the fenfe being plain; as containing a prohibition of affuming any other into partnership with the one true God; acknowledging, in mind or in outward expreffion, any other for God. The precept, as most of the reft, is in form negative and prohibitive, but supposeth and implieth fomewhat affirmative and pofitive; as the reft alfo may be conceived to do: it implies this affirmative precept, Thou fhalt have me for thy God. Now to have for our God, fignifies, as to internal disposition of mind, a most high efteem, honour, dread, and love of that Being, as endued with attributes and perfections fuperlatively excellent; the admiring all his works, approving all his actions, acquiefcing in all his proceedings and dealings with us; the repofing our hope and trust in him, as most able and willing to help us, and do us good: in outward expreffion, to acknowledge, praife, and blefs him as fuch; to yield all fitting demonftrations of respect to his name, and to whatever is specially related to him; patiently to submit to his will, and readily to obey his commandments: these principally and the like acts of internal devotion and external piety are comprised in the words, having him for our God, and we are to understand them here enjoined to Matt, xxii. us; the fame which is in Scripture called the fearing, the ferving, the worshipping, the loving God with all our Deut. vi. 5. heart, and all our foul, and all our mind, and all our might.

37.

Luke x. 27.

This is implied: and it is exprefsly prohibited us to yield to any other befide him the like esteem, acknowledgment, or fervice. That there is in truth but one fuch being, to whom eminently thofe acts are due, nature, ancient tradition, general confent, and especially divine revelation, do affure us; whereupon is confequent, that yielding them (yielding, I fay, thofe opinions, eftimations, and affections of our mind, or thofe acknowledgments and expreffions in word, or those performances in deed or work, which we before fpecified) to any other being whatever, whether really existent in the world, or merely formed by our imagination, is highly unreasonable, unbefeeming us, and unjust toward him.

1. It is highly unreasonable, as falfe and groundless in itself, as vain and unprofitable to us, as productive of many bad effects. It is from error in a matter of the highest nature and mainest consequence; and fo beyond any other mistake hurtful to us, as reasonable and intelligent creatures ; the μετάλλαξις τῆς ἀληθείας τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν τῷ Rom. i. 25. VEúde, the tranfmuting the truth of God into a lie, St. Paul calls it; reckoning it for a grievous folly and crime. It is a vanity of all moft lamentable; a pursuance of fha- Jer. ii. 13. dows, an embracing of clouds; a building in air, or mere vacuity; a leaning upon that which hath no fubftance, or no strength to support us; a dreaming and doting upon mere nothing; whence thofe falfe deities well in Scripture are termed μáraιa, vanities; for that, as they have no Jer. viii. truth, or substance, or efficacy confiderable in them, fo all 19, &c. our thoughts, affections, expectations, and labours are idly 15, &c. mifemployed, and unprofitably mispent upon them.

2. It is alfo a thing most unbeseeming us men, (whom God hath placed in fo high a rank of worth and dignity among his creatures; who are in our original fo near of kin, so like in nature, fo dear in relation and regard unto God himself,) to admire and worship, to place our choice affections upon, to afford lowly fubmiffions unto, to rest our hope and confidence in, any other but him, who alone truly fo far excels us, and can worthily challenge fuch refpects from us: all flattery is bafe and unworthy; but this of all is the worst and most unbecoming.

Acts xiv.

3. To do fo, is alfo moft unjust and injurious to God; to whom, as to the Author of our being, and of all our good received fince, we do owe all that our mind can yield of reverence, all that our heart can hold of affection, all that our tongue can utter of praife, all that our utmost might can perform of fervice: and fince the exhi- où regi㬠biting to any other thing part of thefe muft needs not Tes T only by that communication debafe and derogate from their d worth, but alfo withdraw them in great measure from him, so diminishing and embezzelling his due, (for we Teds Tò duri cannot, as our Saviour teacheth us, together adhere unto, Assiv. Orig. or ferve, divers masters;) therefore having any other God,

ται πρὸς

θεῷ καὶ ἄλο

λεύειν μετ

αὐτῷ, ἐδὲ

κυρίοις δου

1. viii. p.

382.

ὁ τῆς Στωϊκής

but the true one, is a high indignity and a heinous injury to him.

This command therefore is most reasonable upon many accounts; which as it hath been in groffest manner violated by those who have not acknowledged or worshipped any God at all, and by those who have acknowledged Aiyu - and adored many Gods, (by all Atheists and Polytheists ;) from which tranfgreffions thereof we Chriftians may seem xrisns aigi- totally exempt, who in formal profeffion and practice have σεως μήτε but one God, (the Maker and Lord of all things, infinitely μrs ȧyáλ- perfect and glorious ;) yet there are many subtle, and, perchance, no less mifchievous tranfgreffions thereof, of which even we may be very guilty, and to which we are very obnoxious. If we do not with all our hearts reverence

ματα· ἐδὲν

γὰρ εἶναι τῶν θεῶν

ἄξιον κατα

σκεύασμα.

Strom. v.

p. 426.

Id. de Nu

ma. p. 223.

Clem. Alex. and love the most wife and powerful, the most just and holy, the most good and gracious God; if we do not trust and hope in him, as the fountain of all our good; if we Strom. i. do not diligently worship and praise him; if we do not Vid.Aug.de C. D. 4. 31. humbly submit to his will and obey his laws, we break the pofitive intent of this law, not having him for our

God; being indeed like those of whom St. Paul speaketh, Tit. i. 16. who profefs to know God, (that is, who in words and outward pretence acknowledge him,) but in works deny him, being abominable, and difobedient, and to every good work reprobate. Likewise, if we frame in our fancy an idea untrue, disagreeable unto, or unworthy of, that one most excellent Being, and to such a phantafm of our own creation do yield our highest respects and best affections, we break this law, and have another God to ourselves. If upon any creature (whether ourselves or any other thing) we impart our chief esteem or affection, or employ our most earnest care and endeavour, or chiefly rely upon it, or most delight in it, that thing we make a god unto us, and are

guilty of breaking this law. Hence St. Paul more than Iph. v. 5. Once calls the covetous (or wrongful) perfon an idolater ; Coloff.iii. 5. and our Lord calls the immoderate pursuit of riches, the Matt. vi. 24. ferving (or worshipping) of Mammon; and St. Paul speak

2Tim.iii. 4. eth of some perfons who were pixýdovoi pñanov î piñódeos, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; of whom

10.

otherwhere he says, that their God was their belly we Phil. iii. 19, meet with those in the Scripture, who put their trusts in Pf. xx. 7. their horfes and their chariots; with those, who facrifice to Hab. i. 16. their net, and burn incenfe to their drag; with them, who truft in man, and make flesh their arm; (men of Mezentius's Jer. xvii. 5. faith, ready to say with him, Dextra mihi Deus est, et Virg. Æn. telum quod miffile libro ;) with those, whose heart is lifted up, (as the prince of Tyre in Ezekiel,) and who say they Ezek. are gods: these, and whoever practise in like manner, are so many tranfgreffors of this covenant: in fhort, whoever chiefly regards and affects, feeks and purfues, confides and delights in wealth, or honour, or pleasure; wit, wisdom, ftrength, or beauty; himself, friends, or any other creature, he hath another God, against the defign and meaning of this holy law.

xxviii. 2.

Ifa. x. 13.

Thou Walt not make unto thee any gzaven Image, 11. Com

&c.

THE first commandment determined the final object of our religion; this doth limit the manner of exercifing and expreffing it; as to the chief intent of it, interdicting that mode, which in the practice of ancient times had fo generally prevailed, of reprefenting the deities (apprehended fo) in fome corporeal shape, and thereto yielding fuch expreffions of refpect, as they conceived fuitable and acceptable to fuch deities. I cannot ftand to declare the rife and progress of fuch a practice; how the Devil's malice, and fome men's fraud confpiring with other men's superstitious ignorance and fondness, prevailed so far to impose upon mankind; I fhall only observe, that men naturally are very prone to comply with fuggeftions to fuch guifes of religion: for as the fenfe of want, and pain, and manifold inconvenience, not to be removed or remedied. by any prefent fenfible means, doth prompt men to wish and feek for help from otherwhere; and this difpofes them to entertain any hopes propounded to them (with how little foever ground of probability) of receiving it from any abfent or invifible power; as it also confequently

mandment.

engageth them to undertake any conditions required by those who propound fuch hopes, as needful for obtaining thereof; whence the ordinary fort of men are very apt to embrace any way of religion fuggested to them, especially by persons of credit, and authority for knowledge ; fo also, when the propofition thereof doth come attended with circumftantial appearances, and fhows, gratifying their fenfes, or humguring their paffions, or delightfully amufing their fancies, it most eafily allures and takes them; as likewife, on the other fide, when abstraction of mind and restraint of paffion are required, and sense or fancy are little entertained thereby, men are somewhat averse from such proposals of religion, and are not fo eafily brought heartily to like, or earnestly to embrace them: wherefore fince the propounding of images and fenfible representations, (relating to fomewhat not imme'diately difcerned, from whence men are promised the supply of their needs, or relief from the inconveniences which they endure,) by their magnificency, beauty, curiofity, ftrangeness, or even by their fenfibility itself, do Kovòs áráv- make fo facile and pleasant impreffions upon the dull and Twoes. low conceits of men; it is the lefs wonderful, that men Max. Tyr. diff. 38. commonly have been fo eafily inveigled into fuch idoladefendeth trous fuperftitions, fo unreasonable in themfelves, and of idolatry. fo mifchievous confequence. For what can be more

Where he

fenseless, than to imagine, that that Being, which in wifdom and power is fufficient to overrule nature, and thereby to afford us the affiftance we need, may be resembled by any of these corporeal things, the best of which we cannot, without debafing ourselves, efteem fuperior to ourselves? how unreasonable is it to conceit thus, how unworthy is it, and unfuitable to the dignity of our nature, derived from heaven, to crouch unto fuch mean reActs xvii. presentations! It is St. Paul's difcourfe; Being, faith he, the offspring of God, we ought not to think, that the Godhead is like unto gold, or filver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. How injurious alfo to that moft excellent nature must it be to frame, and expofe to view, fuch, not only homely and mean, but, in refpect of the divine na

29.