And who shall dare to make sad the heart of him who is thus drinking daily of the well-spring of righteousness, by telling him that he is not yet saved, nor can be, unless he will come and bow down before his idol?  And if, rather than do so, he break the idol in pieces, who shall dare to call him profane, or cold in love to his Lord, when it was in his very jealousy for his Lord, and in his full purpose to worship him alone, that he threw down all that exalted itself above its due proportion against him?  And if a man be not so worshipping Christ only, who shall dare to encourage him in his evil way, by magnifying the sacredness of his idol, and ascribing to it that healing virtue which belongs to Christ alone?

What has been here said might bear to be followed up at far greater length than the present occasion will admit of.  But the main point is one, I think, of no small importance, that all fanaticism and superstition on the one hand, and all unbelief and coldness of heart on the other, arise from what is in fact idolatry,—­the putting some other object, whether it be called a religious or moral one,—­and an object often in itself very excellent,—­in the place of Christ himself, as set forth to us fully in the Scriptures.  And as no idol can stand in Christ’s place, or in any way save us, so whoever worships Christ truly is preserved from all idols and has life eternal.  And if any one demand of him further, that he should worship his idol, and tells him that he is not safe if he does not; his answer will be rather that he will perish if he does; that he is safe, fully safe, and only safe, so long as he clings to Christ alone; and that to make anything else necessary to his safety, is not only to minister to superstition, but to ungodliness also; not only to lay on us a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear; but, by the very act of laying this unchristian yoke upon us, to tear from us the easy yoke and light burden of Christ himself, our Lord and our life.

LECTURE XXI.

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ADVENT SUNDAY.

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HEBREWS in. 16.

For some, when they had heard, did provoke:  howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.

I take this verse as my text, rather than those which immediately go before or follow it, because it affords one of the most serious instances of mistranslation that are to be met with in the whole New Testament.  For the true translation of the words is this:  “For who were they who, when they had heard, did provoke? nay, were they not all who came out of Egypt through Moses?” And then it goes on—­“And with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?  And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?” I call this a serious mistranslation, because it lessens