Judgeship

“ Gentlemen, upon your consciences be it; the preservation of the government, the life of the King, the safety and honour of our religion, and the discharge of our consciences as loyal men, good Christians, and faithful subjects, are at stake; neither her age or her sex are to move you who have nothing else to consider but the evidence of the fact you are to try. I charge you therefore, as you will answer it at the bar of the last judgment, where you and we must all appear, deliver your verdict according to conscience and truth. ”

“ For, as He is infinitely wise, He cannot deceive Himself in judgment; as He is absolutely good, He cannot wrest justice; as He is omnipotent, no man can resist His sentence; and as He is the Supreme Judge, there is no appeal from His tribunal, nor supplication; His sentence is always definitive and irrevocable. For all that may be seen in this process He sees and comprehends it at first sight, so that a review is superfluous.
4. Considering these things, I will imagine that my soul stands to be judged before the tribunal of so upright a judge as God our Lord is. ”

“ The Judge Himself is our righteousness. We stand in Him. He is our all. What can touch us? We shall appear there as the fruit of His perfect work. We shall even be associated with Him in the judgment which He executes over the world. ”

“ I have ever used to set the last judgment-day before mine eyes, and so to rule as I shall be judged to answer before a higher Judge—to whose judgment-seat I do appeal, that never thought was cherished in my heart that tended not to my people's good. ”

“ May I suppose that the judgment is given in the hearing of us all by one who is able to judge, and has dwelt in the same place with him, and been present at his daily life and known him in his family relations, where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire, and again in the hour of public danger—he shall tell us about the happiness and misery of the tyrant when compared with other men? ”

“ By their former conclusions, every soul must judge what the magistrate commandeth, and is not bound, even in indifferent things, to the magistrates’ law, further than his own soul, conscience, and judgment ascends to the reason of it. ”

“ He will himself be a spirit of judgment to those that sit in judgment; the privy counsellors shall be guided by wisdom and discretion and the judges shall govern by justice and equity. It is a great mercy to any people when those that are called to places of power and public trust are qualified for their places, when those that sit in judgment have a spirit of judgment, a spirit of government. ”

“ Think you that judgment waits till the doors of the grave are opened? It waits at the doors of your houses—it waits at the corners of your streets; we are in the midst of judgment—the insects that we crush are our judges—the moments we fret away are our judges—the elements that feed us, judge, as they minister—and the pleasures that deceive us, judge as they indulge. Let us, for our lives, do the work of Men while we bear the Form of them, if indeed those lives are Not as a vapor, and do Not vanish away. ”

“ Are judges to interpret the law according to the letter, and not the spirit? What right have you to enter into a compact with yourself that you will do thus or so, against the light within you? Is it for you to make up your mind,--to form any resolution whatever,--and not accept the convictions that are forced upon you, and which ever pass your understanding? ”

“ It is their own judgment—that tribunal which sits in the breast of every living man—that small, still voice that thrills through the heart, the soul of the mind, and as it speaks gives happiness or torture—the voice of conscience—the voice of God. ”

“ Then the judge, standing in the place of God, was to pronounce equitably, whatever might be the rank of the contending parties: "Ye shall not respect persons in judgment, but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God's." ”

“ He looks still from the judgment-seat, where He does not stand as a criminal, but sits as the supreme and omniscient Arbiter of our fates, and Judge of our actions. And He beholds us, each of us, moment by moment, as we go about our work, and often, by our cowardice, by our faithlessness, by our inconsistencies, 'deny the Lord that bought' us. ”

“ From pride, deception, from a sensual life, remain free. Know this, that what of good actions thou practicest thy people will also perform. "Dost thou desire to become a judge, then must thou be courageous, sharp-sighted, quick of comprehension, and a man of sound judgment. Thou must know what thy case has before it and behind it; thou must be a judge of men. ”

“ But, my lords, it is to be observed, that they who so warmly recommend the strictest adherence to justice, seem not fully to understand the duty which they urge. To do justice, my lords, is to act with impartiality, to banish from the mind all regard to personal motives, and to consider every question in its whole extent, without suffering the attention to be restrained to particular circumstances, or the judgment to be obstructed by partial affection. ”

“ "I am the law, and I am the judge! ”

“ And in that how great, O ye immortal gods! is the error of those men who have desired that law. For the meaner the condition of each judge is, the greater will be the severity of judgment with which he will seek to efface the idea of his meanness ”

“ In all that thou doest, remember the end, and how thou wilt stand before a strict judge, from whom nothing is hid, who is not bribed with gifts, nor accepteth excuses, but will judge righteous judgment. ”

“ What mean such words, if there be not varied grounds of judgment, varied characters of responsibility, varied measures of guilt, varied degrees of punishment? Men may reason; but "the Judge of all the earth will do right." It is of no possible use for people to argue and discuss. ”

“ And as in practical matters we, ordinary men that is, are seldom called upon to act as judges except in questions where their own sympathies or interests are concerned; the faculty to be trained is the judgment, the practical judgment at work among matters in which its possessor is deeply interested, not from the desire of Truth only, but from his own involution in the matters of which he is to judge. ”

“ A judge ought to prepare his way to a just sentence, as God useth to prepare his way, by raising valleys and taking down hills; so when there appeareth on either side a high hand, ... cunning advantages taken, combination, power, great counsel, then is the virtue of a judge seen to make inequality equal; that he may paint his judgment as upon an even ground. ”

“ If a Judge had fine skill in painting, architecture, and music, but at the same time had gross and confused notions of equity, and a poor, dull apprehension of the value of justice, who would scruple to reckon him a poor ignorant Judge? ”

“ Upon the judges’ seat they shall not sit, and the ordinance of judgment they shall not understand, neither shall they declare discipline and judgment, and they shall not be found where parables are spoken:
38:39. But they shall strengthen the state of the world, and their prayer shall be in the work of their craft, applying their soul, and searching in the law of the most High. ”

“ You may judge action, you may sentence for breaches of law, you may declare a man clear of any blame for such, but for any one to read the secrets of another heart is beyond human power; and if He that is the Judge were only a man there would be wild work, and many a blunder in the sentences that were given. ”

“ Among human beings, the judge whose words seal the fate of a man furthest into eternity is not he who merely pronounces the verdict of the law, but he, whoeverhe may be, who, from a love of truth, and unprejudiced by any custom or enactment of men, utters a true opinion or sentence concerning him. ”

“ But you bow to the wrong man in the street, or you mispronounce a word, or you tip over a glass of water, and then you agonize about your shortcoming all day long, yes, from time to time for weeks. Such an impartial and independent judge is the feeling of what you ought to have done. ”

“ They may hope to come off, nay, to come off with honour, but their hope will deceive them: They shall not stand in the judgment, so plain will the evidence be against them and so just and impartial will the judgment be upon it. 2. They will be for ever shut out from the society of the blessed. They shall not stand in the congregation of the righteous, that is, in the judgment (so some) , that court wherein the saints, as assessors with Christ, shall judge the world, those holy myriads with which he shall come to execute judgment upon all, Jude 14 ”

“ These wicked spirits, then, will execute the commands which this severe judge will pronounce against men at the last judgment. For you must know, Madam, that a God who knows all will at some future time take an account of what he already knows. ”

“ The judge weighs the arguments, and puts a brave face on the matter, and, since there must be a decision, decides as he can, and hopes he has done justice, and given satisfaction to the community; but is only an advocate after all. And so is all life a timid and unskilful spectator. ”

“ For at last, after gloomy and horrible hours, the everlasting Judge will uncloud his face, again acknowledge his Son and fellow God, who, on the other hand, will again lead to him alienated men, — nay, even a fallen spirit. ”

“ But the juryman who, above all, judges as a man, and often recoils from responsibility, should fear the excess of lenity: the judge, on the contrary, accustomed to repression, and above all preoccupied with the interests of society, should rather defend himself against excess of rigor and severity.
4. Knowledge.—What is for most men but a luxury, becomes in such or such a profession a strict duty. The knowledge of the laws, for example, is, for the magistrate, as the knowledge of the human body for the physician, a strict obligation. ”

“ Laws for judges; the rest of the seventh year, and day: three principal feasts to be solemnized every year; the promise of an angel, to conduct and protect them: idols are to be destroyed.
23:1. Thou shalt not receive the voice of a lie: neither shalt thou join thy hand to bear false witness for a wicked person.
23:2. Thou shalt not follow the multitude to do evil: neither shalt thou yield in judgment, to the opinion of the most part, to stray from the truth.
23:3. Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in judgment. ”

“ Give it power to censure folly, to encourage goodness, and to search those hidden motives which elude the eye of man. You will find yourselves both animated to virtue, and deterred from transgression by the thought of meeting, in the silence of your apartment, a condemning, or an applauding judge, an image of that tribunal before which we must all stand at the great day of scrutiny. ”

“ Judgment is not a tribunal dawning on the close of the world's weary centuries, but the momentary assimilation of a celestial or an infernal love leading to states and acts, rewards and retributions, corresponding. ”

“ If the Judge is a liberal-minded and enlightened man, I would rather take his judgment than submit my case to a dozen selected by chance, and among whom there would most probably be at least a couple of dolts. ”

“ The judgment of seven out of nine judges will be as nearly right as human conclusions can well be, and people affected by it are better satisfied—even when they lose—than by the guess of a stupid and sleepy jury. ”

“ The judge who gives a just decision in a case where his feelings are intensely interested on the other side, derives from that same strength of feeling the determined sense of the obligation of justice, which enables him to achieve this victory over himself. The capability of that lofty enthusiasm which takes the human being out of his every-day character, reacts upon the daily character itself. ”

“ The story that one judge was compelled to sit on the skin of another, who had been condemned for his injustice, is either an ancient fable, or else, if ever there was such a custom, it has become obsolete. ”

“ Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience. ”

“ The infallible Judge, the infinite fountain of light, truth and justice, will judge between the contending parties, and will declare what is the truth, who is in the right, and what is agreeable to his mind and will. ”

“ A judge may have his emotions, but his charge to the jury must be dictated, not by his heart, but by his knowledge of the law. And the voice of conscience, whatever feelings it may stir, must be an intellectual utterance, and, to be worth anything in a case of difficulty, a reasoned conclusion, based on observation of facts, and application of principles, and consultation with moral theologians and casuists. ”

“ The gods have their eye on him to-night—he's a marked man! A jolly old cove of a Judge, he is! Cares no more about rules and precedents, on the bench, than he does for the rights and precedents some persons profess to have in this house. ”

“ The more illuminated the Magistrate's conscience and judgment is, as to natural justice and right, by the knowledge of God and communications of Light from Christ, the better qualified he is to execute his office. ”