were thus formed in his body, preyed upon his vitals, and devoured him in the space of about five days : so that his degradation was as manifest as his pride had been presumptuous.
We propose to consider more fully, I. His sin —
1774.1 THE EVIL 0F pride. 407
Whether the excellence of his oration was real or imaginary, his crime was the same ; " He gave not God the glory of it." Now this is, in truth, as com- mon a sin as any that can be named : for where is there a person possessed of either natural endow- ments, or acquired distinctions, who does not pride himself in them, instead of giving the glory of them to the Lord ? The female thinks but little of God, when her beauty is admired ; or the man, when he is celebrated for his strength and valour. The man of learning, or of skill in arts, or who has advanced himself by successful industry to great opulence, readily accepts the adulation paid to his talents and success ; little thinking that it is " God alone who has made him to differ" from others, or " given him the power to get wealth." Perhaps the generality will allow this to be an infirmity incident to our nature ; but few, if any, conceive of it as an heinous sin; whereas it is, in reality, a sin of awful magnitude. It is,
1. A denial of God's goodness —
[God is " the Author of every good and perfect gift," in creation, in providence, and in grace. Whatever we possess, we must say with the Apostle, " He that hath wrought us for this self-same thing, is Goda." If any person have a right to ascribe glory to himself, methinks it is the conqueror, whose valour overcomes his enemy : but God in a particular manner charged his people, when they should be brought into the quiet possession of the land of Canaan, not to imagine that " their power, or the might of their hand, had gotten them that wealth," but to acknowledge it all as given them by their Godb. When therefore we withhold these acknowledgments, we do, in fact, deny that they are due to God, and impiously assume to ourselves the honour that is due to him alone. In a word, we tread in the very steps of Herod, and commit the sin which brought on him such tokens of God's displeasure.]