A37046:668
The law unsealed
The law unsealed: or, A practical exposition of the Ten Commandments With a resolution of several momentous questions and cases of conscience. By the learned, laborious, faithful servant of Jesus Christ, Mr. James Durham, late minister of the Gospel at Glasgow.
Glasgow: printed by Robert Sanders, 1676
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.
6. That which hath a native tendency to make any Ordinance of God vile and contemptible, cannot be warrantable; Now that Lotting in these Games hath such a tendency to make the Ordinance of a Lot, and of Prayer, which should at least be joined with it, Contemptible; is obvious to any serious and impartial considere• of it, neither can it in reason be thought that, that which is in so sacred a manner, and with Prayer to God, to be gone about in one thing, and is by Him appointed for such an end as an Oath is; can warrantably be used in a manner, and for ends so vastly different from the former in an other thing.
6. That which hath a native tendency to make any Ordinance of God vile and contemptible, cannot be warrantable; Now that Lotting in these Games hath such a tendency to make the Ordinance of a Lot, and of Prayer, which should at least be joyned with it, Contemptible; is obvious to any serious and impartial considere• of it, neither can it in reason be thought that, that which is in so sacred a manner, and with Prayer to God, to be gone about in one thing, and is by Him appointed for such an end as an Oath is; can warrantably be used in a manner, and for ends so vastly different from the former in an other thing.
7. If Lots belong at all to this Command, then these Lotting-Games are unlawful: for they cannot with any Religious reason be supposed to be commanded in it, and therefore they must be forbidden. And if in trivial things Lots be unlawful, much more in such Games which end not strife and contentions, but often and ordinarily begin them, and bring them to a height: and therefore do the Ancients declaim against this as a Sacrificing to Devils, and invented by Idolaters.
7. If Lots belong at all to this Command, then these Lotting-Games are unlawful: for they cannot with any Religious reason be supposed to be commanded in it, and therefore they must be forbidden. And if in trivial things Lots be unlawfull, much more in such Games which end not strife and contentions, but often and ordinarily begin them, and bring them to a height: and therefore do the Ancients declaim against this as a Sacrificing to Devils, and invented by Idolaters.