Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/55

 The Rev. James Keith, of Bridgewater, took a different view of the ubject, and gave more benignant interpretations. In a letter to Mr. Cotton of the ame date with Dr. Mather's, he ays, "I long to hear what becomes of Philip's wife and his on. I know there is ome difficulty in that palm, 137, 8, 9, though I think it may be conidered, whether there be not ome pecialty and omewhat extraordinary in it. That law, Deut. 24: 16, compared with the commended example of Amaias, 2 Chron. 25: 4, doth way much with me, in the cae under conideration. I hope God will direct thoe whom it doth concern to a good iue. Let us join our prayers, at the throne of grace, with all our might, that the Lord would o dipoe of all public motions and affairs, that his Jerualem in this wildernes may be the habitation of jutice and the mountain of holines; that o it may be, alo, a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that hall not be taken down."

The quetion thus eriouly agitated would not, in modern times, occur in any nation in Chritendom. Principles of public law, entiments of humanity, and the mild influence of the Gopel, in preference to a recurrence of the Jewih dipenation, o much regarded by our ancetors in their deliberations and deciions, would forbid the thought of inflicting punihment on children for the offences of a parent. It is gratifying to learn, that, in this intance, the meditated everities were not carried into execution, but that the merciful