THE EIGHT COMMAVNDEMENT.
THOV shalt not steale.
By this commaundement is enacted and decreed a distinction of possessions. For the end of this commandement is, The pre∣seruation of goods, or possessions, which God giueth to euery one for the maintenance of their life. Thou shalt not steale, that is, Thou shalt not couer, or attempt by guile to conueigh thy neighbours goods vnto thee. Therefore defend, preserue, encrease them, and giue thy neighbour his owne. Nowe theft is onely named, as being the grossest kinde of defrau∣ding, that by it the rest of the like qualitie might be vnder∣stood, and that for the same, as the scope or end, other vi∣ces or sinnes of like nature, and their antecedents and consequentes might bee prohibited and forbidden.
The vertues of this eight commaundement, together with their extremes or contrarie vices.
1 COmmutatiue Justice, which is a vertue in pur∣chasing of goods, not coueting after an other mans goods, and keeping an equalitie by number in bar∣gaines, and in the common trade of life, in the purchasing and exchaunging of thinges, according to iust lawes be∣tween the ware and the price, the desert and the reward, whether it bee in purchase and buying, or in exchaunge of thinges. All thinges either are no mans, or some mans. There∣fore those things are translated to another Owner, which are either no mans, or are belonging to other men: Those thinges that are no mans, become theirs who get them: And if thou sease vpon that which is no mans, thou shalt iniurie no man. Those thinges that belong to another man, are passed from him, either by violence, the Owner beeing vnwilling thereto; or by grant, according to the Owners wil & liking.