Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/223

 worship. Aaron took their gold and fashioned it with a graving tool, to show that the object they desired for worship would be made of their own materials, and fashioned with the graving tool of their own false doctrine and depraved intelligence. This was done by Aaron to shew, not his own, but their state. They rejoiced in their idolatry by dancing around the idol, and exclaiming, "These be thy gods. O Israel!" It was thus that they laid their honour in the dust when "they made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image." (Psalm cvi. 19.) O what a serious lesson does this idolatrous act teach us! for when gold is an object of worship, it denotes the affections set on things of the world instead of on those above; and when the graving tool is set to work to fashion it to our own minds, we are taught by this, that mere human intelligence (the graving tool) becomes an image of that which in our own minds moulds all things to our depraved state.

Moses, when he came down from the mount with the two tables of stone in his hands, on which the Law of God was written, was angry with the people on account of their gross perversion of the worship of God; and to shew that they had corrupted themselves and broken the Divine Law, he threw down the tables of stone, and broke them beneath the mount. They had broken the law which says, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image;", and to shew them their wickedness, he broke the tables in their presence. Worship in accordance with the worldly love of honour and gain as an end, is the worship of the golden calf! Rise, O my soul, above such worship! it is the mildew and curse of the mind. Wor-