how often our offences have been the effect of inad vertency, when they were conftrued into indications of malice; the inducement which prompted our adversary to act as he did, and how powerfully the fame inducement has, at one time or other, operated upon ourfelves; that he is fuffering perhaps under a contrition, which he is afhamed, or wants opportunity to confefs; and how ungenerous it is to triumph by coldness or infult over a fpirit already: humbled in fecret; that the returns of kindnefs arefweet, and that there is neither honour, nor virtue, nor use in refifting them for fome perfons think themselves bound to cherish and keep alive their indignation, when they find it dying away of itself." We may remember that others have their paffions, their prejudices, their favourite aims, their fears, their cautions, their interefts, their fudden impulfes, their varieties of apprehenfion, as well as we: we may recollect what hath fometimes paffed in our minds, when we have got on the wrong fide of a quarrel, and imagine the fame to be palling in our adverfary's mind now; when we became fenfible of our misbehaviour, what palliations we perceived in it, and expected others to perceive; how we were affected by the kindness, and felt the fuperiority of a generous reception and ready forgiveness; how perfecution revived our fpirits with our enmity, and feemed to justify the conduct in ourselves, which we before blamed. Add to this, the indecency of extravagant anger; how it renders us, whil it lafts, the fcorn and fport of all about us, of which it leaves us, when it ceafes, fenfible and afhamed; the inconveniencies, and irretrievable mifconduct into which our irafcibility has fometimes betrayed us; the friendships it has loft us; the diftreffes and embarraffments in which we have been involved by it; and the fore repentance which on one account or other it always cofts us.

But the reflection calculated above all others to allay that haughtiness of temper which is ever finding

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finding out provocations, and which renders anger fo impetuous, is that which the gospel proposes; namely, that we ourselves are, or fhortly fhall be, fuppliants for mercy and pardon at the judgment feat of God. Imagine our fecret fins difclofed and brought to light; imagine us thus humbled and expofed; trembling under the hand of God; cafting ourselves on his compaffion; crying out for mercy-imagine fuch a creature to talk of fatisfaction and revenge; refusing to be entreated, difdaining to forgive; extreme to mark and to refent what is done amifs; imagine I fay this, and you can hardly feign to yourself an inftance of more impious and unnatural arrogance.

The point is to habituate ourfelves to these reflections, till they rife up of their own accord when they are wanted, that is, inftantly upon the receipt of an injury or affront, and with fuch force and colouring, as both to mitigate the paroxyfms of our anger at the time, and at length to produce an alteration in the temper and disposition itself.

CHAP.

CHA P. VIII.

A

REVENGE.

LL pain occasioned to another in confequence of an offence, or injury received from him, farther than what is calculated to procure reparation, or promote the juft ends of punishment, is fo much revenge.

There can be no difficulty in knowing when we occafion pain to another; nor much in diftinguishing whether we do fo, with a view only to the ends of punishment, or from revenge; for in the one cafe we proceed with reluctance, in the other with pleafure.

It is highly probable from the light of nature, that a paffion, which feeks its gratification immediately and expressly in giving pain, is difagreeable to the benevolent will and counfels of the Creator. Other paffions and pleasures may, and often do, produce pain to fome one; but then pain is not, as it is here, the object of the paffion, and the direct cause of the pleafure. This probability is converted into certainty, if we give credit to the authority which dictated the feveral paffages of the Chriftian fcriptures that condemn revenge, or what is the fame thing, which enjoin forgiveness.

We will fet down the principal of thefe paffages; 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 trefpaffes, your heaven"ly ly Father will alfo forgive you; but if ye forgive "not men their trefpaffes, neither will your Father forgive your trefpaffes." And his Lord was wroth, "and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should

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pay

pay all that was due unto him: fo likewife, fhall my heavenly Father do alfo unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their "trefpaffes." "Put on bowels of mercy, kindness, "humbleness of mind, meeknefs, long fuffering, forbearing one another, forgiving one another: if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Chrift forgave you, fo alfo do ye." "Be patient to"wards all men; fee that none render evil for evil (6 unto any man." Avenge not yourselves, but "rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, faith the Lord. "Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him, if he "thirft, give him drink; for in fo doing, thou fhalt "heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome

"of evil, but overcome evil with good."

I think it evident from fome of these paffages taken feparately, and ftill more fo, from all of them together, that revenge, as defcribed in the beginning of this chapter, is forbidden in every degree, under all forms, and upon any occafion. We are likewise forbidden to refufe 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, folicit from us a vote to which his qualifications entitle him, we may not refuse it from motives of refentment, or the remembrance of what we have fuffered at his hands. His right, and our obligation which follows the right, is not altered by his enmity to us, or by ours to him.

*

Matt. vi. 14, 15. xviii 34, 35. Col. iii. 12, 13. Theff. v. 14, 15. Rom. xi. 19, 20,

+ See alfo Exodus xxiii. 4.

21.

"If thou meet thine enemy's or, or his afs, going aftray, thou shalt furely bring it back to him again if thou fee the afs of him that hateth thee lying under "his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt furely help with him."

On

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On the other hand, I do not conceive, that these prohibitions were intended to interfere with the pu nishment or prosecution of public offenders. In the eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew, our Saviour tells his disciples, if thy brother who has trefpaffed 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 afked him, "how oft fhall my brother fin against me, and I forgive him? till feven times?" Chrift replied, "I fay not unto thee until feven times; but until "feventy times feven;" that is, as often as he repeats the offence. From thefe two adjoining paffages compared together, we are authorized to conclude that the forgiveness of an enemy is not inconfiftent with the proceeding against him as a public offender; and that the difcipline established in religious or civil focieties, for the restraint or punifhment of criminals, ought to be upheld.

If the magiftrate be not tied down by these prohibitions from the execution of his office, neither is the profecutor; for the office of the profecutor is as neceffary as that of the magiftrate.

Nor by parity of reafon, are private perfons withheld from the correction of vice, when it is in their power to exercife it; provided they be affured 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.

Thus it is no breach of Christian charity, to withdraw our company or civility, when the fame tends to discountenance any vicious practice. This is one branch of that extrajudicial difcipline, which fupplies the defects and the remiffness of law; and is exprefsly authorized 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

"fuch