the ten precepts or commandments delivered by God to Moses, after engraving them on two tables of stone.

The Jews, by way of excellence, call these commandments the ten words, from whence they had afterwards the name of decalogue; but it is to be observed, that they joined the first and second into one, and divided the last into two. They understand that against stealing to relate to the stealing of men, or kidnapping; alleging, that the stealing one another's goods or property is forbidden in the last commandment.

The emperor Julian objected to the decalogue, that the precepts it contained (those only excepted which concern the worship of false gods, and the observation of the Sabbath) were already so familiar to all nations, and so universally received, that they were unworthy, for that very reason, to be delivered, by so great a legislator, to so peculiar a people. The church of Rome has struck the second commandment quite out of the decalogue; and to make their number complete, hath split the tenth into two: The reason of which may be easily conceived.