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THE DECALOGUE.

No. 2.

Second Commandment, "THOU shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth,

"Thou shalt not bow down thy. self to them or serve them for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me :

"And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

This commandment corrects the erroneous ideas, which man, kind had entertained of Deity. His nature is incorporeal, Representing it therefore, by any form in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, leads us from the truth, Such representations are strictly forbidden, as well as worshipping him through mediums, which he hath not appointed, whether through the medium of images, of departed men, or of angels. All which mediums are found in experience to per vert the judgment, and to issue in giving to the creature, the worship which ought to be given to the Creator alone. In this commandment the doctrine, which our Lord taught the woman of Samaria, is evidently im plied. That God is a Spirit, and that he must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Mankind early lost this doctrine. They became vain in their imagina: tions, and their foolish hearts were darkened. "Professing to be wise they became fools."

Here they are taught true wisdom, and introduced again into the right path. Let every temp.. tation to sin be avoided. Nei ther the statuary nor painter had encouragement among the Israelites. The prohibition extends only to such representa tions, when the object of worship, but lest men's minds should be withdrawn from the true God, neither figures, nor pictures of any kind were per mitted in the commonwealth. The Roman governors, before Pilate, conformed so far to the opinion of the nation, as to remove from the, ensign used at Jerusalem, the image which it usually displayed of the empe

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A neglect of this afterwards gave great offence to the Jews, and excited them to very dangerous tumults. In the command we find a beautiful grada. tion.

Blame was attached to those, who made images or pictures; they were more blama. ble, who bowed before them in adoration; but they were in the highest degree blamable, who served these by sacrifices, and offerings of any kind,

The truths contained in this commandment were not altogether unknown to the Gentiles. The knowledge of them might have been derived either from tradition or from the intercourse, which they had with the Jews. In many of the heathen temples no image was permitted. The Persians in this conformed to the injunctions of their Zoroaster, whose story is so similar to that of Moses, as to make it probable, that the nar ration had its origin in our sacred books. Numa allowed no stat、 ue, picture, nor image to debase

the worship of the Romans, believing it to be highly derogatory to the Divine honour to represent him by such mean things.

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The transgressors of this law are spoken of as those who "hate" God. Idolatry would subvert the throne of God, and establish in its place the domin ion of iniquity. It excites his jealousy and indignation. Wher ever anger or fury are attributed to God, either in the law or in the prophets, idolaters are the objects. The order against the Israelites, who should fall into idolatry, discovers God's fixed aversion to this crime; and determination to punish it. (Deut. xiii. 12—17.)

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The man who observes this commandment, loves God, He rejoices that God reigns, and submits cheerfully to all the or ders of his throne; he is tender of his honour, and gives him, and him alone, his heart and his adoration.

to correct the fault of the par ent, the child would not suffer. Far be this from God. Children, who tread in the steps of the father (and this the commandment supposes) are justly exposed to the same dis tress, and no glossing can hence impeach any attribute of Deity but even allow, as must some. tripes have been the case, that the child did suffer and die in consequence of the parent's idolatries; the difficulty here is not greater than in any other! case when infants do suffer and die.

A vicious parent is sometimes affected with diseases which aré hereditary. A generation who hold in abhorrence the crime of the ancestor, still groan under the doleful consequence." . This is a fact of which all may inform themselves, It takes place, un der the government of God, and proceeds from laws by him ese tablished. 2. Mundu.29%, 17

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Another fact is universally known. Since Adam disobeyed God, infirmity and pain, sickness and death, have threatened every infant descending from him, and been fatal to vast numbers of them. This, according to the present course of things, is inévitable. Has not God regulat

God will suffer no rival; the offender introduceth such a rival at his peril. A man may live to see the third, and sometimes the fourth generation. His crime shall occasion him calamity as long as he liveth. We are vulnerable in our children. He is sunk below the brute creation who has not for such the tendered things in this way? If he be est affections. The imitative power is strong in children. They do as their parents do; if parents be ungodly, so probably will be children. How in tolerable the thought, that you have, by your example, misled the child, and brought not only your own grey hairs with sor row to the grave, but also entailed a sad inheritance upon chil dren's children. Were the child

pleased thus to shew his disap probation of iniquity, what can we object? Shall we arraign wisdom, which is infinite? Shall we say of a plan known to us in part only, that it is defective? Can any thing be more presumptuous? Is it not true wisdom de voutly to acquiesce fully assure ed, that however things appear to us, the Judge of all the earth hath done right??

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(Concluded from p. 255.) DEISTS have dwelt with impious satisfaction on some of the more remarkable parts of revelation. The descent of all nations from one pair, and the universal deluge have been themes of their indecorous animadversions.

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few pretended or nominal Christians, not bold enough to deny, nor humble enough to believe the word of God, have sometimes joined with deists respecting these subjects. To these we beg leave to address the following proofs from the sacred scriptures, which establish the universal deluge, beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Gen. vii. 19, 20, 22. And the waters prevailed exceeding ly upon the earth, and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered, and all in

whose nostrils was the breath of life on the dry land died." Here observe that the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, that all the hills, all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven were covered. The mountains were covered; fifteen cubits deep were they covered. A suitable depth that no animal, nor giant might escape death on the top of the mountains, that the vast ship, the ark, might float safely over them.* All creatures on the land died. The flocks and herds are soon overwhelmed; the warlike horse is arrested in his flight. The soaring lark and towering eagle, their strength exhausted, unable to move a wing, fall, and sink in the dark abyss. Silent are the groves of Lebanon; not a bird flutters on the top of the Andes ; Atlas no longer trembles with the lion's roar.

Villages and

cities are swept away. In vain the inhabitants fled to the highest hills, or the ark of Noah. The door is shut. In vain they cry to God. Their hour of hope is past. Like the rich man in hell, they find their prayers rejected. The waters sweep them the air; silent death spreads all away. Not a breath moves is an universal tomb. his boundless empire; the world

rested upon one of the mounChap. viii. 14. "And the ark tains of Ararat." Unless the waters had covered the mountain, as mentioned in the 7th

chapter, the ark could not have floated on its summit. The ark must have grounded on the

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Menochius and Bonfrerius. See Pool's Synopsis on the passage.

mountain while the water was of considerable depth, and while the billows still rolled over the lower hills. Accordingly, after this event, for two months and a half, the water continued to abate, before the tops of other mountains began to appear. Forty days after this, Noah sent forth a raven; seven days after he sent forth a dove; but she found no rest, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth; seven days after he sent the dove again, and she returned with an olive leaf. Could the language of mortals, could the language of heaven, make the declaration of any event more certain, than the universality of the flood in these passages? Previously God had said to Noah, "that the earth," all the earth, 66 I was filled with violence, and that he would destroy all flesh with the earth." Such was the threatening. Could Noah, could any intelligent being suppose, that any part of the earth was to be excepted from the destruction? In giving a history of the awful catastrophe, when it was closed, God says, he did, according to his threatening, destroy "all flesh, and that the waters did cover all the high hills, under the whole heaven." In his covenant with Noah afterwards God promised," that there should be no more a flood to destroy the earth." If with these declarations before us we do not believe the flood universal, neither should we be persuaded though one should rise from the dead, and declare it.

Yet some persons, to prevent a waste of water, and contrary to all evidence on the subject, imagine that this deluge of hills

and mountains was confined to a particular part of the world. They suppose it confined to the inhabited part of the earth; how great a portion this was, they have not informed us; only that it was not the whole.* Objections accumulate against this hypothesis. Why were birds and beasts collected in the ark, if the deluge was not universal ? They had doubtless wandered, beyond the supposed dwellings of men; they would soon have again replenished the new set. tlements after the flood. Why was any ark built? Why was a miraculous, and unknown voyage undertaken? It would have been easier, and infinitely less dangerous for Noah to have travelled beyond the settlements made, where he might have rested in safety. Some of the mountains of the old world are ten, fifteen, and sixteen thousand feet, and upwards in height. The objection then supposes a pile of water two or three miles high in a square, round, or zigzag form, as the settlements might extend in a straight line, project down a fertile valley, or retreat, to avoid a barren plain, a rocky moun

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tain, or a dismal swamp. The laws of nature are suspended, gravitation ceases, or water becomes solid, a monstrous miracle is invented, contrary to all evidence, merely to cast contempt on the authority of revelation. This absurdity would strike infidelity dumb, were she not in the habit of trampling on truth, or of straining at gnats, and swallowing camels. Is it not astonishing that Moses should describe the dividing of the Red Sea, and of Jordan, as surprising miracles, and not mention this pile of water three miles high, and perhaps several thousand in diameter ?

Others excuse their unbelief, by imagining the history of Moses figurative. It is true that sometimes by a figure, synecdoche, the whole is put for a part, but there must always in this case be some proportion be tween the part and the whole; nor must the writer, unless he would be charged with bombast or falsehood, use such particular phrases, as Moses does in his history of the deluge. Let us for a moment examine the account of the deluge, supposing it to be figurative. This class of objectors allow, that the water might rise fifty-two feet and a half high; but the Bible says, the water covered the high hills and mountains fifteen cubits. The Chimborozo is twenty thousand six hundred feet high. The floods on the Missisippi are now often thirty feet high. As fifty-two and a half feet are to the height of Chimborozo with the sixteen cubits, which covered its surface; so are thirty feet to 11,788 feet. Now let a traveller, who saw the rise of Vol. I. No. 8.

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the Missisippi this year, insert and publish in his journal, that on the 17th day of April, the heavens were opened, the rain fell, the floods rose till the high hills were covered, till the mountainst on the north west coast of America were covered 1788 feet, till Quito Capilate in South Americat was covered 1546 feet, till the highest mountains in Vermonts were covered 8,334 feet deep; that all the inhabitants of these countries perished, excepting a dozen families, who ascended Chimborozo, Catopaxi,¶ and a few other mountains, which reared their summits above the billows of the flood; that after the waters began to abate, it was several months before the hills appeared; if after reading this tremendous description, and shuddering for the destruction of the human race, it should be discovered, that the water rose only thirty feet, covering only the swamps of Louisiana, drowning nothing but a mammoth, and an aged man, sick in his cabin, what would be thought of the writer? That he was a madman would doubtless be the first impression. If on examination he were found to be a cold hearted philosophist, infamy would cover his name. Yet this description is less particular, and less extravagant than the narrative of the flood, according to those, who deny that it was universal.

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