It is sufficiently apparent that the precepts we have tired, or rather
the disposition which these precepts inculcate, relate to personal
conduct from personal motives; to cases in which men act from impulse,
for themselves and from themselves. When it comes to be considered what
is necessary to be done for the sake of the public, and out of a regard
to the general welfare (which consideration, for the most part, ought
exclusively to govern the duties of men in public stations), it comes to
a case to which the rules do not belong. This distinction is plain; and
if it were less so the consequence would not be much felt: for it is
very seldom that in time intercourse of private life men act with public
views. The personal motives from which they do act the rule regulates.
The preference of time patient to the heroic cheer, which we have here
noticed, and which the reader will find explained at large in the work
to which we have referred him, is a peculiarity in the Christian
institution, which I propose as an argument of wisdom, very much beyond
the situation and natural character of the person who delivered it.
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