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VI. Comm. Thou shalt do no Murder.

The duties are, 1. To preserve our own lives, the lives of our relatives, and all with whom we converse (or who can need us, and we assist), by prudent, reasonable, and wary defences, advocations, discoveries of snares, &c. 2. To preserve our health, and the integrity of our bodies and minds, and of others. 3. To preserve and follow peace with all

men.

They sin against this commandment, 1. That destroy the life of a man or woman, himself, or any other. 2. That do violence to, or dismember or hurt, any part of the body with evil intent. 3. That fight duels, or commence unjust wars. 4. They that willingly hasten their own or others' death. 5. That by oppression or violence embitter the spirits of any, so as to make their life sad, and their death hasty. 6. They that conceal the dangers of their neighbour, which they can safely discover. 7. They that sow strife and contention among neighbours. 8. They that refuse to rescue or preserve those, whom they can, and are obliged to preserve. 9. They that procure abortion. 10. They that threaten, or keep men in fears, or hate them.

VII. Comm. Thou shalt not commit Adultery.

The duties are, 1. To preserve our bodies in the chastity of a single life, or of marriage. 2. To keep all the parts of our bodies in the care and severities of chastity; so that we be restrained in our eyes as well as in our feet.

They sin against this commandment, 1. Who are adulterous, incestuous, sodomitical, or commit fornication. 2. They that commit folly alone, dishonouring their own bodies with softness and wantonness. 3. They that immoderately let loose the reins of their bolder appetite, though within the protection of marriage. 4. They that by wanton gestures, wandering eyes, lascivious dressings, discovery of the nakedness of themselves or others, filthy discourse, high diet, amorous songs, balls and revellings, tempt and betray themselves or others to folly. 5. They that marry a woman divorced for adultery. 6. They that divorce their wives, except for adultery, and marry another..

VIII. Comm. Thou shalt not steal.

The duties are, 1. To give every man his due. 2. To permit every man to enjoy his own goods and estate quietly.

They sin against this commandment, 1. That injure any man's estate by open violence or by secret robbery, by stealth, or cozenage, by arts of bargaining or vexatious lawsuits. 2. That refuse or neglect to pay their debts, when they are able. 3. That are forward to run into debt knowingly beyond their power, without hopes or purposes of repayment. 4. Oppressors of the poor. 5. That exact usury of necessitous persons, or of any beyond the permissions of equity, as determined by the laws. 6. All sacrilegious persons; people, that rob God of his dues or of his possessions. 7. All that game, viz. at cards and dice, &c. to the prejudice and detriment of other men's estates. 8. They that embase coin and metals, and obtrude them for perfect and natural. 9. That break their promises to the detriment of a third person. 10. They that refuse to stand to their bargains. 11. They that by negligence imbecile other men's estates, spoiling or letting any thing perish, which is entrusted to them. refuse to restore the pledge.

12. That

IX. Comm. Thou shalt not bear False Witness.

The duties are, 1. To give testimony to truth, when we are called to it by competent authority. 2. To preserve the good name of our neighbours. 3. To speak well of them that deserve it.

They sin against this commandment, 1. That speak false things in judgment, accusing their neighbour unjustly, or denying his crime publicly, when they are asked, and can be commanded lawfully to tell it. 2. Flatterers, and 3. Slanderers; 4. Backbiters, and 5. Detractors. 6. They that secretly raise jealousies and suspicion of their neighbours, causelessly.

X. Comm. Thou shalt not covet.

The duties are, 1. To be content with the portion God hath given us. 2. Not to be covetous of other men's goods.

They sin against this commandment, 1. That envy the prosperity of other men. 2. They that desire passionately to

be possessed of what is their neighbour's. 3. They that with greediness pursue riches, honours, pleasures, and curiosities. 4. They that are too careful, troubled, distracted, or amazed, affrighted and afflicted with being solicitous in the conduct of temporal blessings.

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These are the general lines of duty, by which we may discover our failings, and be humbled, and confess accordingly only the penitent person is to remember, that although these are the kinds of sins described after the sense of the Jewish church, which consisted principally in the external action or the deed done, and had no restraints upon the thoughts of men, save only in the tenth commandment, which was mixed, and did relate as much to action as to thought (as appears in the instances); yet upon us Christians there are many circumstances and degrees of obligation, which endear our duty with greater severity and observation and the penitent is to account of himself and enumerate his sins, not only by external actions or the deed done, but by words and by thoughts; and so to reckon, if he have done it directly or indirectly, if he have caused others to do it, by tempting or encouraging, by assisting or counselling, by not dissuading when he could and ought, by fortifying their hands or hearts, or not weakening their evil purposes; if he have designed or contrived its action, desired it or loved it, delighted in the thought, remembered the past sin with pleasure or without sorrow; these are the by-ways of sin, and the crooked lanes, in which a man may wander and be lost, as certainly as in the broad highways of iniquity.

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But besides this, our blessed Lord and his apostles have added divers other precepts; some of which have been with some violence reduced to the decalogue, and others have not been noted at all in the catalogues of confession. I shall therefore describe them entirely, that the sick man may discover his failings, that, by the mercies of God in Jesus Christ, and by the instrument of repentance, he may be presented pure and spotless before the throne of God.

The special Precepts of the Gospel.

1. Prayer, frequent, fervent, holy, and persevering .

1 Thess. v. 17. Luke, xviii. 1.

2. Faith. 3. Repentance. 4. Poverty of spirit, as opposed to ambition and high designs'. 5. And in it is humility, or sitting down in the lowest place, and in giving honour to go before another. 6. Meekness, as it is opposed to waywardness, fretfulness, immoderate grieving, disdain and scorn". 7. Contempt of the world. 8. Prudence, or the advantageous conduct of religion; 9. Simplicity, or sincerity in words and actions, pretences and substances". 10. Hope P. 11. Hearing the word. 12. Reading. 13. Assembling together'. 14. Obeying them that have the rule over us in spiritual affairs. 15. Refusing to communicate with persons excommunicate": whither also may be reduced, to reject heretics". 16. Charity": viz. Love to God above all things; brotherly kindness, or profitable love to our neighbours as ourselves, to be expressed in alms, forgiveness, and to die for our brethren 17. To pluck out the right eye, or violently to rescind all occasions of sins, though dear to us as an eye. 18. To reprove our erring brother b. 19. To be patient in afflictions and longanimity is referred hither, or long-sufferance; which is the perfection and perseverance of patience, and is opposed to hastiness and weariness of spirit. 20. To be thankful to our benefactors; but above all, in all things, to give thanks to God. 21. To rejoice in the Lord always. 22. Not to quench, not to grieve", not to resist, the Spirit. 23. To love our wives as Christ loved his church, and to reverence our husbands. 24. To provide for our families!. 25. Not to be bitter to our children ". 26. To bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord". 27. Not to despise prophesying. 28. To be gentle, and easy to be entreated P. 29. To give no scandal or offence. 30. To follow after peace with all men, and to make peace. 31. Not to go

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2 Tim. ii. 22.

Matt. v. 3.

n Matt. v. 5. Col. iii. 12.

¶ Luke, xvi. 29. Mark, iv. 24, Heb. xiii. 17. Matt. xviii. 17.

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▾ Titus, iii. 10.

* Mark, xii. 30. Matt. vi. 14. Matt. xviii. 15. James, i. 4. Luke, xxi. 19. Eph. v. 20. 2 Thess. i. 3. Luke, vi. 32. 2 Tim. iii. 2. vi. 4. 1 Thess. v. 19. 11 Tim. v. 8. m Coloss. iii. 21.

Philip. iii. 1;

Ephes. v. 33.

Ephes. iv. 30,

n

Ephes. vi. 4.

P 2 Tim. ii. 24. 9 Matt, xviii. 7. 1 Cor. x. 32. Heb. xii. 14.

to law before the unbelievers. 32. To do all things that are of good report, or the actions of public honesty'; abstaining from all appearances of evil". 33. To convert souls, or turn sinners from the error of their ways. 34. To confess Christ before all the world w. 35. To resist unto blood, if God calls us to it. 36. To rejoice in tribulation for Christ's sake. 37. To remember and shew forth the Lord's death till his second coming", by celebrating the Lord's supper. 38. To believe all the New Testament. 39. To add nothing to St: John's last book, that is, to pretend to no new revelations". 40. To keep the customs of the church, her festivals and solemnities lest we be reproved, as the Corinthians were by St. Paul, "We have no such customs, nor the churches of God." 41. To contend earnestly for the faith. Not to be contentious in matters not concerning the eternal interest of our souls: but in matters indifferent to have faith to ourselves. 42. Not to make schisms or divisions in the body of the church 8. 43. To call no man master upon earth, but to acknowledge Christ our master and lawgiver". 44. Not to domineer over the Lord's heritage. 45. To try all things, and keep that which is best. 46. To be temperate in all things'. 47. To deny ourselves". 48. To mortify our lusts and their instruments". 49. To lend, looking for nothing again, nothing by way of increase, nothing by way of recompense. 50. To watch and stand in readiness against the coming of the Lord P. 51. Not to be angry without cause 9. 52. Not at all to revile ". 53. Not to swears. 54. Not to respect persons. 56. To lay hands suddenly on no man ". [This especially pertains to bishops; to whom also, and to all the ecclesiastical order, it is enjoined, that they preach the word", that they be instant in season and out of season, that they rebuke, reprove, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.] 56. To keep the Lord's day (derived into an obligation from a practice apostolical). 57. To do all things to the

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