imputation of so much arrogance as the setting up to be your lordship's director implies.

The doctrine is thus set down by your lordship: "I think it is plain—that the very same individual outward action, whether practised on the meanest principle of human life or on the best, is equally the object of the magistrate's care, as it equally affects society; but that this same good action or outward practice of virtue is not religion, not a law of Christ, nor an edict of his kingdom, any otherwise than as it is practised on a principle of religion, and on the inward sincere belief of a judgment to come. Of this the magistrate is not a judge. His sanctions therefore, considered as a magistrate, are no more than the sanctions of human and social laws."

To make this clear, your lordship gives the instance of charity, and supposes it to be encouraged by the civil magistrate; on which supposition you argue thus: " this, I say, is only annexing sanctions to an outward practice, good and beneficial to human society, let it be founded on what motive it will. It is no more adding sanctions to Christ's laws than to Mahomet's. This same outward practice, when it is on a principle of vain-glory, or any worldly motive, is so far from being Christ's law, that it is particularly disowned by him in the gospel; and yet it is the law of men, as it is the same material action useful to society. But it is religion and Christ's law solely, as it is practised on a principle of religion and a sense of duty. And the magistrate, in adding sanctions to it, does not add sanctions to a law of Christ, but to a law of men."

These passages contain your lordship's reasoning on this point: I shall speak but briefly to it now, expecting a fuller account of this principle in your intended answer. And,

First, it is not true that outward actions, as they affect society only, are the matter of human laws.

Secondly, this account given by your lordship, divests the civil magistrate and his laws of all moral rectitude.

When your lordship speaks of the very same individual outward action, as practised on the best or the meanest principle of life, I suppose you do not intend the same numerical action, (as the words import;) for the same numerical action cannot be

considered as proceeding from the best and the worst disposition; for it cannot proceed from both. I suppose therefore, your lordship means outward actions materially the same with the outward actions required by the laws of Christ; and these, you say, are the only proper matter of human laws, without any regard to the inward principle or disposition from which they arise.

Outward material actions considered merely in themselves, have nothing in them to denominate them either good or bad; and therefore so considered, they cannot be matter of any law. Your lordship is sensible of this; and therefore, having discarded with respect to the civil laws the principles of morality and the gospel, by which actions are distinguished, you introduce the good of society as the sole principle of distinguishing material actions in the eye of the civil law. Allowing this for the present, yet it will not serve your lordship's purpose to show that the magistrate is concerned with outward actions only, without regard to the inward principle. For I ask on what the inquiry is founded in criminal cases, whether the thing was done animo proditorio or no? If this be a proper inquiry, it must terminate in judging of the man's disposition, and the motives on which he acted; and if so, outward actions are not the sole matter of civil laws, though we should allow the good of society to be the only good they regard. In maleficiis voluntatem spectari non exitum is a maxim of the Roman law, and I believe, of every civil law in the world; and if this voluntas (intention) be the chief thing regarded by the law in such cases, how comes your lordship to teach that outward actions, without regard to the intention, are the only object of the magistrate's care? There is nothing better known in our own law than the difference between murder and manslaughter. The outward action is the same in both cases; the public good is equally affected in both cases by the loss of a subject; and it may happen to be more affected in the case of manslaughter than of murder by the loss of a more useful and valuable subject in this case than in the other. Whence then does the difference arise? Why even from that very thing which your lordship says the law can take no notice of, the intention and motives of the action. For this reason indictments charge the criminal

not only with the outward action, but with malice, with acting by the instigation of the devil, and not having the fear of God before his eyes. Strange language for a court to use, that has no right, nay, no possibility of inquiring after the malice, no pretence to examine whether the man had the fear of God or not before his eyes! Why should not every criminal plead in such circumstances that he is coram non judice, and vouch your lordship's authority to justify his plea? It is true that inward motives are not subject to the magistrate's power but as they are manifested by outward actions; but then it is so far from being true that outward actions, as they affect society, are the only matter of the law, the only object of the magistrate's care, that indeed the outward action is rarely considered but as an indication of the inward disposition; and on the disposition so manifested, the judgment is formed. In trials for treason the overt-act, that is, the outward action, is not the principal treason, but the proof of it: and pray, my lord, what is that treason which is distinct from the overt-act, and which yet is made manifest by it? Consider the case of the betrothed damsel in Deut. xxii. If she lies with a man in the city, both man and woman die; if in the field, the man only dies; the reason is, because in the city she must be supposed consenting, since help was near if she had called; in the field she might call and have no help: but the man in both cases must be wickedly disposed. Is it the outward action in this case that is the matter of the law, or the magistrate's sole care? For this law, though given by God, was executed by men, who were appointed judges of it; and therefore this was a civil law; and we see in it the wisdom of God directing the civil magistrate how to judge of the internal disposition by the external action.

But if your lordship will still affirm that the magistrate can in no case judge of the inward disposition from which outward actions proceed, you must maintain that outward actions, with their circumstances, can in no case make manifest the inward disposition; for if they can manifest it, then the magistrate has a plain way to judge of it; and if they cannot, then it is impossible in any case for any man to judge of the disposition of another: which if your lordship will maintain, I will not say, as I did in another instance, that you will fight without an

adversary; but I believe you will fight (always excepting your good friend the letter-writer) without a second. When our Saviour says, By their fruits you shall know them;' when his Apostle says, I will show you my faith by my works ;' what do they mean? Are they talking of impossibilities all the while, and teaching us to learn from external actions what external actions can never show? In every case of murder the magistrate in his court gives judgment on the intention of the offender; and I hope your lordship will not say that as often as a man is accused of murder, so often the magistrate invades the prerogative of God, and sets up to be a discerner of hearts. This is a very plain case, my lord, and to be determined by sense and experience; and let the world judge whether there is such a thing as knowing the difference between an honest wellmeaning man and a criminal: and I only desire that every man who thinks himself a judge in this case would allow the magistrate to have as much understanding as himself, and to be as capable of judging as he is.

The truth of the matter, I conceive, lies here. Nothing can be the matter of a civil law which the civil magistrate cannot judge of. The civil magistrate cannot judge of internal motives and dispositions but by the means of external actions; and therefore the motions of the heart, before they break out into action, are exempted from his jurisdiction. And farther, outward actions and their circumstances being the only indications of the inward which the magistrate has to judge by, as long as the outward actions are such as they ought to be, supposing the intention right, he has no concern to inquire whether the intention be otherwise; and therefore if men act as if they were honest, he has no reason to look any farther. Now all this amounts to saying that the magistrate ought not to judge of the internal disposition, where there are no indications from which he can judge, or not sufficient; but it will never prove that the magistrate has nothing to do with internal dispositions ; because where there are sufficient indications to judge by, the reason limiting his power ceases. The case of the magistrate is in many respects like that of a physician, who can see nothing but the outward symptoms of a distemper; but yet it is his business to judge by them what inward part is affected, and

how. He cannot see the inwards; but should any one say that the outward appearances are the sole objects of the physician's care, he would not get much credit by his account of the profession. Redness and paleness, as they are mere outward appearances, fall under the care of such gentlemen as deal in beauty-washes; but they are considered by physicians as effects leading to a discovery of the inward evil, which to remove is their proper care and business. In like manner the magistrate sees only the external action; but should he confine his judgment to that only, he would dwindle into a mere statemountebank, and his laws would be mere beauty-washes, intended only to make people look well whether they are in health or no and therefore all magistrates that I ever read or heard of, do consider external actions not merely as such, but as symptoms and indications of the internal disposition. And since all the world evidently makes this use of outward actions, why the magistrate only must be necessarily blind, and obliged to have less understanding than any of his subjects, (when in reason he ought to have more,) is a secret which those who have dealt in politics hitherto have not been able to discover.

The thing which seems to me to have carried your lordship into this notion, is your considering the magistrate as annexing positive rewards to good actions, which is rarely the case; and the very attempt to do it would be in most cases absurd and ridiculous. The civil magistrate encourages virtue, even as it is beneficial to society, by punishing offences against it; he encourages sobriety by punishing drunkenness; religion and piety, by punishing irreligion and profaneness; obedience to his laws, by punishing disobedience. If men do well, the magistrate looks on them as doing their duty in virtue of the obligations they are under, and not as having a right to be paid by him for their goodness or religion; and though men who by a course of well doing arrive to a reputation of virtue, are often called out and distinguished by the favor of the magistrate, yet such favor is bestowed freely, and is the effect of the governor's judgment and beneficence, and not the execution of a positive law which has ascertained no reward. And therefore your friend the letter-writer, in asking the question whether the magistrate may say, (by a law to that purpose,) "whosoever