So that the same compliances, we should make with _their_ inclinations, the same preference, we should give to _their_ humour and interest above our own, should now be extended and exercised towards all Christians; and that principle of an ardent affection, by which we are led to make the most chearful condescensions to our _natural_ brother, should work in us the same generous consideration of our _spiritual_ brother, _for whom Christ died_.
Having explained the _nature_ of this duty, and the _grounds_, both in reason and religion, on which it rests, it now remains,
III. To provide for the RIGHT APPLICATION of it in practice. And here, in truth, the whole difficulty lies.
It is evident enough, I suppose, from what has been said, That the moral and Christian duty of _preferring one another in honour_, respects only social peace and charity, and terminates in the good and edification of our Christian brother. Its use is, to soften the minds of men, and to draw them from that savage rusticity, which engenders many vices, and discredits the virtues themselves. But when men had experienced the benefit of this complying temper, and further saw the ends, not of charity only, but of SELF-INTEREST, that might be answered by it; they considered no longer its just purpose and application, but stretched it to that officious sedulity, and extreme servility of adulation, which we too often observe and lament in polished life.
Hence, that infinite attention and consideration, which is so rigidly exacted, and so duly paid, in the commerce of the world: hence, that prostitution of mind, which leaves a man no will, no sentiment, no principle, no character; all which disappear under the uniform exhibition of good-manners: hence, those insidious arts, those studied disguises, those obsequious flatteries, nay, those affected freedoms, in a word, those multiplied and nicely-varied forms of insinuation and address; the direct aim of which may be to acquire the fame of politeness and good-breeding; but the certain effect, to corrupt every virtue, to sooth every vanity, and to inflame every vice, of the human heart.
These fatal mischiefs introduce themselves under the pretence and semblance of that _humanity_, which the text encourages and enjoins. But the _genuine_ virtue is easily distinguished from the _counterfeit_, and by the following plain _signs_.