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this law, it is well. But if yon have respect of per sons, yon transgress the law of mercy. Then (doubtless thinking of the case of the woman taken in adultery, who, when she was brought before Jesus, was about to be put to death according to the law), thinking, no doubt, of that case, James says that he who inflicts death upon the adulterous woman would himself be guilty of murder, and thereby transgress the eternal law; for the same law forbids both adultery and murder.
" So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judjyient without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy is exalted above judgment." (Jas. ii. 12, 13.)
Could the idea be expressed in terms more clear and precise? Respect of persons is forbidden, as well as any judgment that shall classify persons as good or bad; human judgment is declared to be inevitably defective, and such judgment is de nounced as criminal when it condemns for crime; judgment is blotted out by the eternal law, the law of mercy.
I open the epistles of Paul, who had been a vic tim of tribunals, and ill the letter to the Romans I read the admonitions of the apostle for the vices and errors of those to whom his words are ad dressed; among other matters he speaks of courts of justice:
"Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not
