ever, in hallelujahs lofty as the theme they celebrate,” and countless as the ages through which they shall roll.

We scarcely need stay to ask which system will fill their imaginations with the most sublime, ravishing, and rich conceptions.

Let us now look at them, in the appeal they make to the feeling of these individuals-that feeling which constitutes all the difference there is between fallen men and fallen angels; feeling, the only surviving lineament of original excellence, which has escaped the catastrophe of the fall, like the solitary servant of Job, escaped from the destruction in which his fellows were overwhelmed, and which, like him, if it could speak, would finish its tale of woe, by saying, "I, only I, am escaped alone to tell thee." Upon this feeling, how would these different systems operate? In order to judge, listen to the different statements they give of human ruin and human redemption. The Unitarian scheme represents man as being created with the principal part of the appetites he possesses, except a few which he may have contracted by education and example and that God is so easy on the subject of sin, that although it is the bitter cause of all our calamities, yet he will pardon it without any mark of his decisive hatred against it, on our repentance, although its first_object is to dethrone God, and its next to destroy man. The other system represents man as having fallen from original excellence and happiness into sin, which is the source, the prolific, the frightfully prolific source of all his sorrows; but that God so loved the world, and so hated sin, as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life. That "herein was love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for all our sins." Which of these two would operate most powerfully on the feelings of that poor Pagan, who stands with outstretched hands and horrible contortions, muttering his deadly incantations at the shrines of devils, hardening his heart with cruelty, and dyeing his hands with blood? or upon that poor Turk, who is paying a visit to Mecca, and, on his bended knees, is gabbling over a detached passage from the Koran, which is another rivet to his chain, another fetter to his delusion, another sin to his list? or upon the feelings of that poor Jew, who is seeking for justification by the law of Moses, although just when he seems to have arrived at the summit of his wishes, down all falls to the dust, owing to

the commission of some sin, the omission of some duty, like the wretch in the fabled Pagan mythology, who was doomed to roll a stone up to a certain eminence, and always, whenever it seemed just at the top, down it rolled to the bottom. We leave our readers to judge which will operate most powerfully on the feelings of unbelievers, by the manner they operate upon their own.

Lastly, let us look at them, as they are calculated to operate upon the fears of mankind. Is there any thing in the Unitarian system to make men, who are naturally in love with sin, afraid of committing it? Will they be afraid of offending God by it? No; for he is so easy and so kind, that he cannot at least be soon offended. Will they be afraid of future punishment? No; for there is none, according to this scheme, or next to none, even for the finally impenitent. What is there then to alarm their fears, if they commit sin? Nothing, comparatively speaking,—nothing.

Let us now look at the other system, and see how it alarms the sinner. It points us to the Saviour on the cross; and who, with that affecting spectacle before his eyes, can doubt for a moment, whether it is, or is not, God's intention severely to punish sin? Who that sees the Saviour swelled with strokes, pale with death, besmeared with spittle, and stained with blood, for sin, can doubt it for a moment? This determination severely to punish sin, is eminently calculated to work on the fears of mankind, for it is got, not from our own speculations about the matter, but from a fact; the same fact by which the feelings are operated upon, and that is, the crucifixion of Christ. It decides in a moment, in the mind of the man that believes Christ was crucified for sin, that it is God's determination severely to punish it-and although this fact does not say, that the punishment will be everlasting, yet still it convinces us, that it could not be from a punishment of short duration, that all this scale of continued miracles was constructed, or else there would be such a huge disproportion between the means and end. It must have been, from a punishment truly dreadful, and which is explained by the Saviour, the gentle Saviour, himself; and it is remarkable, that his language is the most awful that is to be found any where on the subject; "there their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched." Which of these systems then will operate most powerfully on the fears of these men; the Unitarian, which prophesies smooth things, or the Trinitarian, which cries Fire! fire! in the ears of the sinner?

For the reasons thus stated at length, though we are apprehensive that they have been but too feebly enforced, we think it abundantly plain, that the Trinitarian scheme will operate most powerfully on the understandings, and imaginations, and feelings, and fears, of unconverted men, to whom, be they Pagans, Mahometans, Roman Catholics, or mere nominal professors of a purer form of Christianity, we would say, that the gospel answer to the question, "What must I do to be saved?" is, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!"

HORE JURIDICÆ.-No. I.

On the Origin and Principles of the Law of Libel; and the Punishment of Defamation amongst the Jews, Egyptians, ancient Persians, and Lydians.

THOSE persons can have formed but a very imperfect notion of the nature and objects of Legislation, in a civilized state, who conceive that the pains and penalties of its vindictive sanction should be principally, if not exclusively, applied to those injuries which immediately affect the lives, the persons, or the property of individual members of the community. True it is, indeed, that in the earlier stages of society, the criminal code of every country was strictly confined within these limits; and it was so confined, for a reason at once sufficient and obvious. There were, then, no other rights for the lawless to violate, or which the peaceful subject could wish to defend. The "honeste vivere; alterum non lædere; suum cuique tribuere,"*-three short maxims, to which the Justinian code has reduced the whole elements of jurisprudence, has a higher origin, and a more binding authority, than that of a system which weakened every principle of equity it contained-and they were neither few, nor difficult to be applied-by a mark of tyranny in the sovereign, and of slavery in the people, which, conceived in but few words, was in itself capable of annihilating the liberty of the one, and establishing the despotism of the other: "quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem.”+ In fact, notwithstanding the various speculations of certain writers, who have shrewdly suspected that theft is not prohibited by the law of nature, it might easily be shewn, were this the place to enter on the disquisition, that these maxims constitute the elements, we had almost said the foun+ Inst. ii. 6.

* Inst. i. 3.

dation, of those eternal, immutable principles of right and wrong, with which the revealed law of God accords, and every human law should harmonize, or lose its hold upon the consciences of men. These principles of justice are adapted, therefore, to every stage of society, and should, at all periods, form the basis of its laws. But the particular duties which they require to be performed; the variety of injuries they may be made to prohibit; the incitements necessary to be held forth, the punishments to be denounced, to secure the performance of the duty, and to prevent the commission of the crime, are not so fixed, but must change with the changing manners of a people advancing from barbarism to civilization; from civilization to refinement; and from refinement but too often sinking into premature decay.

Some considerable time would, for instance, elapse, ere the savage of the desert would be induced to admit the superior right of his brother savage to the skin of the beast he had slain in the chase, for a moment longer than actual possession demonstrated his intention of appropriating it to himself. His readiness and ability to maintain that possession, against any one who should attempt to strip from his back the trophy of his skill, and the only shelter of his person from the inclemency of the weather, would perhaps, too, after all, be the best protection of a property, so transient, so ill-defined, and so ill-protected by laws, which can only derive a permanent and effectual sanction from mutual compact, which, originating in mutual danger, ascertains mutual rights, and establishes, on an equitable basis, the mutual relations of civil and of social life. The terms of that compact must have been pretty well understood; the extent of those rights accurately, however disproportionately, ascertained; and the duties of those relations defined with a considerable degree of precision, before the legislative code of any nation could have provided remedies for those injuries, or punishments for those crimes, which have not a direct and immediate, but an indirect and more remote, effect upon the happiness of individuals, and the peace of society. If we look, therefore, to the earlier provisions of our own, or of any other body of laws, we shall find them chiefly, if not solely, directed to the prevention, or rather to the punishment, of offences committed by the strong arm of open and lawless violence, the tendency of which to put in jeopardy the lives and property of the more honest and peaceable members of the community, is

neither concealed, nor attempted to be concealed, rather than to guard against those more subtle devices which effectuate the same purpose by art instead of force, cloaking themselves the while with pretences so specious, and having so little about them to awaken the caution of the most prudent, that their real object is not immediately discovered. It never has been, and in the nature of things it never could be, a characteristic of those provisions, that they embraced circumstances which never could arise, injuries which could have no existence, until the manners and habits of the people, for the regulation of whose conduct they were enacted, in the slow, but certain march of civilization, of moral and intellectual refinement, and of commercial enterprise, had assumed very different features to those to which they could, and ought alone, to adapt themselves.

Legislation is a progressive work; and from its intimate connexion with the changing manners and circumstances of mankind, its advancement to perfection, if even to the standard of human perfection it ever can attain, must inevitably be slow. In its earlier stages, the protection of the lives, the persons, and the properties of individuals from the effects of immediate violation, and the prevention of direct attempts to subvert the government established, or rather permitted to have an uncertain existence, (suspended as it were by a single thread, which the sword of any powerful leader might cut, or the storm of popular commotion could in an instant tear asunder,) by pains and penalties the most effectual which the narrow capacities of the legislators could devise, or the imperfect subordination of the people would permit them to enact,-is all we must look for, and all that we shall ever find. But as civilization advances, as the arts are cultivated, as commerce extends itself, a new order of things arises; and it is discovered, that there are other and often more effectual means of gratifying a malicious, an envious, or a revengeful disposition, than by openly, or even secretly, though directly, attacking the sons or property of those at whose prosperity the heart sickens, or whose interests a malevolent spirit would seek to undermine. As the intercourse and connexion of men with each other, for the purposes of social life, or of commercial traffic, strengthen and extend themselves, the necessity for mutual confidence attaches a value to individual reputation, which in a savage and uncommercial state of society must have been at its lowest ebb, if indeed it can be said to have had any existence at all. But as the value of this personal

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