XI. Some, in support of an opposite opinion, allege the supreme mercy of God, as it is displayed in the new covenant, and which is given as an example for men, and for magistrates, in particular, to follow, who, in the exercise of authority, execute the laws of the Deity. This opinion may in some measure be true, but not to that extent, which the authors of it intend. For the great mercy of God displayed in the new covenant has a peculiar reference to offences against the primitive law, or even against the law of Moses, before the time that men had received a knowledge of the Gospel. For offences committed after the promulgation of the Gospel, especially if they are accompanied with a hardened obstinacy, are treated with much severer judgments than any that were declared by Moses. For God punishes sins of that kind not only in a future state, but in the present life. But for sins of that kind, to obtain the act of mercy and indulgence, the offender must inflict punishment upon himself, not in a slight or trivial manner, but with a heartfelt sorrow, and resolution to sin no more. In the same manner it is maintained that if men are actuated by repentance, they are ENTITLED to impunity. We do not say that men are never actuated by sincere repentance; but it is not every kind of avowal or acknowledgment, by which God is moved to remit the WHOLE of a punishment, as appears from the case of David. As the supreme judge therefore might dispense with the full penalty of the law, inflicting death, and yet exercise no inconsiderable severity upon offenders, so now he may dispense with the sentence of eternal death, at the same time leaving the sinner to find an early grave by the stroke of some calamity, or by the hand of human justice. XII. and XIII. Another objection made against capital punishments is that such a kind of sentence and execution is cutting off a criminal from all possibility of repentance. But those, who make the objection, must know, that in cases of that kind, venerable and upright judges use the greatest precautions, and suffer no one to be hurried away to execution, without a reasonable time allowed for reflection and deep abhorrence of his crime: a repentance, which though prevented by the interposing hand of death from producing the fruits of righteousness, we have reason to suppose, from the case of the thief pardoned on the cross, may be accepted with God.