The First Commandment

God spoke these words, and said, I am the Lord your God: You shall have none other Gods but me.

There are two things in the general which perfect a Christian: the one, is a clear and distinct knowledge of his duty; the other, a conscientious practice of it, correspondent to his knowledge; and both these are in an equal degree necessary. For as we can have no solid, nor well-grounded hopes of eternal salvation without obedience, so we can have no sure nor established rule for our obedience without knowledge: And therefore our work and office, is not only exhortation but instruction; not only to excite the affections, but to inform the judgment; and we must as well illuminate as warm.

Knowledge indeed may be found without practice; and our age abounds with such speculative Christians, whose religion is but like the rickets, that makes them grow large in the head, but narrow in the breast; whose brains are replenished with notions, but their hearts straitened towards God; and their lives and actions as black and deformed, as if their light had only tanned and discolored them. I confess, indeed, that their knowledge may be beneficial to others, who may savorily feed upon that meat which these do only mince and carve: yet where it is thus overborne by unruly lusts, and contradicted by a licentious conversation, to themselves it is most fatal and baneful. It is like light shut up in a lantern, which may serve to guide and direct others, but only soots, and at last burns that which contained it.

But although knowledge may be thus without practice, yet it is utterly impossible that the practice of godliness should be without knowledge.

For if we know not the limits of sin and duty, what is required of us, and what is forbidden, it cannot be supposed, but that in this corrupted state of our natures, we shall unavoidably run into many heinous miscarriages, unless it were possible for us to please God at unawares, and so get to heaven by great chance.

And therefore that we might be informed what we ought to do, and what to avoid, it has pleased God who is the great Governor, and will be the righteous Judge of all the world, to prescribe us laws for the regulating of our actions; and that we might not be ignorant what they are, He has openly promulgated them in his Word: For when we had miserably defaced the law of nature, originally written in our hearts, so that many of the commands of it were no longer legible, it seemed good to his infinite wisdom and mercy, to transcribe and copy out that law in the sacred tables of the Scriptures, and to super-add many positive precepts and injunctions which were not before imposed.

The Bible therefore is the statute-book of God's kingdom, therein is comprised the whole body of the heavenly law; the perfect rules of a holy life, and the sure promises of a glorious one. And the Decalogue, or ten Commandments is a summary or brief epitome of those laws, written by the immediate finger of God, and contracted into so short an abridgment, not only to ease our memories, but to gain our veneration; for sententious commands are best befitting majesty. And indeed if we consider the paucity of the expressions, and yet the copiousness and variety of the matter contained in them, we must needs acknowledge not only their authority to be divine, but likewise the skill and art in reducing the whole duty of man to so brief a compendium.

The words are but few, called therefore the words of the covenant, the ten words; but the sense and matter contained in them, is vast and infinite. The rest of the Scripture is but a commentary upon them; either exhorting us to obedience by arguments, or alluring us to it by promises, or frighting us from transgressing by threatenings, or exciting us to the one, and restraining us from the other, by examples recorded in the historical part of it.

But before I come to speak of the Commandments themselves, it will be necessary to premise something concerning the time, the reason, and manner of their delivery.

The time (according to the best computation of chronology) was about two thousand four hundred and sixty years after the creation of the world; two hundred and twenty years after Israel's descent into Egypt, and the third month after their departure out of Egypt; before the birth of Christ almost fifteen hundred years, and therefore above three thousand before our days.

This was the first time that God selected to himself a national church in the world; and therefore it seemed expedient to his wisdom to prescribe them laws and rules how they ought to order both their demeanor, and his worship and service. Before this the law of nature was the standing rule for obedience; but because it was blotted and razed by the first transgression, it was supplied in many particulars by traditions delivered down from one to another: And those of the patriarchs, who according to the prescripts of this law, endeavored to please and serve God, were accepted of him, and frequently obtained the privilege of especial revelations either by dreams, or visions, or heavenly voices, concerning those things wherein they were more particularly to obey his will. In those first ages God made no distinction of people or nations, but as it is since the wall of partition is broken down, and the Jewish economy abrogated by the death of Christ, so was it before, that in every nation he that feared God, and wrought righteousness, was accepted of him.

But the world totally degenerating into vile superstitions and idolatries, the knowledge and fear of the true God was scarcely anywhere to be found, but only in the family and posterity of Abraham; and even there too we have reason to suspect a great decay and corruption, especially in their long abode among the idolatrous Egyptians; indeed, the Scripture does in several places expressly charge them with it: and in all probability they took the pattern of their golden calf from the Egyptian Apis, being idolaters only in a younger figure, and a lesser volume. God therefore justly rejects all the rest of the world; but being mindful of his promise to their father, and the father of the faithful, appropriates this people to himself as his peculiar inheritance: and because it was manifest by experience, that neither the law of nature, nor oral tradition, handed down along from one generation to another, were of sufficient force to preserve alive the knowledge and worship of the true God, but notwithstanding these, the whole earth was become wicked and idolatrous; that therefore this people whom God had now taken to himself, might have all possible advantages to continue in his fear and service, and that they might not degenerate as the rest of the world had done, he himself proclaims to them that law by which he would govern them, writes it upon tables of stone, commits them into the hands of Moses, whom he had constituted his lieutenant; and commands them to be laid up in the Ark as a perpetual monument of his authority, and their duty. How wretchedly depraved are our natures, when even that which is the very light and law of them is so obliterated and defaced, that God would rather entrust its preservation to stones, than us; and thought it more secure when engraven on senseless tables, than when written on our hearts!

The manner wherein this law was delivered, is described to be very terrible and astonishing: the wisdom of God designed it so on purpose to possess the people with the greater reverence of it; and to awaken in their souls a due respect to those old despised dictates of their natures, when they should see the same laws revived and invigorated with so much circumstance and terror: for indeed the Decalogue is not so much the enacting of any new law, as a reviving of the old by a more solemn proclamation. And for the greater majesty and solemnity of the action, we read,

First, that the people were commanded to prepare themselves two days together by a typical cleansing of themselves from all external and bodily pollutions, before they were to stand in the presence of God. So we find it enjoined, they were to be sanctified, and to wash their clothes, and be ready against the third day, on which the Lord would come down in the sight of all the people, upon Mount Sinai.

Now this signifies to us two things:

First, that we ought to be seriously prepared when we come to wait before God in his ordinances, and to receive a law at his mouth: indeed the dispensation of the gospel, is not such a ministry of terror, as that of the law was; God does not now speak to us immediately by his own voice, which they that heard it, were not able to endure; he does not pronounce his law in thunder, nor wrap it up in flame and smoke; but he speaks to us in a still voice, by men like ourselves; and conveys the rich treasure of his will to us in earthen vessels, of the same mold and frailty with ourselves. He treats with us by his messengers and ambassadors; whose errand, though it be delivered with less terror, yet ought not to be received with less reverence, for it is God himself that speaks in them, and by them; and every word of truth which they deliver to you in the name of the great God, and by the authority of that commission which he has given them, ought to be received with as much prostrate veneration and affection, as though God himself had spoken to you immediately from heaven.

Think then how solicitous the Israelites were in fitting themselves for that great and dreadful day of hearing the law; a day more great and dreadful than ever any shall be, except that of judging men according to the law; think how their hearts throbbed and thrilled within them, when they heard the clang of the heavenly trumpets mixed and blended with loud and terrible cracks of thunder; and both giving them a signal of the near approach of God: think, if you can, what thoughts they had when they saw the mountain burning with fire, and enveloped with clouds and smoke, out of which on every side were fearful lightnings [reconstructed: shot] among them; think how they trembled, when they saw the mountain tremble and totter under the weight and greatness of God descending down upon it: and bring with you the same affections, if not so terrified, yet as much over-awed, whenever you come to wait upon his holy ordinances; for it is the same God that speaks to you, and he speaks the same things to you, as then he did; not indeed with such amazing circumstances, yet with the very same authority and majesty.

Were God now to come down among you in his terrible majesty, or should a thick cloud fill this place, and lightnings flash out of it; should you hear the thunder of his voice, I am the Lord; you shall have no other gods before me; certainly such a dreadful glory would make your hearts tremble within you, and the very earth tremble under you: could you then give way to sloth and drowsiness; could your hearts run gadding after vanities and trifles, or could there be any object considerable enough to divert your thoughts and affections from so terrible a glory? Why believe it, God is as really present here, as when he thus manifested himself to the Israelites; and present upon the very same occasion too. He is now delivering his law to you, pronouncing his high and sovereign commands; and if he so far consults our weakness, as not to do it in such an astonishing manner: yet far be that disingenuity from us, that we should be either the less careful to prepare for, or the less reverent in attending on the declarations of his high will and pleasure, though he makes it known to us by men of the same temper, indeed, or distempers with ourselves.

Secondly, if the Israelites were to sanctify and prepare themselves to appear before God at Mount Sinai, how much more ought we to sanctify ourselves that we may be fit to appear before God in heaven? That glory which God manifested when he delivered the law is not comparable to the infinite glory which he always reveals to the saints in heaven: and yet if the people of the Jews were not allowed to see God, though veiled with a cloud and thick darkness, without being first accurately prepared for such a glorious discovery, how much more ought we to prepare ourselves, to wash our filthy garments, and to cleanse our souls from all defilements both of flesh and spirit, that we may be worthy to stand before God, and to see him there where he darts forth the full rays of his brightness, and causes his glory forever to appear without any check or restraint, without any cloud or veil interposing to hide it.

That's the first circumstance observable in the delivery of the law.

Secondly, the mount on which God appeared was to be fenced and railed in, with a strict prohibition that none should presume to pass the bounds there set them, nor approach to touch the holy mount, under the penalty of death. So we have it (Exodus 19:12), which intimates to us two things:

First, the due distance that we ought to keep from God, and teaches us to observe all that reverence and respect which belongs to him, as being infinitely our superior. Certainly the very place where God manifests himself, at least while he does so, are venerable and awful: and therefore when God revealed himself to Jacob in a dream, and gave him the representation of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, angels upon every round of it, and God on the top; we find with what awe he reflects upon it in his waking thoughts, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven" (Genesis 28:16-17).

Secondly, this setting bounds and limits to the mount signified, as in a type, the strictness and exactness of the law of God. His law is our boundary, which he has on purpose set to keep us from rushing in upon his neck, and upon the thick bosses of his buckler: and that soul that shall presume so to do, that shall break these bounds, and commit a trespass upon the Almighty, shall surely die the death, even that eternal death which he has threatened against all violators of his law.

That is a second remarkable circumstance in the delivery of the law.

Thirdly, we have a description of the terrible manner in which God appeared to pronounce his law: thunders, and lightnings, and earthquakes, and fire, and darkness, were the prologue and introduction to it; and were so dreadful as caused not only the people to remove, and stand afar off, as not able to endure such terrible majesty, as we find it (Exodus 20:18), but even affrighted Moses himself, who was to be Internuncius Dei, the messenger and herald of God. This we find intimated (Exodus 19:19): when the voice of the trumpet sounded long and grew louder and louder, Moses spoke. What it was that he said is not there mentioned; but in all probability, he then spoke those words which the Apostle has recorded (Hebrews 12:21): "So terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake."

Now this dreadful appearance of God in the delivering the law served for two ends:

First, to affect them with a reverent esteem of those commands which he should impose upon them: for certainly unless they were possessed with most gross and brutish stupidity, they must needs think those things to be of vast and great concern, which were attended with such a train of remarkable and amazing circumstances; and it is natural for men to be awed by pomp and solemnity; the majesty of the commander adding a kind of authority to the command.

Secondly, to put both them and us in mind, that if God were so terrible only in delivering the law, how much more terrible will he then be, when he shall come to judge us for transgressing the law! Indeed the whole apparatus of this day seems to be typical of the last; but as it is the condition of all types, it shall be far outdone and exceeded by its antitype. Here were voices, and fire, and smoke, and the noise of a trumpet; and these struck terror into the hearts of the people, who came only to receive the law: but oh, think what consternation will seize upon, and cramp the hearts of sinners, when the Lord shall descend from heaven at the last day with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, as the Apostle describes it (1 Thessalonians 4:16). When not a mountain only, but the whole world shall be burning, heaven and earth all on a light flame about them; when they shall hear the terrible voice of the majesty on high calling to them, "Awake you dead, and come away to judgment"; when the earth shall be universally shaken, and shake the dead bodies out of their graves, when whole crowds of naked nations shall throng and cluster about the great tribunal, not to receive a law, but a sentence, a sentence that shall determine their final and eternal estate: certainly if the giving of the law were so full of terror, much more terrible shall be our being judged according to that law.

And this is another remarkable circumstance in the delivery of the law.

Fourthly, when God himself had with his dread voice spoken to them these ten words, their affright and astonishment was so great, that they entreated Moses to be the Truchman and interpreter between God and them. They said to Moses (Exodus 20:19), "Speak with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die." Neither is this without a great mystery and excellent signification; for it intimates that the law, as it is dispensed to us only from God, is in itself the ministration of death and condemnation: but as it is delivered to us by a Mediator, by our Lord Jesus Christ, (of whom Moses here was a type) so we may hear and observe it, and obtain eternal life, not for, but through our obedience to it. And therefore the law is said to be ordained by angels, in the hand of a Mediator (Galatians 3:19); that is, it was solemnly dispensed by the ministry of angels, and then delivered into the hand of Moses, to be by him communicated to the people. Now this intimates to us, that the severity and terrors of the law were intended to drive us to Christ, as here they drove the Israelites to Moses, the type of Christ, from whose mouth the law spoke not so dreadfully, as it did from God's.

Fifthly, upon this intercession and request of the people, Moses is called up into the mount, the law deposited in his hands, engraven in two tables of stone, by the finger and impression of God himself, the most sacred relic that ever the world enjoyed; but at length lost, together with the ark that contained it in the frequent removes and captivities of that people: neither is this too without its spiritual mystery and signification; for it notes to us that our hearts are naturally so hard and stony, that it is only the finger of God that can make any impression of his laws upon them. It is well known that the ark was a most famous type and representation of Jesus Christ; and the keeping of the tables of the law in the ark, what does it else mean, but to prefigure to us that the law was to be kept and observed in him who fulfilled all righteousness? And when God does again write his laws upon our hearts, we also keep them in Christ our ark, whose complete obedience supplies all our imperfections and defects.

Sixthly, whereas this law of the Ten Commandments was twice written by God himself; once before and again after the tables were in a holy zeal broken by Moses; this also is full of mystery, and signifies the twice writing of the law upon the hearts of men: first by the creating finger of God, when he made us perfectly like himself; and then again by his regenerating power, giving us a new impression, and as it were setting us forth in a new edition, but yet containing the same for substance, as when we came forth at first out of the creating hand of God; for regeneration, and the new birth is but a restoring us to the image of God, which we defaced by our Fall in Adam, and as it were a new stamping of those characters of himself, in righteousness and knowledge, which were obliterated.

Seventhly, and lastly, it is said that when Moses came down from the mount after his long converse with God, his face shone with such a divine and heavenly luster, that the Israelites were dazzled with the brightness, and could not steadfastly look upon him; and that therefore he was forced to put a veil over his face to allay and temper those beams which the reflection of God's face and presence had cast upon him; but this veil he laid aside when he turned into the Tabernacle to speak with God. The significance of which history the apostle expressly gives us, that there was a veil upon the heart of the Jews, so as they could not see to the end of the law, which is Christ Jesus, who is the end of the Ceremonial Law, by putting an end to it in its abrogation; and the end of the Moral Law, because in him it has attained its end, for the end of it was by convincing us of our own weakness and inability to perform it, to lead us to Christ, by whose righteousness alone, and not by the works of the law, we are to expect justification before God (Exodus 34:9; 2 Corinthians 3:13-14, 16). Yet there was so thick a veil cast over the law, that the Jews could not look through it upon the glory that shone in Christ, of whom Moses was still the type: but when they shall turn to the Lord, this veil shall be taken away, and then shall they discern the significance of all those ritual observances, and perceive spiritual things after a more sublime and spiritual manner.

And thus I have shown you the time, the reasons, and the circumstances of the delivery of this epitome of the law in the Ten Commandments, wherein many excellent gospel truths are delineated and shadowed out to us.

But some one may say, what need all this long discourse about the law? Is it not fully abrogated by the coming of Christ into the world? Shall we be again brought under that heavy yoke of bondage, which neither we, nor our fathers were ever able to bear? Does not the Scripture frequently testify, that we are not now under the law, but under grace; that we are freed from the law, that Christ was made under the law, to free those who were under the law; and therefore to terrify and overawe men's consciences by the authority of the law, what else is it but a legal dispensation, unworthy of that Christian liberty into which our Savior has vindicated us, having fulfilled the law by his obedience, and by his death abolished it.

To this I answer, far be it from every Christian to indulge himself in any licentiousness from such a corrupt and rotten notion of the law's abrogation; for so far is it from being abolished by the coming of Christ, that he himself expressly tells us, he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17); [illegible], that is, either to perform, or else to perfect and fill up the law. And Verse 18 asserts, that till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, until all be fulfilled; that is, till the consummation and fulfilling of all things; and then the law which was our rule on earth, shall become our nature in heaven.

When therefore Saint Paul speaks (as frequently he does) of the abrogation, and annulling of the law, we must heedfully distinguish both of the law, and likewise of the abrogation of it. The law which God delivered by Moses's ministry, was of three sorts: the Ceremonial, Judicial, and Moral Law. The distinct consideration of each of these, may afford us some light in this matter.

The Ceremonial Law was wholly taken up in enjoining those observances of sacrifices, and offerings, and various methods of purifications and cleansings, which were typical of Christ, and that sacrifice of his which alone was able to take away sin.

The Judicial Law consisted of those constitutions which God prescribed the Jews for their civil government: for their state was a theocracy; and whereas in other commonwealths the chief magistrates give laws to the people, in this, the laws for their religion, and for their civil government, were both divine, and both immediately from God. So that their Judicial Law was given them to be the standing law of their nation; according to which all actions and suits between party and party were to be tried and determined; as in all other nations there are particular laws and statutes for the decision of controversies that may arise among them.

But the Moral Law is a system or body of those precepts which carry a universal and natural equity in them, being so conformable to the light of reason, and the dictates of every man's conscience, that as soon as ever they are declared and understood, we must needs subscribe to the justice and righteousness of them.

These are the three sorts of laws which commonly go under the name of the Law of Moses, all of which had respect either to those things which prefigured the Messiah to come, or to those which concerned their political and civil government, as a distinct nation from others; or to those natural virtues and duties of piety towards God, and righteousness towards men, as were common to them with all the rest of mankind.

Now a law may be said to be null and void two ways, privatively, or negatively: either that it was repealed after it was first given, or that its obligation extends not, nor ever did extend to some people and nations in the world.

Now I desire you heedfully to attend to these propositions, for they will be of great use to clear up how far, and in what manner we are freed from the obligation of the law.

First then, as for the Ceremonial Law we affirm, that to the Jews it is properly abrogated, and the obligation and authority of it utterly taken away and repealed. And concerning this it is that the Apostle is to be understood, when in his Epistles he so often speaks of the abrogation and annulling of the law; he speaks it, I say, of the Ceremonial Law, and Aaronical observations, which indeed were so fulfilled by Christ as to be abolished: for this law was given to be only an adumbration, and [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], or faint representation of Christ: as in the night, while the sun is in the other hemisphere, yet we see its light in the stars, which shine with a borrowed and derived brightness; but when the sun is risen, and displays its beams abroad, it drowns and extinguishes all those petty lights: so while Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, was yet in the other hemisphere of time, before he was risen with healing under his wings, the Jews saw some glimmering of his light in their ceremonies and observances; but now that the day of the gospel is fully sprung, and that light which before was but blooming, is fully spread, those dimmer lights are quite drowned and extinguished in his clear rays; and an utter end is put to all those rites and ceremonies which both intimated, and in a kind supplied the absence of the substance. So that to maintain now a necessity of legal sacrifices, and purifyings, and sprinklings, is no less than to evacuate the death of Christ, and to deny the shedding of that blood, that alone can purify us from all pollutions; which is but to catch at the shadow, and lose the substance.

Secondly, in respect of us, who are the posterity and descendants of the Gentiles, it is more proper to affirm, that the Ceremonial Law was never in force, than that it was truly abrogated; for the Ceremonial Law, was national to the Jews, and in a sort peculiar to them only. Neither did God intend that the observation of it should be imposed upon any other people, although they should be proselyted, as a thing necessary for their future happiness. And this appears by strong and cogent reasons:

First, because God expressly commands all those who were to be subject to the Ceremonial Law, that they should appear at Jerusalem three times in the year before the Lord. Now this command would have been impossible to be obeyed, were it intended that its obligation should reach to those countries which were far remote and distant from Jerusalem (Exodus 34:23-24).

Secondly, because all their sacrifices and oblations, in which consisted the chiefest part of the ceremonial worship, were to be offered up only at Jerusalem, which were alike impossible, if this command of sacrificing had been intended by God to be obligatory to all the world. No sacrifices were accepted by God, but what were offered up in the Temple; and therefore the Jews to this day, although they are very blindly zealous of the law, yet offer no sacrifices to God, looking upon themselves as dispensed from that duty, because of their dispersion, and the impossibility of assembling themselves to Jerusalem to do it: and therefore doubtless that command, even while it was in force, obliged none but the Jewish nation, who living not far from their metropolis, might with conveniency enough assemble themselves together to that holy service.

And thirdly, we find that even before Christ's coming, the Jews themselves did not impose the observation of the ceremonial rites of their law, upon all those heathens whom they won over to be proselytes to their religion; for their proselytes were of two sorts,

Such as were Proseliti Legis, who became perfect Jews in religion, lived among them, and engaged themselves to the full observance of the whole law.

And such as were called Proseliti Portae; that is, those heathens who were so far converted, as to acknowledge and worship the only true God, although they lived in other nations, and obliged not themselves to the performance of what the Levitical Law required: these the Jews admitted into participation of the same common hope and salvation with themselves, when they professed their faith in God the Creator, and their obedience to the law of nature, together with the seven traditional precepts of Noah.

From all which it clearly appears, that the Ceremonial Law, to speak properly, is not abrogated to us Gentiles, it never being given with an intent to oblige us; but it is truly abrogated and annulled to the Jews by the coming of Christ, the Messiah into the world, in whom all these types were to receive their full accomplishment. And concerning the abolition of this Ceremonial Law, we must understand the Apostle, when he frequently and earnestly asserts the liberty of believers, and their freedom from the law; that is, the believing Jews were positively freed from the necessity of observing it; and the believing Gentiles were negatively free from observing it at all.

And for the further clearing of this matter, we must know that in the very beginning of the Church, there arose great dissension between the believing Jews, and the believing Gentiles, concerning the necessity of observing the Levitical Law: for we find (Acts 15:5) that certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, affirmed, that it was needful to circumcise the Gentiles, and to command them to keep the Law of Moses. Which yet was greater rigor than was formerly used to the proselyte party. To determine this question, the Apostles and Elders meet together in a council at Jerusalem; where after some debate, the whole result seems in brief to have been this: that the believing Jews might still, without offense, observe the rites and ceremonies of the Law; for though the necessity of them were now abrogated, yet the use of them might for a season be lawfully continued; though they were mortuae, yet not mortiferae; dead they were, but hitherto not deadly: they were expired, yet some time was thought expedient for their decent burial. And therefore we find Saint Paul himself who so earnestly in all his Epistles opposes the observation of the Ceremonial Law, yet he himself submits to the use of those rites, and purifies himself in the Temple according to the Law (Acts 21:26). Indeed, he also circumcises Timothy, because he was the son of a Jewess (Acts 16:3), by which he evidently declares, that those believers who were of that nation, though they were freed from the necessity of, yet they might lawfully as yet, observe the Aaronical constitutions, especially when to avoid giving of offense, it might be expedient so to do. So tender a thing is the peace of the Church, that even abrogated rites and ceremonies should not be violently rejected, to endanger a wound and schism; and therefore much less ought constituted and received rites in things of less moment than sacrifice and circumcision, be so stiffly and pertinaciously oppugned to the incurable breach and division of the Church.

But then concerning the Gentiles; although before the coming of Christ, they might become perfect proselytes to the whole Law of Moses, and receive the seal of circumcision, as many of them did, yet after the Evangelical doctrine was consummate, and the Apostles sent into all the world to preach it to every creature, they by the Holy Ghost determine, in that first council of the Church, that the Gentiles should by no means be burdened with any of those impositions: but as they were heretofore by the Jews themselves concluded to be in a safe condition, even as many of them as worshipped the true God, and observed the Commandments of Noah; so now the Apostles decree to preserve them in the same liberty. And therefore write to them, that they should not subject themselves to the dogmatizing commands of false teachers, who required them to be circumcised, and to keep the Ceremonial Law; but that from as many as believed nothing more was required than only to abstain from meat offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication — that is (as judicious Mr. Hooker very probably interprets it) from incestuous marriages within prohibited degrees. And all those commands laid upon them by the Apostles, are the very precepts of Noah. But circumcision, and other observances of the Ceremonial Law, they were not obliged to; indeed, they were obliged not to observe them, as being subversions of their souls (Acts 15:24). And therefore we find that the same holy Apostle who himself circumcised Timothy, because he was the son of a Jewess, when he writes to the Gentiles, he tells them expressly, that if they be circumcised, Christ shall profit them nothing (Galatians 5:2).

And thus we see how far, and in what sense the Ceremonial Law is abrogated.

Thirdly, as concerning the Judicial Law, and those precepts which were given the Jews for the government of their civil state; that law is not at all abrogated, not to us, for it was never intended to oblige us. Neither indeed is it at all necessary, that the laws of every nation should be conformed to the laws which the Jews lived under; for doubtless each state has its liberty to frame such constitutions as may best serve to obtain the ends of government. And therefore although the punishment of theft were ordained by God himself to be sometimes a double, sometimes a four-fold, sometimes a five-fold restitution (Exodus 22:1, 4), yet are not our laws to be condemned, which ordain the penalty of this transgression to be no less than death; for the reason and necessity of every nation is the best rule and measure for those laws by which they are to be governed.

Neither is the Judicial Law abrogated to the Jews; for though now in their scattered state the laws cease to be of force, because they cease to be a body politic, yet were their dispersion again collected into one republic, most probably the same national laws would bind them now, as did in former times, when they were a happy and flourishing kingdom.

Fourthly, as concerning the Moral Law, of which I am now treating, that is partly abrogated, partly not; abrogated as to some of its circumstances, but not as to any thing of its substance, authority, and obligation.

First, the Moral Law is abrogated to believers as it was a covenant of works: for God in man's first creation wrote this law in his heart, and added this sanction to it, if you do this, you shall live; if not, you shall die the death. Now all mankind sinning in Adam, and thereby contracting an utter impotency of obeying that law, that we might not all perish according to the rigorous sentence of it, God was graciously pleased to enter into another covenant with us, promising a Saviour to repair our lost and decayed condition, and eternal life upon the easier terms of faith and Evangelical obedience. Indeed all those who either never heard of Jesus Christ, or do reject him, are still under the law as a covenant; and therefore their estate is most wretched and deplorable; for being transgressors of the law, there remains nothing for them, but a certain fearful looking for of wrath and fiery indignation to devour them as the adversaries of God: but those who are true believers, are under a better covenant, even the covenant of grace, wherein God has promised to them eternal life upon the condition of their faith; and they may with full assurance of hope, to their unspeakable joy and comfort, expect the performance of it. And therefore,

Secondly, to them also the Moral Law is abrogated, as to its condemning power. Though it sentences every sinner to death, and curses every one who continues not in all things that are written therein, to do them; yet through the intervention of Christ's satisfaction and obedience, the sins of a believer are graciously pardoned, and the venom and malignity of the curse is abolished, it being discharged wholly upon Christ, and received all into his body on the Cross (Galatians 3:13). Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us; and therefore we may triumphantly exult with the Apostle (Romans 8:1): There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.

In these two respects believers are indeed freed from the Moral Law, as it has the obligation of a covenant; and as it has a power of condemnation.

But thirdly, as it has a power of obliging the conscience as a standing rule for our obedience, so it remains still in its full vigor and authority; it still directs us what we ought to do, binds the conscience to the performance of it, brings guilt upon the soul if we transgress it, and reduces us to the necessity either of bitter repentance, or of eternal condemnation: for in this sense, heaven and earth shall sooner pass away, than one jot or tittle shall pass from the Law.

And therefore the Antinomian is to be abominated, that derogates from the value and validity of the Law, and contends, that it is to all purposes extinct to believers, even so much as to its preceptive and regulating power; and that no other obligation to duty lies upon them who are in Christ Jesus, but only from the law of gratitude: that God requires not obedience from them upon so low and sordid an account as the fear of his wrath and dread severity, but all is to flow only from the principle of love, and the sweet temper of a grateful and ingenious spirit.

But this is a most pestilent doctrine which plucks down the fence of the Law, and opens a gap for all manner of licentiousness and libertinism to rush in upon the Christian world; for seeing that the Moral Law is no other than the law of nature written upon man's heart at the first, some positives only being super-added, upon the same account as we are men, upon the same we owe obedience to the dictates of it. And indeed we may find every part of this Law enforced in the Gospel; charged upon us with the same threatenings, and recommended to us by the same promises; and all interpreted to us by our Savior himself to the greatest advantage of strictness and severity. We find the same rules for our actions, the same duties required, the same sins forbidden in the Gospel, as in the Law; only in the Gospel we have these mitigations, which were not in the covenant of works:

First, that God accepts of our obedience if it be, Syncere voto & conamine, in earnest desires and endeavors; although we cannot attain that perfect exactness and spotless purity which the Law requires, yet we are accepted through Christ, according to what we have, and not according to what we have not, if so be we indulge not ourselves in a willful sloth and contempt of the Law.

Secondly, the Gospel admits of repentance after our falls, and restores us again to the favor of God upon our true humiliation: but the Law as a covenant of works, left no room for repentance, but required perfect obedience without the least failure; and in case of non-performance, nothing was to be expected but the execution of that death it threatened.

Yet withal, a higher degree of obedience is now required from us under the dispensation of the Gospel, than was expected under the more obscure and shadowy exhibitions of gospel grace, by legal types and figures. We confess that the Israelites, before the coming of Christ, were no more under a covenant of works, than we are now: but yet the covenant of grace was more darkly administered to them: and therefore we having now received both a clearer light to discover what is our duty, and a more plentiful effusion of the Holy Ghost, to enable us to perform it; and better promises, more express and significative testimonies of God's acceptance, and more full assurance of our own reward; it lies upon us, having all these helps and advantages above them, to endeavor that our holiness and obedience should be much superior to theirs; and that we should serve God with more readiness and alacrity, since now by Jesus Christ our yoke is made easy, and our burden light.

So that you see we are far from being dispensed with for our obligation to obedience: but rather that obligation is made the stricter by Christ's coming into the world: and every transgression against the Moral Law is enhanced to an excess of sin and guilt, not only by the authority of God's injunction, which still continues inviolable, but likewise from the sanction of our Mediator and Redeemer, who has invigorated the precepts of the Law by his express command, and promised us the assistance of his Spirit to observe and perform them.

Now here before I can come particularly to treat of the words of the Decalogue, I think it requisite to propound some general rules for the right understanding and expounding of the commandments, which will be of great use to us for our right apprehending the full latitude and extent of them. The Psalmist tells us, that the commandments of God are exceeding broad (Psalm 119:96). They are exceeding straight, as to any toleration or indulgence given to the unruly lusts and appetites of men; but exceeding broad, in the comprehensiveness of their injunctions, extending their authority over all the actions of our lives. Now that we may conceive somewhat of this breadth and reach of the Law of God, observe these following rules:

First, all those precepts which are dispersed in the Holy Scriptures, and concern the regulating of our lives and actions, although they are not to be found expressly mentioned in the Decalogue, yet may they very aptly be reduced under one of these ten commands. There is no duty required, nor sin forbidden by God, but it falls under one, at least of these ten words, and sometimes under more than one: and therefore to the right and genuine interpretation of this law, we must take in whatever the prophets, apostles, or our Lord Christ himself has taught, as comments and expositions upon it; for the Decalogue is a compendium of all that they have taught concerning moral worship and justice; indeed, our Savior does epitomize this very epitome itself, and reduces those ten words into two, love to God, which comprehends all the duties of the first table; and love to our neighbor, which comprehends all the duties of the second table; and tells us, that upon these two hang all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:37-41). And certainly a due love of God, and of our neighbor, will make us careful to perform all the duties of religion to the one, and of justice to the other, and keep us from attempting any violation to his honor, or violence to their right. And therefore the apostle tells us, that love is the fulfilling of the law; and (1 Timothy 1:4) that the end of the commandment is charity, or love the end; that is, the completion, or the consummation of the commandment, is love both to God, and one another. But concerning this I shall have occasion to speak more largely hereafter.

Secondly, since most of the commandments are delivered in negative or prohibiting terms, and only the fourth and fifth in affirmative or enjoining terms, we may observe this rule: that the affirmative commands include in them the prohibition of the contrary sin; and the negative commands include the injunction of the contrary duty: for it is necessary that the contrary to what is forbidden, must be commanded; and again, the contrary to what is commanded, must be forbidden. As for instance, God in the third commandment, forbids the taking of his name in vain, therefore by consequence the hallowing and sanctifying his name is therein commanded. The fourth requires the sanctifying of the Sabbath day; therefore it surely follows, that the profanation of it is thereby forbidden. The fifth commands us to honor our parents; therefore it forbids us to be disobedient or injurious to them. And so it is easy to collect of the rest.

Thirdly, observe also, that every negative command binds semper and ad semper, as the schools speak; that is, always, and to every moment of time: but the affirmative precepts, though they bind always, yet they do not bind to every moment; indeed as to the habit of obedience they do, but not as to the acts. To make this plain by instance: The first commandment, You shalt have no other Gods before Me, binds always, and to every moment of time; so that he is guilty of idolatry, whoever shall at any time set up any other God to worship, besides the Lord Jehovah. But the affirmative precept, which is included in this negative, namely, to worship, to love, to invoke, to depend upon this God, obliges us always, for we must never act contrary to this; and likewise it obliges us to every moment of time, in respect of the habits of divine love, and faith, and worship, yet it does not oblige us to every moment, in respect of the acts of these habits; for it is impossible to be always actually praying, actually praising, and actually worshipping God; neither is it required that we should, for this would make one duty shock and interfere with another. So likewise the fourth commandment, which is affirmative, Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath day, obliges always; and whoever at any time profanes the Sabbath, is guilty of the violation of this law: but it does not, it cannot oblige to every moment of time, since this day only makes its weekly returns, and every parcel of time is not a Sabbath day. So likewise the fifth commandment is positive, Honour your Father and your Mother, and binds always, so that we sin if at any time we are refractory and disobedient to their lawful commands: but it does not oblige to the acts of honor and reverence in every moment of time, for that is impossible, or were it not, it would be but mimical and ridiculous.

But now the negative precepts oblige us to every moment of time; and whoever ceases the observation of them for any one moment, is thereby involved in sin, and becomes guilty, and a transgressor before God: such are, You shalt not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain; You shalt not Kill; You shalt not Steal; You shalt not commit Adultery; etc. Now there is no moment of time whatever that can render the non-observation of these commands allowable; nor are there any circumstances that can excuse it from guilt. Whoever does profane the name of God by rash swearing, or trivial or impertinent uttering of it; whoever sheds innocent blood; whoever purloins from another what is rightly his; whoever is guilty of any uncleanness, let it be at what time, in what place, after what manner soever, let it be done passionately or deliberately, whether he be tempted to it or not, yet he is a transgressor of the law, and liable to that curse and death which God has threatened to inflict upon every soul of man that does evil. Whereas in the affirmative precepts there are some times and seasons to which we are not bound, so as actually to perform the duties enjoined us. This I suppose is clear, and without exception.

Fourthly, observe this rule also, that the same precept which forbids the external and outward acts of sin, forbids likewise the inward desires and motions of sin in the heart; and the same precepts which requires the external acts of duty, requires likewise those holy affections of the soul, that are suitable to it. As for instance, the same command that requires me to worship God, exacts from me not only the outward service of the lip, or of the knee, but much more the inward reverence and affection of my soul; that I should prostrate, not my body only, but my very heart at his feet, fearing him as the greatest God, and loving him as the greatest good, and with all the tenderness and dearness of an amorous and ravished soul, cleaving to him, and clasping about him as my only joy and happiness. And therefore those are highly guilty of the violation of this command, who worship God only with their bodies, when their hearts are far estranged from him; offering up only the shell and husk of a duty, when the pith and substance which should fill it, is given either to the world, or to their lusts. Such as these are guilty of idolatry even in serving and worshipping the true God; for they set up their idols in their hearts, when they come to inquire of him; as the prophet complains (Ezekiel 14:7).

So likewise that positive command, Honor your father and your mother, does not only require from us the external acts of obedience to all the lawful commands of our parents, and magistrates, and those whom God has set in authority over us, but requires further, an inward love, veneration, and esteem for them in our hearts. For though men can take no further cognizance of us, than by our overt-acts, and if those be regular, they are likewise satisfactory to all human laws; yet this is not sufficient satisfaction to the law of God, who is the discerner and judge of the heart and soul, and whose law has this special prerogative above all others, that it can with authority prescribe to our very thoughts, desires, and affections.

And then, as for negative commands; they do not only forbid the external acts of sin, but the inward motions of lust, sinful desires, and evil concupiscence. And this we find at large, in Matthew 5, where our Savior makes it a great part of his most excellent Sermon on the Mount, to clear and vindicate the moral law from the corrupt glosses and interpretations of the scribes and Pharisees; and to show, that the authority of the law reached, not only to prohibit sinful actions, as that corrupt generation thought, but sinful affections too. Consult verse 21: You have heard, that it was said by them of old time, You shall not kill: and whoever shall kill, shall be in danger of the judgment. Here they stopped, in the very bark and rind of the command; and thought it no offense, though they suffered their hearts to burn with wrath, and malice, and revenge, so long as they pent it up there, and did not suffer it to break forth into bloody murder. But what says our Savior in verse 22? But I say to you, that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment: and whoever shall say to his brother, Racha, shall be in danger of the council: but whoever shall say, You fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire. You see here, that not only the horrid sin of murder is forbidden by the law, but all the incentives to it, and degrees of it, as anger conceived inwardly in the heart, or expressed outwardly in words.

I cannot pass this place without giving you some light for the right understanding of it.

Here are three degrees of sin, short of murder, yet all forbidden by the same precept which forbids that: causeless anger against your brother; calling him Racha, and calling him, you fool; of which the one still exceeds the other in guilt. Racha signifies a simple witless fellow, commonly used to upbraid such as were weak and ignorant: or you fool, signifies one that is not only ignorant, but wicked and ungodly; as the Scripture frequently uses the word in that sense, which is a far greater reproach, than merely to call him weak or silly. Now according to these three degrees of sins, our Savior proportions three degrees of punishment to be inflicted on those that are guilty of them, each severer than the other; causeless anger shall bring them in danger of the judgment; Racha, in danger of the council; and you fool, in danger of hell-fire; that is, they shall make them liable to the punishments inflicted by these.

But now to understand the full scope and meaning of our Savior in these allusions, we must have recourse to the history of the Jewish commonwealth: and there we find that they had two courts of judicature established among them, the lesser and the greater Sanhedrin; the lesser consisted of twenty-three persons, and was erected not only in Jerusalem, but in every considerable city among the Jews, where there were 120 householders; these had authority to inflict capital punishments upon malefactors: but yet as the highest crimes fell not under their cognizance, so neither their severest punishments under their award. And this consistory our Savior calls here the judgment; and tells, that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be liable to a punishment corresponding to that which this Sanhedrin was empowered to inflict; still applying temporals to spirituals, that is, he shall be liable to eternal death, though not so severely executed, as it would be for crimes of a more heinous nature.

Their greater Sanhedrin was their Supreme Court of Judicature, and consisted of seventy Elders, besides their chief Speaker or Moderator. You will find their first institution to have been by Divine Authority (Numbers 11:16). They sat only in Jerusalem; their sentence was decisive and determining, from which there lay no appeal: they were to judge of all harder matters, which could not be determined by other courts, as causes concerning a whole tribe, or the whole nation; causes of war and peace; causes concerning the High Priest, and the mission and authority of prophets that spoke to them in the name of the Lord. And this may be the occasion of that speech of our Savior, "It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem"; because in Jerusalem alone was this Sanhedrin constituted, which was to judge of the prophets, whether they were true or false: this Sanhedrin our Savior here calls the Council. And they had power not only of life and death (as the other had) but likewise of inflicting death in a more severe and tormenting manner than the other. And therefore our Savior says, "Whoever shall call his brother Racha, a vain witless fellow, shall be in danger of the Council"; wherein he still brings the degrees of punishments among the Jews, to allude to the punishment of sins in hell; and so the meaning is, that as he who shall causelessly be angry with his brother, exposes himself to the danger of eternal death; so he that shall suffer his anger to break forth into any reproachful or reviling language, although his taunts be not very bitter nor biting, only to call him a weak silly person; yet hereby he incurs the danger of a severer sentence, and execution of it upon him for ever.

But now the severest sentence which this Sanhedrin could pronounce against the greatest malefactors, was that they should be burnt alive with fire. This execution was always performed in the Valley of Hinnom, joining to Jerusalem, which being a place wherein were frequent fires made, both in idolatrous times for the sacrificing of their children to Moloch, and in their purer times for consuming the filth of their city, and that which was as bad, their malefactors; it is not infrequent in the Scripture to denote hell by this Tophet, this Valley of Hinnom; which for its continual fires, was a lively type and representation of it; indeed, the very Scripture name for hell, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], seems to be derived from the Valley of Hinnom.

Now as burning of malefactors in Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom, was among the Jews one of their highest and severest punishments, and never inflicted but where the crime was very gross and flagitious; so says our Savior, "He that says to his brother, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], You Fool, shall be in danger of Gehenna, of hell-fire," that is, of a severer punishment in the true hell, than those who were either causelessly angry, or expressed their anger in more tolerable reproaches, although even they also shall (without repentance) be eternally punished. So that the sense of our Savior in all this allusion seems to be this: That whereas the Scribes and Pharisees had restrained that command, "You shall not kill," only to actual murder, as if nothing else were forbidden besides open violence and blood; our Savior conversely teaches, that not only that furious and barbarous sin of murder, but also rash and causeless anger, though it only seethe and boil in the heart, much more if it cast forth its foam at the mouth in reviling speeches, falls under that prohibition, "You shall not kill." All these degrees deserve to be punished with eternal death; but, as among the Jews, some were punished with lighter, others with more grievous penalties, so shall it be at the great judgment: anger in our hearts shall be condemned with eternal punishments; but if it break forth into reviling expressions, the condemnation shall be more intolerable, and by so much more, by how much the reproaches are more bitter and sarcastical.

This, in brief, I take to be the true meaning of this difficult speech of our Savior, the whole scope of which shows, that not only the gross acts of sin, but also the inward dispositions, and corrupt affections to sin, and every degree and tendency towards it, are forbidden and threatened by the holy law of God.

So likewise, verse 27 of this 5th chapter, "You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, that whoever shall look upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery already with her in his heart." Here our Savior brings inward concupiscence to the bar, and makes the heart and eye plead guilty, although possibly shame or fear might restrain the grosser acts of filthiness.

Thus, by these few instances, although many more might be added, I have shown, that the same precept which forbids the outward acts of sin, forbids likewise the inward desires and motions of sin in the heart.

And indeed there is a great deal of reason for it: for God who is our Lawgiver, is a Spirit; he sees and converses with our spirits. There is not the least thought that flits in your soul, not the least shadow of an imagination cast upon your fancy, not the stillest breathing of a desire in the heart, but God is privy to it; he sees to the very bottom of that deep spring and source of thoughts that is in your heart; he beholds them in their causes and occasions; and knows our thoughts, as the Psalmist speaks, afar off: he beholds our souls more clearly and distinctly than we can behold one another's faces; and therefore it is but fit and rational that his laws should reach as far as his knowledge; and that he should prescribe rules to that, whose irregularity he can observe and punish. Hence it is that the Apostle, considering what an energy the law had upon that part of man which seemed most free and uncontrolled, his mind and spirit, calls it a spiritual law, We know, says he, that the law is spiritual; and that because the searching and convincing power of it enters into our spirits, cites our thoughts, accuses our desires, condemns our affections, which no other law in the world, besides this, can do: for how justly ridiculous would those be, that should command us not to think dishonorably of them, not to desire anything to their detriment and prejudice; and should threaten us with punishments in case of disobedience: but the law of God comes into our consciences with authority, and in the name of the great God, requires his peace to be kept among our tumultuous and seditious affections, beats down their carnal weapons, and gives conscience a power either to suppress all rebellious insurrections against the majesty of heaven, or else to indict, accuse, and torment men for them. And therefore the Word of God is by the Apostle said to be quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

That is therefore a fourth rule for the right understanding of the extent and latitude of the commands.

Fifthly, another general rule is this, that the command does not only forbid the sin that is expressly mentioned, but all occasions and inducements leading to that sin; and therefore we may observe, that there are many sins that are not expressly forbidden in any one commandment, but yet are reductively forbidden in every one, towards the violation of which they may prove occasions. And as some one sin may be an occasion to all others, so it may be well said to be forbidden in every precept of the Decalogue; I shall instance only in two of this kind, and they are, familiarity with evil persons, or keeping of evil company; and that reigning sin of drunkenness.

For the first of these it is evident, that though it be not expressly and in terminis forbidden in any one commandment, yet as it is a strong temptation and inducement to the violation of each of them, so it is a sin against them all. There are no such sure factors for the Devil, as wicked company, who will strive to rub their vices upon as many as they can infect: and therefore you who delight in the company either of atheists, or idolaters, or swearers, or sabbath-breakers, or disobedient rebels, or murderers, or whoremongers, or thieves, or perjured persons, or covetous muckworms, you are guilty of the breach of each of these commandments; for you run yourself into the very snare of the Devil, and take the same course to make yourself so, which made them such. And therefore we are all forbidden to keep company with such profane and profligate wretches, by the very same commandment which forbids their impieties, whatever they be.

And as for the second sin I mentioned, drunkenness, it is nowadays grown to such a height of impudence, that it confronts the sun: and whereas in the apostle's days, even among the heathens themselves, shame so far prevailed upon vice and debauchery, that it left sobriety the day, and took only the night to itself, for they that would be drunk were drunk in the night; yet now among us Christians, wickedness is grown so profligate, that we meet the drunkard reeling and staggering even at noonday, and ready to discharge his vomit in our faces or our bosoms. Possibly some, who are besotted with this loathsome vice, may think it no great wickedness, because it is not expressly forbidden in this summary of the law; and so they cry, Peace, peace, to themselves, although they go on to add drunkenness to thirst.

But of this common sin I say, that it is not against any one particular commandment of the law, but against all; for since the Moral Law is the law and rule of right reason, the whole of it must needs be broken, when reason itself is perverted by riot and intemperance; the man turned out of doors, and the beast taken in. So that indeed drunkenness is not so much any one sin, as it is all; never were all the commandments more surely broken, when Moses cast the two tables out of his hands, than they are, in another sense, broken by the drunkard. For he has put off the man and has put on the swine; and into such swine it is that the Devil enters, as surely as ever he entered into the herd of the Gadarenes; and drives them furiously down the precipices of all manner of sins and vices, till at length he plunges and drowns them in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, and there let them drink their fill.

And therefore whatever is commanded, or whatever is forbidden, drunkenness is forbidden, as being the greatest advantage that the Devil has to prompt men to those abominations, that were they in their right senses, they would abhor and detest. Is he, think you, fit to worship God, and to take him for his own God, who is not himself his own man? Is not he guilty of idolatry, who makes Bacchus his deity, giving him the libations of his vomits, and falling prostrate before him? Can he forbear taking the Name of God in vain, who has taken the creatures of God to his bane; whose tongue is set afloat with his excessive cups, and whose mouth the Devil taps to let his blasphemies, and oaths, and curses, and fearful execrations run out the more fluently? Can he keep holy the Sabbath-day, whose last night's drunkenness and excess, rocks him asleep either in his own house, or in the house of God? Is he fit to honor his parents, who dishonors his own body? Can he abstain from murder, who first takes the ready way to destroy his own body, and damn his own soul; and then, through the rage of wine, is ready upon every slight provocation to mingle his vomit with the blood of others? Can he keep himself from filthy uncleanness, whose riotous table does but prepare him for a polluted bed? Shall not he assevere that which is false, whose reason is so blinded by the fumes of his intemperance, that he knows no longer the difference between truth and falsehood? And finally, what bounds can he set to his concupiscence, who by thus blinding the eyes of his reason, has only left him fancy and appetite, both which the Devil rules and governs?

Thus you see there are some sins, which though they are not expressly forbidden in the Decalogue, yet are virtually and reductively forbidden, as being the consequences and the occasions of others; and among these, drunkenness especially, which strikes at every law that God has enjoined us, the guilt of which is universal, as well as the sin epidemical.

Sixthly, Another rule for the understanding of the Decalogue is this, That the commands of the first table are not to be kept for the sake of the second; but the commands of the second are to be kept for the sake of the first. The first table commands us those duties which immediately respect the service and worship of God; the second those which respect our demeanor towards men: Now the worship and service of God is not to be performed out of respect to men; but our duty towards men is to be observed out of respect to God. For he that worships God that he might thereby recommend himself to men, is but a hypocrite and formalist; and he that performs his duty towards men, without respecting God in it, is but a mere civil moralist. The first table commands us not to worship idols; not to swear; not to profane the Sabbath. The laws of the magistrate commands the very same; and those who are guilty of the breach of them, are liable to human punishments: but if we therefore abstain from these sins, because they will expose us to shame, or suffering among men; if therefore only we worship God, that men may respect and venerate us, all the pomp and ostentation of our religion is but hypocrisy; and as such shall have its reward: for God requires to be served not for man's sake, but for His own.

The second table prescribes the right ordering of our conduct towards men; that we should be dutiful and obedient to our superiors; loving and kind to our equals; charitable and beneficial to our inferiors; and just and righteous towards all. These duties are not to be done only for man's sake, but for God's; and those who perform them without respecting Him in them, lose both their acceptance and reward. And therefore our Saviour condemns that love and beneficence which proceeds merely upon human and prudential accounts (Matthew 5:46): If you love them only which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same? And (Luke 6:33-34): If you do good to them which do good to you, what thanks have you? For sinners also do the same. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thanks have you? For sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.

But we ought not therefore to serve God for man's sake; but we ought to love man for God's sake; and to perform the duties of the second table out of conscience and respect to God; and that respect is threefold:

First, obedience to his authority; for then what we do for men is an acceptable work and service, when we do it out of a sincere principle of obeying the will and command of God.

Secondly, conformity to his example. And this our Saviour urges (Matthew 5:45): That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven, for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good; and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

Thirdly, a comfortable hope and expectation of his eternal reward (Luke 6:35): Love your enemies, and do good, and your reward shall be great.

This is the way to exalt morality to be truly divine; and to make whatever we do towards men, to be an acceptable service to God. By this means we interest Him in all the acts of our charity, our justice, and temperance; and we may be assured, that what we thus do for His sake, shall in the end be rewarded by his bounty.

Seventhly, Another rule is this, That the commands of the first table, so far forth as they are purely moral, supersede our obedience to the commands of the second table, when they are not both consistent. As for instance, We are in the second table required to obey our parents, and to maintain and preserve our own lives: yet if we are brought into such circumstances as that we must necessarily disobey either God or them, either prostitute our souls to guilt, or our lives to execution, in such a case our Saviour has instructed us (Luke 14:26): If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, indeed and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Indeed a positive hatred of these is unnatural and impious; but the hatred which our Saviour here intends, is comparative, that is, a loving them less than Christ, than religion and piety. And if the commands of the one, or the concerns of the other are at any time to be violated, or neglected, it must only be when we are sure that they are incompatible with a good conscience, and true godliness.

Again in the eighth place, whereas in the first Table there is one command partly moral and natural, partly positive and instituted, and that is our observation of the Sabbath: we may observe that our obligation to the duties of the second Table does often times supersede our obedience to that command of the first Table. It frequently happens, that works of necessity, and mercy, will not permit us to be employed in works of piety, nor to sanctify the Sabbath after such a manner, as else we ought: for the Lord requires mercy rather than sacrifice (Hosea 6:6). And this our Saviour alleges (Matthew 9:13). In which sense it holds true, that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). Whatever therefore is a work of necessity, or a work of charity and mercy, and that not only towards man, but even towards brute beasts themselves, may lawfully be done on the Sabbath day, without bringing upon us the guilt of profanation; for that which is purely moral in the second Table does in a sort derogate from what is but positive and instituted in the first.

A ninth rule is this: whatever is forbidden in any command, both all the signs and symptoms of it, and likewise all the effects and consequences of it, are forbidden in the same. Thus under the prohibition of idolatry falls the prohibition of the feasting in the idol-temples, and eating meats sacrificed to them, as being too evident a sign and tessera of our communion with them. So in the same command wherein pride is forbidden, (which is chiefly the first and second, for a proud man sets up himself for his God, is his own idol, and is his own idolater,) in the same are forbidden all the signs and effects of pride, as a lofty look, and a mincing gate, an affected behavior, and vain fantastic apparel; against which the Prophet largely declaims (Isaiah 3:16 to the end); because although pride does not formally consist in these things, yet they are signs and effects of pride, and contrary to that modesty and decency which God requires.

The tenth and last rule is this: the connection between the commands is so close and intimate, and they are so linked together, that whoever breaks one of them is guilty of all. Now that bond which runs through them, and knits them thus together, is the authority and sovereignty of God enjoining their observance; so that whoever fails in his due obedience to any one, does virtually and interpretatively transgress them all. Thus we find it expressly affirmed (James 2:10): Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all. Not as though the violation of one precept were actually the violation of another, (for many may steal, and yet not actually murder; many again may murder, and yet not actually commit adultery.) But this place of the Apostle must be understood of violating that authority which passes through them all, and by which all the commandments have their sanction: for since the authority of the great God is one and the same in all these laws, he that shall so far disrespect this authority, as wilfully to break one of them, evidently declares, that he owns it not in any. And although other considerations may restrain such a one from those crimes which are forbidden by some commandments, yet his observance of them is no part of obedience; nor can it be interpreted to be performed out of conscience and respect towards God, for were it so, the same authority which withheld him from murder, or theft, or adultery, would likewise restrain him from lying, or taking the name of God in vain. And he that is guilty of these offenses, is likewise guilty of all, because the same authority is stamped upon them all alike, and is alike violated in the transgression of each. And this very reason the Apostle adds to his assertion, Verse 11: He that said, Do not commit adultery; said also, Do not kill. Now if you commit no adultery, yet if you kill, you are become a transgressor of the law; yes, of the whole law, as breaking that fence which God had set about his law, even his sovereign and absolute authority.

These are the rules which may direct your understandings to a right knowledge of the latitude and comprehensiveness of the law. As for the application of them to particular cases, I must leave that to the judgment of Christian prudence; only in the ensuing treatise you will meet with sundry examples of it.

It will be now requisite that I speak something (and that chiefly because others have spoken so much) concerning the order of these commands; the number of them is no way questioned, for God himself has determined them to be Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:28), but the method and disposition of them is much controverted; and I think with more heat and contention than the cause deserves. For if all that God has spoken be entirely delivered to us, what great concern is it, whether this or that command be reckoned the second, third, or fourth? This certainly tends but little to piety; and we had need rather to employ our care how to keep them, than how to reckon them.

And therefore, waiving all other differences, (as that of Hesychius, making the first commandment to be this, I am the Lord your God; which we with good reason affirm to be only a part of the preface; and leaving out the fourth concerning the sanctification of the Sabbath; and that of the seventh, placing, You shall not kill, after, You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; whereas we according to the Hebrew verity place it before;) all that I shall remark is, the difference between the Papists and us in the enumeration of the Ten Commandments: They generally hold, that there are but three commands in the first table; and therefore make seven in the second: and to complete this number, as they join the first and the second into one, so they divide the tenth into two. Concerning this division, or union, we would not be much contentious with them, were there not a sacrilegious and idolatrous design couched under it; for finding the second commandment to strike so directly at their image-worship, they thought it expedient to deny it to be any distinct precept of itself, but only an appendix or exposition of the former, You shall have no other Gods before me; that so they might with the better color omit it, as generally they have done in all their books of devotion, and for instruction of the people. So that of those few among them that can rehearse the Decalogue, you shall find none that will repeat, You shall not make to you any graven image, you shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them; as not knowing that any such thing is forbidden them by God. And yet that they may make up the full number of the commandments, they divide the tenth into two; one forbidding the coveting of our neighbor's wife; and the other, the coveting of any other of his possessions.

The only authority they produce from antiquity, for this order of the Decalogue, is that of Saint Augustine; and it is very true, that he does in many places of his works so conjoin and divide them: but far from any design of promoting idolatry, or keeping the people in ignorance, that the worshipping of images was forbidden. Yet in this particular he went contrary to the current of all former antiquity; indeed, contrary to the very order of the Scripture, for whereas they say that the ninth commandment is, You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; and the tenth, You shall not covet your neighbor's house, nor his servant, etc. If we consult Exodus 20:17, we shall find that the command runs thus: You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, etc. from which it certainly follows, that they cannot make two precepts, but appertain to one.

But enough of this, which I had not mentioned, had it not been concealed out of such an impious design.

And now I think my way is clear to the words themselves.

In them we have the preface, and the precepts.

The preface in these words: I am the Lord your God, which have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

The precepts are ten; of which the first and chief is, You shall have no other gods before me.

The preface carries an equal respect and reverence to all the commandments, and contains a strong argument in it to enforce the obedience of them.

And as kings and princes do usually prefix their names and titles before those laws and edicts which are set forth by them, to gain the more attention, and the greater veneration to what they publish; so here the great God, who is the King of Kings, being to proclaim a law to his people of Israel, that he might affect them with the deeper reverence of his authority, and make them the more afraid to transgress those laws that were enacted by so mighty a potentate, and so glorious a majesty, He displays and blazons his name and his style before them, I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage; that they might learn to fear his glorious and fearful name, The Lord your God; as we find it (Deuteronomy 28:58).

Now as all arguments that are prevalent and cogent, are adapted to work upon one of these two passions by which we are swayed in all the actions of our lives, either our fear or our love, so here likewise God has accommodated himself to our temper, and proclaims, First, His authority to beget fear, I am the Lord your God. Secondly, His benefits and mercies to engage love, The Lord your God, that brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

And both these, that having so strong an obligation upon our very natures, as the motives of love and fear, he might the more readily work us to obedience. For what motives can be urged more enforcing than these, which are drawn both from power and goodness; the one obliging us to subjection, the other to gratitude?

First, He is the Lord God, the great Creator, the only proprietor, the absolute governor and disposer of all things: and therefore upon this account we owe an awful observance to all his laws and injunctions. It is but fit and just that we should be subject to him that created us, and who has infinite power for our contumacies and rebellions eternally to destroy us. He is the Lord God, the great and glorious One whose kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting, and whose dominion has no bounds, either of time or place: Behold, says the Prophet, the nations are but as a drop of the bucket, and are accounted but as the small dust of the balance: behold, he takes up the isles as a very little thing. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are accounted to him less than nothing and vanity (Isaiah 40:15, 17). His voice shakes the heavens, and removes the earth out of its place; his way is in the whirlwind; storms and tempests are his harbingers; and the clouds are the dust raised by his feet; the mountains quake at his presence; at his displeasure the hills melt away; the world and all the inhabitants of it are dissolved: his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him: his hand spans the heavens, and he holds all the waters of the sea in the hollow of it. Heaven is the throne of his glory, and the earth his footstool; his pavilion round about him, dark waters and thick clouds of the sky; ten thousand times ten thousand glorious spirits stand always ministering before him; they fly on his errands, and are ready pressed to execute his sovereign will and pleasure: Who is like you, O Lord, glorious in holiness, fearful in your praises, doing wonders, and therefore who would not fear you, O King of Nations, and tremble and be astonished when once you are angry? Will you then, O vile and wretched sinner, despise the authority and majesty of the great God, before whom all the powers of heaven and earth lie prostrate? Do you dare infringe his laws, and violate his commands, who is so great and terrible a God, that he can destroy you by the very breath of his nostrils? By the breath of his nostrils they are consumed (Job 4:9). Indeed, he can look you to death: They perish at the rebuke of your countenance (Psalm 80:16). Are you able to contend with this God; are you a fit match for the Almighty? Can your heart endure, or your hands be strong, in the day when the Lord shall deal with you, and come to recompense vengeance upon you for all your transgressions? Who among you can dwell with the devouring fire? Who among you can dwell with everlasting burnings?

Certainly, did we but frequently thus overawe our hearts with the serious consideration of the dread majesty and supreme authority of the great God, we should not dare so presumptuously to provoke him, as we do. Fear is a most excellent preservative from sin; and a strong fence that God has set about his law, to keep us from breaking those bounds which he has prescribed us. And therefore the wise man gives us this advice (Ecclesiastes 12:13): Fear God and keep his commandments. And the Psalmist (Psalm 4:4): Stand in awe and sin not.

Secondly, as the authority of God is set forth to move us to obedience by working upon our fear, so his benefits and mercies are declared to win us to it from a principle of love and gratitude: The Lord your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And indeed this, though it be a soft, yet is a most powerful and effectual argument: Has God surrounded you with blessings, and loaded you every day with his benefits; have you received your life, your being from him, and so many comforts in which you take delight, and he allows you so to do; have you been delivered by his watchful providence from many deaths and dangers, restored from sickness, or preserved in health; does he feed you at his table, and clothe you out of his wardrobe; nay, what is infinitely more, has he given you his only Son, and his Son given you his life and most precious blood; has he sent you his gospel, and in it the exceeding great and precious promises of eternal glory, a glory which hope durst not behold enough to expect, nor is imagination large enough to conceive; has he sent you his Spirit to seal and ratify all these promises to you; has he crowned your head with many rich blessings here, and will he crown it with joy and blessedness hereafter, and can you, O Soul, be so unkind and disingenuous as to deny anything to that God, who has denied nothing to you? Can you refuse him the only thing he requires of you, the only testimony which you can give, that you have any sense of his favor? And especially considering he requires it only that he may reward it with further blessings. Can you wrong that God who has been so kind and gracious to you, and is continually doing you good? Can you despise his precepts, who has regarded your prayers? Will you not hear him speaking to you, who has often heard you when you have cried to him, and has helped and saved you? Certainly the ingenuity of human nature forbids it, the love of God constrains otherwise, especially since he has required obedience from us as the evidence and expression of our love to him; (John 14:21) He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me. And in the Second Epistle of Saint John (2 John 6): This is love, that we walk after his commandments. And that which is a most cogent motive, your own interest and eternal concerns engage you to it: For what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, and to love him, and to keep his commandments, which I command you this day for your good (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). God might have required from us the very same obedience which now he does, without promising us any reward for it; for we owe him all that we can possibly do, as he is the author of our beings; and every power and faculty of our souls ought to be employed for him who gave them to us. But when the great God has been so far pleased to condescend from his prerogative, as to command us nothing but what has already brought us very great advantages, and will for the future bring us far greater, when his hands shall be as full of blessings, as his mouth is of commands; when he enjoins us a work that in itself is wages, and yet promises us wages for doing of that work; when the mercies he has already given us do oblige us, and the mercies he has promised yet to give us do allure us; certainly we must needs be the most disingenuous of all creatures, and the greatest enemies to our own happiness, if these considerations do not win us to yield him that obedience which redounds not at all to his profit and advantage, but our own.

Thus you see how God has enforced the observation of his law upon us, both by his authority and by his mercy; the one to work upon our fear, the other upon our love, and both to engage us to obedience.

Now here it is observable, that in the rehearsal of those mercies which should oblige us to duty, mention is made only of those which seem to concern the Israelites, and no other people, I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: From which some would infer, that the Decalogue only respects them; and that the commands then given, do not at all appertain to us, no more than the benefits commemorated.

But the answer is easy: For this mercy here mentioned of deliverance from Egypt, and the house of bondage, is to be understood either literally or typically.

If we understand it literally, so indeed it refers only to the people of Israel, whom God brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm; and such a series of miracles, that they were almost as ordinary as the common effects of God's providence.

But if we understand this Typically and Mystically, so it is true, that God has brought us also out of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage: and therefore the enforcement of the Commandments upon this account and consideration, belongs to us Christians, as well as it did belong to the Church of the Jews; for should we run up the allegory to the spiritual sense of it, we shall find a wonderful agreement between them, and a near representation of our state in the state of the Israelites; let it suffice to compare them together only in a few remarkable instances. As they were kept in bondage under the rigorous tyranny of Pharaoh, who sought both by policy and power to destroy them; so were we kept in bondage under the tyranny of the Devil, of whom Pharaoh was a dark type and shadow; and as God delivered them from his hand by a temporal salvation, so has he delivered us from the power of the Devil by a spiritual salvation, redeeming us from the slavish employment of lading ourselves with thick clay, and leading us through the Red Sea of his Son's blood, in which all our spiritual enemies are destroyed, and conducting us through the wilderness of this world, to the promised Canaan, that land that flows with milk and honey, the seat of rest, and eternal joy, and felicity, even Heaven itself. And therefore if the consideration of a temporal deliverance were so powerful a motive to engage the Israelites to obedience; how much more effectually should we be obliged to it, whose deliverance is far greater than theirs was; for God has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13). He has delivered us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). He has abolished death for us, and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel (2 Timothy 1:10). And therefore as our deliverance is spiritual, so ought our obedience to be; that being delivered from the justice of God, the condemning power of the law, the reigning power of sin, the sting of an accusing conscience, the rage and malice of the Devil, and the intolerable torments of hell, we might with all love and thankfulness cheerfully serve that God, whose mercy has been extended toward us in those things which are of highest and most precious concernment.

And thus you see the reason of this Preface, I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt; and how it is both applicable and obligatory to us Christians, as well as to the Jews; containing a declaration of God's authority to enforce, and of his mercy to oblige us to the obedience of those laws which he delivers.

I come now to the precepts themselves; of which the first and chiefest is, You shall have no other gods before me: Which because it is negative, and all negatives depend upon, and must be measured by the truth of their contrary affirmative, therefore I shall first consider what duties are commanded in this precept; and then, what sins are prohibited.

Four things are here required:

First, That we must have a God: Against Atheism.

Secondly, That we must have the Lord Jehovah for our God: Which forbids idolatry.

Thirdly, That we must have the only true God the Lord Jehovah alone for our God: And this forbids Polytheism, or the worshipping of many gods; and Samaritanism, or the worshipping of false gods together with the True, like those Samaritans spoken of (2 Kings 17:33), who feared the Lord, and yet served their own gods; making a strange medley in religion, and blending those things together that were utterly irreconcilable: as if they intended not only to be partakers themselves with devils, but to make God so too: which is the greatest gratification that can be given to that proud and wicked spirit, whose ambition it is to emulate and rival God in worship. The Apostle has told us, That those things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God (1 Corinthians 10:20).

Now thus to join any other thing with God, as the object of our worship, is infinitely to debase and disparage him; since it intimates, that something besides God is excellent, and perfect as himself. And therefore (Zephaniah 1:5) God severely threatens to cut off, and to destroy those that worship and swear by the Lord, and that swear by Malcham.

Fourth, it requires that all these services and acts of worship which we tender to the true and only God, be performed with sincerity and true devotion: this is implied in that expression "before me" — "You shall have no other gods before me, or in my sight" — and this forbids both profaneness on the one hand, and hypocrisy on the other. For because the most secret and retired apartments of the heart are all naked and bare in the sight of God, and our very spirits are as it were dissected, and so exposed to his view and observation; therefore to have no other God before him denotes that our serving and worshipping of him ought to be sincere and affectionate. It is not enough to have no other God before men, not to fall down prostrate before any visible idol set up in a temple; but the law is spiritual, and searches the very thoughts and inward parts of the soul, and if there be any idol set up in the heart, although it be in the darkest corner of it, any secret lust, or hidden sin, which is the soul's idol, and keeps it from being chaste and true to its God; any crooked ends and sinister respects in the worship of God — this is to have another God in the sight of Jehovah, and before him. Indeed we are very apt to rest contented if we can but approve ourselves before men, and carry a fair show of religion and godliness. But consider how weak and foolish this is: for first, we deceive them with our appearances; and then we deceive ourselves with their opinions of us. It is not only before men (whose sight is terminated in the bark and outside of things) that we offer up our services, but before that God who is the searcher of the heart, and the trier of the reins, who looks quite through us, and judges not according to outward appearance, but judges righteous judgment. For us to regard men, and seek to commend ourselves to them in the service of God, is as great a folly and irreverence, as it would be for one who is to treat with a mighty prince, to regard and reverence only the images in the tapestry and hangings. Alas, men are but as so many blind images, in respect of God — they cannot see the heart, nor the affections; and those outward acts of worship which they do see and commend, without the heart, are despised by God; he requires truth in the inward parts, and is not delighted with the ostentation of performance, but with the sincerity of intention. For every one is delighted with that which does most of all declare some singular excellency that is in him. But now it is God's excellency and prerogative, to contemplate the heart, to weigh and consider the spirits of men; and therefore he is chiefly delighted in the unfeigned desires and breathings of the heart after him, because by these we own him to be an all-knowing God. But when we perform duties of religion only to be seen and applauded of men, we make God only our pretense, but men our idols; and set up as many Gods before him, as we have spectators and observers.

And thus we have seen what positive duties are required of us in this precept: that we should worship a God, and him the true God; and the true God only, and that in truth and sincerity, as doing all our services before him. So that you see this first commandment respects worship.

It would be too long, and indeed almost endless, to insist particularly on all the duties that are included in the true and sincere worship of the true and only God: I shall therefore speak only of the three chief and most remarkable ones — first, the love of God; secondly, the fear of God; thirdly, invocation of, and rendering praise to him.

In these three especially does consist the having the Lord for our God.

First, in this commandment is required of us the most supreme and endeared love of God; indeed, the love of God is not only the sum of this, but of all the commandments of the first table. And therefore (as I lately told you) when our Savior would give an abridgment of the law, he comprises all the ten under two great commandments (Matthew 22:37-39): "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like to it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself." From where the Apostle deduces that great conclusion (Romans 13:10): that love is the fulfilling of the law. It is so, if not formally, yet virtually and effectively; for it will powerfully and sweetly sway us to yield a ready submission and obedience to what is required of us; and that not only as it is the dictate of divine and sovereign authority, but from the free spontaneous tendency of the soul itself, which when it is once touched with this celestial and serene flame, must rebel against its own inclinations, as well as against God's commands, if it be not carried out towards that object in which alone it can find full acquiescence and satisfaction.

Now this love of God has in it three acts or degrees — desire, joy, and zeal.

First, an earnest and panting desire after God (Psalm 42:1-2): "As the hart pants after the water-brooks, so pants my soul after you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: oh when shall I come and appear before God?" As the poor embossed deer that is closely pursued, faints and melts with the heat of the chase, and hastens to the known river where it was wont to quench its thirst, to find both safety and refreshment there; so does the holy amorous soul reach and breathe after God; he thirsts after the water-brooks, the streams of his ordinances, wherein God does pour out his grace and his Spirit to refresh the longing desires of this holy impatience. But not being satisfied with this, he still makes up to the fountain, and never rests contented, till he has engulfed and plunged himself into God, and is swallowed up in beatitude.

Secondly, from the fruition of the beloved object springs joy: for joy is nothing else but the rest and acquiescence of desire. And therefore according to the measures of God's communicating himself to our souls, such proportionably will be the increases of our joy. Something we enjoy of God in this life, while we are absent from him in the body; he is pleased to give us transient glances of himself when he fills his ordinances, and our duties with his Spirit: and yet these reserved communications are so ravishing, that the distended soul is often forced, by the agony of sweetness, to cry out with holy Simeon, Now Lord let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation. How overflowing then will our joy be, when we come to Heaven, where our fruition of God shall be entire and eternal; where we shall see him as he is, and know him as we are known by him; where the unveiled glories of the Deity shall beat full upon us, and we forever sun ourselves in the smiles of God. Certainly the joy of such a state would be intolerable, but only that God who fills us, will then likewise enlarge and support us.

Thirdly, if our fruition of God be hindered and obstructed, our love to him will then express itself in a holy zeal: zeal is the indignation of the soul, and a revenge that it takes upon whatever is an impediment to the obtaining its desires. The earnest desire of a true saint, is the enjoyment of God, and the glory of God; and of both these sin is the only let and hindrance. And therefore a soul that is passionate for God, has not so great an indignation against anything as against sin: can he endure to see that God whom he loves dearer than his life, daily provoked and injured; to hear his name blasphemed, to see his ordinances despised, his worship neglected, his servants abused, and the most sacred truths of religion denied, and the sacred mysteries of it derided? He is the most meek and patient man on earth in his own concerns; unwilling to observe the wrongs that are done him, and much more to revenge them: but when God is injured, the dear object of his love and joy, he can no longer refrain, but whatever befalls him, rises up to vindicate his honor, and thrusts himself between to receive those strokes which were aimed at God; and what he cannot prevent, or reform, that he bitterly bewails.

This is true zeal; and he that says he loves God, and yet is not thus zealous for him, is a liar.

Now try your love to God by these things: are your desires fervent and affectionate after him? Do you find a holy impatience in your spirit till you enjoy him? Will nothing else content you but God? Can you say, that there is none in Heaven nor in earth that you desire in comparison with him; and if the whole world were thrown into your bosoms for your portion, you would pluck it from there, and cast it at your feet, resolving that you will not be put off with such trifles? Do you find a joy springing and diffusing itself through your hearts when you are engaged in communion with him? A sweet and potent delight, to which all the pleasures of sin are but flat and insipid. Are you jealous for the Lord of Hosts? Are your anger and grief never so much kindled for any wrongs that are done to you, as they are for the provocations that are daily committed against the great majesty of Heaven? Can you mourn and weep for these in secret, and if you have power and authority to do it, punish and avenge them openly? You may for your comfort conclude, that certainly God has kindled this heavenly flame of love in your breast; a flame that aspires heavenward, and will at last carry up your soul with it, and lodge it there where the desire of love shall be satisfied, the joy of love perfected, and the zeal of love eternally rewarded.

So much for the first principal duty required in this first precept, the love of God.

Secondly, in this command is required of us the fear of God; for certainly we cannot have the Lord for our God, unless we supremely fear and reverence him, indeed, as love; so the fear of God is made the sum of all the commandments, and indeed the substance of all religion: for although it be but one particular branch and member of that worship and service which we owe to God, yet it is such a remarkable one, and has such a mighty influence upon all the rest, that oftentimes in Scripture it is put for the whole; and generally the character of a true worshipper and obedient servant of God, is given by this periphrasis, that he is a man fearing God.

Now the fear of God is either servile or filial; and both are a strong bond to duty and obedience. Those who are acted only by a slavish fear, will beware how they stir up the dread wrath and severe justice of God against themselves, by any willful neglects or known transgressions. And how much more those who are acted by a principle of filial and reverential fear of God, who fear as much to offend, as to suffer for it; and to whom mercy and goodness proves as powerful motives of fear, as wrath and fury: indeed, there is no attribute nor perfection in God, but is very justly the object of our fear; for where this grace is true and genuine, it works in us rather a sedate awe and respect of God, a profound reverence and resilition of the soul, than any turbulent and tempestuous passions of a fright and horror. And certainly, if we acknowledge that there is a God, it is but reason that we should thus fear him according to his essential greatness and glory: for take away the fear of a Deity, and a supreme power, which is able to reward and punish the actions of men, and you open a floodgate for all villainy and wickedness to rush out and overflow the whole world. And where this restraint of fear is taken off from the spirits of men, all laws given to curb their licentiousness, are of no more force, than fetters of air to chain up madmen: and therefore very fitly does God enjoin the fear of himself in this first command, as that which will season and dispose the heart to obey him in all the rest.

Thirdly, another principal part of worship required in this first precept is the invocation of the name of God in our prayers and praises. The two former, namely love and fear, respect the inward worship of God in our hearts, but this appertains to his outward worship, and by it we give express testimonies we both love and fear him: for prayer and praises are the tribute and homage of religion; by the one we acknowledge our dependence upon him; by the other we own all our blessings and comforts to be from him; and to one of these two, all of external worship may be referred. Certainly such as neither pray to God, nor praise him, cannot be said to have a God; for they acknowledge none, but are gods to themselves. For why do we affirm, that there is a God, if we make no addresses to him? if we have recourse only to our own power or policy to accomplish our designs; and when they succeed, ascribe the success of them only to our own wisdom and conduct, we make these our idols, and give them the honor which is due to God only. And therefore the Prophet (Habakkuk 1:16) speaks of these who sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their drag, because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.

Now as the love and fear of God are often used in Scripture for his whole worship and service, so likewise is this invocation of his name. So we find it (Genesis 4:26): Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. That is, (as many learned expositors understand it, although some take another way) then began men solemnly and publicly to worship God in their assemblies. And (Jeremiah 10:25): Pour out your fury upon the heathen that know you not, and upon the families that call not on your name — that is, those who do not worship nor serve you. And the like we may observe in very many other places.

There is but one thing more that I shall remark to you, and that is, that as this first command requires in the general, that the true God should be truly worshipped; so the three next following commands prescribe the means and branches of his worship, and the way and manner how he would have it performed. For the second commandment requires us to worship God who is a spirit, without any visible image or representation of the deity: for as it is impossible that there should be any true resemblance made of a spirit; so it is most impious to give any part of divine honor and reverence to dumb idols; which as to their materials, are but the creatures of God, as they are statues are but the creatures of art, and as they are images, are but the creatures of fancy and superstition. The third commandment requires that we should never mention the name of the great God slightly and impertinently; but whenever we have occasion to utter it, we should do it with all prostrate veneration, and serious affection. The fourth prescribes us the time which God has set apart and sanctified for his solemn worship. So that you see each command of the first table is concerned in giving rules for divine worship; but the first, which enjoins it in the general, is the ground and foundation of the other three.

And thus much shall suffice concerning the duties required in this first command, You shall have no other gods before me.

In the next place let us see what is forbidden in it.

It forbids us four things: First, atheism, or the belief and acknowledgement of no God. Secondly, ignorance of the true God. Thirdly, profaneness, or the wretched neglect of the worship and service of God. Fourthly, idolatry, or the setting up and worshipping of false gods.

First, atheism, or the acknowledging of no God, is forbidden and condemned by this command: and well may this be reckoned the first sin forbidden, for certainly religion and worship will be found to be one of the most foppish vanities that ever was imposed upon the credulous world, if either there be no God, to whom we might direct our devotions, or only a God of Epicurus and Lucretius's stamp, that sits unconcerned in heaven, and loathes the fatigue of business, taking no thought nor care of human affairs. For if there be no God, or only such an one, what difference is there whether we pray or blaspheme; whether we lead holy and pious lives, or let loose the reins to all manner of lewdness and riot, and wallow in all the impure delights that vice and sensuality can recommend to our corrupted appetites? For if there be no God, there can be no future cognizance taken of either, no rewards nor punishments proportioned to either. And therefore it will be here necessary to show the folly and unreasonableness of atheism, and to convince men that there is a God, without which all religion and worship is but folly and madness.

Some perhaps may judge it altogether needless to insist upon such a subject as this, among those who all acknowledge and worship the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. I heartily wish it were both unnecessary and impertinent; but truly if we consider that usually the practices of men are guided and influenced by their principles, we shall find reason enough to suspect that there are some notions of speculative atheism that lies at the bottom of all that practical atheism which we may observe so generally to prevail in the world: for any considerate person would think it impossible that men should so daringly rush into all those prodigious crimes and villainies, that everywhere rage and reign, were it not that they entertain loose and wavering apprehensions of the existence of a deity, and encourage themselves in their vices by some unformed and callow thoughts, that perchance all that religion teaches concerning God and a future state, are only politic devices and fictions.

In fact, indeed our age has too many, who, not only with the fool, say in their hearts, but are arrived to that height of desperate impudence, as to avow it in express words, indeed, to dispute and argue it, that there is no God.

I shall therefore confirm this great and primary truth, upon which depends all our religion, and all our hopes, by some convincing and demonstrative arguments, which I intend to make as plain and obvious as the matter will permit.

First then, the universal consent of all nations strongly proves the being of a Deity: for that which all agree in, must needs be accounted a dictate of nature; and what is such must needs be acknowledged to be a maxim of truth. Next to the report of our senses, we may credit the reports that nature and all mankind give concerning the truth and existence of things. Now if we should impanel all the nations of the world upon this trial, not only the more civilized, where custom, or the authority of laws might be suspected to introduce this belief, but those that are the most rude and savage, they would all with one consent return this verdict, that there is a God. In fact, although one part of mankind has so strangely dissented from another, about all other things, as concerning their laws, government, and customs, indeed, and manner of worship; yet these that differ in all things else, seem only to agree in these two, human nature, and the belief of a Deity. Never was there any nation so wild and barbarous that acknowledged no God; but their great fault and folly was, that they acknowledged too many. And it is strange to think, that the whole race of mankind in so many generations as have successively followed one another since the beginning of the world, (indeed and if there were no God from all eternity) should not they have grown wise enough to free themselves from so troublesome an opinion as that of the existence of a God: an opinion that crosses their worldly interests, contradicts their sensual desires, damps their joys, torments their natural consciences, and which, those who are wicked, would give whatever is dearest to them, to have it utterly rooted out of their minds: it is strange (I say) that they should not all this while be able to deliver themselves from the tyranny and fetters of this fancy, were it only imposed upon them by false reports and surmises.

How could the world be so easily drawn into such several shapes and forms of religion (which among the heathen were almost infinite; and among others, too various and different,) were there not a natural inclination in the souls of men to embrace some religion or other, and an indelible character of a Deity imprinted on their minds? Insomuch, that in the times of darkness, when the truth was not clearly revealed to the world, because they knew neither the true object, nor the right way for worship, this restless notion of a Deity, put them upon inventing diverse vile, uncouth, and ridiculous superstitions. But yet this is so far from invalidating, that it strongly confirms to us their belief of a Deity, in that they submitted themselves to observances not only unreasonable, but many times barbarous and inhumane, if they thought them acceptable to the gods they worshipped; indeed, rather than they would be without a Deity, they would dig them gods out of their gardens; or consecrate dogs, and serpents, and any vermin that first met them in the morning, and had the good luck thereby to creep into honor.

What then, is it likely that the world received this notion first by tradition, whereas before men generally believed there was no God? This cannot be: for would they in reason quit their former persuasion, to receive this new false one, especially when it is the only thing that fills them with fears and torments, and a thousand frights and horrors; indeed, those who would fain wear off this notion of a God, and persuade themselves to be atheists if they could, what violence have they offered to themselves to do it? And when they thought they had prevailed, yet this impression has still returned, when they have been startled with thunder, or earthquakes, or sickness, and the dreadful apprehensions of approaching death.

Possibly some few may have been found in the world, who have dissented from the rest of mankind in this belief of a Deity; yet their dissent is not sufficient ground for us to conclude that therefore it is not a dictate of nature. For how many are there that violate the laws of nature, and do those things which the innate light and reason of a man abhor and abominate? Yet none will from there infer, that there are no such things as natural laws; so neither, though some might have utterly razed out of their minds the notion and belief of a God, yet it will not hence follow, that this belief of a Supreme Being is not an impression of nature.

But suppose the number of atheists had been never so great, is it not far more probable that it should rather be a dictate of nature, that there is a God, than that there is not; since the disbelief of his being would open a wide gap to all manner of lewdness and licentiousness, indeed, and to the bold commission even of those sins which are against nature itself? Shall such men be thought to speak the sense of nature, whose opinion so directly tends to bring in sins contrary to the light and laws of nature? For take away the belief of a Deity, and it is as much to be doubted, whether the refined discourses of reason, and the consideration of decency, and the intrinsical rewards of virtue, will be of force sufficient to restrain men from the most enormous and unnatural vices. That therefore must needs be a dictate of nature, which is almost the only thing which gives authority to the law of nature; and such is the belief of a God.

Secondly, another convincing demonstration of the existence of a Deity, is taken from the serious consideration and review of the frame and order of the universe; in which there are as many wonders, as there are creatures: and certainly he must needs be very blind and stupid, that reads not God in every one of them. Cast but your eyes upwards, and contemplate the vast expansion of the heavens, which are the canopy of the world, the roof of this great house the universe, the lid or cover that is put over all the works of nature. Behold how gloriously this canopy is studded; how many glittering lights are hung up in this roof to illuminate our inferior world, and to discover to our eyes all visible objects, and to our mind the Invisible God, who has gilded the rays of the Sun, or silvered the face of the Moon? Who has marshalled the huge host of heaven, and set the stars in such array, that not one of them has broken its rank, nor strayed out of its course and order? Whose hand is it that turns the great wheels of heaven, and makes them spin out days, and months, and years, and time, and life to us? Who has ordered the vicissitudes of day and night, summer and winter, that these run not into one another, and blend themselves and the whole world in confusion; but with a perpetual variety observe their just seasons and interchanges? Do not all these wonderful works proclaim aloud, that certainly there is a great and glorious God, who sits enthroned on high, and who has thus paved the bottom of heaven with stars, and adorned the inner parts of it with glories, yet to us unknown? Upon which very reflection the Psalmist tells us, The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork (Psalm 19:1).

But not to carry the atheist up to heaven, let us descend lower, through the vast ocean of liquid air, and there observe how the grosser vapors are bound together in clouds, which, when the drought and thirst of the earth calls for refreshment, dissolve themselves into small drops, and are as if it were sifted into rain: how comes it to pass, and whose wisdom and providence has so ordered it, that there should not fall whole clouds and cataracts, but drops and showers? That they should not tumble upon us, but distil! An effect so wonderful, that there is scarce any other work of nature that the Scripture does more frequently ascribe to God as a demonstration of his power and government, than that he sends rain upon the earth.

Indeed, these clouds, how often are they charged with thunder and lightnings; as though it were so ordered of purpose, that if their contexture cannot convince, yet their terror might affright the atheist? Who can give any satisfactory account, how that artillery came there planted? Or how those terrors of mankind are there generated? Let the atheist tell me how it comes to pass, that such contraries meet together in one, and that the same cloud should be both a fountain of water, and yet a furnace of fire. And therefore the Prophet ascribes this particularly to God's almighty providence (Jeremiah 10:13): He makes lightnings with the rain: and accounts it such a remarkable instance of the divine operation, that he repeats it again, Chapter 51:16.

If we descend into the lowest story of this great building, the earth; what a shop of wonders shall we find there! That the whole mass and globe of it should hang pendulous in the air without anything to support it; and whereas small bodies of little weight fall through the air, yet that this great and ponderous body should be fixed for ever in its place, having no foundation, no support, but that air which every mote and fly does easily cut through; that this round ball of earth should be inhabited on every part; that the feet of other men should be opposite to ours, and yet they walk as erect, and be as much upon the face of the earth as we are; that the middle point of the earth should be the lowest part of it, and of the universe, and whatever is beyond that is upwards: these and many others are such unaccountable mysteries to our comprehension; and yet are found so infallibly certain by experience, and manifold proofs, that he must be an atheist out of mere spite, who shall seriously consider them, and not be induced by that consideration to adore the infinite power and wisdom of the author of them.

It would be too long to instance in the various sorts of creatures that we behold; how artificially they are framed; what an excellent configuration there may be observed in their several parts; what subserviency of one to another; how they are suited to the offices of nature; what secret channels and conveyances for life and spirits; what springs of various motions are included in the small body of a fly, or of a mite. Certainly there is not the least thing that an atheist can cast his eye upon, but it confutes him; but especially if he shall seriously consider the wonderful structure of a human body, the excellent contrivance and use of all the parts, he cannot choose but after he has admired the artifice of the work, admire also the infinite wisdom of the maker, and cry out with holy David, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Indeed, not only a David, but Galen a heathen, (one who it is thought, was not over credulous in matters of religion) yet when he had minutely inspected the many wonders and miracles that were contained in the frame of our body, he could not forbear composing a hymn to the praise of our All-wise Creator.

And therefore as the Lord Verulam observes, God never wrought a miracle to convince an atheist, because his ordinary works may convince him; and unless men will be wilfully and stubbornly blind, they must needs subscribe to that of Saint Paul, God has not left himself without witness, in that he does good, and gives us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. And (Romans 1:20) The invisible things of God are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. When we see footsteps evidently imprinted on the earth, shall we not easily collect that certainly some one has past that way? When we see a stately fabric built according to all the rules of art, and adorned with all the riches and beauty that magnificence can expend about it; must we not presently conclude, that certainly there was some skilful architect that built it? Truly every creature is quoddam vestigium Dei; we may observe his footsteps in it, and see how his attributes, his wisdom, his goodness, and his power have past along that way. And the whole world, it is a stately fabric, a house that God has erected for himself; the magnificence and splendor of it is suitable to the state of the Great King; it is his palace built for the house of his kingdom, and the honor of his Majesty. And we may easily conclude, that so excellent a structure, must needs have an excellent architect; and that the builder and maker of it is God.

Now that which makes some proud spirits backward to acknowledge God in the works of nature, is, that they think they can by their reason alone give a plausible account of those effects and phenomena which we see in the world, by deducing them from second and natural causes. And therefore many of those who are of an inquisitive and searching genius, when they find such effects depend upon, and flow from such and such natural causes, applaud themselves in the discovery, and look no further nor higher, but neglect the first and chief cause of all, even God.

Hence some have thought that reason and philosophy are great enemies to religion, and patrons of atheism; but in truth it is far otherwise; and the atheist has not a more smart and keen adversary (since he will not submit his cause to be tried by Scripture,) than true reason and profound philosophy. But if any who seem to be knowing and learned men, are less inclined to the belief of a deity, it is not their learning but their ignorance that makes them so. The same Lord Verulam has well observed, that a little philosophy inclines a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy brings it about again to religion. And I dare challenge the most learned men in the world, to give a satisfactory account of the most vulgar and common appearances in nature, without resolving them at last into the will and disposal of the God of nature; if I should ask them, What makes the grass green, or a stone to fall downwards, or the fire to aspire upwards, or the sun to enlighten and warm the world? What answer can they give, but that it is the property of their natures; or what is altogether as insignificant and unintelligible? But if I should question farther, How came their natures to be distinguished with such properties? They must either here be silent, or confess a first cause which endowed their natures with such properties and actions: for although a man may for some few successions of causes and effects, find one to depend upon another, yet they must all at last, be resolved into, and terminate in God.

And this is the second demonstration of the being and existence of a deity.

Thirdly, Unless the being of a God be presupposed, there can no tolerable account be given of the being of any thing: We see innumerable beings in the world, different from each other both in kind and particular. Now what rational account can the atheist give, how these things come to have a being? There are but two ways imaginable: Either that the world was formed by chance; or else, that it had its being from all eternity. And accordingly (as if it were still fatal for them to encounter with the same inconveniences, for which they disavow religion) atheists are divided into two sects.

First, There is the Epicurean atheist, who affirms, that the world indeed had once a beginning, but it was merely by chance: for there having been from all eternity infinite particles of matter moving to and fro in an infinite space, at last meeting casually, they linked one in another; and so by mere chance formed this world which we now see. A fancy so grossly ridiculous, that were it not now again taken up by some who pretend to be great lights in reason and philosophy, I would not condescend so much as to mention it.

But as Cicero says, both judiciously and ingeniously, As soon shall they persuade me that an innumerable company of loose and disordered letters, being often shaken together, and afterwards thrown out upon the ground, should fall into such exquisite order as to frame a most ingenious and heroic poem, as that atoms straying to and fro at random, should ever casually meet together to make a world consisting of heaven, and of air, and sea, and earth, and so many sorts and species of living creatures, in the frame and composure of which we see such wonderful and inimitable skill. Had Archimedes, or Posidonius's sphere, in which were imitated all the motions and conversions of the sun, moon, and planets, been presented to the most ignorant or illiterate nations under heaven, they could not be so grossly stupid as to think such a piece, a work of mere chance, but of accurate art and study. And shall any doubt when he sees the great machine of the world, the same and many other conversions made in a more perfect manner, than they can be represented in any such type, whether it be a work of uncertain chance, or else the product of a most perfect mind, and comprehensive understanding? For certainly if a strong and mastering reason be required only to imitate the works of nature, much more then to produce them.

And why had not those atoms that could thus fortuitously frame a world, why had they not built houses too, and cities, and woven us garments, that so by very good chance we might have found these necessaries ready provided to our hands, and saved the trouble and labor of making them? Did ever any atoms fall into such exact order, and knit so artificially together, as to frame a clock or a watch, or any other piece of ingenious mechanism? And will the atheist then be so silly as to believe that these little dusts of beings, should by mere hazard meet and join together to frame the whole world, and bestow such various forms and motions upon creatures, as we daily see and admire? Look but upon the most contemptible worm that crawls, we shall find it a far more excellent piece of mechanism, a far more curious engine, than any that ever the art or wit of man could frame. And shall chance make these! indeed, creatures of a more wonderful composure, which yet could never make a watch or a clock, or any of those engines which we have contrived for the use and service of life? And what will they say to the accurate operations of sense and reason? Is it possible that one small dust should see or feel another? And if not one, then not ten thousand put together. Shall their configuration give them this faculty, which their being and substance does not? Which I shall then believe, when I shall be convinced that a statue carved the most exquisitely that art can perform, can any more see, or taste, or feel, than it could while it was rude and unformed wood. But suppose that sense could be caused by mere matter put in motion; yet what shall we say to the refined speculations, and profound discourses of reason? Is it likely, or indeed possible, that little corpuscles should reflect, and argue, that atoms should make syllogisms, or draw up parties between Pro and Con? Or will the atheist grant, that there is no other difference between himself and a mere senseless block, but only configuration of parts? And that when he disputes most subtly for his cause, all his reasons and arguments are but a little dust that flies up and down in his brains? But that the agitation of material particles, should produce any sprightly acts of wit and discourse, is so monstrously abhorrent to true reason, that I doubt I shall never be persuaded to believe it, until some cunning man convince me, that the highway too is in a deep speculation, and teeming with some notable discourse, whenever the dust is stirred and flies about it.

And yet, forsooth, men must now-a-days be atheists, that they may be rational; and think it a high demonstration of their parts and ingenuity, to doubt of a deity, and call all religion into question. Whereas, were anything in the belief of a God, and the most mysterious points of our religion, half so absurd and ridiculous, as there is in atheism, I should most readily explode it, and count it altogether unworthy to be entertained by any man that is ingenious and rational.

Secondly, therefore, others being pressed with the huge and monstrous absurdities of this way of giving an account of the appearances of nature, they hold, that the world is from eternity, and never had any beginning at all. And these are the Aristotelian atheists.

But first, it is altogether unreasonable to deny a God, and yet grant that very thing for which alone they deny him. The only reason that tempts atheists to deny a deity, is because they cannot conceive a being infinite and eternal; and therefore when they yield the world to be so, what do they else but run into the same inconvenience which they would avoid; and that they may not grant one eternal being, grant innumerable? So fatal it is for error to be inconsistent with itself, and to trip up its own principles.

Secondly, if the world be eternal, there must of necessity have been past an infinite succession of ages. Now, our understanding is as much nonplussed to conceive this, as an infinite being that should create the world: for if the world had no beginning, then an infinite number of days, and years, indeed, of millions of years and generations of men, are already actually past and gone. And if they are past, then they are come to an end: and so we shall have both a number that is actually infinite, and likewise somewhat infinite and eternal that is come to an end. A very proper consequence for one that avoids the belief of a deity, because he would be rational, and cannot conceive a being that is infinite.

Again, thirdly, if there have already been infinite successions of generations in the world, certainly those which are yet to come, will make them more; and so we shall find a number greater than that which is allowed to be actually infinite. Or if to avoid this contradiction, the atheist should affirm, that the generations to Abraham, and the generations to David were both equal, because both infinite; he will thereby fall into two other gross contradictions: the one, that a number added to a number should make no addition; the other, that since the generations to Abraham were but a part of the generations to David, the part should be equal to the whole.

Fourthly, there is no one moment in succession which was not once present: and consequently imagine a duration as long as you please, yet in it of necessity there must be some one moment, which when it was present, all the rest were future; and if all the rest were future, this moment was then the beginning. So that it is impossible there should be a successive duration without a beginning, and therefore impossible it should be from eternity.

Again, fifthly, in all the revolutions of generation and corruption that can be imagined, yet the life of animals must necessarily be before their death. For none can die till he has lived; and none can live, but he must pass sometime before he dies. There was therefore a time before any animal died; consequently their corruption and death was not from eternity: neither before their death, had they lived an infinite time, but only some few days or years; and therefore their generation and life was not from eternity.

These things I do but cursorily mention, to give you a taste of the folly and unreasonableness of atheism; nor perhaps would it be proper to insist on them at large. But by these few arguments you may see how unreasonable it is for an atheist to boggle at the belief of a deity; whereas let him lay down whatever principles he will, he shall find his reason more puzzled and entangled by these absurdities that will necessarily follow upon them, than he shall by any difficulties that are consequent upon the belief of a God.

Which belief unless we entertain, we can give no tolerable account at all of the various beings that are in the world; for neither are they eternal, neither have they happened by chance, as I have demonstrated to you. It is therefore absolutely necessary that there be some first cause of all things which we behold, which is not itself caused, nor produced by any other: for if every thing were caused by some pre-existent being, then there never was a being before which there was not another; and so this gross absurdity will follow, that before there was a being, there was a being. A fit consequence for atheists, who pretend only to rational speculations, to swallow. Therefore we must necessarily rest in some first cause from which all other things have their origin, and is itself caused by none; and that is the great God whom we adore, the great Creator and both Governor of Heaven and Earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

This is therefore a third demonstration of a Deity.

Fourthly, perhaps it would shrewdly puzzle the metaphysics of an atheist, to answer the argument of Bradwardine. It is possible that there should be such a being as should exist necessarily; since it is no more a contradiction to exist necessarily, than to exist contingently, and a far higher and more absolute perfection: but if it be possible that there might be such a being, then it is certain that there is; because necessity of existence is included in the very essential conception of it; or else this contradiction would follow, that it is possible for that not to be, which yet is necessary to be. This being therefore must needs be eternal, independent, and self-sufficient; and that is the God whom we adore.

But to leave these more abstruse and scholastic notions, in the fifth place, if there be no God, then neither have there been any miracles performed in the world; nor any prophecies or predictions of future contingencies.

First, there can be no miracles performed without a divine and infinite power: for certainly if there be no being above nature, there can be no effects either above, or contrary to the course of nature: for nature when it is left to itself, cannot act contrary to its own laws. Now that there have been miraculous works performed, the atheist cannot deny, unless he will deny the truth of all records, and think it reasonable to make all faith and credit among mankind a sacrifice to his opinionatedness. All heathen authors, as well as the Scriptures, give abundant testimony to this: and although they deny the doctrine of the Scripture, yet there is no reason they should disbelieve it, when it only relates matter of fact. In this behalf we desire they would give it as much credit, as they give to the histories of Livy, or Tacitus, or any other author of approved honesty: and certainly it is but reasonable to credit the consonant depositions of several plain men, who all profess themselves to have been eye-witnesses of those things they write. Indeed, the Jews and heathens who lived in those very times, and were most inveterate and cankered enemies against the name of Christ, would have given whatever was dearest to them in the world, could they have proved any forgery in those miracles, or deceit in the relaters of them: but the evidence was so clear, that they were forced to confess even in spite of their own malice, that such strange works were done and really effected. But yet their spleen against the truth was such, that they imputed them only to the power of magic, and the operation of evil spirits. But will our atheist do so too? If so, he must needs acknowledge a God, by acknowledging a Devil; if not, he has as little reason to believe any thing in the world which he himself has not seen, as to believe the truth of those reports, which we have received from undoubted hands, delivered to us by the unquestionable testimonies of those who have known and seen what they have reported.

Therefore if ever there have been any such extraordinary effects, as restoring sight to the blind, and feet to the lame, and life itself to the dead, and that by no other application than only a word's speaking, there must certainly be a God. For these things are not within the power of second causes, being so contrary to the course of nature; and therefore must be ascribed to a supreme Deity, an infinite power, who is the Author, and great controller of nature.

Secondly, as there could have been no miracles performed, so neither could there be any prophecies or predictions made of contingent events, unless we acknowledge a God, who in his infinite wisdom and counsel foresees whatever shall come to pass, and reveals his secret to his servants the prophets. We have many prophecies recorded which have already had their undoubted effects: not to instance in all, I shall only mention two; the one is that prophecy of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning the final destruction of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:2), which received its full accomplishment about forty years after they had crucified the Lord of Life and Glory. And the other, that prediction concerning Cyrus, that he should rebuild Jerusalem after it had been destroyed by the Babylonians (Isaiah 44:28), and to make this prophecy the more remarkable, it is said (Isaiah 45:4), that for Israel's sake God had called him by his name. This was a famous and very particular prophecy of a person named near two hundred years before he was born, and those things punctually foretold of him which he should afterwards perform. The like we have (1 Kings 13:2), where the prophet declaims against the idolatrous altar and worship of Bethel, and foretells that Josiah should destroy it; calling him by his very name three hundred and forty years before he was born, O altar, altar, thus says the Lord, Behold, a child shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon you shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon you, and men's bones shall be burned upon you; which we read was exactly fulfilled by the same Josiah (2 Kings 23:20). For he slew all the priests of the high places which were there, upon the altars, and burnt men's bones upon them. Now let any atheist give a rational account how these future contingents could be thus certainly and circumstantially foreknown and predicted, were there not a God in Heaven that reveals secrets. They could not certainly see such free and contingent events in the stars, especially so long before they were to be produced; or if they might, yet certainly they could not read names there, nor spell the constellations into words and syllables. There is therefore a God who gives knowledge, and declares things to come according as it pleases him to illuminate the minds of his servants the prophets, to whom, and by whom he spoke.

And this is a fifth demonstration of the being of a deity.

The sixth and last is this: there is a conscience in man; therefore there is a God in heaven. Conscience could have no power at all over us, unless it were given it from above. How comes it to pass that wicked wretches are still haunted with pale fears and ghastly horrors, that they are sometimes a terror to themselves, and to all that are about them; they would, if it were possible, abandon themselves, and run away from their own being, but only that they have a witness and a judge within them of all their crimes and impieties, and feel such secret stings, and unseen whips lashing their souls, that the tortures they endure, and inflict on themselves, make them sometimes weary of their lives, and put them upon that desperate curse of choking both themselves and their consciences too with a halter; from where, I say, should this proceed, were there not a God, a just and holy deity whom conscience reveres? These torments and regrets do not always proceed from fear of shame, or punishment from men. No: but conscience has a power to put them upon the rack for their most secret sins, which no eye ever saw, no heart ever knew but their own; indeed, and it forces them sometimes themselves to confess and divulge their own infamy, and voluntarily to render themselves to human justice: from where is this, but only from that secret influence of a Supreme Being, that has an awe and authority over conscience, and makes it review the sins of a man's life with horror, because it knows the just and holy God will at last review them with vengeance.

And therefore we find that those who in their prosperity have lived most regardless of a deity, yet when their conscience has been awakened by dangers, or sickness, or any surprising accident, the apprehensions of a God have then strongly returned upon them, and filled them with amazement and confusion. Thus the historian reports of that mad wicked emperor Caligula, who made an open mock and scorn of religion, yet when it thundered would creep under his bed to hide himself from the vengeance of that Jupiter, whom at other times he would not spare to deride and threaten. And therefore certainly if there be any such thing as natural conscience in all men, it will necessarily follow that there must be a God; for were there no God, there would be no conscience.

And thus I have given you these six rational demonstrations, that there is such a Supreme and infinite being as a deity. Many others might be added; but these I account sufficient to convince any atheist, who will indeed be swayed by that reason which he so much deifies and adores, that there is another God besides and above it.

Well then, what remains, but that as we have evinced the folly and unreasonableness of speculative atheism, so we condemn the impiety of practical atheism; the profaneness and irreligion of those, that as the Apostle speaks, live as without God in the world; that live as though there were no God, nor devil, nor heaven, nor hell, nor future state, nor any distribution of rewards in it: indeed every wicked man is in this sense an atheist, and such the Apostle has condemned (Titus 1:16). They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and to every good work reprobate. Did they really and cordially believe, that there is a just and holy God that takes notice of all their actions, a great and terrible majesty, who will call them to a strict account for all their cogitations, all their discourses, and all their works; an almighty God who has prepared wrath and vengeance to inflict on all those who despise his authority, and transgress his law; would they dare to profane his glorious and reverend name by impertinent using of it in their trivial talk? Would they dare to rend and tear it by their oaths and blasphemies, and hellish execrations and curses? Did they believe, that he has prepared Tophet of old, that the pile thereof is fire and much wood, and that all the wicked of the world shall be cast into it, and there be made an everlasting burnt-sacrifice to the incensed wrath of the great God: did men believe the horrors and torments of the fire and sulfur, the stench and darkness, the burning chains and fiery whips, the woes and anguish of the damned in hell, which are as far from being utterable, as they are from being tolerable; did they but as certainly believe these things, as it is certain that if they believe them not, they shall eternally feel them, would they dare still venture on to treasure up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath? Would swearing, and lying, and stealing, and drunkenness, and uncleanness so generally reign among us as they do? Indeed we persuade ourselves that we do believe these things, we profess that there is a God, and that God infinitely holy, and infinitely just; and that he will recompense tribulation, anguish, and wrath upon every soul of man that does evil. But alas, this is only a verbal belief, contradicted and borne down by a practical atheism. The little influence that the belief of a holy and just God has upon us, to regulate our actions, and to cause us to walk in a holy awe and dread of his divine majesty, clearly evinces, that we may possibly fancy these things, but do not believe them: for if you did seriously and heartily believe that there is a great and a jealous God who has said, vengeance is mine, and I will repay it; what is there in the world that could persuade you to offend him?

Possibly, though you believe that there is a God, yet you are not fully persuaded that he is so holy, nor so just as his word declares him to be; not so holy in hating your [illegible] sins, nor so just in punishing them. But if you rely on this confidence, know,

First, that this is only to hope in his mercy in spite of his truth. He has sworn that he will take vengeance on all impenitent wretches, and wound the hairy scalp of such a one as goes on still in his sins. And God will be true to his threats, as well as to his promises, although you, and ten thousand others like yourself, eternally perish.

In fact, secondly, if you believe there is a God, and yet think that this God will spare you, though you go on in the presumption of your heart, to add iniquity to sin, you are far worse than an atheist: for it is better to have no opinion of God at all, than to have such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is but infidelity, the other is contumely. Even Plutarch, a heathen, could say, that it were far less injurious to him, if any should deny that there is such a man in the world as Plutarch, than if he should grant, that such an one indeed there is, but that he is faithless, inconstant, cruel, or revengeful. So it is not so heinous an affront against the divine majesty, to deny that there is any such supreme being, as to acknowledge that there is indeed a God, but this God is not either infinitely holy in hating your sins, or infinitely true to his threats, or infinitely just in punishing men's impenitency and disobedience. This is a degree of impiety worse than atheism; and yet this, are all ungodly sinners guilty of.

Know then, O Sinner, and tremble, that there is a God who sees and observes all your actions, who writes them down in the book of his remembrance, and will call you to a strict account for them: God will then judge you out of your own mouth, you wicked servant. You believe that there is a God, why do you not then fear and serve him? You believe that there is a heaven, and a hell, and an eternity to come, why then do you not live answerably to this belief? Either blot it out of your creed, and avow that you do not believe in God the Father Almighty, or else live as those should do, who own so great and terrible, so pure and holy a God. For a speculative atheist to be profane and wicked, is but consonant to his principles: for why should not he gratify all his lusts and sensual desires, whose only hope is in this life, and who does not look upon himself as accountable for anything hereafter? But for you who acknowledge a deity, to live as without God in the world, to break his laws, to slight his promises, to despise his threats, is the greatest and most desperate madness in the world: you show yourself hereby to be worse not only than an atheist, but worse than a devil; for the very devils believe and tremble, and yet you who profess yourself to believe, do not tremble.

If therefore we would not be inexcusable, since we know God, let us glorify him as God, yielding all holy obedience to his laws, and humble submission to his will; conforming ourselves to his purity, depending upon his power and providence, and trusting in his infinite mercy and goodness, till we at last arrive to that state of perfect bliss and felicity, where we shall fully know the ineffable mystery of the Deity, see Him that is now invisible, and live there as much by sense and sight, as here we do by faith and expectation.

And thus much for the first sin forbidden in this first Commandment, which is atheism.

The second sin that it forbids, is ignorance of the true God. For this precept which requires us to have the Lord Jehovah for our God, as well includes the having of him in our understandings, by knowing him aright, as in our wills and affections, by loving, fearing, and worshipping him; the right worship of God must of necessity presuppose the knowledge of the object to which we direct that worship, or otherwise we do but erect an altar to the unknown God, and all our adoration is but superstition; indeed, and we ourselves are but idolaters, although we worship the true Deity: for all that service which is not directed to the supreme essence, whom we conceive to be the infinitely and eternally holy, just, merciful, and glorious, beyond what we can conceive, is not tendered to the true God, but to an idol of our own making, shaped out in the ignorance and blindness of our minds. And therefore our Saviour Christ lays this as a black brand upon the Samaritan worship (John 4:22), 'You worship what you do not know'; and that because with other gods they worshipped the true God, under a confused notion of the God of the land, as you may read (2 Kings 17:26), without any distinct knowledge of his nature, will, and attributes.

It has been a proverbial speech, that ignorance is the mother of devotion; but certainly such a blind mother must needs bring forth a blind and deformed daughter; a devotion more rightly called superstition than devotion; a devotion shaped only by the fancy, and imposed by irrational fear or humor.

Now because the being and existence of a Deity is a notion so common and natural to mankind, as I have already demonstrated; and that we are strongly inclined to the worship of a God, it will be necessary rightly to know that God, to whom this homage of our souls, and all our affection and veneration is due. For while we remain ignorant of this, it is impossible but that we should be idolaters, giving that which is proper to God alone, to some vain created fiction of our own deluded understandings.

Idolatry therefore is a sin more common among us than we imagine. For as many ignorant persons as there are, so many idolaters there are, who though they fall not down before stocks and stones, yet form such uncouth ideas and strange images of God in their minds, that no more represent his infinite perfections and excellencies, than those dumb idols that the heathens worship.

In prosecution of this general, I shall lay down these following propositions:

First, that it is a very hard and difficult matter to have right and genuine conceptions of the Divine Majesty, when we address ourselves to him to worship him. I think I may here appeal to the common experience of Christians, whether their most difficult part of their duties be not rightly to apprehend the object of them. Our fancy is bold and busy, and still ready to make too much use of its pencil, and to delineate a God in some shape or other, before whom we present our services; so that when we should be wholly intent upon our adoration, we must necessarily be engaged in reformation; to pull down, and break in pieces those false images that we had set up: and yet as soon as we have done this, our imagination falls to work again, makes new pictures of a God, and sets them full before our eyes, as so many idols for us to worship. And although both reason and religion endeavor to correct these bold attempts of fancy, yet it is a mighty distraction in our duty, to be then disputing the object, when we should be adoring it. I shall only instance in one duty, and that is prayer: how few are there that do not fashion God in some bodily shape, when they come to pray to him! We are too apt to figure out his limbs, and to conceive him a man like ourselves. All the proportions that fancy has to draw with are corporeal; and whenever we frame a notion of angels, or God, or any spiritual substance, we do it by sensible resemblances. Now this is infinitely derogatory to God who is a Spirit; and therefore cannot be represented in any form without a vast incongruity: and he is the Father of Spirits, infinitely more spiritual than spirits themselves, in comparison with whom angels and the souls of men are but drossie and feculent beings, and therefore cannot be worshipped under any form without idolatry: for that is not a God which we can shape and mold in our imaginations.

We read how jealous God is lest any resemblance should be made of him (Deuteronomy 4:15-16): "Take good heed to yourselves (for you saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spoke to you in Horeb, out of the midst of the fire) lest you corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure." And certainly if the erecting of a visible image of God be gross idolatry, it is no less than a mental and spiritual idolatry, to frame an invisible image of God in our fancy and conceptions.

And therefore although the Scripture frequently ascribes to God the members and lineaments of a man, as eyes, and mouth, and ears, and hands, and feet, etc., yet we must not be so stupidly ignorant as to believe that these are properly appertaining to the Divine Essence (which was the old exploded heresy of the Anthropomorphitae), but these descriptions are given us only in condescension to our weaknesses and infirmities; and though they are spoken [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], after the manner of men, yet they must be understood [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], after such a manner as becomes the Majesty of the Divine Nature: and by such expressions the Scripture only means, that all those powers and faculties which are in us, are likewise to be found, although in an infinite and transcendent eminency in the Being of God. He hears and sees, and is able to effect whatever he pleases; and that without any configuration of parts, or organs, which are utterly repugnant to the simplicity and spirituality of his essence. And therefore to shape and fashion out such a God in our thoughts, when we pray to him, is but to make and worship an idol: and unless faith and religion demolish such images which we set up in our fancy, the worship which we direct to them, is hardly to be esteemed the worship of the true God, but the worshipping the work of our own making, and a creature of our own imagination.

And yet unless we do represent God to ourselves, when we worship him, it is very hard, if not altogether impossible, to keep up the intention of our spirit, and to hinder our mind from straying and gadding. Therefore,

Secondly, the right way to attain to a true notion, and a sound understanding of the Divine Nature, is by a serious consideration of his attributes. For these are his very nature; and when we know them, we know as much of God as can be known by us in this our weak and imperfect estate. These attributes of the Divine Nature are manifold, and commonly are distinguished into negative, relative, and positive; I shall only enumerate the chief of them: simplicity, eternity, unchangeableness, immensity, dominion, all-sufficiency, holiness, truth, omnipotence, omniscience, justice, and mercy. Of which the principal, and that most respect us, are mercy and justice; all the other are declared to us in order to the illustration of these. For the glory of these has God created the world, and all things in it; especially those two capital kinds of creatures, angels and men: for these has he permitted sin, which is so odious and detestable to his infinite purity: for these has he sent his Son into the world to taste of death for every creature: for these has he proclaimed his law, and declared his gospel, the threatenings of the one, and the promises of the other: for these has he appointed a day, and will erect a tribunal of judgment, that he may make the glory of his mercy, and of his justice conspicuous; his justice in the eternal damnation of impenitent wretches, who are vessels of wrath fitted by their own sins for destruction; his mercy in the salvation of penitent and believing souls, who are vessels of mercy fitted by his grace for eternal glory. All other attributes, I say, serve to illustrate these two; and as we conjoin them either to mercy or justice, so they are most enforcing motives either of hope or fear: it is a mighty support to our hope, when we reflect upon the mercy of God accompanied with the attributes of eternity, immutability, truth, and omnipotence. And again, it will affect us with a profound fear and dread of this great and glorious God, to consider that the same attributes attend on his justice; so that both are almighty; the one to save, the other to destroy.

Now if we would conceive aright of God, when we come to worship him, let us not frame any idea of him in our imaginations, (for all such representations are false and foolish,) but labor to possess our hearts with an awful esteem of his attributes; and when we have with all possible reverence collected our thoughts, and fixed them upon the contemplation of infinite justice, infinite mercy, infinite truth, infinite power, and the rest, let us then fall prostrate, and adore it, for this is our God. And therefore the Apostle tells us (1 John 4:8), God is love; not only loving, but love itself in the abstract. And (1 John 1:5), God is light.

Thirdly, all the knowledge that we have, or can have of God here, is collected from what he has been pleased to discover of himself, either in his works, or in his word.

We have but two books to instruct us; the book of the creatures, and the book of the Scriptures. From the works of creation and providence, we may come to know much of God, even his eternal being and Godhead; and the lectures which are read out of this book, are so convincing and demonstrative of many of the glorious attributes of God, that the Apostle tells us, the very heathens themselves were left without excuse, because they did not worship him as God, when by the things which they saw, they knew him to be God (Romans 1:21).

But to us God has vouchsafed more clear and lively discoveries of himself; declaring to us those attributes by his word, the knowledge of which we could never have attained by his works alone. And therefore the Scriptures are called the lively oracles of God (Acts 7:38). And they are the glass wherein with open face we behold the glory of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Fourthly, when we have improved our understandings to the highest advantage, and stretched them to the largest and most comprehensive size, yet still we shall be left in the dark, and it will be utterly impossible to know God as he is in himself: he dwells in that light to which no mortal eye can approach; he hides and veils himself with light and glory: it is his alone privilege and prerogative, as to love, so to know himself, for nothing better can be loved, nothing greater can be known. God is incomprehensible to all his creatures, but is comprehended by himself; and that ever blessed essence which is infinite to all others, is yet finite to its own view and measure. All the discoveries we receive of God, are not so much to satisfy an inquisitive curiosity, as to excite pious affections and devotion. For reason, which is the eye of the intellectual soul, glimmers and is dazzled when it attempts to look steadfastly on Him who is the Father of Lights; and its weakness is such, that that light which makes it see, does also strike it blind. Indeed, our faith which is a stronger eye than that of reason, and given us that we might see Him who is invisible, yet here in this life it has so much dust and ashes in it, that it discerns but imperfectly, and receives the discoveries of a deity refracted through the glass of the Scriptures, so allayed and attempered, that though they are not most expressive of his glory, yet they are fittest for our capacity. The full manifestation of his brightness, is reserved for Heaven: this beatific vision is the happiness and perfection of saints and angels, on whom the Godhead displays itself in its clearest rays. There we shall see him as he is, and know him as we are known by him. Here we could not subsist, if God should let out upon us the full beams of his excessive light and glory. And therefore we read in Scripture what dreadful apprehensions the best of God's saints have been possessed withal, after some extraordinary discoveries that God had made of himself to them. Thus Isaiah cries out (Isaiah 6:5), Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. And when our Savior Christ put forth his divine power but in the working of a miracle, the glory of it was so terrible and insupportable, even to holy Peter, that he cries out (Luke 6:8), Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Though God be the very life of our souls, and the manifestations of his love and favor better than life itself; yet such is our limited estate here in this world, that we cannot see God and live. Frail nature is too weak to contain its own happiness, until Heaven and eternal glory enlarge; and then it shall see those inconceivable mysteries of the Trinity in Unity, the Hypostatic Union of the Human Nature with the Divine; then it shall view and surround the incomprehensible God, and be able to bear the unchecked rays of the deity beating full upon it. In the meantime we must humbly content ourselves with those imperfect discoveries that God is pleased to allow us, still breathing after that estate where we shall enjoy perfect vision, and in it an entire satisfaction and happiness.

Let us then most earnestly covet the knowledge of God, and endeavor to make ourselves here as like to what we hope to be hereafter, as the frailty of human condition will permit. This is the chief glory of a man, one of the highest ornaments and perfections of a rational soul; that which does in some sort repair the decays of our fallen estate, and renews those primitive characters which ignorance and error have obliterated in our souls. And indeed without the knowledge of God, we can never be brought to love him, to trust and confide in him, nor to serve him as we ought: and although there may be a great deal of zeal in ignorant persons, yet zeal without knowledge, is but a religious frenzy; it is religion frighted out of its wits. A man that knows not the bounds of sin and duty, is a fit subject for the Devil to work upon, who will be sure so to manage him, that he shall do a great deal of mischief very honestly, and with very good intentions.

Thirdly, a third heinous violation of this first commandment is by profaneness. Now profaneness may be taken either in a more large and general, or in a more proper and restrained sense; if we take it properly, so it signifies only the neglect, or despising of spiritual things: for in a strict sense he is a profane person, who either slights the duties of God's service, or the privileges of God's servants. But in the larger and more common sense of the word, every ungodly sinner who gives up himself to work wickedness, and lives in a course of infamous and flagitious crimes, is called and reputed a profane person. And indeed such a one is profane in the highest degree, that not only neglects the more spiritual duties of religion, but the natural duties of moral honesty, temperance, and sobriety: for as there are but two things in practice, which make an excellent and accomplished Christian, religion and virtue; the one directing our worship towards God, the other our conduct towards men: so on the contrary, the despising of religion, and neglect of virtue, make up that consummate and accomplished profaneness which we see so common and prevalent in the world.

But concerning the wickednesses which usually meet together, and are concerned in this sort of profane persons, I shall not now speak, reserving them to be treated of in their proper place, when I come to insist on those commandments which each of their sins transgresses.

At present I shall only take notice of that which is properly called profaneness, and speak of it as a distinct sin, distinctly prohibited in this precept. And here I shall first give you some account of the name, and then of the thing.

Profane has its meaning or etymology, quasi porrò, or procùl a fano; which signifies far from the temple.

Now because their temples were the usual places wherein they solemnly worshipped, therefore the word profane is transferred to denote those who neglect and put far from them the worship of God: and so according to this propriety of signification, many others besides lewd and debauched wretches, will be found to be profane: for not only those who let loose the reins to all manner of villanies, but even those whose morality is unblameable, and perhaps exemplary; who lead a sober and rational life, and scorn a vicious action, as a baseness below the nature, and unworthy the spirit of a man; yet such grave, prudent, and honest persons do, too many of them, especially in these our days, deserve the censure and black brand of being profane. And therefore that we may the better judge who are the profane, and on whom that imputation justly lies, let us consider first, what the sin of profaneness is; and secondly, what are the true and proper characters of a profane person.

First, what is profaneness? I answer in the general, profaneness is the slighting and neglecting of things holy and sacred; an undervaluing and contemning of those things that are spiritual and excellent. And whoever is guilty of this, let his outward demeanor in the world be as fair and plausible as morality or hypocrisy can adorn it, yet he is a profane person; and heinously violates this first commandment which enjoins us to worship, reverence, and honor the most high God, whom we profess to own.

Now the spiritual and sacred things are,

First, God himself in his nature and essence, whom we profane, whenever we entertain any blasphemous or unworthy thoughts of him, derogatory to his infinite perfections.

Secondly, God in his name; which we profane when in our trivial and impertinent discourses we rashly blurt out that great and terrible name, at which all the powers of heaven and hell tremble: and how much more do we profane it by oaths and execrations; which are now grown the familiar dialect of every mouth, and looked on only as a grace and ornament of speaking! Scarce can we hear any discourse, but these flowers are sprinkled among it; and the name of God must be brought in either as an expletive, or an oath: and what does sadly forebode the growing profaneness of the next age, children are taught or suffered to call upon God in their play, before they are taught to call upon him in their prayers.

Thirdly, God in his attributes; which we then profane, when our affections or actions are opposite or unsuitable to them. We profane his holiness by our impurity; his omnipotence by our despondency; his omniscience by our hypocrisy; his mercy by our despair; his justice by our presumption; his wisdom by our sinful policy; his truth by our security, notwithstanding his threatenings; and our slothfulness notwithstanding his promises. And in this sense every sin that we commit is a kind of profaneness, as it manifests a contempt of the infinite perfections and excellencies of the Deity: for there is no man whose heart is possessed with a reverential and due esteem of the great God, that can be induced by any temptations to sin against him, and provoke him. Every sin is a slighting of God, either a slighting of his justice, or mercy, or holiness, or power, or all of them: For what do you else when you sin but prefer some base pleasure, or some sordid advantage, before the great God of Heaven? The Devil represents the delights of sin, or the profits of the world to you to entice you; but your conscience represents to you the everlasting wrath of the great God if you consent; his justice ready to sentence you to everlasting torments, and his power armed to inflict them. Now if you yield, what do you but vilify and despise the Almighty God, as if his dread power and severe justice were not so considerable as to out-weigh either the impure pleasures of a vile lust, or the sordid gain and advantage of a little transitory money? In fact, could you by one act of sin make all the treasures and delights of the whole world tributary to you; should the Devil take you when he tempts, as he took Christ, and show you all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and promise to bestow it all upon you; yet to prefer the whole world before the authority of God, who has strictly forbidden you to think anything in it worth the venturing upon his displeasure, and the hazarding his wrath and vengeance, is a most notorious slighting and contemning the great God, and argues a profane spirit: How much more then when we sin against God for nothing, and defy his wrath and justice, without being provoked to it by any temptation? We find how heinously God takes it, and speaks of it as a mighty affront and indignity, that our Lord Christ should be so undervalued as to be sold for thirty pieces of silver; for it argued not only treason but contempt; (Zechariah 11:13) 'A goodly price that I was prized at by them.' And yet truly Judas was a very thrifty sinner in comparison with many among us, who not only betray Christ to the mocks and injuries of others, but crucify him daily, and put him to an open shame for far less. Indeed, there are many that would not suffer so much as a hair of their heads to be twitched off for that for which they will not stick to lie, and swear, and blaspheme. What should tempt the impious buffoon to deride religion, make a travesty of the Holy Scriptures, and turn whatever is sacred and venerable, into burlesque and drollery; but only that he may gain a little grinning and sneering applause to his wit, from a company of mad fools like himself? Or what should tempt the cheap swearer to open his black throat as wide as Hell, and to belch out his blasphemies against Heaven, and the God of Heaven, but only that he fancies that a well-mouthed oath will make his speech the more stately and genteel? And are these matters of such consequence, as to be called or accounted temptations? Certainly there can be nothing else in these sins besides a mere mad humor of sinning; which declares a most wretched contempt of God, when we do that for nothing which his soul hates, and his law forbids; and a most profane spirit, in making that common and trivial, which is infinitely holy and sacred.

Thus you see how God is profaned in his nature, in his name, and in his attributes.

Fourthly, the time which God has set apart and consecrated for his own worship and service, is sacred and holy; which we profane when we employ any part of it in the unnecessary affairs of this life, but much more in the service of sin. This is a sacrilegious robbing God of what is dedicated entirely to him; and that either by his immediate appointment, as the Sabbath; or by the appointment of those whom God has set over us, and entrusted not only to preserve our rights and properties, but also his worship inviolate, as special days of joy or mourning, thanksgiving or humiliation.

Fifthly, the ordinances of Jesus Christ are holy and sacred; which we profane when either we neglect them, or are remiss and careless in our attendance on them. But of this I shall speak more shortly.

Thus I have shown you what profaneness is; it is a slighting and despising of spiritual and sacred things, such as are holy originally, as God, his name and attributes; and such as are holy by institution, as his Sabbaths and ordinances.

By what we have thus spoken concerning profaneness, we may the easier dispatch the second general propounded, which was, to give you some particular characters of a profane person; that we may be the better able to look into our own hearts and lives, and both observe and correct that profaneness which resides there.

First, therefore, he is a profane person that thinks and speaks but slightly of religion. Religion is the highest perfection of human nature; by it he differs more from brute beasts, than he does by his reason; for brute creatures have some notable resemblances and hints of reason, but none at all of religion. They glorify God as all the works of the creation do, by showing forth his infinite attributes in their frame and production; but they cannot adore nor worship him: This is a pre-eminence peculiar to the most perfect pieces of the creation, men and angels. For as it is a perfection of the Deity to be the object of worship, to whom all adoration both in Heaven and Earth ought to be directed, so it is the perfection of rational creatures to ascribe honor, and glory, and praise, and worship to Him who sits upon the throne, and the Lamb forever and ever. And therefore they who despise religion, despise that which is their own chiefest excellency, and profane that which is the very crown of their natures and beings.

But alas, have we not many such profane persons among us, who deride piety, and make a scoff of religion, that look upon it only as a political invention to keep the rude and ignorant vulgar in awe.

Indeed, and those who take up their religion, not by choice, but merely by chance, either as a patrimony left them by their fathers, or as a received custom of the country wherein they were born, never troubling themselves to examine the reasonableness and certainty of it; these likewise are profane-spirited men, who do not believe religion to be a matter of that concern as to require their exactest study and industry in searching into its grounds and principles, but think that any may suffice, whatever it be.

Again, those who do secretly despise the holiness and strictness of others, and think they are too precise, and make more ado to get to heaven than needs. But indeed they are not too precise, but these are too profane, who thus contemn religion as unnecessary and superfluous.

Secondly, he is a profane person who neglects the public worship and service of God, when he has opportunity and ability to frequent it. And alas, how many such are there, who yet think it soul scorn to have this black name fixed upon them? Indeed, and are the readiest in the world to brand others with it, that are not of their way and sentiments. But let them be who they will that despise and forsake the solemn assemblies, they do interpretatively despise and forsake God, whose especial presence is only in two places, heaven and the church, in the one by his glory, in the other by his presence.

Now these are of two sorts; some that absent themselves out of a wretched sloth, and contempt of the Word and ordinances of Jesus Christ; others that withdraw themselves out of a pretended dissatisfaction and scruple of conscience. Both are profane; but the one sort strangely mingles profaneness and hypocrisy together; and the other is profane out of ignorance or atheism.

First, some are negligently profane, and absent themselves from the ordinances of Jesus Christ, and the solemn worship of God, upon mere sloth and recklessness. And how many such carelessly profane are in these parts, the thinness of our congregations does too evidently declare. If we should now go from house to house, should we not find the far greater part of the inhabitants idly lolling at home? Who after they had snorted out the forenoon in their beds, and thereby perhaps digested their last night's drunkenness, spend the afternoon in their chapel, the chimney, either with vain chat, or intemperate cups, and sacrifice to their god, their belly, while they should be worshipping the great God of heaven: possibly a fair day, or want of other diversion, may sometimes bring these drones to church, yet this is so seldom, that we may well suspect they come, not indeed for custom sake, but rather out of novelty, than devotion. But if it prove a wet or louring day, these tender people, whom neither rain nor cold can prejudice at a fair or market, dare not stir out of their doors, nor step over their own threshold into God's, lest they should hazard their health, instead of gaining their salvation. What shall I say to such brutes and heathens as these are, who not only deny the power, but the very form of godliness, (some few of them may perhaps be now present to hear me, and may my word, or rather, not mine, but the Word of the living God strike them:) God will pour out his wrath upon the heathen, and upon the families that call not on his name.

Secondly, some again are humorously profane, who withdraw themselves from the public worship of God, merely upon pretended scruple and dissatisfaction. I think it is no uncharitableness to say, that where scruple at the administration of ordinances, is only pretended to color contempt of the ordinances, their religion is only made a mask and visor for hypocrisy: for he that shall scruple to pray by a set form, and yet not scruple to swear extempore; he that shall scruple to eat and drink at the Lord's Table kneeling, and yet not scruple to drink at his own table, or at an ale-bench, till he cannot stand; he that shall scruple the cross in baptism, and yet not scruple the breaking his baptismal vow; he that shall scruple obedience to man's laws, and yet not scruple disobedience to God's, but shall lie, and defraud, and perjure, and oppress, and look upon it as the privilege of his perversity and contradiction, to do so; I shall make no scruple to call such a scrupulous swearer, or drunkard, or cheat, a gross and profane hypocrite.

I do not, I dare not say, that all those that separate from our communion, are of this note, no more than that all who join with us, are free from these crimes: no, I believe, and know the contrary; and that very many who have in the simplicity of their hearts followed Absalom in a rebellion, do now likewise follow Corah in a schism. Towards such I would take up words of meekness, and in the bowels of love expostulate with them; but alas, they do not, they will not hear me: I would beseech them to account of us as ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God, as well as others: And if they cannot deny that we are so, will they deny us audience when we come as ambassadors from the great King of Heaven, to deliver his message to them in his name? Do we not preach the same truths, and exhort you as far as we are able, to the practice of the same holiness? Do we not administer the same sacraments wherein are represented and sealed to all believing partakers the benefits of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ? What is it then? Are we therefore rejected because as we have our commission from God, so we have our mission by law and authority from men? If it be so, this is not zeal, but contumacy and perverseness; or are they our own personal faults and miscarriages, the neglect of our ministry, or the scandal of our lives, that makes men to abhor the offerings of the Lord, and forsake his tabernacle? Indeed I had much rather deplore than excuse them. Yet since this imputation cannot without great wrong and injustice be laid upon all, why is the defection from all? Why are godly, laborious, and conscientious ministers forsaken and despised as well as the rest? But suppose they were all as black as aspersions and calumnies would render them; yet certainly they cannot be thought worse than the Scribes and Pharisees, who were not only vicious in their lives, but corrupt in many principal parts of their doctrine; yet such was the authority and reverence of Moses's chair, that our Lord Christ himself, who was the great teacher of the world, sends his own scholars to learn of them; only because they were the allowed and authorized instructors of the people (Matthew 23:2). "The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses's seat. All therefore whatever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not after their works: for they say, and do not." Or finally, is it that the ordinances of Jesus Christ are (as they say) burdened with some observances which they cannot so well digest and comply with? Not now to defend these things in particular, let me only say, that they nothing hinder the energy of the gospel, where it is attended on with a humble, submissive soul, and tractable and docile affections: And whatever slight opinions the overweening fancies of the men of this generation may have taken up concerning our way of worship, yet I am sure that many thousand souls have been converted and saved since our happy and blessed Reformation from Popery, by the ordinances of Jesus Christ, administered with all the same observances which are now so much vilified and condemned. And I pray God profaneness be not laid to the charge of a great many who not only neglect, but deride and despise that worship which God has accepted and rewarded; and that way of administration which he has sanctified in the conversion, and sealed in the salvation of many blessed and glorious saints now in Heaven.

Yet I do not think all those who do as yet refrain from our public assemblies merely out of the dissatisfaction of their consciences, who do desire and endeavour to be satisfied, and would willingly close with their duty as soon as it is discovered to them, without sticking at the examples of others, or their own former contrary practice; I dare not, I say, think them guilty of profaneness; although for the present they may be very much misguided.

But for others, that either absent themselves out of mere carelessness, and a wretched neglect of the commands of Christ, or only out of humor and perversity, and because they have been of another way, therefore they will stiffly and pertinaciously maintain it; and cast all the odium they can devise, and all the dirt they can rake together, though it be with lies and slanders, upon us; such as search for all manner of arguments, not so much to satisfy their consciences, as merely to cavil against our worship; and when they can neither condemn it by Scripture nor reason, do it by bitter invectives, odious reflections, and a scoffing contempt, on purpose to make it both hateful and ridiculous to the people; such I shall be bold in the Lord to pronounce profane and irreligious wretches. And whereas they cry out upon the profaneness of others, and make that a pretense why they separate, and rend the body of Christ into schisms, they themselves are most profane, despising the holy ordinances of Jesus Christ, and thereby making themselves unworthy to be admitted to such holy mysteries, and worthy to be excluded, and not only by their own voluntary obstinacy, but by a judicial censure.

So much for the second character of a profane person.

Thirdly, he is also a profane person who neglects the performance of religious duties in private. Every house ought to be a temple dedicated to God, and every master a priest, who should offer to God the daily sacrifices of prayers and praises. But alas, how many profane persons have we, and how many profane families, who scarce ever make mention of God but in an oath, nor never call upon his name but when they imprecate some curse upon others? How many who wholly neglect the duty of prayer, and think they sufficiently [reconstructed: discharge] their trust, if they provide for the temporal subsistence of their families, though they utterly neglect the care of their souls, and their spiritual concerns? Such profane families as these, God ranks with infidels and heathens, and devotes them to the same common destruction.

Nor ought our family duties to be less often performed by us than morning and evening. In the morning prayer is the key that opens to us the treasury of God's mercies and blessings: in the evening it is the key that shuts us up under his protection and safeguard. God is the great Lord of the whole family both in heaven and earth; other masters are but under him entrusted to see that those who belong to their charge, perform their duties both to him and them. One of the greatest services that we can do for God, is to pray to him, and praise him: And how unjust and tyrannical is it for a master of a family to exact service to himself, when he takes no care to do service to his great Lord and Master, to whom it is infinitely more due?

Neither is there any excuse that can prevail to take off your obligation from this duty.

Not that you are ignorant, and do not know how to pray; for many are the helps that God has afforded you: Do but bring breath and holy affections, others have already brought to your hands words and expressions proper enough for the concerns of most families: and besides, use and common practice will facilitate this duty, and by an incessant conscientious performance of it, you will through the promised assistance of the Holy Ghost, be soon able to suit your affections with pertinent expressions, and to present both in a becoming manner to the throne of grace.

Not the multiplicity and encumbrance of your affairs: For the more, and the weightier they are, the more need you have to ask counsel and direction of God, and to beg his blessing upon you in them; without which you will but labor in the fire, and weary yourself for very vanity.

Not your bashfulness and modesty: For will it not be a far greater shame to you, that those whom you govern, and perhaps overawe even by your rash and unreasonable passions, should be able to overawe you from so excellent and necessary a duty. Be ashamed to sin before them; be ashamed to talk loosely, to profane the name of God, to be intemperate, or unjust before them, to defile your mouth and their ears with unclean and scurrilous discourses; be ashamed to neglect your duty; but be not ashamed to pray; for our Savior has told us (Mark 8:38), that whoever shall be ashamed of him in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father, with his holy angels. And therefore since there is no just reason why you should refrain prayer from the Almighty, whoever you are that does so, be your conversation in all other respects never so blameless, (which yet is not very probable that it should be, when you do not beg grace from God to direct it) you are a profane person, and declare yourself to be so by your neglect of the most holy and spiritual of all those duties in which we are to draw near to God.

Fourthly, He is a profane person, that performs holy duties slightly and superficially: All our duties ought to be warmed with zeal, winged with affection, and shot up to heaven from the whole bent of the soul. Our whole hearts must go into them; and the strength and vigor of our spirits must diffuse themselves into every part of them, to animate and quicken them: And therefore the Apostle commands us (Romans 12:11), to be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Sacrifices (which under the Jewish economy were the greatest part of God's solemn worship) were commanded to be offered up with fire; and no other fire could sanctify them, but that which miraculously shot itself down from heaven, or from the presence of God in the sanctuary, which was ever after kept burning for that very use (Leviticus 9:24; Leviticus 6:4): So truly all our Christian sacrifices both of praise and of prayer, must be offered up to God with fire; and that fire which alone can sanctify them, must be darted down from heaven; the celestial flame of zeal and love, which comes down from heaven, and has a natural tendency to ascend there again, and to carry up our hearts and souls upon its wings with it.

But indeed commonly our duties are either, first, offered up with strange unhallowed fire; they are fired by some unruly passion of hatred, or self-love, or pride and vain glory. Like those choleric disciples that presently would command fire to come down from heaven to consume those who had affronted them by refusing to give them entertainment; only that God by such a severe miracle might vindicate their reputation, and revenge the contempt that was done them. But this is a fire kindled from beneath, and smells strong of brimstone; and therefore our Savior himself sharply checks their furious zeal (Luke 9:54, Luke 9:55), "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of." And certainly whenever we pray thus in the bitterness of our spirits, devoting our enemies to destruction, and that because they are ours, rather than God's, when we pour out a great deal of gall mingled with our petitions, such a prayer cannot be from the dove-like Spirit of God, which is meek and gentle; and makes those so who are led and inspired by him. Every party and persuasion of men is very ready boldly to prescribe to God those ways and methods by which he ought to be glorified; and if any shall but question their principles, or oppose their rash and unwarrantable proceedings, their touchy zeal is straight kindled, and nothing less than solemn prayers must be made, to devote such a one to ruin and destruction, as an enemy to God and to religion. Here is fire indeed! but it is wildfire kindled from beneath, the fuel of it is faction, popularity, pride, contention, and vain glory; and it sends forth a great deal of smoke from corrupt and inordinate passions.

Or secondly, if there be none of the former incentives to heat them, then our duties are commonly very cold and heartless; our prayers are dull and yawning, and drop over our lips without any spirit or life in them: how often do we beg God to hear us, when we scarce hear ourselves; and to grant us an answer, when we scarce know what it is that we have asked? We make our requests so coldly and indifferently, as if we only begged a denial. So likewise in our hearing of the Word, we bring with us very slight and profane spirits to those holy and lively oracles: what else means the vagrancy and wanderings of our thoughts, our lazy and unbeseeming postures, which would be counted rude and unmannerly to be used in the presence of some of those that are here with us, were they any where else but in the Church? What means our weariness, our watching every sand that runs, our despising the simplicity of the Gospel, our prizing the sound of words more than the weight of things, but especially our indulged sloth and drowsiness? A sin that I have observed too common in this place. What, cannot you watch with God one hour? Do we speak poppy and opium to you? Or do you expect that God will now reveal himself to you in dreams? Have you not houses, have you not beds to sleep in; or do you despise the Church of Christ? Certainly God requires our most wakeful and vigilant attention when he delivers to us the most important things of his law, and of our salvation. These and many other things which to particularize, would perhaps be to descend below the majesty of this work, do too evidently declare, that the precious truths of the Gospel are grown vile among us, that we have taken a surfeit of this heavenly Manna, this Bread of Life, and now begin to loathe it. Beware lest this surfeit bring not a famine after it.

It plainly argues much profaneness in our spirits, when we bring only our outward man, our dull and heavy carcasses to attend upon God, while our hearts and minds are straying and wandering from him: this is a sign that we despise God, and account anything good enough, the lame and the blind to be offered up to him. Against such God has thundered out a most dreadful curse (Malachi 1:14): "Cursed be the deceiver, which has in his flock a male, and vows and sacrifices to the Lord a corrupt thing; for I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful." You who suffer your thoughts or your eyes, which are the index of them, to rove in prayer, or to be sealed up with sleep in hearing, you despise the great God before whom you appear, and think it enough if you afford him your bodily presence, although your heart be with the eyes of the fools in the ends of the earth: for such a service is but mockery; and it is less derision to tender God no service, than to perform it slightly and perfunctorily; the one is disobedience, but the other is contempt.

This is a fourth character of a profane person.

Fifthly, he is a profane person that performs holy duties for worldly ends and advantages: for what greater contempt of God can there be, than to make his service truckle under the base and low designs of this present life? This is to make religion tributary to interest, and God himself a homage to Mammon. And this all hypocrites are guilty of; though they mask their designs with specious pretenses, and draw the veil of religion over their sordid and wicked contrivances: yet they cry out with Jehu, "Come see my zeal for the Lord of hosts"; when he drove on so furiously only for the kingdom.

Indeed a hypocrite (though he be not commonly so esteemed) is the most profane wretch that lives; the gross profligate sinner offers not half so much indignity to religion as he does; for,

First, the hypocrite calls in God to be a complice and partaker with him in his crimes, and entitles his Majesty who is infinitely pure and holy, to the wickedness he commits, as if they were done for his sake, and merely upon his account; and so makes God to be the patron of sin, who will be the judge and condemner of sinners. All his injustice, rapine, and rebellion, are colored over with the fair pretenses of the glory of God, the interest of the Kingdom of Christ, the advancement of the power of godliness, reformation of idolatry and superstition, etc., and there is no act of fraud or violence, faction or sedition, but he thinks it justified and [reconstructed: hallowed] by these glorious names; which is nothing else but to rob men, and make God the receiver, who is the detester, and will be the punisher of such crimes. Now the open and flagitious wretch, although he hates God as much as the hypocrite, yet he does not so much deride him; his wickednesses are plain and avowed; and every one may see from where they proceed, and where they tend, that they come from Hell, and directly tend there: religion is not at all concerned to color, but only to condemn them. And judge you, which does most despise God and godliness, either he who professes it not at all, or he who professes it only that he may abuse and abase it, and make it subservient to such vile and sordid ends as are infinitely unworthy of it.

Secondly, the wound that religion receives from hypocrites is far more dangerous and incurable, than that which the open and scandalous sinner inflicts upon it. For religion is never brought into question by the enormous vices of an infamous person: all see, and all abhor his lewdness. But when a man shall have his mouth full of piety, and hands full of wickedness, when he shall speak Scripture, and live devilism, profess strictly and walk loosely; this lays a grievous stumbling-block in the way of others, and tempts them to think that all religion is but mockery, and that the professors of it are but hypocrites, and so embitters their hearts against it, as a solemn cheat put upon the credulous world. Certainly such men are the causes of all that contempt which is cast upon the ways and ordinances of God; and their secret profaneness has given occasion to the gross and open profaneness that now abounds in the world; and the hypocrisy of former years has too fatally introduced the atheism of these.

In fact, a hypocrite must needs be an atheist, and in his heart deny many of God's glorious attributes, but especially his omniscience, and say within himself as those, (Psalm 73:11) Tush, God shall not know; and is there knowledge in the most High? For did they but believe that God looks through all their disguises, and that his eye, which is light to itself, pierces into their very souls; did they but seriously consider that all things are naked and open before him; that he knows our thoughts afar off, and is privy to our closest designs, they would not certainly be either so daringly wicked, or so childishly foolish, as to plot upon God, and seek to cozen and delude omniscience.

Now this profaneness of the hypocrite in seeking temporal things by spiritual pretenses, is much more abominable than the profaneness of others who seek them by unjust and unlawful means; for the one only makes impiety, but the other makes piety itself an instrument of his vile and sordid profit, than which there cannot be a greater scorn and contempt put upon religion.

Sixthly, he is a profane person who makes what God has sanctified common and unhallowed: and have we not many such profane persons among us? Many that abuse the holy and reverend name of God, which ought to be had in the highest esteem [reconstructed: and] veneration, about light and frivolous matters; who only make mention of him in their idle chat, but are mute and dumb when any thing should be spoken to his praise; many that profane his Sabbaths, and although God has liberally allowed them six days for the affairs of earth, yet will not spare the seventh for the affairs of heaven, but impiously invade what he has set apart and consecrated for himself, and his own immediate worship and service. Many that never speak Scripture, but when they abuse it, making the Bible their jest-book, and prostituting those phrases and expressions, which God has sanctified to convey to us the knowledge of himself, and eternal life, to the laughter and mirth of their loose companions: so that those very words which the Holy Ghost inspired into the penmen of the sacred Scriptures, for the edification of the church, the Devil inspires into these wretches for their own damnation, and the damnation of those that have pleasure in such horrid profaneness.

Seventhly, he is a profane person who despises spiritual privileges and enjoyments: upon this very account the Scripture sets that black and indelible brand upon Esau, Lest there be any profane persons among you, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. And why is Esau stigmatized as profane for selling his birthright, but because in those first ages of the world, the firstborn or eldest of the family was a priest, and that sacred function by right of primogeniture belonged to him. And therefore we read that the tribe of Levi were taken by God to be his priests and ministers, in exchange for the firstborn: now to slight and undervalue an office so holy and sacred, a privilege so eminent, a dignity so sublime and spiritual, to part with it only for the satisfying of his hunger, was a sign of a profane spirit, in preferring the god of his belly before the God of Heaven, and for ever renouncing his right of sacrificing to the true God, only that he might sacrifice one pleasant morsel to his impatient appetite.

And certainly if it were so profane in Esau to slight and despise the priesthood in himself, they are also profane who vilify it in others, and make those the objects of their lowest scorn and contempt, whose office it is to stand and minister before God and Christ. Certainly if a dishonor done to an ambassador reflects upon the prince that sent him, will not Christ account it as an affront and injury done to him, when you affront and injure those his messengers and ambassadors whom he has sent to treat with you in his name, and about the concerns of his kingdom.

But not to speak more of this, lest we should be thought to plead for ourselves: are not those profane who despise and contemn the high privileges and dignity of the children of God; who despise those whom God so highly honors as to adopt them into his own family, admit them into near communion and endearments with himself, to make them his own sons, and give them the privilege of heirs of eternal glory? Doubtless he who despises him that is begotten, despises him likewise that begets; and the common disrespect which is shown to the servants and children of God, argues a secret contempt of him who is their master and their father.

Now lay these things to your own hearts, and bring them home to your own consciences, and see whether you are in none of these particulars guilty of profaneness: do none of you think slightly of religion, accounting it either a politic design, or a needless preciseness? Are none of you negligent in the public worship and service of God; nor yet in private and family duties; or if you perform them, is it not very carelessly and perfunctorily; or if you seem zealous in them, is it not your zeal excited by some temporal advantages, and low base worldly ends and designs? Do you not make that common and unhallowed, which God has made holy, either by abusing his name, polluting his Sabbaths, or vilifying his word in your ordinary raillery; and lastly, do none of you despise spiritual privileges and enjoyments, and those likewise who are invested with them? If so, how fair and specious soever your lives and actions may be, although you may think the rude debauched sinner at a vast distance from yourselves, and account him the only profane person, yet certainly this black style belongs as properly to you, and you are profane violators of this first command which requires you to take the Lord for your God, and accordingly to honor and reverence him, and whatever appertains to him.

And thus much for the third notable transgression of this command, profaneness.

The fourth and last breach of this command is by idolatry, You shalt have no other gods besides me; which they transgress who set up any other God besides the Lord Jehovah. Idolatry according to its etymology and use, signifies a serving of images, or idols; now, an idol, though it properly signifies an artificial effigy or resemblance made to represent any thing or person, yet in divinity it signifies any thing besides the true God, to which we ascribe divine honor and worship.

And as an idol is twofold, one internal in the fiction and imagination of the mind; another external and visible, either the work of men's hands, as statues and images, or else the work of God's hands, as the sun, moon and stars, or any other creature; so there is a twofold idolatry, the one internal, when in our minds and affections we honor and venerate that as God which indeed is not so, but is either a creature of the true God, or a fiction of a deluded fancy: the other external, which we are then guilty of when we express the inward veneration of our souls, by outward acts of adoration. As for instance: whoever shall believe the consecrated bread in the Sacrament to be transubstantiated and changed into the true and proper body of Jesus Christ, and upon this belief, shall in his mind revere and honor it as his God (as the Papists do) he is guilty of internal idolatry: but if to this internal veneration, he add any external rites of worship, as prostration, invocation, etc. he is then likewise guilty of [reconstructed: external] idolatry.

It is the former of these two kinds of idolatry, which is here prohibited in this first Commandment, You shall have no other gods before me; that is, you shall not give to any thing either in heaven or earth, that inward heart-worship of affiance, love, fear, veneration, and dependence, which is due only to the true God, the Lord Jehovah: the imperate acts, or outward expressions of this inward worship, is that which we call external idolatry, which is specially forbidden in the second Commandment, of which I shall treat in its place and order.

Now concerning this internal idolatry, observe these following propositions:

First, whoever acknowledges, and in his heart worships another God different from that God who has revealed himself to us in his holy Scriptures, he is guilty of this internal idolatry, and the breach of this first Commandment. And therefore not only those miserable creatures who worship the Devil, or those that have recourse to diabolical arts and charms, or those who worship men whose vices were their [illegible], and their crimes their consecration, as Bacchus, and Venus, and others of the heathenish gods; nor those who worshipped men famous for their virtues, as the heathens did their heroes, and the Papists do their saints; or those who worship any of the creatures of God, as the host of heaven, fire as the Persians, or water as the Egyptians, or the creatures of art, as statues and images, as if possessed and animated by their deities; in which respect Trismegistus called images the bodies of the gods: and with the same madness are the Papists possessed, who are persuaded that God and Christ, and the saints dwell in certain images made to represent them, and by those images give answers to their votaries, and perform many wonderful and miraculous works: whereas if there be any spirit that possesses them (as perhaps there may) we have reason to believe that since their worship of them is the very same with the heathens, those spirits are likewise the same, namely not God, nor saints, but devils and damned spirits. But I say, not only these are idolaters and transgressors of this first Command, but those also who compound a God partly out of the figment of their own erroneous minds, and partly out of his own infinite attributes: and thus are all Arians, Socinians, and Antitrinitarians guilty of idolatry; for they acknowledge one infinite and eternal being, but denying the persons of the Son and the Holy Ghost, they worship an idol, and not the true God, for the only true God, is both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Secondly, whoever acknowledges, and in his heart worships more Gods than the only Lord Jehovah, is guilty of idolatry, and the violation of this first Commandment. Thus was the idolatry of those nations which the King of Assyria planted in Israel after he had carried away the ten tribes into captivity; for it is said (2 Kings 17:33), that they feared the Lord, and served their own gods. And upon this account also are all Arians and Socinians, who deny the natural divinity of Jesus Christ, justly charged with idolatry; for since they say that Christ is God, and do worship him as God, yet deny that he is of the same nature and substance with the Lord Jehovah, they must of necessity make more Gods than one, and those of a diverse essence and being; and therefore are not only guilty of blasphemy, but idolatry; of blasphemy in robbing Christ of his eternal Sonship and the divine nature; of idolatry in attributing divine honor and worship to him whom they believe to be but a creature, and not God by nature.

Thirdly, whoever does ascribe or render to any creature, that which is proper and due only to God, he is an idolater, and guilty of the transgression of this first Commandment. Now this attribution of the divine properties to the creatures, is either explicit or implicit; explicit when we do avow the attributes of the divine nature to be in those things which are not capable of them; as those who hold the body of Christ to be omnipresent. Implicit when we render to any creature that inward worship, esteem, and affection which is due only to the infinite perfections of the Deity. And although our reformed religion be very well purged from the former idolatry, yet certainly the professors of it are not well purged from this latter idolatry; for even among Protestants themselves we shall find very many that are in this sense idolaters: For,

First, whoever chiefly and supremely loves any creature, is an idolater; because our chiefest love is due only to God. Hence the covetous person is expressly called an idolater, and covetousness idolatry (Colossians 3:5): Mortify your earthly members, uncleanness, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. And the sensual epicure is likewise an idolater (Philippians 3:19): his belly, says the Apostle, is his God. The proud person is an idolater, for he loves himself supremely, sets up himself for his own idol, and falls prostrate before that image which he has portrayed of his own perfections in his own fancy and imagination. And generally all such who love and admire any thing above God, or esteem any thing so dear that they would not willingly part with it for his sake, they have set up another God before him, to which they give that service and respect which is due only to the great God of heaven.

Secondly, whoever puts his trust and confidence in any creature more than in God, is guilty of this inward heart-idolatry; as when we depend upon interest, or power, or policy for our safeguard and success, more than on that God, who is able both with and without created helps and means to relieve us: and that we do so appears, when we are secure and confident in the enjoyment of such created comforts and supports; but altogether diffident and dejected when we are deprived of them: For since God is always the same, we should likewise have the same courage and spirit, did we place our whole trust in him.

Thirdly, he is an idolater, and a very gross one, who sets up any creature in his heart, whether saint or angel, to pray to it, and to betake himself to that vain refuge in our straits and necessities: for invocation properly belongs to God alone, as an act of worship which he has challenged to himself, and the highest glory that we can give to his divine Majesty: And therefore he has commanded us, (Psalm 50:15) Call upon me, not upon any saint or angel, in the time of trouble, and I will deliver you. And therefore the Papists are most gross and stupid idolaters, who direct their petitions not to God, but to saints and angels; which is nothing else but to advance them in his throne, and to ascribe to them his infinite perfections; for prayer and adoration supposes the object of it to be Omnipresent and Omnipotent; Omnipresent to hear, and Omnipotent to save, or else they are in vain.

Thus much for the First Commandment.