Bible Dictionaries
Judgment--Comparable to Balances

Spurgeon's Illustration Collection

Search for…

Enter query below:

or

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Prev Entry
Jesuits

Next Entry
Judgment-Day: Forgotten

Resource Toolbox

Print Article

Our judgment may be compared to the scales and weights of the merchant. It should be correct, but it seldom is quite accurate; even ordinary wear and tear in this world will suffice to put it out of gear. We had need call in the Rectifier full often, and entreat him to search out our secret shortcomings, lest we deviate from equity and know it not. It would be well if the scales of conscience would turn even at the finest dust, but how rarely is this the case! False weights and balances are an abomination unto the Lord, yet many use them, they weigh their neighbours so as to underestimate them, and they use balances far too favourable to themselves; they give the Lord a portion sadly too small, and to their own pleasures a dowry much too great. Tradesmen who have one set of weights to buy with and others to sell with, are evidently rogues, and we may convict ourselves of injustice at once if we find ourselves severe to other mn and lenient to ourselves. Fraudulent shopkeepers will use a movable piece of metal, by removing which they can lighten the weight or the scale, and we too may have a convenient indignation which we may restrain or indulge according as the person whose fault we judge may be the object of our goodwill or our displeasure. Some of the marine-store dealers, and buyers of kitchen-stuff at the back door, pretend to judge of weight by the feeling of their hand, and herein they are no worse than those who settle everything by prejudice and will not wait for reason. A railway traveller assured me that he had been weighed a dozen times at different stations, and only twice did the machines give the same report, his opinion of their correctness was not very high; for the same reason, of how little worth are the opinions of the many as to the preachers of the gospel, for scarcely two in a score are of the same mind! There is a great weighing time coming, for which it will be well to be prepared, for woe unto the man whom the infallible balances shall find wanting.