But if on the other hand it be said that longer life might have been of more avail to serious repentance, we may observe that, in some cases, the reply of Seneca may be made, that to men of that description death is often the greatest blessing which can be bestowed; for, in the words of Eusebius, their career of wickedness cannot otherwise be shortened, or reformed. These in addition to the preceding arguments in the former part of this treatise may be deemed a sufficient answer to those, who assert that all capital punishments, and even all punishments, without exception, are abolished by the precepts of our Saviour. The Apostle, consigning to the office of kings the use of the sword, as an exercise of his divine commission to avenge all wrongs, instructs us to pray for kings, that, as true Christians, in their royal capacity, they may be a protection to the innocent. An end, which even after the introduction of the gospel, could not easily be obtained, owing to the depravity of mankind, if the violence of some were not restrained by the exemplary punishment of others. Such authority is the more necessary, when even in the midst of so many examples and punishments, the lives of the innocent are scarcely secure. There have been indeed, it cannot be denied, happy instances where the sentence of death was changed for that of perpetual labour, a practice, as we are informed by Diodorus, followed by Sabacon, king of Egypt, a prince renowned for his piety. Balsamon observes that the penal laws of Rome, inflicting death, were most of them changed by the Christian emperors of later times, and other kinds of punishment were substituted, that the guilty might receive deeper impressions of repentance, and their punishment operate as a more durable example. XIV. From what has been said, it may be inferred, how unsafe it is for a private Christian, whether from motives of personal interest, or from those of the public good, to take upon himself the punishment of an offender, and particularly to inflict death. Although, as it has been said before, it may, IN SOME CASES, be allowed by the law of nations. A permission, that has given rise to the laudable practice, prevailing in some countries of furnishing adventurers with public instructions and commissions to chase and capture pirates, wherever they may be found. But those adventurers may be considered as discharging a public duty rather than as acting upon their own authority. XV. A custom not unlike to which prevails in many places, of not allowing individuals to bring criminal charges against others at their own pleasure: that office belonging to persons invested with public authority to undertake it. So that no one can contribute towards shedding the blood of another, but as an act of necessary duty. In reference to this custom, a canon of the council of Eliberis excluded from the communion any believer who had been instrumental in causing the proscription or death of another.