An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible

by Catharine Esther Beecher

Another feature in this sense of justice is the proportion demanded between the evil done and the penalty inflicted. That this also is instinctive, and not the result of instruction, is seen in the nursery, where children will approve of slight penalties for slight offenses, and severe ones for great ones, but will revolt from any very great disproportion between the wrong act and its penalty. As a general rule, both in the nursery and in mature minds, the greater the wrong done, the stronger the desire for a penalty, and the more severe the punishment demanded.

Another very important point of consideration is the universal feeling of mankind that the natural penalties for wrong-doing are not sufficient, and that it is an act [pg 070] of love as well as of justice to add to these penalties. Thus the parent who forbids his child to eat green fruit will not trust to the results of the natural penalty, but will restrain by the fear of the immediate and more easily conceived penalty of chastisement.

So, in the great family of man, the natural penalties for theft are not deemed sufficient, but severe penalties for the protection of property are added.

This particular is the foundation of certain distinctions that are of great importance, which will now be pointed out.

We find the terms “reward and punishment” used in two different relations. In the first and widest sense they signify not only the penalties of human law, but those natural consequences which, by the constitution of nature, inevitably follow certain courses of conduct.

Thus an indolent man is said to receive poverty as a punishment, and it is in this sense that his children are said to be punished for the faults of their father.

The violations of natural law are punished without any reference to the question whether the evil-doer intended the wrong, or whether he sinned in ignorance, or whether this ignorance was involuntary and unavoidable. The question of the justice or injustice of such natural penalties involves the great question of the right and wrong of the system of the universe. Is it just and right for the Creator to make a system in which all free agents shall be thus led to obedience to its laws by penalties as well as rewards, by fear as well as by hope? This question will not be discussed here.

Most discussions as to just rewards and penalties ordinarily relate to the added penalties by which parents, [pg 071] teachers and magistrates enforce obedience to natural or to statute law.

In these questions reference is always had to the probable results of such rewards and penalties in securing obedience. If experience has shown that certain penalties do secure obedience to wise and good laws, either of nature or of human enactment, then they are considered just. If they do not, they are counted unwise and unjust.

So, if certain penalties are needlessly severe—that is to say, if a less penalty will secure equal obedience, then this also decides so severe a penalty to be unjust.