Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-03-24
THE PEOPLES FORUM
BY BRIGGS

powers of the State. From Matthew
to Revelation it's use in the punish
ment of the murderer is recognized
and enforced. For this symbol of the
sword" is by no means limited to
war and slaughter, as appears from
sundry passages of Scripture; butts
specifically the symbol of power ana
authority in the State to punish crime
by inflicting the death penalty. Here
1t is the sword of retribution which
the magistrate bears. OF this power
the Jews had been deprived prior to
the advent of our Lord by the Roman
government, and so the Roman cruel
tixion was substituted in his case for
that of stoning, the punishment
among the Jews for blasphemy and
other crimes. And it was at the time
of his arrest by the Roman soldiers
that Christ reaffirmed the Old Testa-
ment law relative to murder, saying,
For all they that take the sword shall
perish with the sword" This, Afford
declares, is a repetition of Gen. TX, 6,
and he continues: This should be
thought of by those well-meaning, but
shallow, persons who seek to abolish
the punishment of death in Christian
States"
Thus the passage justifes capital
punishment as a measure of just re-
tribution for murder in the hands of
the civil magistrate" And this testi-
mony in favor of the death penalty by
our Lord is. repeated in the last book
of the New Testament: "If any one
shall kill with the sword, he must be
killed with the sword" (Gen. XIII,
100.
Between these two extreme books
of the New Testament is the letter of
Paul to the Romans, in which this
same principle is clearly recognized.
Paul teaches that the civil magistrate
"beareth not the sword in vain" (Rom.
XIII, -. In his capacity as magis-
trate he is ''the minister of God" IAN
avenge for wrath to him that doeth
evil" DR.. Hodge on this passage says
the sword was worn as a symbol of the
power of capital punishment. Even
profane writer's testify to this effect,
that bearing the sword" by a maeis-
trate was an emblem of the power of
life and death. Paul also in one of
his speeches recorded in the acts rec
ognizes the authority of the State to
inflict capital punishment upon those
! worthy of DEATH" "If I be an of
fender, or have committed any thing
worthy of death, 1 refuse not to die"
This seems clearly to imply that in
PauPs judgment there are offenses,
or crimes, for which the appropriate
penalty is death. If these are correct
interpretations of the teachings of the
Bible on the momentous question of
penal retribution for the crime of
murder, then it conslusively follows
that the death penalty for murder in
the first degree is the divine order for
all civil governments in all times
1t must also be clear that all other
objections to the infiiction of the death
penalty fall. If it be urged that capt.
tai punishment is no deterrent, let it
be remembered that neither was it
under the Theocracy.
If it be objected that innocent men
have been put to death, this liability
existed two and four thousand years
ago. If it be insisted on that wit
nesses and jurors are not inerrant
this was true under the Mosaic and
the Roman laws. If juries are averse
to rendering first degree murder ver-
diets, If the foregoing conclusions are
well founded, that only means that
they have been misled by erroneous
teaching on the subject, or are consti-
tutionally disqualified to act as Jurors
in murder trials. If death for first
degree murder is Gods unaltered law
from Genesis to Revelation. we only
have one open course to pursue
maintain and rigidly enforce the law
as it is on the statute books
Harrisburg, March %.