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know and censure themselves; they are so busied about others. It may be there is not always a height of malice in their discourses, but yet by much babbling to no purpose, they slide into idle detraction and censure of others besides their intention; for, in multitude of words there wants not sin.

And the greatest part are so accustomed to this way, that if they be put out of it, they must sit dumb and say nothing. There is, I confess, a prudent observation of the actions of others, a reading of men, as they call it, and it may be by a Christian done with Christian prudence and benefit; and there may be too an useful way of men's imparting their observation of this kind one to another concerning the good and evil, the abilities more or less that they remark in the world; but truly it is hard to find such as can do this a right, and know they agree in their purpose with honest, harmless minds, intending evil to none, but good to themselves, and admitting of nothing but what suits with this. Amongst a throng of acquaintance a man shall, it may be, find very few by whose conversation he may be really bettered, and that return him some benefit for the expense of his time in their society. Howsoever, beware of such as delight in vanity and lying, and defaming of others, and withdraw yourselves from them, and set a watch before your own lips; learn to know the fit season of silence and speech, for that is a very great point of wisdom, and will help very much to the observing this precept, to give your tongue to be governed by wisdom and piety; let it not be as a thorny bush pricking and hurting those that are about you, not altogether a barren tree, yielding nothing, but a fruitful tree, a tree of life to your neighbour, as Solomon calls the tongue of the righteous.

And let your hearts be possessed with those two excellent graces, humility and charity, then will your tongue not be in danger of hurting your neighbour; for it is pride and self-love makes men delight in that. Those are the idols to which men make sacrifice of

the good name and reputation of others. The humble man delights in self-disesteem, and is glad to see his brethren's name flourish. It is pleasing music to him to hear of the virtues of others acknowledged and commended, and a harsh discord to his lowly thoughts to hear any thing of his own. And the other, charity, thinks no evil, is so far from casting false aspersions on any, that it rather casts a veil upon true failings and blemishes: Love covers a multitude of sins; it is like God's love that begets it, which covers all the sins of his own children.

PRECEPT. X.

Thou shalt not covet, &c.

Ir is a known truth, that there is no sound cure of diseases without the removal of their inward cause; therefore this second table of the law, containing the rule of equity for the redress of unrighteousness in men's dealing one with another, doth in this last precept of it strike at the very root of that unrighteousness, the corrupt desires and evil concupiscence of the heart: Thou shalt not covet, &c.

The Romish division of this into two, is so grossly absurd, and so contrary both to the voice of antiquity and reason, that it needs not stay us much to shew it such. The thing forbidden is one, Thou shalt not covet; and if the several things not to be coveted divide it, it will be five or six, as well as two. Though it be Peter's pretended sword makes the division, yet certainly it is not Paul's ogoroμew, not a dividing of the word aright, but cutting it, as it were, beside the joint. The truth is, they would never have mistook so far as to have offered at this division, were they not driven upon it by an evil necessity of their own making; because they have quite cut out the second, they are forced, for making up the number, to cut this in two. This is but to salve a first wrong with a second, it is vilitum prima concoctionis quod non corrigitur

in secunda, as they speak; having smothered one commandment, they would have this divided, as the harlot the living child. The subject of this commandment, that which it forbids, is not, I confess, original sin in its nature and whole latitude; no, nor all kind of sinful motions immediately arising from it, but such as concern human things, belonging to this second table as their rule; as is clear in all the particulars named in the commandment, and the general word that closes it including the rest, and all other things of that kind-Nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. Nor is it needful (with others) for the distinguishing this precept from the rest, to call this concupiscence here forbidden, only the first risings of it in the heart, without consent, whereas the other commandments forbid the consent of the will. I conceive there is no danger to say, that both are forbidden, both in this and the rest, but in this more expressly.

For what great necessity is there of such subtle distinguishing? May not this be sufficient, that what is included in the other commandments duly understood, it pleased the Divine Wisdom to deliver in this last more expressly, that none might pretend ignorance, and so to provide for the more exact observance of justice and equity amongst men in their actions, by a particular law given to the heart, the fountain of them, regulating it in its disposition and motions, even the very first stirrings of it, which do most discover its disposition?

And that this is no tautology, nor a superfluous labour, unsuiting the exquisite brevity of this law, we shall easily confess, if we consider that natural hypocrisy and self-indulgence that is in men, that makes them still less regard the temper and actings of their hearts, than their outward carriage, notwithstanding this express commandment concerning it. much more would they have thought their thoughts, at least such as proceed not to full consent, exempted from the law, if there had been nothing spoken of them, but they only included in the other precepts,

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How

We know how the doctors of Rome extenuate the matter, and how favourable their opinion is in this point, notwithstanding this clear voice of the law of God condemning all concupiscence. The apostle St. Paul confesses ingenuously his own short-sightedness, though a Pharisee instructed in the law, that unless the law had said, Thou shalt not lust, Rom. vii. 7, he had not found it out in the other commandments, nor known the sinfulness of it.

This all-wise Lawgiver knew both the blindness of man's mind, and the hypocrisy and deceitfulness of his heart, and therefore takes away all pretext, and turns him out of all excuse, giving this last commandment expressly concerning the heart, and so teaching him the exact and spiritual nature of all the rest.

This commandment pursues the iniquity of man into its beginning and source. Our Saviour calls the evil heart, an evil treasure: it is an inexhaustible treasure of evil, yea it diminisheth not at all, but increaseth rather by spending; the acting of sin, confirming and augmenting the corrupt habit of it in the heart. "Out of this evil treasure issue forth those pollutions that defile the whole man-evil thoughts, murders, adulteries," &c. Matt. xv. 19.

It is not proper here to speak at large of the first motions of sin in general, and of the way to distinguish (if any such can be given as certain) the injections of Satan; evil thoughts darted in by him, and such as spring immediately from that corruption that lodgeth within our own breasts, and other things that concern the subject: only this we ought to observe, as pertinent and useful, that if we did consider the purity of the law of God, and the impurity of our own hearts, the continual risings of sinful concupiscences within us, that stain us and all our actions, this would lay us a great deal lower in our own opinion than usually we are: "The law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin," says the Apostle.

Men think it is well with them, and they please

themselves to think so, and glory in it, that their whole life hath been outwardly unblameable, and, possibly, free from the secret commission of gross sins but they that are thus most spotless should look a little deeper inward upon the incessant workings of vain, sinful thoughts, that at least touch upon the affection, and stir it somewhat, and consider their hearts naturally like boiling pots, still sending up of this scum of evil concupiscence, and as a fountain casteth forth her waters, as Jeremiah speaks, this bitter poison-spring still streaming forth, and even in the best not fully dried up.

There are three transgressions, say the Talmudists, from which a man can no day ever in this life be free; the thoughts of sin, wanderings in prayer, and an evil tongue.

Certainly the due sight of these would abate much of those gay thoughts that any can have of themselves, and from the best and most sensible would draw out the apostle's word, O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me? &c. Rom. vii. 24. There is nothing that doth more certainly both humble and grieve the godly man, than the sense of this; and because till then it will not cease to vex him, nothing makes him more long for the day of his full deliverance, and makes him cry, Usquequo Domine, usquequo? O how long? O Lord, how long?

2. We are taught by this commandment that great point of spiritual prudence, to observe the beginnings and conception of sin within us, and to crush it then when it is weakest, before it pass on in its usual gradation, as the apostle St. James makes it, James i. 14, 15. If it draw us away but to hear it, it will entice us, take us with delight, and then it will by that work us to consent, and having so

* Tres sunt transgressiones, à quibus homo nullo die, inquiunt Talmudici, nunquam in hac vita liberabitur: cogitationes peccati, attentio orationis; (i. e. quod nunquam satis attentò per omnem attentionem orare possit ;) et lingua mala. Bava. Bosca. f. 1342.

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