THOUGHTS
ON THE
DECALOGUE.
BY
HOWARD CROSBY,
PASTOR OF THE FOURTH AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
NEW YORK.
PHILADELPHIA:
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
1334 CHESTNUT STREET.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
THE TRUSTEES OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
WESTCOTT & THOMSON,
Stereo/tyers and Electro/tyers, Phila.




CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE  PREAMBLE.................................    5
THE  FIRST  COMMANDMENT................   23
THE  SECOND  COMMANDMENT..............                     41
TIE  THIRD  COMMANDMENT..................  6I
THE  FOURTH  COMMANDMENT.................   78
THE  FIFTH  COMMANDMENT...................  io6
THE SIXTH, SEVENTH, EIGHTH AND NINTH
COMMANDMENTS..........................   29
THE  TENTH  COMMANDMENT.................  147
3








THOUGIITS ON THE DECALOGUE.
THE PREAMBLE
l am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.-EXODUS xx. 2.
Gf   OD has several times spoken directly
to men without the agency of inspiration, using some power in nature other than
a rational medium. Thus has he spoken to
Moses, to Elijah and Job, to the apostles on
the Mount of Transfiguration, and to Paul
near Damascus.
But although God has thus frequently
spoken to men, he has but once wzritlen a
message to his creatures. The Decalogue
stands alone as God's manuscrijl.  Of it
it is said, "The Lord said unto Moses,
5




6    THIOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.'Come up to me in the mount and be
there, and I will give thee tables of stone
and a law and commandments (that is, a
law of commandments) which I have wrUiten,'" and then afterward it is said, "And
he gave unto Moses, when he had made an
end of communing with him upon Mount
Sinai, two tables of testimony, written wit/
the finger of God."
Still again it is said, "And Moses turned
and went down from the mount, and the
two tables of the testimony were in his
hand: the tables were written on both their
sides; on the one side and on the other
were they written. And the tables were
the work of God, and the writing was the
writing of God, graven upon the tables."
These are the accounts in the Book
of Exodus. Afterward, in Deuteronomy,
Moses recapitulates to Israel God's ways
with them, and then, at the close of their
desert life of forty years, the venerable
leader of Israel says of the scene at Sinai,




THE PREAMBLBE.           7
"The Lord spake with you out of the
midst of'the fire; ye heard the voice of the
words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard
a voice, and he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform,
even ten commandments; and he wrote
them uzpon two tables of stone."  Then,
after repeating the ten commandments, he
says, "These words the Lord spake unto
all your assembly in the mount out of the
midst of the fire, of the cloud and of the
thick darkness, with a great voice, and he
added no more; and he wrote them in two
tables of stone and delivered them unto
me."
These tables thus prepared were broken
by Moses beneath the mount under a righteous impulse of indignation at Israel's fearful sin. But he was again called up to the
top of Sinai, and the order he received is
thus given by Moses himself:
"At that time the Lord said unto me,' Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the




8     THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
first, and come up unto me into the mount,
and I will write on the tables the words
that were in the first tables which thou
brakest;... and I hewed two tables of
stone like unto the first, and went up into
the mount, having the two tables in my
hand; and he wrote on the tables, according
to the first writing, the ten commandments."
So these second tables, which were preserved in the ark nearly a thousand years,
although they were not themselves prepared
by God, as were the first, but were hewn by
the hand of Moses, bore, nevertheless, as
much as did the first, the autograph of the
Almighty.  It is this fact which exalts the
Decalogue to the very highest rank of all
recorded truth.  It must be truth of the
highest importance to man that receives so
distinguishing a mark at the hand of God.
We cannot restrict its application to a single
people, a single locality or a single age. The
thunderings and lightnings, the trumpetnoise and smoking mountain, formed a fit



THE PREAIMBLE.            9
ting" framework for the divine speech, and
indicated the limits of humanity to be the
sole limits of its application. The rest of
the law given to Israel had none of this
awful majesty of publishment. All the details of ceremonial service and civil order
were given to the people through the mediation of Moses, spoken by him and recorded
by him. They were evidently intended for
a special nation and a limited period, and it
is they of which Paul speaks in the Epistle
to the Galatians, when he says that "the
law was added (or attached) because of
transgressions, till the seed should come to
whom the promise was made; and it was
ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator;" for the Decalogue did not pass from
God through either angels or mediator, but
came direct from God to all Israel.
It becomes us, then, to study with deep
reverence these words so remarkably given
-these spiritual aerolites that sought our
earth directly from the upper world.




10    7IT0UGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
We find, at the very first glance, that they
are exceedingly simple.  Every one can
readily receive and understand them-they
have relation to human action in spheres
where human action is universally found.
They are therefore exceedingly practical,
though by no means merely of outward
force. They relate to the action of the
heart as of the life. Loving, honoring and
serving are enjoined, which directly regard
the affections.
It is a common misapprehension of the
ten commandments to restrict their meaning to overt action-to the visible life. The
rich young ruler who came to Jesus with
such animation, and went away so sorrowful, made this mistake. God's law is not,
like man's law, a mere recognizer of the
overt and visible, but touches the whole
man, and is therefore specially concerned
with the inner springs of life. It sees the
whole value of the outward activity to be
in the condition of the soul, and hence the




THE PREAMBLE.             I I
apostle, in terse apophthegm, says, "Love
is the fulfilling of the law," and hence our
Saviour translates the whole Decalogue
thus, using the very words of Moses, and
using, too, a formula known to the Jewish
people: " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and with all thy soul, with
all thy mind and with all thy strength;. 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
Thus we see four characteristics of these
wonderful commandments: first, their universality; secondly, their simplicity; thirdly,
their practicalness; and fourthly, their spirituality.
In regard to their structure and analysis,
they consist of ten distinct precepts and a
preface.  Let us look at the preface before
we examine the first precept.
": amI t/e Lord thy God, which have brought
thee out of the lanid of Egypt, out of the house
of bondage."
Bearing in mind the universality of the
Decalogue, this " land of Egypt" and " house




I2   THOUGHTS ON TIEE DECALOGUE.
of bondage" must have a far deeper and
wider signification than the Valley of the
Nile. We find, from other parts of Scripture, that the land of Egypt, from its peculiar relation to God's ancient people, became
typical and emblematic of that which might
be oppressive and inimical to the truth. For
example, the great city which destroys the
witnesses, or rather holds their dead bodies
unburied, as given in the Apocalypse, is
called "Egypt."  Rev. xi. 8.  So again,
when the prophet Zechariah makes use of
the name in the following passage, he evidently does not intend the literal Egypt,
which had already lost its independence:
"I will bring them again also out of the
land of Egypt, and gather them  out of
Assyria, and the pride of Assyria shall be
brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt
shall depart away."  When the prophet
uttered this, Egypt had no sceptre, and
Assyria no existence as a nation; and we
are forced to one of two interpretations,




THE PPEAMBLE.             13
either a literal one which implies that Egypt
shall be again resuscitated as an independent empire and Israel again dwell therein,
and that Assyria shall be again resuscitated
as an independent empire and Israel again
be captive therein, or the figurative one
which points to God's spiritual Israel in a
spiritual captivity to a spiritual Egypt.
If it be asked which is to be accepted as
the true interpretation, I cannot see any
ground for the literal. I believe that both
here and elsewhere in the Prophets Egypt
is a synonym for an ungodly world, which
captivates the heart of man, and from which
the grace of God releases the renewed soul.
The law of God is, therefore, in its holiness, justice and goodness, held up to those
who have been delivered from the bondage
of sin-those who have been released from
the spiritual Egypt. It is not so held up to
the ungodly-they cannot love it, they cannot see its beauty. The law of God is given
us as a rule of life, not as a means of salva



I4    TOUCIGHTS ONV THE DECALOGUE.
tion. By the Lord's telling us that he has
already brought us out of Egypt and bondage, he does not say when he gives us the
law, " Do this and live," but, "Since ye live,
do this;" "Since my grace has redeemed
you, and you rejoice in the liberty of the
children of God, use my law, the reflection
of my perfections, as your beloved guide."
This is the position of the Decalogue to
us. It is not addressed to the unconverted,
save as a condemning law. All the message
given to them is, "Be reconciled to God."
When they look at the law, they see what
does not belong to them, and so see it all
awry, and they read it, "Do this and live,"
instead of, "Live and do this."  Thus they
get themselves into a great deal of trouble
in trying to work out a holy life from unholy
material, sometimes deceiving themselves
into thoughts of success, and sometimes
giving way to a despair which is very legitimate from their premises.  No; we cannot
repeat it too often that the law in its love




THE PREAAMBLE.            I 
and obedience is only for God's Israel; for
the rest it is simply a monument of condemnation, a token that they are unholy
and cannot keep it.
The law comes before the gospel historically and logically, but the gospel comes
before the law biographically and practically. The law is the token and standard
of holiness, but the gospel is the gate to
that holiness.
We are saved by the free grace of God
which the Gospel proclaims-we are saved
by simply letting Christ save us, by appropriating his precious promises, by doing
nothing, but by beiievinSg; tzen, after that
salvation, we are shown the holy, just and
good law of God as our rule of life, our
pattern of holiness; and the new nature,
which we have through faith in Christ, is
able to appreciate and obey it with more or
less perfectness, according to our amount
of faith and sanctification. The greater our
faith, the greater both our obedience to and




i6   THOUGHTS ON THE DECAL GUE.
our love of the Decalogue. In the triumphs.
of an exalted faith, we say with David, " My
soul hath kept thy testimonies, and I love
them exceedingly."
There is another portion of the preface
to the law which points to this same exclusive application of the law to the people of
God. It is this, "I amr the Lord thy God,"
or, literally, " I am Jehovah, thy God."  The
word "Jehovah" designates, not God the
creator and general governor, not God the
all-powerful, all-wise, all-knowing and omnipresent, not God in his essential excellence
and character, but God the lover and redeemer of his people, God who promises
and brings salvation, God in his special
relation to his own faithful ones. When he
delivered Israel from Egypt, God first practically disclosed this name as his name to
his Israel. Of it he says himself to Moses,
when the exodus was about to take place,
"I am Jehovah; and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac and unto Jacob, by the




THE PREAMBLE.            17
name of El Shaddai (God Almighty), but
by my name Jehovah was I not known to
them;...  and ye shall know that I am
7e/ovah your God which bringeth you out
from under the burdens of the Egyptians."
Now, the Decalogue is given to those who
can call God "Jehovah our God," our special
Saviour and Deliverer from sin, and to none
else. Let this not be misunderstood. I am
not excusing any sinner from the condemnation of disobedience and sin. They are
all invited to make God "Jehovah their
God," and for rejecting that invitation they
must suffer the just results of their depravity
and sin. But it is only when the heart recognizes Jehovah as its own God, when it
comes over and joins the true Israel, that
the law can be operative in it. The efficiency of the law as a rule of life is built on
the faith which accepts God as the deliverer
from sin's bondage. The law is a holy thing,
and nobody has anything to do with it but
those who are made holy in Christ. There2




18   THOUGHTS ON THE DECAL OGUE.
fore, unconverted sinners, seek Christ, if you
want to keep the law; you can only reach
the law through him.
There is one other expression in this
preface which should be noted. It is the
use of the second person singular, "which
have brought thee out of the land of Egypt."
There are two thoughts connected with
this use. The first is that God deals with
all Israel as one man. He expects them
to be one, of one mind and one heart, before him. There must be no antagonisms
among God's people. Bickerings, whether
ecclesiastical or private, have no place in
the Church of our Redeemer. They are
Satans in the camp, adversaries to be excluded and destroyed. There are twelve
encampments with twelve standards, but
there is only one tabernacle and only one
Moses, and the twelve tribes unite as one
family and  march in harmonious ranks.
If Christians differ in taste and outward
name, it is well; but if they mark their




THE PREAMBLE.            I9
difference by bitterness and hostility to any
degree, they are destroying the unity of the
Spirit, which is only maintained by the bond
of peace. Superciliousness, censoriousness,
coldness between Christians of whatever
name or names, are as inimical to Christian
unity as are open contention and calumny.
The latter may be more conspicuous and
make more immediate trouble, but the
former are just as devilish in their origin
and texture, and their results are perhaps
even more fatal by reason of their more
secret working. There is one bond which
should bind all believers together-the love
of the common Master; and in this love all
differences should sink to nothing, or, at
most, become mere harmless theories. He
has taken us out of the contentious world,
not that we should be only another contentious world, but that we should show on distracted earth the harmony of heaven. He
wishes to reconcile all things unto himself.
He is our peace, who hath made Jew and




20    THOUGHSa:  ON TrHE DECALOGUE.
Gentile, men the most opposite in view and
feeling, one.  Sin divides men, grace unites
them.
The other thought regarding the use of
the second person singular here is this: God
Ireats man individually.  Man enters heaven
or hell, not in companies or battalions, but
in naked individuality.  Sin is personal,
condemnation is personal, salvation is personal. Social sin and social morality are
delusions, or, at least, figurative phrases.
Society has no conscience, heart or purpose;
it only has a history. It is the individual
alone who has the moral attributes, and who
makes society and social history.  In this
way I see that God's law comes directly to
me-not to me as a member of society, but
to me as an individual man, with a heart and
conscience, which heart and conscience the
law would fit, if there were no society on the
face of the earth. You, my Christian reader,
are as personally addressed by God in this
holy law as if the entire Chulrch of Christ




THE PREVAMBLE.           21
consisted of you alone.  "That brought 1tzee
out of the land of Egypt."  It was thyself
personally that wert delivered from that
dark Egypt of condemnation, was it not?
It was thyself personally that received the
benefit of Christ's paschal death, was it not?
And so you can say, "VWho loved me and
gave himself for me."
And now, shall the holy gospel concentrate its beauty all on your own single self,
and the holy law be denied an equal concentration with its equal beauty?  No, no!
Jesus, when he redeemed yo'u, meant to
sanctify you.  The gospel was his means,
but the law was his end. It is his own gospel and his own law; and just as his love
is personal to you, so are both gospel and
law (the one the expression of his love, the
other the summons to your love) personal
to you. When we can say, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine," I'm sure
we can say, too, " Oh how love I thy law!"
My unrenewed reader, if this law is not




22    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
for you, because you are not adapted to it,
it is a witness against you through that nonadaptation.  God has offered to put you in
relation with that law through the gospel,
and your non-acceptance of the divine grace
is a witness of the deep power of sin in your
heart. God's voice of offer, and God's voice
of condemnation, are as personal to you as
his giving of the law is personal to every
follower of Christ. They are as personal
to you as if God and you stood alone in the
universe.  God recognizes only the individual.  "Thou art the man," is his judgment. Your sin is personal-you know it;
your condemnation is personal, fearfully
personal.  May you know  that, so as to
make your salvation personal in our Lord
Jesus Christ!




THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.
"Thou shalt have Ho other gods before me."-EXODUS xx. 3.
Wv E have noted. that the Decalogue
was universal in its application, and
simple, practical, and spiritual in its character. We have also noted that its preface
teaches-(I) that it can only be appreciated
and honored by God's own people, and (2)
that God deals with each man separately, and
with his own people as made one in Christ.We now enter upon the consideration of the
first of the ten commandments:
" Tzho  shall have no other gods before
me."
"Before me" is "in my presence;" and
as Jehovah is everywhere present, it means
" anywhere."  Wherever a god is set up in
23




24   TEHOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
the entire universe, it is set up in the presence of Jehovah. The idea of God in the
human mind involves the notion of a supreme being who is governor of all, and to
whom is due the homage of all. Even polytheism has to place over its many subordinate gods one thus supreme. It is an intuitive demand of the mihd. Now, the mere
making and using of a wooden or stone idol
to represent a god is, we see at a glance, by
no means requisite in order that the soul
shall subjectively have such a god.  The
outward statue is perfectly harmless in itself,
and is only dangerous as connected with the
ideal god represented by it and supposed to
be mysteriously united to it. This commandment really has nothing to do with the subject. of gross heathen idolatry, the use and
worship of visible idols. The second commandment looks in that direction, but this
takes higher ground and calls the soul to
the contemplation of first principles. It
might be read in the singular, "Thou shalt




THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.        25
have no other god before me," and I believe
that is the more correct way of reading the
word " Elohim" in this passage. It declares
that Jehovah will have no rival for supreme
homage-that the heart of man shall recognize none but himself as God and guide.
The reasons are embodied in the phrase
"before me."  Any such rivalry would be
an insult to Jehovah's majesty. It would'be
like introducing a usurper into the king's
throne-room and there offering him allegiance. It would be a tacit declaration that
Jehovah was not competent to govern his
creation alone, but must give over some of
his provinces to others who would manage their affairs, and thus relieve him. Of
course this embraces in its condemnation
both the polytheism of paganism and the
semi-polytheism  of Romanism, but its main
and primary charge has relation to the general abandonment of Jehovah by the human
heart.
Two thoughts here suggest themselves:




26    TOUGIHTS ON TlHE DECALOGUE.
I. All want of a positive allegiance to ehovah is a positive alleg-iance to another Elohim or suipreme God.
A self-reliant man, in the strict sense of
the word, never yet existed. Man's nature
is such that he looks without him for support, as the ivy feels for the tree or the wall.
We use the phrase "a self-reliant man" of
one who stands independent of his fellowman, but he is not independent of some
outer prop.  He has a god.  If he had not,
he would be himself a god.  If he has
not the true and living God as his stay, then
he is an idolater. Because he has no outward idol, no painted or sculptured work of
art before which he bows, his idolatry is
probably the more inveterate, because the
more hiddenand deceptive, unperceived by
himself. He follows his master, he concentrates his energies in his service, and is yet
ready to deny the obvious relation which
these facts imply.  It is this gross deception
which is hiding the precipice from many a




THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.       27
careless soul. Some of my readers, it may
be, are wrapt in this mist, supposing that
Jehovah is their God, but forgetting that
"covetousness is idolatry."
God's will concerning you, his purpose
in regard to his own eternal kingdom, his
word, his Church, his love,-these were never
known to you as objects of desire or motives
of action. You have lived a score or scores
of years upon this earth, and yet never
inquired, " What are the commands of God
who put me here?"  Have you been idle?
Have you been asleep?  By no means.
You have been active and wide awake every
day. In your business or profession you
have worked with a will. You have therefore had motives, for man cannot work without motives, and you have had a szipreme
motive, for one motive must in practice control all others, for all action is the result of
the dominant motive that has either crushed
the others or brought them along in its
train. Now, has a regard for God been




28   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
your dominant motive, or even any one of
your motives, as you formed your plans or
proceeded to their execution?
You have no hesitation in answering my
question. God has not been in all your
thoughts-that is, as a power. You have
had an intellectual apprehension of the true
God-you have even, at times, been agitated
in your emotional nature with the idea of
the Almighty; but this intelligence and
transient sensation have not had to do with
the working-force of your being. Yet you
have had a supreme motive. What, then,
has it been? Was it the desire for wealth?
or for rank or position? or for social appreciation? or for intellectual greatness? or for
worldly ease and pleasure?  Whichever it
was, here is your god, your Elohim, the
governor and guide of your life, to which
the real homage of your heart is given.
You lean upon it as your ultimate good.
Your life is arranged with a single view to
its attainment. You measure everything




THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.       29
by this standard. You have been so accustomed to this for years that you are perhaps
yourself unconscious of the processes of
your devotion. You do not stop to analyze
the motives of an activity that has almost
become an instinct. But now I ask you
honestly to consider whether this be not
your god, by no figure of speech, but in
plainest reality. What worship could you
render more devout than that of your affections? Surely the mere outward kneeling
and oral praying do not form the soul of
worship. They are the mere dress of a
true homage. We know well that in the
high spiritual sense in which all these things
are to be regarded by immortal spirits, and
in which they are regarded by the infinite
God, the heart   i its attachnients forms the
real life, the actual worship, of the man.
That heart of yours has no attachment to
the true and living God, and yet it has its
attachment, its controlling attachment; it
could not live a moment without one.




30   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
Now, special pleading aside, is it not clear
that you are deliberately breaking the first
and root commandment of God's written
law, "Thou shalt have no other god before
me"?  Have you not another god, just as
truly in the estimation of all spiritual' intelligences as if you kneeled daily to a statue
of Jupiter or Baal in your parlor? All those
applications for wisdom and help, all those
ascriptions of gladness and gratitude, all
those movements of regard and consideration which belong to your almighty Creator
and Benefactor, are bestowed elsewhere,
and whither they go, there is your god.
Your whole being gravitates directly away
from the true God by this positive action
of your will and affections.
As test questions of this condition of your
being, let me offer you these. Use them
candidly, and see where their consideration
brings you:
I. Have I ever loved God's word and
made it my counselor?




TILE FIRST COMMANDMENT.    31
2. Have I found prayer to God a relief
and source of strength?
3. Have I identified myself with God's
people?
4. Have I dwelt hopefully upon the blessings provided in God's heavenly and eternal
kingdom?
5. Has my heart been grieved that I did
not love and serve my God better?
These questions probe your heart. You
cannot say" Yes " to any one of them. The
conclusion your intellect can appreciate,
though not your heart-that God is not your
God, and hence that you are an idolater.
In the quiet hours of the Sabbath, given
to you for just such opportunities, deal
faithfully with yourself and ponder on all
these things. Look at the past and at the
future. Think of what you have been, and
what you ought to be.  Consider alike the
reproach and the peril of a position aloof
from God while in the midst of God's universe, with every pulsation of your being




32    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGCUE.
his gift, and surrounded by the appeals of
his infinite love. In your retirement meet
the question fairly; throw aside all metaphysical subtleties about destiny and nature,
and say out boldly what you know: "I have
rejected God-I have chosen other gods —
I have acted as independently and deliberately as if I were the sole being in the universe; I wish to follow other gods than
Jehovah. I love these other gods; they
please and excite me, and in this excitement I lose sight of all those unpleasant
questions about eternity and righteousness
and justice which are so hateful to my soul."
Ah, when you say all that truth plainly
to yourself, will you not shudder at the position it reveals?  In this path of honest
dealing with yourself is your only safety.
II. All allegiance to God that does not recognzize him  as he has revealed himself is
allegiance to afalse god.
God has shown himself to us, we may
say, in the face of outward nature and in




THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.        33
the inward nature of our minds. But both
these natural sources have been corrupted.
Sin has so disarranged our faculties as to
make our contemplation both of the material and the spiritual creation very defective
and deformed. All sorts of conflicting theories have grown up to deceive the mind
and ruin the heart from these injured germs.
As pure and sinless, we should have seen
truth reflected both from  our own souls
and from every hill and valley of our earth.
Each thought would have been a revelation, and each star a shining wisdom. But
wrecked as we are by sin, these means are
no longer effective. We have gone off and
learned to speak a barbarous tongue, and
the language of God's creation we cannot
understand. A new revelation a revelation
to sinzers-must be made, as God's love
yearns to call us back to salvation and holiness, and this revelation is made in the
written word. Here the goodness of the
sin-pardoning  God is disclosed;  nature
3




34   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
could never have taught that. Here the
sympathy and atonement of God as man
are discovered; nature could never have
taught that. In short, here, and here only,
is the way back to God and purity and bliss
revealed for us wandering and lost sinners.
Now, the only true idea of God can be
found in this heavenly record. The gospel
view of God is of one who is infinitely
holy and just, and who cannot regard sin
(" of purer eyes than to behold evil and
canst not look on iniquity"), and yet who
can be just while he justifies the sinner who
believes in Jesus.
The gospel view of God represents him
as in covenant with all such believers (and
with none else), giving them his full pardon,
and implanting in them a true holiness. To
them  he is Jehovah, the covenant-making
and covenant-keeping God, and Jesus is the
mediator of this covenant. Jesus is our
peace and  righteousness.  Through  his
sacrifice in our behalf, justice'no longer




THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.         35
threatens us, and holiness- visits our souls;
and this wonderful change, from condemned
sinners to honored saints, results altogether
from our union with Jesus by faith and love.
Eternal joy at God's right hand awaits those
who are thus united, forgiven and sanctified.
This is God as he has revealed himself.
This is Jehovah, the God of his own dear
people.  Now, any idea of God as the universal Father (an idea founded on natural
theology and human wishes), who regards
all his creatures alike and will treat them all
alike, and will see to it that they all alike
reach eternal glory,-any such idea is foreign and opposed to this revelation, and any
such god is a false god.
So a view of God as careless of personal
holiness in his creatures or as too exalted to
notice all their minute acts and thoughts, or
as tyrannical and arbitrary in his dealings
with them, or as appeasable by self-denials
and penances, is a view of a false god, and
not a view of Jehovah, the only living and




36   THIOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
true God. And the man who, despising or
neglecting the Holy Scriptures, and trusting
to his reason or his dreams or to nature
or to nothing, holds such a god before his
mind, is an idolater; he has put another
Elohim  before Jehovah Elohim. Because
the thought of the divine Being which he
thus introduces into his heart becomes the
substitute for the true motion that should
guide his life, he puts the helm into as
false hands as if he had delivered it to
Mammon. In truth, it will be found that
this false god is only an image made up in
the interests of Mammon and his train, and
representing their demands upon the affections. The true God is shorn of all his
glorious attributes in order that sin may be
practiced, and thus is not the true God at
all, and the soul flatters itself it is worshiping the true God, when it has enshrined
worldliness.
In view of the two thoughts we have thus
noted-(i) that God must have a positive




THE FIRST COMMANDMiENT.       37
allegiance, and (2) thal it must be yielded to
God as he has revealed himself, several subordinate thoughts naturally follow.
i. The help of the true God, jehovah7esus, should be soulg-h  by us to overthrow
our false gods.  By that very act we should
offer our rightful allegiance, and, in so doing,
consecrate our life to the rightful service
of Him who is our rightful king. We can
never make head against our carnal gods
by ourselves. They are too much like us,
and we are too much like them, for any
honest, persistent and successful opposition
on our part. Just here Jehovah's help comes
in. Introduce his ark, and Dagon will fall
down and be shattered. The Almighty, who
says, " Thou shalt have no other gods before
me," says also to his Israel, who asks to be
delivered from strange gods, "Against all
the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment."
It is to him you must cry as your conscience
tells you and warns you of your folly in
worshiping worldly gods.




38    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
"I am weak, but thou art mighty;
Guide me by thy powerful hand."
He will wrest our gods from us, and will
pluck us from  our gods, even if it cause
pain; and if we are honest in asking his
help, we shall be willing to endure the pain
for the truth, the peace, the honor and the
glory of serving the living and true God.
Then to him I urge you, who have thus far
followed  other guides than  Jehovah-to
him I urge you to apply before opportunity is lost, and you and your gods find a
common destruction.
2. How watchful we should be in this earth,
where the false gods are not only plenty, but
exactly after the fashion of our own depraved
hearts! It was said of Athens that at each
corner there was a new god, and some have
even said that in population Athens had
more gods than men. It is so with our unseen gods of the unregenerate heart. They
abound with different names and different
characters, according to the tastes and cha



THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.         39
racters of different men. In this way there
are actually more of these gods than of
men.  But there is only one Jehovah, and
his character is unalterable.  He cannot
accommodate his perfections to the varied
and depraved tastes of men.  His purity is
wholly contrary to their condition and aims.
The heart is not, therefore, going to gravitate naturally into piety. It is not going to
quit its dear earthly gods and fall before
Jehovah in reverence and affection as a
matter of course.  It must arise to arms; it
must assume its attitude of warfare; it must
act as sentinel as well as combatant.  It
must suspect everything earthly as a seduction to sin, and only be satisfied when it has
probed it with the sword of the Spirit, which
is the word of God.
3. The word of God ought to be in our
hands all the while. This is the only offensive weapon against our false gods. With
it we can cut them to pieces, hip and thigh.
The Scripture enlightens and purifies us.




40    THOUGZH'S ON THE DECALOGUE.
To be sanctified though his word of truth
is what Christ desires for his dear people.
How we are rebuked by this thought! The
Bible's collected dust testifies against us.
The sword of the Spirit is covered with
rust. We must love the word more, and
to do this we must know it more and use
it more. So only shall we be guiltless in
regard to the first commandment of the law.




THE SECOND COMMANDMENT.
" Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image, or any
likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the
earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou
shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. for I the
Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children unto the third andfourth generation
of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of
them that love me, and. keep my commandments."-EXODUS xx.
4-6.
THE first commandment, as we have
seen, is  the  prohibition  of any  supreme object of affection and reverence in
the heart but Jehovah, or any dependence
for the guidance of life other than on him.
The  second  commandment has  regard  to
one specific form of withdrawing the heart's
allegiance from Jehovah-a form which has
been most successful in its sad results, and
which has seduced the vast majority of our
41




42   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
race from the service of the true God. The
first commandment forbids an inward, the
second forbids an outward, idolatry.
Wlte are not well situated to understand
the fascinations of image-worship.  Our
peculiar type of civilization, largely moulded
by a pure and spiritual Christianity, has in
it a prejudice against the grossness of a
god of stone or metal which renders the
history of idolatry almost unintelligible.
We are slow to imagine that a sensible
man-a man of ordinary human wisdomcould bow down and pray to a sculptured
deity; and yet we are met by the stubborn
fact that the wisest of men (as far as human
wisdom went) paid this adoring homage to
the gods of Greece and Rome. It is not
the tattooed savage and the degraded cannibal who monopolize this worship, but the
poets, the philosophers, the statesmen, of
the chosen land of art and science herein
showed their kinsmanship to the Maories
and the Feejees.




THE SECOND COMMANDMVENTV.    43
With all the careful training of the Jewish
people, and although they were especially
warned against this form of error, sin and
ruin, they were charmed into its embrace,
and filled the holy land with Baalim and
Ashteroth, the male and female gods of
the neighboring kingdoms. Solomon, their
wisest king and wisest man, set the example, and the whole nation eagerly followed it. Against this most fatal style of
sin the prophets inveighed with faithful
vehemence; and for this supreme iniquity
of the land, the nation was dragged behind
the triumphal cars of Assyria and Babylon.
Let us hear Jeremiah as an example of
the warning voices of the prophets:
" Hear ye the word of the Lord, O kings
of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,'Behold! I will bring evil upon this place,
the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall
tingle. Because they have forsaken me, and
have estranged this place, and have burned




44    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
incense in it unto other gods, whom neither
they nor their fathers have known, nor the
kings of Judah, and have filled this place
with the blood of innocents; they have built
also the high places of Baal, to burn their
sons with fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal
(which I commanded not, nor spake. it,
neither came it into my mind): Therefore,
behold! the days come,' saith the Lord,'that this place shall no more be called
Tophet, nor the Valley of the sons of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; and I
will make void the counsel of Judah and
Jerusalem in this place,.. and I will make
this city desolate, and a hissing.'" Jer. xix.
3-8.
Such was the prevalence of open idolatry, and such its punishment, in the most
spiritually- enlightened  people upon  the
earth.
It is very true that the clearer light of
Christianity has reduced the power of this
gross form of falsehood, and yet human




THE SECOND COMMANDMENT.    45
nature has unmistakably asserted its depravity in this direction even in the midst
of the nominal Church of Christ. Before
the fourth century after Christ was completed, images of our Saviour were introduced into the churches, and these paved
the way for introducing images of the saints,
so that, by the eighth century, the Christian
churches were as full of statues as ever were
the heathen temples; and before these marble saints the illiterate bowed in prayer and
vow, and knew no other god but these. The
object at first was, doubtless, to help the
imagination to worship the true God through
a visible symbol; and as Christ was God
manifest in the flesh, it seemed perfectly
proper to make a visible representation of
Christ as a quickener of devotion. The
very visibility and tangibility of the representation was a satisfaction to the worshiper; and this, together *with the greater
external ceremony that could be thrown
around an image-worship, formed the bait




46   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
to the gross idolatry of the mediaeval Church
and the Roman Church of to-day.
The all-wise and omniscient God knew
man's frailty, and in this second commandment forbade the use in worship of any
visible representation, even though it be
of the divine Being himself in the person
of Jesus Christ: "Thou shalt not make
unto thee any likeness of anything that is
in heaven above;" and the full expression of
the context shows that the spiritual as well
as the physical heaven is meant, the whole
universe of God being included.
I need hardly stop to say that the use of
two distinct sentences for one, where the
latter qualifies the former, is a common
Hebraism. We are not forbidden to make
images, but to make them in order to bow
down to them, or to bow down to them
when made.
The only point at which this commandment touches us Protestant Christians is in
our general tendency to rest in form rather




TIHE SECOND COMMANDMENT.    47
than in spirit, and to place religion in the
emotions rather than in the affections. This
is a human frailty; and so long as we are
human, we shall be open to the temptation.
It has been suggested by prominent Protestants in this country that likenesses of distinguished Christian heroes should be placed
in our churches, and we find everywhere in
Europe that the Protestant churches are
adorned  with crucifixes, images of our
Saviour on the cross, whose direct tendency is to beget an image-worship. Even
the cross itself, if we use it in worship to
bow down to it, is forbidden by this commandment; but the cross may be, and often
is, used as a mere symbol of religious faith,
where the crucifix would inevitably become
an object of adoration.
The reason God gives for his command
against idolatry needs our attention. It is
that he is a jealous God (El-kanna-0soc
ozr-rr). This expression is frequently used
in the Old Testament, and in one place the




48    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
Lord declared to Moses that his inamte is
jealous. The force of the phrase is perhaps
best seen in the words of Moses to Israel
when he gave them his parting advice, "for
the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even
a jealous God" (Deut. iv. 24), a passage
which is quoted and used by the apostle
Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where
he is speaking of the future and eternal
judgments of the Almighty. We must free
the idea from the attachments which we give
it from our view of human jealousy. There
is no selfishness, no envy, no hatred, in God's
jealousy. It is the abundant outflow of his
holiness, which, by its own virtue; must
either assimilate or destroy everything in
the universe. It envelops in its grace, or
it drives forth from its purity and from all
the blessings which accompany its purity.
When we say that God is a jealous God,
we say that he is no passive Brahm, like the
god of the Hindoos, but that he glows with
zeal for all that is pure and good and holy




THE SECOND COMMAND MENT.    49
and true, and is ever engaged actively in
separating the holy and true from the unholy and false, striving to do it first by
mercy, but if man makes that fail, then by
the cutting off of his judgments.  This
character of God is especially alluded to
in this second commandment, because this
form  of sin appeared the most seductive
and the most obstinate. It were well, therefore, that God's character toward sin should
here be especially exhibited.
The remainder of the commandment is
really an enlargement on this character ot
holy jealousy, and the words startle us as
we read them: "Visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children unto the third
and fourth generation of them that hate me,
and showing mercy unto thousands of them
that love me and keep my commandments."
"Is not this rank injustice, that children
should be punished for their fathers' faults?"
it is objected.  "Am  I to be sent to hell
because my great-grandfather sinned?"  It
4




50    THOUGHTS ON THE DECA LOGUE.
is very true that the human reason instinctively revolts at such a thought, and our
unbiased instincts of the reason are generally correct. Our affections are depraved,
warped and sinful, but our notion of right
and wrong remains in its general force,
even though we may be too ignorant to
know all its detailed applications. It is at
this very bar of our own judgment that
we shall be condemned if we continue enemies to God.  It is this comparatively
healthful portion of our being, this which
by its very nature cannot be essentially
wicked or depraved, which exclaims against
the punishment of children for parents' sins.
And hence this portion of the second commandment is a stumbling-block to many.
Besides the injustice of the thing, we see
the fearful discouragement that it must
generate in the soul against all attempts at
return and reform.  If I was condemned
by-my father's sin before I was born, why
should I make any endeavor after any



THE SECOND COMMANDMENT.         51
thing good? It will be all a —waste of time,
a fostering, a delusion, an enlargement of
disappointment.  Now, all this exercise of
mind in regard to God's description of himself would be avoided if we read the Bible
more carefully and compared Scripture with
Scripture. God expressly addresses those
who thus entirely misconstrue his dealings
and his character, and speaks thus by his
prophet Ezekiel:
"What mean ye, that ye use this proverb
concerning the land of Israel, saying,'The
fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge?'... Behold,
all souls are mine; as the soul of the father,
so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul
that sinzeth, it shall die.... Yet say ye,
Why? doeth not the son bear the iniquity
of the father?" [misquoting this very commandment]. "When the son hath done that
which is lawful and right, and hath kept all
my statutes and hath done them, he shall
surely live. The soul that sinneth, it shall




52   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of
the father;... the righteousness of the
righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."
What could more fully show the exact
justice of God and avert all objection to
the misunderstood phrase in the second
commandment?  The key to the difficulty
is in the words, "of them that hate me," and
the enunciation is just this-that where a
man is opposed to God, rejecting his truth
and salvation, he endorses and supports,
and thus becomes responsible for, the guilt
of his ancestors. The stream of guilt runs
down from father to son with accumulating
force till it ends in its appropriate judgment.
This judgment, so far as it is spiritual and
eternal, falls on each sinner in the line, but
so far as it is earthly and temporal, it falls
on him who brings the sinfulness to the top
of the climax-who adds the last drop to
the fullness of the cup. This is only true




THE SECOND COZMMAND MENT.    53
where the son or descendant is a hater of
God.
Hence we see the meaning of such passages of revelation as these: in Job, where
the patriarch speaks of the wicked, he says,
" God layeth up his iniquity for his children."
Isaiah says of Babylon: "Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their
fathers," and again to the Jews: "I will
recompense... your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together." So our
Saviour, in pronouncing the fearful doom
of the generation of ungodly and rebellious
Jews among whom he lived, adds: "That
upon you may come all the righteous blood
shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son
of Barachias, whom ye slew between the
temple and the altar. Verily I say unto
you, All these things shall come upon this
generation."
This is the natural flow and consequence
of sin, but grace can furnish a check, and




54    THOUGHYS ON THE DECALOGUE.
roll back the tide, both in relation to the
physical and spiritual results of iniquity.
Hence, even of wicked Ahab, the willing
instrument of his wife Jezebel's idolatries
and cruelties, it is recorded, "And it came
to  pass, when Ahab heard these words
[of the prophet Elijah], that he rent his
clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and
fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly.
And the word of the Lord came to Elijah,
the Tishbite, saying,'Seest thou how Ahab
humbleth himself before me?  Because he
humbleth himself before me, I will not bring
the evil in his days, but in his son's days
will I bring the evil upon his house."' So,
also, the cry of the Psalmist is founded on
this power of grace to check and cancel the
issues of hereditary sin: "Oh remember not
against us former iniquities," or, as the margin reads it, " Remember not against us the
iniquities of them that were before us"i. e., our forefathers.
The subject is thus freed from all ideas




THE SECOND COMlMANDMEVNT.       55
of injustice, for each one suffers for his owzu
sin, made his own by appropriating it as
an inheritance, and building on it, as on a
foundation, his new sinfulness.  Yet there
is a mystery in this matter of the relation
of paternity and sonship, in which we are
simply to take God's word for it, recognize
a corroborating analogy, and leave the rest
for solution in a world of greater light and
larger views.  God's word shows clearly
that there is a spiritual connection by blood
descent. Every man begins where his father
leaves off. If his father be evil, he starts
with that amount of evil capital to use if he
will, and if he be evil himself (as every man
by nature is), then he actually uses that capital in his own practice of evil. If his father
be good, then he starts with that amount
of good capital to use if he will, though,
on this side of the picture, every man's innate depravity modifies the correspondence.
Hence men accumulate evil from generation to generation, but they do not accumu



56    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
late good. All they can do is to check the
evil, and hand down the example and precept for checking it to their posterity. It is
for this reason, in this second commandment, we find that the iniquity of the fathers
is visited upon the children, but the good of
the fathers is not so visited.
The analogy to this fact of revelation we
have in the matter of disease. Consumption,
scrofula, and a thousand diseases, descend
from parent to child. As these are purely
physical, they do not involve necessarily the
idea of punishment. They may be used by
God as the richest blessings to the soul to
all eternity, and we know that they are constantly so used. No man can call it an
injustice, therefore, that he should have a
diseased body because his father was a
drunkard, because his diseased body is a
blessing, if he only have a mind to make it
so. God comes personally to every man
(in his love for every creature he has made),
and offers to make everything in him and




THE SECOND COMMANDMENT.    57
around him to work together for his good.
If man rejects this offer, and so lets his
inherited disease be only a curse to him, let
him not blame God for punishing the son
for the father's sin. The son has chosen the
punishment, of his free will. Even when,
through grace, the infliction of the hereditary disease is made a blessing, there will be
much temporary discomfort and pain; and
so in the soul where sin is pardoned and the
Spirit given, there will be habits and tendencies, much of the foul growth of hereditary sin, to cause temporary discomfort and
pain. In neither case is it punishment, but
affliction, which a parent can bring upon a
child, even as you may bring affliction upon
your neighbor by breaking his arm, he not
at all consenting; and there is no more
divine injustice in the one than in the other.
Two thoughts naturally suggest themselves
from this subject brought before us in the
second commandment:
st. What a vast responsibility rests utpo




58    THOUGHTS ONA THE DECALOGUE.
parens!/  The parent has it in his power
to inflict life-long evil upon his child, and to
increase the child's everlasting condemnation, unless the grace of God interfere.  As
a father by his debauched life, or even by a
life simply careless of the laws of health,
may entail disease upon his children-and
he is just as responsible for injuring his
children as if he had put the- cup of poison
to their lips-so a father may, by his disregard of the laws of God, entail spiritual
disease and misery upon his children, and
he is just as responsible for his children's
ruin as was Satan responsible for Adam's
fall.
Listen, then, ye that bend your souls
to Mammon, thinking, dreaming, planning
and wishing only about money, and  ye
that yield your talents and time to Fashion,
feeding your poor starved souls on the frippery and flippancy of her fool's paradiseye are not slaying yourselves, but your
children, and preparing their hell of re



TIHE SECOND COMMANDMENT.    59
morse! For your children's sake, if not for
your own, stop, and seize the saving hand
of Christ!
2d. See the fullness of God's grace: "And
showing mercy unto thousands of them that
love me and keep my commandments."
Where the look of love and faith is put
forth to Jesus, the whole condemnation,
growing from ancestral sins, is stayed. And
God is ever watching for the first acceptance of his proffered grace, that its victory
may be made perfect. He will not, he cannot, compromise and compound with sin.
It must go on in its lava torrent of corruption from generation to generation, sweeping everything before it into eternal despair,
except the one divine rescue, not by compromise, but by substitution and atonement,
be accepted. Wherever the soul takes Christ
as its portion, God's holy jealousy burns no
more against the sinner-the deliverance is
immediate and complete. The love of Jesus
is the pledge of the deliverance. Do I love




60   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
to keep God's commandments?  Then I
love God; and if I love God, this is a clear
sign that his Spirit is given me, and I am
rescued from the long hereditary flood of
guilt. Out of Christ, I was appropriating
generations of iniquity and earning their
doom. In Christ, I am appropriating his
eternal life and glorious reward. The question to each of us is between accumulated
and accumulating guilt, and God's free, full
grace in Christ.




THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.
" 7Tou shalt not take the name of /he Lord thy God in vain.
for the Lord will not hold hti guiltless that taketh his name in
vain." —EXODUS xx. 7.
T HIS commandment holds its appropriate place in a regular gradation from
the first. The first forbids the disregard of
God in the heart, the second, such disregard
in the outward act of worship, and this third
(in its primary application), such disregard
in the words of the mouth. God is to reign
supreme in the heart, to be exclusive in his
worship and to be mentioned always with
reverence by the lips. The same holy jealousy which burns against the false worshiper for the same reason burns against
the reckless speaker, where the subject of
speech is the almighty and infinite Jehovah.
61




62    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
Where there is a want of reverence there
is a want of allegiance. So far forth as a
subject is disrespectful, he is rebellious; and
all true government, especially the pure and
holy government of God, must take cognizance of the rebellion in accordance with
holiness and truth.
The illustration of this principle in the
family is very apt. The  boy who  has
learned to speak of his father with disrespect has learned to be disobedient, and
so shows himself a violator of the root-law
of family order and prosperity. Much of
the filial ingratitude, undutiful neglect and
rebellious independence of sons, over which
so many fathers spend their vain sighs,
would have been averted, if parents had
recognized the two facts that implicit obedience is the absolute requisite of all true
government, the keystone of moral order
and strength, and that disobedience begins
with the impudent and reckless word. The
Christian parent should reverently imitate




THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.'    63
his heavenly Father, and not allow a single
utterance of angry defiance or mocking jeer
or careless disrespect from his child, but
hold him guilty of a grievous sin.
With regard to this third commandment,
the common view of its exclusive reference
to vulgar profanity is entirely too contracted.
That this low and vulgar sin is included in
the prohibition is very evident; but were this
its only meaning, the command would have
no application to any one of respectable
social standing. Simple refinement would
raise a person above the infringement of
this commandment.  An examination of
two expressions in the passage will open to
us, I think, a wider horizon, and bring the
commandment, in its personal and practical
application, nearer home.
The first expression to which I refer is,
" the name of the Lord thy God," or strictly,
"the name of Jehovah thy God."  The
name of the Lord is not, on one hand, the
mere articulate sound by which the mouth




64    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
expresses the idea of Deity, nor is the
phrase, on the other hand, a simple synonym for God. Scripture does not by this
formula denote " the title of God," separating between God and his title, nor does it
use a circumlocution and denote God himself, making " the Lord" and " the name of
the Lord" equivalents, but it holds up God
in his special character of Jehovah, the
covenant-making and covenant-keeping God
of his own dear people.  "The name of
Jehovah" means God. known and served
under his revealed aspect of mercy, God
appreciated as the pardoner of sin and
giver of the spirit, the Jehovah or keeper
of his precious promises to his people. For
example, of the antediluvian piety it is said,
"Then began men to call upon the name of
the Lord "-i. e., it was then that distinctive
recognition was made of God's special provision of mercy for sinners. His name of
Jehovah was received as indicating his relation to his believing people. A name is an




THE THIRD COMMANDAZENT.        65
expression of the personal substance, an
exhibition of the essential character. God's
name by which he delights to be known
among men, is Love.  He also says that his
name is 7ealous, but it is his name "Jehovah " which attaches him to his people, and
which asserts his love and grace. His character of compassion is especially displayed
in his word, and hence the Psalmist says,
"Thou hast magnified thy word above all
thy name"-that is, of all revelations of
God's character, all expressions of his being,
the written word is most full and complete.
Here is the way of pardon and acceptance
clearly portrayed.
Another conspicuous display of God's
character, but only local and temporary in
its personal contact, while universal in its
possible application, is in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and so Jesus is in a high sense "the
name of Jehovah," and he calls himself this.
You remember how, just before his last
sufferings and death, he cried unto  the
5




66   THOUGHTS ONA THE DECALOG UE.
Father, "Father, glorify thy name," when
he had said, just before, that it was himself,
the Son of man, who should be glorified.
Jesus was the name of God, or, as Paul declares, " the brightness of God's glory and
the express image of his substance;" and
we have no hesitation in seeing this bright
glory of Jesus in the burning bush, the fiery
cloudy pillar and all the theophanies. of
Old-Testament days. The frequent reference to the tabernacle or temple as the
place which Jehovah had chosen to put his
name there, asserts that the express image
of Jehovah occupied that earthly habitation
among his people. The name of Jehovah
that was there placed was the word of God,
who was in the beginning with God and who
was God.  The great Antitype was there
present among his types. By the "sname
of Jehovah," then, we are to understand
his manifestations to man, especially in his
Scripture and in his Son, each of which is
called, for a similar reason, " the Word."




THE THIRD COiMAND1MEENT.     67
The second expression to which our
attention should be directed is the phrase,
"to take in vain."  The literal rendering is,
"thou shalt not lift up the name of Jehovah
thy God lightly."  Taking God's name in
vain is not simply the using the divine
name to support a falsehood, as some say
who would make this commandment a prohibition of perjury, but it is also the use of
that name in any cause or on any occasion
where a due solemnity does not accompany
the use. It is the flippant and thoughtless
use of God's name. It is the taking up the
name in the vacant, purposeless way in
which we pluck off a leaf as we pass along
the road-the use of the name, not only
where the purpose is evil, but where there
is no defined purpose at all. There need
be no intention to mock or deride the holy
name and the thought of such mockery
or derision may be quite abhorrent to the
soul-yet there is a meddling with holy
things by profane hands, and the careless




68   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
perpetrator is therein a positive and active
enemy to holiness and God. Again, there
may be not only an absence of evil purpose,
but, beyond an absence of all purpose, there
may even be a purpose of good, but this
purpose may be seized upon in so rash and
ill-advised a way that the use of the divine
name in it is a taking the name in vain, just
as Uzzah's touching the ark of God, even
to stay it upon the cart and prevent its fall,
was a sin of profanity, and called for the
divine punishment.
From these thoughts upon the two principal phrases in the third commandment,
we are prepared to see its true scope, as
bearing upon all use other than a devout
and reverential use of all that expresses
God's character and being, whether it be
his verbal name, his written word, his onlybegotten Son who has declared him, or any
of the great truths which are brought to
the heart and conscience by the Holy Spirit.
Let us look a moment at each of these divi



THE THIRD COMMANDMvENT,.      69
sions of thought, and apply a faithful examination to our own souls.
I. In respect to God's verbal name, we
are not to be satisfied with our freedom
from the coarse profanity which culture and
good-breeding forbid, but we are to remove
the habit of using the holy name in ordinary conversation in which the use has no
religious character. We are not to call a
wretched and forlorn person or thing "Godforsaken," or to hail a gift as a "God-send,"
when, in using these epithets, we have no
design to use their full meaning, and therefore have not the proper attitude of mind
for their utterance. The use is both an insult to God and a debauchery to the soul.
2. In respect to God's wri/ttez word, we
are to take it up with reverence both in
our hearts and on our tongues. Any other
action toward the holy Bible is taking God's
name in vain. A just view of this forbids
our travesties of Scripture, or the burlesque
use of language indissolubly associated with




70    THoOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
Scripture in our minds, all witticisms, by
pun or conundrum, in relation to the sacred words of revelation, in short, anything
which to our sinful natures would tend to
debase or vulgarize the heavenly truths of
the Bible-through the laws of association.
It also forbids all mere use of Scripture for
its story and history, for its geography and
science, for its language and literature. The
use of its letter without its spirit is a dishonor to God.  The only way in which this
exhibition of God is to be rightly used is
in finding God therein. For that purpose
he gave it, and a rejection of that use is an
assertion of self before God. The Bible is
given to show sinners the way of salvation
and holiness, and, as before said, any other
ultimate use of the divine Book is the taking God's name in vain.
But 3, and chiefly, in relation to Jests
and /he great, eternal truths which the Holy
Spirit introduces to the soul. To each man
comes through his conscience a summons




THE THIRD COMMAN ADMETT.       71
from God to give heed to his future spiritual and eternal condition. A sense of sin,
and of unrest by reason of sin, oppresses
every child of Adam, and God is known,
even to the untutored soul, as a God of
justice.  His name of "Jealous" is daily
seen and understood by the most ignorant
and worldly, and it is to all such that he
comes to reveal himself as "Love."  He
comes, in Jesus and his blood, to seek and
save the lost. Christ, with his saving truth,
is that name of Jehovah which was proclaimed to Moses in the cleft of Sinai's
rock, and which is now proclaimed, through
Church and Christian and Bible, to every
soul.
"eehzovah, Jyeovah God, merciful and
gracious, lonzg-suffering and abundant in
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children, and upon the children's




72    TWOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
children, unto /he ithird and to the fourth
g-eneration."
This is the manifestation of Jesus, the
Saviour, who saves, but not at the expense
of justice, who saves without a compromise
with iniquity, who lets sin wreak its fierce
wrath, either on himself (and there is the
sinner's salvation) or on the sinner (and
there is the sinner's damnation), with the
sinner's choice to decide which it shall be.
This knowledge of God's active grace in
Jesus is the possession of you who read
these pages.  "This is the true Light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the
world."  This wonderful Jesus with  his
glorious truth is the name of God entrusted
to your keeping.  You have taken it up
into your cognition and thought.  How
have you taken it up?  With admiration
and gratitude and devotion?  Have you
used it as a treasure from heaven, cherishing it in your bosom, and ready to part
with all else rather than part with it?




THE THIRD COM1lMANDMENT.      73
Have you loved to learn more and more
of God through his disclosed name, seeing
the Father in Jesus, and studying intently
and delightedly the divine glory that shines
forth from the Son? Have you felt that
life's sunshine was in the smile of Christ,
from whose gospel sprang all true halcyon
days? Have these been your experiences
before the glad tidings? Or have you met
them with an averted front?  Have you
taken up this great name of Jehovah in
vain?  Have you treated the message from
heaven like a song to be forgotten? Have
you let it rest upon your ears and forbidden it your heart, putting it in company
with theories and  fantasies, as of like
weight and worthy of equal regard?
I do not ask you, Have you derided the
gospel and its Author?-hat you would be
far from doing-but, Have you neg-ecled the
gospel-played with it, as a man may play
with a glove while he is talking to a friend
-used its priceless truths without attention




74   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
and so without respect? If this is your
record, be assured that God does not hold
you guiltless. Such a precious treasure in
your hand must be either a great blessing
or a great curse to you. As a man is
gifted from God, the possible extremes of
his destiny widen. A brighter heaven and
a darker hell unfold with every new boon.
This gospel in your possession is a mighty
responsibility; and if you slight it, you are
taking God's name in vain, and choosing
the penalty rather than the reward. God
gave you the gospel for a purpose-the
purpose of glorifying him and glorifying
your own soul; you take it for another
purpose or for no purpose. Can you have
any doubt as to what the end of this opposition will be?
There is a parallel thought for the
Christian who neglects the glorious name
of Jehovah, the Christian who allows the
gay and foolish world to wheedle him into
its arms, who sinks down into a semi-legal



THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.    75
ism, where duty is all hard work and the
liberty of God's children appears very much
like bondage. This Christian is really trifling with the gospel-he is taking God's
name in vain. He has seen the grace of
God in Christ and acknowledged it by faith,
and now that eternal gospel, on whose perpetual flow depends his life, is slighted for
the tinseled and bedizened rivals of an
hour. The due and proper reverence of
God's name implies a very honest and a
very hearty searching of the Scriptures, it
implies a sincere and ready use of prayer,
and it implies a devotion of time, TIME,
TIME, to the contemplation and worship
of the Redeemer; and unless a Christian
exhibits this style of piety, he is breaking
the third commandment as truly as yon
rough blasphemer in the street, at whose
profanity he shrinks back in horror and
disgust. The sin of each, when analyzed,
is a disregard of the sanctity of God's
manifestations and of their requirements,




76    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
a worldly and profane posture of the soul
toward the reachings forth of God's grace;
and they only differ in this, that the one
shows his neglect less openly to others, by
negative rather than positive signs, while
the other hangs out his flag, and with his
words exposes the carelessness of his heart.
It is a most solemn thought to us that
the infinite God, the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of
lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling
in the light which no man can approach
unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see,
to whom belong honor and power everlasting, brings his name to us as a treasure
and confides it to our care, saying, " Occupy
till I come." The history of our eternity
will begin with our use or abuse of this
keepsake.  Its injury or neglect will tell
fearfully against us in that day when our
relation to this name will be seen to be the
criterion of our salvation.  Then will this
Name (as including every expression and




THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.         77
manifestation of God) be recognized both
by exultant and despondent souls as "the
brightness of his glory' and the express
image of his person," centering in the
Lord Jesus Christ, whose holy rays must
ever illuminate or ever consume. In this
view, how vast is the import of the third
commandment! Not one of us can remain
unconcerned before the voice which rolls
through the ages from Sinai, and breaks
to-day upon our ears, "Thou shalt not
take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,
for the Lord will not hold him  guiltless
that taketh his name in vain."




THE FOURTH COM HMANDMENT.
"Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shall
thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord thy God. in it thou shalt not do any work, thou,
nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all
that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord
blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."ExoDUS - xx. 8-1 I.
THIS commandment holds a remarkable
position in the Decalogue.  It lies between those which touch our duty to God
and those which touch our duty to man.
Before it are the three commandments
which enjoin reverence for Jehovah in his
essence and expression (an avoidance of a
wrong expression, and the proper regard
for the true), and after it are the six commandments which enjoin respect for the
78




THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.    79
rights and welfare of our fellow-men. Between these two distinct departments of
the Decalogue is found this commandment
regarding the Sabbath-not a few parenthetic words, but the longest and most minute of all the commandments.
The Sabbath is said to be the day of
7ehovah —it is "the Sabbath of the Lord
thy God "-and hence its law appropriately
adjoins those which expose our duty to
God; but our Saviour also tells us that the
Sabbath was made for man, and hence the
Sabbath  ordinance appropriately adjoins
those which expose our duty to man. It
belongs to both branches of the Decalogue.
Its position tells us that a breach of the
Sabbath is a direct insult to God, and is
also a direct injury to man, weakening the
power of a day which is eminently a blessing
to the human race.
This remarkable position of the Sabbath
commandment is proof incontrovertible of
its binding character for all men in all time.




80   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALCOGUE.
We have on a former occasion seen that
the Decalogue has this universal application-that it was intended for no circumscribed period or locality; and here we find
in that Decalogue-nay, in its very heart,
occupying one-third of its bulk and most
intimately interwoven with its texture-the
divine order to sanctify the Sabbath-day.
This is enough to satisfy any candid mind.
We need not go farther and show that the
Sabbath was expressly recognized by Israel
before the Decalogue was given, at the time
when the manna was first sent, and when on
the sixth day the people collected sufficient
food for two days that they might not profane the Sabbath, where the narrative shows
that it was a deep-rooted religious observance. We need not refer to the division
of time into the unnatural portions of
seven days, as seen in the history of the
world from the time of Noah to that of
Moses, which so clearly proves the existence of a Sabbath before the people of




THE FOURTHo COMMANDMENT.    81
Israel had a being even in the person of
their father and founder Abraham.  It is
sufficient to show the command of the Sabbath engraven by the finger of God most
conspicuously among the ten items of his
great moral law, and placed in awful concealment within the holy ark as indicative
of its peculiar sanctity,-I say, it is sufficient
to see it in this company and these circumstances to be assured  of its important
relation to every subject of the divine government.
There are two expressions in the command itself which testify to this universality
of application.
I. "Remember the Sabbath-day." It is no
new institution which you are now to learn
about for the first, but it is an old observance, not Israelitish, but human, Noachic
and Adamic, which you, God's Israel, are
to remember, that you may sustain it in its
purity, just as you are to sustain a true and
spiritual worship as against idolatry. This
6




82   THOUGHTS OV rTHE DECALOGUE.
is the purport of the phrase. Israel was
selected and made the people of God by
his grace, that in them, as in an ark, might
be deposited  and  preserved  the truths,
moral and practical, which God had given
the race. The chief advantage of Israel
was that to them were committed the oracles of God. These oracles were not made
for Israel, but Israel, as such, was made
for them. In this ark-this early churchwere preserved and concealed, byreason
of man's depravity, the truths which would
have been altogether corrupted and dissipated if left to man's ordinary care. This
accounts  for the word  "remember""reember the Sabbath-day."
2. The other expression which proves the
universality of its application (in addition to
its very position in the Decalogue) is the
reason given for the divine order-" because
in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that in them is, and rested
the seventh day: wherefore Jehovah blessed




THE FOURTH COMMIANDMENT.    83
the Sabbath-day and hallowed it." The reason began at the creation, and therefore the
observance began at the creation. Adam
and Eve in Paradise kept the Sabbath-day;
for the reason for its observance, as here
given in the law, was as cogent with them
as it was with Israel at Sinai, or as it is
with us to-day.
I refer to this perpetual obligation of the
Sabbath, because a flippant criticism and
a naturalistic and  rationalistic theology
are endeavoring to persuade the Christian
world that everything that was found in
Israel was a mark of bondage from which
we are happily free-an error which has
just this ground of truth, that from  the
ceremonies of Israel we are expressly freed;
but the Sabbath was never an appurtenance
of the Jewish ceremonial, any more than
the worship of one God was, but both were
requirements of God upon the race, and of
course especially urged upon the Jews as
representatives of the true religion. The




84   THOUGcHS ON THE, DECALOGUE.
Jews, as a typical Church, had much that
was to be abrogated when the antitype
should come; but as a Church, they had
much that was to remain wherever and
whenever the true Church of God was.
The position of the Sabbath in the Decalogue shows us to which of these two
classes it belongs.
The question in regard to the seventh and
the first days of the week, as to which is
the true Sabbath, is one entirely apart from
the question of Sabbath observance.  A
doubt as to the proper day cannot alter a
conviction of the general duty of keeping
a Sabbath. The Jew and the Seventh-day
Baptist, if sincere, are equally Sabbath
observers with others who keep the first
day of the week. We all agree in the
duty, although we differ on the minor point
of the day. Our own observance of the
first day is in accordance with the uniform
usages of the apostles and of the apostolic
Church, the day in which Jehovah-Jesus




THE FOURTH0 COMM ANDMEN -T.    85
rested from his work of the new creation
being substituted for the day in which he
rested from his work of the old creation.
A change of day very appropriately marked
a change of dispensation, while the observance of a Sabbath in each marked the oneness of the two dispensations in their essential character.
Leaving these questions, we proceed to
consider the two chief thoughts in connection with the command-first, What is the
idea of the Sabbath? and, secondly, What
is its proper observance?
I. T'Vhat is the idea of the Sabbath   It
had its origin in God's resling  on that day.
Of course, this is an anthropomorphism.
God is said to work and to rest, and the
figure of a man working and resting is
placed  before  our minds.  The  figure
would not be given us unless there were
in it the nearest approach to the incomprehensible truth itself.  It is true, though not
the zwhole truth, and we can rest safely in it




86   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
until we know God more fully. There was
an actual rest with God on the seventh day,
whether that day was twenty-four hours or
twenty-four thousand years long. The commandment further orders man to labor six
days, and to do no work on the Sabbath.
And again, the word "Sabbath" means
"rest."  Most certainly, then, the great
idea of the Sabbath is the idea of rest.
This the apostle clearly indicates in his
argument in the fourth chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews, where he shows us that
the Sabbath was a type of the great Sabbath-rest of heaven in store for the saints
of God; for, he says, just as God rested
from working on the seventh day, so the
saints of God will rest from toil when they
reach that Sabbatism.
On this passage Moses Stuart remarks:
"As God ceased from  his work on the
seventh day, and enjoyed holy delight in the
contemplation of what he had done, so the
believer, in a future world, will cease from




THE FOUR TI COMMANDMEANT.    87
all his toils and sufferings here and look
back with holy delight on the struggles
through which he has passed, and the labors which he has performed for the sake
of the Christian cause.''
This idea of rest, involved in, and denoted
by, the Sabbath, was further shown in the
institution of the sabbatical year, which was
a local and temporary ordinance among the
Israelites. Its institution occurs in the midst
of other civil and ceremonial laws given
at Mount Sinai, and runs thus:  "When
ye come into the land which I give you,
then shall the land keep a Sabbath unto the
Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field,
and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard
and gather in the fruit thereof; but in the
seventh year shall be a Sabbalt of rest unto
the land: thou shalt neither sow thy field
nor prune  thy  vineyard.   That which
groweth of its own accord of thy harvest
thou shalt not reap, neither gather the
grapes of thy vine undressed, for it is a




88    TiOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
year of rest unto the land."  Then it is
beautifully added, "And the Sabbath of the
land shall be meat for you."  It is as if
God said, "Do not grudge this loss of
corn and wine, but remember in your selfdenial, as regards them, that your spiritual
nourishment is augmented by the year of
rest, in the trial of your faith and in its typical instruction so vividly brought before
your souls."
In the realization of a sabbatical rest we
see a marked contrast with the time immediately preceding.  There have been six
days of active labor, and straightway the
quiet of the Sabbath supervenes. There
have been six busy years of sowing and
reaping, and then follows without any gradual preparation the sabbatic year of agricultural repose. The transition is abrupt,
and so most marked.  Again, we note that
the observance of the rest is unnatural.
Man would  not stop  his work on the
seventh day, nor would an Israelite have




THE FOURTH COMMANDiMENT.    89
stayed  his sowing  and  reaping  in the
seventh year except by direct command of
God.  On the contrary, it would appear to
the natural man a waste of time and opportunity in either case.  Hence the observance of a Sabbath is an act of faith a
faith which abrupItly ceases from a natural
sequence and makes an unnatural hiatus.
It is true that physiologists have discovered
that the Sabbath is most beneficent in its
influences on health and physical life, but
this is a discovery made by Christian investigation, and not a natural motive for
Sabbath-keeping.  It is a token of the
goodness and wisdom of God, who mingles
our spiritual and temporal good in the same
institution, but to man subjectively it would
never be a practical argument for an exact
seventh-day rest.
Having thus seen that the idea of the
Sabbath is that of a rest seized and entered
utpon byfaifl, we are prepared to take up
the last and most important inquiry



90    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
II. What is its projer observance?  My
first remark is this, that the yewish civil
and ceremonial law  can give us no hint
as to its proper observance. A man found
gathering sticks upon the Sabbath-day was
put to death by stoning while Israel was
still in the wilderness. This execution was
in accordance with the civil laws of the Jews
in regard to the observance of the Sabbath:
"Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your
habitations upon the Sabbath-day." This
was the express order of the civil law.
The man was gathering sticks for a fire,
and thus virtually kindling a fire and breaking the civil law, the penalty for which was
death. This detailed form of Sabbath-keeping is no more binding on us in the present
dispensation than is the command to abstain
from the wearing of linsey-woolsey. Lev.
xix.  g9.*   All these  specific commands
formed parts of that great typical teaching
* "Neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come
upon thee."




THE FOUR TH COMMANDMENT.    91
which ended in our Saviour's advent. They
then, by reason of the substance taking the
place of the shadow, became, so far as the
observance  and use went, aroxs.ia, "elements " or " rudiments of the world," " weak
and  beggarly" —that is, very  inefficient
expositions of truth  compared  with the
full gospel of Jesus. They thenceforward
became illustrations, and lost their former
province as first principles and guides of
truth.  We are, therefore, to  mark the
clear distinction of the general ordinance
of the Sabbath, which was universal, for all
men in all time and all lands, and the speczic lazs of the Sabbath, which were particular for Israelites in the time of their polity
and the land of Canaan only.  It is with
such an understanding that we can rightly
say that the Christian Sabbath is not the
Jewish Sabbath.  The mistake of the Puritan Sabbath is in a lack of regard for this
distinction, as if the internal police of the
Jewish people before Sinai and in Palestine




92    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
was to be copied by Anglo-Saxons in Massachusetts and Connecticut.  Again and
again the apostles declare that the Christian
Church is released from  the bondage of
the burdensome "touch not, taste not, handle not" ordinances, and that Christians are
brought directly in contact with the great
spiritual truths which these ordinances adumbrated.  But they add that we must not
use our liberty from these detailed outward
observances as an occasion for the fleshthat is, as an opportunity for our worldliness
to have vent and spread itself.
This leads me to my second remark, that
the European Sabbath is a false Sabbath.
In leaping forth from the strict externals
of the  Jewish  Sabbath, Christians  (socalled) in continental Europe have made
the Sabbath a mere holiday, a day of gayety and light amusement; in which, it is true,
they abstain from their wonted labor in craft
and trade, but utterly forgetting that the
Sabbath rest is a sacred rest-that not only




THE FOURTH COMMAANDMENT.    93
are we to do no work, but also to keep the
day HOLY. The Puritans ran into legalism,
and these European Christians into license.
They both have failed to understand the
true spiritual character of the Sabbath. In
opposition to both these extremes, we remark that the Sabbath is God's day. He
has given it his own holy name. " The Sabbath of the Lord thy God," he calls it in his
commandment to the human race, spoken
from Sinai, and the Holy Spirit calls it " the
Lord's day," in the New Testament. This
fact shows us that its rightful observance
must have regard to our right relation to
God. The soul must be turned Godward.
Worship becomes most appropriate, and
with it the study of God's character and
will as given us in the gospel of Jesus
Christ. No  Sabbath-keeping is a right
observance that does not thus recognize
the day as God's day, that does not bring
the soul into the positive and active contemplation of God and his word. It is in




94    THOUGHTS ON THE DECAL OGUE.
this, and in this only, that the day is made
holy.
Let no one here suggest as an objection
that the holiness of the Sabbath was a mere
ceremonial holiness, a mere external distinction. This is not so. When God uttered the order for the Sabbath from Sinai,
there WAS no ceremonial in Israel, and hence
no ceremonial holiness. The word "holy"
has its full original force-it refers to the
heart of man and its humble recognition
and acceptance of the divine; and  the
keeping of the Sabbath holy can mean
nothing else, Godward, but a fervent religious regard of its hours as given to draw
the soul nearer to God.
Here, again, notice that while the Sabbath
is God's day, it is also "made for man "
not for man's frivolity and worldly indulgence, any more than for man's free run in
sin, but for man as man, as the image of
God, as he was made and intended to be
by his Creator.  "The Sabbath was made




THE FOUR TH COMMANDAMENT.    95
for man," cries the licentious heart that
keeps the Sabbath by breaking it.  He
forgets that he has lost his manhood and
become a fool and a beast, and the Sabbath
was not made for a fool or a beast, but for
man. It was made to improve and exalt
man, to further his highest interests, to
foster in him the work of God's Spirit, to
unworld him and inheaven him, and to do
all this by giving his tine, precious time, to
abstract his attention from the cares and
occupations of the ordinary life, and to
fasten it upon the infinite interests of the
spiritual and eternal life. If the Sabbath
was given for anything lower than this, if it
was given for the benefit of man's body or
present life, why is it found amid the loftiest
thoughts of God and the profound commands that search out man's heart and
speak  to his entire immorality? Away
with such trifling before the glorious words
of Jehovah!
We see, then, from  the two considera




96    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
tions, that the Sabbath is God's day and
that it is made for man, that it is to be by
man spiritually observed for his spiritual
good.  This  conclusion, carefully  noted,
does away with all riding, sailing, visiting,
promenading, gaming,-in short, with all
indulgence in mere amusements, however
innocent in themselves and proper on other
days; and, on the other hand, it does away
with all mere ritualism and formality, with
all mere external strictness, and, indeed,
with all strictness that is not properly and
legitimately connected with spiritlual growth.
A forced asceticism is as repugnant to the
truth as is a wild license-they are two
forms of the same self-righteousness. The
only external duty clearly commanded by
God in the universal commandment of the
Sabbath is abstinence from our usual occupations.  Our labor and work are to be
done in the six days, and abruptly given
up on the Sabbath.  That much was an
absolute necessity to a true Sabbath-keep



THIE FOUR TH COMMANDMEVT.    97
ing, but, beyond that, the Bible, our only
guide, tells us nothing. It shows us, indeed, that Christians were accustomed to
assemble upon the Christian Sabbath, which
is a most natural prompting of the renewed
heart. What more natural to such, upon a
day wherein worldly work is omitted for
spiritual purposes, than to come together
in search for the spiritual gain? This
coming together may take any form-it
may be a prayer-meeting, a conferencemeeting, a Bible-meeting, an experiencemeeting, or all combined,-there may be
only one in the day or a dozen. In this
there is the largest liberty. We must rid
ourselves of the false  notion  that two
stately meetings in a pulpited and pewed
church are the true qualemn and quantum
of Sabbath duties, even so far as public
meetings go. Often  one warm  prayermeeting is worth them both. Bring Christians together with Bible, prayer and song,
and you have a true meeting of the Church,
7




98    THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
complete in every part. Anything more
than that is adventitious. There is a general rule, however, for God's people, which
the Holy Spirit gives us, which we must
apply to the Sabbath as to everything else
-it is that everything be done decently
and in order. There should be no unbecoming looseness and irregularity in outward observances; that would be occasion
of scoffing to the world, and an obstacle to
our own true progress, as it would tempt
us to frequent omissions and neglect, and
all indifference toward public worship is a
mark of low  spirituality.  Let a proper
uniformity in our methods be observed,
and  let no rash and  rude changes be
made. Let the duties which we owe to the
Church be fully and gladly performed. In
this, as in everything, let not our liberty, our
undoubted liberty, to choose our own way
of keeping the Sabbath holy according to
our conscience-I say, let not this liberty
prove with any of us an occasion for the flesh.




TIlE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.    99
While we take this position from God's
word on the positive side, we can on the
negative side as certainly warn every one
against allowing the business of the week
to encroach on the time and thoughts of the
Sabbath.
Christian merchant, do you make up your
accounts on the Sabbath? Christian lawyer, do you study your case on the Sabbath?  Christian woman, do you carry on
your housekeeping or social employments
upon the Sabbath? Christian youth, do
you prepare your school-tasks upon the
Sabbath? If so, you are laboring and
doing all your work on seven days, and
not six, and you are not keeping the
Sabbath holy. The first necessity of the
Sabbath-that is, your time and mind being
free to study God and his word-this first
necessity of the Sabbath you despise. You
might as well take a shop upon the public
thoroughfare, and keep it wide open for
customers upon the Sabbath; that would




100   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
not be a whit worse treatment of God's
command. Why have you not faith in the
God of the Sabbath, that he will guard
your interests, and not let you suffer from
the observance of his day, as he guarded
Israel, and provided for the support of a
whole nation while the whole land kept a
Sabbath-year?  Your want of faith makes
you a Sabbath-breaker, and your Sabbathbreaking is constantly weakening your faith.
The only occasions in which God permits
his command to receive an apparent disobedience is when an absolute necessity or
a pious activity makes the exception. The
priests in the temple profaned the Sabbath.
They were obliged, by the necessities of
the law of God, to remove and change the
show-bread, to snuff the candles and to
perform  the other service of the temple
on the Sabbath-day. Our Lord taught that
it was right to heal disease or relieve any
case from pressing distress on the Sabbath.
These exceptions are very easily discrimi



TIHE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.   I 0
nated. Does the question of traveling on
the Sabbath arise? or of using the streetcar, or a hired carriage?  Let it be answered by no categoric universal "It is
right," or "It is wrong," but let it be answered by each person on each occasion,
" Does my piety prompt this? or am I seeking my own pleasure and amusement?" If I
am in a street-car upon the Sabbath, on an
errand of piety, it is as well as if I were on
my feet or in my bed. I am right, while
another at my side, who is taking his ride
for pleasure on his way to dine with a
friend or on his way to the Central Park,
is as certainly wrong. If everybody would
act in regard to the Sabbath from this standpoint of personal piety, we should find no
difficulty in practice. Let the directors of
the public conveyances observe the same
rule, and decide as to running their vehicles
on the Sabbath, by the consideration, not
what is gainful, but what is godly, and their
decisions will be blessed of God. Each




102  THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
soul must be its own judge. My use pf a
public conveyance upon the Sabbath does
nol justify or endorse the action of the
directors in running it, nor does their action
in running it justify or endorse my use of it.
Each case is wholly independent of the
other, and is to be judged by its motive. I
cannot throw my sin on the directors, and
they cannot throw their sin on me; neither
can my pious action benefit them, nor their
pious action benefit me.
The outer law of the Sabbath to the
Christian is simply to abstain from  the
ordinary daily labor; the inner law of the
Sabbath is to keep it holy. Like all the
other commandments, it is solely and intensely personal, and  its keeping and
breaking can only be known to one's own
soul and to God, who seeth the heart. It
has an external and visible part, as have
the convocation of saints, and baptism, and
the Lord's Supper, and the reading of the
Word, but it also has its internal and in



THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.   103
visible part, which is its heart and marrow,
and here the right observance of the Sabbath must begin.  Let us, then, give the
Sabbath its full value to our souls by the
especial and assiduous cultivation of our
spiritual knowledge and affections on the
holy day. Let us spend much of it in
prayer and private meditation, in close and
happy communion with Jesus, and the rest
of it (in company with the same Jesus) in
conversing with and teaching others of
God's love in Christ.  If we are careful
and watchful here, I doubt not we shall
make no mistake in the outward observance of the day.
The common fault of Christians consists
in letting the world lead, instead of leading
the world. In nothing, perhaps, is this seen
so much as in topics of conversation. We
let our worldly friends control the discourse,
taking their subjects from the business or
the trifles of daily life, while we have a perfect right to introduce a religious theme,




104   THOUGHTS ON TIHE DECALOGUE.
and yet keep  silent through fear. Especially on the Sabbath let our boldness be
seen, and as we mingle with worldly friends
let them see that we have higher matters to
talk of than any they can bring. With all
courtesy and with all modesty, yet with all
frankness, let us speak earnestly and gratefully of Jesus, his gospel and his salvation.
There is no need of a sombre face or of
deep-drawn sighs. We ought to have a
cheerful face and a merry heart, showing
our sympathy with everybody and our
pleasure in their welfare. Let us always
make  the  Sabbath a cheerful day, as
Phariseeism  does not, and let us always
make it a holy day, as worldliness does not.
Its observance is an  injunction, most
precise and most solemn, of our God.
Obedience will enrich us with unspeakable
blessings, and disobedience will entail upon
us grievous woes. We cannot break the
Sabbath with impunity. Let us away with
a conceited philosophy, and bow humbly




THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.   105
before the law. It has its motive in God's
infinite wisdom and love, and its mighty
results will be developed in the glorious
future before every eye, and will vindicate
its divine Author. Then shall we be able
to judge of the length and breadth of its
worth and of the divine favor in its gift,
when we shall stand purified and glorified
with the purity and glory of our Redeemer,
in the midst of the heavenly Sabbatism.
Until then, let us all faithfully "remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy."




THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.
" Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long
upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."-EXODUS
xx. 12.
T HE two tables of the law are usually
held to have been written respectively
with regard to our duties to God and our
duties to man. And the second table of
the law is generally supposed to have begun with this commandment.  But if there
was an equal amount of writing on each
table. the commandment of the Sabbath
would be two-sevenths on the first tablet
and five-sevenths on the second tablet-a
fact which would harmonize with the view
we have taken of the double character of
the fourth commandment, as including both
106




THE FIFTH COMMANDMEENT.    107
our duty to God and our duty to man, and
as exhibiting the Sabbath both as the Lord's
day and the day for man. In either case,
however, this commandment to honor father and mother is the first which looks
entirely to a relative human duty.  It is
conspicuous among the commandments of
the second table for another reason. It is
the only one of these six which is not negatively expressed. The others read, " Th/ou
shall not do this or that," but this is positive:
" Honor thy father and thy mother." There
is yet another fact which makes it peculiarly prominent among these six commandments. It has a special promise of reward
to its observers, to which the apostle refers
in these words: " Honor thy father and thy
mother, whi:h is the first commandment with
promise, that it may be well with thee and
thou mayest live long on the earth."
Now, why is this command so conspicuous
among the commandments of the law?
Why does it stand before and above the




108   THOUGHTS ON TIHE DECALOGUE.
command regarding the fearful crime of
murder, bearing these three tokens of its
superiority? I can only account for it by
seeing in the parental relation the type of
God's relation to us, and hence in the duties
of children a type of our duties to God. I
see that obedience is the foundation of all
effective and righteous government, involving respect and homage toward authority, and so producing and maintaining harmony in the whole; and I see that this
obedience is especially inculcated in the
family, because in the highest typical sense
the parent is as God to the children. There
is thus a close alliance of this command
with those of the first table, and hence we
see it (in Leviticus) especially coupled with
the sabbatical commandment:  "Ye shall
fear every man his mother and his father,
and keep my Sabbaths: I am Jehovah your
God." Lev. xix. 3.
Let us,: in meditating upon the command,
regard, first the promise annexed, and




THE FIFTH COMMANIADMENT.    109
then, secondly, the nature of the duty enjoined.
I. The Promzise.-" That thy days may be
long upon the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee."
In the rehearsal of the Decalogue by
Moses, given in Deuteronomy v. i6, we
find the promise expanded.  This commandment, as there given, has the additional words, "as the Lord thy God hath
commanded thee," and also, "and that it
may go well with thee."  So that the two
together read thus, " Honor thy father and
thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee, that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee,
in the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee."  The former of these two phrases
adds to the solemnity and emphasis of the
commandment, the latter to the point and
power of the promise. It is as if God said,
" Honor thy father and thy mother-this is
no human expedient, but a divine order,




110  THOUGHTS OIA THE DECALOGUE.
founded in eternal truth; and in the obedience of this command thou shalt prolong
thy life, not in wretchedness and evil, but
in a true and continual prosperity."
The promise is of a long and prosperous
life. It is so plain that it can admit of no
other interpretation. The only question
can be, "Is it an individual or a national
life that is here  meant?"  But this is
answered, first, by noticing that the command can only be kept by an individual
person, and by a nation only as a number
of individuals; and hence, as the command
is only addressed to the individual, the
prolongation of the individual life must be
intended. The "thy " of "thy days" must
refer to the same person as the "thy" of
" thy father and thy mother." It is answered, secondly, that a long national career
of prosperity presupposes and implies a
goodly degree of personal longevity and
prosperity, and that the latter is a cause
of the former, while the former could in no




THE FIFTH COMfAIAANDAENT.     I I I
sense be considered a cause of the latter.
From  these considerations, we hold that
the promise of long life is directly and primarily to the individual who is obedient to
this command, and  then  indirectly  and
secondarily to the nation of which he is a
part.  One man- obeying this command
will prolong a prosperous life, but one
man only would not prolong the nation's
prosperous life if all the rest of the people
were riotous and disorderly. If, however,
the bulk of the people should observe this
command, then the whole national life would
be preserved in prosperity. This is clearly
the declaration of the promise-a promise
which, like the command, b'elongs, not to
Israel, but to the whole world. The man
who honors his father and mother shall
have a long and prosperous career; the
nation which shows honor to its fathers and
mothers, the nation wherein this filial respect is the general habit, shall have a long
and prosperous career. We find, histori



112   THOUGHTS ON THIE DECALOGUE.
cally, that the Jews were accustomed to
cover their disrespect for parents by the
trick of "Corban;" and this fact reveals
one of the secrets of their downfall.
What the connection is between filial
piety and a long life, other than the connection of God's sovereign pleasure, it is not
for us to say. We are not of those who
feel that a natural cause must be found for
every sequence in God's dealings, least of
all, that it must be a natural cause within
our limited knowledge of natural causes.
It becomes us to be more childlike before
God's words, to take their plain meaning,
and not to wrest them  in order to bring
them within the reach of our petty philosophy. There is a large amount of practical
infidelity which would take everything that
God says and sift it through its own rationalistic sieve, and boldly reject whatever will
not pass through.  It is this which would
explain away the promise of the text by
saying that, as a general thing, if a child




THE FIFTH COMANADMENT.            1 3
obey his parents, he will be kept from danger by thus using their prudence and experience, and that the commandment has this
general statement of a probable long life to a
child from this natural cause. The prosperity,
likewise, would be a prosperity which would
nalturally grow  out of harmony between
child and parent arising from the child's
obedience, wherein the parent would do
everything to further the child's interests.
Now, in answer to such a view, let us
note that this is no philosophical statement
made by man, but a promise made by God.
It is true as God is true, not proximately
true, as are man's apophthegms.  It can
have no real exception, any more than the
" Come unto me, and I will give you rest,"
or the " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved," can have exceptions. The man who keeps this commandment is full possessor of the promise, or
else the promise is a delusion.
But the objector cries, "Do you mean to
8




114  THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
say that every one who has died young has
been disobedient to his parents, for every
one who had honored them  would have
lived to old age?"  We reply that there is
one apparent exception-where the soul itself
prefers to leave this world for a better, and
where, therefore, the letter of the promise
yields to its spirit, and God, instead of continuing the saint upon earth, takes him to
his desired home in heaven. Where this
exception does not occur, we must believe
that every one who dies before old age has
disregarded  this command.  Very  holy
people are found to be defective in some
direction. We can recall some sincerely
pious persons who had very violent tempers, some who were very indolent, some
who were very forgetful of others' interests.
They would, at times, grieve over these
errors, and perhaps gain strength against
them, but there, nevertheless, the black
spots on their character were visible. So
we have seen saints who were forward in




THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.   5
every good work, walking, like Zachariah
and Elizabeth, in all the commandments of
God blameless, patterns of holiness to the
Church, and yet who had not faith to believe that God would be a God of salvation
to their children, and so their children went
astray like the wild ass' colts. These are
the eccentricities, the mysterious freaks of
piety, hard to account for, but that cannot
be denied as existing, by any Christian
observer. In like manner, we may find
excellent people, hearts that love Jesus
and receive his blood of atonement, who,
most inconsistently, are deficient in respect
to their filial duties of reverence and regard.
But the objector says again, "How can
long life be a blessing to the Christian? Is
not translation to heaven his desideratum?"
The answer is, first, that God would not
have promised long life so often to man as
a reward if it were not a veritable blessing.
He remembers that we are dust, he knows
that we are weak, he makes allowance for




116   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
our low degree of faith and aspiration, he
stoops to our level in his promise, and so
promises us long life as a prize for faithful
conduct in a certain direction.  Secondly,
this does not interfere with the higher desire of a Paul to depart and be with Christ,
which is far better.
I have seen the saints of the Lord who
in the very spring-time of youth plumed
their wings for their heavenly flight, who
longed to soar away, and to whom the fairest
attractions, and the purest, on earth were
of no effect to withdraw their eager eyes
from celestial prospects. By their owe consent and desire, God could waive the fulfillment of this promise of long life because
its very meaning was null in their case.
But these cases are rare.  To most Christians a long life on earth is, as it was to
Hezekiah (good man that he was), a desirable boon, and God regards their feelings
and considers it so, and therefore promises
it on certain conditions, one of which is




THlE FIFTH COMlAND MENT.      fI 7
respect to parents.  "My son, forget not
my law, but let thy heart keep my commandments, for length of days and long
life and peace shall they add to thee." Prov.
iii. I, 2. "Honor thy  father and  thy
mother, that thy days may be long in the
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
The only other condition to which this promise is annexed is that of "dwelling in the
secret place of the Most High" (Ps. xci.), in
regard to which, of the man who habitually
lives in the fear and faith of God, it is said by
Jehovah, "With long life will I satisfy him."
Thus much, then, for the promise. Let
us now considerII. The nature of the dutly enjoined.: "Honor thy father and thy mother." The word
cabbed " is very strong; it strictly means
"load  with honor," and  is often  used
in reference to the Deity.  Obedience is
only one of the more prominent practical
forms of this honor. The honor strikes
deeper than mere obedience-it touches the




ir8  THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
heart, it bespeaks the affections. It is a
reverence inwoven in the very nature, connected with all the chords of being, and so
coming to the surface in obedience and outward respect.  We notice-I. That the
command is not, "Honor thy father and
thy mother when they do right."  Our parents, like ourselves, are frail and may commit error.  If their error absolved their
children from respect, there could be no
filial piety in the world. The ground of
the command is in the natural relation of
the parent, and not in his personal character.
We are to honor our parents because they.pe parents, and not because they are saints.
Of course this honor will not go so far as
to commit or connive at wickedness at their
command, for here the other commands of
God and the principles of truth modify the
commandment in its application. All applications of great truth and divine commands are modified by other great truths
and divine commands, as we have seen the




THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.    I19
command to keep the Sabbath free from
ordinary duties is modified by the laws of
necessity and mercy.  It may become a
son's duty to disobey his father because of
a command to do evil, or to fasten him with
bonds because of insanity; but in every
such exceptional case the exception stands
boldly out as a testimony to the rule of
obedience and respect. While the honor
due to parents will not go to wicked or
foolish lengths, it will go to all reasonable
and allowable lengths.   It will submit to
inconvenience and loss; it will hold its private judgment of what is better in abeyance; it will even keep its own clearly superior wisdom subject to the parental prejudice. So long as conformity to the views
and expressed wishes of parents does not
harm any third party, a right respect for
father and mother will gracefully yield and
lay the self-denial on the altar of filial piety.
The same principle teaches a jealous
support of the reputation of parents, a




120   THOUGHTS OV TrLE DECALOGUE.
readiness to excuse their foibles and mistakes and to set off their virtues against
their errors. It will not allow a parent to
be ridiculed or denounced without a solemn protest; and if the fault alleged be
true, it will go backward and reverentially
cover the parent's sin, and so subdue the
rebuke.
2. The command  is not, "Honor thy
father and thy mother while thou art a
little child."  Many act as if they had no
parents after they had reached their full
stature, and some use this theory even
earlier. Now, if to anybody this command
is not given, it is to the little child, for in
his case nature and necessity teach some
degree of obedience and respect to parents,
and hence the command is comparatively
unnecessary  to  these.  The  command
comes with peculiar force, and is especially
directed, to children who have entered manhood and womanhood. They are to remember, in spite of any sense of physical or




THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.    12 I
mental or social independence, that they
are still the children of their parents, and
that their parents are their parents still.
There is no change in the relationship, only
a change in some of the forms of its duties.
The same honor is due at forty that was
due at fourteen.  Nowhere is filial reverence more beautiful than when exhibited
by a mature and gifted soul. The ancients
pictured this in their story of Anchises and
IEneas, and the modern Turks and Arabs
show their appreciation of this virtue by
casting stones at the tomb of Absalom, a
prominent example of the opposite vice.
The family is a heavenly institution, and,
like the pattern shown to Moses in the
mount, has a heavenly meaning in all its
relations and relative duties. Woe unto
man if he departs from the divine pattern
and corrupts the mysterious type! The
husband and wife represent Christ and his
Church, the parents and offspring represent
God and his children, and, above all, the




122  THOUGHTS ON TIHE DECALOGUE.
mystic relation of God the Father and God
the Son. We only know the mere beginning of the truths that are here recorded
in the hieroglyphic of our earthly life. We
cannot tell what a vast perversion of truth
we may make by the alteration of these
symbols, nor can we measure the evil influences and results that such a perversion
may have, even though the hieroglyphic be
but imperfectly understood. The only safe
course for us is that of implicit obedience, a
faithful adherence to the celestial organization of the family, in spite of the suggestions of human wisdom, however superior
it may boast itself, and in spite of the seductions of a sinful and selfish individuality.
When we show all deference and devotion
to our parents, we know not what an illustration we may be giving to unseen worlds
of the highest truth, and what an emphasis
we are adding to the glory of our God. It
is this inner connection of our outward
domestic life which gives the deep thunder




THE FIFTH COMMANDVMENT.     23
of the death-penalty to the lightning flash
of the commandment in the civil polity of
Israel.  For as the host of God's people
stood half on Gerizim  and half on Ebal
when they took solemn possession of their
God-given land, the very second curse uttered before them-the one immediately
following the curse upon the worshiper of
false gods-was this: "Cursed be he that
setteth light by his father or his mother,"
to which the whole multitude of Israel
shouted their responsive "Amen!" and so
we find in the inspired code, " He that revileth his father or his mother shall surely
be put to death."
It is a Jewish tradition (which bears the
marks of authenticity and truth) that the
man who was executed for breaking this
law of parental regard was denied burial,
and his body was cast into the deep, dark
valley of Hinnom, into the place called
Tophet, where the unclean birds of prey
devoured it. It is to this, probably, that




24   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
Agur refers when he says, "The eye that
mocketh at his father and despiseth to obey
his mother, the ravens of the valley shall
pick it out and the young eagles shall eat
it.''
This peculiar severity  of punishment
marks a peculiar sanctity of the command,
which is sustained by the very phrase we
constantly use in regard to the virtue enjoined, namely, "filial piety."  There  is
nothing, then, to limit the application of the
commandment to childhood or youth. The
barrier of twenty-one years is a mere human device, useful for some questions pertaining to human law, but can have no effect
whatever in regard to a divine law. The
great moral and religious relation of parent
and child never ceases.  Even when the
parent is dead, the parent's memory is to
be cherished with reverential affection by
the surviving child. This being, then, the
purport of God's law issued to every one
of us from Sinai, let us



THE FIFTH COMMANDAMENT.        125
III. Lastly and briefly ask if there is not
need that God's will in this matter be often
rehearsed in our ears.
As already suggested, I am not disposed
to make a special application of this commandment to children.  Indeed, in reference
to children at all, I would rather urge upon
parents their duty to see to it that their
children are obedient from the earliest infancy.  I would say not to little children,
" Be obedient to your parents," but rather
to parents, " Make your children obedient."
It is all in your power.  If you indulge your
little ones in little irreverences and little
disobediences because it looks "so cunning," and foolish friends urge you to the
dangerous pastime, then you will have the
little disobedient children grow to be big
disobedient children, and they will bring
down your gray hairs with sorrow  to the
grave.  Or if, through sheer carelessness
and selfish laziness, you avoid the active
watchfulness and discipline that are neces



126   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
sary to ensure obedience and to promote
an obedient habit, you will obtain the same
disastrous result. Beware, too, how, in your
anxiety to have your boy a man before the
time, you  consent to his consequential
swagger at sixteen, and furnish him with a
night-key as a help to independence, in
which you are destroying the bonds of
dutiful humility and respectful submission
with which God bound him to you at the
first, and which God intended you to preserve. It is in this way I would apply
the fifth commandment to young children
through their parents, who are responsible
before God and man. I would urge upon
them the necessity of bearing ever in mind
that obedience with reverential regard is
the very rivet which holds the family together, that every other fault can better be
tolerated in a child than disobedience or
disrespect, and that from  this sin spring
most legitimately and fruitfully all other
forms of filial iniquity and family distress.




TIHE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.    127
But I also make the special application
of the text to children of maturer growthto you who are grown to man's estate, to
you who are married and have families of
youl own, and who have perhaps that rich
blessing of God in your house, a grandmother. Let your continued reverence for
your parent or parents still living be of
itself a glorious example, deeply written on
the thoughts and future memories of your
own children. Surround the old age which
adorns and honors your household with
the tribute of your assiduous care, jealous
of its comfort and its dignity, and cover its
defects with the mantle (not of your charity,
but) of your filial love and sympathy. I
have seen an aged father made to act as
clerk to his rich son in this city. I have
seen an aged mother sent up into a mean
garret in order to give room for the young
vanities who called her son their father, and
you have all seen instances of similar defiance to this fundamental family law which




128   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
God has stamped on nature as well as published by the writing of his own finger. It
is for us, who look to the Lord Jesus in his
obedience to his Father as our hope and
stay eternal, to regard all such disrespect to
parents as we regard theft, falsehood and
murder, and to shrink from either the letter
or the spirit of a violation of this fifth commandment.  Blessed is that house which
preserves the beautiful symmetry of the
family group as the grapes cluster gracefully about the stem, and where all the domestic virtues find their principle of union
and development in their common connection with a pervading filial piety. It is in
such a house that we may expect to find
the Master as a welcome guest, for there is
the spirit of heaven.
^yi^Re~




THE SIXTH, SEVENTH, EIGHTH AND
NINTH COMMANDMENTS.
" Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neitohbor."
EXODUS XX. I3, I4, I5, I6.
IT  must be very noticeable  to  every
reader of the Decalogue that its commands are nearly all prohibitions.  There,
are but two exceptions in the ten-the commandment of the  Sabbath  and  that of
respect to parents.  All the rest enjoin
upon man, not to perform, but to abstain.
This fact exhibits sin as an ever-acting
principle  which  man  is called  upon  to
thwart.  This principle acts against God
and against our fellow-man, and its cessa9                            129




130  THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
tion of energy can only be founded on a
love to God stronger than love to self, and
a love to our neighbor equal to the love
of self. So when God commands us to
cease from sin, he is really bidding us to be
holy.  By putting his commandments in
this form, he is showing us the positive
character of our sins, and our true hostility
to him while under the sway of sin. He
shows us that, so far from imposing a new
task upon us, he is only requiring that we
should renounce the old tasks which we,
as the servants of sin, have assumed; that
thus in our differences with him it is we
that have left him and not he that has left
us, and that religion is seeking the true by
giving up the false —a process which the
Scriptures teach us is rendered possible
only by the redeeming work of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
This method of announcing God's will
to man is eminently adapted to bring out
into clear relief man's responsibility. It is




SIXTH TO' NINTH COMMANDMENTS.  131
man who has broken the harmony-it is his
to restore it. It is man who has rebelledit is his to give up his rebellion. His activities are running counter to God's will and
law, and in the very nature of the case he
must negative this counteraction in order
to be at peace with God.
This view of man's condition as a positive
sinner summoned to cease his sin, rather
than a neutral urged to a positive work,
also shows us in very deep colors the wonderful grace of God, which is the more
wonderful, not that it comes to help man
in an arbitrarily imposed work, but to run
after him in his wayward folly and restore
him to a position he had forfeited: "God
commendeth his love toward us, in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
In examining the ten commandments thus
far, we have seen that the first three enjoined a reverence for God in his essence
and expression, and the next two enjoined
the same reverence by ways promotive of




132  THOUGHTS ON THIE DECALOGUE.
man's highest interests-namely, the observance of God's holy day and respect for
parental authority, which is the type and
reflection of the divine authority.  Through
this last we find our way into the commandments which refer exclusively to our duty
to man. Of these there are five.  The
first four we group together. They each
read,   Thou shall not injure thy fellowman."
We cannot injure God-we can only act
irreverently and carelessly toward God, and
so injure, not him, but ourselves-but our
fellow-man we can positively injure, and it
is a prime temptation in the race of life to
gain on our fellow, not by our diligence, but
by thrusting him down.  Sin has made us
natural enemies to one another, Ishmaelites,
whose hands are against every man, and
every man's hand against us. The selfish
beast who crowds out his neighbor from the
crib or even tears him in pieces to destroy
his rivalship is but a pattern of man if the




SIXTH TO NINTH COMMANDAMENTS.  133
restraints of society and providence, from
without, be withdrawn.
Man's condition by nature is not seen in
man's condition in England, France or civilized America, but in man's condition in
the savage island of the Pacific, where the
heavenly rays of the gospel have least penetrated.  The civilizations of Christianity
exhibit, not humanity, but Christianity. The
civilizations of ancient Persia, Greece and
Rome (although a little revelation filtered
through upon them) exhibit humanity, in its
best estate, as a refined selfishness, where
every man seeks (adroitly, perhaps, and not
openly) to injure his neighbor. But even
the external refinement of these unchristian
civilizations may be traced to that which
divine grace has, through its revelation,
superimposed upon the sinful race of man.
Man, left to himself, is the savage, the cannibal, the BEAST!
The injury which man can do to his fellow-man can be divided into four kinds



134  THOUGHTS ON TEHE DECALOGUE.
injury to person, injury to society, injury
to property and injury to reputation. The
four commandments of the Decalogue in relation to man's injury of man respectively
relate to these four forms of human injustice. "Thou shalt not kill" regards any
assault on the person; "thou shalt not commit adultery," any assault on society; " thou
shalt not steal," any assault on property;
and " thou shalt not bear false witness," any
assault on reputation. Harm from my fellow-man can reach me only through one of
these four channels, and I can do harm to
another only through the same.
When God surrounded man by the circle
of his grace and made him a probationer
amid the opportunities of glory, he thereby
made man's person sacred. Enough of the
image of God was left by the very proximity
of this grace to fence around man's person
from a violence which would be sacrilege.
So we hear God, when Noah and his sons
were recommencing  the history of the




SIXTH TO NINTH7I COMA ANDIAIENTS.  I35
world, declaring, "At the hand of every
man's brother will I require the life of man.
Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall
his blood be shed; for in the image of God
made he man."  Whatever there was of
sanctity in the person of a man was the
result of the godly implantation maintained
in the conscience by the continual grace of
God.- When that spark was allowed to be
put out, then man's sacredness of person
was at an end. The souls that have gone
beyond the region of God's long-suffering
have no longer a fortified personality. They
are left open to the unrestrained attacks of
malevolence. A man in hell is unchecked
in his aggressions upon  others, and no
sacredness of person checks aggressions
upon  himself. There  is no law against
murder in that lower realm, for the law and
the sacredness of the person are both of
God, and everything that is godly has withdrawn from the eternal chaos of sin, to dwell
for ever among the trophies of the victories




I36   THOUGHTS ONV T7IE DECALOGUE.
of grace. But here upon earth, where grace
marks the history of every day, with each
of us, in kind providential dealings, in abilities and in opportunities, the human person
is sacred and the law against its injury in
full and hopeful force. The king's person
is called sacred, but God recognizes the
person of the humblest peasant to be as
sacred as the person of a king, the sacredness being not in the royally, but in the
manhood, of the man, through grace creative, grace administrative and grace redemptive.  It is against such a one that
God says, " Do no injury."
" Do not kill" merely marks out the limit
of the injury to the person.  But it is like
a sign-board on the borders of an estate-it
includes the whole estate. It embraces in
its comprehensive brevity murder in embryo as well as murder in maturity.  It
points to the zord and thought and feeling
of murder as well as to the overt act. If,
in one sense, man is anointed of the Lord,




SIXTHI TO iTINTI COMMANDMENTS.  137
and hence the killing him is sin, it is just as
truly sin to  ift zip the hand in threat, to
open the mouth to revile, or to think evil
against the Lord's anointed.  It is thus that
our Saviour interprets this law  when he
sees denounced in it the "Raca" and the
"More " of the angry man.  Our brother
man's body is a temple of God, actual or
possible, and the respect for that divine
temple is to begin in the heart, and by this
respect our tendency to ridicule, to despise
or to neglect is to be overcome.
By a parity of reasoning, we are not
simply to abstain from  the overt act of
adultery, which irrevocably destroys the
ties of family and friendship and makes
society a wreck, but the whole field of impurity is to be abandoned by our thoughts.
The roots of the crime are to be destroyed
as well as the stalk that appears above
ground to human observation.  It is not
that the thought has a tendency to lead to
* " Thou fool " or " thou rebel."




138  7THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
the act, but that the thought is zrong in
itself; and even if it never go farther, the
sin has been committed. It is one of the
prominent deceptions of sin to make the
outward act the crime, and hence to justify
base thoughts and imaginations if they be
only confined to the individual mind. But
before God the crime is in the immoral position of the heart-a crime which can be exaggerated in its earthly results, but not in
its intrinsic viciousness, by a development
in action. The very condemnation of the
world over whom God sent the deluge was
that " every imagination of the thoughts of
men's hearts was only evil continually,"
and the same pure and holy God, who
visited  those antediluvians first with his
grace, and then with his judgment, is he
with whom  we have to do, who desires
"truth  in the inward parts" and who
recognizes sin as a matter of the heart.
Moreover, just as anger is an injury to
the person of the object, inasmuch as it




SIXTH TO NINTH COMMANDMENTS. 1 39
degrades and profanes him  in our eyes,
so impurity is an injury to society, inasmuch
as it lowers our estimate of the social bond
and weakens it so far as we are concerned.
The position of the heart in each of these
cases is a wrong done to our fellow, and in
this way we see the true scope of the commandments, to which our Saviour gave no
addilionz in his Sermon on the Mount, but
only an interpretation.  The anger and
impurity which he forbade are found in
the killing and committing adultery which
the law of Sinai forbade. The Sermon on
the Mount is only an echo of the Law on
the Mount.
Society is sacred because the individual
man is sacred; and as there is an image of
God in every man, so there is a symbol and
type of the heavenly family in human society,
and its bonds of blood, affinity and friendship have a divine element in them. Society
is no more man-made than is man himself
man-made, and he who dares to set at




140  7TOUGHTS ON THZE DECALOGUE.
naught its holy bonds in act or in heart is
an enemy to God and truth.  The man who
reads licentious novels, or indulges in lascivious dancing, or countenances the nudities 
of so-called art, in life, image or picture,
when God made and gave clothes to man
and woman, thus sets himself against God
and undermines the structure of holiness
which God himself has built for our good
and his own glory.
The injuries to property and reputation
bear a strong analogy to the injuries to the
person and society. "Thou shalt not steal"
and " Thou shalt not bear false witness 
contain the same implication of man's sacredness seen in the murder prohibition.
A man's property and reputation are sacred,
not because they are property and reputation, but because they are man's property
and reputation. Property is the adjunct of a
* The Cupids, Psyches, Apollos, Unas and Venuses, multiplying
in our parlors, and becoming more and more wanton in posture
and color, show the public preference of Greek heathenism to a
chaste Christianity.




SIXTH TO NINTH COMMIANDMENTS. 141
man in his own keeping, and reputation is the
adjunct of a man in the keeping of society.
Stealing is not wrong as simply inconveniencing our neighbor, as a utilitarian
philosophy would teach.  An act of theft
might never be known to our neighbor, and
yet it would be just as much an act of theft
as if it had brought him to poverty. It injures our neighbor in his status in our regard and estimation, where he has a right
to stand respected and honored. Because
he is not aware of the injury, it is no less
an injury. I may intercept treasure coming
to another, and: he never know of the intended gift or of my interference, but I
have foully wronged him, nevertheless.  It
is a crime against the individual man's
sacred majesty, and not to be measured at
all by visible results. Counting damages
is a low, carnal way of reckoning the weight
of a crime. It may do for a police regulation in outward society, but it is of no value
in the spiritual realm. There the crime has




142   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
a character in itself outside of any visible
consequences. It is branded as an enmity
to God. So overwhelmingly does this view
of the sin press itself upon the fully awakened sinner that a David who has committed adultery and murder, and thus assaulted
man socially and personally, cries out, in the
bitterness of his anguish of remorse before
God, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned."  The harm to man disappears in the
insult to God which gives its deepest color
to the crime.
It is this innate character of our injury
of man which extends the law against theft
to all forms of withdrawing or withholding
from our neighbor whatever might be rightly
counted as his, whether of material estate,
of personal ability in body or mind, or of
advantages and opportunities. I not only
must not take away my neighbor's watch,
but I must not stand in the way of the use
of his means of personal benefit, I must
not lessen his chances of success by adverse




SIXTH TO NINTHI COMMANDMENTS.  143
processes and I must not encroach unnecessarily upon his time and system. If I
prosper by defeating him, as in gambling or
mercantile trickery (called shrewdness), I am
robbing him. So in regard to his reputation. I am to be judged as much in regard
to my silence as my speech concerning him.
If I have kept his reputation from growing,
by keeping silent when I ought to have
spoken for him, I am  as much guilty of
bearing false witness as if I had opened my
mouth in slander.  I have not regarded
him with that respect with which it became
me to regard one made in the image of God.
I have done this evil in God's sight and
against him.
It is from this view of these commands that
we rightly understand our Saviour's declaration that the whole of the second table is
summed up in the one spiritual law:   Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." A true
love for our fellow-man will alone prevent
these four styles of injury.




144   THO UGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
Love is beneficent, selfishness is malevolent, and there is no neutral ground between
them. The love of our neighbor as ourselves regards each man as possessing the
same sacred character which we personally
possess, and thus makes us jealous for our
neighbor's rights and welfare. And this
sacred character, as we have seen, is only
found in the imoage of God which we bear, so
that the whole of the law has one grand foundation, reverence for God. This principle,
and not any philosophical speculation about
natural rights, is the root of the entire ten
commandments. So we see in fact that a
morality based on natural rights is always a
failure, both from the vague definitions of
natural rights and  the  ease with which
human lust or ambition will resist and overcome such a motive, while a morality based
on regard for God, a reverential love for his
holy name, is zever a failure.  This is a relzgious morality, the only one to be trusted.
The whole formula, then, of the law, as




SIXTI TO NINTH COMMANDMENTS. 145
seen through the gospel, is this: " Love God,
and love man for God's sake, through Jesus
Christ, the God-man."
This is the great argument; but while
pressing it, we do not forget that there are
many collateral and subordinate arguments,
and some low minds need the lower arguments. To one man it is enough to say,
" Do not steal, because it dishonors God,"
but to another you may be obliged to say,
"Do not steal, or you will go to prison."
The consequences to one's self of violating
the four commands under consideration are
usually treated of in connection with the
subject. We are satisfied to pass them by
with a word.  The murderer, the adulterer,
the thief and the liar, even in their beginnings of anger, impurity, acquisitiveness
and  deceit, are  soul-suicides. They are
pressing out from  their souls all that is
divine, obliterating God's image, shaking off
the kind fetters of grace, and so removing
the very foundation from what remains to
10




146   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
them  of hope and peace. You who are
secretly breaking these commandments in
your heart are poisoning your whole moral
system. Even if you may be a miser without hurting your neighbor (which we deny),
yet you can't be a miser without hurting
yourself. The angry man slays himself;
the lewd soul pollutes itself; the miser
robs himself, and the slanderer destroys his
own reputation. There is no resisting the
sequence of sin and punishment, except in
permitting the interference of divine grace
which saves from punishment, and, going
farther, saves from sin, which presents the
Lord Jesus as the victim for sin and the
Holy Ghost as the cleanser from  sin.
Without this divine grace, each one of us
must pursue his sins to the bitter end. In
Christ pardon and holiness are twin gifts.
"The wages of sin is death, but the g-ji of
God is eternal.life through Jesus Christ our
Lord."  "Hereby we know that he abideth
in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us."




THE TENTH COMMANDMENT.
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shall not covet
thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant,
nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."EXODUS xx. 17.
T    HE  ten commandments begin with a
demand upon the inmost heart for its
true relation toward God, and they end with
an appeal to the inmost heart in regard to
man's true relation to his fellow. Having
given four prohibitions of outward injury
toward  our  neighbor, which  legitimately
refer to the position of the affections, the
Decalogue expressly gathers up the prohibitions into a direct injunction upon the soul.
"Thou shalt not covet" prohibits the very
source of murder, adultery, theft and slander.  In thus closing his law to all men for
1'




I48   THOUGHTS OAT THE DECALOGUE.
all time, the Most High shows that a heartservice to man, as to himself, is all that he
can recognize as true. He judges not according to any outward appearance, but he
looks to the heart.  There is the individuality, the personality, the man.
Here is the fundamental difference between human and divine law. Human law
has to do with the outward act primarily
and principally, and with the motive only
secondarily and proximately. It seeks as
its ultimates for outward peace, not for inward truth.  But the divine law  deals
directly with the motive and heart-principle,
and with the outward act only as flowing
forth from  the motive. Inward truth"truth  in the inward  parts," as David
expresses it —is the holy and just aim and
requirement of the infinitely holy God.
Truth, religion, duty (whatever you may
call it), is a spiritual matter, and hence the
place of obedience and reform  is within.
"God is a spirit, and they that worship him




THE TENTH COMMANDMENT.   I49
must worship him in spirit and in truth."
All attempts at an outward conformity to
God's law without the inward life are but
the paintings of a corpse into the semblance
of life. The clean heart, the new life, is
what alone can meet the demands of the
Decalogue.
This grand truth, so readily assented to
and so readily set aside, is shadowed forth
in our own demands of our children. Who
of us wishes his children to be obedient
automata? Who would be satisfied with a
family that went by mechanical machinery?
Do we not expect love as the principle in
the movements of the household? And if
love is found to be wanting in the child, is
not his legalistic obedience, his strictness
with regard to the letter, almost an offence
to us? Can we hold these most proper
practical views of earthly relationships, and
yet suppose that God can be satisfied with
anything less than the heart in his children?
The ten commandments, as we see, begin




50   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUCE.
and end with this view of his fatherly will
concerning us, and yet, with strange perversity, men are continually, like the young
ruler in the Gospel, quoting this holy law as
a "touch-not, taste-not, handle-not" law, to
be obeyed by ceremonial exactness or by
ascetic precision.
There is a still higher view of this commandment against covetousness than its
reference to our inward relation to our fellow-man.  The Holy Spirit has himself
shown its reference to our direct relation to
God when he has explained covetousness
to be idolatry. In Col. iii. 5 we read: " Mortify, therefore, your members which are
upon  the earth, fornication, uncleanness,
inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and
covetousness, which is idolatry;" and again,
in Eph. v. 5:   For this ye know, that no
whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ." This
last commandment brings us back to the




THE TENTH COMMANDMENT.    1 1 
first. We started with God and we end
with God. We find that if our true relation with God be maintained, then all other
relations will adjust themselves rightly, and
that our duty to our neighbor isfounded on
our duty to God. This thought, as taught
in God's word, will dissipate any hopes we
may have formed from human schemes of
philanthropy and social progress.  The
systems of Fourier and St. Simon have utterly failed, from ignoring the love of God
as the source of all philanthropy, supposing
that we could be rightly disposed toward
our fellow-man without any regard to our
relations toward God, or often supposing
what was nearly equivalent that our conduct toward our fellow was the whole of
religion.  Let us, then, have this lesson
deeply impressed upon our hearts from our
examinations of God's holy law-that love
to man is but an offshoot of love to God,
that our relative duties upon earth must
derive their worth and efficiency from our




I52   TH7OUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
positive devotion to our heavenly Father,
and that hence the one thing needful for
every man is the yielding of his heart to
God.
With these thoughts we may proceed
more wisely to consider the meaning of the
tenth commandment.  Let us endeavor to
answer four questions:  What is coveting?
What are the objects which we must not
covet?  What is the harm  of coveting?
And, How can we avoid coveting?
I. What  is covetizng?  On looking at
the Hebrew word here used, " hhamad," we
find that it is used of righteous conduct, as
for example, in Ps. lxviii. 16: " This is the hill
which God desireth (lit., coveteth, or hhamad)
to dwell in."  So in Song of Solomon ii. 3:
"I sit down under his shadow with great
delight," which is literally, "I covet to sit
down in his shade."  And so the equivalent
word in Greek (i2ooo), used by the apostle
James in the passages,  Ye kill and desire
or covet to have," is also used in such pas



THE LTENTH COMMANDMENT.    I53
sages as these in the first Epistle of Paul
to the Corinthians: "'Covet to prophesy,"
"Covet earnestly  the  best gifts."   The
Hebrew  word is really but expressive of
a strong controlling desire. Every man has
such a desire. The soul is so constituted
that it cannot act but through its desires, and
one desire must always, from the necessity
of the case, be the leader in any particular
action.  These desires may be enlitghtened
through the intelligence and their interrelations thus changed, but they will always remain the springs of life. As a man thinketh
or desireth in his heart, so is he, whatever
may repress the visible exhibition of his
character.
Coveting, then, as simply "ardent desire,"
is not forbidden per se in the commandment,
but a special form of coveting, determined
by the objects enumerated.  The good or
evil of a desire is measured by its object
and the relations of that object to ourselves.
Not by its object alone, for I may desire




154   THOUGHTS OVN TE DECALOGUE.
another man's house; the house is a very
good house, but the desire is a very bad
desire, because the relations of that house
to me are such as to condemn the desire.
My desire, therefore, as to its goodness or
badness, is to be determined by the object
and its relation to me.  Indeed, on close
examination, it will be found that nothing
(unless it be a rational, moral being itself)
is intrinsically bad, that no object which I
can desire is in itself evil, that all the bad
and the evil is really in the relation it bears
to me if I use it or seek it. Prussic acid in
itself is not bad-it is just as good as bread
or milk; but it would be evil in me to use
or seek prussic acid as my food, because its
relation to me in that case would be pernicious. We are often confused by words.
We apply the words good and bad to moral
good and evil, and also to mere physical
properties, and then draw false conclusions
from this, which logicians call an "ambiguous middle."  Moral good or evil requires




THE TENTHc COMMANDMENT.    155
a rational responsible agent; the good or
evil is in the relation between this rational
responsible agent and the object of his desire or use. The good or evil is not in the
object, but in me as acting on or toward
the object. The coveting, then, in this commandment, having reference to the peculiar
relation subsisting between certain objects
and ourselves, let us proceed to the second
question.
II. What are the objects which we must
not covet?   "Thou  shalt not covet thy
neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor
his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass,
nor anything that is thy neighbor's."
The special objects here enumerated are
not exhaustive, but only representative of
a large class. The last clause denotes the
wide range from which the enumerated objects are taken as specimens. The house,
the wife, the servants, the cattle, represent
the four principal departments of a man's




156   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
earthly establishment-namely, his material
possessions, his family, his household and
his "live-stock." They illustrate and tend
to define the comprehensive phrase, "anything that is thy neighbor's."
It is in this last phrase we particularly
trace the answer to our question. If anything belongs to our neighbor, either by
the tie of property, as a house, or by the
tie of domestic union, as a wife, it thereby
partakes of the sacredness of his own person, and is so to be viewed by us. The
coveting any such object for ourselves is
directly at war with this view. It pollutes
this sanctity, it destroys in our heart the
harmony of things and introduces confusion.
It is against this form  of coveting that the
command of God lifts itself.  Anything appertaining to our neighbor is in such relation to us as to condemn all coveting. The
elements of his wealth, his happiness, his
fame, his success, are all included. His time,
his talents, his opportunities, his advantages,




THE TENTH COAMMANDMExNT.    I57
so far as they are peculiarly his and are not
common to all, are in the same category.
When we consider that the injury to our
neighbor is the basis of the wrong in coveting, and that this injury receives its character from the image of God in man, we
can derive the legitimate corollary that we
have no right to covet anything which will
injure ourselves, for God's own compend of
the second table of the law is, " Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself." Indeed, we
can deduce this conclusion in another way,
thus: Our health of body and soul is a
blessing to our neighbor; it is so much
benefit and profit to him; it goes (or should
go) to make up the sum of his happiness.
Now, then, we have no right to harm that
health of body or soul, for then we shall
be harming our neighbor. If I covet anything injurious to my own personal efficiency as a member of society, I am plotting
against my neighbor, I have begun an attack upon him. What a wide horizon this




158   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
sweeps! "Thou shalt not covet anything
that is thy neighbor's!"
III. TWhat is the harm of coveting?  The
objector may say, " If the coveting goes so
far as to become overt crime, I see the
harm; but what is the harm of coveting if
systematically restrained from outward action, if indulged only in the heart?" The
reply is, first, no system can restrain it.
You might as well say, "I will put the coal
of fire inside the gunpowder-keg and shut
it up there tight." But if the supposition
could be true, and you could indulge in and
cultivate a coveting which would never go
farther, there are two directions of evil
which even we can detect-God may see a
thousand more. We can see, first, that it
degrades our neighbor in our hearts. If he
is the object of our hypothetical plunder,
he is necessarily lowered in our estimation.
But as we have considered this thought in
a former chapter, we pass to the second,
which is



THE TENTH COMMANDMENT.     59
That we are nursing the brood of sin in
our souls.   Sins always group together.
They are like cowards-one never goes
alone. If I allow evil desire a harbor in
my heart, my standard of morality will be
lowered, I shall grow reckless, shall care
less for what is holy and just and good,
shall neglect duties generally, and in this
way conform  my life to the evil desire
which, like persistent leaven, will leaven the
whole lump. The human heart and life is
like the exquisite machinery of a watch.
If you put one wheel off its axis, you derange the whole working. You cannot be
sinful in one part only of the soul; man's
life is an ultimate unit, and has no parts.
We talk of the different parts of a man's
mind, but this is a language used to assist
our feeble comprehension. Sin in the desire
is sin in the man-the entire man; so that
the harm done by coveting what is not our
own is just the harm done by sin when welcomed to the heart. It is spiritual corrup



I6o   THOUGHTS ON THE DACALOGUE.
tion-gangrene.  You can hide it from human observation, but that does not stop the
inner destruction for a moment.  You are
carefully cherishing the eggs of envy, jealousy, malice, anger and revenge, when you
indulge in your unhallowed desires; and
these dire monsters will be hatched and become your irresistible masters before you
are aware.  How pressing, then, our fourth
question!
IV. How shall we avoid this evil covetiir?
Will any mere order from the intelligence
be heeded by the wild desire? Or can any
magic power be invoked to slay the desire
and save the man?  Full of depravity,
which is seen first in these wicked desires
of the heart, we listen hopefully to God's
word sent to us by his saving love: "Set
your affection on things above, not on things
on the earth."   Here is the wisdom  from
above, the philosophy of heaven. The desires of the heart are not to be annihilated,
man is not to be reduced to an inert lump, his




TIE TENTH COMMIANDMENT.    16 
passions are to burn as brightly as ever, his
eager heart to beat as strongly, his eye to
sparkle with anticipation and his energies
to leap as actively as before, yet not for
worldly jewels, but for heaven's crown. The
current is to run as swiftly as before, but
now in a new channel. We are to seekfirstthat is, as chief-the kingdom  of God and
his righteousness.
This glorious specific, this complete remedy, may have either a special or a general
application.  A man may find a single evil
desire temporarily affecting him. With a
Christian heart he remembers that his Redeemer is ever at hand.  He calls out in
the agony of his self-reproach amid the
perplexity of his divided soul; and in turning to his Saviour, his affections are withdrawn from the passing evil and restored
to their healthy channel.  The contemplation of Jesus is the application of a magnet
to attract the desires of his soul. This is
a frequent experience of the renewed, and
11




162   THOUGHTS ON THE DECALOGUE.
gives peculiar lustre to the words of the
apostle, " Looking unto Jesus."
It is this remedy which awaits the use of
you who are disturbed because of your
worldly longings. You are writing bitter
things against yourselves, and feel almost
ready to despair of Christian attainment.
The great truth should be understood by
you that you will never cease to have these
worldly longings until Christ becomes so
lovely in some forms of his character or
work as to draw off these energies of desire from their unworthy channel. Overcome every special worldliness by a special
heavenly contemplation. And so, generally,
let me assure the unconverted that their
depraved desires will never cease until holy
desires take their place.  "Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbor's," can never be obeyed
until you learn to covet your own-those
blessed gifts of heavenly grace which God
urges upon you,,and which properly belong
to you.  Each of you, my unregenerate




TI1E TENTH COMMANDMENT.     63
readers, is to be renewed, if at all, by taking
these very desires which are now bounding
after the world and turning them to the
Lord Jesus. You see at once that it will
be an act on your part, an effort, but an act
and effort that will save your soul. Is not
the act worth taking? Is it not perilous to
postpone the effort?  The Lord is waiting
for your reply.
In our examination of the Decalogue we
have especially noted the following points:
I. That it is God's law for all men of all
ages.
II. That none can appreciate it and obey
it but those who have been saved by divine
grace.
III. That it is eminently and intensely a
spiritual law, demanding truth in the inward
parts.
IV. That it teaches us directly to honor
God in his essence and expression (avoiding a false expression and using the true




164  rTHOUGHYS ON THE DECALOGUE.
with deep reverence), and to honor our
fellow-man as bearing the image of God,
avoiding his injury in either act, thought or
feeling, and that it is thus summed up by
the formula: "Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor
as thyself."
We thus see that the gospel is not antagonistic to the law, but a divine way for
us to keep the law, and that while the gospel saves, in the very act of saving us' it
gives us the law as our rule of life-that
holy law which God never intended to become obsolete, but which reflects his own
holiness and is as eternal as is God himself.
Do you love that law?  There is no better
proof of your salvation. Do you nol love
it?  Then go to Jesus, that he may teach
you how to love it by teaching you how
TO  LOVE HIM.