“I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.”
That Job was a person of great eminence both for his birth and station, that he had the supreme rule and government, or was at least a principal magistrate of the place he dwelt in, appears plainly from this chapter, whence the text is taken. “When I came in presence,” says he, “the young men saw me, and hid themselves, and the aged arose and stood up; the princes refrained talking, and the nobles held their peace; I sat as chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, and all men gave attention to my words, and kept silence at my counsel.”
But whatever was the particular state of this illustrious person, whether he was invested with the supreme power itself or acted only by commission under it, this is certain, that the integrity of his conduct is a pattern worthy the imitation, and was recorded doubtless that it might be imitated by those who should in after ages be honoured with the like employment, and fill the same high office as himself. “I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem”, expressing the great love he had to justice, and the pleasure he took in exercising judgment; that what a robe and a diadem was usually to other men, that the doing justice and judgment was to him; the great object of his whole desire, the thing he principally placed his glory and delight in. For that we are thus to understand the metaphor in the text is plain from a like expression made use of by the royal prophet, who, speaking of the wicked, says, that he “clothed himself with cursing like a garment”; which expression in the verse immediately succeeding he explains, by telling us that his “delight was in cursing”. So that what we are here to understand of Job is, that his greatest satisfaction and delight was to administer justice righteously; that his sense of true honor was not that which reflected from these external marks of dignity and state, but which sprang from those virtues of which those were but the outward signs—He put on righteousness as a garment, and clothed himself with judgment as with a robe and a diadem.
The things, then, which naturally offer themselves to our consideration from the words before us, are these three:—
First. The duties which this great example represents to us and which more immediately belong to magistrates, and those who are invested with public authority.
Secondly. How great a blessing every good magistrate must be to the state and community whereunto he belongs. And
Thirdly. The personal respect and reverence with which he ought to be treated upon that account.
The first then of those duties to which we are led by this great example, is that of doing justice and judgment with zeal and cheerfulness. Now justice is a virtue that not only in the common consideration of it is, as every other virtue is, honorable in itself, and much to be desired for its own sake; but it is a virtue so peculiarly necessary for human society, that it is scarce conceivable how any society can subsist without it; for the want of justice, if it destroys not the very foundations of society, at least it deprives us of all the advantages of it, and renders such political establishments at best but useless and undesirable things. A state of solitude would give more comfort and security than such a state, where the just claims of society are defeated by cruel and unrighteous men, and oppressions permitted with impunity; but where justice is, there the diligent and industrious prosper and the innocent dwell safely. And therefore the great Creator of mankind, who made them for a social life, has stamped upon their hearts this most necessary of all social virtues, and made it the indispensable law of their natures, that they should do to others as they would have others do to them. And was this law but universally and duly kept, it could not fail to promote the happiness, by its tendency to preserve the order of the world; it bindeth up every hand from doing violence, and every heart from forging deceit; and guards the common safety of mankind with the strict command, that we “render to all their due, custom to whom custom, honor to whom honor, fear to whom fear.”
Nor let us be so deceived as to think that our own private interest is not equally concerned herein with that of the public: for the good of particular persons can in no society be distinguished from the general good, but is always and unavoidably included in it. So that if we wilfully connive at, if we suffer or neglect to correct abuses in the public, we do what in us lies to lessen our own security, and insensibly promote the ruin of our private interest and prosperity.
So much reason have we to esteem and to endeavour to secure the practice of this best of virtues, if we respect only the thing itself and the benefits thence resulting to ourselves, either singly considered or in society. But it is by the righteous and impartial exercise hereof that God also is most effectually glorified by us: for then only we can in any sense be said to promote the glory when we strive to imitate the excellencies of God; and justice being one of the principal of those moral excellencies which He has propounded to us as a pattern for our imitation, we do then in an eminent manner give Him the honor due unto His name when we study to be like Him in this perfection of His nature: when they particularly, who are His ministers for this very thing, that is, for the execution of justice, endeavour to resemble Him whose ministers they are, in being just even as He is just.