070. QUESTION 68. What is required in the Sixth Commandment?
QUESTION 68. What is required in the Sixth Commandment?
ANSWER: The Sixth Commandment requireth all lawful endeavours to preserve our own life, and the life of others.
Q. 1. What does this commandment chiefly respect?
A. The LIFE of man, which is the nearest and most valuable of all his temporal concerns, Job 2:4 — “Skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” Q. 2. What makes the life of man valuable?
A. His being “made in the image of God,” Genesis 9:6.
Q. 3. What does this commandment require with reference to man’s life?
A. All lawful endeavours to preserve it in ourselves and others.
Q. 4. What lawful endeavours should we use for the preservation of our own life?
A. The “just defence thereof against violence: — a sober use of meat, drink, physic, sleep, labour, and recreation.”[88] Q. 5. By what means should we endeavour to preserve the life of others?
A. “By resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any.”[89] Q. 6. Why are we restricted by the answer to lawful endeavours?
A. To caution and guard us against the unlawful means which some have used, for the preservation of their lives.
Q. 7. What are the unlawful means which some have used for this end?
A. Denying the truth, 1 Timothy 1:19-20, and lying, Genesis 12:12-13.
Q. 8. What will be the consequence of denying the truth, for preserving of natural life?
A. The losing of a better life than that which we thus intend to preserve, Matthew 16:25-26.
Q. 9. May not a lie be told at a time, for preserving life, especially if its preservation be for the public good?
A. At no time, and on no occasion whatever, are we to “do evil that good may come,” Rom, 3:8.
Q. 10. Are we restricted, by this commandment, to the preservation of bodily life only?
A. No; we are also required to consult the welfare of our own souls, and the souls of others.
Q. 11. What is required of us for the welfare of our own souls?
A. A careful avoiding of all sin, Proverbs 11:19; and a diligent use of all the means of grace, 1 Peter 2:2.
Q. 12. What is required of us for promoting the welfare of the souls of others?
A. That we be communicative of our knowledge and experiences to them as occasion offers, Psalms 66:16; that we pray for them, James 5:16; and that we set an example of holy walking before them, Matthew 5:16.
Q. 13. What are those Christian virtues or graces which this commandment requires, in order to the preservation of life?
A. It requires for this end, “love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness — and comforting, and succouring the distressed.”[90] Q. 14. Why should we bear a love to mankind in general?
A. Because they are partakers of the same nature, and possessed of the same rational faculties with us, Acts 17:26; Acts 17:28.
Q. 15. How does love contribute to the preservation of life?
A. It covers all those infirmities, and buries all those quarrels which tend to raise strife and variance among men, Proverbs 10:12.
Q. 16. What influence has compassion, upon the duty here required?
A. It affects us so deeply with the calamities and miseries of our fellow creatures, that it inclines us to relieve them according to our ability, Luke 10:33-34. Q. 17. How does meekness tend to preserve life?
A. As it governs our passions, Proverbs 14:29, and prevents our being easily disturbed at the unkind and unmannerly treatment of others, Colossians 3:13.
Q. 18. How does gentleness contribute to the duty here mentioned?
A. As it excites to an affable and courteous behaviour towards all with whom we are conversant, 1 Peter 3:8, and disposes us to put the most favourable construction upon any of their actions that may appear doubtful, 1 Corinthians 13:5. Q. 19. What influence has kindness upon preserving life?
A. As it excites us to the performance of all good offices in our power, both to the souls and bodies of men, Romans 13:10; Romans 13:12.
Q. 20. What should engage us to comfort and succour the distressed?
A. A desire to honour the Lord with our substance, Proverbs 3:9; and to lend to him, who will surely pay us again, chap. 19:17.
69. What is forbidden in the Sixth Commandment? The Sixth Commandment forbiddeth the taking away of our own life or the life of our neighbour unjustly, and whatsoever tendeth thereunto.
Q. 1. Does this precept, Thou shalt not kill, prohibit the killing of beasts?
A. No; God made a grant of them to man for food, and other uses, Genesis 9:3; Genesis 3:21; nevertheless, the exercising cruelty upon beasts (as Balaam did, Numbers 22:29,) is very unbecoming all sober men; for “a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast,” Proverbs 12:10.
Q. 2. Were not the Jews prohibited to seethe a kid in his mother’s milk, Deuteronomy 14:21, and to kill the dam when they took the young? chap. 22:6, 7.
A. As the doing either of these was an evidence of the savage disposition and temper of some men; so the reason of the prohibition, was to curb and restrain all cruelty to the brute creatures, in order to prevent any inlet to the horrid sin of murder, or the barbarous usage of one another.
Q. 3. What are the general sins here forbidden?
A. The taking away of our own life, or the life of our neighbour unjustly, or whatever has a tendency to either of the two.
Q. 4. Is it lawful, in any case, to take away our own life?
A. No; it is absolutely unlawful, in any case whatever, to desert our station, or leave the word, without the permission and allowance of the sovereign Lord of our life, Job 14:14.
Q. 5. Is there any instance in scripture of a good man being suffered to lay violent hands on himself?
A. No; any instances the scripture gives of self-murder, are in men of the most infamous character; such as Saul, Ahithophel, Judas, and others of the like stamp.
Q. 6. Was not Samson (who was a good man, Hebrews 11:32,) guilty of this heinous crime? Judges 16:30
A. When Samson pulled down the house upon himself and upon all the lords of the Philistines with about three thousand men and women that were in it, he did not intend his own death any farther than as an inevitable consequence of destroying so many of the church’s enemies, to which he was called and strengthened in an extraordinary manner by God, as the Lord of life and death, who he also supplicated for this extraordinary strength, Judges 16:28; and herein he was an eminent type of Christ, who, “through death, destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil,” Hebrews 2:14.
Q. 7. What are the aggravations of the crime of self-murder?
A. It is directly opposed to the natural principle of self-preservation implanted in us, Job 2:4; it argues the highest impatience, and rooted discontent with our lot in the present world, ver. 10; it is an impious invasion of the prerogative of God, as the sole author and disposer of life, 1 Samuel 2:6; and a most daring and presumptuous rushing upon death, and an awful eternity, chap. 31:4, 5.
Q. 8. What is meant in the answer, by taking away the life of our neighbour unjustly?
A. The taking it away in any event, “except in case of public justice, lawful war, or necessary defence.”[91] Q. 9. What is it to take away life in case of public justice?
A. It is to inflict capital punishment upon notorious criminals, by a lawful magistrate, who is ordained of God for that purpose, Romans 13:2; Romans 13:4.
Q. 10. What warrant has the civil magistrate to take away the life of a wilful murderer?
A. The express command of God, Genesis 9:6 — “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”
Q. 11. Is it lawful for a magistrate to spare, pardon, or reprieve a convicted murderer?
A. It is expressly forbidden as a land-defiling sin, Numbers 35:31; Numbers 35:33 — “Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death; but he shall surely be put to death. For blood defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.”
Q. 12. What other crimes are punishable with death by the laws of God and man?
A. Among several others there are those following: Deliberate blasphemy, Leviticus 24:16; notorious adultery, Leviticus 20:10; incest, ver. 11, 12; sodomy, ver 13; bestiality, ver. 15; and witchcraft.
Q. 13. Is it warrantable in a Christian magistrate to repeal or disable penal laws against witchcraft?
A. By no means; for God has expressly said, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” Exodus 22:18.
Q. 14. Is it lawful to wage war under the New Testament?
A. Yes; as appears from John the Baptist’s prescribing rules for a military life, Luke 3:14; and Christ’s commending the faith of the centurion, and finding no fault with his office, Matthew 8:10.
Q. 15. What makes war lawful, and the shedding of blood in it warrantable?
A. When it is undertaken in defence of civil or religious liberties, after all due means have been rejected, for obtaining redress of the unjust invasions made upon them, Judges 11:12-34.
Q. 16. When is the killing of another to be sustained as done in necessary defence?
A. When there is no way of flying from the aggressor, (which is rather to be chosen, if it can be done with safety,) but we must either lose our own life, or take away his, Exodus 22:2.
Q. 17. What if one kill another at unawares, or unwillingly?
A. If it is not through any culpable neglect, or careless oversight it is not reputed murder, either by the law of God or man, and therefore cities of refuge were of old appointed for such, Joshua 20:9.
Q. 18. How are men lavish and prodigal of their lives on points of honour?
A. By duelling.
Q. 19. What is a DUEL?
Q 69. WHAT IS FORBIDDEN IN THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT?
A. It is a combat or fight between two private persons, upon a challenge given and accepted; in which each party aims at the life or maiming of the other. Q. 20. In what lies the sinfulness of such a practice?
A. It flows from passion, pride, and insatiable revenge, as the springs of it; and is a bold invasion of God’s right of vengeance, together with a desperate contempt of death, judgment, and eternity, Romans 12:19.
Q. 21. Did not David fight a duel with Goliath?
A. No; he fought by a peculiar divine impulse, under the sanction of lawful authority, for the public good, and not from any private or personal revenge, 1 Sam.
17:37-53.
Q. 22. Who was the first murderer of souls?
A. The devil, who is therefore called a murderer from the beginning, John 8:44.
Q. 23. Who was the first murderer of the body?
A. Cain, who slew his brother, Genesis 4:8.
Q. 24. Wherefore did he slay him?
A. Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous, 1 John 3:12.
Q. 25. Why was he not put to death?
A. Because God set a peculiar mark of his displeasure upon him, Genesis 4:15, (worse, in some sort, than natural death,) by protracting his miserable life, to be a fugitive, and a vagabond in the earth, and a visible monument of an intolerable load of guilt, and hopeless despair, ver. 11, 12.
Q. 26. What is the dismal effect of this sin upon murderers themselves, even though they escape capital punishment from men?
A. God frequently gives them up to the terror of a guilty conscience, which is their continual tormentor, Genesis 4:13-14.
Q. 27. How has God testified his displeasure against this sin?
A. Ordinarily, by shortening the lives of murderers, Psalms 55:23 — “Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days.” And sometimes by transmitting temporal judgments to their posterity; as Saul’s murder of the Gibeonites was punished in the death of seven of his sons, 2 Samuel 21:6; 2 Samuel 21:8-9. Q. 28. How may murder be aggravated?
A. If committed under pretence of religion, as Jezebel murdered Naboth, 1 Kings 21:9-10; and as the Papists perpetrate their massacres; or, if done under the disguise and mask of friendship, as Joab killed Amasa, 2 Samuel 20:9-10; or, which is unspeakably worse, as Judas betrayed our Lord, Matthew 26:48-49.
Q. 29. Does this command forbid only the taking away of our own life, and the life of our neighbour unjustly?
A. It forbids also whatsoever tends thereto.
Q. 30. What are those things which tend to the taking away of our own life?
A. “Neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preserving it: — all excessive passions, distracting cares, and immoderate use of meat, drink, labour, and recreation.”[92]
Q. 31. How may we be guilty before God, of taking away the life of our neighbour, though we do not actually imbrue our hands in his blood?
A. We may be guilty this way in our hearts, with our tongues, and by our actions.
Q. 32. How may we be guilty of murder in our hearts?
A. By harbouring “sinful anger, hatred, envy, and a desire of revenge.”[93] Q. 33. May there be anger which is not sinful?
A. Yes; when there is a detestation of the sin, and yet no dislike of the person; in which sense the apostle says, “Be ye angry and sin not,” Ephesians 4:26. Q. 34. What is the hazard of sinful anger?
A. “Whosoever is angry with his brother, without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment,” Matthew 5:22.
Q. 35. What is it to be in danger of the judgment?
A. It is to be in danger of eternal punishment in the other world, for the breach of this commandment, if rich and sovereign grace prevent it not, Proverbs 19:19. Q. 36. How does hatred tend to take away the life of our neighbour?
A. It has such a tendency to it, that whosoever hateth his brother is accounted a murderer, 1 John 3:15.
Q. 37. What tendency has envy to the taking away of life?
A. As it is grieved at the good of another, or takes a secret pleasure in his death, Proverbs 27:4.
Q. 38. How does desire of revenge tend to take away life?
A. As it is accompanied with an inward habitual imprecation of some visible or remarkable judgment upon the person who is the object of it, quite contrary to the command of God, Romans 12:19 — “Avenge not yourselves: — for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
Q. 39. How may we be guilty of what tends to take away the life of our neighbour with our tongues?
A. By bitter and provoking words, Proverbs 12:18; or threatening, reviling and deriding speeches, Matthew 5:22.
Q. 40. How may we be guilty, this way, by our actions?
A. By oppression, Ezekiel 18:18; quarrelling, Galatians 5:15; striking or wounding, Numbers 35:21, and the like.
Q. 41. What may we learn from this commandment?
A. That however innocent we may be of the actual blood-shedding of others, yet we are still chargeable with the worst kind of murder, even that of our own souls, while we will not come to Christ, that we might have life, John 5:40, he being the only living and true way, chap. 14:6; and “no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved,” Acts 4:12.