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SUSSEX SMUGGLERS. 209 |
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magistrates, and those who are invested with public authority.
Secondly. How great a blessing every good magistrate must be to the state and community whereunto he belongs. And
Thirdly. The personal respect and reverence with which he ought to be treated upon that account.
The first then of those duties to which we are led by this great example, is that of doing justice and judgment with zeal and cheerfulness. Now justice is a virtue that not only in the common consideration of it is, as every other virtue is, honorable in itself, and much to be desired for its own sake; but it is a virtue so peculiarly necessary for human society, that it is scarce conceivable how any society can subsist without it ; for the want of justice, if it destroys not the very foundations of society, at least it deprives us of all the advantages of it,and renders such political establishments at best but useless and undesirable things. A state of solitude would give more comfort and security than such a state, where the just claims of society are defeated by cruel and unrighteous men, and oppressions permitted with impunity; but where justice is, there the diligent and industrious prosper and the innocent dwell safely. And therefore the great Creator of mankind, who made them for a social life, has stamped upon their hearts this most necessary of all social virtues, and made it the indispensable law of their natures, that they should do to others as they would have others do to them. And was this law but universally and duly kept, it could not fail to promote the happiness, by its tendency to preserve the order of the world; it bindeth up every hand from doing violence, and every heart from forging deceit; and guards the common safety of mankind with 14 |
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