agency every enjoyment proceeds-and that all his regulations and arrangements are calculated to promote the present and everlasting felicity of all rational agents that submit to his authority. That these laws are not mere. acts of Divine Sovereignty, but founded upon the nature of things, and are calculated to preserve the harmony and order of the intelligent universe, will appear from the following illustrations and remarks.

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.

Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.

All the commandments, except the fourth and fifth, are expressed in a negative form: But it is obvious, that every negative command includes a requisition of the duty which is opposed to the sin forbidden; and those which are positive include a prohibition of the conduct which is opposed to the duty required. This first commandment, therefore, though expressed in the negative form, must be considered as including a positive injunction to love God with all our hearts, to offer a tribute of supreme adoration to his perfections, and to exercise the graces of hope, gratitude, submission, and reverence. Having already considered the precept in this point of view, (pp. 85-95) it is only necessary, in this place, to attend, for a little, to the negative form of the command. The prohibition contained in this precept must be considered as extending not only to Polytheism, and the various objects of worship which have prevailed in the heathen world, but to every thing which is the object of our supreme affection and regard.

It is a dictate of enlightened and unprejudiced reason, that the Being to whom we are indebted for existence, on whom we every moment depend, who directs the movements of the system of nature, who daily loads us with his benefits, and on whom our hopes of eternal felicity entirely depend-should be contemplated with the most ardent affection and gratitude, regarded as the most excellent and venerable of all beings, and recognized as the

Supreme Legislator, whose laws we are bound, by every tie of gratitude, to obey. Wherever such sentiments and affections pervade the mind, they constitute the first principles of piety, the source of all holy obedience, and the foundation of all true happiness. Were they universally felt, and acted upon by human beings, the Most High God, would be adored in every land, his image would be impressed on every heart, his righteous laws would never be violated, grovelling desires and affections would be eradicated, and our world would be transformed into an abode of felicity, where joys similar to those of angels would succeed to scenes of wretchedness and wo.

On the other hand, where the unity and the attributes of the divine Being are not recognized, and where other objects are substituted in his place, the foundations of religion, and of moral order are completely subverted, and a door opened for the introduction of every absurdity, immorality and vile abomination, that can degrade a rational intelligence. The command under consideration is placed on the front of the divine law, as the foundation of all the other precepts; and, therefore, wherever it is violated, or not recognized, a regular obedience to the other subordinate injunctions of religion is not, in the nature of things, to be expected. Were its violation, in our world, complete and universal, it is impossible to say what would be the miserable condition of human beings in their social capacity. To its general violation, may be traced all the evils under which humanity has groaned in every age, and all the depraved passions, and shocking immoralities which now disfigure the aspect of the moral world.

There is nothing that appears more prominent in the history and the character of almost every nation under heaven, than an infringement of this first and fundamental law of the Creator. A rational and enlightened mind, on a first consideration of this subject, would be apt to surmise, that such a law is almost superfluous and unnecessary. There is such an immense disproportion between a block of marble, or a crawling reptile, and that Being who supports the system of universal nature, that it appears, at first view, next to impossible, that a reasonable being should ever become so stupid and degraded, as to

substitute the one for the other, and to offer his adorations to an object completely devoid of life, power, and intelligence. Yet experience teaches us, that there is no disposition to which the human mind is more prone than "to depart from the living God," and to multiply objects of idolatrous worship. This will appear, if we take but the slightest glance of the objects of adoration which have prevailed, and which still prevail in the pagan world.

At one period of the world, with the single exception of the small nation of the Jews, idolatry overspread the face of the whole earth. And how numerous and degrading were the objects which the blinded nations adored! We are informed, by Hesiod, Varro, and other ancient authors, that no less than thirty thousand subordinate divinities were comprised within that system of idolatry which prevailed among the Greeks and Romans. They had both celestial and terrestrial deities. They assigned peculiar gods to the fountains, the rivers, the hills, the mountains, the lawns, the groves, the sea, and even to hell itself. To cities, fields, houses, edifices, families, gates, nuptial chambers, marriages, births, deaths, sepulchres, trees, and gardens, they also appropriated distinct and peculiar deities. Their principal celestial deities were Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Apollo, Bacchus, Venus, Juno, and Minerva their terrestrial, Saturn, Ceres, Diana, Neptune, Cybele, Proserpine and Pluto. Their chief idol was Jupiter, whom they called the Father of gods and men; and under his authority, Neptune had the jurisdiction of the sea, Juno, of the air, Cybele, of the earth, and Pluto, of the realms below. Instead of worshipping the living and immortal God, they deified a host of dead men, called heroes, distinguished for nothing so much, as for murder, adultery, sodomy, rapine, cruelty, drunkenness, and all kinds of debauchery. To such contemptible divinities splendid temples were erected,* adorations addressed,

The temple of Diana at Ephesus, has been always admired as one of the noblest pieces of architecture that the world ever produced. It was 425 feet long, 200 feet broad, and supported by 127 columns of marble 60 feet high; 27 of which were beautifully carved. Diodorus Siculus mentions, that the rich presents made to the temple of Apollo at Delphos, amounted to one million three hundred and thirty-three thousand pounds.

costly offerings presented, and rites and ceremonies performed, subversive of every principle of decency and morality, and degrading to the reason and the character of man. A system of idolatry of a similar kind, though under a different form, prevailed among the Egyptians. The meanest and the most contemptible objects-sheep, cats, bulls, dogs, cows, storks, apes, vultures, and other birds of prey; wolves, and several sorts of oxen, were exalted as objects of adoration. "If you go into Egypt," says Lucian, " you will see Jupiter with the face of a ram, Mercury as a fine dog, Pan, is become a goat; another god is Ibis, another the crocodile, and another the ape. There, many shaven priests gravely tell us, that the gods, being afraid of the rebellion of the giants, assumed these shapes." Each city and district in Egypt entertained a peculiar devotion for some animal or other, as the object of its adoration. The city Lentopolis worshipped a lion; the city Mendez, a goat; Memphis, the Apis; and the people at the lake Myris, adored the crocodile. These animals were maintained, in or near their temples, with delicate meats; were bathed, anointed, perfumed, had beds prepared for them; and when any of them happened to die, sumptuous funerals were prepared in honour of the god. Of all these animals, the bull, Apis, was held in the greatest veneration. Honours of an extraordinary kind were conferred on him while he lived, and his death gave rise to a general mourning.

Such was the abominable idolatry that prevailed even among the most enlightened nations of antiquity. They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into "the similitude of an ox that eateth grass," and into images made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and to four-footed beasts, and creeping things. And if the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, who were distinguished from the rest of the world for their improvements in literature, science and the arts, had so far renounced their allegiance to the God of heaven, we may rest assured, that the surrounding nations were sunk still farther into the pollutions of idolatry and of mental debasement. The Phenicians, the Syrians, the Canaanites, the Chaldeans and Babylonians, the Arabians, the Scythians, the Ethiopians, and the Carthaginians, the ancient Gauls, Germans, and

Britons, were, if possible, more deeply debased; and mingled with their idolatrous rites, many cruel, obscene, and vile abominations. Such is still the moral and religious debasement, even in modern times, of the greater part of the nations which dwell upon the earth. Even the Hindoos, the Birmans, the Chinese, the Persians and the Japanese, though ranked among the most polished nations of the heathen world, are sunk into the grossest ignorance of the true God, and are found perpetrating, in their religious worship, deeds revolting to humanity, and stained with horrid cruelty and injustice.

The moral effects which were produced by a departure from this fundamental law of the Creator, were such as corresponded with the abominations of that religious system which was adopted. Man is an imitative being; and he generally imitates the actions of those whom he conceives to be placed in a superior rank and station. When, therefore, the gods were introduced to his view, as swollen with pride, mad with rage, fired with revenge, inflamed with lust, engaged in wars, battles, and contests, delighting in scenes of blood and rapine, in hatred and mutual contentions, and in all kinds of riot and debauchery, it was natural to suppose, that such passions and crimes would be imitated by their blinded votaries. Accordingly, we find that such vices universally prevailed, even among the politest nations of antiquity; and some of their sacred rites, solemnized in honour of their gods, were so bestial and shocking, as to excite horror in every mind possessed of the least sense of decency and virtue. They gloried in the desolation and destruction of neighbouring nations. To conquer, and oppress, and enslave their fellow-men, and to aggrandize themselves by slaughter and rapine, was the great object of their ambition. The law of kindness and of universal benevolence was trampled under foot, and even the common dictates of humanity, equity, and justice, were set at defiance. But this was not all-Idolatry soon began to instigate its votaries to the perpetration of the most revolting and unnatural cruelties. Dreadful tortures were inflicted on their bodies, to appease their offended deities; human victims, in vast numbers, were sacrificed, and even their infants and little children were