The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 133

It is true they do not appear in their naked defonnity, as in barbaric lande. Our civilization not only spreads R veil over them, but paints and decorates them and thus conceals their native hideousnees. Still, though the devil robes himself in the garb of an angel, he is yet the devil. Poison is poison, however much you may flavour it, II. THAT DEPRAVITY UNDER THE MOST MAGNIFICENT FORM 18 UTTERLY ADilORRENT TO THE GREAT Goo. "I abhor the excellency of J11cob, and hate his palaces." No veil ~n cover it from his eye; his glance pierces through all its decorations; to his view its ornamentations add to ite ugliness. The same vices displayed in the hut of 11 81\vage chief, are more hideous to him when developed in the gorgeous palaces of Christian sovereigns. "I abhor the excellency [splendour] of Jacob." , God has moral sensibility. He has not only a sensibility for the beautiful in form and the perfect in arrangement, but for the moral. Ho loves the true, the beautiful, and the good; he loathes the false, the selfish, and the corrupt. "Oh, do not this abominable thing, which I hate" (Jer. xliv. 4). III. THAT DEPRAVITY, WITTCH IS EVER ABHORRENT TO Goo, MUST BRING RUIN ON ITS SUBJECTS. "Therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein." Observe: 1. The completeness of the ruin. "All that is therein "-utter destruction. 2. The certainty of the ruin. " The Lord God hath sworn by himself." CoNcLUSION. What an argument does this subject furnish for national seriousness and investigation! The progress of civilization is not the true progress of humanity. A nation may advance in the arts, and go back in morals; may be robed in artistic beauty, and yet be loathsome in moral corruption. Heaven will not smile on a nation because it is externally grand, but only when it is internally good.-D. T. Ver. 12.-Tryin_q the impossible. "Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plough there with oxen?" The folly of expecting real prosperity by committing nets of injustice or pursuing conrses of sin is here forcibly represented by comp&ring it to the absurdity of attempting to run horses upon a rock or to plough the rock with oxen, The strength of the representation is increased by its interrogative form. Our subject is-Trying the impossible. Men are constantly doing this. Let us furnish a few examples. I. WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AN ENEMY BY PHYBI0AL FOB0E. An individual has an enemy, a man who hates him with an inveterate antipathy. In order to over• come him, what does he do? He disables or perhaps kills him. Or a nation has an enemy, strong and malignant. How does it seek to overcome it? In the same way, by brute force-swords, cannons, bayonets, these are employed. Now, the attempt to destroy an enemy by brute force is as absurd as to make horses run on the peaks of craggy rocks, or to put oxen to plough them. To destroy the enemy's body is not to destroy either him or his enmity. Philosophy and the Bible tea.eh that the body is not the man; it is his, not himself. All the men that have fallen in duels, campaigns, or private assassinations are Ii ving, thinking, e.cting still, and await their murderers in another state. No bullet or sword can touch the man. lL WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO llAKE SOCIETY MORALLY GOOD BY MERE BE0ULAB INSTBUCTION. There are men who imagine that by teaching children the arts of read- ing, writing, ciphering, and the rudiments of science they will improve the morality of the nation. When you remember that the moral character grows out of the heart and not out of the brain, out of the likings and disli.kings, not out of the ideas or intelligence, all this seems as absurd as the attempt to make horses run on rocks. Secular knowledge cannot change the heart, cannot alter a man's likes or dislikes. It may strengthen them, but not alter them. Dishonesty, uneducated, may commit petty thefts; but educated, it -will legally swindle a nation. Knowledge, alas I is all in vain. ill WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO GET Jlil'PINESB FBOM WITHOUT. All mankind are in search of happiness. " Who will show us any good? "-this is the universal cry. The great bulk seek happiness from without, from what they can see, and taste, and hear, and handle. They look for happiness in the titillation of the nerves and the gratifica- tion of the senses. Now, were man nothing but body, this would do. This does for the_ bruu, and the bird. But man is spirit; and matter in no form or combination can ~&.mfy spirit. A man's life, or happiness, consisteth not in the abundance of 1'llaterial CIJ:t, V1, 1-14,J 'l'lIE nook OF AMOS. 133