“I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. “I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.” That Job was a person of great eminence both for his birth and station, that he had the supreme rule and government, or was at least a principal magistrate of the place he dwelt in, appears plainly from this chapter, whence the text is taken. “When I came in presence,” says he, “the young men saw me, and hid themselves, and the aged arose and stood up; the princes refrained talking, and the nobles held their peace; I sat as chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, and all men gave attention to my words, and kept silence at my counsel.” But whatever was the particular state of this illustrious person, whether he was invested with the supreme power itself or acted only by commission under it, this is certain, that the integrity of his conduct is a pattern worthy the imitation, and was recorded doubtless that it might be imitated by those who should in after ages be honoured with the like employment, and fill the same high office as himself. “I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem”, expressing the great love he had to justice, and the pleasure he took in exercising judgment; that what a robe and a diadem was usually to other men, that the doing justice and judgment was to him; the great object of his whole desire, the thing he principally placed his glory and delight in. For that we are thus to understand the metaphor in the text is plain from a like expression made use of by the royal prophet, who, speaking of the wicked, says, that he “clothed himself with cursing like a garment”; which expression in the verse immediately succeeding he explains, by telling us that his “delight was in cursing”. So that what we are here to understand of Job is, that his greatest satisfaction and delight was to administer justice righteously; that his sense of true honor was not that which reflected from these external marks of dignity and state, but which sprang from those virtues of which those were but the outward signs--He put on righteousness as a garment, and clothed himself with judgment as with a robe and a diadem. The things, then, which naturally offer themselves to our consideration from the words before us, are these three:-- First. The duties which this great example represents to us and which more immediately belong to 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.