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Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. We are apt to be struck with horror and astonishment, when we find, in profane history as well as Scripture, that so many nations of the world worshipped a multitude of gods; that some paid divine honours to men, often to the worst of men; that others took beasts, and creeping things, and even plants, for gods; and that they sacrificed to them, feared them, put their trust in them, fought, and frequently died for them. We are amazed, that reasonable creatures should be so excessively stupid. We cannot tell how to account for it, that he, who was ingenious enough to make a most admirable image of a man, should have so little sense, as to take that image, which he himself had made out of a piece of timber, a mass of metal, or a rude stone, for a god, and fall down to worship it. We are still more surprised, that the greatest historians should write, and the wisest philosophers reason, and the most exalted poets sing, of such manufactures, as real gods.

The most ignorant among us entertains a settled contempt for folly so gross and blind; and yet the wisest either does not see, nor is not greatly offended at, the same stupid impiety in himself and others, who pass for Christians. The artful enemy of mankind, being no longer able to seduce us from the true God, by gods of wood and stone, hath nevertheless found means to keep up, even among Christians, the worship of those other idols, riches, pleasure, power, &c. by which he enslaved the heathen world as miserably, as by his Jupiters, his Baals, his Astaroths; though the worship of the former is as severely forbidden in holy Scripture.

When we speak as Christians, what is it we mean by God? Is it not that Being, on whom we absolutely depend; whom we regard as the best, the most excellent, the most.

powerful of all beings; that Being, whom to enjoy is the greatest happiness, and whom to be separated from, is the greatest misery; that Being, whom all our thoughts, our hopes, and fears, are employed about; whom we love and trust to above all things; whom all our anxieties and labours are laid out for; and for whom we are willing, on all occasions, to hazard, and, on many, to sacrifice our lives?

A man may profess in words what he will, and call his God by what name he pleases; but we see by facts, a surer testimony than words, that whatsoever being any man regards in this manner, is really and truly his god; for he sets it highest in his heart, he presents it with the first-fruits of his affections, he offers it his richest sacrifices.

Christ sums all our duty to God in the love of him. When we do not love God, we fail of this duty entirely. When we love and admire any thing else more than him, we advance an inferior being above him in our hearts; and, if this inferior being should be his enemy, as the pomps of the world, or the lusts of the flesh, we then declare open war with him; we have then another master, another leader, another dependence, another love; nay, an opposite god; for that which is first and highest with us, is our god.

He who does not love God, does he not deny his perfection, his beauty, his excellence, and his goodness? He who does not trust in God, does he not deny his truth, and doubt his promises? He who does not fear God, does he not deny, or at least disbelieve, his power and justice? He who does not love, fear, and depend, on God, is an Atheist. But he who loves, fears, or depends, on any thing more than him, is an idolater in the sight of God; for the mere outward shew and ceremony of bending the knee to him, and calling him his God, will be infinitely farther from passing for real worship on the Searcher of hearts, than such complimental respects would, for real esteem, on men, who see little farther than the outsides of things.

One would be apt, at first hearing of the commandment, forbidding us to have any other, but the true God; and of this in my text, charging us to worship and serve him only; to imagine them unnecessary in this age and country, where the worship of the one true God is so universally professed, and that of other gods so utterly disowned. But

upon more attentively comparing the commandment with the general practice, we find, it is still absolutely necessary to us. Love and reverence must ever be paid, in the highest degree, to that which we conceive to be most excellent, and to have the greatest power to help us, and make us happy. Now, although in reasoning and speculation, we always give the preference of excellence and power to God, yet in practice we are too often found to do otherwise; for our deceitful hearts impose on us, and draw away our love and reverence to other things. We have many objects of our love and regard, which we think more of, which we labour more about, which we put more trust in, than in the God of heaven. All true service of God is comprehended in this, that we give our whole hearts to God, that we love him above all things, that we trust in him before all things, that in short, we 'love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our soul, and with all our mind;' and all idolatry in this, that we place our greatest affection, and repose our highest trust, in any thing else.

It is equally offensive to God, and fatal to ourselves, thus to dispossess God of our hearts, and set up any of his creatures in his place. What is it to God, whether that which we prefer before him, is the sun, the soul of a departed conqueror, or some of those worldly enjoyments, which he hath assigned to man as his portion, as his servant, not as his master and God, in this life? God is not more jealous of one object than another, when it presumes to rival, or stand before him, in our affections. If he is deprived of his natural and eternal right to reign over our hearts, it matters not what that is, for the sake of which we offer him so provoking an affront, so grievous an injury. And it is of the same unhappy and fatal consequence to us; for be it what it will, it equally serves to raise the jealousy and anger of Almighty God against us; to cut us off from the fountain of all good; to turn away our hearts from the love and enjoyment of that object, in comparison of which, all other objects are foul and vile, are little and contemptible, to the last degree; and, when set up in opposition to him, become the occasion of infinite disappointment, and of irretrievable misery to us.

This reasoning, so clear and convincing in itself, is farther confirmed to us by the language of holy Scripture.

Covetousness is there expressly called idolatry; and the belly, or gluttony, is also said to be the god of some. Now, we are not to think that mammon and the belly only can give the name of idolaters to their worshippers. Any other creature, too fondly desired, or too earnestly pursued, can do the same, and for the very same reason; that is, can estrange the heart from God, and carry it off to things that have from themselves no right to our regard; because, whatever aptness they may have to benefit or hurt us, they receive it from God alone. They are but our fellow-creatures at best, and most of them put in subjection to us. How then can we think of enslaving ourselves to them? They are but the instruments of Providence. The light of the sun, for instance, is not more the gift of God, than riches, power, or any other worldly possession. The good we receive from the one is wholly the gift of God, as well as that which we derive from the other. God can, if he pleases, cause them to become the instruments of evil; and no doubt those turn them into the occasions of their own eternal ruin, who suffer their affections to rest in them, and do not carry forward their gratitude and love to God, who made and bestows them on us. God manifests his love to us through them; and shall we centre all our love in his benefits, and forget our benefactor? Ought we not rather to make those effects of God's goodness to us the causes and incitements of our gratitude to him? It is our greatest unhappiness, that in these very cords of love, with which God intends to draw up our hearts to him, we should so entangle ourselves, as to become incapable of all motion and tendency towards him.

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There is but one supreme Being, who is God over all,' who hath power in himself to make, and to destroy, to raise up and to throw down, to bring good or evil on mankind. It is evident therefore, that there is but that one Being, whom every rational creature ought to love, reverence, and confide in, with all his heart, and with all his soul; that is, whom he ought to worship and serve as God.

Shall a Christian now, who says he is sensible of all this, despise the Pagan for praying to a mortal man, who is dead and cannot help; to a carved image, that cannot hear him; or to a brute, which God and nature have put in subjection to him; yet place his greatest confidence, his highest esteem,

his warmest affection, on wealth, honour, power, or pleasure?
Are not these idols of the pretended Christian as vain in
themselves, and as odious in the sight of God, as those of the
Pagan? Or is the service of them the more tolerable for its
being paid by one who professes the worship and service of
the true God only? If our empty professions can do any
thing, it is only to make the idolatrous alienation of our
hearts the more provoking. To reduce our worship to mere
words and compliments, contradicted by all our actions, is
but to mock and banter the object of that pretended worship.
Men of common sense, as they easily see through, so they
always resent with the keenest indignation, a conduct so dis-
ingenuous, when offered to themselves. Now, if such a prac-
tice will not pass on men, who see only the outsides of things,
how shall it pass on the awful Searcher of hearts? He who
gives his tongue to God, and his heart to the things of this
world, is both a hypocrite and an idolater.
That many,
among us do nevertheless look on these as the supreme good,
as the most necessary things, the most amiable, and the most
capable of making them happy, and therefore worship them
as their gods, is evident;

First, From the great anxiety of their hearts about them; which makes it plain that they are uppermost in all their thoughts. For these they deprive themselves of peace and contentment; of peace with God, with man, and with their own consciences; and of contentment in such circumstances, as might afford them all the real comforts of life. For these they are day and night on the rack of a thousand vehement desires, and contrary passions, and impracticable or dangerous schemes. If their deities do but smile on them, how are they transported! If they frown, how are they dejected and overwhelmed! This excessive anxiety, this unintermitting love, this preference of what they pursue to every thing else, to their ease, and safety, and real happiness, shews but too plainly what is their god.

Secondly, Their unwearied labours after the possessions, or honours, or pleasures of the world, shew more evidently, than even their transports of joy and sorrow, which are discoverable only by their outward effects, where their worship is fixed. No man labours for what he neither loves nor esteems. Every one labours most for that which he sets the

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