DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4641#0022
14 ISRAEL.
feeling himself for the time less shackled by his corporeal nature. The impression is more effectual
still, when we regard the Almighty in his relation to human existence, as our Father, our Redeemer, and
our God. But the habit created by the simplest conception of infinite power, vigilance, and government,
always present, yet always incisiblc, and thus asserting a resistless predominance of the unseen over the
seen, must, like all other habits, have a tendency to spread over the whole mind.
On this principle we can account for the extraordinary magnificence of the Jewish temple. Heathenism
was profuse in its decoration of the altar. The Jewish religion was utterly abhorrent of its rites, and
yet in that pomp of public worship where heathenism laid its chief snares for the popular mind, Judaism
altogether eclipsed its most prodigal splendours. All that the arts and opulence of the earth could
contribute, architectural grandeur, the jewels and embroidery of the East, thousands of minstrels, tens of
thousands of attendants, glittering vestures, the most stately and solemn ritual of the earth, illustrated
the temple on Mount Sion. In both instances alike, the purpose was to exalt the object of the worship;
but in Judah the worship was of the Invisible. An image on the altar, even the most sublime that
ever entered into the mind of man, would have degraded the spirituality of the worship, have overthrown
the true virtue of the magnificence, and have so far tended to restore the dominion of the senses.
We can comprehend the astonishment of a heathen conqueror, a Pompey or a Titus, when, after
hastening through marble courts, and passing through veil within veil of gold and purple, to gaze on
the overwhelming lustre of the idol worthy of such a shrine, he found nothing but the loneliness of the
sanctuary; yet a loneliness more majestic, than if it had displayed a colossus of solid diamond.
But other and not less direct charges lie against idolatry. It gives an untrue representation; a
picture or a statue cannot express the existence of Deity. It gives a humiliating one—matter for
spirit, lifelessness for essential activity, the stock and the stone for power; feeble, earthly locality for
that Infinite Presence, which "the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain."
The practical evil is darker still. It is the course of human nature to substitute the seen for the unseen ;
the image quickly supersedes the God; yet the most prostrate worshipper must feel that the statue is
but the work of men's hands ; if such be the deity, what must be the religion ? Heathenism made gods as
rapidly as it made statues. Men soon deified their passions, their follies, and even their vices; thus
religion, instead of being the check, became the spur to crime. The evil naturally spread : number
produced rivalry, popularity was courted by arts which beguiled, exhibitions which bewildered, and
abominations which corrupted the people, until Satan was lord of earth, and the heathen altar his throne.1
From this period another era commences in the fortunes of the chosen people. The Great Covenant by
which Judea was to have constituted the foremost sovereignty of the Earth was henceforth dissolved. Yet,
the judgment was measured ; and while the sudden and total plunge of the ten tribes into the depths of idolatry
marked them for ruin ; the remaining virtue of Judah was to be warned by suffering. But the division of the
kingdom of David was irreparable. The moral earthquake was already shaking the foundations of the land.
Even in this rapid glance at the Jewish history, it is impossible to regard without equal reverence
and wonder the long-suffering of Heaven, and the fine adaptation of the expedients employed to retard
1 " New Interpretation of the Apocalypse."
feeling himself for the time less shackled by his corporeal nature. The impression is more effectual
still, when we regard the Almighty in his relation to human existence, as our Father, our Redeemer, and
our God. But the habit created by the simplest conception of infinite power, vigilance, and government,
always present, yet always incisiblc, and thus asserting a resistless predominance of the unseen over the
seen, must, like all other habits, have a tendency to spread over the whole mind.
On this principle we can account for the extraordinary magnificence of the Jewish temple. Heathenism
was profuse in its decoration of the altar. The Jewish religion was utterly abhorrent of its rites, and
yet in that pomp of public worship where heathenism laid its chief snares for the popular mind, Judaism
altogether eclipsed its most prodigal splendours. All that the arts and opulence of the earth could
contribute, architectural grandeur, the jewels and embroidery of the East, thousands of minstrels, tens of
thousands of attendants, glittering vestures, the most stately and solemn ritual of the earth, illustrated
the temple on Mount Sion. In both instances alike, the purpose was to exalt the object of the worship;
but in Judah the worship was of the Invisible. An image on the altar, even the most sublime that
ever entered into the mind of man, would have degraded the spirituality of the worship, have overthrown
the true virtue of the magnificence, and have so far tended to restore the dominion of the senses.
We can comprehend the astonishment of a heathen conqueror, a Pompey or a Titus, when, after
hastening through marble courts, and passing through veil within veil of gold and purple, to gaze on
the overwhelming lustre of the idol worthy of such a shrine, he found nothing but the loneliness of the
sanctuary; yet a loneliness more majestic, than if it had displayed a colossus of solid diamond.
But other and not less direct charges lie against idolatry. It gives an untrue representation; a
picture or a statue cannot express the existence of Deity. It gives a humiliating one—matter for
spirit, lifelessness for essential activity, the stock and the stone for power; feeble, earthly locality for
that Infinite Presence, which "the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain."
The practical evil is darker still. It is the course of human nature to substitute the seen for the unseen ;
the image quickly supersedes the God; yet the most prostrate worshipper must feel that the statue is
but the work of men's hands ; if such be the deity, what must be the religion ? Heathenism made gods as
rapidly as it made statues. Men soon deified their passions, their follies, and even their vices; thus
religion, instead of being the check, became the spur to crime. The evil naturally spread : number
produced rivalry, popularity was courted by arts which beguiled, exhibitions which bewildered, and
abominations which corrupted the people, until Satan was lord of earth, and the heathen altar his throne.1
From this period another era commences in the fortunes of the chosen people. The Great Covenant by
which Judea was to have constituted the foremost sovereignty of the Earth was henceforth dissolved. Yet,
the judgment was measured ; and while the sudden and total plunge of the ten tribes into the depths of idolatry
marked them for ruin ; the remaining virtue of Judah was to be warned by suffering. But the division of the
kingdom of David was irreparable. The moral earthquake was already shaking the foundations of the land.
Even in this rapid glance at the Jewish history, it is impossible to regard without equal reverence
and wonder the long-suffering of Heaven, and the fine adaptation of the expedients employed to retard
1 " New Interpretation of the Apocalypse."