others as we would that others should do unto us," might mislead us; but
I never yet met with the man who was actually misled by it.
Notwithstanding that our Lord bade his followers, "not to resist evil,"
and to "forgive the enemy who should trespass against them, not till
seven times, but till seventy times seven," the Christian world has
hitherto suffered little by too much placability or forbearance. I would
repeat once more, what has already been twice remarked, that these rules
were designed to regulate personal conduct from personal motives, and
for this purpose alone. I think that these observations will assist us
greatly in placing our Saviour's conduct as a moral teacher in a proper
point of view; especially when it is considered, that to deliver moral
disquisitions was no part of his design,--to teach morality at all was
only a subordinate part of it; his great business being to supply what
was much more wanting than lessons of morality, stronger moral
sanctions, and clearer assurances of a future judgment.*

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* Some appear to require in a religious system, or in the books which
profess to deliver that system, minute directions for every case and
occurrence that may arise. This, say they, is necessary to render a
revelation perfect, especially one which has for its object the
regulation of human conduct. Now, how prolix, and yet how incomplete and
unavailing, such an attempt must have been, is proved by one notable
example: "The Indoo and Mussulman religions are institutes of civil law,
regulating the minutest questions, both of property and of all questions
which come under the cognizance of the magistrate. And to what length
details of this kind are necessarily carried when once begun, may be
understood from an anecdote of the Mussulman code, which we have
received from the most respectable authority, that not less than
seventy-five thousand traditional precepts have been promulgated."
(Hamilton's translation of Hedays, or Guide.)
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The parables of the New Testament are, many of them, such as would have
done honour to any book in the world: I do not mean in style and
diction, but in the choice of the subjects, in the structure of the
narratives, in the aptness, propriety, and force of the circumstances
woven into them; and in some, as that of the Good Samaritan, the
Prodigal Son, the Pharisee and the Publican, in an union of pathos and
simplicity, which in the best productions of hum