he laws in
execution.

[Footnote i: Locke, Hum. Und. b. 2. c. 21.]

OF all the parts of a law the most effectual is the _vindicatory_. For
it is but lost labour to say, "do this, or avoid that," unless we also
declare, "this shall be the consequence of your noncompliance." We
must therefore observe, that the main strength and force of a law
consists in the penalty annexed to it. Herein is to be found the
principal obligation of human laws.

LEGISLATORS and their laws are said to _compel_ and _oblige_; not that
by any natural violence they so constrain a man, as to render it
impossible for him to act otherwise than as they direct, which is the
strict sense of obligation: but because, by declaring and exhibiting a
penalty against offenders, they bring it to pass that no man can
easily choose to transgress the law; since, by reason of the impending
correction, compliance is in a high degree preferable to disobedience.
And, even where rewards are proposed as well as punishments
threatened, the obligation of the law seems chiefly to consist in the
penalty: for rewards, in their nature, can only _persuade_ and
_allure_; nothing is _compulsory_ but punishment.

IT is held, it is true, and very justly, by the principal of our
ethical writers, that human laws are binding upon mens consciences.
But if that were the only, or most forcible obligation, the good only
would regard the laws, and the bad would set them at defiance. And,
true as this principle is, it must still be understood with some
restriction. It holds, I apprehend, as to _rights_; and that, when the
law has determined the field to belong to Titius, it is matter of
conscience no longer to withhold or to invade it. So also in regard to
_natural duties_, and such offences as are _mala in se_: here we are
bound in conscience, because we are bound by superior laws, before
those human laws were in being, to perform the one and abstain from
the other. But in relation to those laws which enjoin only _positive
duties_, and forbid only such things as are not _mala in se_ but _mala
prohibita_ merely, annexing a penalty to noncompliance, here I
apprehend conscience is no farther concerned, than by directing a
submission to the penalty, in case of our breach of those laws: for
otherwise the multitude of penal laws in a state would not only be
looked upon as an impolitic, but would also be a very wicked thing; if
every such law were a snare for the conscience of the subject.