implies, not a carnal, but a spiritual rest; and a respite from toil for the labouring beast. This commandment requires that our affairs be previously so arranged, that secular concerns may not interfere with the day. It prohibits all trading, paying wages, settling accounts, writing worldly letters, reading books on ordinary subjects, unnecessary journeying, excursions, and visitings, and all dissipation. It requires private, social, and public worship, serious self-examination, perusal of the scriptures, instruction of children and servants, meditation, and pious conversation.

Now have none of you neglected the worship of God upon his Sabbaths? have you not spent part thereof in vain sports, idle discourses, visits, and other unnecessary businesses? or, have you not suffered others to profane the Sabbath, when it was in your power to restrain them from so doing? If so, you have not kept this command

ment.

This ends the First Table, which is found to be very extensive, spiritual, reasonable, and beneficial.

V. RESPECT THY PARENTS. This is the first of the Second Table, and included a temporal promise to the Jews; not, perhaps, of private long life, but of national stability in the land of Canaan. This command contains an abstract of relative duties; enjoining obedience to our parents natural and legislative, as, next to God, they are to have the pre-eminence. This relation most nearly resembles that to our heavenly Father, and all other relations spring from that to our parents. We are herein bound to love their persons, to respect their characters, counsels, and instructions; to consult their interest, credit, and comfort; to conceal their infirmities, bear with their tempers and humours; to alleviate their sorrows, and to rejoice their hearts; and, if they are incapacitated, to labour for their support. This command also, by parity of reason, enjoins the duty of parents to their children, both of precept, and example.

Let me now ask, 'have none of you ever been stubborn, irreverent, and undutiful towards your parents,

rejecting their counsels, despising their government, or coveting their estates before their death? or, have you contributed towards their necessities when they were in want, and you had to help them? or, have not any of you been disloyal to your governors, unfaithful to your masters, refractory and uncandid to your minister, or peevish and unkind to your friends and companions?' Can you all say, you have kept this command?

VI. TAKE NOT LIFE. This commandment requires us to love our neighbour as ourselves, in respect of his person and life; forbidding murder, which is the greatest injury one can do another, as the damage is the most irreparable. This commandment condemns duelling, suicide, and the slave-trade; but exempts from crime, the killing in execution of justice, an enemy in time of war, in self defence, and accidentally, without enmity; and excepts magistrates, witnesses, jurors, and executioners, who conscientiously fulfil the public laws for public good. This command prohibits to maim, or assault another; to tempt to crimes which destroy the constitution; to break the hearts of parents by profligacy; to entice to enterprises which shorten life; and to refuse food, or raiment, or medicine, to the poor. It likewise forbids the more heinous murder of the soul, by seducing to sin, by bad example, by poisonous principles, by religious persecution, or by withholding instruction; and thus includes a solemn warning to ministers to be faithful.

Now, if you have not actually taken away the life of any person, yet, have you not made your neighbour's life grievous by oppression, rage, and violence against him? or, have you not by fighting, or quarrelling, wounded his person? or, have you not tempted him by any vice, or intemperance, to destroy his health, and so shorten his days? or, have you not, by false and contumelious speeches, wounded his good name and reputation? or, have you not, by your own luxury and intemperance in eating and drinking, been accessory to your own death? If so, you have broken the spirit of this commandment. 22*

VOL. II.

VII. BE CONTINENT. This regulates our love to our neighbours, in respect to their purity, and domestic comfort. Taken in its most extensive sense, this command forbids all those crimes of black infidelity and incontinence, which breed confusion in families; and which are collateral to marriage, polygamy, and divorce. It also forbids all lasciviousness in discourse, imaginations, or desires; and all temptations of alluring apparel, of impure books, and indecorous pictures, or statues. It requires cleanness of body and soul, in secret as well as before

men.

If now you 'have escaped the grosser acts of impurity, yet have you not conceived sin in your heart, and neglected the means to preserve your own, and another's virtue ? or, have you not by luxury and inebriety, or any licentious thought, defiled your soul? or, have you not accustomed yourself to unseemly talking, jesting, and indiscreet looks and behaviour, in common intercourse?' Have we never broken this commandment in thought, word, or deed ?

VIII. BE HONEST. By this command, our civil rights and properties are guarded against open or secret invasion; as, in the two foregoing, our persons and relations against violence and lust. It forbids all bargains which impose on the ignorant, credulous, or needy; any abuse of confidence, extortion, exorbitant gain, deceitful combinations to enhance the price of goods or labour, or to lower the wages of the poor. It also condemns those ravagers of nations, who defy human justice; those robbers, who defraud the public by embezzlement, or smuggling; those who evade payment by insolvent laws; who live beyond their income; who unnecessarily subsist on charity; or withhold aid from the necessitous.

Now, if you have never been guilty of common and public stealing, yet, have you been true and just in all your dealings? or, have you not contracted debts, which you were conscious to yourself that you were not able to pay, or make restitution? or, have not wasted your you own, or others' estates, by riotous living? or, have you not by violence and oppression exacted of your inferiors,

or by unlawful usury taken advantage of their necessities?' If so, you have broken this command.

IX. BE NOT PERJURED. This is the law of love, as respects our neighbour's reputation. Witness is a judicial term, importing testimony in courts of judicature to the prejudice of the life or fortune of others. It has a further meaning to signify all extra-judicial testimonies, affecting the interest or character of our neighbours. It contains a caution to juries, and judges. This command

ment forbids the invention of slanderous reports; the spreading of the reports of others' framing, when suspected not to be true, or to be aggravated; or, if true, when there is no occasion; and all stories which result from pride, self-preference, malevolence, or conceited affectation of wit or humour. It forbids the ascribing good actions to bad motives, and vending family secrets; especially, all printed lies, misquoting authors, misreporting their words and actions; in fine, all bitter sarcasm, officious backbitings, and even envy of others' just praises.

Suffer me now to ask, whether, if none of you have sworn falsely before the magistrate against any man, yet have you not accustomed yourself to lying and slandering? or, have you not accused your neighbour unjustly? or, have you not concealed the truth of another, when justice and charity obliged you to give evidence of it? or, have you not unjustly sought to uphold or to blast your own or others' credit? Have none of us infringed upon this commandment?

X. COVET NOT. This command is the hedge of all the rest; it is placed last, not only as a supplement and recapitulation, but a guard to the others. This comprises the utmost spirituality of the Law, and a due observance of this makes the others easy. This restrains not only the external commission of sin, but those internal springs and desires, which give it birth. All coveting is not sinful, but only the inordinacy of the wish. We must not even desire what is withheld by the providence of God. This commandment forbids discontent, and all excessive

love of wealth, or grandeur; and requires contentment, moderation in our wishes of worldly things, and acquiescence to the will of heaven.

Now, 'have you never secretly complained against the providence of God, as if others had too much, and you too little? or, have you not by unlawful means endeavoured to deprive others of their goods and prosperity? or, have you laboured truly and faithfully to get your own living, and to be content with that state of life, unto which it pleased God to appoint you?' Can we all say, that we have kept this last command in spirit and in truth ?

REMARKS.

The foregoing Ten Commandments, or Compendium of Holy Law, are commented upon in all the preceptive parts of Scripture; and the substance of them is condensed by our Saviour into Two Great Commandments : Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thine heart, soul, strength, and mind. This is the first, and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; that is, Whatsoever ye would, that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them. On these two commandments hang all the Law, and the Prophets.

But, besides our duty to God, which requires us to believe in him, to fear him, to love him, to worship him, to trust him, to thank him, to honour him, to serve him, and to reverence his Holy Word; and besides our duty to our Neighbour, which includes our conduct to our parents, natural and civil, to our children, to our teachers, to our superiors, and to our inferiors; there are other duties, to Ourselves, which do not so evidently result from the former; such as, not only bodily, but mental chastity, purity, temperance, and industry. A high degree of moral perfection requires, also, a timely abstraction from the world, and elevation above it; the cherishing of humility and meekness; a restraint on selfishness; the forgiveness of injuries, and love even of our enemies; the