cloak may be; and the thing which we count most precious and long most
for is our god, whatever our professions of orthodox religion.

The idolatry is then described, in rapid touches, as universal.
Wherever there was a solitary watchman's tower among the pastures
there was a high place, and they were reared in every city. Images and
Asherim deformed every hill-top and stood under every spreading tree.
Everywhere incense loaded the heavy air with its foul fragrance. The
old scenes of unnamable abomination, which had been so terribly
avenged, seemed to have come back, and to cry aloud for another
purging by fire and sword.

The terrible upshot of all was 'to provoke the Lord to anger.' The New
Testament is as emphatic as the Old in asserting that there is the
capacity of anger in the God whose name is love, and that sin calls it
forth. The special characteristic of sin, by which it thus attracts
that lightning, is that it is disobedience. As in the first sin, so in
all others, God has said, 'Ye shall not do this thing'; and we say,
'Do it we will.' What can the end of that be but the anger of the
Lord? 'Because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the
children of disobedience.'

II. Verse 13 gives the pleading of Jehovah. The mission of the
prophets was God's reply to Israel's rebellion, and was equally the
sign of His anger and of His love. The more sin abounds, the more does
God multiply means to draw back to Himself. The deafer the ears, the
louder the beseeching voice of His grieved and yet pitying love. His
anger clothes itself in more stringent appeals and clearer revelations
of Himself before it takes its slaughtering weapons in hand. The
darker the background of sin, the brighter the beams of His light show