God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repents him of the evil" (Jonah iv. 2; Acts xvii. 27, 30). VII. PERSISTING IN THEIR ATTACHMENT TO IDOLS. We know not all the beneficial effect of the presence of the ark among them, in restraining them from evil and inciting them to good; but we know that-1. They did not renounce their idolatry. 2. They did not cease from their oppression of Israel. And, 3. Were not permanently deterred from making fresh attacks upon them ( eh. vii. 7), and by their oppositior. lo the God of Israel "bringing upon themselves swift destruction. "-D. Ver. 3. (AsHDOD.)-The overthrow of idolatry. "Behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord." Idolatry still prevails over by far the larger portion of the earth. It is an ancient, persistent, and enormous evil. Anrl we, like Israel of old, are called to be witnesses to the heathen of the living and true .God; not, indeed, by keeping outwardly separate from them, nor for that purpose, and the preservation of the truth intrusted to us, by contending against them with the sword ; but by going into all the world, and preaching the gospel to every creature . .Our only weapons are those of truth, righteousness, and love. " Nor do we need Beside the gospel other sword or shield To aid us in the warfare for the faith." -(Dante.) When the ark was defended with carnal weapons, it was carried away by the heathen, and placed in the temple of Dagon; but he whom the sacred symbol repr~- .aented smote the idol to the ground (vers. 1-5). "Wherever he comes with th~ .ark and the testimony, there he smites the idols to the ground. Idolatry must f.Lll where the gospel finds a place." Concerning idolatry, notice- I. THE NATURE OF THE EVIL. 1. False and unworthy conceptions of Goel. Ti,,, instinct of worship was possessed by the Philistines; but their worship was rendere I to a monstrous image, which was wholly destitute of, and opposed to, the perfection, of the true God. It is the same with other idolatrous nations. Of the innumerab'.e gods of India it has been said, "What a lie against his supreme majesty I Their number is a lie against his unity; their corporeal- nature is a lie against his pure, invisible spirituality; their confined and local residence a lie against his omnipresence and immensity; their limited and subdivided departments of operation a lie against his universal proprietorship and dominion; their follies and weaknesses a lie ngainst his infinite wisdom ; tneir defects, vices, and crimes a lie against his unsullied purity and perfection." "Having no hope, and without God in the world" (Ephes. ii. 12). 2. Great corruption of life and manners ; gross sensuality, incessant strife, oppres- sion, cruelty, &c. (Ps. lxxiv. 20). "The land is defiled, and vomiteth out her inhabitants " (Lev it. :xviii. 25 ). 3. A downward tendlmC'IJ towards still greater darkness, corruption, and misery. "The true evil of idolatry is this. There is one sole idea of God which corresponds adequately to his whole nature. Of this idea two things may be affirmed, the first being that it is the root of all absolute grandeur, of all truth, and all moral perfectionR ; the second, that, natural and easy as it seems when once unfolded, it could only have been unfolded by re,elation ; and to all eternity he that started with a false conception of God could not through any effort of his own have exchanged it for the true one. All idolatries alike, though not all in equal degrees, by intercepting the idea of God through the prism of some repre- sentative creature that partially resembles God, refract, and splinter, and distort that idea. And all experience shows that the tendency of man, left to his own imaginations, is downwards. Many things check and disturb this tendency for a time; but finally, and under that intense civilisation to which man intellectually is always hurrying, under the eternal evolution of physical knowledge, such a degrada- tion of God's idea, ruinous to the moral capacities of man, would undoubtedly perfect itself, were it not for the kindling of a purer standard by revelation. Idolatry, therefore, is not an evil, and one utterly beyond the power of social institutions to redress· but, in fact, it is the fountain of all other evil that seriously menace, the :ilestiny' of the human race" (De Quincey, 'Leaders in Lit.,' p. 308). II. TnE MEANS OF ITS OVERTHROW. 1. Ths proclamation of Divine truth, ol 110 THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. [cH. V, 1-12,
'''.l_iirh the ark may be accounted a symbol; the revelat.ion of the righteous and mer- "dnl purposes of God toward men in his Son Jesus Christ. 2. The operations of Di1•in~ providence, hy whio_h heathen lands are rendered accessible, and their inhabit- ants disposed to pay attent10n to the truth; not only those which are afflictive but als? those which are benign (ver. 6). 3. T!1e influen~es of_ the .Divine Spirit, by "·lnch false systems are shaken as by a "nughty rushmg wmd," and consumed as with fire, and lost,,souls ar~ enlightened, puri~ed,_ and savef "By my Spirit, saith : lie Lord of hosts (Zech. 1v. 6). He works m silence and secrecy; but the effects ,,f his working become manifest to all. The light of the morning reveals them. III. THE CERTAINTY OF ITS DOOM; from-1. The adaptation of the means. 2. The woi:k which has been_ already accomr,lished, and wh_ic~ is an earnest of and preparation fo_~ "greater thmgs than t(~ese. ' 3. The predictions of the word (Num. :i.c!Y. 21; Isa. 11. 18; Jer. x. 11; Mai. 11. 11). Conclu~ion :-1. Pity the heathen "in the compassion of Jesus Christ." 2. '11 Go ye." "GiYe ye." "Pray ye." 3. Do all in faith and hope.-D.