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Question 113: What doth the tenth commandment require of us?
Answer: That even the smallest inclination or thought, contrary to any of God’s commandments, never rise in our hearts; but that at all times we hate all sin with our whole heart, and delight in all righteousness.
Question 114: But can those who are converted to God perfectly keep these commandments?
Answer: No: but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience; yet so, that with a sincere resolution they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God.
Question 115: Why will God then have the ten commandments so strictly preached, since no man in this life can keep them?
Answer: First, that all our lifetime we may learn more and more to know our sinful nature, and thus become the more earnest in seeking the remission of sin, 5and righteousness in Christ; likewise, that we constantly endeavor and pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may become more and more conformable to the image of God, till we arrive at the perfection proposed to us, in a life to come.
Rom. 7:7, “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”
Rom. 7:14 “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.”
Rom. 7:22, 15, “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man”; “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.”
James 3:2 “For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.”
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Rom. 3:20 “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
Rom. 5:13 “(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.”
Rom. 7:7 “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”
Rom. 7:24 “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
1 Cor. 9:24 “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.”
Phil. 3:12, 13, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”