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USE, Let this recommend to us the living in dutifulness to our relatives. This is phyfic of God's appointment for the fick; it is the way to wealth of God's appointment for them that have little; it is the prolonger of life appointed by the Lord of life to thofe that would fee many days, and these good. And there is no fure way to these where the appointment of God lies crofs. Religion is the way to make the world happy. God has linked our duty and our intereft together, fo as there is no feparating of them. Relations are the joints of fociety; fin has disjointed the world, and fo no wonder it be miferable; relative holinefs would fet the disjointed world right again.

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Of the fixth Commandment.

EXODUS XX. 13.

Thou shalt not kill.

HE fcope of this command is the prefervation of that life which God hath given unto man, which is man's greateft concern. No man is lord of his own or his neighbour's life; it belongs to him alone who gave it, to take it away. It is obfervable, that this and the three following commands are propofed in a word, not because they are of fmall moment, but because there is more light of nature for them than thofe propofed at greater length.

This command refpects both our own life and the life of our neighbour, That it refpects our neighbour, there can be no doubt, and as little needs there to be of its refpecting our own. The words are general, agreeing to both; and fo the fenfe of them is, Thou shalt not kill thyfelf nor any other, He that faid to the jailor, Do thyself no harm, taught

no other thing than what Mofes and the prophets did fay. Man is no more lord of his own life than his neighbour's; and he is in hazard of incroaching upon it as well as that of another; and it is no where guarded if not here. Nay, the fum of the fecond table being, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyfelf, whereby love to our neighbour is made the measure of love to ourselves, it is evident that it refpects, our own life in the firft place.

As every positive command implies a negative, fo every negative implies a pofitive. Therefore in fo far as God fays, Thou shalt not kill, viz. thyself or others, he thereby obliges men to preferve their own life and that of others. And feeing all the commands agree together, there can be no keeping of one by breaking of another; therefore the pofitive part of this command is neceffary to be determined to lawful endeavours. Hence the antwer to that

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Queft. "What is required in the fixth commandment?" is plain, viz. "The fixth commandinent requireth all lawful endeavours to preferve our "own life, and the life of others." The duties of this command may be reduced to two heads. 1. The preferving of our own life. 2. The preferving the life of others. But both thefe are to be qualified fo, as it be by lawful means and endeavours. For God has given us no fuch law, as for the keeping of one command we may or muft break another. Only there is a great difference betwixt pofitive and negative precepts; the practice of pofitive duties may be in fome cafes intermitted without fin, as a man attacked in time of prayer, or on the fabbathday, may lawfully leave the prayer, and external worship of the day, to defend his life, Luke xiv. 5. But never may a man do an ill thing, be it great or little, though it were even to preferve his own life or that of others, Rom. iii. 8. Is it a thing of which God has faid, Thou shalt not do fo and fo?

it muft never be done, though a thousand lives depended upon it.

Hence it is evident, that a perfon may not tell a lie, nor do any finful thing whatever, far lefs blafpheme, deny Chrift or any of his truths, commit adultery, or fteal, though his own life of the life of others may be lying upon it. For where the choice is Suffer or fin, God requires and calls us in that cafe to fuffer. And therefore the example of fuch things in the faints, as in Ifaac, Rahab, &c. are no more propounded for our imitation, than David's murder, &c. Peter's denial of Chrift, &c. And though we read not of reproofs given in fome fuch cafes, that will no more infer God's approbation of them than that of Lot's inceft, for which we read of no reproof given him. The general law against fuch things does fufficiently condemn them, in whomfoever they are found..

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Object. This is a hard faying. A man may be in the power of fome ruffian, that will require on pain of death fome finful thing; and must one fell his life at fuch a cheap rate, as to refuse to deny his religion, drink drunk with him, lie, or do any such thing for the time?

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Anf. It is no more hard than that, Luke xiv. 26. If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and fifters, yea, and his own life alfo, he cannot be my difciple. We muft love God more than our own or others life, and fo muft not redeem it by offending God. Sin ruins the foul; therefore fays our Lord, Matth. x. 28. Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the foul: but rather fear hint which is able to deftroy both foul and body in hell.

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Object. In the cafe of martyrdom in the caufe of Chrift it is very reasonable; but that is not the cafe.

Anf. That is a mistake. The cafe fuppofed is indeed the cafe of martyrdom in the caufe of Chrift. And I confidently aver, that whofoever fuffers for the

teftimony of a good confcience, and because he will not break any one of the commands of God, is as true a martyr for the cause of Chrift, as he that dies on a gibbet for the maintenance of any of the articles of our creed. Is not holinefs the caufe of Chrift? Has not a man in fuch a cafe the cause of martyrdom by the end? does he not lofe his life for the fake of Chrift? has he not the call to martyrdom, Suffer or Sin? may he not look for the martyr's reward? And if he redeem life by finning, falls he not under the fame fearful doom, as in that cafe, Matth. x. 39. He that findeth his life, fhall lofe it and be that lofeth his life for my fake, fhal! find it? Mark viii. 38. Whofoever therefore fhall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and finful generation, of him alfo fhall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the boly angels. Are not the ten commands Chrift's words as well as the articles of faith? Whatever difference may be betwixt these cafes, an impartial confideration will manifeft the cafe fuppofed is a greater trial of faith than the other. And God will furely make up to these fecret unknown martyrs, at the day of judgement, the honour which the open and manifeft martyrs have beforehand.

In difcourfing further from this fubject, I fhall fhew,

I. What is required in this command.
II. What is forbidden in it.

I. I am to fhew what is required in this command. It requires, as I faid before," all lawful "endeavours to preferve our own life, and the "life of others."

FIRST, It requires, that, by all lawful endeavours, we preserve our own lives. Self-prefervation is the leading duty of this command. Brute creatures have a natural inftinét for it. Our kind God has given man a written law for it, whereby it VOL. III.

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may appear that we are dearer to our God than to ourfelves. We may take up this in two things.

FIRST, Thou must preferve the life of thine own foul. When God fays, Thou shalt not kill, doth he only take care for the body? No; doubtless for the foul too. He looks not to the cabinet only, overlooking the jewel. The foul is the man, at least the beft and most precious part of him. Two things here are in general required.

1. The careful avoiding of all fin, which is the deftruction of the foul, Prov. xi. 19. It is by fin that men wrong their own fouls; whereby they wound them, fill them with poifonous things, and prepare the way for their eternal death, Prov. viii. ult.

2. The careful ufing of all means of grace and holy exercifes, for the begetting, preferving, and promoting fpiritual life, 1 Pet. ii. 2. As we muft eat and drink for the life of our bodies, fo muft we ufe thefe for the life of our fouls; eating Chrift's body and drinking Chrift's blood by faith, drinking in his word. The foul has its ficknefs, decays, &c. as well as the body. Let it not pine away, but

nourish it.

SECONDLY, Thou must by all lawful endeavours preferve the life of thine own body. We may take up this in these three things.

1. Juft felf-defence against violence offered unto us by others unjustly, Luke xxii. 36. So a man ought to defend himfelf, if he can, against thieves or robbers; and therefore it is faid, If a thief be found breaking up, and be fmitten that he die, there shall no blood be fhed for him, Exod. xxii. 2. Yet this must be only in the cafe of neceffity, where the violence cannot be efcaped but by a violent repelling it ; fór all violent courfes mult be the laft remedy, Luke vi. 29. Where a foft reception will fill the violence offered, it is not the Spirit of Chrift, but of Satan, that repels violence with violence.

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