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our Faith, and confine it within the narrow bounds of Natural Reason; yet we use our Reason to distinguish a true from a counterfeit Revelation,and we use Reason to understand a Revelation; and we Reason and Argue from revealed Principles, as we do from the Principles of Natural Knowledge: As from that Natural Principle, that there is but one God, we might conclude,without a Revelation, that we must worship but one God: fo from that revealed Doctrine of one Mediator between God and Man,we may as fafely conclude,that we must make our Applications, and offer up our Prayers and Petitions to God, only by this one Mediator; and fo in other cafes.

Now to direct Protestants how to fecure themselves from being impofed on by the fallacious Reafoning of Roman Priests. I fhall take notice of fome of the chief faults in their way of Reasoning; and when these are once known, it will be an eafie matter for men of ordinary understandings, to detect their Sophistry.

1. As first, we must allow of no Reason against the Authority of plain and express Scripture: This all men must grant, who allow the Authority of Scripture to be fuperiour to Natural Reafon; for though Scripture can not contradict plain, and neceffary, and eternal Reasons, i. e. what the univerfal Reason of Mankind teaches for a neceffary and eternal Truth; yet God may command fuch things, as we fee no Natural Reason for, and forbid fuch things as we fee no Natural Reafon against; nay, it may be, when we think there are plaufible Reasons against what God commands, and for what he forbids: But in all fuch cafes a Divine Law muft take place against our uncertain Reasonings; for we may reasonably conclude, that God understands the Reasons and Natures of things, better than we do.

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As for inftance, when there is fuch an exprefs Law as, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only fhalt thou ferve: No reason in the World can juftifie the Worfhip of any other Being, good or bad Spirits, befides God, because theres is an exprefs Law against it, and no Reafon can take place against a Law. The like may be faid of the Second Commandment, Thou shalt not make to thy Self any graven Image, nor the likeness of any thing which is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them. Which is fo exprefs a Law against Image-Worship, that no Reafon must be admitted for it. No man need to trouble himself to answer the Reafons urged for fuch Practices, for no Reasons ought to be allowed, nor any Dispute admitted against such express Laws.

This, I fuppofe, all men will grant: but then the difficulty is, What is an exprefs Law? For the Sence of the Law is the Law; and if there may be fuch a Sence put on the words, as will reconcile thefe Reasons with the Law, we must not fay then, that fuch Reasons are against the Law, when, though they may be against the Law in fome fence, yet they are confiftent with other fences of the Law; and it is most likely, that is the true fence of the Law, which has the best reafon on its fide.

It must be confeffed, there is fome truth in this, when the words of the Law are capable of different fences,and Reason is for one fence, and the other fence against Rea fon, there it is fit, that a plain and neceffary Reason fhould expound the Law: but when the Law is not capable of fuch different fences, or there is no fuch reafon as makes one fence abfurd, and the other neceffary, the Law must be expounded according to the most plain and

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obvious fignification of the Words, though it fhould condemn that, which we think, there may be fome reafon for, or at least no reason against; for otherwise it is an easie' matter to expound away all the Laws of God. To be fure all men must grant, that fuch Reasons as deftroy the Law, or put an abfurd or impoffible fence on it, are against the Law, and therefore must be rejected, how plaufible foever they appear: As for inftance, Some there are, who to excufe the Church of Rome from Idolatry in Worfhipping Saints, and Angels, and the Virgin Mary, pofitively affirm, that no man can be guilty of Idolatry, who worships one Supreme God; as a late Author exprefly reaches: As for the Invocation of Saints,un- Reasons for Aleẞ they Worship them as the Supreme God, the Charge of brogating the Idolatry is an idle word; and the Adoration it felf, which Test, p. 133. is given to them as Saints, is a direct Proteftation against Idolatry, because it fuppofes a Superiour Deity; and that Suppofition cuts off the very being of Idolatry. Now, not to examine what force there is in this Reason,our prefent enquiry is onely, How this agrees with the firft Commandment, thou shalt have none other Gods before me? before my Face, as it is in the Hebrew: Which fuppofes an acknowledgment of the Supreme God, together with other Gods; for otherwife, though they Worship other Gods, they do not do it before the Face of God, while they see him, as it were, prefent before them: to worfhip other Gods in the prefence of the Supreme God, or before his Face, as that Phrafe fignifies, is to worship them together with him; and therefore this is well expreffed by the Septuagint, by, befides me; which fuppofes that they worshipped him too. And our Saviour expounds this Law by, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him onely fhalt thou ferve. So that this Reason, That there can be no Idolatry, where the Lord

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Jehovah is Worshipped as the Supreme God, contradicts the very letter of this Law.

How then does this Author get rid of the firft Commandment? Truly by laying it all afide: for he gives this as the whole Sence of the firft Commandment, That Ibid. p. 80. God enjoyns the Worship of himself, who, by his Almighty Power, had delivered them from their Ægyptian Bondage. But is this all that these words, Thou shalt have no other Gods before me, fignifies? The Worship of God indeed is fuppofed in them; but the exprefs words of the Law, are not for the Worship of the Lord Jehovah, but against the Worship of any other Gods, before him, or befides him: But according to our new Expofitor, this is no part of the Law, though according to the express words, it is the principal, if not the whole meaning of it.

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If this Argument be good, viz. That Idolatry is nothing elfe, but the Worship of other Beings befides the Lord Jehovah, as Supreme Gods, then other Gods, in this Commandment, muft fignifie other Supreme Gods; and then the Commandment runs thus: Thou shalt have no cther fupreme Gods before me. Now this is a very abfurd fence,because it fuppofes,that men may Believe and Worfhip more Supreme Gods than one; for if there can be but one Supreme God,and by Gods in the Commandment,be meant Supreme Gods, then it is abfurd to forbid any man to have other Supreme Gods,because no man can acknowledge two Supremes: It fhould have been, Thou shalt not have any other God befides me, not Gods: For thô it had been poffible for them to have acknowledged fome other God to be Supreme, and rejected the Lord Jehovah from being Supreme, yet they could not have other Supreme Gods. But it is evident, that God here forbids the Worfhip of a Plurality of Gods,of other Gods; and therefore they could not all be Supreme Gods.

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But fuppofe it had been any other God in the fingle number, yet to understand this of a Supreme God, is very abfurd; because there is no other Supreme God, but the Lord Jehovah, and thofe who worship but one Supreme God, worship him, and none elfe. For a Supreme God is not to be pointed at, is not to be diftinguished by his Perfon or Features, as one man is diftinguifhed from another: indeed à Prince may properly say to his Subjects, You fhall own none but me for your King, because they know his Person, and can distinguish. him from all other men. But the Jews never faw God, nor any likeness or fimilitude of him; they were not acquainted with his Perfon, nor could they diftinguish him from other Gods, by any perfonal Characters; they knew him onely by his Notion and Character of the Supreme Being, who made the World and all things in it, and brought them by a mighty Hand out of the Land of Egypt. Now does it not found very strange, that the Supreme God, who is known onely by this Character, that he is Supreme, the Great Creator and Soveraign Lord of the World, fhould make a Law, that we should worship no other Supreme God but himself; when it is abfolutely impoffible, that he who worships a Supreme and Soveraign God, fhould worship any other God but himself, because he alone is the Supreme God; and therefore those who worship the Supreme God, under this Notion as Supreme, worship him, and no other Being. So that if we will make fence of it, the meaning of the first Commandment is plainly this: Thou shalt not give Divine Honours to any other Beings, as to inferiour Gods, as the Idolatrous Practice of the World now is, which worships a great many things for Gods; but thou shalt worship onely one Supreme and Soveraign Being, the Maker and Soveraign Lord of

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