. Do not be over-righteous. George
Milne, Lessons for the Christian's Daily Walk, 1859. Do not be over-righteous.
Ecclesiastes 7.16. How can this be? Can any man
be over-righteous? When zeal oversteps discretion,
when tasks are self-imposed, when religious forms are trusted
in, when flesh is vainly mortified, all this is being over-righteous. God's people unwittingly fall
into these very errors. prayer as a task persisted in,
that we may think how long our prayers have been, this is a
great mistake. It is wrong in principle and
practice too. Have you ever been more fretful
after prayer, more worldly, more inclined to levity? The truth
is this. You prayed too long. Your mind
was overtaxed. Your soul responded to your weariness. The enemy rejoiced in your infirmity. You were overrighteous. Or you
have found refreshment in the house of worship. You have gone
a second time and found the same. You went again, three services,
three sermons in a day, the third occasion undid the other two. Trying to have too much, you
lost all. The wearied brain could not recall
its former devotion. The jaded memory broke down.
You were over-righteous. It is often the same in reading
Scripture. The mind is proud of its performances
and reads too much. To read each day so many chapters,
in a short time to have gone the whole round of Scripture,
rapidly to move from the law to history to the prophets to
the gospel in the hurry, my friend, you are over-righteous. This
is not the way to growing grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ. were you to spend a lifetime
over a single psalm, gaining daily refreshment to your soul,
would be far better than to scamper rapidly through the Word. When
household duties are neglected for the sake of devotional exercises,
this too is being over-righteous. The same is true when others
are inconvenienced by our devotional exercises, the family waiting
in the hall, the carriage at the door, while prayers are too
lengthy. Is not this being over-righteous? Prayer, meditation, and the Scriptures,
how good they are! Yet there is a time for all things. If duties rise so thick that
you are hindered in your prayers, even this is better than prayer
persisted in and duties left undone. Beware then, Christian
friend, and do not be over-righteous.