Psalm 141:5 Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head… : — I. HOW REPROOFS MAY BE DULY RECEIVED. 1. It is desirable on many accounts that he who reproves us be himself a righteous person, and be of us esteemed so to be; for as such an one alone will or can have a due sense of the evil reproved, with a right principle and end in the discharge of his own duty, so the minds of them that are reproved are, by their sense of his integrity, excluded from those insinuations of evasions which prejudices and suggestions of just causes of reflections on their reprover will offer unto them. Especially, without the exercise of singular wisdom and humility, will all the advantages of a just reproof be lost where the allowed practice of greater sins and evils than that reproved is daily chargeable on the reprover. 2. The nature of a reproof is either — (1) Authoritative. (a) Ministerial. (b) Parental. (c) Despotical. (2) Or fraternal. (3) Or friendly. 3. The matter of a reproof is duly to be weighed by him who designs any benefit thereby. II. WHY WE OUGHT TO RECEIVE REPROOFS ORDERLY OR REGULARLY GIVEN UNTO US, ESTEEMING THEM A SINGULAR PRIVILEGE. 1. Mutual reproofs for the curing of evil and preventing of danger in one another are prime dictates of the law of nature and that obligation which our participation in the same being, offspring, original, and end, to seek the good of each other, doth lay upon us. 2. Whereas the light of nature is variously obscured and its directive power debilitated in us, God hath renewed on us an obligation unto this duty by particular institutions, both under the Old Testament and the New. 3. A due consideration of the use, benefit, and advantage of them will give them a ready admission into our minds and affections. Who knows how many souls that are now at rest with God have been prevented by reproofs, as the outward means, from going down into the pit? Unto how many have they been an occasion of conversion and sincere turning unto God! III. WHAT CONSIDERATIONS MAY FURTHER US IN THEIR DUE IMPROVEMENT. 1. If there be not open evidence onto the contrary, it is our duty to judge that every reproof is given us in a way of duty. This will take off offence with respect unto the reprover, which, unjustly taken, is an assured entrance into a way of losing all benefit and advantage by the reproof. 2. Take heed of cherishing habitually such disorders, vices, and distempers of mind as are contrary unto this duty and will frustrate the design of it. Such are — (1) Hastiness of spirit. (2) Pride and haughtiness of mind. 3. Reckon assuredly that a fault, a miscarriage which any one is duly reproved for, if the reproof be not received and improved as it ought, is not only aggravated, but accumulated with a new crime, and marked with a dangerous token of an incurable evil (Proverbs 29:1). 4. It is useful unto the same end immediately to compare the reproof with the word of truth. This is the measure, standard, and directory of all duties, whereunto in all dubious cases we should immediately retreat for advice and counsel. 5. The best way to keep our souls in a readiness rightly to receive, and duly to reprove such reproofs, as may regularly be given us by any, is to keep and preserve our souls and spirits in a constant awe and reverence of the reproofs of God, which are recorded in His Word. 6. We shall fail in this duty unless we are always accompanied with a deep sense of our frailty, weakness, readiness to halt, or miscarry, and thereon a necessity of all the ordinances and visitations of God, which are designed to preserve our souls. ( J. Owen, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities. |
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