^.^/?.:i5 tl|? ffitbrarii of f rinrrtun Stjwlngmil S>^mittarQ BS 1285.4 ,R3 1896 Randolph, B. W. 1858-1925. The law of Sinai, being devotional and addresses o a THE LAW OF SINAI In seternum, Domine : Verbum Tuum permanet in ccelo. Ps. cxviii. 89. THE Law of Sinai BEING DEVOTIONAL ADDRESSES ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS / BY B. W. RANDOLPH, M.A. Principal of Ely Theological College Hon. Canon of Ely Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Lincoln LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO LONDON. NEW YORK. AND BOMBAY ,1896 All rights reserved TO MY FATHER, CYRIL RANDOLPH, M.A. RECTOR OF CHARTHAM, AND RURAL DEAN OF WEST BRIDGE, WHOSE UNSELFISH LIFE OF PATIENT CONTINUANCE IN WELL-DOING ' IS A CONSTANT SOURCE OF ENCOURAGEMENT AND STRENGTH. V. PREFACE These Addresses are published in deference to the wishes, expressed from time to time, of some who heard them, and whose opinion the writer feels it a duty to respect. Were it not for this, the publication of another volume on the Ten Commandments would need an apology. The Addresses were delivered to those who were preparing for Ordination at Ely ; and it is this circumstance which accounts for the form which they take, and for the special point of view adopted throughout. In preparing them for the press, amid the pressure of other work, the writer has made but few alterations : it seemed better to leave viii Preface. them, as far as possible, in the form in which they were first spoken ; though he is well aware of their fragmentary character and of their abrupt style. He wishes to express his sincere and affectionate thanks to his colleague, the Rev. H. V. S. Eck, for his kind help in verifying the references and in correcting the proof sheets. B. W. R. Theological College, Ely, Feast of All Saints, 1895. CONTENTS PAGE Introductory i First Commandment 17 Second Commandment 33 Third Commandment 51 Fourth Commandment 69 Fifth Commandment 87 Sixth Commandment 105 Seventh Commandment 123 Eighth Commandment 145 Ninth Commandment 161 Tenth Commandment 177 INTRODUCTORY. B Omnis consummationis vidi finem : latum mandatum Tuum nimis. — Ps. cxvi«».96. I 1^^ INTRODUCTORY. " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." — St. Matt. xix. 17. I SUPPOSE some of us have, at times, experi- enced a certain feeling akin to impatience, at the thought of the Ten Commandments occupying the place they do in the formularies of the Church ; possibly we have muttered the word " Jewish " or " antiquated," as if we had got beyond them. And yet, for all that, the Church insists again and again on their fundamental and permanent value. Long before the Reforma- tion, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it was the custom in England to recite them publicly, and to explain their meaning once a quarter : they are among the elements of the religious instruction which we give to children ; the Baptismal Service places them side by side with the Lord's Prayer and the 4 The Lazv of Sinai. Creed, as being among the most important truths which a child should '' know and believe to his soul's health ; " they are the authorized standard of self-examination by which we are to try our lives before receiving Holy Communion ; they are ordered to be set up on the walls of our churches ; they are recited (and we have no authority for omitting them) even in the Service for Holy Communion itself. I. Is there, then, anything really transitory in the Decalogue? Do we seriously think that there is anything in it which an en- lightened or Christian community can do without ? Are they so rough and harsh and unsuited to our day ? Have we indeed got beyond them ? Taking them just as they stand, as negative prohibitions, are we all so conscious of God's power and love, always so ready to worship Him, always so reverent in word, so observant of His day, as to be able to dispense with the first table ? Or, take the second table, with its rough explicitness, " Thou shalt not kill." Introductory, 5 Do the newspapers allow us to think that we have got beyond this ? Or, " Thou shalt not commit adultery," and put it side by side with the deplorable results of that anti- Christian legislation of 1857, the creation of the Divorce Court. Or, "Thou shalt not steal." Have we got beyond that ? Are there not unmistakable signs round about us that we need these laws with all their roughness — that stern^ hard " not " as it was thundered out from the rocks of Sinai? Yes ! let us be sure there is nothing merely transitory or Jewish in this Mosaic code, for the Author of it was not Moses, but God. The Law was, after all, given "by the disposi- tion of angels,"^ and the Ten Words were written by the Finger of God on the two tables of stone. Ah ! but you say, " Christianity has come." True, Christianity has come, and Christ has given us the Sermon on the Mount ; but the Sermon on the Mount did not repeal the Ten Commandments ; they are still the moral code of Christendom, for Christ Himself said, "If ye will enter into life, keep the command- ments." What He did in the Sermon on the * Acts vii. 53. 6 The Law of Sinai. Mount was, not to substitute a new Law, but to make the old Law cut deeper down into heart and motive. Listen to our Lord, as He takes the sixth and seventh commandments, and explains that it is not only the consummated act of sin which God hates, but the indulged thought of murder or hatred, the indulged thought of lust. What is He doing ? Is He abrogat- ing the Decalogue ? Is He rendering the moral obligations less exacting, less stringent? Is He not republishing it with sterner gloss than any rabbi had ever done ? Ah ! as we look out upon the world, our world as it is now, can we after all throw stones, and talk glibly about the low morality of the Jews ? Is it not clear that, for multi- tudes of men and women, even if for the moment we except ourselves, the rough prohibitions as they were thundered from Sinai are necessary, as they take sin at its lowest and coarsest point ? But why should we except ourselves ? Are we not sometimes in danger of forgetting that, if we aspire to any high spiritual attain- ments, we must lay our foundation deep and strong in the conscientious performance of Introductory. 7 everyday humdrum duties ? Is there not a danger lest, amid manifold spiritual luxuries, we should try to build up a fair edifice on foundations which are insecure ; lest, while aiming at high spiritual attainments, we should neglect the prosaic details of ordinary life ? For as in other matters, so in the spiritual life, we cannot run before we can walk ; here, as in other spheres of education, "precept must be upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little." ^ If advance is to be real and solid, it must be gradual. The truth is, we can never outgrow the Decalogue ; if in the letter they defend the moral code on its remotest frontiers, yet in the spirit they exact a strict custody over the thoughts and desires of the heart : even "the faithful Christian who passes his life in the strength of sacramental grace and of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, free from any deliberate sin whatever, can find in the prohibitions of the Decalogue, as he is taught to understand them, an adequate code for his own continued self-examination." ^ "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." * Isa. xxviii. 10. ^ Dr. Liddon. 8 The Law of Sinai, II. They are God's commandments. '*God spake these words and said." They are a Revelation, an integral part of God's un- veiling of Himself. They are words which disclose something of His Will, His attributes, His character, His relations to us men. And yet they are commandments which, if He be God, He could not help approving. You cannot think of God and yet not think of His enforcing these laws : being God, He must require their observance. Reflect upon it in this way : God had before disapproved of murder — think of Abel's murder and the Divine sentence on Cain ; He had before disapproved of scorn of parents — witness Noah and his sons, the deceit of Jacob, the cruelty of Joseph's brethren. He had condemned all this ; and yet the Ten Words were a Revelation ; they were an authoritative unfolding of His Will, a systematic promulgation of the moral Law. Why was this? St. Paul tells us that the Law was given " that sin by the command- ment might become exceeding sinful ; " ^ * Rom. vii. 13. Introductory, 9 that is, that it might be seen in its true colours. You may know you are trespassing, but a notice-board will help to remind you of the fact, to warn you against trespassing. The Ten Commandments are, if we may say so reverently, God's Notice-board, hedging round the mount of the Divine Holiness. They remind us that we have to do with a God Who claims authority over the moral life of men, and Who would have us know it. What, before all things, the command- ments say to us is, that God is holy and the Vindicator of the moral Law — the law of holiness. The moral Law is not an abstract code, but an expression of His Personal Will : sin as we may, forget Him as we may. He will have the last word. To know God aright we must know Him as the moral Ruler, and sin is the will of the creature setting itself up against the Will of the Creator. '* If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." III. Next observe that the whole Decalogue is based on what God had done for the children of Israel : " I am the Lord thy God, which lO The Law of Sinai, brought thee out of the land of Egypt" — that is the preface to the Ten Command- ments. The IsraeHtes knew God by what He had done for them : it was no strange God Who spoke to them from Sinai, but the God of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — the God of their own experience. With a mighty Hand and stretched-out Arm, with great signs and wonders, He had brought them forth out of the bondage of Egypt ; the pride of that great country. He had laid it low, and sent death into her palaces ; the sea had fled from before His people and had covered their enemies ; across the flood, out into the desert. He had led them ; gathered them round Sinai ; and then, as they waited in awe-struck silence and wonder, amid lightnings and thunderings and darkness and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud, God made Himself known as a holy God, hating iniquity, transgression, and sin, "and by no means clearing the guilty." 1 God's Law, then, was learnt in the solitude of the desert ; and it is the same now. Egypt is everywhere in Holy Scripture a ^ Numb. xiv. i8. Intro dtictory. 1 1 type of the world, with its attractions, its culture, its civilizations, its fulness of bread, its learning, its fascinations, its pride, and its self-sufficiency : so now, in the noise and turmoil of the world — the Egypt of to-day — amid all the fascinations and the sin of modern life, amid all the jar and dissonance of those who would make worse or who would remedy the crying ills of our social system, amid the harshness of modern task- masters and the cry of modern slaves, and the stupid obstinacy of modern Pharaohs, you cannot hear God speaking. If we would really hear His Voice, we must come apart, at least for a time — out into the desert, if need be ; only, at all costs, we must listen : and, as we listen, there will come in upon us the thought of our own experience — " Which brought thee out of the land of Egypt." Each of us has his Egypt, from which God would bring him out this Lent — across the flood of his own past life, where the surging waters of over-mastering temptation had well-nigh drowned him, " and the stream had gone over his soul ; " out into the solitude of the desert, round about the mountain of God's Holiness, we must try and listen to His 12 The Law of Sinai, Voice, not as antiquarians interested in "comparative religions," but as men who desire to live for God. "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." IV. Further, they are laws of love, of twofold love — love to God and love to man. This is our Lord's explanation of them. The ten are really two. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like unto it, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" It is only in their form, therefore, that the commandments are harsh : though they are in a negative form, yet each one is a positive command. To have a God — that is the first commandment ; to worship God — that is the second ; to reverence God — that is the third ; to reverence God's day — that is the fourth ; to reverence His delegates and representatives — that is the fifth ; the sixth is a law of kind- ness ; the seventh a law of purity ; the eighth Introductory, 1 3 a law of honesty ; the ninth a law of truth- fulness ; the tenth a law of contentment. And it is worth while to notice how deeply- even the letter of the commandments cuts. We speak, indeed, ordinarily as if the Decalogue only forbade the outward act of sin ; and yet it is very much concerned with sins of thought. The first and second commandments both deal with thought — for idolatry is, strictly speaking, " an act internal to the soul " — and the tenth is entirely concerned with the inner life. Reflect on the significance of this : no earthly legislator takes cognizance of the thoughts of man's heart, for the sufficient reason that he knows nothing about them. We none of us know what is passing in the mind of another : God alone searches the heart, for " all things are naked and open to the eye of Him with Whom we have to do." ^ And God knew on Mount Sinai, what He has been telling men ever since, that every single sin begins with an evil thought ; that it is from the heart of man that defilement comes. First there is the simple suggestion ; then the first yielding of the will ; then the delight; then the full surrender of the will ; then ^ Heb. iv. 13. 14 The Law of Sinai. the outcome (if the man is not held back by grace or by lack of opportunity) in word or act. This is what our Lord has taught us : " out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies ; " ^ and conscience tells us that this testimony is true, and we pray Him to " cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit." Three thousand years have passed away since God rent the rocks of Sinai and spake these Ten Words to man. It was an epoch in the history of Israel ; it was no less an epoch in the history of our race. Their object was, in revealing God, to bring man back again to God. They have the same object now. " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the command- ments." Man was made for God ; to be with God for ever and ever. What hinders this union ? No angel, no devil can do it ; only man himself, or rather man's sin. If the commandments are harsh, they are harsh not to man, but to man's sin. If God is holy (and the command- ments reveal His holiness), then we cannot be * St. Matt. XV. 19. IntrodMctory . 1 5 with God with our sins : we must needs part company either with God or with sin. Three thousand years have passed since God spake these words ; and His Voice is not silent yet : on and on it echoes across the centuries — this Voice of the Almighty Spirit as He strives with rebellious man. Listen to what it says. Man is banished from God by his own act, yet God " devises means that His banished be not expelled from Him." 1 " I will deliver them "—it is God's Voice by His prophet — "out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day." ^ For the heart of God yearns after the heart of man, and the Ten Commandments are the cry of the Father to His wayward child. '* Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep these laws." ' 2 Sam. xiv. 14. ^ Ezek. xxxiv. 12. FIRST COMMANDMENT. Defecit in salutare Tuum anima mea : et in Verbum Tuum supersperavi. — Ps. .««4ii. 8i. { 1^ FIRST COMMANDMENT. " I am the Lord thy God : thou shalt have none other gods but Me." Is there not something strange that God should begin with this commandment ? The commandment to believe in Him ; for this is what it practically means. " Thou shalt have a God ; thou shalt believe in God." Why does not God begin by telling men not to murder, or not to commit adultery ? Why does He not tell us first of all to be honest, or temperate, or truthful, or just ? Certainly a modern legislator would have begun in this way. Why, then, does God put bands, so to say, round our inner conscience, and tell us quite plainly — little as men think so now — that it does matter what we believe? Men round about us are impatient of restraints like this. " I shall believe what I like," they say ; " I 20 The Law of Sinai, can live a moral life without binding myself to any creed." Why, then, as if anticipating this sort of language, does the Decalogue begin by saying, " Thou shalt have a God " ? The answer is, that the Bible thus sets its seal to this great truth— that there can be no solid basis for morality apart from a robust belief in God. " What is the connection,", men ask, "between morality and religion?" and here, in the first commandment, we find the answer of Revelation — "Morality is based upon a belief in Him Who is the object of all religion." Apart from the fact that half the moral Law consists in duty to God, for the mass of men at least it is true that a belief in God is the only safeguard of morality. Tell a man to be honest ; but why should he, unless he believes in God ? Tell him to be truthful ; but why should he, unless he believes in God ? Tell him to be pure ; but why should he, unless he believes in God ? If you say his conscience tells him to be pure, truthful, honest, you do but grant the argument ; for how can we explain the authority with which conscience speaks, unless it is God's Voice? No ! let us be sure men are taught to be First Commandment. 21 honest, or truthful, or self-restrained, only when they believe that there is a God — a God Who is near and not far off; Who sees into the innermost recesses of the heart ; Who takes account of motive ; Who will hereafter come to be their Judge. Yes ! belief in God is the foundation of all right living, and the explanation of all that we mean by responsibility. The Catechism is right when it says, " My duty towards God is to believe in Him ;" for how else have we any notion of duty at all ? What is duty but a sense of responsibility ? Responsibility to whom ? The answer in the last resort must be, " Responsibility to God : " the basis of the moral Law must for ever be the positive truth which is contained in the first com- mandment. " Thou shalt have a God ; thou shalt believe in God : thou shalt have none other gods but Me." I. Certainly there is a great difYerence between our circumstances now and those of the chil- dren of Israel when this commandment was first given : their temptation was to have too 22 The Law of Sinai, many gods ; our temptation is to have none. An uncivilized race would have many gods ; a civilized race wants none. I do not mean that men are professed atheists ; ordinarily, at least, men have neither the courage nor the folly to say, " I do not believe that there is a God." Nevertheless, the belief in God is largely at a discount. Intellectually, and in words, most men will acknowledge a First Cause ; but, in fact, multitudes leave Him out of their calculations. In all departments of life, by numbers of men and women, God is practically put out of court : He is not reckoned with ; He is not denied, but He is ignored. "Did He make the world?" perhaps you press the question. " Oh yes, for all we can tell, but we do not expect Him to interfere ; at best He is an abstraction Whom v/e are content to label by some such name as Providence, and we do not expect Him to interfere." But is not this a practical denial of God ? Is a God, Who is powerless to interfere, Who is fettered and bound by the laws of His own making — is He really God ? Of course not, and so men ignore Him. Why those terrible First Commandment, 2% o statistics of the thousands that "go nowhere"? The answer is, " God is ignored." Or let us turn to ourselves, if you think the picture overdrawn. Can we say that in our own lives there is a full recognition of God ? Do we habitually think of God as ever-present — His Eye following us, as the eyes of some old portrait on the wall seem to follow us, go where we will about the room ? In our ordinary conversation, do we think of God as One Who hears and notes ? When we say our prayers, when we say grace, when we go to church, v/hen we say "Almighty and Everlasting God," — do the thoughts of our mind correspond with the significance of the words ? When we say, " O come, let us worship and fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker," when we say the Creed, — do we habitually think of the awful meaning of each clause we utter ? Do the heart and mind go out to apprehend the mysteries uttered by the lips ? The thought of God ! Do you not think that there is something to envy in that child-like com- munion with God which the patriarchs of old enjoyed, and which, for all our Christianity, seems so hard to recover ? " Enoch walked 24 The Law of Sinai. with God."^ "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God."^ But somehow, because we do not see God, we forget Him : even while we speak to Him we forget Him. Are there any special reasons, let us ask the question, why this should be so in our day ? II. (a) Have we not one reason in this, that we know more than we did of what are called secondary causes, and so we forget the First Cause of all ? We know so much now of physical science, and the structure of the world ; of the disposition of the stars and planets ; of the strata of the earth's sub- stance, — we can track and trace these things out, and we stop short in these outward marks — these footprints of God — and we forget God Himself. Or we go to some factory, and we note the marvellous contrivances of the machinery — how it grinds along with its wonderfully adapted joints and wheels ; now slowly, now rapidly it whirls round ; now hewing out ' Gen. V. 22, 24. 2 Gen. vi. 9. First Commandment. 25 rough bits of work with prodigious strength, now adapting itself with exquisite gentleness to the most delicate material, — and we say man's mechanical skill is extraordinary, it is wonderful ! and we stop short ; we stop at the secondary causes, we do not think of the great First Cause, we forget God. Or look at medicine. How wonderfully the science of medicine has advanced ! Reflect on the use of anaesthetics like chloroform ; what a saving of pain and nerve-strain ! How skilful is the surgeon, as, with his sharp instruments and with unerring precision, he cuts between nerve and artery ; or the phy- sician, as he tracks out in food or drainage the seeds of some deadly disease ; and we talk grandly of the laws of hygiene or sanita- tion ! But who gave the medical man his skill? Have we not again stopped at secondary causes and forgotten God ? De- pend upon it, here we have one great reason for the forgetfulness of God. Our power over Nature is wonderful ; by obeying her laws we can travel with increasing rapidity from point to point ; we can flash a message from one end of the earth to the other in a moment ; we have gone far to annihilate time 26 The Law of Sinai. and space ; it is wonderful ! And men for- get Who it was, after all, Who lodged that power in the electricity or the steam. We do not often hear nowadays the old verdict given after a fatal flash of lightning, " Death by the visitation of God." Is there not, therefore, need, in an age of an ever-increasing knowledge of the resources of nature, of the reminder of the first com- mandment : *' Thou shalt have a God ; thou shalt believe in God ; thou shalt have none other gods but Me " ? {h) And a second reason for the practical forgetfulness of God lies in this — that men do not think enough of the world beyond ; they do not look far enough ; they are absorbed, too absorbed, in the present life. God knows how hard it is for so many, and He will not, we may be sure of it, be extreme to mark what is done amiss. He knows what life means for them ; how they put us to shame for our slothfulness and want of zeal. He knows the need " to rise early, and late take rest, and eat the bread of care- fulness."^ The pressure of daily work, the incessant toil, the exigencies of increasing ' Ps. cxxvii. 2. First Commandment, 27 competition, the inexorable logic of congested trade, the working on day after day with starvation never perhaps quite out of sight, the struggle of life in a thickly populated country like ours, — all this makes it hard for the poor people to think of anything but the needs of the present ; there is so little margin for other and higher thoughts. What are you going to say to them ? Will you not point them to the truth en- shrined in this first commandment ? Will you not tell them of God's love, of His in- exhaustible compassion for each one of His creatures ? If men are true to Him, He will never be outdone in generosity. Will you not tell them Who it was that said, '' Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteous- ness " ? ^ What, after all, is the end of our horizon ? Death is but the first range of the distant hills ; beyond it other ranges rise in numberless succession, tier on tier, in the dim unknown future. Assuredly our truest wisdom is to rest the eye of the soul on the most distant scene of all, where " the Eternal God is our refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." ^ ^ St. Matt. vi. 33. 2 Deut. xxxiii. 27. 28 The Law of Sinai. Ah ! this is what we must say to others ; but how can we say it, unless we have learnt to make our practice tally with this advice ? How bewildered the poor people must be as they move, often unnoticed by us, about our Universities ! how bewildered they must often be at all the folly and waste of time and opportunity, the extravagance and ostenta- tion, the unreal, frivolous lives ! We must, then, make this first commandment our own ; for it reminds us that this life is but the preface, often short and sharp, to the great volume of life which is to follow — the pre- face, unspeakably momentous as the sphere in which we are each of us to work out our probation, immeasurably insignificant as compared with the vastness of the eternity which lies beyond. III. Suppose, for a moment, that we did not know whether there was a God or not. Suppose we did not know this Revelation of the first commandment. What if God had never spoken to men ! What if He had never made Himself known to Abraham, to Moses on Sinai, to the Prophets ! What First Commandment. 29 would life be but a miserable groping after an unknown God, Who made the world, and then left it in the state we see it now ? Ah ! then we might indeed ask the mean- ing of life. Does it end in death ? Is it worth living ? What is the meaning of morality, of self-restraint, of prayer ? " Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die." ^ Nay, let us die ; for to-morrow we can but eat and drink. Look at the world round about you. Look at your newspapers. It is indeed a dark world if God has never spoken to man, if there is no God. Look into your own hearts, and read there the possibilities of sin and evil ; it is indeed a dark world if there is no God. Think for a moment, by way of warning, of those who have practically turned their backs on God, who have outgrown, as they think, this first commandment. '* These restraints of religion, what do we want with them ? These churches, these sermons, these services, these sacraments, these clergy, — what do we want with them ? Life is a struggle, and if we live at all, let us " — such is the ghastly phrase — " enjoy life." * I Cor. XV. 32. 30 The Law of Sinai, But what are lives like these? Bestial, only worse, because the beasts have no know- ledge to do better ; foolish, for all sin is folly, and " they know not what they do." ^ There is nothing noble about such lives, nothing manly, nothing dignified, nothing to admire. They are lives which, if we think at all, make us inexpressibly sad. There they are, living like the beasts round them, only they speak and read. They live, it is true ; they eat and drink; they marry and are given in marriage; they grow old and die, and men say "they are gone." But alas ! God is forgotten, and God will have the last word. But, thanks be to God, we know that He has spoken to man : the bright light of Chris- tianity flashed on this first commandment reveals " none other God " but the God Who spake from Sinai. For in that Figure walking up and down in Galilee and Judaea we recog- nize no merely phenomenal man — albeit the best and manliest of men, Who did good and worked miracles, was done to death and rose again from the grave — but the Incarnate God, the full and complete revelation of the one God. If we would know what God ^ St. Luke xxiii. 34. First Commandment, 31 condemns, we must listen to what Christ condemns ; if we would know what God approves and loves, we must listen to what Christ loves and approves ; for He said of Himself, "He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father." ^ * St. John xiv. 9. SECOND COMMANDMENT. D Qui est Imago Dei invisibilis, primogeniUis omnis crea- turce. — Ep. ad Col. i. 15. SECOND COMMANDMENT. "Thou slialt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them : for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and shew mercy unto thousands in them that love Me, and keep My commandments." This commandment obviously forbids any object, material or intellectual, which inter- feres with the unique claim of God upon the soul of man. It did not, let us remark, forbid all sculp- tured representations in themselves ; for what were the cherubim but colossal figures of strange living creatures overshadowing the mercy-seat? What was the support of the brazen sea but sculptured forms of oxen ? No ; the stress of the literal commandment 36 The Lazv of Sinai, lies in the words " to thyself." '' Thou shalt not make to tJiyself any graven image" — that is, for thy worship ; thou shalt not make any figure or sculpture to represent God, to fall down before it, or worship it. I. Now, in spite of this explicit language, we are confronted with this strange and weird fact, that the whole history of the children of Israel is largely an account of their prone- ness to fall away to idol worship — from Sinai right away to the Captivity this is true. Look at the beginning of it. " And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him. Up, make us gods, which shall go before us;" the jewels were collected, and the calf was made, and the idolatrous cry rose up, " These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." ^ Thus, at the very outset, "they turned their glory into the similitude of a calf that eateth hay ; " ^ and so, at every step in their history, ^ Exod. xxxii. 1-5, ^ pg. cvi. 20. Second Commandment, ^*j this characteristic meets us — the going after idols, the going after strange gods. Sometimes, indeed, the image was intended, at least at first, to represent Jehovah ; at other times it was an idol of some false god. Jeroboam's calves were intended to represent Jehovah. " It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem : behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt." But the sacred historian is explicit in his condemnation. " This thing became a sin : for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan ; " ^ and Jeroboam's name was handed down to posterity as "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." More often it was the false gods or their images which were the attraction ; it was so natural. Why this peculiarity, this narrow prejudice — why not worship the gods of the neighbouring nationalities ? So one after another they had their turn — Chemosh, Mil- com, Astoreth, Baal — so that, as the southern kingdom was drawing towards its close, its greatest prophet sums up the desperate apos- tasy in the terrible words, "Their land also is full of idols ; they worship the work of * I Kings xii. 28-30. 38 The Lazv of Sinai, their own hands, that which their own fingers have made : and the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not." ^ Certainly it is a strange and weird spectacle to see this wondrous people, the depositaries of God's Revelation, murmuring, fighting, struggling against God, till He finally poured out upon them the fury of His anger, and cured them of idolatry in the land of the exile ; for it was mainly for the perpetual breach of this second commandment that the desolation came upon them and they were carried away. God sometimes cures us of some sinful tendency by giving us a glimpse of the terrible abyss into which it may lead us. Some one we have known, perhaps, falls into sin ; or we read the record of some hideous crime in the newspapers, and we are startled to find a kindred tendency lurking in our own hearts, which, if not summarily checked, may lead us into sins as bad or v/orse. We were on the edge of a precipice and we scarcely knew it. Such times are God's calls to us to make fresh efforts to deal courageously with the beginnings of any known wilful sin. ^ Isa. ii. 8, 9. Second Commmidinent. 39 It was in some such way, may we not say, that God dealt with the Jews. He will drive them into captivity ; He will bring them into one of the fairest and most idolatrous cities of the world ; they shall learn there the depths and the folly of idol-worship. And we cannot doubt that they did learn it. Those burning passages in Isaiah in which, with relentless and brilliant irony, he describes the process which he saw — whether in vision or in fact — going on before his eyes in the idol- manufactories of Babylon, as they relentlessly expose its folly, so do they seem to assure us that the Jew had at last learnt the lesson. We never hear of material idolatry after the return from exile. ir. But if the danger of idolatry has for us, as for the Jew, passed away, we must look deeper down for the underlying principle of this commandment. It teaches us, for all time, the jealous claim of Almighty God to the whole-hearted devo- tion of man. " I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." One principal reason for the prevalence of 40 The Lazv of Sinai. idolatry in ancient Israel was the denial of this claim. If Jehovah was one God, why should not Chemosh be another? And the discipline which God sent was to teach them that God, being what He is, cannot share His prerogatives with another. " I am the Lord, that is My Name ; and My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images."^ *' I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." Jealousy is, under ordinary circumstances, a sin, and we should scarcely have dared to predicate jealousy of God ; but it is He Who here thus speaks of Himself, as elsewhere He says, " My Name is jealous." ^ What is the meaning of words like these ? The answer is,^ that there is a right kind of jealousy among us men, as well as a wrong. The husband is rightly jealous of the affec- tions of his wife ; he will have all of them or none. The wife is rightly jealous of the affections of her husband ; she will have all of them or none. And this right and legitimate kind of jealousy is a faint image and reflection * Isa. xlii. 8. ^ Exod. xxxiv. 14. ^ I am indebted for the leading thought in what follows to the Rev. Charles Gore. Second Commandment. 41 of the jealousy of Almighty God, Who seeks and demands the whole-hearted allegiance of man, and will not be satisfied with less ; He too v;ill have all or none. " I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." God has created man and sent him out into the world, as the crown of this lower creation, with wondrous gifts of mind and heart and will — of moral power — what for ? For His own greater glory, in order that every gift may be returned to Him in com- plete surrender. Love demands love, and from one end of the Bible to the other God cries out to man with the jealous cry of an unsatisfied love. It is a cry which is con- centrated here in this commandment — " I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." It makes a claim for the return of all men's faculties to Him. " My duty towards God," we teach our children in the Catechism, " is to love Him with all my heart, Avith all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength ; " and the Catechism is only re-echoing our Lord's own summing up of the first table of the com- mandments,^ thus indicating the area over which the claim of God spreads. ' St. Luke X. 27. 42 The Laiv of Sinai. "With all my heart." In the language of the Bible, the "heart" is indeed the seat of the affections, but it is more ; it is the con- trolling faculty of the moral life as well ; it is the will. God claims this master-faculty. Why is it that so many lives are so marred and wrecked round about us, but because the will has never turned wholly to Him ? Parents say to their children, we say to lads starting in life, " I hope you will get on." Of course we do, but ought we not to make it plain that we mean above all, " I hope you will keep close to God " ? Of what use is it to the lad if he " gets on " in the worldly sense, and if his will is all the time turning away from God, while God is calling out to him, in the words of this commandment, " I the Lord thy God am a jealous God " ? Next God claims the mind — the intellectual faculties. Reflect what a satire these words are on much that passes for education in our day. Is the modern system of education really teaching a child to give its mind to God ? We teach the little ones science, geo- graphy, history, and numberless other subjects, and the old people say that they are " wonder- ful scholars " compared to their fathers and Second Commandment , 43 mothers ; but have we progressed proportion- ately, do you think, in our efforts at teaching them to consecrate their minds to God ? Whatever may be said of individual School Boards, the principle of Board School educa- tion is disastrous : and if, unhappily for England, the schools, by the increasing and often unreasonable requirements of the Edu- cation Department, are forced to take less account of religious teaching, let us see to it that we do not neglect religious instruction on every day of the week where Vv'e are still able to give it ; and on Sundays and Holy Days, as the Prayer-book orders, let us make catechizing an integral portion of our work. Are the children thoroughly instructed in all our parishes, at least on Sunday, in "the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Command- ments, and all other things which a Christian ought to know and believe to his soul's health"? " I would have you," says the Apostle, " wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil."-^ It is to be feared that multitudes of children, at least in our large tov/ns, are growing up now, well versed in much that is evil, and anything but wise ^ Rom. xvi. 19. 44 TJie Law of Sinai. concerning that which is good. There is irreverence and folly in merely secular education, because it forgets or denies that the intellect belongs to God ; there is only a lesser irreverence and folly in what is called "undenominational religious teaching/* because it is based on the theory that God has indeed spoken to man, but that it does not, after all, matter very much what exactly He has said. Further, God claims the soul, or the life ; that is, the complex faculties of our being. We are meant to take stock of our powers and to note our limitations ; to see how best we may consecrate ourselves to God ; to find out what we can do for Him, and also the limits which He has Himself appointed us ; what we can do, and also what we cannot do and were never intended to do. We have to recognize the great principle of the ''diversity of gifts," and root out the begin- nings of envy, the great enemy of united and harmonious work. Envy is, let us reflect, the great danger in clergy houses, and indeed wherever clergy are working together ; it is the evil eye which looks askance at another's good. The work which I am to undertake Second Co7nmandinent. 45 is not my work, or my brother's work ; it is God's work, and for the doing of it He distributes His gifts as He sees fit. We have, it may be, only one talent — we must see to it, all the more earnestly, that we do not wrap it up in a napkin, but that we put it out to usury, that we consecrate it to God ; for it is this consecration of all our faculties which gives its real joy to life, and most of all to the priestly life. Every energy, every power that we have is to be trained and disciplined and used in order to make ourselves — not merely better neighbours or pleasanter com- panions — but better priests. It should be our ambition, let us be sure of it, to grow more efficient in our calling ; as the mechanic strives to perfect himself in his work, as the true soldier is always endeavouring to make himself more efficient in his profession, — so we are to strive to "wax riper and stronger in our ministry," ^ for God claims our " life." He claims also our " strength." We are to go out and tell the artizan, or the labouring man, or the man of business, or the domestic servant, that God has sanctified all work, since God has worked as man in a ^ Service for the Ordering of Priests. 46 The Law of Sinai. carpenter's shop ; that there is no work so simple but may be done for Him — in the shop or the factory, in the fields, at the plough — it does not matter what it is or where it is, if only we do it faithfully, with all our strength. But let us remember that if this is true for the labourer it is no less true for the priest. The language of the Ordinal does not admit of any half-hearted service : " Will you draw all your cares and studies this way ? " " Will you give yourselves wholly to this office whereunto ye are called ? " " Laying aside the study of the world and the flesh." If, then, our faculties are consecrated, all that is not god-like is gradually purged away by the discipline of life, the dross is sloughed off, and the genuine metal rings clear as "we offer and present unto Him ourselves, our souls and bodies." " I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." III. There is another lesson to be learnt from this commandment. It is, from first to last, an appeal to faith ; an appeal to walk by faith, and not by sight. Men were always Second Commandment. 47 looking anxiously about for some visible emblem of the Deity — " Make us gods that may go before us " — but it is a demand which God will never gratify ; there is to be "no likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth." At Sinai He came indeed very near to the people of Revelation, in the " darkness and clouds and thick dark- ness,"^ yet, even then, in that supreme moment, "ye saw no similitude, only ye heard a voice." ^ They were to walk by faith, not by sight. And we have to learn the same lesson now. Men round about us are for ever craving for a sign. We find it so in the Gospels ; as Christ walked up and down among men, they would not believe Him. Why? Because He was too ordinary. "Is not this the carpenter's son? is not His mother called Mary ? " ^ " What sign showest thou ? " "^ And the answer was for ever the same : " An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and there shall no sign be given it." ^ * Deut. iv. II. 2 Deut. iv. 12. ' St. Matt. xiii. 55. * St. John ii. 18; vi. 30. ^ St. Matt. xii. 39. 48 The Law of Sinai, It is the same now. As with the Incarnate Christ, so with His mystical Body the Church : men crave for a sign. The Church is too ordi- nary ; " there are plenty of religious societies and systems," men say, " what sign showest thou ? " " Are you not, after all, only an Establishment, a department of the Civil Service ? " And the answer is also the same now : " We walk by faith, not by sight." To the eye of sense the Church is but a human institution ; to the eye of faith she is the Bride of Christ. To the eye of sense the ministry is but a human institution for bettering humanity ; to the eye of faith it is a Divine institution, instinct with the " powers of the world to come." ^ To the eye of sense the sacraments are but " empty forms;" to the eye of faith they are signs which convey the grace which they symbolize. You baptize an infant : sense but sees the water and hears the words ; faith discerns in the simple ceremony ''the mystical washing away of sin." A child is confirmed : to the eye of sense it is but an imposition of hands by a chief pastor ; to the eye of faith it is the fulness of the gift of the indwelling ^ Heb. vi. 5. Second Co7nmandment, 49 Presence of God the Holy Ghost. You cele- brate the Holy Eucharist : to the eye of sense there are but the elements of bread and wine ; to the eye of faith it is the sacred Body broken and the Blood poured out. You open your Bible : to the eye of sense it is a magnificent collection of human writings, or possibly a heterogeneous collection of pious frauds, the corpits vile, it would seem, on which the doctrinaire critics of our day may experimentalize without let or hindrance ; to the eye of faith it is the Word of God. As in ancient Israel, so in the Christian Church, constant demands are made on faith ; but a faith which is never put to the test is but a poor kind of faith. Faith is not mere acquiescence in the results attained by ex- periments. You may pare down Christianity till you get a residuum in which there is no mystery which transcends human reason ; but are you sure that you will have left anything for which men would care to live, still less anything for which they would care to die ? The faith of the devout Jew was put to the test when he saw " no manner of similitude " ; it was the faithless ones who made the calf and worshipped the work of their own hands. E 50 The Law of Sinai. So it is now : we must expect our faith to be tested in one direction or another, and if we keep true to God it gains strength by the discipHne ; for " He knoweth the way that I take : when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." ^ * Job xxiii. 10. THIRD COMMANDMENT. ' Dixi : Custodiam vias meas : ut non delinquam in lingua mea. — Ps. xxxviii. i. THIRD COMMANDMENT. "Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain : for the Lord will not hold him guiltless, that taketh His Name in vain." God's Name ! What do we mean by the Name of God ? It is Himself, His nature and attributes, so far as He has vouchsafed to unveil Himself to man. From first to last the Bible is a continuous record of God's progressive revelation of Himself; it is a record of how He gradually made Himself known to man with ever-increasing clear- ness, " in many bits and in many ways " (7roXu/.i£ptt»c Kat TroXvTpoTriog). To Abraham He reveals Himself as the Almighty — " I am the Almighty God ; walk before Me, and be thou perfect ; " ^ to Moses as the Eternal One — "I am that I am ;" ^ or again, and more explicitly, at Sinai — ** And the Lord ' Gen. xvii. i, ^ Exod. iii. 14. 54 The Law of Sinai, descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the Name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God [The Eternal One, the Eternal God], merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thou- sands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty. . . . And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped." ^ And as the history of the people of Reve- lation proceeds we find that God is con- tinually bringing them into increasingly close relation to His Name. Thus Jerusalem is spoken of as " the place which God will choose to put His Name there ; " or as the "place which He has hallowed for His Name;"^ or as the "dwelling-place of His Name ; " so that gradually the " Name of God" came to bring with it the sense of God's protecting Presence : so Solomon says, " The Name of the Lord is a strong tower, and the righteous runneth into it, and is safe ; " ^ so the Psalmist cries to the king as ^ Exod. xxxiv. 5-8. ^ Deut. xii. 5. ^ Prov. xviii. 10. Thii'd Commandment, 55 he goes out to battle, " The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble ; the Name of the God of Jacob defend thee ; " ^ "I come to thee," says David to Goliath, " in the Name of the Lord of hosts." ^ Throughout their history the Jews were taught that they must not trifle with God's Name ; for His Name was not something outside them, but was God's disclosure of Himself, and that they had been brought by this disclosure into intimate and sacred relations with Him : His Name had been named upon them. So Jeremiah cries out as, in prophetic foresight, he sees the desola- tion of the Holy City, "Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by Thy Name ; leave us not." ^ And as we pass into the Christian dis- pensation, is it not the same thing that we find ? Not an over-setting of what had gone before, but a further unveiling of God, and a clearer naming of His Name. God is Almighty — that was His revelation of Himself to the Patriarch in the plains of Mamre ; God is the Eternal One — that was His revelation to the great Law-giver ; and ^ Ps. XX. I. 2 I Sam. xvii. 45. * Jer. xiv. 9. 56 The Law of Sinai. the final naming of God's Name was given when Christ became incarnate, and men learnt that God is Love. And as in the Old Testament, so in the New, men were taught that the Name of God was to be a thing of power to those who were brought within the sphere of its operation, within the fold of the Covenant. The Name of God was a Name of power. " In My Name," says our Lord, " they shall cast out devils." ^ " In the Name of Jesus Christ," is the apostolic comment, "rise up and walk." ^ " The devils are subject unto us through Thy Name,"^ say the Seventy. "Wonders were done by the Name of the Holy Child Jesus," * says St. Luke. The Name of God, then, to us Christians, is not something w^hich we can look at from the outside ; we bear it upon us, it is within us to be a thing of power if we will. " Into the Nam.e of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," you and I were bap- tized ; and we cannot, we dare not, trifle with this most sacred Name. " Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain : ^ St. Mark xvi. 17. ^ Acts iii. 6. 2 St. Luke X. 17. * Acts iv. 30. Third Commandment. 57 for the Lord will not hold him guiltless, that taketh His Name in vain." What then, more specifically, does this commandment teach us ? I. It is the commandment of reverence, and, in the first place, it is negative : it is a pro- hibition of irreverence. It is one of those commandments on which, as in the case of the sixth and the seventh, we have our blessed Lord's own comment : " Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shait not forsv/ear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths : but I say unto you, Swear not at all ; neither by heaven ; for it is God's throne : nor by the earth ; for it is His footstool : neither by Jeru- salem ; for it is the city of the great King. . . . But let your communication be, Yea, yea ; Nay, nay : for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." -^ Consider, then, the Christian's relation to oaths. Does our Lord forbid all swearing ? It was for some time a debated question in the ancient Church, but the decision, which » St. Matt. V. ZZ-ZI. 58 The Law of Sinai. has for many centuries held its ground, was that an oath on solemn occasions, as in a court of justice, is allowable to a Chris- tian. The fact is, our Lord's words must be interpreted by His practice. When the high priest merely asked Him, " What is it which these witness against Thee?" Jesus held His peace ; but when Caiaphas used the formula, equivalent to putting a person upon his oath, " I adjure Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ," ^ the words drew forth an immediate response. St. Paul also uses lan- guage of solemn adjuration, "God is my wit- ness ; " •' I say the truth in Christ, I lie not ; " " I call God for a record upon my soul ; " ^ and the angel in the Apocalypse swears " by Him that liveth for ever and ever." ^ Solemnly to call God to witness that what we say is true is not, therefore, con- demned by this commandment ; for what, after all, does a Christian do on such occa- sions ? " He is proclaiming the principle that he always acts upon." Truthfulness is ' St. Matt. xxvi. 6z. • I Thess. ii. 10 ; Rom. ix. i ; 2 Cor. i. 23. ^ Rev. X. 6. Third Commandment. 59 a recognition of the Presence of God ; and when a Christian swears in a court of law, he is not saying that his words are truer than elsewhere, but proclaiming that he is speak- ing with the consciousness that God's Eye is upon him, and with a full recognition of the responsibility which such a consciousness implies. But, undoubtedly, we have here a condem- nation of all profane and careless oaths, and it is this sort of swearing which our Lord had specially in view in the Sermon on the Mount — men had got into the habit of intro- ducing oaths into ordinary conversation. They would not swear by God Himself, but they swore by the temple, by the altar, by the earth, by heaven ; thus, while they kept the letter of the commandment, they broke its spirit. And it is this habit on which our Lord lays His Finger. What He says in effect is, "You cannot escape from God's Presence. The earth is His footstool, Jeru- salem is His city, heaven is His throne." He will not have this irreverent disregard of God's Name. " Let your communication be, Yea, yea ; Nay, nay." We Christians also know something of 6o The Lazv of Sinai, irreverent oaths. Certainly such swearing is not, thank God, so common now as once it was. It exists, however, and we shall have to make war on it. Lads do it to show they are no longer boys ; men do it to show they are not religious, and because their com- panions do. They do not, often, mean to be specially irreligious ; but they do not, on the other hand, wish to be thought religious. It is strange that some are so afraid of being thought religious, that they seem anxious to be taken for worse than they are. " If there are hypocrites in religion," it has been said, "there are also, strange as it may appear, hypocrites in impiety — men Vv^ho make an ostentation of more irreligion than they pos- sess. An ostentation of this kind, the most irrational in the records of human folly, seems to lie at the root of profane swearing." ^ But, apart from actual swearing, we have here a condemnation of all irreverent lan- guage, and it is in this way that this com- mandment comes nearer home to you and me ; for irreverent language is not impos- sible even amongst clergymen. One of the * Robert Hall, quoted in Dale's " Ten Commandments," P- 73- Third Commandment, 6i commonest temptations is that of making jokes out of the Bible, and the strength of the temptation often lies in the extreme ease with which it may be done. It is extremely easy to create a laugh in this way, and, as well as being an easy thing to do, it is a very catch- ing habit ; it is difficult not to laugh when others do it, and one grotesque association of words suggests another. It is well that we should make a strict rule with ourselves in this respect, for we can scarcely calculate the harm that the habit may do to others, no less than to ourselves. Every time we indulge in it we are in danger of laying up for ourselves and others a hindrance to devotion, which will assuredly find us out some day. Times will come when the expression in the Psalms or the Lessons which we have turned to ridicule should have helped us in the upward path, but the irreverent or foolish jest has robbed it of its power; and this misuse of God's Word brings its own chastisement, as the memory declines to forget the flippant allusions of bygone days ; the things that should have *' been for our wealth " have become the " occasions of stumbling." ^ ^ Ps. Ixix. 23. 62 The Law of Sinai. II. But the commandment is not merely nega- tive ; it is positive. It is a positive command to be reverent in word and action. We live in a flippant age ; we are flooded j^\\\v flippant literature, and it would indeed be strange if this characteristic of our day did not find its way at times even into clergy- houses. At least, we do well to remind our- selves of the dangers of falling into flippant ways. Certainly, as we look out into the world, there is nothing flippant about human life. Lift the veil from the life of any man or woman whom you pass in the street. Sup- pose you knew the whole story of that life, do you think that you would find there a revelation of a flippant kind? Think what, in fact, you would find there, — the inner secret trials and struggles ; the deep search- ings of heart ; the long and patient endurance of temptation or suffering ; the strange alter- nations of character, as virtue and vice seemed to have now one, now the other, the upper hand ; the brave battling with adverse circumstances ; the hard, patient toil amid Third Commandment, 63 physical weakness ; the heavy load of early sin, which even now threatens to break down and destroy the steady progress of later years. Is there anything flippant in all this ? Is it not rather infinitely pathetic? Is it not true that nothing but "the Infinite pity is enough for the infinite pathos of human life " ? This commandment is a call to reverence, and if we would do any good in the ministry we must have learnt to reverence human life. Reverence is the " recognition of a greatness higher than ourselves ; " and we must be reverent in church and out of it. Reverence cannot be put on and off like a coat ; outward reverence must be the natural expression of a thoughtful and reverent character. The Church puts wonderful words into our mouths ; we are continually about the sanctuary, about the altar ; we conduct the services and minister the sacraments ; we visit the sick and suffering, and kneel at the bedside of the dying. What if in the midst of this manifold sacred work we are, at heart, irreverent? What if when the surplice is thrown off men find us thoughtless and flippant ? What if the metal rings false ? 64 The Lazv of Sinai, Clearly God will not hold us guiltless ; for this is to take His Name in vain. Ah ! perhaps you will think I am drawing the picture too darkly. " Surely," you say, '■' we have gained much, very much, in this matter of reverence : look at our churches, and compare them with the churches as they were twenty or five and twenty years ago ; look at our services, and compare them with the services as they were in the last genera- tion. Think of the number of churches which have been restored to the beauty of holiness ; think of the care and labour and thought and time and money spent on these things now. Surely we have gained much in reverence ; there is but little danger of irreverence now." God grant it may be so, but we do well to be on our guard. There are those round about us who are ready to whisper, " It is only a phase of aestheticism ; people like ceremonies : the love of beauty and of art is fashionable just now ; one must put up with it in church." Only a phase of aestheticism ! Let us give the lie to such a charge as this. Never let it be said of any church for which we are responsible, "It is only aestheticism." If it Third Coinmandment . 65 only means this, then let us away with it altogether. Ceremonial is valuable not because it is pretty, but because it means something", because it suggests something immeasurably higher than itself; otherwise it is childish, and we do but take God's Name in vain. If we are " correct," let it not be at the expense of being real. " Who hath required this at your hands, to trample My courts } " ^ Familiarity with sacred things does not, of itself, insure reverence : the reverse is often the case, and the better versed we become in the routine of clerical work the greater the need of care. Punctuality. It seems a small matter, but if the people are kept waiting for service, and we come in hurriedly and begin half out of breath, the layman whose time is precious does not think this a good example of reverence. Twice a day, at least, we go in to ''■ stand before God " for the people, to plead with Him for them, to praise Him in their stead : let us be reverent. We are not called upon merely to make the services "attractive," still less to make additions or omissions at our own pleasure, but we are expected to be ^ Isa. i. 12 (R.V.). F 66 The Law of Sinai, reverent. Let us do what we can, in a day of flash and advertisement, to retain in our churches that sense of holy awe, of rever- ence and quiet restfulness, which is cha- racteristic of our ancient buildings. Ritual need never be distracting or " fussy " ; whether there is little or much, it may have a quiet and restful dignity entirely its own, which comes from a recollection of the Presence of God ; for certainly it is the spirit of recol- lectedness which is at once the evidence and safeguard of reverence. We clergy must do what in us lies, in the midst of our busy lives, to secure for ourselves the spirit of recollected- ness. It may be many years' work, but it is well worth while setting ourselves to learn to be bright and happy without being flippant ; to be simple and natural without a trace of unreality ; to be reverent and serious without gloom or affectation. No one, it is presumed, was more profoundly serious than John Keble ; yet no one was more cheerful — "Master is the greatest boy of them all," said the old gardener at Hursley — but you will remember his gentle rebuke of Hurrell Froude. " Froude told me that Keble once, before parting with him, seemed Third Commandment . 67 to have something on his mind which he wished to say, but shrank from saying, while waiting, I think, for a coach. At last he said, just before parting, * Froude, you thought Law's " Serious Call " a clever book ; it seemed to me as if you had said the Day of Judgment will be a pretty sight.' This speech, Froude told me, had a great effect on his after life." ^ ' Dean Church, *' Oxford Movement," p. 25. FOURTH COMMANDMENT. Et benedixit diei septimo ; et sanctificavit ilium : quia in ipso cessaverat ab omni opere suo quod creavit Deus ut faceret. — Gen. ii. -2. FOURTH COMMANDMENT. "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, thy cattle, and the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day : wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it." How is it that we find such a strange piece of ceremonialism enshrined in the Decalogue ? Why, in this Law of the love of God, do we find this observance of the seventh day insisted on ? What has it to do with morality ? Why is it not classed among the ritual laws of Levi- ticus ? Why is it placed in the moral code ? These are some of the questions which confront us as we consider this fourth com- mandment. Nor have we exhausted the diffi- culties which are urged against it. "Who," it is asked, "except the Jews, think of ob- serving it ? " In point of fact, the Christian T2 The Law of Sinai, Church does not observe the seventh day at all : we Christians regard it just like any- other day, we do not profess to keep it holy. Then why not pass a pen through this com- mandment ? Why, indeed, has not the Church done this long ago, and why do we still pray, after its recital, " Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law " ? I. In answer, let us reflect that there is a moral truth underlying this commandment — a moral truth, which is the essence of it, though it be clothed in a ceremonial garb. The fourth commandment is the law of the consecration of time ; it reminds us that all our time belongs to God. It is a law of labour as well as a law of rest. It is a law of labour, for " Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do," is as integral a part of this commandment, in its present form, as '' In it thou shalt do no manner of work." The real significance of the com- mandment lies in this, that whether working or resting all our time belongs to God. It is the law of the consecration of time. It is, then, after all, a moral precept which Fotirth Commandment. 'J2f is before us : we have here, no less than in the other commandments, no exclusively Jewish ordinance. " Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" — that was perhaps the original form of this commandment, as it was cut in the rocks of Sinai ; and the word " Remember " carries us back to a primaeval Revelation. Look at the record of this Revelation as it meets us in the opening pages of Genesis. It is not merely said, "And on the seventh day God ended the work which He had made ; and God rested on the seventh day from all the work which He had made " — this would not have definitely involved us in any duty, though it might have suggested one — but the sacred text continues, "and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : because in it he had rested from all His work which God created and made." Here, surely, is the primaeval law given ages before the Jewish Sabbath was promulgated. Here is the primaeval law which gave to the ancient Persians, Egyptians, and Babylonians, no less than to Jews, their authority for dividing their time into periods of seven. God says " Remember " when He gives this law on 74 The Law of Sinai. Sinai, partly because the law was not alto- gether a new one, but one which pointed back to an earlier Revelation ; and partly also, no doubt, because it was a positive, and, so to say, an arbitrary law, unlike — at least in its outward form — to the command- ments which precede and follow it. We do not find it written on our hearts, as in the case of the first commandment ; we do not recognize it distinctively as an axiom of natural piety, as in the case of the fifth. It is a positive command of God which men might easily forget, and therefore God says, " Remember." For,^ consider, why do we, in common with the rest of the civilized world of to-day, and with the ancient nations of Persia and Egypt, why do we observe weeks ? Why do we cut up our time into portions of seven days? All our other divisions of time rest upon the laws of Nature : there is no need to say " Remember " in regard to them. We observe day-time and night-time because Nature suggests this observance. We mark out our time into years because Nature sug- gests it — they are the periods of the earth's > See Moberly, " The Law of the Love of God," p. 182. Fourth Commandment, 75 revolutions round the sun ; into months because Nature suggests it — they are the periods of the moon's revolutions round the earth ; into days because Nature suggests it — they are the periods of the earth's revolu- tion on her own axis. Nature suggests these divisions ; they are, of course, God's appoint- ment, but God makes His Will known to us by His ordinary Revelation in the course of Nature. But with divisions of time into weeks it is different. Such a division rests simply on God's positive command to man to sanctify the seventh day. It is as if God had said, ' My own Will and Law shall have a place in the time-arrangements of those who know My Name.' *' Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." The Jewish Sabbath, it is true, has passed away, and the Christian Sunday is not the Jewish Sabbath. The Jewish Sabbath has passed away with Judaism, and with other observances proper to that religion. " Let no man judge you," says the Apostle (and he is thinking of Jewish ordinances), " in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days."^ The Sabbath, then, » Col. ii. 16. 76 The Laiv of Sinai. passed away with the old ceremonial law. All this is true, and yet the primaeval obliga- tion to give a seventh part of his time to God was still binding on man ; for this obligation has in it nothing essentially Jewish. Its meaning was that man's life should re- semble God's Life. God rested on the seventh day. Why ? Because God was tired ? No ; but God's rest was the rest of a satisfied Will, and He willed, too, that man's life should be like His — like His in its activity, " Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do ; " like His in its rest, " God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it." Thus, when Judaism gave place to Chris- tianity, a new slip, a second shoot sprang up out of this old root law, the primaeval Reve- lation. Christianity " set the clock of time," it has been beautifully said, " to the epochs of our Lord's life and death. On Wednesday she recalled His Betrayal, on Thursday His Ascension, on Friday His Passion, on Sunday His Resurrection. As a sunflower turns towards the sun, so the Church turned towards the Sun of Righteousness." Our Lord rose on Sunday ; on Sunday He appeared to His Apostles ; He waited six days, and then Fourth Com7nandment. 77 appeared again on a Sunday. The Holy Ghost came down on a Sunday ; on Sunday the earliest disciples " came together to break bread." It was so at Jerusalem ; it was so at Troas ; and wherever Christianity spread the first day of the week was consecrated to worship. Freed from all the restrictions which were merely Jewish, the blessed privi- lege remains to us of a sanctified day. The principle is enshrined in the Decalogue, the actual observance of the first day of the week rests upon the authority of the Church. What are we Christians to say to it ? II. The Church has by canon or custom laid down only two great rules as to the obser- vance of Sunday : the one negative, the other positive. First we are to remember that it is a day of rest — abstinence from servile work ; and secondly, it is a day of worship — attend- ance, where possible, at the Holy Eucharist. These two rules are, it would seem, the summary of all the canons and edicts which have been from time to time enacted in regard to the observance of Sunday, from the reign yS The Law of Sinai. of Constantine onwards. Let us reflect on the matter quite practically. Sunday is a day for the soul. God knew what was in man, for God made man, and God has decreed the weekly rest from labour ; and all physiologists are agreed, it would seem, in saying that a man can work better for six days, if he rests on the seventh. In the days of the French Revolution, when everything which even remotely suggested any sort of deference to revealed religion was tabooed, one day out of every ten was appointed to be observed as a day of rest ; but the experiment was a social and economic failure, and men returned, after twelve years, to the old plan. Practically it was a conces- sion to Revelation : men found out that God, after all, knew best. Sunday is a day of rest — " in it thou shalt do no manner of work," — but this is, after all, only the negative side. Sunday is, posi- tively, a day for the soul ; and it is, therefore, pre-eminently a day for those who have not much time to think of their souls throughout the week : it is a day for the working man. Man has a soul as well as a body, and if you take away the Sunday rest, you not only Fourth Commandment, 79 over-strain the body, but you deprive the soul of its opportunity for nourishment. Sunday, therefore, is a day for worship. Man needs, after the toils of the week, the calm and refreshment of Sunday, and he will _p / find it in God's House, and round about His -■^*' \ Altar; and here at once we clergy have a .js-e^^-^-^ clear duty before us. What are we doing, ^L^->'^f-- let us reflect, to make the Lord's service the V-^> l^ chief service of Sunday ^ Are we quite fear- ct^t^^^^^^^ less in telling our people that, whatever else < . they do on Sunday, they should not omit to '. ^ be at the Lord's service on the Lord's Day ? r^P^^ The great question before us now, in the matter f.h^ months he was asked if he were ready for more rules. " Not yet," he replied ; and so at the end of every year, till five years had elapsed, when he declared he had no need of any other rules, for having learnt the first one, to master his tongue, he had gained a discipline and control over his whole nature.^ To look at our Lord from time to time, and to learn meekness from His Passion, is most likely the way in which the saints have conquered the sin of anger : for when " He was reviled. He reviled not again, and when He suffered. He threatened not.",^ And for us, too, if we would learn gentleness, we must be learning how to *' suffer without com- plaining." ^ ^ See Socrates, " Eccl. Hist.," iv. 23. 2 I St. Pet. ii. 23. ^ *' Lernen zu leiden ohne zu klagen." — Emperor Frederick William of Germany. SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. Averte oculos meos ne videant vanitatem : in via tua vivifica me. — Ps. cxviii. 37. SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. " Thou shalt not commit adultery." This is a commandment which, like the last, has been deepened and explained by our Blessed Lord in the Sermon on the Mount. "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery : but I say unto you, That whoso- ever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and 126 The Law of Sinai, not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." 1 And further, this commandment comes to us Christians in the positive form of the great Beatitude, ''Blessed are the pure in heart." What, then, is the principle of purity, clean- ness of heart ? Does it not lie just in this particular, that the flesh is not to have the upper hand? True purity is true self-control. The body, with all its marvellous capacities and powers, must needs be kept in its true and proper place, and its proper place is one of subordi- nation : it is a " splendid servant, but a terrible master." All impurity, all sensuality, all intemperance, is of the nature of a " servile war." It is the animal passions in revolt against the higher faculties ; it is the law of the flesh working its will on the law of the mind. And the true end of all self-control and self-discipline is, not to destroy these lower faculties, nor to crush them ; but to train, to discipline, to control them, so that they may be kept in their true place, and be at the disposal of the higher man within us. * St. Matt. V. 27-30, Seventh Commandment. 127 From want of self-discipline the faculties become disordered, and the man is enslaved by the lower instincts : the drunkard is a slave to his drink, the sensualist is a slave to his lust, " for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage."^ Conversely, the man who is pure is the free man, for he is the man who habitually con- trols his appetites, and is able to say ** no " to his animal instincts, and who has made his "flesh" the ready instrument of the " spirit." " I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection," ^ says St. Paul. And our Lord, in the Sermon on the Mount, takes the negative prohibition of the seventh commandment, which defends the moral Law on its furthest frontiers, and then, piercing deep down into the centre and core of man's moral being, republishes the law in the form of a positive principle, " Blessed are the pure in heart." I. Think of the morality of the ancient world and its consecration of the filthiest forms of vice, and then think of our Lord, with all ' 2 St. Pet. ii. 19. 2 I Cor. ix. 27. 128 The Law of Sinai. His unspeakable sensitiveness to moral evil, calmly uttering these words, "Blessed are the pure in heart." If purity of heart is enjoined on the Christian, assuredly it is enjoined, if we cannot say with greater emphasis, we can say with more paramount obligations, on the Christian priest. " In all things approving ourselves," says St. Paul, " as the ministers of God, ... by pureness." ^ People expect and require a high standard of us, and if they do not find purity in the Christian priest, where are they to look for it ? where are they to expect it ? Certainly the obligations on our part to. strive after purity are sufficiently overwhelm- ing, as we move habitually among sacred things, — baptizing infants, catechizing and instructing children ; preparing lads and girls for Confirmation ; visiting the sick ; hearing confessions ; preparing the dying for their last journey ; repeating the sacred offices, with holy words of prayer or praise continually on our lips ; speaking for God to the people, and again for the people to God ; — exposed by the very circumstances of our calling to special temptations ; for ever obliged by our * 2 Cor. V. 4, 6. Seventh Commandment, 129 sacred vocation to make professions of holi- ness ; ascending at least week by week to the altar to plead the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world ; moving thus among mysteries where- in things earthly and Divine, the visible and the invisible, commingle and interpenetrate ; distributing to the people the Bread of heaven and the Chalice of everlasting life. What if, amid all this, we are not struggling to keep ourselves pure ? St. Chrysostom says that the hand which consecrates the Eucharist ought to be purer than the sun ; and if the hand, what about the lips which utter the consecrating words ? and if the lips, what about the heart? Purity of heart is what we must struggle for, nothing short of this, in order to come near to an all-pure God. We need it, indeed, for our own sake, " lest he die ; " and we need it also for the sake of our people, for " for their sakes I sanctify (aytaSw) Myself" ^ Some of us, please God, will have to take our share in the rescue of the fallen ; we shall have to go into dangerous places ; to bring out " brands plucked from * St. John xvii. 19. K 130 The Law of Sinai. the burning." But who rescued Lot from Sodom ? Angels. Even so it requires angelic fixity of will, angelic purity, to do work like this. We shall have to tell God's message to the innocent, to the pure ; but who announced to her who is the image of spotless purity the wondrous birth of her Divine Son ? An angel. Even so to teach the innocent is angels' work. We have to speak to the penitent ; but again it was an angel who told the Magdalen of the Resur- rection. All this needs great fixity of will ; but if we are called to this work we dare not shrink back. Think of the Good Shepherd ; He was called a '' Friend of publicans and sinners." ^ Can we afford to be called this ? He sat on the well, and talked alone with a woman of broken character. Can we afford to do it? Think what is said of Him. The rich young man runs to Him in the open road, and "Jesus beholding him loved him;"^ or again, "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." ^ Who shall tell the spotless ' St. MaU. xi. 19. ' 2 3t^ i^^rk x. 21. 3 St. John xi. 5. Seventh Commandment, 131 purity of the human heart of Jesus Christ ? An intensity of real affection, we may be sure, was there, such as the most affectionate of us can never know ; but affections absolutely disciplined by the sovereign power of the will. Surely, then, It is in His earthly life that we have the great Example of the true Pastor. He does not shrink from contact with the fallen : Mary Magdalen comes to Him at the Pharisees' feast ; the woman of Samaria talks to Him at the well ; He does not check the impulse of pure human affection towards the young man as he kneels in the street ; He has among His disciples a best-loved Apostle, who leans on His breast at supper ; " He loved Martha and her sister and Laza- rus." Here, my brethren, is a mirror of true purity, of true freedom ; the affections are not crushed — never man loved like Christ loves — they are warm and living, but wholly disciplined, wholly, spotlessly pure. This is our pattern ; but "who Is sufficient for these things? " We must not be appalled or shrink back into faint-heartedness. " Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see God." " The 132 The Law of Sinai. greatness of the privilege is the measure of the greatness of the effort to attain it." ^ Let us realize, then, that what is before is a long, perhaps a lifelong, struggle to be pure in heart. Bishop Butler was tempted all his life to blasphemous thoughts ; and any one of us may be tempted all our lives to impure thoughts ; but, thanks be to God ! temptation is not sin, and the question is, are we struggling to be pure ? II. Consider the method of our warfare. {ci) Be fearful. " Quisquis non timuit jam lapsus est " ^ — " Let him that thinketh he stand- eth take heed lest he fall." ^ It is more true of this sin than of any other that we are never safe. No condition in life, no circumstances in which we may ever be placed, no position which we may ever occupy, are, of themselves, any safeguard against a fall into this deadly sin. " Believe one who has had experience, saith Augustine : I have known cedars of Lebanon, leaders of the people, fall by this 1 Rev. W. C. E. Newbolt, 2 Bona, " Manuductio," v. 3. ^ i Cor. x. 12. Seventh Coiiunandment. 133 sin whom you would suspect as little as you would have suspected St. Jerome or St. Ambrose." ^ To be afraid of falling is the great safeguard against a fall, for nothing else will ensure us. You may be physically strong, but physical strength is not necessarily a safeguard against this sin. Certainly bodily strength is a great gift from God, and athletics may be a great help in keeping young men in a healthy condition of mind and body ; only let us not deceive ourselves or those to whom we go. Do not let us teach them that athletics alone will keep them from falling ; of them- selves they are no security : Samson was the strongest of men, but Samson fell by this sin. Or again, you may be intellectual ; but intellectual vigour will not save us from this enemy. You may be very learned, and yet you may be wrecked by this sin. There are examples in all ages of the Church which teach us that the possession of great intellectual faculties or interests of a higher sort is no safeguard against impurity. Solomon was the wisest of men, yet " when he was old his wives turned away his heart," and ' "Memoriale Vitas Sacerdotalis," c. Ixxi. 134 T^^^^ Lazu of Sinai, Solomon fell because he " loved many strange women." ^ Once more, we shall deceive ourselves if we think that to have been brought very near to God in Ordination will in itself ensure us from the risk of being ruined by this sin. The devil may come to us after ordination as well as before. It was after our Lord's Baptism that He was led up into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. The evil one does, as we know, at times, disguise himself as an angel of light ; he may approach quite as readily when we have put on the cassock of the priest as he did in former days. He may attack us in the exercise of our sacred calling ; Hophni and Phinehas were priests of the Lord, but the Divine call passes from them, for their vileness, to the pure child Samuel. Solomon had done much work for God, — he had built the Temple, he had been favoured with special gifts from the Almighty ; yet what sadder record could you read than this, "The Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice " ! ^ No ! assuredly we may ^ I Kings xi. i, 3. ^ i Kings xi. 9. Seventh Commandment. oD have been brought very near to God ; we may have been endowed with many gifts, spiritual, intellectual, or physical ; we may have done much real work for God ; but all this will not ensure us against a fall : we must be fearful. " Be not high-minded, but fear." ^ (3) Flight. Here is the golden rule in regard to this temptation. Other temptations are to be m.et by fighting them again and again ; this one is to be met, so to say, by flight. '' Fly, fly," says Scupoli, " if indeed you would avoid being overtaken, made prisoners, slain." ^ This was Joseph's method.^ It is indeed the ordained remedy : " flee fornication ; " ''flee youthful lusts."* We may look our temptations to pride, to anger, to gluttony in the face ; but for this temptation flight is perfect heroism. If God has ordained for us the remedy of flight. He has not promised us the grace of resistance. And flight implies the avoidance of occasion. " If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off." Occasions must vary with different people, but whatever the occasion is it must be put on one side, avoided, cut off. ^ Rom. xi. 20. 2 ii Spiritual Combat," chap. xix. ^ Gen. xxxix. 12. ^ i Cor. vi. 18 ; 2 Tim. ii. 22. 136 The Laiv of Sinai, We may be crippled, but we shall be safe ; it is better, our Lord says, to be like a maimed person than, though whole, to be ruined. There are certain spheres of work, He means, which some men cannot safely venture on ; there are certain persons to whom some cannot safely go ; there are certain places v/hich some cannot safely visit. To most of us the occasions come through the faculty of sight, and we must learn, therefore, to discipline ourselves especially in this direction ; we need the " guardianship of the eye" — custos oculorum. And here it is obvious that the temptation must vary greatly with different people ; one may look unharmed where another may be ruined. If a man is true to his conscience he will know what to avoid. Sculpture, painting, newspapers, the theatre, photographs, the streets, even passages of the Bible, — all or any of these are or may be " occasions." We must guard the eye. " If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out." Our Lord condemns the wilfully indulged thought of sin suggested especially by the eye — "Whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Seventh Commandment. 137 {c) We must guard the thoughts. Here, if anywhere, we may be profoundly thankful for the distinction between temptation and sin. We cannot always help the entrance into the mind of vile thoughts, but the will need never consent. The will must be on the alert to resist the very beginning of evil thoughts. We must order them out and slam the door ; for it is at the beginning we have the power to do this, later on we are powerless.^ Much will certainly depend on the habitual trend of our thoughts. " Do not think," writes Bishop Steere, "that what your thoughts dwell on is of no matter : your thoughts are making you. We are two men, each of us — what is seen, and what is not seen — but the unseen is the maker of the other." And thoughts include the imagination. We have an extraordinary power in the imagination, a terrible creative power, which, if we do not keep a tight hand upon the rein, may cause us endless trouble. And then there is the memory : we must pray that God the Holy Ghost will cleanse the memory from the taint of wrong sights, * Cp. Bona, I.e. 138 The Lazu of Sinai. wrong sounds, that the mind may be free to dwell on what is pure, honest, truthful, and of good report. {d) We must discipline the affections ; the capacity of desire, the raw material for love or hatred, must be disciplined. '' Out of the heart," says our Blessed Lord, " proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." ^ It is a terrible list, and if we are seriously aiming at purity we must discipline the affections and guard the heart. " Keep thy heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the issues of life." ^ Often it is very hard ; the heart must expect to be bruised and crushed if we are really to do the work of priests. Again and again we must offer the heart to God, and ask Him to make us love Him above all, and others only in Him. You are, let us say, of an affectionate disposition ; well, thank God for that, only your strongest point may conceivably be your weakest ; your heart must be given first to God, and then only can you go out safely to love others purely, disinterestedly, with detachment. Be prepared to have it ' St. Matt. XV. 19. 2 Pj.q^, i^_ 23. Seve7ith Coininandmcnt. 139 bruised and broken, for it is thus that God uses it and cleanses it. "A broken heart," it has been beautifully said, and the words apply with special force to the heart of a priest, " a broken heart is a great vocation." ^ Every vibration of the heart which is not according to God's Will we shall one day regret. You can indeed do nothing as a priest without love, and there are few things you cannot do if you have love — amor omnia vincit. Only love needs to be under con- stant control, and we do well to remember that love means suffering. If you have anything of a priest's heart be prepared to suffer. " Give me, O sweetest Jesus, a watchful heart, which no curious imagination may withdraw from Thee ; give me a sted- fast heart, which no unworthy affection may drag downward ; give me an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out ; give me a free and disengaged heart, which the violence of no absorbing fascination may enslave ; give me an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside." ^ • Rev. J. R. Illingworth. - Prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas. 140 The Law of Smai. III. Men taunt us and tell us that "purity is not natural." Certainly it is not natural to our poor fallen nature unassisted by Divine grace. Assuredly purity cannot be worked up, so to say, from any materials we shall find within us ; for it is a supernatural grace inwrought in us by God the Holy Ghost. We need all of us to have the God-united Humanity of the Second Adam communi- cated to us in the Sacrament, that "our sinful bodies may be made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His most precious Blood." Yes, we need the Sacrament, and we need the watchfulness of a prayerful spirit. Think of the past. Has it been bad and wrong, only now we have put it clean away ? Be watchful : old sins will haunt the memory ; they will come knocking at the door of our hearts and wonder why they are not admitted.^ Think of the past. Has it been free from sin ? Thank God for that ; only be watchful. David, after a spotless youth, was past forty when he sinned with Bathsheba. * Rev. W. C. E. Newbolt. Seventh Commandment. 141 Again, *' Be not high-minded, but fear ; " guard your leisure time ; live a life so indus- trious as not to leave vacancies ; avoid softness, luxury, any kind of fascination. One word in regard to a single life. We are free to marry " as we shall judge the same to serve better to godliness ; " ^ but whether we look at the example of the ancient Church or at the needs of the Church to-day, there can be no doubt that we want in England a wider recognition of the priestly celibate life. Let us remember, then, that the celibate life is not merely negative, but positive ; it is not mere absti- nence from marriage — mere bachelorhood — it implies an effort at more unreserved con- secration to God. It is not an incomplete life ; it is one form of real freedom.^ It may, by God's blessing, be fruitful in spiritual offspring ; it implies a desire for constant union with Christ. The virgin-life is a great vocation. If God calls you to it, count the cost and go bravely forward. " He that is able to receive it, let him receive it (6 "3 1 Article XXXII. « Isa. Ivi. 4, 5 -, Rev. xiv. 4. ' St. Matt. xix. 12. EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. Bonum mihi lex oris tui, super millia auri, et argenti. Ps. cxviii. 72. EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. " Thou shalt not steal.'' I SUPPOSE at first sight many of us would be disposed to pass this commandment over somewhat rapidly, as being no special concern of ours. Certainly, in the ordinary and ob- vious sense of the v/ords, we have no special temptation to theft, because we do not, thank God, experience actual want, which is the great temptation to common acts of theft. And yet, perhaps, that is all the more reason why we should try to understand the position of those who are tempted in this way, in order that our sympathy may be real and strong. Think how large a proportion of men and women in the world are engrossed, day by day and week by week, in buying and sell- ing ; and necessarily so, for it is " to make both ends meet." They are *' labouring to L 146 The Law of Smai, get their own living ; " and thus thousands of people are tempted every day to steal just as really and acutely as you or I are tempted to pride or anger. To hundreds and thou- sands of people in trade — men and boys, girls and women — ^this temptation is real and urgent ; and it is often very hard for many engaged in houses of business to be sure where the borderland is, where the line is to be drawn between what is honest and dishonest, what is legitimate perquisite and what is fraud. You will have plenty of cases in parochial work where it is difficult to know what advice to give. There are many girls and lads in shops who are kept away from church and the Sacrament, because they seem compelled to connive at practices which their consciences cannot but condemn. And on our own account let us recollect, at the outset, that it will not do for us to despise money matters as of no account to us. Because a matter like this is of secondary importance it does not do to regard it as of no importance at all.^ Let us recollect, then, quite simply, that we ought to keep some record of our expenditure ; that we ought to * Bishop Butler, "Analogy," part ii. chap, i., ad fin. Eighth Commandment. 147 pay our debts, and not to run into wrong debts, or debts we cannot pay. The clergy have a bad reputation, it is to be feared, in this matter; and yet it is just the sort of test which the average layman most appreciates. It is of no use to preach on high moral or doctrinal truths, while all the time we are neglecting the simple duty of paying our debts. The sensible layman will at once say, *' I do not aspire to all that, but at all events I am honest." To be deficient here is an " unpardonable sin " in the &y^?> of the laity.^ Some years ago an old man's absence from a place of worship was accounted for by his daughter thus — ''You see, sir," she said, " so many of the clergy owe him money, and it makes him think less of religion ; but he does go to church when we go for a visit to the village where he was born." ^ Certainly we are not likely to do harm in this way intentionally, but is there not a danger lest from carelessness and want of thought and want of self-control, we should do great harm ? The punctual performance ^ E. T. Leeke, "Ourselves, our Work, and our People," p. 18. " Ibid,, p. 19. 148 The Law of Sinai. of commonplace duties is the only solid foundation for any higher aspirations. I. The underlying principle of this com- mandment is God's recognition of the rights of property. We should none of us be disposed to dispute the proposition of St. Thomas Aquinas, " that it is lawful for a man to hold private property ; and it is also necessary for the carrying on of human life." The struggle between Capital and Labour arises, not because property is wrong, but often, at least, rather because the responsi- bilities which attach to property, and which are so enormous, are so scantily recognized. This is certainly true, both in regard to private persons, and still more in regard to public bodies or companies. How often manufacturers or companies employ thou- sands of so-called " hands " and make no provision for their higher wants ! Is it any wonder, then, that feelings of class hatred are engendered ? What a terrible neglect of responsibility this is ! If this eighth com- mandment regulates our duty in regard to Eighth Commandment. 149 property, here is a clear breach of it. Look at our large manufacturing towns. Again and again multitudes of the people are living in spiritual destitution ; and if you ask the bishop of the diocese, or the clergy of the district, they will tell you that the owners of the industries take small account of the higher wants of the people. And yet God recognizes the rights of property, otherwise this commandment is meaningless ; yes. He recognizes this right, and Socialism is all wrong in thinking to do away with this right ; but " it is one thing to have a right to the possession of money (or property), and another to have a right to use money as one pleases." ^ If we are to teach the people this com- mandment, we must teach them the responsi- bility of wealth, and speak as plainly to the rich of their duty of giving, as to the poor of contentment. If social difficulties can only be permanently remedied by improvements which spring from a moral source, here is a moral question ; here is an opportunity to dwell on the moral re- sponsibility of the rich — of the very rich, and ' Leo XIII. , Encyclical on Labour. 150 The Law of Sinai. also of those who have more than a com- petence, and this includes a large number. " Thou shalt not steal." All property, of whatever kind, rightly gotten, is God's gift ; but, says St. Thomas, " Man should not con- sider his outward possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without difficulty when others are in need." ^ This is, after all, the Apostolic maxim, '' Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be . . . rich in good works, ready to distribute, will- ing to communicate."^ "Thou shalt not steal." But it is equally a duty not to tempt men to steal, and there is a great deal of foolish ostentation of wealth, which is a great incentive to theft. II. We do well, in the next place, to keep con- stantly before our mind the way in which wealth is spoken of in the New Testament, and the Christian's true relation to money. Wealth seems always to be spoken of as something to be dreaded — a very different estimate from that which the world takes of ^ Summa II. 2, q. 66, 2. "^ \ Tim. vi. 17, 18. Eighth Commandment. 151 it, and, indeed, from that which any of us would naturally take. And yet, clearly, our Lord regarded it as a snare. He calls it the " unrighteous mammon," ^ on account of the effect it often has upon the heart. The possession of much money. He plainly de- clares, makes salvation more difficult to attain : " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God ! " ^ To be without riches, to be poor, is His first Beati- tude. To get rid of property altogether was, at least in one case, the road to perfection : " If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast."^ To amass wealth is distinctly for- bidden : " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth." - To be satisfied in the thought of one's possessions is one of the Gospel *' woes " : " Woe unto you that are rich ! for ye have received your consolation." ^ And St. Paul is no less clear. In one passage he says that they who desire to be rich *'fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts ; " in another that " the love of money is the root of all evil." 6 ' St. Luke xvi. ii. ^ gt. Mark x. 23. ' St. Matt. xix. 21. * St. Matt. vi. 19. * St. Luke vi. 24. ^ i Tim. vi. 9, lo. 152 The Law of Sinai. This is the view which the Gospel takes of wealth ; but how often we slip, without con- sideration, into a different way of thinking and speaking ! How easily we acquiesce in the common belief, so often contradicted by experience, that every one is happier if he can but earn a little more money than he earns at present — if he can but " better him- self," as the phrase goes ! There is little con- tentment in any modern sphere of life, and all kinds of ambition are spoken of as if they were necessarily virtuous ; and yet content- ment is one of the great safeguards to honesty. Let us open our ears, at all events, to what is being said on these matters. We are living at a time when it is very difficult to keep this commandment. There are the tricks of trade which competent witnesses tell us are so bad. How can it be right to do in com- merce actions which in private life an honest man would scorn ? How can you have one conscience for your commercial dealings and another for your dealings as a private man ? Investments ! Do we not need to teach people the duty of inquiring, not only what invest- ments are safe, but what are honest? Do Eighth Conunandment. 153 we not need to remember sometimes that to buy things very cheaply may mean, if we could see behind the scenes, days and nights of terrible toil for an altogether in- adequate remuneration ? Ought we not to be at least as anxious to give a fair wage for work done as to get an article at low cost ? It is not easy to keep this commandment, which at first sight seems so simple : " Thou shalt not steal." III. The duty of work is another principle which underlies this commandment. It is St. Paul's antithesis : " Let him that stole steal no more : but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good." ^ This is one of the Apostle's maxims ; and another is, *' If a man will not work, neither let him eat." ^ God expects every man to work ; and no life, therefore, is a real life unless it is a work- ing life. "Labour," it has been beautifully said, " is the portion of the servants of God ; leisure is a misery." ^ ^ Eph. iv. 28. ^ 2 Thess. iii. lo. ^ Dr. Liddon. 154 ^-^^ Law of Sinai. Adam had work to do before he sinned. This law of work, therefore, is not a result of the Fall. He was put into the garden "to dress it and to keep it." Toil, the pain of work, the sweat of the face, — these are the results of sin, but not work itself. In Para- dise and in Heaven there will doubtless be work. There is, indeed, the " rest which re- maineth ; " ^ yet, nevertheless, *' they rest not day nor night " ^ from His perfect service. We have, then, to teach men the dignity of work, and still more have we to exemplify it in our own lives. People are at length beginning to realize that a priest's life is a working life ; but there is still something to be done in getting them to understand that a clergyman cannot be at the beck and call of what is called society ; but that he has a constant and imperative duty, which he neglects only at his peril — the claims of his parish and his flock. Our lives should be fully occupied lives — lives of labour (kottoc) ; not fussy lives, but lives of labour. Men are very different : " Some," it has been shrewdly said, " do everything as if they did nothing ; others do nothing as if they did * Heb. iv. 9. 2 j^g^ jy s^ Eighth Commandment. 155 everything." ^ St. Augustine speaks of God's life as one of incessant activity and of in- cessant repose — semper agens semper quietus — and there can be no better ideal for our own. We must guard, then, our recreations, and we must be careful about our reading. First, we must be on our guard about our recreations. However much recreation may be necessary, a clergyman is never " off duty." He may at any time be summoned to receive the confession of a penitent or to minister to the sick and dying ; and though, for health's sake or for the sake of the young, he plays football and tennis, there are no circumstances where he can, without risk, waste day after day hanging about garden- parties in just the same way as a dilettante man of the world might do. No man's time is his own, least of all a clergyman's ; it is God's, and we are responsible to Him. " It would be well for us," it has been said, "if in every place we heard the words, ' What doest thou here, Elijah? ' and in every hour of the day, * Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business ? '" ^ ^ Dr. Dale. ^ Manning's " Eternal Priesthood.' 156 The Lazv of Sinai, It is true that a layman may say of a worldly clergyman that he is "pleasant to meet," for it is a relief to him to think that when the clergyman is out of his surplice he does not, after all, rise above his own low standard ; but the more thoughtful layman will always reflect whether the clergy have not something better to do than to hang about at lawn-tennis and garden-parties; and if he should happen to open his Prayer-book, and to look at the Ordination Services, he will find that his surmise is right, and that they have, or ought to have, something better to do. At all events, we must be prepared to make some sacrifices in this connection, and the question must be settled, each one for himself, on the grounds of the highest ex- pediency. "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient : all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not." ^ " Will it help my ministerial work and character or not?" Among much that might be said, let us reflect upon this — that just as we like a soldier to be a thorough soldier, and a sailor to be a thorough sailor ; so people will be looking to us to be ^ I Cor. X. 23. Eighth Comniandment. 157 thoroughly what we profess to be — thorough men of God, thorough priests. What sort of priest is the layman likely to come to in any really serious moral crisis, or to send for on his death-bed — the one whom he knows to have been trying to live true to his Ordination vows, or the one who was best known in the neighbourhood as a good shot, or a good man to make a fourth at whist, or who was so well known at garden-parties or dances, or who was such a good judge of wine or pigs ? And under the head of work we must think of the duty of study. At the Universi- ties and elsewhere it is customary to divide men into two classes, the reading men and those who do not read. It may, indeed, be questioned how far this is a satisfactory dis- tinction in any sphere of life ; but however this may be, it is certain that the Ordinal never contemplates a clergyman who does not read. The truth is, in the Ordination Services, the duty of study comes only second to the duty of prayer. " Will you be dili- gent," the question runs, " in prayers, and in reading the Holy Scriptures, and in such studies as help to the knowledge of the 158 The Law of Sinai, same ? " And the answer is, " I will en- deavour myself so to do, the Lord being my helper." In the midst of incessant parochial work this is, indeed, a difficult promise to keep ; yet we must keep the duty before us as something to be aimed at. Practically it comes very largely to this — whether we discipline ourselves to make careful use of spare hours and half-hours as they occur. Fw'es tempo jHs amici. It is as easy now as ever it was to break this commandment by stealing a friend's time ; and it wants more than ordinary self-discipline if we are to avoid frittering away hours of valuable time. Constantly to be " giving out " in sermons and addresses, while, at the same time, we allow ourselves no repose for " taking in," is a very foolish and a very perilous enterprise. " Thou shalt not steal : " partly it means, " Thou shalt labour." It is good, surely, from time to time, to think of the lives of incessant labour and toil which the " poor people " so often lead ; often they are work- ing from early dawn to late at night, and their energy may well put us to shame and nerve us to shake off our indolence and sloth. Eighth Commandment, 159 Why should the clergy rise so much later than the majority of their parishioners ? How different the religious aspect of England would be to-day if the clergy had been in their churches, day after day, in the early hours of the morning, with the bell ringing for service ! Would the average ploughman think, as he so often thinks now, that the parson works one day in the week, while he works six ? Very much more than one-third of our lives is spent in sleep and in recruiting the needs of the body ; what about the rest ? NINTH COMMANDMENT. M Redime me a calumniis hominum : ut custodiam man- data tua. — Ps. cxviii. 134. I NINTH COMMANDMENT. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." This commandment passes from the con- sideration of our neighbour's external goods and our duty with respect to them, and reminds us that he has something immeasur- ably more precious than external goods — namely, his good name. This commandment does, in truth, cut deeper than the last : the eighth is concerned with property, this with character ; the eighth is concerned with what a man has, this with what he is. Money, property, position, — these are all outside a man ; character is himself. Now, in its most obvious and literal sense, there is, it may be, no temptation to break this commandment. We should not dream of telling a deliberate untruth about our 164 The Law of Sinai, neighbour's character ; we should not deliber- ately say what was untrue of him. But at the same time, it is true that we have broken this commandment, and may break it again, without great watchfulness. We have not deliberately said what was untrue, but have we not detected in ourselves a wish to disparage others, a desire not always to say the best we can of them ? If not by deliberate untruth, yet by suggestion, by qualifying another's praise of him, by innuendo, by implied agreement in another's detraction of him, are we not in danger of bearing false witness against our neighbour ? I. In the first place this commandment reminds us of our terrible responsibility in the use of language, and especially of language which we use about another. We most of us should consider that we are quite at liberty to criticize our neighbour — his actions, his conversation, his character, and his ways ; and yet Holy Scripture certainly has a good deal to say which should make us understand that there are very definite limits to this Ninth Commandment, 165 supposed right. "Judge not," says our Lord, "and ye shall not be judged ; " ^ and St. Paul, "Judge nothing before the time;"^ or again, "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant ? " ^ The passages imply that there was a good deal of ill-natured criticism going on in the Churches of Rome and Corinth, and the Apostle rebukes it in firm and un- mistakable language. The question then is, what is my duty in this respect ? How far is criticism of another justifiable or right? Does our Lord mean, does His Apostle mean, that we must altogether forbear to pass a judgment on the behaviour or words of another ? Now, the fact that we are endowed with a moral sense implies the moral faculty of discrimination. If we hear of anything wrong or base, we must disapprove of it — that is to "judge " it. If we hear of any good or heroic action, we must approve it — this too is to "judge " it. And this process of "judgment " is continually going on within us, and from time to time finds its expression, like other thoughts, in utterance ; we "judge " in thought, and the "judgment" passes, like other ^ St. Matt. vii. i. ^ i Cor. iv. 5. ' Rom. xiv. 4. 1 66 The Law of Sinai, thoughts, into words. Our Lord's words cannot mean that we are to keep our moral sense inert, inactive, blank. We must needs " approve things that are excellent " ^ and show disapproval of what is wrong. We are, then, in one sense, bound to "judge"; we are on no account to call evil good, or good evil ; a healthy moral sense implies the duty of "judg- ing." To remain silent, to keep the moral faculties inoperative when a question of right or wrong is before us, is either moral cowardice or it is something worse ; it is to incur Isaiah's rebuke, " Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter ! " ^ It is right to criticize actions and words so far as they are, so to say, outside us ; but it is just here that our liberty ends. If we may judge an action, we must be very careful how we deal with a character. Bishop Butler says that it " is very much to be wished that other people's affairs and characters did not take up so great a part of our conversation ; " ^ there is in doing so a great risk of breaking this ^ riiil. i. lo. - Isa. V. 20. ' Bishop Butler upon "The Government of the Tongue." Ninth Commandment. 167 ninth commandment ; and he recommends people as far as they can "to get over that strong inchnation which most have, to be talking of the concerns and behaviour of their neighbours." And this is exactly what, as clergy, we have to teach. As you pass from house to house on your parochial visits, you will have to let people see quite plainly that you do not wish them to discuss the failings of their neighbours, or of the " curate who was in the parish last year ; " that is to say, we must discourage gossiping. But the truth is, it takes a long time to root out the inclination in our own case ; so that after talking about others quite harmlessly, as we hope, when we come to consider what we have said, we should do well to ask ourselves whether we have been " religiously scrupulous and exact to say nothing, either good or bad, but what is true." ^ The reason why criticism of others is so dangerous, and why, if we indulge in it, we are so often in danger of " bearing false wit- ness against our neighbour," is partly because criticism so often leads to disparagement — ^ Bishop Butler, I.e. 1 68 The Laiv of Sinai. and it is never right to disparage another person ; it is never right to say anything about another's faults, unless it comes in the way of duty or of charity — and partly because our judgment is so apt to run into regions where we have not adequate know- ledge for forming a judgment. Thus the whole district of intention and motive must be, from the nature of the case, a sealed book to us ; and yet how rashly we impute motives ! An action or course of behaviour may look bad ; but, again and again, we cannot "judge" truly, unless we know the motives with which it was done. Every action has a soul and a body ; and the soul of an action is its intention, or motive. All we see, however, in numberless cases, is the body — even if we see all of that — and yet we not only condemn the action, but we traduce the person concerned, and inform others why he has acted in the way he has, as if we knew intimately the motives which actuated him. And, as we are ignorant, in so many cases, of the intention with which a man may act ; so also are we ignorant of the circumstances under which he acts. What his temptations have been, what the exact difficulties of his Ninth Coinmandment. 169 position, what his education and opportu- nities have been, what pressure has been brought to bear upon him by others, — all this, and much more, is unknown ground to us ; and yet it is certain that an exact know- ledge of all this is required for a really true judgment. It would be good to recollect, in this matter, two simple rules, familiar to some — To speak disparagingly of no one. Not to mention the faults of others, unless charity or duty to some other require it. Our neighbour's character is a sacred charge entrusted to our safe keeping ; it is dearer to him than all his possessions, and yet how do we trifle with it as though it were a matter of no importance ! II. Thus far the commandment reminds us of our responsibility in the matter of language. We may suppose that much or all of what has been suggested comes only from " talka- tiveness," or of that " eager desire to gain attention," which Bishop Butler says " is an original disease in some minds." ^ It is certain ^ Butler, I.e. 1 70 The Law of Sinai. that much harm is done in this way without any bad intention. But now let us go deeper and ask what, if with any really evil intention we bear false witness against our neighbour, is the sin which underlies it ? So far as there is deliberate wrong, we shall find very often that it is the sin of envy which " lies at the door." There can scarcely be any evil- speaking against others where there is no envy ; at all events, it is the chief cause of evil-speaking. It is because our neighbour or his works are better, or more talked of, than our own ; it is because some good thing, or supposed good, in him casts us into the shade.^ It is the sin which fastens on the good of another. Certainly envy has wrought much havoc in the world. There is envy at work in the devil's first question to Eve : " Yea, hath God said. Ye shall not cat of every tree of the garden ? " ^ Envy was the cause of the first murder : " Cain was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And v/herefore slew he him ? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." ^ It was the sin of * Cf. Isaac Williams on the Catechism. 2 Gen. iii, i. » i St. John iii. 12. Ninth Commandment. 171 the Patriarchs : '' The patriarchs moved with envy." ^ It was the sin of the priests : " He knew that for envy they had delivered Him." ^ If we would avoid being ensnared by the sin of detraction, we shall have to be on our guard against this insidious enemy — this " low desire to make another's virtues less." For envy is the great enemy of united, corporate work ; and it is, therefore, one of the special dangers of a clergy house. It creeps in before we are aware of its presence, and mars har- monious work. " My brother curate preaches better than I do, or more people come to him, or he has more influence." Thus it works its way in like some insidious disease fastening upon a healthy constitution, and cripples and maims the moral life ; while we may at times be humiliated to the dust to find ourselves the victims of this deadly sin. It means, if we give way to it, a miserable meanness of character ; we indulge disparaging thoughts of others, we dwell on their weak points, we feel sore when they are praised, we make parties in the parish, and the ninth command- ment is broken again and again in thought and word and act. ^ Acts vii. 9. 2 St. Matt, xxvii. i8. 172 The Lazv of Sinai. Further, the envious man is his own enemy ; for envy jars our inward peace and tranquillity of mind ; it embitters the spirit, and makes us feel hardly of God ; it is the spirit of the morose elder brother, " Thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry ; " ^ it is the spirit of the discontented labourer, " These last have wrought but one hour." ^ Let us be well assured that we must deal roughly with this temptation, this arch-enemy of united work. If we will not have it hampering our life, we must go out and meet the temptation. It is always possible to meet the evil one half way when he comes to us with this temptation ; take every opportunity you can of speaking well of any whom you may be tempted to envy, and pray God that He will bring to perfection the gift he has given them ; as St. Francis de Sales lifted up to God the name of the Bishop who preached better than he did, and implored Him to bless him. Another remedy is to remember constantly the law of the diversity of gifts. God's method in nature is variety rather than uniformity. As we see no two flowers are exactly alike, * St. Luke XV. 29. 2 st^ M.^^, xx. 12. Ninth Commandment. 173 no two leaves of a tree, no two faces ; so He bestows His gifts differently on different men : no two characters are alike. We must pray for a generous appreciation of characters widely difterent from our own. As regards our work, it is not after all ours, but God's. " Who then is Paul, and who is ApoUos, but ministers by whom ye believed ? " ^ For, as in the case of other sins, so in this, it is the caricature of some virtue ; envy is the caricature of the duty of " provoking to love and good works." There is a right kind of emulation as well as a wrong kind ; and all that each one of us can do is to cultivate the one talent that he may have, while he takes a generous estimate of the gifts of others. Pray, then, for generosity, and we shall not break this ninth command- ment : the generosity of Moses, " Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord's people were prophets!"^ the generosity of St. Paul, " What then ? not- withstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached ; and therein do I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice ; " ^ the generosity of St. John the Baptist, the special 1 I Cor. iii. 5. ^ Numb. xi. 29. » Phil. i. iS 1 74 ^^^ Law of Sinai, type of a generous and disciplined character, " The friend of the bridegroom . . . rejoiceth greatly. . . . He must increase, but I must decrease." ^ We must recognize, as he did, our own limitations, and we can do this if we have the generosity of love, for " love envieth not," because "it seeketh not her own."^ "Amor aeternitatis mors invidiae." ^ III. " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." Our neighbour's good name is in our hands. We can all of us influence, in what- ever degree, public opinion — that floating mass of common thought which pervades the place or the surroundings in which we live — to the detriment or to the good of our neighbour. And if we would be free from the risk of breaking this commandment, we must strive also for humility ; for humility is the recognition of a truth — of the truth of our own nothingness in the sight of God. We must learn to think of ourselves, not in ^ St. John iii. 29, 30. ^ i Cor. xiii. 4, 5. ^ Bona, Ninth Commandment. 175 comparison with our neighbours, but as we really are before the eyes of an All- Holy God. Humiliations, says St. Bernard, are the road to humility, and we may make it a rule to accept humiliations in a Christian spirit. If people speak disparagingly of us, we need not retort ; being what we are, we need not disparage others. We can avoid all unnecessary reference to ourselves ; we can struggle against self-consciousness and the temptation to think of what others are thinking of us ; we can avoid pressing our own opinion ; we can struggle after a child- like simplicity of heart. Depression and self-consciousness, how often they come from self-love and pride ! Only we must not be discouraged ; no one has ever yet found it easy to be humble. But how beau- tiful is real humility v/hen we do see it ! Real simplicity, a really child-like spirit ! How refreshing and inspiring it is ! It is a pure creation of God's grace. How im- possible it is for such an one to disparage others ! Humility and the generosity which springs from love, these are the two safe- guards against any wilful breach of this 176 The Law of Sinai, commandment. If we do not want to disparage others, we must learn to love. ''What can do more good in this world than this blessed and angelic temper that thinketh and speaketh no evil ? The good or kind opinion which is entertained of us by others is one of the greatest of earthly blessings ; and how very much depends on the breath of others ! He who thinks and speaks kindly of his neighbour does him more good than he who gives him money ; and if giving alms has such a blessing laid up with God, surely this greater benefit to our neighbour will not lose its reward." ^ 1 I. Williams. TENTH COMMANDMENT. N Inclina cor meum in testimonia tua : et non in avaritiam. — Ps. cxviii. 36. TENTH COMMANDMENT. " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his servant, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his." Why does this commandment come where it does, last of all ? We can appreciate the careful arrangement up to this point : our duty to parents comes naturally after our duty to God ; after that, our neighbour's life is protected, " Thou shalt do no murder ; " then the honour and chastity of his wife, "Thou shalt not commit adultery ;" then his possessions, " Thou shalt not steal ; " then his good name, " Thou shalt not bear false witness." And now we have one, the last, which, if it seems at first sight to add little or nothing to what has gone before, really cuts deeper down into the moral life ; for it expressly deals with the *' thoughts of the heart." i8o The Law of Sinai. "Thou shalt not covet." Covetousness is, indeed, often the parent sin of murder, adultery, and theft : if David had not coveted he would not have committed adultery and murder ; if Ahab had not coveted he would not have killed Naboth ; and this command- ment goes, as it were, behind the scenes and deals with motives. It is to be observed that the first table proceeds from the thotcghts about God (in the first and second command- ments), to words (in the third) though not exclusively, and so to deeds (in the fourth ) ; while the second table advances in inverse order : here the act comes first (murder, theft, adultery), then sins of word (in the ninth commandment), and finally sins of thought, ''Thou shalt not covet." I. It reminds us, then, that God's Eye is on our heart ; it carries us at once into regions where no human eye can pierce. If any further assurance is needed that the Decalogue is not a composition of a merely human legislator, but was a Revelation from God, we have it in this commandment ; for what human Tenth Commandme^it, i8i legislator would ever have dreamed of trying to force his way into the sacred shrine of the hidden and private life of his fellow-man ? To make men careful about their words and actions, and so to safeguard social life — that is one thing, and is the province of human law ; but to dig down into the secret recesses of the heart, " to pierce even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, ... to be a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart " ^ — this is another thing, and is the unique prerogative of Almighty God. Man takes cognizance of the outward life, but Almighty God of the inward life. Think, for a moment, of the intense reality of this inward life. It is like a second world : "into the deep places of man's spirit there is perpetual activity, an existence as varied, as subtle, as far-spreading, as that which the eye of flesh beholds." We can retire, each one for himself, into this inner world, but we can take no man with us ; each must make the expedition for himself ; he must descend alone into the recesses of his inner life and see what is passing there. Certainly it is a strange, weird world, sometimes, that he finds * Heb. iv. 12. 1 82 The Law of Sinai. within him. The thoughts, the passions, the motives and wishes, the resolutions and hah^ resolutions, the judgments and criticisms, the desires and impulses, the fears, the forebodings and misgivings, the hopes and aspirations — a motley crowd, peopling this inner world, jostling one another in strange confusion — that is what we find there ; for there is often an unexpected want of coherence in our characters ; it is not easy to understand ourselves, exact self-knowledge is most diffi- cult to acquire ; and this inner world is full of puzzle and enigma to us. Yet into this world, which we can so little understand, the Eye of God pierces down and sees all, — the balancing of good and evil ; the half-consented- to sin ; the strange fascination of temptation, and yet the honest loathing of what is wrong ; the pride and the self-abasement ; the horror at the iniquity of what the heart is found capable of conceiving ; and the influx of calmer and sober thoughts ; — yes, here, into this world within us, God comes and looks ; for the '* eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good."^ Into this world within us — our own character * Prov. XV. 3. Tenth Commandinent, 183 — its contradictoriness, its waywardness and impulsiveness, its Teachings out towards what is good, and then its recoil towards a lower life, just as the eye of the soul catches a glimpse of what might be if only we were quite simple and quite true — the Eye of God sees and measures, takes account and notes. Reflect what a wonderful thing it is that Moses should have reminded the Israelites of this great truth, as the Commandments were first given from Sinai. How strange to think that any but one in whom dwelt the spirit of God could have promulgated such a law as this — " Thou shalt not covet ! " Man cannot tell whether I covet or not, only God knows what is passing within me. And it is not only so, but an unerring Voice has told us that He will, one day, bring it all out to light. He speaks not only as a Legislator, but as a Judge ; " for nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest ; neither any thing hid, that shall not be knov/n and come abroad." ^ Human judicature can only take account of words and actions ; Divine judicature reads the heart. The surface of our lives may be * St. Luke viii. 17. 184 The Law of Sinai. smooth enough to pass muster among men, but there is One Who looks below the sur- face, Whose " paths are in the great waters." ^ He looks down and notes whether we dally with temptation and linger on the borderland of sin ; or whether we take sterner measures with ourselves. He unlocks the secret chambers of the soul, and every corner is lighted up as His piercing Eye sweeps through the inner corridors of the soul of man ; each thought, each purpose, each half-formed desire, each act of rebellion, will be dragged forth to light, for He says, "I will search Jerusalem with candles." ^ Ah ! which of us can endure this Divine scrutiny, when the thoughts, the fancies, the wishes, the motives, and plans are revealed ? But we need not be discouraged ; sin cannot be without the consent of the will ; and as God's Eye pierces down into the recesses of our being, He sees — thanks be to Him !— the struggles against sin and sinful tendencies. The cry for help in the hour of strong tempta- tion — He hears and will not forget ; the resolute turning from occasions of sin — He notes it ; the clinging to the Cross in hours of ^ Ps. Ixxvii. 19. ' Zeph. i. 12. Tenth Commandment. 185 despondency — it is not hidden from Him ; the patient waiting upon Him in times of perplexity and doubt ; the oblation of the heart and will morning by morning ; the resolute determination to face distasteful work — He sees and notes, and H^e will not be " extreme to mark what is done amiss." ^ II. More particularly this commandment teaches us the need of detachment from the things of earth. " Take heed," says our Lord, " and beware of covetousness : for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he pos- sesseth." ^ Our real life, He would say, is in- dependent of what we have and of the position we occupy ; and yet what is the practical comment of the world ? Idolatry of gain. *'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness," ^ is the Gospel precept ; the comment of the world is, make your- self a comfortable and assured position in this world, and then you will have leisure to ^ Ps. cxxx. 3. ^ St. Luke xii. 15. 3 St. Matt. vi. 33. 1 86 The Law of Sinai, reflect on what religious teachers say about another. " Ye cannot serve God and mammon," says our Lord ; and the world is for ever saying that we can, for we must " make the best of both worlds." It is, indeed, difficult to see how these and many like sayings of our Blessed Lord can be carried out except by increasing detach- ment from all that ministers to merely earthly comfort. " A man should live becomingly in that state to which he is called," is a dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas ; but if so, his heart must needs be detached from merely earthly comforts ; he must apprise them at their true value. As we look out upon the world, as we look within at our own hearts, do we not need to readjust from time to time the perspective of things, to think more habitually of the world to come — to avoid the " pride of having " and the " lust of getting " ? May not the parable of the Great Supper help us ? ^ '' I have bought a field, and I must needs go and see it ; I pray thee have me excused." ^ St. Luke xiv. 16-24. Tenth Commandment, 187 " I have bought twelve yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them ; I pray thee have me excused." " I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come." Reflect on the " lenity of supposition " in this Divine teaching. None of them had done any wrong : one had paid for his field, the other was going to pay for his oxen — there was no dishonesty ; the third had married a wife — there was no sin. Yet they were shut out from the supper because these matters, not wrong in themselves, had absorbed the heart ; they were not " seeking first the kingdom of God." It was the ''pride of having," and the "lust of getting," and the " pride of Hfe." ^ Do we not need to repeat again and again this teaching of the parable ? "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." And yet there is the incessant struggle of men to be a little "better off" than they are. Ah ! we need detachment, a disinterestedness first for ourselves, then for our people. " If riches increase, set not your heart upon them." ^ Think of Gehazi : " Is it a time to receive * Cf. Archbishop Trench on this Parable. ^ Ps. Ixii. lo. 1 88 The Law of Sinai, money, and to receive garments, and ollveyards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and men- servants, and maidservants ? " ^ We must learn disinterestedness. *' Church defence " is a good thing, because we have no right to surrender what we have inherited (not for ourselves, but for the poor) ; but if it is thought that to save the money and endowments of the Church is to save the Church, then perish " Church defence " ! A wealthy Church has not always been the most active and zealous Church. " Thou shalt not covet." It is a sin specially to be guarded against in advancing life ; it is a sin which creeps upon us as the years pass on. Yet it is a sin which St. Paul twice classes among the worst kinds of wrong ; ^ and it is one of our Lord's " Bewares." He says, " Beware of covetous- ness ; " and then He speaks the Parable of the Rich Fool, to teach us contentment in the present — we are not to " lay up riches for ourselves " while we are not " ricli towards God ; " ^ then He points to the lilies to teach us trustfulness for the future ; and finally He * 2 Kings V. 26, ^ Col. iii. 5 ; Eph. v. 3. 2 St. Luke xii. 21. Tenth Commandment, 189 tells us that the attitude of His true servants will be one of ready alertness, " Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burn- ing ; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord." ^ A clergyman's life, at all events, must be something of a soldier's life — " un vie de soldat, un vie de mission"^ — He must learn to sit loosely to the things of time. III. " Thou shalt not covet." What are v/e aiming at ? We must have some ideal before us ; what is it ? W^hen the mother of Zebedee's children — it is at all times difficult for parents not to be covetous for the sake of their children — came to Christ and asked that her two sons should " sit, the one on the right hand, and the other on the left, in His kingdom," our Lord replied by the counter question, " Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the Baptism that I am baptized with?"^ — meaning that true greatness ^ St. Luke xii. 35, 36. ^ H. Perreyve. ' St. Matt. XX, 22. 190 The Law of Sinai, is to be measured not by what we have^ but by what we are ; not by any position we occupy, but by our capacity for service and suffering. True greatness is the greatness of service : " Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister ; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant : even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." ^ Capacity for service and sacrifice are set before us as the marks of true greatness, and the same truth is emphasized in the Parable of the Talents. The man who ''goes into a far country " does not, on his return, give his servants greater riches, but more burdensome and exacting spheres of work ; there is no thought of selfish enjoyment, but the burden of greater responsibility : " Have thou autho- rity over ten cities." ^ Here, then, is a hint whither that forward- reaching tendency in us should be directed. We must be aiming high, and not hiding our one talent ; for the " man of low aims, or of no aims, is not a true man." ^ We must be » St. Matt. XX. 26-28. 2 St. Luke xix. 17. ^ Aubrey Moore, "Advent to Advent," p. 241. Tenth Commandment. 191 striving forward to some unattained excel- lence ; the capacity for desire, for reaching forward, is not to be crushed, but to be rightly directed. We must aim at greatness if we are really men, but it must be no selfish aim for personal aggrandisement : " Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not." ^ God must be the centre of our aims, not self ; we must not think of high place, but of the service of God, and of man for God's sake. This is the lesson which St. James and St. John had to learn, and which we do well to take to heart. " Thou shalt not covet " implies that there is a true way as well as a false way of " desiring." There is a right kind of desire, for our Lord " desired." " With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." ^ " I have a Baptism to be baptized with ; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished ! " ^ And the Christian ideal is not to crush desire, but to regulate and direct it to the glory of God and the good of men. Once more, contentment is a hard doctrine to preach in this rushing, pushing age in ^ Jer. xlv. 5. * St. Luke xxii. 15. ' St. Luke xii. 50. 192 The Law of Sinai. which we live ; and yet contentment is the positive side of this commandment. Rest- lessness is a characteristic of our day, and it does much to destroy peace of mind. We want a change of sphere because we lose sight of God ; we get anxious and depressed, we lose heart because we drop God's Hand ; ^ we walk and are sad ; and, if we do not exactly covet, at least we are discontented. But do Ave believe that God has a plan for our lives, and if we yield ourselves up to Him, assuredly He will work it out ? Mar it as we may have done, yet even now, if we are obedient. He will patch it up and go on with it. If He has called us to one sphere of work we are not to move till He calls us to another. Self-will is what spoils our lives. We get tired of a place in two years, and think that we " want a change ; " yet God has not called us elsewhere, and He knows best. Self-will is so often the cause of discontent. We can't work with others because things are not just as we should like them ; we get restless ; contentment has gone, and peace and happiness go too. " I must find a more congenial sphere of work." * Cf. Newbolt, "Fruit of the Spirit," p. 39. Tenth Commandment. 193 But if we really believe in God's Will, how it simplifies all life ; how trustfully we can commit ourselves and our troubles to Him Who has placed us where we are, and Who will never leave us unless we leave Him ! What a power it gives us, this thought that we are where we are because it is His Will ; and that, however difficult circumstances may be, there is nothing that we cannot face if only we will lean on Him in absolute contentment ! " I worship thee, sweet Will of God, And all thy ways adore, And every day I live, I seem To love thee more and more. " 111 that He blesses is most good, And unblest good is ill. And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be His sweet Will.'" After all, God has, in calling us to His special service, given us the greatest gift tliat He can give us — " He can give us nothing greater than the priesthood " — and it is a help to fall back upon the thought of being satisfied with this gift in the spirit of the psalmist, " I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the ' Faber. O 194 ^^^^^ Law of Sinai, tents of ungodliness." i " One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require : that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit His temple." ^ " Use me, O Lord, use even me, Just as Thou v/ilt and when and where, Until Thy blessed Face I see, Thy joy, Thy rest, Thy glory share." ^ Ps. 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