If the father of a family felt no regard for the law of the sabbath, his conscience would not allow him to punish his children for violating, by folly or labour, a law which he did not himself respect. But a father who felt a sacred regard for the Divine law, would be required by his conscience to cause his children to respect the sabbath, and to punish them if they disobeyed. The penalty which one felt to be wrong, the other would feel to be right, because the disposition of the one towards the law was different from that of the other. The principle, then, is manifest, that the more holy and just any being is, the more opposed he is to sin, and the higher penalty will his conscience sanction as the desert of transgressing the Divine law. Now God being infinitely holy, he is, therefore, infinitely opposed to sin; and the Divine conscience will enforce penalty accordingly. This is the foundation of penalty in the Divine mind. The particular point of inquiry is, _How could the desert of sin, as it existed in the mind of God, be revealed to the Israelites?_ If the penalty inflicted is sanctioned by the conscience of the lawgiver, it follows, as has been shown, that the opposition of his nature to the crime is in exact proportion to the penalty which he inflicts upon the criminal. Penalty, therefore, inflicted upon the transgressor, is the only way by which the standard of justice, as it exists in the mind of God, could be revealed to men. The truth of this principle may be made apparent by illustration. Suppose a father were to express his will in relation to the government of his family, and the regulations were no sooner made than some of his children should resist his authority and disobey his commands. Now, suppose the father should not punish the offenders, but treat them as he did his obedient children. By so doing he would encourage the disobedient, discourage the obedient, destroy his own authority, and make the impression upon the minds of all his children that he had no regard for the regulations which he had himself made. And further, if these regulations were for the general good of the family, by not maintaining them he would convince the obedient that he did not regard their best interests, but was the friend of the rebellious. And if he were to punish for the transgression but lightly, they would suppose that he estimated but lightly a breach of his commands, and they could not, from the constitution of their minds, suppose otherwise. But if the father, when one of the children transgressed, should punish him and exclude him from favour till he submitted to his authority, and acknowledged with a penitent spirit his offence, then the household would be convinced that the father's will was imperative, and that the only alternative presented to them was affectionate submission, or exclusion from the society of their father and his obedient children. Thus the amount of the father's