Judgment

Evelyn F. Heywood

"Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment," said Jesus. Here were two alternatives, the one forbidden, the other commended. A choice would therefore have to be made between them. The easy, the obvious judgment, immediately available, was discredited by Jesus; instead, he advocated that which would make demands upon intelligence and impartiality; in many instances upon integrity and courage.

"Men's judgments are a parcel of their fortunes," said Shakespeare. It was a moderate estimate of their importance. In Christian Science we come to see that men's judgments are more than "a parcel of their fortunes;" they direct and fashion their lives. Continually, judgment of some kind is demanded of them which either strengthens their trust in and understanding of the divine will, or finds them further entangled in human verdicts and conclusions. Each day, perhaps many times a day, men are called upon to make judgments. These will be righteous as they are the outcome of conscious communion with the divine Mind, the source of all wisdom and love; or if they are the result of personal influences and desires, the acceptance of willful, irresponsible conclusions, they will be a departure from justice and therefore from God.

In justice to Him who has made all things perfect, and to His children, who are the rightful inheritors thereof, the first call upon us in every judgment is to refuse to admit the evidence of the material senses, whatever it may be, whether pleasurable or disturbing. First and foremost, let our judgment be between the real and the unreal, that we be not mesmerized into accepting as actual the things which are according to appearance. Let us maintain righteous judgment—the spiritual fact of God and His whole universe—in the face of every lying argument. In this way, as did Jesus, we shall see health instead of disease, and evil will be overcome; we shall see the kingdom of heaven within us, about us, instead of what would sometimes claim to be the kingdom of hell; we shall know that nothing can separate us from our oneness with Principle, where judgment alone is to be found, where justice is enthroned. Such righteous judgment is never involved in obscurities, handicapped by ambiguities, concerned with penalties. It makes no mistakes, and knows no favors. And because it is ours, we are called upon to show it forth in our lives.

With the discovery of Christian Science there came to Mary Baker Eddy the vision and later the scientific understanding whereby righteous judgment can be demonstrated in the affairs of men. In "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 277) she makes this statement: "No evidence before the material senses can close my eyes to the scientific proof that God, good, is supreme. Though clouds are round about Him, the divine justice and judgment are enthroned." In this consciousness of the supremacy of good, the menacings and prophecies of evil fall away. Faith in and obedience to divine justice, which is ever at hand to protect us, to dispel our ignorance, to reward our efforts, to deliver us from our distresses, will teach us also to approximate our human sense of justice to the divine.

"I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me," said Jesus. In this brief statement is to be found instruction for everyone who would judge righteous judgment, assurance of success for all who follow it.

In reliance upon divine Love and wisdom, there will be no place for personal responsibility, no temptation to indulge in the expediency of compromise, no hedging or retreating in the face of issues which demand support or repudiation. If the judgments which come to be made hourly are encountered without fear or prejudice, the scientific proof of God's supremacy will be ever apparent in our relations with each other and therefore with the world. In such judgments there will be in evidence no bitterness of recrimination, no sophistry of subterfuge. Their purpose will not be to protect wrongly or to expose willfully; to gain some advantage or to further some personal desire. Their sole inspiration and incentive will be that righteous judgment may be done.

"No final judgment awaits mortals, for the judgment-day of wisdom comes hourly and continually, even the judgment by which mortal man is divested of all material error," writes Mary Baker Eddy (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 291). The continuous willingness and ability to put off the false and put on the true, fearing no dreaded judgment day, punitive, discriminatory, are ours now. Thus for ourselves, for each other, for the world, we shall replace that which appears with that which actually is,—the evidence of God's universe in all its beauty and might.

Evelyn F. Heywood

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