1. There are Extremities which the Nature of Man cannot support, and which no Virtue, no Principle, will be a Protection against.
2. That Men driven to such desperate Extremities deserve our Compassion; both National and Personal Compassion, according to Solomon; Men do not despise a Thief who stealeth to satisfy his Hunger.
Family Distresses, and personal Distresses, such as Hunger and Want, are even to human Nature insupportable; great Spirits particularly cannot stoop to the Approaches of them, they overcome at a Distance, and drive Men to Desperation, the Effects of which we see terrible Examples of in Self-Murthers, and in the Murthers of the poor miserable Objects, for whom they are so anxious. I remember a poor Man that murder’d his Wife and two little Children, purely because he could not see them starve; and he then murder’d himself, mov’d to the same, by the Fury and Rage that agitated his Mind to the first bloody Action.
But I descend from those Excesses, which, I may be allow’d to say, do not attend People, till after they are driven out of themselves; I name them for the sake of the Inference which follows: If Men, by the force of these Distresses, are thus brought to destroy themselves, and their dearest Relations, how much more may they be driven to the trespassing on their Friends, or on the Persons they deal with?
How natural is it for us to pity poor Thieves who bring themselves to the Gallows for Trifles, when we find that Poverty and the Misery of their Families have driven them to those Exigencies? Certainly, not Christianity only, but even Humanity, extorts that Pity from us, if we consider what we should do, if we were driven to those Exigencies ourselves; for, ‘tis to be doubted, it might be said of us all, that if God should give us Poverty, we should Steal; that is to say, -- for I must suggest the Extremity, -- that there would be some Difficulty to find an honest Man in the World, who would not Steal before he would Starve. Let the Man who can say otherwise of himself, begin to cast Stones.
