towards your own faults ; and how ingenious in finding excuses for any thing which you have done amiss. Deal thus then with all mankind : regard them all as your friends, and love them as yourself. Only think what, in a change of circumstances, you would judge it right for them to do to you, and let that be the rule of your conduct towards them. Would you have them manifest towards you the " love that believeth all things and hopeth all things?" exercise it towards them. Where their conduct will admit of a favourable construction, fail not to view it on the charitable side : and where necessity compels you to condemn, still cast a veil of love over their transgressions, and hide them, as far as the rights of justice, and the good of the community will permit. If judged yourselves, " let it be a small matter to you to be judged of man's judgment:" and be content to leave both yourselves and others to the judgment of a righteous God^]
2 I Cor. iv. 3—5.
Matt. vii. 3 — 5. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother s eye, but considerest not the beam that is i7i thine own eye ? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye ; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye ? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shall thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother s eye.
OBSERVATION and experience shew, that the less any person is acquainted with his own infirmities, the more he will be disposed to censure the infirmities of others. But as such a disposition is totally re- pugnant to that love which Christianity inculcates, our Lord cautioned his hearers against it, and taught them, in the parable before us, to scrutinize and reform themselves before they presumed to take upon them- selves the office of censuring and reclaiming others.
In this parable we may observe,
I. The evil of censoriousness —
Censoriousness is a compound of pride and malice. It originates in a high conceit of our own worth, and a desire to reduce others to a level with ourselves, or to a state below us. It is an evil.