A26892:8712
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
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.
CHAP. XVIII. Directions against all Theft and Fraud, or injurious getting and keeping that which is another's, or desiring it.
CHAP. XVIII. Directions against all Theft and Fraud, or injurious getting and keeping that which is anothers, or desiring it.
§. 1. HE that will know what Theft is, must know what Propriety is: And it is that plenary title to a thing, by which it is called Our Own; It is that right to any thing as Mine, by which I may justly have it, possess it, use it, and dispose of it. This Dominion or Propriety is either Absolute, (and that belongeth to none but God) or subordinate, respective and limited (which is the only Propriety that any creature can have.) Which is such a Right which will hold good against the claim of any fellow creature, though not against Gods. And among men there are Proprietors or Owners which are Principal, and some who are but dependant, subordinate and limited. The simple Propriety may remain in a Landlord or Father, who may convey to his Tenant or his child, a limited dependant propriety under him. Injuriously to deprive a man of this Propriety, or of the thing in which he hath propriety, is the sin which I speak of in this Chapter; which hath no one name, and therefore I express it here by many. Whether it be Theft, Robbery, Cozenage, Extortion, or any other way of depriving another injuriously of his own. These General Directions are needful to avoid it.
§. 1. HE that will know what Theft is, must know what Propriety is: And it is that plenary title to a thing, by which it is called Our Own; It is that right to any thing as Mine, by which I may justly have it, possess it, use it, and dispose of it. This Dominion or Propriety is either Absolute, (and that belongeth to none but God) or subordinate, respective and limited (which is the only Propriety that any creature can have.) Which is such a Right which will hold good against the claim of any fellow creature, though not against Gods. And among men there are Proprietors or Owners which are Principal, and some who are but dependant, subordinate and limited. The simple Propriety may remain in a Landlord or Father, who may convey to his Tenant or his child, a limited dependant propriety under him. Injuriously to deprive a man of this Propriety, or of the thing in which he hath propriety, is the sin which I speak of in this Chapter; which hath no one name, and therefore I express it here by many. Whether it be Theft, Robbery, Cousenage, Extortion, or any other way of depriving another injuriously of his own. These General Directions are needful to avoid it.