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SERMON XIII.

SINS OF THE FATHERS UPON THE CHILDREN.

EXODUS, XX. 5.

"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”

THESE words form part of the second commandment. It need not be denied, that there is an apparent harshness in this declaration, with which the minds even of good and pious men have been sometimes sensibly affected. To visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation, is not, at first sight at least, so reconcilable to our apprehensions of justice and equity, as that we should expect to find it in a solemn publication of the will of God.

I think, however, that a fair and candid interpretation of the words before us will remove a great deal of the difficulty, and of the objection which lies against them. My exposition of the passage is contained in these four articles :-First, that the denunciation

and sentence relate to the sin of idolatry in particular, if not to that alone. Secondly, that it relates to temporal, or, more properly speaking, to family prosperity and adversity. Thirdly, that it relates to the Jewish economy, in that particular administration of a visible providence, under which they lived. Fourthly, that at no rate does it affect, or was ever meant to affect, the acceptance or salvation of individuals in a future life.

First, I say, that the denunciation and sentence relate to the sin of idolatry in particular, if not to that alone. The prohibition of the commandment is pointed against that particular offence, and no other. The first and second commandment may be considered as one, inasmuch as they relate to one subject, or nearly so: for many ages, and by many churches, they were put together, and considered as one commandment. The subject, to which they both relate, is false worship, or the worship of false gods. This is the single subject, to which the prohibition of both commandments relates: the single class of sins which is guarded against. Although, therefore, the expression be, "the sins of the fathers," without specifying in that clause what sins, yet in fair construction, and indeed in common construction, we may well suppose it to be that kind and class of sins, for the restraint of which the command was given, and against which its force was directed. The punishment, threatened by any law, must naturally be applied to the offence particularly forbidden by that law, and not to offences in general.

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. One reason, why you may not probably perceive the full weight of what I am saying, is, that we do not at this day understand, or think much concerning the sin of idolatry; or the necessity, or importance of God's delivering a specific, a solemn, a terrifying sentence against it. The sin itself hath in a manner ceased from among us: other sins, God knows, have come in its place; but this, in a great measure, is withdrawn from our observation: whereas in the age of the world, and among those people, when and to whom the ten commandments were promulged, false worship, or the worship of false gods, was the sin, which lay at the root and foundation of every other. The worship of the one true God, in opposition to the vain and false, and wicked religions, which had then obtained amongst mankind, was the grand point to be inculcated. It was the contest then carried on: and the then world, as well as future ages, were deeply interested in it. History testifies, experience testifies, that there cannot be true morality, or true virtue, where there is false religion, false worship, false gods; for which reason you find, that this great article (for such it then was) was not only made the subject of a command, but placed at the head of all the rest. Nay more; from the whole strain and tenor of the Old Testament, there is good reason to believe, that the maintaining in the world the knowledge and worship of the one true God, holy, just, and good, in contradiction to the idolatrous worship which prevailed, was the great and principal scheme and end of the Jewish polity and most singular constitution. As the Jewish

nation, therefore, was to be the depository of, and the means of preserving in the world, the knowledge and worship of the one true God, when it was lost and darkened in other countries, it became of the last importance to the execution of this purpose, that this nation should be warned and deterred, by every moral means, from sliding themselves into those practices, those errors, and that crime, against which it was the very design of their institution, that they should strive and contend.

The form of expression used in the second commandment, and in this very part of it, much favours the interpretation for which I argue, namely, that the sentence or threatening was aimed against the sin of idolatry alone. The words are, "For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children." These two things, of being jealous, and of visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, are spoken of God in conjunction; and in such a manner, as to show, that they refer to one subject. Now jealousy implies a rival. God's being jealous means, that he would not allow any other god to share with himself in the worship of his creatures: that is what is imported in the word jealous; and, therefore, that is the subject, to which the threat of visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children is applied. According to this interpretation, the following expressions of the commandment, "them that hate me, and them that love me," signify them that forsake and desert my worship and religion,

for the worship and religion of other gods, and them who adhere firmly and faithfully to my worship, in opposition to every other worship.

My second proposition is, that the threat relates to temporal, or, more properly speaking, to family prosperity and adversity. In the history of the Jews, most particularly of their kings, of whom, as was to be expected, we read and know the most, we meet with repeated instances of this, some threat being both pronounced and executed against their family prosperity; and for this very same cause, their desertion of the true God, and going over, after the example of the nations around them, to the worship of false gods. Amongst various other instances, one is very memorable and very direct to our present argument: and that is the instance of Ahab, who of all the idolatrous kings of Israel was the worst. The punishment threatened and denounced against his crime was this: "Behold I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin." The provocation, you will observe, was the introduction of false gods into his kingdom; and the Prophet here not only threatens Ahab with the ruin and destruction of his family, as the punishment of his sin, but points out to him two instances of great families having been destroyed for the very same reason. You afterwards

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