Jonathan Edwards - Resolution #8

If you've never read the famous "Resolutions" that Jonathan Edwards penned in the course of his 19th year (1722-1723), you should. Resolution #8 has stuck with me ever since I read it over ten years ago. I thought of it again in reference to chapter 2 in When Sinners Say I Do. Here it is:

Resolved, To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings, as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.

And a similar thought from his "Thoughts on the Revival":

Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others, but a humble saint is most jealous of himself. He is as suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The spiritually proud person is apt to find fault with other saints...and to be quick to notice their deficiencies. But the eminently humble Christian has so much to do at home, and sees so much evil in his own heart, and is so concerned about it, that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts.... Pure Christian humility disposes a person to take notice of everything that is good in others, and to make the most of it, and to diminish their failings, but to give his eye chiefly on those things that are bad in himself.

Just imagine what would happen (in our lives, relationships, marriages, families, church, etc.) if we resolved to walk through life with this orientation of soul!