The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 243

of oaks, planted on the summit of the hills. In these G?roves there was usually placed a shrine with an image of their deity, just as wo sec, when travelling on the continent ~hrines of the blessed Virgin, or shrines with a crucifix, by the roadside and on th~ hill-tops. The custom of having groves of oaks for religious purposes was shared by the e;arly inhabitants of Britain, and the Druids derived their name from this very practice. In these groves the heathen priests sacrificed and burnt incense to their gods, It was to such groves that the name of "high places" was given, When the Israeli tea were about to enter Canaan, God foresaw the temptation to which they would be exposed from the idolatry of the heathen inhabitants and of the neighbouring nations, Re therefore charged them not only to drive out the heathen nations from Canaan, but also to utterly destroy their high places, to overthrow their altars, and break their graven images, and burn their groves with fire (Deut. xii. 2, 3). This command was repeated over and over agnin. But, notwithstanding this, the high places were never utterly abolished. Time after time during the period of the judges, the people set up a worship in the high places, which, though nominally that of Jehovah, was tinged with idolatrous practices. It was much the same under the kings. Now and then some courageous, God-fearing, whole-hearted king made a clean sweep of the hiah 0 places. But the old habit was continually revived, and so in one reign after anoth er we read the poli,cy of compromise, " The high places were not taken away." .And whe'TI.• ever that was the case, we find it had evil results. It was so in the time of Solomon himself. It was so in the time of the two kings who succeeded him over the divided kingdom-Rehoboam and Jeroboam. It was so in the case of Amaziah now before us. I. AMAZUB's COMPROMISE PREPARED TBE WAY FOB POSITIVE SIN. The high places in themselves were not necessarily places of _idolatry. There is no doubt that sincere worship to the true God was often offered up in them. Thus we fincl Solomon sacri• ficing to the Lord in Gibeon, which was the great high place. But the associations of these places were entirely idolatrous. From time immemorial they had been associated with the worship of the heathen gods. It was for this reason that God forbade the use of them. It was necessary to make the wall of separation between his people and the heathen as wide as possible-to teach them that they could not serve God and Haal, that there could be no compromise between right and wrong without danger to the right. The results showed the wisdom and necessity of God's strict command. The natural tendency of the human heart is to worship what is seen, to look at the outward symbol rather than at the thing signified, This was just what happened in Amaziah's case. He did not see that there was any harm in preserving the high places. Might not God be worshipped there as well as in Jerusalem? And so he made the com• promise: "The high places were not taken away." Bue look ae the result. "Now it came to pass, after that .Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them" (2 Chron. xxv. 14). What a falling off was there! This is that Amaziah who began his career by doing right in the sia-ht 0 of the Lord, now stupidly bowing down before the lifeless idols of the heathen ! He conquered the heathen in one sense, but the heathen conquered him in another and more dangerous sense. Has it not been the same in the history of the Christian Church? The early Christian Church was simple in its worship and its government; its members were simple in their habits and pure in their lives. But when it became power(ul at Rome, and in a sense captured pagan Rome, its very power was its danger. There was a sense in which the paganism of ~ome captured ~he ~implicity of the gospel. As Mourant Brock haa so fully shown lil that mterestrng buok of his on 'Rome: Pagan and Papal,' and as Gibbon and other historians have pointed out, Christianity, i~ Home at least, made a compromis_e ":Vith p~g~nism, A~<; the compromise was anything but an advantage to the Christian rclig1on. The 11! effects of it remain to this day in the images and pilgrimages, and the many other superstitions which deface the Roman branch of the Christian Church. Such facts of history carry with them a memorable lesson. The Christian Church ought ever to keep in mind the spiritual objects for which it exists. It ought, therefore, to guard most scrupulously the spirituality and scripturality_ of i~s. wor- ship. "God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spmt and in truth," It ought to guard 11,lso the spiri':ue,lity and scripturality of its doctrine, ,JH. XIV, 1-29.] THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. 289