design was to forbid ostentation, and all publishing of good works which proceeds from that motive. Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven; therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do, in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward." ver. 1, 2. There are motives for the doing our alms in public, beside those of ostentation, with which therefore our Saviour's rule has no concern: such as to testify our approbation of some particular species of charity, and to recommend it to others; to take off the prejudice which the want, or, which is the same thing, the suppression, of our name in the list of contributors might excite against the charity, or against ourselves. And, so long as these motives are free from any mixture of vanity, they are in no danger of invading our Saviour's prohibition; they rather seem to comply with another direction which he has left us: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." If it be necessary to propose a precise distinction upon the subject, I can think of none better than the following: When our bounty is beyond our fortune and station, that is, when it is more than could be expected from us, our charity should be private, if privacy be practicable: when it is not more than might be expected, it may be public: for we cannot hope to influence others to the imtation of extraordinary generosity, and therefore want, in the former case, the only justifiable reason for making it public. Having thus described several different exertions of charity, it may not be improper to take notice of a species of liberality, which is not charity, in any sense of the word: I mean the giving of entertainments or liquor, for the sake of popularity; or the rewarding, treating, and maintaining, the companions of our diversions, as hunters, shooters, fishers, and the like. I do not say that this is criminal; I only say that it is not charity; and that we are not to suppose, because we give, and give to the poor, that it will stand in the place, or supersede the obligation, of more meritorious and disinterested bounty. which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?" (James ii. 15, 16.) 4. "That giving to the poor is not mentioned in St. Paul's description of charity, in the thirteenth chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians." This is not a description of charity, but of good-nature; and it is necessary that every duty be mentioned in every place. 5. "That they pay the poor-rates." They might as well allege that they pay their debts: for the poor have the same right to that portion of a man's property which the laws assign to them, that the man himself has to the remainder. 6. "That they employ many poor persons;"for their own sake, not the poor's otherwise it is a good plea. 7. "That the poor do not suffer so much as we imagine; that education and habit have reconciled them to the evils of their condition, and make them easy under it." Habit can never reconcile human nature to the extremities of cold, hunger, and thirst, any more than it can reconcile the hand to the touch of a red-hot iron: besides, the question is not, how unhappy any one is, but how much more happy we can make him. 8. "That these people, give them what you will, will never thank you, or think of you for it." In the first place, this is not true: in the second place, it was not for the sake of their thanks that you relieved them. 9. That we are liable to be imposed upon." If a due inquiry be made, our merit is the same: beside that the distress is generally real, although the cause be untruly stated. 10. "That they should apply to their parishes." This is not always practicable: to which we may add, that there are many requisites to a comfortable subsistence, which parish relief does not supply; and that there are some, who would suffer almost as much from receiving parish relief as by the want of it; and, lastly, that there are many modes of charity to which this answer does not relate at all. 11. "That giving money, encourages idleness and vagrancy. This is true only of injudicious and indiscriminate generosity. 12. "That we have too many objects of charity at home, to bestow any thing upon strangers; or, that there are other charities, which are more useIII. The pretences by which men excuse them-ful, or stand in greater need." The value of this selves from giving to the poor. 1. "That they have nothing to spare," i. e. nothing for which they have not provided some other use; nothing which their plan or expense, together with the savings they have resolved to lay by, will not exhaust: never reflecting whether it be in their power, or that it is their duty, to retrench their expenses, and contract their plan, "that they may have to give to them that need:" or, rather, that this ought to have been part of their plan originally. 2. That they have families of their own, and that charity begins at home." The extent of this plea will be considered, when we come to explain the duty of parents. 3. "That charity does not consist in giving money, but in benevolence, philanthropy, love to all mankind, goodness of heart," &c. Hear St. James: "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, depart in peace; be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things excuse depends entirely upon the fact, whether we actually relieve those neighbouring objects, and contribute to those other charities. Beside all these excuses, pride, or prudery, or delicacy, or love of ease, keep one half of the world out of the way of observing what the other half suffer. CHAPTER VI. Resentment. RESENTMENT may be distinguished into anger and revenge. By anger, I mean the pain we suffer upon the receipt of an injury or affront, with the usual effects of that pain upon ourselves. By revenge, the inflicting of pain upon the person who has injured or offended us, farther than the just ends of punishment or reparation require. Anger prompts to revenge; but it is possible to justify the conduct in ourselves which we beto suspend the effect, when we cannot altogether fore blamed. Add to this, the indecency of exquell the principle. We are bound also to en- travagant anger; how it renders us, whilst it lasts, deavour to qualify and correct the principle itself. the scorn and sport of all about us, of which it So that our duty requires two different applica- leaves us, when it ceases, sensible and ashamed; tions of the mind; and, for that reason, anger and the inconveniences and irretrievable misconduct revenge may be considered separately. into which our irascibility has sometimes betrayed us; the friendships it has lost us; the distresses and embarrassments in which we have been involved by it; and the sore repentance which, on one account or other, it always cost us. CHAPTER VII. Anger. 'Be ye angry, and sin not ;" therefore all anger is not sinful.; I suppose, because some degree of it, and upon some occasions, is inevitable. It becomes sinful, or contradicts, however, the rule of Scripture, when it is conceived upon slight and inadequate provocations, and, when it continues long. 1. When it is conceived upon slight provocations: for, "charity suffereth long, is not easily provoked."-"Let every man be slow to anger." Peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, are enumerated among the fruits of the Spirit, Gal. v. 22. and compose the true Christian temper, as to this article of duty. 2. When it continues long: for, "let not the sun go down upon your wrath." These precepts, and all reasoning indeed on the subject, suppose the passion of anger to be within our power; and this power consists not so much in any faculty we possess of appeasing our wrath at the time, (for we are passive under the smart which an injury or affront occasions, and all we can then do, is to prevent its breaking out into action,) as in so mollifying our minds by habits of just reflection, as to be less irritated by impressions of injury, and to be sooner pacified. Reflections proper for this purpose, and which may be called the sedatives of anger, are the following: the possibility of mistaking the motives from which the conduct that offends us proceeded; how often our offences have been the effect of inadvertency, when they were construed into indications of malice; the inducement which prompted our adversary to act as he did, and how powerfully the same inducement has, at one time or other, operated upon ourselves: that he is suffering perhaps under a contrition, which he is ashamed or wants opportunity to confess; and how ungenerous it is to triumph by coldness or insult over a spirit already humbled in secret; that the returns of kindness are sweet, and that there is neither honour, nor virtue, nor use, in resisting them:-for, some persons think them selves bound to cherish and keep alive their indignation, when they find it dying away of itself. We may remember that others have their passions, their prejudices, their favourite aims, their fears, their cautions, their interests, their sudden impulses, their varieties of apprehension, as well as we: we may recollect what hath sometimes passed in our minds, when we have gotten on the wrong side of a quarrel, and imagine the same to be passing in our adversary's mind now; when we became sensible of our misbehaviour, what palliations we perceived in it, and expected others to perceive; how we were affected by the kindness, and felt the superiority, of a generous reception and ready forgiveness; how persecution revived our spirits with our enmity, and seemed But the reflection calculated above all others to allay the haughtiness of temper which is ever finding out provocations, and which renders anger so impetuous, is that which the Gospel proposes; namely, that we ourselves are, or shortly shall be, suppliants for mercy and pardon at the judgmentseat of God. Imagine our secret sins disclosed and brought to light; imagine us thus humbled and exposed; trembling under the hand of God; casting ourselves on his compassion; crying out for mercy; imagine such a creature to talk of satisfaction and revenge; refusing to be entreated, disdaining to forgive; extreme to mark and to resent what is done amiss;-imagine, I say, this, and you can hardly frame to yourself an instance of more impious and unnatural arrogance. The point is, to habituate ourselves to these reflections, till they rise up of their own accord when they are wanted, that is, instantly upon the receipt of an injury or affront, and with such force and colouring, as both to mitigate the paroxysms of our anger at the time, and at length to produce an alteration in the temper and disposition itself. CHAPTER VIII. Revenge. ALL pain occasioned to another in consequence of an offence or injury received from him, further than what is calculated to procure reparation, or promote the just ends of punishment, is so much revenge. There can be no difficulty in knowing when we occasion pain to another; nor much in distinguishing whether we do so, with a view only to the ends of punishment, or from revenge; for, in the one case we proceed with reluctance, in the other with pleasure. It is highly probable, from the light of nature, that a passion, which seeks its gratification immediately and expressly in giving pain, is disagreeable to the benevolent will and counsels of the Creator. Other, passions and pleasures may, and often do, produce pain to some one: but then pain is not, as it is here, the object of the passion, and the direct cause of the pleasure. This probability is converted into certainty, if we give credit to the authority which dictated the several passages of the Christian Scriptures that condemn revenge, or, what is the same thing, which enjoin forgiveness. We will set down the principal of these passages; and endeavour to collect from them, what conduct upon the whole is allowed towards an enemy, and what is forbidden. "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."-" And his lord was Thus it is no breach of Christian charity, to wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him: so like-withdraw our company or civility when the same wise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.""Put on bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meckness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.""Be patient towards all men; see that none render evil for evil to any man."—" Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for, in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." tends to discountenance any vicious practice. This is one branch of that extrajudicial discipline, which supplies the defects and the remissness of law; and is expressly authorised by St. Paul (1 Cor. v. 11.) “But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one, no not to eat." The use of this association against vice continues to be experienced in one remarkable instance, and might be extended with good effect to others. The confederacy amongst women of character, to exclude from their society kept-mistresses and ́ prostitutes, contributes more perhaps to discourage that condition of life, and prevents greater numbers from entering into it, than all the considerations of prudence and religion put together. We are likewise allowed to practise so much caution as not to put ourselves in the way of injury, or invite the repetition of it. If a servant or tradesman has cheated us, we are not bound to trust him again; for this is to encourage him in his dishonest practices, which is doing him much harm. Where a benefit can be conferred only upon one or few, and the choice of the person upon whom it is conferred is a proper object of favour, we are at liberty to prefer those who have not of fended us to those who have; the contrary being no where required. I think it evident, from some of these passages taken separately, and still more so from all of them together, that revenge, as described in the beginning of this chapter, is forbidden in every degree, under all forms, and upon every occasion. We are likewise forbidden to refuse to an enemy even the most imperfect right: "if he hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink;" which are examples of imperfect rights. If one who has offended us, solicit from us a vote to which his qualifications entitle him, we may not refuse it from motives of resentment, or the remembrance of what we have suffered at his hands. His right, and our obligation which follows the right, are not altered by his enmity to us, or by ours to him. On the other hand, I do not conceive that these Christ, who, as hath been well demonstrated,* prohibitions were intended to interfere with the estimated virtues by their solid utility, and not by punishment or prosecution of public offenders. their fashion or popularity, prefers this of the forIn the eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew, our Sa-giveness of injuries to every other. He enjoins viour tells his disciples, "If thy brother who has trespassed against thee neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man, and a publican." Immediately after this, when St. Peter asked him, "How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?" Christ replied, "I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven;" that is, as often as he repeats the offence. From these two adjoining passages compared together, we are authorised to conclude that the forgiveness of an enemy is not inconsistent with the proceedings against him as a public offender; and that the discipline established in religious or civil societies, for the restraint or punishment of criminals, ought to be upholden. If the magistrate be not tied down with these prohibitions from the execution of his office, neither is the prosecutor; for the office of the prosecutor is as necessary as that of the magistrate. Nor, by parity of reason, are private persons withholden from the correction of vice, when it is in their power to exercise it; provided they be assured that it is the guilt which provokes them, and not the injury; and that their motives are pure from all mixture and every particle of that spirit which delights and triumphs in the humiliation of an adversary. Matt. vi. 14, 15: xviii. 34, 35. Col. iii. 12, 13. 1 Thes. v. 14, 15. Rom. xii. 19, 20, 21. ↑ See also Exodus, xxiii. 4. "If thou meet thine ene my's ox, or his ass, going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again; if thou see the ass of him that hateth thee, lying under his burden, and wouldst for bear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him." it oftener; with more earnestness; under a greater variety of forms; and with this weighty and peculiar circumstance, that the forgiveness of others is the condition upon which alone we are to expect, or even ask, from God, forgiveness for ourselves. And this preference is justified by the superior importance of the virtue itself. The feuds and animosities in families, and between neighbours, which disturb the intercourse of human life, and collectively compose half the misery of it, have their foundation in the want of a forgiving temper; and can never cease, but by the exercise of this virtue, on one side, or on both. CHAPTER IX. DUELLING as a punishment is absurd; because it is an equal chance, whether the punishment fall upon the offender, or the person offended. Nor is it much better as a reparation: it being difficult to explain in what the satisfaction consists, or how it tends to undo the injury, or to afford a compensation for the damage already sustained. The truth is, it is not considered as either. A law of honour having annexed the imputation of cowardice to patience under an affront, challenges are given and accepted with no other design than to prevent or wipe off this suspicion; without malice against the adversary, generally without a * See a View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion. LITIGATION. wish, to destroy him, or any other concern than to The unreasonableness of this rule of manners is one consideration; the duty and conduct of individuals, while such a rule exists, is another. As to which, the proper and single question is this, whether a regard for our own reputation is, or is not, sufficient to justify the taking away the life of another? The insufficiency of the redress which the law of the land affords, for those injuries which chiefly affect a man in his sensibility and reputation, tempts many to redress themselves. Prosecutions for such offences, by the trifling damages that are recovered, serve only to make the sufferer more ridiculous.-This ought to be remedied. For the army, where the point of honour is cultivated with exquisite attention and refinement, I would establish a Court of Honour, with a power Murder is forbidden; and wherever human life of awarding those submissions and acknowledgis deliberately taken away, otherwise than by pub-ments, which it is generally the purpose of a lic authority, there is murder. The value and se- challenge to obtain; and it might grow into a curity of human life make this rule necessary; for fashion, with persons of rank of all professions, to I do not see what other idea or definition of mur- refer their quarrels to this tribunal. der can be admitted, which will not let in so much private violence, as to render society a scene of peril and bloodshed. If unauthorised laws of honour be allowed to create exceptions to divine prohibitions, there is an end of all morality, as founded in the will of the Deity; and the obligation of every duty may, at one time or other, be discharged by the caprice and fluctuations of fashion. "But a sense of shame is so much torture; and no relief presents itself otherwise than by an attempt upon the life of our adversary." What then? The distress which men suffer by the want of money is oftentimes extreme, and no resource can be discovered but that of removing a life which stands between the distressed person and his inheritance. The motive in this case is as urgent, and the means much the same, as in the former: yet this case finds no advocate. Duelling, as the law now stands, can seldom be overtaken by legal punishment. The challenge, appointment, and other previous circumstances, which indicate the intention with which the combatants met, being suppressed, nothing appears to a court. of justice, but the actual rencounter; and if a person be slain when actually fighting with his adversary, the law deems his death nothing more than manslaughter. CHAPTER X. "If it be possible, live peaceably with all men;" which precept contains an indirect confession that this is not always possible. The instances in the fifth chapter of Saint Take away the circumstance of the duellist's exposing his own life, and it becomes assassina- Matthew are rather to be understood as proverbial tion; add this circumstance, and what difference methods of describing the general duties of fordoes it make? None but this, that the fewer per-giveness and benevolence, and the temper which haps will imitate the example, and human life we ought to aim at acquiring, than as directions will be somewhat more safe, when it cannot be to be specifically observed; or of themselves of any attacked without equal danger to the aggressor's great importance to be observed. The first of these own. Experience, however, proves that there is is," If thine enemy smite thee on thy right cheek, fortitude enough in most men to undertake this turn to him the other also;" yet, when one of the we find Jesus rebuking him for the outrage with hazard; and were it otherwise, the defence, at officers struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, best, would be only that which a highwayman or housebreaker might plead, whose attempt had becoming indignation; "If I have spoken evil, thou me?" (John xviii. 43.) It may be observed, been so daring and desperate, that few were likely bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest to repeat the same. from instances of small and tolerable injuries. A In expostulating with the duellist, I all along likewise, that the several examples are drawn suppose his adversary to fall. Which supposition I am at liberty to make, because, if he have no rule which forbade all opposition to injury, or deto put the good in subjection to the bad, and deright to kill his adversary, he has none to attempt it. fence against it, could have no other effect, than In return, I forbear from applying to the case of duelling the Christian principle of the forgive-liver one half of mankind to the depredations of ness of injuries; because it is possible to suppose the injury to be forgiven, and the duellist to act entirely from a concern for his own reputation: where this is not the case, the guilt of duelling is manifest, and is greater. In this view it seems unnecessary to distinguish between him who gives, and him who accepts, a challenge: for, on the one hand, they incur an equal hazard of destroying life; and on the other, both act upon the same persuasion, that what they do is necessary, in order to recover or preserve the good opinion of the world. Public opinion is not easily controlled by civil institutions: for which reason I question whether any regulations can be contrived, of sufficient force to suppress or change the rule of honour, which stigmatises all scruples about duelling with the reproach of cowardice. K some considered themselves as bound by such a *"Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy turn to him the other also: and if any man will sue thee cloak also; and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." 7 reproved the litigiousness of his Corinthian, con- | others, the prosecution of which, being of equal motives; which amounts to the same thing. On the one hand, therefore, Christianity ex- The character of an informer is in this country cludes all vindictive motives, and all frivolous undeservedly odious. But where any public adcauses, of prosecution; so that where the injury vantage is likely to be attained by information, or is small, where no good purpose of public example other activity in promoting the execution of the is answered, where forbearance is not likely to laws, a good man will despise a prejudice founded invite a repetition of the injury, or where the ex-in no just reason, or will acquit himself of the pense of an action becomes a punishment too se- imputation of interested designs by giving away vere for the offence; there the Christian is with- his share of the penalty. holden by the authority of his religion from going to law. On the other hand, a law-suit is inconsistent with no rule of the Gospel, when it is instituted, 1. For the establishing of some important right. 2. For the procuring a compensation for some considerable damage. 3. For the preventing of future injury. But since it is supposed to be undertaken simply with a view to the ends of justice and safety, the prosecutor of the action is bound to confine himself to the cheapest process which will accomplish these ends, as well as to consent to any peaceable expedient for the same purpose; as to a reference, in which the arbitrators can do, what the law cannot, divide the damage, when the fault is mutual; or to a compounding of the dispute, by accepting a compensation in the gross, without entering into articles and items, which it is often very difficult to adjust separately. As to the rest, the duty of the contending ties may be expressed in the following directions: Not by appeals to prolong a suit against your own conviction. On the other hand, prosecutions for the sake of the reward, or for the gratification of private enmity, where the offence produces no public mischief, or where it arises from ignorance or inadvertency, are reprobated under the general deseription of applying a rule of law to a purpose for which it was not intended. Under which description may be ranked an officious revival of the laws against. Popish priests, and dissenting teachers. CHAPTER XI. Gratitude. EXAMPLES of ingratitude check and discourage voluntary beneficence: and in this, the mischief of ingratitude consists. Nor is the mischief small; for after all is done that can be done, towards propar-viding for the public happiness, by prescribing rules of justice, and enforcing the observation of them by penalties or compulsion, much must be left to those offices of kindness, which men remain at liberty to exert or withhold. Now not only the choice of the objects, but the quantity and even the existence of this sort of kindness in the world, depends, in a great measure, upon the return which it receives: and this is a consideration of general importance. Not to undertake or defend a suit against a poor adversary, or render it more dilatory or expensive than necessary, with the hope of intimidating or wearing him out by the expense. Not to influence evidence by authority or expectation; Nor to stifle any in your possession, although it make against you. Hitherto we have treated of civil actions. In criminal prosecutions, the private injury should be forgotten, and the prosecutor proceed with the same temper, and upon the same motives, as the magistrate; the one being a necessary minister of justice as well as the other, and both bound to direct their conduct by a dispassionate care of the public welfare. In whatever degree the punishment of an of fender is conducive, or his escape dangerous, to the interest of the community, in the same degree is the party against whom the crime was committed bound to prosecute; because such prosecutions must in their nature originate from the sufferer. Therefore great public crimes, as robberies, forgeries, and the like, ought not to be spared, from an apprehension of trouble or expense in carrying on the prosecution, from false shame, or misplaced compassion. There are many offences, such as nuisances, neglect of public roads, forestalling, engrossing, smuggling, sabbath-breaking, profaneness, drunkenness, prostitution, the keeping of lewd or disorderly houses, the writing, publishing, or exposing to sale, lascivious books or pictures, with some A second reason for cultivating a grateful temper in ourselves, is the following: The same principle, which is touched with the kindness of a human benefactor, is capable of being affected by the divine goodness, and of becoming, under the influence of that affection, a source of the purest and most exalted virtue. The love of God is the sublimest gratitude. It is a mistake, therefore, to imagine, that this virtue is omitted in. the Christian Scriptures; for every precept which commands us "to love God, because he first loved us," presupposes the principle of gratitude, and directs it to its proper object. It is impossible to particularise the several expressions of gratitude, inasmuch as they vary with the character and situation of the benefactor, and with the opportunities of the person obliged; which variety admits of no bounds. It may be observed, however, that gratitude can never oblige a man to do what is wrong, and what by consequence he is previously obliged not to do. It is no ingratitude to refuse to do, what we cannot reconcile to any apprehensions of our duty; but it is ingratitude and hypocrisy together, to pretend this reason, when it is not the real one: and the frequency of such pretences has brought this apology for non-compliance with the will of a benefactor into unmerited disgrace. |