Of the Commandments
Exodus 20:3 You shall have no other gods before me.
2. That we must have no other God: You shall have no other God before me.
Quest. What is meant by this word, Before me?
Resp. That is, before my face, In conspectu meo, in my sight (Deuteronomy 27:15). Cursed be he that makes a graven image, and puts it in a secret place. Some would not bow to the idol that others might see, but they would secretly bow to it: but though this was out of man's sight, it was not out of God's sight: Cursed therefore (says God) be he who puts the image in a secret place. You shall have no other gods. 1. There is really no other God. 2. We must have no other.
1. There is really no other God. The Valentinians held there were two Gods; the Polythites that there were many. The Persians worshipped the sun, the Egyptians the ox and elephant, the Greeks Jupiter: but there is no other than the true God (Deuteronomy 4:39). Know therefore this day, and consider it in your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath; there is no other. For there is but one first cause, that has its being of itself, and on which all other beings depend: as in the heavens the primum mobile moves all the other orbs. So God is the great mover, he gives life and motion to every thing existent.
2. There is but one omnipotent power. If there be two omnipotents, then we must always suppose a contest between these two; that which one would do, the other power being equal would oppose, and so all things would be brought into a confusion. If a ship should have two pilots of equal power, one would be ever crossing the other; when one would sail, the other would cast anchor: here were a confusion, and the ship must needs perish. The order and harmony in the world, the constant and uniform government of all things, is a clear argument, that there is but one omnipotent, one God that rules all (Isaiah 44:6). I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me there is no God.
2. We must have no other God. You shall have no other gods before me: this commandment forbids, 1. Serving a false God, and not the true (Jeremiah 2:27). Saying to a stock, You are my Father; and to a stone, You have brought me forth: Or 2. Joining a false God with a true (2 Kings 17:33). They feared the Lord, and served their own gods. Both these are forbidden in the commandment; we must adhere to the true God, and no other: God is a jealous God, and he will endure no corrival: a wife cannot lawfully have two husbands at once; nor may we have two Gods (Exodus 34:14). You shall worship no other God, for the Lord is a jealous God (Psalm 16:4). Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another God. The Lord interprets it a forsaking of him to espouse any other God (Judges 2:12). They forsook the Lord and followed other gods. God would not have his people so much as make mention of idol gods (Exodus 23:13). Make no mention of the names of other gods, neither let it be heard out of your mouth. God looks upon it as a breaking of the marriage covenant, to go after other gods. Therefore when Israel committed idolatry with the golden calf, God disclaims his interest in them (Exodus 32:7). Your people have corrupted themselves. Before, God called Israel his people; but when they went after other gods, Now, says the Lord to Moses, they are no more my people but your people (Hosea 2:2). Plead with her mother, plead, for she is not my wife; she does not keep faith with me; she has stained herself with idols, therefore I will divorce her, she is not my wife. To go after other gods, is that God cannot bear, it makes the fury rise up in his face (Deuteronomy 13:6, 8, 9). If your brother, or your son, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend, which is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods. You shall not consent to him, neither shall your eye pity him. But you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
Quest. But what is it to have other gods besides the true God? I fear upon search we have more idolaters among us than we are aware of.
Resp. To trust in any thing more than God, is to make it a God. 1. If we trust in our riches, then we make riches our God: we may take comfort, not put confidence in them: it is a foolish thing to trust in them. 1. They are deceitful riches (Matthew 13:22). and it is foolish to trust to that which will deceive us. [illegible] (Chrysostom). 1. They have no solid consistency, they are like landscapes or golden dreams, which leave the soul empty when it awakes and comes to itself. 2. They are not what they promise; they promise to satisfy our desires, and they increase them: they promise to stay with us, and they take wings. 2. They are hurtful (Ecclesiastes 5:13). Riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. It is foolish to trust to that which will hurt one: who would take hold of the edge of a razor to help him? They are often fuel for pride and lust (Ezekiel 28:5; Jeremiah 5:7). So that it is folly to trust in our riches; but some do, and so make money their God (Proverbs 10:15). The rich man's wealth is his strong tower. He makes the wedge of gold his hope (Job 31:24). God made man of the dust of the earth, and man makes a god of the dust of the earth. Money is his creator, redeemer, comforter. His creator: if he has money, now he thinks he is made. His redeemer: if he be in danger he trusts to his money to redeem him. His comforter: if he be sad, money is the golden harp to drive away the evil spirit. Thus by trusting in money we make it a God.
2. If we trust in the arm of flesh, we make it a God (Jeremiah 17:5): Cursed be man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm. The Syrians trusted in their army, which was so numerous that it filled the country (1 Kings 20:27), but this arm of flesh withered (verse 29). What we make our trust, God makes our shame: the sheep run to the hedges for shelter, and they lose their wool: we have run to second causes to help us, and we have lost much of our golden fleece: they have not only been reeds to fail us, but thorns to prick us: we have broken our Parliament-crutches by leaning too hard upon them.
3. If we trust in our wisdom, we make it a God (Jeremiah 9:23): Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Glorying is the height of confidence; many a man does make an idol of his wit and parts: he deifies himself: but how often does God take the [reconstructed: Wise] in their own craftiness (Job 5:13). Achitophel had a great wit, his counsel was as the oracle of God, but his wit brought him to the halter (2 Samuel 17:23).
4. If we trust in our civility, we make it a God: many trust to this, none can charge them with gross sin. Civility is but nature refined and cultivated; a man may be washed and not changed: his life may be civil, yet there may be some reigning sin in his heart: the Pharisee could say, I am no adulterer (Luke 18:11), but he could not say, I am not proud: to trust to civility, is to trust to a spider's web.
5. If we trust to our duties to save us, we make them a God (Isaiah 64:6): Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags: they are fly-blown with sin: put gold in the fire and there comes out much dross: our most golden duties are mixed with infirmity: we are apt either to neglect duty or idolize it. Use duty, but do not trust to it, for then you make it a God. Trust not to your praying, and hearing; these are the means of salvation, but they are not saviors. If you make duties bladders to trust to, you may sink to Hell with these bladders.
6. If we trust in our grace, we make a God of it. Grace is but a creature; if we trust in it, we make it an idol. Grace is imperfect, we cannot trust to that to save us which is imperfect (Psalm 26:1): I have walked in my integrity: I have trusted also in the Lord. David did walk in his integrity, but did not trust in his integrity. I have trusted in the Lord. If we trust in our graces, we make a Christ of them. They are good graces but bad Christs. To love anything more than God, is to make it a God.
1. If we love our estate more than God, then we make it a God. The young man in the Gospel loved his gold better than his Savior; the world lay nearer his heart than Christ (Matthew 19:22). Fulgens hoc aurum praestringit oculos, Var. Hence it is the covetous man is called an idolater (Ephesians 5:5). Why so? Because he loves his estate more than God, and so he makes it his God: though he does not bow down to an idol, yet he worships the graven image in his coins; he is an idolater: that which has most of the heart, that we make a God.
2. If we love our pleasures more than God, we make a God of pleasure (2 Timothy 3:4): [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩]: lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Many let loose the reins, and give themselves up to all manner of sensual delights, they idolize pleasure (Job 21:12-13): they take the timbrel and the harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They spend their days in mirth. I have read of a place in Africa, where the people spend all their time in dancing, and making merry: and have not we many, who make a God of pleasure; who spend their time in going to plays, and visiting stews, as if God had made them like the Leviathan to play in the water (Psalm 104:26). In the country of Sardinia there is an herb like balm, that if one eat too much of it, he will die laughing. Such an herb is pleasure; if one feeds immoderately on it, he will go laughing to Hell. Such as make a God of pleasure, let them read but two scriptures (Ecclesiastes 7:4): The heart of fools is in the house of mirth. And (Revelation 18:7): How much she has lived deliciously, so much torment give her. Sugar laid in a damp [reconstructed: place] turns to water: so all the sugared joys and pleasures of sinners, will turn to the water of tears at last.
3. If we love our belly more than God, we make a God of it (Philippians 3:19): Whose God is their belly. Clemens Alexandrinus writes of a fish that has its heart in its belly: an emblem of epicures, their heart is in their belly, they do Sacrificare lari, their belly is their God, and to this God they pour drink-offerings: the Lord allows what is fitting for the recruit of nature (Deuteronomy 11:15): I will send grass, that you may eat and be full. But to mind nothing but the indulging the appetite is idolatry, whose God is their belly. What pity is it, that the soul, that princely part, which sways the scepter of reason, and is akin to angels, should be enslaved to the brutish part!
4. If we love a child more than God, we make a God of it. How many are guilty in this kind! They think more of their children, and delight more in them, than in God: they grieve more for the loss of their first-born, than for the loss of their first love. This is to make an idol of a child, and to set it in God's room. Thus God is often provoked to take away our children: if we love the jewel more than him that gave it, God will take away the jewel, that our love may return to him again.
Use 1. It reproaches such as have other gods, and so renounce the true God. 1. Such as set up idols (Jeremiah 2:28): According to the number of your cities, are your gods, O Israel. Hosea 12:11: Their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the field. 2. Such as seek to familiar spirits. This is a sin condemned by the law of God (Deuteronomy 18:11): There shall not be found among you, any that consult with familiar spirits. It is ordinary if people have lost any of their goods, they send to wizards and soothsayers, to know how they may come by their goods again. What is this but for people to make a god of the Devil, by consulting with him, and putting their trust in him? What! because you have lost your goods, will you lose your souls too? 2 Kings 1:6: Is it not because you think there is not a God in heaven, that you ask counsel of the Devil? If any be guilty, be humbled.
Use 2. It sounds a retreat in our ears; let it call us off from the idolizing any creature, and renouncing other gods: let us cleave to the true God, and his service: if we go away from God, we know not where to mend ourselves.
1. It is honorable serving of the true God: Servire Deo est regnare: It is more honor to serve God, than to have kings serve us. 2. Serving the true God is delightful (Isaiah 56:7): I will make them joyful in my house of prayer. God often displays the banner of his love in an ordinance, and pours in the oil of gladness into the heart. All God's ways are pleasantness, his paths are strewed with roses (Proverbs 3:17). 3. Serving the true God is beneficial; they have great vails here, the hidden manna, inward peace, and a great reward to come. They that serve God, shall have a kingdom when they die (Luke 12:32), and shall wear a crown made of the flowers of paradise (1 Peter 5:4). To serve the true God is our true interest. God has twisted his glory and our salvation together. He bids us believe; and why? That we may be saved. Therefore renouncing all others, let us cleave to the true God.
2. You have covenanted to serve the true Jehovah, renouncing all others. When one has entered into covenant with his master, and the indentures are drawn and sealed, then he cannot go back, but must serve out his time. We have covenanted in baptism to take the Lord for our God, renouncing all others; and renewed this covenant in the Lord's Supper, and shall we not keep our solemn vow and covenant? We cannot go away from God without the highest perjury (Hebrews 10:38): [illegible]. If any man draw back, as a soldier that steals away from his colors, my soul shall have no pleasure. I will pour vials of wrath on him, make my arrows drunk with blood.
3. None ever had cause to repent of cleaving to God and his service: some have repented that they have made a god of the world. Cardinal Woolsey said, Had I served God as faithfully as I have served my king, he would not have left me thus. None ever complained of serving God, it was both their comfort and crown on death-bed.
