Make the best of others. For that is, in fact, what our Lord means by “judge not.” It is what we should most naturally express by “Do not be critical.” Because a thing is strange or new to you, because it does not fall in with your ideas, do not condemn it off-hand, but try to appreciate it with sympathy first of all. Make the best of every thing and every person. And there is no doubt that if after looking for the good points in any idea, or undertaking, or person, you are at last bound to condemn, the weight attaching to your adverse verdict will depend very largely on whether you have escaped the reputation of being a “critical”and censorious person. The condemnation of one who is always finding fault carries no moral weight.
I say, If at last you are bound to condemn, and that may be the Christian’s duty. For here, again, as throughout this Sermon, we must notice our Lord’s proverbial method, otherwise we may misinterpret altogether the temper which our Lord here commends. There is a temper of universal toleration very prevalent in our age, both in conversation and in literature; which can indeed tolerate everything, because it has no fixed standards of right and wrong, of true and false, at all. But it is clear enough that this was not what our Lord meant to recommend; it would be so utterly antagonistic to His own character. No one is severer in discriminating judgement than our Lord when the occasion requires it. More than this, our Lord did deliberately intend that His Church, and the members of His Church, should have standards of goodness and truth which should enable them—aye, which should require them when duty called—to condemn their own brethren. A passage in St. Matthew’s Gospel whichhas been referred to already is clear upon this. “If thy brother trespass against thee”—are you to say, “It is of no account. It is not my business to condemn?” No. When it is not a question of the love of criticizing or of uncharitable judgement, but of maintaining the law of right and wrong, then it becomes our business to judge, and after consideration and patience to condemn.
“Go, shew him his fault between thee and him alone; if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee not, take with thee one or two more, that at the mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be established. And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the church: and if he refuse to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican. Verily I say unto you, What things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”[75]
Our Lord does here actually commit to the Church—as on an earlier occasion to St. Peter as the chief and representative apostle—not the right, but the duty, to bind and to loose: that is, to pass judgements as to what is right and what is wrong, what is to be permitted and what is not to be permitted, in theChristian society. Again, after His resurrection He gives to His apostles the power and the duty to apply these judgements to persons, to absolve and to retain sins.[76] Thus the Church, and each of its members, is not indeed to be censorious in temper, or to make the worst of people; but, when occasion requires, is to maintain the moral standard. So it is that St. Paul expressly tells the Corinthian Church that, as a Christian society, they are to judge, not those that are without, but those that are within their own body:and he severely condemns them because they had let pass, or tolerated, a serious moral offence without discriminating judgement being passed upon it.[77]
It is the same where doctrine is concerned. The New Testament continually warns Christians that they are to have standards of judgement;to test all things, and hold fast that which is right;[78] to test the spirits whether they be of God.[79] And if any teacher come with a doctrine calculated to subvert the principles which lie at the basis of theChristian life, St. Paul and St. John alike recommend an attitude towards him which cannot exactly be described as tolerance.
“As we have said before, so say I now again, If any man preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema.”
“If any one cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching, receive him not into your house, and give him no greeting: for he that giveth him greeting partaketh in his evil works.”[80]
These injunctions are given in view of cases where fundamental matters of principle are at stake.About minor matters St. Paul adopts a tone of the widest toleration.[81]
There is then a duty of judgement: while on the other hand our Lord condemns the critical and censorious temper. Is it not true that a candid conscience finds very little difficulty in distinguishing the duty of judgement from the sin of censoriousness and criticism? And is it not the case that those who have the lowest and vaguest standards of what is true and right, are yet very often the most critical in judgement of other people?
We are then to be anxious to make the best of others: and our Lord hereagain recognizes that law which we have so often heard from His lips, that God deals with us as we deal with our fellow-men.