Four treatises tending to dissuade all Christians from four no less heinous then common…Foure treatises tending to disswade all Christians from foure no lesse hainous then common…

Now this punishment of adultery by death,¹ seemeth to be not a mere judicial law, which was proper and peculiar to the common-wealth of Israel, but a law of common equity, which bindeth and holdeth in subjection all nations unto it. First, because long before the judicial law was given, the same punishment was inflicted upon adulterers, as appeareth by Judah his sentence against his daughter in law Tamar, ²namely, that because being espoused to his son, she had played the harlot, she should be burnt to death. So when Abimilech being a king had no superior to execute this law upon him, the Lord himself threateneth death against him if he abused Sara Abraham's wife.³ The same punishment also Abimilech threateneth against any of his people without exception that should touch Isaacs wife. Secondly,⁴ because the Heathens themselves who had not Moses law, by the light of nature inflicted the punishment of death upon adulterers, whereby it appeareth that it is not judicial, but moral and perpetual, seeing it was common to the Jews and Gentiles.⁵ So Nebuchadnezzar caused those two adulterous Prophets, Zedechias and Ahab, to be burnt with fire, as the Prophet foretelleth, Jer. 29.22.23. So Saletus Prince of Crotone a city of Greece, enacted a law, that adulterers should be burnt to death. By Draco his law likewise the same punishment was inflicted upon the like offenders. In like manner this sin was capital among the Arabians, as Eusebius recordeth. And so also among the Goths, as Procopius writeth. Finally, among ⟨p. 188⟩the Romans adultery was punished with death, both by the twelve tablei, and by their law called lex Julia, which was made by Augustus Cesar.

Now this punishment of adulterie by death,¹