This is another lesson against injustice; a topic in which our just
Author abounds. And, if we consider the matter fairly, we must allow it
to be as reasonable that some one should do violence to us, as we should
commit it upon another. When we are impartial in our reflections, thus
we must always think. The unjust man, with a hardened unfeeling heart,
can do a thousand bitter things to others: but if a single calamity
touches himself, oh, how tender he is! How insupportable is the
uneasiness it occasions! Why should we think others born to hard
treatment more than ourselves? Or imagine it can be reasonable to do to
another, what we ourselves should be unwilling to suffer? In our
behaviour to all mankind, we need only ask ourselves these plain
questions, and our consciences will tell us how to act. Conscience, like
a good valuable domestic, plays the remembrancer to us upon all
occasions, and gives us a gentle twitch, when we are going to do a wrong
thing. It does not, like the adder in the fable, bite us to death, but
only gives us kind cautions. However, if we neglect these just and
frequent warnings, and continue in a course of wickedness and injustice,
do not let us be surprised if Providence thinks fit, at last, to give us
a home sting, and to exercise a little retaliation upon us.