induce the pastor to explain what follows with increased diligence, and the people to hear his exposition with increased attention.
But, although we have united these two commandments be cause, their object the same, the manner of treating them should be the same; yet the pastor, when exhorting and admonishing the faithful, will treat them conjointly or separately, as he may deem most convenient. If, however, he has undertaken the exposition of the Decalogue, he will point out in what these two commandments are dissimilar; how one concupiscence differs from another, a difference noticed by St. Augustine, in his book of questions on Exodus. [1] The one looks only to utility and interest, the other to unlawful desire and criminal pleasure; he, for instance, who covets a field or house, pursues profit rather than pleasure, whilst he, who covets another man's wife, yields to a desire of pleasure, not of profit.
Of these two commandments the promulgation was necessary for two reasons; the first is to explain the sixth and seventh, for, although reason alone is competent to inform us, that to prohibit adultery is also to prohibit the desire of another man's wife, because, were the desire lawful, its indulgence must be so too; yet blinded by sin, many of the Jews could not be induced to believe that such desires were prohibited by God. Nay, even after the promulgation, and with a knowledge of this law, many, who professed themselves its interpreters, continued in the same error, as we learn from these words of our Lord recorded in St. Matthew: " You have heard that it was said to them of old; thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say to you, that who soever shall see a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart." [2] The second reason for the promulgation of these two commandments is, that they distinctly, and in express terms, prohibit some things of which the six and seventh commandments contain but an implied prohibition. The seventh commandment, for instance, forbids an unjust desire or endeavour to take what belongs to another; but this prohibits even to covet it, on any account; although we may, without a violation of law or justice, obtain possession of that from which we know a loss must accrue to our neighbour.
But, before we come to the exposition of the commandment, the faithful are first to be informed, that by this law we are taught not only to restrain our inordinate desires, but also to know the bound less love of God towards us. By the preceding commandments, God had, as it were, fenced us round with safeguards, securing us and ours against injury of every sort; but by the annexation of these commandments, he had for object principally, to provide against the injuries which we might inflict on ourselves by the indulgence of inordinate desires; and which should follow as a natural consequence, were we at liberty to covet all things indiscriminately. By this law, then, which forbids to covet, God has
