no God at all. Atheism is so absurd and horrid a tenet, that very few of mankind, in any age or country, have openly professed it. The most shocking exhibition of it ever recorded by history, was that which the French revolution thrust on the view of the shuddering world. So monstrous a profession could not last: accordingly it soon disappeared. But it is to be apprehended that certain philosophical opinions, (however unphilosophical,) if they are not directly expressive of atheism, have a tendency to lead to that most absurd and pernicious of all systems, so evidently condemned in the first precept of the decalogue. This precept, further, injoins to consider the ever-blessed Deity in his real nature, as it is manifested by his works, and still more clearly unfolded in his revealed word; to ascribe to him those infinite perfections which exalt him above all that has ever been called Goda by human ignorance and corruption, and separate him, at an unmeasurable distance, from every created nature, however distinguished and excellent. All wisdom, power, goodness, and every species and order of perfection, are derived from the self-existent, immutable, and eternal Deity, and must be manifested and exercised under his control and direction. To imagine the allperfect God to be different from what he really is,

a 2 Thess. ii. 4.

to ascribe to him any weakness, imperfection, or passion, to lose sight of any of his attributes, to conceive him as exercising any of them to the exclusion of the others, to forget their complete and uninterrupted harmony, to derive our representations of the divine from our experience of the human nature;—all this is, in fact, to have another God beside "him who is eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever." As he is omnipresent and omniscient, as "he trieth the hearts and the reins," these false and degrading opinions must be entertained before him, and offer an impious insult to his supreme and inexpressible majesty. Hence, the mean conceptions of superstition, the extravagant flights of fanaticism, the contracted and cruel dictates of bigotry, the abominable deceptions of hypocrisy, are all condemned and banished from the pale of true religion by this first commandment. Alas! if this is the case, as it certainly is, how guilty is a great part of the Christian world become before God! Magic, witchcraft, incantation, sortilege, and every opinion and practice which has the smallest tendency to withdraw confidence from the great governor of the world, and to repose it on any creature, whether real

a 1 Tim. i, 17.

b.Psalm vii. 9.

c Rom. iii. 19.

or imaginary, are also here, if not expressly, at least by fair implication, forbidden.

By the second commandment, not only idolatry or worshipping of images, as representations either of false or imaginary deities, or of the only true God, but also the mental representation of him, as invested with a corporeal form, or confined to a particular space, is strictly prohibited. The spirit of the precept no less condemns and forbids every kind of religious worship inconsistent with his pure and perfect nature, and with the rational and moral constitution of man. As God has in his word instructed us in this branch of duty, as well as in every other, so we are bound to observe his explicit declarations with respect to this point, in all our religious services. "As God is a spirit, we must worship him in spirit and in truth." Superstitious observances, frivolous ceremonies, vain pomp and show, modes of worship more expressive of servile adulation than of genuine piety, "vain repetitions in prayer, from the hope of being heard for much speaking," the placing of religion in the sole performance of its external acts; in a word, whatever is not conducive to the real glory of God, and to the substantial improvement of man ;-all this is clearly in

a Exod. xx. 4—6. b John iv. 24. c Matt. vi. 7.

cluded in the prohibitory part of this commandment. "Let no man judge you," says the apostle, "in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind; and not holding the head, from which all the body, by joints and bands, having nourishment administered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ, from the rudiments of the world; why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not, taste not, handle not; which all perish with the using,) after the commandments and doctrines of men ? Which things have a show of wisdom in willworship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh."a

a Col. ii. 16-23.

This last clause has occasioned considerable difficulty to interpreters and commentators. Pierce appears to me to have given, in his paraphrase, the best and most easy solution of it. "Which things having indeed a vain show of wisdom, in will-worship, and neglecting of the body, serve to the dishonourably gratifying of persons of a fleshly or Jewish disposition." Paraphrase and notes. See also his two notes on the passage on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians.

While every species of superstition and of absurd or pernicious worship is thus prohibited, religious service, which is pure, spiritual, and improving, is equally injoined.

Idolatry was most severely punished under the Mosaical dispensation. It not only corrupted the religious principles of the people to whom that economy was delivered, but it withdrew their allegiance from Jehovah in his capacity of Sovereign of their theocratical state. Indeed, so baleful are the effects of corrupted religion, so subversive are they of every social and even moral principle, in all its extent, that it cannot be too strenuously counteracted, or too extensively exposed: for it converts the nourishment into the poison of the soul. Religion, as long as it appears as such, however corrupt its form and complexion may be, can never, for the reasons already assigned, be opposed by violence and external applications. But every person who wishes well to his species, will, according to his opportunities and capacity, exert himself to the utmost of his power to preserve religious purity, and to explode and discourage every corruption of it by the only legitimate and effectual means-argument, persuasion, and example.

In this second commandment, the vast importance of true religion, and the direful consequences of its depravation, are clearly marked