Mark vi. 1 . "Shake off the dust under your feet, for a testimony against them." Jesus Christ permits not His Apostles to avenge themselves by their Apostolical power, nor even to desire that He should do it; but to leave their cause to God, with full confidence in Him.
Luke xix. 8. "And if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." The judgment, which, of his own accord, this penitent passes upon himself, will condemn those who reject all the remedies offered, and all methods made use of, for their conversion, and who will not make the least atonement for their crimes. Men show very plainly that they love sin, when they will not suffer any one to put a stop to it, to remove the occasions thereof; and to shame, to reprove, and to punish the sinner. This is a sin which draws after it great judgments.
If a pastor hopes to do his duty without reproving the world, (without testifying that the works thereof are evil; John vii. 7.) or to reprove it without being hated by it, he will deceive himself; he may carry it fair with men, but will be condemned by Jesus Christ.
John viii. 7. "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone." They whose duty it is to punish offenders, should take great care not to be influenced by pride, hypocrisy, passion, false zeal, or malice; but to punish with reluctancy; with compassion, as having a sense of their own misery and weakness, which, perhaps, render them more guilty in the sight of God. Let Ecclesiastical Judges always remember, that the Holy Ghost, to whom it belongs to bind and loose, never makes Himself the minister of the passions of men.
John xii. 43. "They loved the praise of men more than the glory of God." And this is the cause that men count it more shameful to acknowledge their crimes than it was to be guilty of them.
We must never insult a sinner; but, without extenuating his sin, we must comfort him, by showing him the good which God may bring out of it.
Acts viii. 3. "As for Saul, he made havock of the Church." The designs of God toward Saul should teach us not to despair
