his dignity, who does not see, when they are but saying in our hearts, Ah! that I were but in his place ?) I say, if all these stubborn risings of corrupt nature against our superiors be trespasses against the tenth commandment, (and we have been all in subjection to various superiors, to parents, schoolmasters and mistresses, other masters, husbands, ministers, magistrates, those that are more aged, more honourable, more qualified than we,) who can count the number of his sins in this one point only ?

Secondly. Thou shalt not lust after thy neighbour's life; thou must not have a motion to his hurt in soul or body within thy heart. All envious, revengeful, unmerciful suggestions against him, are contrary to charity, and rise out of a depraved nature. Nay, you say, But suppose I have not yielded to them? That alters not the case. God is in this commandment condemning your sinful nature, and charging you with guilt because of all and every of those lustings that have at any time been in your heart against your brother's spiritual or temporal welfare. When anger rose in your breast because of some injury you thought to have been done you; or displeasure because of his eminence beyond you in wealth, or grace, or abilities; or jealousy because he seemed coming too near you; or secret satisfaction when you heard the news of his miscarriage in duty, misfortune in business, his sickness or death, as one standing in your way: when any of these accursed lustings wrought in your heart, there was sin. And if you are not a perfect stranger to your own heart, and so of course not well acquainted with the glorious and necessary salvation of Jesus Christ, you are very sure that such horrid instances of corruption have been in you, while you tremble at the very remembrance of them.

Thirdly.-Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. But it is difficult to speak of this subject before any who have indulged imaginations of this sort without raising them; yes, even though the subject should be touched with the utmost degree of tenderness and caution, and in such manner as to be no kind of temptation to a chaste mind. I therefore do but mention that point, and pass on to observe, that all manner of sensuality being also condemned by the seventh commandment, all mo

tions towards it fall under the censure of the tenth. God will be the portion and joy of his people; but our depraved hearts have found out another portion in sensual gratifications. And who has not found the heart rising up to meet indulgence with joy? Why did our Apostle take so much pains to hold his bodily appetites in subjection, but that he found the cravings of them so importunate? It is the body that is the great snare to the soul; and who can say how many thousand times his soul has given entertainment to the sinful desires of it, while the very refreshments of nature, our meat, drink, and sleep, afford it such constant opportunities?

But, Fourthly, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods. What I now speak of is not the sin of covetousness; that is, anxious desiring from a discontentedness with what I have already, nor that determining and devising of theft before it is committed; but that which is at the bottom of both, the sinful stirrings of corrupt nature after the interests of the world, in which our foolish hearts do naturally trust. Thou shalt not lust after thy neighbour's goods; that is, every secret wish thou hast found in thy heart, that any part of another's substance, his house, estate, wealth, were thine, that thou mightest be more safe and secure in the world (that is to say, more out of the reach of God's providence and of all dependence upon him), was a sin. Search therefore the records of your conscience. You have not wished to have your neighbour's goods by fraud or force, I allow but have you never wished any of them yours from the instigation of a world-trusting heart? We have, as to the expression, only lightly said, perhaps, If I had but so much of such an one's fortune; but have in our hearts more seriously wished it than we imagine. What are all those fearful, careful, thoughts about worldly wealth, but so many lustings, not of moderate desire after what is necessary, but of a sinful desire to be as great a man as my neighbour? And that amounts to the same thing as wishing he and I might change places. And is then every anxious worldly desire a sinful coveting your neighbour's goods? I pray you, then, see what a nest of them your heart has been. Has it not been so? What! no anxious desires or fears, which, like guests of a day, have tarried with you awhile at least, though they could not fix upon you habits of

covetousness, nor prevail with you to design any schemes of dishonesty? Surely, whosoever you are, your worldly heart has brought infinite guilt upon you. Yet once more:

Fifthly.-Thou shalt not lust after thy neighbour's good

name.

The meaning of this is, thou mayest never have in thy heart one suggestion of envy because thy neighbour is better than thou; of hatred because his virtues reprove thy vices; of displeasure because he will follow his conscience sooner than thy will; of delight, no, not in the least degree, in hearing of or beholding his sins: this is desiring hurt to thy neighbour's name: yea, though thou dost not approve any of these suggestions, but art really displeased with them, and wouldst never more know them, yet they are thy sins. But have we never known any of these devilish suggestions in us, never any risings of envy against any who seemed better Christians than ourselves, never any stirrings of dislike against others because their conduct reproved ours and made us uneasy, no workings of displeasure because our brother would do what seemed to him right, no sudden chillings of heart when we have heard others praised, no malignant satisfaction when they have been evil-spoken of? Truly I would not venture to charge any living man with the least of these things, were it not that I know they are natural to us all, and among the most fearful proofs of our fallen

state.

What has been said may suffice to show the design of this last commandment, and therein the sad sinfulness of our nature.

That we have all experienced the secret workings of the corrupt principle in us, in the manner described, I take for granted; for As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.' But whether we have reckoned these motions and desires that we have found in our hearts to be sinful is a question. St. Paul was a great and learned man; yet, till this commandment was laid open to him in its deep meaning, he tells us himself he either did not know concupiscence, or did not know the sinfulness of it, and the guilt it brought him under. It will be our business therefore to be very close with our hearts, and to search out this root of bitterness, which, if it had not been in us, Prov. xxvii. 19.

there had been no need of an express commandment against it; and we shall be acting a very foolish part, if, when we hear God condemning it, we ourselves make little account of it. Rather we should be thankful that it has pleased God to make the sinfulness of it known to us by levelling the curse against it; and so, humbling ourselves on the sight of our apostasy, betake ourselves to him who was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, even Jesus Christ our Saviour, to whom, &c.

SERMON XLVI.

GALATIANS iii. 24.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

AFTER having completed the explanation of the whole law, contained in the ten commandments, yet once more I take up the same subject, in order to lay out before you more fully than I have yet done the use of the law.

Now the very giving out of the law shows the use we must make of it. The giving out of the law plainly implies these several things:

First. That sin is in the world. A revealed moral law is perfectly needless to reasonable creatures in a state of perfection, seeing they have the whole knowledge and practice of all duty in their very nature. To what purpose should God say to the holy angels, Ye shall love the Lord with all your mind and strength, and one another as yourselves,' when already they perfectly know and perfectly do this, and there is not the least inclination in them to do anything else? Accordingly, when our first parents were in their state of innocency, there was no moral law charged upon them, though they were God's subjects; for they had both the knowledge and practice thereof in themselves. There was no more need to bid Adam love God than there is to bid you or me love ourselves.

Secondly. The giving out of the law not only supposes that sin is in the world, but also that sin is not known to be sin. This is universally true. Sin is not known till some law shows it, seeing sin is the transgression of a law. The depraved nature of man is ever ready to call evil good, to pass by that as nothing which is most provoking and dishonourable to God,