It is not a little surprising that the descendants of faithful Abraham, taken into covenant with God, should fall under the influence of this idolatrous worship! The apostasy of the Israelites in the wilderness from the true God to the golden calf, was occasioned by a previous attachment to the sacred rites of the Egyptian idolatry. And the calves which were afterwards set up in Dan and Bethel, were probably derived from the same source. The Israelites were not only cautioned against this worship, but, if the charge of idolatry brought against an Israelite was proved by unequivocal facts and competent witnesses, it affected his life. Such was the progress of this idolatrous worship among this people at one period, that Josiah, king of Judah, took away out of the temple of the Lord the horses, and burned the chariots, which the kings, his predecessors, had consecrated to the sun. Job, in allusion to this vile worship, says, “If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; if my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand:[119] this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above.” Ezekiel, in a vision, saw “at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east: and they worshipped the sun toward the east,” in imitation of the Egyptians, Persians, and other Eastern nations. While the heathen have thus paid idolatrous worship to the sun, some persons, believing in the truth of revealed religion, have entertained strange notions concerning this luminary. It is remarkable, observes a polite writer, that whilst some of the ancients imagined the _sun_ to be the seat of future blessedness, from Psal. xix, 14, “He set his tabernacle in the sun,” a Mr. Swinden, among the moderns, endeavors to prove that _hell_ is seated in the sun, chiefly pleading that this is the grand repository of fire; that its horrible face, viewed by a telescope, suits the description given of the burning lake; and that being in the _centre_ of the system, it might be properly said that wicked men were _cast down into it_. But these are mere hypotheses, and unworthy of serious consideration. Notwithstanding this idolatrous worship of the sun, there is a sober and religious use to be made of this luminary; for being the greatest visible glory in the natural world it is selected as the brightest emblem of the Supreme Being--“The Lord God is a sun.” An object thus illustrious and useful in the regular and wise economy of nature, is mentioned in the sacred volume as a metaphor fraught with truths of infinite moment, imparting wisdom to the simple, and instruction to the ignorant. He admirably represents the unity, glory, and bounty of God.