On Judging Others (part 3)

This is the continuation of the series of quotes about judging others from Frederick Faber. The first 2 summarized points below are from part 1 and points 3 and 4 are from part 2:

1.  It is a universal law that when we judge others, whether individuals or multitudes, we come to erroneous conclusions from the mere fact that we naturally judge over-harshly.

2.  Severity is one of the natural accompaniments of a young and immature state of grace. 

3.  When we see evil in others, we never can see the amount of inward resistance which the person has given to the evil, or the amount of humiliation and sorrow which they may have for their own failures and defects. 

4. The evil in our fellows strikes us with bold startling proportions, whereas goodness is more quiet and hidden, and often passes unobserved...

5. Satan is active, but grace is more active. ...we fail to see that God is ten thousand times more active than Satan, though He seems to be less so...we do not know how to follow God in the deep seclusion of His work, for He works opposite to the methods of satan, and is constantly accomplishing marvelous things in human souls which we do not suspect...If we actually saw what God is doing in the very people we often criticize and condemn, we could be utterly astonished at the immensity, the vigor, and the versatility of the magnificent spiritual work which God is doing all around us in the world.

6. We see the evil in our fellows much sooner than the good. On a very short acquaintance with persons we discover their defects, and the things in them which are disagreeable to us, and soon find the weak point in them where they are most likely to fail; but their better nature is more slowly unfolding...This invisible character of goodness is not so obtrusive as defects because there is an instinctive bashfulness in goodness...oftentimes in little things, in the ordinary wear and tear of life, there will come forth in unostentatious ways traits of humility and self-depreciation, or patience and sweetness and unselfishness beyond what we expect of them.
 

On Judging Others (part 2)

The following are more insights from Frederick Faber as found in Paul Billheimer's book, Love Covers, on the topic of judging others. The first two points summarized from last week's post are:

1.  It is a universal law that when we judge others, whether individuals or multitudes, we come to erroneous conclusions from the mere fact that we naturally judge over-harshly.

2.  Severity is one of the natural accompaniments of a young and immature state of grace. 

3.  When we see evil in others, we never can see the amount of inward resistance which the person has given to the evil, or the amount of humiliation and sorrow which they may have for their own failures and defects. The violence of temptation is always invisible, and its peculiar oppressiveness, owing to heredity, or education, or previous modes of living, can never be estimated by a fellow creature. There are depths of invincible ignorance...which every human character has in some one or more direction, and it is almost universally true that even among good religious people there is one point of moral excellence upon which they seem stupid...In judging others we fail to see how many odd crossings there are in people's minds, which tell upon their motives and hamper the free action of their moral sense. Much sin lies at the door of a warped mind, but how much guilt there is in the sin can be known to God alone. The heart is the jewel that He covets for His crown, and if the habitual attitude of the heart is better than any particular action which we see, God be praised for it.

4. The evil in our fellows strikes us with bold startling proportions, whereas goodness is more quiet and hidden, and often passes unobserved...It must be observed that evil, of its own nature, is more visible than goodness...The evil we see, or think we see, in others is easily recognized, but often the people we are judging are more keenly alive to their defects than we imagine and may grieve over them in secret...God has so contrived the moral world that the greater part of goodness must of necessity be hidden like Himself...
 

 

"On Judging Others" (part 1)

Recently I picked up a book I read years ago: Love Covers by Paul Billheimer; in it he argues that what is most needed is for followers of Jesus to love one another and not allow doctrinal differences to divide us. Some of what he writes was aimed at the generation he lived in, and his references to some issues no longer pertain; nevertheless, the heart of what he writes is very pertinent to our times.

At the end of the book, he includes a writing by Frederick W. Faber about judging others. It is rich in wisdom and insight and is very challenging, so I want to share parts of it with you. To keep it to shorter portions for the sake of being able to ponder and pray over it, I'll take 3 or 4 postings to share it. The following is from Frederick Faber:

1. It is a universal law that when we judge others, whether individuals or multitudes, we come to erroneous conclusions from the mere fact that we naturally judge over-harshly.
It is one of the effects of our fallen nature to put the worst construction upon what we see or hear about others, and to make small, if any, allowance for the hidden good that is in them. Also, we unwittingly judge of others by the worst parts of our own disposition, and not by the best. It is natural for us to judge of ourselves by the best things in us, but we judge of others by the worst things in us. It is so common to impute our evil to others, but to think our goodness is peculiarly our own.

2.  Severity is one of the natural accompaniments of a young and immature state of grace. 
Many religious people think that the power to detect evil in others is a special gift from God, to be prized and cultivated, and if such people are inclined to hunt for evil they can always find it to their satisfaction; but the practice begets a habit of suspicion which is utterly ruinous to the deep love of God and to Christlikeness of disposition. Men are never industrious in handing out the good about others, but have a terrific swiftness in seeing the evil; and even religious people, in many instances, have an awful propensity for circulating the evil, but they are very slow to tell the good. It is also a trait among human beings to be most severe with those of their own class, or guild, or profession...