It should be carefully noted that although this group of four commands (6–9) in each case specifies the extreme form of the sin, the law by no means limits its prohibition to this extreme form. Killing is the extreme of personal violence; adultery (strictly the crime of the married) is the most aggravated form of unchastity; theft is more than simply being reckless of your neighbor’s property; and false witness naturally contemplates a case in court――public, formal, and of most grave and momentous consequences;――yet in each and every one of these prohibitions it behooves us to remember that God looks at the heart; that the spirit is more than the letter; that the law which specifies the extreme form of a special sin forbids with its full force all the lower grades and all the less flagrant and revolting forms of the same sin. We wrong ourselves most fearfully when we labor to ease our conscience by limiting the prohibitions of God’s law to the extreme forms of sin which may be named in the statute. It is always our highest wisdom to deal very honestly with our own conscience as before God in the construction and application of his law. The tenth and last commandment is peculiar, as compared with all others of the second table, in this point――that it specifies no external act whatever but lays its prohibition directly _upon the heart_. “Thou shalt not covet”――shalt not allow thyself to _desire_ in such a way as might tempt thee to try to obtain――thy neighbor’s house, wife, servants, cattle, or any thing that he has. This law aims to forestall temptation. It strikes at the root of such sins as theft and adultery by forbidding any such desire as might move you toward the sin. It may be regarded as shielding both of the two parties; the one who might commit the sin, and the one against whom the sin might be committed. It throws its shield over him who might otherwise be tempted, and it also becomes in so far a safeguard around him who holds treasures which lustful eyes might covet.