Exodus 22

3. To commit the sin of theft against checks of conscience, and examples of God's justice; this is like the dye to the wool, it does dye the sin of a crimson color. 4. To rob the widow and orphan (Exodus 22:22). You shall not afflict the widow or fatherless: Peccatum clamans: If…

His malice, in that, whereas he cannot overturn God himself, yet he labors to disturb the order which he has set down in the creation, and especially the image of God in the most excellent creatures on earth, that they may be in the same miserable condition with himself. His fra…

None so merciful as those who have been once miserable; and they who have not only known misery but felt it, do more readily relieve and succor others. God bids Israel to pity strangers (Exodus 22:21): You shall neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him, for you were strangers in…

By his example we are taught to make satisfaction for all injuries and hurts done to others, and that to the utmost. He that steals, according to the quality of his theft, must restore either twofold, or fourfold (Exodus 22:7); he that maims a man must pay for his healing, and f…

Here note by the way, that they which have been born, baptized, and brought up among us, and yet afterward become Mass-priests, and seek maliciously and obstinately, without ceasing to seduce our people, deserve in this respect, to be put to death. Example 2. You shall not suffe…

In Numbers 30:6, the father may make void the vow of the child pertaining to God's worship: much more a matrimonial promise. If a young man defile a maid, and this be found, in equity he is to be compelled to marry her (Deuteronomy 22:28), yet by God's law this may not be, excep…

This is a sin that God has threatened with many severe curses and punishments. First, the temporal punishment which the Scripture awards to it, is a fourfold, and sometimes a fivefold restitution, as you may see (Exodus 22:1). And therefore Zacchaeus, when he was converted, offe…

Not by his permission only, but by his ordinance and appointment. And whereas a great and conspicuous part of the image of God consists in his sovereignty and dominion, he has so expressly stamped this image of his upon them, that for their likeness to him in it, he gives them t…

Neither indeed is it at all necessary, that the laws of every nation should be conformed to the laws which the Jews lived under; for doubtless each state has its liberty to frame such constitutions as may best serve to obtain the ends of government. And therefore although the pu…

But if the assault be sudden, and no way of escape visible, we may lawfully take away the life of him who unjustly seeks to take ours; for this is not a design to kill him, but to preserve ourselves. Indeed we find (Exodus 22:2) that God allows the killing of a thief, if he brea…

This law was not proper to the Jews only; but as a branch of the moral law it is pressed upon Christians (1 Corinthians 7:36-37). To this may be added the judicial law (if it be to be accounted merely judicial) of a parent's power in giving his daughter, or refusing to give her…

If we have eclipsed the good name of others, we are bound to ask them forgiveness; if we have wronged them in their estate by unjust or fraudulent dealing, we must make them some compensation. Thus Zacchaeus (Luke 19:8): if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation,…

1. Because the Lord so threatened Adam, as he remained free and absolute either to inflict the punishment, or to provide an Evangelical remedy, even as Solomon, (1 Kings 2:37) says to Shimei (in the day you pass over the brook Kidron, you shall surely die) that is, you shall be…

5. It necessarily must follow, if it be sin to eat, because the non-converted have no spiritual right in Christ, to bread, the converted may spoil by their grounds, all the non-converted, of their goods, houses, gold, gardens, vineyards, lands, and upon the same ground, for the…

The law of God forbids to steal. What penalty was appointed for thefts in the civil state of the Jews, is to be seen in Exodus (Exodus 22:1). The most ancient laws of other nations punished theft with recompense of double: the laws that followed afterward, made difference betwee…