May the Lord grant the shepherds of his people the gift of not wanting to seem wiser than God, or more clement and humane, so that they may at length see what a pleasing sacrifice it is to God and how necessary and how effective a remedy against the deadly disease of mankind it is to impose just punishments on godless, criminal, and wicked men.
But since no one can describe an approach more equitable and wholesome to the commonwealth than that which God describes in his law, it is certainly the duty of all kings and princes who recognize that God has put them over his people that they follow most studiously his own method of punishing evildoers.