A Christian Judge in a free land must sedulously guard himself against the entanglements of Party. He must be careful to maintain his independence by seeking no promotion and asking no favours from those who govern. It may often be his duty to stand between the governors and the governed, and in that case his hopes of advantage may be found on one side, and his sense of duty on another. At such a crisis he is trebly armed, if he is able from his heart to say--"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 will live henceforward only for the great duties of life. My business is on earth. My hope and my reward are with God."
"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 am now preaching? Far worse is he 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 Christian independence, which towers over the little motives of life; which no hope of favour can influence, which no effort of power can control.