with fine gold to lodge therein the Tables. In the third place that the king of the people should write with his own hand these holy Commandements. In the fourth place He Commanded the people, that having paffed Jordan, and entred into the land of promife, they should place great ftones upon the shore, upon which the Commandements should be written, that all might be afcertain'd if they kept them not, they should not enjoy long that happy land. And because they would not be always there to read them often: He commanded them to be written be written upon the doores of all their houfes to be imprinted in their hearts Deut. 6, and in the hearts of their children. Behold his words: thefe wordes S. which I command thee shal be in thy heart and thou shalt tell them to thy children, and thou shalt meditate upon them fitting in thy house and walking on thy journey, fleeping and rifing. And thou shalt bind them as a figne in thy hand and thou shalt write them in the entrie and on the doores of thy house.

Levit26.

And becaus profit and recompence are the baits of humane hearts He makes promifes fo advantagious to the obfervers of them, that they would be incredible, if any other then himself did make them. I will send you rain in time and feafon, the earth shal bring forth its Spring, and the trees shal be burdened with fruits. I will give peace in your coaftes: you shal fleep, and there sbal be none to fright you. five of yours shal purfue a hundred ftrangers, and a hundred of you, ten thousand. I will refpect you, and make you increase: Jou shal be multiplyd, and I will establish my Covenant with you. Note that was to the Iews He made thefe great promifes, whom He was wont to recompence with worldly goods when they observ❜d his Commandements and chaftife them with temporal punishments when thy tranfgreft them becaus they were material grofs and terrestrial; But to Chriftians, He promises Spiritual and Celestial goods, recompences that are eternal, fo great, fo charming, and fo excellent, that the felicities He promised to the Iews, and which feem to us fo admirable are but sha dows and figures of them.

4. But fome will fay, what will these great Promifes avail us if we cannot perform the condition under which they are made to us? and if we cannot keep the Commandements of God

also

allo with that grace He gives us? Some indeed have fayd this: But the Scriptures fay quite the contrary; This commandement which I command thee is not ahove thee, fays the eternal Father. My yoke Deut 30. is sweet, and my burden light, fays IE sus CHRIST.

His

11. 30.

1. John.

commandements are not heavy, fayd his beloved Difciple. And his Matth. Evangelift S. Luke does tell us that Zachary and Elizabeth were just, and walked without reproof in all the Commandements and justifications of the Lord. And we also may do as they: Els God would 5.3. be unjuft, impofing impoffible commands upon us cruel, punishing us for not keeping them and a mocker in promising 1. 6.

us his heaven if we shal observe them.

in

5. We ought also to keep thefe divine commandements, not with a fervil fear, but with a filial love, as S. Auftin fays fo often; not as flaves, but as children; for we have not received the Spirit of fervitude again in fear; But we have received the fpirit of adoption of children, fays S. Paul. And this David did yet in the old Law, repeating fo often: I have loved your Law: I have affected your commandements they are the ioy of my heart: I have loved them more than millions of gold more than the Topafe, and other precious ftones more than all the riches of the world they are to me more Sweet than hony: I take more pleasure in keeping them than à Conquerour in burdening himself with spoiles.

And to fee clearly that they are moft reafonable, moft juft, and moft amiable let us make a fuppofition, that there are but two Townes in this world and that in one of them, all the inhabitants keep exactly the commandements of God and that to the other God hath not given any commandements, but permits every one without punishment to live as he lift; Is it not true that the former City would be a terreftrial Paradife, a garden of delights a place of peace and tranquillity, an image of the ftate of Innocency and a foretafte of Felicity. There would be no envy, no detraction, no quarrel no quarrel, no enmitie no injuftice, no fear or diffidence; there would he no need of bolts

2

upon doores, nor locks upon coffers , nor of guards, nor fentinells, but upon the frontiers; But the other City where no body should be obliged to keep the commandements of God would be a forreft peopled with robbers, who would pillage one another:

S. Luke.

a den

a den of Lyons, who would tear and eate each other a Sty of hoggs, who would wallow in all forts of ordures.

6. Have we not then caufe to thanke God for giving us commandements fo holy, fo juft, fo faving, and fo amiable? ought we not to fubmit our felves with much refpect to the orders of his foveraignity? The Epithetes which the fcripture gives them ought to perfwade us to it. It fays that they are Teftimonies, because they teftify to us, and certify us of that which God requires of us; That they are ludgments becaus they will condemne us if that we tranfgrefs them; That they are juftifications, becaus they justify us, and render us juft before God when we keep them ; That they are wayes and paths, because we go to Heaven by the obfervance of them which God of his mercy grant

us. Amen.

DISCOURS XXVIII

Of the first Commandement.

Am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of egipt, and out of the house of bondage, Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven thing, nor any fimilitude that is in heaven above 07 in earth below, or of things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore ferve them; I am the Lord thy God, ftrong and jealous, vifiting the fins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation and shewing mercy to thousands of those that love me and keep my commandements, Exod. 20.

Some allo of the Ancient, put only these words? Thou shalt

;

not have strange Gods, ftrange Gods, or as other Verfions have, other Gods before me, in the firft commandement; And they begin the fecond from the following words, Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven thing and left that by fo doing, they increase the number of the commandements which are called ten Words in the fcripture, they comprife thefe laft words, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife; Thou shalt not defire his house, or other goods or other goods, in one commandement. But we divide thefe laft words into two commandements and the firft words, which others divide we unite in one becaus this hath been more generally receiv'd: aprov'd for the better divifion by S. Auftin and is alfo more con- Aug formable to reafon for the exteriour ocs of adultery and theft Queft. being forbidden by two precepts, should not the interiour acts or 71. is defires be prohibited by two commandements, fince thefe are as Exod. different as the other? Nor does it make against us, that the concl. I. interiour acts feem in Exodus to be indiftinctly and promifcu- in Pfal. oufly prohibited by one precept ; fince in Deuteronomy, which 32. is a repetition,revifion, and an explication of the Law, they are diftin&ly Ep 119. and feverally prohibited; and that the 70. Interpreters put thefe Precepts ad I am in both places as diftinct and divers. Since then we find divers prohibiti- 11 ons, and divers acts prhibited in the laft words: and that the correfpon- lib. 15. dent exterior acts are forbidden by divers precepts: we have more reafon to cont divide the laft words, than the firft: which forbid in fubftance but Fauftum one kind of Sin, and make one compleat and perfect prohibition and els of Idolatry; which will yet mere appear by the explication of whe re them; though this controverfy raised by Calvin feems not to be of great Deut .. importance: fince it imports not much how these words are divided provided that ten commandements be admitted, and all the words acknowledged and obferved.

2. Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me Thou shalt not make to thy felf any graven thing nor any fimilitude, God forbids not to make a ftatue Image, or a reprefentation abfolutely, either for ornament, memory inftruction, help of devotion or for any good ufe or purpose whatsoever For He commanded foon after, Images, fimilitudes, and reprefentations of divers things to be made Images of Angells, to wit Cherubins Exod 25. the fimilitude of a ferpent, Numbers. 21. Reprefenta

:

:

21. Reprefentations of oxen and Lyons, and other graven thi ngs, 3. of kings 6. and 7. And therefore Proteftants themfelves Scruple not to have and make fuch things: No Prefbiterian or Puritan is fo precife, but he will engrave, carve, print, and paint them and no man doubts to let any Painter or Graver on worke, notwithstanding these words of the law. God then forbids them to be made to the End divine worship be given to them and to fignify this, He adds, Thou shalt not adore nor ferve them: He confirms us in this fenfe in the 26. chapter of Leviticus, You fhal not make to your felves, an Idol and graven thing, neither shal you erect Pillars, nor fet an Image of stone in your land, for to adore it; We gather this fenfe alfo from the reafon which God gives of the command: I am the Lord thy God all foveraign honor, all divine worship, all fupream ado ration is due to me; I am a jealous God: I Suffer not any divine worship, but my own : I connot allow my honour to be given to another; Wherefore S. Auftin, and other Interpreters of fcripture fo under ftand these words, that we make not ima S. Aug. ges against the intention of the law, if we make them not in Queft. for to adore them, fo the Ifraelites were fatiffyd that the Tribes Iofue.24 of Ruben and Gad erected not an Altar against the intention of the law, fince they made it not for facrifice, but only for

30.

a monument.

:

S. Admire here the goodness of God, who feperates us from idolatry, the moft vile, foule, and cruel fervitude imaginable: which made the poor idolaters to ferve a thousand most vile and most bafe Mafters which urged men and women in their publick fervice to actions fo foul and impudent, that impudence it felf would blush to fee, or hear of them: which engaged them to fuch inhumanities and cruelties in their facrifices that we cannot without horrour fpeak or thinke of them. And He does not only endeavour to free men from this moft hard and pernicious flavery: but morcover binds them to himself; not that He hath any want of us; He hath no need of our goods, not of our fervice: He was most happy from all Eternity, and would be for all Eternity without us; Buc it is, becaus He defires that we be perfect: He will that we be

happy