XI. BY DEGREES.

SEE by what stairs wicked Ahaz [2 Kings xvi.] did climb up to the height of profaneness.

First, he saw an idolatrous altar at Damascus. [Ibid. ver. 10.] Our eyes, when gazing on sinful objects, are out of their calling and God’s keeping.

Secondly, he liked it. There is a secret fascination in superstition, and our souls are soon bewitched with the gaudiness of false service from the simplicity of God’s worship.

Thirdly, he made the like to it. [Ibid. ver. 11.] And herein Uriah the priest (patron and chaplain well met) was the midwife to deliver the mother altar of Damascus of a babe, like unto it, at Jerusalem.

Fourthly, he sacrificed on it. [Ibid. ver. 13.] What else could be expected, but that, when he had tuned this new instrument of idolatry, he would play upon it.

Fifthly, he commanded the people to do the like. [Ibid. ver. 15.] Not content to confine it to his personal impiety.

Lastly, he removed God’s altar away. That venerable altar, by Divine appointment peaceably possessed of the place for two hundred years and upwards, must now be violently ejected by a usurping upstart.

No man can be stark naught at once. Let us stop the progress of sin in our soul at the first stage, for the farther it goes, the faster it will increase.