"Ex. xviii. 21: Provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, who hate covetousness. Therefore a judge ought above all men to be rightly affected to all and unwavering, giving no decision in partiality or hatred or fear or violence. But who can better do this than a most devout person? ...
"It actually occurs that a father has to judge his son, as occurred to Saul, Brutus, Manlius and others. In such cases what are we to think a judge has most need of? Firmness, surely. But the flesh does not supply that, but either desire for glory or contention, and then it is not firmness, but persistency ... or from love of righteousness, which can be from God alone. A judge of this sort is more spiritual than those gentle little fellows who preach to us a kind of womanish gentleness, especially since there is so much evil among mortals. ...
"[A] judge or magistrate ought particularly to be a Christian and a spiritually-minded man. So God himself deigned to call them by his own name Elohim, because they should be most like God as high priests of righteousness, equity and firmness."
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[1] Cited in Ulrich Zwingli, Selected works of Huldreich Zwingli, (1484-1531): the Reformer of German Switzerland., ed., Samuel Macauley Jackson (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, 1901), 204.
Note: we do not necessarily endorse all of the theology of those quoted in the Quotable Theonomy series
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