Use 2d. It condemns Christians, who pro- fess to own God for their God, yet they do not live as if he were their God. 1. They do not believe in him as a God ; when they look upon their sins, they are apt to say, can God pardon ? when they look upon their wants, can God provide? can he prepare a ta^ ble in the wilderness ? — 2. They do not love him as a God: they do not give him the cream of their love, but are apt to love other things more than God ; they say they love God, but will part with nothing for him. — 3. They do not worship him as a God; they do not give him that reverence, nor pray with that devotion, as if they were praying to a God. How dead are their hearts? If not dead in sin, yet dead in duty. 'Tis as if praying to a god that hath eyes and sees not, — ears, and hears not. In hearing the word, how mucii distraction, what regard- less hearts have many ? they are thinking of tlunr sho})s and drugs. Would a king take it well at our hands, if, when he is speaking to us,* we should be playing with a feather? when God is speaking to us in his word, and our hearts are taken up with thoughts about the world, is not this play- ing with a feather? O how may this hum- ble most of us, we do not make God to be a God to us? We do not believe in him, love him, worship him as a. God. INhuiy heathens have worshipped their false gods with more seriousness and devotion than some Christians do the true God. O let us chide ourselves ! Did I say chide ? let us abhor ourselves for our deadness and for- mality in religion, — how we have ])n»fessed God, yet we have not worshij)ped him as God ! So much for the fust, " We nuist have God for our God :" I should come to the second, " We must have no other God."
24S
OF THE FIRST COMxMANDMENT.
ExoD. XX. 3. Thou shall have no other gods before me.
1. THAT we must have " no other god :" " Tlioii shah have no other gods hefore me."
Qlest. UTiat is meant by this word. Be- fore me ?
Ana. That is, before my face, — in coJi- spectu jneo, — in my sight: Deut. x.wii. 15., " Cursed he he that makes a giaven image, and puts it in a secret place." Some would not bow to the idol where others might see, but they would secretly bow to it ; but though tliis was out of man's sight, it was not out of God's sight : " Cursed therefore (saith God) be he that puts the image in a secret place." " Thou shalt have no other gods." 1. There is really no other god. 2. AVe must have no other.
1. There is really no other God. The Valentiuians held there were two Gods, the Polvtheists that there were many ; the Persians worshipped the sun ; the Eg}p- tians, the ox and elephant ; the Grecians, Jupiter ; but there is no other than the true God, Deut. iv. 39., " Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath ; there is none o- ther," For, 1. There is but one First Cause, that hath its being of itself, and on which all other beings depend; as in the heavens tlie Priimnn Mobile moves all the other orbs, so God is the Great Mover, he gives life and motion to everv thiufj existent. — 2. There is but one Omnipotent Power. If tiiere be two omnipotents, then we must always suppose a contest between these two ; that which one would do, the other Power, being equal, would oppose, and so all things wttuld be brought into a confu- sion. If a ship should liave two pilots of equal power, one would be ever crossing the other ; when one would sail, the other would cast anchor ; here were a confusion, and tiic sliip must needs ])erish. The or- der and harmony in the world, the con- stant and uniform government of all things, is a clear argument that there is but one Omnipotent, one God that rules all : Isa. xliv. 6., " I am tin- Hrst, and I am the last, and besides me tiicre is no God."