TABLE OF CONTENTS. 198 229 246 271 SERMONS. SERMON XVII. ON THE DECALOGUE, OR TEN COMMANDMENTS EXODUS, Chap. xx. ver. 1-17. 1. And God spake all these words, saying, 2. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 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 command ments. 7. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 8. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. 9. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy sor., nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hal lowed it. 12. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 13. Thou shalt not kill. 14. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 15. Thou shalt not steal. 16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. THE two first verses of this chapter contain the preface which shews the authority by which these commandments are given, and the obligation of the people to obey : And God spake all these words, ver. 1. It has been conjectured, and not without great plausibility, that the clause ban on bon eth col hadebarim ha-elleh"All these words," belong to the latter part of the concluding verse of the preceding chapter, and should be read thus :-so Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them ALL THESE WORDS. That is, he delivered to them that solemn charge, not to attempt to come up to that part of the mountain on which God manifested Himself, in His glorious Majesty, least He should break through upon and consume them. When Moses, therefore, had gone down, and spoken all these words, and he and Aaron had re-ascended the mountain, then the Divine Being, as Supreme Legislator, is majestically introduced thus:-AND GOD SPAKE, SAYING. This gives a dignity to the commencement of this chapter, of which the above clause, if not referred to the speech of Moses to the people, deprives it. Our most ancient version, the AngloSaxon, reads in the same way, Irod spɲæc þur—God spake thus; which is the whole of the verse in this version, (and without the and,) which makes the whole of this introduction more peremptory and authoritative. The giving of the law on Mount Sinai, was the most solemn transaction which ever took place between God and man: and, therefore, it is introduced in the most solemn manner. In the morning of that day in which this law was given, (which many learned chronologists suppose to have been May 30, in the year of the world 2513, before the Incarnation 1491, that day being the Pentecost,) the presence of Jehovah became manifest by thunders and lightnings,—a dense cloud on the mountain,--and a terrific blast of a trumpet,- -so that the whole assembly was struck with terror and dismay. Shortly after, the whole mount appeared on fire; columns of smoke |