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Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? Those to whom our Lord was speaking were men of intelligence, education, religious privilege. They exercised their mental faculties with great keenness on some subjects (vers. 54, 55): why could they not recognize the supreme fact of their time, viz. that the Messiah was before them (ver. 56)? why did they not employ their powers to discern between the false and the true, between the evil and the good?

I. THAT WE MAY NOT DEVOLVE OUR ACCOUNTABILITY FOR HOLDING THE TRUTH on any one or any body of men. It has not been merely "the right of private judgment" which has been in question, which some have striven so hard to withhold, and which others have suffered so much to obtain or to preserve. It has been the sacred duty of determining for ourselves what is the mind and the will of God, the solemn obligation to put into use the talents he has committed to our care. We are to discharge this duty under all circumstances and whoever may propose to relieve us of it. We may not delegate it:

1. To the State. The State may prescribe Islamism in one region, Confucianism in another, Catholicism in a third; but we are not at liberty to make our religious creed depend on the latitude and longitude where we reside.

2. To the Church; or Jesus Christ himself would have been criminal, for he entirely disregarded the decision of the "council," and the Christian Church has, in its collective capacity, spoken differently in different times and places.

3. To society; that is frequently at fault.

4. To the parent. For a time this is necessary, right, becoming, praiseworthy; but the time comes when the son must no longer shield himself behind his filial obedience, he must think and must decide for himself. If we are possessed of ordinary human powers and privileges we must "of ourselves judge what is fight." It is a solemn burden, a sacred duty, which our Creator has laid on each human spirit he has called into being.

II. THAT GOD HAS GIFTED US WITH A SPIRITUAL NATURE for this very purpose. He has endowed us with reason, or with that faculty which intuitively perceives the great and deep truths which are presented to it; with conscience, the faculty which commends and condemns, filling with inward joy or inward pain; with judgment, the faculty that compares and concludes, and arrives at just decisions as to the thing that should be done, the way that should be taken. It is, indeed, only too true that a long course of sin will warp and degrade this spiritual nature of ours; but where there is as much enlightenment as the Jews of our Lord's time had, and as we ourselves possess, we ought to be able by its means "to judge what is right."

III. THAT THE HEALTHFUL ACTION OF OUR SPIRITUAL NATURE IS ONE LARGE PART OF OUR PROBATION. If "the light that is in us be darkness," if our conscience is misdirecting us, it is because we have been wrong, it is because we have not been true to ourselves. Sin has weakened or even distorted our faculty of spiritual discernment. But if we are true to ourselves, if we

(1) honestly seek to know what the will of God is concerning ourselves and others;

(2) faithfully endeavor to do what we believe to be his will;

(3) earnestly ask for Divine guidance in our pursuit of wisdom; - we shall be "led into the truth." We may not see everything in the light in which other truehearted people see it, but we shall recognize those great leading truths which bring us into right relation to God, which constrain us to take a right attitude toward our brethren, which light up our earthly path and conduct us to our home.

1. We may not refuse our responsibility under any plea, not even that of humility. It would be pleasant to say, "We will leave to others who can do it better the work of deciding what is true, which message is from God, which path leads heavenwards." But we may not say this without declining the sacred duty our heavenly Father devolves on each one of his children.

2. Accepting our post as truth-seekers, we must do our work conscientiously, thoroughly, without prejudice.

3. We may be sure that Christ will grant us all the Divine aid we need if we honestly endeavor and devoutly pray. - C.

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KJV: Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?

WEB: Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right?