Page:Whole works of joseph butler.djvu/126

95 Thus, love to our enemies, and those who have been injurious to us, is so far from being a rant as it has been profanely called, that it is in truth a law of our nature, and what every one must see and own, who is not quite blinded with self-love.

From hence it is easy to see, what is the degree in which we are commanded to love our enemies, or those who have been injurious to us. It were well if it could be as easily reduced to practice. It cannot be imagined, that we are required to love them with any peculiar kind of affection. But suppose the person injured to have a due natural sense of the injury and no more; he ought to be affected towards the injurious person in the same way any good men, uninterested in the case, would be; if they had the same just sense, which we have supposed the injured person to have, of the fault: after which there will yet remain real good-will towards the offender.

Now, what is there in all this, which should be thought impracticable? I am sure there is nothing in it unreasonable. It is indeed no more than that we should not indulge a passion, which, if generally indulged, would propagate itself so as almost to lay waste the world: that we should suppress that partial, that false self-love, which is the weakness of our nature; that uneasiness and misery should not be produced, without any good service to be served by it; and that we should not be affected towards persons differently from what their nature and character require.

But since to be convinced that any temper of mind and course of behaviour is our duty, and the contrary vicious, hath but a distant influence upon our temper and actions, let me add some few reflections, which may have a more direct tendency to subdue those vices in the heart, to beget in us this right temper, and lead us to a right behaviour towards those who have offended us; which reflections, however, shall he such as will further show the obligations we are under to it.