Wesley Corpus

To the eighth commandment, concerning theft, ver. 1 - 4 Trespass by cattle, ver. 5. Damage by fire, ver. 6. Trusts, ver. 7 - 13. Borrowing cattle, ver. 14, 15. Or money, ver. 25 - 27. To the seventh commandment. Against fornication, ver. 16, 17. Bestiality, ver. 19. To the first table. Forbidding witchcraft, ver. 18. Idolatry, ver. 20. Commanding to offer the first - fruits, ver. 29. 30. To the poor, ver. 21 - 24. To the civil government, ver. 28. To the Jewish nation, ver. 13. Five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep - More for an ox than for a sheep, because the owner, besides all the other profit, lost the daily labour of his ox. If we were not able to make restitution, he must be sold for a slave: the court of judgment was to do it, and it is likely the person robbed received the money. Thus with us in some cases, felons are transported to the Plantations, where only, Englishmen know what slavery is. But let it be observed, the sentence is not slavery, but banishment: nor can any Englishman be sold, unless he first indent himself to the captain that carries him over. If a thief broke a house in the night, and was killed in the doing it, his blood was upon his own head. But if it were in the day - time that the thief was killed, he that killed him was accountable for it, unless it were in the necessary defence of his own life. For he should make full restitution - This the law determined: not that he should die. In his hand alive - Not killed, nor sold, as Ex 22:1, so that the owner recover it with less charge and trouble. He that wilfully put his cattle into his neighbour's field, must make restitution of the best of his own. The Jews hence observed it as a general rule, that restitution must always be made of the best; and that no man should keep any cattle that were likely to trespass upon his neighbour, or do him any damage. He that designed only the burning of thorns might become accessary to the burning of corn, and should not be held guiltless.