As the Gospel so clearly unfolds the future punishments of the wicked, all the threats contained in that new covenant terminate in the persons of the offenders themselves. But the ways of providence in these respects are not the rule which men can follow. For God, even without any reference to crime, is the sovereign lord and disposer of human life, a commission which man is only allowed to execute against the perpetrators of certain crimes. Wherefore as that same divine law forbids parents to be put to death for the offences of children, so it exempts children from the same punishment for the actions of their fathers: a lenity which is greatly commended by Josephus and Philo. The same commendation is bestowed by Isocrates upon the laws of Egypt; and by Dionysius of Halicarnassus upon those of Rome. XV. But if it is unjust in human laws to punish the misconduct of parents in the persons of their children, how much more severe was the law of the Persians and Macedonians extending the penalties for crimes against the state to every branch of the offender's relatives, in the most remote degree, a law surpassing all others in rigour? XVI. XVII. and XVIII. What has been said respecting the punishment of children for the offences of their fathers or forefathers, may be applied to the relation subsisting between sovereigns and subjects. For it is a relation springing from the contract of society, which makes the sovereign the essential head, life and soul of that body, in which his people form the members. As the civil community therefore with its sovereign or head forms but one body, there can be no separation of interests, but what affects one part must be prejudicial or serviceable to the whole. XIX. Why should an heir, it has been sometimes asked, be bound by other debts of his ancestor, and not feel the effects of his punishment for misconduct? to which answer may be given, that the heir represents the person of the deceased not in his merits or demerits, which are purely personal, but in his property; an artificial mode of preserving unbroken the chain of succession and descent. XX. And hence it follows, that if in addition to the demerit of an offence, any new grounds of obligation should arise connected with the punishment, they must be discharged not properly as a punishment, but as a debt. Thus the heir will be liable to pay the costs awarded by a judgment after a contested suit, which is considered in the light of a contract. CHAPTER XXII. ON THE UNJUST CAUSES OF WAR.