or in being remiss in the observation of it, so as to diminish the perfection I profess.
iii. In the third, of keeping holy the feasts, I may sin by doing upon them any servile work that is prohibited, or in not hearing a whole mass, or in not assisting at it with due reverence and attention; or by wasting such days in things unworthy of the feasts and of the end for which they were instituted, which is to pray and to glorify God.
iv. The fourth commandment is to honour our parents according to the flesh, to support them in their necessities, and to obey them in their just commands; and in like manner our spiritual fathers, prelates, and other superiors, obeying their ordinance without contradiction, or without perverseness of judgment, without repugnance of will and without delay in the execution. And to carry this out more at large, I am humbly to" esteem others better than" myself, [1] honouring all, and subjecting myself " to every human creature for God's sake." [2]
v. The fifth, not to kill, prohibits all that has been declared in the 22nd meditation, on anger; and (to spiritualise the several ways of killing), i. I may kill my soul by sin, taking away from it the life of grace; ii. I " extinguish" " the spirit" [3] that is, the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, by rejecting those good desires with which He inspires me; iii. I crucify Christ [4] within me, and trample upon His blood, by doing the works for which He might again be crucified if the first crucifixion had not sufficed; iv. I kill the souls of my neighbours by scandal, in being to them a stumbling-block by my evil example, or by not helping them with correction, or counsel, or spiritual alms, when charity obliges me to it: so we call it killing the poor when we succour them not by the corporal works of mercy. [5]
