Note: Last Sunday afternoon we returned to our
occasional series through Spurgeon’s Baptist Catechism, examining the sixth
commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” The
catechism teaches that this commandment “forbids the taking away of our own
life, or the life of our neighbor unjustly, or whatsoever tends thereunto.” On this point, I borrowed from the Puritan
Thomas Vincent who suggested the following lawful means that one should employ
to preserve his life and thus keep the sixth commandment:
1. Defense of
ourselves with arms and weapons, against the violence of thieves and cutthroats
that seek to murder us.
2. Defense of
ourselves with clothes, and in houses, against the violence of the weather and
cold.
3. The nourishing and
refreshing of our bodies in a sober and moderate use of meat, drink, and sleep.
4. The exercise of
bodies with labour and moderate recreations.
5. The use of physic
[medicine] for the removal of sickness and the recovery of health.
6. “Patience,
peacableness, contentment, cheerfulness, and the moderate exhilarating our
spirits with God’s gifts … using all good means to get and keep our minds and
hearts in a good temper….” This is a
Puritan call to good mental and emotional health. He cites Proverbs 17:22: “A merry heart doth good like a medicine; but
a broken spirit drieth the bones.”
May the Lord lead us to honor his moral law including the
preservation of our own lives as dictated by the sixth commandment.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
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