fign of proper correction. Montefquieu fays, "Every punifhment which does not arife from abfolute neceffity is tyrannical." And it may alfo be faid of harsh and cruel means, by which even proper punifhment may be attended in its execution, if not abfolutely neceffary, they are wanton cruelty. The right to punish is founded upon the focial compact, and that being violated by an individual, and the public tranquility dif turbed, there is an abfolute neceffity of punishing the offender, to preserve the peace, and to guard the fecurity of the whole; and by example, as well as precept, to deter others from the commiffion of acts of like tendency. The immortal Beccaria fays, punishments are juft, in proportion as the liberty preferved is facred and valuable. If the right to punish arifes out of the focial compact, Roman citizens ought to have had no perfonal authority to put their wives, children, or flaves to death by their own hand. The right of inflicting punishment upon individuals fhould, in all countries, be delegated to the conflituted authorities of the fame, who ftile themfelves the fervants of the people, and not remain in the hands of a private citizen to be executed, when and how he pleases. If this were allowed, it would destroy all the order and decorum neceffary in the adminiftration of justice, and tend to burst asunder all thofe ties of affection, friendship, and dependence, with which the God of nature has bound fociety together. Then man, inftead of providing for the happiness of his offspring, might expose them to perish as foon as born, as is done in fome heathen countries. Mofes allowed parents, in certain cafes, to punifh their children with death; but they were first to bring them before the judges---there publicly accufe them of the crimes they charged them with, and wait the fanction of thofe officers before they could lay violent hands upon their rebellious children. See Deut. xxi. 18. This was certainly an improvement in the criminal procefs, when we confider that other nations, at the same time, had abfolute power of life and death over their children, &c. in their own hands, and were not under the neceffity of repairing before the judges prior to the inflicting punishment apon them. Such an improvement was certainly great; though to us, who live in the prefent improved ftate of fociety, it appears barbarous; and many, on this account, have called Mofes by ugly names: yet the inftitutions of Mofes refpecting malefactors who were hanged, is a standing reproof to thofe countries which ftill retain the practice of hanging in chains afterwards. ---a practice which, one fhould fuppofe, Vandals would blufh at,----if Vandals could be found at this enlightened period. Deut. xxi. 23. Mofes never allowed his people to fufpend wretches upon tenter-hooks, to groan out fome days of miferable existence--but this has been done in Chriftian Ruffia. Punishment ought to be inflicted only for the breach of a pofitive and promulgated law; and in order to the prevention of crimes, laws fhould be explicit, left some should seem to be condemned by an ex poft facto law. The nearer laws approach to the principles of natural juftice, the better they will be underftood and obeyed by the generality of men. Some are of opinion the letter of the law ought always to be taken, especially in criminal cafes. Beccaria may be wrong, but he fays-- Judges in criminal cafes have no right to interpret the penal laws, because they are not the legiflators. The only proper and lawul interpreter of the laws is the reprefentive of fociety, not the judge, whofe office is only to examine whether a man has or has not committed an action contrary to the laws. Again, he says, “We fee the fame crime punished in a different manner, at different times, in the fame tribunals; the confequence of not having confulted the conftant and invariable voice of the laws, but the erring inftability of arbitrary interpretation." The conftitution of this country has guarded us from the dangers people in other countries are fubject to; it fays, No man fhall be punished, but for violating a known and promulgated law. The judge cannot condemn an accused perfon---he is tried by twelve of his equals, who condemn or acquit, according as the evidence against him or for him preponderates: the judge records the verdict, and pronounces the fentence of the law. Punishment cannot be legally inflicted until the person be proved gui ty of the crime laid to his charge; nor ought any means to be used to convict a perfon, which would be unbecoming fo folemn an office as that of magiftracy. The old defpotifm of France practifed cunning and cruelty at the fame time. That cruel engine of crooked policy could apprehend men without legal forms; nothing was neceflary but lettres de cachet from the grand monarque, to feize and confine in that gloomy hell, the ci-devant Baftile," where hope never came." A late writer, speaking of the state of France from the time of Louis XIII. fays, "The life and property of the fubject were, from this time, entirely at the mercy of the fovereign: he imprisoned whom he pleased; and whenever he thought it neceflary for his purpose, appointed what judges he thought proper for the trial of offenders." The French never enjoyed the advantages H 2 tages of an Habeas Corpus Act, therefore the king or his minifters could confine them at pleasure, for what time they pleased, without giving them a trial, or even letting them know for what they were confined. For want of this, and the Englifhman's boaft, Trial by Jury, the blood of the innocent has dyed the fcaffolds of ancient and modern France. If punishment ought not to be inflicted but upon proof of guilt, then imprisonment before trial, upon fufpicion, ought not to be attended with rigorous measures, nor the confinement any closer than is abfolutely neceflary. It may be, the perfon accused is innocent; this has been the cafe more than once. "On this account," fays Beccaria," the laws fhould determine the crime, the prefumption, and the evidence to subject the accused to imprisonment and examination, and not leave it to a magiftrate." A prifoner ought never to be tortured in the course of his trial, under the pretence of making him confess the crime he is accused of committing. But can this be reconciled with our ideas of justice? Rather produce evidence; and by evidence alone let facts be proved; let the credibility of the witneffes be confidered; and if all combined are not fufficient to prove the guilt, the accused person must be pronounced innocent.--. Torture has been customary in moft nations, at one time or other, either to make a man confefs his crime, his accomplices, or that some discovery might be thereby made of other matters, &c. When Archbishop Laud threatened one, who refused to confefs his accomplices, that he fhould be put to the torture,--"Then I may impeach Archbishop Laud," he replied. This fhews the impolicy of torture. Upon this head I will exprefs myfelf in the words of Beccaria, in his Essay on Crimes and Punishment, a book which every European ought to read. He fays, "No man can be judged a criminal until he be found guilty; nor can fociety take from him the public protection, until it have been proved, that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted What right, then, but that of power, can authorise the punishment of a citizen, fo long as there remains any doubt of his guilt? This dilemma is frequent. Either he is guilty, or not guilty. If guilty, he fhould only fuffer the punishment ordained by the laws, and torture becomes useless, as his confeffion is unneceffary. If he be not guilty, you torture the innocent; for, in the eye of the law, every man is innocent whofe crime has not been proved. Befides, it is confounding all relations to expect that a man should be both, the the accufer and the accused; and that pain fhould be the test of truth, as if truth refided in the muscles and fibres of a wretch in torture. By this method the robuft will efcape, and the feeble be condemned. These are the inconveniences of this pretended test of truth, worthy only of a cannibal; and which the Romans, in many respects barbarous, and whofe favage virtue has been too much admired, referved for the flaves alone. The refult of torture, then, is a matter of calculation, and depends on the conftitution, which differs in each individual, and is in proportion to his ftrength and fenfibility; fo that, to difcover truth by this method, is a problem, which may be better folved by a mathematician than a judge, and may be thus ftated---The force of the muscles, and the fenfibility of the nerves of an innocent perfon being given, it is required to find the degree of pain neceffary to make him confefs himself guilty of a ' given crime." The above writer lived in a country where torture was once, the order of the day, and made a part of their religious exerçifes, at least of the priests and lords inquifitors, those holy minifters of Chrift, to whom Nebuchadnezzar's priests appear harmless in comparison. Who can read the hiftory of the Inquifition, and not feel thofe emotions of grief and indignance which no language can describe? The variety of torments, the hot and the cold, the roafting alive, the broiling on gridirons, the continual dropping of water upon the bare head of one fixed in a chair; and all this was ordained by the laws of those times, and made a part of their penal code. The history of the Inquifition is the beft expofition of thofe tales fo common among uneducated men and children, and which they think belong to another world---namely, the fhutting up in dark holes, boiling, burning, black tormentors, fire forks, &c.----But enough for the prefent. I am, JANUARY 14, 1799. Yours, &c. F. B. W. SUFFICIENCY OF THE SCRIPTURES. MR. EDITOR, IND N viewing the prevalence of what is commonly called Deifm fpreading among all ranks of people, I am clearly convinced none will escape its leaven or contagion, but those who who have tafted that the Lord is gracious, and are diftinguished by their attachment to Chrift's new commandment in loving those who are of the truth for the truth's fake. Thefe, in Scripture language, are of the church of Philadelphia, who are promifed, by the great Head of it, to be preferved from the prefent delufion, called (Rev. iii. 10) the hour of temptation. Because thou haft kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth. I was led to thefe thoughts by feeing a question proposed in your Mifcellany, vol. ii. p. 369. where your correfpondent afks," Is the Bible (received and credited as the word of God) fufficient of itself to lead a foul to falvation, or is any internal evidence neceflary?" To obtain perfect fatisfaction upon this fubject, I would recommend him to take the apostle's advice to Timothy, (2 Epift. i 15.) by rightly dividing the word of truth, efpecially its two general divifions of letter and fpirit: for want of attending to this has arifen all the confufion in the world refpecting the doctrines of Chriftianity, and confequently the increase of fo many fects and parties. Hence the apostle, defcribing these two very important fubjects (which comprehend the whole of the Bible) fays, "The letter* killeth, but the fpirit giveth life." 2 Cor. iii. 6. This part of the Bible called by the apoftle the letter, being only attended to, is fo far from "leading a foul to God," that the reverfe is the confequence; and for want of attending to each diftinctly, the mouths of deifts, and other gainfayers, have been opened against thefe facred Oracles. But when both are properly illuftrated and applied, they are then called the engrafted word; James, i. 21. Receive with meeknefs the engrafted word, which is able to fave your fouls. The apoftle alfo in addreffing Timothy, ufes fimilar language, 2 Epift. iii. 15. And that from a child thou haft known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wife unto falvation, through faith which is in Chrift Jefus. Your correfpondent will receive additional confirmation refpecting the fufficiency of the word of God to lead a foul to falvation, if he will only attend to our Lord's parable of the fower. Here he will find his fecond enquiry fully cleared up, by our Lord's stating the feed to be the word of God, and the human heart to be the ground into which it is fown. Luke, viii. 11---15. There 2 Cor. iii. 6. To ypaμpa aroulewe, litera occidit, h. e. lex literis com→ prehenfa, non conferens virens ad præftandum, fcilicet quatenus docetur le galiter, feparata a gratia Chrifti. Pafor, in loc. fore |