Exodus 20:13

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT

Against murder and cruelty.

Verse Exodus 20:13. Thou shalt not kill.] This commandment, which is general, prohibits murder of every kind.

1. All actions by which the lives of our fellow creatures may be abridged.

2. All wars for extending empire, commerce, c.

3. All sanguinary laws, by the operation of which the lives of men may be taken away for offences of comparatively trifling demerit.

4. All bad dispositions which lead men to wish evil to, or meditate mischief against, one another for, says the Scripture, He that hateth his brother in his heart is a murderer.

5. All want of charity to the helpless and distressed; for he who has it in his power to save the life of another by a timely application of succour, food, raiment, c., and does not do it, and the life of the person either falls or is abridged on this account, is in the sight of God a murderer. He who neglects to save life is, according to an incontrovertible maxim in law, the SAME as he who takes it away.

6. All riot and excess, all drunkenness and gluttony, all inactivity and slothfulness, and all superstitious mortifications and self-denials, by which life may be destroyed or shortened all these are point-blank sins against the sixth commandment.