‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’ Not an Argument to Establish What Is Stealing

People grow up in a capitalist system, and its sometimes quite innovative notions of ownership shape people’s impressions of what theft is; so that merely saying ‘thou shalt not steal’ seems to them sufficient to prove a case, as if this præcept were not universally held to be true by all persons of all ages. Just as easily might the same men, in a different age, have said ‘thou shalt not steal’ to any who wanted to limit what a cruel master was allowed to extract from his slaves, under colour of protecting his property, thinking by so quoting Scripture that they had fully proven their case, and commending themselves for having done good to their neighbour. For even in our own day do many protect the weights and measures of the usurers, how unbalanced soever those be, for the predations of the rich and against the refuge of the poor. They seem to forget that Satan himself was able to quote Scripture in tempting the Lord, and is able today to deceive the saints by contriving fair-sounding sentences from the words of Scripture. Let us beware of such deceptions, by reading Scripture humbly, owning that our knowledge without the word of God is but a house built upon the sand.

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