A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics. Richard Baxter
that I will as much forbear such matters as you can well desire. If your calling be not to be sanctified by serving God in it, and regulating it by his law, it is then neither honourable nor desirable. But if it be, permit me very briefly so far to direct you.114
Direct. I. Take the whole frame of polity together, and study each part in its proper place, and know it in its due relation to the rest; that is, understand first the doctrine of polity and laws in genere, and next the universal polity and laws of God in specie; and then study human polity and laws, as they stand in their due subordination to the polity and laws of God, as the by-laws of corporations do to the general laws of the land.
He that understandeth not what polity and law is in genere, is unlike to understand what divine or human polity or law is in specie; he that knoweth not what government is, and what a community, and what a politic society is, will hardly know what a commonwealth or church is: and he that knoweth not what a commonwealth is in genere, what is its end, and what its constitutive parts, and what the efficient causes, and what a law, and judgment, and execution is, will study but unhappily the constitution or laws of the kingdom which he liveth in.
And he that understandeth not the divine dominium et imperium, as founded in creation, (and refounded in redemption,) and man's subjection to his absolute Lord, and the universal laws which he hath given in nature and Scripture to the world, can never have any true understanding of the polity or laws of any kingdom in particular; no more than he can well understand the true state of a corporation, or the power of a mayor, or justice, or constable, who knoweth nothing of the state of the kingdom, or of the king, or of his laws. What ridiculous discourses would such a man make of his local polity or laws! He knoweth nothing worth the knowing, who knoweth not that all kings and states have no power but what is derived from God, and subservient to him; and are all his officers, much more below him, than their justices and officers are to them; and that their laws are of no force against the laws of God, whether of natural or supernatural revelation. And therefore it is most easy to see, that he that will be a good lawyer must first be a divine; and that the atheists that deride or slight divinity, do but play the fools in all their independent broken studies. A man may be a good divine that is no lawyer, but he can be no good lawyer that understandeth not theology. Therefore let the government and laws of God have the first and chiefest place in your studies, and in all your observation and regard.
1. Because it is the ground of human government, and the fountain of man's power and laws.
2. Because the divine polity is also the end of human policy; man's laws being ultimately to promote our obedience to the laws of God, and the honour of his government.
3. Because God's laws are the measure and bound of human laws; against which no man can have power.
4. Because God's rewards and punishments are incomparably more regardable than man's; eternal joy or misery being so much more considerable than temporal peace or suffering; therefore though it be a dishonour to lawyers to be ignorant of languages, history, and other needful parts of learning, yet it is much more their dishonour to be ignorant of the universal government and laws of God.115
Direct. II. Be sure that you make not the getting of money to be your principal end in the exercise of your function; but the promoting of justice, for the righting of the just, and the public good; and therein the pleasing of the most righteous God.116 For your work can be to you no better than your end. A base end doth debase your work. I deny not, but your competent gain and maintenance may be your lower end, but the promoting of justice must be your higher end, and sought before it. The question is not, Whether you seek to live by your calling; for so may the best; nor yet, Whether you intend the promoting of justice; for so may the worst (in some degree). But the question is, Which of these you prefer? and which you first and principally intend? He that looketh chiefly at his worldly gain, must take that gain instead of God's reward, and look for no more than he chiefly intended; for that is formally no good work, which is not intended chiefly to please God, and God doth not reward the servants of the world; nor can any man rationally imagine, that he should reward a man with happiness hereafter, for seeking after riches here. And if you say that you look for no reward but riches, you must look for a punishment worse than poverty; for the neglecting of God and your ultimate end, is a sin that deserveth the privation of all which you neglect; and leaveth not your actions in a state of innocent indifferency.
Direct. III. Be not counsellors or advocates against God, that is, against justice, truth, or innocency. A bad cause would have no patrons, if there were no bad or ignorant lawyers. It is a dear-bought fee, which is got by sinning; especially by such a wilful, aggravated sin, as the deliberate pleading for iniquity, or opposing of the truth.117 Judas's gain and Ahithophel's counsel will be too hot at last for conscience, and sooner drive them to hang themselves in the review, than afford them any true content: as St. James saith to them that he calleth to weep and howl for their approaching misery, "Your riches are corrupted, and your garments moth-eaten, your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire: ye have heaped treasure together for the last days." Whatever you say or do against truth, and innocency, and justice, you do it against God himself. And is it not a sad case that among professed christians, there is no cause so bad but can find an advocate for a fee? I speak not against just counsel to a man that hath a bad cause (to tell him it is bad, and persuade him to disown it); nor do I speak against you for pleading against excessive penalties or damages; for so far your cause is good, though the main cause of your client was bad; but he that speaketh or counselleth another for the defence of sin, or the wronging of the innocent, or the defrauding another of his right, and will open his mouth to the injury of the just, for a little money, or for a friend, must try whether that money or friend will save him from the vengeance of the universal Judge (unless faith and true repentance, which will cause confession and restitution, do prevent it).
The Romans called them thieves, that by fraud, or plea, or judgment got unlawful gain, and deprived others of their right.
Lampridius saith of Alexander Severus, Tanti eum stomachi fuisse in eos judices qui furtorum fama laborassent, etiamsi damnati non essent, ut si eos casu aliquo videret, commotione animi stomachi choleram evomeret, toto vultu inardescente, ita ut nihil posset loqui. And afterwards, Severissimus judex contra fures, appellans eosdem quotidianorum scelerum reos, et solos hostes inimicosque reipublicæ. Adding this instance, Eum notarium, qui falsum causæ brevem in consilio imperatorio retulisset, incisis digitorum nervis, ita ut nunquam posset scribere, deportavit. And that he caused Turinus one of his courtiers to be tied in the market-place to a stake, and choked to death with smoke, for taking men's money on pretence of furthering their suits with the emperor; Præcone dicente, Fumo punitur, qui vendidit fumum. He strictly prohibited buying of offices, saying, Necesse est ut qui emit, vendat: Ego vere nin patiar mercatores potestatum: quos si patiar, damnare non possum. The frowns or favour of man, or the love of money, will prove at last a poor defence against his justice whom by injustice you offend.118
The poet could say,
Justum et tenacem propositi virum,
Non civium ardor prava jubentium
Non vultus instantis tyranni,
Mente quatit solida: – Horat.
But if men would first be just, it would not be so hard to bring them to do justly; saith Plautus,
Justa autem ab injustis petere insipientia est:
Quippe illi iniqui jus ignorant neque tenent.
Direct. IV. Make the cause of the innocent as it were your own; and suffer it not to miscarry through your slothfulness and neglect.119 He is a lover of money more than justice, that will sweat in the cause of the rich that pay him well, and will slubber over and starve the cause of the poor, because he getteth little by them. Whatever your place obligeth you to do, let it be
Legum mihi placet autoritas; sed earum usus hominum nequitia depravatur: itaque piguit perdiscere, quo inhoneste uti nollem, et honeste vix possem, etsi vellem. Petrarch. in vita sua.
Male se rectum putat, qui regulam summæ rectitudinis ignorat. Ambros. de Offic.
It was an ill time when Petr. Bless. said, "Officium officialium est hodie jura confundere, lites suscitare, transactiones rescindere, dilationes innectere, supprimere veritatem, fovere mendacium, quæstum sequi, æquitatem vendere, inhiare actionibus, versutias concinnare."
Bias fertur in causis orandis summus atque vehementissimus fuisse, bonam tamen in partem dicendi vim exercere solitum. Laert. p. 53. Justum est homines justitiam diligere; non autem justitiam propter homines postponere. Gregor. Reg. Justitia non novit patrem, vel matrem; veritatem novit; personam non novit; Deum imitatur. – Cassian. Plutarch saith, that Callicratidas being offered a great sum of money (of which he had great need to pay his seamen) if he would do an unjust act, refused: to whom saith Cleander his counsellor, "Ego profecto hæc accepissem, si fuissem Callicratidas." He answered, "Ego accepissem, si fuissem Cleander."
Facile est justitiam homini justissimo.
Vix potest negligere, qui novit æquitatem: nec facile erroris vitio fordescit, quem doctrina purgaverit. Cassiodor.