kings of Europe with their laws and sanctions piled on one another to the height of mountains.

HERMAN PISTORIUS.

WE may admit, not without grounds, that the distinction betwixt punishment and correction, the end of the former being to prevent the spreading of wickedness by warning and deterring others from it, and of the latter, to amend those to whom it is applied, is founded on the weakness of mortal rulers, and not applicable to God. Mortal rulers are not always able to punish in such a manner as to amend those on whom they inflict punishment. They cannot in the same action consult the private advantage of the individual, and the public benefit of the whole, so that they are obliged to distinguish the two, and, for the general good, sacrifice the less to the greater. Both these ends, indeed, may be compatible with each other. We may so punish, that the punishment may be a mean of reclaiming the punished, and at the same time prevent the spreading of vice by serving as a warning to others. Thus when we distinguish punishments from correction, this distinction will only hold, it appears, while we speak of human correction and punishment: since the distinction arises not from the nature of things themselves but from the weakness of mankind. Even amongst men, a sovereign would unquestionably be deemed good, wise, and just, who knew how to punish so as not only to prevent transgressions, hinder the spreading of vice, and maintain order, peace, and security throughout his dominions, but likewise to amend the criminal himself, and render him an instrument of his own happiness, and an useful member of society, by the same punishment that served as a warning to others. But if this cannot

be done, and the sovereign, by shewing kindness to a single criminal, must do an injury to the whole community, in preferring the less to the greater good, being unable, from his limited power, to prevent the extension of vice, but by the sacrifice of the guilty; the idea of the justice of punishing, as a virtue in the sovereign, originates in a want of power; a justice, which, though beneficial to the whole, is a hardship to the party that suffers, and consequently not so perfect and good as it would be, were it at the same time beneficial to society and to the offender. Let it not be supposed, that this inability to correct in every case of punishment is so universal as to extend to God: it is proper to man alone, and proceeds from the following causes. We have not time, space, and means sufficient so multifariously to diversify our corrections, as to place the offender in as many various unpleasing situations as are requisite ultimately to bring him to a serious reflection on his real good and permanent attention to it. We cannot render his punishment so intense as to make the desired impression upon him, without its becoming fatal. Finally, too, we are persuaded, that certain offenders, particularly dangerous ones, must be punished with death, if we seek the security of society. Would slighter punishments serve in such cases, punishments that would not destroy the transgressor, but preserve him an useful member of society, no rational or well-minded man would justify capital punishments, but hold them equally pernicious and detestable. We may even hope, that, when the benevolent and more enlightened eye of philosophy shall have inspected that important part of legislation, the distribution of punishments, this will become less and less destructive, without being less efficacious, and be gradually converted into correction of offenders.

Notes on Hartley, page 494.

SIR WALTER RALEGH.

THE fourth of the second table is, that we shall not steal. And if that kind of violent robbery had been used in Moses' time, which many ruffians practise now a-days in England, and to the dishonour of our nation more in England, than in any region of the world among Christians; out of doubt, he would have censured them by death, and not by restitution, though quadruple. For I speak not of the poor and miserable souls, whom hunger and extreme necessity enforceth, but of those detested thieves, who to maintain themselves lord-like, assault, rob, and wound the merchant, artificer, and labouring man; or break by violence into other men's houses, and spend in bravery, drunkenness, and upon harlots, in one day, what other men sometimes have laboured for all their lives: impoverishing whole families, and taking the bread and food from the mouths of their children. And that this commandment might easily be observed, it would soon appear, if princes would resolve but for a few years to pardon none. For, it is the hope of life, and the argument of sparing the first offence, that encourageth these hell-hounds. And if every man presume to be pardoned once, there is no state of common-wealth, but these men would in a short time impoverish or destroy it.

Now concerning the politic laws, given by Moses to the nation of the Israelites, whether they ought to be a president, from which no civil institution of other people should presume to digress, I will not presume to determine, but leave it as a question for such men to decide, whose professions give them greater ability. Thus much I may be bold to affirm, That we ought not to seem wiser than God himself, who hath told us that there are no laws so righteous, as those which it

pleased him to give to his elect people to be governed by. True it is, that all nations have their several qualities, wherein they differ even from their next borderers, no less than in their peculiar languages; which disagreeable conditions to govern aptly, one and the same law very hardly were able. The Roman civil laws did indeed contain in order a great part of the then known world, without any very notable inconvenience, after such time as it was once received and become familiar: yet was not the administration of it alike in all parts, but yielded much unto the natural customs of the sundry people, which it governed. For whether it be through a long continued persuasion; or (as astrologers more willingly grant) some influence of the heavens; or peradventure some temper of the soil and climate, affording matter of provocation to vice (as plenty made the Sybarites luxurious; want and opportunity to steal, make the Arabians to be thieves) very hard were it to forbid by law an offence so common with any people, as it wanted a name, whereby be distinguished from just and honest. By such rigour was the kingdom of Congo unhappily diverted from the Christian religion, which it willingly at the first embraced, but after with great fury rejected, because plurality of wives was desired unto them, I know not how necessarily, but more contentiously than seasonably. In such cases, methinks, it were not amiss to consider that the high God himself permitted some things to the Israelites, rather in regard to their natural disposition (for they were hard-hearted) than because they were consonant unto the ancient rules of the first perfection. So, even where the general nature of man doth condemn (as many things it doth) for wicked and unjust; there may the law, given by Moses, worthily be deemed the most exact reformer of the evil, which forceth man as near as may be, to the will and pleasure of his maker. But when nature or custom hath entertained a vicious, yet not intolerable habit, with so long and so public approbation, that the virtue opposing it would seem as uncouth, as it were to walk naked in England, or to wear the English fashion of apparel in Turkey : there may a wise and upright law-giver, without presumption

omit somewhat that the rigour of Moses his law required; even as the good king Hezekiah did, in a matter merely ecclesiastical, and therefore the less capable of dispensation, praying for the people; the good Lord be merciful unto him that prepareth his whole heart to seek the Lord God, the God of his fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary: which prayer the Lord heard and granted.

To this effect it is well observed by Master Doctor Willet, that the moral judicals of Moses do partly bind, and partly are let free. They do not hold affirmatively that we are tied to the same severity of punishment now, which was inflicted then; but negatively they do hold, that now the punishment of death should not be adjudged, where sentence of death is not given by Moses: Christian magistrates ruling under Christ the Prince of Peace, that is, of clemency and mercy, may abate of the severity of Moses' law, and mitigate the punishment of death, but they cannot add unto it to make the burden more heavy: for to show more rigour than Moses, becometh not the gospel.

Hist. World, chap. xiv. S. 16.