Among these admonitions he has not omitted to deliver instructions to that class of men whose province it is to superintend others, and to preserve the order of society, for he has explained the duty of governours with great perspicuity, as it is of the utmost importance to mankind that it should be accurately understood, and has inculcated it frequently because he knew by reflecting on his own life, that it was very easily forgotten. He knew that exaltation multiplied dangers but afforded noh protection, and that it furnished occasions of errour and of sin, but neither confered abilities nor strengthen’d resolution.

One of these precepts is comprised in the text, which contains in a few words, the whole doctrine of civil policy, and shows at once the means and the end of government. The king is placed above the rest that he may from his exalted station survey all the subordinations of society, that he may observe and obviate those vices and corruptions by which peace is disturbed, justice violated, or security destroyed; “he sitteth in the throne of judgment” to scatter “away evil,” and is required to scatter it away “with his eyes” by constant care, and vigilant observation.

Those duties which primarily and in the highest degree relate to kings, claim likewise the attention of all magistrates in a degree proportioned to their dignity and their power, the regal duties are extended to all those to whom regal authority is communicated, and every man who is intrusted with a public charge must endeavour to scatter away “all evil” with “his eyes” from the precincts of his jurisdiction, he must remember that his vigilance must be the same with that of a king, though his sphere of observation be less, and that it mayi reasonably be expected from him, that as his view is more contracted, it should be more exact.j

That the end of governments is the suppression, or as it is here expressed the dissipation of evil, and that evil is only to be suppressed or dissipated by vigilance is universally admitted, but if we examine the present state of the world, there will be reason to believe that this principle has not been very powerful in its operation, and that some ofk the rulers of the people have rather sat upon the thronel of judgement for other purposes, than that they might takem a wider view of the objects below them, and that instead of “scattering away evil with their eyes,” they have either connived at it or neglected it, that they have either shut their eyes or turned them aside.

At least it must be allowed that the vigilance of our governours however constant has been unsuccessful, that their “eyes” however acute have hitherto failed “to scatter away evil,” for wickedness daily increases upon us, and there is danger lest in a short time crimes should be practised till their illegality is forgotten, and least by an unavoidable familiarity with guilt, we should by degrees cease to abhor it. It cannot therefore be denied, that to examine how the precept of Solomon may be best observed, is an useful and necessary enquiry, and thatn the present state of theo community calls upon us to employ our searches and reflections upon the means by which “he that sitteth upon the throne of judgment” may most effectually “scatter away evil.”

The vigilance which is here by Solomon recommended to governours must necessarily be employed either in detecting those crimes which have been already committed that they may be punished, or in discovering those tendencies to wickedness, which threaten the peace of society, that they may be intercepted or obviated, before they have so far advanced as to require severity, and under those two heads are comprehended the whole duty of men in high stations, since no man can be employed in a publick office otherwise than in making or executing laws, ofp which the intention is, either to prevent crimes or to punish them. I shall therefore consider the duty of a magistrate 1. First, as he is intrusted with the sword of justice for the punishment of crimes. 2. Secondly, as he is invested with the power of makingq and enforcing laws5 for the prevention of them.

And first I shall consider the duty of a magistrate as he is investedr with the sword of justice for the punishment of crimes.

In punishing crimes it is easy to observe that too great lenity or severity are equally to be avoided as inconsistent with publick happiness, but it is not easy to determine when either lenity or severity exceed their bounds, to state the just proportions between crimes and punishments, or to decide when the law ought to proceed to its utmost rigour, or when it ought to be mitigated by the mercy of the judge. Perhaps it is impossible to form any rules, that will at once be so determinate as6 to be easily applicable to particular cases, and so comprehensive as to be of use on the various occasions on which such rules may be desired, to say in general that the punishment ought to be regulated by the degree of guilt is only to say that a judge ought to do right, it is to lay down a general position which cannot be controverted, but of which there is very little use, unless some certains method can be found of applying it.

This difficultyt has always embarrassed the legislative power, and has hitherto been found insurmountable by human prudence, in some nations it has given rise to an endless multiplicity of laws by which it seems to have been hoped that every case would in timeu be comprehended, and in others a discretionary power has been confered upon the judges who have been left at liberty to form their own sentences upon their immediate conceptions of the act under their cognisance. Both these methods have been found imperfect, one reposedv too much confidence in human knowledge, and the other in human integrity; one suffered wickedness to escape or innocence to be punished by the defect of the laws; the other produced the same effects by the failings of the judges.

But though it is not possible to pass a just sentence upon future criminals, or to determine the different gradations of wickedness, yet some rules of justice may be established, which have never yet been universally observed and may nevertheless assist the magistrate in his arduous and important task “of scattering away evil.”

Among the defects of criminal courts it is not necessary in this nationw to expatiate onx the horrours of inquisitory torture, or the inhumanity of lingering execution, from which our constitution has happily exempted us; yet it may not be wholly useless to mention them, as they show the slow progress of human reason, and as we may be excited to a closer examination of our own proceedings by observing the imperfections of vindicative justice in countries not less enlightened than our own, in which those methods still continue in use for the discovery of crimes, which may easily confound the innocent with the guilty, and can in reality only distinguish the hardy and the resolute, from the timorous and tender.

But though our methods of enquiry are certainly more mild and equitable, and perhaps at the same time not less efficacious than those of other nations, it will not necessarily follow that we excell them equally in adjusting the measures of punishment, or that the penalties denounced by our laws against particular crimes are not sometimes soy light as to be found of little force in the ballance against the temptations to the commission of them, and at other times so heavy, that the forfeiture to society too much outweighs the injury by which it was incurd, and it mustz surely be allowed that our laws are defective, if there are some crimes by which though much may be gained little can be lost, by which society may be greatly disturbed, and of which the authors can be but slightly punished, and others which though not proofs of any incurable corruption of heart, nor very detrimental to the happiness of mankind are yet punished with the severest sentence which the Sovereign Lawgiver has put it into the power of man to pronounce; the deprivation of life.

If an indifferent spectatora of our publick courts was to see brought from the same dungeon to the same bar two men, of whom one had murdered his father, and the other taken from a stranger, a small pieceb of money to hear the same sentence pronounced upon both,c and to see both dragged in a few days with the same ignominy to the same death, would he not readily determine that either one suffered too much or the other too little? and would it require long consideration to discover, which of the sentences was liable to censure?

Let us suppose yet farther that he saw the guardian of an orphan called before the courts of justice for the violation of his trust, that he heard him charged with oppression and with fraud, oppression aggravated by proximity of blood, and fraud heightened by that confidence which enabled him to commit it, that he saw him after a long trial obliged only to refund the wealth which he had obtained by plundering the child, whom the dying voice of his brother or his friend committed to his care; would he not quickly, would he not reasonably enquire, by what rules of justice this man was distinguished to his advantage, from him who for stealing a single pieced of money was sentenced to dye?e

But if the false guardian should employ hired witnesses to support his usurpations and secure his robberies from detection; and the sagacity of his judge should defeat his artifices, and discover not only the theft, but the perjury, would not the stranger pant to see the accomplices of wickedness brought to their trial, would not his heart glow with impatience, for vengeance against wretches, who had in the highest and most emphatical sense, taken “the name of God in vain,” who had solemnly and deliberately appealed to the great Author of truth, and called upon the Judge of all the earth, to give credit to a lye, a lye intended only for the support of villany, of villany heightened by perfidy and cruelty; and when he saw them punished only with ignominy, which they very little regarded, would he not wonder that they found greater indulgence than he that steals a sheep?f

Surely though it cannot be determined how the proportions between guilt and punishment are to be adjusted, it may easily be discovered when they are violated, it may easily be perceived7 by the light of reason that he who commits a greater robbery ought not to be spared, if he deserve death that is convicted of a less. Or if punishment is to be regulated not by the gain of the crime but by the depravity of mind supposed necessary to itsg commission, is not he that steals indiscriminately in the croud less corrupt than he that plunders the child, whom he has undertaken to protect from plunderers? or than he who for a reward endeavours to conceal by perjury that crime ofh which it was his duty to promote the detection?i

It cannot be denied but that the law is too mild to the one or too severe to the other, and though crimes may undoubtedly be mentioned which deserve heavier punishments than have yet been decreed against them, it is perhaps a more frequent errour in our laws to punish with too great severity, to weigh the life of man against such trifles as would in an equitable estimation appear little more than dust in the ballance, and to expell those from human existence, whom scarce any one can see in the hands of the executioner, without reflecting that the crimes, for which they dye are less than his own.

It is indeed very hazardous for a private man to criticise the laws of any country, of which those that seem least reasonable may be sometimes authorised by a temporary necessity, by the prevalence of particular crimes which the society is compelled to repress by severity not proportioned to the consequences of a single act, but to the general danger which the progress of any species of wickedness might produce. This is all that can be alleged in favour of unequal andj arbitrary penalties, and to what does this defence amount but to an assertion that it is for the present convenient to deviate from the general maxims of justice? An assertion which will be of no use till it has been proved that those maxims are not equally to be observed by all communities as by private persons, thatk every government ought not to be carried on with an unvariable regard to the great principles of justice, or that morality ought on any occasion to give way to policy.8

That death ought not to be frequently or for slight offences inflicted may be proved both by moral and political arguments. It is the utmost effortl of human vengeance, and therefore can only be deserved by the most atrocious guilt. As itm is not only the utmost severity that can be inflicted, it isn the utmost like wiseo that can be threatened, and ought therefore not to be made familiar by custom, but to be reserved as the most powerful restraint to prevent those enormities which threaten the dissolution of society, or the security of life. And it is yet more attentively to be considered that to common minds those actions which are equally punishable appear equally criminal, and though the legislator may intend that the less crime shall be avoided like the greater because the penalty is the same,p the subject may for that reason commit the greater as willingly as the less, and will be inclined to consider murder as not more criminal than robbery, when he finds the judge equally severe to the thiefq and the assassin.9 That practise which is intended to aggravate the one, may be easily perverted by interest or passion or subtilty to extenuate the other.

The punishment of crimes is indeed so difficult and so dreadful, that thoughr it were more efficacious than it has yet appeared, its horrour mights yet be a sufficient incitement to an enquiry after the most probable methods of preventing wickedness, of hindring the propagation of vice, and stopping the contagion of licentiousness,1 nort can there be a study more worthy of the most exalted benevolence or the most extended capacity, for what greater title can be given than that of benefactor to mankind and on whom can it more justly be conferedu than on him who diffuses happiness by encreasing virtue.

Wickedness is the sickness of the state, and though he that cures the distemper at its height by strong remedies may preserve life, yet the constitution must be weakend byv the violence both of the disease and the medicine, but he that destroys the seeds of the disease before they are matured to mischief,w not only prevents death but pain, not only prolongs life but heightens its enjoyments.

It is said to have been wished by an ancient tyrant that all mankind had one neck,2 that he might have the satisfaction of extirpating human nature at a blow. Wickedness may be considered in the same state, and a more beneficent legislator may enjoy the happiness of preventing a great part of the crimes which infest the world by putting an end to idleness alone, idleness the original or parent vice, from which they all have their birth, and which they all contribute to support.

If we trace idleness through3 its consequences, it will easily be shown that this assertion is not without foundation. A man whose attention is disengaged, who is neither stimulated by hope, nor agitated by fear, is wholly exposed to the tyranny of his appetites, by which he will soon be roused from a state of total indifference, and which he will indulge not only to obtain the immediate pleasure which such indulgence affords, but to avoid the uneasiness of doing nothing, and this irregularity of life necessarily subjects him to the acquaintancex of men idle like himself, who assist him to confirm his habits, and recommend intemperance by example.

Thus he is in a short time enslaved to his senses, his resolution grows every day weaker, and his mind is disposed by frequent temptations to favour those vices, which he at first detested, till at last when poverty the natural attendant on idleness invades him, he is ready to relievey his wants rather by villanyz than industry, and prefers the dangers of wickedness to the fatigues of an honest calling.

Thus idleness produces necessity, necessity incites to wickedness, and wickedness again supplies the means of livinga in idleness. If idleness was therefore prevented by the erection of manufactories, and a steady and vigorous execution of the laws, or by the enaction of new laws if the present are insufficient, the greatest part of those who are now doomed to exile or to death, would be restrained from all enormous crimes, and recalled to their duty before they had too far deviated from it.

But there are likewise some temptations evenb to that vice, which administer temptations to all others, idleness itself would be less frequent were there not to the disgrace of the nation, innumerable families which are supported by encouraging it. The number of houses which are in every village, and in every city set apart for jollity and recreations, very much exceeds the real wants or conveniences of society, they are indeed so frequent, that they could not subsist by the moderate use of honest pleasures, and are obliged to vye with each other in the hateful trade of quickening intoxication, and heightening luxury, they are obliged to promote vice for bread, and live only to corrupt themselves by corrupting others.4

Those houses are indeed often kept by those whom idleness inclines to live rather by partaking the luxury of others, than by assisting their labours,5 and therefore that such houses are to be found, may be imputed to the general cause of wickedness, but they likewise promote that vice from which they arise, they who live only by jollityc and extravagance must necessarily encourage it, they must endeavour to hide the enormity of those crimes, which contribute to their advantage, and make that poyson luscious of which they live by the sale, they have indeed succeeded in their endeavours, and the time seems to be at hand in which riot and drunkenness shall cease to be reproachful. Those houses are the pitfalls of our youth, from which those that are once trepaned into them rarely escape, they ought to be demolished as the dens of savages that prey upon mankind, and he that shall contribute to suppress them will have the satisfaction of breaking the most fatal snares of vice in which the young, the gay, and the thoughtless are entangled, of overturning the mansions of luxury, in which the negligent and the wealthyd are lulled to lethargies, from which they only wake to find themselves miserable, miserable often beyond remedy, their bodies diseased, their minds enervated, and their fortunes exhausted.

If those who commit a single crime are justly punished, and sometimes punished with death, what shall be inflicted upon those who live only by inciting to wickedness, upon whom the guilt of thousands may be justly charged, who have improved temptation to an art, and learned to spread the nets of debauchery with so much cunning that they can scarcely be escaped? If the weeds are to be extirpated from the fields of society, let not our governours be satisfied with lopping the shoots, let them penetrate to idleness the root of vice, and remove the soil in which it chieflye flourishes.6

Let not these endeavours be obstructed by any regard to present inconveniencies,f the happiness of the present state is best secured by virtue, and the happiness of futurity can be obtained by no other method. Ifg by the toleration of those receptacles of wickedness, if by connivance at any kind of vice,h a single soul should be lost, the temporal happiness of every individual in the creation fromi this instant to the last day however distant it may be supposed is infinitely below an equivalent.7 Solomon uses folly and wickedness as terms of the same signification, and such they will certainly appear, when the glare of temporal interest shall cease to dazzle us; all the sophisms of worldly policy will then be foundj empty and delusive, and he only will approve his own conduct, who has steadily endeavoured to persue and to teach the ways of virtue, then will that wisdom be commended, which was founded on the fear of the Lord, and that magistrate be applauded by angels, who hath scattered away evil with his eyes.