before his seniors; a Shem before Japhet and Ham; Isaac before Ishmael; Jacob before Esau; David and Solomon before their elder brethren. 2. But to the faithful, though nature be not disregarded, yet grace teacheth us what to prefer. And Christ and his members are dearer to us than our sons or natural members. " In cases where we must deny ourselves for Christ and the public good, we may also deny our natural kindred: for they are not nearer to us than ourselves. And if an eldest son be wicked or unprofitable, a believing parent should give him the less, and more to a younger (yea, to a stranger) that will do more service to God and his country; and not prefer a fleshly difference and privilege before a spiritual, and his Master's service. Q. 33. What is the duty of husbands to their wives? A. To love them as themselves, and live with them in conjugal chastity, as guides and helpers, and provide for them and the family; to endeavour to cure their infirmities and passions, and patiently bear what is not cured; to preserve their honour and authority over inferiors, and help them in the education of their children, and comfort them in all their sufferings." Q. 34. What is the duty of wives to their husbands? A. To live with them in true love and conjugal chastity and fidelity; to help them in the education of children, and governing servants, and in worldly affairs; to learn of them and obey them to provoke them to duties of piety and charity, and to bear with their infirmities, and comfort and help them in their sufferings and both must live as the heirs of heaven, in preparation for the life to come. P Q. 35. What is the duty of masters to their servants ? A. To employ them suitably, not unmercifully, in profitable labour, and not in sin or vanity: to allow them their due wages, and maintenance, keeping them weither in hurtful want, nor in idleness, or sinful fulness: to teach them their duty to God and man, and see that they join in public and family worship, and live not in any wilful sin and as fellow Christians (if they are such) to further their comfortable passage to heaven. Q. 36. But what if we have slaves that are no Christians? "Matt. xix. 21; Mark x. 21; Luke xii. 33, and xviii. 22. Eph. v. 25; Col. iii. 19; 1 Pet. iii. 7. P Eph. v. 22, 24; Col. iii. 18; Tit. ii. 4, 5; 1 Pet. iii. 1-3. 9 Eph. vi. 9; Col. iv. 1. ity, and do your best, with pity, to cure their ignorance, and unbelief, and sin, and to make them Christians, preferring their souls before your worldly commodity. Q. 37. Is it lawful to buy and use men as slaves? A. It is a great mercy accidentally for those of Guinea, Brazil, and other lands, to be brought among Christians, though it be as slaves but it is a sin in those that sell and buy them as beasts, merely for commodity, and use them accordingly: but to buy them in compassion to their souls, as well as for their service, and then to sell them only to such as will use them charitably like men, and to employ them as aforesaid, preferring their salvation, is a lawful thing, especially such as sell themselves, or are sold as malefactors. Q. 38. What is the duty of servants to their masters ? A. To honour and obey them, and faithfully serve them, as part of their service of Christ, expecting their chief reward from him to be trusty to them in word and deed, not lying, nor stealing, or taking any thing of theirs without their consent, nor wronging them by idleness, negligence, or fraud. Learning of them thankfully, and sincerely, and obediently, joining with them in public and family worship of God." Q. 39. Doth God require family teaching, and daily worship? A. Yes, both by the law of nature and Scripture. All christian societies must be sanctified to God: christian families are christian societies: they have, as families, constant dependence on God, constant need of his protection, help, and blessing, and constant work to do for him, and therefore constant use of prayer to him and as nature and necessity will teach us to eat and drink every day, though Scripture tell us not how oft, nor at what hour, so will they tell us that we must daily ask it of God. And stated times are a hedge to duty, to avoid omissions and interruptions: and Scripture commandeth parents to teach and persuade their children constantly, lying down and rising up, &c. (Deut. vi. and 11.) And to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord: Cornelius, Crispus, and others converted, brought in their households with them to Christ. Daniel prayed openly daily in his house. The fourth commandment requireth of masters that all in their house do 3, 4. 1 Pet. ii. 18; Tit. ii. 9; 1 Tim vi. 1, 2; Eph. vi. 5—7; Col. iii. 22. Acts x. 2, 3; 1 Cor. i. 16; Gen. xviii. 10; 2 Sam. vi. 11, 20; Exod. xii. sanctify the Sabbath. Reason and experience tell us, that it is the keeping up religion and virtue in families, by the constant instruction, care, and worship of God, by the governors, that is the chief means of the hopes and welfare of the world, and the omission of it the great cause of all public corruption and confusion.t Q. 40. What must children, wives, servants, and subjects do that have bad parents, husbands, masters, and magistrates? A. Nature bindeth children in minority so to their parents, and wives to their husbands (except in case of lawful divorce) that they must live in patient bearing with what they cannot amend: and so must such servants and subjects as by law or contract may not remove, nor have legal remedy. But those that are free may remove under better masters and princes when they can. Q. 41. But whole nations cannot remove from enemies and destroyers? A. It is God, and not I, that must answer such cases. Only I say: 1. That there is no power but of God. 2. That governing power is nothing but right and obligation to rule the people in order to the common good. u 3. That destroying the common good is not ruling, nor any act of power given by God. 4. That all man's power is limited by God, and subordinate to his universal government and laws, and he hath given none authority against himself or his laws. 5. That so far as God's laws have not determined of the species and degrees of power, they must be known by the human contracts or consent which found them. 6. Nations have by nature a right to self-preservation against destroying enemies and murderers. 7. And when they only seek to save themselves against such, they resist not governing authority. 8. But particular persons must patiently bear even wrongful destruction by governors: and whole nations tolerable injuries, rather than by rebellions and wars to seek their own preservation or right, to the hurt of the commonwealth. * 9. They are the great enemies of government who are for perjury, by which mutual trust is overthrown. Acts ii. 46; v. 42, and xii. 12; Prov. iii. 33. "Rom. xiii. 2-7; 2 Cor. x. 8, and xiii. 10; 1 Pet. iii. 11-14. * Matt. xvii. 25, 26, and xxii. 19, 20. CHAP. XXXIX. Of the Sixth Commandment. Q. 1. WHAT are the words of the sixth commandment? Q. 2. What is murder? A. Killing unjustly a reasonable creature. And all that culpably tends to it bringeth an answerable degree of guilt. Q. 3. Why is this command the first that forbiddeth private wrongs? A. Because a man's life is more precious than the accidents of his life; death deprived him of all further time of repentance and earthly mercies, and depriveth all others of the benefit which they might receive by him. They rob God and the king of a subject. Therefore God, who is the Giver of life, is a dreadful Avenger of the sin of murder; Cain was cast out with terror for this sin; for it was the devil's first service, who was a murderer from the beginning. Therefore God made of old the law against eating blood, lest men should be hardened to cruelty, and to teach them his hatred of blood-guiltiness. And it was the murder of the prophets, and of Christ himself, and his apostles, that brought that dreadful destruction on the Jews, when wrath came upon them to the uttermost. Q. 4. If God hate murder, why did he command the Israelites to kill all the Canaanites, men, women, and children? A. Justice done by God, or his authority, on capital malefactors, is not murder. You may as well ask why God will damn so many in hell, which is worse than death. The curse was fallen on Ham's posterity. They were nations of idolaters, and murderers of their own children, offering them to idols, and so drowned in all wickedness that God justly made the Israelites his executioners, to take away their forfeited lands and lives. Q. 5. When is killing murder, or unlawful? y Deut. xix. 10, 13; 1 Kings ii. 31; 2 Kings xxi. 16, and xxii. 4; Prov. vi. 17, and xxviii. 17; Gen. iv. 10, 11; ix. 4-6; xxxvii. 26, and xlii. 22; Hos. iv. 2. * Matt. xxiii. 31, and xxvii. 4. 25; Luke xi. 50; Rev. xvi. 6; Acts xxii. 20. * Deut. xxvii. 15; xviii. 9, 12, and xxix. 17; 2 Kings xvi. 3; Lev. xviii. 26,27. A. When it is done without authority from God, who is the Lord of life. Q. 6. To whom doth God give such authority to kill men? A. To the supreme rulers of commonwealths, and their magistrates, to whom they communicate it." Q. 7. May they kill whom they will? A. No, none but those whose crimes are so great as to deserve death by the law of God in nature, and the just laws of the land; even such whose crimes make their death the due interest of the republic, and needful to its good and safety. Q. 8. What if a prince think that the death of an innocent man is accidentally necessary to the safety of himself or the commonwealth, through other men's fault, may he not kill him? c A. No; he is a murderer if he kill the innocent, or any whose fault deserveth not death; should God permit killing on such pretences, no men's lives would be safe. In factions there be other ways of remedy; and such wicked means do but hasten and increase the evil which men would so prevent.d Q. 9. May not parents have power to kill bad children? A. No; I have given you the reason under the fifth commandment. Q. 10. May not a man kill another in the necessary defence of his own life? A. In some cases he may, and in some not; he may, in case it be his equal or inferior, as to public usefulness, and he have no other means, being assaulted by him to save his life from him. But he may not, 1. If by flight, or other just means, he can save his own life. 2. Nor if it be his king, or father, or any public person, whose death would be a greater loss to the commonwealth than his own.e Q. 11. How prove you that? A. Because the light of nature tells us, that seeing good and evil are the objects of our willing and nilling; therefore the greatest good should still be preferred, and the greatest evil be most avoided; and that the good or hurt of the commonwealth is far greater than of a single, private person. Q. 12. But doth not nature teach every creature to preserve its life, and rather than die to kill another? b Gen. xxvi. 11; Exod. xix. 12, and xxi. 12, 15-17; Deut. xvii. 6, 7; xxi. 22, and xxiv. 16; Jos. i. 18. e John xviii. 14. d1 Sam. xiv. 43-45, So David to Saul. |