PART XI.

EXPLICATION OF EXODUS XX. 6.

the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

A SUPERFICIAL view of this passage would lead us to form such doctrines, and to draw such conclusions, as reflect upon the mercy and justice of the creator. To vindicate, therefore, the ways of God to man, and to receive just notions of his conduct and character are of the utmost importance to our religious faith. That he should visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the faultless children, has raised ideas in some minds, adverse

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to that character of perfect benevolence, which is one of the appropriate perfections of God. We will therefore illustrate and explain this passage. The context is pointed against, and intended to destroy idolatry. Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that, &c. This commandment points out its offensiveness to God. Next follows the penalty; for I the Lord thy God am, &c. This threatening intimates its danger to man. The propriety of which will appear more evident from the following remarks, viz.

1. That God, as sovereign creator, has an incontestible right to settle the external situation of his creatures, provided their final happiness be the ultimate object of that settlement. Though it must be repugnant to the nature of God to form any creature for misery, or even to inflict it, unless as the desert of its own misconduct; yet when happiness is the final object of all God's dispensations, it must be acknowledged, that he has an undoubted right to fix the outward circumstances of all beings in this, or any other world, considered not as a final, but introductory system to another. Upon this principle, God elected

the nation of the Jews, and passed by that of the Gentiles.

2. God acted towards the Jews in a peculiar capacity. He departed, if such an expression may be allowed, from his original character as universal governor and supreme Lord, and condescended to act towards them, under the character of a temporal prince. In Judea he erected a kingdom, and dignified its inhabitants with important privileges, which he denied to the surrounding nations.

3. Like a wise and good lawgiver he not only promulgated wise and good laws, but formed and enforced their observance by the sanctions of punishment and rewards.

4. These sanctions, though strong and forcible, yet suitable to the idea of his acting as a temporal governor, and hence the apostle calls it a law of carnal commandment.

5. The precepts of the law, so far as they are moral, are of universal and everlasting obligation; and are the invariable standard of conduct to all intelligent and accountable beings, in whatever country they are

born, to whatever society they belong, or whatever public form of worship they profess.

6. But the ten commandments, as delivered by Moses, have in them many things not moral but merely local, and consequently not obligatory upon men, considered as rational beings, but merely as members of the Jewish commonwealth, which the publication of these commandments peculiarly respected.

7. Thus the 5th. commandment Honour thy father and thy mother is a commandment expressly moral, and so binding upon all men, as rational beings; but the promise annexed, that thy days may be long in the land which, &c. is expressly Jewish. God promised the land of Canaan to the Jews; but made no promise of a land to any other people. To respectful and obedient children in that land he promised long life. But he made no such promise to any but the inhabitants of that land. It is hence evident, that this part of the commandment is wholly Jewish.

8. And thus the 2d. commandment, Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, &c. is a command. ment expressly moral, and so binding upon men as rational beings. But the remaining clause of our text