“Many of the goals sought by modern liberals are a part of the Mosaic law, but with a significant difference. Biblical law required the just treatment of the laborer; it forbad fraud in foods, measures, money, and drugs. It required soil conservation, and much else, but not by administrative agencies. The criminal law forbad murder and theft, and all harmful drugs and foods were forbidden as destructive of life; fraudulent foods and goods were theft, and so on. In modern society, these offenses are too often the jurisdiction of arbitrary administrative agencies, as are labor problems, with the result that the criminal law is subverted and the very purpose of this law, the prevention of oppression, nullified. Moreover, because civil statute law has replaced Biblical law, men can be harmed and their lives shortened by dangerous drugs and sprays, and no crime exists unless a statute covers the specific offense. The combination of statute law and administrative law has created oppression, whereas the common law of Scripture gives man a principle of justice and a basis for a public understanding of law.”
RJ Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law p. 497
