The Life and Death of Mr. Badman

Atten. You make me wonder more and more. What, play the Thief too! What play the Thief so soon! He could not but know, though he was but a Child, that what he took from others, was none of his own. Besides, if his Father was a good man, as you say, it could not be, but he must also hear from him, that to steal was to transgress the Law of God, and so to run the hazard of eternal Damnation.

Wise. His Father was not wanting to use the means to reclaim him, often urging, as I have been told, that saying in the Law of Moses, Thou shalt not steal: ¹And also that,² This is the Curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth, for every one that stealeth shall be cut off, &c. The light of Nature also, though he was little, must needs show him that what he ⟨p. 20⟩took from others, was not his own, and that he would not willingly have been served so himself. But all was to no purpose, let Father and Conscience say what they would to him, he would go on, he was resolved to go on in his wickedness.

Wise. His Father was not wanting to use the means to reclaim him, often urging, as I have been told, that saying in the Law of Moses, Thou shalt not steal: ¹And also that,² This is the Curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth, for every one that stealeth shall be cut off, &c. The light of Nature also, though he was little, must needs shew him that what he ⟨p. 20⟩took from others, was not his own, and that he would not willingly have been served so himself. But all was to no purpose, let Father and Conscience say what they would to him, he would go on, he was resolved to go on in his wickedness.