A nearly-lost necessity of mind – Advice from an old lawyer, turned pastor.
- The first duty of the community to their judges is to entertain the most honorable view of their office. How much more those officers who appear on the communities behalf.
- Even if the man or woman in the robe partakes in unmistakable folly, cowardice, cruelty, or brutal bad manners, the station itself is deserving of unmitigated honor and reverence – the same as with the best of judges.
- Those who where the robe, therefore, should be held by us in esteem and veneration – be their characters what they may.
We cannot resist the magistrate without resisting God. - If something needs to be corrected in the judge’s orders or manners, we should not maneuver outside of these bounds, or work at all where our hands are tied, but “leave it to the cognizance of the magistrate.”
- If we are tormented for righteousness by a mercurial judge, “let us first call up the remembrance of our faults, which doubtless the Lord is chastising by such scourges.”
“In this way, humility will curb our impatience.” - “And let us reflect that it belongs not to us to cure these evils, that all that remains for us to implore the help of the Lord, in whose hands are the hearts of kings, and inclinations of kingdoms.”
Why We Don’t Give Up
- “Christian faith undercuts the urge to fix everything on our own, through conviction of the final helplessness of man and confidence in the providence of God – through certainty that only God can set everything to rights, and faith that in the end, He will. Man can only ameliorate, not cure. But there will be a Judgment, and there will be a hand that wipes every tear from the eyes of those who mourn.” What We Can’t Not Know, J. Bud.
Foster Parents Must Engage in the TPR Trial
