Luke 6:37 Judge not, and you shall not be judged: condemn not, and you shall not be condemned: forgive, and you shall be forgiven: 1. We have no capacity to do so with truth and justice. To know, without judging, might be modesty and charity; but to judge without knowing, must be always indiscretion and cruelty; and we must always be without proper knowledge, when we presume censoriously and rashly to judge our neighbour's conduct. Upon what insufficient evidence do men venture to censure and slander others. (1) They judge by appearances. How often has an open and unsuspecting temper, and a consciousness of innocence and right intentions betrayed men into the appearance of faults which their hearts detested, and exposed them to the censure and condemnation of the world; while, on the other hand, a grave, cautious, and designing conduct has covered a multitude of sins, and procured esteem and applause to men who needed only to be known to be despised and detested. (2) They condemn upon hearsay. That coming fame is frequently a liar, we admit as a maxim established by long experience, and yet we make it the foundation of our rash and censorious judgments, and seem to think that it gives us a right to condemn others with the greatest freedom, vainly perhaps imagining that the guilt remains with him from whom we received the report, while at the same time we are repeating the crime, Rumour, however ill-founded, is favourably received; an unhappy curiosity makes us hearken with attention; a pernicious credulity makes us find it probable; and a desire of telling something new makes us propagate it. Thus, what at first was only the conjecture, suspicion, or invention of one person, grows up to be the belief of the multitude, and is raised, in their opinion, into certainty and fact. (3) There is a too common disposition to judge of the intention, by the event, and to estimate the general character by some particular errors. Nothing can be more unjust or uncharitable than this. Moses once "spake unadvisedly with his lips," though meekness and patience were the prevailing features of his character. St. Peter once denied his Master, though he sincerely loved Him. 2. By judging others we expose ourselves to very great danger. It is impossible for any one habitually to censure others, and to judge of their conduct with severity, without passing sentence against some of his own sins; and nothing can be more just, than that our Judge should ratify these judgments as far as they respect ourselves, and condemn us out of our own mouths. 3. We are rarely so much divested of passions and prejudices, as to be in a capacity to judge righteous judgment. Dislike, affection, interest, envy, connection, and a thousand other things to which we do not even ourselves advert, insensibly mislead the understanding, and bias the judgment. Men judge according to the passions and prejudices that prevail in themselves, rather than according to the virtues or vices that appears in their neighbour's conduct. (James Riddoch, M. A. .) Parallel Verses KJV: Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: |
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