_SELF-ASSURANCE AND INVASION OF DIVINE PREROGATIVES
INVOLVED IN THE LOVE OF CENSURING OTHERS._
"Speak not one against another, brethren. He that speaketh against a
brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and
judgeth the law: but if thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of
the law, but a judge. One only is the Lawgiver and Judge, even He who
is able to save and to destroy: but who art thou that judgest thy
neighbour?"--ST. JAMES iv. 11, 12.
From sins which are the result of a want of love to God St. James
passes on, and abruptly, to some which are the result of a want of
love for one's neighbour. But in thus passing on he is really
returning to his main subject, for the central portion of the Epistle
is chiefly taken up with one's duty towards one's neighbour. And of
this duty he again singles out for special notice the necessity for
putting a bridle on one's tongue (i. 26; iii. 1-12). Some have
supposed that he is addressing a new class of readers; but the much
gentler address, "brethren," as compared with "ye adulteresses" (ver.
4), "ye sinners," "ye double-minded" (ver. 8), does not at all compel
us to suppose that. After a paragraph of exceptional sternness, he
returns to his usual manner of addressing his readers (i. 2, 16, 19;
ii. 1, 5, 14; iii. 1, 10, 12; v. 7, 9, 10, 12, 19), and with all the
more fitness because the address "brethren" is in itself an indirect
reproof for unbrotherly conduct. It implies what Moses expressed when
he said, "Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?"
(Acts vii. 26).
"Speak not against one another, brethren." The context shows what kind
of adverse speaking is meant. It is not so much abusive or calumnious
language that is condemned, as the _love of finding fault_. The
censorious temper is utterly unchristian. It means that we have been
paying an amount of attention to the conduct of others which would
have been better bestowed upon our own. It means also that we have
been paying this attention, not in order to help, but in order to
criticize, and criticize unfavourably. It shows, moreover, that we
have a very inadequate estimate of our own frailty and shortcomings.
If we knew how worthy of blame we ourselves are, we should be much
less ready to deal out blame to others. But over and above all this,
censoriousness is an invasion of the Divine prerogatives. It is not
merely a transgression of the royal law of love, but a setting oneself
above the law, as if it were a mistake, or did not apply to oneself.
It is a climbing up on to that judgment-seat on which God alone has
the right to sit, and a publishing of judgments upon others which He
alone has the right to pronounce. This is the aspect of it on which
St. James lays most stress.
"He that speaketh against a brother, or judgeth a brother, speaketh
against the law and judgeth the law." St. James is probably not
referring to Christ's command in the Sermon on the Mount, "Judge not,
that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be
judged" (Matt. vii. 1, 2). It is a law of far wider scope that is in
his mind, the same as that of which he has already spoken, "the
perfect law, the law of liberty" (i. 25); "the royal law, according to
the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (ii. 8). No
one who knows this law, and has at all grasped its meaning and scope,
can suppose that observance of it is compatible with habitual
criticism of the conduct of others, and frequent utterance of
unfavourable judgments respecting them. No man, however _willing_ he
may be to have his conduct laid open to criticism, is _fond_ of being
constantly subjected to it. Still less can any one be fond of being
made the object of slighting and condemnatory remarks. Every man's
personal experience has taught him that; and if he loves his neighbour
as himself, he will take care to inflict on him as little pain of this
kind as possible. If, with full knowledge of the royal law of charity,
and with full experience of the vexation which adverse criticism
causes, he still persists in framing and expressing unfriendly
opinions respecting other people, then he is setting himself up as
superior, not only to those whom he presumes to judge, but to the law
itself. He is, by his conduct, condemning the law of love as a bad
law, or at least as so defective that a superior person like himself
may without scruple disregard it. In judging and condemning his
brother he is judging and condemning the law; and he who condemns a
law assumes that he is in possession of some higher principle by which
he tests it and finds it wanting. What is the higher principle by
which the censorious person justifies his contempt for the law of
love? He has nothing to show us but his own arrogance and
self-confidence. _He_ knows what the duty of other persons is, and how
signally they fall short of it. To talk of "hoping all things, and
enduring all things," and of "taking not account of evil," may be all
very well theoretically of an ideal state of society; but in the very
far from ideal world in which we have to live it is necessary to keep
one's eye open to the conduct of other people, and to keep them up to
the mark by letting them and their acquaintances know what we think of
them. It is no use mincing matters or being mealy-mouthed; wherever
abuses are found, or even suspected, they must be denounced. And if
other persons neglect their duty in this particular, the censorious
man is not going to share such responsibility. This is the kind of
reasoning by which flagrant violations of the law of love are
frequently justified. And such reasoning, as St. James plainly shows,
amounts really to this, that those who employ it know better than the
Divine Lawgiver the principles by which human society ought to be
governed. He has clearly promulgated a law; and they ascend His
judgment-seat, and intimate that very serious exceptions and
modifications are necessary; indeed, that in some cases the law must
be entirely superseded. _They_, at any rate, are not bound by it.
This proneness to judge and condemn others is further proof of that
want of humility about which so much was said in the previous section.
Pride, the most subtle of sins, has very many forms, and one of them
is the love of finding fault; that is, the love of assuming an
attitude of superiority, not only towards other persons, but towards
the law of charity and Him who is the Author of it. To a truly humble
man this is impossible. He is accustomed to contrast the outcome of
his own life with the requirements of God's law, and to know how awful
is the gulf which separates the one from the other. He knows too much
against himself to take delight in censuring the faults of others.
Censoriousness is a sure sign that he who is addicted to it is
ignorant of the immensity of his own shortcomings. No man who
habitually considers his own transgressions will be eager to be severe
upon the transgressions of others, or to usurp functions which require
full authority and perfect knowledge for their equitable and adequate
performance.
Censoriousness brings yet another evil in its train. Indulgence in the
habit of prying into the acts and motives of others leaves us little
time and less liking for searching carefully into our own acts and
motives. The two things act and react upon one another by a natural
law. The more seriously and frequently we examine ourselves, the less
prone we shall be to criticize others; and the more pertinaciously we
busy ourselves about the supposed shortcomings and delinquencies of
our neighbours, the less we are likely to investigate and realize our
own grievous sins. All the more will this be the case if we are in the
habit of _giving utterance_ to the uncharitable judgments which we
love to frame. He who constantly expresses his detestation of evil by
denouncing the evil doings of his brethren is not the man most likely
to express his detestation of it by the holiness of his own life; and
the man whose whole life is a protest against sin is not the man most
given to protesting against sinners. To be constantly speculating, to
be frequently deciding, to be ready to make known our decisions, as to
whether this man is "awakened" or not, whether he is "converted" or
not, whether he is a "Catholic" or not, whether he is a "sound
Churchman" or not--what is this but to climb up into the White Throne,
and with human ignorance and prejudice anticipate the judgments of
Divine Omniscience and Justice, as to who are on the right hand, and
who on the left?
"One only is Lawgiver and Judge, even He who is able to save and to
destroy." There is one and only one Source of all law and authority,
and that Source is God Himself. Jesus Christ affirmed the same
doctrine when He consented to plead, as a prisoner charged with many
crimes, before the judgment-seat of His own creature, Pontius Pilate.
"Thou wouldest have no power against Me, except it were given thee
from above" (John xix. 11). It was Christ's last word to the Roman
Procurator, a declaration of the supremacy of God in the government of
the world, and a protest against the claim insinuated in "I have power
to release Thee, and I have power to crucify Thee," to be possessed of
an authority that was irresponsible. Jesus declared that Pilate's
power over Himself was the result of a Divine commission; for the
possession and exercise of all authority is the gift of God, and can
have no other origin. And this sole Fount of authority, this one only
Lawgiver and Judge, has no need of assessors. While He delegates some
portions of His power to human representatives, He requires no man, He
allows no man, to share his judgment-seat, or to cancel or modify His
laws. It is one of those cases in which the possession of power is
proof of the possession of right. "He who is _able_ to save and to
destroy," who has the power to execute sentences respecting the weal
and woe of immortal souls, has the right to pronounce such sentences.
Man has no right to frame and utter such judgments, because he has no
power to put them into execution; and the practice of uttering them is
a perpetual usurpation of Divine prerogatives. It is an approach to
that sin which brought about the fall of the angels.
Is not the sin of a censorious temper in a very real sense diabolical?
It is Satan's special delight to be "the accuser of the brethren"
(Rev. xii. 10). His names, Satan ("adversary") and devil (διάβολος =
malicious accuser"), bear witness to this characteristic, which is
brought prominently forward in the opening chapters of the Book of
Job.[80] It is of the essence of censoriousness that its activity is
displayed with a sinister motive. The charges are commonly uttered,
not to the person who is blamed, but to others, who will thereby be
prejudiced against him; or if they are made to the man's own face, it
is with the object of inflicting pain, rather than with the hope of
thereby inducing him to amend. It is no "speaking truth in love" (Eph.
iv. 15), but reckless or malevolent speaking evil, without much caring
whether it be true or false. It is a poisoning of the wells out of
which respect and affection for our fellow-men flow. Thus the
presumption which grasps at functions that belong to God alone leads
to a fall and a course of action which is indeed Satanical.
"One only is the Lawgiver and the Judge, even He who is able to save
and to destroy." St. Peter and St. Paul teach the same doctrine in
those Epistles which (as has been already pointed out) it is
_possible_ that the writer of this Epistle may have seen. "Be subject
to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the
king, as supreme (_i.e._ to the Roman Emperor); or unto governors, as
sent by him" (1 Peter ii. 13). However much of human origination
(κτίσις ἀνθρωπίνη) there may be about civil government, yet its
sanctions are Divine. And St. Paul affirms that its real origin is
Divine also: "There is no power but of God; and the powers that be are
ordained of God" (Rom. xiii. 1). The ultimate sanction of even
Pilate's misused jurisdiction was "from above;" and it was to
inhabitants of Rome, appalled by the frantic atrocities of Nero, that
St. Paul declared that the authority of their Emperor existed by "the
ordinance of God." If to resist this delegated authority be a serious
matter, how much more to attempt to anticipate or to contradict the
judgments of Him from whom it springs!
"But who art thou, that judgest thy neighbour?" St. James concludes
this brief section against the sin of censoriousness by a telling
_argumentum ad hominem_. Granted that there are grave evils in some of
the brethren among whom and with whom you live; granted that it is
quite necessary that these evils should be noticed and condemned; are
you precisely the persons that are best qualified to do it? Putting
aside the question of authority, what are your personal qualifications
for the office of a censor and a judge? Is there that blamelessness of
life, that gravity of behaviour, that purity of motive, that severe
control of tongue, that freedom from contamination from the world,
that overflowing charity which marks the man of pure religion? To such
a man finding fault with his brethren is real pain; and therefore to
be _fond_ of finding fault is strong evidence that these necessary
qualities are not possessed. Least of all is such a one fond of
disclosing to others the sins which he has discovered in an erring
brother. Indeed, there is scarcely a better way of detecting our own
"secret faults" than that of noticing what blemishes we are most prone
to suspect and denounce in the lives of our neighbours. It is often
our own personal acquaintance with iniquity that makes us suppose that
others must be like ourselves. It is our own meanness, dishonesty,
pride, or impurity that we see reflected on what is perhaps only the
surface of a life whose secret springs and motives lie in a sphere
quite beyond our grovelling comprehension. Here, again, St. James is
quite in harmony with St. Paul, who asks the same question: "Who art
thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth
or falleth.... But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? or thou
again, why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand
before the judgment-seat of God?" (Rom. xiv. 4, 10).
* * * * *
But are not St. James and St. Paul requiring of us what is impossible?
Is it not beyond our power to avoid forming judgments about our
brethren? Certainly this is beyond our power, and we are not required
to do anything so unreasonable as to attempt to avoid such inevitable
judgments. Whenever the conduct of others comes under our notice we
necessarily form some kind of an opinion of it, and it is out of these
opinions and judgments, of which we form many in the course of a day,
that our own characters are to a large extent slowly built up; for the
way in which we regard the conduct of others has a great influence
upon our own conduct. But it is not this necessary judging that is
condemned. What is condemned is the inquisitorial examination of our
neighbours' views and actions, undertaken without authority and
without love. Such judging is sinister in its purpose, and is
disappointed if it can find nothing to blame. It is eager, rather than
unwilling, to think evil, its prejudices being against, rather than in
favour of, those whom it criticizes. To discover some grievous form of
wrong-doing is not a sorrow, but a delight.
But what both St. James and St. Paul condemn, even more than the habit
of forming these unfavourable judgments about our neighbours, is the
giving effect to them. "_Speak_ not one against another." "Why dost
thou _set at nought_ thy brother?" This at any rate we all can avoid.
However difficult, or impossible, it may be to avoid forming
unfavourable opinions of other people, we can at any rate abstain from
publishing such opinions to the world. The temper which delights in
communicating suspicions and criticisms is even more fatal than the
habit of forming and cherishing them; it is the difference between a
disease which is infectious, and one which is not. The bitterness and
misery which are caused by the love of evil speaking is incalculable.
It is one enormous item in that tragic sum of human suffering which is
entirely preventable. Much of human suffering is inevitable and
incurable; it may be compensated or consoled, but it can be neither
escaped nor remedied. There is much, however, that need never be
incurred at all, that is utterly wanton and gratuitous. And this
pathetic burden of utterly needless misery in great measure consists
of that which we heedlessly or maliciously inflict upon one another by
making known, with quite inadequate reason, our knowledge or suspicion
of the misconduct of other people. Experience seems to do little
towards curing us of this fault. Over and over again we have
discovered, after having communicated suspicions, that they are
baseless. Over and over again we have found out that to disclose what
we know to the discredit of a neighbour does more harm than good. And
not infrequently we have ourselves had abundant reason to wish that we
had never spoken; for curses are not the only kind of evil speaking
that is wont to "come home to roost." And yet, each time that the
temptation occurs again, we persuade ourselves that it is our duty to
speak out, to put others on their guard, to denounce an unquestionable
abuse, and so forth. And forthwith we set the whisper in motion, or we
write a letter to the papers, and the supposed delinquent is "shown
up." An honest answer to the questions, "Should I say this of him if
he were present? Why do I not speak to him about it, instead of to
others? Am I sorry or glad to make this known?" would at once make us
pause, and perhaps abstain. They would lead us to see that we are not
undertaking a painful duty, but needlessly indulging an unchristian
censoriousness, and thereby inflicting needless pain. It is not given
to many of us to do a great deal towards making other persons holier;
but it is within the power of all of us to do a very great deal
towards making others happier; and one of the simplest methods of
diminishing the miseries and increasing the joys of society is to
maintain a firm control over our tempers and our tongues, and to
observe to the utmost St. James's pregnant rule, "Speak not one
against another, brethren."
[80] Dr. Hatch thinks that in both the Septuagint and the New
Testament διάβολος, when used as a proper name, has "the general
connotation of enmity, and without implying accusation, whether true
or false." As an adjective it has its usual meaning of "slanderous"
(1 Tim. iii. 11; 2 Tim. iii. 3; Titus ii. 3) (_Biblical Greek_ pp. 46,
47).