Freedom and Justice

In a season of elections and controversies in North America, it is good to sit down and think quietly and seriously about what our freedom and justice truly mean. Have our concepts of freedom and justice come from God? Or have they come from man? Which is the more enduring freedom, which the more equitable and perpetual justice? Have we given power to godly men and women, or to the godless? Are we intent on seeing a republic of virtue and truth in our midst, or do we merely want what the unstable populace imagines it wants at the moment? During the turbulence of the English Reformation, the poet and scholar John Milton penned these following words:

"For it is of no little consequence, O citizens, by what principles you are governed, either in acquiring liberty or in retaining it when acquired. And unless that liberty which is of such a kind as arms can niether procure nor take away, which alone is the fruit of piety, of justice, of temperance, and unadulterated virtue, shall have taken deep root in your minds and hearts, there will not long be wanting one who will snatch from you by treachery what you have acquired by arms...Your peace will be only a more distressing war, and that which you imagined liberty will prove the worst of slavery. Unless by the means of piety, not frothy and loquacious, but operative, unadulterated, and sincere, you clear the horizon of the mind from those mists of superstition which arise from the ignorance of true religion, you will always have those who will bend your necks to the yoke as if you were brutes..." (Second Defense of the English People)

The Good Book has this to say about justice and governance:

"A false balance is an abomination to the Lord,

but a just weight is his delight.

When pride comes, then comes disgrace;

but with the humble is wisdom.

The integrity of the upright guides them,

but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.

Riches do not profit in the day of wrath,

but righteousness delivers from death.

The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight,

but the wicked falls by his own wickedness.

The righteousness of the upright delivers them,

but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust.

When the wicked dies, his hope perishes,

and the expectation of the godless comes to nought.

The righteous is delivered from trouble,

and the wicked gets into it instead.

With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor,

but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices;

and when the wicked perish there are shouts of gladness.

By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted,

but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked...

The desire of the righteous ends only in good;

the expectation of the wicked in wrath.

One man gives freely, yet grows all the richer;

another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.

A liberal man will be enriched,

and one who waters will himself be watered.

The people curse him who holds back grain,

but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it.

He who diligently seeks good seeks favor,

but evil comes to him who searches for it.

He who trusts in his riches will wither,

but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.

He who troubles his household will inherit wind,

and the fool will be servant to the wise.

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,

but lawlessness takes away lives.

If the righteous is requited on earth,

how much more the wicked and the sinner!"

(Proverbs 11:1~31)