will not do for God. Be it idol lust, or habit, or opiuion, he loves it more, and is more- like it, and so finds its service more congenial. The God of the legalist is not the God 41f Scripture, but a God of his own devising, and so he serves him labmiously in works of self-righteousness, whilst stubbornly declining the far easier call of the true God to simple faith in Jesus Christ. It was in following his nffinities thus that Israel was ever found joined to his idols, and alien to the God of heiwen. 3. Tllis idolatry they had derived froni Egypt. "It was no doubt to these Egyptian sun-gods that the star-god which the Israelites carried about with them belonged" (Keil). They were not seduced into idolatry merely by the nations among whom they passed. They did not wait for that. Tuey tired of Jehovah's service, and sought out false gods for themselves. They were bent on having idols, come whence they would. Failing others, they adopted, in their blind and besotted perverseness, those of Egypt itself. Their return to Jehovah for deliverance was desertion, and the lesson learned under idolatrous Egypt's savage oppression was to adopt the idol-worship that produced it. This is eloquent of the godlessness of the corrupt heart. Nothing can disgust it with idols, nothing can attach it to God. It hates him always, and embraces, or seeks, or makes ,occasions of abandoning his worship. 4. Israe'l's worship of idols involved the. serving of them. "The booth of your king." Every man's god is his king. Worship- is the highest act of service. When it is rendered, the other and low~r acts necessarily follow; when it is abandoned, they logically and actually cease. A new idol in the- heart means a new sovereign over the life. , IIL TBE DIVINE PUNISHME?IT TO BE ADJUSTED TO THE SIN. This it always ·s, but in the present case the correspondence is specially obvious, 1. They should go into- capti'llity. God often punishes sins against himself by human instrumentality, gene- rally that of the wicked (2 Sam. :uiv. 13; Ps. cix. 6). The severity of such punish- ment is guaranteed by the native cruelty of the human heart. As the conqueror nnd owner of the vanquished and enslaved, the wicked puts on his worst character, and his treatment becomes punishment co1Tesponding to the worst sin of idolatry. 2. Their captivity should be among idol,aters. The rod of God's anger in this case was to be the Assyrian (Isa. i. 5). In captivity with him, Israel would find out what kind of master& idolatry makes of its votaries. This would disenchant them, if anything could. The test of the god we worship is the practical one of the character of his s~rvice. When -our idol lusts become our masters, we know them as they really are. The drunkard has attained to a knowledge of the drink-appetite that would be a wholesome revela- tion to those who are just beginning to indulge. 3. They should die as sl,aves in the lancl out of which their proge,;itor had at first been called. "I will carry you beyond Damascus." Stephen (Acts vii 42, 43) quotes this "beyond Babylon." In either· case the neighbourhood of Ur of the Chaldees would be referred to. This, which had •been the cradle of the nation, would be its grave. There, where their godly ancestor had been a prince, the idolatrous nation would be slaves (Josh. uiv. 14, 3); his faith• and the promises to it, having been lost together. IV. GoD's THREATS EMPHASIZED BY ms NAME. This says what he is, and so indicates how he will act. l. He is Jehovah, the Bdf-existent One. " He cannot but be, and he- is, the Source of all being; the unchangeable, infinite, eternal Essence." As Jehovah,. he originates all things (ver. 8; eh. ix. 6; Jer. xxxiii. 2), controls all things (Ps. x. 16 • xcix.'l), fills and possesses all things, and" nothing is too hard for him" (Jer. :uxii. 27). 2. He is Lord of lwsts. " Tbe Lord of the heavenly hosts, for whose worship, they forsook God; the Lord of the hosts on earth, whose ministry he employs to punish those who rebel against him. All creatures in heaven and earth are, as he says of the. holy angels 'ministers of his that do his pleasure'" (Pusey). "Jehovah," the great. First Cause; "God of hosts," the Controller of all second causes whatever, there is that in the Name of God which guarantees the execution, literal and exhaustive, of all1 his.- threats.
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ver. 4.-" Suk the Lord." Man is by nature a seeker. He desires good, of on& kind or a11other, and what he desires he makes the object of his quest, more or less. (lB, v. 1-27.] THE BOOK OF AMOS. 103