ner to Adam, to Noab, to the Patriarchs, to Mofes, to the Prophets; and who, in the New Testament, is fet forth to us under this still more particular character, that he is The God and Father of our 2 Cor. xi. Lord Jefus Chrift. For this is the peculiar additional Revelation of the Gospel; that, as there is One God, fo there is 2 Tim.. One Mediator between God and Men.

31.

5.

2. THIS Commandment requires us to own and acknowledge This One True God, or to have him for Our God. Which implies, that 'tis our Duty to "Believe in him, and keep up in our Minds a conftant Senfe of him, as of our Omnipresent Governour and Judge, to "Fear him, upon account of his Power and Justice; to "Love him, upon account of his Goodness and Beneficence; to "Worship him, upon account of his Supreme Dominion and Sovereignty over all; to "give him « Thanks, for all his Mercies and Benefits; to put our whole Truft in upon account of his Veracity

«bim,

L 4

"

and

and Faithfulness; to

continually in Prayer,

"call upon him for the Supply of

all our Wants; to "bonour bis Holy "Name and his Word,

by a conftant Study of his Will revealed in Scripture; and to " ferve him truly all the days of

our Life, by a regular and habitual Obedience to all his Commandments. This is the Acknowledgment and Worship of the True God, injoined in This First Commandment as delivered to Mofes : And in Matt. xxii. the Gofpel, the First and Great Commandment is declared to be the Worship of the Same God, in the Name and through

38.

Joh. xvi.

23, 24.

1 Tim, i. 5.

Eph.18. the Mediation of Jefus Christ.

3. THIS Commandment expressly forbids the Worship of any Other God, either in ftead of or together with the One True God. The Worship of any Other God, of any other real or imaginary Being, in the place of the One True God; is direct Idolatry, or the Worship of an Idol. And the Worship of the True God under any False Representation, or through any other Medium of Worship,

than

than through the One Mediator whom He himself has appointed; is an idolatrous Manner of Worship. Which Sin, be-fides the intrinfick Malignity of the thing •itself, in diminishing the Honour of God, which is the Foundation of Religion; hast moreover, in its effects, always led men into endless Superftitions, attended naturally with the highest Corruption of Manners. For the Effence of all Superstition, and the natural confequence of all Falfe Worship, is the setting up fome Equivalent in the room of real Virtue and Holinefs, which is essential in True Religion towards GQD. In the Heathen World, This Sin was attended with the vileft Immoralities; as St Paul has at large shown. in the first chapter to the Romans: And it was particularly the Caufe of God's rooting out the feven Nations of Canaan, from before the children of Ifrael. Among the Jews, God commanded it to be punished with Death; and when they fell into it nationally, he delivered them for it into the Babylonish Captivity. In the New Teftament likewife, 'tis always

up

ranked

ranked in the Catalogues of the most enormous Sins. And yet Churches which call themselves Chriftian, have at different Times presumed to set up Methods of Worship, and Representations of God, not · warranted in Scripture; And have moreover taught men to apply themselves to Angels, and to imaginary Saints; to Souls of men departed, and to the Blessed Virgin, whom by a profane Ambiguity they affect to ftyle the Mother of God; and even to Relicks, and to Images of Wood and Stone. All which Practifes, aré a Departing from the One God, and from the One Mediator which He hath Col. ii. 19. appointed; or, as St Paul expreffes it, not holding the Head.

COMMANDM.

Thou shalt

COMMAND M. II. not make to the self any graven Image, no? the likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above, oz in the Earth beneath, o2 in the Water under the Earth: Thou shalt not bow down to them, nog wozship them: For the Lozd thy God am a jealous God, and visit the Sins' of the Fathers upon the Childzen, unto the third and fourth Generation, of them that hate me, and khow mercy unto thousands in them that love me and keep my Command

ments.

Of the Sin of Idolatry there are Two Sorts: The Worship of a Falje God, forbidden in the First Commandment; And the Worship of the True God under a False Representation, or through any unlawful Medium, forbidden more particularly in this Second Command

ment.

THE