The next sentence of the writer upon whose testimony I offer these comments, is of tremendous import --- “There is much reason to believe that our public executions have had a direct and positive tendency to promote both murder and suicide." "Why, if a considerable time elapse between the trial and the execution, do we find the severity of the public changed into compassion? For the same reason that a master, if he do not beat his slave in the moment of resentment, often feels a repugnance to the beating him at all." This is remarkable. If executions were put off for a twelvemonth, I doubt whether the public would bear them. But why if they were just and right? Respecting "the contempt and indignation with which every one looks on an executioner," Beccaria says the reason is, "that in a secret corner of the mind, in which the original impressions of nature are still preserved, men discover a sentiment which tells them that their lives are not lawfully in the power of any one." Let him who has the power of influencing the legislature of the country or public opinion (and who has not?) consider the responsibility which this declaration implies, if he lifts his voice for the punishment of death! " 2 19. But further: the execution of one offender excites in others "the spirit of revenge." This is extremely natural. Many a soldier, I dare say, has felt impelled to revenge the death of his comrades; and the member of a gang of thieves, who has fewer restraints of principle, is likely to feel it too. But upon whom is his revenge inflicted? Upon the legislature, or the jury, or the witnesses? No, but upon the public -upon the first person whose life is in their power, and which they are prompted to take away. You execute a man, then, in order to save the lives of others; and the effect is, that you add new inducements to take the lives of others away. 21. Finally." The best of substitutes for capital punishment will be found in that judicious management of criminals in prison which it is the object of the present tract to recommend ;"1 which management is Christian management--a system in which reformation is made the first object, but in which it is found that in order to effect reformation severity to hardened offenders is needful. Thus then we arrive at the goal: -we begin with urging the system that Christianity dictates as right; we conclude by discovering that, as it is the right system, so it is practically the best. 22. But an argument in favour of capital punishments has been raised from the Christian Scriptures themselves." If I be an offender, or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die." 2 This is the language of an innocent person who was persecuted by malicious enemies. It was an assertion of innocence; an assertion that he had done nothing worthy of death. The case had no reference to the question of the lawfulness of capital punishment, but to the question of the lawfulness of inflicting it upon him. Nor can it be supposed that it was the design of the speaker to convey any sanction of the punishment itself, because the design would have been wholly foreign to the occasion. The argument of Grotius goes perhaps too far for his own purpose. "If I be an offender, or have done anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die." He refused not to die, then, if he were an offender, if he had done one of the many and grievous things" which the But will it be Jews charged upon him. contended that he meant to sanction the destruction of every person who was thus "an offender"?-His enemies were endeavouring to take his life, and he, in earnest asseveration of his innocence, says, If you can fix your charges upon me, take it. 66 23. Grotius adduces, as an additional evidence of the sanction of the punishment 20. Of a system which is thus unsoundby Christianity, this passage, “Servants, be unsound because it rejects some of the subject to your masters with all fear, &c. plainest dictates of the Moral Law-and-What glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted unsound because so many of its effects are bad, I should be ready to conclude, with no other evidence, that it was utterly inexpedient and impolitic-that as it was bad in morals, it was bad in policy. And such appears to be the fact." It is incontrovertibly proved that punishments of a milder and less injurious nature are calculated to produce, for every good purpose, a far more powerful effect." 3 1 Godwin: Enq. Pol. Just., v. 2, p. 726. 2 Beccaria: Essay on Capital Punishments, chap. 28. 3 Observations on the Visiting, &c., of Female Prisoners, P. 75. for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God."3 Some arguments disprove the doctrine which they are advanced to support, and this surely is one of them. It surely cannot be true that Christianity sanctions capital punishments, if this is the best evidence of the sanction that can be found.1 1 Observations on the Visiting, &c., of Female Prisoners, p. 76. 2 Acts xxv. 11; see Grotius: Rights of War and Peace. 31 Pet. ii. 18, 20. 4 "Wickliffe," says Priestley, "seems to have thought it wrong to take away the life of man on any account." 24. Some persons, again, suppose that there is a sort of moral obligation to take the life of a murderer: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." This supposition is an example of that want of advertence to the supremacy of the Christian morality, which in the first Essay we had occasion to notice. Our law is the Christian law, and if Christianity by its precepts or spirit prohibits the punishment of death, it cannot be made right to Christians by referring to a commandment which was given to Noah. There is, in truth, some inconsistency in the reasonings of those who urge the passage. The fourth, fifth, and sixth verses of Genesis ix. each contains a law delivered to Noah. Of these three laws we habitually disregard two: how then can we with reason insist on the authority of the third?1 25. After all, if the command were in full force, it would not justify our laws; for they shed the blood of many who have not shed blood themselves. 26. And this conducts us to the observation, that the grounds upon which the United States of America still affix death to murder of the first degree, do not appear very clear; for if other punishments are found effectual in deterring from crimes of all degrees of enormity up to the last, how is it shown that they would not be effectual in the last also? There is nothing in the constitution of the human mind to indicate, that a murderer is influenced by passions which require that the counteracting power should be totally different from that which is employed to restrain every other crime. The difference too in the personal guilt of the perpetrators of some other crimes, and of murder, is sometimes extremely small. At any rate, it is not so great as to imply a necessity for a punishment totally dissimilar. The truth appears to be, that men entertain a sort of indistinct notion that murder is a crime which requires a peculiar punishment, which notion is often founded, not upon any process of investigation, by which the propriety of this peculiar punishment is discovered, but upon some vague ideas respecting the nature of the crime itself. But the dictate of philosophy is, to employ that punishment which will be most efficacious. Efficacy is the test of its propriety; and in estimating this efficacy, the character of the crime is a foreign consideration. Again, the dictate of Christianity is, to employ that punishment which, while it deters the spectator, reforms the man. Now, neither 1 Indeed it would almost appear from Genesis ix. 5, that even accidental homicide was thus to be punished with death; and if so, it is wholly disregarded in our present practice. philosophy nor Christianity appears to be consulted in punishing murder with death, because it is murder. And it is worthy of especial remembrance, that the purpose for which Grotius defends the punishment of death is, that he may be able to defend the practice of war :-a bad foundation if this be its best! 27. It is one objection to capital punishment that it is absolutely irrevocable. If an innocent man suffers it is impossible to recall the sentence of the law. Not that this consideration alone is a sufficient argument against it, but it is one argument In a certain sense, inamongst the many. deed, all personal punishments are irrevocable. The man who by a mistaken verdict has been confined twelve months in a prison cannot be repossessed of the time. But if irrevocable punishments cannot be dispensed with, they should not be made needlessly common, and especially those should be regarded with jealousy which admit of no removal or relaxation in the event of subsequently discovered innocence, or subsequent reformation. It is not sufficiently considered that a jury or a court of justice never know that a prisoner is guilty.-A witness may know it who saw him commit the act, but others cannot know it who depend upon testimony, for testimony may be mistaken or false. All verdicts are founded upon probabilities-probabilities which, though they sometimes approach to certainty, never attain to it. Surely it is a serious thing for one man to destroy another upon grounds short of absolute certainty of his guilt. There is a sort of indecency attached to it-an assumption of a degree of authority which ought to be exercised only by Him whose knowledge is infallibly true. It is unhappily certain that some have been put to death for actions which they never committed. At one assizes, we believe, not less than six persons were hanged, of whom it was afterwards discovered that they were entirely innocent. A deplorable instance is given by Dr. Smollett : 66 " 1 Rape and murder were perpetrated upon an unfortunate woman in the neighbourhood of London, and an innocent man suffered death for this complicated outrage, while the real criminals assisted at his execution, heard him appeal to Heaven for his innocence, and in the character of friends embraced him while he stood on the brink of eternity." Others equally innocent, but whose innocence has never been made known, have doubtless shared the same fate. These are tremendous considerations, and ought to make men solemnly pause before, upon grounds necessarily uncertain, they take away that life which God has given, and which they can not restore. 1 Hist. of Eng., v. 3, p. 318. 28. Of the merely philosophical speculations respecting the rectitude of capital punishments, whether affirmative or negative, I would say little; for they in truth deserve little. One advantage indeed attends a brief review-that the reader will perceive how little the speculations of philosophers will aid us in the investigation of a Christian question. 29. The philosopher, however, would prove what the Christian cannot, and Mably accordingly says, "In the state of nature, I have a right to take the life of him who lifts his arm against mine. This right, upon entering into society, I surrender to the magistrate." If we conceded the truth of the first position (which we do not), the conclusion from it is an idle sophism; for it is obviously preposterous to say, that because I have a right to take the life of a man who will kill me if I do not kill him, the state, which is in no such danger, has a right to do the same. That danger which constitutes the alleged right in the individual, does not exist in the case of the state. The foundation of the right is gone, and where can be the right itself? Having, however, been thus told that the state has a right to kill, we are next informed, by Filangieri, that the criminal has no right to live. He says, "If I have a right to kill another man, he has lost his right to life." Rousseau goes a little further. He tells us, that in consequence of the social contract" which we make with the sovereign on entering into society, "Life is a conditional grant of the state:"2 SO that we hold our lives, it seems, only as tenants at will," and must give them up whenever their owner, the state, requires them. The reader has probably hitherto thought that he retained his head by some other tenure. 1 66 30. The right of taking an offender's life being thus proved, Mably shows us how its exercise becomes expedient. "A murderer," says he, "in taking away his enemy's life, believes he does him the greatest possible evil. Death, then, in the murderer's estimation is the greatest of evils. By the fear of death, therefore, the excess of hatred and revenge must be restrained." If language wilder than this can be held, Rousseau, I think, holds it. He says, "The preservation of both sides (the criminal and the state) is incompatible; one of the two must perish." How it happens that a nation "must perish," if a convict is not hanged, the reader, I suppose, will not know. Even philosophy, however, concedes Absolute necessity alone," says Pastoret, can justify the punishment of death ;" and Rousseau himself acknowledges that we have no right to put to death, even as much : 66 1 Montagu on Punishment of Death. 2 Contr. Soc., ii. 5, Montagu. for the sake of example, any but those who cannot be permitted to live without danger.” Beccaria limits the right to one specific case -and in doing this he appears to sacrifice his own principle (deduced from that splendid fiction, the "social contract"), which is, that "the punishment of death is not authorised by any right :--no such right exists." 31. For myself, I perceive little value in such speculations to whatever conclusions they lead, for there are shorter and surer roads to truth; but it is satisfactory to find that, even upon the principles of such philosophers, the right to put criminals to death is not easily made out. 32. The argument, then, respecting the punishment of death, is both distinct and short. It rejects, by its very nature, a regard to the first and greatest object of punishment. It does not attain either of the other objects so well as they may be attained by other means. It is attended with numerous evils peculiarly its own. The CHAPTER XIV. Religious Establishments. primitive church-The established church of Ireland-America-Advantages and disadvantages of established churches-Alliance of a church with the state-An established church perpetuates its own evils-Persecution generally the growth of religious establishments-State religions injurious to the civil welfare of a people-Legal provision for Christian teachers-Voluntary payment-Advancement in the church-The appointment of religious teachers. 1. A large number of persons embark from Europe, and colonise an uninhabited territory in the South Sea. They erect a government-suppose a republic-and make all persons, of whatever creed, eligible to the legislature. The community prospers and increases. the legislature, who is a disciple of John In process of time a member of Wesley, persuades himself that it will tend of Methodism should be supported by a to the promotion of religion that the preachers sufficiently ample to prevent them from necesnational tax; that their stipends should be sary attention to any business but that of religion; and that accordingly they shall be precluded from the usual pursuits of commerce and from the professions. He proposes the measure. It is contended against by the Episcopalian members, and the Independents, and the Catholics, and the Unitarians -by all but the adherents to his own creed. They insist upon the equality of civil and religious rights, but in vain. The majority prove to be Methodists; they support the measure: the law is enacted; and Methodism becomes, thenceforth, the_religion of the state. This is a Religicus Establishment. 66 2. But it is a religious establishment in its best form; and, perhaps, none ever existed of which the constitution was so simple and so pure. During one portion of the papal history, the Romish Church was indeed not so much an establishment" of the state as a separate and independent constitution. For though some species of alliance subsisted, yet the Romanists did not acknowledge, as Protestants now do, that the power of establishing a religion resides in the state. 3. In the present day, other immunities are possessed by ecclesiastical establishments than those which are necessary to constitute the institution-such, for example, as that of exclusive eligibility to the legislature and other alliances with the civil power exist than that which necessarily results from any preference of a particular faith-such as that of placing ecclesiastical patronage in the hands of a government, or of those who are under its influence. From these circumstances it happens, that in inquiring into the propriety of religious establishments, we cannot confine ourselves to the inquiry whether they would be proper in their simplest form, but whether they are proper as they usually exist. And this is so much the more needful, because there is little reason to expect that when once an ecclesiastical establishment has been erected-when once a particular church has been selected for the preference and patronage of the civil power-that preference and patronage will be confined to those circumstances which are necessary to the subsistence of an establishment at all. 4. It is sufficiently obvious that it matters nothing to the existence of an established church what the faith of that church is, or what is the form of its government. It is not the creed which constitutes the establishment, but the preference of the civil power; and accordingly the reader will be pleased to bear in mind, that neither in this chapter nor in the next have we any concern with religious opinions. Our business is not with churches, but with church establishments. 5. The actual history of religious establishments in Christian countries does not differ in essence from that which we have supposed in the South Sea. They have been erected by the influence or the assistance of the civil power. In one country a religion may have owed its political supremacy to the superstitions of a prince; and in another to his policy or ambition; but the effect has been similar. Whether superstition or policy, the contrivances of a priesthood, or the fortuitous predominance of a party, have given rise to the established church, is of comparatively little consequence to the fundamental principles of the institution. 6. Of the divine right of a particular church to supremacy I say nothing; because none with whom I am at present concerned to argue imagine that it exists. 7. The only ground upon which it appears that religious establishments can be advocated are, first, that of example or approbation in the primitive churches; and, secondly, that of public utility. 8. I. The primitive church was not a religious establishment in any sense or in any degree. No establishment existed until the church had lost much of its purity. Nor is there any expression in the New Testament, direct or indirect, which would lead a reader to suppose that Christ or His apostles regarded an establishment as an eligible institution. "We find, in His religion, no scheme of building up a hierarchy, or of ministering to the views of human governments."- Our religion, as it came out of the hands of its Founder and His apostles, exhibited a complete abstraction from all views either of ecclesiastical or civil policy." The evidence which these facts supply respecting the moral character of religious establishments, whatever be its weight, tends manifestly to show that that character is not good. I do not say because Christianity exhibited this "complete abstraction," that it therefore necessarily condemned establishments; but I say that the bearing and the tendency of this negative testimony is against them. 1 9. In the discourses and writings of the first teachers of our religion, we find such absolute disinterestedness, so little disposition to assume political superiority, that to have become the members of an established church would certainly have been inconsistent in them. It is indeed almost inconceivable that they could ever have desired the patronage of the state for themselves or for their converts. No man conceives that Paul or John could have participated in the exclusion of any portion of the Christian church from advantages which they themselves enjoyed. Every man perceives that to have done this, would have been to assume a new character, a character which they had never exhibited before, and which was incongruous with their former principles and motives of action. But why is this incongruous with the apostolic character 1 Paley: Evidences of Christianity, p. 2, c. 2. 10. I lay stress upon these considerations. We all know that much may be learnt respecting human duty by a contemplation of the spirit and temper of Christianity as it was exhibited by its first teachers. When the spirit and temper is compared with the essential character of religious establishments, they are found to be incongruous-foreign to one another-having no natural relationship or similarity. I should regard such facts, in reference to any question of rectitude, as of great importance; but upon a subject so intimately connected with religion itself, the importance is peculiarly great. and that if those whom other churches do unless it is incongruous with Christianity? | provide this under peculiar disadvantages; Upon this single ground, therefore, there for after paying, in common with others, is reason for the sentiment of 'many their quota to the state religion, they have well-informed persons, that it seems ex- to pay in addition to their own. But pertremely questionable whether the religion haps it will be said that dissenters from a of Jesus Christ admits of any civil establish- | state religion are actuated by a zeal with ment at all."1 which the professors of that religion are not; and that the legal provision supplies If this be said, the the deficiency of zeal. inquiry imposes itself-How does this disproportion of zeal arise? Why should dissenters be more zealous than churchmen? What account can be given of the matter, but that there is something in the patronage of the state which induces apathy upon the church that it prefers? One other account may indeed be offered that to be a dissenter is to be a positive religionist, whilst to be a churchman is frequently only to be nothing else; that an establishment embraces all who are not embraced by others; not include were not cared for by the state religion, they would not be cared for at all. but the effect of reasoning is to diminish This is an argument of apparent weight, that weight. For what is meant by "including," by "caring for," the indifferent and irreligious? An established church only offers them instruction; it does not “ compel them to come in," and we have just seen that this offer is made by unestablished churches also. Who doubts whether in a district that is sufficient to fill a temple of the state religion, there would be found persons to offer a temple of public worship though the state did not compel it? Who doubts whether this would be the case if the district were inhabited by dissenters? and if it would not be done supposing the inhabitants to belong to the state religion, the conclusion is inevitable, that there is a tendency to indifference resulting from the patronage of the state. 11. II. The question of the utility of religious establishments is to be decided by a comparison of their advantages and their evils. 12. Of their advantages, the first and greatest appears to be that they provide, or are assumed to provide, religious instruction for the whole community. If this instruction be left by the state to be cared for by each Christian church as it possesses the zeal or the means, it may be supposed that many districts will be destitute of any public religious instruction. At least the state cannot be assured beforehand that every district will be supplied. And when it is considered how great is the importance of regular public worship to the virtue of a people, it is not to be denied, that a scheme which, by destroying an establishment, would make that instruction inadequate or uncertain, is so far to be regarded as of questionable expediency. But the effect which would be produced by dispensing with establishments is to be estimated, so far as is in our power, by facts. Now dissenters are in the situation of separate unestablished churches. If they do not provide for the public officers of religion voluntarily, they will not be provided for. Yet where is any considerable body of dissenters to be found who do not provide themselves with a chapel and a preacher? And if those churches which are not established, do in fact provide public instruction, how is it shown that it would not be provided although there were no established religion in a state? Besides, the dissenters from an established church 1 Simpson's Plea for Religion and the Sacred Writings. " 1 13. Let us listen to the testimony of Archbishop Newcome. He speaks of Ireland, and says, "Great numbers of country parishes are without churches, notwithstanding the largeness and frequency of parliamentary grants for building them;" but meetinghouses and Romish chapels, which are built and repaired with greater zeal,are in sufficient numbers about the country." This is remarkable testimony indeed. That church which is patronised and largely assisted by the state, does not provide places for public worship: those churches which are not patronised and not assisted by the state, do provide them, and provide them in "sufficient numbers" and "with greater zeal.” What then becomes of the argument, that a church establishment is necessary in order to provide 1 See Gisborne's Duties of Men. 14 |