The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-01-25 00:00:00

CAPITAL. PUNISHMENT SANCTIONED BY

THE BIBLE.

[We havebeentfavoured with the following admirable
article by a clergyman in this town.]
In Gen. ix. 6i we find the great principle of righteous
retribution laid down by the Judge of all the earth, and
'that at a time Ashen His gracious and Providential deal-

ings with His creatures had assumed no peculiar form :if
economy, and for a reason that must hold good wider any
dispensation, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man
hall his blood-be shed : FOR in the image (6. G*l made
He man;" just as in the matter of the Sabbath, tbe
command to observe it stands forth to the notice of the
world, irrespective of any peculiar dispensation.. rhe Lord
having sanctified it, we are told, in Gen. ii.. 3, imme-
diately upowthe Creation of man, and therefore for man.
All through the inspired volume the principle of r!gitteons
retribution is clearly acknowledge& The sixth com-
mandment, compared with other parts of the revealed
law, has evident reference to it. See Leviticus, xxiv. 17 ;
God plainly says, " he that killeth any man shall surely
be put to death ;." and even in the merciful provision of
the cities of refuge, the announcement made by God's
own voice is, " Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life

of a murderer, which is guilty of death." (See Numbers,
xxxv. 31.) Again, in the dying charge of David to his
son Solomon, we find the royal monarch giving- such di.
rections with.reference to the enemies of God, who had :43
treated the representative of God, as can only be recon-
ciled upon this great principle of righteous retribution.
By his son, Solomon, again is recognised the principle
(Prow. xxviii. 17) " A man that doeth violence to the
blood of any person shall flee to the pit : let no man stay
him." And even when the dispensation changed, and tha
law that came by Moses was succeeded by the grace and
truth that came by Jesus Christ, when, as our blessed
Lord shews, in Matt. v., the grand distinguishing feature
of a believer's character under the new dispensation was
" Love," in contradistinction to the distinguishing feature
of a believer's character under the old dispensation—
" justice—which distinguishing feature is thenceforward
pressed more urgently and frequently upon the notice
of the Church—still our Lord Himself, in the fac4
of the new commandment of love that he iatrodueed„
recognises the principle of retribution, when. He says,
Matt. xxiii. 34, 35. " Wherefore, behold, I seaflutito youk

prophets, and wise men, and scribes : and sonoe.ot them ye
shall kill and crucify ,• and some of them shall ye scourge le
your synagogues, and p"rsecute them front City to city:
That upon you may come all the riohteous blood shed
upon the earth, from the blood of righteau Abel unto the
blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ve niers be.
tween the temple and the altar." Our Lord's object in
His first Advent was not judgment, *aft will. be at His
second Advent,—it was mercy,—as we are told. John iii.
17, "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn
the world; but that the world through him might be
saved." And again, Luke ix. 56, " For the Son of matt
is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save." And
more especially in Luke iv. 19, where he closed the book
at the annunciation of mercy, and proceeded not to ven-
geance; yet He seems for a moment to anticipate the
period when all judgment shall be committed to the Son,
—" the Judge of all the earth"—the Christ before whose
judgment-seat we must all stand—and recognises this
principle of righteous retribution ; and again, when He
says " Render unto Cresar the things that are Caesar's;"
and again in the matter of the tribute money he fully re.
cognises the executive in whatever department of rule.
-When He pronounces upon the exemption of Himself and
followers from -the demands of any worldly e?onomy,
upon the ground that they were joint heirs in prospect of
the earth. He adds, " Notwithstanding, Bcc." In Matt.
xxvi. 52, He also says, " Put up again thy sword into
his place: for all that take the sword"—i. e., evide,-tly
with a design to kill with it—" shall perish with the
sword," recognising the principle again ; and be it ob-
served, He was addressing an individual at the time, and
not the " executive." Our Lord's servants, the Anus..
ties, maintain the recognithn of this principl .; Paul.
in Rom. x ii., talking of the executive, says, •• He is
minister of God to thee for good. He b •areth not the
sword in vain, for he is the minister of God, a revenger to
execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." And again
Peter, in his Ist Epistle* ii. 13, 14—" Submit yourselves
to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it
be to the king as supreme; or unto governors, as unto
them the,. are sent by him for the punishment. of evil
doers, and for the praise of them that do
And in the last book of the Nem Tes a vent canon,
"He that killeth with the sword mu t be killed with
ow oi 15u 1, it, tut ievatit, W ttit- suliper, pt naps,
to add the wrath of the Lamb—the righ'e ui retribution
that the very Saviour of love, whose religion was love,
will pour upon those " who know Him not," and " obey
not His Gospel," when " He shall be revealed in flaming
I fire, taking vengeance." Yea, have we not reason to say,
from a comparison of Isa. lxvi. 23, 24, with Rev. xiv.
10, 11, that there will be even in millenial glory, amidst
all the tokens and triumphs of Redeeming love, one soli.
tary monument of the justice of God, flaming the solemn
warning, that though He is long-suffering, and abundant
in goodness and truth, He will " by no means clear the
guilty" ! But it may be said, if the executive is thus to
remain the representative of God's unswerving justice, if
this principle of righteous retribution is siiii to be main,
tabled, why should the blessed Saviour introduce a new
dispensation of love to which you have alluded ? We re-
ply—there is all the difference possible between an exe-
cutive for the world, which will not listen to the claims of
this new dispensation, and a law of love for the Church,
which will. The world will pursue its own purposes of
selfishness, to the utter setting aside of the welfare of

others, and therefore must be met by a stern retributive
justice. Tf all were true Christians, we would have no
occasion for the executive, and justice would stand forth
to all sufficiently vindicated in the Cross, as it now is to
the believing Church. Accordingly the Apostle Paul says,
"I. Tim. i. 9,The law was not made for a righteous man,
but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and
for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fs.
thers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers." Be-
sides, the principle of love implanted by the Spirit in the
breast of the believer under the new dispensation, and
which rejoices to overcome evil with good, is an individual
feeling,—so that a true believer rejoices when the provi-
dence of God may not require his presence in the execu-
tive; and it was the snatching from the executive the
principle of righteous retribution, in order to cater to the
spirit of revenge that lurked in the breasts of the cor-
rupted Jews of our Lord's day, which he so utterly con-
demns in that chapter already referred to (Matt. v.),
" Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth ;" while he at the
same time shews, that, as regards the individual, the
principle of overcoming love is the feature of the dispen-
sation he introduced. We would ask the opponents of
these views, why they would not do away with all exer-
cise of the executive, seeing our Lord and his disciples
discountenance the Church having recourse to it, but
rather " suffer loss." But no ; this would not do. The
world must have its executive, while, thank God, the
true believer is ready to suffer loss rather than appeal.
In conclusion, we would be bold to say that the oppo-
sition to these principles is a secret blow at the Atone-
ment ! In this dread act the principle of righteous retri-
bution, which we advocate, meets its full and fearful con-
firmation. The wages of sin were death, and therefore
the Son of God had to die—" the just for the unjust."
Nothing short of this could atone for the injury done to
God's eternal justice ; not that the mind of the Father
was different from that of the Son, or that one was as
stern as the other was benevolent, as the unhappy Sod-
nian would dare to represent the matter ; for " God was
iti Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not impu-
ting their trespasses unto them ; and hath made him to be
sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him ! "
We ought to bless God, that amidst the many oral
testimonies borne by all sound believers of every denomi.
nation to the above principles, one recorded one still
lives in the formularies of our beloved and scriptural
Church, to attest their scriptural truth—" that it may
please thee to bless and keep the magistrates, giving
them grace to execute justice and to maintain truth '• "
and again—" and grant unto her whole council, and to all
that are put in authority under her, that they may truly
and indifferently minister justice, to the punishment qf
wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of thy true
religion and virtue."
Lord, lay to thine hand! Is it not time for thee to
work, for men have made void thy law" ! ! !

MR. LEVI, THE CHIROPEDIST.—I referring to the ad-
vertisement of this clever extractor of one of the greatest
pests to which pedestrians are liable, we may say that itia
necessary that patties wishing to avail themselves of Mr.
Levi's assistance should be careful to notice the address
of that gentleman, or they may unconsciously apply to
another party.
WOMBWELL'S ZOOLOGICAL EXHIBITION.—This mena-
gerie is now located in the Haymarket, fronting the Rail-
way Station. The collection of animals is quite equal to
those previously exhibited here, while the sagacity they
display is certainly most surprising. The Lion Queen
enters the den with a nurnuer of animals of various Bos-
ch s every hour, and puts them throuph their various and
strangely-trained evolutions. The exhibition is well wor-
thy attention.
STEAM.—The benefits of steam to a community con-
sist not, in the convenience of individual transit alone,
but, by shortening the time usually occupied in distances,
creates businesses that could not otherwise have existed;
and no one has felt this advantage more than Mr. John-
son, of Queen Square, who, being a large contractor for
game, is now enabled to supply it from the finest moors
and preserves in Scotland, the day after it is killed. Any
one who will take a glance at his shop will acknowledge
that in the Land o' Cakes there is neither scarcity nor
lack of excellence. Amongst the most curious importa-
tions are the celebrated white hares, from. the Grampian
Mountains, which are said to be most delieictitArrSoirapid
is communication now that, as will be seeti-Py, 'exlvezr-lf ‘,,
tisement in another column, Mr. Johnson ti.commehning
the supply of almost every article the ,south of Scotland
produces—fresh fish, butter, eggs, &ch.:744. ; and as we
learn they can be sold much chaper tWitstigkiitlie Public
WM doubtless be benefitted- • ' ; .",
17;5i
`4 V el Shuru