For this reason scarcely any law of our Redeemer
is more openly transgressed, or more industriously
evaded, than that by which he commands his followers
to forgive injuries, and prohibits, under the
sanction of eternal misery, the gratification of the
desire which every man feels to return pain upon
him that inflicts it. Many who could have conquered
their anger, are unable to combat pride, and pursue
offences to extremity of vengeance, lest they should
be insulted by the triumph of an enemy.
But certainly no precept could better become
him, at whose birth PEACE was proclaimed TO THE EARTH.
For, what would so soon destroy all the order of
society, and deform life with violence and ravage, as
a permission to every one to judge his own cause,
and to apportion his own recompense for imagined
injuries?
It is difficult for a man of the strictest justice not
to favour himself too much, in the calmest moments
of solitary meditation. Every one wishes for the
distinctions for which thousands are wishing at the
same time, in their own opinion, with better claims.
He that, when his reason operates in its full force,
can thus, by the mere prevalence of self-love,
prefer himself to his fellow-beings, is very unlikely to
judge equitably when his passions are agitated by
a sense of wrong, and his attention wholly engrossed
by pain, interest, or danger.
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