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 fifth of Deuteronomy, the first nine 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 neighbour'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 first and second 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 these formularies, 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 people.

The ten commandments are given as follows in the Most Rev. Dr. James Butler's Catechism, 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 and 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.

*

This mutilated copy of the Divine commandments, was the only one to be found

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

in the Manuals of the Romish Church before the Reformation, and even at a later period. 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,) had told us, in what public office of their church it is to be found." 99*

The controversy with the Protestant Churches has, however, at length obliged the Church of Rome to admit the second commandment into some of her formularies, though, from others, as the Latin office of the Virgin, printed at Antwerp in 1780, it is still excluded, and, as I have shown above, from the one drawn up for the use of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. In an abstract of the Douay Catechism, which is now before me, printed in London, in the year 1811, the two first commandments are accordingly given as one in the following words.

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

Newton.

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 and jealous, visiting the sins of the fathers upon their children, to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me: and shewing mercy to thousands of those that love me, and keep my commandments."

But the admission of the words of the second commandment into some of her formularies, is not the only change which the Church of Rome has made, in consequence of her controversy with the Protestants. For it was urged at the Council of Trent, as an unanswerable objection to the division of the tenth commandment into two, as is still done in the Irish Catechism above quoted, that the words, "Thou shalt not covet thy