A25294:1165
The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easy draught of the Christian…The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easie draught of the Christian…
The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easy draught of the Christian catechism in LII lectures on chosen texts of Scripture, for each Lords-day of the year, learnedly and perspicuously illustrated with doctrines, reasons, and uses / by that reverend and worthy labourer in the Lord's vineyard, William Ames ...The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easie draught of the Christian catechisme in LII lectures on chosen texts of Scripture, for each Lords-day of the year, learnedly and perspicuously illustrated with doctrines, reasons, and uses / by that reverend and worthy laborer in the Lord's vineyard, William Ames ...
London: printed by T. Mabb for Thomas Davies, 1659
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The forty second Lords day.
Exod. 20. 15. Thou shalt not steal.
IN this eighth Commandment mens possessions are handled as things that come under the name of their outward goods, and commodities. For thus God would show what a care he hath of us, in that not only by his Law he hath provided for the safety of our life, and chastity, and honour of our persons, but also for our possessions and external goods. He would also hereby admonish us how confidently we may trust all that is ours to him; where by his eternal Law he would have us secured about these lesser matters. There is in this Commandment ordained and presupposed a propriety to every particular man in his own goods, by reason whereof its truly said, his is mine, and that is •hine For though at the beginning of the creation all things were in a manner common; yet afterwards by lawful seizure and possession of this, or that, a division of things ⟨p. 252⟩ensued, the unjust breach of which division is condemned in this commandment, with all such things as make for it, or lead to it. For as in a feast some dish is set down in common and is no more this guests, than that's; yet when any guest hath taken to himself a portion or share of it, then that is more his own, than any others, so that it cannot by any other be taken from him without uncivility; so were all the commodities of this life at the first set out in common to all; but when one took to himself a certain portion of them, another could not by violence take it from him without sin. Now by name theft only is forbidden, because it is one of the grossest and manifestest sins of this kind; because in theft to every one is apparent the breach of that right which every one hath to his own commodity, and so the unjustice and the wrong is clear: Yet together with it also, according to the perpetual use of speech in all the other Commandments, all the degrees, and causes, principles, and occasions or provocations to it, are forbidden.