tradicteth not common sense, though it go above it. We are men before we are Christians, and sense and reason are presupposed to faith. The doctrine which saith there is no bread nor wine, after consecration, in the sacrament, doth give the lie to the eyes, taste, and feeling, and intellectual perception of all sound men, and therefore is not to be believed; for if sense be not to be trusted, we know not that there is a church, or a man, or a Bible, or any thing in the world, and so nothing can be believed. Whether all sound senses may be deceived or not, God hath given us no surer way of certainty.

4. Nothing is to be believed against the certain interest of all mankind, and tending to their destruction. That which would damn souls, or deny their immortality and future hope, or ruin the christian world or nations, is not to be believed to be duty or lawful; for truth is for good, and faith is for felicity, and no man is bound to such destructive things.'

5. Nothing is to be believed as absolutely certain, which depends on the mere honesty of the speakers; for all men are liable to mistake, or lie.

6. The more ignorant, malicious, unconscionable, factious, and siding any man is, the less credible he is; and the wiser and nearer to the action any man is, and the more conscionable, peaceable, and impartial he is, the more credible he is. An enemy speaking well of a man, is far more credible than a friend: multitudes, as capable and honest, are more credible than one.

7. As that certainty which is called moral, as depending on men's free will, is never absolute, but hath many degrees, as the witness is more or less credible; so there is a certainty by men's report, tradition, or history, which is physical, and wholly infallible, as that there is such a place as Rome, Paris, &c., and that the statutes of the land were made by such kings and parliaments to whom they are ascribed; and that there have been such kings, &c. For proof of which know, 1. That besides the free acts, the will hath some acts as necessary as it is to the fire to burn, viz., to love ourselves and felicity, and more such. 2. That when all men of contrary interest, friends and foes, agree in a matter that hath sensible evidence, it is the effect of such a necessitating cause. 3. And there is no cause in nature that can make them so agree in a lie. Therefore it is a natural certainty. Look back to the sixth chapter.

Q. 13. Why is false witness in judgment so great a sin.

1 John iv. 1, 2.

A. Because it containeth in all these odious crimes conjunct: 1. A deliberate lie. 2. The wrongful hurting of another contrary to the two great principles of converse, justice and love. 3. It depriveth the world of the benefit of government and judicatures. 4. It turneth them into the plague and ruin of the innocent. 5. It blasphemeth or dishonoureth God, by whose authority rulers judge, as if he set up officers to destroy us by false witness, or knew it not, or would not revenge injustice. 6. It overthroweth human converse and safety, when witnesses may destroy whom they please, if they can but craftily agree.k Q. 14. Is there no way to prevent this danger to mankind? A. God can do it. If he give wise and righteous rulers to the world they may do much towards it; but wicked rulers use false witness as the devil doth, for to destroy the just, as Jezebel did.

Q. 15. How should rulers avoid it?

A. 1. By causing teachers to open the danger of it to the people. 2. Some old canons made invalid the witness of all notorious wicked men: how can he be trusted in an oath, that maketh no conscience of drunkenness, fornication, lying, or other sin?

Q. 16. How, then, are so few destroyed by false witnesses ? A. It is the wonderful providence of God, declaring himself the Governor of the world; that when there are so many thousand wicked men who all have a mortal hatred to the godly, and will daily swear and lie for nothing; and any two of these might take away our lives at pleasure, there are yet so few this way cut off. But God hath not left himself without witness in the world, and hath revenged false witness on many, and made conscience a terrible accuser for this crime.

Q. 17. What is the positive duty of the ninth commandment? A. 1. To do justice to all men in our places.

2. To defend the innocent to the utmost of our just power. If a lawyer will not do it for the love of justice and man, without a fee when he cannot have it, he breaketh this command

ment.

3. To reprove backbiters, and tell them of their sin.

4. To give no scandal, but to live so blamelessly that slanderers may not be believed.

* Matt. xxvi. 62, and xxvii. 13; Mark xiv. 55, 56; Num. xxxv. 30; Acts vi. 13; Deut. xix. 16-18; Prov. vi. 19; xii. 17; xxi. 28, and xxv. 18; Psalm XXXV. 11.

I Prov. xix. 5, 9.

5. On all just occasions especially to defend the reputation of the gospel, godliness, and good men, the cause and laws of God, and not silently for self-saving, to let Satan and his agents make them odious by lies; to the seduction of the people's souls."

CHAP. XLIII.

Of the Tenth Commandment.

Q. 1. WHAT are the words of the tenth commandment? A. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Q. 2. What is forbidden here, and what commanded?

A. 1. In some, the thing forbidden is selfishness, and the thing commanded is to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Q. 3. Is not this implied in the five foregoing commandments?

A. Yes; and so is our love to God in all the nine last. But because there are many more particular instances of sin and duty that can be distinctly named and remembered, God thought it meet to make two general, fundamental commandments, which should contain them all, which Christ called the first and second commandment; "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," &c. And "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The first is the summary and root of all the duties of the other nine, and especially of the second, third, and fourth. The other is the summary of the second table duties; and it is placed last, as being instead of all unnamed instances. As the captain leads the soldiers, and the lieutenant brings up the rear.o

Q. 4. What mean you by the sin of selfishness?

A. I mean that inordinate self-esteem, self-love, and self-seeking, with the want of a due, proportionate love to others, which engageth men against the good of others, and inclineth them to draw from others to themselves: it is not an inordinate love of ourselves, but a diseased self-love.P

n Prov. xxv. 23; Psalm xv. 3, 5.

• Matt. xix. 19; Luke x. 27; Rom. xiii. 9; Lev. xvi. 24; Mark viii. 34.

P Jer. xlv. 5; Matt. xvi. 22, 23; Luke xiv. 26, 29, 32, 33.

Q. 5. When is self-love ordinate, and when is it sinful? A. That which is ordinate, 1. Valueth not a man's self blindly above his worth. 2. It employeth a man in a due care of his own holiness, duty, and salvation. 3. It regardeth our- . selves but as little members of the common great body, and therefore inclineth us to love others as ourselves, without much partial disproportion, according to the divers degrees of their amiableness, and to love public good, the church and world, and, much more, God above ourselves. 4. It maketh us studious to do good to others, and rejoice in it as our own, rather than to draw from them to ourselves.

II. Sinful selfishness, 1. Doth esteem, and love, and see selfinterest above its proper worth: it is over-deeply affected with all our concerns. 2. It hath a low, disproportionate love and regard of all others' good. 3. And when it groweth to full malignity, it maketh men envy the prosperity of others, and covet that which is theirs, and desire and rejoice in their disgrace and hurt, when they stand against men's selfish wills, and to endeavour to draw from others to ourselves: selfishness is to the soul like an inflammation or imposthume to the body; which draweth the blood and spirits to itself from their due and common course, till they corrupt the inflamed part.

Q. 6. What mean you by loving others as ourselves?

A. Loving them as members of the same body or society (the world or the church as they are) impartially with a love proportionable to their worth, and such a careful, practical, forgiving, patient love, as we love ourselves."

Q. 7. But God hath made us individual persons, with so peculiar a self love, that no man can possibly love another as himself?

A. 1. You must distinguish between sensitive natural love, and rational love. 2. And between corrupt and sanctified nature. 1. Natural sensitive love is stronger to one's self (that is, more sensible of self-interest) than to all the world. I feel not another's pain or pleasure, in itself: I hunger and thirst for myself: a mother hath that natural sensitive love to her own natural child (like that of brutes) which she hath not for any other."

2. Rational love valueth, and loveth, and preferreth every

↑ Phil. ii. 4, 21; 1 Cor. xii., and x. 24.
Col. iii. 12, 13; 1 Cor. xiii.; Eph. iv. 1,2,
Prov. xiv. 10.

thing according to the degree of its amiableness, that is, its goodness.

3. Rational love destroyeth not sensitive; but it moderateth and ruleth it, and commandeth the will and practice to prefer, and desire, and seek, and delight in higher things (as reason ruleth appetite, and the rider the horse); and so deny and forsake all carnal or private interests, that stand against a greater good.

4. Common reason tells a man, that it is an unreasonable thing in him that would not die to save a kingdom; much more that when he is to love both himself and the kingdom inseparably, yet cannot love a kingdom, yea, or more excellent persons, above himself. But yet it is sanctification that must effectually overcome inordinate self-love, and clearly illuminate this reason, and make a man obey it.

5. To conquer this selfishness is the sum of all mortification, and the greatest victory in this world: and therefore it is here perfectly done by none: but it is done most where there is the greatest love to God, and to the church and public good, and to our neighbours.

Q. 8. What is the sinfulness and the hurt of selfishness?

A. 1. It is a fundamental error and blindness in the judgment: we are so many poor worms and little things; and if an ant or worm had reason, should it think its life, or ease, or other interest, more valuable than a man's, or than all the country's?

2. It is a fundamental pravity and disorder of man's will: it is made to love good as good, and therefore to love most the greatest good.

3. Yea, it blindly casteth down, and trampleth on, all good in the world which is above self-interest. For this prevailing selfishness taketh a man's self for his ultimate end, and all things else but as means to his own interest: God and heaven, and all societies and all virtue, seem no further good to him than they are for his own good and welfare. And selfishness so overcometh reason in some, as to make them dispute for this fundamental error as a truth, that there is nothing to be accounted good by me, but that which is good to me as my interest or welfare and so that which is good to others is not, therefore, good to me."

1 Cor. x. 33; Tit. i. 8; Jam. iii. 15, 17; Col. i. 24.

Prov. iii. 5; xx. 6; xxiii. 4; xxv. 27; xxvi. 5, 12, 16; xxvii. 2, and xxviii. 11.