1 Kings 18:40

Elijah said—take the prophets of Baal, &c.— It appears from the course of the divine history of this people, that the Israelites had ever a violent propensity to mix with the neighbouring nations, and to devote themselves to the practices of idolatry. This would naturally, and did in fact, absorb large portions of them; and the sole human means which preserved the remainder, was the severity of their civil laws against idolatry. It will be necessary to remind the reader of that particularly which is recorded, Deuteronomy 17:2 which will throw great light upon this transaction, and vindicate the conduct of Elijah from objections. Such laws were necessary to support a separation of the Israelites from the idolatrous nations; but penal laws, enforced by the ordinary magistrate for matters of opinion, are manifestly unjust. Some way, therefore, was to be contrived to render these laws equitable; for we are not to suppose that God would ordain any thing which should violate the rule of natural justice. Now these penal laws are equitable only in a theocracy; and therefore a theocracy was necessary. It will be proper to observe, that God was pleased to stand in two arbitrary relations towards the Jewish people, besides that natural one in which he stands towards them and the rest of mankind in common. The first was, that of a tutelary deity, gentilitial and local, the God of Abraham, &c. who was to bring their posterity into the land of Canaan, and to protect them there, as his peculiar people. The second was, that of supreme magistrate and law-giver: and in both these relations, he was pleased to refer it to the people's choice, whether they would or would not receive him for their God and King. The people, therefore, thus solemnly accepting him, these necessary consequences followed from the Horeb contract. First, that, as the national God and civil magistrate of the Jews centered in one and the same object, their civil policy and religion must be intimately united and incorporated. Secondly, as the two societies were thoroughly incorporated, they could not be distinguished, but must stand or fall together: consequently, the direction of all their civil laws must be for the equal preservation of both, as the renouncing him for king was the throwing him off as God, and the renouncing him for God was the throwing him off as king. There was, however, this manifest difference in the two cases, as to the effects: the renouncing of God as civil magistrate might be remedied, without a total dissolution of the constitution; not so the renouncing him as tutelary God; because, though he might and did appoint a deputy in his office of king among the Jewish tribes, yet he would have no substitute, as God, among the pagan deities: therefore of necessity, as well as of right, idolatry was punishable by the civil laws of a theocracy, it being the greatest crime that could be committed against the state, as tending by consequence to dissolve the constitution; for the one God being the supreme magistrate, it subsisted in the worship of that God. Idolatry therefore, as the renunciation of one God alone, was, in a strict philosophical as well as legal sense, the crime of lese-majeste, or high treason. Thirdly, the punishment of idolatry by law had this farther circumstance of equity, that it was punishing the rebellion of those who had chosen the government under which they lived when freely proposed to them. Hence, in the law against idolatry, Deuteronomy 17:2 the crime is with great propriety called the transgression of the COVENANT. Thus we see the law in question stands clear of the cavils of infidels, and the abuse of intolerant believers. We see that the severity used by Elijah was as justifiable as that of Phinehas, which is spoken of with great commendation, Numbers 25:11.Psalms 106:30. We may likewise infer from this exertion of the penal laws against idolatry, that the theocracy subsisted at this time, because such laws are absolutely unjust under any other form of government.