4. Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbathday, and hallowed it.

5. Honour thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

In the 5th of Deuteronomy, the nine first commandments are given precisely in the same order as above, but with some variations of expression;

and also with a new reason for keeping holy the Sabbath, added to the fourth commandment. The tenth commandment is also the same as in the 20th of Exodus, but the order of the two first clauses of it is inverted. In this passage it is written as follows:

"Thou shalt not desire thy neighbour's wife, "neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's house, "his field, or his man-servant, or his maid-servant, ❝ his ox or his ass, nor any thing that is thy neigh"bour's."

This inversion of the two first clauses of the tenth commandment, has, as will be seen afterwards, been providentially made the means of detecting the fraud of the Romish Church, in blending the two first commandments together, for the purpose of subtracting the second, and then dividing the tenth into two, to make up the complete number.

If in the Catechisms of that church, it had been usual to insert the commandments at full length, no end could have been served by blending together the first and second commandments, and the fraud would probably never have been attempted; but when it is known that it was customary only

to insert in the public formularies of instruction, the first sentence of each commandment, the reason will at once appear, for uniting the first precept of the Decalogue with the second; for by this expedient, and by inserting only the first sentence of the two united commandments; the Romish Church has in many of her Catechisms, got rid of the commandment against image worship altogether, and effectually concealed the knowledge of its existence, from the minds of the ignorant common people.

For the purpose of proving what is here advanced, I shall now insert the ten commandments as they are given in the Most Rev. Dr. James Butler's Catechisms, revised, enlarged, approved and recommended by the four Roman Catholic Archbishops of Ireland; eighth Edition, corrected and improved, Dublin, 1811; Printed by H. Fitzpatrick, Printer, & Bookseller, to the R. C. College, Maynooth,

ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

Q. Say the ten commandments of God. A. 1. I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no strange Gods before me,

2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

3. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath

Day.

4. Honour thy father and thy mother.

5. Thou shalt not kill.

6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

7. Thou shalt not steal.

8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods.* Exod. xx.

It seems that this mutilated copy of the Divine commandments, was the only one to be found in the Manuals of the Romish Church, before the Reformation, and even at a later period; for Bishop Stillingfleet says, "I have now before me the "reformed office of the blessed Virgin, Printed at "Salamanca, A. D. 1588, published by order of "Pius V. where the second commandment is so "left out, and so in the English office at Antwerp, "A. D. 1658," he adds, "I wish he (the Papist)

*The word goods, does not exist in the sacred text.

2

"had told us, in what public office of their church "it is to be found."*

The controversy with the Protestant Churches, seems however, at length to have obliged the Church of Rome to admit the second commandment into some of her formularies, though, as I have shewn above, it is still excluded from the one drawn up for the use of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. Accordingly in an abstract of the Douay Catechism, which is now before me, printed in London, in the year 1811, the two first commandments are given as one in the following words.

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.

Q. Say the first commandment ?

A. I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before

me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing, that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth; thou shalt not adore nor worship them. I am the Lord thy God, strong

* Stillingfleet's Works, vol. vi. p. 572, quoted by Bishop Newton.