sin is greater in guilt. 2. The soonel' we repent the easier it is to 1·eturn. Siu hardens as it becomes more aggravated in evil. While the light of God is waning, the way of recovery is becoming more obscure. "To-day is thf accepted time." 3. It is possible for the greatest abomination to be forgiven. 'fhe obstacle is only on one side. Christ can s·>,;0 t h0 w0rst of sinners. Yl'r. 16.-.Swn-wo,·ship. When Ezekiel, in his visionary visit to the temple, came upon the last scene of horror, and beheld the greatest of all the abominations therein committed, be saw twenty-five men performing rites of worship before the rising sun. I. SUN-WORSHIP rs MOST FASCINATING. This wa.s the most common, and perhaps , also the most primitive, heathen cult. It was very prominent in the ancient Egyptian religion-the rising, the midday, and the setting sun being honoured with separate names and rites ; it was the essential idea of the Canaanite Ba.al-worship, as well as of the Babylonian religion; and it lies at the heart of the Aryan mythology in Sauscrit, Greek, and Teutonic forms. If any material object should be selected for worship, it is natural that the earth's great source of light, power, and life should be ihe universal favourite. Our modern idolatries do not reach this material form, but they contain the same ideas. 1. The worship of light. This takes two forms. (1) .2Estheticism. Grace of form and tone are set up as supreme objects of admiration, to the neglect of moral goodness. (2) Science. This is put on a pinnacle as lord of all thought and life. Now, knowledge is good, and all truth, which is the subject of science, is in itself pure, and should be pursued by men. But the exclusive cult of science is idolatry, because it is placing knowledge above obedience. 2. The worship of power. The sun is the great motive power of the universe. Latent sun-heat in coal drives our steam-engines. Direct Eun-heat lifts the water from the sea, that afterwards descends in avalanches and moun- tain torrents. We do not prostrate ourselves before the sun, the source of all this force, but we do magnify the virtue of the power itself. Yet material resources are not the highest good. 3. The worship of life. The sun is the great fertilizing influence of nature. The return of its warm rays awakens nature from the death of winter, and creates the new life of spring; its great heat makes the tropics to teem with swift- growing vegetable and insect life. 'fhe most modern idolatry is the deification of the vital powers-the idea that, as all natural instinct is pure, the indulgence of naturalism is commendable. This is jnst the old Canaanite abomination. 4. The worship of the future. The sun-worshipper turned to the east and hailed the sunrise. '!'here is some- thing fascinating and exhilarating in this anticipation of the morning. Christianity e0nsecrates hope. But it is a mistake to believe in the future as in a fate of coming good. The future can only be good because God is in it, and blesses it. II. SUN-WORSHIP IS MOST ABOMINABLE. It includes many evil things. 1. Departure from God. The sun-worshippers stood with their backs turned towards the temple. Their attitude was most significant. • All idolatry must be practised with the back turned towards the truly Divine. We cannot serve the false and the true at one and the same time. 2. The degradation of God's greatest works. The more beautiful and powerful and fruitful the sun is seen to be, the more shameful is it that men should degrade their thought of it into idolatry. When we abuse God's best gifts by idolizing them, we turn what should occasion our deepest gratitude and admiration for God's goodness into an occasion for departing from him. 3. The consecration of sin. Sun- worship began in adoration of the lord of day. But it descended into gross licentious- ness, through the selection of the fertilizing power of sun-heat as a special object of adoration. 'l'hus sun-worship became the worship of lust. This will be the inevitable effect of naturalism regarded as a religion. The worship of nature-powers pure and simple involves the consecration of the lowest of those powers, so that what should be kept down as a slave claims to rule as a master, with obscene effrontery. CoxcLueroN. 'l'he rescue from nature-worship-modern as well as ancient--is to be found in the revelation of One infinitely greater than nature. No wonder men who had no vision of the spiritual God selecteq the sun-so powerful in his southern splenduur-as the greatest object of adoration. But we have "the Sun of Righteous- ness," before whose glory all physical brightness grows pale and fades away.
Yer. 17.-Making light of sin. L SINNEBB MA.KE LIGHT OF BIN. 'l'his is a commonly OR, vm. 1-18.J THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 151