III. AN IDOL AN HEREDITARY LIB. "After which their fathers walked." Reason suggests and history shows that the idols of the fathers are the Idols of the children, 1. All practices tffid to beoo1116 hereditary. Children are imitative. They do what they see done. An act repeated becomes a habit, and the habit leading to persistence in the BCt, presses it on others' attention, and leads to its being imitated. It is thua that the social ,md religious customs of a community assume an aspect of heredity, and propagate themsel ,·es down the generations. 2. Evil practices do so e.'pecially. (Prov. xxii. 15.) Ed! is congenial to human nature, and men will do the thing that is pleasant.._ Hence_ evil never dies, whilst good is dying out continually; and evil propagates itself, whilst good can be propagated only by a perpetual exercise of Divine influence. 3. Family sins are the most s1wely hereditary of all. Dispositions run in the blood. The drunkard, the thief, the libertine, each transmits his evil appetite or tendency t.o his children, and so practically ensures their falling into his sin. There ia no reason to except a taste for idol-worship from the operation of this law. In the literal sense it is an appetency easily transmissible. In the spiritual sense it is more easily propagable still. If "the fathers have eaten the sour grapes" of idol-service in any form, "the children's teeth" are more than likely to be "set on edge." 4. Idol-worship is self-worship in an insidioWJ form, and therefore specially congenial to human nature. Self is the idol easiest to enthrone. The injuncUon to love ourselves is not given in Scripture. It is safely and properly assumed, and made the model and measure of our love to others (Matt. xix. 19). Self-love is an affection native to the bee.rt, and that in ideal strength. Now, an idol represented the maker's ideal of himself. It was, therefore, agreeable to his nature, and its service congenial, and so of easy transmission from generation to generation. All sin is really at bottom self-worship. \Ve prefer ourselves to God; our will, our pleasure, our way, to his. We push him off the throne, and ourselves on it., and then do as we list. It is only grace that says, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? n
Vers. 6--8.-The woe agai11st brael,. This is the last woe and the greatest. "'fhe thunder-cloud of God's judgments having passed over all the nations round about, e.nd even discharged the fire from heaven on Judah and Jerusalem, settles at le.at on Israel" (Pusey). Just as God's honour suffered specially by their sin, so does his heart suffer specially in their punishment. And so, whilst compendious justice may be meted out t.o heathen nations, the destruction of the chosen people cannot be denounced without regretful enlargement on the circumstances of the case. L COVETOUSNESS PUTS A 00:tITEMl'TUOUS ESTIMATE ON BUMAN LIFE. "They sell the righteous for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes." This may be either a com- mercial or a judicial transaction, but in either case the principle involved is the same. An undue estimate of wrong involves an inadequate estimate of all else. \Yealth becomes the one good, and gain the one pursuit. Human life is as nothing in com- parison with persoue.1 aggrandizement to the extent of even a paltry sum. Officialism, to which the death of a human being is mainly a question of a burial or registration fee, is not an altogether unheard-of thing. This principle has a bearing, not only on murder and the perversion of justice, but on slavery, oppression, the opium and liquor traffics, and every method of making money at the expense of human life or health or well-beiug. The extent to which such things prevail, and the tens of thousands of hnme.n lives annually sacrificed for gain, is a startling commentary on the maxim that "the love of money is a root of all evil" II. THE DOMINA.TING VICE OP A COllll'dUNITY l'dAKEB ALL THE OTHER VICES !TB TRIBUTARIES. Israel's besetting sin as against their fellow-men was covetousness. 1. This was inhuman. It bore hardest on the poor. 'l'hese, being helpless, were ita easiest victims. Humanity was put out of the question, and the unspeakably greater snfferinuO involved in making the same gain off the poor, as compared with the rich, was no deterrent whatever. Gain, though it be the very heart's blood of miserable fellow-creatures, was all they had an eye for or a heart to consider. 2. It was ungodly. It made specie.I victims of the righteous. This course was partly utilitarian, no doubt. The righteous might be expected to submit to the maximum of wrong with the minimum of retaliation. But it was profane as well. '!'he wiclted hate good, and o.ll in whom it is found. "If any man love the worlcl, the love of the Father is not i1;1 Oll, II, 1-16.) THE BOOK OF AMOS. 31