Commentaries on the Laws of Moses (Volume 4) - Softcover

Reseña del editor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1814. Excerpt: ... 224 Caution to Judges and Juries. Art. 273. the eating of blood sinful; and there are, methinks, still more, not so prudent and conscientious, but more the slaves of prejudices, who believe in universal positive laws; persons of both these descriptions will think differently from me concerning the above passage of Genesis; and if they should happen to have any share in the pronouncing of a capital sentence, it may be worth their while to remember, that that sort of homicide which proceeds from rage, sudden frays, and drunken Jury, is altogether undefined by Moses, and left in medio between murder and chance-medley, or homicide strictly so called; and that, in such cases, therefore, on their own principles, and without prejudice to the force of Gen. ix. 6., human laws alone, as established in each particular state, ought to interfere. Indeed we see from Exod. xxi. 17,--19., that when a man was wounded in an affray, and died of the wound; but was not killed on the spot, but became bed-rid for a time; if he recovered so far as to go abroad with the help of a staff; the person, who had given him the wound that subsequently proved fatal, was entirely free from all inquisition, and criminal prosecution, and only incurred the expenses of the cure, with the payment of an estimated compensation for the injury and the pain he had occasioned his neighbour. But how the procedure was to be regulated, when the wounded man did not arise from his bed, or was killed on the spot, Moses leaves altogether undetermined; for the expression, life for life, (Exod. xxi. 23.) does not apply to the case of people quarrelling together, but to that of their injuring a Art. 273. Murder determined by the Instrument. 225 pregnant woman, or the fruit of her womb. Now between the two case...