Chapter 4: Reproof A Christian Duty. or relative circumstances of the parties, take away the obligation of this duty. Whatever be the relation, you are to reprove sin, and are bound to do it in the name of the Lord. Do it, not as if you were complaining or finding fault for a personal injury committed against yourself, but as a sin against God. Thus, when a child reproves a parent for sin, he is not to do it as if he was expostulating with him for any injury done to himself, but with an eye to the fact that the parent has sinned against God, and therefore, with all that plainness, and faithfulness, and pungency that sin calls for.
(2.) Reproof should be regulated by the knowledge which the offender has of his duty.
If the individual is ignorant, reproof should be more in the form of instruction, rather than of severe rebuke. How do you do with your little child? You instruct him and strive to enlighten his mind respecting his duty. You proceed, of course, very differently from what you would do with a hardened offender.
(3.) With reference also to the frequency of the offense.
You would reprove a first offense in a very different manner from what you would use towards an habitual transgressor. If a person is accustomed to sin, and knows that it is wrong, you use more severity. If it is the first time, perhaps a mere allusion to it may be sufficient to prevent a repetition.
(4.) So, also, you are to consider whether he has been frequently reproved for the sin.
If he has not only often committed the sin, but been often reproved, and yet has hardened his neck, there is the greater necessity for using sharpness. The hardening influence of former reproofs resisted, shows that no common expostulations will take hold. He needs to have the terrors of the Lord poured upon him like a storm of hail.
4. Always show that your temper is not ruffled.
Never manifest any displeasure at the transgressor, which he can possibly construe into personal displeasure at himself. It is often important to show your strong displeasure at what he is doing. Otherwise he will think you are not in earnest. Suppose you reprove a man for murder, in a manner not expressing any abhorrence of his crime, you would not expect to produce an effect. The manner should be suited to the nature of the crime, yet so as not to lead him to think you have any personal feeling. Here is the grand defect in the manner of reproving crime, both in the pulpit and out of it. For fear of giving offense, men do not express their abhorrence of the sin, and therefore transgressors are so seldom reclaimed.
5. Always reprove in the Spirit of God.
You should always have so much of the Holy Ghost with you, that when you reprove a man for sin, he will feel as if it came from God. I have known cases, where reproof from a Christian in that state has cut the transgressor to the heart, and stung like the arrow of the Almighty, and he could not get rid of it till he repented.
6. There are many different ways of giving reproof so as to reach the individual reproved.