I will remark to you the advantage which a Christian possesses over a mere moral man in the first place, the moral man has nothing to support his system but his own reason, as he calls it, which certainly is much below common sense; while the Christian depends upon the word of God; the Christian, therefore, has certainty-the moral man supposition; and which is the better security?

Be assured that the Christian is called upon to fulfil the whole of the moral law; still will he often fail; but he has a hope to save him: here operates the power of his faith: Christ accepts his imperfect obedience, his deficiencies

are

made up by the merits and through the mediation of Christ, and he is thus secured from the infliction of the penalty pronounced upon those who break any one part of the law.

Let this encourage none to be remiss in the fulfilment of the law; because our faith, which is the true mean of sav

ing us, can only be proved a saving faith by an honest, hearty, and unremitting concurrence with, and diligence in, the works of the law of morality; we shall often fail in our duty, from infirmity, frailty, misconception, and temptation; but we must recover ourselves; repent, pray for pardon, and persevere; for we are all imperfect; and, as none but the perfect, upright man, can go to heaven, when our obedience to Christ is sincere and zealous, his merits will atone for our defects, and our imperfection will thus be made perfection.

We may say of Christianity, what Goldsmith says of magnanimity--

66

Magnanimity consists not in never falling, but in rising again every time we fall." So Christianity (or the practice of it) consists not in never falling, (for no man ever escaped falling) but in rising every time we fall; which is recovering ourselves, repenting, and zealously repairing our failures: hence, hope is given us

as a constant companion, with humility; that we may neither presume upon God's favour, mercy, and free grace, nor despond, from our miscarriages.

AN

EXPOSITION

OF THE

TEN COMMANDMENTS.

FIRST COMMANDMENT.

"Thou shalt have none other Gods but me."

You shall believe in, and serve no other God but the God of Christians; i. e. the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity. One God is to be worshipped in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.-This is a divine mystery, and therefore incomprehensible to man; consequently, to attempt a discovery of the precise nature of it is only to confuse ourselves. The command is to obey one God; but the Scriptures prove to us that this one God, or Deity, consists of three persons, or

essences, or whatever other term scholiasts may apply to them. The Hebrew words Elohim and Jehovah, are both (in the Old Testament) used for the word God; Jehovah means true essential Being, Being of itself; i.e. existing of and from itself; eternal, immutable, necessary, and independent Being; and this term is applied to each person of the Trinity. Elohim, though generally used with a verb in the singular number, is plural, and means Gods. Jehovah, Elohim, translated the Lord thy God, strictly speaking, is the Lord thy Gods; the Trinity, therefore, was referred to in the Old Testament, as well as in the New. In Ecclesiastes, c. 12, v. 1, it is said, "Remember thy CREATORS in the days of thy youth;" which, with many other texts of the same nature, is a literal interpretation of the Hebrew. God also says, in Genesis, c. 1, v. 26, c.1,

make man in our image, and after

"Let us

OUR like

ness." Yet, in v. 27, it is said, "So God

created man in his own image; in the