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symbol the more easy faith became. Therefore, when a man wanted to 
worship God, he looked up for that which was most like God according to 
his notions. That which gaye him the best and clearest idea of benefi- 
cence and majesty was the sun, and this, therefore, he accordingly worshipped 
as the representative of God, not with the idea of its being taken as God, 
but solely as a symbol of His majesty, power, and beneficence By degrees 
—and this is the history of all idolatry-the symbol displaced m the mind 
of the worshipper that which it was intended to symbolize, and became 
itself the object of worship. The first reference we have in the Scripture to 
idolatry of any kind is that passage in Job : “ If I beheld the sun when it 
shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secret y 
enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were an imqrnty to be 
punished by the Judge, for I should have denied the God that is above. 
(Job xxxi. 26, a seq.) Accepting the chronology of the best authorities 
with regard to the antiquity of the Book of Job, this is the earliest reference 
to idolatry of any sort, and there is no reason to believe that, at the time 
that passage was written, any form of idolatry existed, other than the worship 
of the heavenly bodies. And this form of idolatry, which has been general y 
known as Sabianism, was in its symbolic form, as I believe was the idolatry 
of the Hebrew ; for I do not believe their idolatry ever became so gross and 
sensuous a thing as that of the heathen now is. Down to the latest time it was, 
in fact, the professed adoration of the symbol of Jehovah : we have a str ° n S 
instance of this in the setting up of the images in Dan ; for Micah, who had 
put them up, congratulated himself that he had got a Levite for his priest, 
for he said : “ Now know I that the Lord ( Jehovah ) will do me good, seeing 
I have a Levite to my priest.” (Judges xvii. 13.) You have here 
clear idolatry, and yet, at the same time, there is in that idolatry clear and 
distinct reference to Jehovah, and to His worship alone. But having once 
introduced into worship the powers of nature, by degrees they themselves 
came to be worshipped as evil and good, until we come at length to that 
pagan worship of the Greeks of which Mr. Weldon spoke, when a rmiad 
dwelt in every stream and a dryad swung on almost every bough. With 
regard to devil-worship, perhaps the best illustration is that of some of the 
African tribes, who worship the serpent alone. That is devil-worship, and 
from the earliest times serpent-worship has been simply and purely e 
worship of the Evil One. When men had worshipped God from pure 
motives, as one who was wise, beneficent, and divine, then, by way o p a- 
cating the other deities or powers, they tried to find an emblem of that 
which was evil. And no greater triumph over our lost race could have 
been desired by the devil himself than that they should have knelt down 
and selected for their worship that very serpent which, in the earliest 
history of our race, was connected with its fall from innocence and purity. 
A symbol was wanted,— what should they get ? We can weU understand 
the selection of the sun as an emblem of good, but is it possible to fin 
anything as a proper symbol of the devil, unless you connect the serpent 
with that one single instance in which the devil is known by Divine history, 
