Proverbs 12:5 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

Right (just) thoughts

"The thoughts of the righteous are right," or are "just" (Revised Version). There is something more than a truism in these words. We may see first—

I. THE PLACE OF THOUGHT IN MAN . This is one of the greatest importance, for it is the deepest of all; it is at the very foundation.

1 . Conduct rests on character. It is often said that conduct is the greater part of life; it is certainly that part which is most conspicuous, and therefore most influential. But it is superficial; it rests on character; it depends on the principles which are within the soul. It is these which determine a man's position in the kingdom of God.

2 . Character is determined by our prevalent and established feeling ; by what we have learned to love, by what we have come to hate. As a man thinketh in his heart, as he feels in his soul, so is he ; it is our final and fixed attachments and repulsions that decide our character.

3 . Feeling springs from thought. As we think, we feel. By the thoughts admitted to our minds and entertained there are determined our loves and our hatreds. Life, therefore, is ultimately built on thought. What are we thinking?—this is the vital question. Now, the thoughts of the righteous, the upright, the good, the true man, are right, or just.

II. THE JUST THOUGHTS OF THE GOOD . A good man's thoughts are such as are:

1 . Just to himself. He owes it to himself to thick only those thoughts which are pure and true. If he harbours those which are impure and untrue, he is doing himself deadly injury, he is inflicting on his spirit, on himself, a fatal wound. This he has no right to do; he is bound, in justice to himself, to guard the gate of his mind against these—to admit only those which are true and pure.

2 . Just to his neighbours. He owes it to them to think thoughts that are honest and charitable. We wrong our brethren, in truth and fact if not in appearance, when we think of them that which is not fair toward them. Every really righteous man will therefore banish thoughts which are not thoroughly honest, and also those which are uncharitable; for to be uncharitable is to be essentially and most materially unjust.

3 . Just to God. We owe to our Divine Creator and Redeemer all thoughts which are