lieveth in Him hath everlasting life: but he that believeth not, shall not see life."
November Third.
RASH JUDGMENT CONDEMNED.
"And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man."—2 Sam. xii. 7.
EVERY man has some besetting sin; and, in endeavouring to put away evil, we must beware lest we be imposed upon by appearances: "Judge not that ye be not judged," is the Divine caution. There is every reason to pass quietly over slight offences committed against ourselves. In many of these offences it is difficult to say on whose side the blame rests. We are all so prone to imagine insult where none was intended, that our own infirmity of temper, sometimes, nay, oftentimes, is the sole offender. I reflect upon the conduct of David, and I see the danger of rash judgment, while I note the careful manner in which Nathan fulfilled his important mission; and I see in this, as in everything else, that my surest and safest guide is the Scripture.
Suppose the Prophet Nathan, when he was sent to David, had denounced him as an adulterer in act, and a murderer in intention, the probability is that the guilty king would have become still more guilty, and might have hardened his heart, even to the personal injury of the prophet. But the prophet came, apparently, as a suppliant for justice; he described an act of wanton aggression in another; and so raised the indignation of the king, that, in anger at such flagrant
