22. Every one is uncomfortable about him; his example is evil; and his conduct disapproved alike by God and men. Let these considerations, then, prevail with all, and lead them to avoid an angry spirit and temper, and to cultivate the spirit of gentleness, and kindness, and love, which is the spirit of heaven.

LECTURE X.

THE SPIRIT OF CHARITY THE OPPOSITE OF A

CENSORIOUS SPIRIT.

"Thinketh no evil."-1 Cor. xiii. 5.

HAVING remarked how charity, or Christian love, is opposed not only to pride and selfishness, but to the ordinary fruits of these evil dispositions, viz.: an angry spirit, and a censorious spirit, and having already spoken as to the former, I come now to the latter. And in respect to this, the Apostle declares, that charity"thinketh no evil." The doctrine set forth in these words, is clearly this :

THAT THE SPIRIT OF CHARITY, OR CHRISTIAN

LOVE, IS THE OPPOSITE OF A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT.

Or in other words, it is contrary to a disposi tion to think or judge uncharitably of others. Charity, in one of the common uses of the expression, signifies a disposition to think the best of others that the case will allow. This,

however, as I have shown before, is not the scriptural meaning of the word charity, but only one way of its exercise, or one of its many and rich fruits. Charity is of vastly larger extent than this. It signifies, as we have already seen, the same as Christian or divine love, and so is the same as the Christian spirit. And in accordance with this view, we here find the spirit of charitable judging mentioned among many other good fruits of charity, and here expressed, as the other fruits of charity are in the context, negatively, or by denying the contrary fruit, viz.: censoriousness, or a disposition uncharitably to judge or censure others. And in speaking to this point, I would, first, show the nature of censoriousness, or wherein it consists; and then mention some things wherein it appears to be contrary to a Christian spirit. I would show,

I. The nature of censoriousness, or wherein a censorious spirit, or a disposition uncharitably to judge others, consists.—It consists in a disposition to think evil of others, or to judge evil of them, with respect to three things: their state; their qualities; their actions. And,

1. A censorious spirit appears in a forward ness to judge evil of the state of others. It often shows itself in a disposition to think the worst of those about us, whether they are men of the world, or professing Christians. In respect to the latter class, it often leads persons to pass censure on those who are professors of religion, and to condemn them as being hypocrites. Here, however, extremes are to be avoided. Some persons are very apt to be positive, from little things that they observe in others, in determining that they are godly men; and others are forward, from just as little things, to be positive in condemning others as not having the least degree of grace in their hearts, and as being strangers to vital and experimental religion. But all positiveness in an affair of this nature, seems to be without warrant from the word of God. God seems there to have reserved the positive determination of men's state to himself, as a thing to be kept in his own hands, as the great and only searcher of the hearts of the children of

men.

Persons are guilty of censoriousness in condemning the state of others, when they will do it from things that are no evidence of their

being in a bad estate; or when they will condemn others as hypocrites because of God's providential dealings with them, as Job's three friends condemned him as a hypocrite on account of his uncommon and severe afflic tions. And the same is true, when they con demn them for the failings they may see in them, and which are no greater than are often incident to God's children, and it may be no greater, or not so great as their own, though notwithstanding just such things they think well of themselves as Christians. And so persons are censorious, when they condemn others as being unconverted and carnal men, because they differ from them in opinion on some points that are not fundamental; or when they judge ill of their state from what they observe in them, for want of making due allowances for their natural temperament, or for their manner or want of education, or other peculiar disadvantages under which they labor,—or when they are ready to reject all as irreligious and unconverted men, because their experiences do not, in everything, quadrate with their own; setting up themselves, and their own experience, as a standard and rule to all others; not being sensible