contrary to the second table, but against truth and piety, contrary to the first table of the decalogue.  We have sufficient intimation of the magistrate’s punitive power in cases against the second table; as the stubborn and rebellious, incorrigible son, that was a glutton and a drunkard, sinning against the fifth commandment, was to be stoned to death, Deut. xxi. 18-21.  The murderer, sinning against the sixth commandment, was to be punished with death, Gen. ix. 6; Numb. xxxv. 30-34; Deut. x. 11-13.  The unclean person, sinning against the seventh commandment, was to be punished with death, Lev. xx. 11, 12, 14, 17, 19-25; and before that, see Gen. xxxviii. 24.  Yea, Job, who is thought to live before Moses, and before this law was made, intimates that adultery is a heinous crime, yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges, Job xxxi. 9,11.  The thief, sinning against the eighth commandment, was to be punished by restitution, Exod. xxii. 1, 15, &c.  The false witness, sinning against the ninth commandment, was to be dealt withal as he would have had his brother dealt with, by the law of retaliation, Deut. xix. 16, to the end of the chapter, &c.  Yea, the magistrate’s punitive power is extended also to offences against the first table; whether these offences be against the first commandment, by false prophets teaching lies, errors, and heresies in the name of the Lord, endeavoring to seduce people from the true God.  “If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt,” &c., Deut. xiii. 1-6.  From which place Calvin notably asserts the punitive power of magistrates against false prophets and impostors that would draw God’s people to a defection from the true God, showing that this power also belongs to the Christian magistrate in like cases now under the gospel.

Yea, in case of such seducement from God, though by nearest allies, severe punishment was to be inflicted upon the seducer, Deut. xiii. 6-12.  See also ver. 12, to the end of the chapter, how a city is to be punished in the like case.  And Mr. Burroughs,[27] in his Irenicum, shows that this place of Deut. xiii. 6, &c., belongs even to us under the gospel.

Or whether these offences be against the second commandment, the magistrate’s punitive power reaches them, Deut. xvii. 1-8; Lev. xvii. 2-8; 2 Chron. xvi. 13, 16.  “Maachah, the mother of Asa the king, he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove.”  Job xxxi. 26-28, herewith compare Exod. viii. 25, 26.  Or whether the offences be against the third commandment, “And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth God shall bear his sin:  and he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him, as well the stranger as he that is born in the land,