neceffary. Labour for a full contentment with your condition. This is the way to make a virtue of neceffity; for our discontent and uneafinefs will not add a cubit to the ftature of our lot. And that which God will make crooked in it, we will not get made straight, however uneasy we be about it.

II. We are to confider the duty of this command, as it respects our neighbour. And that is a right and charitable or loving frame of spirit towards himself and all that is his. We may take up this in five things, which are here required.

1. Love to our neighbour's perfon, as to ourselves, Rom. xiii. 9. For feeing this command forbids us to wrong him fo much as in thought, it plainly binds love to him upon us; not in word only, nor in deed only, by doing him good, but in heart, that our bowels move towards him, and love him for the fake of God. For whatever be unholy in him, yet he is one of God's creatures, of the fame nature with ourfelves, and capable of enjoying the fame God with us.

2. An upright refpect to what is his, for his fake. As we are to love himself for God's fake, fo what is his for his fake, Deut. xxii. 1. A careless difpofition and unconcernednefs about what is our neighbour's, can never be a right frame to what is his. So it is an argument of the world's corruption, that all men feek their own things, and are fo little concerned for the things of others. That is not charitable walking, Phil. ii. 4.

3. An hearty defire of his welfare and profperity in all things, as of our own, his honour, life, chastity, wealth, good name, and whatever is his. This we owe to our very enemies, fo far as it may be confiftent with the honour of God, and their own spiritual good, which is the main thing we are to defire for all. I add this, because fometimes the lofs of these may be more to the honour of God, and our neighbour's advantage, than the having of them, to wit, when they are abused to fin, Rom. xii. 20. Matth. v. 44.

4. A real complacency in his welfare, and the welfare of what is his, Rom. xii. 15. If our hearts rejoice not in our neighbour's welfare, we covet what he has, and fecretly in our hearts devour it. But as we are to be well content with we are to be well content with our

our own condition, fo neighbour's welfare.

5. Lastly, A cordial fympathy with him in any evil that

befals him, Rom. xii. 20. For we are members one of another; and as every member fhares in the grief of any one, fo fhould we in one another's afflictions. A hard heart unconcerned with the afflictions of others, efpecially where people talk to the grief of those whom God has wounded, is a fign of a wretched temper and uncharitable frame of spirit, Pfal. lxix. 26. and xxxv. 13, 14, 15.

III. We must confider this command as it refpects the root of fin. And fo it requires original righteoufnefs, a holy frame of the foul, whereby it is bent to all good, and averse to all evil; that holy frame of spirit that was in the first Adam when he was created, and all along in the second Adam. And thus this command carries the matter of holiness to the utmost point.

That this is here required, will appear, if ye confider that this command forbids the very firft rifings of original corruption, whofe very nature it is to be ftill coveting; and therefore original corruption itself is forbidden, and confe. quently original righteousness required.

Not only good actions are required by the holy law, but a holy temper of the fpirit, confifting in the light of the mind taking up duty, a bent of the will inclining ever to good, and averse to every evil, and the orderlinefs of the affections, keeping precifely within the holy boundaries fet to them by the law, not to look over the hedge in the least point.

This is certainly required fomewhere in the law; for men are condemned for the want of it; and in none of the commands is it required, if it be not here. And thus And thus ye may fee the utter impoffibility of keeping perfectly these commands; for whatever men pretend as to the reft, who of Adam's children do not ftick here as foon as they are born?

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This command reaches us as foon as we are born; nay, as foon as we are living fouls in the womb, requiring of us what we have not to produce, and that is an holy nature. But, alas! we are evil before we can do evil; and we want that holy nature naturally, and therefore have at length fuch unholy lives.

If it be inquired, How this command in this point is anfwered fincerely? Anf. It is by our being renewed in the spirit of our minds, our partaking of the new nature in regene ration, where old things being done away, and all things becoming new, we are made new creatures. This is that

new nature which is the image of God repaired, with a perfection of parts, to be crowned in heaven with a perfection of degrees.

And it is worthy of our obfervation, that Jesus Christ be-“. ing to fulfil all righteousness, was born holy, and fo fulfilled this command for us. In him the law has its due, he being a man, who from his birth had a holy pure nature, a holy frame of spirit, without the least irregularity or disorder.

To conclude, ye may fee the command is pure, just, and holy, however impure we be; and requires of us the utmost purity of heart, life, and nature.

I now proceed to confider the fins forbidden.

Quest. "What is forbidden in the tenth commandment ?" Anf." The tenth commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own eftate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbour, and all inordinate motions and affections to any thing that is his."

This command is a curb and bridle to the diftempered heart of man, which of all parts of the man is the hardest to be commanded and kept within bounds. Men may be of a courteous obliging behaviour, keep in their hands from kill. ing, or what tendeth thereunto, their bodies from uncleannefs, their hands from stealing, and their tongues from ly. ing; while, in the mean time, the heart in all these respects may be going within the breast like a troubled fea, unto which this command by divine authority faith, Peace, and be ftill.

The heart diftempered by original fins runs out in the irafcible faculty in tormenting paffions, bearing an averfion of the heart to what the Lord in his wisdom lays before men. This great stream of the corruption of our nature divides itself into two branches; one running against our own condition, namely, a torrent of difcontent; the other against our neighbour, namely, envying and grudging at his good. In the concupifcible faculty, in lufting affections and inordinate motions towards fomething which God has put out of our way, at least with-held from our closest embraces. This alfo divides itself into two branches; one running towards what is our own, namely, a finful eagernefs, luft, or inordinate motion of the heart to what we poffefs; the other running towards what is our neighbour's, an inordinate affection to what is his. Thus the corrupt heart runs in a direct op

pofition to the will of God, refufing what he would have us to accept, and embracing closely what he would have us to ftand at a distance from. The corrupt fountain with its fe veral streams is all here forbidden. We shall speak to them all as laid before us, tracing the streams to the fountainhead.

FIRST, the streams in which the diftemper of the heart runs are here forbidden exprefsly, because these are most ex. posed to our view. Let us view,

FIRST, The tormenting paffions, in which the corruption of nature vents itself; for fin is in its own nature misery. We need but go in the paths of fin to make us miferable, and in the high road of duty to make us happy. We shall confider the tormenting paffion,

First, Of difcontent with our own eftate or condition. This is plainly here forbidden; for discontentment is prefuppofed to coveting; and there could be no coveting of what we want without difcontentment with what we have. The lufting gapings of the heart fay, there is an uneasiness within. It is only the plague of discontentment that makes the heart cry, Give, give.

I. I will fhew the evil of difcontentment, and paint out this fin in its black colours. It is the hue of hell all over.

1. Difcontent is, in the nature of it, a compound of the blackest ingredients, the fcum of the corrupt heart boiling up, and mixed to make up this hellish compofition.

1, Unfubjection to and rebellion against the will of God, Hof. iv. 16. Ifrael flideth back as a backfliding heifer;" backfliding, or refractory, that will not admit the yoke farther than it is forced on. The difcontented heart cannot submit, but sets its foot a fpar against the divine dispensation. Though God guides and governs the world, they are the malcontents, that are not pleased with the government, but mutiny against it. What pleases God, pleases not them; what is right in God's eyes, is evil in theirs. And nothing will please them, but to have the reins of government out of God's hands into their own; though, if their paffion did not blind their judgment, they might fee how they would quickly fire the little world of their own and others condition, if they had the reins in their own hand.

2dly, Sorrow of heart under the divine difpenfation towards them. It is not according to their mind, and fo their

heart finks in forrow, 1 Kings xxi. 4. God croffes their will, and they pierce their own hearts with many forrows; as if a man, because he cannot stop the course of the fun in the firmament, would wrap up himself in darkness.

And this is a killing forrow, a sword thrust into a man's heart by his own hands, 2 Cor. vii. 10. It melts a man's heart within him; like a vulture, preys upon his natural fpirits, tending to fhorten his days. It makes him dumpish and heavy like Ahab, and is a heavy load above the burden of affliction. That is the black smoke of difcontentment, which yet often breaks out into a fiery flame, as in the fame case of Ahab, where Naboth fell a facrifice to it.

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3dly, Anger and wrath against their lot, Jude 16. plainers. The word fignifies fuch as are angry at their lot, and in the diftributions Providence makes of the world, ftill complain that the least or worst part of it falls to their share. Thus the difcontented do in their hearts bark at the mountains ofbrafs, Zech. vi. 1. as dogs do at the moon, and with the fame fuccefs. They are angry with God's difpenfation, and their hearts rise against it, and snarl at it.

And this is a fretting anger, whereby men difquiet and vex themselves in vain, like men dafhing their heads against the wall; the wall stands unmoved, but their heads are wounded. Like a wild bull in a net, the more he stirs, the faster is he held; so that still they return with the lofs. Thus discontent is in the heart like a ferpent gnawing the bowels, and makes a man as a moth to himself, confuming him, or a lion tearing himself, Job xviii. 4.

Lastly, There is a fpice of heart-blafphemy in it; for it ftrikes very directly against God the Governor of the world, and accufes his administration; and for an evidence of this, it fometimes breaks out in words, Mal. iii. 13, 14, 15. "Your words have been ftout against me, faith the Lord: yet ye fay, What have we spoken fo much against thee? Ye have faid, It is vain to ferve God: and what profit is it, that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hofts? And now we call the proud happy yea, they that work wickedness are fet up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered." Difcontent accufes him,

(1.) Of folly, as if he were not wife enough to govern the world. The peevish difcontented perfon, in his false light,