miseries to be pitied, no wants to be relieved; where the affection we have been now treating of will happily be lost, as there will be no objects to exercise it upon: for 'God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.'

SERMON VI.

UPON RESENTMENT.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy: But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.-MATTH. v. 43, 44.

Since perfect goodness in the Deity is the principle from whence the universe was brought into being, and by which it is preserved, and since general benevolence is the great law of the whole moral creation, it is a question which immediately occurs, Why had man implanted in him a principle which appears the direct contrary to benevolence!' Now the foot upon which inquiries of this kind should be treated is this: to take human nature as it is, and the circumstances in which it is placed as they are, and then consider the correspondence between that nature and those circumstances, or what course of action and behaviour, respecting those circumstances, any particular affection or passion leads us to. This I mention to distinguish the matter now before us from disquisitions of quite another kind—namely, 'Why we are not made more perfect creatures, or placed in better circumstances?'-these being questions which we have not, that I know of, anything at all to do with. God Almighty undoubtedly foresaw the disorders, both natural and moral, which would happen in this state of things. If upon this we set ourselves to search and examine why he did not prevent them, we shall, I am afraid, be in danger of running into somewhat worse than impertinent curiosity. But upon this to examine, how far the nature which he hath given us hath a respect to those circumstances, such as they are, how far it leads us to act a proper part in them, plainly belongs to us; and such inquiries are in many ways of excellent use. Thus the thing to be considered is not, 'Why we were not made of such a nature, and placed in such circumstances, as to have no need of so harsh and turbulent a passion as resentment;' but taking our nature and condition as being what they are, Why, or for what end, such a passion was given us;' and this chiefly in order to show what are the abuses of it.

The persons who laid down for a rule, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy,' made short work with this matter: they did not, it seems, perceive anything to be disapproved in

hatred more than in good-will; and according to their system of morals, our enemy was the proper natural object of one of those passions, as our neighbour was of the other of them.

This was all they had to say, and all they thought needful to be said, upon the subject. But this cannot be satisfactory; because hatred, malice, and revenge, are directly contrary to the religion we profess, and to the nature and reason of the thing itself. Therefore, since no passion God hath endued us with can be in itself evil; and yet since men frequently indulge a passion in such ways and degrees that at length it becomes quite another thing from what it was originally in our nature; and those vices of malice and revenge, in particular, take their occasion from the natural passion of resentment: it will be needful to trace this up to its original, that we may see 'What it is in itself, as placed in our nature by its Author;' from which it will plainly appear 'For what ends it was placed there.' And when we know what the passion is in itself, and the ends of it, we shall easily see 'What are the abuses of it, in which malice and revenge consist,' and which are so strongly forbidden in the text, by the direct contrary being demanded.

Resentment is of two kinds-Hasty and sudden, or settled and deliberate. The former is called anger, and often passion; which, though a general word, is frequently appropriated and confined to the particular feeling, sudden anger, as distinct from deliberate resentment, malice, and revenge. In all these words is usually implied somewhat vicious; somewhat unreasonable as to the occasion of the passion, or immoderate as to the degree or duration of it. But that the natural passion itself is indifferent, St Paul has asserted in that precept, 'Be ye angry, and sin not' (Ephes. iv. 26.); which, though it is by no means to be understood as an encouragement to indulge ourselves in anger, the sense being certainly this, Though ye be angry, sin not;' yet here is evidently a distinction made between anger and sin, between the natural passion and sinful anger.

Sudden anger, upon certain occasions, is mere instinct; as merely so as the disposition to close our eyes upon the apprehension of somewhat falling into them, and no more necessarily implies any degree of reason. I say necessarily; for, to be sure, hasty, as well as deliberate anger, may be occasioned by injury or contempt, in which cases reason suggests to our thoughts that injury and contempt which is the occasion of the passion: bnt I am speaking of the former only so far as it is to be distinguished from the latter. The only way in which our reason and understanding can raise anger, is by representing to our mind injustice or injury of some kind or other. Now momentary anger is frequently raised not only without any real, but without any apparent reason—that is, without any appearance of injury, as distinct from hurt or pain. It cannot, I suppose, be thought that this passion, in infants, in the lower species of animals, and, which is often seen, in men towards them-it cannot, I say, be imagined that these instances of this passion are the effect of reason: no, they are occasioned by mere sensation and feeling. It is oppo.

sition, sudden hurt, violence, which naturally excites the passion, and the real demerit or fault of him who offers that violence, or is the cause of that opposition or hurt, does not, in many cases, so much as come into thought.

The reason and end for which man was made thus liable to this passion is, that he might be better qualified to prevent, and likewise (or perhaps chiefly) to resist and defeat sudden force, violence, and opposition, considered merely as such, and without regard to the fault or demerit of him who is the author of them. Yet since violence may be considered in this other and further view as implying fault; and since injury, as distinct from harm, may raise sudden anger, sudden anger may likewise accidentally serve to prevent or remedy such fault and injury. But considered as distinct from settled anger, it stands in our nature for self-defence, and not for the administration of justice. There are plainly cases and in the uncultivated parts of the world, and where regular governments are not formed, they frequently happen-in which there is no time for consideration, and yet to be passive is certain destruction, in which sudden resistance is the only security.

But from this, deliberate anger or resentment is essentially distinguished, as the latter is not naturally excited by, or intended to prevent mere harm without appearance of wrong or injustice. Now in order to see, as exactly as we can, what is the natural object and occasion of such resentment, let us reflect upon the manner in which we are touched with reading, suppose, a feigned story of baseness and villany, properly worked up to move our passions. This immediately raises indignation, somewhat of a desire that it should be punished; and though the designed injury be prevented, yet that it was designed is sufficient to raise this inward feeling. Suppose the story true, this inward feeling would be as natural and as just, and one may venture to affirm that there is scarce a man in the world but would have it upon some occasions. It seems in us plainly connected with a sense of virtue and vice, of moral good and evil. Suppose, further, we knew both the person who did, and who suffered the injury; neither would this make any alteration, only that it would probably affect us more. The indignation raised by cruelty and injustice, and the desire of having it punished, which persons unconcerned would feel, is by no means malice. No; it is resentment against vice and wickedness, it is one of the common bonds by which society is held together, a fellow-feeling which each individual has in behalf of the whole species, as well as of himself; and it does not appear that this, generally speaking, is at all too high amongst mankind. Suppose, now, the injury I have been speaking of to be done against ourselves, or those whom we consider as ourselves; it is plain the way in which we should be affected would be exactly the same in kind, but it would certainly be in a higher degree, and less transient; because a sense of our own happiness and misery is most intimately and always present to us; and from the very constitution of nature, we cannot but have a greater sensibility to, and

be more deeply interested in, what concerns ourselves. And this seems to be the whole of this passion which is, properly speaking, natural to mankind—namely, a resentment against injury and wickedness in general; and in a higher degree when towards ourselves, in proportion to the greater regard which men naturally have for themselves than for others. From hence it appears that it is not natural, but moral evil-it is not suffering, but injury, which raises that anger or resentment which is of any continuance. The natural object of it is not one who appears to the suffering person to have been only the innocent occasion of his pain or loss, but one who has been in a moral sense injurious either to ourselves or others. This is abundantly confirmed by observing what it is which heightens or lessens resentment; namely, the same which aggravates or lessens the fault-friendship and former obligations on one hand, or inadvertency, strong temptations, and mistake, on the other. All this is so much understood by mankind, how little soever it be reflected upon, that a person would be reckoned quite distracted who should coolly resent a harm which had not to himself the appearance of injury or wrong. Men do indeed resent what is occasioned through carelessness, but then they expect observance as their due, and so that carelessness is considered as faulty. It is likewise true that they resent more strongly an injury done, than one which, though designed, was prevented, in cases where the guilt is perhaps the same; the reason, however, is, not that bare pain or loss raises resentment, but that it gives a new, and, as I may speak, additional sense of the injury or injustice. According to the natural course of the passions, the degrees of resentment are in proportion not only to the degree of design and deliberation in the injurious person, but in proportion to this, joined with the degree of the evil designed or premeditated; since this likewise comes in to make the injustice greater or less. And the evil or harm will appear greater when they feel it, than when they only reflect upon it; so, therefore, will the injury; and consequently the resentment will be greater.

The natural object or occasion of settled resentment, then, being injury, as distinct from pain or loss, it is easy to see that to prevent and to remedy such injury, and the miseries arising from it, is the end for which this passion was implanted in man. It is to be considered as a weapon, put into our hands by nature, against injury, injustice, and cruelty. How it may be innocently employed and made use of shall presently be mentioned.

The account which has been now given of this passion is, in brief, that sudden anger is raised by, and was chiefly intended to prevent or remedy, mere harm, distinct from injury; but that it may be raised by injury, and may serve to prevent or to remedy it; and then the occasions and effects of it are the same with the occasions and effects of deliberate anger; but they are essentially distinguished in this, that the latter is never occasioned by harm, distinct from injury; and its natural proper end is to remedy or prevent only that harm which implies, or is supposed to imply, injury or moral wrong.