in it, is that true Agnus castus that makes it chaste, that bundle of myrrh that hath a virtue to preserve the Christian from the corruptions of lust.

That love of Jesus Christ is strong as death, kills all opposite affections; and, indeed, it alone is worthy of the soul, the noble, immortal soul. Oh! how is it abased when it is drawn down to sensuality, and so made a slave to its servant, the flesh! Major sum et ad majora genitus, (could a Roman philosopher say,) quàm ut sim mancipium mei corporis: I am greater, and born to greater things than to be a slave to my body. How unworthy is it, that being capable of the highest good, the fruition of God, we should forget ourselves so far as to serve vile lust, and forfeit the happiness and pleasures of eternity! Far be it from us. God hath called us to holiness, and not to uncleanness, says the apostle.

Fly all unlawful and forbidden delights; and those that are lawful, do not engage your hearts to them, love them not immoderately: and they can scarce be loved without excess, if loved at all. Shall I say, then, if you use them, yet love them not, reserve that for purer enjoyments? Says not the apostle this, Let them that rejoice, be as if they rejoiced not; and particularly, They that marry, as if they married not? And his reason is weighty-For the fashion of this world passeth away, &c.

Remember to what a pure and excellent condition we are called as Christians, and with what a price we are bought to be holy; and let it be our firm purpose and study to glorify God in our souls and bodies, for they are his.

PRECEPT VIII.

Thou shalt not steal.

God is the God of order, and not of confusion: it is he that hath authorized and appointed propriety of possessions unto men, and withal that society and commerce amongst them that serves for their mutual

good; and property reserved makes one man in what he possesses useful and helpful to another; and hath given this precept of his law, to regulate them in these things, to be the rule of that which we call contentation or justice, equity towards our neighbour, in matter of his goods or proper possessions.

This, then, being the scope of the commandment, whatsoever breaks this hedge, is, as comprehended under the name of theft, here forbidden. All manner of injustice and wrong done to our neighbour in his estate, whether by violence, or by sleight of hand, by force or fraud, yea, if it be but so much as in affection or desire for (as we have often said) the law is spiritual, and binds not only the hands but the heart.

So then, not only gross robberies and thefts are here forbidden, but all oppression and extortion in superiors, all purloining and unfaithfulness in inferiors; too strict exaction in masters, and slothfulness in servants, or whatsoever else may tend to their masters' damage; all bribery and receiving of gifts, to the perverting of justice; all deceit and over-reaching in commerce, or trading, or bargaining; taking advantage in buying or selling, or any contract, upon the ignorance or simplicity of those we deal withal; all desire and seeking of our neighbour's loss to our gain ; all the degrees of sacrilege and simony; all idleness and neglect in men's particular callings, by which they either impoverish themselves, and are worse than infidels, not providing for their families; or, if they have certain provision by their callings, in neglecting the duties of them, they wrong those from whom, or for whose sakes they are so provided; as magistrates and ministers, who have or should have honourable maintenance for the public service, the one in the common-wealth, the other in the church. As it is a great sin to curtail or detain what is due that way, so it is no less wickedness in them, if they be remiss and careless of those duties to which they are obliged for the public good. In a word, whosoever can digest any kind of undue gain to themselves, or

do any prejudice to their neighbour in the least, are guilty; yea, they sin against this precept that do not with all their power further the advantage and good of their neighbour in his outward condition, that do not help and relieve those they see in want, so far as their ability reaches.

power

There is a kind of right that the poor have to supply; it is not merely arbitrary to you. Though they have not such a right as to take it at their own hand, or to seek it at the houses of human justice, yet they have such a right as that your hand ought not to detain it. Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, Prov. iii. 27; which is evidently meant (and interpreters take it so) of all kind of doing good, even that of charity and beneficence to the needy, as appears by the following clause, When it is in the of thine hand to do it; and the Septuagint, EUTOLELY TOV Evdeŋ. It is due, they have a right to it; though not such as they can implead for before men's courts or judicatures, yet in the court of conscience, and in the sight of God, it is duly theirs; the word is from him that is Lord of it. It is bread of the hungry that moulds by thee, and the drink of the thirsty that sours by thee. Although thou art in possession, hast superfluity by thee, what he wants is his by right, he is Lord of it; for the Lord of all hath turned over his right to thy poor brother. The Lord himself needs it not; thy goodness cannot reach him; he hath furnished thee with such as need it, and may be his receivers, and have warrant from him to take it up in his stead and be sure he will acknowledge the receipt of it; thou hast his own word and writ for it, a bill of exchange under his own hand, that what you give to the poor be put upon his accounts. He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord, and he will repay it. And again, In that you did it unto one of these, says our Saviour, ye did it unto me. It is the surest and most lasting part of a man's estate that is put into

:

* Esurientium panis est qui apud te mucescit, et sitientium potus qui apud te acescit. Ambrose.

their hand, if God be solvendo, if he be a sufficient debtor. * It is treasure laid up in heaven.

So then this precept requires uprightness and equity in all our dealings, a desire to right and advantage our brethren as ourselves, willing their gain and prosperity as our own; diligence and industry in our callings, and giving to all others their due. Though men are not obliged to a sottish simplicity, but ought to endeavour so to understand their affairs, that they may avoid circumvention by others' craft; yet a prudent simplicity is the right stamp of a Christian mind; to be single and ingenuous, and rather to suffer loss from others, than cause them any. In a word, the apostle's rule is express and full, 1 Thess. iv. 16, That no man over-reach or defraud his brother in any matter; and he adds a very forcible reason, because the Lord is the avenger of all such; as we have also, (says he,) forewarned you and testified. Men are ready to find out poor shifts to deceive themselves, when they have some way deceived their brother; and to stop the mouth of their own conscience with some quibble, and some slight excuse, and force themselves at length to believe they have done no wrong; therefore the apostle, to fright them out of their shifts, sets before them an exacter judge, that cannot be deceived nor mocked, that shall one day unveil the conscience, and blow away these vain self excuses as smoke; and that just Lord will punish all injustice: He is the avenger of all such.

At the first view, a man would think the breach of this commandment concerns but few persons, some thieves and robbers, and some professed deceivers, or if you add some cozening tradesmen and merchants; but the truth is, there is scarce any of the commandments so universally and frequently broken, and whereof the breach is so little observed, and therefore so seldom repented of by the greatest part. As the apostle James says, He is a perfect man that offends not in his words; truly he is a rare man that offends * Quas dederis solas semper habebis opes.

not, and that remarkably, if men would remark them. selves, against this commandment, Thou shalt not steal.

To say nothing of the oppression and hard exactions of such as are superiors of lands, grinding the faces of the poor, and squeezing them till the blood come; and so putting in the same blood of the poor amongst their estates, that many times proves a canker to all the rest; and the thievishness of servants, and of the poorer sort, making no conscience at all of whatsoever they can filch from their masters, or those that are richer than they, counting all they can snatch good booty and lawful prize: to pass by likewise the particular deceits that are usual in several callings, and are incorporate with them through long custom, and become a part of the mystery of those callings, and therefore men dispense with themselves in them, as the inseparable sin of their calling, and have no remorse for them: not to insist on these and such like, consider how frequently this meum et tuum, mine and thine, proves the apple of strife betwixt the nearest friends, and divides their affections, and begets debates amongst them; parents, and children, and brethren, &c. And certainly there is always some unjust desire on one side in those contentions, and sometimes on both sides. How few are there that have hearts so weaned from the world, as in all things to prefer the smallest point of equity to the greatest temptation of gain; that in their affairs, and all that concerns them, are universally careful to deal with an even hand and even heart; and to keep close to that golden rule drawn in nature, but almost lost and smothered in the rubbish and corruption of nature, but drawn a-new by our Saviour's hand, not only in his gospel, but in the hearts of his real followers"That which thou wouldest have others do to thee, do thou unto them :" that when they have any thing to transact, wherein is their brother's interest and their own, do in their thoughts change places with him, set him in their own room, and themselves in his, and deal with him after that manner; that think, "What