should forgive our Enemies and be patient under injuries (for
instance) are, as plainly as words can make them so, commanded in the
Scriptures; yet how many are there professing to believe that the
Scriptures are the Word of God, who, as if no such Commands as these
were deliver'd by Christ, or his Disciples, do both Practice and
Teach, the not putting up Affronts unreveng'd; and this only because
the Fashion of the Country has establish'd it, that a Gentleman cannot
do so with _Honour_? A Term which herein signifies nothing, but
agreeably to certain measures of acting that Men have Arbitrarily made
for themselves, and which are not founded upon any Principle of right
Reason; however to be obey'd, it seems, by a Gentleman preferably to
the Commands of Christ. If there are Cases wherein from want of a due
provision in Governments against some sort of Injuries it may be
thought that Men are excusable in asserting their own Cause, yet thus
much is at the least certain, That this Precept of Forgiveness could
not be transgress'd against, as it very frequently is, by Men
professing to believe the Authority of the Scriptures, if such were
indeed fully perswaded that it was a divine Command which prohibited
the avenging of our selves.

But others there are (contrary to these Men) who would find it
altogether condemnable for a Man to hazard his own, and anothers Life
in a Duel, or Rencounter (tho' caus'd by the Transport of ever so just
a provocation) who would see no Evil in his mispending of his Time,
consuming Day after Day, and Year after Year, uselesly to himself, or
others, in a course of continual Idleness and Sauntring; as if he was
made only to Eat and to Drink, or to gratifie his Senses. And how few
Parents are there of Quality, even among such as are esteem'd the most
vertuous, who do not permit their Daughters to pass the best part of
their Youth in that Ridiculous Circle of Diversions, which is pretty
generally thought the proper business of Young Ladies; and which so
ingrosses them that they can find no spare Hours, wherein to make any
such improvements of their understanding, as the leisure which they
have for it exacts from them as rational Creatures; or as is requisite
or useful to the discharging well their present, or future Duties?

Some formal Devotions are (perhaps) necessary to some of These, to
preserve them even in their own good esteem; and they that can
regularly find half an Hour, or an Hour in a Day