But, because our compassionate Lord saw how uneasy this precept would be to the indulged and inveterate pride of his followers, he has therefore condescended to assure them that their obedience to it will, even in this world, be attended with a suitable reward. Ye shall find rest to your souls. And this
II. Is the other topic, which I engaged to insist upon, in this discourse.
The great objection to the virtues of meekness and humility, is, that the practice of them will put us to some present pain in resisting the impulse of our disordered passions. It will do so. Nature prompts us to repel an injury; and that nature, vitiated and depraved, is in haste to repel it with indignation, and even fury. To give way to the impetuous sentiment, would give us immediate ease; and to suppress it, till the practice becomes habitual, will cost us some throws and agitation of mind. To counteract this instant disquiet, a recompence is proposed, exactly suited to the trial. Our mind is discomposed, for the instant, by the struggle we have to make with the incensed passion: When that is over, it settles again into a full and permanent tranquillity. We find rest, as the text speaks, to our souls: we have the purest peace within, and have no disturbance of it to apprehend, from without.
1. The uneasiness which pride engenders, receives, as I said, some present relief, from the free course of that passion. But see the consequence of giving way to it. Disgust, remorse, fear, and hate, succeed to the indulgence of this fiery sentiment, I mean, when it proceeds so far as to acts of revenge. But, if it stop short of this extreme, still the mind, by nourishing its resentments, and brooding over the idea of a supposed indignity, hurts its own peace; grows sore and fretful, and suspicious; and, though it be somewhat flattered by the first tumultuous effort of its indignation, which looks like courage and high spirit; yet, the briskness of this sensation soon goes off, and flattens into a sullen gloom of thought, the bane of every selfish, as well as social enjoyment.
It is much otherwise with the meek and lowly in heart. They never retaliate injuries, and seldom resent them. They either feel not the stroke of them; or, if they do, the wound is instantly healed by the balsamic virtue of their own minds. But, indeed, a man, well disciplined in the school of humility, receives but few injuries, for he suspects none; it being, I think, true, that, for one real injury done us by others, a hundred such things, as we call by that name, are only bred in our own captious and distempered imaginations. And then, for those few injuries which he actually receives, they are easily slighted or forgotten by him; because he sees them only in their true shape and size, and not as magnified by an extravagant opinion of his own worth, and as extravagant a contempt of the aggressor. He knows his own infirmities, and can allow for those of other men. If they are petulant or unjust, he, perhaps, has been inobservant or imprudent: besides, he never thought himself entitled to any special respect, and therefore wonders the less, if no great ceremony has been used towards him. To these suggestions of humanity, he adds those of religion. He knows what his Master enjoins, and he remembers on what terms the injunction is pressed upon him. And thus, though the indignity seem great, he easily excuses one half of it, and forgives the other. The issue is, that he finds rest in his own soul, which the proud man never does: so that, as to internal peace, the advantage is clearly on the side of meekness and humility. But then,
2. As to external peace, the matter may be thought more problematical. “For that softness of mind, which religion calls humility, invites, it is said, and multiplies injuries. Forgive one insult, and you draw upon you a hundred more so that, if humility be a virtue, it is never likely to be out of breath for want of exercise and employment. In a word, the world is so base, that there is no keeping it in respect, but by fear: and how is that needful sentiment to be impressed on the minds of injurious men, in those numberless cases which civil justice cannot reach, but by a quick resentment and personal high spirit?”
Such is the language of those who have learned their ethics of the world, and not of the Gospel. But let us see what there is in the allegation itself.
To connive at one indignity, is, they say, the ready way to invite another. It may be so, in some rare cases, when we have to do with singularly base and ungenerous natures; but even then, I think, chiefly, if not solely, when that connivance is joined with imprudence or folly: and then it is not humility should bear the blame, but our own indiscretion. Besides, the question is concerning a general rule of conduct: and this rule may be a fit and reasonable one, though it admit, as most rules do, of some exceptions.
Again, though a wise and good man will frequently suppress, and always moderate resentment, yet neither reason nor the religion of Jesus requires, that in no case whatsoever should we be actuated by that principle. The principle itself, as I have shewn, is a natural one, and under due restraint may serve to good purposes; one of which, perhaps, is to give check to overbearing insolence and oppression, I mean when it rises to a certain degree and exceeds certain bounds. Even our blessed Lord, who was meekness itself, thought fit on some occasions to express a very strong resentment: as, when he upbraided the Pharisees in no gentle terms, but, in a just indignation at their malice, went so far as to brand them with the bitter names of vipers and serpents, and to menace them with the flames of hell[154]. So that meekness and resentment are not absolutely incompatible; though the danger of exceeding in this last quality is so great, that the general rule both of reason and Christianity, is to cultivate meekness in ourselves, and to restrain our resentments.
“But, if exceptions be allowed in any case, the rule, it will be said, becomes of no use; for that pride and passion will find an exception in every case.” If they should, they must answer for themselves. In all moral matters, something, nay much, must be left to the fairness and honesty of the mind. Without this principle, the plainest rule of life may be evaded or abused: and with it, even that hard saying, of loving our enemies, which is near of kin to this of meekness, is easily understood, and may be reasonably applied.