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ternal actions, but the desires; and hence it appears to be supplementary to the other precepts. We have shown indeed that those also must be understood to extend to the feelings and affections: they proceeded from a Being who will not be satisfied with outward obedience. But lest men might not discover this truth, and should plead that, in conforming to the letter of the law, they had fulfilled its demands, this precept is added to show that the law in its prohibitions and requisitions extends to the inward springs of action.

(2.) It may have been another object in adding this precept, to show the necessity of regulating and restraining the desires, as indispensable to the observance of the other precepts. The desires, when improperly, inordinately indulged, naturally lead to the violation of every other precept of the divine law, and constitute the source of more than one half of all the evils that afflict the human race. By forbidding us to desire anything that belongs to our neighbor, it aims at eradicating the principle which might lead us to injure him in his person, his character, or any of his rights. It is the safeguard of all the precepts of the Second Table; and it comes in at the close, to remind us that the heart must be pure as well as the life.

(3.) Another object of this precept would seem to be, to forbid all such dissatisfaction with our lot, as might lead us to form intentions and make endeavors to change it by any means inconsistent with justice and love to our neighbor, or inconsistent with entire submission to the will of God.

The reason that we covet the things which belong to our neighbor, is, that we are not fully pleased with the lot which Providence has assigned us. A contented state of mind would remove the cause of those irregular affections, which it is the design of this precept to restrain.

III. Law of the Desires.

829. The good things of this life being the gifts of God, for which all are to be thankful to him; the desiring, with due moderation, and submission to God, a comfortable share of them, is very natural and right: the wishing that our share were larger, is, in the case of many persons, so far from a sin, that the endeavor diligently to enlarge it is part of their duty. The wish that it was equal to that

PROHIBITED DESIRES.

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of another person, is not wishing ill to him, but good to ourselves. "A man may desire an increase of his property without having a covetous, or even discontented heart. Such wishes are the moving spring to all worldly enterprise and prosperity, without which the various businesses of life would languish and die." Moreover, not only the wish, but the effort to obtain what belongs to another may, in proper circumstances, be perfectly innocent: we may really have occasion for it; he may be well able to bestow it; or he may have occasion for something of ours in return and on these mutual wants of men all commerce and trade is founded, which the Creator, unquestionably, designed to be carried on, because he has made all countries to abound in some things and left them deficient in others.

Prohibited Desires.

830. (1.) Those which are unsuitable and immoderate, as, for example:

If our neighbor cannot lawfully part with his property, nor we lawfully receive it, and yet we desire to have it. One instance of this kind is expressed in the precept, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife:" another is, if we desire a person who possesses anything in trust, or under certain limitations, to give or sell it in breach of that trust or those limitations; or, if he can part with it, but is not willing, and we entertain thoughts of acquiring it by force and fraud, or of being revenged on him for his refusal, this is also highly blamable; for why should he not be left in quiet possession of his own? Indeed, the bare act of pressing and importuning persons contrary to their interest, or even their inclination only, is in some degree wrong; for it is one way of extorting things from them, or at least of giving them trouble when we have no right to give it.

(2.) Our desires are criminal, if they lead us to envy others, that is, to be uneasy at their imagined superior happiness, and to wish them ill, or take pleasure in any harm that befalls them; for this turn of mind will prompt us to do them ill, if we can, as indeed a great part of the mischief that is done in the world proceeds from envy. "Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy ?" Prov. xxvii. 4.

(3.) Though our selfish desires were to raise in us no malignity against our fellow-creatures; yet if they tempt us to murmur against our Creator, and either to speak or think ill of that distribution of things which His providence has made, this is great impiety and injustice, because He has an absolute right to dispose of the work of his hand as he pleases, and always exercises this right, both with justice, and with goodness, toward us.

(4.) Our desires, of course, are criminal, when they contemplate any act or possession forbidden by the laws of God, or by any just human law.

IV. Forms of Covetousness, or Irregular Desire.

831. Of covetousness there are two prominent forms : avarice, or an inordinate and selfish regard for money; and ambition, or an inordinate desire of power, superiority, and distinction.

(1.) Avarice.

832. Avarice arises from the perception " that money answereth all things.' Riches in themselves, indeed, are no evil. Nor is the bare possession of them wrong.. Nor is the desire to possess them sinful, provided that desire exist under certain restrictions. For in almost every stage of civilization money is requisite to procure the conveniences, and even the necessaries of life: to desire it, therefore, as the means of life, is as innocent as to live. In its higher application it may be made the instrument of great relative usefulness; to seek it then, as a means of doing good, is not a vice, but a virtue.

But perceiving that money is so important an agent in society, that it not only fences off the wants and woes of poverty, but that, like a center of attraction, it can draw to itself every object of worldly desire from the farthest circumference; the temptation arises of desiring it inordinately; of even desiring it for its own sake; of supposing that the instrument of procuring so much good must itself possess intrinsic excellence.

833. With respect to the passion for money, the most obvious and general distinction, perhaps, is that which divides it into the desire of getting, as contradistinguished from the desire of keeping that which is already pos

sessed.

These divisions may be subdivided: the former, into worldliness, rapacity, and an ever-craving, all-consuming prodigality; the latter, into parsimony, niggardliness, and avarice.

834. By worldliness, is meant cupidity in its earliest, most plausible, and prevailing form; not yet sufficiently developed to be conspicuous to the eye of man, yet sufficiently active to incur the prohibition of God.

Rapacity, is covetousness grasping-" making haste to be rich." It is a passion that compels every other feeling to its aid; the day seems too short for it. Determined to gratify itself, it overlooks the morality of the means, despises alike the tardiness of industry, and the scruples of integrity, and thinks only of the readiest way

to success.

Parsimony, is covetousness parting with its life-blood. It is the frugality of selfishness; the art of parting with as little as possible.

Avarice, is covetousness hoarding. It is the love of money in the abstract, or for its own sake, and not as a means of procuring other gratifications. It is regarded as an ultimate good. Other vices have a particular view to enjoyment (falsely so called), but the very term miser, is a confession of the misery which attends avarice; for, in order to save his gold, the miser robs himself. He cannot be said to possess wealth; wealth possesses him.

Prodigality, though strictly opposed to avarice, or hoarding, is quite compatible with cupidity. The character which Sallust gives of Cataline, that " he was covetous of other men's wealth, while he squandered his own," is of very common occurrence. Men must be covetous, that they may be prodigal. Prodigality strengthens covetousness by keeping it in constant activity, and covetousness strengthens prodigality, by slavishly feeding its voracious appetite. [Consult "Mammon," by Dr. Harris.] 835. Covetousness leads to the commission of almost every crime: the apostle Paul declares it to be the root of all evil. The Scriptures hold up to our view its debasing influence on Balaam, who loved the wages of unrighteousness: on Judas, who, for thirty pieces of silver, sold his divine master: on Demas, who deserted the ministry of the gospel, having loved this present world: on Demetrius and his associates, who, for the sake of

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gain, zealously supported a system of idolatrous superstition.

What instigates the murderer, in defiance of the authority of God and his own conscience, to take away the life of a fellow-creature? It is, in many cases, the inordinate desire of property. To the same cause we may trace all the crimes of persons who render jails and bridewells necessary: theft, swindling, robbery, forgery, smuggling, perjury.

The influence of this vice is perniciously felt in every situation in life by the poor, and the rich, by the young, and the aged.

The miserly man is the prey of restless and contending passions of falsehoods, and rapacious schemes-of anxieties, and perplexities, and disappointments. He is not only miserable himself, but becomes a moral nuisance to the neighborhood around him; stinting his own family of necessary comforts; oppressing the widow and the fatherless grasping from others everything within his reach.

836. Avarice has plundered palaces, churches, seats of learning, and repositories of art; it has polluted courts of judicature and the tribunals of justice; it has corrupted many of the ministers of religion; it has ground whole nations to poverty under the load of taxation; it has drenched large territories in human gore. It was the cursed love of gold that excited the Spaniards to ravage the territories of Mexico and Peru; to violate every principle of justice and humanity; to perpetrate the most horrid cruelties upon the unoffending inhabitants.

The same principle commenced, and carries on, that abominable traffic, the slave-trade, which has entailed misery in its worst forms on millions of the sons of Africa.

(2.) Ambition.

837. This passion is manifested in a greater or less degree, by men of all ranks and characters, and in every situation in life. It consists in an inordinate love of greater power or distinction, and in the effort to obtain it, than is actually possessed.

838. The following considerations show the sinfulness of this passion:

(1.) It is an impeachment of the wisdom, and a dispar