To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
— Psalm 139:1
Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
— Psalm 26:2
And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.
— Deuteronomy 8:2
That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
— 1 Peter 1:7
Self-Examination Respecting Charity Towards Our Neighbors, and Conversation With Them, by Jonathan Edwards. The following contains Section Seven of his work, “Christian Cautions or, The Necessity of Self-Examination.”
Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
— Psalm 139:23-24
SECTION VII
I desire you would examine yourselves,
I. Whether you do not live in the neglect of the duties of charity towards your neighbor. You may live in sin towards your neighbor, though you cannot charge yourselves with living in any injustice in your dealings. Here also I would mention two things.
First, whether you are guilty of sinfully withholding from your neighbor who is in want. Giving to the poor, and giving liberally and bountifully, is a duty absolutely required of us. It is not a thing left to persons’ choice to do as they please. Nor is it merely a thing commendable in persons to be liberal to others in want. But it is a duty as strictly and absolutely required and commanded as any other duty whatsoever, a duty from which God will not acquit us. As you may see in Deu. 15:7, 8, etc. And the neglect of this duty is very provoking to God. Pro. 21:13, “Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also himself shall cry, and not be heard.”
Inquire, therefore, whether you have not lived in a way of sin in this regard. Do you not see your neighbor suffer, and pinched with want, and you, although sensible of it, harden your hearts against him, and are careless about it? Do you not in such a case, neglect to inquire into his necessities, and to do something for his relief? Is it not your manner to hide your eyes in such cases, and to be so far from devising liberal things, and endeavoring to find out the proper objects and occasions of charity, that you rather contrive to avoid the knowledge of them? Are you not apt to make objections to such duties, and to excuse yourselves? And are you not sorry for such occasions, on which you are forced to give something, or expose your reputation? — Are not such things grievous to you? If these things be so, surely you live in sin, and in great sin, and have need to inquire, whether your spot be not such as is not the spot of God’s children.
Second, do you not live in the neglect of reproving your neighbor, when you see him going on in a way of sin? This is required of us by the command of God, as a duty of love and charity which we owe our neighbor. Lev. 19:17, “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart; thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.” When we see our neighbor going on in sin, we ought to go, and in a Christian way deal with him about it. Nor will it excuse us, that we fear it will have no good effect. We cannot certainly tell what effect it will have. This is past doubt, that if Christians generally performed this duty as they ought to do, it would prevent abundance of sin and wickedness, and would deliver many a soul from the ways of death.
If a man going on in the ways of sin, saw that it was generally disliked and discountenanced, and testified against by others, it would have a strong tendency to reform him. His regard for his own reputation would strongly persuade him to reform. For hereby he would see that the way in which he lives makes him odious in the eyes of others. When persons go on in sin, and no one saith anything to them in testimony against it, they know not but that their ways are approved, and are not sensible that it is much to their dishonor to do as they do. The approbation of others tends to blind men’s eyes, and harden their hearts in sin. Whereas, if they saw that others utterly disapprove of their ways, it would tend to open their eyes and convince them.
If others neglect their duty in this respect, and our reproof alone will not be so likely to be effectual; yet that doth not excuse us. For if one singly may be excused, then everyone may be excused, and so we shall make it no duty at all.
Persons often need the reproofs and admonitions of others to make them sensible that the ways in which they live are sinful. For, as hath been already observed, men are often blinded as to their own sins.
II. Examine yourselves, whether you do not live in some way of sin in your conversation with your neighbors. Men commit abundance of sin, not only in the business and dealings which they have with their neighbors, but in their talk and converse with them.
First, inquire whether you do not keep company with persons of a lewd and immoral behavior, with persons who do not make conscience of their ways, are not of sober lives, but on the contrary, are profane and extravagant, and unclean in their communication. This is what the Word of God forbids and testifies against. Pro. 14:7, “Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.” Pro. 13:20, “A companion of fools shall be destroyed.” The psalmist professes himself clear of this sin. Psa.26:4, 5, “I have not sat with vain persons; neither will I go with dissemblers: I have hated the congregation of evil doers, and will not sit with the wicked.”
Do you not live in this sin? Do you not keep company with such persons? And have you not found them a snare to your souls? If you have any serious thoughts about the great concerns of your souls, have you not found this a great hindrance to you? Have you not found that it hath been a great temptation to you? Have you not been from time to time led into sin thereby? Perhaps it may seem difficult wholly to forsake your old wicked companions. You are afraid they will deride you, and make game of you. Therefore you have not courage enough to do it. But whether it be difficult or not, yet know this, that if you continue in such connections, you live in a way of sin, and, as the Scripture saith, you shall be destroyed. You must either cut off your right hands, and pluck out your right eyes, or else even go with them into the fire that never shall be quenched.
Second, consider whether in your conversation with others, you do not accustom yourselves to evil speaking. How common is it for persons, when they meet together, to sit and spend their time in talking against others, judging this or that of them, spreading ill and uncertain reports which they have heard of them, running down one and another, and ridiculing their infirmities! How much is such sort of talk as this the entertainment of companies when they meet together! And what talk is there which seems to be more entertaining, to which persons will more listen, and in which they will seem to be more engaged, than such talk! You cannot but know how common this is.
Therefore examine whether you be not guilty of this. — And can you justify it? Do you not know it to be a way of sin, a way which is condemned by many rules in the Word of God? Are you not guilty of eagerly taking up any ill report which you hear of your neighbor, seeming to be glad that you have some news to talk of, with which you think others will be entertained? Do you not often spread ill reports which you hear of others, before you know what ground there is for them? Do you not take a pleasure in being the reporter of such news? Are you not wont to pass a judgment concerning others, or their behavior, without talking to them, and hearing what they have to say for themselves? Doth not that folly and shame belong to you which is spoken of in Pro. 18:13, “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”
This is utterly an inquiry, a very unchristian practice, which commonly prevails, that men, when they hear or know of any ill of others, will not do a Christian part, in going to talk with them about it, to reprove them for it, but will get behind their backs before they open their mouths, and there are very forward to speak, and to judge, to the hurt of their neighbor’s good name. Consider whether you be not guilty of this. Consider also how apt you are to be displeased when you hear that others have been talking against you! How forward are you to apply the rules, and to think and tell how they ought first to have come and talked with you about it, and not to have gone and spread an ill report of you, before they knew what you had to say in your vindication! How ready are persons to resent it, when others meddle with their private affairs, and busy themselves, and judge, and find fault, and declaim against them! How ready are they to say, it is no business of theirs! Yet are you not guilty of the same?
Third, is it not your manner to seem to countenance and fall in with the talk of the company in which you are, in that which is evil? When the company is vain in its talk, and falls into lewd discourse, or vain jesting, is it not you manner, in such a case, to comply and fall in with the company, to seem pleased with its talk, if not to join with it, and help to carry on such discourse, out of compliance with your company, though indeed you disapprove of it in your hearts? So inquire, whether it be not your manner to fall in with your companions, when they are talking against others. Do you not help forward the discourse, or at least seem to fall in with their censures, the aspersions they cast on others, and the reflections they make upon their neighbors’ characters?
There are some persons, who, in case of difference between persons or parties, are double-tongued, will seem to fall in with both parties. When they are with those on one side, they will seem to comply with them, and will condemn the other party; which is a very vile and deceitful practice. Seeming to be friendly to both before their faces, they are enemies to both behind their backs. And that upon so mean a motive as the pleasing of the party with which they are in company. They injure both parties, and do what in them lies to establish the difference between them. Inquire whether or no this be your manner.
Fourth, is it not your manner, not to confine yourselves to strict truth in your conversation with your neighbors? Lying is accounted ignominious and reproachful among men. And they take it in high disdain to be called liars. Yet how many are there that do not so govern their tongues, as strictly to confine them to the truth! There are various degrees of transgressing in this kind. Some, who may be cautious of transgressing in one degree, may allow themselves in another. Some, who commonly avoid speaking directly and wholly contrary to truth, in a plain matter of fact, yet perhaps are not strictly true in speaking of their own thoughts, desires, affections, and designs, and are not exact to the truth, in the relations which they give of things in conversation, scruple not to vary in circumstances, to add some things, to make their story the more entertaining, will magnify and enlarge things, to make their relation the more wonderful, and in things wherein their interest or credit is concerned, will make false representations of things, will be guilty of an unwarrantable equivocation, and a guileful way of speaking, wherein they are chargeable with a great abuse of language. In order to save their veracity, words and sentences must be wrested to a meaning quite beside their natural and established signification. Whatever interpretation such men put on their own words, they do not save themselves from the guilt of lying in the sight of God. Inquire whether you be not guilty of living in sin in this particular.
SECTION VIII
Self-examination respecting the families to which we belong
EXAMINE yourselves, whether you do not live in some way of sin in the families to which you belong. There are many persons who appear well among their neighbors and seem to be of an honest, civil behavior in their dealings and conversation abroad, yet if you follow them to their own houses, and to the families to which they belong, there you will find them very perverse in their ways. There they live in ways which are very displeasing to the pure all-searching eyes of God. You have already been directed to examine your conversation abroad. You have been directed to search the house of God, and to see if you have brought no defilement into it. You have been directed to search your closets, to see if there be no pollution or provocation there. Be advised now to search your houses, examine your behavior in the families to which you belong, and see what your ways and manners are there.
The houses to which we belong are the places where the generality of us spend the greater part of our time. If we respect the world as a man’s sphere of action, a man’s own house is the greater part of the world to him; i.e. the greater part of his actions and behavior in the world is limited within this sphere. We should therefore be very critical in examining our behavior, not only abroad, but at home. A great proportion of the wickedness of which men are guilty, and that will be brought out at the day of judgment, will be the sin which they shall have committed in the families to which they belong.
Therefore inquire how you behave yourselves in the family relations in which you stand. As those relative duties which we owe towards the members of the same family belong to the second table of the law, so love is the general duty which comprises them all. Therefore,
I. Examine yourselves, whether you do not live in some way which is contrary to that love which is due to those who belong to the same family. Love, implying a hearty good will, and a behavior agreeable to it, is a duty which we owe to all mankind. We owe it to our neighbors, to whom we are no otherwise related than as they are our neighbors. Yea, we owe it to those who stand in no relation to us, except that they are of mankind, are reasonable creatures, the sons and daughters of Adam. It is a duty that we owe to our enemies. How much more then do we owe it to those who stand in so near a relation to us as a husband or wife, parents or children, brethren or sisters!
There are the same obligations on us to love such relatives as to love the rest of mankind. We are to love them as men. We are to love them as our neighbors. We are to love them as belonging to the same Christian church. And not only so, but here is an additional obligation, arising from that near relation in which they stand to us. This is over and above the other. The nearer the relation, the greater is the obligation to love. To live in hatred, or in a way that is contrary to love, towards any man, is very displeasing to God. But how much more towards one of the same family! Love is the uniting band of all societies. Col. 3:14, “And above all these things, put on charity which is the bond of perfectness.”
The union in love in our own family should be so much the stronger, as that society is more peculiarly our own, and is more appropriated to ourselves, or is a society in which we are more especially interested. Christ saith, Mat. 5:22, “I say unto you, whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire.” If this be true concerning those who are our brethren only as men, or professing Christians, how much more concerning those who are of the same family! If contention be so evil a thing in a town among neighbors, how much more hateful is it between members of the same family! If hatred, envy, or revenge, be so displeasing to God, towards those who are only our fellow creatures, how much more provoking must it be between those that are our natural brothers and sisters, and are one bone and flesh! If only being angry with a neighbor without a cause be so evil, how much sin must needs be committed in those broils and quarrels between the nearest relations on earth!
Let everyone inquire how it is with himself. Do you not in this respect allow yourselves in some way of sin? Are you not often jarring and contending with those who dwell under the same roof? Is not your spirit often ruffled with anger towards some of the same family? Do you not often go so far as to wish evil to them in your hearts, wish that some calamity would befall them? Are you not guilty of reproachful language towards them, if not of revengeful acts? Do you not neglect and refuse those offices of kindness and mutual helpfulness which become those who are of one family? Yea, are there not some who really go so far, as in some degree to entertain a settled hatred or malice against some of their nearest relations? — But here I would particularly apply myself,
First, to husbands and wives. Inquire whether you do not live in some way of sin in this relation. Do you make conscience of performing all those duties which God in his word requires of persons in this relation? Or do you allow yourselves in some ways which are directly opposite thereto? Do you not live in ways that are contrary to the obligations into which you entered in your marriage-covenant? The promises which you then made are not only binding as promises which are ordinarily made between man and man, but they have the nature of vows or promissory oaths. They are made in the presence of God because they respect him as a witness to them. And therefore the marriage-covenant is called the covenant of God. Pro. 2:17, “which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.” When you have vowed that you will behave towards those to whom you are thus united, as the Word of God directs in such a relation, are you careless about it, no more thinking what you have promised and vowed, regardless how you perform those vows?
Particularly, are you not commonly guilty of bitterness of spirit towards one another, and of unkindness in your language and behavior? If wrath, and contention, and unkind and reproachful language, be provoking to God, when only between neighbors, what is it then between those whom God hath joined together to be one flesh, and between whom he hath commanded so great and dear a friendship to be maintained? Eph. 5:28, 29, “So ought men to love their wives, as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.” Eph. 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.”
It is no excuse at all for either party to indulge bitterness and contention in this relation, that the other party is to blame. For when was there ever one of fallen mankind to be found who had no faults? When God commanded such an entire friendship between man and wife, he knew that the greater part of mankind would have faults. Yet he made no exception. And if you think your yoke-fellows have faults, you should consider whether you yourselves have not some too. There never will be any such thing as persons living in peace one with another, in this relation, if this be esteemed a sufficient and justifiable cause of the contrary. It becomes good friends to cover one another’s faults: Love covers a multitude of faults. Pro. 10:12, “Hatred stirreth up strife; but love covereth all sins.” But are not you rather quick to spy faults, and ready to make the most of them. Are not very little things often the occasion of contention between you? Will not a little thing often ruffle your spirits towards your companions? And when any misunderstanding is begun, are you not guilty of exasperating one another’s spirits by unkind language, until you blow up a spark into a flame?
Do you endeavor to accommodate yourselves to each other’s tempers? Do you study to suit each other? Or do you set up your own wills, to have your own ways, in opposition to each other, in the management of your family concerns? Do you make it your study to render each other’s lives comfortable? Or is there not, on the contrary, very often subsisting between you a spirit of ill will, a disposition to vex and cross one another?
Husbands do sometimes greatly sin against God, in being of an unkind imperious behavior towards their wives, treating them as if they were servants; and (to mention one instance of such treatment in particular) laying them under unjust and unreasonable restraints in the use and disposal of their common property; forbidding them so much as to dispose of anything in charity, as of their own judgment and prudence. This is directly contrary to the Word of God, where it is said of the virtuous wife, Pro. 31:20, that “she stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.” If God hath made this her duty, then he hath given her this right and power, because the duty supposes the right. It cannot be the duty of her who hath no right to dispose of anything, to stretch forth her hand to the poor, and to reach forth her hands to the needy.
On the other hand, are not the commands of God, the rules of his word, and the solemn vows of the marriage-covenant, with respect to the subordination which there ought to be in this relation, made light of by many? Eph. 5:22, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as unto the Lord:” so Col. 3:18. What is commanded by God, and what hath been solemnly vowed and sworn in his presence, certainly ought not to be made a jest of. And the person who lightly violates these obligations, will doubtless be treated as one who slights the authority of God, and takes his name in vain.
Second, I shall apply myself to parents and heads of families. Inquire whether you do not live in some way of sin with respect to your children, or others committed to your care: and particularly inquire,
1. Whether you do not live in sin by living in the neglect of instructing them. Do you not wholly neglect the duty of instructing your children and servants? Or if you do not wholly neglect it, yet do you not afford them so little instruction, and are you not so unsteady, and do you not take so little pains in it, that you live in a sinful neglect? Do you take pains in any measure proportionate to the importance of the matter? You cannot but own that it is a matter of vast importance, that your children be fitted for death, and saved from hell. And that all possible care be taken that it be done speedily. For you know not how soon your children may die. Are you as careful about the welfare of their souls as you are of their bodies? Do you labor as much that they may have eternal life, as you do to provide estates for them to live on in this world?
Let every parent inquire whether he do not live in a way of sin in this respect. And let masters inquire whether they do not live in a way of sin, in neglecting the poor souls of their servants whether their only care be not to make their servants subservient to their worldly interest, without any concern what becomes of them to all eternity.
2. Do you not live in a sinful neglect of the government of your families? Do you not live in the sin of Eli? Who indeed counseled and reproved his children, but did not exercise government over them. He reproved them very solemnly, as 1 Sam. 2:23, 24, 25, but he did not restrain them, by which he greatly provoked God, and brought an everlasting curse upon his house. 1 Sam. 3:12, “In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house. When I begin, I will also make an end. I will judge his house for ever; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.”
If you say you cannot restrain your children, this is not excuse. For it is a sign that you have brought up your children without government, that your children regard not your authority. When parents lose their government over their children, their reproofs and counsel signify but little. How many parents are there who are exceedingly faulty on this account! How few are there who are thorough in maintaining order and government in their families! How is family-government in a great measure vanished! And how many are as likely to bring a curse upon their families, as Eli! This is one principal ground of the corruptions which prevail in the land. This is the foundation of so much debauchery, and of such corrupt practices among young people. family-government is in a great measure extinct. By neglect in this particular, parents bring the guilt of their children’s sins upon their own souls, and the blood of their children will be required at their hands.
Parents sometimes weaken one another’s hands in this work; one parent disapproving what the other doth; one smiling upon a child, while the other frowns; one protecting, while the other corrects. When things in a family are thus, children are [likely] to be undone. Therefore let everyone examine whether he do not live in same way of sin with respect to this matter.
Third, I shall now apply myself to children. Let them examine themselves, whether they do not live in some way of sin towards their parents. Are you not guilty of some undutifulness towards them, in which you allow yourselves? Are you not guilty of despising your parents for infirmities which you see in them? Undutiful children are ready to contemn their parents for their infirmities. Are not you sons of Ham, who saw and made derision of his father’s nakedness, whereby he entailed a curse on himself and his posterity to this day. And not the sons of Shem and Japheth, who covered the nakedness of their father? Are you not guilty of dishonoring and despising your parents for natural infirmities, or those of old age? Pro. 23:22, “Despise not thy mother when she is old.” Doth not that curse belong to you, in Deu. 27:16, “Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother?”
Are you not wont to despise the counsels and reproofs of your parents? When they warn you against any sin, and reprove you for any misconduct, are you not wont to set light by it, and to be impatient under it? Do you honor your parents for it? On the contrary, do you not receive it with resentment, proudly rejecting it? Doth it not stir up corruption, and a stubborn and perverse spirit in you, and rather make you to have an ill-will to your parents, than to love and honor them? Are you not to be reckoned among the fools mentioned Pro. 15:5, “A fool despiseth his father’s instruction?” And doth not that curse belong to you. Pro. 30:17, “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it?”
Do you not allow a fretful disposition towards your parents when they cross you in anything? Are you not apt to find fault with your parents, and to be out of temper with them?
Consider, that if you live in such ways as these, you not only live in sin, but in that sin, than which there is scarcely anyone oftener threatened with a curse in the Word of God.
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