A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics

Inst. IV. Another way of prodigality, is in needless, costly recreations.

Quest. V. Is all cost laid out upon recreations unlawful?

Answ. No: but, cæteris paribus, we should choose the cheapest, and be at no needless cost on them; nor lay out any thing on them which, consideratis considerandis, might be better bestowed. But of this before.

Inst. V. Another way of prodigality is in over-costly apparel.

Quest. VI. What may be accounted prodigality in the costliness of apparel?

Answ. Not that which is only for a due distinction of superiors from inferiors, or which is needful to keep up the vulgar's reverence to magistrates. But, 1. All that which is merely serviceable to pride, or vain curiosity, or amorous lust, or an affectation to be thought more comely and beautiful than others. 2. All that which hath more cost bestowed on it, than the benefit or end is worth. 3. Or which hath that cost which should be rather laid out another way upon better uses. The cheapest apparel must be chosen which is warm and comely, and fittest to the right ends. And we must come nearer those that are below our rank, than those above it.

Inst. VI. Also prodigality is much showed in the cost which is laid out for needless pomp and ostentation of greatness or curiosity, in keeping a numerous retinue, and in their gallantry, and in keeping many horses, and costly furniture, and attendance.

Quest. VII. When is a costly retinue and other pompous furniture to be accounted prodigality?

Answ. Not when they are needful to the honour of magistracy, and so to the government of the commonwealth; nor when it is made but a due means to some lawful end, which answereth the cost. But when it is either the fruits and maintenance of pride, or exceedeth the proportion of men's estates, or (especially) when it expendeth that which better and more necessary uses call for. It is a most odious and enormous crime, to waste so many hundred or thousand pounds a year in the vanities of pomp, and fruitless curiosities, and need-nots, while the public uses of the state and church are injured through want, and while thousands of poor families are racked with cares, and pinched with necessities round about us.

Inst. VII. Another way of prodigality is that which is called by many, keeping a good house, that is, in unnecessary abundance, and waste of meat and drink, and other provisions.

Quest. VIII. When may great housekeeping be accounted prodigality?

Answ. Not when it is but a convenient work of charity to feed the poor, and relieve the distressed, or entertain strangers, or to give such necessary entertainment to equals or superiors as is before described: but when the truest relief of the poor shall be omitted, (and it may be poor tenants racked and oppressed,) to keep up the fame and grandeur of their abundance, and to seem magnificent, and praised by men for great housekeepers. The whole and large estates of many of the rich and great ones of the world goeth this way, and so much is devoured by it, as starveth almost all good works.

Inst. VIII. Another act of prodigality is cards and dice, and other gaming; in which whilst men desire to get that which is another's, they lose and waste their own.

Inst. IX. Another act of prodigality is giving over-great portions with children: it being a sinful waste of our Master's stock, to lay it out otherwise than he would have us, and to serve our pride and self-interest in our children instead of him.

Quest. IX. When may our children's portions be accounted prodigality or too great?

Answ. Not when you provide for their comfortable living according to your estates, and give them that due proportion which consisteth with the discharge of other duties: but when all that men can get is thought little enough for their children; and the business of their lives is to live in fulness themselves as long as they can, and then to leave that to their posterity which they cannot keep themselves! When this gulf of self-pampering and providing the like for children, devoureth almost all that you can gather, and the poor and other needful uses are put off with some inconsiderable pittance; and when there is not a due proportion kept between your provision for your children, and the other duties which God requireth of you. Psal. xlix. 7-9, 11, 13, "Their inward thought is, that their houses shall be perpetuated, and their dwelling-places to generations: they call their lands after their own names. – This their way is their folly; yet their posterity approve their sayings." Psal. lxxiii. 12, "Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world, they increase in riches." Psal. xvii. 14, "They have their portion in this life: – they are full of children, (or their children are full,) and they leave the rest of their substance to their babes." A parent that hath an heir, or other children, so wise, religious, and liberal, as that they are like to be more charitable and serviceable to good uses, than any other whom he can trust with his estate, should not only leave such children sufficient for themselves, but enable them as much as he can to do good; for they will be more faithful trustees to him than strangers. But a parent that hath but common and untrusty children, should do all the good he can himself, and what he would have done when he is dead, he must commit to them that are more trusty, and allow his children but their proper maintenance. And parents that have debauched, wicked, ungodly children, (such as God commanded them to cause to be put to death, Deut. xxi.) should allow them no more than their daily bread, if any thing at all (which is their own to dispose of).

Inst. X. Also to be careless in many small expenses or losses, because they are but little things, and let any such thing be cast away, is sinful prodigality.

Quest. X. How far is it a duty to be frugal in small matters, and the contrary a sin?

Answ. We must not overvalue any thing, great or small; nor be sparing out of covetousness; nor yet in an imprudent way, which seemeth to signify baseness and worldliness when it is not so; nor must we be too thinking in bargaining with others, when every penny which we get by it, is lost to one that needeth it more. But we must see that nothing of any use be lost through satiety, negligence, or contempt; for the smallest part is of God's gifts and talents, given us, not to cast away, but to use as he would have us; and there is nothing that is good so small, but some one hath need of it, or some good use or other may be made of it. Even Christ when he had fed thousands by a miracle, yet commanded his disciples to "gather up the broken bread or fragments, that nothing be lost," John vi. 12. Which plainly showeth that it is a duty which the richest man that is is not exempted from, to be frugal, and sin in the greatest prince to be wasteful of any thing that is good; but this must not be in sordid covetousness, but in obedience to God, and to do good to others. He is commendable who giveth liberally to the poor, out of his abundance; but he is much more commendable who is a good husband for the poor, as worldlings are for themselves; and frugally getteth and saveth as much as he can, and denieth all superfluities to himself and all about him, that he may have the more to give to pious and charitable uses.

Inst. XI. Idleness also and negligence in our callings, is sinful wastefulness and prodigality; when either the pride of gentility maketh people think themselves too good to labour, or to look after the matters of their families, or slothfulness maketh them think it a life too toilsome for their flesh to bear. Prov. xviii. 9, "He that is slothful in his work, is brother to him that is a great waster: " these drones consume that which others labour for, but are no gatherers themselves.

Quest. XI. Is every one bound to labour in a calling?

Answ. This is answered before in its due place, part i. Every one that is able, rich or poor, must live in some profitable course of pains or labour.

Quest. XII. Is it a duty to desire and endeavour to get, and prosper, and grow rich by our labours; when Solomon saith, "Labour not to be rich?" Prov. xxiii. 4.

Answ. It is a sin to desire riches as worldlings and sensualists do, for the provision and maintenance of fleshly lusts and pride; but it is no sin, but a duty, to labour not only for labour sake, formally resting in the act done, but for that honest increase and provision, which is the end of our labour; and therefore to choose a gainful calling rather than another, that we may be able to do good, and relieve the poor. Eph. iv. 28, "Let him labour, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth."

Quest. XIII. Can one be prodigal in giving to the church?

Answ. Yes, if it be in a blind zeal to maintain a useless pomp or superstition; or if he give that which should be used or given otherwise: but this is a sin that few in these days are much in danger of.¹⁶⁷

Quest. XIV. Can one be prodigal in giving to the poor?

Answ. Yes, when it is blindly done, to cherish idleness in wandering beggars; or with a conceit of meriting in point of commutative justice from God; or when that is given to the poor, which should be given to other uses (as in public tribute, maintenance of children, furtherance of the gospel, &c.): but this is a sin that few have need to be restrained from.

Quest. XV. May a rich man expend any thing upon (otherwise) lawful pomp, or conveniences, or pleasures, at such a time when there are multitudes of poor families in extremity of want? as now, when the flames which consumed London have left many thousands in distress?

Answ. Doubtless every man should spare as much for the relief of others as he can; and therefore should not only forbear all needless expenses, but those also that are needful but to such conveniences and accommodations as may be spared without a greater hurt, than is the want of such as that charge would relieve. To save the lives of people in want, we must spare any thing from ourselves, which our own lives can spare. And to relieve them in their deep poverty, we must abate much more than our superfluities. To expend any thing on pride and lust, is a double sin at such a time, when Lazarus is at our doors in want. If that Luke xvi. were well studied, (wherein it was that the rich man's sin and danger lay, in being clothed in purple and silk, and faring sumptuously every day, while Lazarus wanted,) it would make some sensualists wiser than they are.

But yet it must be confessed, that some few persons may be of so much worth and use to the commonwealth, (as kings and magistrates,) and some of so little, that the maintaining of the honour and succours of the former, may be more necessary than the saving the lives of the latter. But take heed lest pride or cruelty teach you to misunderstand this, or abuse it for yourselves.

There are divers other ways of prodigality or sinful waste, which I pass by, because they are such as few are concerned in; and my purpose is not to say all that may be said, but all that is needful. As in needless music, physic, books, (which Seneca handsomely reproveth,) gifts to servants which need not, in mere ostentation of pride, to be well spoken of, and many the like; and in unlawful wars, which is the greatest sinful waster in all the world. And as for expenses in debauchery and gross wickedness, as whoredom, revenge, in sinful law-suits, &c. I here pretermit them.

Direct. II. Understand well the aggravations of this sin of prodigality: viz.

1. It is a wasting of that which is none of our own, and a robbing God of the use or service due to him in the improvement of his gifts. They are his, and not ours; and according to his pleasure only must be used. 2. It is a robbing the poor of that which the common Lord of the world hath appointed for them in his law; and they will have their action in heaven against the prodigal. 3. It is an inhuman vice, to waste that upon pleasures, pride, and needless things, which so many distressed persons stand in need of. 4. It is an injury to the commonwealth, which is weakened by the wasteful. And the covetous themselves (that are not oppressors) are much better members of public societies than the prodigal. 5. It feedeth a life of other vice and wickedness. It is a spending God's gift to feed those lusts which he abhorreth. 6. It usually engageth many others in trades and labours which are unprofitable, that they may serve the lusts of these sensual prodigals. 7. And in the conclusion, it prepareth a sad account for these wretches, when they must answer at the bar of God how they have used all his gifts and talents. Remember all these aggravations.

Direct. III. Carefully mortify that greedy fancy, and fleshly lusts, which is the wasting sin, and the devouring gulf. Quench the fire, and you may spare all this fuel. Cure the fever or dropsy, and you may spare both your drink and life. A greedy throat and a diseased fancy are never satisfied, till they have wasted the peace of your consciences with your estates, and brought you to the end of brutish sinners: wisdom, and duty, and real benefit, are contented with a little; but lust is insatiable; the voluptuous brute saith, I must have my cups, my lusts, my pleasure; and the effeminate, vicious fancy of those empty souls that mind no great and solid things, is still ranging after some vanity or other; and like children, crying for every thing that they see another have: and the most needless, yea, burdensome things seem necessary to such; they say, I must needs have this, and I must needs have that, there is no being without it; when nothing needeth it, but a diseased mind, which much more needeth a cure by grace and true mortification. Subdue pride, and sensuality, and fancy, and you may escape prodigality.

Direct. IV. Remember the nearness of your account, and ask your consciences what way of expenses will please you best in the review. Whether at death and judgment it will be your comfort to find on your account, So much laid out on needless bravery, to set out this carcass which is now turning into dust; Item, so much upon proud entertainments of great ones; Item, so much on cards, and dice, and stage-plays; and so much on hounds and needless pleasures, &c. Or rather, so much to promote the preaching of the gospel; so much to set poor children to 'prentice, or to school; so much to relieve distressed families, &c. Let Matt. xxv. be well read, and your account well thought on.

Direct. V. Keep an account of your expenses, and peruse them before a fast or a sacrament; and ask conscience how it judgeth of them; yea, ask some holy, prudent friend, whether such proportions are allowable before God, and will be comfortable to you in the day of your extremity. If you are but willing to be cured, such means as these will not be in vain.

CHAPTER XXII.
CASES AND DIRECTIONS AGAINST INJURIOUS LAW-SUITS, WITNESSING, AND JUDGMENT

Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Law-suits and Proceedings

Quest. I. In what cases is it lawful to go to law with others?

Answ. 1. In case of necessary defence, when the plaintiff doth compel you to it. 2. When you are intrusted for orphans or others whom you cannot otherwise right. 3. When your children, or the church, or poor, whom you should do good to, are like to suffer, if you recover not your talent that God hath trusted you with for such uses, from the hands of unjust men; and they refuse all just arbitrations and other equal means which might avoid such suits. 4. When your own necessity constraineth you to seek your own, which you cannot get by easier means. 5. When your forbearance will do more hurt by encouraging knaves in their injustice, than it will do good. 6. Whenever your cause is just, and neither mercy, peace, nor the avoiding of scandal do forbid it: that is, when it is like to do more good than harm, it is then a lawful course.

But it is unlawful to go to law, 1. When you neglect just arbitrations, patience, and other needful means to avoid it. 2. When your cause is unjust. 3. When you oppress the poor by it. 4. When it is done in covetousness, revenge, or pride. 5. When the scandal or hurt to your brother, is like to be a greater harm than the righting of yourself is like to do good; then must you not go willingly to law.

Quest. II. May I sue a poor man for a debt or trespass?

Answ. 1. If he be so poor as that he cannot pay it, nor procure you satisfaction, the suit is vain, and tendeth but to cruelty. 2. If he have no means to pay, but that which will deprive him of food and raiment, and the necessaries of his life or comfort, you may not sue him unless it be for the supply of as great necessities of your own; or in trust for orphans, where you have no power to remit the debt; yea, and for them no cruelty must be used. 3. If your forbearance be like to make him abler by his diligence or other means, you should forbear if possible. 4. But if he be competently able, and refuse to pay through knavery and injustice, and you have better ways to use that money, if scandal forbid not, you may seek by law to recover your own from him.

Quest. III. May I sue a surety whose interest was not concerned in the case?

Answ. If his poverty make it not an act of cruelty, nor scandal prohibit it, you may; because he was willing, and declared his consent, that you should have the debt of him, if the principal pay not. To become surety, is to consent to this; and it is no injury to receive a man's money by his own consent and covenant. He knew that you had not lent it but on those terms; and you had reason to suppose, that he who would undertake to pay another man's debt, had sufficient reason for it, either in relation or counter-security. But as you must use mercy to the principal debtor in his poverty, so must you also to the surety.

Quest. IV. May I sue for the use of money, as well as for the principal?

Answ. This dependeth on the case of usury before resolved. In those cases in which it may not be taken, it may not be sued for; nor yet when the scandal of it will do more harm than the money will do good. But in other cases, it may be sued for on the terms as the rent of lands may.

Quest. V. May law-suits be used to disable or humble an insolent, wicked man?

Answ. You may not take up an ill cause against him, for any such good end; but if you have a good cause against him, which otherwise you would not have prosecuted, you may make use of it, to disable him from doing mischief, when really it is a probable means thereto; and when neither scandal nor other accidents do prohibit it.

Quest. VI. May a rich man make use of his friends and purse in a just cause, to bear down or tire out a poor man that hath a bad cause?

Answ. Not by bribery or any evil means; for his proceeding must be just as well as his cause. But if it be an obstinate knave that setteth himself to do hurt to others, it is lawful to make use of the favour of a righteous judge or magistrate against him; and it is lawful to humble him by the length and expensiveness of the suit, when that is the fittest means, and no unjust action is done in it; still supposing that scandal prohibit it not. But let no proud or cruel person think, that therefore they may by purse, and friends, and tedious law-suits oppress the innocent, to attain their own unrighteous wills.

Quest. VII. May one use such forms in law-suits as in the literal sense are gross untruths (in declarations, answers, or the like)?

Answ. The use of words is to express the mind; and common use is the interpreter of them: if they are such words as the notorious common use hath put another sense on, than the literal one, they must be taken in the sense which public use hath put upon them. And if that public sense be true or false, accordingly they may or may not be used.

Quest. VIII. May a guilty person plead not guilty, or deny the fact?

Answ. Common use is the interpreter of words. If the common use of those words doth make their public sense a lie, it may not be done. But if the forensic common use of their denial is taken to signify no more but this, Let him that accuseth me, prove it; I am not bound to accuse myself, or, In foro I am not guilty till it be proved; then it is lawful to plead Not guilty, and deny the fact, except in cases wherein you are bound to an open confession, or in which the scandal will do more hurt than the denial will do good.

Quest. IX. Is a man ever bound to accuse himself, and seek justice against himself?

Answ. 1. In many cases a man is bound to punish himself; as when the law against swearing, cursing, or the like, must give the poor a certain mulct which is the penalty, he ought to give that money himself; and in cases where it is a necessary cure to himself, and in any case where the public good requireth it: as if a magistrate offend, whom none else will punish, or who is the judge in his own cause; he should so far punish himself as is necessary to the suppression of sin, and to the preserving of the honour of the laws; as I have heard of a justice that swore twenty oaths, and paid his twenty shillings for it. 2. A man may be bound in such a divine vengeance or judgment as seeketh after his particular sin, to offer himself to do a sacrifice to justice, to stop the judgment; as Jonah and Achan did. 3. A man may be bound to confess his guilt and offer himself to justice to save the innocent, who is falsely accused and condemned for his crime. 4. But in ordinary cases a man is not bound to be his own public accuser or executioner.

Quest. X. May a witness voluntarily speak that truth which he knoweth will further an unrighteous cause, and be made use of to oppress the innocent?

Answ. He may not do it as a confederate in that intention: nor may he do it when he knoweth that it will tend to such an event, (though threatened or commanded,) except when some weightier accident doth preponderate for the doing it, (as the avoiding of a greater hurt to others, than it will bring on the oppressed, &c.)

Quest. XI. May a witness conceal some part of the truth?

Answ. Not when he sweareth to deliver the whole truth; nor when a good cause is like to suffer, or a bad cause be furthered by the concealment; nor when he is under any other obligation to reveal the whole.

Quest. XII. Must a judge and jury proceed secundum allegata et probata, according to evidence and proof, when they know the witness to be false, and the truth to be contrary to the testimony; but are not able to evince it?

Answ. Distinguish between the negative and the positive part of the verdict or sentence: in the negative they must go according to the evidence and testimonies, unless the law of the land leave the case to their private knowledge. As for example, they must not sentence a thief or murderer to be punished upon their secret unproved knowledge: they must not adjudge either monies or lands to the true owner from another, without sufficient evidence and proof: they must forbear doing justice, because they are not called to it, nor enabled. But positively they may do no injustice upon any evidence or witness against their own knowledge of the truth: as they may not upon known false witness, give away a man's lands or money, or condemn the innocent; but must in such a case renounce the office; the judge must come off the bench, and the jury protest that they will not meddle, or give any verdict (whatever come of it); because God and the law of nature prohibit their injustice.

Object. It is the law that doth it, and not we.

Answ. It is the law and you; and the law cannot justify your agency in any unrighteous sentence. The case is plain and past dispute.

Tit. 2. Directions against Contentious Suits, False-witnessing, and Oppressive Judgment

Direct. I. The first cure for all these sins, is to know the intrinsic evil of them. Good thoughts of sin are its life and strength. When it is well known, it will be hated; and when it is hated, it is so far cured.

I. The evil of contentious and unjust law-suits.

1. Such contentious suits do show the power of selfishness in the sinner; how much self-interest is inordinately esteemed. 2. They show the excessive love of the world; how much men overvalue the things which they contend for. 3. They show men's want of love to their neighbours; how little they regard another man's interest in comparison of their own. 4. They show how little such men care for the public good, which is maintained by the concord and love of neighbours. 5. Such contentions are powerful engines of the devil to destroy all christian love on both sides; and to stir up mutual enmity and wrath; and so to involve men in a course of sin, by further uncharitableness and injuries, both in heart, and word, and deed. 6. Poor men are hereby robbed of their necessary maintenance, and their innocent families subjected to distress. 7. Unconscionable lawyers and court officers, who live upon the people's sins, are hereby maintained, encouraged, and kept up. 8. Laws and courts of justice are perverted to do men wrong, which were made to right them. 9. And the offender declareth how little sense he hath of the authority or love of God, and how little sense of the grace of our Redeemer; and how far he is from being himself forgiven through the blood of Christ, who can no better forgive another.

II. The evil of false witness.

1. By false witness the innocent are injured; robbery and murder are committed under pretence of truth and justice. 2. The name of God is horribly abused, by the crying sin of perjury (of which before). 3. The presence and justice of God are contemned, when sinners dare, in his sight and hearing, appeal to his tribunal, in the attesting of a lie. 4. Vengeance is begged or consented to by the sinner; who bringeth God's curse upon himself, and as it were desireth God to plague or damn him if he lie. 5. Satan the prince of malice and injustice, and the father of lies, and murders, and oppression, is hereby gratified, and eminently served. 6. God himself is openly injured, who is the Father and patron of the innocent; and the cause of every righteous person is more the cause of God than of man. 7. All government is frustrated, and laws abused, and all men's security for their reputations, or estates, or lives is overthrown, by false witnesses; and consequently human converse is made undesirable and unsafe. What good can law, or right, or innocency, or the honesty of the judge do any man, where false witnesses combine against him? What security hath the most innocent or worthy person, for his fame, or liberty, or estate, or life, if false witnesses conspire to defame him or destroy him? And then how shall men endure to converse with one another? Either the innocent must seek out a wilderness, and fly from the face of men as we do from lions and tigers, or else peace will be worse than war; for in war a man may fight for his life; but against false witnesses he hath no defence: but God is the avenger of the innocent, and above most other sins, doth seldom suffer this to go unpunished, even in this present world; but often beginneth their hell on earth, to such perjured instruments of the devil.

III. The evil of unrighteous judgments.

1. An unrighteous judge doth condemn the cause of God himself; for every righteous cause is his. 2. Yea, he condemneth Christ himself in his members; for in that he doth it to one of the least of those whom he calleth brethren, he doth it to himself, Matt. xxv. It is a damnable sin, not to relieve the innocent and imprisoned in their distress, when we have power: what is it then to oppress them and unrighteously condemn? 3. It is a turning of the remedy into a double misery, and taking away the only help of oppressed innocency. What other defence hath innocency, but law and justice? And when their refuge itself doth fall upon them and oppress them, whither shall the righteous fly? 4. It subverteth laws and government, and abuseth it to destroy the ends which it is appointed for. 5. Thereby it turneth human society into a state of misery, like the depredations of hostility. 6. It is a deliberate, resolved sin, and not done in passion by surprise: it is committed in that place, and in that form, as acts of greatest deliberation should be done; as if he should say, Upon full disquisition, evidence, and deliberation, I condemn this person and his cause. 7. All this is done as in the name of God, and by his own commission, by one that pretendeth to be his officer or minister, Rom. iii. 3-6. For the judgment is the Lord's, 2 Chron. xix. 5-8, 10. And how great a wickedness is it thus to blaspheme, and to represent him as Satan, an enemy to truth and righteousness, to his servants and himself! As if he had said, God hath sent me to condemn this cause and person. If false prophets sin so heinously who belie the Lord, and say, He hath sent us to speak this, (which is untruth); the sin of false judges cannot be much less. 8. It is sin against the fullest and frequentest prohibitions of God. Read over Exod. xxiii. 1-3, &c.; Lev.; Deut. i. 16, 17; xvi. 18; Isa. i. 17, 20, 23; Deut. xxiv. 17; and xxvii. 19, "Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, the fatherless, and widow, and all the people shall say Amen." Ezra vii. 26; Psal. xxxiii. 5; xxxvii. 28; lxxii. 2; xciv. 15; cvi. 3, 30; Prov. xvii. 27; xix. 28; xx. 8; xxix. 4; xxxi. 5; Eccl. v. 8; Isa. v. 7; x. 2; lvi. 1, 2; lix. 14, 15; Jer. v. 1; vii. 5; ix. 24; Ezek. xviii. 8; xlv. 9; Hos. xii. 6; Amos v. 7, 15, 24; vi. 12; Mic. iii. 9; Zech. vii. 9; viii. 16; Gen. xviii. 19; Prov. xxi. 3, 7, 15. I cite not the words to avoid prolixity. Scarce any sin is so oft and vehemently condemned of God. 9. False judges cause the poor to appeal to God against them, and the cries of the afflicted shall not be forgotten, Luke xviii. 5-8. 10. They call for God's judgment upon themselves, and devolve the work into his hands: how can that man expect any other than a judgment of damnation, from the righteous God, who hath deliberately condemned Christ himself in his cause and servants, and sat in judgment to condemn the innocent? Psal. ix. 7-9, "The Lord hath prepared his throne for judgment, and he shall judge the world in righteousness; he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness; he will be a refuge for the oppressed." Psal. xxxvii. 6, "He will bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noon-day." Psal. lxxxix. 14, "Justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne." Psal. ciii. 6, "The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed." Psal. cxlvi. 7. In a word, the sentence of an unjust judge is passed against his own soul, and he calleth to God to condemn him righteously, who unrighteously condemned others. Of all men he cannot stand in judgment, nor abide the righteous doom of Christ.