be the guide in both. Let not the Christian fear, therefore, that I will compromise the integrity of scripture, even where philosophy may seem, at least for a time, to contradict it. The plain dictates of each shall be fairly stated, and the reader may judge for himself how far they agree or disagree.

CHAPTER XIX.

OF THE DIVINE JUSTICE IN RESPECT OF REWARDS AND

PUNISHMENTS.

WE tread now on difficult and dangerous ground, and I entreat the reader to be wary and circumspect. Yet let him not desist from proceeding:

to return is more difficult than to advance. Caution is wise, but timidity is equally dangerous with rashness. The hand of a skilful operator must be bold and steady, as well as cautious; and he, who, after infixing the knife, shrinks, with trembling hand, from the danger and tenderness of the operation, only leaves his poor patient bleeding and lacerated, and, if death be the result, his ignorant cowardice is the cause. If, therefore, the student would not see truth expire beneath his tardy and unskilful treatment, bleeding at every vein, let him finish the excision of those roots of error,-I bid him in the name of God, of religion, and of truth, to advance boldly.

It has been shown in the preceding chapter

that our first ideas of retributive justice take their rise from the feeling of revenge. But what is revenge?

In answer to this question we may observe that it is the natural expression of hatred on account of an injury received;-the rendering of evil for evil. Hatred is the opposite of love. The one in its most enlarged sense is the conception of an object as good and agreeable, with the attendant emotions, and varies in its character according to the various nature of the good contemplated :the other is the conception of an object as evil and disagreeable, with the peculiar accompanying emotions. The one therefore is naturally associated with the wish to preserve, the other with the desire of destroying its object. The name of revenge is applied to the expression of hatred arising from an injury received, either personally, on our own account, or by sympathy with others, to whom we stand related as friends or brethren. Natural revenge is not proportioned to the injury, but to the hatred which it has excited and as hatred seeks the destruction of its object, revenge in its natural state aims at this, without regard to the extent of the injury, and is limited only by the power or impotence of the person to accomplish what he desires. Hence the bloody and cruel revenge of barbarians. Hence, too, the natural apprehension, that the severity of the revenge will be in proportion to the power of the injured.

But the pernicious nature of such feelings to society, would soon give rise to the establishment of a limitation of personal animosities, affording at once a proportionate revenge to the injured, and a reasonable protection to the offender. Hence the first criminal law, which has been denominated the lex talionis, proceeds on the principle of like for like, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. This was one great step towards the mitigation of personal revenge; and the establishment of places of refuge for unintentional offenders was another; -both which laws are found incorporated in the Mosaic institutions, the oldest code now in existence. In the farther progress of society, criminal law has come to be more generally regarded as not seeking the suffering of the criminal, any more than is proper for public utility; and punishments are very often proportioned more to the facility of the crime, and the danger of its becoming ruinous by frequent recurrence, than to the feeling of private resentment which it may excite in the mind of the sufferer, or to the extent of injury which he may have undergone. Thus the principle of revenge has become nearly extinguished from our systems of public law; and enlightened views with regard to the nature and ends of punishment are certainly gaining ground; though the mass of the people see not the wisdom or the justice of such enactments, but are still attached to that

easy and obvious system of modified revenge, the law of retaliation.

But it is not difficult to show that the feeling of revenge is wrong; because, instead of restraining, it perpetuates and entails injuries, from man to man, and from generation to generation. This fact is indubitably proved by all history, domestic, municipal, and national, and is particularly exemplified in the hostilities of the feudal barons. Now, as such a perpetuation of evil and misery is most contrary to the benevolent design of God, revenge in man must meet his entire disapprobation. But may there not still be something vindictive in His nature-may He not thus exercise a prerogative which he denies to his creatures? No, if it be true that we ought to form our characters after the likeness of his moral attributes, such a supposition cannot be admitted, otherwise, imitating a Being of vindictive feelings, we should be rightly vindictive. Moreover, we know that the Supreme Being is far removed above vindictive feeling, because he is far removed above the reach of injury and revenge, being the retaliation of injury, is, therefore, with him impossible. And when to these considerations we add that he is himself the Creator, the Orderer and Governor of all,—the origin of all power, all life, all action,— the disposer of that entire series of events which is all moving on towards ultimate good,—it is