turn our glory into shame, and pervert the ends of fpeech? How just were it that we were struck dumb?

2. It is a murdering inftrument. I obferved to you be fore, that an ill tongue is a parcel of murdering weapons, a bow and sharp arrows to pierce, a fword to ftab, and a fire to devour others. Yea, Solomon obferves, that death and life are in the power of the tongue. It is a fire that kindles ftrife and contention in all focieties, and turns them into confufion; and oft-times returns heavily on the head of those who carry it. The tongues from heaven were cloven, to be the more diffufive of good; but thofe fired from hell are forked, to be the more impreffive of mischief.

3. Confider the wickednefs of it. It is a world of iniquity Jam. iii. 6. They have much ado that have an ill tongue to guide, a world of iniquity to guide. It is a broad stream from the fountain of the wickedness of the heart.

4. An unbridled tongue cuts off all pretences to true religion, Jam. i. 26. For where the fear or love of God and our neighbour is in the heart, it will be a bond on the tongue to keep it within the bounds of Christian charity.

5. We must give an account of our words at the day of judgment, Matth. xii. 36, 37.

Lastly, An ill tongue will ruin the foul. Bridle your tongues; however unruly they be, they shall be filent in the grave. And, if repentance prevent it not, the day will come that they will be tormented in hell-flames, Luke xvi.

I fhall conclude with an advice or two.

1. Begin at the heart, if ye would order your tongues aright. Labour to get them cleansed by the fanctifying Spirit of Chrift. Study love to God and your neighbour, which are the fulfilling of the law. Labour for meekness, and patience, and humility, which will be the best directors of the tongue.

2. Set yourselves, in the faith of promised affiftance, to watch over your hearts and tongues. Unwatchfulness is dangerous in the cafe of fuch an unruly member as the tongue is. God has guarded it naturally. Do ye alfo watch it.

OF THE TENTH COMMANDMENT.

EXOD. XX. 17.-Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's houfe, thou fhalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man fervant, nor his maid-fervant, nor his ox, nor his afs, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

TH

HE fcope of this command is to strike at the root and firft rifings of fin in the heart, in the defires going out of their right line of purity and equity. It is a strict boundary set to the unbounded defires of the heart.

In it, there are, 1. The act. 2. The object. The act, Thou shalt not covet, or luft, as the apoftle terms it, Rom. vii. 7.; which implies an inordinateness of defire, a feverish motion of the foul towards the creature, irregular and diforderly; and fo a diffatisfaction with one's prefent condition, as appears from Heb. xiii. 5. "Let your conversation be without covetoufnefs, and be content with fuch things as ye have."

The object is held forth particularly for example's caufe, thy neighbour's houfe, thy neighbour's wife, his fervants, and goods. Thou shalt not only not take away thy neighbour's house from him by oppreffion, nor entice away his fervants, nor steal his goods, nor entertain a fixed and deliberate defire to do him that injury, as is forbidden in the eighth command; but the inordinate defire of having them fhall not rise in, nor go through thy heart, however lightly, if it were like a flying arrow, faying, O, that his house, his fervant, his ox and afs were mine! Thou fhalt not only not defile his wife, nor deliberately desire to do it, as is forbidden in the seventh commandment; but thou fhalt not say in thine heart, O that he were mine! though thou haft no mind, right or wrong, to make her fo.

This object is held forth univerfally, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's: whereby it appears, that this command looks through all the other commandments of the second table, and fo condemns all inordinate defire of any object whatfoAnd therefore the Papists dividing this command into two is abfurd, and but a trick invented to atone for their

ever.

confounding the first and second. While this command fays, nor any thing, it says, Thou shalt not only not dishonour thy neighbour by infolent and contemptuous behaviour, but there fhall not be a defire in thy heart, faying, O that his place. and post were mine, as in the fifth command; nor, O that I had his health and ftrength, as in the fixth; nor his reputation and esteem, as in the ninth; though you have no deliberate design or defire to wrong him in these.

I do not wonder, if fome are furprised at this, and fay, Are these fins? for indeed this command goes deeper than the reft; and if it did not fo, it would be fuperfluous; for you fee it aims not at any new object, but holds by the objects of the former commands; therefore it must look to fome more inward and lefs noticed motions of the heart, than the rest do. And therefore Paul, though he learned the law at the school of divinity under Gamaliel, a profeffor of it, yet, till he learned it over again at the school of the Spirit, holding it out in its fpirituality and extent, he did not know these things to be fin, Rom. vii. 7. It was this command brought home to his confcience, that let him fee that luft to be fin which he faw not before.

And seeing this is a command of the second table, and ourselves are our nearest neighbour, the luft or inordinate defire of those things that are our own must be condemned here, as well as lufting after what is not ours.

So much for the negative part of this command, which in effect is this, Thou shalt not be in the leaft diffatisfied with thy own present condition in the world, nor have any inordinate motion in thy heart to that which is thy own or thy neighbour's.

The pofitive part is implied; and that is, Thou fhalt be fully content with thy own lot, whatever it be, and arrest thy heart within the bounds that God has inclosed it in, bearing a charitable difpofition to thy neighbour and what is his. For all covetoufness implies a difcontent with our own

condition.

Quest. "What is required in the tenth commandment." Anf." The tenth commandment. requireth full contentment with our own condition, with a right and charitable frame of fpirit toward our neighbour, and all that is his."

Here I fhall confider the duty of this command, as it refpects,

I. Ourselves.

II. Our neighbour.

III The root of fin.

I. I fhall confider the duty of this command as it respects ourfelves. If we confider, that this command forbidding coveting in the general, fays, in effect, thefe two things, 1. Thou shalt not covet or luft after what thou haft; nor, 2. What thou wanteft; the great duty of this command with refpect to ourselves will appear to be twofold.

First, A thorough weanedness from and indifferency to all those things that we have, in which our defires may be too eager. There are some things whereof our defire cannot be too much, as of God, Chrift, grace, victory over fin; and therefore we read of a holy lufting, Gal. v. 17. The renewed part not only defires, but eagerly and greedily gapes for perfect holiness and entire victory over fin. This is holy lufting, where there is no fear of excefs, although indeed even that may degenerate, when our own eafe, that is difturbed by fin, may be more in our view than the finfulness of fin; and in this refpect these luftings are mixed, and therefore finful and humbling in the beft; and they are fo far contrary to this command, as they are lufting after ease, more than conformity to the holy will and nature of God.

There are other things to which our defires may be carried out too eagerly and inordinately; and the defire of them is lawful, but the coveting or lufting after them, which is the inordinate defire of them, is here forbidden. Thus we may fin, not only in the inordinate defire of fenfual things, as meat, drink, &c. but in rational things, as honour, esteem, &c. The defire of these things is not finful; but there is a luft of them which is fo.

Now, in oppofition to this, we must be thoroughly weaned from and holily indifferent to these things, not only when we want them, for that falls in with contentment, but when we have them. So fhould one be to his own house, wife, fervants, and any thing that is his; keeping our love to, defire after, and joy in them, within due bounds, as the Pfalmist did, Pfal. cxxxi. 2. "Surely I have behaved and quieted

myfelf as a child that is weaned of his mother: my foul is even as a weaned child." We may take it up in these four things following.

1. The heart's fitting loose to them, fo as the heart and they may fall afunder as things closely joined, yet not glued, when God fhall be pleased to take them from us. For if they must needs be rent from us, it is an argument that our love to them was indeed a luft towards them. Therefore this difpofition is called a hating of them, Luke xiv. 26. ; for things that we have, we can part with, without their tearing as it were a piece of our heart away with them. We can fay little on this piercing command, but what will be accounted hard fayings, by all that have not a clear view of the tranfcendent purity of the law, which is carried to the height in this command, because to the root, the corruption of our nature. And that corruption we must still keep in view here, or we will do no good with it.

2. The heart's looking for no more from them than God has put in them. God has made created things as inns in the way to himself, where a perfon may be refreshed, but not as a refting-place, where the heart is to dwell. For the defire is inordinate when the man feeks his reft and fatisfaction in these things inftead of God, Pfal. iv. 6. The corrupt judgment magnifies earthly things, and looks on fha dows as fubftances; and then the corrupt affections grafp them as fuch, and after a thousand disappointments luft after them ftill, If. lvii. 10.

3. The foul's standing on other ground, when these things stand entire about the man; drawing its fupport from God as the fountain, even when created streams are running full, 1 Sam. ii. 1. Pfal. xviii. 46. The world's good things muft not be thy good things, Luke xvi. 25. Thou mayft love them as a friend, but not be wedded to them as a husband; use them as a staff, yet not as the staff of thy life, but a staff in thy hand; but by no means as a pillar to build on them the weight of thy comfort and fatisfaction.

4. The ufing of them paffingly. We must not dip too far in the use of them. Lawful defire and delight, like Peter, walks foftly over thefe waters, but luft fhines in them; in the one there is a holy careleffnefs, in the other a greedy gripe. The apostle lively describes this weanednefs, 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30, 31, "It remaineth, that both they that have