xt says expressly, speaking in the first Person of GOD
himself, _This Thing is of Me_.

But tho' God might appoint _Jeroboam_ to be King, (that is to say, of
ten Tribes,) yet GOD did not appoint him to set up the _two Calves_ in
the two extreme Parts of the Land, _viz._ in _Dan_, and in _Bethel_;
that was _Jeroboam_'s own doing, and done on purpose to keep the People
from falling back to _Rehoboam_, by being obliged to go to _Jerusalem_
to the publick Worship: And the Text adds, _Jeroboam made Israel to
sin_. This was indeed a Master-piece of the _Devil_'s Policy, and it was
effectual to answer the End, nothing could have been more to the
Purpose; what Reason he had to expect the People would so universally
come into it, and be so well satisfied with a couple of Calves, instead
of the true Worship of GOD at _Jerusalem_; or what Arts and Management
he (_Satan_) made use of afterwards, to bring the People in, to join
with such a Delusion, that we find but little of in all the Annals of
_Satan_; not is it much to the Case: 'Tis certain the _Devil_ found a
strange kind of Propensity to worshiping Idols rooted in the Temper of
that whole People, even from their first breaking away from the
_Egyptian_ Bondage; so that he had nothing to do but to work upon the
old Stock, and propagate the Crime that he found was so natural to them.
And this is _Satan_'s general Way of working, not with them only, but
with us also, and with all the World, even then, and ever since.

When he had thus secur'd _Jeroboam_'s Revolt, we need not trace him
among his Successors; for the same Reason of State that held for the
setting up the Calves at _Bethel_ and _Dan_, held good for the keeping
them up, to all _Jeroboam_'s Posterity; nor had they one good King ever
after; even _Jehu_, who call'd his Friends to come and see his _Zeal for
the Lord_, and who fulfill'd the Threatnings of God upon _Ahab_ and his
Family, and upon Queen _Jezabel_ and her Offspring, and knew all the
while that he was executing the Judgment of the true God upon an
idolatrous Race; yet he would not part with his Calves, but would have
thought it to have been parting with his Kingdom, and that as the People
would have gone up to _Jerusalem_ to worship, so they would at the same
Time have transfer'd their civil Obedience to the King of _Judah_,
(whose Right it really was, as far as they could claim by Birth and
right Line); so that by the way, _Satan_ any more than other
Politici