and examine why he did not prevent them; we shall, I am afraid, be in danger of running into somewhat worse than impertinent curiosity. But upon this to examine how far the nature which he hath given us hath a respect to those circumstances, such as they are; how far it leads us to act a proper part in them, plainly belongs to us: and such inquiries are in many ways of excellent use. Thus, the thing to be considered is not, "Why we are not made of such a nature, and placed in such circumstances, as to have no need of so harsh and turbulent a passion as resentment;" but, taking our nature and condition as being what they are, "Why, or for what end, such a passion was given us:" and this chiefly in order to show what are the abuses of it.
The persons who laid down for a rule, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thy enemy," made short work with this matter. They did not, it seems, perceive any thing to be disapproved in hatred more than in good-will: and, according to their system of morals, our enemy was the proper natural object of one of those passions, as our neighbour was of the other of them.
This was all they had to say, and all they thought needful to be said, upon the subject. But this cannot be satisfactory; because hatred, malice, and revenge, are direct contrary to the religion we profess, and to the nature a reason of the thing itself. Therefore, since no passion God hath endued us with can be in itself evil; and yet since men frequently indulge a passion in such ways and degree that at length it becomes quite another thing from what it was originally in our nature; and those vices of malice and revenge, in particular, take their occasion from the natural passion of resentment: it will be needful to trace this its original, that we may see, "What it is in itself, as placed in our nature by its Author;" from which it will plainly appear "for what ends it was placed there." And when we know what the passion is in itself, and the ends of it,
