1 Chronicles 5:25 And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land… I. If we turn to the Book of Kings we shall be surprised to find how the fatal sin of Israel was often of an intellectual kind, as distinguished from the baser iniquities which corrupt and overthrow the soul. There were three instances in which the intellectual sins of the people were conspicuous — 1. In the worship of the holy places. 2. In adoration of the heavenly bodies. 3. In the practice of magic and divination.There we find nothing of adultery, drunkenness, theft, or licentiousness of any kind. There are sins and sins. One man is simply a sinner of the coarse type, a criminal seen and known of all men and cast out by society; another man sins intellectually — that is to say he mentally deposes God, and more or less secretly endeavours to live without Him, never breaking any of the great social commandments, and thereby forfeiting social confidence, yet all the while committing the sin against the Holy Ghost. In this way men write their own bibles, invent their own deities, banish from the mind all the old orthodoxies, and in hidden vanity walk after the council of their own hearts. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them. |
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