When
a judge gives judgment, he either acquits or condemns the accused
person; he gives the case for the plaintiff, or for the defendant:
the punishment of the guilty person, if he be guilty, is a separate
thing, pronounced and inflicted afterwards. His judgment, I say, is
his OPINION about the person's guilt, and even so God's judgments are
the expression of His opinion about our guilt. But there is this
difference between man and God in this matter--a human judge gives
his opinion in words, God gives His in events: therefore there is no
harm for a human judge when he has told a person why he must punish,
to punish him in some way that has nothing to do with his crime--for
instance, to send a man to prison because he steals, though it would
be far better if criminals could be punished in kind, and if the man
who stole could be forced either to make restitution, or work out the
price of what he stole in hard labour. For this is God's plan--God
always pays sinners back in kind, that He may not merely punish them,
but CORRECT them; so that by the kind of their punishment, they may
know the kind of their sin. God punishes us, as I have often told
you, not by His caprice, but by His laws. He does not BREAK HIS LAWS
to harm us; the laws themselves harm us, when we break them and get
in their way.
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