ed Christian.  For to love desire or expect good from any forbidden indulgence even in the smallest degree is a violation of it. Nay more whatever does not consist with the most perfect love submission and obedience to God is evidently to have some other god in the sight of Jehovah.  He is choosing something else in preference to him.

     I feel prepared then to assert that in the first place idolatry in Christian lands is exceedingly prevalent.

     The ambitious man idolizes his fame or station or power.  He sets up one or the other of these or all of them as the objects before which he bows with reverence and delight.  It is not because no other man ever acquired so extensive fame or power or reached so exalted a station: but it is because they are his own. God is infinitely greater & more powerful: yet he does not take as much interest in his greatness as in his own: that is he prefers himself to God.   To the promotion of his same