[1] And God spake all these
words, saying,
God spake all these words - The law of the ten commandments
is a law of God's making; a law of his own speaking. God has many ways
of speaking to the children of men by his spirit, conscience, providences;
his voice in all which we ought carefully to attend to: but he never spake
at any time upon any occasion so as he spake the ten commandments, which
therefore we ought to hear with the more earnest heed. This law God had
given to man before, it was written in his heart by nature; but sin had
so defaced that writing, that it was necessary to revive the knowledge
of it.
[2] I am the LORD thy God, which
have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
I am the Lord thy God - Herein, God asserts his own authority
to enact this law; and proposeth himself as the sole object of that religious
worship which is enjoined in the four first commandments. They are here
bound to obedience.
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Because God is the Lord, Jehovah, self - existent, independent,
eternal, and the fountain of all being and power; therefore he has an incontestable
right to command us.
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He was their God; a God in covenant with them; their God
by their own consent.
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He had brought them out of the land of Egypt - Therefore
they were bound in gratitude to obey him, because he had brought them out
of a grievous slavery into a glorious liberty. By redeeming them, he acquired
a farther right to rule them; they owed their service to him, to whom they
owed their freedom. And thus, Christ, having rescued us out of the bondage
of sin, is entitled to the best service we can do him. The four first commandments,
concern our duty to God (commonly called the first - table.) It was fit
those should be put first, because man had a Maker to love before he had
a neighbour to love, and justice and charity are then only acceptable to
God when they flow from the principles of piety.
[3] Thou shalt have no other
gods before me. [4] 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: [5] Thou shalt not
bow down thyself to them, nor 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; [6]
And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
The first commandment is concerning the object of our
worship, Jehovah, and him only, Thou shalt have no other gods before me
- The Egyptians, and other neighbouring nations, had many gods, creatures
of their own fancy. This law was pre - fixed because of that transgression;
and Jehovah being the God of Israel, they must entirely cleave to him,
and no other, either of their own invention, or borrowed from their neighbours.
The sin against this commandment, which we are most in danger of, is giving
that glory to any creature which is due to God only. Pride makes a God
of ourselves, covetousness makes a God of money, sensuality makes a God
of the belly. Whatever is loved, feared, delighted in, or depended on,
more than God, that we make a god of. This prohibition includes a precept
which is the foundation of the whole law, that we take the Lord for our
God, accept him for ours, adore him with humble reverence, and set our
affections entirely upon him. There is a reason intimated in the last words
before me. It intimates,
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That we cannot have any other god but he will know it.
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That it is a sin that dares him to his face, which he cannot,
will not, overlook. The second commandment is concerning the ordinances
of worship, or the way in which God will be worshipped, which it is fit
himself should appoint. Here is, [1.] The prohibition; we are forbidden
to worship even the true God by images, Exodus 20:4,5.First, The Jews (at
least after the captivity) thought themselves forbidden by this to make
any image or picture whatsoever. It is certain it forbids making any image
of God, for to whom can we liken him? Isaiah 40:18,25. It also forbids
us to make images of God in our fancies, as if he were a man as we are.
Our religious worship must be governed by the power of faith, not by the
power of imagination. Secondly, They must not bow down to them - Shew any
sign of honour to them, much less serve them by sacrifice, or any other
act of religious worship. When they paid their devotion to the true God,
they must not have any image before them for the directing, exciting, or
assisting their devotion. Though the worship was designed to terminate
in God, it would not please him if it came to him through an image. The
best and most ancient lawgivers among the Heathen forbad the setting up
of images in their temples. It was forbidden in Rome by Numa a Pagan prince,
yet commanded in Rome by the Pope, a Christian bishop. The use of images
in the church of Rome, at this day, is so plainly contrary to the letter
of this command, that in all their catechisms, which they put into the
hand of the people, they leave out this commandment, joining the reason
of it to the first, and so the third commandment they call the second,
the fourth the third, &c. only to make up the number ten, they divide
the tenth into two. For I the Lord Jehovah, thy God, am a jealous God,
especially in things of this nature. It intimates the care he has of his
own institutions, his displeasure against idolaters, and that he resents
every thing in his worship that looks like, or leads to, idolatry: visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation - Severely punishing. Nor is it an unrighteous thing with God
if the parents died in their iniquity, and the children tread in their
steps, when God comes, by his judgments, to reckon with them, to bring
into the account the idolatries their fathers were guilty of. Keeping mercy
for thousands of persons, thousands of generations, of them that love me
and keep my commandments - This intimates, that the second commandment,
though in the letter of it is only a prohibition of false worship, yet
includes a precept of worshipping God in all those ordinances which he
hath instituted. As the first commandment requires the inward worship of
love, desire, joy, hope, so this the outward worship of prayer and praise,
and solemn attendance on his word. This mercy shall extend to thousands,
much further than the wrath threatened to those that hate him, for that
reaches but to the third or fourth generation.
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