miah exclaims: " behold the days come, saith the Lord, when it shall be said no more: the Lord liveth that brought forth the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but the Lord liveth that brought the children of Israel out of the land of the North and out of all the lands to which I cast them out; and I will bring them again into their land which I gave to their Fathers. Behold, I will send many fishes, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them, &C." [1] Our most indulgent Father has " gathered together" through his beloved Son, his "children that were dispersed," [2] that, "being made free from sin and made the servants of justice," [3] " we may serve before him in holiness and justice all our days." [4] Against every temptation, therefore, the faithful should arm themselves with these words of the Apostle as with a shield: " shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein?" [5] We are no longer our own: we are his who died and rose again for us: he is the Lord our God who has purchased us for himself at the price of his blood. Shall we then be any longer capable of sinning against the Lord our God, and crucifying him again? Being made truly free, and with that liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, let us, as we heretofore yielded our members to serve injustice, henceforward yield them to serve justice to sanctification.
"THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME." [6] ] The Decalogue naturally divides itself into two parts, the first embracing what regards God, the second what regards our neighbour; the duties which we discharge towards our neighbour are referred to God; then only do we fulfil the divine precept which commands us to love our neighbour, when we love him in God. This division of the Decalogue the pastor will make known to the faithful; and he will add that the commandments which regard God, are those which were inscribed on the first table of the law.
He will next show that the words which form the subject matter of the present exposition contain a two-fold precept; the one mandatory, the other prohibitory When it is said; " Thou shalt not have strange gods before me," it is equivalent to saying; thou shalt worship me the true God: thou shalt not worship strange gods." The former contains a precept of faith, hope, and charity - of faith, for, acknowledging God to be immoveable, immutable, always the same, faithful, we acknowledge an eternal truth in the recognition of these his attributes: assenting therefore to his oracles, we necessarily yield to him all faith and authority - of hope, for who can contemplate his omnipotence, his clemency, his beneficence, and not repose in him all his hopes? - of charity, for who can behold the riches of his goodness and love, which he lavishes on us with so bounteous a hand, and not love him? with this
