H~n when it ie only between man and man (Gal. iii. 15); but a covenant between man and God-how can anything be more holy ? Must not the infraction of such a covenant entail fearful consequences? ill, THAT IT IS A FURTHER GREAT AOORAVATION OF THE GUILT 011' BIN TO COMMIT. IT AGAINST FREQUENT WARNINGS. "Yet the l ,ord testified against Israel, and agamst Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the see1 'S, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways" (ver. 13), Comp. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, 16, "And the Lord God of their fathers ~ent to t~em by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling-place: but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy." The sin of Israel would have been far less, would not perhaps have been quit.e "without remedy," had they not for so long a time turned a deaf ear to the warnings and exhortations of the prophets, refusing to "hear the voioe of the charmers, r harmed they never so wisely," and persisting in their disobedience, their wickedness, their greed, their cruelty, their besotted idolatry despite the scathing denunciations, the tender pleadings, the wise counsels, almost unin~ terruptedly addressed to them. "Stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears" (Acts vii. 51), they "resisted the Holy Ghost; "and their doom had to be :eronounced. Congregations in this country and at the present day may be reminded (1) that Eng- land is not without her national sins; (2) that the sins of Christians are, all of them, infractions of the covenant made in baptism between themselves and God; and (3) that the sins of Christians are committed against the constant warnings of God's appointed ministers, who stand to them as the prophets stood to the Israelites. Vers. 24---41.-The absurdity and tJ,Selessness of a mixed religion. Syncretism has been at all times a form which religion is apt to assume in mixed communities. 'l'heoretically, religions are antithetic, exclusive, mutually repulsive. Practically, where they coexist, they tend to give and take, to approximate one to the other, to drop differences, to blend together into an apparent, if not a real, union, Christianity had at first those who would sit in an idol-temple, and partake of idol-sacrifices (1 Cor. viii. 10). Judaism under the Seleucidre, but for the rude impatience of Actiochus Epiphanes, was on the point of making terms with Hellenism. In Sama1ia, after the events related in vcrs. 24--28, a mixed religion-a " mingle-mangle," to use Refor- mation language-took its place as the religion of the mixed people. " '!.:hey feared the Lord, and served their own gods." Jehovah was everywhere acknowledged, honoured, worshipped with sacrifice. But at the same time, heathen gods-partial, local, half-material, sacred, but not holy-were objects of a far more real and inteuse worship. Such a religion is (1) absurd, (2) useless. I. SYNCBETIBM IS ABSIJBD, since it is self-contradictory. "What concord has Christ with Belia!?" (2 Cor. vi. 15). Rt-ligione which are really different have contradictory first principles; and agreement can only be effected by a dropping, on one side or the other, or both, of what is vital and essential In the particular case before us, absolute monothei,m was the very core and essence of the Jehovah-worship; actual polytheism was the root and groundwork of the other. 'fhe two were logically inconsistent, incom- patible. Practically, the contradiction may not always have been perceived, for man, though a rational, is not a logical animal; but the general result, no doubt, was that the monotheistic idea had to give way : Jehovah, the one only God of the whole earth, had to sink into a "god of the land," and to receive an occasional and grudging acknow- ledgment from those whose hearts were with their own gods, Nergal and Ashima and Adrammelecb. But, in this case, the worship of Jehovah was superfluous. God does not thank men for dragging him into a pantheon, and setting him side by side with beings who are no gods, but the fantastic inventions of imaginations depraved and corrupted by sin. II. SYNCBETIB.M 1s USELESS, Contrary systems of religion will not amalgamate, let men do what they may. Either each neutralizes the other, and the resultie no religion at all; or one gets the upper hand, and the other element might ae well be absent. There is no serving "God and mammon," "Christ and Belia!." The mind cannot really, at one and the same time, accept contradictoriee. 'l'he lips may do eo, but religion is an affair of the heart. Syncretism is an apparent, not a real union. Thco1·ie& OU. :I.VII, 1-41.] THE SECOND BOOK OF '£HE KINGS. 343
mutually destructive cannot coalesce. Thus, practically, syncretlsm is uselesL It is either a mere nominal union or a mode of eliminating religion from human life. In the cnso before us it seems to have left the Samaritans just as much polytheists, just as much idolaters, as it found them. Zerubbabel did well to allow them no part in the building of the second temple, and to give them the curt answer, "Ye have nothing to do with us to build a house unto our God" (Ezra iv. 3). Had he done otherwise, he would have merged Judaism in a. polytheistic a.nd idolatrous pseudo-religion.