atry. And therefore the large portion of the Old Testament which speaks of the sin of idolatry, so far from not concerning us, does in fact show us how completely it is the sin which does so easily beset us. It is merely the form that is altered, not the reality. And here too we may apply to the Old Testament our Lord's words, that not one jot or one tittle should pass from the law till all be fulfilled.

But more may be said than this. The ancient idols were so numerous, that it was said by the prophet," According to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah." And so are they no less numerous now. For take any congregation, and we shall not find that they worship the same idols; on the contrary, it may almost be said that each man worships his own. There are a great variety of notions, of persons, of things, some of which are the idols of one man and some of another, none of them being worshipped by all alike, and some one or two perhaps worshipped by a very few, nay, worshipped, it may be, by not more than one single person in the same manner and with the same exclusiveness.

Now our idols, whatever they may be, hinder us from approving the things which are excellent. They make us believe that our service to them is a true worship, and therefore we give a larger place to it in our hearts and lives than we should

do. It takes the place of some duty which ought not to be so neglected; it makes us judge the worse to be the better, and the better to be the

worse.

Various instances of this might be given, and almost every different congregation might require different examples. But we are not concerned with other persons' idols; our concern is to know what are our own.

What are the things, which being loved by us or feared, or reverenced more than they should be, become to us idols, and hinder us from discerning the things that are excellent? And certainly it is not difficult to find out one of them which is very generally worshipped, and this is the praise or the dispraise, the liking or the disliking of those around us. I know that this is an idol in many other places beside this; but it is neither so general elsewhere, nor is it nearly so mischievous. But here it is a very dangerous idol, and one which persecutes bitterly those who will not worship it. It says, "I approve of many things which God approves of, and I condemn many things which God condemns. Worship me, therefore, and I will guide you, and will reward you if you do well, and punish you if you do ill." Truly this is no deaf and dumb and senseless image, which could do nothing to its worshippers either of evil or of good. It is a real and living and mighty power;

it can affect our condition beyond all doubt for good and for evil. And thus many of us follow it altogether, and would be afraid either to do, or to leave undone, a single thing which this idol forbade or commanded. It is a constant worship; every day, and every hour of every day, it presses on our service. Who is not afraid to do what those around him despise or condemn? Who is not desirous of doing what all about him love and honour?

Now first of all it should be said plainly that even where this idol is as much like God as it ever can be in this world, still its worship is idolatry. I mean that if the church were in the greatest state of purity which we can conceive ever attainable, so that our brethren around us did speak very generally the language of Christ, approving truly what Christ approved, condemning what He condemned, yet even then the looking to its approbation or to its censure would be dangerous, would have a tendency to become, and very easily might become idolatry. For no man or set of men may be to us in God's place, nor can claim from our conscience that its account should be rendered to them with the same submission to their judgment which it owes to God's. However great, therefore, may be the respect which the opinions of those around us may claim from their general agreement with Christ's judgment, still the independence of

our consciences ought fully to be maintained, and the feeling should never forsake us, that we must seek God ourselves, and not through another, that to Him and to His judgment we must in the end commit ourselves, and to Him who is alone the infallible interpreter of that judgment, His Son Jesus Christ.

But if the praise of men in man's most perfect state is still apt to become an idol, what is to be said of it here, when its language so far from being entirely one with God's, differs from it, to say the very least, in as many points as it agrees, and this palpably even to the commonest understanding, insomuch that, as I have said once before, if any person, while trying to deceive himself that he is doing what is right, beause he is doing what will make him popular, or save him from being disliked; if any person, I say, were at such a moment to ask himself what Christ would have him to do in the matter, the bandage, so to speak, would in an instant fall from his eyes, and he would at once discern what was right and what was wrong, whether he had the firmness to follow it or no. It was said in the old church, that the pronouncing the name of Christ, or the making the sign of the cross, drove out the evil spirits from those whom they had possessed. And truly the very name of Christ and the thought of His cross would drive the evil spirits out of our hearts now; the lie which the

idol had taught us, the veil which he had drawn before our consciences would be rent in twain from the top to the bottom; what we had been persuading ourselves to call according to our idol's language, good natured, or honourable, or spirited, or any other such term, becomes, when seen to us in the light of Christ's name, cowardly, weak, disobedient, undutiful. And what we had been resolving to call tame or mean spirited or harsh, that we recognise, when the light of Christ's cross falls on it, to be the courage of those, who fear Him only that can destroy both soul and body in hell, the firmness of Christ's soldiers, who are pledged to strive against the world and the devil, even unto blood.

True it is that, in deeper cases of self-deception, Christ's own most holy name may not dispel the darkness of our conscience, but even thicken it: it is possible, and it has been known, that men have in Christ's name blasphemed Christ's Spirit. But not so with us; our temptations here are mercifully suited to our strength; they affect our practice, they threaten our principles, but as yet they would flee before the thought of Christ: the deceit which they put upon us is so gross that it is convicted in a moment, when the light of Christ is held up to it. And when I see many of you attend the holy communion, what is my reasonable hope but that you are desiring and proposing to

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