nant
obligations, to _watch over our brethren._ But there can scarcely be a
greater misapprehension than to understand this duty in the sense of an
incessant lookout to discern and discover the little faults and foibles,
or even the more marked and glaring defects of character, in our
brethren. The injunction is, "If thy brother trespass _against thee_, go
and tell him his fault," &c. But I know of no passage of Scripture which
requires us to procure a magnifying-glass, and go about making a
business of detecting and exposing the faults of our brethren. On the
contrary, there are many cautions against a meddlesome disposition, and
against being busy bodies in other men's matters. We are required, with
great frequency and solemnity, to watch ourselves; but where is the
injunction, "Watch thy brethren?" Even the Saviour himself did not thus
attempt to correct the faults of his disciples. He rebuked them, indeed,
and sometimes sharply; but he was not continually reminding them of
their faults. He was not incessantly brow-beating Peter for his
rashness, nor Thomas for his incredulity, nor the sons of Zebedee for
their ambition. But he "taught them _as they were able to bear it_;"
and that rather by holding up before their minds the truth, than by
direct personal lectures.

Our covenant obligations unquestionably make it our duty to watch and
see that our brethren do not pursue a course of life inconsistent with
their Christian profession, or which tends to backsliding and apostasy;
and if they are true disciples, they will be thankful for a word of
caution, when they are in danger of falling into sin. And when they do
thus fall, we are required to rebuke them, and not to suffer sin upon
them. But this is a very different affair from that of setting up a
system of espionage over their conduct, and dwelling continually upon
their faults and deficiencies. This latter course cannot long be
pursued, without an unhappy influence upon our own temper. The human
mind is so constituted as to be affected by the objects it contemplates,
and often assimilated to them. Show me a person who is always
contemplating the faults of others, and I will show you a dark and
gloomy, sour and morose spirit, whose eyes are hermetically closed to
everything that is desirable and excellent, or amiable and lovely, in
the character of man--a grumbling, growling misanthrope, who is never
pleased with anybody, nor satisfied with anything--an Ishmaelite, w