https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/the-age-of-sodomitical-sin/1640s/sodomy-debate-massachusetts-ba
Here we have an article that I believe, yet again, confirms my reading of what the Reformers meant by "general equity" and how they went about applying that equity to the crime of sodomy. I want to quickly note that the debate here centered around "what sodomitical acts are to be punished by death?". There was no question that sodomy was a capital crime (this was clearly established in Massachusetts law prior to the debate https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/the-age-of-sodomitical-sin/1640s/sodomy-law-massachusetts-bay-n). The only question was what exactly constituted sodomy. On my own part, I believe that Rayner and Chauncey got the best of the debate here.
I want to make a couple of observations based on what Chauncey argued here. First of all, note this paragraph:
Chauncy concluded. Circumstances, he said, could affect the relative gravity of the sin, and its appropriate punishment. It was one thing to commit sodomy "by sudden temptation, and another to lie in wait for it, yea to make a common practice of it." Premeditation and frequency made the sin worse. When sodomy, the emission of seed, and adultery went together in the same act "this is capital, double and tripple."
The author of this article doesn't point this out (they might not even be aware of it), but this seems to be the same line of reasoning that we have seen in Franciscus Junius and Johannes Piscator: namely, that while the kind of punishment for moral crimes always remains, the mode of punishment is what may change. Chauncey clearly sees Sodomy as a capital crime ("When sodomy, the emission of seed, and adultery went together in the same act "this is capital, double and tripple"), so what does he mean when he says that "Circumstances…could affect the… appropriate punishment"? The best way to answer this is to assume that Chauncey is making the same distinction that the Reformers made before him. While all capital crimes are to be punished with death, the mode of that punishment can be lesser or greater depending upon the circumstances of that crime (e.g. guillotine vs burning). This is most clearly taught at the end of Thesis 30 in Junius' Mosaic Polity which can be read in my post on Junius.
Another observation I quickly want to make is that when discussing how lesbianism and bestiality are to be punished with death, Chauncey says that likewise the "natural lusts of men towards children under age are so to be punished." Here we have an argument for the death penalty for paedophilic acts. I have not often seen this in my previous reading, as it is rarely mentioned, but this again confirms my own conclusions about how the death penalty ought to be applied from the Reformed/Puritan tradition.
