But what men (it will be said) are to be esteemed the proper judges of desert in such cases, so as to determine with propriety when honor is or is not to be rendered? To which I answer—Every man is a judge of it if he be not an idiot or mad man! Every man of common sense can distinguish justice from injustice, right from wrong, honorable from dishonorable, whenever he happens to be an eye or ear witness of the proper circumstances of evidence for such a judgment! Every man, (except as above,) be he ever so poor and mean with respect lo his rank in this life, inherits the knowledge of good and evil, or reason, from the common parents of mankind, and is thereby rendered answerable to God for all his actions, and answerable to man for many of them!
In this hereditary knowledge, and in the proper use of it, (according to the different stations of life in which men subsist in this world,) consists the equality of all mankind in the sight of God, and also in the eye of the law, I mean the common law and rules of natural justice, which are formed upon the self-evident conclusions of human reason, and are the necessary result of the above mentioned hereditary knowledge in man. Every man knows, by what we call conscience, (which is only an effect of human reason upon the mind,) whether his own actions deserve the censure of the magistrate, who "bears not the sword in vain!" And the same principle of hereditary knowledge enables him to judge also concerning the outward actions of other men, whether they be just or unjust; whether they be praiseworthy or censurable!
But, if a man abuses his own natural reason, and suffers himself to be blinded by private interest, by passion, or unreasonable resentment, or by pride, envy, or personal partiality, and is thereby led to misconstrue the actions of his superiors, to behave unseemly towards them, and to censure them publicly without a just cause, the conscience of such an offender against reason will speedily
and yet there is no doubt but that he most conscientiously, on every occasion, rendered "honor to whom honor" was due!
