6. vii. 22. and for ever; to him, as to the only true, 'eternal, and Almighty God, the effential Author, Lord, and Governor of all things, our highest respect and observance are due; he also, in a stricter relation, founded on higher grounds, is our God, having chofen us, and confecrated us more especially to himfelf; having received us into a clofer confederacy, (a new and better covenant, as the Heb. viii. Apoftle calls it, established upon better promises;) having obliged us by granting nobler privileges, and dispensing more excellent benefits to us: who likewise hath brought us up out of a spiritual Egypt, and ftate of infinitely more wretched bondage; hath refcued us from the tyrannical dominion of Satan, (a far more intolerably cruel and hard master than any Pharaoh ;) hath freed us from ferving fin in our fouls and bodies, a far harder fervice than making bricks, or any bodily toil can be; who hath conducted us in the way, and conferred on us an affured hope, (if we be not wanting to ourselves and our duty,) of entering into the heavenly Canaan, a place of perfect rest and unconceivable blifs; who, as St. Paul expreffeth it, hath deli-Col. i. 13. vered us from the power of darkness, and tranflated us into the kingdom of his most beloved Son: who therefore here, according to spiritual intent, may be understood to speak in a higher ftrain to us; juftly exacting a more punctual and accurate obedience to his commandments. But fo much for that part which feems introductory. I. Com Thou shalt have no other Gods before me. mandment. IT is in the Hebrew, There shall be to thee no other Matt. iv. Gods (or no ftrange Gods; for alii fome render it, fome alieni,) (al pani) to my face, or at my face; that is, in comparison, or competition with me; fo as to be confronted to me; or together and in confort with me: I am he, faith God otherwhere, and there is no God Deut.xxxii. (immadhi) with me, or befide me; why ou, the LXX. 39. render it; and fo the phrafe commonly importeth; as in that saying of the Scribe, answering to this; There is one Mark xii. God, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλος πλὴν αὐτοῦ, and there is no other 32. God befide him: but we need not criticise on the words, the sense 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 ne gative and prohibitive, but supposeth and implieth somewhat 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 difpofition of mind, a moft 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, praise, 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 fubmit 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 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 efteem, acknowledgment, or fervice. That there is in truth but one fuch being, to whom eminently those 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 those acknowledgments and expreffions in word, or those performances in deed or work, which we before specified) to any other being whatever, whether really exiftent in the world, or merely formed by our imagination, is highly unreafonable, unbeseeming us, and unjust toward him. 1. It is highly unreasonable, as false and groundless in itfelf, as vain and unprofitable to us, as productive of many bad effects. It is from error in a matter of the highest nature and maineft confequence; 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. Jeúde, 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 most lamentable; a pursuance of sha- Jer. ii. 18. dows, an embracing of clouds; a building in air, or mere vacuity; a leaning upon that which hath no fubftance, or no ftrength to support us; a dreaming and doting upon mere nothing; whence thofe falfe deities well in Scripture are termed pára, 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. misemployed, 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, fo 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 such respects from us: all flattery is base and unworthy; but this of all is the worst and most unbecoming. A&ts xiv. 3. To do fo, is also most unjuft 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 praise, all that our utmoft might can perform of fervice: and fince the exhi- où gra biting to any other thing part of these must needs not res only by that communication debafe and derogate from their do worth, but also withdraw them in great measure from him, fo diminishing and embezzelling his due, (for wees duri κυρίοις δου cannot, as our Saviour teacheth us, together adhere unto, A. Orig. or ferve, divers mafters;) therefore having any other God, ται πρὸς τῷ Θεῷ καὶ ἄλο λεύειν μετ' αὐτῶ, ἐδὲ 1. viii. p. 382. 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 groffeft manner violated by those who have not acknowledged or worshipped any God at all, and by those who have acknowledged Ayu - 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 σεωςμήτε ναὺς ποιεῖν but one God, (the Maker and Lord of all things, infinitely perfect and glorious ;) yet there are many fubtle, and, perchance, no lefs 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 and love the most wife and powerful, the most just and holy, the most good and gracious God; if we do not trust ma. p. 223, and hope in him, as the fountain of all our good; if we Strom. i. do not diligently worship and praife him; if we do not Vid.Aug.de C. D. 4.31. humbly fubmit to his will and obey his laws, we break Már aya yag va ματα· ἐδὲν τῶν θεῶν ἄξιον κατασκεύασμα. Clem. Alex. Strom. v. p. 426. Id. de Nu 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 phantasm 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 moft delight in it, that thing we make a god unto us, and are guilty of breaking this law. Hence St. Paul more than Eph. v. 5. once calls the covetous (or wrongful) perfon an idolater; Coloff.iii. 5. and our Lord calls the immoderate purfuit of riches, the Matt. vi. 24. serving (or worshipping) of Mammon; and St. Paul speak 2Tim. iii. 4. eth of fome perfons who were φιλήδονοι μᾶλλον ἢ φιλόθεοι, 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 trufs in Pf. xx. 7. their horfes and their chariots; with thofe, who facrifice to Hab. i. 16. their net, and burn incenfe to their drag; with them, who trust in man, and make flesh their arm; (men of Mezentius's Jer. xvii. 5. faith, ready to say with him, Dextra mihi Deus eft, et Virg. Æn. telum quod miffile libro ;) with thofe, whofe heart is lifted up, (as the prince of Tyre in Ezekiel,) and who fay they Ezek. are gods: these, and whoever practife in like manner, are xxviii. 2. fo many tranfgreffors of this covenant: in fhort, whoever chiefly regards and affects, feeks and pursues, confides and delights in wealth, or honour, or pleasure; wit, wifdom, ftrength, or beauty; himself, friends, or any other creature, he hath another God, against the defign and meaning of this holy law. Ifa. x. 13. Thou shalt not make unto thee any gzaven Image, II. Com &c. THE first commandment determined the final object of our religion; this doth limit the manner of exercising 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 some 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 such a practice; how the Devil's malice, and fome men's fraud conspiring with other men's fuperftitious ignorance and fondness, prevailed fo far to impose upon mankind; I fhall only observe, that men naturally are very prone to comply with fuggeftions to fuch guises of religion: for as the sense of want, and pain, and manifold inconvenience, not to be removed or remedied by any present 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 alfo confequently mandment. |