III. The great usefulness and advantage of attending to it in our conduct.

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I. It may be proper to offer some things for the due explaining and stating of this maxim. For, however excellent and proper it may be, yet, if it is not rightly understood, we may be misled under the countenance of it. The following particulars may be worthy of our consideration.

1. The measure proposed, is not what other people actually do to us, but what we would that they should do to us. I should not need to mention this, but that in fact it is so common a measure of practice, and what people are apt to allow and justify themselves in, if they go no farther than retaliation. Such a man refused to do me a kind office, when it was in his power; and why should I serve him when it is in mine? He treated me with rigour and severity, when he had an opportunity for it; and why should not I make him a return in the same kind?' But this is the language of a heated, and not of a Christian spirit, of passion, and not of reason or grace. For I cannot be justified by that which another does, in doing what I condemn in him; that which was faulty in him must be faulty in me too. The law of nature, indeed, will allow of self-defence, but not of private revenge, any farther than is necessary to a man's own security. Christianity especially teaches us a better measure of acting, than other men's behaviour to us. From this very rule in the text, St Luke represents Christ as leading his disciples to do good offices to those who have never yet obliged them, and even to those who have actually disobliged them, Luke vi. 31 -35. "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners do also the same. And if lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies." Gratitude for benefits received is an excellent temper, and what is very much wanting in the world; but it is not the height to which Christianity calls us, and to which the maxim in the text should carry us: we should shew kindness, as we have opportunity, to those who have not

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conferred any benefit upon us already, and even to such who have done us ill offices. We have a plain rule against governing our conduct to others by their ill usage of us, Rom. xii. 19-21. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay it, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.'

2. What we actually would that others should do to us, is not, in all cases, a rule of our duty to them, but the lawfulness of the action is to be presupposed. It will not follow that I ought to do or to forbear a thing to my neighbour, or that I may do so, merely because I am content, or even desirous, that he should do or forbear the like to me. That inclination and desire of mind, must first be known to agree with the law of God. A notorious drunkard may be willing to be intoxicated and made a beast by another; but it is not, therefore, one jot the more lawful for him to do the like to another in his turn. A man resolutely set upon an evil course, cares not to be disturbed in it by the reproofs or counsels of his superiors or friends; but that does not lessen his obligation to be a monitor to other sinners, especially to those under his care and charge. It is his sin, and owing to his insensibleness of his own true interest, that he would not that others would do so to him; and it is his additional sin, that he neglects, on his part, what the law of God has made his duty to others. A man's desire, that others should either do an unlawful thing, or neglect their duty to himself, will not justify or excuse the like evil actions or omissions in him. To suppose that it would, must be to subject the holy and righteous law of God to men's irregular inclinations and lusts, and so to render it of no effect. Our desires, therefore, from others, must first be known to be fit and reasonable, and not disagreeable to the will of God, before they are made the measure of our conduct to them.

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3. When we and others are in different circumstances, we are not obliged by this measure of action, to do exactly the same things to them, as we desire or expect from them, but the same things in our circumstances, as we should expect from them, if they were in our condition, and we in theirs.

God, in the course of nature and providence, places men in different relations one to another, in various stations and conditions, and has affixed duties peculiar to each of these. Now, the intention of this maxim cannot be to confound all relations, and the duties belonging to them; as, if, for instance, all that a father may expect from a child, or a master from a servant, or a prince from his subjects, was therefore to be done by such superiors to their inferiors. But the plain meaning is, that a father, a master, a prince, should consider what he should reasonably desire and expect from one in a correspondent relation, if he were a child, a servant, or a subject, and then act accordingly. Thus, after the apostle had laid down the duty of servants, he directs, Eph. vi. 9. " And ye masters, do the same things to them;" not just the same actions as they, by their relation, are obliged to do to you, but see that you perform the duty of your place, as you expect of them the duty of theirs, and with such a manner of behaviour your peculiar station, as you would account equitable from a master, if you were servants yourselves: one, instance of which he immediately mentions, "forbearing threatening" all rough, morose, or churlish words or actions, when there is no necessity for them.

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4. We are not obliged to do all that to others, which we might probably be glad they would do to us, if we were in their case, but all that we could expect from them as matter of right and duty. It is hardly to be doubted, but any poor man would, be glad that a rich person would not only supply his extreme necessity, but give him a good part of his estate, so as to make his circumstances easy and plentiful; and it is very likely, that if we were poor, we might be of his mind. A rich man, who is master of his own estate, may lawfully gratify such a desire, but then he may lawfully forbear it also. Now, that such a generous action of a rich man would be very welcome to any poor man, and to ourselves in particular, if we were poor, cannot be said to lay an obligation upon any to do so much. Those in prosperous circumstances are bound by this rule to do to another, not all that they might in his circumstances be glad of, but all that they had good reason to expect the foundation of justice, or charity, or friendship, or relation. The sense of our Lord's maxims amounts to this: In all

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your dealings with other men, suppose yourselves in the same particular state and circumstances wherein they are, and think what treatment, what kindness, what allowances, you would reckon yourselves to have a just claim to expect at their hands, if they were in your case, and you in theirs; and then be the same to them in your thoughts, and words, and actions, as you would have them to be to you; and never allow yourselves to do that to others, which you would account injurious, or matter of just complaint, in your own case.

- II. I proceed to shew the strong obligations we are under to be of this temper.

1. It is founded in the reason of things, and is one of the plainest dictates and laws of nature; such a precept as ap proves itself to the mind of a reasonable creature, as soon as he hears and understands it, so as not to need any laboured proof. Every man is ready to own the equity of it in theory, even such whose vicious and depraved inclinations carry them off from the practice; those who will not make it the rule of their own actions, yet expect others to make it the rule of theirs, and are ready to complain when it is not observed to themselves. It is, indeed, the basis of all justice and equity between man and man, every instance of which may be reduced to this measure, and proved by it.

The obligation to it results from the sameness of nature, which our great Creator has given to all mankind, as all des cending from one original, consisting of like souls and bodies; and, therefore, whatever rights one has by virtue of this nature, must be common to all, and equal in all. In respect of nature, we are all upon a level, and every man stands equally obliged to another. I am equally obliged to be just, and kind, and grateful to another, as he is obliged to be so to me, because God has made us all alike in the essential state and perfections of our nature. For accidental differences between men, they cannot cancel or lessen these common rights which are founded in nature. And besides that, it is very possible, in the changeableness of human affairs, and frequently seen in experience, that such accidental differences may cease, or the conditions of men be perfectly inverted. He who is now a servant may become a master, and the master be reduced to the state of a servant: the rich may be abased, and the poor exalt

ed. I may come to be in the station, or relation, or condition, of another man, with whom I compare myself, and actually need that office from him, which he now expects from me. This makes it ever reasonable, and prudent too, to put myself in his circumstances, since they may be my own, and to behave to him accordingly.

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This maxim is so agreeable to natural light, that some heathen writers inculcate the same thing in sense. Especially the Greek orator Isocrates applies it to several cases. He lays it down as the first maxim of virtue necessary to be attended to by youth, next to the veneration of God: "Be such to your parents, as you would have your children to be to you."* And he advises princes to "carry it towards neighbouring communities that are weaker than their own, as they would have those which are stronger to behave to them."+ So he represents a wise and good king directing his subjects to approve themselves such to others under them, as they expected him to be to themselves ;" and "not to do to others, what they cared not to bear from others."S We are told, that "the first founders of the empire of the Incas in Peru (which the tradition of that people represents as an empire of vast antiquity,) taught this as one of their first rules, and indeed upon a very clear and cogent reason, that men should neither say nor do any thing to others, that they were not willing others should say or do to them, because it was against all reason to make one law for ourselves, and another for other people." Would to God that all Christians would govern themselves by so clear and undeniable a principle.

2. This is the law and the prophets. So our Saviour declares in the text; that is, all the duties to our neighbour prescribed by Moses, or by the succeeding prophets under the Old Testament, are comprehended in this, and may be re-. duced to it; they are but so many branches and explications of this general rule. For the assistance of men's weakness and unthoughtfulness, God saw meet, when he was pleased to vouchsafe a revelation, to be express in enjoining the several

• Orat. ad Demonic. Ed. H. Steph. p. 4. Id. ad Nicocl. Orat. 3. p. 37.

+ Id. ad Nicocl. Orat. 2. p. 19. § Ib. p. 37.

Sir William Temple's Miscel. Part. 2. Ese. Sect. 3.