PASSING OVER FAULTS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 11, 1869

PASSING OVER FAULTS.

While we should never suffer sin to rest upon another when the good of the offender or the honor of Christ requires us to admonish him, yet a spirit of constant reproof for every fault that can be detected in the children of God is from the Devil, who is the great and constant accuser of the disciples of Jesus. The loving Spirit of God bids us above all things, to have fervent charity, or love, among ourselves, with the truthful declaration that love covers a multitude of sins.

There are some diseases which are better cured by attending mainly to the general health than by special application alone. When a person's heart has been renewed, and he is really seeking first the kingdom and righteousness of God, we shall be very careful how we confuse and discourage by constantly carping at incidental faults. If the tree of sin is really girdled in the heart, by the grace of God it will die in time.

Will a wise physician watch every slight imperfection in a patient's health, dose him with calomel, and bleed and blister for every change in the pulse?

Certainly if a person's general health is good, it is not wise to make a drug-shop of his stomach on account of the little aches and pains and aberrations of health which he may experience. Let earthly affections teach you lessons of forbearance. How many things parents, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, overlook in each other daily, when they are persuaded of the general determination of their relatives to do right. Shall this heaven-born affection be less fervent and forbearing? We who have one Father, one Saviour, and one home above, where we shall soon, if faithful, meet as one family to be forever united and associated, shall we fall out by the way?

Does not Christ forgive a multitude of sins which we do not notice, or forget to confess in detail? Were not Moses, Christ, and Paul compelled to suffer some things wrong to exist among Christians because of the flesh which wars against, and follows not the Spirit? Will a man look at the eddies of a river, or at its main current to ascertain the direction in which it flows? O Lord, increase the faith and love of thy disciples, and then shall all men know that we are thine.—American Baptist.