about their devotions. Nay more, that very Pope, with unparallelled impudence, excommunicated the Florentines for doing juftice upon the intended affaffins. The moft facred oaths were in vain employed as a fecurity against that horrid crime. Childebert II. King of the Franks, enticed Magnovald to his court, by a folemn oath that he should receive no harm; and yet made no difficulty to affaffinate him during the gaiety of a banquet. But these instances, however horrid, make no figure compared with the massacre of St Bartholomew, where many thousands were inhumanly and treacherously butchered. Even fo late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, affaffination was not held in every cafe to be criminal. Many folicitous applications were made to general councils of Chriftian clergy, to declare it criminal in every cafe; but without fuccefs. Ferdinand King of Aragon and Navarre, after repeated affaffinations and acts of perfidy, obtained the appellation of Great fo little authority had the moral fenfe, during thefe dark and fanguinary

ages.

But it is fcarce neceffary to mention particular

particular inftances of the overbearing power of malevolent paffions during these ages. An opinion, once universal, that the innocent may be justly involved in the fame punishment with the guilty, is of itfelf irrefragable evidence, that morality formerly had very little influence when oppofed by revenge. There is no moral principle more evident, than that punishment cannot be inflicted with justice but upon the guilty; and yet in Greece, the involving of the innocent with the guilty in the fame punishment, was authorised even by pofitive law. By an Athenian law, a man committing facrilege, or betraying his country, was banished with all his children (a). And when a tyrant was put to death, his children fuffered the fame fate (b). The punishment of treafon in Macedon, was extended against the criminal's relations (c). Hanno, a citizen of Carthage, formed a plot to enflave his country, by poifoning the whole fenate at a banquet. He was tortured to death;

(a) Meurfius de legibus Atticis, lib. 2. cap. 2. (b) Eod. lib. 2. cap. 15.

(c) Quintus Curtius, lib. 6. cap. 11.]

and

and his children, with all his relations, were cut off without mercy, tho' they had no acceffion to his guilt. Among the Japanese, a people remarkably ferocious, it is the practice to involve children and relations in the punishment of capital crimes. Even Cicero, the chief man for learning in the most enlightened period of the Roman republic, and a celebrated moralift, approves that practice: "Nec vero me

mẹ

fugit, quam fit acerbum parentum fce"lera filiorum pœnis lui: fed hoc præ"clare legibus comparatum eft, ut cari

tas liberorum amiciores parentes reipu"blicæ redderet* (a)." In Britain, every one knows, that murder was retaliated, not only upon the criminal and his relations, but upon his whole clan; a practice fo common as to be distinguished by a peculiar name, that of deadly feud. As late as the days of King Edmund, a law

*"I am fenfible of the hardship of punishing "the child for the crime of the parent: this, how86 ever, is a wife enactment of our laws; for here"by the parent is bound to the intereft of the state "by the strongest of all ties, the affection to his offspring."

(a) Ep. 12. ad Brutum.

was

was made in England, prohibiting deadly feud, except between the relations of the perfon murdered and the murderer himself.

66

I embrace the prefent opportunity to honour the Jews, by observing, that they were the first people we read of, who had correct notions of morality with respect to the prefent point. The following law is exprefs: "The fathers fhall not be put to "death for the children, neither shall the "children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own fin (a).” Amaziah, Amaziah, King of Judah, gave ftrict obedience to that law, in avenging his father's death: "And it came to pass as foon as the kingdom was confirmed in his hand, that he flew "his fervants which had flain the king "his father. But the children of the "murderers he flew not; according to "that which is written in the book of the "law of Mofes (b)." There is an elegant paffage in Ezekiel to the fame purpose (c): "What mean ye, that ye ufe this pro"verb concerning the land of Ifrael, fay

(a) Deuteronomy, xxiv. 16.

(b) 2 Kings, chap. 14.

(c) Chap. 18.

66

66 ing, The fathers have eaten four grapes, "and the children's teeth are fet on edge? "As I live, faith the Lord God, ye fhall 86 not have occafion any more to use this 66 proverb in Ifrael. The foul that fin66 neth, it fhall die: the fon fhall not bear "the iniquity of the father, neither fhall the father bear the iniquity of the fon; "the righteoufnefs of the righteous fhall "be upon him, and the wickedness of "the wicked shall be upon him. Among the Jews however, as among other nations, there are inftances without number, of involving innocent children and relations in the fame punishment with the guilty. Such power has revenge, as to trample upon confcience, and upon the moft exprefs laws. Inftigated with rage for Nabal's ingratitude, King David made a vow to God, not to leave alive of all who pertained to Nabal any that piffeth against the wall. And it was not any compunction of confcience that diverted him from his cruel purpose, but Nabal's beautiful wife, who pacified him (a). But fuch contradiction between principle, and practice, is not peculiar to the Jews. We find (a) 1 Samuel, chap. 25. T examples

VOL. IV.