iritual beauty of the
unattained commandment.

Yes, it had a spiritual beauty. For, however formal, external, and even
shallow, the commandments may appear to flippant modern babblers, St.
Paul bewailed the contrast between the law, which was spiritual, and his
own carnal heart. And he, who had kept all the letter from his youth,
was only the more vexed and haunted by the fleeting consciousness of a
higher "good thing" unattained. Did not one table say "Thou shalt not
covet," and the other promise mercy to thousands of those that love?

This leads us to consider the structure and arrangement of the
Decalogue. Scripture itself tells us that there were "ten words" or
precepts, written upon both sides of two tables. But various answers
have been given at different times, to the question, How shall we divide
the ten?

The Jews of a later period made a first commandment of the words, "I am
the Lord thy God," which is not a commandment at all. And they restored
the proper number, thus exceeded, by uniting in one the prohibition of
other gods and of idolatry; although the worship of the golden calf,
almost immediately after the law was given, suffices to establish the
distinction. For then, as well as under Gideon, Micah and Jeroboam, the
sin of idolatry fell short of apostasy to a wholly different god (Judg.
viii. 23, 27, xvii. 3, 5; 1 Kings xii. 28). The worship of images
dishonours God, even if it be His semblance that they claim. In this
arrangement, the tables were allotted five commandments each.

Another curious arrangement was devised, apparently by St. Augustine;
and the weight of his authority imposed it upon Western Christianity
until the Reformation, and upon the Latin and Lutheran churches unto
this day. Like the former, it adds the second commandment to the first,
but it divides the tenth. And it gives to the first table three
commandments, "since the number of commandments which concern God seem
to hint at the Trinity to careful students," while the seven
commandments of the second table suggest the Sabbath. Such mystical
references are no longer weighty arguments. And the proposed division
of the tenth commandment seems quite precluded by the fact that in
Exodus we read, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house nor his
wife," while in Deuteronomy the order is reversed; so that its advocates
are divided among themselves as to whether the coveting of a house or a
wife is to attain the dignity of separate m