Lamentations 3:35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High, The cultivation of wisdom, courage, and temperance is necessary to the doing of justice, and the cultivation of justice reacts favourably on the cultivation of these other virtues. But, on the whole, those three first are personal; this is public. In cultivating the first three virtues, a man is looking within; in cultivating this fourth one, he is looking without and around. For justice is to render to everyone his due. It is the virtue of a man, not as he stands alone, but as he stands in society; and as he cultivates this virtue, he has to keep his eye upon all his fellow creatures, his superiors, inferiors, and equals, and on all the circles of society in which he stands, such as the family, the city, the nation, and the Church. As man has relations to other creatures beneath him and to other beings above him, as well as to his fellow creatures, it has sometimes been proposed to include in justice the duties of man to animals, and the duties of man to God. I notice in some of the newer books on ethics, that the subject of cruelty to animals is discussed in connection with justice, and in many of the older books, in the writings of the schoolmen, and especially in the Summa of , the duties of man to God are not only included in justice, but made the principal part of it: all parts of Divine worship, for instance, being discussed under this head. But it seems to me that it is better to limit justice to the duties of human beings to one another. This is a wide enough field. It comprehends the mutual duties of parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbours, clergy and laymen, employers' and employed, rulers and subjects, and others too numerous to mention. It anyone in all these relationships were a model man, then he would be a perfect man, and hence, justice has often been treated as if it were the whole of virtue; and even , in an unusual outburst of enthusiasm, says: "It is more beautiful than the morning or the evening star." When justice is defined as rendering to every one his due, that might seem a very simple affair, but it is not so simple as it looks; and this you immediately begin to realise if you ask what is due to any other person, because the question always slips in, "And what is due to me?" That is what makes it so difficult to keep the balance straight — the bias in favour of self. Note I. The justice of the law of the land. II. The justice of public opinion. III. The justice of conscience. IV. The justice of Christ.That everyone should get his due is so essential to human welfare, that in every country, in the slightest degree above the level of barbarism, the very best brains have been set to determine what justice is, and the united strength of the community to enforce it. In ancient Rome, for instance, the Twelve Tables were set up in the market place, that everyone might read them, and there, in the plainest words, the citizen was told his duty, and was made acquainted with the penalties of transgression. In our own country and in other civilised countries, picked men are brought together in Parliament, who spend their time year by year, defining what justice is. Law courts are set up; judges and juries sit; lawyers plead, to bring special eases under the general laws which Parliament has enacted; and prison and punishment exist for the purpose of bringing home to the general mind the majesty of justice. These institutions in our midst form a school, to which we are all sent, that we may learn to give to everyone his due. The law of the land has been our schoolmaster, telling us what to do and what not to do, and telling us effectually; and the very unconsciousness of our minds as to our having anything to do with the police and the prison, is just the evidence of how well this schoolmaster has done his work. In all civilised countries the justice of the law of the land is an inheritance from many centuries, during which the best brains of the country have been set apart to determine what justice is. In our own law, extremes of wisdom mingle, derived on the one hand from the classical nations, and on the other hand from our Teutonic ancestors. And yet, in spite of all that has been done, and is being done, from year to year, the law of the land is a very imperfect embodiment of justice, and a man may all his life keep out of the clutches of the police, and yet be an extremely unjust man. If a man steals a pound note from his neighbours, the law will set its whole machinery in operation to deal with him, but the very same person may, by the arts of temptation carried on for many years, make the son of his neighbour a drunkard, and his daughter something still worse, and yet the law of the land may not say a single word. A man may all his life keep wide of the clutches of the law, which may never have one word to say to him; yet society may know him to be guilty of deeds which it intensely despises, and will not allow to be committed with impunity. It does not fine or imprison, but it turns its back on him. Thus, silently but sternly, society punishes the man who is known to be breaking the eighth commandment, and especially the woman who is known to be breaking the seventh commandment. It is often very cruel — at all events, it looks cruel — and yet on the whole it is beneficent, and the world is a far more habitable place because of the school of public opinion into which all have to come. Then there is the school of conscience. There are holes in the net woven by public opinion, just as there are in those woven by the law of the land, far worse than that even. There are many cases in which public opinion commands things it ought to forbid, and in which it forbids the things that it ought to command. But perhaps a custom established in public opinion is more difficult to deal with than a wrong statute. The appeal from it, however, is to the conscience of the individual, and this is the third school into which we all have to pass. If a man is doubtful about what is right and what is wrong, let him simply retire with the question into his own breast, and ask, What ought I to do? and if he is really willing to do what he knows to be right, he will very seldom be without the right answer. This often is a far sterner tribunal than either that of public opinion or the law of the land. The great interest of religion is to strengthen the conscience, so that a man may feel that in its presence he is standing before a more august judge than if he were in any court of law, or than if he were surrounded by a whole theatre of spectators. "Whatever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." That is the soul of justice. As I have just quoted the golden rule, it might be thought we had already got to the justice of Christ. Jesus was a moralist. He was the heir and successor of the prophets. He denounced wrong with a plainness never elsewhere exemplified in the world. He emitted many rules of justice, and the golden rule among them. Yet that was not the principal lift He gave to justice. It is well to understand that. There are things that make it easy to give to any one his due, or even perhaps a little more than his due. There is not a town in the world where the well dressed do not receive more courteous treatment than the ragged. That is human nature. I dare say it is sometimes contemptible, but at all events it is a good thing to take advantage of it for those at the opposite extreme of society. What Jesus did to secure justice for the common man, was to raise the estimation of the common man. If the poor receive scanty consideration because there is nothing about them to attract attention, on the other hand, they will receive respect and attention if they are invested with dignity, and none can take in the teaching of Jesus Christ without recognising that the humblest belong to that humanity which He took into His heart, and for which He sacrificed His life. And if thus we look at our fellow creatures through the eyes of Jesus Christ, if we see God in them, then we have a new and the finest of all reasons for treating them with justice. Let us take for an illustration that which we are all thinking so much about in the present day, the relations of employers and employed. What do these four kinds of justice say about what the employer owes to the employed and what the employed owe to the employer? Take the law of the land; what it says is very brief and to the point; it just says to the employer: "Pay that thou owest," and to the employed, "Thou shalt not steal." There are multitudes both of employers and employed to whom that is perfectly simple, but are there not others to whom these simple statements are the very thunder of God? Then public opinion goes a good deal further, although its voice in this case is divided. There is an opinion of employers which employers, perhaps, listen to too exclusively, and there is a public opinion of the employed to which they, perhaps, listen too exclusively. But there is a wider public opinion that is more impartial, and I think I should say that it frowns upon the employer of labour who is not endeavouring to bring the conditions of labour in his business up to the best that has been attained in the same business; and this wider public opinion frowns upon the employee if he does not do his best. Outside public opinion in such eases is apt to be only partially informed, and its decisions need correction by larger knowledge; but I should say that on the whole they are wholesome; and it is good for both sides that the voice of public opinion is to be heard. There is the appeal, though, for both employer and employed, to conscience. A man can go into his own breast and ask, What is my duty? What would God like me to do? And then there still remains the justice of Christ. What would Christian principle say in this case? It would remind the employer that what are called his "hands" are in reality immortal beings, and therefore ought to be spared as much as possible things such as Sabbath labour and excessive hours, which secularise and brutalise; and bid servants hear the voice of Christ behind them as they labour, "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord and not unto men." I am not saying that even with the help of all these four kinds of light the problem of justice is always easy. I do not think it is. It seems to me to be specially difficult where, not individuals, but large bodies of men are concerned. But it is only by keeping these four lights streaming down upon life that the relations of men will become more just, and so more sweet, and that the individual will be prepared to appear before that tribunal where all the judgments of this earth will be reconsidered, and where a decision will be given from which there is no appeal. (J. Stalker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,WEB: To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, |
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