5. On all just occasions especially to defend the reputation of the gospel, godliness, and good men, the cause and laws of God, and not silently for self-saving, to let Satan and his agents make them odious by lies, to the seduction of the people's souls." CHAP. XLIII. Of the Tenth Commandment. Q. 1. WHAT are the words of the tenth commandment? A. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. Q. 2. What is forbidden here, and what commanded? A. 1. In some, the thing forbidden is selfishness, and the thing commanded is to love our neighbour as ourselves. Q. 3. Is not this implied in the five foregoing commandments? A. Yes; and so is our love to God in all the nine last. But because there are many more particular instances of sin and duty that can be distinctly named and remembered, God thought it meet to make two general, fundamental commandments, which should contain them all, which Christ called the first and second commandment; "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," &c. And "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The first is the summary and root of all the duties of the other nine, and especially of the second, third, and fourth. The other is the summary of the second table duties; and it is placed last, as being instead of all unnamed instances. As the captain leads the soldiers, and the lieutenant brings up the rear.o Q. 4. What mean you by the sin of selfishness? A. I mean that inordinate self-esteem, self-love, and self-seeking, with the want of a due, proportionate love to others, which engageth men against the good of others, and inclineth them to draw from others to themselves: it is not an inordinate love of ourselves, but a diseased self-love.P n Prov. xxv. 23; Psalm xv. 3, 5. • Matt. xix. 19; Luke x. 27; Rom. xiii. 9; Lev. xvi. 24; Mark viii. 34. P Jer. xlv. 5; Matt. xvi. 22, 23; Luke xiv. 26, 29, 32, 33. Q. 5. When is self-love ordinate, and when is it sinful? A. That which is ordinate, 1. Valueth not a man's self blindly above his worth. 2. It employeth a man in a due care of his own holiness, duty, and salvation. 3. It regardeth ourselves but as little members of the common great body, and therefore inclineth us to love others as ourselves, without much partial disproportion, according to the divers degrees of their amiableness, and to love public good, the church and world, and, much more, God above ourselves. 4. It maketh us studious to do good to others, and rejoice in it as our own, rather than to draw from them to ourselves. II. Sinful selfishness, 1. Doth esteem, and love, and see selfinterest above its proper worth: it is over-deeply affected with all our concerns. 2. It hath a low, disproportionate love and regard of all others' good. 3. And when it groweth to full malignity, it maketh men envy the prosperity of others, and covet that which is theirs, and desire and rejoice in their disgrace and hurt, when they stand against men's selfish wills, and to endeavour to draw from others to ourselves: selfishness is to the soul like an inflammation or imposthume to the body; which draweth the blood and spirits to itself from their due and common course, till they corrupt the inflamed part. Q. 6. What mean you by loving others as ourselves? A. Loving them as members of the same body or society (the world or the church as they are) impartially with a love proportionable to their worth, and such a careful, practical, forgiving, patient love, as we love ourselves." Q. 7. But God hath made us individual persons, with so peculiar a self love, that no man can possibly love another as himself? A. 1. You must distinguish between sensitive natural love,, and rational love. 2. And between corrupt and sanctified nature. 1. Natural sensitive love is stronger to one's self (that is, more sensible of self-interest) than to all the world. I feel not another's pain or pleasure, in itself: I hunger and thirst for myself: a mother hath that natural sensitive love to her own natural child (like that of brutes) which she hath not for any other." 2. Rational love valueth, and loveth, and preferreth every 4 Phil. ii. 4, 21; 1 Cor. xii., and x. 24. Prov. xiv. 10. thing according to the degree of its amiableness, that is, its goodness. 3. Rational love destroyeth not sensitive; but it moderateth and ruleth it, and commandeth the will and practice to prefer, and desire, and seek, and delight in higher things (as reason ruleth appetite, and the rider the horse); and so deny and forsake all carnal or private interests, that stand against a greater good. 4. Common reason tells a man, that it is an unreasonable thing in him that would not die to save a kingdom; much more that when he is to love both himself and the kingdom inseparably, yet cannot love a kingdom, yea, or more excellent persons, above himself. But yet it is sanctification that must effectually overcome inordinate self-love, and clearly illuminate this reason, and make a man obey it.t 5. To conquer this selfishness is the sum of all mortification, and the greatest victory in this world: and therefore it is here perfectly done by none: but it is done most where there is the greatest love to God, and to the church and public good, and to our neighbours. Q. 8. What is the sinfulness and the hurt of selfishness? A. 1. It is a fundamental error and blindness in the judgment: we are so many poor worms and little things; and if an ant or worm had reason, should it think its life, or ease, or other interest, more valuable than a man's, or than all the country's? 2. It is a fundamental pravity and disorder of man's will: it is made to love good as good, and therefore to love most the greatest good. 3. Yea, it blindly casteth down, and trampleth on, all good in the world which is above self-interest. For this prevailing selfishness taketh a man's self for his ultimate end, and all things else but as means to his own interest: God and heaven, and all societies and all virtue, seem no further good to him than they are for his own good and welfare. And selfishness so overcometh reason in some, as to make them dispute for this fundamental error as a truth, that there is nothing to be accounted good by me, but that which is good to me as my interest or welfare and so that which is good to others is not, therefore, good to me." 1 Cor. x. 33; Tit. i. 8; Jam. iii. 15, 17; Col. i. 24. u Prov. iii. 5; xx. 6; xxiii. 4; xxv. 27; xxvi. 5, 12, 16; xxvii. 2, and xxviii. 11. 4. And thus it blasphemously deposeth God in the mind of the sinner; making him no further good to us than as he is a means to our good; and so he is set quite below ourselves : as if he had not made us for himself, and to love him as God, for his own goodness. 5. I told you before (of the first commandment) how this maketh every man his own idol, to be loved above God. 6. Yea, that the selfish would be the idols of the world, and have all men conformed to their judgment, wills, and words. 7. A selfish man is an enemy to the public peace of all societies, and of all true unity and concord: for whereas holy persons as such have all one centre, law, and end, even God and his will, the selfish have as many ends, and centres, and laws as they are persons. So that while every one would have his own interest, will, and lust, to be the common rule and centre, it is by the wonderful, overruling power of God that any order is kept up in the world; and because when they cannot be all kings, they agree to make that use of kings which they think will serve their interest best. 8. A selfish man so far can be no true friend; for he loveth his friend but as a dog doth his master, for his own ends. 9. A selfish person is so far untrusty, and so false in converse and all relations; for he chooseth, and changeth, and useth all, as he thinks his own interest requireth. If he be a tradesman, believe him no further than his interest binds him; if he be a minister, he will be for that doctrine and practice which is for his carnal interest; if he be a ruler, wo to his inferiors! And therefore it is the highest point in policy, next conscience and common obedience to God, to contrive, if possible, so to twist the interest of princes and people, that both may feel that they are inseparable, and that they must live, and thrive, or die, together.* 10. In a word, inordinate selfishness is the grand pravity of nature, and the disease and confusion of all the world: whatever villanies, tyrannies, rebellions, heresies, persecutions, or wickedness you read of in all history, or hear of now on earth, all is but the effects of this adhering by inordinate self-love to self-interest. And if Paul say of one branch of its effects, "The love of money is the root of all evil," we may well say it of this radical, comprehensive sin. Q. 9. Alas! who is it that is not selfish? How common is * Phil. ii. 4,21. this sin! Are there then any saints on earth; or any hope of a remedy? A. It is so common and so strong, as that, 1. All Christians should most fear it, and watch, and pray, and strive against it. 2. And all preachers should more open the evil of it than they do, and live themselves as against it and above it. 1. How much do most over-value their own dark judgments and weak reasonings, in comparison of others! 2. How commonly do men measure the wisdom or folly, goodness or badness, of other men, as they are for or against their selfish interest, opinions, side, or way! 3. How impatient are men if self-will, reputation, or interest, be crossed! 4. How will they stretch conscience in words, deeds, or bargaining for gain! 5. How soon will they fall out with friends or kindred, if money or reputation come to a controversy between them! 6. How little feeling pity have they for another in sickness, poverty, prison, or grief, if they be but well themselves! 7. How ordinarily doth interest of body, reputation, wealth, crupt and change men's judgment in religion so that selfish..ess and fleshly interest chooseth not only other conditions and actions of life, but also the religion of most men, yea, of too many teachers of self-denial.* 8. And if godly people find this and lament it, how weakly do they resist it, and how little do they overcome it. 9. And though every truly godly man prefer the interest of his soul above that of his body, how few get above a religion of caring and fearing for themselves; to study more the church's good, and, more than that, to live in the delightful love of God, as the infinite good. 10. And of those that love the church of God; how many narrow it to their sect or party, and how few have an universal impartial love to all true Christians, as such.a Q. 10. Where then are the saints, if this be so? A. All this sin is predominant in ungodly men; (saving that common grace so far overcometh it in some few, that they can venture and lose their estates and lives for their special friends, and for their country;) but in all true Christians it is but in a subdued degree." They hate it more than they love it: they y 1 Kings xxii. 8; 2 Chron. xviii. 7. * Col. i. 4, 8. 21 John ii. 15. b 2 Tim. iii. 2. |