If it be said that this disposition is unattainable, I answer, so is all
perfection: ought therefore a moralist to recommend imperfections? One
excellency, however, of our Saviour's rules is, that they are either
never mistaken, or never so mistaken as to do harm. I could feign a
hundred cases in which the literal application of the rule, "of doing to
others as we would that others should do unto us," might mislead us; but
I never yet met with the man who was actually misled by it.
Notwithstanding that our Lord bade his followers, "not to resist evil,"
and to "forgive the enemy who should trespass against them, not till
seven times, but till seventy times seven," the Christian world has
hitherto suffered little by too much placability or forbearance. I would
repeat once more, what has already been twice remarked, that these rules
were designed to regulate personal conduct from personal motives, and
for this purpose alone. I think that these observations will assist us
greatly in placing our Saviour's conduct as a moral teacher in a proper
point of view; especially when it is considered, that to deliver moral
disquisitions was no part of his design,--to teach morality at all was
only a subordinate part of it; his great business being to supply what
was much more wanting than lessons of morality, stronger moral
sanctions, and clearer assurances of a future judgment.
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