The most this kind of government can do is to restrain man from depredating upon the rights of his neighbor, by an appeal to his selfishness. Hence the language of the law pertaining to this kind of government is, “eye for an eye,” “tooth for a tooth,” “life for life,” etc. It does not propose to govern man by appealing to his sense of justice and his love for right. On the contrary its language is, man has no sense of justice or love of right. He is selfish and sensual, and therefore the law appeals to his selfishness and sensualism. It says, Your love of your neighbor is not sufficiently strong to prevent you from injuring him, but your love of self is sufficiently strong to prevent your injuring yourself. Therefore says the law, if you injure your neighbor, we will injure you; if you kill your neighbor, we will kill you; and the same blow which you aim at your neighbor, we will cause to fall upon your own head. In this way this first kind of government takes advantage of man’s selfishness to restrain him. It does not cause him to love his neighbor. It does not cause him, from his heart, to respect his neighbor’s rights. It does not tend to lesson his selfishness or lust. It does not in any manner tend to make him more true, just, and pure at heart. It only restrains him from giving expression to his selfish and lustful desires. So far as his motions to action are concerned, he is under the same impulse, whether he keep or break the law. He is as righteous at heart in violating its commandments as in observing its requirements. In either case he is governed by his judgment respecting that which pertains to his self-interest, and in keeping the law he is consulting his own gratification, and in violating it he is doing the same. So far is this kind of government from tending to make the individual better at heart, that it not unfrequently makes him more selfish by intensifying his selfish feelings. The individual who is restrained from stealing through fear of punishment, and not from a love of justice, is a thief at heart, and will continue so notwithstanding the law says, “Thou shalt not steal,” and by its penalties deters him from stealing. His neighbors may thank the law for its protection. But that is the end of its use. It will not improve the _moral_ condition of its subject. Such, then, is the nature and use of this just dispensation, sometimes called the first covenant. It is absolutely indispensable for the protection and preservation of individuals and society. Man left to the unrestrained exercise of his lustful and selfish nature, would not only destroy his neighbor, but he would ultimately destroy himself. And thus the very principle of self-protection compels individuals to associate together under these governmental forms, by means of which the weak are to be protected against the encroachments of the strong, the simple against the machinations of the cunning.