In our society when something tragic or extreme happens – like the shooting in Colorado – it is portrayed as an horrific exception to the rule of the normative goodness of human beings. By comparison, in days gone by, things worked much differently. In a society which confessed the total depravity of man, when things were going well and there was a lack of egregious crimes, the judges and intellectuals of the land worried about the enforcement of the law, since human wickedness was the norm and thus there ought to be criminals punished at a fairly regular rate.
One such instance of this seems to be the Great Scottish Witch Hunt which took place just after the Restoration. When English judges filled Scottish legal positions during the Protectorate of Cromwell, Scots became angry at the leniency they showed towards suspected witches which came from a lack of faith (in the minds of the Scots). Thus, when the English judges went home, the Scots believed there were a backlog of witches who were not dealt with properly, and thus there was a massive witch hunt, to root out those who had rejected their baptism and made pacts with the Devil.
Whether or not there actually were witches, or whether they deserved capital punishment, are irrelevant to the main lesson to be learned from the episode. There are two paradoxical morals I think of from this account. First, we should always know that the heart of man is twisted. If there were no witches this still proves the point since people hunted them down and killed them without cause in such a case. Secondly, we mustn’t confuse civic and spiritual righteousness. The Calvinists tie election to sanctification in such a way that it the saved actually are thought to be better people than others around them. Lutherans always made a distinction saying that man can be civically righteous. He can obey human laws and ordinances and live in a civil society. However, this ought never to be tied to his spiritual righteousness which cannot justify him before God. So a man be a perfectly law-abiding citizen, and yet commit terrible acts of blasphemy or hatred in his heart, and likewise a person given the righteousness of Christ, might break human laws and appear no better than his blasphemous and hateful neighbour.
This is an interesting distinction I need help fleshing out more. I recall one Luther quote where he noted that the Lutherans lived no better than the Papists and this was to be expected. I shall have to find it again.