equity and mediating wisdom, we can trust in the worst of times; because we cannot cherish too strongly and express too plainly, that reverence we feel for men, who can rise up in the ship of the state, and rebuke the storms of the mind, and bid its angry passions be still. He who takes the office of a Judge as it now exists in this country, takes in his hands a splendid gem, good and glorious, perfect and pure. Shall he give it up mutilated, shall he mar it, shall he darken it, shall it emit no light, shall it be valued at no price, shall it excite no wonder? Shall he find it a diamond, shall he leave it a stone? What shall we say to the man who would wilfully destroy with fire the magnificent temple of God, in which I who ruins the moral edifices of the world, which time and toil, and many prayers to God, and many sufferings of men, have reared; who puts out the light of the times in which he lives, and leaves us to wander amid the darkness of corruption and the desolation of sin. There may be, there probably is, in this church, some young man who may hereafter fill the office of an English Judge, when the greater part of those who hear me are dead, and mingled with the dust of the grave. Let him remember my words, and let them form and fashion his spirit he cannot tell in what dangerous and awful times he may be placed; but as a mariner looks to his compass in the calm, and looks to his compass in the storm, and never keeps his eyes off his compass, so in every vicissitude of a judicial life, deciding for the people, deciding against the people, protecting the just rights of kings, or restraining their unlawful ambition, let him ever cling to that pure, exalted, and Chris : A Christian Judge in a free land, should not only keep his mind clear from the violence of party feelings, but he should be very careful to preserve his independence, by seeking no pro-am now preaching? Far worse is he motion, and asking no favours from those who govern or at least, to be (which is an experiment not without danger to his salvation) so thoroughly confident of his motives and his conduct, that he is certain the hope of favour to come, or gratitude for favour past, will never cause him to swerve from the strict line of duty. It is often the lot of a Judge to be placed, not only between the accuser and the accused, not only between the complainant and him against whom it is complained, but between the governors and the governed, between the people and those whose lawful commands the people are bound to obey. In these sort of contests it unfortunately happens that the rulers are sometimes as angry as the ruled; the whole eyes of a nation are fixed upon one man, and upon his character and conduct the stability and happiness of the times seem to depend. The best and firmest magistrates cannot tell how they may act under such circumstances, but every man may prepare himself for acting well under such circum-tian independence, which towers over stances, by cherishing that quiet feeling of independence, which removes one temptation to act ill. Every man may avoid putting himself in a situation where his hopes of advantage are on one side, and his sense of duty on the other such a temptation may be withstood, but it is better it should not be encountered. Far better that feeling which says, "I have vowed a vow before God; I have put on the robe of justice; farewell avarice, farewell ambition: pass me who will, slight me who will, I live henceforward only for the great duties of life my business is on earth, my hope and my reward are in God." the little motives of life; which no hope of favour can influence, which no effort of power can control. A Christian Judge in a free country should respect, on every occasion, those popular institutions of Justice, which were intended for his control, and for our security; to see humble men collected accidentally from the neighbourhood, treated with tenderness and courtesy by supreme magistrates of deep learning and practised understanding, from whose views they are perhaps at that moment differing, and whose directions they do not choose to follow; to see at such times every dis position to warmth restrained, and every tendency to contemptuous feeling kept back; to witness the submission of the great and wise, not when it is extorted by necessity, but when it is practised with willingness and grace, is a spectacle which is very grateful to Englishmen, which no other country sees, which, above all things, shows that a Judge has a pure, gentle, and Christian heart, and that he never wishes to smite contrary to the law. May I add the great importance in a Judge of courtesy to all men, and that he should, on all occasions, abstain from unnecessary bitterness and asperity of speech? A Judge always speaks with impunity, and always speaks with effect. His words should be weighed, because they entail no evil upon himself, and much evil upon others. The language of passion, the language of sarcasm, the language of satire, is not, on such occasions, Christian language: it is not the language of a Judge. There is a propriety of rebuke and condemnation, the justice of which is felt even by him who suffers under it; but when magistrates, under the mask of law, aim at the offender more than the offence, and are more studious of inflicting pain, than repressing error or crime, the office suffers as much as the Judge the respect for Justice is lessened; and the school. of pure reason becomes the hated theatre of mischievous passion. : A Christian Judge who means to be just, must not fear to smite according to the law; he must remember that he beareth not the sword in vain. Under his protection we live, under his protection we acquire, under his protection we enjoy. Without him, no man would defend his character, no man would preserve his substance: proper pride, just gains, valuable exertions, all depend upon his firm wisdom. If he shrink from the severe duties of his office, he saps the foundation of social life, betrays the highest interests of the world, and sits not to judge according to the law. The topics of mercy are the smallness of the offence-the infrequency of the offence. The temptations to the culprit, the moral weakness of the culprit, the severity of the law, the error of the law, the different state of society, the altered state of feeling, and above all, the distressing doubt whether a human being in the lowest abyss of poverty and ignorance, has not done injustice to himself, and is not perishing away from the want of knowledge, the want of fortune, and the want of friends. All magistrates feel these things in the early exercise of their judicial power, but the Christian Judge always feels them, is always youthful, always tender when he is going to shed human blood: retires from the business of men, communes with his own heart, ponders on the work of death, and prays to that Saviour who redeemed him, that he may not shed the blood of man in vain. These, then, are those faults which expose a man to the danger of smiting contrary to the law: a Judge must be clear from the spirit of party, independent of all favour, well inclined to the popular institutions of his country; firm in applying the rule, merciful in making the exception; patient, guarded in his speech, gentle, and courteous to all. Add his learning, his labour, his experience, his probity, his practised and acute faculties, and this man is the light of the world, who adorns human life, and gives security to that life which he adorns. Now see the consequence of that state of Justice which this character implies, and the explanation of all that deserved honour we confer on the preservation of such a character, and all the wise jealousy we feel at the slightest injury or deterioration it may experience. The most obvious and important use of this perfect Justice is, that it makes nations safe: under common circumstances, the institutions of Justice seem to have little or no bearing upon the safety and security of a country, but in periods of real danger, when a nation surrounded by foreign enemies contends not for the boundaries of empire, but for the very being and existence of empire; then it is that the advantages of just institutions are discovered. Every man feels that he the storms of the world, and why we has a country, that he has something did not fall. The Christian patience worth preserving, and worth contend-you may witness, the impartiality of ing for. Instances are remembered the judgment-seat, the disrespect of where the weak prevailed over the persons, the disregard of consequences. strong one man recalls to mind when These attributes of Justice do not a just and upright judge protected end with arranging your conflicting him from unlawful violence, gave him rights, and mine; they give strength back his vineyard, rebuked his oppres- to the English people; duration to the sor, restored him to his rights, publish- English name; they turn the animal ed, condemned and rectified the wrong. courage of this people into moral and This is what is called country. Equal religious courage, and present to the rights to unequal possessions, equal lowest of mankind plain reasons, and justice to the rich and poor: this is strong motives why they should resist what men come out to fight for, and to aggression from without, and bind defend. Such a country has no legal themselves a living rampart round the injuries to remember, no legal murders land of their birth. to revenge, no legal robbery to redress: it is strong in its justice: it is then that the use and object of all this assemblage of gentlemen and arrangement of Juries, and the deserved veneration in which we hold the character of English Judges, is understood in all its bearings, and in its fullest effects: men die for such things There is another reason why every wise man is so scrupulously jealous of the character of English Justice. It puts an end to civil dissension. What other countries obtain by bloody wars, is here obtained by the decisions of our own tribunals; unchristian passions are laid to rest by these tribunals; brothers are brothers again; the Gospel resumes its empire, and because all confide in the presiding magistrate, and because a few plain men are allowed to decide upon their own conscientious impression of facts, civil discord, years of convulsion, endless crimes, spared; the storm is laid, and those who came in clamouring for revenge, go back together in peace from the hall of judgment to the loom and the plough, to the senate and the church. are they cannot be subdued by foreign force where such just practices prevail. The sword of ambition is shivered to pieces against such a bulwark. Nations fall where Judges are unjust, because there is nothing which the multitude think worth defending; but nations do not fall which are treated as we are treated, but they rise as we have risen, and they shine as we have shone, and die as we have died, too much used to Justice, and too much used to freedom, to care for that life which is not just and free. I call you all to witness if there be any exaggerated picture in this the sword is just sheathed, the flag is just furled, the last sound of the trumpet has just died away. You all remember what a spectacle this country exhibited one heart, one voice - one weapon, one purpose. And why? Because this country is a country of is its companion; safety walks in its the law; because the Judge is a judge for the peasant as well as for the palace; because every man's happiness is guarded by fixed rules from tyranny and caprice. This town, this week, the business of the few next days, would explain to any enlightened European why other nations did fall in The whole tone and tenour of public morals is affected by the state of supreme Justice; it extinguishes revenge, it communicates a spirit of purity and uprightness to inferior magistrates; it makes the great good, by taking away impunity; it banishes fraud, obliquity, and solicitation, and teaches men that the law is their right. Truth is its handmaid, freedom is its child, peace steps, victory follows in its train: it is the brightest emanation of the Gospel, it is the greatest attribute of God; it is that centre round which human motives and passions turn and Justice, sitting on high, sees Genius and Power, and Wealth and Birth, revolving round her throne; and teaches their paths and : marks out their orbits, and warns with tion was happy, if ever a nation was a loud voice, and rules with a strong visibly blessed by God-if ever a naarm, and carries order and discipline tion was honoured abroad, and left at into a world, which but for her would home under a government (which we only be a wild waste of passions. can now conscientiously call a liberal Look what we are, and what just laws government) to the full career of have done for us a land of piety talent, industry, and vigour, we are at and charity;-a land of churches, and this moment that people and this is hospitals, and altars;—a nation of our happy lot.- First the Gospel has good Samaritans ; -a people of uni- done it, and then Justice has done it; versal compassion. All lands, all seas, and he who thinks it his duty to labour have heard we are brave. We have that this happy condition of existence just sheathed that sword which de- may remain, must guard the piety of fended the world; we have just laid these times, and he must watch over down that buckler which covered the the spirit of Justice which exists in nations of the earth. God blesses the these times. First, he must take care soil with fertility; English looms la- that the altars of God are not polluted, bour for every climate. All the waters that the Christian faith is retained in of the globe are covered with English purity and in perfection: and then ships. We are softened by fine arts, turning to human affairs, let him strive civilised by human literature, instructed for spotless, incorruptible Justice; by deep science; and every people, as praising, honouring, and loving the they break their feudal chains, look to just Judge, and abhorring, as the the founders and fathers of freedom worst enemy of mankind, him who is for examples which may animate, and placed there to "judge after the law, rules which may guide. If ever a na-and who smites contrary to the law." THE LAWYER THAT TEMPTED CHRIST. A SERMON PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PETER, YORK BEFORE THE HON. SIR JOHN BAYLEY, KNT. ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S JUSTICES OF THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH AND THE HON. SIR JOHN HULLOCK, KNT. ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S BARONS OF THE COURT OF EXCHEQUER AUGUST 1, 1824. . LUKE, X. 25. prepares, with all professional acuteness, for his humiliation and defeat. Talking humanly, and we must talk humanly, for our Saviour was then acting a human part, the experiment ended, as all must wish an experiment to end, where levity and bad faith are on one side, and piety, simplicity, and goodness on the other: the objector was silenced, and one of the brightest lessons of the Gospel elicited, for the eternal improvement of mankind. And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted Him, saying," Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" THIS lawyer, who is thus represented to have tempted our blessed Saviour, does not seem to have been very much in earnest in the question which he asked: his object does not appear to have been the acquisition of re ligious knowledge, but the display of human talent. He did not say to himself, I will now draw near to this august Still, though we wish the motive for Being; I will inform myself from the the question had been better, we must fountain of truth, and from the very not forget the question, and we must lips of Christ, I will learn a lesson of not forget who asked the question, and salvation; but it occurred to him, that we must not forget who answered it, in such a gathering together of the and what that answer was. The quesJews, in such a moment of public tion was the wisest and best that ever agitation, the opportunity of display came from the mouth of man; the was not to be neglected; full of that man who asked it was the very person internal confidence which men of who ought to have asked it; a man talents so ready, and so exercised, are overwhelmed, probably, with the insometimes apt to feel, he approaches trigues, the bustle, and business of our Saviour with all the apparent life, and therefore, most likely to formodesty of interrogation, and salut-get the interests of another world: the ing him with the appellation of Master, answerer was our blessed Saviour, |