ART. VII. Ex. iii. t. 12. ence. This is the robbing God of what is due to him, and the exalting another thing to a degree and rank that cannot belong to it. Nor is it lefs immoral to propose! the great and true God to be worshipped under appearances that are derogatory to his nature, that tend to give us low thoughts of him, and that make us think him like, if not below ourfelves. This way of worshipping him is both unfuitable to his nature, and unbecoming ours; while we pay our adorations to that which is the work of an artificer. This is confirmed by those many exprefs prohibitions in Scripture, to which reafons are added, which fhew that the thing is immoral in its own nature: it being often repeated, that no fimilitude of God was ever feen and to whom will ye liken me? All things in heaven and earth are often called the work of bis bands: which are plain indications of a moral precept, when arguments are framed from the nature of things to enforce obedience to it. The reafon given in the very command itself, is taken from the nature of God, who is jealous; that is, fo tender of his glory, that he will not fuffer a diminution of it to go unpunished; and if this precept is clearly founded upon natural juftice, and the proportion that ought to be kept between all human acts and their objects, then it must be perpetual; and that the rather, because we do plainly fee that the Gofpel is a refining upon the Law of Mofes, and does exalt it to a higher pitch of fublimity and purity and by confequence the ideas of God, which are the firft feeds and principles of religion, are to be kept yet more pure and undefiled in it, than they were in a lower difpenfation. : The third precept is againft falfe Swearing: for the word vain is often used in the Scripture in that fense: and fince in all the other Commandments, the fin which Mat. v 33. is named is not one of the lowest, but of the chief fins that relate to that head; there is no reason therefore to think, that vain or idle fwearing, which is a fin of a lower order, fhould be here meant, and not rather false swearing, which is the highest fin of the kind. The morality of this command is very apparent; for fince God is the God of truth, and every oath is an appeal to him, therefore it must be a grofs wickedness to appeal to God, or to call him to vouch for our lies. The fourth Commandment cannot be called moral in the first and highest sense; for from the nature of things no reason can be affigned, why the feventh day, rather than the fixth, or the eighth, or any other day, fhould be feparated from the common business of life, and applied to the VII. the fervice of God. But it is moral that a man fhould ART. pay homage to his Maker, and acknowledge him in all his works and ways: and fince our fenfes and fenfible objects are apt to wear better things out of our thoughts, it is neceffary that fome folemn times fhould be fet apart for full and copious meditations on thefe fubjects: this fhould be univerfal, left, if the time were not the fame every where, the business of fome men might interfere with the devotions of others. It ought to have fuch an eminent character on it, like a ceffation from business: which may both awaken a curiofity to enquire into the reafon of that ftop, and alfo may give opportunity for meditations and difcourfes on thofe fubjects. It is alfo clear, that fuch days of reft must not return fo oft, that the neceflary affairs of life fhould be ftopped by them, nor fo feldom, that the impreffions of religion fhould wear out, if they were too feldom awakened: but what is the proper proportion of time, that can best agree both with men's bodies and minds, is only known to the great Author of nature. Howfoever, from what has been faid, it appears that this is a very fit matter to be fixed by fome facred and perpetual law, and that from the first creation; because there being then no other method for conveying down knowledge, befides oral tradition, it feems as highly congruous to that ftate of mankind, as it is agreeable to the words in Genefis, to believe that God fhould then have appointed one day in feven for commemorating the creation, and for acknowledging the great Creator of all things. But though it feems very clear, that here a perpetual law was given the world for the feparating the feventh day; yet it was a mere circumftance, and does not at all belong to the standing ufe of the law, in what end of the week this day was to be reckoned, whether the first or the laft: so that even a lefs authority than the Apofiles, and a lefs occafion than the refurrection of Chrift, might have ferved to have transferred the day. There being in this no breach made on the good and moral defign of this law, which is all in it that we ought to reckon facred and unalterable: the degree of the reft might be alfo more feverely urged under the Mofaical Law, than either before it or after it. Our Saviour having given plain intimations of an abatement of that rigour, by this general rule, that the Sabbath Mark ii. 27. was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. We, who are called to a state of freedom, are not under fuch a ftrictnefs as the Jews were. Still the law ftands for feparating a feventh day from the common business of life, and applying it to a religious reft, for acknowledging at 17. ART. at firft the Creator, and now, by a higher relation, the Redeemer of the world. VII. Deut. v. 21. These four Commandments make the firft Table, and were generally reckoned as four diftinct Commandments, till the Roman Church having a mind to make the fecond difappear, threw it in as an appendix to the first, and then left it quite out in her catechifms: though it is plain that thefe Commandments relate to two very different matters, the one being in no fort included in the other. Certainly they are much more different than the coveting the neighbour's wife is from the coveting any of his other concerns; which are plainly two different Exod. xx. acts of the fame fpecies: and the boufe being fet before the wife in Exodus (though it comes after it in Deuteronomy, which, being a repetition, is to be governed by Exodus, and not Exodus by it) ftands for the whole fubftance, which is afterwards branched out in the particulars; and fo it is clear that there is no colour for dividing this in two: but the first two Commandments relating to things of fuch a different fort, as is the worshipping of more Gods than one, and the worshipping the true God in an image, ought ftill to be reckoned as different: and though the reafon given for the jealousy and juftice of God may relate equally to both, yet that does not make them otherwife one, than as both might be reduced to one common head of idolatry, so that both were to be equally punished. In the fecond Table this order is to be observed. There are four branches of a man's property, to which every thing that he can call his own may be reduced: his perfon, his wife and children, his goods, and his reputation: fo there is a negative precept given to fecure him in every one of thefe, against killing, committing adultery, ftealing, and bearing falfe witnefs: to which, as the chief acts of their kind, are to be reduced all those acts that may belong to thofe heads: fuch as injuries to a man in his perfon, though not carried on nor defigned to kill him; every temptation to uncleannefs, and all thofe exceffes that lead to it; every act of injuftice, and every lie or defamation. To these four are added two fences; the one exterior, the other interior. The exterior is the fettling the obedience and order that ought to be obferved in families, according to the law of nature: and, by a parity of reafon, if families are under a conftitution, where the government is made as a common parent, the establishing the obedience to the civil powers, or to fuch orders of men who may be made as parents, with relation to matters of religion: this is the foundation of peace peace and juftice, of the fecurity and happiness of mankind. And therefore it was very proper to begin the fecond Table, and those laws that relate to human fociety, with this; without which the world would be like a forest, and mankind, like so many favages, running wildly through it. ART. VII. The laft Commandment is an inward fence to the Law: it checks defires, and restrains the thoughts. If free scope fhould be given to thefe, as they would very often carry men to unlawful actions, for a man is very apt to do that which he defires, fo they must give great disturbance to those that are haunted or overcome by them. And therefore as a mean both to fecure the quiet of men's minds, and to preferve the world from the ill effects which fuch defires might naturally have, this special law is given; Thou shalt not covet. It will not be eafy to prove it moral in the ftricteft fenfe, yet in a secondary order it may be well called moral: the matter of it being fuch both with relation to ourselves and others, that it is a very proper fubject for a perpetual law to be made about it. And yet, as St. Paul fays, he had not known it to be Rom. vii. 7. a fin, if it had not been for the law that forbids it; for after all that can be faid, it will not be eafy to prove it to be of its own nature moral. Thus, by the help of that distinction, of what is moral in a primary and in a fecondary order, the morality of the Ten Commandments is demonftrated. That this law obliges Chriftians as well as Jews, is evident from the whole fcope of the New Testament. Inftead of derogating from the obligation of any part of that law, our Saviour after he had affirmed, that he came Mat. v. 17, not to diffolve the Law, but to fulfil it, and that heaven and 18. earth might pafs away, but that one tittle of the Law bould not pass away; he went through a great many of those laws, and fhewed how far he extended the commentary he put upon them, and the obligations that he laid upon his Difciples, beyond what was done by the Jewish Rabbies all the rest of his Gospel, and the writings of his Apoftles agree with this, in which there is not a tittle that looks like a flackening of it, but a great deal to the contrary: a ftrictnefs that reaches to idle words, to paffionate thoughts, and to all impure defires, being enjoined as indifpenfably neceffary; for without boliness no man can jee the Lord. And thus every thing relating to this Article is confidered, and I hope both explained and proved. ARTICLE reto. ARTICLE VIII. Of the Three Creeds. The Three Creeds, Nice Creed, Athanafius Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles Creed, ought throughly to be received and believed; for they may be proved by most certain Warrants of Holy Scripture. A LTHOUGH no doubt seems to be here made of the names or defignations given to thofe Creeds, except of that which is afcribed to the Apoftles, yet none of them are named with any exactnefs: fince the article of the Proceffion of the Holy Ghoft, and all that follows it, is In Ancho- not in the Nicene Creed, but was used in the Church as a part of it; for fo it is in Epiphanius, before the second General Council at Conftantinople; and it was confirmed and established in that Council: only the article of the Holy Ghoft's proceeding from the Son, was afterwards added firft in Spain, anno 447, which spread itself over all the Weft: fo that the Creed here called the Nice Creed is indeed the Conftantinopolitan Creed, together with the addition of filioque made by the Western Church. That which is called 'Athanafius's Creed is not his neither; for as it is not among his works, fo that great article of the Chriftian religion having been fettled at Nice, and he and all the rest of the orthodox referring themfelves always to the Creed made by that Council, there is no reason to imagine that he would have made a Creed of his own; befides, that not only the Macedonian, but both the Neftorian and the Eutychian herefies are exprefsly condemned by this Creed; and yet thofe authorities never being urged in thofe difputes, it is clear from thence, that no fuch Creed was then known in the world; as indeed it was never heard of before the eighth century; and then it was given out as the Creed of Athanafius, or as a reprefentation of his doctrine, and fo it grew to be received by the Wettern Church; perhaps the more early, because it went under fo great a name, in ages that were not critical enough to judge of what was genuine, and what was fpurious. There is one great difficulty that arifes out of feveral expreffions in this Creed, in which it is faid, that whofoever will be javed, mujt believe it; that the belief of it is necessary |