To turn aside the needy from judgment
Such laws being made as discouraged them from any application for
justice; and, when they did, were harassed with such long,
vexatious, and expensive suits, as obliged them to desist, and
the cause being generally given against them, and for the rich:
and to take away the right from the poor of my
people;
for not to do justice to the poor is the same as to rob and
plunder them, and take away by force what of right belongs to
them; wherefore it follows: that widows may be their prey,
and [that] they may rob the
fatherless;
who have none to protect and defend them, and whose protectors
judges ought to be, in imitation of God, whom civil magistrates
represent, who is the Judge of the widows and the fatherless; and
therefore this is observed as an aggravation of their sin, which
was very great indeed: it is very wicked in a judge to pervert
the judgment of the poor and needy, the widow and the fatherless,
contrary to laws that are made by God and men; but to make and
prescribe wicked and unrighteous laws, that wickedness may be
framed, and mischief committed by a law, that the poor and the
needy, the widows and fatherless, may be injured under colour and
pretence of law and justice, is the height of injustice. See (
Psalms
94:20 Psalms 94:21
) .