"Hath God himself any where declared this to be only an explication of the first commandment? Have the prophets or Christ and His apostles ever done it? How then can any man's conscience be safe in this matter? For it is not a trifling controversy whether it be a distinct commandment or an explication of the first; but the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the worship of images depends very much upon it, for if it be only an explication of the first, then, unless one takes images to be gods, their worship is lawful, and so the heathens were excused in it, who were not such idiots; but if it be a new and distinct precept, then the worshipping any image or similitude becomes a grievous sin, and exposes men to the wrath of God in that severe manner mentioned in the end of it. And it is a great confirmation that this is the true meaning of it, because all the primitive writers[20] of the Christian Church not only thought it a sin against this commandment, but insisted upon the force of it against those heathens who denied that they took their images for gods; and, therefore, this is a very insufficient account of leaving out the second commandment (that the people are in no danger of superstition or idolatry by it.)."--Stillingfleet's _Doctrines of the Church of Rome, 25. Of the Second Commandment_. "If God allow the worship of the represented by the representation, he would never have forbidden that worship absolutely, which is unlawful only in a certain respect."--Ibid. _Answer to the Conclusion_. With your permission I shall return to this subject, not of Images, but of the Second Commandment, in reply to MR. GATTY'S Queries on the division at present adopted by the Jews, &c. T. JONES. Chetham's Library, Manchester. [Footnote 20: Thus St. Augustine himself: "In the first commandment, any similitude of God in the figments of men is forbidden to be worshipped, not because God hath not an image, but because no image of Him ought to be worshipped, but that which is the same thing that He is, nor yet that for Him but with Him."--See what is further cited from Augustine by Ussher in his _Answer_.]