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devoted nations being full, they were to be destroyed; but no authority was given to punish idolatry out of those limits, nor even to carry their own worship out of the typically holy land. In their dispersions, they taught the law in their synagogues; but do not, till this day, put in practice the worship enjoined by the law of Moses-the place being an essential part of the institution.

The moral law is equally calculated for, and applied to, all persons, in all places, and at all times; and equally authorizes the worship of God, in all places, by all men, in all situations; and enjoined a respect to every discovery of his will, and institution of his appointment: but it prescribes no penalties to be executed by man for the breaches of it. None but God, that knows the heart, can judge of the demerit of sin; because it does not consist so much in the physical act, as in the will and intention, of which none but God is judge. Fallible judges must have recourse to overt acts, declarations and circumstances, to prove the concurrence of the will, or intention of the heart, and may be often mistaken. The innocent may sometimes suffer, but the guilty more frequently escape punishment. God only is the uncrring judge.

This being the case, it follows of course, that human penalties for breaches of the moral law, are no part of that law itself, as it relates to God; he will not give this glory to another-nor is any creature, man or angel, competent for the exercise of it.

Penalties to be executed by men upon their fellow men, arise from the state of society, they being necessary for the peace and happiness thereof; they,

therefore, vary in every society, agreeable to the circumstances of the society itself, and the prevalence of vices, by which its safety is most exposed to danger, or upon its competency to execute such penalties.

In a state of nature, before the existence of civil society, no such penalties could have been executed; every man's rights were equal. Men being, after the first pair, introduced by natural generation, parental authority was sufficient, until they became capable to act for themselves. After this period, we know, by the awful example of Cain killing Abel his brother, that it was not sufficient. We know, likewise, by the same example, that no human penalties for crimes against society then existed: indeed it was not sufficiently numerous to enact laws or execute penalties; therefore God took the case of the infant state of society into his own hand, and inflicted such punishment on the murderer as he judged suitable to that state of society, but spared and protected his life; yet, for the safety of others, set a mark on him, and banished him; or, from the influence of fear, he banished himself. When men multiplied on the earth, oppression and other crimes prevailed to so great a degree, as to have rendered human laws and penalties very necessary; but how far such were enacted or executed, we are not informed. The degeneracy, however, being so great as to be incurable by ordinary means, it pleased God, in an extraordinary manner, to inflict the penalty of death on the whole human race, with the exception of one family.

In this second infant state of the human race, too few in number to form a civil society, capable of enacting and executing penal laws, it pleased God

himself, among other precepts, to prescribe death to be inflicted by man, as the penalty for murder; and as there were not, at that period, civil courts, or officers for public prosecution, he enjoined the brothers (explained to include others near of kin) of the deceased, to execute the sentence, under the penalty of God himself requiring his brother's blood at his hands, as he had formerly done the blood of Abel at the hand of Cain. This precept, given to the family of Noah, then containing the whole human race, is still in substance equally applicable to all nations, and at all times. It is the only punishment adequate to the offence; but the appointment of the brother, or near of kin, to be the avenger of blood, arose from the then state of society, and pointed out the expediency of civil government, when men became sufficiently numerous for that purpose. The avenger of blood would not distinguish sufficiently between the different kinds of homicides; and this would produce other revenges, as it still does. where it is practised, and did in the feudal times in Europe, while the heads of families or clans exercised the right of avenging their own wrongs, or that of their relations, and increased the shedding of human blood.

Before the death of Noah, and long before the death of Shem, we find numerous civil societies were instituted in comparatively small territories; that property was divided; and that, consequently, life and property and civil order were protected. The division of languages, about 101 years after the flood, necessarily promoted the division and settling of the earth by small civil societies. We find them very numerous in

the days of Abraham, 433 years after the flood, and while Shem was yet alive.

About 857 years after the flood, when it pleased God to constitute the Israelitish branch of the family of Abraham, (to whom he had long afforded special protection, and given special promises) a distinct nation, and to become their peculiar King, and give them a code of laws peculiar to themselves as a nation and government, distinguished from all the nations of the earth; he having, after long striving with them, determined to give up the rest of the world, in a great degree, to ignorance, idolatry and licentiousness, and to wink at the prevalence of these evils till the desire of all nations should come, this church and nation, (for both were one, and all were symbolically holy) was the repository of the lively oracles, first given by Moses, and continued in the sanctuary, or added by the prophets, till Christ came. This church and nation were to keep up a testimony against the prevailing idolatry of the world, but not to overturn or suppress that idolatry, except within their own territory. But to preserve them from the prevailing contagion of idolatry, their peculiar laws were calculated to prevent their communion with the nations around them, not only in their religion, but in their manners, their marriages, their clothing, their ploughing, sowing and reaping, and in the preparation, and in many instances, in the substance, of their daily food. They could not so much as eat with those of other nations.

In this peculiar code of laws, the precepts given to Noah were adopted; but the penalty respecting murder was revised. The power of the avenger of blood was not abolished, but modified. Courts of justice were

erected to decide between wilful murder, with malice aforethought, and less criminal or innocent homicides, and cities of refuge provided. The master who killed his servant, whether wilfully or not, was, for some special reasons, exempted from the power of the avenger of blood, or from being banished to the city of refuge. There were no servants or slaves when the precepts were given to Noah. We are not well informed how this law was construed in the execution; but when the government was permitted to be so far changed as to have hereditary kings, we know that the best of these kings dispensed with the punishment of murder. David dispensed with it in the case of Absalom, and also in the case of Joab in two instances; all of them wilful and malicious. It pleased Jehovah himself, as King of Israel, to dispense with, or change, the punishment of murder and adultery, in the very aggravated case of David and Uriah. Joab was afterwards put to death by Solomon for treason, as Shemei also afterwards was, without any hearing or trial before a court of justice, as enjoined by the law of Moses. And Abiether, in the same manner, thrust out of the priest's office.

The above examples contribute to demonstrate, that temporal penalties, to be executed by fallen man on his fellow sinners, are no part of the moral law of nature. If they were, they could not be dispensed with or changed: for the essential character of the moral law is immutability; it is unchangeable like God its author, a transcript of whose divine perfections it is. The sum of this law is declared by an infallible interpreter to be, To love the Lord our God with all our heart, &c. and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

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