us and superstitious creed, forms the subject
of the second commandment, which completes the portion of the Decalogue
regarding the relations of man towards the Creator. It severely
prohibits every kind of idolatry, both that which substitutes for the
true God false and imaginary beings, or even beings real but contingent
and created, and that which would associate in His worship a veneration
for others, under the title of mediators or protectors; it then
interdicts the making of any image whatsoever, when intended to
represent the infinite and incorporeal Being, and bids us neither to pay
to any such simulacra a religious respect or veneration, which is due to
the true God alone, nor to practise such conventional acts, as, however
insignificant in themselves, are yet held by idolaters as modes of
worship. Lastly, this commandment conveys the obligation to dissent
from, and reject, every superstition and every error, requiring us to
preserve pure and intemerate the adoration due to the Supreme Being,
who, in this sense, is represented in this text as jealously watching
over human actions, and a not indifferent spectator of good or evil;
therefore a sure punisher of the guilty, and an eternal remunerator of
him who faithfully adheres to His law.

LXVIII. As a transition from the duties towards God to those towards our
fellow-men, the two succeeding precepts are opportunely placed, one of
which concerns the act of invoking the Divinity between men, and the
other the mode of elevating men towards the Divinity. In the
multifarious contentions arising in social life, it sometimes occurs to
have recourse to God, to convalidate an assertion, or to test a truth.
Now, in the act of attestation called oath, the third commandment
prohibits with the greatest rigour anything that might offend the
sanctity of the ineffable name of God, which is invoked by the deponent
in attestation of the truth of his words. Consequently the text
declares, that if such a solemn invocation were made to confirm a thing,
which is not wholly conformable to the intimate conviction and most
scrupulous conscience of the swearer, the consequences would be a
profanation of the name of God, and a scandalous immorality, to the
detriment of society at large; for this could not subsist without an
upright administration of justice; and the latter would be upset and
trampled upon by perjury. In order to shew more prominently the gravity
of this matter, and to pr