The law unsealed

We come now to the manner how this Command is pressed, which is. First, By a Reason. Secondly, By a Commination. Thirdly, By a Promise. All which speak a readiness in men to fail in this Command, and a special notice that God taketh of the Duties required in it, and of the Sins forbidden in it. Men might readily say; What needeth so much Rigidity in the manner of worship? and, If it be to the true God, though it have in it some mixture of those things, which have been formerly abused, it is no• much to be stood upon: The Lord therefore in pressing it, addeth this Reason, I am a jealous God, (saith he) that will not only have my Church and Spouse, Honest and Chaste indeed, but Chaste-like: As Caesar said, His Wife behoved, no• only to abstain from all Dishonesty, but from all suspicious carriage: Even so will the Lord have his People carry it so to him, as a Wife should carry to a jealous Husband, with such circumspection, as he may not have any occasion of suspicion. Jealousy here implieth two things. 1. A Facility or Aptness, as it were to suspect any thing which may look like a giving that to any other, which is due to God: So a Husband is said to be jealous, when he is apt to suspect want of Love in his Wife, and is ⟨p. 73⟩ready to gather from every Circumstance, her inclination to another; even though there be no palpably Demonstrative ground of it. Thus jealousy is taken amongst Men.

We come now to the manner how this Command is pressed, which is. First, By a Reason. Secondly, By a Commination. Thirdly, By a Promise. All which speak a readiness in men to fail in this Command, and a special notice that God taketh of the Duties required in it, and of the Sins forbidden in it. Men might readily say; What needeth so much Rigidity in the manner of worship? and, If it be to the true God, though it have in it some mixture of those things, which have been formerly abused, it is no• much to be stood upon: The Lord therefore in pressing it, addeth this Reason, I am a jealous God, (saith he) that will not only have my Church and Spouse, Honest and Chast indeed, but Chast-like: As Casar said, His Wife behoved, no• onely to abstain from all Dishonesty, but from all suspicious carriage: Even so will the Lord have his People carry it so to him, as a Wife should carry to a jealous Husband, with such circumspection, as he may not have any occasion of suspition. Jealousie here implyeth two things. 1. A Facility or Aptness, as it were to suspect any thing which may look like a giving that to any other, which is due to God: So a Husband is said to be jealous, when he is apt to suspect want of Love in his Wife, and is