it into subjection. And you see the will of God is, that, in order to our purity in heart and life, we should,

First. Be moderate in the use of meats and drinks, and, as need is, give ourselves to fasting and abstinence. We must learn and practise the lesson of putting the knife to our throat, if we be given to appetite.'* The meaning is, we must not indulge our palates in the quantity or variety of the things set before us; but always use such a moderation as rather to keep on the side of too little than run any hazard of too much. Nor must we always eat even what nature requires, but abstain at proper seasons, for the better keeping the body in subjection to the spirit. Fasting is most certainly recommended in Scripture, but just as prayer is to be used, as need requires and discretion directs. You observe I am not speaking of more solemn fasts enjoined by authority, but of private ones recommended by the example of Scripture saints, and called for by the necessities of our own souls. If you will not submit to this moderation and abstinence, do not wonder if you cannot preserve the chastity of your heart or life.

Secondly. Be diligent in your calling. Labour keeps the mind employed, and the body under; whereas sloth both genders lust, and gives it opportunity. If you are idle, the flesh will be busy; and how fair an occasion do you give it by having nothing else to do but to attend upon it! If you will be crying upon your bed, 'A little more sleep, a little more slumber;' if you will put your hands in your bosom instead of putting them to your work; if you see a lion in your shop,† and cannot endure to be in it; what advantage could lust desire, which you do not yield to it? You must not be idle; we must be all employed; God has work for us all in the world, and indeed the most for those who seem to have the least to do. Application must both keep under the body and find engagement for the soul. And this will go a great way towards preserving chastity.

And, lastly, we must be aware of the recreations we use, and how we use them. They must be innocent in themselves (and that many of them are not), else they are both a sin and a snare. It has been supposed, that when 'Dinah went to see (that is, to

visit) the daughters of the land,' she went upon an unwarrantable errand. Probably she was mixed with them in their idolatrous sports and dances, when Shechem took her, and lay with her. Nor must relaxations only be in themselves innocent, they must be also used innocently, if we mean not to be hurt by them. We are not to go to them in an unguarded frame, or forget ourselves in them, for then we lay ourselves open to temptation; and we must not give that time to them which is owing to more important employments, for then they are in truth direct bodily indulgences; and so it can be no wonder if they give occasion to lust.

I thought these hints concerning the means of chastity, arising from the head of temperance, to be no improper conclusion of a discourse on the seventh commandment. In speaking to which you will easily see, that, because of the delicacy of the subject, many things of the chiefest importance, and which are most signally aimed at by this law, have been but glanced upon by the way, and left to every one's own more retired and deliberate reflection. The spirituality of this commandinent has, I hope, been made plain; and is now submitted to your serious consideration. May the Lord in mercy bless it to us all, for Jesus Christ's sake!

*Gen. xxxiv. 1.

SERMON XLIII.

GALATIANS iii. 24.

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

And if

SIN is the transgression of the law.'* every transgression of the law be a sin, whence comes it, that, while our sins are so many, our apprehensions are so slight? Some indeed tremble; neither does all their frequent hearing of the merit of a Redeemer's blood still the clamour of their consciences. But others, the most, sin and fear not; not all the terrors of Sinai move them, though all those terrors be actually thundering against them. And how dreadful are they! Let the manner of giving the law speak, though it can but faintly figure the terrors of the wrath of an avenging God. Be ready (said the Lord) against the third day, for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people. Set bounds unto the people; say to them, take heed, go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount. And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud, upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that were in the trembled. camp And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God.And Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed * 1 John iii. 4.

louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. And God came down on Mount Sinai on the top of the mount. And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. And said, Let not God speak with us, lest we die.And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Thus God appeared terrible in giving the law what will the terrors be, when he shall come to avenge himself of the transgressors of it? What will be the terrors of a judgment-day, a day of recompense, whereof God himself had said, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven?' O sinners, our God is a consuming fire and who of you will be able to stand when he appeareth? Now is the day of salvation. Death hasteneth; then your day is over. Humble yourselves. Come to Jesus. Live.

I am now to explain to you the eighth commandment, Thou shalt not steal.'

The great duty required by this commandment is contentedness, and the great sin forbidden is covetousness. God will have us, as those who depend on him, and live entirely by his bounty, to be content with such things as we have, because they are, be they more or less, what he gives us, and judges fittest to bestow on us. He will have us trust in him for our daily bread, and all the blessings of life; and reckons it a great dishonour done him when we are careful and anxious for the things we really need, and much more when we set ourselves to desire the things we need not. Take notice, therefore, that contentment is being quiet and satisfied with God's care of us in worldly things, cheerfully using what he gives us to-day, and nothing doubting he will provide for us to-morrow, in the way of our duty and diligent labour in our calling. As far as we fail of this quiet satisfiedness in God's fatherly care of us, are afraid to use what he gives us, or anxious about the morrow, we come sinfully short of contentedness, and are guilty of covetousness. The nature of which sin of covetousness lies therefore in these two things:

First.-An unbelieving distrust of God concerning those things of the world which we really need for ourselves and families. It is a great sin against God to question his blessing upon our honest labour. It both denies that he orders all things by his wise and good providence, and also flatly gives the lie to his plainest promises. God will bless the honest labours of such as trust in him and such do believe that what he sends is best for them, be it little or much.

:

Secondly. The other ingredient in covetousness is carnal desire, putting us a lusting after the things we really need not; whether pride, hungering after worldly wealth, because of the present honour that attends the possessor of it, or love of indulgence, that desires to have wherewith to gratify its lusts.These two are the first principles of covetousness; and, would you trace up any covetous desire to its fountain-head, you should find it arose either from an unbelieving mistrust of God for what was necessary, or from a carnal desire of what was not so. Both the one and the other of which are theft in the sight of God, and that love of money which,' he assures us, is the root of all evil. Let this suffice for the inward disposition required or condemned by this commandment; in which, as far as we are wanting, we shall also be likely to transgress in the outward duties enjoined upon us, and be found in the practice of injustice, niggardliness, and wastefulness, which three include all manner of stealing.

The first outward sin here forbidden is injustice, to which we shall be sadly pushed by covetousness, if it be in our hearts, whether it arise from a distrust of God's providence regarding the things we really need, or from the insatiable desires begotten in us by the pride of life and the lust of indulgence, after the things we really do not need. And here I must proclaim aloud against that worldly maxim, Sell as dear and buy as cheap as you can,' as absolutely dishonest; being most directly contrary to that rule of our Lord's, Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them. God does not admit that as a good character, " to be a man of sharpness in business;" which, if I understand it right, is to have the wit of outwitting others. There is a market-price in all traffic, and that

* 1 Tim. vi. 10.