And here I will cease to show, like a schoolmaster, to which precept
of the Decalogue, and to which member of the Lord’s Prayer each Psalm
belongs; for from what I have already said upon these points, my
seriously-disposed readers will be enabled to observe and judge for
themselves. All the supplicatory Psalms belong to the second precept
and to the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer, for they honour and
sanctify the name of the Lord. And the Psalms which teach, console,
and give thanks for deliverance, belong to the second and third
precepts of the Decalogue, and also to the first and third petitions
of the Lord’s Prayer: for they teach us how, in truth, to keep holy
the Sabbath day, how to worship God with the true and highest worship,
and how to offer the most acceptable sacrifice; namely, the sacrifice
of praise. And most of the Psalms refer to all those three precepts of
the Decalogue, and to all those petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.
My reason for giving these hints respecting the commandments, and
petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, to which the different Psalms belong,
in this my brief summary of the contents of the Psalms, is this: to
show that the whole Scripture flows from the Decalogue as from a
fountain; and that in the Ten Commandments and in the Lord’s Prayer
are contained the sum and substance of all theology or divinity; and
that nothing can be taught in the Church more sublime or more
excellent than these two parts of Divine revelation. For we see how
the greatest prophets and Moses himself, drew their great and divine
discourses from the first, the second, and the third Commandments;
and, in a word, from the whole of the Decalogue; how diligently they
weighed every thing and made it harmonize with this; and how they
continually delivered new things, yet all with reference to this great
general Decalogue. Hence indeed it was that Moses, that most eminent
man of God, gave this precept, “These words (says he,) thou shalt
meditate, when thou standest up and when thou liest down; and thou
shalt teach them diligently to thy children,” &c.
In all their discourses and writings, therefore, the prophets and
apostles allude and refer to the Decalogue or Ten Commandments. From
these Ten Commandments flow all the doctrines, and all the godly
living of the saints: for there is no holiness or godliness of life or
true religion, apart from the Ten Commandments: because they are the
never-failing inexhaustible fountain of all wisdom, righteousness, and
of all perfection in the saints. Nor is there any of the complaints
uttered by the Prophets or Apostles, nor will you find any other in
all their discourses, but that against false prophets, hypocrites and
false teachers, who, disregarding, nay, totally despising and spitting
upon, the true and highest worship of God, (which is that of the first
Commandment, that requires faith and the fear of God,) teach their own
human dreams, which have nothing whatever to do with the Decalogue,
and do not at all belong to it.
Against these characters it is, (as we see in Moses himself, in
Isaiah, in Jeremiah, and in the epistles of Paul and Peter,) that the
Prophets and Apostles complain bitterly, and that with tears; against
these it is that they cry aloud and wage war with all their powers;
that they might preserve this true and highest worship of God, and
might destroy from among men, hypocrisy and all human doctrines and
fanatical dreams.