As to the imitation of CHRIST, it is not only the duty, but the great privilege of CHRISTIANS. He left them an example that they should follow his steps; and it is their glory so to do; in nothing more than in the forgiveness of injuries. He could, in his very last agonies upon the cross, pray for his persecutors and murderers. He could even, as it were, palliate their offences, by pleading their ignorance, instead of aggravating it, by reproaching them with their malice. "Father forgive them! they know not what they do!" said the DYING JESUS. His whole life was a pattern of meekness, gentleness, love, and forbearance. "Lord," said Peter, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ?———— until seven times? JESUS saith unto him, "I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven.” OUR LORD was a bright example of his own precepts; and we are told, 1 John, ii. 6. that, he that saith he abideth in HIM, ought himself also to walk, as HE also walked.

?

Such are the precepts, which must be looked upon as com mentaries on the divine law, that saith, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. They are the golden rules by which all christians ought to walk. The king and the subject, the prince and the beggar, the judge and the prisoner, are here all alike concerned; for there is no respect of persons with GOD. (c)

His Lordship then concluded, with saying, that, "if judges were expected to execute the law upon those who were convicted, the grand jury ought to be very cautious, how they exposed people to a trial by finding bills against them; that they should find no bill unless the evidence before them was sufficient to convict the prisoner, supposing it proved at the bar, and uncontradicted by the prisoner's witnesses.” (d)

I have almost forgotten to mention one more observation of the learned Judge, which was, on "the number of sanguinary laws, in our statute bocks, some of which, his lordship observed, were of long standing, others of more recent date, and" (adds his lordship) "the only reason I can assign for these laws being either suffered to remain from oll time unrepealed, or being more recently enacted, is, that the legislature trusted to the discretion of the judges as to their execution." (e)

I do not pretend to give his Lordship's exact words, either in this, or in any other quotation from the Charge; but I hope, that neither here, nor elsewhere, have I mistaken or misrepresented what was said.

I must confess, that my apprehension is at a loss to conceive the idea of the legislative power of a country, enacting a law for any purpose whatsoever which they do not mean to be executed. That they should enact laws, with an intent that the executive power might suspend their operation, appears to me to be giving themselves a very needless trouble, which might have been spared, by not enacting such laws at all. (ƒ)

The word sanguinary carries with it a very dreadful meaning, like its plain-English synonymy-bloody :-it brings sensations into the mind of the most terrible nature; and, when applied to laws, it imports, that they are arbitrary and cruel, like the laws of Draco, which were calculated for the destruction and misery, not for the preservation and happiness of mankind. (g)

A law may be severe, without deserving the name of sanguinary; and though the former may be justly applied to some of our penal statutes, yet the latter never can. A law

(e) Page 53.

(ƒ) Fage 54.

(g) Page 55.

which has for its object, and is therefore calculated to promote, the security of peaceable and virtuous people, may justly be styled a merciful law, as it regards the whole, though severe in its pu ishment of offenders; and, if without such punishment, the good of the whole cannot be secured, and promoted, this must arise from the audacity and profligacy of those enemies to their fellow-subjects, who will not be intimidated by gentler methods, and who therefore bring upon themselves that wholesome severity, which is to make them examples of public justice, that others may fear to offend. (h)

As to leaving the execution or non-execution of statutes to the disposal of the judges, it is ultimately resorting to the fancy or will of individuals, and bringing us tothe-Misera servitus, ubi jus est vagum aut incognitum. Who can attempt to say, what the consequence of offending may be, when, instead of deducing, or apprehending, the consequences from the words, and plain meaning from the law itself, they are to be suspended, on the uncertainty of private determination? (i)

OBSERVATIONS UPON THOUGHTS ON EXECUTIVE JUSTICE.

PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1786.

Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit.

CRIMINAL jurisprudence has, within the last twenty years, become a very popular study throughout Europe, and the cultivation of it has been generally attended with very sensible and very beneficial effects. In proportion as men have reflected and reasoned upon this important subject, the absurd and barbarous notions of justice, which prevailed for ages, have been exploded, and humane and rational principles have been adopted in their stead. That criminal prosecutions ought always to be carried on for the sake of the public, and never to gratify the passions of individuals; that the primary object of the legislature should be to prevent crimes, and not to chastise criminals; that that object cannot possibly be attained by the mere terror of punishment; and that unless a just proportion be observed between the various degrees of crimes, in the penalties appointed for them, the law must serve to excite, rather than repress guilt; are truths so generally received, that they are come to be considered almost as axioms of criminal law. But considerable as has been the progress of these principles in other parts of Europe, they have not yet produced in this country any melioration of the system of our penal laws. The most glaring defects in those laws have not escaped observation, but few have attempted to remove them, and none have been successful in their attempts; and the only beneficial effect which has yet been produced in England, is a desire in the crown, and in its ministers, the judges, to

remedy some of those defects by their mode of executing the laws, and particularly by a mitigation of that indiscriminating severity, which, while it inflicts the same punishment on a pickpocket as on a parricide, confounds all ideas of justice, and renders the laws, objects, not of veneration and love, but of horror and aversion. A more permanent and a more certain correction of those defects would be so great a national benefit, as one would have thought every good and reflecting citizen must ardently have wished for. At least one would have supposed that humanity, as well as patriotism, must have forbidden any endeavours to cloud the prospect of such a reformation, and much more any efforts to lay restraint upon the sovereign, in executing, according to his oath, justice in mercy, and to enforce that summum jus, which, where the laws are such as constitute the criminal code of England, must ever prove summa injuria. (a)

This ungrateful task, however, has been lately undertaken, and an attempt has been made to restore the law to all its sanguinary rigor, by the author of thoughts on executive justice, with respect to our criminal laws; a work proceeding on principles, which are now so little prevalent, and breathing a spirit so contrary to the genius of the present times, that I should have classed it amongst those performances, with which every literary age has been infested, and which are calculated to render the authors of them celebrated only for the singularity of their opinions, and should have therefore left it to sink into that oblivion, to which such compositions seldom fail to be soon consigned, had I not found that the warmth and the earnestness of the writer's style had gained him converts, and that some of the learned judges, to whom his work is addressed, had seemed inclined to try the terrible ex

(a) Page 5.

1