CHAPTER IX.

THE BIBLE ARGUMENT CONTINUED.

COVENANT WITH NOAH.

Is it positive, universal and perpetual?-Accidental killing-Killing in Self-defense, or in defense of one's Country, must be visited with Death-The Executioner must be slain The text restricted to the Murderer; but in what degree of murder shall it be applied-Death Penalty not known till the year of the world 1650-Cain not put to death Lamech not put to death Moses a murderer and not slain Numerous other cases of the same description God did not himself regard the declaration to Noah-The true rendering and teaching of the text-Opinion of learned men-Evidence conclusive against the continuance of the Gallows.

"Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed." Gen. 9: 6.

If the reader has perused the foregoing chapter, he is prepared for what we have to say on this declaration of God to Noah; a declaration which the advocates of the Death Penalty contend is positive, universal in its application and perpetual to the end of time. "Can language be more emphatic or universal?" exclaims an ardent defender of the gallows. "Whoso""-that is, any person

whatever "sheddeth man's blood"-who kills his fellow creature-"by man shall his blood be shed." There is no escape, and no limit as to time, or country, or situation. On the contrary, such were the circumstances under which the declaration was made, that the whole context goes to show that this command was designed to be "perpetual and universal."

Let us admit, for the sake of the argument, that the objector is correct in these premises; and then query.

"Whoso" signifies, he says, "any person whatever," and to "shed blood" means "to kill." The meaning of the text is, then, if applied literally, that any person whatever who kills, shall himself be killed. "There is no escape." It follows, then, that the man who destroys life accidentally, or in self-defense, or in defense of his country, must be killed, for he kills. "There is no escape. The jury who convict the prisoner of murder, the judge who passes sentence of death on him, and the hangman who closes the scene of blood, all must be killed, for they are all guilty of killing; the judge and jury by proxy, the hangman, personally. The heroes of "seventy six," who fought the battles of the American Revolution, with the Father of his Country at their head, should all to a man have been executed, for they all "shed blood." Notice, the language of the text is "positive" and "without restriction," "extending to all who kill." "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." "There is no escape." As says a writer when discanting on this subject: "If this command to Noah requires the death of all who shed blood without exception, then it is clear that the executioner should be killed; and when he is slain, his slayer must be put to death, and his and his, and thus the work of slaughter should go on, till the last man becomes his own executioner and crowns, with his corpse, the work of universal carnage."

Here, the objector finds himself in a dilemma, and to escape, says that he would restrict the application of the text to the murderer. But, we reply, first, that the moment he restricts the text, that moment he surrenders the ground already assumed, that it is of "universal application;" and second, that he has no authority for such restriction, as there is nothing either in the text or context that will warrant it.

But suppose he is permitted to make the restriction and apply the principle contained in the text only in a case of murder; in what degree of murder would he make the application? The penal codes of all our States recognize, at least, two degrees of murder. Killing with malice prepense, or aforethought, is murder in the first degree. Killing in the heat of passion, is man-slaughter, or murder in the second degree. Does the objector say that he would apply the principle of the text only in the case of murder in the first degree? But with what propriety can he make this restriction? If a man rises up in the heat of passion and slays his fellow, does he not just as really shed his blood as if the act were premeditated? and if so, does not the declaration to Noah demand his blood? If he answers in the affirmative, then he must make the penal code of his own State more severe, for no State in our Union, as our laws now stand, demands death for man-slaughter. But why not, if we are Christians, and the declaration, "whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed," is still binding on us?

From the foregoing considerations, it will be perceived that the declaration cannot be literally and universally applied; and that no Christian nation pretends to live up to such a construction; for it is only in extreme cases, and for the worst form of murder, that we "shed blood."

And when we say that this declaration contains law which God designed from the beginning to restrain the passions and regulate the conduct of men,-a law to be regarded perpetually to the end of time, we say what the Scriptures do not sanction-indeed, what they positively deny, as we will now show.

THE WORLD SIXTEEN CENTURIES WITHOUT THE

DEATH PENALTY.

First, the declaration contained in the text under consideration was not given to Noah till the year of the world 1657; and, what is a little remarkable, up to this time the Death Penalty was not known among men, and yet murder had been committed. How will the objector account for this fact, if the law of "life for life" was designed from the beginning to restrain men from violence, and proclaimed as an adequate punishment for the crime of murder? For more than sixteen hundred years the generations of men had been multiplying in the earth, and had been guilty of slaying each other, and still the law of death was not instituted!

Go back to the first murder ever committed, and how does God himself deal with the wretched homicide? Does he make an application of the principle contained in the declaration to Noah as a punishment for the crime of Cain? Not at all; instead, he positively declares that Cain should not be slain. Let us look at his case.

CASE OF CAIN.

"And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground, and now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength: a fugitive and vagabond shalt thou be in

the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him, therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain lest any finding him should slay him."*

Here we have the account of the first murder ever committed, the first law ever instituted for the punishment of the offender, and the details of the first trial on record where the criminal was a murderer. The Almighty God was himself the Law-giver and the Judge; the garden of Eden the court-room, and the blood of the slain Abel, crying from the teeming ground, both the accuser and the witness.

And what is the nature of the penalty attached to the awful offense of the wretched man? Was it "blood for blood?" If Capital Punishment is a perpetual institution, divine and universal, why was it not then proclaimed? There was no mistake in the guilt of the criminal at the bar. At first, he was inclined to cover his sin with a falsehood. "And the Lord said unto Cain, where is thy brother Abel? and he said, I know not; am I my brother's keeper?" But "God is not mocked." Human tribunals are fallible and may be deceived, but infinite knowledge, never!

We may succeed in hiding our crimes from man, but the eye of God penetrates into the very secrets of the soul, and our sin will find us out, and "though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished." Cain was guilty of murder, and when fully charged with the dreadful crime, he did not longer deny. We ask again,

Gen. 4:8-15.

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