he knows not God, that thinks any thing great beside him.

Amen. In this word concentre all the requests, and are put up together; so be it. And there is in it withal (as all observe) a profession of confidence that it shall be so. It is from one root with these words that signify believing and truth, the truth of God's promises persuades belief, and it persuades to hope for a gracious answer of prayer. And this is the excellent advantage of the prayer of faith, that it quiets and establishes the heart in God. Whatsoever be its estate and desire, when once he hath put his petition into God's hand, he rests content in holy security and assurance concerning the answer, refers it to the wisdom and love of God, how and when he will answer; not doubting that whatsoever it be, and whensoever, it shall both be gracious and seasonable. But the reason why so few of us find that sweetness and comfort that is in prayer, is, because the true nature and use of it is so little known.

AN

EXPOSITION

OF THE

TEN COMMANDMENTS.

EXODUS XX. 1:

And God spake all these words, saying.

Ir is the character of the blessed man, and the way of blessedness, to delight in the law of God, Psalm i. 2. And because the eye is often upon that whereon the affection and delight of the heart is set, the sign of that delight in the law, is to have the eye of the mind much upon it, to meditate on it day and night. And that we may know this is not, as the study of many things are, empty speculation and fruitless, barren delight, we are further taught the soul (as fixed in this delight and meditation) is a tree well planted, and answerably fruitful. The mind that is set upon this law is fitly set for bearing fruit, Planted by the rivers of waters; and is really fruitful, Bringeth forth its fruit in his season.

If this holds true of the law in the largest sense taken for the whole will of God revealed in his word, it is no doubt particularly verified in that which more particularly bears the name of the law; this same summary of the rule of man's life, delivered by the Lord himself, after so singular a manuer, both by word and writ.

So, then, the explication of it being needful for the ignorant, it will be likewise profitably delightful for those that be most knowing and best acquainted with it; it is a rich mine, that we can never dig to the

bottom of. He is called the blessed man, that is still digging and seeking further into the riches of it, Meditating on it day and night; his working going forward in the night, when others cease from working.

We have in the creed, the object of faith; in the law, the exercise and trial of love: For love is the fulfilling of the law; and, If ye love me, keep my commandments, saith our Saviour. And prayer is the breathing of hope, or, as they call it, Interpretatio spei. Thus in these three summaries are the matter of these three prime theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity.

The law rightly understood, addresses us to the articles of our faith: for seeing the disproportion of our best obedience to the exactness of the law, this drives us to seek salvation in the gospel by believing; and our natural inability to believe, drives us to prayer, that we may obtain faith and perseverance in it, at his hands who is both the first author and finisher of our faith.

The preparation enjoined the people, teacheth the holiness of this law; the fire, and thunder, and lightning, and upon these, the fear of the people, testify the greatness and Majesty of the law-giver, and withal his power to punish the transgressors of it, and justice that will punish; that, as he shewed his presence by fire, seen in delivering this law, so he is (as the apostle teacheth us, alluding to this) a consuming fire to them that neglect and disobey it. The limits set about the mount, that they might not approach it, even after all their endeavour of sanctifying and preparing, read humility to us, teaching us our great distance from the holiness of our God, even when we are most holy and exactest in our preparatious. Next,

Sobriety, φρονειν εις το σωφρονειν, not to pry into hidden things, to hear what is revealed to us, and commanded us, and to exercise ourselves in that. Hidden things belong unto God, &c. And, lastly, That * Scrutator Majestatis opprimetur a gloria.

the law of itself is the ministration of death, and hath nothing but terror in it, till the Messiah the Mediator appear, and the soul by his perfect obedience be accounted obedient to the law; but we must not insist on this now.

God spake. The preface is twofold. 1. That of Moses. 2. Of God himself.

These words. Ten words, Exod. xxxiv. 28, and Deut. v. 22. He added no more. Hence we may learn, 1. The perfection of this law, that no more was needful to be added. 2. The excellency of it, being so short and yet so perfect. For as it is the excellency of all speech, as of coin, (as Plutarch has it,) to contain much in little, most value in smallest quantity; so especially of laws that they be brief and full.

That we may the better conceive of the perfection of this law, we must not forget those rules that divines give for the understanding of it in its due latitude. 1. That the prohibitions of sin contain the commands of the contrary good, otherwise the number of precepts would have been too great. And, on the contrary, 2. Under the name of any one sin, all homogeneous, or sins of that kind, are forbidden. 3. All the inducements and occasions of sin, things that come near a breach, to be avoided; that which the Rabbins call the hedge of the law, not to be broken. They that do always that they lawfully may, some. times do more. 4. It is spiritual, hath that preroga. tive above all human laws, reaches the heart, and all the motions of it as well as words and actions. This supreme law-giver alone can see the behaviour of the heart, and alone is able to punish all that offend, so much as in thought. It were a vain thing for men to give laws to any, more than that they can require account of and correct, which is only the superfice and outside of human actions. But he that made the heart, doth not only give his law to it, but to it principally, and examines all actions there in their source and beginning, and therefore oftentimes that

which men applaud and reward, and do well in so doing, he justly hates and punishes.

God spake. All that was spoken by his messengers, the Prophets, with warrant from him, was his word, they but the trumpets which the breath of his mouth, his Spirit, made to sound as it pleased him; but this his moral law he privileged with his own immediate delivery. Men may give some few rules for society and civil life, by the dark light that remains in natural consciences; but such a rule as may direct a man to answer his natural end, and lead him to God, must come from himself. All the purest and wisest laws that men have compiled cannot reach that; they can go no higher in their course, than they are in their spring. That which is from the earth is earthly, saith our Saviour.

He added to this speaking, the writing of them likewise himself on tables of stone, that they might abide, and be conveyed to after ages. At first they were written in the heart of man by God's own hand; but as the first tables of stone fell and were broken, so was it with man's heart; by his fall his heart was broken, and scattered amongst the earthly perishing things, that was before whole and entire to his maker; and so the characters of that law written in it, were so shivered and scattered, that they could not be perfectly and distinctly read in it; therefore it pleased God to renew that law after this manner, by a most solemn delivery with audible voice, and then by writing it on tables of stone. And this is not all, but this same law he doth write anew in the hearts of his children.

Why it pleased him to defer this solemn promulgation of the law to this time, and at this time to give it to a select people only, these are arcana imperii indeed, which we are not to search into, but to magnify his goodness to us, that he hath shewed us the path of life, revealing to us both the precepts of this law, and the grace and promises of the gospel.

It was the all-wise God that spake all these words,