Chapter 8: An Exposition of the Moral Law

Here I think it shall not be from the purpose, to interlace the ten Commandments of the law with a short exposition of them, because thereby both that shall better appear which I have touched, that the same keeping of them which God has once appointed remains yet in force: and then also we shall have besides that a proof of the second point, that the Jews did not only learn by it what was the true force of godliness, but also by the terror of the judgment, since they saw themselves unable to keep it, they were compelled whether they would or no, to be drawn to the Mediator. Now in the setting forth the sum of those things that are required in the true knowledge of God, we have already taught, that we cannot conceive him according to his greatness, but that immediately his majesty presents itself to us to bind us to the worship of him. In the knowledge of ourselves we have set this for the chief point, that being void of the opinion of our own strength, and clean stripped of the trust of our own righteousness, and on the other side discouraged and beaten down with conscience of our own neediness, we should learn perfect humility and abasement of ourselves. The Lord sets forth both these points in his law, where first challenging to himself due power to govern, he calls us to the reverence of his divine majesty, and appoints out to us wherein it stands and consists: and then publishing a rule of his righteousness, (against the righteousness whereof our nature as it is perverse and crooked, does always strive, and beneath the perfection whereof our power as of itself it is weak and feeble to do good, lies a great way below) he reproves us both of weakness and unrighteousness. Moreover that inward law which we have before said to be graven and as it were imprinted in the hearts of all men, does after a certain manner inform us of the same things that are to be learned of the two tables. For our conscience does not suffer us to sleep a perpetual sleep without feeling, but that it inwardly is a witness and admonisher of those things that we owe to God, and lays before us the difference of good and evil, and so accuses us when we swerve from our duty. But man being wrapped in such darkness of errors as he is, scarcely even slenderly tastes by that law of nature, what worship pleases God: but truly he is very far distant from the right knowledge thereof. Besides that, he is so swollen with arrogance and ambition, and so blinded with self-love, that he cannot yet look upon, and as it were, descend into himself to learn to submit and humble himself, and confess his own misery. Therefore (as it was necessary both for our dullness and stubbornness) the Lord has set us a law written, which should both more certainly testify that which in the law of nature was too obscure, and also should shake away our drowsiness and more lively touch our mind and remembrance.

Now it is easy to understand what is to be learned of the law, that is, that as God is our creator, so of right he has the place of our father and Lord, and that by this reason we owe to him glory, reverence, love and fear. Indeed and also that we are not at our own liberty, to follow wherever the lust of our mind moves us, but that we ought to hang upon his back, and to rest only upon that which pleases him. Then we learn, that he delights in righteousness and uprightness, that he abhors wickedness, and therefore, that unless we will with wicked unthankfulness fall away from our creator, we must necessarily observe righteousness all our life long. For if then only we yield to him the reverence that we owe, when we prefer his will before our own, it follows, that there is no other due worship of him, but the observation of righteousness, holiness and cleanness. Neither may we pretend this excuse that we want power, and like wasted debtors be not able to pay. For it is not convenient that we should measure the glory of God by our own power: for whatever we be, he always abides like to himself, a lover of righteousness, a hater of wickedness. Whatever he requires of us (because he can require nothing but that which is right) by bond of nature we must of necessity obey: but that we are not able, is our own fault. For if we be held bound of our own lust wherein sin reigns, so that we are not free at liberty to obey our father, there is no cause why we should allege necessity for our defense, the evil whereof is both within us, and to be imputed to ourselves.

When we have thus far profited by the teaching of the law, then must we by the teaching of the same law also descend to ourselves: whereby at length we may carry away two things. The first is, by comparing the righteousness of the law with our life, to learn, that we are far off from being able to satisfy the will of God, and that therefore we are not worthy to have place among his creatures, much less to be reckoned among his children. The second is in considering our strength, to learn that it is not only insufficient to fulfill the law, but also utterly none at all. Hereupon follows both a distrust of our own strength, and a care and fearfulness of mind. For conscience cannot bear the burden of iniquity, but that immediately the judgment of God is present before it: and the judgment of God cannot be felt, but that it strikes into us a dreadful horror of death. And likewise being constrained with proofs of her own weakness, it cannot choose but immediately fall into despair of her own strength. Both these affections do engender humility and abatement of courage. So at length it comes to pass, that man made afraid with feeling of eternal death, which he sees to hang over him by the deserving of his own unrighteousness, turns himself to the only mercy of God, as to the only haven of salvation: that feeling that it is not in his power to pay that he owes to the law, despairing in himself, he may take breath again and begin to crave and look for help from elsewhere.

But the Lord, not contented to have procured a reverence of his righteousness, has also added promises and threatenings, to fill our hearts with love of him, and with hatred of wickedness. For, because our mind is too blind to be moved with the only beauty of goodness, it pleased the most merciful Father of his tender kindness, to allure us with sweetness of rewards, to love and long for him. He pronounces therefore, that with him are rewards laid up for virtue, and that he shall not spend his labor in vain, whoever he be, that shall obey his commandments. He proclaims on the other side, that he not only abhors unrighteousness, but also that it shall not escape unpunished, for that he will be a revenger of the contempt of his majesty. And, to exhort us by all means, he promises as well the blessings of this present life, as also eternal blessedness, to their obedience that keep his commandments: and to the transgressors thereof, he threatens both present miseries and the punishment of eternal death. For the same promise, (he that does these things, shall live in them:) and also the threatening that answers it, (the soul that sins, the same shall die) do without doubt belong to the immortality or death that is to come, and shall never be ended. All be it, wherever is mentioned the good will or wrath of God, under the one is contained eternity of life, under the other eternal destruction. Of present blessings and curses there is a long register rehearsed in the law. And in the penal ordinances appears the sovereign cleanness of God, that can suffer no iniquity: but in his promises, beside his great love of righteousness, (which he can not find in his heart to defraud of her reward) there is also proved his marvelous bountifulness. For whereas we and all ours are indebted to his majesty, by good right whatever he requires of us, he demands it as due debt, but the payment of debt is not worthy of reward. Therefore he departs with his own right, when he offers reward to our obediences, which we do not yield of ourselves as things that were not due: but what those promises do bring to us, is partly said already, and partly shall appear more plainly in place fit for it. It suffices for this present, if we remember and consider, that there is in the promises of the law, no small commendation of righteousness, that it may the more certainly appear how much the keeping thereof pleases God: that the penal ordinances are set forth for more detestation of unrighteousness, lest the sinner, delighted with the sweet flatteries of vices, should forget that the judgment of the lawmaker is prepared for him.

Now whereas the Lord, giving a rule of perfect righteousness, has applied all the parts thereof to his own will, therein is declared that nothing is to him more acceptable than obedience, which is so much more diligently to be marked, as the wantonness of man's mind is more ready to devise now and then diverse sorts of worshipping to win his favor withal. For in all ages that irreligious affectation of religion, because it is naturally planted in the wit of man, has showed and yet does show forth itself, that men do always delight to invent a way to obtain righteousness beside the word of God, whereby it comes to pass, that the commandments of the law have but small place among the works that are commonly called good works, while that innumerable rate of men's works occupies almost all the room. But what other thing meant Moses than to restrain such licentiousness, when after the publishing of the law he spoke thus to the people: Give heed, and hear all the things that I command you, that it may be well to you and to your children after you forever, when you shall do that which is good and pleasant before your God. What I command you, that only do: add not to it, nor diminish it. And before, when he had protested, that this was his wisdom and understanding before other nations that he had received judgments, righteousness and ceremonies of the Lord, he said further, Keep therefore yourself and your soul carefully, that you forget not the words which your eyes have seen, and that at no time they fall out of your heart. For, because God did foresee, that the Israelites would not rest, but that after they had received the law, they would beside it travail in bringing forth new righteousness, if they were not severely held back: therefore he pronounces that herein is contained the perfection of righteousness, which should have been the strongest stay to hold them back, and yet they did cease from that boldness so much forbidden them. But what of us? We are surely comprehended within the same charge: for it is no doubt that that continues still whereby the Lord has challenged to his law the absolute doctrine of righteousness, yet we, not contented therewith, do monstrously travail with forging and coining of new good works one upon another. For the healing of this fault, the best remedy shall be, if this thought shall be steadfastly settled in us, that the law is given us from God to teach us a perfect righteousness: that therein is taught no righteousness, but the same that is examined by the appointed rule of God's will: that therefore new forms of works are vainly attempted to win the favor of God, whose true worship stands in only obedience: but rather that such study of good works as wanders out of the law of God, is an intolerable defiling of God's righteousness and of the true righteousness. Augustine also says most truly, which calls the obedience that is done to God, sometimes the mother and keeper, sometimes the original of all virtues.

But when we have expounded the law of the Lord, then more fittingly and with more positive result shall that be confirmed which I have before spoken of the office and use of the law. But before I begin to discuss every several commandment by itself, it shall be good now to give such lessons as serve to the universal knowledge thereof. First let us hold for determined, that the life of man is instructed in the law, not only to outward honesty, but also to inward and spiritual righteousness. Which thing, whereas no man can deny, yet there be few that rightly mark it. That comes to pass, because they look not upon the lawmaker, by whose nature the nature of the law also ought to be weighed. If any king do by proclamation forbid committing fornication, killing, or stealing: in this case I grant that if a man do only conceive in his mind a lust to commit fornication, to sin, or to steal, and do not commit any of these things in deed, he is out of the compass of this prohibition. And the reason is, because the foresight of a mortal lawmaker could not extend but to outward civility: his commandments are not broken, but when the outward offenses are committed. But God (whose eye nothing escapes, and who regards not so much the outward show as the cleanness of the heart) — under the forbidding of fornication, manslaughter and theft — forbids lust, wrath, hatred, coveting of another man's, guile, and whatever is like to these. For insomuch as he is a spiritual lawmaker, he speaks no less to the soul than to the body. But the manslaughter of the soul is wrath and hatred: the theft of the soul is evil desire and covetousness: the fornication of the soul is lust. But man's laws also (will some man say) have regard to intents and wills, and not to outcomes of fortune. I grant, but yet they are such intents and wills as have outwardly broken out. They weigh with what intent every outward act has been done, but they search not the secret thoughts. Therefore they are satisfied when a man only withholds his hands from offending. On the other side, because the heavenly law is made for our minds, therefore the restraint of minds is principally needful to the keeping thereof. But the common sort of men, even when they mightily dissemble their contempt of the law, do frame their eyes, their feet, their hands, and all the parts of their body to some observation of the law, in the mean time they hold their heart most far off from all obedience, and think themselves well discharged, if they keep close from men that which they do in the sight of God. They hear it said: You shall not kill: You shall not commit adultery: You shall not steal: they draw not out their sword to kill, they join not their bodies with harlots: they lay not their hands upon other men's goods. All this is well up to this point. But in their whole hearts they breathe out murders, they boil in lust, they cast their eyes aside at all men's goods, and devour them with coveting. Now lacks that which was the chief point of the law. From where, I pray you, comes so gross a dullness, but that leaving the lawmaker, they rather measure righteousness by their own wits? Against these does Paul mightily cry out, affirming that the law is spiritual: whereby he means, that it not only demands an obedience of the soul, mind and will, but also requires an angelic purity, which having all the filthiness of the flesh clean wiped away, may savor nothing but of the spirit.

When we say that this is the meaning of the law, we thrust not in a new exposition of our own, but we follow Christ the best expositor of the law. For when the Pharisees had infected the people with a false opinion, that he performs the law that has with outward work committed nothing against the law, he reproved this most perilous error, and pronounced that unchaste looking at a woman is fornication: he protested that they are manslayers that hate their brother, for he makes them guilty of judgment that have but conceived wrath in their mind, and them guilty of the council that in murmuring or grudging have uttered any token of a displeased mind: and them guilty of hell fire, that with taunts and railing break forth into open anger. They that have not espied these things, have imagined Christ to be another Moses, the giver of the law of the Gospel, which supplied the imperfection of the law of Moses. Therefore comes that common principle of the perfection of the law of the Gospel, which far passes the old law, which is a most pernicious opinion. For hereafter, where we shall gather a sum of the commandments, it shall appear by Moses himself, how reproachfully they dishonor the law of God. Truly it shows that all the holiness of the fathers did not much differ from hypocrisy, and it leads us away from that only and perfect rule of righteousness. But it is very easy to confute that error: for they thought that Christ did add to the law, whereas he did but restore the law to her integrity, while he made it free, and cleansed it being obscured with lies, and defiled with leaven of the Pharisees.

Let this be our second note, that there is always more contained in the commandments and prohibitions, than is by words expressed, which yet is so to be tempered, that it be not like a Lesbian rule, whereby licentiously wresting the Scriptures, we may make of every thing what we like. For many bring to pass by this unmeasured liberty of running at large, that with some the authority of Scripture grows in contempt, and others despair of understanding it. Therefore, if it be possible, we must take some such way, that may by right and perfect path lead us to the will of God, we must, I say, search how far our exposition may exceed the bounds of the words, that it may appear that it is not an addition of men's glosses knit to the word of God, but rather that the pure and natural meaning of the lawgiver is faithfully rendered. Truly in a manner in all the commandments it is so manifest, that there are figurative speeches, meaning more in expressing part that he may worthily be laughed at that will restrain the meaning of the law to the narrowness of the words. It is evident therefore, that sober exposition does pass beyond the words: but how far, that remains hard to judge, unless there be some measure appointed: therefore I think this to be the best measure, that if it be directed to the intent of the commandment, that is, that in every commandment be weighed, why it was given us. As for example: Every commandment is either by way of bidding, or of forbidding: the truth of both sorts shall forthwith be found, if we consider the intent or the end thereof. As the end of the fifth commandment is, that honor is to be given to them to whom God appoints it. This therefore is the sum of the commandment, that it is right and pleases God, that we honor them to whom he has given any excellence, and that he abhors contempt and stubbornness against them. The intent of the first commandment is, that God alone be honored. The sum therefore of the commandment shall be, that true godliness, that is to say, true worship of his majesty pleases God, and that he abhors ungodliness. So in every commandment we must look, upon what matter it treats: then must we search out the end, till we find what the lawmaker does testify therein properly to please or displease him: and last of all must we draw an argument from the same to the contrary, after this manner: If this pleases God, then the contrary displeases him: if this displeases him, then the contrary pleases him: if he commands this, then he forbids the contrary: if he forbids this, then he commands the contrary.

That which is now somewhat darkly touched, shall in expounding of the commandments become very plain by practice, therefore it suffices to have touched it, saving that this last point, is to be shortly confirmed with some proof thereof, because otherwise either it should not be understood, or being understood, it might perhaps at the beginning seem to sound like an absurdity. This needs no proof, that when a good thing is commanded, the evil is forbidden that is contrary to it: for there is no man but he will grant it me. And common judgment will not much stick to admit, that when evil things are forbidden, the contrary duties are commanded. It is a universal opinion that virtues are commended, when the contrary vices are condemned. But we require somewhat more than those forms of speech do signify commonly among the people. For they for the most part take the virtue contrary to any vice, to be the abstaining from the same vice: we say that it proceeds further, that is to contrary duties and doings. Therefore in this commandment, You shall not kill, the common sense of men will consider nothing else, but that we must abstain from all hurt doing, or lust to do hurt. I say that there is further contained, that we should by all the helps that we may, succor the life of our neighbor. And, lest I speak without a reason, I prove it thus: God forbids that our brother be hurt or misused, because he wills that our neighbor's life be dear and precious to us: he does therefore require withal those duties of love that may be done by us for the preservation of it. And so may we see how the end of the commandment does always disclose to us all that we are therein commanded or forbidden to do.

But why God, in such as it were half commandments has by figures rather secretly signified, than expressed what his will was, whereas there are wont to be many reasons rendered thereof, this one reason pleases me above the rest. Because the flesh always endeavors to extenuate the filthiness of sin, and to color it with fair pretenses, saving where it is even palpable for grossness, he has set forth for an example in every kind of offense that which was most wicked and abominable, at the hearing whereof our very senses might be moved with horror, thereby to imprint in our minds a more heinous detesting of every sort of sin. This many times deceives us in weighing of vices, that if they be anything secret, we make them seem small. These deceits the Lord does disclose, when he accustoms us to refer all the whole multitude of vices to these principal heads, which do best of all show, how much every kind is abominable. As for example, wrath and hatred are not thought so heinous evils, when they are called by their own names, but when they are forbidden us under the name of manslaughter, we better understand how abominable they are before God, by whose word they are set in the degree of so horrible an offense: and we moved by his judgment, do accustom ourselves better to weigh the heinousness of those faults that before seemed but light to us.

Thirdly, it is to be considered what means the dividing of the law of God into two tables, of which all wise men will judge that there is sometimes mention made not unfitly from the purpose, nor without cause. And we have a cause ready that does not suffer us to remain in doubt of this matter. For God so divided his law into two parts, in which is contained the whole righteousness, that he has assigned the first to the duties of religion that do peculiarly pertain to the worshiping of his Godhead, the other to the duties of charity which belong to men. The first foundation of righteousness is the worship of God: which being once overthrown, all the other members of righteousness are torn asunder and dissolved, like to the parts of a house unjointed and fallen down. For what manner of righteousness will you call it, that you do not harass men with robbery and extortion, if in the meantime by wicked sacrilege you despoil God's majesty of his glory? That you do not defile your body with fornication, if with your blasphemies you profanely abuse the sacred name of God? That you murder no man, if you labor to destroy and extinguish the memory of God? Therefore righteousness is vainly boasted of without religion, and makes no better show, than if a mangled body with the head cut off should be brought forth for a beautiful sight. And religion is not only the principal part of righteousness, but also the very soul with which it breathes and is quickened. For men do not keep equity and love among themselves without the fear of God. Therefore we say, that the worship of God is the beginning and foundation of righteousness, because when it is taken away, all the equity, continence, and temperance that men use among themselves, is vain and trifling before God. We say also that it is the springhead and living breath of righteousness, because hereby men learn to live among themselves temperately and without harming one another, if they reverence God as the judge of right and wrong. Therefore in the first table he instructs us to godliness and the proper duties of religion, with which his majesty is to be worshiped: in the other he prescribes [reconstructed: how], for the sake of fear of his name, we ought to behave ourselves in the fellowship of men. And for this reason our Lord (as the Evangelists recount it) did in sum gather the whole law into two principal points, the one that we should love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength: the other, that we love our neighbor as ourselves. Thus you see how of the two parts in which he concludes the whole law, he directs the one toward God, and appoints the other toward men.

But although the whole law be contained in two principal points, yet, to the end to take away all pretense of excuse, it pleased our God, to declare in the ten commandments more largely and plainly all things that belong both to the honor, fear and love of himself, and also to that charity, which he commands us to bear to men for his sake. And your study is not ill spent to know the division of the commandments, so that you remember that it is such a matter in which every man ought to have his judgment free, for which we ought not contentiously to strive with him that thinks otherwise. But we must needs touch this point, lest the readers should either scorn or marvel at the division that we shall use, as new and lately devised. That the law is divided in ten words, because it is oft approved by the authority of God himself, it is out of controversy, therefore there is no doubt of the number, but of the manner of dividing. They that so divide them, that they give three commandments to the first table, and put other 7 into the second, do wipe out of the number the commandment concerning images, or at least they hide it under the first: whereas without doubt it is severally set by the Lord for a commandment, and the tenth commandment of not coveting the things of his neighbor, they do [reconstructed: separately] tear into two. Besides that it shall by and by be done to understand, that such manner of dividing was unknown in the purer age. Others reckon, as we do, four several commandments in the first table, but in place of the first they set the promise without the commandment. As for me, because unless I be convinced by evident reason, I take the ten words in Moses for ten commandments, I think I see so many divided in very fit order. Therefore, leaving to them their opinion, I will follow that which I best allow, that is, that the same which these later sort make the first commandment, shall be in stead of a preface to the whole law, and then shall follow the commandments, four of the first table, and six of the second, in such order as they shall be rehearsed. Augustine also, writing to Boniface, agrees with us, who in rehearsing them keeps this order: that God only be served with obedience of religion, that no idol be worshiped, that the name of the Lord be not taken in vain, when he had before separately spoken of the shadowy commandment of the Sabbath. In another place indeed that first division pleases him, but for too slender a cause, that is, because in the number of three, if the first table consist of three commandments, the mystery of the Trinity more plainly appears. Albeit in the same place he does not hesitate to confess that otherwise he rather likes our division. Besides these, the author of the Imperfect work upon Matthew is on our side. Josephus, undoubtedly according to the common consent of his time, assigns to either table five commandments. Which is both against reason, because it confounds the distinction of religion and charity, and also is confuted by the authority of the Lord himself, who in Matthew reckons the commandment of honoring our parents, in the number of the second table. Now let us hear God himself, speaking in his own words.

The First Commandment.

I am the Lord your God, who have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no strange Gods before my face.

Whether you make the first sentence a part of the first commandment, or read it separately, it is indifferent to me, so that you do not deny me that it stands in place of a preface to the whole law. First in making of laws, heed is to be taken, that they be not shortly after abrogated by contempt. Therefore God first of all provides, that the majesty of the law that he shall make, may never at any time come in contempt. For establishing of which he uses three manners of arguments. First he challenges to himself power and right of dominion, whereby he may constrain his chosen people, that they must of necessity obey him: then he sets forth a promise of grace with sweetness thereof to allure them to study of holiness. Thirdly he recites the benefit that he did for them, to reprove the Jews of ingratitude, if they do not with obedience answer his kindness. Under the name of Jehovah, the Lord, is meant his authority and lawful dominion. And if all things be of him and do abide in him, it is right that all things be referred to him, as Paul says (Romans 11:36). Therefore we are with this word alone sufficiently brought under the yoke of God's majesty, because it were monstrous for us to seek to withdraw ourselves from under his government, out of whom we cannot be.

After that he has showed that it is he that has power to command, to whom obedience is due, lest he should seem to draw by only necessity, he also allures with sweetness in pronouncing, that he is the God of the Church. For there is hidden in this speech a mutual relation, which is contained in the promise: I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. Therefore Christ proves that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have immortal life, by this that God testified that he is their God (Jeremiah 30:33; Matthew 22:32). Therefore it is as much in effect, as if he should say thus: I have chosen you to be my people, not only to do you good in this present life, but also to give you the blessedness of the life to come. But to what end this tends, it is noted in diverse places in the law. For when the Lord does vouchsafe to deal thus mercifully with us, to call us into the company of his people, he chooses us (says Moses) that we should be a peculiar people to himself, a holy people, and should keep his commandments (Deuteronomy 7:6). From where also comes this exhortation: Be holy, for I am holy (Leviticus 19). Now out of these two is derived that protestation that is in the Prophet: The son honors the father, and the servant honors his Lord. If I be a lord, where is my fear? If I be a father, where is my love? (Malachi 1:6)

Now follows the rehearsal of his benefit, which ought to be of so much more force to move us, as the fault of ingratitude is more detestable even among men. He then did put Israel in remembrance of a benefit lately done, but such a one as for the miraculous greatness thereof being worthy to be had in remembrance forever, should remain in force with their posterity. Moreover it is most agreeable for this present matter. For the Lord seems to say that they were delivered out of miserable bondage for this purpose, that they should with obedience and readiness of service honor him, the author of their deliverance. He uses also, (to the end to hold us fast in the true worshipping of him alone) to set out himself with certain titles, whereby he makes his sacred majesty to be differently known from all idols and forged gods. For as I said before, such is our ready inclination to vanity, joined with rash boldness, that as soon as God is named, our mind cannot take heed to itself, but that it by and by falls away to some vain invention. Therefore, when the Lord means to bring a remedy for this mischief, he sets out his own Godhead with certain titles, and so does compass us in, as it were within certain enclosures, lest we should wander here and there and rashly forge ourselves some new God, if forsaking the living God, we should erect an idol. For this cause, so often as the Prophets mean properly to point out him, they clothe him, and as it were enclose him, within those marks, whereby he had opened himself to the people of Israel. And yet when he is called the God of Abraham, or the God of Israel, when he is set in the temple of Jerusalem among the Cherubim, these and like forms of speech do not bind him to one place or to one people, but are set only for this purpose, to stay the thoughts of the godly in that God, which by his covenant, that he has made with Israel, has so represented himself, that it is no way lawful to vary from such a pattern. But let this remain steadfastly imprinted, that there is mention made of the deliverance to this end, that the Jews might the more cheerfully give themselves to the God that does by right claim them to him. And we (lest we should think that the same nothing belongs to us,) ought to consider, that the bondage of Egypt is a figure of the spiritual captivity, wherein we are all held bound, until our heavenly deliverer does make us free by the power of his arm, and convey us into the kingdom of liberty. As therefore, when in the old time he minded to gather together the Israelites that were scattered abroad, to the worshipping of his name, he delivered them out of the intolerable dominion of Pharaoh, whereby they were oppressed: so all those to whom at this day he professes himself a God, he does now deliver from the deadly power of the Devil, which was in a shadow signified by that corporeal bondage. Therefore there is no man, but his mind ought to be inflamed to hearken to the law which he hears to have proceeded from the sovereign king. From whom as all things take their beginning, so is it fitting that they have also their end appointed and directed to him. There is no man (I say) but he ought to be seized to embrace the lawmaker, to the keeping of whose commandments, he is taught that he is peculiarly chosen: from whose bounty he looks both for flowing store of all good things, and also the glory of immortal life: by whose marvelous power and mercy, he knows himself to be delivered out of the jaws of death (Exodus 3:6; Amos 1:2; Habakkuk 2; Psalm 80:2; 29:1; Isaiah 37:16).

After that he has grounded and established the authority of his law, he sets forth the first commandment, that we have no strange Gods before him. The end of this commandment is, that God will only have preeminence, and wholly enjoy his own authority among his people. And that it may so be, he commands that there be far from us all ungodliness and superstition whereby the glory of his godhead is either diminished or obscured: and by the same reason he commands that we worship and honor him with true endeavor of godliness. And the very simplicity of the words themselves do in a manner express the same. For we cannot have God, but we must also comprehend therein all things that properly belong to him. Whereas therefore he forbids us to have other Gods, he means thereby, that we should not give away elsewhere that which is proper to him. For although the things that we owe to God be innumerable, yet not unfitly they may be brought to four principal points: Adoration, to which as a thing hanging upon it, is adjoined spiritual obedience of conscience; Affiance, Invocation, and Thanksgiving. Adoration I call the reverence and worship which every one of us yields to him, when he submits himself to his greatness: therefore I do not without cause make this a part thereof, that we yield our consciences in subjection to his law. Affiance, is an assuredness of resting in him by acknowledging his powers, when reposing all wisdom, righteousness, power, truth and goodness in him, we think ourselves blessed with only partaking of him. Invocation, is a resorting of our mind to his faith and help as to our only succor, so often as any necessity presses us. Thanksgiving, is a certain thankfulness whereby the praise of all good things is given to him. Of these, as God suffers nothing to be conveyed away elsewhere, so he commanded all to be wholly given to himself. Neither shall it be enough to abstain from having any strange God, unless you restrain yourself in this, that many wicked contemners are wont, which think the readiest way, to scorn all religions: but true religion must go before, whereby our minds may be directed to the living God, with knowledge whereof they being endowed, may aspire to reverence, fear and worship his majesty, to embrace the communicating of all his good things, everywhere to seek for his help, to acknowledge and advance with confession of praise the magnificence of his works, as to the only mark in all the doings of our life. Then, that we beware of perverse superstition, whereby our minds swerving from the true God, are drawn here and there as it were to diverse gods. Therefore, if we be contented with one God, let us call to remembrance that which is previously said, that all forged gods are to be driven far away, and that the worship is not to be torn asunder, which he alone claims to himself. For it is not lawful to take away anything from his glory, be it never so little, but that all things that belong to him may wholly remain with him. The parcel of sentence that follows (Before my face) increases the heinousness, for that God is provoked to jealousy, so often as we thrust our own inventions in his place, as if an unchaste woman by bringing in an adulterer openly before her husband's eyes should the more vex his mind. Therefore when God testified that with his present power and grace he looked upon the people that he had chosen, the more to frighten them from the wicked act of falling from him, he gives them warning that there can be no new gods brought in, but that he is witness and beholder of their sacrilege. For this boldness is increased with much wickedness, that man thinks that in his fleeing away he can beguile the eyes of God. On the other side, God cries out that whatever we purpose, whatever we go about, whatever we practice, it comes in his sight. Let therefore our conscience be clean even from the most secret thoughts of swerving from him, if we will have our religion to please the Lord. For he requires to have the glory of his godhead whole and uncorrupted, not only in outward confession, but also in his eyes, which behold the most secret corners of hearts.

The Second Commandment.

You shall not make to yourself any graven image, nor any similitude of those things that are in heaven above, or in earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not worship them, nor serve them.

As in the first commandment he pronounced that he is the one God beside whom there are no other gods to be devised or had, so now he more openly declares what manner of God he is, and with what kind of worship he is to be honored: that we may not presume to forge any carnal thing for him. The end therefore of this commandment is, that he will not have the lawful worship of him, to be profaned with superstitious usages. Therefore in sum, he calls and draws us away from the carnal observations, which our foolish mind is wont to invent, when it conceives God according to its own grossness. And therefore he frames us to the lawful worship of him, that is the spiritual worship, and which is appointed by him. He speaks of the grossest fault that is in this offense, namely outward idolatry. And there be two parts of this commandment: The first restrains our liberty, that we do not presume to make subject to our senses or by any form to represent God, which is incomprehensible. The second part forbids us to honor any images for religious sake. Moreover he briefly recites all the forms with which he was wont to be expressed in shape by the profane and superstitious nations. By those things that are in heaven, he means the Sun, the Moon, and other Stars, and perhaps also birds, as expressing his meaning in the fourth of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 4:15) he means as well birds as stars. Which note I would not have spoken of but that I saw some unskilfully to apply it to Angels. Therefore I omit the other parts, because they are sufficiently known of themselves. And we have already in the first book taught plainly enough, that whatever visible forms of God man does invent, they are directly contrary to his nature, and that therefore so soon as images come forth, true religion is corrupted and defiled.

The penal ordinance that follows ought not a little to avail to shake off our slothfulness. For he threatens: That he is the Lord our God, a jealous God, that visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation, in them that hate his name, and shows mercy to thousands to them that love him and keep his commandments. This is as much in effect, as if he should have said, that it is he only upon whom we ought to [illegible]. And to bring us to that end, he speaks of his power, that does not without punishment suffer itself to be contemned or diminished. Here is indeed let the name El, which signifies God. But because it is derived of strength, to express the sense the better, I did not stick so to translate it, or to put it into the text. Then he calls himself jealous, that can abide no fellow. Thirdly he affirms that he will be a revenger of his majesty and glory if any do transfer it to creatures or to graven images, and that not with a short or slender revenge, but such as shall extend to the children and children's children, and children's children's children, that is such as shall be [reconstructed: followers] of their fathers' ungodliness: as also he shows a perpetual mercy and bountifulness to long continuance of posterity, to those that love him and keep his law. It is a common manner with God to take upon him the person of a husband toward us. For the conjunction whereby he binds himself to us, when he receives us into the bosom of his church, is like to a certain holy wedlock, that must stand by mutual faithfulness. As he does all the duties of a faithful and true husband, so again he requires of us such love and chastity as ought to be in wedlock, that we yield not our souls to Satan, to lust, and to filthy desires of the flesh, to be defiled by them. Whereupon he that rebukes the apostasy of the Jews, complains that they did throw away chastity, and were defiled with adulteries. Therefore, as the husband, the more holy and chaste that he himself is, the more is he kindled to anger if he see his wife's mind incline to a strange lover: so the Lord that has wedded us to himself in truth, testifies that he has a most fervently burning jealousy, so often as neglecting the pureness of his holy marriage we are defiled with wicked lusts, but especially then when we transfer to any other, or do [reconstructed: infect] with any superstition the worship of his name, which ought to be most uncorrupted: For inasmuch as by this means we do not only break the faith given in wedlock, but also do defile the very wedding bed with bringing into it adulterers.

In the threatening is to be seen what he means by this, when he says, that he will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation. For, beside that it stands not with the equity of God's justice, to punish [reconstructed: the] innocent for another's offence, God himself also says, that he will not make the son to bear the wickedness of the father. But this sentence is more than once repeated, of prolonging the punishment of the sins of the ancestors upon the generations to come. For so does Moses oftentimes speak to him: Lord, lord, that renders the iniquity of the fathers to the children, to the third and fourth generation. Likewise Jeremiah: You that show mercy in thousands, that render the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of the children after them. Many, while they labor much in loosing this knot, think that it is to be understood only of temporal punishments, which if the children suffer for the parents' faults, it is no absurdity, for inasmuch as they are oftentimes laid upon them for their salvation, which is indeed true. For Isaiah declared to Hezekiah, that his sons should be spoiled of the kingdom, and carried into exile for the sin that he had committed. The houses of Pharaoh and Abimelech were plagued for offending Abraham. But when that is alleged for resolving of this question, it is rather a shift than a true exposition. For here and in like places he threatens a more grievous revenge than that it may be limited within the bounds of this present life. It is therefore thus to be taken: that the just curse of the Lord, lies not only upon the head of the wicked man himself, but also upon his whole family: when the curse once lies upon them, what is else to be looked for but that the father being destitute of the Spirit of God, live most wickedly, and the son likewise forsaken of the Lord for the father's fault, do follow the same way of destruction: and finally, the child's child, and the child of the child's child, that cursed seed of detestable men do fall headlong after them?

First let us see, whether such revenge be unseemly for the justice of God. If all the nature of man be damnable, we know that destruction is prepared for them, to whom the Lord vouchsafes not to communicate his grace. Nevertheless they do perish by their own unrighteousness, and not by unrighteous hatred of God. Neither is there left any cause to quarrel, why they are not helped by the grace of God to salvation as others are. Whereas therefore this punishment is laid upon wicked men and evildoers for their offenses, that their houses be deprived of the grace of God during many generations: who can accuse God for this most just revenge? But the Lord on the other side pronounces, that the punishment of the father's sin shall not pass over to the son. Note what is there treated of. When the Israelites had been long and continually vexed with many calamities, they began to use for a proverb, that their fathers had eaten a sour grape, wherewith the children's teeth were set on edge: whereby they meant, that their fathers had committed sins, whereof they, being otherwise righteous, and not deserving it, did suffer the punishment, rather by an unappeasable wrathfulness of God, than by a moderate severity. The Prophet pronounces to them that it is not so: because they are punished for their own offenses, and that it stands not with the justice of God, that the righteous son should suffer punishment for the wickedness of the wicked father, which thing also is not contained in this present ordinance. For in the Visiting, whereof mention is now made, it is fulfilled when the Lord takes away from the house of the wicked his grace, the light of his [reconstructed: word] and other helps of salvation: in this that the children being blinded and forsaken of him, do go on in the steps of their fathers, they sustain curses for their fathers' offenses. But inasmuch as they are put to temporal miseries, and at last to eternal destruction, herein they are punished by the just judgment of God, not for the sins of others, but for their own iniquity.

On the other side is offered a promise of enlarging the mercy of God into a thousand generations, which promise is also often found in the Scriptures, and is set in the solemn covenant of the church: I will be your God, and of your seed after you. Which thing Solomon having respect to, writes that the children of the righteous shall be blessed after their death not only by reason of holy upbringing, which also not a little avails thereunto, but also for the blessing promised in the covenant, that the grace of God shall rest eternally in the houses of the godly. Hereupon grows great comfort to the faithful, great terror to the wicked. For if even after death, the remembrance both of righteousness and wickedness be of so great force with God, that the cursing of the one, and the blessing of the other redounds to posterity, much more shall it light and rest upon the heads of the doers themselves. But it makes nothing against us, that the issue of the wicked many times comes to good proof, and the issue of the faithful swerves out of kind: because the lawmaker meant not here to establish such a perpetual rule as should derogate his free election. For it suffices for the comfort of the righteous and for the terror of the sinner, that the penalty is not vain or of no effect, although it does not always take place. For as the temporal punishments that are laid upon a few wicked men, are testimonies of the wrath of God against sins, and of the judgment that shall one day be given upon all sinners, although many escape unpunished even to the end of their life: so when God gives one example of this blessing to show mercy and bountifulness to the son for the father's sake, he gives a proof of his constant and perpetual favor to them that worship him: and when he once pursues the wickedness of the father in the son, he shows what judgment is prepared for all the reprobate for their own offenses. Which assurance he had in this place principally respect to. And by the way he commends to us the largeness of his mercy, which he extends to a thousand generations, whereas he assigned but only four generations to vengeance.

The Third Commandment.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

The end of this commandment is, that his will is to have the majesty of his name to be holy among us. Therefore the sum shall be, that we do not defile it with contemptuously and irreverently using it. With which prohibition the commandment hangs orderly together, that we take study and care godly to reverence it. Therefore we ought so to order ourselves both in our minds and our tongues, that we neither think nor speak any thing of God himself or his mysteries, but reverently and with much sobriety: that in weighing his works, we conceive nothing but honorable toward him. These three things I say, it behooves us not negligently to mark, that whatever our mind conceives of him, whatever our tongue utters, it may savor of his excellency, and may agree with the holy highness of his name: and finally may serve to advance his magnificence. That we do not rashly or disorderly abuse his holy word and reverend mysteries either to ambition, or to covetousness, or to our own triflings: but that as they bear the dignity of his name imprinted in them, so they may keep their honor and estimation among us. Last of all, that we do not carp against or speak evil of his works, as these wretched men are wont to babble reproachfully against them: but that whatever we rehearse done by him, we report it with words of praise of his wisdom, righteousness and goodness. That is to sanctify the name of God. Where otherwise is done, it is defiled with vain and perverse abuse, because it is violently carried from the right use whereto only it was appointed: and though there be no other hurt done, yet it is spoiled of his dignity, and by little and little brought to contempt. Now, if there be so much evil in this rash readiness to use the name of God out of season, much more mischief is in this, if it be employed to evil uses, as they do that make it to serve the superstitions of Necromancy, cruel execrations, unlawful conjurations, and other wicked enchantments. But swearing is chiefly mentioned in the commandment, as the thing wherein the perverse abuse of God's name is most detestable, that thereby we may be the better altogether frightened away from all defiling thereof. But that here is commandment given of the worship of God, and of the reverence of his name, and not of the truth and equity that is to be kept among men, appears by that that he afterward in the second table condemns perjury and false witness, whereby hurt is done to the fellowship of men: but it were in vain to repeat it again, if this commandment treated of the duty of charity. And also the division of the law itself requires it, because as it is said, God did not in vain appoint two tables for his law, whereby is gathered that in this commandment he challenges his own right to himself, and defends the holiness of his name, and teaches not what men owe to men.

Now first is to be learned what is an oath. It is a taking of God to witness, to confirm the truth of that which we speak. For those cursed speeches that contain manifest reproaches against God, are unworthy to be reckoned among oaths. That such taking to witness, when it is rightly done, is a kind of worshipping of God, is shown in diverse places of the Scripture. As when Isaiah prophesies of the calling of the Assyrians and Egyptians into fellowship of the covenant with Israel, "They shall speak" (says he) "in the tongue of Canaan, and shall swear in the name of the Lord." That is to say, in swearing by the name of the Lord, they shall yield a confession of his religion. Again when he speaks of the enlargement of his kingdom, he says: "Whoever shall bless himself, shall bless in the God of the faithful: and he that shall swear in the land, shall swear in the true God." Jeremiah says, "If they shall teach the people to swear in my name as they have taught them to swear by Baal, they shall be built up in the midst of my house." And for good cause it is said, that when we call upon the name of the Lord to witness, we do witness our religion toward him. For so we confess that he is the eternal and unchangeable truth, whom we call upon, not only as a most substantial witness of truth above all other but also as the only defense thereof, which is able to bring forth hidden things into light, and then as the knower of hearts. For where testimonies of men do fail, there we flee to God for witness, specially where any thing is to be proved that lies secret in conscience. For which cause the Lord is bitterly angry with them that swear by strange gods, and he judges that manner of swearing to be a manifest falling from his allegiance: "Your sons have forsaken me, and do swear by them that are no gods." And he declares the heinousness of this offense by threatening of punishment: "I will destroy them that swear by the name of the Lord, and swear by Melchan."

Now when we understand that it is the Lord's will that there be in our oaths a worship of his name: so much the more diligent heed is to be taken, that in stead of worshipping they do not contain dishonor, contempt or abasement of it. For it is no small dishonor, when perjury is committed in swearing by him, therefore it is called in the law, Profanation. For what is left to the Lord when he is spoiled of his truth? He shall then cease to be God. But truly he is spoiled thereof, when he is made an affirmer and approver of falsehood. Therefore, when Joshua minded to drive Achan to confess the truth, he said: "My Son, give glory to the Lord of Israel," meaning thereby, that the Lord is grievously dishonored if a man swears falsely by him. And no marvel. For we do as much as in us lies, in a manner, to stain his holy name with a lie. And that this manner of speech was used among the Jews so often as any was called to take an oath, appears by the like protestation, that the Pharisees use in the Gospel of John. To this heedfulness the forms of oaths that are used in the Scriptures do instruct us: "The Lord lives," "The Lord do these things to me, and add these things," "The Lord be witness upon my soul." Which do prove, that we can not call God for witness of our sayings, but that we also wish him to take vengeance of our perjury, if we speak deceitfully.

The name of the Lord is made vile and common, when it is used in superfluous oaths, although they be true. For in such case it is also taken in vain. Therefore it shall not be sufficient to abstain from [illegible] swearing falsely, unless we do also remember, that swearing was permitted and ordained not for lust or pleasure, but for necessity's sake: and therefore they go beyond the lawful use thereof, that apply it to things not necessary. And there can no other necessity be pretended, but where it is to serve either religion or charity, wherein at this day men do too much licentiously offend, and so much the more intolerably, for that by very custom it has ceased to be reckoned for any offense at all, which yet before the judgment seat of God is not slenderly weighed. For everywhere without regard, the name of God is defiled in trifling talks, and it is not thought that they do evil, because by long permitted and unpunished boldness, they are come to rest as it were in possession of so great wickedness. But the commandment of the Lord remains in force, the penalty abides in strength, and shall one day have its effect, whereby there is a certain special revenge proclaimed against them that use his name in vain. This commandment is also transgressed in another point, that in our oaths we put the holy servants of God in the place of God, with manifest ungodliness, for so we transfer the glory of his Godhead to them. Neither is it without cause, that the Lord has given special commandment to swear by his name, and by special prohibition forbidden, that we should not be heard to swear by any strange gods. And the Apostle evidently testifies the same, when he writes, that men in swearing do call upon one higher than themselves, and that God which had none greater than his own glory to swear by, did swear by himself.

The Anabaptists not contented with this moderation of swearing, do detest all oaths without exception, because the prohibition of Christ is general: I say to you, swear not at all, but let your tale be yes yes, and no no, whatever is more than this, is of evil. But by this means, they do without consideration stumble against Christ: while they make him adversary to his Father, and as if he had come down from heaven to repeal his Father's decrees. For the eternal God does in the law not only permit swearing as a thing lawful, which were enough: but also in necessity does command it. But Christ affirms that he is all one with his Father: that he brings no other thing, but that which his Father commanded him, that his doctrine is not of himself, etc. What then? will they make God contrary to himself, which shall afterward forbid and condemn the same thing in men's behaviors, which he has before allowed by commanding it? But because there is some difficulty in the words of Christ, let us a little weigh them. But herein we shall never attain the truth, unless we bend our eyes to the intent of Christ, and take heed to the purpose that he there goes about. His purpose is not either to release or restrain the law, but to reduce it to the true and natural understanding, which had been very much depraved by the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees. This, if we hold in mind, we shall not think that Christ did utterly condemn oaths, but only those oaths which do transgress the rule of the law. Thereby it appears, that the people at that time did forbear no manner of swearing but perjuries, whereas the law does not only forbid perjuries, but also all idle and superstitious oaths. The Lord therefore the most sure expositor of the law, does admonish them, that it is not only evil to forswear, but also to swear. But how to swear? in vain. But as for those oaths that are commended in the law, he leaves them safe and at liberty. They seem to fight somewhat more strongly when they take earnest hold of this word, At all, which yet is not referred to the word Swear, but to the forms of swearing that are after rehearsed. For this was also part of their error, that when they did swear by heaven and earth, they thought that they did not touch the name of God. Therefore after the principal kind of offense against this commandment, the Lord does also cut off from them all by-shifts, that they should not think that they have escaped, if not speaking of the name of God they call heaven and earth to witness. For here by the way it is also to be noted, that although the name of God be not expressed, yet men by indirect forms do swear by him, as if they swear by the lively light, by the bread that they eat, by their Baptism, or other tokens of God's liberality toward them. Neither does Christ in that place where he forbids them to swear by heaven and earth and Jerusalem, speak it to correct superstition, as some men falsely think, but he rather confutes their sophistical subtlety, which thought it no fault babblingly to throw out indirect oaths, as though they spared the holy name of God, which is engraved in all his benefits. But otherwise it is, where either a mortal man, or a dead man, or an Angel, is put in the place of God: as among the profane nations flattery devised that stinking form of swearing by the life or soul of the King: for then the false making of gods does obscure and diminish the glory of the one only God. But when we mean only, to procure credit to our sayings by the holy name of God, although the same be indirectly done, yet in all such trifling oaths his majesty is offended. Christ takes from this licentiousness, all pretense of excuse, in this that he forbids to swear at all. And James tends to the same purpose, reciting the same words of Christ which I have before alleged, because that same rash boldness has always been in the world, which is a profane misuse of the name of God. For if you refer this word, At all, to the substance, as if without any exception it were altogether unlawful to swear: why serves that exposition which is added afterward: Neither by heaven nor by earth, etc.? Whereby it sufficiently appears that those cavillations are met with, by which the Jews thought their fault to be excused.

Therefore it can not now be doubtful to sound judgments, that the Lord in that place did only reprove those oaths that were forbidden by the law. For he himself, who showed in his life an example of the perfection that he taught, did not stick to swear when occasion required. And his disciples, who (we doubt not) did obey their master in all things, followed the same example: who dare say that Paul would have sworn, if swearing had been utterly forbidden? But when matter so required, he swore without any sticking at it, indeed sometimes adding an execration. But this question is not yet ended, because some do think that only public oaths are excepted out of this prohibition, as those oaths that we take when the Magistrate does offer them to us and require them of us. And such as Princes use to take in establishing of leagues, or the people when they swear allegiance to their Prince, or the soldier when he is put to an oath for his true service in the war, and such like. And to this sort they adjoin, and that rightly, such oaths, as are in Paul to confirm the dignity of the gospel, forasmuch as the Apostles in their office are not private men but public ministers of God. And truly I deny not that those are the safest oaths, because they are defended with soundest testimonies of Scripture. The magistrate is commanded in a doubtful case to drive the witness to an oath. And he on the other side to answer by oath: and the Apostle says, that men's controversies are by this means ended. In this commandment both these have a perfect allowance of their offices. Indeed we may note, that among the old heathen men, the public and solemn oath was had in great reverence, but common oaths that were usually spoken without consideration, were either nothing or very little regarded, because they thought that in these they had not to do with the majesty of God at all. But yet it were too much dangerous to condemn private oaths, that are in necessary cases soberly, holily, and reverently taken, which are maintained both by reason and examples. For if it be lawful for private men in a weighty and earnest matter to appeal to God as judge between them, much more is it lawful to call him to witness. Put the case: your brother will accuse you of false breach of faith, you endeavor to purge yourself according to the duty of charity, and he by no means will suffer himself to be satisfied. If your good name come in peril by his obstinate maliciousness, you shall without offense appeal to the judgment of God, that it will please him in time to make your innocence known. Now if the weight of the words be considered, it is a less matter to call him to witness. Therefore I see not why in this case we should affirm, that the calling him to witness is unlawful. And we are not without many examples thereof. For though the oath of Abraham and Isaac with Abimelech be said not to serve for our purpose, because it was made in the name of a public company, yet Jacob and Laban were private men, which established a covenant with mutual oath between themselves. Boaz was a private man, which by the same means confirmed his promise of marriage to Ruth. Obadiah was a private man, a just man and fearing God, which affirmed to Elias by oath, the thing that he meant to persuade him. Therefore I have no better rule, but that oaths be so tempered, that they be not unadvisedly taken, that they be not common without regard, that they be not used of raging lust, nor trifling, but that they serve just necessity, as where the Lord's glory is to be maintained, or the edification of our brother furthered, to which end the commandment of the law tends.

The Fourth Commandment.

Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days shall you work and do all your works. But on the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. Etc.

The end of this commandment is, that we being dead to our own affections and works, should be busied in meditation of the kingdom of God, and to the same meditation should be exercised, by such means as he has ordained. But because this commandment has a peculiar and several consideration from the rest, therefore it must have also a several manner of exposition. The old writers use to call it a shadowy commandment, for that it contains the outward observance of the day, which by the coming of Christ was taken away with the other figures. Wherein I grant they say truly, but they touch but half the matter. Therefore we must fetch the exposition of it farther off. And (as I think) I have marked that there are three causes to be considered, whereupon this commandment consists. For first the heavenly lawmaker meant under the rest of the seventh day, to set out in figure to the people of Israel the spiritual rest, whereby the faithful ought to cease from their own works, that they might suffer God to work in them. Secondarily, his will was to have one appointed day, wherein they should meet together to hear the law, and execute the ceremonies, or at least bestow it peculiarly to the meditation of his works: that by such calling to remembrance, they might be exercised to godliness. Thirdly, he thought good to have a day of rest granted to servants, and such as lived under the government of others, wherein they might have some ceasing from their labor.

But we are many ways taught, that the same shadowing of the spiritual rest, was the principal point in the Sabbath. For the Lord required the keeping of no commandment in a manner more severely, than this: when his meaning is in the Prophets to declare that all religion is overthrown, then he complains that his Sabbaths are polluted, defiled, not kept, not sanctified: as though that piece of service being omitted, there remained no more in which he might be honored. He did set forth the observing thereof with high praises. For which cause the faithful did among other oracles marvelously esteem the revealing of the Sabbath. For in Nehemiah thus spoke the Levites in a solemn convocation, You have showed to our fathers your holy Sabbath, and have given them the commandments and the ceremonies, and the law by the hand of Moses. You see how it is held in singular estimation among all the commandments of the law. All which things do serve to set forth the dignity of the mystery, which is very well expressed by Moses and Ezekiel. Thus you have in Exodus: See that you keep my Sabbath day, because it is a token between me and you in your generations: that you may know that I am the Lord that sanctify you: keep my Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Let the children of Israel keep the Sabbath and celebrate it in their generations, it is an everlasting covenant between me and the children of Israel, and a perpetual token. Yet Ezekiel speaks more at large. But the sum thereof comes to this effect, that it is for a token by which Israel should know that God is their sanctifier. If our sanctification be the mortifying of our own will, then appears a most apt relation of the outward sign with the inward thing itself: we must altogether rest, that God may work in us: we must depart from our own will, we must resign up our heart, we must banish all lusts of the [reconstructed: flesh]. Finally, we must cease from all the doings of our own wit, that we may have God working in us, that we may rest in him, as the Apostle also teaches.

This perpetual ceasing was represented to the Jews, by the keeping of one day among seven: which day, to make it be observed with greater devotion, the Lord commanded with his own example. For it avails not a little to stir up man's endeavor, that he may know that he tends to the following of his Creator. If any man searches for a secret signification in the number of seven: for as much as that number is in the Scripture the number of perfection, it was not without cause chosen to signify everlasting continuance. With this also agrees that Moses in the day that he declared that the Lord did rest from his works, makes an end of describing the succeeding of days and nights. There may be also brought another probable note of the number that the Lord thereby meant to show that the Sabbath should never [illegible] perfectly ended, till it came to the last day. For in it we begin our blessed rest, in it we do daily proceed in profiting more and more. But because we have still a continual war with the flesh, it shall not be ended until that saying of Isaiah be fulfilled, concerning the continuing of new Moon with new moon, of Sabbath with Sabbath, even then when God shall be all in all. It may seem therefore that the Lord has by the seventh day set forth to his people the perfection to come of his Sabbath at the last day, that our whole life might by continual meditation of the Sabbath, aspire to this perfection.

If any man dislikes this observation of the number as a matter too curious, I am not against him — but that he may more simply take it: that the Lord ordained one certain day, in which his people might under the schooling of the law be exercised to the continual meditation of the spiritual rest: and that he assigned the seventh day, either because he thought it sufficient, or that by setting forth the likeness of his own example, he might the better move the people to keep it: or at least to put them in mind that the Sabbath tended to no other end, but that they should become like their Creator. For it matters little, so that the mystery remain which is therein principally set forth, concerning the perpetual rest of our works. To consideration of which the Prophets did now and then call back the Jews, that they should not think themselves [illegible] charged by carnal taking of their rest. Beside the places already alleged, you have thus in Isaiah: If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, that you do not your own will in my holy day, and shall call the Sabbath delicate and holy of the glorious Lord, and shall glorify him while you do not your own ways, and seek not your own will to speak the word, then shall you be delighted in the Lord, etc. But it is no doubt, that by the coming of our Lord Christ, so much as was ceremonial herein, was abrogated. For he is the truth, by whose presence all figures do vanish away: he is the body of sight, of which the shadows are left. He, I say, is the true fulfilling of the Sabbath, we being buried with him by baptism, are grafted into the fellowship of his death, that we being made partakers of the resurrection, we may walk in newness of life. Therefore in another place the Apostle writes, that the Sabbath was a shadow of a thing to come: and that the true body, that is to say, the perfect substance of truth is in Christ, which in the same place he has well declared. That is not contained in one day, but in the whole course of our life, until that we being utterly dead to ourselves, be filled with the life of God. Therefore superstitious observing of days ought to be far from Christians.

But for as much as the two later causes ought not to be reckoned among the old shadows, but do belong alike to all ages: since the Sabbath is abrogated, yet this has still place with us, that we should meet at appointed days to the hearing of the word, to the breaking of the mystical bread, and to public prayer; and then, that to servants and laborers be granted their rest from their labor. It is out of doubt that in commanding the Sabbath the Lord had care of both [reconstructed: these] things. The first of them has sufficient testimony by the only use of the Jews to prove it. The second, Moses spoke of in Deuteronomy in these words: that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you: remember that you yourself did serve in Egypt. Again in Exodus: that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your bondwoman may take breath. Who can deny that both these things do serve for us as well as for the Jews? [reconstructed: Meetings] at the church are commanded us by the word of God, and the necessity of them is sufficiently known in the very experience of life. [illegible] they be certainly appointed and have their ordinary days, [illegible] can they be kept? All things by the sentence of the Apostle are to be done properly and in order among us. But so far is it from that [reconstructed: comeliness] and order can be kept without this policy and moderation, that there is at hand present trouble and ruin of the church, if it be dissolved. Now if the same necessity be among us, for relief of which the Lord appointed the Sabbath to the Jews: let no man say that it belongs nothing to us. For our most provident and tender Father willed no less to provide for our necessity than for the Jews. But you will say, why do we not rather daily meet together, that the difference of days may be taken away? I would to God that were granted, and truly spiritual wisdom was a thing worthy to have daily a piece of the time cut out for it. But if it cannot be obtained of the weakness of many to have daily meetings, and the rule of charity does not allow us to exact more of them, why should we not [illegible] the order which we see laid upon us by the will of God?

I am compelled here to be somewhat long, because at this day many unquiet spirits do raise trouble concerning the Sunday. They cry out that the Christian people are nourished in Jewishness, because they keep some observation of days. But I answer, that we keep those days without any Jewishness, because we do in this behalf far differ from the Jews. For we keep it not with strict religion as a ceremony, in which we think a spiritual mystery to be [reconstructed: figured], but we retain it as a necessary remedy to the keeping of order in the church. But Paul teaches that in keeping thereof they are not to be judged Christians, because it is a shadow of a thing to come. Therefore he feared that he had labored in vain among the Galatians because they did still observe days. And to the Romans he [reconstructed: affirms] that it is superstition if any man does make difference between day and day. But who, saying these mad men only, does not see of what observing the Apostle means? For they had no regard to this political end and the order of the church, but whereas they kept them still as shadows of spiritual things, they did even so much darken the glory of Christ and the light of the Gospel. They did not therefore cease from manual works, because they were things that did call them away from holy studies and meditations, but for a certain religion, that in ceasing from work they did dream that they still kept their mysteries of old time delivered them. The Apostle, I say, inveighs against this disordered difference of days, and not against the lawful choice of days that serves for the quietness of Christian fellowship, for in the churches that he himself did ordain, the Sabbath was kept to this use. For he appoints the Corinthians the same day, in which they should gather the collection to relieve the brethren at Jerusalem. If they fear superstition, there was more danger thereof in the feast days of the Jews, than in the Sundays that the Christians now have. For, as was expedient for the overthrowing of superstition, the day that the Jews religiously observed is taken away: and, as was necessary for keeping of comeliness, order, and quiet in the church, another day was appointed for the same use.

Although the old fathers have not without reason of their choice put in place of the Sabbath day the day that we call Sunday. For whereas in the Resurrection of the Lord is the end and fulfilling of that rest, of which the old Sabbath was a shadow: the Christians are by the very same day that made an end of shadows, put in mind that they should no longer stick to the shadowy ceremony. But yet I do not so rest upon the number of seven, that I would bind the Church to the bondage thereof. Neither will I condemn those Churches that have other solemn days for their meetings, so that they be without superstition, which shall be, if they be only applied to the observation of Discipline and well appointed order. Let the sum thereof be this: as the truth was given to the Jews under a figure, so is it delivered to us without any shadows at all. First, that in all our life long we should be in meditation of a continual Sabbath or rest from our own works, that the Lord may work in us by his Spirit: then that every man privately, so often as he has leisure, should diligently exercise himself in godly calling to mind the works of God, and also that we all should keep the lawful order of the Church appointed, for the hearing of the word, for the ministration of the Sacraments and for public prayer: thirdly, that we should not ungently oppress those that are under us. And so do the triflings of the false prophets vanish away that in the ages past have infected the people with a Jewish opinion, that so much as was ceremonial in this commandment is taken away, which they in their tongue call the appointing of the seventh day, but that so much as is moral remains, which is the keeping of one day in the week. But that is nothing else in effect, than for reproach of the Jews to change the day, and to keep still the same holiness in their mind. For there still remains with us the like significance of mystery in the days as was among the Jews. And truly we see what good they have done by such doctrine. For they that cleave to their constitutions, do by these as much exceed the Jews in gross and carnal superstition of Sabbath: so that the rebukes that are read in Isaiah, do no less fitly serve for them at these days, than for those that the Prophet rebuked in his time. But this general doctrine is principally to be kept, that lest religion should fall away or wax faint among us, holy meetings are to be diligently kept, and those outward helps are to be used that are profitable to nourish the worshipping of God.

The Fifth Commandment.

Honor your Father and your Mother, that you may live long upon the land which the Lord your God shall give you.

The end of this commandment is, that because the Lord delights in the preservation of his order, therefore he wills that those degrees of preeminence which he has ordained be not broken; the sum therefore shall be that we reverence those whom the Lord has set over us, that we yield to them honor, obedience, and thankfulness. Whereupon follows that it is forbidden us, to withdraw anything from their dignity, either by contempt or obstinacy or unthankfulness. For so does the word Honor, in the Scripture signify very largely: as when the Apostle says, that the elders which rule well are worthy of double honor, he means not only that reverence is due to them, but also such recompense as their ministry deserves. And because this commandment of subjection, does most of all disagree with the perverseness of man's nature, which as it swells with greediness of climbing high, so it hardly abides to be brought low: therefore he has set that kind of superiority for example, which by nature is most amiable and least envious: because he might the more easily humble and reclaim our minds to the use of submission. Therefore the Lord does by little and little train us to all lawful subjection by that which is most easy to bear, for as much as the rule of all is alike. For to whom he gives any preeminence, he does communicate his own name with them, so far as is necessary to preserve the same preeminence: The name of Father, God, and Lord, do so belong to him alone, that whenever we hear one of them named, our mind must be touched with a feeling of his majesty. Therefore whom he makes partakers of these things, he makes to glisten with a certain spark of his brightness, that they may be honorable, each one according to their degree. Therefore in him that is our father we have to consider somewhat of the nature of God, because he bears not the name of God without cause. He that is our Prince or our Lord, has some partaking of honor with God.

Therefore it ought not to be doubted that God does here set a general rule, that as we know any man to be by his ordinance set over us, so we yield to him reverence, obedience, thankfulness, and such other duties as it lies in us to do. And it makes no difference, whether they be worthy or unworthy. For of whatever sort they be, they have not without the providence of God attained that place, by reason whereof the lawmaker would have them to be honored. Yet namely he has given commandment of reverence to parents, that have brought us into this life, to which reverence very nature ought in a manner to instruct us. For they are monsters and not men, that break the authority of parents with dishonor or stubbornness. Therefore the Lord commanded all the disobedient to their parents, to be slain, as men unworthy to enjoy the benefit of light, that do not acknowledge by whose means they came into it. And by many additions of the law it appears to be true that we have noted, that there are three parts of honor that he here speaks of: Reverence, Obedience, and Thankfulness. The first of these the Lord establishes when he commands him to be killed that curses his Father or his Mother, for there he punishes the contempt and dishonor of them. The second he confirms when he appoints the punishment of death for the disobedient and rebellious children. To the third belongs that saying of Christ in the fifteenth of Matthew, that it is the commandment of God that we do good to our parents. And so often as Paul makes mention of a commandment, he expounds that therein obedience is required.

There is annexed a promise for a commendation, which does the rather put us in mind, how acceptable to God is the submission that is here commanded. For Paul uses the same prick to stir up our dullness when he says: that this is the first commandment with promise. For the promise that went before in the first Table, was not special and properly belonging to one commandment, but extended to the whole law. Now this is thus to be taken: The Lord spoke to the Israelites peculiarly of the land which he had promised them for their inheritance. If then the possession of land was a pledge of God's bountifulness: let us not marvel if it pleased God to declare his favor by giving length of life, by which a man might long enjoy his benefit. The meaning therefore is thus: Honor your father and your mother, that by a long space of life you may enjoy the possession of that land that shall be to you for a testimony of my Father. But since all the earth is blessed to the faithful, we do not worthily reckon this present life among the blessings of God. Therefore this promise does likewise belong to us, for as much as their continuance of his life is a proof of God's good will. For it neither is promised to us, nor was promised to the Jews, as though it were contained blessedness in itself, but because it is customary to be to the godly a token of God's tender love. Therefore if it chance that an obedient child to his parents be taken out of this life before his ripe age, which is oftentimes seen, yet does God no less constantly continue in the performance of his promise, than if he should reward him with a hundred acres of land, to whom he promised but one acre. All consists in this, that we should consider that long life is so far promised us, as it is the blessing of God, and that it is his blessing so far as it is a proof of his favor, which he by death does much more plentifully and perfectly witness and show in effect to his servants.

Moreover, when the Lord promises the blessing of this present life to the children that honor their parents with such reverence as they ought, he does withal secretly say, that most assured curse hangs over the stubborn and disobedient children. And that the same should not want execution: he pronounces them by his law subject to the judgment of death, and commands them to be put to execution: and if they escape that judgment, he himself takes vengeance on them by one mean or other. For we see how great a number of that sort of men are slain in battles and in frays, and some other tormented in strange unaccustomed fashions, and they all in a manner are a proof that this threatening is not vain. But if any escape to old age, since in this life being deprived of the blessing of God, they do nothing but miserably languish and are reserved for greater pains hereafter, they are far from being partakers of the blessing promised to the godly children. But this is also by the way to be noted, that we are not commanded to obey them but in the Lord. And that is evident by the foundation before laid: for they sit on high in that place where the Lord has advanced them, by communicating with them a portion of his honor. Therefore the submission that is used toward them, ought to be a step toward the honoring of that sovereign Father. Therefore, if they move us to transgress the law, then are they worthily not to be accounted parents, but strangers that labor to withdraw us from obedience to the true Father. And so is to be thought of princes, lords, and all sorts of superiors. For it is shameful and against convenience of reason, that their preeminence should prevail to press down his highness, since theirs as it hangs wholly upon it, so ought only to guide us to it.

The Sixth Commandment.

You shall not kill.

The end of this commandment is, that for as much as God has bound together all mankind with a certain unity, that every man ought to regard the safety of all men, as a thing given him in charge. In sum therefore, all violence and wrong, yes and all harmdoing, whereby our neighbor's body may be hurt, is forbidden us. And therefore we are commanded, if there be any power of succor in our labor to defend the life of our neighbors, that we faithfully employ the same, that we procure those things that may make for their quiet, that we watch to keep them from hurt, and if they be in any danger, that we give them our helping hand. If you consider that it is God the lawmaker that so says, then think withal that his meaning is by this rule also to govern your soul. For it were a fond thing to think, that he who espies the thoughts of the heart, and principally rests upon them, should instruct nothing but the body to true righteousness. Therefore the manslaughter of the heart is also forbidden in this law, and an inward affection to preserve our brother's life is here given in commandment. The hand indeed brings forth the manslaughter, but the mind conceives it, when it is infected with wrath and hatred. Look whether you can be angry with your brother without burning in desire to do him hurt. If you cannot be angry with him, then cannot you hate him, for as much as hatred is nothing but an old rooted anger. Although you dissemble and go about to wind out yourself by vain circumstances: yet where anger or hatred is, there is an affection to hurt. If you will still dally out with shifts to defend it, it is already pronounced by the mouth of the Holy Ghost, that he is a manslayer that hates his brother in his heart. It is pronounced by the mouth of the Lord Christ, that he is guilty of judgment that is angry with his brother: that he is guilty of the council that says Racha: that he is guilty of hell fire, that says to him, Fool.

The Scripture notes two points of equity, upon which this commandment is grounded: because man is both the image of God and our own flesh, therefore unless we would defile the image of God, we must take care to treat man in no other way than as a sacred thing: and unless we will put off all naturalness of man, we must cherish him as our own flesh. That manner of exhortation that is fetched from the redemption and grace of Christ, shall be treated of in another place. God willed these two things naturally to be considered in man, that might persuade us to the preservation of him, that we should both reverence the image of God imprinted in him, and embrace our own flesh. He has not therefore escaped the crime of manslaughter, that he has kept himself from shedding of blood. If you commit anything in deed, if you go about anything with endeavor, if you conceive anything in desire and purpose that is against the safety of another, you are held guilty of manslaughter. And again: If you do not labor to your power and as occasion may serve to defend his life, you do with like heinousness offend the law. But if there be so much care taken for the safety of his body, let us hereby gather, how much study and travail is due to the safety of his soul, which in the Lord's sight does infinitely excel the body.

## The Seventh Commandment.

You shall not commit adultery.

The end of the commandment is, that, because God loves charity and cleanness, therefore all uncleanness ought to depart far away from us. The sum therefore shall be, that we be defiled with no uncleanness or lustful intemperance of the flesh: to which answers the affirmative commandment, that we chastely and continently order all the parts of our life. But fornication he forbids by name, to which all unchaste lust tends, that the filthiness of that which is more gross and sensible, for so much as it also defiles the body, he might bring us to abhor all filthy lust. Since man was created in this estate, not to live a solitary life, but to use a helper joined to him: and since by the curse of sin he is driven the more to this necessity, the Lord has in this behalf provided help for him so much as was sufficient, when he ordained marriage, when he sanctified with his blessing the fellowship begun by his authority. Therefore it follows, that all other fellowship of man and woman outside of marriage, is accursed before him, and that the fellowship of marriage itself, was ordained for remedy of necessity, that we should not run out into unbridled lust. Therefore let us not flatter ourselves, since we hear that man can not be coupled with woman outside of marriage, without the curse of God.

Now for as much as by the condition of nature, and by lust more kindled since the fall of man, we are become doubly subject to desire of company of women, except it be those whom God of his singular grace has exempted from it: let every man look well what is given to him. Virginity, I grant, is a virtue not to be despised: but since it is to some denied, and to some granted but for a time, let them that are troubled with incontinence and striving with it, cannot get the upper hand, resort to the help of marriage, that so they may keep chastity in the degree of their vocation. For they that cannot receive this word, if they do not succor their own intemperance with the remedy that is offered and granted them, they strive against God and resist his ordinance. And let no man find fault against me (as many do at this day) that being aided with the help of God, he can do all things. For the help of God is present only with those, that walk in his ways, that in their vocation from which they do all withdraw themselves, which forsaking the helps of God, do labor to overcome and master their necessities with vain rash boldness. The Lord affirms that continence is a singular gift of God, and of that sort that are not given generally, nor universally to the whole body of the Church, but to a few members thereof. For first he says, that there is a certain kind of men, that have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of Heaven, that is, that they might the more freely and fully apply themselves to the affairs of the heavenly kingdom. But, that no man should think that such making oneself a eunuch is in the power of man, he showed a little before, that all men are not able to receive it, but they to whom it is peculiarly given from heaven, upon which he concludes: He that can take it, let him take it. But Paul yet affirms it more plainly, where he writes, that every man has his proper gift of God, one thus, and another thus.

Whereas we are by open declaration admonished, that it is not in every man's power to keep chastity in single life, although with study and travail he endeavor never so much to it, and that it is a peculiar grace, which God gives but to certain men, that he may have them the more ready to his work: do we not strive against God and nature which he has instituted, if we do not apply the kind of our life to the proportion of our power? Here the Lord forbids fornication, therefore he requires cleanness and chastity of us. To keep the same there is but one way, that every man measure himself by his own measure. Neither let a man despise marriage as a thing unprofitable or superfluous for him, nor otherwise desire single life, unless he be able to live without a wife. And therein also let him not provide only for the quiet and convenience of the flesh, but only that being loosed from this bond, he may be the more in readiness and prepared to all duties of godliness. And forasmuch as this benefit is given to many but for a time, let every man so long abstain from marriage as he shall be fit to live to keep single estate. If strength fail him to tame his lust, let him learn that the Lord has now laid upon him a necessity to marry. This the Apostle shows when he commands that to avoid fornication every man have his own wife, and every woman have her own husband, that he that cannot live continently, should marry in the Lord. First he declares, that the most part of men are subject to the vice of incontinence: and then of those that be subject to it, he excepts none, but commands all to that only remedy, with which unchastity is resisted. Therefore if they that be incontinent do neglect to help their infirmity by this means, they sin even in this that they obey not the commandment of the Apostle. Neither let him flatter himself that touches not a woman as though he could not be rebuked for unchastity, while in the mean season his mind burns inwardly with lust. For Paul defines chastity to be a cleanness of the mind, joined with chastity of the body. A woman unmarried (says he) thinks upon those things that are of the Lord, forasmuch as she is holy both in body and in spirit. Therefore when he brings a reason to confirm that former commandment, he does not only say, that it is better for a man to take a wife, than to defile himself with company of a harlot, but he says, that it is better to marry than to burn.

Now if married folks do confess that their fellowship together is blessed of the Lord, they are thereby admonished not to defile it with intemperate and dissolute lust. For though the honesty of marriage does cover the filthiness of incontinence, yet it ought not forthwith to be a provocation thereof. Therefore let not married folks think, that all things are lawful to them, but let every husband have his own wife soberly, and likewise the wife her husband, and so doing, let them commit nothing unbecoming the honesty and temperance of marriage. For so ought marriage made in the Lord to be restrained to measure and modesty, and not to overflow into every kind of extreme lasciviousness. This wantonness Ambrose reproved with a saying very severe indeed, but not unfit for it, when he calls the husband, the adulterer of his own wife, which in use of wedlock has no care of shamefastness or honesty. Last of all, let us consider what lawmaker does here condemn fornication, even he which since of his own right he ought to possess us wholly, requires pureness of the soul, spirit and body. Therefore when he forbids to commit fornication, he also forbids with wanton attire of body, with uncleanly gestures, and with filthy talk to lay wait to trap another's chastity. For that saying is not without good reason, which Archelaus spoke to a young man above measure wantonly and daintily clothed, that it made no matter in what part he were filthily unchaste: if we have regard to God that abhors all filthiness in whatever part either of our soul or body it appears. And to put you out of doubt, remember that the Lord here commends chastity. If the Lord requires chastity of us, then he condemns all that ever is against it. Therefore if you covet to show obedience, neither let your mind burn inwardly with evil lust, nor let your eyes run wantonly into corrupt affections, nor let your body be trimmed up for allurement, nor let your tongue with filthy talk entice your mind to like thoughts, nor let your gluttonous belly inflame you with intemperance. For all these vices are, as it were, certain blots, with which the pureness of chastity is bespotted.

The Eighth Commandment.

You shall not steal.

The end of this commandment is, because God abhors unrighteousness, that every man may have his own [reconstructed: rendered] to him. The sum therefore shall be, that we are forbidden to gape for other men's goods, and that therefore we are commanded every man to employ his faithful travail to preserve to each man his own goods. For thus we ought to think, that what every man possesses is not happened to him by chance of fortune, but by the distribution of the sovereign Lord of all things, and therefore no man's goods can be gotten from him by evil means, but that wrong be done to the disposition of God. But of thefts there be many kinds: one stands in violence, when the goods of another are by any manner of force and robbing licentiousness deprived. The other kind consists in malicious deceit, where they are guilefully conveyed away. Another sort there is that stands in a more hidden subtlety, when they are wrung from the owner by color of law. Another sort in flattery, where they are sucked away by pretense of gift. But, lest we should tarry too long upon [reconstructed: recounting] all the several kinds of theft, let us know, that all crafty means whereby the possessions and money of our neighbors are conveyed to us, when they once go by crooked ways from sincerity of heart, to a desire to beguile, or by any means to do hurt, are to be accounted for thefts. Although by pleading the law, they may prevail, yet God does not otherwise weigh them. For he sees the long captious subtleties, with which the guileful man begins to entangle the simpler mind, till at length he draws him into his nets. He sees the hard and ungentle laws, wherewith the mightier oppresses and throws down the weaker. He sees the allurements, wherewith as with baited hooks, the craftier takes you unaware. All which things are hidden from the judgment of man, and come not in his knowledge. And this manner of wrong is not only in money, in wares, or in lands, but in every man's right. For we defraud our neighbor of his goods, if we deny him those duties which we are bound to do for him. If any idle factor or bailiff does devour his master's substance, and is not heedful to the care of his thrift, if he either wrongfully spoils, or riotously wastes the substance committed to him, if a servant does mock his master, if he discloses his secrets by any means, if he betrays his life and his goods: again if the Lord does cruelly oppress his household, they are before God guilty of theft. For he both withholds and conveys another man's goods, who performs not that which by the office of his calling he owes to others.

We shall therefore rightly obey this commandment, if being contented with our own estate, we seek to get no gain but honest and lawful, if we do not covet to grow rich with wrong, nor go about to spoil our neighbor of his goods that our own substance may increase, if we labor not to heap up cruel riches wrung out of other men's blood, if we do not immeasurably scrape together every way, by right and by wrong, that either our covetousness may be filled, or our prodigality satisfied. But on the other side, let this be our perpetual mark, to aid all men faithfully by counsel and help to keep their own so far as we may: but if we have to do with false and deceitful men, let us rather be ready to yield up some of our own, than to strive with them. And not that only, but let us communicate to their necessities, and with our store relieve their need, whom we see to be oppressed with hard and poor estate. Finally, let every man look how much he is by duty bound to others, and let him faithfully pay it. For this reason let the people have in honor all those that are set over them, let them patiently bear their government, obey their laws and commandments, refuse nothing that they may bear, still keeping God favorable to them. Again, let them take care of their people, preserve common peace, defend the good, restrain the evil, and so order all things, as ready to give account of their office to the sovereign judge. Let the ministers of churches faithfully apply their ministry, and not corrupt the doctrine of salvation, but deliver it pure and sincere to the people of God, and let them instruct them not only with learning, but also with example of life: finally, let them so be over them, as good shepherds be over the sheep. Let the people likewise receive them for the messengers and apostles of God, give them that honor whereof the highest master has vouchsafed them, and minister to them such things as are necessary for their life. Let parents take on them to feed, rule and teach their children, as committed to them of God, and do not grieve nor turn away their minds from them with cruelty, but rather cherish and embrace them with such lenity and tenderness, as befits their person. After which manner, we have already said, that children owe to their parents their obedience. Let young men reverence old age, even as the Lord willed that age to be honorable. Let old men also govern the weakness of youth with their wisdom and experience, wherein they excel young men, not rating them with rough and loud brawlings, but tempering severity with mildness and gentleness. Let servants show themselves diligent and serviceable to obey: and that not to the eye, but from the heart, as serving God himself. Also let masters show themselves not testy and hard to please, nor oppress them with too much sharpness, nor reproachfully use them, but rather acknowledge that they are their brethren and their fellow servants under the heavenly Lord, whom they ought mutually to love and gently to treat. After this manner, I say, let every man consider what in his degree and place he owes to his neighbors, and let him pay that he owes. Moreover our mind ought always to have respect to the lawmaker, that we may know that this law is made as well for our minds, as for our hands, that men should study to defend and further the benefits and profit of others.

The Ninth Commandment.

You shall not be a lying witness against your neighbor.

The end of this commandment is, that because God, who is truth, abhors lying, we ought to observe truth without deceitful color. The sum therefore shall be, that we neither hurt any man's name either with slanders or false reports, nor hinder him in his goods by lying; finally, that we offend no man by lust to speak evil, or to be busy. With which prohibition is joined a commandment, that so far as we may, we employ our faithful endeavor for every man in affirming the truth, to defend the safety both of his name and goods. It seems that the Lord purposed to expound the meaning of his commandment in the twenty-third chapter of Exodus in these words. You shall not use the voice of lying, nor shall you join your hand to speak false witness for the wicked. Again, you shall flee lying. Also in another place he does not only call us away from lying in this point that we be no accusers, or whisperers in the people, but also that no man deceive his brother, for he forbids them both in several commandments. Truly it is no doubt, but that as in the commandments before, he has forbidden cruelty, unchastity, and covetousness, so in this he restrains falsehood. Of which there are two parts as we have noted before. For either we offend the good name of our neighbors by maliciousness and perverse mind to backbite, or in lying and sometimes in evil speaking we hinder their commodities. There is no difference whether in this place be understood solemn and judicial testimony, or common testimony that is used in private talks. For we must always have recourse to this principle, that of all the general kinds of vices one special sort is set for an example, to which the rest may be referred, and that that is chiefly chosen, wherein the filthiness of the fault is most apparent. Although it were convenient to extend it more generally, to slanders and sinister backbitings, where with our neighbors are wrongfully grieved, for that falsehood of witnessing which is used in judicial courts, is never without perjury. But perjuries in so much as they do profane and defile the name of God, are already sufficiently met with in the third commandment. Therefore the right use of this commandment is, that our tongue in affirming the truth to serve both the good name and profit of our neighbors. The equity thereof is more than manifest. For if a good name be more precious than any treasures, whatever they be: then is it no less hurt to a man to be spoiled of the goodness of his name than of his goods. And in [reconstructed: lessening] his substance, sometimes false witness does as much as violence of hands. And yet it is marvelous with how negligent carelessness men do commonly offend in this point, so that there are found very few that are not notably sick of this disease: we are so much delighted with a certain poisoned sweetness both in searching out and in disclosing the evils of others. And let us not think that it is a sufficient excuse, if often times we lie not. For he that forbids your brother's name to be defiled with lying, wills also that it be [reconstructed: preserved] untouched so far as the truth will suffer. For however he takes heed to himself only, so that he tell no lie, yet in the same he secretly confesses that he has some charge of him. But this ought to suffice us to keep safe our neighbor's good name, that God has care of it. Therefore without doubt all evil speaking is utterly condemned. But we mean not by evil speaking, that rebuking which is used for chastisement: nor accusation, or judicial process, whereby remedy is sought for an evil, nor public reprehension which tends to put other sinners in fear, nor revealing of faults to them for whose safety it behooved that they should have been forewarned lest they should have been in danger by ignorance. But we mean only hateful accusing, which arises of maliciousness and of a wanton will to backbite. Also this commandment is extended to this point, that we covet not to use a scoffing kind of pleasantness, but mingled with bitter taunts, thereby bitingly to touch other men's faults under pretense of pastime, as many do that seek praise of merry conceits with other men's shame, indeed and grief, also when by such wanton railing many times our neighbors are not a little reproached. Now if we bend our eyes to the lawmaker, who must according to his rightful authority bear rule no less over the ears and mind than over the tongue: truly we shall find it greediness to hear backbitings, and a hasty readiness to evil judgments are no less forbidden. For it were very foolish if a man should think that God hates the fault of evil speaking in the tongue, and does not disallow the fault of evil maliciousness in the heart. Therefore if there be in us a true fear and love of God, let us endeavor so far as we may and as is expedient, and as charity bears, that we give neither our tongue, nor our ears to evil speakings, and bitter jestings, lest we rashly without cause yield our minds to indirect suspicions. But being impartial expositors of all men's sayings and doings, let us both in judgment, ears and tongue gently preserve their honor safe.

The Tenth Commandment.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house, etc.

The end of this commandment is, that because the Lord's will is that our soul be wholly possessed with the affection of love: all lust is to be shaken out of our mind that is contrary to charity. The sum therefore shall be, that no thought creep into us, which may move our minds with a concupiscence hurtful and turning toward another's loss: with which on the other side agrees the commandment, that whatever we conceive, purpose, will, or study upon, be joined with the benefit and advantage of our neighbors. But here, as it seems, arises a hard and cumbersome difficulty. For if it be truly said of us before that under the names of fornication and theft are contained the lust of fornication, and the purpose to hurt and deceive, it may seem superfluously spoken, that the coveting of other men's goods should afterward be separately forbidden us. But the distinction between purpose and coveting will easily loosen us from this knot. For purpose (as we have meant in speaking of it in the other commandments before) is deliberate consent of will, when lust has subdued the mind: but coveting may be without any such either advisement or assent, when the mind is only pricked and tickled with vain and perverse objects. As therefore the Lord has heretofore commanded, that the rule of charity should govern our wills, studies, and works: so he now commands the conceptions of our mind to be directed to the same rule, that there be none of them crooked and twisted, that may provoke our mind another way. As he has forbidden our mind to be bowed and led into wrath, hatred, fornication, robbery, and lying: so he does now forbid us to be moved toward them.

And not without cause does he require so great uprightness. For who can deny that it is righteous, that all the powers of the soul be possessed with charity. But if any of them do swerve from the mark of charity, who can deny that it is diseased? Now from where comes it that so many desires hurtful to your neighbor do enter into your heart, but of this, that neglecting him you care only for yourself? For if your mind were altogether thoroughly soaked with charity, no part of it should be open to such imaginations. Therefore it must needs be void of charity, so far as it receives concupiscence. But some man will object, that yet it is not fitting that fantasies that are without order tossed in man's mind, and at length do vanish away, should be condemned for concupiscence, whose place is in the heart. I answer: that here our question is of that kind of fantasies, which while they are present before our minds, do together bite and strike our heart with desire, inasmuch as it never comes into our mind, to wish for any thing, but that our heart is stirred up and leaps with all. Therefore God commands a marvelous ferventness of love, which he will not have entangled with never so small snares of concupiscence. He requires a marvelously framed mind, which he does not suffer so much as with slight provocations to be anything stirred against the law of love. To this exposition Augustine did first open me the way: because you should not think that it is without consent of some grave authority. And though the Lord's purpose was to forbid us all wrongful coveting: yet in rehearsing that same, he has brought forth for example those things that most commonly do deceive us with a false image of delight: because he would leave nothing to concupiscence when he draws it from these things, upon which it most of all rages and triumphs. Behold, here is the second Table of the law, wherein we are taught sufficiently what we owe to men for God's sake, upon consideration of which hangs the whole rule of charity. Therefore you shall but vainly call upon those duties that are contained in this Table, unless your doctrine does stay upon the fear and reverence of God, as upon its foundation. As for them which seek for two commandments in the prohibition of coveting, the wise reader, though I say nothing, will judge that by wrong division, they tear asunder that which was but one. And it makes nothing against us, that this word, 'You shall not covet,' is the second time repeated, for after that he had first set the house, then he recounts the parts of it, beginning at the wife: whereby it plainly appears, that (as the Hebrews do very well) it ought to be read in one whole sentence, and that God in effect commands, that all that every man possesses, should remain safe and untouched, not only from wrong and lust to defraud them, but also from the very least desire that may move our minds.

But now to what end the whole law tends, it shall not be hard to judge: that is, to the fulfilling of righteousness, that it might frame the life of man after the example of the purity of God. For God has therein so painted out his own nature, as if a man performs in deeds that which is there commanded, he shall in a manner express an image of God in his life. Therefore when Moses meant to bring the sum thereof into the minds of the Israelites, he said: And now Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord, and walk in his ways? Love him and serve him in all your heart, and in all your soul, and keep his commandments? And he ceased not still to sing the same song again to them, so often as he purposed to show the end of the law. The doctrine of the law has such respect hereto, that it joins man, or as Moses in another place terms it, makes man to stick fast to his God in holiness of life. Now the perfection of that holiness consists in the two principal points already rehearsed: that we love the Lord God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. And the first indeed is, that our soul be in all parts filled with the love of God. From that by and by of itself flows the love of our neighbor. Which thing the Apostle shows when he writes, that the end of the law is love out of a pure conscience, and a faith not feigned. You see how, as it were, in the head is set conscience and faith unfeigned, that is to say in one word true godliness, and that from there is charity [reconstructed: derived]. Therefore he is deceived, whoever thinks that in the law are taught only certain rudiments and first introductions of righteousness, whereby men began to be taught their first schooling, but not yet directed to the true mark of good works: whereas beyond that sentence of Moses and this of Paul, you can desire nothing as wanting of the highest perfection. For how far, I pray you, will he proceed that will not be contented with this institution, whereby man is instructed to the fear of God, to spiritual worshipping, to obeying of the commandments, to follow the uprightness of the way of the Lord: finally to purity of conscience, sincere faith and love? Whereby is confirmed that exposition of the law, which searches for and finds out in the commandments thereof all the duties of godliness and love. For they that follow only the dry and bare principles, as if it taught but the one half of God's will, know not the end thereof, as the Apostle witnesses.

But whereas in rehearsing the sum of the law, Christ and the Apostle do sometimes leave out the first Table: many are deceived therein, while they would fain draw their words to both the Tables. Christ in Matthew calls the chief points of the law, Mercy, Judgment and Faith: under the word Faith, it is not doubtful to me, but that he means truth or faithfulness toward men. But some, that the sentence might be extended to the whole law, take it for religiousness toward God. But they labor in vain. For Christ speaks of those works whereby man ought to prove himself righteous. This reason, if we note, we will also cease to marvel why, when a young man asked him what are the commandments by keeping whereof we enter into life: he answered these things only: You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall bear no false witness. Honor your Father and your Mother. Love your neighbor as yourself. For the obeying of the first Table consisted in manner all either in the affection of the heart, or in ceremonies: the affection of the heart appeared not, and as for the ceremonies the hypocrites did continually use. But the works of charity are such, as by them we may declare a perfect righteousness. But this comes everywhere so often in the prophets, that it must needs be familiar to a reader but meanly exercised in them. For in a manner always when they exhort to repentance, they leave out the first Table, and only call upon Faith, Judgment, Mercy and Equity. And thus they do not overskip the fear of God, but they require the earnest proof thereof by the tokens of it. This is well known, that when they speak of the keeping of the law, they do for the most part rest upon the second Table, because therein the study of righteousness and uprightness is most openly seen. It is needless to rehearse the places, because every man will of himself easily mark that which I say.

But you will say, is it then more available to the perfection of righteousness, to live innocently among men, than with true godliness to honor God? No, but because a man does not easily keep charity in all points, unless he earnestly fears God, therefore it is thereby proved, that he has godliness also. Besides that, forasmuch as the Lord well knows, that no benefit can come from us to him, which thing he does also testify by the Prophet: therefore he requires not our duties to himself, but does exercise us in good works toward our neighbor. Therefore not without cause the Apostle sets the whole perfection of the holy ones in charity. And not inconveniently in another place he calls the same the fulfilling of the law: adding that he has performed the law that loved his neighbor. Again, that all the law is comprehended in one word, Love your neighbor as yourself. For he teaches no other thing but the same which Christ does when he says: Whatever you will that men do to you, do you the same to them. For this is the law and the Prophets. It is certain, that in the law and the Prophets, Faith and all that belongs to the true worship of God, holds the principal place, and that love is beneath it in a lower degree: but the Lord's meaning is, that in the law is only prescribed to us an observation of right and equity, wherein we be exercised to testify our godly fear of him, if there be any in us.

Here therefore let us stick fast, that then our life shall be best framed to God's will and the rule of his law, when it shall be every way most profitable to our brethren. But in the whole law there is not read one syllable that appoints to man any rule of such things as he shall do or leave undone for the commodity of his own flesh. And surely since men are so born of such disposition naturally, that they are too much carried headlong to the love of themselves, and however much they fall from the truth yet still they keep that self-love, there needed no law any more to inflame that love, that was naturally of itself too much beyond measure. Whereby it plainly appears, that not the love of ourselves, but the love of God and of our neighbor is the keeping of the commandments, and that he lives best and most holily, that (so near as may be) lives and labors least for himself, and that no man lives worse and more wickedly than he that lives and labors for himself and only thinks upon and seeks for things of his own. And the Lord, the more to express with how great earnestness we ought to be led to the love of our neighbors, appointed it to be measured by the love of ourselves as by a rule, because he had no other more vehement or stronger affection to measure it by. And the force of the manner of speaking is diligently to be weighed. For he does not, as certain sophists have foolishly dreamed, give the first degree to the love of our selves, and the second to charity, but rather that affection of love which we do all naturally draw to ourselves, he gives away to others, whereupon the Apostle says, that charity seeks not her own. And their reason is not to be esteemed worth a hair, that the thing ruled is ever inferior to its rule. For God does not make the love of ourselves a rule to which charity toward others should be subject, but whereas by perverseness of nature, the affection of love was accustomed to rest in ourselves, he shows that now it ought to be elsewhere spread abroad, that we should with no less cheerfulness, ferventness, and carefulness be ready to do good to our neighbor than to ourselves.

Now since Christ has shown in the parable of the Samaritan that under the name of neighbor every man is contained, be he never so strange to us: there is no cause why we should restrain the commandment of love within the bonds of our own friendships and acquaintances. I deny not that the nearer that any man is to us, the more familiarly he is to be helped with our endeavors to do him good. For so the order of humanity requires, that so many more duties of friendship men should communicate together, as they are bound together with stricter bonds of kindred, familiarity, or neighborhood, and that without any offense of God, by whose providence we are in a manner driven to it. But I say that all mankind without exception is to be embraced with one affection of charity: and that in this behalf there is no difference of barbarian or Greek, of worthy or unworthy, of friend or foe, because they are to be considered in God and not in themselves: from which consideration when we turn away, it is no marvel if we be entangled with many errors. Therefore if we will keep the true manner of loving, we must not turn our eyes to man, the sight of whom would oftener force us to hate than to love, but to God which commands that the love which we offer him, be poured abroad among all men: that this be a perpetual foundation, that whatever the man be, yet he ought to be loved because God is loved.

Therefore it was a most pestilent either ignorance or malice, that the scholastics of these commandments, touching not desiring of revenge, and loving our enemies, which in the old time both were given to the Jews and at the same time were commonly given to all Christians, have made counsels which it is in our liberty to obey, or not obey. And the necessary obeying of them, they have passed over to monks who were, though but in this one point indeed, more righteous than simple Christians, in that they willingly bound themselves to keep the counsels. And they render a reason why they receive them not for laws, for that they seem too burdensome and heavy, especially for Christians that are under the law of grace. So dare they presume to repel the eternal law of God touching the loving of our neighbors? Is there any such difference in any leaf of the law? And are there not rather in it everywhere found commandments that do most severely require of us to love our enemies? For what manner of saying is that, where we are commanded to feed our enemy when he is hungry? To set into the right way his oxen or asses straying out of the way, or to ease them when they faint under their burden? Shall we do good to his beasts for his sake without any good will to himself? What? Is not the word of the Lord everlasting: Leave vengeance to me, and I will requite it? Which also is spoken more plainly at large in another place. Seek not vengeance, neither be mindful of the injury of your citizens. Either let them blot these things out of the law, or let them acknowledge that the Lord was a lawmaker, and not lyingly feign that he was a counsel giver.

And what I pray you mean these things that they have presumed to mock withal in their unsavory gloss? Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, pray for them that persecute you, bless them that curse you, that you may be the children of your father which is in heaven. Who cannot hear reason with Chrysostom, that by so necessary a cause it plainly appears that they are no exhortations but commandments? What remains more when we be blotted out of the number of the children of God? But by their opinion, only Monks shall be the children of the heavenly father, they only shall be bold to call upon God their Father: what shall the Church do in the meanwhile? It shall by like right be sent away to the gentiles and publicans. For Christ says: If you be friendly to your friends, what favor look you for thereby? Do not the gentiles and publicans the same? But we shall be in good case forsooth, if the title of Christians be left to us, and the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven taken away from us. And no less strong is Augustine's argument. When (says he) the Lord forbids to commit fornication, he no less forbids to touch the wife of your enemy than of your friend. When he forbids theft, he gives leave to steal nothing at all, either from your friend or from your enemy. But these two, not to steal, and not to commit fornication, Paul brings within the compass of the rule of love, indeed and teaches that they are contained under this commandment, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, either Paul must have been a false expositor of the law, or it necessarily follows hereby, that our enemies ought also to be loved, even by commandment, like as our friends. Therefore they do truly betray themselves to be the children of Satan, that do so licentiously shake off the common yoke of the children of God. It is to be doubted, whether they have published this doctrine with more gross dullness or shamelessness. For there are none of the old writers that do not pronounce as of a thing certain, that these are mere commandments. And that even in Gregory's age it was not doubted of, appears by his own affirmation, for he without controversy takes them for commandments. And how foolishly do they reason? They say that they are too weighty a burden for Christians. As though there could be devised anything more weighty, than to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength. In comparison of this law anything may be counted easy, whether it be to love our enemy, or to lay away all desire of revenge out of our mind. Indeed all things are high and hard to our weakness, even the least tittle of the law. It is the Lord in whom we use strength. Let him give what he commands, and command what he will. Christian men to be under the law of grace, is not unbridledly to wander without law, but to be grafted in Christ, by whose grace they are free from the curse of the law, and by whose spirit they have a law written in their hearts. This grace Paul improperly called a law, alluding to the law of God, against which he did set it in comparison. But these men do in the name of the law, dispute upon a matter of nothing.

Of like sort it is, that they called venial sin, both secret ungodliness that is against the first table, and also the direct transgressing of the last commandment. For they define it thus, that it is a desire without advised assent, which rests not long in the heart. But I say, that it cannot come at all into the heart, but by lack of those things that are required in the law. We forbid to have strange gods. When the mind shaken with the engines of distrust, looks about elsewhere: when it is touched with a sudden desire to remove her blessedness some other way: from where come these motions, although they quickly vanish away, but from this, that there is something in the soul empty, to receive such temptations? And to the end not to draw out this argument to greater length, there is a commandment given to love God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul: if then all the powers of our soul be not bent to the love of God, we have already departed from the obedience of the law. Because the enemies that do therein arise against his kingdom, and interrupt his decrees, do prove that God has not his throne well established in our conscience. As for the last commandment, we have already showed that it properly belongs to this. Has any desire of mind pricked us? We are already guilty of coveting, and therewith are made transgressors of the law. Because the Lord does forbid us, not only to purpose and practice anything that may be to another's loss, but also to be pricked and swell with coveting it. But the curse of God does always hang over the transgression of the law. We cannot therefore prove even the very least desires free from judgment of death. In weighing of sins (says Augustine) let us not bring false balances to weigh what we wish and how we wish at our own pleasure, saying: this is heavy, and this is light. But let us bring God's balance out of the holy Scriptures, as out of the Lord's treasury, and let us therein weigh what is heavy: rather let us not weigh, but acknowledge things already weighed by the Lord. But what says the Scripture? Truly when Paul says that the reward of sin is death, he shows that he knew not this stinking distinction. Since we are too much inclined to hypocrisy, this cherishment thereof ought not to have been added to flatter our slothful consciences.

I would to God, they would consider what that saying of Christ means: He that transgresses one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be counted none in the kingdom of heaven. Are not they of that sort, when they dare so extenuate the transgression of the law, as if it were not worthy of death? But they ought to have considered, not only what is commanded, but what he is that commands, because his authority is diminished in every transgression, however little it be, of the law that he has given in commandment. Is it a small matter with them, that God's majesty be offended in anything? Moreover if God has declared his will in the law, whatever is contrary to the law, displeases him. Will they imagine the wrath of God to be so disarmed, that punishment of death shall not forthwith follow upon them? And he himself has pronounced it plainly, if they would rather find in their hearts to hear his voice, than to trouble the clear truth with their unsavory subtleties of argument. The soul (says he) that sins, the same shall die. Again, which I even now alleged: The reward of sin is death. But although they grant it to be a sin, because they cannot deny it: yet they stand stiff in this, that it is no deadly sin. But since they have here too much borne with their own madness, let them yet at length learn to grow wiser. But if they continue in dotage, we will bid them farewell: and let the children of God learn this, that all sin is deadly, because it is a rebellion against the will of God, which of necessity provokes his wrath, because it is a breach of the law, upon which the judgment of God is pronounced without exception: and that the sins of the holy ones are venial or pardonable, not of their own nature, but because they obtain pardon by the mercy of God.

At this point I think it will be useful to include a brief exposition of the Ten Commandments. This will better confirm what I have already touched on — that the observance God once appointed remains in force. It will also give us proof of a second point: that the Jews, through the law, not only learned the true nature of godliness but were also compelled, by the terror of judgment when they saw their inability to keep it, to be drawn to the Mediator whether they wanted to be or not. In setting out what is required for true knowledge of God, we have already taught that we cannot conceive of God according to His greatness without His majesty presenting itself and binding us to worship Him. In the knowledge of ourselves, we have established this as the central point: stripped of confidence in our own strength and emptied of trust in our own righteousness, and on the other side discouraged and brought low by consciousness of our own need, we must learn complete humility and lowliness. The Lord sets forth both of these in His law. He first claims for Himself the rightful authority to govern, calling us to reverence for His divine majesty and defining what that reverence consists of. He then publishes a rule of righteousness — a righteousness against which our perverse and crooked nature always strains, and below the perfection of which our natural power to do good falls far short. By this He convicts us both of weakness and of unrighteousness. Furthermore, the inward law that we said earlier is engraved and imprinted on the hearts of all people does in some measure teach us the same things that are to be learned from the two tables. Our conscience does not allow us to sleep in perpetual numbness — it bears witness within us and reminds us of what we owe to God, shows us the difference between good and evil, and accuses us when we stray from our duty. But mankind, wrapped in such a dense darkness of error, can barely catch even a faint glimpse of the worship that pleases God through the law of nature — and is very far from knowing it rightly. Moreover, he is so swollen with arrogance and ambition and so blinded by self-love that he cannot even look within himself and descend to learn submission, humility, and acknowledgment of his misery. Therefore — as was necessary given both our dullness and our stubbornness — the Lord gave us a written law, which would testify more clearly to what the law of nature had left too obscure, and would shake off our drowsiness and touch our minds and memories more vividly.

From the law we easily understand what we are to learn: since God is our Creator, He rightfully holds the place of our Father and Lord, and for this reason we owe Him glory, reverence, love, and fear. We are not free to follow wherever the desires of our own minds lead us — we are to depend on Him and rest only in what pleases Him. We also learn that He delights in righteousness and uprightness, that He abhors wickedness, and that therefore — unless we are willing to fall away from our Creator in wicked ingratitude — we must pursue righteousness throughout our whole lives. For we yield to God the reverence we owe Him only when we prefer His will to our own, and it follows that there is no proper worship of Him except the keeping of righteousness, holiness, and purity. We cannot make excuses by claiming we lack the ability, as though we were bankrupt debtors unable to pay. It is not right to measure God's glory by our own capacity — whatever we may be, He always remains the same: a lover of righteousness, a hater of wickedness. Whatever He requires of us — and He can require only what is right — we are bound by nature to obey. Our inability to obey is our own fault. If we are held captive by our own sinful desires so that we are not free to obey our Father, we have no grounds to plead necessity as our defense — the evil lies within us and is to be charged to ourselves.

When we have made this much progress through the law's teaching, we must then turn that same teaching inward on ourselves, and from it draw away two things. The first is this: by comparing the law's righteousness with our own lives, we learn that we are far from satisfying God's will, and that we are therefore not worthy to have a place among His creatures — much less to be counted among His children. The second is: when we examine our own strength, we learn that it is not merely insufficient to keep the law but entirely absent. From this flows both a distrust of our own strength and a troubled, anxious state of mind. For the conscience cannot bear the weight of its guilt without God's judgment immediately appearing before it. And when God's judgment is felt, it strikes a terrifying dread of death into us. Likewise, being confronted with proofs of its own weakness, the conscience cannot help but immediately despair of its own strength. Both of these produce humility and the breaking down of self-confidence. So at last it comes about that man, gripped by the sense of eternal death hanging over him on account of his own unrighteousness, turns to the mercy of God alone as the only refuge of salvation. Feeling that he cannot pay what the law demands, despairing of himself, he breathes again and begins to seek and look for help from another source.

Not satisfied with producing reverence for His righteousness, the Lord has also added promises and warnings to fill our hearts with love for Him and hatred of wickedness. Because our minds are too blind to be moved by the beauty of goodness alone, it pleased our most merciful Father in His tender kindness to draw us with the sweetness of rewards to love and long for Him. He therefore declares that rewards are stored up with Him for virtue, and that whoever obeys His commandments will not spend his labor in vain. He also proclaims that He not only abhors unrighteousness but that it will not go unpunished — for He will take vengeance on those who despise His majesty. To urge us by every means possible, He promises both the blessings of this present life and eternal blessedness to those who keep His commandments, and threatens both present miseries and the punishment of eternal death to those who transgress them. The promise 'the one who does these things will live by them' and the corresponding threat 'the soul that sins will die' without doubt refer to the immortality or the death to come, which will never end. Wherever God's favor or His wrath is mentioned, the one contains eternity of life and the other eternal destruction. A long register of present blessings and curses is laid out in the law. In the penalty ordinances the supreme holiness of God is displayed, which can tolerate no wickedness. In His promises, besides His great love of righteousness — which He cannot bring Himself to leave unrewarded — His marvelous generosity is also proved. For since we and everything we have are already indebted to His majesty, whatever He requires of us is rightly demanded as a due debt, and the payment of a debt does not deserve a reward. Yet He sets aside His own right when He offers to reward our obedience — obedience that we do not render as something not already owed. What those promises hold for us has already been partly said and will appear more fully in the proper place. For now it is enough to remember that the promises of the law contain high commendation of righteousness, so that it may be all the more clear how greatly God is pleased by keeping it. The penalty ordinances are set out to increase our detestation of unrighteousness, so that the sinner, charmed by the flattery of sin, will not forget that the judgment of the Lawgiver awaits him.

When the Lord gave a rule of perfect righteousness and applied all its parts to His own will, He declared that nothing is more acceptable to Him than obedience. This is all the more worth noting because human nature is always ready to devise various forms of worship to win God's favor. In every age, this misguided religious impulse — which is naturally planted in the human mind — has shown and still shows itself: people always delight in inventing a path to righteousness apart from God's Word. The result is that the commandments of the law have very little place among what people commonly call good works, while an endless number of human-invented works occupy almost all the room. What else did Moses intend but to restrain this kind of presumption when, after publishing the law, he said to the people: 'Pay attention and listen to everything I command you, so that it may go well with you and your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right before the Lord your God. Do only what I am commanding you — do not add to it or take from it.' Earlier, after proclaiming that it was Israel's wisdom and understanding before other nations to have received from the Lord these judgments, righteous standards, and ceremonies, he added: 'Therefore keep yourself and your soul carefully, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and that they never depart from your heart.' God foresaw that the Israelites would not remain content after receiving the law but would keep laboring to produce new forms of righteousness alongside it, unless they were firmly restrained. So He declared that the law contained the perfection of righteousness — and this declaration should have been the strongest possible check on their presumption, yet they did not stop the very boldness they were so strictly forbidden. What about us? We are certainly under the same charge. There is no doubt that the Lord has claimed the complete doctrine of righteousness for His law, and yet we, not content with it, keep monstrously laboring to forge and coin new good works one on top of another. The best remedy for this fault is to have this thought firmly fixed in us: the law has been given by God to teach us a perfect righteousness; no righteousness is taught in it except what is measured by the appointed rule of God's will; therefore new forms of works invented to win God's favor are entirely in vain, since true worship consists in obedience alone; and the pursuit of good works that wanders outside God's law is an intolerable corruption of God's righteousness and of true righteousness. Augustine speaks most truly when he calls the obedience rendered to God sometimes the mother and guardian, and sometimes the source, of all virtues.

After we have expounded the law of the Lord, what I said earlier about the purpose and use of the law will be confirmed more fittingly and more convincingly. But before I discuss each commandment individually, it is good to lay down some principles that apply to understanding the law as a whole. First, let it be firmly established that the law of the Lord instructs human life not merely in outward behavior but in inward, spiritual righteousness. No one would deny this, yet very few actually observe it. This happens because people do not look to the Lawgiver, by whose nature the nature of the law itself ought to be understood. If a human king issues a proclamation forbidding adultery, murder, or theft, I grant that if a person merely conceives in his mind a desire to commit one of these things but does not act on it, he has not violated the prohibition. The reason is that a mortal lawmaker's foresight extends only to outward conduct — his commands are not broken unless the outward offense is actually committed. But God, from whose sight nothing is hidden, and who looks not so much to outward show as to the purity of the heart — in forbidding fornication, murder, and theft — also forbids lust, anger, hatred, covetousness, deceit, and everything like them. For since He is a spiritual Lawgiver, He addresses the soul no less than the body. The murder of the soul is anger and hatred; the theft of the soul is evil desire and covetousness; the fornication of the soul is lust. Someone may object: human laws also consider intentions and motives, not just what happens outwardly. I grant this — but only intentions and motives that have in some way broken out into outward action. Human laws examine the intent behind an outward act, but they do not search out secret thoughts. They are therefore satisfied when a person simply keeps his hands from wrongdoing. The heavenly law, by contrast, is made for our minds, and restraining our minds is what its keeping chiefly requires. But many people, even while they put on a great show of keeping the law, arrange their eyes, feet, hands, and all their bodily members in some degree of outward compliance, while their hearts remain completely untouched by obedience. They think themselves fully discharged if they keep hidden from other people what they are doing in the sight of God. They hear: 'You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal.' They do not draw a sword to kill, they do not join themselves with prostitutes, they do not lay hands on another's property. So far, so good. But in their hearts they breathe out murder, burn with lust, cast their eyes covetously over all others' goods, and devour them with longing. In this, the very chief point of the law is missing. Where does such gross blindness come from, except that they measure righteousness by their own standards rather than looking to the Lawgiver? Against this Paul cries out with force, declaring that the law is spiritual — meaning it demands not merely outward obedience of soul, mind, and will, but a kind of angelic purity that, having wiped away all the filthiness of the flesh, savors nothing except what is of the Spirit.

When we say this is the meaning of the law, we are not inserting a new interpretation of our own — we are following Christ, the law's best expositor. The Pharisees had infected the people with the false opinion that whoever commits no outward violation of the law has fulfilled it. Christ rebuked this most dangerous error and declared that looking at a woman with lust is adultery; He testified that those who hate their brother are murderers — making guilty of judgment those who have merely conceived anger in their hearts, guilty before the council those who have let any sign of displeasure escape in murmuring or grumbling, and guilty of hellfire those who break out into open rage with insults and abuse. Those who have not grasped this have imagined Christ to be a second Moses — the giver of a Gospel law that made up for the deficiencies of the law of Moses. From this comes the common notion that the Gospel law of perfection far surpasses the old law — a most dangerous opinion. When we gather up the summary of the commandments later, it will become evident from Moses himself how shamefully those people dishonor the law of God. That opinion suggests that all the holiness of the fathers amounted to little more than hypocrisy, and it leads us away from the one perfect rule of righteousness. The error is easy enough to refute: those people thought Christ was adding to the law, when in fact He was restoring it to its original integrity — setting it free and cleansing it from the lies and corruption of the Pharisees' leaven.

Our second principle is this: each commandment and prohibition always contains more than its words literally express — though this must be handled carefully, so that our interpretation does not become like a rule of wax, which can be bent any direction, allowing us to make Scripture say whatever we like. Many people, through this kind of undisciplined freedom, have caused some to lose respect for Scripture's authority and others to despair of understanding it. We must therefore find an approach that leads us by a straight and proper path to the will of God. We must determine how far our interpretation may go beyond the literal words, so that it clearly appears not as men's additions attached to Scripture but as a faithful rendering of the lawgiver's pure and natural meaning. In nearly every commandment the figurative character of the language is so plain that anyone who would restrict the law's meaning to the bare words would deserve to be ridiculed. It is therefore clear that sound interpretation does extend beyond the literal words — but how far is difficult to judge unless a clear standard is established. I believe the best standard is to direct interpretation to the intent of the commandment: in every commandment, weigh the purpose for which it was given. For example, every commandment is either a positive command or a prohibition; the true scope of both types will be found by considering their intent or goal. The intent of the fifth commandment is that honor should be given to those to whom God assigns it. The summary of the commandment is therefore this: it is right and pleasing to God that we honor those to whom He has given a position of excellence, and He abhors contempt and stubbornness toward them. The intent of the first commandment is that God alone be honored. The summary of the commandment is therefore this: true godliness — that is, the true worship of His majesty — pleases God, and ungodliness displeases Him. So in every commandment we must first note what subject it addresses; then we must look for the end, until we find what the lawgiver specifically declares pleases or displeases Him; and finally we must draw a conclusion to the contrary along these lines: if this pleases God, then the opposite displeases Him; if this displeases Him, then the opposite pleases Him; if He commands this, then He forbids the opposite; if He forbids this, then He commands the opposite.

What has been touched on somewhat abstractly here will become very clear in practice as we expound the commandments, so it is enough to have mentioned it briefly. One final point, however, needs a short proof — without which it might not be understood, or if understood, might initially seem like an absurdity. It needs no proof that when a good thing is commanded, its evil opposite is forbidden — everyone will grant that. Common judgment will also readily accept that when evil things are forbidden, the opposite duties are commanded. It is generally understood that virtues are commended when their corresponding vices are condemned. But we require something more than what those common forms of expression usually mean to people. Most people take the virtue opposite to any vice to be simply refraining from that vice. We say that it goes further — to positive duties and positive actions. So in the commandment 'You shall not murder,' common understanding sees nothing beyond this: that we must abstain from all harm and from any desire to do harm. I say it also contains this: that we should by every possible means support and preserve the life of our neighbor. And lest I say this without support, here is the proof: God forbids that our brother be harmed, because He wills that our neighbor's life be precious and dear to us. He therefore also requires all acts of love that are within our power for the preservation of that life. So we see how the intent of a commandment always reveals to us everything we are commanded or forbidden to do within it.

Why God in such half-commandments has pointed to His will indirectly through figures rather than expressing it plainly — there are many reasons usually given for this, but one pleases me above the rest. The flesh always tries to minimize the ugliness of sin and cover it with fine pretexts, except where sin is so blatant that it cannot be hidden. Therefore God has placed in each category of offense the most wicked and abominable example — one that strikes our senses with horror at first hearing — in order to imprint in our minds a deeper detestation of every kind of sin. We are often deceived in assessing vices, because when they are somewhat hidden or subtle we make them appear small. The Lord exposes these self-deceptions by training us to refer the whole multitude of vices to these chief categories, which best reveal how abominable each kind truly is. For example: anger and hatred do not seem so terrible when they are called by their own names. But when they are forbidden under the name of murder, we better understand how abominable they are before God — who places them in the same category as so horrible an offense. Moved by His judgment, we learn to assess more rightly the seriousness of faults that previously seemed light to us.

Third, we should consider the significance of God's law being divided into two tables — a division that all thoughtful people will acknowledge is not mentioned incidentally or without purpose. We have a ready explanation that leaves no room for doubt. God divided His law into two parts containing the whole of righteousness: the first covers the duties of religion that specifically pertain to the worship of His Godhead; the second covers the duties of love that belong to our dealings with other people. The worship of God is the first foundation of righteousness. When that foundation is overturned, all the other parts of righteousness collapse and fall apart, like the timbers of a house when the frame is disjointed. What kind of righteousness is it to refrain from robbing and defrauding people, while at the same time stripping God's majesty of His glory through wicked sacrilege? To keep your body from adultery, while your blasphemies profanely abuse God's holy name? To murder no one, while laboring to destroy and blot out the memory of God? Righteousness without religion is an empty boast — no better than presenting a headless mutilated body as something beautiful. Religion is not merely the chief part of righteousness; it is the very soul by which righteousness breathes and lives. Without the fear of God, people do not maintain equity and love among themselves. We therefore say that the worship of God is the beginning and foundation of righteousness, because when it is removed, all the fairness, self-control, and moderation that people practice among themselves is worthless and trivial before God. We also say that it is the source and living breath of righteousness, because through the reverence of God as the Judge of right and wrong, people learn to live temperately and without harming one another. In the first table, God therefore instructs us in godliness and the proper duties of religion by which His majesty is to be worshipped. In the second, He prescribes how, out of reverence for His name, we are to conduct ourselves in our life together with other people. This is why our Lord — as the Evangelists record — summed up the whole law in two principal points: that we should love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength; and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. So you see how of the two parts in which He sums up the whole law, He directs one toward God and assigns the other toward people.

Although the whole law is contained in these two principal points, God was pleased — in order to remove all pretense of excuse — to set out more fully and plainly in the Ten Commandments everything that belongs both to honoring, fearing, and loving Him, and to the love He commands us to bear toward other people for His sake. It is worth knowing how the commandments are divided, provided you remember that this is a matter on which every person should be free to form their own judgment, and over which we should not quarrel contentiously with those who think differently. We must address the question, however, so that readers will not be surprised or dismissive of the arrangement we use as if it were something new and recently invented. That the law is divided into ten words is beyond dispute, since it is repeatedly confirmed by God's own authority — so the number is not in question, only the manner of dividing them. Those who assign three commandments to the first table and seven to the second either eliminate the commandment about images altogether or absorb it into the first commandment — even though the Lord clearly set it apart as a distinct commandment. They then split the tenth commandment against coveting into two. This manner of dividing was unknown in the purer ages of the church, as will soon be evident. Others, like us, count four commandments in the first table, but they treat the prologue as the first commandment rather than a preface. For my part — since I can find no convincing reason to read the ten words in Moses as anything other than ten commandments — I believe I see them arranged in a fitting order. Leaving others to their opinion, I will follow the arrangement I find most defensible: what those in the second group call the first commandment will serve here as a preface to the whole law, followed by four commandments of the first table and six of the second, in the order they will be presented. Augustine, writing to Boniface, agrees with us, rehearsing the commandments in this order: that God alone be served with religious obedience, that no idol be worshiped, and that the Lord's name not be taken in vain — having already discussed the shadowy commandment of the Sabbath separately. In another place he does prefer the other division, but for too weak a reason — because if the first table contains three commandments, the mystery of the Trinity appears more plainly. Yet in that same place he does not hesitate to admit that on other grounds he prefers our division. The author of the Imperfect Work on Matthew is also on our side. Josephus, undoubtedly following the common opinion of his time, assigns five commandments to each table. But this is contrary to reason, because it blurs the distinction between religion and love of neighbor, and it is also refuted by the authority of the Lord Himself, who in Matthew places the commandment to honor parents in the second table. Now let us hear God Himself speaking in His own words.

The First Commandment.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.

Whether you treat the opening sentence as part of the first commandment or read it as a separate preface makes little difference to me, so long as you grant that it serves as an introduction to the whole law. When laws are made, care must be taken that they not quickly fall into contempt. God therefore first provides that the majesty of the law He is about to give will never be held in contempt. To establish this, He uses three kinds of argument. First, He claims for Himself the power and right of dominion, by which He may bind His chosen people in a necessary obligation to obey. Then He holds out a promise of grace, with its sweetness, to draw them toward the pursuit of holiness. Third, He recalls the benefit He did for them, in order to convict the Jews of ingratitude if they do not answer His kindness with obedience. In the name Jehovah — the Lord — His authority and rightful dominion are expressed. Since all things are from Him and exist in Him, it is right that all things be referred to Him, as Paul says (Romans 11:36). This name alone is enough to bring us under the yoke of God's majesty, for it would be monstrous to try to withdraw ourselves from the government of the One from whom we cannot escape.

After showing that it is He who has authority to command and to whom obedience is due, He does not appeal only to necessity but also draws with sweetness by declaring Himself to be the God of the church. This phrase contains a hidden mutual relationship expressed in the promise: 'I will be their God, and they shall be My people.' On this basis Christ proves that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have immortal life — because God testified that He is their God (Jeremiah 31:33; Matthew 22:32). It is therefore equivalent to His saying: 'I have chosen you to be My people — not merely to do you good in this present life, but to give you the blessedness of the life to come.' Where this leads is made clear in various places throughout the law. When the Lord condescends to deal with us so graciously as to call us into the company of His people, He chooses us — as Moses says — to be a people peculiar to Himself, a holy people who keep His commandments (Deuteronomy 7:6). From this also comes the exhortation: 'Be holy, for I am holy' (Leviticus 19). From these two elements comes the protest in the prophet: 'A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due Me? If I am a master, where is the respect due Me?' (Malachi 1:6)

Next comes the recalling of His benefit — which ought to carry even greater weight because ingratitude is so detestable even among people. He reminded Israel of a great benefit recently received, one so miraculously great that it deserved to be remembered forever and to remain effective for their descendants. And it fits perfectly with the present subject. For the Lord seems to be saying: they were delivered from miserable bondage precisely so that they would honor with obedience and willing service the one who delivered them. He also employs specific titles — to hold us firmly to the true worship of Him alone — by which He reveals His sacred majesty as distinct from all idols and invented gods. As I said before, our inclination toward vanity is so ready, joined with reckless presumption, that the moment God is named our minds cannot keep from wandering off to some empty invention. Therefore, when the Lord means to remedy this evil, He describes Himself with specific titles and so encloses us within certain boundaries, so that we will not wander here and there and rashly construct some new god for ourselves by forsaking the living God and setting up an idol. For this reason, whenever the prophets intend to point specifically to Him, they clothe Him and enclose Him within those marks by which He made Himself known to the people of Israel. When He is called the God of Abraham or the God of Israel, when He is present in the temple at Jerusalem among the cherubim, these and similar expressions do not confine Him to one place or one people — they are set for this single purpose: to anchor the thoughts of the godly in that God who, through His covenant with Israel, has revealed Himself in such a way that it is not lawful to depart from that pattern. But let this be firmly fixed: the mention of the deliverance was made so that the Jews would more willingly devote themselves to the God who rightfully claims them as His own. As for us — lest we think this has nothing to do with us — we should recognize that the bondage of Egypt is a picture of the spiritual captivity in which we are all held bound, until our heavenly deliverer frees us by the power of His arm and brings us into the kingdom of liberty. Just as in ancient times He gathered the scattered Israelites to worship His name by delivering them from the unbearable tyranny of Pharaoh, so now He delivers all those to whom He declares Himself God from the deadly power of the devil — which was foreshadowed by that physical bondage. Therefore every person ought to have his heart stirred to attend to the law that he hears coming from the sovereign King. From Him all things take their beginning, and so it is fitting that all things be directed toward Him as their end. Every person ought to eagerly embrace the Lawgiver, in whose service he is taught he has been specially chosen; from whose bounty he looks for an abundance of all good things and the glory of immortal life; and by whose marvelous power and mercy he knows himself to have been rescued from the jaws of death (Exodus 3:6; Amos 1:2; Habakkuk 2; Psalm 80:2; 29:1; Isaiah 37:16).

After establishing and securing the authority of His law, God sets forth the first commandment: that we have no other gods before Him. The purpose of this commandment is that God alone will have supremacy and will fully enjoy His own authority among His people. To this end, He commands that all ungodliness and superstition — by which the glory of His Godhead is either diminished or obscured — be kept far from us. By the same logic, He commands us to worship and honor Him with genuine devotion. The very simplicity of the words expresses this. We cannot have God without encompassing everything that properly belongs to Him. In forbidding us to have other gods, He means that we must not give elsewhere what belongs to Him. Although the things we owe to God are countless, they may fittingly be gathered under four principal headings: adoration, trust, invocation, and thanksgiving. By adoration I mean the reverence and worship each person renders to God when he submits himself to God's greatness — and I rightly include under this heading the submission of our consciences to His law. Trust is a settled confidence in Him that rests on acknowledging His attributes: placing all wisdom, righteousness, power, truth, and goodness in Him, and counting ourselves blessed through participation in Him alone. Invocation is the turning of our minds to His faithfulness and help as our only resource, whenever any need presses us. Thanksgiving is the gratitude by which all praise for every good thing is given to Him. In all four of these, God tolerates nothing being transferred elsewhere — He commands that all of them be given entirely to Himself. It is not enough merely to abstain from having a foreign god, as many wicked contemners do who think the surest way is to mock all religion. True religion must go first — the religion by which our minds are directed to the living God. Armed with knowledge of God, our minds aspire to reverence, fear, and worship His majesty; to embrace the sharing of all His good gifts; to seek His help everywhere; to acknowledge and celebrate the greatness of His works in thankful praise — and to make this the sole aim of everything we do in life. Then we must beware of perverse superstition, by which minds wander away from the true God and are pulled toward various invented gods. If we are content with one God, let us remember what was said earlier: all invented gods are to be driven far away, and the worship that He alone claims for Himself must not be divided. It is not lawful to take away from His glory even the smallest part — everything that belongs to Him must remain entirely with Him. The phrase 'before My face' makes the offense even more serious, for God is provoked to jealousy whenever we thrust our own inventions into His place — like an unfaithful wife who inflames her husband's anger by bringing in a lover openly before his eyes. Therefore, when God declared that He watched over His chosen people with His present power and grace, He warned them — all the more to deter them from the wicked act of falling away — that no new gods can be introduced without Him witnessing and beholding the sacrilege. The boldness of such people is compounded by great wickedness: they think they can escape God's eyes by fleeing from Him. But God cries out that whatever we purpose, whatever we undertake, whatever we practice, comes before His sight. Let our consciences therefore be clean even from the most secret thought of turning away from Him, if we desire our religion to please the Lord. For He requires the glory of His Godhead to remain whole and uncorrupted — not only in outward confession, but before His eyes, which behold the most hidden corners of hearts.

The Second Commandment.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.

In the first commandment He declared that He is the one God and that no other gods are to be invented or worshiped. Now He declares more openly what kind of God He is and what kind of worship He requires — so that we will not presume to fashion any earthly image of Him. The purpose of this commandment is that the true worship of God not be profaned with superstitious practices. In summary, it calls and draws us away from the earthly observances our foolish minds are inclined to invent when they conceive of God according to their own coarseness. It shapes us instead toward the true worship of God — that is, the spiritual worship He Himself has appointed. The commandment addresses the most blatant form of this offense: outward idolatry. It has two parts. The first restrains our freedom, so that we do not presume to make God subject to our senses or represent Him in any form, since He is incomprehensible. The second part forbids us to honor any images for religious purposes. He briefly lists all the forms in which the superstitious and pagan nations were accustomed to represent Him in visible shape. By 'things in heaven above' He means the sun, moon, and other stars — and perhaps birds also, as His explanation in Deuteronomy 4:15 includes birds alongside the stars. I mention this only because I have seen some people wrongly apply it to angels. I will pass over the other parts since they are clear enough on their own. We have already shown plainly in the first book that whatever visible forms of God people devise are directly contrary to His nature, and that therefore as soon as images appear, true religion is corrupted and defiled.

The penalty that follows should do much to shake off our laziness. God threatens that He is the Lord our God, a jealous God, who visits the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate His name, and shows mercy to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments. This is the same as if He had said that He alone is the one upon whom we ought to depend. To drive us to that end, He speaks of His power, which does not allow itself to be scorned or diminished without punishment. Here the name El, which means God, is used. But since it is derived from a word meaning strength, I translated it that way to better express the sense. Then He calls Himself jealous, meaning He cannot tolerate any rival. Third, He declares that He will avenge His majesty and glory if anyone transfers it to creatures or to carved images. This will not be a short or light vengeance, but one that extends to the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren -- that is, to all who follow their fathers' ungodliness. Likewise, He promises perpetual mercy and generosity to the long line of descendants of those who love Him and keep His law. It is common for God to present Himself as a husband to us. The bond by which He joins Himself to us when He receives us into His church is like a holy marriage that must be upheld by mutual faithfulness. Just as He performs all the duties of a faithful and true husband, so He requires from us the love and faithfulness that marriage demands -- that we not surrender our souls to Satan, to lust, or to the filthy desires of the flesh. This is why, when the prophet rebukes the apostasy of the Jews, he complains that they threw away their faithfulness and were defiled with adulteries. Therefore, just as a husband who is himself holy and faithful burns with greater anger when he sees his wife's heart turning to another lover, so the Lord, who has joined us to Himself in truth, testifies that He burns with intense jealousy whenever we neglect the purity of His holy marriage and defile ourselves with wicked lusts. This is especially true when we transfer to something else, or corrupt with any superstition, the worship of His name, which should remain perfectly pure. By doing this, we not only break the faith we pledged in marriage, but we also defile the marriage bed itself by bringing adulterers into it.

In this threat, we must consider what God means when He says He will visit the sin of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. Besides the fact that it would contradict the fairness of God's justice to punish the innocent for another's offense, God Himself also says that He will not make the son bear the father's wickedness. Yet this statement about extending the punishment of the ancestors' sins to future generations is repeated more than once. Moses frequently speaks to God this way: Lord, Lord, who brings the sin of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation. Jeremiah likewise says: You who show mercy to thousands, who bring the sin of the fathers into the lap of the children after them. Many people, struggling to untie this knot, think it refers only to earthly punishments. If children suffer these for their parents' faults, they say, it is no contradiction, since such punishments are often laid on them for their own salvation. This is true. Isaiah told Hezekiah that his sons would be stripped of the kingdom and carried into exile because of the sin Hezekiah had committed. The households of Pharaoh and Abimelech were struck with plagues for offending Abraham. But when this explanation is offered as a solution to the question, it is more of an evasion than a true interpretation. For in this passage and others like it, God threatens a punishment too severe to be limited within the bounds of this present life. It should therefore be understood this way: the just curse of the Lord falls not only on the head of the wicked person, but also on his whole family. When the curse rests on them, what else can be expected but that the father, lacking the Spirit of God, lives in complete wickedness, and the son, likewise abandoned by the Lord because of the father's fault, follows the same path of destruction? And finally, the grandson and the great-grandson, that cursed offspring of detestable people, rush headlong after them?

First, let us consider whether this kind of vengeance is inconsistent with God's justice. If all of human nature is worthy of condemnation, we know that destruction awaits those to whom the Lord does not grant His grace. Yet they perish because of their own unrighteousness, not because of any unjust hatred on God's part. There is no reason to complain about why they are not helped by God's grace to salvation as others are. Since this punishment falls on wicked evildoers for their offenses -- that their households are deprived of God's grace for many generations -- who can accuse God of injustice in this? But the Lord also declares that the punishment of the father's sin will not pass over to the son. Notice what is being discussed there. When the Israelites had been tormented with many calamities for a long time, they began to use a proverb: that their fathers had eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth were set on edge. By this they meant that their fathers had committed sins, and they -- being otherwise righteous and undeserving -- were suffering the punishment, more from God's unrelenting wrath than from measured severity. The prophet tells them this is not the case. They are punished for their own offenses, and it contradicts God's justice for a righteous son to suffer punishment for his wicked father's sin. This is also not what the present commandment contains. In the visitation mentioned here, God removes from the house of the wicked His grace, the light of His truth, and other helps of salvation. Because the children, blinded and forsaken by Him, follow in their fathers' footsteps, they suffer curses for their fathers' offenses. But when they are subjected to earthly miseries and ultimately to eternal destruction, they are punished by God's just judgment not for the sins of others, but for their own wickedness.

On the other side, a promise is offered to extend God's mercy to a thousand generations. This promise is also found often in the Scriptures and is included in the solemn covenant of the church: I will be your God, and the God of your offspring after you. Solomon, with this in mind, writes that the children of the righteous will be blessed after their parents' death -- not only because of holy upbringing (which also contributes greatly), but also because of the blessing promised in the covenant: that God's grace will rest eternally in the households of the godly. From this comes great comfort to the faithful and great fear to the wicked. If the memory of both righteousness and wickedness carries such weight with God even after death that the curse of one and the blessing of the other extends to their descendants, how much more will it rest on the heads of those who actually committed the deeds! But it does not contradict our position that the children of the wicked sometimes turn out well, and the children of the faithful sometimes go astray. The lawgiver did not intend to establish an unchangeable rule here that would override His free election. It is enough for the comfort of the righteous and the fear of the sinner that the penalty is not empty or without effect, even though it does not always apply in every case. Just as the earthly punishments laid on a few wicked people are testimonies of God's wrath against sin and of the judgment that will one day fall on all sinners -- though many escape unpunished to the end of their lives -- so when God gives even one example of showing mercy to a child for the father's sake, He gives proof of His constant and perpetual favor toward those who worship Him. And when He once pursues the father's wickedness in the son, He shows what judgment awaits all the reprobate for their own offenses. This assurance was His primary concern in this passage. And by the way, He commends to us the greatness of His mercy, which He extends to a thousand generations, while He assigned only four generations to vengeance.

The Third Commandment.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

The purpose of this commandment is that God wills the majesty of His name to be holy among us. The summary, then, is that we must not defile it by using it with contempt or irreverence. Connected to this prohibition is the positive command that we take care to reverence it with godly devotion. We should therefore order ourselves in both mind and speech so that we neither think nor say anything about God Himself or His mysteries without reverence and great sobriety. When we consider His works, we should think of nothing but what is honorable toward Him. These three things we must carefully observe: first, whatever our mind conceives of Him and whatever our tongue speaks should reflect His excellency, agree with the holy greatness of His name, and ultimately serve to magnify Him. Second, we must not rashly or carelessly misuse His holy word and sacred mysteries for our own ambition, greed, or trivial purposes. Instead, since they bear the stamp of His name, they should maintain their honor and respect among us. Third, we must not criticize or speak against His works, as wretched people are prone to do with their scornful complaints. Rather, whatever we report about His deeds, we should speak with words of praise for His wisdom, righteousness, and goodness. This is what it means to sanctify the name of God. When the opposite is done, it is defiled with empty and perverse misuse. It is violently torn from the proper use for which alone it was appointed. Even if no other harm is done, it is stripped of its dignity and gradually brought into contempt. Now, if there is so much evil in this reckless habit of using God's name carelessly, how much more wicked it is when it is put to evil uses! This is what those do who make it serve the superstitions of sorcery, cruel curses, unlawful spells, and other wicked enchantments. But swearing is specifically mentioned in the commandment as the thing in which the perverse misuse of God's name is most detestable, so that by this example we may be completely scared away from all defiling of it. That this commandment concerns the worship of God and the reverence of His name -- and not the truthfulness and fairness that must be kept among people -- is clear from the fact that He later condemns perjury and false witness in the second table, where harm is done to human relationships. It would be pointless to repeat it if this commandment were about the duty of charity. The division of the law itself requires this. As has been said, God did not arrange two tables for His law without purpose. From this we gather that in this commandment He claims His own right for Himself and defends the holiness of His name, rather than teaching what people owe to one another.

First, we must learn what an oath is. An oath is calling God as a witness to confirm the truth of what we say. Those cursed outbursts that contain open insults against God are not worthy of being counted among oaths. That such calling of God to witness, when done properly, is a form of worshiping God, is shown in many places of Scripture. For example, when Isaiah prophesies about the calling of the Assyrians and Egyptians into the fellowship of the covenant with Israel, he says: "They shall speak in the language of Canaan and shall swear in the name of the Lord." That is, by swearing in the Lord's name, they would confess their devotion to His religion. Again, when Isaiah speaks of the expansion of God's kingdom, he says: "Whoever blesses himself shall bless in the God of the faithful, and he who swears in the land shall swear in the true God." Jeremiah says, "If they teach the people to swear in My name, as they taught them to swear by Baal, they shall be built up in the midst of My house." There is good reason for saying that when we call on the Lord's name as a witness, we are declaring our devotion to Him. By doing so, we confess that He is the eternal and unchangeable truth. We call on Him not only as the most reliable witness of truth above all others, but also as its only defender -- the one who can bring hidden things to light and who knows the heart. Where human testimony fails, we turn to God as our witness, especially when something must be proven that lies hidden in the conscience. For this reason, the Lord is bitterly angry with those who swear by foreign gods, and He treats this kind of swearing as a clear departure from His allegiance: "Your children have forsaken Me and swear by those who are no gods." He declares the seriousness of this offense by threatening punishment: "I will destroy those who swear by the name of the Lord and also swear by Molech."

Now that we understand that the Lord intends our oaths to be a form of worship of His name, we must be all the more careful that our oaths contain honor rather than dishonor, contempt, or degradation of His name. It is no small dishonor when perjury is committed in swearing by Him. Therefore, the law calls it profanation. What is left to the Lord when He is robbed of His truthfulness? He would then cease to be God. But truly He is robbed of His truthfulness when He is made an approver and confirmer of falsehood. Therefore, when Joshua wanted to compel Achan to confess the truth, he said: "My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel," meaning that the Lord is grievously dishonored when someone swears falsely by Him. And no wonder. For we do, as far as it lies in us, stain His holy name with a lie. That this phrase was commonly used among the Jews whenever someone was called to take an oath is clear from the similar words the Pharisees use in the Gospel of John. The oath formulas used in the Scriptures instruct us to be careful: "The Lord lives," "The Lord do these things to me and add these things," "The Lord be witness against my soul." These show that we cannot call God to witness our words without also wishing Him to take vengeance on our perjury if we speak deceitfully.

The name of the Lord is cheapened and made common when it is used in unnecessary oaths, even if they are true. In such cases, it is still taken in vain. Therefore, it is not enough to refrain from swearing falsely. We must also remember that swearing was permitted and established not for pleasure but for necessity. Those who apply it to unnecessary matters go beyond its lawful use. No other necessity can be claimed except where it serves either religion or charity. In this, people today offend far too freely. The problem has grown so much worse because, through long custom, it has ceased to be considered an offense at all -- yet before God's judgment seat, it is not taken lightly. Everywhere, the name of God is defiled in trivial conversation. People do not think they are doing wrong, because through long-tolerated and unpunished boldness, they have come to settle comfortably into such great wickedness. But the Lord's commandment remains in force, and the penalty stands strong. It will one day take effect, for a special vengeance is declared against those who use His name in vain. This commandment is also broken in another way: when in our oaths we put God's holy servants in the place of God, with open ungodliness. By doing this, we transfer the glory of His deity to them. It is not without reason that the Lord specifically commanded us to swear by His name and specifically prohibited swearing by any foreign gods. The apostle clearly testifies the same when he writes that people, in swearing, call upon one higher than themselves, and that God, having no one greater than His own glory to swear by, swore by Himself.

The Anabaptists, not content with this moderate approach to swearing, reject all oaths without exception, because Christ's prohibition is general: "I say to you, do not swear at all, but let your word be yes, yes, and no, no; whatever is more than this is from evil." But in doing this, they thoughtlessly set Christ against His Father, as if He had come down from heaven to repeal His Father's decrees. The eternal God not only permits swearing in the law as something lawful -- which would be enough -- but He also commands it when necessary. Yet Christ declares that He and His Father are one, that He brings nothing different from what His Father commanded, and that His teaching is not His own. What then? Will they make God contradict Himself, later forbidding and condemning in human conduct the very thing He had previously approved by commanding it? But since there is some difficulty in Christ's words, let us weigh them carefully. We will never arrive at the truth here unless we fix our eyes on Christ's intent and pay attention to what He was addressing. His purpose was not to loosen or tighten the law, but to restore it to its true and natural meaning, which had been greatly corrupted by the false interpretations of the scribes and Pharisees. If we keep this in mind, we will not think that Christ utterly condemned oaths, but only those oaths that break the law's rule. From this it is clear that the people of that time avoided only perjury, while the law forbids not only perjury but also all idle and superstitious oaths. Therefore, the Lord -- the most reliable interpreter of the law -- warns them that it is wrong not only to swear falsely but also to swear carelessly. But how wrong? To swear in vain. As for those oaths that the law commends, He leaves them safe and free. Some think they argue more strongly by seizing on the word "at all," but it does not refer to the word "swear." It refers to the types of swearing listed afterward. Part of the people's error was that when they swore by heaven and earth, they thought they were not touching the name of God. So after addressing the main offense against this commandment, the Lord also cuts off all their evasions. They should not think they have escaped guilt by avoiding God's name while calling heaven and earth to witness. It should also be noted here that although the name of God may not be expressly stated, people do swear by Him indirectly -- as when they swear by the light they see, by the bread they eat, by their baptism, or by other signs of God's generosity toward them. When Christ forbids them to swear by heaven, earth, and Jerusalem, He is not correcting superstition, as some wrongly think. Rather, He is refuting their clever excuse. They thought it was harmless to throw out indirect oaths, as though they were sparing God's holy name -- a name that is engraved on all His gifts. It is different, however, when a mortal person, a dead person, or an angel is put in the place of God. Among pagan nations, flattery devised the corrupt practice of swearing by the life or soul of the king. In such cases, the false creation of gods obscures and diminishes the glory of the one true God. But when we simply intend to support our statements with the holy name of God, even if done indirectly, His majesty is offended in all such careless oaths. Christ removes all pretense of excuse from this recklessness by forbidding swearing "at all." James serves the same purpose, quoting the same words of Christ I mentioned above, because this same reckless boldness has always existed in the world -- a profane misuse of God's name. If you apply the word "at all" to the substance, as if it were absolutely and without exception unlawful to swear, why does the explanation that follows say: "Neither by heaven nor by earth," etc.? This clearly shows that those evasions are being addressed by which the Jews thought their fault could be excused.

Therefore, no one with sound judgment can doubt that the Lord in that passage only reproved the oaths forbidden by the law. He Himself, who showed in His life an example of the perfection He taught, did not hesitate to swear when the occasion required it. His disciples, who undoubtedly obeyed their Master in all things, followed the same example. Who would dare to say that Paul would have sworn if swearing had been completely forbidden? Yet when the situation required it, he swore without hesitation, sometimes even adding a solemn curse. But this question is not yet settled, because some believe that only public oaths are exempt from this prohibition -- such as those we take when a magistrate requires them. This category includes the oaths princes take when establishing treaties, the oaths people swear in pledging allegiance to their ruler, and the oaths soldiers take for faithful military service. They also rightly include in this category oaths like Paul's, which confirm the dignity of the Gospel, since the apostles in their office were not private individuals but public ministers of God. I certainly do not deny that these are the safest oaths, because they are supported by the strongest testimonies of Scripture. The magistrate is commanded to put a witness under oath in a doubtful case. The witness in turn must answer under oath. And the apostle says that people's disputes are settled by this means. In this commandment, both parties receive full approval of their duties. It is worth noting that among ancient pagans, public and solemn oaths were held in great respect, while common oaths spoken casually were given little or no regard. They thought that casual oaths had nothing to do with God's majesty. But it would be too extreme to condemn private oaths that are taken soberly, reverently, and out of genuine necessity. These are supported by both reason and examples. If it is lawful for private individuals in a weighty and serious matter to appeal to God as judge between them, it is surely also lawful to call Him as witness. Consider this scenario: your brother accuses you of breaking faith. You try to clear yourself as charity requires, but he refuses to be satisfied no matter what. If your good reputation is in danger because of his stubborn hostility, you may without offense appeal to God's judgment, asking Him to make your innocence known in due time. Now, if we consider the weight of the words, calling God as witness is a lesser matter than calling Him as judge. Therefore, I see no reason to say that calling Him as witness is unlawful in such a case. We have many examples of this. Though the oath of Abraham and Isaac with Abimelech was made on behalf of a public community and does not exactly serve our purpose, Jacob and Laban were private men who established a covenant between themselves with mutual oaths. Boaz was a private man who confirmed his promise of marriage to Ruth in the same way. Obadiah was a private man, a just and God-fearing person, who affirmed something to Elijah by oath to persuade him. Therefore, I have no better rule than this: oaths should be measured so that they are not taken carelessly, are not common or careless, are not used from raging desire or for trivial matters, but serve genuine necessity -- such as when the Lord's glory must be upheld or when a brother's spiritual growth must be advanced. This is the purpose toward which the law's commandment directs us.

The Fourth Commandment.

Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days you shall work and do all your work. But on the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. Etc.

The purpose of this commandment is that we, being dead to our own desires and works, should devote ourselves to meditating on the kingdom of God, and that we should practice this meditation through the means He has established. But because this commandment requires a different approach from the rest, it must also have a different method of explanation. The early church fathers used to call it a ceremonial commandment, because it contains the outward observance of a day, which was taken away by Christ's coming along with the other ceremonial figures. I agree they are right about this, but they only touch on half the matter. Therefore, we must dig deeper for the explanation. I believe there are three reasons behind this commandment, as I see it. First, the heavenly lawgiver intended, through the rest of the seventh day, to give the people of Israel a picture of the spiritual rest by which the faithful should cease from their own works and allow God to work in them. Second, He wanted them to have one appointed day on which they would gather to hear the law and participate in ceremonies -- or at least dedicate it especially to meditating on His works. Through this regular practice of remembrance, they would be trained in godliness. Third, He thought it good to grant a day of rest to servants and those living under the authority of others, so they could have some relief from their labor.

We are taught in many ways that the spiritual rest was the principal point of the Sabbath. The Lord required the keeping of no commandment more strictly than this one. When the prophets want to show that all religion has been overthrown, they complain that His Sabbaths are polluted, defiled, unkept, and unsanctified -- as if once this act of worship was neglected, nothing remained by which He might be honored. He praised the observance of the Sabbath with the highest commendations. For this reason, the faithful held the revelation of the Sabbath in remarkably high regard among all the other commandments. In Nehemiah, the Levites said in a solemn assembly: "You showed Your holy Sabbath to our fathers, and gave them commandments, ceremonies, and the law through Moses." You see how the Sabbath is given a special place of honor among all the commandments of the law. All of this serves to emphasize the dignity of the mystery, which Moses and Ezekiel express very well. In Exodus you find this: "See that you keep My Sabbath day, because it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, so that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. Keep My Sabbath, for it is holy to you." "Let the children of Israel keep the Sabbath and celebrate it throughout their generations. It is an everlasting covenant between Me and the children of Israel, and a perpetual sign." Ezekiel speaks even more extensively about this. But his point comes down to this: that the Sabbath is a sign by which Israel would know that God is the One who sanctifies them. If our sanctification consists in putting to death our own will, then there is a perfectly fitting connection between the outward sign and the inward reality it represents. We must completely rest so that God may work in us. We must abandon our own will, surrender our hearts, and banish all desires of the flesh. In short, we must cease from all the activities of our own minds so that God may work in us and we may rest in Him, as the apostle also teaches.

This perpetual rest was represented to the Jews by the keeping of one day out of seven. To make its observance more devoted, the Lord confirmed it by His own example. It is no small motivation for human effort to know that we are striving to follow our Creator. If anyone looks for a hidden meaning in the number seven, since that number in Scripture represents perfection, it was not chosen without reason to signify everlasting continuance. This also fits with the fact that Moses, on the day he described the Lord resting from His works, stops naming the succession of days and nights. Another likely explanation for the number is that the Lord meant to show the Sabbath would never be perfectly fulfilled until the last day. In this present life, we begin our blessed rest, and we continue to make progress in it daily. But since we still wage a constant war against the flesh, it will not be completed until the saying of Isaiah is fulfilled -- about the continuing of new moon with new moon and Sabbath with Sabbath -- even when God will be all in all. It may be, then, that the Lord used the seventh day to set before His people the future perfection of His Sabbath on the last day, so that our whole life might aspire to this perfection through continual meditation on the Sabbath.

If anyone dislikes this interpretation of the number as too speculative, I will not argue. They may take it more simply: that the Lord appointed one certain day on which His people, under the training of the law, could practice the continual meditation of spiritual rest. He assigned the seventh day either because He thought it was sufficient, or because by presenting the likeness of His own example He could better motivate the people to keep it, or at least to remind them that the Sabbath had no other purpose than to make them like their Creator. The specific number matters little, so long as the mystery remains that the commandment primarily teaches: the perpetual rest from our own works. The prophets would occasionally call the Jews back to this truth, so they would not think they had fulfilled the commandment by merely stopping physical labor. Besides the passages already mentioned, you find this in Isaiah: "If you turn your foot from the Sabbath, if you do not pursue your own desires on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable, and honor Him by not going your own way or seeking your own pleasure or speaking your own words, then you will delight yourself in the Lord," and so on. But there is no doubt that by the coming of our Lord Christ, everything ceremonial in this commandment was set aside. He is the truth, by whose presence all figures vanish. He is the body, the sight of which makes shadows disappear. He, I say, is the true fulfillment of the Sabbath. Being buried with Him through baptism, we are grafted into the fellowship of His death, so that as partakers of His resurrection we may walk in newness of life. Therefore, in another place the apostle writes that the Sabbath was a shadow of a thing to come, and that the true body -- that is, the perfect substance of truth -- is in Christ, which he has clearly explained in the same passage. This is not contained in one day, but in the whole course of our life, until we are utterly dead to ourselves and filled with the life of God. Therefore, superstitious observance of days should be far from Christians.

But since the two latter purposes should not be counted among the old ceremonial shadows and belong equally to all ages, the following still applies to us even though the Sabbath is set aside: we should meet on appointed days to hear the word, to break the mystical bread, and for public prayer; and servants and laborers should be granted rest from their work. There is no doubt that in commanding the Sabbath, the Lord had both of these things in mind. The first is proven well enough by the practice of the Jews alone. The second is stated by Moses in Deuteronomy: "That your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. Remember that you yourself served in Egypt." Again in Exodus: "That your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your servant may take a breath." Who can deny that both of these apply to us just as much as to the Jews? Church gatherings are commanded by God's word, and the necessity of them is clear from the very experience of life. Unless they are set at appointed and regular times, how can they be maintained? The apostle says that all things among us must be done properly and in order. But it is so far from true that order can be maintained without this arrangement that the church would immediately fall into trouble and ruin if it were abandoned. Now, if the same need exists among us that led the Lord to establish the Sabbath for the Jews, let no one say it has nothing to do with us. Our most caring and tender Father wanted to provide for our needs no less than He did for the Jews. But you might ask: why not meet daily, so the distinction between days could be removed? I wish that were possible. Devoting time daily to spiritual growth would certainly be worthy. But since the weakness of many prevents daily meetings, and the rule of charity does not allow us to demand more of them, why should we not follow the pattern that we see laid upon us by God's will?

I am forced to spend some time on this point, because in our day many restless people stir up trouble over Sunday. They complain that Christian people are being nurtured in a Jewish spirit because they observe certain days. But I reply that we observe these days without any trace of Jewish practice, because in this matter we are far different from the Jews. We do not keep the day as a strict religious ceremony in which we think some spiritual mystery is represented. Instead, we maintain it as a necessary tool for preserving order in the church. Paul teaches that Christians should not be judged for keeping such days, because the Sabbath was a shadow of things to come. For this reason, he feared he had labored in vain among the Galatians because they still observed special days. He also tells the Romans that it is superstitious to make distinctions between days. But who, aside from these extremists, cannot see what kind of observance the apostle means? Those people did not consider the practical purpose and church order. Instead, they kept the days as shadows of spiritual things, and in doing so they obscured Christ's glory and the light of the Gospel. They did not stop working because work would distract them from holy studies and meditation. Rather, they stopped out of a kind of religious ritual, imagining that by resting they were preserving the mysteries handed down to them from ancient times. The apostle, I say, attacks this disordered observance of days, not the lawful choice of days that serves the peace of Christian fellowship. In the churches he himself established, the Sabbath was kept for this practical purpose. He appointed the same day for the Corinthians to gather their collection for the relief of the brothers in Jerusalem. If they fear superstition, there was more danger of it in the Jewish feast days than in the Sundays Christians now observe. As was fitting for the overthrow of superstition, the day the Jews religiously observed was removed. And as was necessary for keeping order and peace in the church, another day was appointed for the same use.

The early fathers had good reason for replacing the Sabbath with the day we call Sunday. Since the fulfillment of the spiritual rest that the old Sabbath foreshadowed is found in Christ's resurrection, Christians are reminded by that same day -- the day that ended the shadows -- that they should no longer cling to the ceremonial shadow. Yet I do not cling so rigidly to the number seven that I would bind the church to it. Nor will I condemn churches that have other special days for their gatherings, as long as they are free from superstition. They will be free from superstition if they are used only for maintaining discipline and good order. Let the summary be this: as the truth was given to the Jews through a figure, so it is delivered to us without any shadows at all. First, throughout our entire lives we should meditate on a continual Sabbath -- a rest from our own works -- so that the Lord may work in us by His Spirit. Second, every person should privately exercise themselves in devout reflection on God's works as often as they have time. We should also all observe the lawful order the church has established for hearing the word, for the administration of the sacraments, and for public prayer. Third, we should not unkindly oppress those under our authority. This is how the foolish ideas of the false prophets collapse -- those who in past ages infected the people with a Jewish mindset. They claimed that only the ceremonial aspect of this commandment was removed (what they called the designation of the seventh day), while the moral aspect remains (the keeping of one day per week). But in effect, this amounts to nothing more than changing the day to reproach the Jews while still keeping the same sense of holiness in their minds. The same mysterious significance of the day remains among them as it did among the Jews. And truly, we see what good their teaching has done. Those who cling to their rules end up surpassing the Jews in crude and carnal Sabbath superstition. The rebukes found in Isaiah apply no less to them today than to those the prophet originally criticized. But this general principle must be maintained above all: religion must not be allowed to decline or grow weak among us. Therefore, holy gatherings must be diligently kept, and those outward helps that nourish the worship of God must be maintained.

The Fifth Commandment.

Honor your father and your mother, that you may live long in the land which the Lord your God shall give you.

The purpose of this commandment is that because the Lord delights in preserving His established order, He wills that the ranks of authority He has ordained not be violated. The summary, then, is that we should reverence those whom the Lord has set over us, and give them honor, obedience, and gratitude. From this it follows that we are forbidden to take anything from their dignity through contempt, stubbornness, or ingratitude. The word "honor" has a very broad meaning in Scripture. When the apostle says that elders who rule well are worthy of double honor, he means not only that reverence is owed to them, but also the compensation their ministry deserves. Because this commandment of submission is most contrary to the perverseness of human nature -- which swells with eagerness to climb high and can barely endure being brought low -- God has set the most naturally lovable and least offensive form of authority as an example. By this He could more easily humble and train our minds to accept submission. Therefore, through the easiest form of obedience, the Lord gradually trains us for all lawful submission, since the same principle applies to all authority. To whoever He gives any position of authority, He shares His own name with them insofar as it is needed to maintain that authority. The titles of Father, God, and Lord belong to Him alone, so that whenever we hear any of these names, our minds should be struck with a sense of His majesty. Therefore, those He makes sharers in these titles He causes to shine with a certain spark of His brightness, so that each may be honored according to their rank. So in the one who is our father, we should see something of the nature of God, because he does not bear God's name without reason. The one who is our prince or lord shares in some measure of God's honor.

Therefore, there should be no doubt that God here sets a general rule: whenever we recognize that someone has been placed over us by His appointment, we should give them reverence, obedience, gratitude, and whatever other duties we can perform. It makes no difference whether they are worthy or unworthy. Whatever sort they may be, they have not attained that position without God's providence. For this reason, the lawgiver wills that they be honored. He has specifically commanded reverence toward parents, who brought us into this life. Nature itself should practically instruct us in this reverence. Those who break the authority of parents through dishonor or stubbornness are monsters, not human beings. Therefore, the Lord commanded all who disobey their parents to be put to death, as people unworthy of enjoying the light of life who refuse to acknowledge the ones through whom they received it. Several additions in the law confirm what we have already noted: that there are three parts to the honor spoken of here -- reverence, obedience, and gratitude. God establishes the first part when He commands that anyone who curses his father or mother be put to death, for there He punishes contempt and dishonor toward parents. He confirms the second part when He assigns the death penalty for disobedient and rebellious children. The third part is found in Christ's saying in Matthew 15, that it is God's commandment to do good to our parents. And whenever Paul mentions this commandment, he explains that obedience is what it requires.

An attached promise serves to commend this commandment, reminding us how pleasing to God the submission commanded here is. Paul uses this same incentive to stir up our dullness when he says that this is the first commandment with a promise. The promise that appeared earlier in the first table was not specific to one commandment but extended to the whole law. This promise should be understood as follows: the Lord spoke specifically to the Israelites about the land He had promised them as their inheritance. If possessing the land was a pledge of God's generosity, we should not be surprised that it pleased God to demonstrate His favor by granting length of life, through which a person could long enjoy His gift. The meaning, then, is this: "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may enjoy possession of the land for a long time, which will serve as a testimony of My grace." But since the whole earth is blessed to the faithful, we rightly count this present life among God's blessings. Therefore, this promise applies to us as well, since long life is proof of God's goodwill. Long life is not promised to us -- nor was it promised to the Jews -- as though blessedness were found in it alone, but because it is customarily a sign of God's tender love. So if it happens that an obedient child is taken from this life before reaching old age -- as often occurs -- God is no less faithful in keeping His promise than if He rewarded someone who was promised one acre with a hundred acres. Everything comes down to this: long life is promised to us insofar as it is a blessing from God, and it is a blessing insofar as it is proof of His favor -- which He demonstrates even more fully and perfectly to His servants through death.

Furthermore, when the Lord promises the blessing of this present life to children who honor their parents as they should, He is also quietly declaring that a sure curse hangs over stubborn and disobedient children. To make sure this is carried out, He declares them subject to the death penalty through His law and commands their execution. And if they escape that judgment, He Himself takes vengeance on them by one means or another. We see how many of that kind are killed in wars and fights, while others are tormented in strange and unusual ways. Nearly all of them prove that this threat is not empty. But even if some escape to old age, since they are deprived of God's blessing in this life and do nothing but miserably waste away -- and are reserved for greater punishments hereafter -- they are far from sharing in the blessing promised to godly children. This should also be noted along the way: we are not commanded to obey parents except in the Lord. This is clear from the foundation already laid. Parents sit in the high place where the Lord has advanced them by sharing a portion of His honor with them. Therefore, the submission we show to them should be a stepping-stone toward honoring that supreme Father. So if they push us to break the law, they rightly cease to be regarded as parents and become strangers trying to pull us away from obedience to the true Father. The same principle applies to princes, lords, and all kinds of superiors. It would be shameful and unreasonable for their authority to overpower His, since their authority depends entirely on His and should only serve to lead us toward Him.

The Sixth Commandment.

You shall not kill.

The purpose of this commandment is that since God has bound all humanity together in a certain unity, every person should regard the safety of all others as something entrusted to their care. In summary, all violence, injury, and harm by which our neighbor's body may be hurt is forbidden. We are therefore commanded to faithfully use whatever power we have to defend our neighbors' lives, to seek their wellbeing, to watch out for any harm that might come to them, and to help them when they are in danger. If you consider that God the lawgiver says this, then also remember that He intends this rule to govern your soul as well. It would be foolish to think that He who sees the thoughts of the heart and cares about them above all would instruct only the body in true righteousness. Therefore, murder in the heart is also forbidden by this law, and we are commanded to feel a genuine desire to preserve our brother's life. The hand carries out the murder, but the mind conceives it when it is infected with wrath and hatred. Ask yourself whether you can be angry with your brother without burning with desire to harm him. If you cannot be angry without wanting to harm him, then you cannot hate him either, since hatred is nothing but deep-rooted, settled anger. Although you pretend otherwise and try to excuse yourself with empty arguments, wherever anger or hatred exists, there is a desire to cause harm. If you still try to dodge with excuses, the mouth of the Holy Spirit has already declared that anyone who hates his brother in his heart is a murderer. The mouth of the Lord Christ has declared that whoever is angry with his brother is guilty of judgment, that whoever says "Raca" is guilty before the council, and that whoever says "You fool" is guilty of the fire of hell.

Scripture points to two principles of fairness on which this commandment is grounded. Since a person is both the image of God and our own flesh, we must treat them as sacred if we do not want to defile God's image, and we must care for them as our own flesh if we do not want to abandon our own humanity. The kind of encouragement that comes from the redemption and grace of Christ will be discussed in another place. God intended us to naturally consider two things about every person that should persuade us to preserve their life: that we should both respect the image of God stamped on them and embrace them as our own flesh. No one has escaped the guilt of murder simply by not shedding blood. If you do anything in action, attempt anything through effort, or conceive anything in desire and intention that threatens another person's safety, you are guilty of murder. And again: if you do not work as much as you can and as the occasion allows to defend someone's life, you break the law with equal seriousness. If such great care is taken for the safety of the body, we should gather from this how much effort and labor is owed to the safety of the soul, which in the Lord's sight infinitely surpasses the body.

The Seventh Commandment.

You shall not commit adultery.

The purpose of this commandment is that since God loves purity and cleanness, all impurity should be far from us. The summary, then, is that we should not defile ourselves with any impurity or lustful excess of the flesh. The corresponding positive commandment is that we chastely and modestly order every part of our lives. God specifically forbids fornication by name, because all unchaste desire leads to it. By condemning what is most crude and obvious -- since it also defiles the body -- He brings us to hate all lustful desire. Since human beings were created not to live alone but to have a partner joined to them, and since the curse of sin has made this need even more pressing, the Lord has provided sufficient help in this area. He established marriage, sanctifying with His blessing the companionship that was begun by His authority. From this it follows that every sexual union between a man and woman outside of marriage is cursed before God, and that marriage itself was established as a remedy for our weakness, so that we would not run headlong into uncontrolled lust. Therefore, let us not deceive ourselves, since we hear that no one can be joined to another outside of marriage without God's curse.

Since by the condition of our nature, and even more so by the lust kindled after the fall, we are doubly prone to desire the company of women -- except those whom God by His special grace has exempted from this -- let each person carefully consider what has been given to them. Virginity, I grant, is a virtue not to be despised. But since it is denied to some and granted to others only for a time, those who struggle with sexual temptation and cannot overcome it should turn to marriage as the help for maintaining chastity according to their station in life. Those who cannot receive this word, if they do not address their lack of self-control with the remedy that is offered and granted to them, are fighting against God and resisting His plan. Let no one object to me, as many do today, that with God's help a person can do all things. God's help is present only for those who walk in His ways -- that is, in the calling from which all these people withdraw, who reject God's appointed helps and try to master their needs through empty, reckless boldness. The Lord declares that sexual self-control is a unique gift from God, and of the kind that is not given generally to the whole body of the church, but to a few of its members. First, He says that there is a certain kind of person who has made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven -- that is, so they may more freely and fully devote themselves to the affairs of the heavenly kingdom. But so that no one would think such self-control is within human power, He had shown a little before that not everyone can receive this, but only those to whom it is specifically given from heaven. He concludes: "Let the one who is able to receive it, receive it." Paul affirms this even more plainly when he writes that every person has their own gift from God -- one this way, and another that way.

Since we are plainly warned that it is not in every person's power to remain chaste while single -- no matter how hard they try -- and that this is a unique grace God gives only to certain people so they may be more available for His work, are we not fighting against God and the nature He has established if we do not match our way of living to the measure of our ability? Here the Lord forbids fornication, and so He requires purity and chastity from us. The only way to maintain these is for each person to measure themselves by their own capacity. No one should despise marriage as something useless or unnecessary, nor should they desire the single life unless they are truly able to live without a spouse. Even in this, they should not merely seek the comfort and convenience of the flesh, but should remain unmarried only so they may be more ready and prepared for every duty of godliness. Since the gift of celibacy is given to many for only a limited time, each person should abstain from marriage only as long as they are fit to maintain the single state. If they lack the strength to control their desires, let them understand that the Lord has now placed upon them the necessity of marrying. The apostle shows this when he commands that to avoid fornication, every man should have his own wife, and every woman her own husband. If anyone cannot live in self-control, they should marry in the Lord. First he declares that the majority of people are prone to the weakness of sexual desire. Then, of those who are prone to it, he excludes no one, but commands all of them to turn to marriage as the only remedy against impurity. Therefore, if those who lack self-control neglect to help their weakness through this means, they sin by disobeying the apostle's command. And let no one flatter himself who does not touch a woman, thinking he cannot be accused of impurity while his mind burns inwardly with lust. Paul defines chastity as purity of mind joined with purity of body. "An unmarried woman," he says, "thinks about the things of the Lord, since she is holy both in body and in spirit." Therefore, when he gives a reason to support the previous command, he does not merely say that it is better for a man to take a wife than to defile himself with a prostitute. He says it is better to marry than to burn.

Now if married couples acknowledge that their union is blessed by the Lord, they are reminded not to defile it with uncontrolled and excessive lust. Although the honor of marriage covers the shame of sexual weakness, it should not become a license for it. Therefore, married couples should not think that everything is permissible between them. Rather, let each husband conduct himself with his wife soberly, and each wife with her husband. In doing so, let them commit nothing unfitting to the honor and modesty of marriage. Marriage made in the Lord should be kept within the bounds of moderation and decency, not allowed to overflow into every kind of extreme indulgence. Ambrose rebuked this indulgence with a saying that was indeed severe but not unfitting: he called a husband who shows no regard for modesty or decency in the marriage bed the adulterer of his own wife. Finally, let us consider who the lawgiver is that condemns fornication here. It is He who by His own right ought to possess us entirely, and who requires purity of soul, spirit, and body. Therefore, when He forbids fornication, He also forbids using provocative clothing, indecent gestures, and filthy speech to ensnare another person's chastity. Archelaus' remark to a young man who was excessively flashy and showy in his dress is worth remembering: he said it made no difference which part of his body was defiled by impurity. We should keep this in mind if we have any regard for God, who hates all filthiness wherever it appears, whether in our soul or body. And to remove all doubt, remember that the Lord here commends chastity. If the Lord requires chastity from us, then He condemns everything that opposes it. Therefore, if you want to show obedience: do not let your mind burn inwardly with evil desire, do not let your eyes wander after corrupt attractions, do not let your body be dressed up to lure others, do not let your tongue with filthy talk entice your mind to similar thoughts, and do not let gluttony inflame you with lack of self-control. All these vices are like stains that soil the purity of chastity.

The Eighth Commandment.

You shall not steal.

The purpose of this commandment is that since God hates injustice, each person should receive what rightly belongs to them. The summary, then, is that we are forbidden to covet other people's goods, and we are commanded to faithfully work to preserve each person's property. We should think of it this way: whatever each person possesses has not come to them by chance, but by the distribution of the sovereign Lord of all things. Therefore, no one's goods can be taken from them by evil means without committing an offense against God's arrangement. There are many kinds of theft. One consists of violence, when another person's goods are seized through force and reckless robbery. Another kind consists of malicious deceit, when goods are slyly stolen away. Another kind involves a more hidden cunning, when goods are wrested from the owner under the guise of law. Another kind uses flattery, when goods are drained away under the pretense of a gift. But rather than listing every kind of theft in detail, let us recognize this: all crafty methods by which our neighbor's possessions and money are diverted to us -- whenever they stray from sincere intentions toward a desire to cheat or cause harm -- must be considered theft. Although such people may win their case in a court of law, God does not evaluate things the same way. He sees the long, cunning schemes by which a deceitful person begins to entangle the simpler mind until they finally draw them into their net. He sees the harsh and unfair laws by which the powerful oppress and crush the weak. He sees the seductive lures by which the clever person catches the unsuspecting, like baited hooks. All these things are hidden from human judgment and never come to human knowledge. This kind of wrongdoing occurs not only with money, merchandise, or land, but with every right a person has. We defraud our neighbor of their goods whenever we withhold the services we owe them. If a lazy or dishonest manager wastes his master's resources, or is not diligent in managing them, or wrongfully squanders or recklessly destroys what was entrusted to him; if a servant mocks his master, reveals his secrets, betrays his life or property -- and conversely, if a master cruelly oppresses his household -- all these people are guilty of theft before God. For whoever fails to fulfill their obligations according to their calling both withholds and diverts what belongs to another.

We will rightly obey this commandment if, being content with our own situation, we seek only honest and lawful gain. We must not covet growing rich through injustice, nor try to strip our neighbor of their goods to increase our own. We must not try to heap up cruel wealth squeezed from other people's blood. We must not endlessly scrape together everything we can, by right or by wrong, to fill our greed or satisfy our wasteful spending. On the other side, let this be our constant aim: to faithfully help all people by counsel and action to keep what is theirs, as far as we are able. If we are dealing with dishonest and deceitful people, let us rather be willing to give up some of our own than fight with them. And not only that, but let us share with those in need, and from our resources relieve the hardship of those we see oppressed by poverty. Finally, let each person consider what they owe to others by duty, and faithfully pay it. For this reason, let the people hold in honor all those set over them, patiently bear their governance, obey their laws and commands, and refuse nothing they can bear while keeping God's favor. In return, let rulers care for their people, preserve public peace, defend the good, restrain the wicked, and manage all things as those ready to give an account of their office to the supreme judge. Let the ministers of churches faithfully carry out their ministry and not corrupt the doctrine of salvation, but deliver it pure and sincere to the people of God. Let them instruct not only through teaching but also through the example of their lives. In short, let them watch over their people as good shepherds watch over their sheep. Let the people in turn receive them as messengers and apostles of God, give them the honor that the highest Master has granted them, and provide for their needs. Let parents take up the responsibility to feed, govern, and teach their children as those entrusted to them by God. Let them not provoke or embitter their children with harshness, but instead cherish and embrace them with the kindness and tenderness that befits their role. We have already discussed how children owe obedience to their parents in the same way. Let young people respect old age, as the Lord willed that age should be honored. Let older people also guide the weakness of youth with their wisdom and experience -- in which they surpass the young -- not with rough and loud scolding, but by balancing strictness with gentleness and kindness. Let servants show themselves diligent and willing to obey, not just when they are being watched, but from the heart, as serving God Himself. And let masters not be irritable and impossible to please, nor oppress their servants with excessive harshness, nor treat them with insult. Instead, let them recognize that servants are their brothers and fellow servants under the heavenly Lord, whom they ought to love and treat gently. In this way, I say, let every person consider what they owe to their neighbors in their position and place, and let them pay what they owe. Furthermore, our minds should always keep the lawgiver in view, so we may know that this law is made for our hearts as well as our hands -- that people should devote themselves to protecting and advancing the well-being and profit of others.

The Ninth Commandment.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

The purpose of this commandment is that since God, who is truth, hates lying, we must practice truthfulness without any deceptive disguise. The summary, then, is that we must not harm anyone's reputation through slander or false reports, nor hinder them in their goods through lying. In short, we must not wrong anyone through a love of gossip or busybody talk. Connected to this prohibition is the positive command: as far as we are able, we should faithfully work to defend everyone's reputation and property by affirming the truth. The Lord seems to have explained this commandment in Exodus 23: "You shall not spread a false report, nor join your hand to speak false witness for the wicked." Again: "You shall flee from lying." In another place, He does not merely call us away from lying by warning us not to be accusers or gossips among the people. He also forbids anyone from deceiving their neighbor, prohibiting both kinds of wrong in separate commandments. There is no doubt that just as God has forbidden cruelty, sexual sin, and greed in the earlier commandments, here He restrains falsehood. Falsehood has two parts, as we noted before. Either we damage our neighbor's good name through malicious desire to slander, or we hinder their interests through lying and sometimes through hostile speech. It makes no difference whether formal, judicial testimony is meant here, or the ordinary testimony used in private conversation. We must always return to this principle: among all the general categories of a vice, one specific example is highlighted. It is chosen especially because the ugliness of the fault is most obvious in that example. Though it would be appropriate to extend this more broadly to slander and hostile gossip that wrongfully hurts our neighbors -- since courtroom lying is never without perjury. But perjury, insofar as it profanes and defiles the name of God, has already been sufficiently addressed in the third commandment. Therefore, the right use of this commandment is that our tongue should serve both our neighbor's good name and well-being by affirming the truth. The fairness of this is more than obvious. If a good reputation is more precious than any treasure, then being stripped of a good name harms a person no less than being robbed of their goods. And sometimes false testimony damages a person's resources just as much as violent theft. Yet it is remarkable how carelessly people commonly offend in this area. Very few people are not seriously infected with this disease. We are so delighted by a poisonous sweetness in both searching out and exposing other people's faults. Let us not think it is excuse enough if we do not outright lie. The One who forbids your neighbor's name from being stained with lies also wants it preserved unharmed, as far as the truth will allow. However much a person may guard against lying themselves, by doing only that they silently admit they have some responsibility for their neighbor. But this should be enough to keep our neighbor's good name safe: that God cares about it. Therefore, all malicious speech is utterly condemned. By malicious speech, we do not mean the rebuke used for correction, nor accusation or legal proceedings seeking a remedy for wrongdoing, nor public criticism aimed at making other sinners afraid, nor revealing faults to those who need to be warned for their own safety. We mean only spiteful accusation that arises from malice and a willful desire to gossip. This commandment also extends to this: we must not use mocking humor mixed with bitter taunts, stinging others under the pretense of fun. Many people seek a reputation for wit at the expense of others' shame and even grief. Through such reckless ridicule, neighbors are often seriously harmed. Now if we turn our eyes to the lawgiver -- who by rightful authority must rule our ears and minds no less than our tongues -- we will find that eagerness to hear slander and a hasty readiness to make harsh judgments are equally forbidden. It would be very foolish to think that God hates the fault of evil speech on the tongue but does not disapprove of the fault of malice in the heart. Therefore, if we have a true fear and love of God, let us strive as far as we can -- as far as is fitting and as charity allows -- to give neither our tongues nor our ears to slander and bitter mockery. Let us not rashly yield our minds to unfounded suspicions. Instead, as fair-minded interpreters of everyone's words and actions, let us protect their honor with gentleness in our judgment, our hearing, and our speech.

The Tenth Commandment.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house, etc.

The purpose of this commandment is that since the Lord wills our entire soul to be possessed by the desire to love, all desire contrary to charity must be driven out of our minds. The summary, then, is that no thought should creep into us that might move our minds with a harmful longing that turns toward another person's loss. The corresponding positive command is that whatever we conceive, intend, desire, or pursue should be joined with the benefit and advantage of our neighbors. But here a difficult problem seems to arise. If what we said earlier is true -- that the names "fornication" and "theft" already include the desire to fornicate and the intention to deceive and steal -- then it might seem unnecessary to separately forbid coveting other people's goods. But the distinction between intention and coveting easily resolves this. Intention, as we have described it in the previous commandments, is deliberate consent of the will after desire has taken hold of the mind. But coveting can occur without any such deliberate decision or agreement. It happens when the mind is merely pricked and stirred by empty and perverse attractions. Therefore, just as the Lord previously commanded that the rule of charity should govern our wills, our efforts, and our works, now He commands that even the conceptions of our minds be directed by the same rule. None of them should be crooked or twisted in a way that might tempt our minds in another direction. Just as He previously forbade our minds from being led toward wrath, hatred, fornication, robbery, and lying, He now forbids us from being even slightly moved toward them.

It is not without good reason that God requires such great uprightness. Who can deny that it is right for all the powers of the soul to be filled with charity? But if any of them strays from charity's aim, who can deny that something is wrong? Where do so many desires harmful to your neighbor come from, if not from this: that you neglect your neighbor and care only for yourself? If your mind were completely saturated with charity, none of it would be open to such thoughts. Therefore, to the extent that it entertains coveting, it must be lacking in charity. But someone will object that it hardly seems right to condemn the random thoughts that are tossed around in a person's mind without order and eventually vanish, since the heart is where coveting truly resides. I answer that we are talking about the kind of thoughts that, while present in our minds, simultaneously bite and stir our hearts with desire. Our minds never wish for anything without our hearts being stirred up and leaping along with them. Therefore, God commands an extraordinary intensity of love. He will not allow it to be entangled by even the smallest snares of coveting. He requires a remarkably well-ordered mind, which He does not allow to be even slightly stirred against the law of love by the faintest provocations. Augustine first opened the way for me to this interpretation, so that you will not think it lacks the support of a serious authority. Although the Lord's purpose was to forbid all wrongful coveting, in describing it He specifically named the things that most commonly deceive us with a false image of pleasure. He wanted to leave nothing for coveting to feed on, so He drew it away from the things on which it most strongly rages and triumphs. Here then is the second table of the law, which teaches us well enough what we owe to others for God's sake. The whole rule of charity depends on this. Therefore, you will call in vain for the duties contained in this table unless your teaching rests on the fear and reverence of God as its foundation. As for those who seek to find two commandments in the prohibition of coveting, the wise reader, even without my comment, will judge that they are wrongly splitting apart what was a single commandment. And it makes no difference to our case that the phrase "You shall not covet" is repeated a second time. After first naming the house, God lists its parts, beginning with the wife. This makes it perfectly clear that the whole passage -- as the Hebrews rightly read it -- should be taken as one sentence. In essence, God commands that everything each person possesses should remain safe and untouched, not only from wrongful actions and desire to defraud, but even from the very slightest craving that might stir our minds.

Now it is not hard to see what the whole law aims at: the fulfillment of righteousness, so that it might shape human life after the pattern of God's purity. God has painted a portrait of His own nature in the law. If a person carries out in action what is commanded there, they will in a sense express an image of God in their life. When Moses wanted to summarize the law for the Israelites, he said: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord and walk in His ways?" "Love Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep His commandments?" He never stopped repeating this same message whenever he wanted to point out the law's purpose. The doctrine of the law focuses on this: joining a person to God -- or as Moses puts it elsewhere, making them cling to God -- in holiness of life. Now, the perfection of that holiness consists in the two principal points already discussed: that we love the Lord God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. The first and most important thing is that our soul be filled in every part with love for God. From that, love for our neighbor naturally flows. The apostle shows this when he writes that the goal of the law is love from a pure conscience and a sincere faith. You see how conscience and sincere faith -- that is, in a word, true godliness -- are placed at the head, and from there charity is derived. Therefore, anyone who thinks that the law teaches only basic introductions to righteousness, merely getting people started in their moral education without directing them to the true goal of good works, is mistaken. Beyond the statement of Moses and this one of Paul, you could not wish for anything more in terms of the highest perfection. How far will someone go who is not satisfied with this instruction -- which teaches people to fear God, to worship Him spiritually, to obey His commandments, to follow the uprightness of the Lord's way, and finally to pursue purity of conscience, sincere faith, and love? This confirms the interpretation of the law that searches for and finds in the commandments all the duties of godliness and love. Those who follow only the dry and bare letter, as if the law taught only half of God's will, do not understand its purpose, as the apostle testifies.

But when Christ and the apostles summarize the law, they sometimes leave out the first table, which misleads many people. They try to stretch these words to cover both tables. In Matthew, Christ calls the chief points of the law mercy, judgment, and faith. Under the word "faith" here, I have no doubt He means truthfulness or faithfulness toward others. But some interpreters, wanting to extend the statement to the whole law, take it to mean devotion toward God. They labor in vain. Christ is speaking about the works by which a person should demonstrate their righteousness. Once we recognize this, we will also stop wondering why, when a young man asked Him which commandments lead to life, He answered with only these: "You shall not kill." "You shall not commit adultery." "You shall not steal." "You shall not bear false witness." "Honor your father and your mother." "Love your neighbor as yourself." The obedience of the first table consisted almost entirely either in the heart's inner devotion or in ceremonies. The heart's devotion was not visible, and the hypocrites constantly performed the ceremonies. But works of charity are the kind by which we can demonstrate genuine righteousness. This appears so frequently in the prophets that it should be familiar to any moderately experienced reader. When the prophets call people to repentance, they almost always set aside the first table and simply call for faithfulness, justice, mercy, and fairness. By doing this, they do not skip over the fear of God, but they require genuine proof of it through its visible results. It is well known that when the prophets speak about keeping the law, they usually focus on the second table, because obedience to righteousness and integrity is most clearly demonstrated there. There is no need to list specific passages, because everyone can easily see what I am saying for themselves.

But you might ask: is living innocently among people more important for perfect righteousness than honoring God with true godliness? Not at all. But since a person cannot easily maintain charity in all its aspects without earnestly fearing God, their charity proves they also have godliness. Beyond that, since the Lord well knows that no benefit we offer can reach Him -- which He also testifies through the prophet -- He does not require such duties for Himself. Instead, He exercises us in good works toward our neighbor. For this reason, the apostle rightly places the whole perfection of the saints in charity. And not inappropriately, in another place he calls charity the fulfillment of the law, adding that the person who loved their neighbor has fulfilled the law. Again: "The whole law is summed up in this one word: Love your neighbor as yourself." He teaches nothing different from what Christ says: "Whatever you want others to do for you, do the same for them." "For this is the law and the prophets." It is certain that in the law and the prophets, faith and everything that belongs to the true worship of God holds the chief place, and that love stands below it in a lower position. But the Lord's point is that the law prescribes for us an observance of right and fairness through which we demonstrate our godly fear of Him, if there is any in us.

Let us hold firmly to this: our lives will be best conformed to God's will and the rule of His law when they are in every way most beneficial to our brothers and sisters. In the entire law, there is not a single syllable that prescribes any rule about what a person should do or avoid for the benefit of their own flesh. And certainly, since people are naturally born with a disposition that carries them too far in self-love -- and no matter how much they fall from the truth they still keep that self-love -- no law was needed to further inflame a love that was already naturally excessive beyond measure. From this it is clear that keeping the commandments means not loving ourselves but loving God and our neighbor. The person who lives most holily is the one who lives and labors least for themselves. And no one lives worse or more wickedly than the person who lives and labors only for themselves, thinking and seeking only their own interests. The Lord, in order to express how earnestly we should love our neighbors, set the measure by our love for ourselves as a standard. He had no other more intense or stronger affection to measure it by. The force of this expression must be carefully weighed. He does not, as certain thinkers have foolishly imagined, give self-love the first rank and charity the second. Rather, the natural affection of love we all direct toward ourselves, He redirects toward others. That is why the apostle says charity does not seek its own. Their argument that the thing regulated is always inferior to its rule is not worth a moment's consideration. God does not make self-love a rule to which charity toward others must submit. Rather, since our natural tendency was to focus all our love on ourselves, He shows that it must now be spread abroad. We should be ready to do good to our neighbor with no less cheerfulness, passion, and care than we show toward ourselves.

Since Christ has shown in the parable of the Samaritan that the word "neighbor" includes every person, no matter how much a stranger they may be, there is no reason to limit the command to love within the bounds of our own friendships and acquaintances. I do not deny that the closer someone is to us, the more they should be helped through our efforts to do good. The order of human life requires that people share more duties of friendship as they are bound together by closer ties of family, familiarity, or community -- and this is not offensive to God, whose providence practically drives us to it. But I say that all of humanity without exception must be embraced with one feeling of charity. In this regard, there is no distinction between foreigner and native, worthy and unworthy, friend and enemy, because all people must be considered in relation to God, not to themselves. When we turn away from this perspective, it is no wonder we become tangled in many errors. Therefore, if we want to practice the true way of loving, we must not look at the person -- whose sight would more often make us hate than love -- but at God, who commands that the love we offer to Him be poured out among all people. Let this be a permanent foundation: whatever kind of person someone may be, they still deserve to be loved because God is loved.

Therefore, it was a most harmful product of either ignorance or malice that the medieval scholars turned these commandments about not seeking revenge and loving enemies -- which were given to the Jews in old times and are equally binding on all Christians -- into mere counsels. They claimed these were optional rather than obligatory. They passed the duty of obeying these commands exclusively to monks, who were supposedly more righteous than ordinary Christians in at least this one respect: they willingly bound themselves to keep these counsels. Their reason for not treating these as binding laws was that they seemed too burdensome and heavy, especially for Christians who are under the law of grace. Do they dare to set aside God's eternal law of loving our neighbors? Is there any such distinction anywhere in the law? Are there not rather commandments found everywhere that most strictly require us to love our enemies? What else does it mean when we are commanded to feed our enemy when hungry? To set his wandering oxen or donkeys back on the right path, or to help them when they collapse under their burden? Should we do good to an enemy's animals for his sake, yet have no goodwill toward him? What about this? Is not the word of the Lord eternal: "Leave vengeance to Me, and I will repay"? This is stated even more plainly in another place. "Do not seek revenge, and do not hold grudges against your fellow citizens." Either let them blot these things out of the law, or let them acknowledge that the Lord was a lawgiver, and stop falsely pretending He was merely a counselor.

And what do they mean by the things they have dared to mock with their tasteless interpretation? "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you, bless those who curse you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven." Who cannot agree with Chrysostom that the weightiness of this reason clearly shows these are commandments, not mere suggestions? What is left for us if we are struck from the list of God's children? By their reasoning, only monks would be the children of the heavenly Father. Only monks would dare to call upon God as their Father. What would become of the church in the meantime? By the same logic, the church would be sent off to join the Gentiles and tax collectors. For Christ says: "If you are friendly only to your friends, what reward do you expect? Do not even the Gentiles and tax collectors do the same?" We would certainly be well off if the title of Christian were left to us while the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven were taken away! Augustine's argument is equally strong. When God forbids fornication, he says, He forbids it no less with the wife of your enemy than with the wife of your friend. When He forbids theft, He gives no permission to steal anything at all, whether from friend or from enemy. But Paul brings both of these -- not stealing and not committing adultery -- under the rule of love, and teaches that they are contained in the commandment: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Therefore, either Paul was a false interpreter of the law, or it necessarily follows that we must love even our enemies by commandment, just as we love our friends. Those who so freely throw off the common obligation of God's children truly show themselves to be children of Satan. It is hard to say whether they proclaimed this teaching with greater stupidity or shamelessness. None of the early church fathers failed to declare these as definite commandments. That this was not doubted even in Gregory's time is clear from his own statement, for he treats them as commandments without any debate. And how foolishly they reason! They say these commands are too heavy a burden for Christians. As if anything could be more demanding than loving God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength. Compared to this law, anything else may be counted easy -- whether loving our enemies or banishing all desire for revenge from our minds. Indeed, everything is high and hard for our weakness -- even the least letter of the law. It is the Lord in whom we find strength. Let Him give what He commands, and command what He will. For Christians to be under the law of grace does not mean wandering without law. Rather, it means being grafted into Christ, by whose grace they are free from the curse of the law and by whose Spirit they have the law written on their hearts. Paul improperly called this grace a law, comparing it with the law of God against which he set it. But these people dispute about the word "law" over a matter of no importance.

Similarly problematic is their classification as merely venial sin of both secret ungodliness against the first table and the direct breaking of the last commandment. They define venial sin as a desire without deliberate consent that does not linger long in the heart. But I say that such desire cannot even enter the heart unless there is a deficiency of the things the law requires. We are forbidden to have foreign gods. When the mind, shaken by temptation and distrust, looks elsewhere -- when it is touched by a sudden desire to place its blessedness somewhere else -- where do these impulses come from, even if they quickly vanish, except from the fact that the soul has some emptiness where such temptations can enter? To avoid drawing out this argument any further: there is a commandment given to love God with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul. If all the powers of our soul are not bent toward the love of God, we have already departed from obedience to the law. The enemies that rise up within us against God's kingdom and interrupt His decrees prove that God does not have His throne firmly established in our conscience. As for the last commandment, we have already shown that it properly belongs to this discussion. Has any desire of the mind pricked us? We are already guilty of coveting, and by that we have become lawbreakers. God forbids us not only to plot and scheme anything that could harm another, but even to be pricked and stirred with desire for it. But the curse of God always hangs over every breaking of the law. We cannot therefore prove that even the slightest desires are free from the sentence of death. "In weighing sins," Augustine says, "let us not bring false scales to weigh what we want and how we want at our own pleasure, saying: this is heavy and this is light." "Rather, let us bring God's scales from the holy Scriptures, as from the Lord's treasury, and weigh them there. Or better yet, let us not weigh them at all, but acknowledge what the Lord has already weighed." But what does Scripture say? When Paul says that the wages of sin is death, he clearly shows he knew nothing of this corrupt distinction. Since we are already far too inclined to hypocrisy, this kind of self-comfort should not have been added to soothe our lazy consciences.

I wish they would consider what Christ's saying means: "Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be counted least in the kingdom of heaven." Are they not that very type of person when they dare to minimize the breaking of the law as though it were not worthy of death? But they should have considered not only what is commanded, but who it is that commands. God's authority is diminished in every transgression of the law He has given, no matter how small. Is it a small thing to them that God's majesty is offended in any way? Furthermore, if God has declared His will in the law, then whatever contradicts the law displeases Him. Will they imagine God's wrath to be so powerless that the punishment of death will not immediately follow? God Himself has pronounced it plainly, if they would rather listen to His voice than muddy the clear truth with their pointless arguments. "The soul that sins," He says, "shall die." And again, as I just quoted: "The wages of sin is death." Although they admit these are sins -- because they cannot deny it -- they stubbornly insist they are not deadly sins. Since they have already indulged their foolishness too much in this matter, let them at least learn to grow wiser. But if they persist in their delusion, we will leave them alone. Let the children of God learn this: all sin is deadly, because it is a rebellion against the will of God that inevitably provokes His wrath. It is a violation of the law, upon which God's judgment is pronounced without exception. The sins of the saints are forgivable -- not by their own nature, but because they receive pardon through the mercy of God.