EXHOR. Since these ten commandments are delivered by the authority of God, to be the rule of your whole life and actions, see, O christian, they be imprinted in your mind and memory, and that you make them the subject of your meditation, and serious thoughts: and as they are the ordinance of the will of God, which is the rule of all human actions, square your lives, and direct all your thoughts, words, and actions, by them; praying daily for the divine grace to accomplish and fulfil them in every point: and let the sight of the glorious reward of your obedience, encourage you; you have God's word for it; do this and thou shalt live. Let your first care be to accomplish those commandments that immediately regard God himself: give to him his due honour, and give not his honour away to any other: love him above all things; let his very name be reverenced and adored by you: Holy and terrible is his name: worship him every day, but chiefly on that day he has consecrated to his service. In the second place love neighbour as yourself; give honour to whom honour is due, to your parents and superiors; wrong no man; harbour no ill against others, even in your thoughts, less in your heart. These are, in short, the duties of every christian, who desires to please God, to fulfil his will, and to live for ever with him in glory.

SECT. I.

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT EXPLAINED.

I am the Lord thy God.

your

Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me.

Q. WHAT are we commanded hereby. A. To love, serve, and worship one only true and living God, and no more. Q. What are we forbidden by it? A. To worship idols, or to give any creature the honour due to God. Q. What is the honour due to God? A supreme honour, by which we acknowledge and worship him as our Creator, Redeemer. and last End.

A.

INSTRUC.-These words, I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage, which was a figure of our deliverance out of the slavery of the devil, are as a preamble to the commandments; whereby God declares, that he is our God, and supreme Lord, and as such we are to serve him with all diligence and devotion, and to keep all his commandments throughout.

Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me: this is the first commandment; and the honour due to God, which is hereby enjoined, is supreme honour, called Latria, which is due only to God, and cannot, without idolatry, be given to another; for by it we worship him as our Creator, Redeemer, and last End.

Hence the Israelites were strictly forbid to make any idol, that might be an occasion to them of falling from his worship. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven thing; that is, idol, so the Septuagint translates it. By this commandment then, true religion is established, and fase religion prohibited: for God does not only command us to serve him with the true worship of Latria, but further, that we should give it to no other: Thou shalt have no other Gods but me: thou shalt confess me alone to be God, and honour me as such, and no other shalt thou honour and adore as God: nay, though we are commanded to give honour to whom honour is due, yet we give honour to no one, but in reference to God.

God is so jealous of this his supreme honour, that he threatens to punish those to the third and fourth generation, who give it away to another, which he calls hating him; as he will reward and shew mercy to all those who shall love and adore him, and keep his commandments.

As by this first commandment true religion is established, they dishonour God, and sin against it directly, who are in the exercise of a false religion; as idolaters, who adore stocks and stones, or any creature for God: Jews, who still go on with the observance of the Mosaic law, as if Christ was not yet come heretics, who have corrupted christianity, and the true worship of God:

the superstitious, who practise things under a pretext of religion, which belong not to it: magicians, or those who consult them, to know secret and hidden things, or use their charms, words, or spells to cure infirmities, or for other ends: they deal with the devil, and go to him for council and help, which is dishonouring God in a high degree.

EXHOR.-Remember then, O christian, that the first and greatest of all the commandments is to believe in the true God, to hope in him, to love him above all things: if then you pretend to be an adorer of God, you must first believe, with an entire submission, all the mysteries of faith which he has revealed; you must hope and fix a firm confidence in him and in all the ways of providence, knowing that all hope in creatures is vain without him; you must love him above all things, whish is best known by keeping his commandments, and beware of overmuch love to creatures, which often carries you to a hatred and contempt of God, even without your perceiving it.

SECT. II.

Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me.

OES not this commandment forbid us to honour saints and angels? A. By no means; it only forbids us to give them divine honour.

INSTRUC.-No one surely is so weak to think that the Church teaches the angels and saints to be Gods, or that we honour them as God: yet surely some honour is due to them; and does not St. Paul teach, That we must give honour to whom honour is due. To whom then is it due ? To kings, and those in authority under them. Honour the king, because his power is from God; again honour and glory, says the apostle, to every one that worketh good, Rom. ii. 10. And truly, if civil honour may be lawfully given to men while they live upon earth, and this honour may be greater or less, according to their quality and worth, with greater reason honour is due to the virtuous and holy and still a

greater honour to those who enjoy a happy life in heaven, in consideration of the near union they have with God, which places them in the most eminent state of all; but this honour wholly centres in God, from whom flowed the graces given them here, and the glory they enjoy; so that we honour them only in reference to God, to whom they owe their excellence it is God we honour in them: Praise ye our Lord in his saints. We also beg their intercession for us, not doubting but in God they see our wants, and have more power with God to help us, and more charity to move them to it, now they are in heaven, For charity never faileth, 1 Cor. xiii 8.

Upon the same grounds we may honour the relicks of the saints, or their dead bodies, because their bodies were members of Christ, and temples of the Holy Ghost, in which a thousand sacrifices of love and adoration were offered to God, and will rise in glory. Hence this practice is as ancient as christianity.

It was ever esteemed a great benefit to the inhabitants of any city or place, to have the bodies of the saints and martyrs repose among them: they thought it a benefit both to their souls and bodies: to their bodies, by the frequent cures of diseases, which were done by the saint's relicks; to their souls, forasmuch as the sight of the saint's body enshrined there, was the most striking monument they could have of him, continually admonishing them of the holy works he did among them when living; the faith and doctrine he taught, his virtues, mortifications, charities, humility, purity, &c. How then can we refuse to venerate those holy relicks, which we see God uses as instruments to work so many miracles, and to do prodigies in the church by the cure of diseases, and even raising the dead to life? Did not the handkerchiefs and aprons which had only touched the body of St. Paul cast out devils and cure all diseases? Acts xix. 12. And was not a dead man raised to life, only by touching the bones of the prophet Elizeus? 4 Reg. xiii. It must then be a strange prejudice to think there can be any idolatry in this pious practice: for did not the martyrs die to overthrow idolatry and the saints preach zealously against it? Then those who

venerate their relicks cannot surely be idolaters, but on the contrary, by that very action, they shew, that they are of the same faith, as the saint was, whom they honour; and by honouring the saint, they express their detestation of idolatry, and venerate the very dust of those to whom, under God, they owe their faith and religion.

SECT. III.

Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing, &c. Thou shalt not adore nor worship them.

ly forbids the making and worshipping of idols.

INSTRUC. The holy images which are used in the church, are representations of holy persons, of our Saviour, the Virgin Mary, the angels, and saints. Such were not entirely disused in the old law; for, by the command of God himself, two cherubims of beaten gold were made, and placed over the ark of the covenant in the very sanctuary; in like manner, the brazen serpent was made, and set up as an emblem of Christ on the cross, to cure those that were bit by the fiery serpents; the cherubims were made not to be adored as Gods, but only representations to put them in mind of those angelical spirits who attend before the throne of God. So in the new law, images and pictures were always in use; and the second council of Nice, which is long ago received, both by the Greek and Latin church, anathematized all the Iconoclasts or image-breakers, that is, those who broke them out of contempt, and would pretend we honour them as Gods; at the same time this council declares, that to these holy images of Christ and his saints is only given a honorary respect, but by no means that supreme worship, or Latria, which becomes only the divine nature, Action 7. Col. v. 55.

The council of Trent too has declared the intent of them : 66 Images are not to be venerated for any virtue "or divinity which is believed to be in them, or for any