l in all. Unto which day may He in His
mercy bring us all through faith and good works: Amen.

SERMON VI. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Eversley. Quinquagesima Sunday, 1872.

Genesis ix. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said
unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. . . .
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you . . . But flesh
with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And
surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every
beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every
man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he
man."

This is God's blessing on mankind. This is our charter from God, who
made and rules this earth. This is the end and duty of our mortal life:-
-to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it. But
is that all? Is there no hint in this blessing of God of something more
than our mortal life--something beyond our mortal life? Surely there is.
Those words--"in the image of God made He man," must mean, if they mean
anything, that man can, if he will but be a true man, share the eternal
life of God. But I will not speak of that to-day, but rather of a
question about his mortal life in this world, which is this:--What is the
reason why man has a right over the lives of animals? why he may use them
for his food? and at the same time, what is the reason why he has not the
same right over the lives of his fellow-men? why he may not use them for
food?

It is this--that "in the image of God made He man." Man is made in the
image and likeness of God, therefore he is a sacred creature; a creature,
not merely an animal, and the highest of all animals, only cunninger than
all animals, more highly organised, more delicately formed than all
animals; but something beyond an animal. He is in the likeness of God,
therefore he is consecrated to God. He is the one creature on earth whom
God, so far as we know, is trying to make like Himself. Therefore,
whosoever kills a man, sins not only against that man, nor against
society: he sins against God. And God will require that man's blood at
the hand of him who slays him. But how? At the hand of every beast will
He require it, and at the hand of every man.

What that first part of the law mea