SERMON X.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

MATTHEW XIX. 17.

If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments.

THE part which follows in the Sunday morning service, is wholly taken from what is called in your Prayer books "The order of the Administration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion." The Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ was celebrated in the early ages of Christianity as often as Prayers were offered in the Church: after the usage of the Apostles, whom we read of as "continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house."* When in aftertimes the administration of the Sacrament was less frequent, it was yet thought expedient to remind the congregation of that sublime office, by the adoption of

*Acts ii. 46.

the early part of the formulary. It was on other accounts of much importance, to have the reading of the Ten Commandments, and of the Epistle and Gospel introduced into the Sabbath-day's service. Each has promised at his baptism by his sureties, to keep God's Holy will and Commandments, which engagement, it is to be desired should be often brought before his view; and the Epistle and Gospel, being appropriate to the division of the year by the Sabbath-days, at each Sabbath should be repeated. These therefore come within the scope of the discourses which I proposed to deliver, in explanation of the Sunday morning service in the Church.

The Ten Commandments constitute the chief subject for this day. The Commandments are preceded by the Lord's Prayer, without which, as has been before mentioned, no separate service is administered in our Church; and by a prayer for that purity of intention, which will most effectually secure an attentive hearing, and lead to a faithful obedience. The Jewish people were sanctified before the delivery of the law: that we be not careless hearers but doers of the word, we pray to him whose might is omnipotence, whose knowledge goes to the secrets of the thoughts, that our hearts be cleansed by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, that we may make the love of God the directing prin

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ciple of our minds, and his glory the end and object of our words and our works. Then follow the Commandments from the twentieth Chapter of the book of Exodus. They were delivered to the children of Israel assembled with a solemnity of the most impressive kind, with thunders, and lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; and Mount Sinai was altogether in a smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the "Mount," and the people removed and stood afar off and said unto Moses, speak thou with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die."* And the children of Israel saw that Moses talked with the Lord of Heaven. He stood between the Lord and them at that time, to shew the word of the Lord, and that word was the THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. These, Moses afterwards by special direction wrote on two tables of stone, and the ark of the Covenant in which they were deposited, was distinguished by peculiar honor and hallowed regard. The waters of Jordan separated for it to pass over, the walls of Jericho fell down when it compassed the city; the men who laid on it unholy hands received immediate punishment, and Solomon, when he built the temple, set out a particular place for its reception, in

* Exodus xx. 19.

which, as we read, it was laid up with great solemnity. Thus did the Jews keep up the remembrance of the Divine origin and delivery of the Commandments: happy had it been for the nation, had they treasured up their contents in their hearts! Happy had, they shewed them due respect in their deeds as well as in their temples!

It is true that the Mosaic dispensation is now at an end, and that the Jewish law has been abrogated by our Lord; but yet, my brethren, not one tittle of these Commandments has passed away. While man shall continue a rational creature, while the nature of things shall continue as it is, while states and nations have the same common measure of good and evil, they never will-they never can pass away. For, on general principles, what government could be safe without restraint on individual violence, without a test of truth, and a denunciation against perjury? What common sense could justify idolatry? What permission could neutralize robbery or adultery? What religion could subsist without a season of public worship? What license can give comfort to the murderer's conscience? What sufficient defence could be brought forward for neglect and dishonour of parents? Let policy, or let fashion, or let a temporary interest, or let a capricious love of innovation admit or encourage what is contrary to these

Commandments, and he who opposes them will feel no internal, no conscientious confidence in the justice of his acts, and the triumph of the innovator will be a short one. The world, as man is constituted, cannot subsist without them: the voice of unprejudiced reason in every man will approve them. They were therefore obligatory on the Gentiles; they were the law within themselves, to those who had never heard of the Jewish Establishment, and they bind the Christian world after that Establishment has been done away. For look into your Gospel and you will find, that our Lord, so far from abolishing them, has insisted on their observance: he freed them from the traditions which had made them of no effect he explained them in their true spirit, as in his numerous observations on the Sabbath and he restored the purity of their principle to its greatest extent, as in his comments upon several of them in his Sermon on the Mount. He abolished indeed the Ceremonial Law of the Jews, for he was the sum and substance of what it shadowed out, but what words can more strongly enforce the moral law than the words of the text? When called on publicly by a ruler of the Jews, who asked him what he should do to inherit eternal life, our Lord's answer was, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments."

* Matthew xix. 17.