Entry 56
A peculiar interest attaches to the tenth commandment, from the fact that it was the chief instrument employed by the Holy Ghost in the awakening and conversion of the Apostle Paul. In that priceless fragment of his religious autobiography contained in the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, the apostle tells us that, notwithstanding all his religious upbringing, and notwithstanding all his sacred studies in Gamaliel’s school, he never discovered that he himself was a sinner, he did not so much as know what sin was, till the tenth commandment came home to him, saying, “Thou shalt not covet.” “I was alive,” so his famous confession runs,—“I was alive without the law once, but when the tenth commandment came home to me, sin revived, and I died. And ever since then, and until now, I have known that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. O wretched man that I am!” Saul of Tarsus, the scrupulous, studious, ambitious young Pharisee, could make answer to all the other commandments in the Decalogue, “All these have I kept from my youth up.” But the tenth commandment came to him like a two-edged sword, discerning the thoughts and intents of his heart. Humanly speaking, we owe the Apostle Paul, with all his writings, to the awakening and searching power of the tenth commandment.
“The universal prohibition of theft seemed weighty enough to occupy the eighth place in the ten fundamental commandments of Jehovahism; and as the true religion felt that there was more to be required than the avoidance of open transgression, it also prohibited in the tenth and last fundamental law every sinful desire for whatever was the property of another, and thus condemned the first step to countless open or secret offences which no law can enumerate and punish” (Ewald).
requireth full contentment with our own condition—Like so many other moral and spiritual expressions, this term contentment has a physical basis, a material origin and root. We speak of one thing being contained in another when it is held within it, and does not exceed or overflow its bounds. The contents of a vessel, for instance, are just what the vessel is able to hold. And our scriptural and Catechism term contentment has just the same meaning. A contented mind is a mind that does not overflow, push itself out of, and wander beyond the conditions and limits within which it is providentially placed. A contented mind has all it wants; or if it has some wants still unsupplied, it surrenders its desires without rebellion or complaint, and wishes for nothing it has not been permitted to possess. And thus it comes about that if the contented mind has not full and perfect satisfaction in its outward possessions, it has what is far better, it has inward detachment, acquiescence, and peace.
“Now as they were going along and talking, they espied a Boy feeding his Father’s sheep. The Boy was in very mean cloathes, but of a very fresh and well-favoured countenance, and as he sate by himself he sung. Hark, said Mr. Greatheart, to what the Shepherd’s Boy saith. So they hearkened, and he said:—
“He that is down needs fear no fall;
He that is low, no pride:
He that is humble, ever shall
Have God to be his Guide.“I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much:
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because Thou savest such.“Fulness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage:
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.
Then said their Guide, Do you hear him? I will dare to say, that this Boy lives a merrier life, and wears more of that herb called Hearts-ease in his bosom, than he that is clad in silk and velvet.”
a right and charitable frame of spirit—“When those two quarrelling pronouns, meum and tuum (mine and thine), have no more use, as in heaven, then we shall fully rejoice in one another’s gifts and graces, and what others enjoy will be our comfort” (Manton).
“Envy bloweth up the sighs of men.
No fear of that might touch ye, if the love
Of higher spheres exalted your desire.
For there, by how much more they call it ours,
So much propriety of each in good
Encreases more, and heightened charity
Wraps that fair cloister in a brighter flame.”—Dante.
forbiddeth envying or grieving at the good of our neighbour—The Bible gives to envy its true etymology when it calls it “an evil eye.” For this “worst of the passions” is kindled through the eye, the eye of the body or the eye of the mind. The envious eye sees the welfare of another with an evil grudge.
“Base Envy withers at another’s joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.”
Thomas Adams, in his Soul’s Sickness, tells us of a certain philosopher who, on seeing an envious man dejected, asked him whether some evil had happened to himself, or some good to his neighbour. (See the noble cantos, xiii., xiv., xv. of The Purgatory.)
all inordinate motions and affections—Inordinate, out of order, disorderly, excessive. The word occurs twice in the Scriptures, Ezek. xxiii. 11; Col. iii. 5. Motions also occurs in Rom. vii. 5.
Uses
- All moralists, Pagan and Christian, tell us that contentment with his own estate is not natural to any human being. Indifference, asceticism, stoicism, despondency, despair,—these states of mind are all quite natural to man, but none of all these approach to true contentment. True contentment must rest on a religious foundation. And it is only when from a religious resignation a devout and patient man rises to true Christian contentment, only when he sees that all his times are in the hand of Jesus Christ, only then does contentment come to its maturity and fruitfulness. “I have learned,” says the apostle, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. . . . I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
- Rich men, talented men, successful men should alleviate as much as possible the temptations they cause to their less able and less fortunate fellows. And this they can largely do by studying humbleness of mind, by a steady and habitual consideration of the circumstances and feelings of others, and by making as much as may be made of the talents and performances of their neighbours.
- This commandment is of the greatest use as a test and gauge of an awakened heart and a spiritual mind. When an envious feeling or an inordinate desire springs up suddenly and involuntarily in the soul, and when it is struggled against till it is cast out, and when after being cast out it still leaves a stain and a wound behind it, and drives us to the blood and righteousness of Christ, what could be a surer mark of the reality and depth of the work of grace in the heart? Nothing.
Questions
Reconcile this commandment with 1 Cor. xii. 31a.
Walk with Virgil and Dante round the second buttress of the mount that healeth him who climbs; and explain these utterances heard by the seer:—
Though Sapia nam’d,
In sapience I excell’d not; gladder far
Of others’ hurt, than of the good befell myself.. . . . .
Guido of Duca, know then that I am.
Envy so parched my blood, that had I seen
A fellow-man made joyous, thou hadst mark’d
A livid paleness overspread my cheek.
Such harvest reap I of the seed I sowed.
Sick of a strange disease, my neighbour’s health.Study Bacon’s Essay Of Envie, and note what Butler says of peevishness in his sermon Upon Resentment.
Derive and explain the allusion: Like the dog in the manger.
Commit the Paraphrase of Habakkuk’s noble peroration; also the Song of the Shepherd Boy in the Valley of Humiliation.
Commit the following short form of the commandments, which was written by Isaac Watts, and was learned in most elementary schools in England half a century ago:
The Ten Commandments out of the Old Testament put into Short Rhyme for Children. Exodus, chapter xx.
- Thou shalt not have more gods but Me.
- Before no idol bow the knee.
- Take not the name of God in vain.
- Nor dare the Sabbath day profane.
- Give both thy parents honour due.
- Take heed that you no murder do.
- Abstain from words and deeds unclean.
- Nor steal, though thou art poor and mean.
- Nor make a wilful lie, nor love it.
- What is thy neighbour’s do not covet.