An Exposition of the Ten Commandments - …

1 1 AN Exposition OF THE TEN Commandments : BY THE RT. REV. EZEKIEL HOPKINS, D. D., SUCCESSIVELY BISHOP OF RAPHOE AND DERRY, WHO DIED IN LONDON, A. D. 1690. REVISED AND SLIGHTLY ABBIDGED. Digitally prepared by: Ted Hildebrandt Gordon College, 255 Grapevine Rd., Wenham, MA 01984 report any errors to: June 2004 PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW-YORK. 2 In the present edition this work has been revised, with changes in obsolete or defective forms of expression, and the omission of some pas- sages having a more immediate reference to the Government or Church of England. 3 NOTICE OF BISHOP HOPKINS. Ezekiel Hopkins was born at Sanford, county of Devon, England, about the year 1633, where his father was many years a laborious minister. He was educated at Oxford, where he was some time chaplain of Magdalen College. From Oxford he went to London, where he was assistant to Dr. William Spur- stow till the act of uniformity.

2 After this he was preacher at St. Edmunds, Lombard-street, and subsequently was chosen minister of St. Mary Arches, in Exeter, where he was much ad- mired. From Exeter he was transferred to the deanery of Ra- phoe, Ireland, and from the deanery was promoted to the bishop- ric, which he occupied about ten years, when he was transfer- red to the bishopric of Derry. Here he continued about seven years, till the papists got the sword into their hands, when he fled for his life to England, and became minister of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, in London, 1689, where he died, about seven months only after his establishment there. As a preacher, Bishop Hopkins was esteemed one of the first of the age in which he lived, being much admired and followed after in all the places where he preached. As a writer, he was eminent above most authors for the com- bination of clear statements of doctrinal and practical truth, with an eloquent application of it to the heart and conscience. Scarcely any other writer has, within an equal compass, so ably discussed, and applied with such energy the whole range of christian truth.

3 His works are published in four volumes, edited by the late Rev. Josiah Pratt, of London, who in his dedication of the volumes to William Wilberforce, Esq. says, "That 44 NOTICE OF BISIIOP HOPKINS. author is of special value whose works supply, within a mod- rate compass, the most complete refutation of whatever can be urged against true religion, by exhibiting her in her most beauti- ful proportions. Such an author is Bishop Hopkins." His works, embrace the following subjects: Vanity of the World, Exposi- tions of the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments , Dis- courses on the Law, Discourses concerning Sin, The Doctrine of the Two Covenants, Doctrine of the Two Sacraments, The All-Sufficiency of Christ to save Sinners, Excellency of Heaven- ly Treasures, Practical Christianity, Assurance of Heaven and Salvation a principal motive to serve God with fear, On Glori- fying God in his Attributes, Almost Christian, Conscience, Great Duty of Mortification, Death Disarmed, Miscellaneous Sermons.

4 As a divine, Bishop Hopkins was one of the sound theologians to which the Reformation gave birth, and he unequivocally and openly held and inculcated the pure doctrines of the Reformers, opposed as they are to the pride and passions of unsanctified men. On the difficult questions concerning the grace of God and the obligation of man, he adopted those views which most natu- rally reconcile with one another the declarations and exhortations of Scripture. Few writers have entered so unequivocally into the extent of man's responsibility, and at the same time so strong- ly insisted on the sovereignty, and so graphically described the 1 operations of the grace of God. 5 CONTENTS. PAGE. Introduction .. 7 The time of the delivery of the Ten Commandments . 9 The Reason .. 10 The Manner.

5 11 Are they abrogated? .. 19 General Rules for rightly understanding them .. 29 Their order.. 48 Preface to the Commandments .. 50 FIRST TABLE. The First Commandment 58 Requires the love, fear, and praise of God 61 Forbids Atheism-proofs of the being of God 68 Ignorance of the true God 92 Profaning his name, attributes, time, ordinances 101 Idolatry 120 The Second Commandment 126 The Prohibition, As to the worship of God, exter- nal and internal 127 As to the sins here forbidden-Superstition 139 The threatening, Visiting the iniq1rities of the fa- thers upon the children 148 The Third Commandment 165 Profaning the name of God--Oaths 166 The folly of this sin--Directions 186 The Fourth Commandment 192 Primitive Institution of the Sabbath 195 Its morality and perpetual obligation 196 Change to the first day of the week 201 The manner in which it is to be observed 204 66 CONTENTS.

6 SECOND TABLE PAGE Introduction to the Second Table 225 The Fifth Commandment 228 Duties of parents and children 233 Magistrates and those subject to them 251 Husbands and wives 261 Masters and servants 279 Ministers and their people 301 Superiors and inferiors, or those who differ in the gifts of God's grace, or his common bounty 316 The promise, That thy days may be long 328 The Sixth Commandment 332 The sin of murder 333 Causes and occasions leading to it 345 Rules for restraining and governing anger 352 The Seventh Commandment 359 The sin forbidden 359 Its heinousness 365 Cautions and directions 370 The Eighth Commandment

7 373 Of theft in general 376 Many kinds of theft 379 The duties here required 389 The Ninth Commandment 395 The value of a good name 397 The sin of lying 399 Aggravations of this sin 406 The sin of slander-rules and directions 409 The Tenth Commandment 430 The sin of concupiscence 431 The whole practically applied 437 7 Exposition OF THE Commandments .

8 ~-~~-~~~~~ THE INTRODUCTION. Two things in general are required to perfect a chris- tian; the one a clear and distinct knowledge of his duty, the other, a conscientious practice of it, correspondent to his knowledge; and both are equally necessary. For, as we can have no solid or well-grounded hope of eternal salva- tion, without obedience; so we can have no sure established rule for our obedience, without knowledge. Therefore, our work and office is, not only to exhort, but to instruct; not only to excite the affections, but to inform the judg- ment: we must as well illuminate as warm. Knowledge, indeed, may be found without practice; and our age abounds with speculative christians, whose religion is but like the rickets, that makes them grow large in the head, but narrow in the breast; whose brains are replenished with notions, but their hearts strait- ened towards God, and their lives black arid deformed. I confess, indeed, their knowledge may be beneficial to others; yet, where it is thus overborne by unruly lusts, and contradicted by a licentious conversation, to them- selves it is most fatal: like a light shut up in a lantern, which may serve to guide others, but only soots, and at last burns that which contained it.

9 But, although knowledge may be without practice, yet 88 THE TEN Commandments . the practice of godliness cannot be without knowledge. For, if we know not the limits of sin and duty, what is re- quired and what is forbidden, it cannot be supposed but that, in this corrupted state of our natures, we shall una- voidably run into many heinous miscarriages. Therefore, that we might be informed what we ought to do and what to avoid, it hath pleased God, the great Governor and righteous Judge or all, to prescribe laws for the regulating of our actions; and, that we might not be ignorant what they are, he hath openly promulgated them in his word. For when. we had miserably defaced the law of nature originally written in our hearts, so that many of its commands were no longer legible, it seemed good to his infinite wisdom and mercy to transcribe and copy out that law in the sacred tables of the Scriptures; and to superadd many positive precepts and injunctions not before imposed.

10 Hence the Bible is the statute-book of God's kingdom, wherein is comprised the whole body of the heavenly law, the perfect rules of a holy life, and the sure promises of a glorious one. And the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments , is a summary, or brief epitome of the law, written by the immediate finger of God, and contracted into an abridg- ment not only to ease our memories but to gain our veneration; for sententious commands best befit ma- jesty. And, indeed, if we consider the paucity of the ex- pressions, and yet the copiousness arid variety of the mat- ter contained in them, we must needs acknowledge not only their authority to be divine, but likewise the skill and art in reducing the whole duty of man to so, brief a compendium. The words are but few, called therefore the Words of the Covenant, or the Ten Words: Ex 9 THE INTRODUCTION. 9 34:28; but the sense and matter contained in them is vast and infinite: the rest of Scripture is but a commen- tary upon them, either exhorting us to obedience by ar- guments, or alluring us to it by promises; warning us against transgression by threatenings, or exciting us to the one, and restraining us from the other, by examples re- corded in the historical part of it.