Heathen Worship; and, as hankering, or coveting, or lufting after fuch Objects as have a direct Tendency to alienate your Hearts from me, and to initiate you into their dangerous and deftructive Paths, is likely to prove your Ruin, avoid therefore the very Appearance of it, left you be insnared, and led from one Thing to another, till you reject me, and destroy yourselves by rejecting my Method of Salvation by a Redeemer, a Saviour, Chrift Jefus, whom I have anointed. This I take to be the primary Senfe of the Decalogue; and if any Gentleman think otherwife, when he fhews the World why he does fo, I promise him my Anfwer, or Recantation, in Publick.

I HAVE obferved already, that this pretended moral Law was not published to the World, till near two Thousand fix Hundred Years after the Creation, nor any other Law, that I know of, befides the Ceremonial, which whoever understood, believed and conformed to in Heart and Life, i. e. to the true Intent and Defign of it, had no more Need of any other, than he had of a Candle to find or fee the Sun at Noon. Strange Doctrine! but no ftranger than true. An Objection will be made here, I doubt not, from the Senfe some Parts of the Decalogue feem to be understood in, by the New Teftament Writers. I would have it understood, that I pay the highest Refpect to the New Neftament as well as to the Old; but ftill fay it, the N. T. can never be understood but by the Old. Claffic Learning will not help here. When the O. T. is understood, and not till then, the Objection will vanifh. If any think otherwife, they are at Liberty to put the Objection in the strongest Light and Language; but till that be done, here fhall be an End of this Part, when I have put the Decalogue in the following fhort View.

IT

IT appears, 1st, The Heathens had other Elabim than the true.

2d, THEY fet up imaginary, uninstituted Symbols of their Objects of Worship, their falfe Elabim, as above, viz. of their celestial, terrestrial, and infernal ones.

3dly, THEY applied the Names of Jehovah to his Agents, and fell into the Worship of those Agents.

4thly, THEY denied that Jehovah made the Heavens, Earth, and Seas, and all that in them is ; and refused to appropriate any Time to confider who Jehovah was, and what were his Works, and that the Objects they worshipped were the Works of his Hands, and not fit for them to worship, being not Elabim, nor able to fave them.

5thly, THEY afcribed their begetting, &c. to Stocks and Stones, and fo neglected to pay that Obedience and Respect to their immediate Parents, which was their Due by God's own Inftitution leaft of all did they yield Obedience to, and acknowledge the great Parent of all.

;

6thly, THEY offered their Captives and their Children in Sacrifice to their falfe Elabim, to render them propitious, and by Murder expected to redeem their own Souls.

7thly, ADULTERIES, Rapes, Fornications, deflowering Virgins, &c. were very high Acts in their Devotion. This Kind of Worship was to produce a Bleffer, a Meffiah of their own, because they would not fubmit to be faved by him who was to be the Bleffer of all Nations, God's Meffiah.

Their Rage was fo great against all through whofe Loins he was to come, that they aim'd at cutting them off; hereby they thought to prevent the Birth of the true Seed, and oblige Men to embrace their unreveal'd Religion, and to expect Salvation by their spurious Meffiah; hence David's Curfes.

8thly, THEY robbed and ftole for Burnt Offerings, and thought themselves the more acceptable to their Gods for committing fuch Things.

gthly, God's own Servants they accufed with blafpheming, and not worshipping their falfe Elahim; and put them to Death for it.

10thly, THEY indulged themfelves in coveting all the Evils above; and every one of them, as from its Root, fprang from this Evil,Covetousness.

I THINK a Difcuffion of the Law of Nature (as 'tis call'd) follows next in Course; and, as one fays, fince my Hand is in the Bag, I fhall take fuch Stones as come first to Hand, and thus I throw them at the Mark.

،

THE Grecians had many Intruders into Philo fophy, who ufurped a Profeffion that was not ⚫ natural to them, and ftrutted in borrowed Or⚫naments; and though they might not counterfeit, or corrupt their Coin without Punishment, their Philofophy they might; for this they were defpifed by their Indian Neighbours, and for that clamorous Liberty they had to distract one another, fome of them being Epicures, fome Cynics, fome Stoics, fome Peripatetics, and fome of them pretended Platonics. It is not doubted

but

but the fcuffling and fquabbling of these Secta⚫ries did at laft produce the Sceptic; who finding naught in the Schools but Oppofition and Bitternefs, refolved for a new Courfe, and fecured his Peace by his Ignorance.' How exactly this fits the prefent Times, I fhall leave the Reader to judge.

- DIVINITY and Philofophy were once connected, and in their Nature are fo ftill. It had been happy for Mankind, if the Link had never been broken; but fo it is, and from hence all the Dif putes that have been in the World arofe: For while the Theofophy of the Hebrews remained, there were none; as foon as that was loft, and ever fince, Men dream and publifh; they dream again, and publish again, and fo on till the Shelves are prefs'd with the naufeous Burden. These Affes Colts, the Infidels; I mean, made the Breach; and tho' they graze on Divine Pafture, pretend they grow fat by Nature; they pillage the Scriptures for Ideas, and tell the World they get them by the Light of Nature. The Reader furely may recollect many recent Inftances of this. Mr. Woollafton and Dr. Fofter are notorioufly fuch Pillagers.

K

Now fince we have the Light of Nature, the Law of Nature, the Religion of Nature, and natural Confcience rung in our Ears from the Pulpit and the Prefs fo continually, we ought to know what they mean by it, or rather that they mean nothing but the Fictions of their own Brains.

By the Light of Nature, I mean that Light, Knowledge, Reafon, Intelligence, or Understanding, which the Mind of the rational Creature is poffeffed of, or can attain to, when left to it felf

de

deftitute of a Revelation, without Inftruction or Example from Parents, or others. To talk of the Light of Nature, &c. in any other Senfe but this, is to amufe Mankind, to fay no worse : Moreover, this must have been the Cafe of the first Man, (and a first Man there was) or he must have had a Revelation, which the Deifts fay he had not, any more than his Defcendants. By this Light of Nature we are told by many of our Divines, as well as the Deifts, that we may discover the Being of a God, and that he is to be worshipped, and how he is to be worshipped. With refpect to the Being of a God, they make the deftitute Creature Reason thus: I am, How came I to be? I could not make myself, for that fuppofes my Existence before I was; I could not come by Chance, for Chance is no Caufe; therefore I must be the Work of fome Omnipe tent Agent, which Agent I call God. This is mighty pretty Reasoning in an untaught Creature, and as pretty Language in the Mouth of one who was never taught to speak. But, I prefume, in spight of all the Metaphyfics in Thomas Aquinas, and all the Subtilties of the Logicians, a little common Sense will fet us right here; for this will prompt a Man to afk how this untaught Creature came at Language? And whether any Man ever thought without? No furely; for we think in Language, as well as fpeak in it; and I would recommend to him who believes he can range his Thoughts without Language, to try; and if he conceives he fucceeds upon tryal, I will tell him how wife he is. I know the Author of the Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer, tells us, When Adam was made, he gaz'd and ftared about him, exaamined the Organs of his Body; and upon finding he had those of Speech, he open'd his Mouth and cry'd Baw; he repeated the Sound till he had fixed it in his own Mind, and tacked an Idea to