This exclusion of regard to human opinion is a difference not so much in
the duties to which the teachers of virtue would persuade mankind, as in
the manner and topics of persuasion. And in this view the difference is
great. When we set about to give advice, our lectures are full of the
advantages of character, of the regard that is due to appearances and to
opinion; of what the world, especially of what the good or great, will
think and say; of the value of public esteem, and of the qualities by
which men acquire it. Widely different from this was our Saviour's
instruction; and the difference was founded upon the best reasons. For,
however the care of reputation, the authority of public opinion, or even
of the opinion of good men, the satisfaction of being well received and
well thought of, the benefit of being known and distinguished, are
topics to which we are fain to have recourse in our exhortations; the
true virtue is that which discards these considerations absolutely, and
which retires from them all to the single internal purpose of pleasing
God. This at least was the virtue which our Saviour taught.
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