TENTH COMMANDMENT.

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's houfe, thou fhalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man fervant, nor his maid, fervant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."

Moft of the other Commandments fpeak of the outward action, and forbid fome fin in the life, but this laft lays the axe, as it were, to the very root, for it forbids even those covetous defires which are feated in the heart. It is faid, "Thou shalt not covet any thing which is thy neighbor's." What is it then that we most like? The tafte of people differs. One is in danger of coveting his neighbor's money, another, his neighbor's confequence and power; a third, of coveting the praife and honor which he fees given to another. How apt, especially are many of the poor, to covet all the comforts and fuppofed enjoyments of the rich! They have peculiar caufe to beware of breaking this Commandment. Both rich and poor, however, are apt to covet the poffeffion of any thing for which they happen to have a taste. They no fooner behold it, than they are ready to cry out, "I wifh it was mine."

It is melancholy to think how few there are in the world, who are thoroughly contented with their lot. The young and the old, the rich and the poor, the married and the unmarried, the profperous and the afflicted, are all of them apt

to have some unfatisfied defire. There is always fome one thing at leaft, which is poffeffed by our neighbor, and which providence has denied to us, and we are disposed to fix our whole attention on that fingle point. If we are under no temptation to covet our neighbor's houfe, nor his wife, nor his man fervant, nor his maid servant, yet we covet perhaps fome ox of his, or fome afs, fome inferior thing or other in which we happen to take delight; and we may poffibly be as wretched at the thought of not poffeffing it, as if we had coveted his whole fortune and eftate. Thus Ahab, although he was king of all Samaria, being unable to get the little vineyard of Naboth, which would have made him a convenient cabbage garden, "laid him down on his bed and refufed to eat." Ahab was as unhappy as any poor man in Samaria, who might be at that time envying the king, and coveting the poffeffion of his whole kingdom.

Now all this complaining and diffatisfied fpirit is forbidden in the tenth Commandment; and the things required by it are, thankfulness and contentedness of heart, patience under trials, refignation under afflictions, a mind free from envy and repining, and a spirit of submission to the whole will of God, How eminently did St. Paul poffefs the temper which I have been defcribing. "I have learned," faid he, "in whatsoever ftate I am, therewith to be content, for I know both how to be abafed, and I know

how to abound: every where, and in all things I am inftructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to fuffer need.".

This commandment, as was obferved before, is extremely ftrict, because it applies imme diately to the heart. It will effectually convict every man of being a finner, who will pay attention to it. We can regulate our actions, perhaps, tolerably well; we can maintain our character; we can do every thing with fuch an ap pearance of propriety and exactness, that our fellow-creatures can hardly difcern a flaw in us. But which of us duly regulates his heart? To call away our thoughts from every forbidding thing, to govern well our various affections and defires, and to fix them always in their due degrees on their lawful and proper objects; to fupprefs even the wifh for what God fees not fit to give; to wait his time, to leave all to his Providence, and to confider all his appointments as ever wife and good; to purify, in fhort, the fecret fprings of action, and "to bring," as the Scriptures exprefs it, every imagination into fubjection to the obedience of Chrift," this is the great point.

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To the heart then, to the heart, and not merely to the actions of the life, let our attention be directed. Thoufands, it is to be feared, have been finners all their days, and have nevertheless been quite unfufpicious of their finful itate, because they have looked no further than to their outward actions, and have never exam.

ined duly into the motives of their conduct, nor watched the fecret motions of their hearts. Through this cause they have continued ignorant of God, ignorant of themselves, and ignorant of that falvation which has been provided by the gofpel.

Thus have we endeavored to explain thefe laws of God. And here let me ask, whether any one can deny the perfect excellency of them. Are they not fuch as it is fit for God to give, and for man to obey? We have fhewn that love to God and love to man form the foundation of them all. And yet who can deny that he has difobeyed them every day? Now it is one great object of thefe laws of God to convince men of their guilt, and thus to prepare them for the grace and mercy of the gofpel. "Curfed," fays the fcripture," is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." But " Chrift hath redeemed us from the curfe of the law, being made a curfe for us." "The law therefore is our schoolmafter to bring us to Chrift, that we may be juftified by faith." "By the deeds of the law fhall no flesh be juftified in the fight of God, for by the law is the knowledge of fin." But juftified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jefus," and thus "we obtain peace with God through our Lord Jefus Chrift."

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Man, then, is to be confidered as a criminal under fentence of condemnation, God's righ

teous law has already condemned him. God, nevertheless, hath "fo loved the world as to fend his only begotten Son, that whofoever believeth in him, might not perish, but have everlafting life."

But this faith in Chrift is fo far from leading men to neglect that holy law which we have been explaining, that it becomes a new motive to obedience; for the Chriftian now receives, as it were, again from the hand of Chrift, thofe fame Commandments which were firft given to man through the hand of Mofes. He receives them from that Saviour who died for him. "If ye love me," faid this merciful Redeemer to his Difciples, "keep my Commandments." It fhould here indeed be obferved, and it is a point which has been partly proved already, that the precepts which are given by Christ and his apofiles in the New Teftament as the rule of life for every Chriftian are, for the moft part, the very fame in fubftance, and are fometimes expreffed in the fame words as the law of the ten Commandments, for it is the object equally of the Old Testment and of the New, to bring back the corrupted heart of man to the love of God and of his neighbor. The Chriftian, therefore, is one who ftudies diligently, and obferves carefully, all the Commandments of God and of his Saviour: day by day he exercises him felf in examining his life by them: he brings all his actions, great and fmall, and his very thoughts and defires, to this