LIBRARY 
 
 University of California. 
 
 ^ 
 
 QIF^X OK 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 Received October, 1894. 
 ^Accessions No . S^^SJc ^- Class No. 
 
 ly 
 
\ 
 
DISCOURSES 01 THUm 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 CHAPEL OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE. 
 
 JAMES H. THOMWELL, D.D., 
 
 PRESIDENT AND CHAPLAIN, 
 
 
 NEW YOKK: 
 
 ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
 No. 285 BROADWAY. 
 
 1855. 
 
nsM. 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
 
 ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Waited States, for the 
 
 Southern District of New York. 
 
 STERKOTYPED BY PRINT«D BY 
 
 THOMAS B. SMITH, E. O. JENKINS, 
 
 216 William St^ N. Y. 114 Nassau Street. 
 
STUDENTS OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE, 
 
 WHOSE HIGH CHARACTER FOR TRUTH 
 
 REFLECTS THE GREATEST HONOR UPON THEMSELVBS 
 AND THE STATE, 
 
 THESE DISCOURSES, 
 
 ORIGINALLY PREPARED FOR THEIR BENEFIT, 
 ARE NOW AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2007 witii funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/discoursesontrutOOtliorricli 
 
"^' 
 
 
 This unpretending little volume consists of a 
 series of Discourses, preached in the ordinary routine 
 of the author's ministrations, as Chaplain of the 
 South Carolina College. He has ventured to pub- 
 lish them, because the young men who heard them 
 thought that they derived benefit from them ; and 
 as the subject is eminently adapted to the case of 
 the youthful student, it did not seem presumptuous 
 to hope, that what had been useful here, might also 
 be productive of good beyond the walls of the Col- 
 lege. The times require some such discussion as 
 that which is here attempted. The author is by no 
 means sanguine, however, of any other success than 
 that which may be found in the cordial approbation 
 of his own pupils. They will accept the work in 
 the spirit in which it has been written ; and if it 
 shall have the effect of imbuing their minds with 
 
V 
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 that generous love of truth, which constitutes the 
 noblest inspiration of the scholar — ^if it shall lead 
 them to Him, who is the fountain of truth, and 
 to the study of that eternal Word, which is the only 
 infallible message of truth, he will feel that he has 
 not labored in vain, whatever reception his httle 
 manual may experience at the hands of strangers 
 and critics. The structure of the sermons may be 
 explained by the circumstance, that th€ author sus- 
 tains the double office in the College of a Preacher 
 of the Gospel, and a Teacher of Moral Philosophy. 
 It is his custom to make the pulpit and the lecture- 
 room subservient to each other. ^ With these brief 
 statements he sends the book into the world to speak 
 for itself; and he earnestly prays that He whose 
 prerogative alone it is to bless, and who can accom- 
 plish the purposes of His grace, as well by the 
 feeblest as the mightiest instrument, may make it 
 speak with power to the understandings and con- 
 sciences of all into ^yhose hands it may chance to 
 come. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 THE KTHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE 9 
 
 II. 
 THE LOVE OF TRUTH 54 
 
 m. 
 
 THE LOVE OF TRUTH 94 
 
 IV. 
 
 SINCERITY » 140 
 
 V. 
 
 FAITHFULNESS 183 
 
 VI. 
 vows 239 
 
 vn. 
 
 CONSISTENCY 290 
 
C|e «t|iral SjJSiem of t|f iiirle. 
 
 " Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true — think on these 
 things." — Philippians, iv. 8. 
 
 T -1 "^^^ passage, of which these 
 JDloC 1. 1 
 
 words are a part, is an enumer- 
 ation of the principal duties of morality. 
 The Apostle has been supposed to refer to 
 the different systems which were discussed in 
 the schools of Greek philosophy, analogous to 
 those which have divided the inquirers of 
 modern times. It is remarkable that his lan- 
 guage admits of an easy application to the 
 prominent theories of virtue, which have been 
 proposed in Europe, within the last two cen- 
 turies. One, for example, places it essentially 
 in conformity with truth ; another in beauty, 
 corresponding perhaps to the Apostle's hon- 
 esty ; another in obedience to nature and 
 
 reason ; another in disinterested benevolence, 
 1* 
 
10 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 and others still in a comprehensive prudence. 
 Similar theories obtained among the ancients. 
 Aristotle and Plato have been reproduced in 
 the speculations of Clarke, Cudworth and 
 Price; the Epicureans and Sophists in the 
 Utilitarians, and the Stoics in Butler, Reid 
 and Stewart. The import of the Apostle's 
 advice, upon the supposition that he refers to 
 these disputes, is interpreted to be; — think 
 upon these speculations, bring them to the 
 standard of the Divine testimony, try them 
 by the doctrines which I have taught you, 
 and whatsoever they contain in keeping with 
 the genius and temper of Christianity, that 
 appropriate and practise. Prove all things ; 
 hold fast that which is good. 
 
 Ingenious and plausible as this exposition 
 appears to be, it is not, I apprehend, sustain- 
 ed by the context. It is rather the dictate of 
 fancy, than the result of sober and unbiassed 
 criticism. The design of the Apostle, it rather 
 seems to me, was to recapitulate several 
 prominent heads of duty, to single out certain 
 great characteristics of virtue, and to recom- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 11 
 
 mend every thing in which these characteris- 
 tics were found. He is giving the outlines 
 of an exemplary man, and accordingly seizes 
 upon the fundamental elements of morality, 
 those data of consciousness which every sys- 
 tem must acknowledge — which constitute the 
 touchstone and standard of all speculations 
 upon right, — and inculcates as duty every 
 thing in which these elements essentially enter 
 as constituents. The first is truth ; tvhatsoever 
 things are true. He assumes the inherent 
 rectitude of veracity, its indispensable and 
 eternal obligation, and enjoins upon his read- 
 ers to cultivate a spirit that shall reverence 
 and exemplify this obligation in the whole 
 extent of its application. He next signalizes 
 dignity of character, the principle of self- 
 respect, which saves a man from the contempt 
 of his fellows by protecting him from all that 
 is little, or mean, or indecent in deportment. 
 Whatsoever things are honest j rather what- 
 soever things are venerable, or truly honour- 
 able; whatsoever is calculated to command 
 respect or deserves veneration and esteem. 
 
12 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 Then comes the master-principle of justice, 
 or righteousness, without which all preten- 
 sions to integrity are vain and unmeaning. 
 This is the solid basis of an upright charac- 
 ter : whatsoever things are just. It is not 
 enough, however, that our words and actions 
 should be exempt from censure — ^the heart 
 must be kept with all diligence — the streams 
 must be healed at the fountain. The Apos- 
 tle, accordingly, as his Master had done before 
 him, insists upon inward purity, the regula- 
 tion of the thoughts, appetites and affections, 
 so as to prevent the contamination of aught 
 that is unholy or defiling. Whatsoever things 
 are jpure. Under this head are obviously 
 included temperance, chastity and modesty. 
 The things that are lovely comprehend every- 
 thing that is fitted to conciliate or express 
 the sentiment of affection and esteem. It 
 embraces such duties as benevolence, urban- 
 ity, courtesy, affability and sweetness of tem- 
 per. Whatever, in other words, springs from 
 love in us, and generates love in others. 
 The things of good rejport^ I am inclined to 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 13 
 
 think, have reference to those matters, in- 
 different in themselves, by means of which 
 we can recommend our persons and our 
 cause to the confidence and good-will of 
 others. They not only require the ordinary 
 duties of politeness, but exact compliance 
 with innocent customs and harmless prej- 
 udices, where a failure to comply would ex- 
 pose us to unjust censures. They exclude 
 repulsive austerity and studied singularit»y 
 of manner, and every species of affectation 
 or pretension. Here ends the specific enu- 
 meration ; but as there might be virtues 
 which are included under none of these 
 heads, the Apostle, that he may omit no- 
 thing, extends his injunction to them. If 
 there he any virtue^ and if there he any 
 praise — if there be any thing which a good 
 man ought to observe — any thing right or 
 praise-worthy, that cannot be reduced to any 
 of these categories, — it is to receive the 
 Christian man's attention. His religion com- 
 prehends all duty. 
 
 This passage, then, according to the inter- 
 
14 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 pretation which has been given, exhibits the 
 model of character which Christianity pro- 
 poses to its followers, and which their Chris- 
 tian profession exacts of them, that they shall 
 steadily endeavour to realize. It is the Apos- 
 tle's picture of an exemplary man. 
 
 As a specimen of the richness and compass 
 of Scripture morality, I shall single out the 
 duty of Truths and make it the subject of 
 a series of discourses. Before entering upon 
 them, however, I deem it not unimportant to 
 make a few remarks upon the ethical teach- 
 ings of the Scriptures, with a view to de- 
 termine what there is that is peculiar to 
 revelation, and what is the real nature and 
 extent of our obligations to the Bible. This 
 will lead us to a just estimate of secular 
 morality, and, perhaps, impress us with a 
 deeper sense of the priceless value of the 
 Gospel. It is precisely because they do not 
 comprehend the ethical relations of Chris- 
 t'.anity, that many of the educated men of the 
 country undervalue its importance. If asked 
 what it is, and what it proposes to do for 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 15 
 
 men, and what kind of offices it exacts 
 from them, it is amazing how crude and 
 ill-digested their notions would oftentimes 
 appear to be. 
 
 1. So far as the simple knowledge of duty 
 is concerned, we may err, on the one hand, 
 by exaggerating the necessity of revelation, 
 and, on the other, by exaggerating the suffi- 
 ciency of reason. There can be no doubt 
 that morality is a subject ^hich falls within 
 the province of natural light. To say that 
 we are dependent on the word and oracle of 
 God, as Bacon seems to insinuate,* "not only 
 in those points of faith which concern the 
 great mysteries of the Deity, of the creation, 
 of the redemption, but likewise those which 
 concern the law moral truly interpreted;" to 
 say that we can have, from the dictates of 
 conscience, only negative conceptions of rec- 
 titude " sufficient to check the vice, but not 
 to inform the duty," is to contradict alike 
 the testimony of Scripture and the expe- 
 
 * Advancement of Learning. Works, vol. ii. p. 300. — Mon- 
 tagu. 
 
^ 
 
 16 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 rience of mankind. " For, when the Gentiles, 
 which have not the law, do by nature the 
 things contained in the law, these having 
 not the law are a law unto themselves." A 
 being without the sense of obligation, and 
 a spontaneous recognition of the fundamental 
 differences of right and wrong, could not be 
 responsible. He could not form the remotest 
 notion of duty, and the language of authority 
 and law might as well be addressed to stocks 
 and stones. The elemental principles of right, 
 therefore, which are involved in the very 
 conception of a moral nature, must be con- 
 ceded to man as man. They are the birth- 
 rights of his being, and not the legacy of a 
 subsequent revelation. An intelligent crea- 
 ture, without primitive beliefs to determine 
 and regulate the operations of the cognitive 
 faculties, would be no greater absurdity 
 than a moral and responsible creature with- 
 out primitive laws of right to determine and 
 regulate the operations of moral judgment. 
 But it is equally an error to maintain that, 
 because the Scriptures presuppose the moral 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 17 
 
 constitution of man, they are of little or no 
 importance, considered as a rule of life. It 
 is one thing to say that reason is a law, and 
 another to say that it is a perfect law. In 
 our present fallen condition, it is impossible 
 to excogitate a standard of duty which shall 
 be warped by none of our prejudices, dis- 
 torted by none of our passions, and corrupted 
 by none of our habits. We are liable to as 
 great perversions of the original principles 
 of right as of the original principles of 
 truth. The elements of reason have no 
 power to secure their just application. There 
 never has appeared an absolutely perfect rule 
 of duty among any nations, however civilized 
 and cultivated, that were destitute of revela- 
 tion. It is only of the law of the Lord, as 
 contained in the Scriptures, that we can justly 
 say, it is perfect. There are two respects in 
 which every natural system of morality is 
 likely to be found wanting. In the first place, 
 the dif&culty of re-producing in reflection the 
 spontaneous processes of conscience, and of 
 seizing upon its fundamental laws in their 
 
v 
 
 18 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 integrity and completeness, renders it rext 
 to impossible, that the verbal generalizations 
 of philosophy shall exactly represent the oper- 
 ations of the mind. Something is apt to be 
 omitted or added. The danger is enhanced 
 by the difficulty of distinguishing betwixt 
 prejudices of education and natural principles ; 
 it is easy to confound a crotchet with a 
 principle, to make a maxim of a habit of 
 thought. In the next place, the application 
 of these fundamental laws, supposing them 
 properly eliminated, to the concrete cases of 
 life, requires great delicacy and caution. We 
 are as likely to go wrong, from misapplying a 
 true principle, as from adopting a false one. 
 The heathen father admits the great law of 
 parental affection ; he misapplies it when he 
 murders his infant child, to save him from 
 the miseries of life. The heathen son recog- 
 nizes the duty of filial piety ; he reasons badly 
 upon it when he puts his aged parents to 
 death. Here our depravity exerts its power ; 
 it is a constant temptation to pervert the 
 original principle of right, to make light dark- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 19 
 
 ness, and darkness light. It is here, too, that 
 the principal defects of every natural scheme 
 of morality are exhibited. True principles 
 are falsely applied. We make crimes of duties 
 and duties of crimes. It is not so much that 
 the law is wrong ; that the prime data are 
 questionable, though they are often defective, 
 as that the law is not legitimately carried out 
 — its proper applications are not seen — limit- 
 ations and exceptions are superinduced by 
 our circumstances, and we envelope ourselves 
 in a cloud, and the result is, that a deceived 
 heart turns us aside. The Scriptures, as an 
 authoritative rule of duty, guard against these 
 defects. They prescribe the law in its ful- 
 ness and integrity — they illustrate its appli- 
 cation by description and example — they in- 
 dicate the prejudices which are likely to per- 
 vert us, and signalize the spirit which will 
 always ensure obedience. By the infallibility 
 of their results, they are of inestimable value 
 to the moral philosopher himself When his 
 speculations contradict their statements, he 
 knows that there is an error in his processes 
 
 
20 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 — he retraces his steps and con dnues to 
 renew his investigations, until he discovers 
 the secret of his miscarriage. They serve the 
 same purpose to him, which the answer to 
 its sum serves to the child in learning its 
 arithmetic. They are at once a guide and a 
 check to his speculations. Paley* has dep- 
 reciated the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a 
 rule, from the absurd notion, that if they were 
 admitted to be complete, they would dispense 
 with the use of moral philosophy. He took 
 it for granted that the sole business of phi- 
 losophy was to furnish rules ; and, of course, 
 if they are already furnished to our hands, 
 there is no need for its investigations. To 
 save, therefore, the credit of the science 
 which he had undertaken to expound, he 
 has impugned the value of the ethical teach- 
 ings of the Bible. His argument is curious ; 
 he has very singularly confounded moral 
 philosophy with the moral constitution of 
 man, and because the Scriptures " presuppose, 
 in the persons to whom they speak, a knowl* 
 
 * Moral and Political Philosophy. Book i. chap. 4. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 21 
 
 edge of the principles of natural justice;" 
 that is, because they pre-suppose a conscience, 
 or a sense of the fundamental differences of 
 right and wrong, he gravely concludes, that 
 they exact of men, in order to be understood, 
 some tincture of philosophy. But it is one 
 thing to be a moral agent, and quite another 
 to be a moral philosopher. The Scriptures 
 certainly expect that those to whom they 
 speak, are possessed of those principles of 
 practical common sense, without which their 
 instructions are utterly unmeaning and absurd. 
 But to possess these principles is not to be a 
 philosopher. Philosophy implies reflection, 
 speculation — it is thought questioning the 
 spontaneous processes of mind — thought re- 
 turning upon itself, and seeking the nature, 
 authority and criterion of its own laws. A 
 man may have all that Dr. Paley ascribes to 
 him, without having once reflected upon the 
 mysterious furniture, or asked himself a single 
 question, which properly belongs to the do- 
 main of philosophy. The Scriptures, conse- 
 quently, in prescribing an adequate and per- 
 
22' THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 feet rule of life, are far from dispensing with 
 speculation. They leave untouched its pe- 
 culiar work. The moral nature, in its phe- 
 nomenal variety and essential unity, still in- 
 vites the researches of the curious ; and the 
 more it is studied, the more conspicuous will 
 appear the absolute sufficiency of the Bible. 
 The law of the Lord is perfect. 
 
 2. The superior efficiency of the Bible is 
 universally conceded by all who admit a reve- 
 lation at all. It teaches duty with greater cer- 
 tainty, and enforces it by motives of greater 
 power. Dr. Paley thinks this the great merit 
 of the Scriptures; and that it is a merit of 
 incalculable importance, will at once appear, 
 by reflecting on the tendency of temptation 
 to blind the mind to the truth of the law, or 
 the danger of the consequences. Whatever 
 certifies the rule, or illustrates the misery of 
 disobedience, assaults temptation in its strong 
 hold, and strips transgression of its favourite 
 plea. The certainty of the law is put beyond 
 question in the Scriptures, because it rests 
 upon the immediate authority of God. It is 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 23 
 
 not a deduction of reason to be questioned, 
 but a Divine command to be obeyed. The 
 power of the sanctions is found in the unlimit- 
 ed control which He, who promulgates the 
 law, possesses of the invisible world. The 
 legal motives of the Scriptures are projected 
 on a scale of inconceivable grandeur. The 
 Bible deals with the vast, the awful, the bound- 
 less. If it addresses our hopes and proposes 
 the prospect of future happiness, it is an ex- 
 ceeding, an eternal weight of glory it dispen- 
 ses. Does it remind us of a judgment to come ? 
 God is the Judge, earth and hell the subjects ; 
 angels spectators, and the complexion of 
 eternity the doom. Does it address our fears ? 
 It reminds us of a worm that never dies — a 
 fire that is never quenched — the blackness of 
 darkness forever. It is a grand system ; it 
 springs from the bosom of an infinite God, and 
 opens a field of infinite interests. Eternity 
 is the emphasis it gives to its promises, the 
 terror it imparts to its curse. Conscience, 
 under the tuition of nature, may dread the 
 future; it is the prerogative of revelation 
 
24 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 alone to lay it bare. Conscience may tremble, 
 but revelation alone can show how justly its 
 fears have been excited. Hence the Bible is 
 without a rival, when it speaks in the lan- 
 guage of command. It wields the thunder 
 of infinite power, as well as utters the voice 
 of infinite righteousness. Still, its mightiest 
 sanctions are not what may be be called 
 its legal motives. The scheme of redemp- 
 tion, in its conception and evolution, is a 
 sublime commentary upon the sacredness 
 and supremacy of right, which, while it re- 
 veals the ineffable enormity of sin, presents 
 the character of God in such an aspect of 
 venerable grandeur, that holiness becomes 
 awful and majestic, and we insensibly adore 
 under the moral impression which it makes. 
 He that stands beneath the cross and under- 
 stands the scene, dares not sin — not because 
 there is a hell beneath him, or an angry God 
 above him, but because holiness is felt to 
 reign there — the ground on which he treads 
 is sacred — the glory of the Lord encircles 
 him, and, like Moses, he must remove the 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 26 
 
 shoes from his feet. The cross is a venerable 
 spot; I love to linger around it, not merely 
 that I may read my title to everlasting life, 
 but that I may study the greatness of God. I 
 use the term advisedly. God never appears 
 to be so truly great, so intensely holy, as 
 when, from the pure energy of principle. He 
 gives Himself, in the person of His Son, to 
 die, rather than that his character should be 
 impugned. Who dares prevaricate with moral 
 distinctions, and talk of death as a greater 
 evil than dishonour, when God, the mighty 
 Maker, died rather than that truth or justice 
 should be compromised ? Who, at the foot 
 of Calvary, can pronounce sin to be a slight 
 matter ? Here, then, lies the most impressive 
 sanction of Revelation. Not content to pro- 
 mulgate the law with absolute certainty, to 
 put under tribute the whole resources of the 
 invisible world, to lay its hand upon eternity, 
 and make heaven and hell its ministers ; it 
 rises yet higher, and seeks to impress us with 
 a subduing sense of the sacredness of right — 
 to make us feel how awful goodness is ; it 
 
26 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 reveals its inherent greatness — unveils its 
 ineffable glory. It does not describe it, but 
 shows it, and we return from the cross with 
 emotions similar to those of Moses, when the 
 name of the Lord was proclaimed, and the 
 goodness of the Lord passed before him in 
 the cleft of the rock. It is the scheme of 
 redemption which crowns the ethical teach- 
 ings of the Bible. The lesson is sealed at 
 the cross — there, and there only, do we shud- 
 der at sin for its own sake, and reverence 
 right for itself 
 
 3. But, impressive as the general truths of 
 morality are rendered by the tragedy of re- 
 demption, that would be an inadequate view 
 of the extent of its contributions, which 
 stopped at this point. It goes beyond giv- 
 ing certainty and power to the doctrines of 
 nature. It teaches lessons, and lessons of in- 
 calculable value, which philosophy could 
 never have dreamed of It opens a new 
 chapter in the book of Ethics, and invites 
 us to speculations as refreshing by their 
 novelty as they are invigorating by their truth. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 27 
 
 It is not sufficiently recollected that the doc- 
 trines of the Scriptures in relation to the des- 
 tiny of man, the nature of holiness, and the 
 means of grace, are answers to the very ques- 
 tions which were earnestly and anxiously 
 agitated in the schools of ancient wisdom, and 
 which the sages of Greece and Rome proved 
 themselves incompetent to solve. I am 
 ashamed to add, that they are answers which 
 multitudes, with the Bible in their hands, 
 have failed to comprehend, and have con- 
 sequently been left to grope, as if struck by 
 judicial blindness, in a thicker darkness than 
 ever enshrouded the gifted minds of pagan- 
 ism. There is a tenfold nearer approxima- 
 tion to the teachings of the Bible in Aristotle 
 than there is in Paley — more affinity with the 
 Gospel in Cicero than in the whole tribe of 
 utilitarians. 
 
 1. First, in regard to happiness, which is 
 universally conceded to be the chief good of 
 man, the conceptions of the Scriptures are 
 noble and exalted. The nearest approxima- 
 tion which has been made by unassisted rea- 
 
28 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 son to their doctrine, is in the philosophy 
 of Aristotle. He failed to compass the whole 
 truth, only because man, by wisdom, cannot 
 find out God. He saw enough, however, to 
 impress us with a sense of the greatness of 
 his genius, and to make us feel that, even 
 amid the ruins of the fall, there are yet traces 
 of our ancient grandeur, and dim forebodings 
 of our future glory. He has taught us 
 enough to make us accept joyfully those fuller 
 disclosures of the Bible which illuminate what 
 in him and nature is dark, and "what is low 
 raise and support." 
 
 I do not know that I can set the benefit of 
 revelation in a clearer light than by sketching 
 the doctrine of Aristotle, pointing out its 
 defects, and contrasting the whole truth with 
 the miserable sentiments which prevail, to the 
 corruption of society and the degradation of 
 the age in which we live. His fundamental 
 notion is, that happiness consists in virtuous 
 energies — that it is not mere pleasure — not 
 the gratification which results from the pos- 
 session of an object congruous to our desires. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 29 
 
 That is good only in a very subordinate sense, 
 which simply ministers to enjoyment. The 
 chief good must be something pursued ex- 
 clusively for its own sake, and never for the 
 sake of anything else ; it can never be used 
 as an instrument ; it must be perfect and self- 
 sufficient. What, then, is the highest good 
 of man ? To answer this question, says Aris- 
 totle, we must understand the proper business 
 of man, as man. As there is a work which 
 pertains to the musician, the statuary, the 
 artist, which constitues the good or end of 
 his profession, so there must be some work 
 which belongs to man, not as . an individual, 
 not as found in such and such circumstances 
 and relations, but belongs to him absolutely as 
 man. Now, what is this? It must be some- 
 thing which springs from the peculiarities 
 of his nature, and which he cannot share 
 with the lower orders of being. It cannot, 
 therefore, be life, — for plants have that; 
 neither can it be the pleasures of sensitive 
 existence, for brutes have them. It must be 
 sought in the life of a being possessed of 
 
30 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 reason ; and as that can be contemplated in a 
 two-fold aspect, either as a state, or as an ex- 
 ercise ; as the possession of faculties, or the 
 putting forth of their activities ; we must pitch 
 upon the most important, which is activity or 
 energy, or as he also styles it, obedience to rea- 
 son. Energy, therefore, according to reason, 
 is characteristic of man. This is his business, 
 and he who pursues it best, is the best man. 
 Human good, or the good of man as man, is 
 consequently energy according to the best 
 and most perfect virtue. 
 
 This is a brief outline of what I regard 
 as one of the -finest discussions in the whole 
 compass of ancient philosophy.* The no- 
 tion is predominant that happiness implies 
 the perfection of our nature, and that per- 
 fection, not so much in the habits consider- 
 ed as so many states, but in the unimpeded 
 exercise of the faculties themselves. The 
 being properly exerted is their good. Hap- 
 piness, therefore, is not something impart- 
 ed to the soul from without — it springs 
 
 * Nichom. Etliicks. Lib. i. c. 7. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 81 
 
 from the soul itself — it is the very glow 
 of its life. It is to the mind what health 
 is to the body — the regular and harmonious 
 action of all the functions of the frame. 
 It is not a gratification, not the pleasure 
 which results from the correspondence be- 
 tween an object and a faculty — ^it is the 
 very heat and fervour of spiritual life. All 
 this * is strikingly in accordance with the 
 doctrine of Scripture. Happiness there, too, 
 is represented as consisting in moral per- 
 fection, and moral perfection in virtuous 
 energies. It is a well of water within the 
 man, springing up to everlasting life. It is 
 treated as an image of the blessedness of 
 God; and when we remember the ceaseless 
 activity of the Divine nature — my Father 
 worketli hitherto and I luorJc — there cannot 
 be a more convincing proof that felicity 
 consists in energies. To be happy is not to 
 be torpid; it is not a state of indolent re- 
 pose, nor of the passive reception of ex- 
 traneous influences. It is to be like God, 
 who never slumbers nor sleeps, who fainteth 
 
32 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 not, neither is weary. This is the great 
 thought of the Bible. The defect of Aristotle 
 lies in this, that he has not explained how 
 these virtuous energies are to be elicited 
 and sustained in a course of unimpeded ac- 
 tion. We cannot think without thinking 
 something ; we cannot love, we cannot praise, 
 we cannot exercise any virtuous affection, 
 without exercising it upon something. An 
 abstraction wants life, and finite objects 
 limit, condition, and obstruct our energies. 
 Besides this, as we shall subsequently see, the 
 fundamental principle of virtue is love, and 
 love implies the existence of a person with 
 whom we are united in intimate fellowship. 
 Communion is indispensable to the energy 
 of holiness, and that the energy may be un- 
 impeded, the person with whom we are in 
 union, must be worthy of the intensest affec- 
 tions of which we are susceptible. He must 
 himself be the perfect good. Now, the Scrip- 
 tures propose the fellowship of God as the 
 consummation of felicity. We may concen- 
 trate upon Him all the faculties of our nature. 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 33 
 
 He can evoke their intensest activities — give 
 them full scope, and never put a period to 
 their flow. His favour is life^ and His loving- 
 kindness better than life. I shall be satisfied 
 when I awake in thy likeness. That man's 
 chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him 
 forever — that this and this only is happiness ; 
 that we enjoy as we glorify ; that the very 
 going forth of our energies upon Him, the 
 ever-blessed, is itself blessedness — this is the 
 doctrine which lies at the basis of the ethical 
 system of the Gospel. It is a doctrine which 
 philosophy never could have discovered, but 
 which it pronounces to be just as soon as the 
 terms are understood. We are so familiar 
 with the statement of it, we have it so often 
 on our lips, or hear it so often from the desk, 
 that we do not enter into the depth of mean- 
 ing it contains. In itself it is a grand 
 thought — a noble and exalted privilege. Fel- 
 lowship with God! the real communion of 
 our minds with His — what tongue can ex- 
 press it — what heart adequately conceive it ! 
 
 and yet this honour have all the saints. It is 
 
 2* 
 
34 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 not a figure, not a flourish of rhetoric, — no 
 dream of the mystic. It is a great fact ; and 
 in reflecting upon it, I have often been im- 
 pressed with the words of a dying saint : 
 "Preach it at my funeral, publish it at my 
 burial, that the Lord converses familiarly with 
 man." His secret is indeed with them that 
 fear Him, and He will show them His cove- 
 nant. How coarse and degrading, by the side 
 of this doctrine, do those views of happiness 
 appear, which make it consist in pleasure! 
 which, instead of setting man upon the im- 
 provement of himself, the perfection of his 
 nature, and the expansion of his energies 
 in communion with God, sends him in quest 
 of the beggarly elements of earth, which all 
 are to perish in the using. There cannot 
 be a greater obstruction to the pursuit of 
 real happiness, than the love of pleasure. It 
 relaxes and debilitates the mind — destroys the 
 tone of the spirit — superinduces languor upon 
 all the faculties; it is the grave of energy. 
 Hence is that of Scripture ; she that liveth in 
 pleasure is dead while she liveth. If happiness 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 35 
 
 is an adumbration of the blessedness of God — 
 and it must be so, — if it is the glory of man 
 to bear the image of God — the whole subject 
 is manifestly degraded, when it is reduced to 
 the analogy of the enjoyment of a brute. Take 
 the account which is given by Paley,* and 
 happiness consists not only in a succession of 
 pleasurable sensations, but sensations imme- 
 diately connected with the body. It is a sort 
 of tickling in the region of the heart. He 
 openly declares, too, that there is no essential 
 difference among pleasures but that of in- 
 tensity and continuance. The main thing is 
 enjoyment ; and so a man enjoys himself, he 
 need ask no further question. The superiority 
 of the soul to the body, the coarseness of 
 some, and the excellence of other pleasures 
 — the dignity and refinement of moral, in- 
 tellectual and spiritual gratifications — all this 
 is idle declamation. He that scratches with ' 
 the itch, experiences as noble satisfaction as 
 he that rejoices in charity, or whose soul ,yy 
 turns upon the poles of truth. This funda- 
 
 * Moral and Political Philosophy. Book i., chap. 6. 
 
86 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 mental error, that happiness is pleasure, per- 
 vades society. It is the animating spirit of 
 the eager and restless struggle for wealth, 
 honour and power. It is the grand delusion 
 of sin; a delusion, whose potent speU no 
 experience has been able to dissolve — no 
 reasoning to dissipate. It is the vanity of the 
 carnal heart, " every age renews the inquiry 
 after an earthly felicity — the design is entail- 
 ed, and re-inforced with as great a confidence 
 and vigour as if none had been baffled or de- 
 feated in it before." Philanthropy projects 
 upon it its visionary schemes for the benefit 
 of the race, and forgetting that all real im- 
 provement must begin within, directs its as- 
 saults upon the outward and accidental — aims 
 its blows at the social fabric, and seeks to in- 
 troduce an order of things which shall equal- 
 ly distribute the sources of enjoyment. Let 
 all men be equally rich, is the insidious fal- 
 lacy, — equally fed, equally clothed, equally 
 exalted in social and political condition, and 
 like cattle in the same pasture, they must 
 all be equally happy. "What serious heart 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 87 
 
 doth not melt and bleed for miserable men, 
 that are through a just Nemesis so perpetually 
 mocked with shadows, cheated with false, 
 delusive appearances, infatuated and betrayed 
 by their own senses. They walk but in a 
 vain show, disquieting themselves in vain, 
 their days flee away as a shadow; their 
 strength is only labour and sorrow; while 
 they rise up early and lie down late to seek 
 rest in trouble, and life in death."" Behold I 
 show you a more excellent way ; — fear God 
 and keep his commandments — for this is the 
 whole of man; this is his being's end and 
 aim. 
 
 2. Intimately connected with the subject 
 of happiness is that of holiness. As happiness 
 is an image of the blessedness, so holiness is 
 an image of the moral perfections of God. It 
 is, consequently, that, in the energies of which, 
 happiness must essentially consist. It is God's 
 likeness that fits us to see His face. It is, 
 therefore, a matter of the very last importance 
 that we should know what holiness is ; or, if 
 
 * Howe's Blessedness of the Righteous, chap. 11. 
 
38 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 incomprehensible in its essence, that we should 
 understand its phenomena and relations. It 
 is only from the Bible that we can obtain 
 any satisfactory light upon these points. 
 Philosophy can discourse of virtues — virtues 
 in the habit and virtues in the act — it can 
 classify and arrange the duties they exact ; 
 but when the question arises as to the unity 
 of rectitude, it is utterly unable to answer. 
 Truth is right, justice is right, benevolence is 
 right, temperance is right, the habits which 
 prompt to the observance of these virtues are 
 right ; but are all these one and the same 
 right ? If one, in what does their unity con- 
 sist? The actions of truth are certainly dif- 
 ferent from those of temperance ; the actions 
 of benevolence are as clearly different from 
 those of justice ; the habits are obviously so 
 many different subjective states. Where, 
 then, is the unity, and why is the same term 
 applied in common to them all ? Philosophy 
 can only dissect consciousness, and conscious- 
 ness can only reveal to us the primitive cog- 
 nition« of the moral faculty, which the consti- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 39 
 
 tution of our nature compels to accept as the 
 criteria of right. Philosophy, consequently, 
 can give no other answer to the question, than 
 that all these things, though various in them- 
 selves, receive a common name in consequence 
 of a common relation to conscience. They are 
 all commanded by it. As truth is essentially 
 conformity with the laws of the understanding, 
 so virtue is essentially conformity with the 
 laws of conscience. Here philosophy stops. 
 Beyond consciousness it cannot penetrate; 
 and though it may surmise that there is a 
 higher unity in which all these laws are ulti- 
 mately grounded, it is unable to lay its hand 
 upon it, and bring it to light. Here the 
 Scriptures come in with their doctrine of 
 holiness ; and what philosophy had surmised, 
 they abundantly confirm. What, then, is 
 holiness ? It is not a single habit ; it is not a 
 complement of habits ; — it is a nature, and by 
 nature we are to understand, not the collection 
 of properties, which distinguish one being 
 from another, but a generic disposition which 
 determines, modifies and regulates all its ac- 
 
40 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 tivities and states — the law of its mode of 
 existence. It is that out of which habit 
 grows, from which every single action ulti- 
 mately proceeds. There is a nature in the 
 lion, the dog, the tiger, which determines their 
 manner of life — a nature in all beings, which 
 makes them as they are. Without it there 
 could be no character, no habits, no consistent 
 operations. All action would be fortuitous 
 and arbitrary. In itself we canngt define it, 
 belonging as it does to that class of things 
 which, incomprehensible in themselves, and 
 incapable of being represented in thought, 
 are yet matters of necessary belief But as 
 there are, within the sphere of our daily ex- 
 perience, various generic dispositions, each 
 of which serves as the basis of very different 
 habits, there is nothing incredible in suppos- 
 ing that there may be one great central dis- 
 position, in which all others are grounded. 
 The general temper of sadness has numberless 
 manifestations ; the same is true of joy ; and 
 there may be a temper or tone of mind in 
 which all virtuous activities are united. To 
 
OFTHEBIBLE. 41 
 
 illustrate the all-pervading influence of holi- 
 ness as a nature, the Scriptures employ the 
 striking analogy of life. When we ask the 
 question what is life, we soon become sen- 
 sible that we are dealing with a subject that 
 eludes the capacity of thought. We cannot 
 seize it in itself; we see its effects; we wit- 
 ness its operations ; we can mark the symp- 
 toms which distinguish its presence. But the 
 thing itself no mortal mind can apprehend. 
 We can only speak of it as the unknown cause 
 of numberless phenomena which we notice. 
 Where is life ? Is it here and not there ? Is 
 it there and not here ? Is it in the heart, the 
 head, the hands, the feet ? It evidently per- 
 vades the man — it is the condition, the in- 
 dispensable condition of the organic action of 
 every part of the frame. The body may be 
 perfect in its structure : it may have every 
 limb, and nerve, and muscle, and foreign in- 
 fluences may be made to mimic the operations 
 of life ; but if life be not there, these actions, 
 or rather motions, are essentially distinct from 
 those of the living man. In like manner 
 
*m THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 holiness pervades the soul. Though not a 
 habit, nor a collection of habits, it is the in- 
 dispensable condition of them all. It is not 
 here nor there, but is diiFused through the 
 whole man — the understanding, the will, the 
 conscience, the affections — it underlies all 
 dispositions and habitudes, and is felt in all 
 the thoughts and desires. All moral qualities 
 inhere in it, as properties inhere in substance. 
 It is to the moral faculties of man what ex- 
 tension is to matter — the very form of their 
 existence. 
 
 As natural life has its characteristic func- 
 tions, so spiritual life has its distinguishing 
 tendencies. They all point to God. The 
 very essence of a holy nature is sympathy 
 with the Divine perfections — a state of the 
 soul which harmonizes with the Divine will — 
 which attracts it to God — which produces a 
 communion, a fellowship, a familiarity, if I 
 may so speak, that instinctively detects the 
 impressions of God, wherever they are found. 
 It is fundamentally the principle of love to 
 Him ; its true expression is that of union with 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 43 
 
 Him; and even where there is no direct 
 reference to His name, it gives tone and com- 
 plexion to all moral and intellectual exercises. 
 This love to God, not as a single habit, not as 
 a series of particular affections, but as the 
 ground-form of all, as the fundamental law 
 of their manifestation, is the nearest approach 
 we can make to the description of holiness 
 as a state. This is the reason why fellowship 
 with God must be the perfection of a holy 
 being. Love demands it. Communion is the 
 life of love ; and this, too, is the reason why 
 love is said to be the fulfilling of the lavf — 
 not that benevolence or any individual sen- 
 timents of kindness^— not even that gratitude 
 to God or the adoration and praise of His 
 excellencies, as single and independent exer- 
 cises, fulfil the law, but that state of the soul 
 which is in deepest harmony with God, and 
 finds its full manifestation only in a sense of 
 union and correspondence with Him, contains 
 the elements of all true virtue. Here is their 
 centre of unity, and their point of divergence. 
 Schleiermacher was right in making the es- 
 
 (/ 
 
M THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 sence of religion, subjectively considered, to 
 be feeling, in the extended sense which he 
 has given to that term ; but he was wrong in 
 making that feeling, a sense of absolute de- 
 pendence upon God. Had he put love for 
 dependence, and distinguished between it as 
 a pervading tone of the mind, and as mani- 
 fested in special operations, his analysis would 
 have coincided substantially with that of the 
 beloved Apostle : He that dioelleth in love 
 dwelleth in God and God in him. So also 
 there is a subjective unity in sin. Depravity, 
 like holiness, is a generic state — the law of a 
 mode of existence and operation. It is de- 
 nominated in the Scriptures death, and the 
 term is happily chosen, as it impressively 
 exhibits its pervading influence upon all the 
 powers and faculties of the man. The ques- 
 tion of total depravity could never have been 
 raised, if the Scripture notion of depravity 
 had been steadily apprehended. It must 
 either be total or not at all. The man who is 
 dead is dead all over. As the ground-form 
 of holiness is love to God, or rather the spirit 
 
OF I HE BIBLE. 45 
 
 of love to God, so the ground-form of sin is 
 the spirit of opposition ; the carnal mind is 
 enmity against God. 
 
 In this analysis of holiness and sin, I main- 
 tain that the Scriptures have rendered a real 
 contribution to the philosophy of our nature. 
 The fact, that there was an essential unity in 
 each, had been previously felt and distinctly 
 asserted by the Peripatetics and the Stoics, 
 but in what that unity consisted, their igno- 
 rance of God and of all true communion with 
 Him precluded them from the possibility of 
 answering. The unrenewed man is destitute 
 of those elements of consciousness, out of 
 which alone an answer could be reflectively 
 extracted. It was reserved for Christianity, 
 in revealing the true God, to reveal, at the 
 same time, the moral excellence of man. The 
 Scriptural account of holiness resolves a diffi- 
 culty which, I apprehend, every young man 
 has felt, in explaining the effects which the 
 history of the fall attributes to a single sin 
 upon a nature originally upright. If we 
 were left to conjecture and speculation, we 
 
46 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 might suppose that, as a habit is not likely to 
 be formed from a single act, the principle of 
 rectitude would still remain, though weakened 
 in its power, and by vigourous and systematic 
 efforts might recover from the shock which, 
 to some extent, had disordered the moral con- 
 stitution. Bishop Butler^' speaks with hesita- 
 tion in relation to the degree of injury which 
 might be expected to accrue from the first 
 full overt act of irregularity, though he has 
 no backwardness in regard to the natural re- 
 sults of a confirmed habit. The difficulty is 
 created by overlooking the reality of govern- 
 ment and the peculiarity of holiness. In con- 
 templating the effect of the first transgression 
 on the part of an upright creature, we are 
 not to confine our view to the tendency of 
 the act to form a habit, as if the law of habit 
 were the only law under which it does its 
 mischief We are to bear in mind, that as 
 we are under government, as well as pos- 
 sessed of a moral constitution, it has also 
 judicial consequences, which must enter into 
 
 * Analogy. Part i., chap. 5. 
 
OFTHEBIBLE. 47 
 
 the estimate of the extent of injury sustained 
 by the inner man. Now, as holiness, which 
 is the foundation of the virtuous principle, 
 the key-stone of the arch which maintains an 
 upright nature in its integrity, consists es- 
 sentially in union with God, whatever alienates 
 Him, must destroy it. This is precisely what 
 every sin does ; it provokes His curse, breaks 
 the harmony of the soul with Him, and re- 
 moves that which is the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of all true excellence. The sinner must 
 die ; the moment that God frowns in anger, 
 death invades the soul. It is the judicial 
 consequence of sin. 
 
 3. The third and last point to which I shall 
 advert, as distinguishing the ethical teaching 
 of the Bible, is the answer which it gives to 
 the question : How shall man accomplish the 
 end of his being ? How shall he acquire that 
 perfection of nature, that holiness of state, 
 without which he can never see God and live ? 
 There is evidently a double work to be done 
 — a, change to be effected in his judicial re- 
 lations, and in the temper and dispositions of 
 
48 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 the soul. As to the method of achieving the 
 first, philosophy is completely dumb. The 
 scheme of redemption, by which pardon and 
 acceptance are secured, is necessitated by no 
 principles of natural light — it is the offspring 
 of infinite wisdom, begotten by infinite grace. 
 But philosophy may aspire to institute a dis- 
 cipline by which the sinner shall restore his 
 shattered constitution to integrity, and attain 
 the perfection to which he was originally 
 destined. There is a strong feeling in us all, 
 that though damaged, we are not ruined by 
 the fall ; that we still possess the elements of 
 our ancient greatness, and that, by care and 
 diligence on our part, we can repair the mis- 
 chief that has been done. 
 
 I am far, very far from detracting from the 
 benefits of a moral education, or saying aught 
 to depreciate the importance of the most 
 scrupulous self-culture. We can accomplish 
 much by energy of purpose, by fidelity to 
 conscience, by sensibility to honour. We can 
 employ the principles of our nature, fallen 
 though it be, in the consummation of a char- 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 49- 
 
 acter, which shall be distinguished by habits 
 of nearly every specific virtue. The virgins, 
 who went up and down in quest of them, 
 might have gathered all the limbs of the 
 mangled body of Osiris, and put them to- 
 gether in their order, but it would not have 
 been Osiris himself We can form habits of 
 nearly all that is materially right, and yet be 
 wanting in the true principle of holiness. It 
 is a great mistake to suppose that total de- 
 pravity means devilish wickedness. Death is 
 one thing, and the putrefaction of the body 
 another. Now, the Scriptures teach us that 
 the highest attainments of nature are only 
 dead works. Left to itself, without check or 
 hinderance to its spontaneous develop ements, 
 it would produce nothing but wicked works ; 
 but modified by education, by example, by 
 society, and the thousand influences which 
 co-operate in the formation of character, it 
 may exhibit the loveliness of life on the fea- 
 tures long after life has fled. Man can only 
 act in obedience to his nature ; from the 
 very definition of the term, it is the law of 
 
60 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 his mode of existence or of life. He can 
 never, therefore, escape from the pervading 
 power of depravity. He may check one ten- 
 dency by another, counteract one motive by 
 another — just as in the physical world, one 
 law may be made to controul another, and 
 effects may be produced by their combination 
 which neither could singly produce. But we 
 can never rise above these laws. All power, 
 after all, is in obedience. So man can never 
 rise above his nature — all education is within 
 its sphere. Hence the utter and absolute im- 
 possibility of transferring himself from a state 
 of depravity to that of holiness. He must be 
 BORN again. The new nature must be im- 
 parted, and as it tends to God, it must come 
 from God. Until the Divine Spirit shall 
 renew us, we are incompetent to perform a 
 single work that is acceptable to God. The 
 victims which we bring to the altar are only 
 lifeless carcasses. It is idleness to talk of a 
 discipline in holiness to him to whom the 
 primum mobile is wanting. Neither does the 
 Bible leave us, after imparting the elemental 
 
OF THE BIBLfi. 61- 
 
 germ of holiness, to the principle of habit, or 
 any other law of developement and growth, 
 to effect the perfection of our being. Having 
 brought us into a state of fellowship with God, 
 it maintains that fellowship by constant com- 
 munications of His love — by unceasing assist- 
 ances of grace. We r^re committed to the 
 tuition of the Holy Ghost, and under His guid- 
 ance and inspiration we rise from one form to 
 another, until we are rendered meet for the 
 inheritance of the saints in light. Hence the 
 subjective states in which our holiness is 
 manifested are not denominated habits but 
 graces. They are not acquisitions but gifts ; 
 and to remind us perpetually of the source 
 of all the excellence that attaches to us, the 
 very language we employ is a confession of 
 our own impotency, and an acknowledgment 
 of God's free favour. 
 
 I have now completed what I had to say 
 upon the ethical system of the Bible. The 
 true light in which redemption should be 
 habitually contemplated is that of a Divine in- 
 stitute of holiness. Its immediate end is to 
 
52 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM 
 
 restore the union which sin has broken be- 
 
 * 
 
 tween ourselves and God. It starts out with 
 the great thought, that the happiness of an 
 intelligent and moral creature is not some- 
 thing foreign — not the possession of an out- 
 ward and separate good — not shining courts 
 nor splendid halls, nor any other princely equi- 
 page of state — ^but the exercise of its own 
 energies in God. To be happy it must be in 
 sympathy with the author of its being. Upon 
 this lofty eminence the whole scheme is 
 erected, and all its arrangements are directed 
 to the achievement of two results — the re- 
 moval of those judicial consequences of sin 
 which repel God from the sinner, and of those 
 moral obstructions which repel the sinner 
 from God. Jesus, as the daysman betwixt 
 them, comes in and lays his hand upon them 
 both. He bears our sins in his own body 
 on the tree, and thus reconciles God to us ; 
 he cleanses our hearts by the washing of re- 
 generation, and thus reconciles us to God, 
 and the first friendly interview of the parties 
 takes place at the foot of the cross when we 
 
OF THE BIBLE. 53 
 
 believe in Jesus. This whole scheme involves 
 the moral system, the system, if you please, 
 of Divine philosophy upon which the govern- 
 ment of God is conducted. It is the ethical 
 system of the universe, and the Gospel is the 
 only means, accordingly, by which we can 
 attain true integrity. In rejecting it, we 
 are not rejecting crowns and sceptres ; we 
 are rejecting the very essence of virtue, and 
 it is idle to pretend to a profound reverence 
 for rectitude, when we disregard the only 
 means by which we can be restored to it. 
 In this moral aspect I am anxious to recom- 
 mend it to you. All your present excellencies 
 are dead works, and when the influences 
 which now embalm and preserve the corpse 
 are gone, it will putrefy and stink. The first 
 step in real moral improvement, is faith in the 
 Son of God. When that step is taken, we 
 begin to live; until then, we are dead in 
 trespasses and sins. 
 
C|f fo\3t of Crut^. 
 
 " Whatsoever things are true, think on these things." 
 PniLippiANs, iv. 8. 
 
 The injunction of the text, to 
 DISC. II.J 
 
 trunk on whatsoever things are 
 
 true, obviously implies that the love of 
 truth, for its own sake, is a habit which we 
 are bound to cultivate and cherish. If it is 
 the circumstance of their being true, which 
 entitles these things to our attention and re- 
 gard, and makes it our duty to investigate 
 and pursue them, there must be something in 
 truth, essentially considered, which commends 
 it to the moral approbation of the species. It 
 s to be regretted that philosophers, in com- 
 menting upon the obligation of veracity, have 
 not paid sufficient attention to the habit or 
 general disposition of the soul, which lies at 
 the foundation of everv form of the virtue — 
 
THE LOVE OF TllUTH., |5S 
 
 of accuracy in narrative, sincerity in conduct, 
 and fidelity to engagements. Commentators 
 have even gone so far as to maintain that the 
 apostle, in the words before us, had his eye 
 only upon that species of truth, which relates 
 to the social intercourse of men ; taking it for 
 granted that this is the only kind of truth to 
 which an ethical character pertains. One* 
 represents him as describing " moral charac- 
 ters and the duties of a Christian," and ac- 
 cordingly restricts his meaning to "integrity 
 and uprightness in opposition to hypocrisy, 
 insincerity, or moral falsehood." The convic- 
 tion seems to be common, that the operations 
 of the understanding are not immediately 
 under the cognizance of conscience, and that 
 of the processes by which we form our specu- 
 lative opinions, virtue and vice can neither 
 be affirmed nor denied. These speculations 
 are often directed to subjects in their own 
 nature indifferent, and it is confidently in- 
 ferred, that because the objects of our thoughts 
 have nothing to do with the distinctions of 
 
 * Dr. Watts. Sermon on this text. 
 
66 THE LOVK OP' TKUTH. 
 
 morality, our thoughts themselves are equally 
 exempt from a moral character. Hence has 
 arisen the dogma that we are not responsi- 
 ble for our opinions. The understanding is 
 treated as a series of faculties, subject to its 
 own laws, moving in a peculiar and restricted 
 sphere, having no other connection with con- 
 science thaA as it analyzes and applies the 
 rules of morality to the cases of practice, 
 which are constantly occurring in the busi- 
 ness of the world. It may study, arrange and 
 digest the moral code, but the laws which it 
 acknowledges have no reference to its own 
 processes, but only to the conduct of life. 
 
 This, however, is not the doctrine of the 
 Scriptures. They represent the domain of mo- 
 rality as extending to the whole nature of 
 man. Whatever directly or indirectly falls 
 under the jurisdiction of the will possesses an 
 ethical character, and may be the occasion to 
 us of praise or blame, according to the prin- 
 ciples and habits by which we have been 
 governed. The morality does not attach to 
 the processes or faculties themselves, but to 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 67 
 
 tlie spirit and temper, the motives and pur- 
 poses, which have shaped and determined 
 their operations. There is a general sense in 
 which all the elements of our spiritual nature 
 are in subjection to the will. The springs of 
 action, in our appetites, affections and desires, 
 with which we are endowed, all act blindly ; 
 they simply impel, but they do not direct. 
 They cannot regulate their own motions ; 
 they cannot prescribe the extent or circum- 
 stances of their gratification, or determine the 
 relative value of the objects which elicit them. 
 They rouse the will; and that must consult 
 the conscience and the understanding as to 
 the course to be pursued. Corresponding to 
 all these springs of action there are moral 
 laws, in obedience to which the will must con- 
 trol them. These laws, ingrained into the 
 nature, and invested with the supremacy 
 which belongs to them, are so many habits 
 of virtue, the complement of which makes up 
 integrity of character. In the springs of ac- 
 tion themselves there is nothing directly vir- 
 tuous or vicious — they are simply indifferent, a 
 
58 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 It is when they have put the man in the atti- 
 tude of motion that responsibility begins, and 
 according to the principles upon which he 
 treats them he is entitled to praise or blame. 
 These motive impulses are adjusted to the 
 whole nature of man. Some spring from the 
 body and operate at periodic intervals — such 
 as hunger and thirst, the appetite of sex, and 
 the desire of repose. There is nothing virtu- 
 ous or vicious in any of the naked appetites ; 
 but virtue and vice may attach to the meth- 
 ods of their gratification. There may be ex- 
 cess, as in gluttony and drunkenness, food 
 may be unlawfully procured, or may consist 
 of materials prejudicial to the health of the 
 system. Other springs of action are directed 
 to the mind — among which one of the most 
 prominent is curiosity, or the desire of knowl- 
 edge. In this, also, there is nothing directly 
 moral ; but an ethical character ensues, the 
 very moment the will pronounces upon the 
 manner, the ends, and the extent of its grati- 
 fication. When the question arises, how shall 
 this desire of knowledge be gratified? there 
 
THE LOVPJ OF TllUTH. 59 
 
 are moral laws in conformity with which the 
 will is compelled to decide. Other springs 
 of action are directed to the nurture and cul- 
 tivation of the finer afiections of the heart ; 
 and like those already enumerated, are indif- 
 ferent in themselves, though the modes, and 
 measure, and objects of their indulgence are 
 equally subject to the jurisdiction of the con- 
 science. As, then, there are principles of ac- 
 tion designed to stimulate every department 
 of our nature, and as the method, end and 
 extent of their operation are to be deter- 
 mined by the moral understanding, every de- 
 partment of man's nature is brought under 
 the cognizance of moral law, and he may be 
 virtuous, or vicious on account of his opin- 
 ions and sentiments as well as on account of 
 his conduct. The law in conformity with 
 which we are bound to regulate the impulses 
 of curiosity, is the love of truth. This law, 
 written upon the heart, incorporated into the 
 nature, strengthened into a habit, constitutes 
 the measure of the morality of intellect. It. 
 is no* merely an accomplishment, an excet (/ 
 
 / 
 
60 THE LOVE OF TliUTH. 
 
 lence, a beauty; it is an indispensable duty 
 to aim at truth in all the excursions of the 
 understanding. It is as much a moral obli- 
 gation to seek for it in our opinions as to 
 express it in our words, or to manifest it in 
 our conduct. We are responsible for the 
 opinions which we form, not merely as these 
 opinions are connected with conduct, or are 
 probably the offspring of corrupt affections, 
 but on the ground that the love of truth, in 
 the whole extent and variety of its import, is 
 an imperative and indestructible duty. This 
 is the uniform teaching of the Scriptures. 
 This is implied in the exhortation to buy the 
 truth and sell it not, to seek that wisdom 
 which is only another name for it, as for hid- 
 den treasures, and to prefer its merchandise 
 to that of gold and silver. Jesus Christ com- 
 mends Himself to our confidence and love on 
 the ground of His being the truth — promised 
 the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth, de- 
 nounced the vengeance of God upon those 
 who believed Him not when He had told 
 them the truth, and makes it the glory of the 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 61 
 
 Father that He is the God of truth, and the 
 shame and everlasting infamy of the Prince 
 of darkness that he is the father of lies. The 
 eulogies directly and indirectly bestowed in 
 the Scriptures upon truth, knowledge, under- 
 standing, wisdom, have special reference, we 
 freely concede, to that department of truth 
 which is the immediate subject of Divine rev- 
 elation, but they would be evidently point- 
 less and meaningless, if truth in general were 
 not intrinsically a good, and a good of such a 
 nature as to lay the understanding under a 
 formal obligation to receive it. 
 
 It is, indeed, as the ancients well expressed 
 it, the food of the soul, pabulum animi. 
 There is a natural congruity betwixt it and 
 the structure of the mind. The one corre- 
 sponds to the other as light to the eye and 
 sounds' to the ear. The existence of such a 
 desire as curiosity is a clear intimation, that 
 man was formed for intelligence as well as for 
 action, and the adjustment of his faculties to 
 the objects by which he is surrounded, is a 
 command from God to exercise them accord- 
 
 v" 
 
^2 THE LOVE OF T HUT II. 
 
 ing to the laws by whicli He has defined their 
 operation, in the acquisition of knowledge. 
 Aristotle* having divided the rational facul- 
 ties of man into speculative and practical, 
 proceeds to determine what is the best habit 
 of each. The best habit of anything he de- 
 nominates its virtue, and very justly observes 
 that the virtue of each object is ascertained 
 by its fitness for performing its peculiar func- 
 tions. These faculties evidently point to 
 truth — the one speculative, the other practical 
 — as their appropriate function, and hence 
 are a call of God, through the essential cdn- 
 stitution of the mind, to seek for wisdom. 
 This doctrine seems to me to be expressly 
 and directly taught in a passage of the Eude- 
 mian Ethicks,f which has been the occasion 
 of not a little perplexity to the commentators. 
 The Stagyrite there makes God the principle 
 of motion in the human soul, and treats the 
 fundamental deliverances of consciousness as 
 inspirations of the Almighty, more certain 
 
 ♦ Nicliora. Ethicks. 
 
 t Lib. vii. c. 14, quoted iu Hamilton's Reid, p. 773. 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 63 
 
 than any deductions of science or reason, and 
 as the conditions upon which all subsequent 
 knowledge depends. God has made us cog- 
 nitive beings. He has impressed upon us 
 necessary and indestructible laws of belief, 
 and if there be any force in the argument 
 from final causes, we are obliged to regard 
 the pursuit of knowledge as a part of the law 
 of our being. It is the end of the mind to 
 know, as it is of the eye to see, the ear to 
 hear, or the heart to feel. Every man is as 
 distinctly organized in reference to truth as 
 in reference to any other purpose. 
 
 It deserves farther to be remarked, that it 
 is the prerogative of truth alone to invigorate 
 the mind. The distinctions of sophistry and 
 error may impart acuteness, quicken sagacity, 
 and stimulate readiness, but what is gained in 
 sharpness is lost in -expansion and solidity. 
 The minuteness of vision which falls to the 
 lot of whole tribes of insects, is suited only to 
 a narrow sphere, and to diminutive objects. 
 The eye which can detect the latent animal- 
 cules which teem in the air, the water, and 
 
64 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 the soil, is incompetent to embrace in its 
 range the glories of heaven, or the beauties 
 of earth. The dexterity and readiness which 
 defences of falsehood are suited to produce, 
 is not a free, generous, healthful activity, but 
 a diseased condition of the system, aralogous 
 to that induced by fever, or poisonous and 
 stimulating potions. But truth is a food 
 which the soul digests, it strengthens and 
 consolidates the mind, and is in every view 
 worthy of the high encomiums which the an- 
 cient sages were accustomed to lavish upon 
 the pursuits of their favourite philosophy, as 
 the wealth of reason ; the culture and medi- 
 cine of the soul ; the choicest gift of heaven. 
 
 There is another aspect in which the love 
 of truth, as the pervading law of our specu- 
 lative inquiries, may be satisfactorily exhib- 
 ited. The moral and intellectual natures of 
 man are so intimately connected, their mu- 
 tual dependence so nicely adjusted, their 
 action and reaction so perfect and complete, 
 that confusion of understanding is always 
 accompaU *.ed with corresponding lubricity of 
 
THE LOVE OF TKUTH. 66 
 
 principle, and he whose perceptions of truth 
 are not remarkable for clearness and preci- 
 sion, will most surely be distinguished by an 
 equal obscurity in his conceptions of rectitude. 
 The moral duties which we are required to 
 perform, may be contemplated as speculative 
 principles, whose truth must be submitted to 
 the decision of reason, as well as authoritative 
 laws of the conscience, whose precepts we are 
 bound to obey. There must be an exercise 
 of the reflective understanding, in eliminating 
 the primary dicta of our moral nature, and in 
 determining the occasions and circumstances 
 which call for the application of particular 
 rules. The regulation of our conduct is not 
 dependent upon instinct. Aristotle, among 
 the ancients, was unquestionably in advance 
 of every age which preceded the introduction 
 of Christianity, and still in advance of many 
 who call themselves Christians, in his clear 
 and steady perception of the indissoluble con- 
 nection betwixt the cogitative and practical 
 departments of man's nature in reference to 
 dutv. He treats it as a distinction betwixt 
 
6Q THE LOVE OF TKL'TH. 
 
 virtue and science, that the latter is restricted 
 to one portion of the soul, while the former 
 embraces all the elements of our being. 
 " There are three principles," he affirms in 
 the Nichomachean Ethicks, " which, either 
 single or combined, are the sovereign judges 
 of truth and conduct. These are, sensation, 
 intellect and appetite. Of these three, mere 
 sensation cannot alone be the foundation of 
 any judgment respecting the conduct, that is, 
 the propriety of action ; for wild beasts have 
 perception by sense, but are totally unac- 
 quainted with propriety. Affirming and de- 
 nying are the operations of intellect ; desire 
 and aversion are those of appetite ; and since 
 moral virtue implies the habit of just election, 
 and election or preference resolves itself into 
 deliberation and appetite, every act of virtu- 
 ous preference requires, that there should be 
 accuracy and truth in the comparison, as well 
 as correctness and propriety in the desire." 
 In conformity with this reasoning, he subse- 
 quently denominates the moral election or 
 preference peculiar to man, "an impassioned 
 
THE LOVE OF TEUTH. 67 
 
 intelligence or reflecting appetite." Who is 
 not reminded of Bishop Butler's "sentiment of 
 the understanding or perception of the heart?" Y 
 The investigation of duty, involving so obvi- 
 ously the exercise of judgment, those philos- 
 ophers are not to be rashly condemned, who 
 attribute to the same faculty of the mind, the 
 power of distinguishing betwixt right and 
 wrong, -which, it is confessed, distinguishes 
 betwixt truth and falsehood. They feel that 
 the mental processes are so nearly identical, 
 that they cannot but regard it as an unneces- 
 sary multiplication of original powers, to have 
 a peculiar understanding conversant only 
 about moral truth, while another understand- 
 ing is admitted to exist, which deals in truth 
 of every other kind. Our faculties, which are 
 only convenient names for the various opera- 
 tions of a simple and indivisible substance, 
 derive their appellation, not from the specific 
 differences of the objects about which they 
 are employed, but from their general nature. 
 The discovery of truth, it is maintained, is as 
 much an end to the moral inquirer who is 
 
 1^ 
 
6S T HE L \' E O F T R U T H . 
 
 seeking, under given circumstances, to deter- 
 mine his duty, as it is to the physical philoso- 
 pher, whose investigations cannot be legiti- 
 mately pushed beyond the province cf exist- 
 ing phenomena. The same laws of evidence, 
 the same original principles, the same ele- 
 ments of human belief, and the same process 
 of patient analysis and patient induction, are, 
 or ought to be, common to both, and can no 
 more be discarded with impunity by ihe one 
 than they can be by the other. 
 
 This reasoning is certainly plausible, though 
 not conclusive. There is judgment in the 
 decisions of the conscience, and the laws in 
 conformity with which that faculty pronoun- 
 ces what Kant calls its categorical imperative, 
 become standards of evidence, the constitu- 
 tive and regulative principles of operation 
 in all that pertaifis to rectitude and duty. 
 Mere speculation could never suggest to us 
 the notions of right and wrong, of virtue or a 
 crime; but the materials which conscience 
 supplies become the subjects of philosophic 
 contemplation, and are worked up in vhe lab- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 69 
 
 orator}" of reflection, into abstract principles, 
 which must react upon the conscience. The 
 moral opinions framed by the understanding 
 from the phenomena of conscience, will con- 
 stitute our code of right, and in the applica- 
 tion of this code to the countless contingencies 
 and diversified occasions of life, there is room 
 for the influence of judgment in determining 
 what principles to apply. There can, conse- 
 quently, be no progress in virtue beyond the 
 merest elements, or primary dicta of our moral 
 constitution, without progress in intelligence. 
 Knowledge is as essential to responsibility as 
 conscience. Hence a variable or fluctuating 
 standard of truth necessarily introduces a 
 variable and fluctuating standard of morals ; 
 whatever system legitimates error legitimates 
 crime; whatever blinds the understanding 
 corrupts the heart. The moral nature, devel- 
 oped s'de by side with the intellectual, and 
 in a large measure dependent upon it, is al- 
 ways involved in the same ruin. Rude and 
 barbarous nations are as much indebted to 
 imbecility of reason, superinduced by neglect 
 
70 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 of cultivation, false associations, or ill-judged 
 discipline, for their mistaken apprehensions 
 of good and evil in the practical details of 
 life, as to depravity of taste or perversion of 
 moral sensibility. Their deeds of darkness 
 are performed without compunctious visitings 
 of conscience, not because that messenger of 
 God slumbers in the breast, or is bribed by 
 the sinner to hold its peace, or prevaricates 
 in regard to the fundamental distinctions of 
 right and wrong, but because that light is 
 extinguished, that soundness of judgment is 
 wanting, without which it is impossible to 
 discriminate in the cases presented. The 
 moral habits can no more expand nor take 
 root downwards and bear fruit upwards, 
 while the understanding, the true sun of the 
 intellectual system, is veiled in darkness, than 
 the plants and herbage of nature can flourish 
 in beauty and luxuriance without the genial 
 light of the day. The sense of obligation is 
 always just in proportion to the enlargement 
 of the mind with liberal views of the relations 
 of mankind; and although the knowledge 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 71 
 
 of the right does not necessarily secure its 
 practice, it does secure what is always of 
 vast importance to society, remorse to the 
 guilty, and a homage of respect to the good. 
 He that acknowledges a legitimate standard 
 of moral obligation will find in his conscience 
 a check to those crimes, which, through weak- 
 ness, he is unable to suppress ; a restraint upon 
 those passions which, through frailty, cannot 
 be subdued. The transgressor, who violates 
 rules of unquestioned authority, which his 
 own understanding has deduced from the 
 phenomena of conscience, will assuredly drive 
 tranquillity from his bosom and repose from 
 his couch. He sins indeed, but without that 
 moral hardihood which attaches to those who, 
 in their blindness and ignorance, put light for 
 darkness, and bitter for sweet. They are the 
 most dangerous ojBfenders who tamper with 
 the principles of rectitude itself, who seek to 
 escape the reproaches of conscience by de- 
 grading the standard of moral obligation; 
 who pursue peace at tl>e expense of truth, 
 and extinguish the light that they may not 
 
72 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 behold the calamity of their state. The aban- 
 doned condition of the Gentile world, which 
 the Apostle graphically describes in the first 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, is nlti- 
 mately traced to the vanity of their thoughts 
 and the darkness of their minds ; and those to 
 whom the Gospel is hid, have their minds 
 blinded by the God of this world, lest the 
 light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is 
 the image of God, should shine into them and 
 reveal the glory of the Lord, by the contem- 
 plation of which, they might be transformed 
 into the same image from glory to glory. 
 There is hope of reformation as long as the 
 principles remain uncorrupted ; but when the 
 light which is in us is converted into darkness, 
 when lies are greedily embraced and errors 
 deliberately justified, the climax of guilt has 
 been reached, the ruin of the character is 
 complete, and the perdition of the soul, with- 
 out a stupendous miracle of grace, seems to 
 be inevitable. Shame and remorse, the usual 
 channels through which amendment is pro 
 duced, are always the result of consciousncvss 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 73 
 
 of wrong — an affection which is utterly in- 
 consistent with that complete degradation of 
 the mind into which thousands have been 
 sunk, and in which error is neither lamented 
 nor admitted. 
 
 From the intimate alliance which subsists 
 betwixt the understanding and the con- 
 science, speculative falsehood must be fatal to 
 the integrity of morals. He who trifles with 
 the constitution of his nature in those primary 
 convictions which lie at the foundation of all 
 knowledge and philosophy — and error must 
 be ultimately traced to some transgression of 
 their laws — is cherishing a temper which shall 
 soon rise in rebellion against the authority of 
 conscience, and extinguish the only light that 
 can convict him of crime. From the obscu- 
 rity and confusion which have been permitted 
 to shroud the understanding, may be antici- 
 pated a deeper gloom which is soon to settle 
 on the heart. That the moral conduct of 
 men is not always answerable to the loose- 
 ness of their speculative principles, is not to 
 be ascribed to any redeeming virtue in the 
 
 /f^^" OF T 
 
74* THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 principles themselves, but to the restraints of 
 society, and the voice of nature which licen- 
 tiousness has not yet been able to suppress. 
 The tendency exists, though accidental hinder- 
 ances have retarded its developement. The 
 denial of the reality of truth and evidence 
 will be attended with a corresponding denial 
 of rectitude and sin. These remarks, though 
 they appear to me to be intuitively obvious, 
 are felt to be necessary in order to rebuke 
 the growing impression, that speculative prin- 
 ciples jbave no immediate influence in regulat- 
 ing conduct. We live in an age of sophists. 
 A man may believe any thing or nothing ; and 
 yet if his actions are consistent with the 
 standard of public decency, his principles are 
 not to be condemned, and he is not to be 
 charged with wickedness on account of them. 
 In the formation of his opinions, he is exempt 
 from the moral law; conscience takes cog- 
 nizance of nothing but the life. As if there 
 could be any real virtue, where practice is not 
 the result of principle ; as if the opinion were 
 not the soul, life and being of all that is 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 76 
 
 praiseworthy or excellent in the conduct. 
 There can be no morality without intelli- 
 gence; and if there exists in the bosom of 
 the Almighty an eternal standard of truth, 
 from which the law of righteousness pro- 
 ceeds, in conformity with which the arrange- 
 ments of Providence are conducted, the rela- 
 tions of things adjusted, and by which alone 
 the harmony of the world can be effectually 
 promoted, the first step towards communion 
 with the Father of lights is to recognize that 
 standard, and to have its rays reflected upon 
 our own countenances. The mind cannot 
 move in charity, nor rest in Providence, un- 
 less it turn upon the poles of truth. " The 
 inquiry of truth," says Bacon, ''which is the 
 love-making or wooing of it — the knowledge 
 of truth, which is the presence of it — and the 
 belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it — 
 is the sovereign good of human nature. The 
 first creature of God in the work of days was 
 the light of sense ; the last was the light of 
 reason, and His Sabbath-work ever since is 
 the illumination of His Spirit." 
 
7ft 
 
 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 The last consideration which I shall adduce, 
 in order to show the ethical character of the 
 love of truth, as the pervading law of intel- 
 lectual speculations, is the circumstance that 
 it is the general habit of mind, of which hon- 
 esty,, frankness, sincerity and faithfulness are 
 only specific manifestations. There is no 
 method of argument by which the obligation 
 of veracity, in the ordinary intercourse and 
 business of life, can be established, which will 
 not equally apply to the doctrine in question. 
 Whatever evinces the wickedness and sin of 
 voluntarily imposing upon others, will evince 
 with equal certainty, the wickedness and sin 
 of voluntarily imposing upon ourselves. We 
 have no more right to deceive ourselves than 
 we have to deceive our neighbours. That 
 state of the understanding in which it is ex- 
 empt from prejudice, and judges according to 
 the light of evidence, is only a different man- 
 ifestation of that general condition of the 
 soul, in which it rejoices in rectitude, delights 
 in sincerity, and scorns every approximation 
 to concealment or hypocrisy. Few are sensi- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 77 
 
 ble of the close alliance which subsists be- 
 tween partiality to error and duplicity and 
 fraud in conduct. They are shoots from tHe 
 same stock, fruits of the same tree. He that 
 lies to his own understanding, or what 
 amounts to the same thing, does not delib- 
 erately propose to himself truth^ as the end 
 of all his investigations, will not scruple at 
 deceit with his neighbours. He that prevari- 
 cates in matters of opinion is not to be 
 trusted in matters of interest. The love of 
 truth is honesty of reason, as the love of vir 
 tue is honesty of heart ; and so impossible is 
 it to cultivate the moral affections at the ex 
 pense of the understanding, that they who 
 receive not the truth in the love of it, are 
 threatened, in the Scriptures, with the most 
 awful malediction that can befall a sinner in 
 this sublunary state — an eclipse of the soul, 
 and a blight upon the heart, which are the 
 certain forerunners of the second death. The 
 spirit of leasing is always one. What in 
 regard to speculative opinions we denominate 
 sophistry, is a species of the same general 
 
78 THE LOVE OF tri:th. 
 
 habit which, developed into action, gives 
 birth to the character of the knave, distin- 
 guished from the man of probity and wisdom, 
 not more by the meanness of his views and 
 the littleness of his ends than the number and 
 minuteness of his contrivances to reconcile 
 villany with fair appearances. The sophist 
 of speculation is the hypocrite of practice. 
 The same temper which prompts us to pre- 
 varicate on one subject, will prompt us to 
 prevaricate on all. As the soul is one and in- 
 divisible, and understanding, affections, mem- 
 ory and will, are only terms expressive of 
 conditions in which the same substance is 
 successively found, or forms of action which 
 the same substance successively puts forth, 
 whatever indicates disease in one mode of 
 operation, must, from the simplicity of its 
 nature, affect it in all. As in music, it is the 
 same key which pervades the tune, whatever 
 may be the variety of notes of which it is 
 composed, so there is a general tone of mind 
 which distinguishes all its activities, and gives 
 harmonr, consistency and unity to its vari- 
 
THELOVEOFTRUTH. t# 
 
 ous processes in every department of thought 
 and feeling. There is a characteristic com- 
 plexion, a pervading temper, which may be 
 found alike in the tenor of its opinions, the 
 trains of its reasoning, and the sentiments of 
 the heart. If that temper be the love of 
 truth, the whole man will be distinguished by 
 candour, sincerity, openness and generosity; 
 if the spirit of leasing, the whole man will be 
 distinguished by duplicity, treachery, equivo- 
 cation and concealment. The love of truth 
 is, accordingly, the great moral law, in con- 
 formity with which curiosity must be regu- 
 lated — it is the morality of the intellectual 
 man, being to the understanding what sin- 
 cerity is to the heart. 
 
 The only plausible objections which can be 
 sustained against the conclusiveness of these 
 views, which bring the understanding under 
 the controul of conscience, and subject the 
 motives to intellectual effort to the jurisdic- 
 tion of morality, is that which assumes, that 
 the operations of the mind, in the department 
 of speculative truth, are exempt from the 
 
80 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 authority of the will. Reid was unquestion- 
 ably right in the announcement, which, so far 
 as I know, he was the first distinctly and 
 broadly to make, that virtue and vice are 
 impossible where there is no exercise of the 
 will. It has accordingly been contended by 
 philosophers, of no less note than Sir James 
 Mcintosh, Lord Brougham, and the author of 
 Essays on the Formation of Opinions, that 
 as the assent of the understanding is always 
 involuntary, being the necessary result of 
 the evidence submitted to its view, no moral 
 character can attach to our opinions. We 
 cannot, on account of them, be either the 
 subjects of praise or blame, of reward or 
 punishment. To one, they tell us, who has 
 mastered the successive links in a chain of 
 mathematical reasoning, the conclusion can 
 no more be resisted than light can be ex- 
 cluded from the open eye. The design of 
 these illustrious men in maintaining the inno- 
 cence of opinion, is worthy of all praise ; but 
 they have certainly confounded questions that 
 are entireh' distinct. Their purpose was to 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 81 
 
 lay a broad basis ^or civil toleration and for 
 mutual charity. They wished to transfer 
 opinions from the jurisdiction of the magis 
 trate, and to rebuke the clamours of bigotry, 
 intolerance, and sectarian zeal. But for this 
 purpose, it was not necessary to prove that 
 man is not responsible for his opinions at all, 
 but only that he is not responsible to his fel- 
 lows. Persecution is not the offspring of the 
 doctrine that responsibility attaches to opin- 
 ion, but that this responsibility is directed to 
 the magistrate. The Scriptures consequently 
 put responsibility upon its proper ground, 
 when they show that though we are respon- 
 sible, we are responsible only to God. We 
 are not the masters of each other's faith. We 
 are not at liberty to judge or despise our 
 brother in consequence of his differences from 
 us, but still each man must give account of 
 himself to God. He may sin in his opinions, 
 but we are not the persons to punish him for 
 his guilt. To his own Master, he stands or 
 falls. These remarks are made in order to 
 
 guard against the impression, that in com- 
 
 4* 
 
82 THE LOVE OFTRUTH. 
 
 bating the argument for toleration, we are 
 opposed to the principle of toleration itself. 
 On the contrary, it seems to us, that the 
 philosophers in question have left it in a 
 much more precarious condition than they 
 found it. But to pass this over, the same 
 method of argument to which they have re- 
 sorted in this case, might be employed with 
 equal pertinency and force, to prove that there 
 is no responsibility for the emotions, affec- 
 tions, or permanent conditions of the heart. 
 Love and hate are as much beyond the imme- 
 diate province of the will as doubt or belief. 
 These passions depend upon the presence or 
 conception of qualities, which just as neces- 
 ^ sarily excite them, as evidence produces con- 
 i viction. Even the determinations of the will 
 itself are not exempt from the influence of 
 the great law of causation ; and if the argu- 
 ment is pushed to the extent of its legitimate 
 application, conduct will be as lawless as opin- 
 ion. The connection betwixt motives and 
 action is not less intimate and necessary than 
 that between evidence and faith. It is pre- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 83 
 
 cisely because there is this connection, that 
 responsibility, in either case, becomes conceiv- 
 able or possible. If evidence had no inherent 
 and essential tendency to generate belief, if 
 conviction were the arbitrary offspring of 
 circumstances, why should we be bound to 
 examine evidence at all ? and if motives had 
 no inherent and essential tendency to termi- 
 nate in conduct, why should we be bound to 
 cultivate right affections? Let those who 
 hope to escape from responsibility, by resorting 
 to metaphysical distinctions, beware that they 
 are not entangled in their own net, and that 
 in the issue they do not establish what they 
 are trying to overthrow. 
 
 The fallacy, however, of this popular argu- 
 ment is easily detected. It consists in re- 
 stricting the application of the will to the 
 final determination to act — ^in making will 
 synonymous with volition. But when mo- 
 rality is confined to the province of the will, 
 that faculty is made to embrace all the wishes 
 and desires, all the appetites and habits which 
 constitute the springs of human action. Mo* 
 
 y/ 
 
84 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 rality prescribes to them their laws; and 
 whenever these active principles are indulged 
 in contravention of these laws, there guilt 
 necessarily ensues — whenever in obedience to 
 these precepts, there virtue and rectitude ob- 
 tain. The sole question, therefore, is, whether 
 vicious propensities and desires have any in- 
 fluence upon the operations of the mind — 
 whether good or bad emotions can exert any 
 sway in directing its efforts and giving shape 
 to its results. The answer here is too obvious 
 to be denied. The illustrations derived from 
 mathematical demonstration are singularly 
 unfortunate. The reasonings of necessary 
 science are subject to none of those disturb- 
 ing influences which, as we shall subsequently 
 see, the mind experiences from its tastes, its 
 temper and its prejudices, in practical inqui- 
 ries. There is, in this case, no coloured glass, 
 to tinge the light, as it passes to the eye. 
 Besides, the contradictory of a necessary truth 
 is not only false but absurd, and to entertain 
 it, or even to represent it in thought, is a sim- 
 ple impossibility. The will has no jurisdic- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 85 
 
 tion, because the subjects embraced are whol- 
 ly beyond its province. This is implied in 
 the very epithet by which this species of 
 truth is signalized. It is very different with 
 moral speculations. There, as every question 
 has two sides, and the opposite of truth is al- 
 ways cogitable, the assent is not the sole pro- 
 duct of the evidence, but of the evidence con- 
 jointly with the temper and disposition of the 
 man. Two factors conspire in the production 
 of the result. The mind not only receives 
 the light, but changes and transforms it into 
 its own image. The will, in its wide sense, 
 enters as a powerful element, and puts its own 
 interpretation upon the appearances submit- 
 ted to the intellect. It does for the evidence 
 what, according to the philosophy of Kant, 
 the understanding does for the material of 
 sensibility — it supplies the form. Hence, in 
 moral and religious subjects, universal expe- 
 rience has demonstrated, that a man " under- 
 stands as much by his affections as his rea- 
 son." His beliefs are voluntary, in the sense, 
 that they are largely determined by the active 
 
86 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 principles of his nature. Then, again, there is 
 an indirect and mediate power of the will by 
 which, although we cannot immediately pro- 
 duce any given conviction or emotion, we can 
 place ourselves in the circumstances in which 
 the causes shall operate that are fitted to 
 achieve the desired result. 
 
 Upon these two grounds we maintain that 
 there may be a virtuous or a vicious exercise 
 of the understanding; and that man is re- 
 sponsible for his opinions as he is responsible 
 for the motives which impel him to intel- 
 lectual effort, and for the diligence, caution 
 and attention by which he avails himself of 
 all the means of arriving at truth. 
 
 I have designedly taken this wide circuit, as 
 preparatory to the illustrations which are yet 
 to be presented, " of the nature of that veracity 
 which is incumbent on us in our intercourse 
 with our fellow-creatures. The most solid 
 foundation for the uniform and the scrupulous 
 exercise of this virtue is to cherish the love 
 of truth in general, and to impress the mind 
 with a conviction of its important effects on 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 87 
 
 our own happiness, and on that of society." 
 If asked why the love of truth is a duty, I 
 can only appeal to the dictates of conscience 
 and the authority of God. It is worthy of 
 remark, however, that no theory of morals 
 has ever yet been ventilated, at all entitled 
 to the respect of mankind, in which this vir- 
 tue has not received a prominent position. 
 Among the ancients all virtue was a species 
 of truth; and in the school of the Stagyrite 
 prudence was an intellectual habit conversant 
 about all practical, as wisdom was a habit 
 conversant about all speculative truth. In 
 the school of the Stoics, the importance 
 which is attached to it may be seen from the 
 Offices of Tully. " Of all the properties and 
 inclinations of men, there is none," he in- 
 forms us, "more natural and peculiar to them 
 than an earnest desire and search after truth ;" 
 and to this instinctive love of truth in general 
 he traces our approbation of frankness, can- 
 dour and sincerity in conduct. Among the 
 Stoics, as among the Peripatetics, prudence as 
 a cardinal virtue, consisted ir the contempla-- 
 
88 THE LOVE OF TliUTH. 
 
 tion and study of practical truth. The the- 
 ory of Wollaston, to come down to modern 
 times, confessedly resolves all vlHue into 
 truth; and the schemes of Clarke, Cudworth 
 and Price presuppose the speculative conclu- 
 sions of the intellect as the final basis of moral 
 distinctions. 
 
 If vre place virtue in sentiment, there is 
 nothing, according to the confession of all 
 mankind, more beautiful and lovely than 
 truth, more ugly and hateful than a lie. If 
 we place it in calculations of expediency, no- 
 thing is more conspicuously useful than truth 
 on the one hand, and the confidence it in- 
 spires; nothing more disastrous than false- 
 hood, treachery and distrust. If there be 
 then a moral principle to which, in every form, 
 humanity has given utterance, it is the obliga- 
 tion of veracity. Truth is alike the perfec- 
 tion of the intellect and the glory of the 
 heart. The Gospel, it has been beautifully 
 said, "divides universal virtue into two cardi- 
 nal, collateral and co-existent branches — truth 
 and charity, the foundation and consumma- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 89 
 
 tion of all things, corresponding to the two 
 constituent parts of human nature, the intel- 
 lect and the will, those singular and super- 
 eminent distinctions by which man becomes 
 the subject of a religion which makes him 
 wise unto salvation." 
 
 The practical conclusion which I am anx- 
 ious to impress upon you, from this part of 
 the subject, is the obligation of making truth 
 for its own sake the great end of your intel- 
 lectual efforts. It is a principle which re- 
 quires to be strengthened by exercise and 
 matured into a habit. The discipline of the 
 mind is imperfect, however fully its various 
 capacities have been developed, until the love 
 of truth gains the ascendency which is due 
 to it, as the supreme and sovereign law of 
 thought. Various motives may prompt us to 
 be diligent and patient in the acquisition of 
 knowledge. Some seek it, as Butler has caus- 
 tically suggested, merely for the sake of talk- 
 ing, or to qualify themselves for the world, 
 some for their own entertainment, some for 
 one purpose, others for another — but multi- 
 
90 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 tudes have no sort of curiosity to see what 
 is true. There are subordinate ends which 
 are lawful, but they must always be kept in 
 subserviency to the love of truth for itself 
 What an influence it would exert upon you, 
 upon me, upon all who are engaged in in- 
 tellectual pursuits, if they were pervaded in 
 the whole soul with this pure and sacred love 
 of knowledge I What student could indulge 
 in indolence, or turn to his lessons as a weary 
 task, or immerse himself in habits which dim 
 the understanding, if he felt in any just pro- 
 portion to the real state of the case, the tran- 
 scendent excellence of truth, or the loathsome 
 deformity of error. Let us rise, my brethren, 
 to the dignity of this high argument. You 
 have minds that were made to hnow — ^you 
 are constructed with a reference to truth, and 
 you are called upon to purge and unscale your 
 sight at the fountain itself of heavenly ra- 
 diance. The streams of science are flowing 
 at your feet, and the food which angels eat, is 
 offered to your palate. Let it never be said 
 that you have neglected these golden oppor- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 91 
 
 tunities, and turned from the temple of truth 
 to worship at the shrine of ignorance, error, 
 and shame. Resolve in the strength of God 
 this day, that like Isis in search of the man- 
 gled body of Osiris, you will go up and down, 
 gathering limb by limb, the scattered frag 
 ments of truth, as your circumstances shall 
 enable you to find them. 
 
 This love of truth which I have been en- 
 deavouring to recommend, will be of the very 
 last importance to you, to guard you against 
 the deceits of the world. Man walketh in a 
 vain show. Untutored by experience, the 
 young, particularly, are slow to suspect, that 
 the prospects of good, of pleasure, opulence, 
 and power, which stretch in rich luxuriance 
 before them, are an empty pageant. Unskill- 
 ed in the treachery of the heart and the wiles 
 of the tempter, they can hardly be persuaded 
 that the gilded colours, in which imagination 
 adorns the future, are only a splendid dra- 
 pery under which are concealed disappoint- 
 ment, sorrow, and vexation. They have yet 
 to learn the emptiness of pleasure, the agonies 
 
92 the: LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 of power, and the vanity of wealth. Impetu- 
 ous in their passions, ardent in their temper, 
 and ignorant of life, they are prone to fix 
 their affections upon some of those beggarly 
 elements which will crumble into ashes at the 
 touch of experience. The prince of darkness, 
 intent upon their ruin, plies his fatal arts 
 of enchantment to lull them into a sleep of 
 false security, to exclude religion from their 
 thoughts, and to conduct them by deceitful 
 promises of good, by lies congenial with his 
 nature, to the shades of death. This, my 
 young friends, is your position, and it is one 
 of immense peril. The world, the flesh, and 
 hell, all conspire by glozing falsehood, to se- 
 duce you to perdition. A covering is spread 
 upon the grave and the pit, and the ways of 
 sin are adorned with all that can please the 
 eye, fascinate the ear, or enchant the heart. 
 Your security against these dangers is convic- 
 tion of the truth. The Word of God which 
 is pre-eminently the truth, and in which a 
 truth-loving heart will lead you to rest, dis- 
 sipates the spell, reveals the snare and deliv- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 98 
 
 ers from the plot. It paints life in its true 
 colours, tears the mask from the face of guilt, 
 disrobes the world of its gorgeous drapery, 
 and points to Him who is emphatically the 
 way, the truth, and the life. All the rays of 
 moral truth ultimately centre in the cross of 
 the Redeemer ; and we never reach the sum- 
 mit of wisdom until we attain that life which 
 is alike the knowledge of the Father and of 
 His Son Jesus Christ. Every one, says the 
 Saviour, that is of the truth, heareth my voice. 
 None perish but those who love darkness 
 rather than light. A deceived heart turns 
 them aside. 
 
C|£ faisz of Crttt^. 
 
 * Finally, brethren, -whatsoever things are true — think on 
 these things." — Philippians, iv. 8. 
 
 ^^r.r. ... -. In my last discourse, I endeav- 
 DTSr TTT 1 
 
 oured to demonstrate that the 
 
 love of truth, as such, was a duty, from the con- 
 stitution of the human mind ; the aptitude of 
 truth to enlarge and expand it ; the intimate 
 connection betwixt the culture of our moral 
 and intellectual powers, and the impossibility 
 of vindicating the obligation of specific forms, 
 without recognizing the obligation of truth in 
 general. I was led to show that we are re- 
 sponsible for our opinions, in so far as we are 
 responsible foi the motives and influences un- 
 der which we form them ; that the operations 
 of the unders'tanding have a moral character, 
 inasmuch as the impulse of curiosity, like all 
 our other springs of action, is subject to the 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 96 
 
 direction and controul of the moral faculty. 
 The love of truth for itself was evinced to be 
 the law, in conformity with which all our in- 
 tellectual processes should be conducted. The 
 end of every inquiry should be knowledge — 
 the aim of every investigation simple and un- 
 adulterated truth. To guard against the pos- 
 sibility of misapprehension, it may be well to 
 add that, in inculcating the love of truth as a 
 moral obligation, it is by no means my pur- 
 pose to imply, that all men are bound to know 
 all truth. There is a great difference betwixt 
 asserting that nothing should be sought which 
 is not the truth ; and that every thing which 
 is the truth, is the appropriate pursuit of every 
 understanding. 
 
 There are departments of inquiry from 
 which the natural limitation of our faculties 
 precludes us; there are subjects upon which 
 we are incompetent to speculate, from the 
 want of congruity betwixt them and the con- 
 stitution of our own minds; and as long as 
 our powers remain what they are, they must 
 forever be to us an unknown world. All 
 
96 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 knowledge, as I have elsewhere demonstrated 
 at some length, is relative in its nature, and 
 phenomenal in its objects. Whoever, there- 
 fore, would seek to penetrate into properties 
 of things to which our faculties are not ad- 
 justed, overlooks a fundamental condition of 
 the possibility of knowledge ; and his conclu- 
 sions are entitled to no more respect than 
 the speculations of a blind man upon colours, 
 or of a deaf man upon sounds. There are 
 conditions in the objects, corresponding to 
 conditions in the subjects, of knowledge, one 
 thing is set over against another, and beyond 
 the limits of this correspondence it is folly to 
 push our inquiries. Omniscience is the pre- 
 rogative of God alone. Men and angels, all 
 creatures, however exalted, must be forever 
 doomed to write over boundless regions of 
 truth, "Hades, an unseen world." There is 
 light there— light in which God dwells and 
 rejoices, but which created eyes are not fitted 
 to receive. To inculcate the obligation of 
 universal knowledge, is to tell men to forget 
 that they are men, and to urge them upon at- 
 
\ 
 
 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 97 
 
 tempting to be Gods. It would be to incul- 
 cate the most daring presumption, to sanctify 
 intolerable arrogance and blasphemy. The 
 duty to seek knowledge can never transcend 
 our capacities. We are not bound to know 
 what our faculties are unable to grasp; and 
 the attempt to become wise beyond the laws 
 of our nature, has always been rebuked, in the 
 history of philosophy, with the most signal 
 and disastrous failures. Neither is it the duty 
 of all men to seek all the knowledge which is 
 attainable by any. The circumstances of 
 multitudes are such, that their inquiries are 
 necessarily confined within narrow limits. 
 Their time and attention are taken up with 
 pressing cares, and the exigencies of life leave 
 no leisure for abstracted speculation. The 
 progress of knowledge, too, requires that those 
 who are devoted to its interests should di- 
 vide their labours. Some should be engaged 
 in one department, some in another. Some 
 should give themselves to the sciences, some 
 to the arts, some to elegant letters, and others 
 to the severer studies of logic, metaphysics, 
 
98 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 and morals. In this way the march of hu- 
 manity is accelerated, ' the general condition 
 of society is improved, though no single indi- 
 vidual can ever hope to be abreast of the 
 whole culture of the age. 
 
 What particular department of speculative 
 truth each man shall select for himself, and 
 how far he shall prosecute his labours, are 
 questions to be determined by the circum- 
 stances in which he finds himself placed. All 
 that I assert in any case is, that it is an indis- 
 pensable duty, in whatever inquiries we en- 
 gage, to aim only at the truth. We are not 
 bound to endeavour after universal knowl- 
 edge, but we are bound to guard against 
 error, and to receive nothing that has not 
 the stamp of truth. All truth is not obliga- 
 tory, but nothing but truth is obligatory on 
 the understanding. No man, under any cir- 
 cumstances, has a right to think a lie. He can 
 no more, without guilt, administer poison to his 
 understanding than he can administer it to his 
 body. 
 
 The degree of knowledge which is essential 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 99 
 
 to the discharge of the duties of any sphere 
 in which a man is called to act, and to the ac- 
 complishment of his destiny as a moral and 
 responsible being, is always binding. What 
 the exigencies of our peculiar and distinctive 
 vocations as artizans, labourers, or members 
 of the learned professions demand, and what 
 our general calling as men, made in the image 
 of God, and destined to happiness or misery 
 m a future state, according to our character 
 and conduct here, requires, it is incumbent 
 upon all to seek, and it is possible for all to 
 attain. That knowledge which pertains to 
 the conduct of life, is accessible to all upon 
 whom the duties of life are imposed. It is 
 the only knowledge which is of universal ob- 
 ligation; and in reference to it, there is no 
 need to inquire who shall ascend into heaven, 
 or who shall descend into the deep, the word 
 is nigh us, even in our hearts and our mouths. 
 The great doctrines of man's duty and destiny 
 are not left to doubtful disputations. They 
 are proclaimed upon an evidence which is 
 open, palpable, authoritative ; they stand upon 
 
100 THE LOVE OF IKL'TH. 
 
 the testimony of God. Wherever the Scrip- 
 tures are known, it is the imperative duty of 
 all to know Him, the only true God, and Jesus 
 Christ whom He has sent. No cares, no busi- 
 ness should be allowed to preclude us from 
 the fountain of life; things temporal must 
 yield to things eternal — things carnal must 
 give way to the spiritual — the seen and per- 
 ishing to the unseen and immortal. The Bible 
 must have the precedence of every other 
 book; and though a man could speak with 
 the tongues of angels, and understand all 
 mysteries, and subdue all nations in obedience 
 to his will, yet if he were destitute of that 
 knowledge which makes him wise unto salva- 
 tion, with all his boasted attainments he would 
 be but a chattering fool, but as a sounding 
 brass or a tinkling cymbal. This knowledge, 
 then, in its essential elements as bearing upon 
 our destiny as men, is of universal obligation. 
 This pearl of great price we must purchase, 
 though we sacrifice all our other possessions 
 to gain it. With these explanations and lim- 
 itations, I proceed to point out in what the 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 101 
 
 love of truth essentially consists, and to indi- 
 cate some of the temptations to which the 
 young particularly are exposed to disre- 
 gard it. 
 
 I need not say a word in reference to the 
 importance of these points. With all our com- 
 mendations of the beauty, the glory, the ex- 
 cellency of truth, it must yet be acknowledged, 
 that the temper of mind which is most favour- 
 able to the successful pursuit of it, is exceed- 
 ingly rare, even among those whose professed 
 business is to seek and explain it. Composed 
 as men are oi conflicting elements, as evi- 
 dently disordered in their understandings as 
 they are in their affections, liable to the per- 
 versions of passion and interest, apt to con- 
 found the zeal of prejudice with earnestness 
 of principle, the affectation of vanity with 
 brilliancy of genius ; eager for applause, and 
 not always scrupulous about the means of 
 securing it, the last spectacle which they 
 exhibit is the true spirit of philosophy; the 
 motive which least vigourously impels them 
 is the ingenuous love of knowledge. I can- 
 
102 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 not better introduce what I have to suggest 
 upon the nature of the love of truth, which I 
 have been endeavouring to commend, than in 
 the words of Locke, a competent authority 
 upon this subject, having been himself a dis 
 tinguished example of the spirit he incul 
 Gates : 
 
 "First," says he,* "a man must not be in 
 love with any opinion, or wish it to be true, 
 till he knows it to be so, and then he will not 
 need to wish it ; for nothing that is false can 
 deserve our good wishes, nor a desire that it 
 should have the place and force of truth. 
 Secondly, he must do that which he will find 
 himself very averse to, as judging the thing 
 unnecessary, or himself incapable of doing it. 
 He must try whether his principles be cer- 
 tainly true or not, and how far he may safely 
 rely upon them. In these two things, viz., 
 an equal indiiferency for all truth: I mean 
 the receiving it, in the love of it, as truth, 
 but not loving it for any other reason, before 
 we know it to be true ; and in the examina- 
 
 * Conduct of the Understanding. 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 103 
 
 tion of our principles, and not receiving any 
 for such, nor building on them, till we are 
 fully convinced, as rational creatures, of their 
 solidity, truth and certainty, consists the free- 
 dom of the understanding, which is necessary 
 to a rational creature, and without which it is 
 not truly an understanding." We are not to 
 confound the indifference of which Locke 
 here speaks as to what is true, previous to 
 the discovery, with indifference to the truth 
 itself; neither are we to suppose that he com- 
 mends a spirit which is at all indifferent to 
 the search after truth. On the other hand, 
 he would have us eager in the pursuit, im- 
 partial in our inquiries, and established in our 
 conclusions ; zealous for truth, when truth is 
 found, and ardent in quest of it, while it yet 
 lies undiscovered before us ; guarding equally 
 against the partiality which would pervert 
 and the lethargy which would arrest the ef- 
 forts of the understanding. He is a slave to 
 ignorance, who is too idle to examine ; he is 
 a slave to prejudice who believes without, or 
 independentl}- of, evidence. An exemption 
 
104 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 from indolence or apathy,, on the one hand, 
 and all irregular biasses on the other, an ex- 
 emption founded upon the very anxiety to 
 escape from the stagnation of ignorance and 
 the impostures of error, is the freedom of the 
 understanding which Locke pronounces to be 
 essential to a rational nature — without which, 
 it may be ^' conceit, fancy, extravagance, any 
 thing," but not " an understanding." It is 
 this freedom Avhich constitutes the love of 
 truth, or rather this freedom is the only means 
 by which the love of truth can be exemplified 
 and curiosity directed to its appropriate ob- 
 jects. 
 
 The whole duty of man, in regard to the 
 conduct of his understanding, may be referred 
 to the single comprehensive principle, that 
 evidence is the measure of assent. This is 
 the light which alone can make it manifest, 
 and by this light, and this light alone, are we 
 commanded to walk. The understanding, as 
 the instrument of truth, has for its guide the 
 laws of belief; and it is in virtue of these 
 laws, that it is so admirably adapted to the 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 105 
 
 exercise of intelligence. Truth to us is, and 
 can be only relative. Things in their own 
 natures, in their essences and quiddities, we 
 are incapable of apprehending. That alone 
 is truth to us which the constitution of 
 our nature either immediately, or mediately, 
 prompts us to believe. Its fundamental con- 
 dition is confidence in our faculties ; and the 
 convictions which are produced in conformity 
 to the laws of our rational nature, the appear- 
 ances of things to the human understanding, 
 when healthfully exercised, these constitute 
 the ultimate measures of truth and falsehood. 
 That is to us which appears to be, and is only 
 in so far as it ap^pears. Beyond these ajpjpear- 
 ances our faculties can never penetrate. In- 
 telligence, or the apprehension of truth, in- 
 volves judgment, belief, conviction of cer- 
 tainty, not merely that the thing is there, but, 
 to use a sensible analogy, seen to be there. 
 There must be a constitution of mind adapted 
 to that specific activity by which it believes 
 and judges ; as it is only by virtue of such a 
 constitution that the conception of knowledge 
 
106 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 y/' becomes possible. This preparation of the 
 mind to know, or its adaptation to intelli- 
 gence, consists in subjecting it to laws of be- 
 lief under which it must conduct its own op- 
 erations. Its energies can be exercised only 
 under the condition that it shall know, or be- 
 lieve. As it is the necessity of belief which 
 distinguishes intelligent action from every 
 other species of operation, there must exist in 
 the mind, as a part of its very structure, nat- 
 ural tendencies to certain manners of belief, 
 to be developed as soon as its activities are 
 called forth. In their dormant state, as they 
 exist antecedently to experience, they are 
 only necessities of thinking; but developed 
 by experience and generalized into abstract 
 statements, they are original and elementary 
 cognitions, the foundation and criteria of all 
 knowledge. They are the standard of evi- 
 dence, the constitutive and regulative princi- 
 ples of intelligence, the light of the mind, 
 and without them, the mind could no more 
 be conceived to know than a blind man to 
 see. Through them we know and believe 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. ' 107 
 
 every thing else, they are vouchers and guar- 
 antees for all the truth which it falls to the 
 lot of man to apprehend. To regulate belief 
 by evidence is, accordingly, to receive no- 
 thing which is not either an original convic- 
 tion, or capable of being resolved into one. 
 As we know by and through the mind, we 
 can only know according to the laws of mind. 
 All error may consequently be traced to some 
 transgression of the laws of belief There 
 can be no doubt, that if all the conditions 
 which ought to be observed in the processes 
 of the understanding, were faithfully regard- 
 ed, there would be no danger of fallacy, or 
 mistake. Error is the result of disobedience, 
 or inattention to the intelligent constitution 
 of our own nature ; and the punishment of in- 
 tellectual guilt. To follow nature, as that na- 
 ture came from the hands of God, is to be 
 conducted to truth as well as to duty. 
 
 If the primary data of consciousness are 
 the standard and measure of evidence, there 
 are but two ways in which we are liable to 
 be misled and deceived ; the first, is in assuiu- J 
 
108 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 ing as an original conviction, or the legiti- 
 mate product of such convictions,; what is 
 only the dictate of authority, custom, educa- 
 tion, or desire; and the second is, in misap- 
 plying the data of consciousness to the cases 
 which are actually submitted to the decisions 
 of the understanding. We mistake the real 
 nature of the phenomena, and accordingly ap- 
 ply to them laws which are not applicable. 
 In other words, we are liable to err by having 
 a wrong standard of judgment, or by using a 
 right standard improperly. These are the 
 heads to which it seems to me all prejudice, 
 however originated, may be at last referred. 
 They give rise to skepticism and falsehood. 
 He who confounds the dictates of education, 
 or authority, with the primary convictions of 
 nature, not only exposes himself to the danger 
 of serious and fatal mistakes, but prepares the 
 way for the utter annihilation of the essential 
 distinctions betwixt truth and falsehood. The 
 origin and nature of skepticism have been ad- 
 mirably described by Sir William Hamilton.* 
 
 * Philosophical Discourses. Article on Brown. 
 
THE LOVE OF TKUTH. 109 
 
 " Our knowledge," says he, '' rests ultimately 
 on certain facts of consciousness, which, as 
 primitive, and consequently incomprehensi- 
 ble, are given less in the form of cognitions, 
 than of beliefs. But if consciousness, in its 
 last analysis, in other words, if our primary 
 experience be a faith, the reality of our 
 knowledge turns on the veracity of our gen- 
 erative beliefs. As ultimate, the quality of 
 these beliefs cannot be inferred ; their truth, 
 however, is, in the first instance, to be pre- 
 sumed. As given and possessed, they must 
 stand good until refuted ; neganti incumbit 
 probatio. Intelligence cannot gratuitously 
 annihilate itself; nature is not to be assumed 
 to work in vain, nor the author of nature 
 to create only to deceive. But though the 
 truths of our instinctive faith must original- 
 ly be admitted, their falsehood may subse- 
 quently be established; this, however, only 
 through themselves, only on the ground of 
 their reciprocal contradiction. Is this con- 
 tradiction proved? the edifice of our knowl- 
 edge is undermined ; for no lie is of the truth. 
 
 y 
 
110 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 Consciousness is to the philosopher what the 
 Bible is to the theologian. Both are pro- 
 fessed revelations of Divine truth ; both ex- 
 clusively supply the constitutive elements of 
 knowledge, and the regulative standard of its 
 construction. Each may be disproved, but 
 disproved only by itself If one or other re- 
 veal facts which, as mutually repugnant, can- 
 not but be false, the authenticity of that rev- 
 elation is invalidated ; and the criticism which 
 signalizes this self-refutation has, in either case, 
 been able to convert assurance into skepti- 
 cism — to turn the truth of God into a lie. 
 As psychology is only a developed conscious- 
 ness, the positive philosopher has thus a pri- 
 mary presumption in favour of the elements, 
 out of which his system is constructed ; while 
 the skeptic or negative philosopher must be 
 content to argue back to the falsehood of 
 those elements, from the impossibility which 
 the dogmatist may experience in combining 
 them into the harmony of truth. For truth is 
 one, and the end of philosophy is the intuition 
 of unity. Skepticism is not an original or in- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. Ill 
 
 dependent method. It is the correlevant and 
 consequent of dogmatism; and so far from 
 being an enemy to truth, it arises only from a 
 false philosophy, as its indication and its cure. 
 The skeptic must not himself establish^ but 
 from the dogmatist, accept his principles ; and 
 his conclusion is only a reduction of philoso- 
 phy to zero, on the hypothesis of the doctrine 
 from which his premises are borrowed. Are 
 the principles which a peculiar system in- 
 volves, convicted of contradiction, or are these 
 principles proved repugnant to others which, 
 as facts of consciousness, every positive phi- 
 losophy must^ admit, then is established a rela- 
 tive skepticism, or conclusion, that philosophy, 
 so far as realized in this system, is groundless. 
 Again, are the principles Avhich, as facts of 
 consciousness, philosophy, in general, must 
 comprehend, found exclusive of each other, 
 there is established an absolute skepticism; 
 the impossibility of all philosophy is involved 
 in the negation of the one criterion of truth. 
 Our statement may be reduced to a dilemma. 
 Either the facts of consciousness can be recon- 
 
112 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 ciled, or they cannot. If they cannot, knowl- 
 edge absolutely is impossible, and every sys- 
 tem of philosophy therefore false. If they 
 can, no system which supposes their incon- 
 sistency can pretend to truth." It is the office 
 of the skeptic to bring the different powers 
 of the soul into a state of unnatural collision, 
 and to set our faculties at war, to involve their 
 functions in suspicion — to make the deduc- 
 tions of the understanding contradict original 
 convictions of nature, or these original con- 
 victions contradict themselves in the conclu- 
 sions they legitimate, and thus to sap the 
 foundations of knowledge, to annihilate all 
 certainty, to reduce . truth and falsehood to a 
 common insignificance, and expose the mind 
 to endless perplexity, confusion, and despair. 
 The danger of receiving as maxims what are 
 not entitled to the dignity, extends much be- 
 yond the immediate errors in which they in- 
 volve us. It is not that they generate a rash 
 dogmatism, but that they afford the materials 
 of undermining the whole temple of knowl- 
 edge, which creates their mischief The 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 113 
 
 skeptic accepts them at the hands of the dog- 
 matist, and uses them as instruments of death. 
 Hence, the importance, in the language of 
 Locke, of accustoming ourselves " in any ques- 
 tion proposed, to examine and find out upon 
 what it bottoms. Most of the difficulties that 
 come in our way, when well considered and 
 traced, lead us to some proposition which, 
 known to be true, clears the doubt, and gives 
 an easy solution of the question." The mis- 
 chief which maxims rashly accepted as intui- 
 tive judgments or well-drawn conclusions, 
 have done to the cause of truth, both in phi- 
 losophy and religion, is incalculable. A sin- 
 gle crotchet of philosophers, that the relation 
 of knowledge implies an analogy of the sub- 
 ject and the object, involved for centuries the 
 whole subject of perception, and the mode of 
 our knowledge of the external world in con- 
 fusion, hypothesis and contradiction. The 
 ideal theory was the offspring of this simple 
 proposition ; and it might even yet retain its 
 ascendency in the schools, if the skepticism 
 of Hume, at once the indication and cure of 
 
114 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 the disorder, had not arisen and prepared the 
 way for a sounder metaphysics. The Scribes 
 and Pharisees took it to be a maxim, that no 
 good thing could come out of Nazareth ; and 
 upon the absurd dogma founded the belief 
 that Jesus was an impostor. The " soft en- 
 thusiast" receives it as an axiom, that the 
 benevolence of God rejoices in the happiness 
 of His creatures simply and for itself, and 
 hence proceeds to the denial of government, 
 and especially the operations of penal jus- 
 tice. 
 
 It deserves to be particularly remarked, 
 that the mind very frequently assumes, with- 
 out the formality of distinct enunciation, as 
 self-evident truths, a class of propositions from 
 which it would recoil, if stated in words. It 
 silently and imperceptibly takes them for 
 granted. They enter into its reasonings 
 without its being distinctly conscious of their 
 presence. Some men are tenacious of opin- 
 ions, because they are the characteristics of a 
 party or a sect; because they are recom- 
 mended by high authority, and have been 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 115 
 
 sanctioned by a long, uninquiring acqui- 
 escence. "When any of these maxims are 
 brought to the test," no man who pretends to 
 reason will hesitate to condemn them as falli- 
 ble and uncertain; and "such," as Mr. Locke 
 expresses it, "as he will not allow in those 
 that differ from him, yet after he is convinced 
 of this, you shall see him go on in the use of 
 them, and the very next occasion that offers 
 argue again upon the same grounds." 
 
 The criteria by which the fundamental data 
 of consciousness are recognized, are suffi- 
 ciently plain for all the purposes of life. The 
 difficulty consists not in their obscurity or 
 confusion, but in our own reluctance to exam- 
 ine the grounds of our belief, and to bring 
 every proposition to the law and to the testi- 
 mony. We love opinions instead of truth. 
 We are pleased with dogmas upon other and 
 independent grounds, and are insensibly led, 
 by our passions and desires, to transform our- 
 selves from candid and impartial inquirers 
 into earnest and interested advocates. Edu- 
 cation makes authority tantamount to nature. 
 
116 THE LOVPJ OF TRUTH. 
 
 and we quietly treat as intuitively obvious, 
 what we caught from the nursery and cradle, 
 without having ever seriously asked ourselves, 
 whether these principles are indeed distin- 
 guished by the marks and characters of orig- 
 inal convictions. Hence, error is perpetuated 
 from age to age. One generation transmits a 
 legacy of lies to another ; and the dreams of 
 tranquillity are not disturbed until some 
 threatening form of skepticism arises, that 
 compels examination and enforces inquiry. 
 The first duty, therefore, which the love of 
 truth exacts at our hands, is to look well to 
 our principles, to prove all things, and to hold 
 fast that which is good. Bring every thing 
 to the standard of evidence which our nature 
 supplies. This is the only light which we are 
 at liberty to follow. A blind and implicit 
 reception of any principles, however sacred, 
 without satisfactory evidence, is alike con- 
 demned by the Scriptures and the voice of 
 reason. This mechanical faith is not an exer- 
 cise of the understanding ; it is a passive ac- 
 quiescence in the circumstances which sur- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 117 
 
 round us. Such a man does not think, he is 
 thought for; he is simply crammed with the 
 cogitations of other minds, as a cook crams a 
 bird with food. Let a man be rigidly indif- 
 ferent as to what shall prove to be truth, keep 
 all passion, interest or disturbing influences at 
 a distance, and patient examination will most 
 certainly conduct him to the light of real evi- 
 dence. 
 
 The other form in which prejudice operates, 
 is by distorting the appearances of things, so 
 as to make us upon true principles pronounce 
 wrong judgments. Our faculties are not put 
 in complete possession of the case. This is 
 especially true of moral and religious subjects. 
 In all such subjects, the evidence is tinged by 
 the complexion of the mind; and although 
 the judgment may be right according to the 
 evidence as presented, it is not right accord- 
 ing to the evidence as it exists in itself It is 
 a jaundiced eye misjudging of colours. That 
 there is a connection betwixt the state of the 
 soul and the perception of moral and divine 
 truth, was a principle admitted even by the 
 
118 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 heathen philosophers. Aristotle expressly 
 announces it, and the celebrated fable of the 
 wolf learning to read was especially designed 
 to illustrate it. Depravity of heart and the 
 indulgence of corrupt and wicked passions 
 not only give rise to false measures of truth, 
 but false applications of the true measures of 
 good and evil. In this double operation con- 
 sists what the Scriptures denominate the de- 
 ceitfulness of sin. Things are represented in 
 disguise — bitter put for sweet, sweet for bit- 
 ter ; and through the fatal force and impos- 
 ture of words, the fraud is concealed and 
 propagated. Thus, parsimony may have the 
 credit of frugality, and a spirit of revenge be 
 dignified as sensibility to honour, and extrav- 
 agance or prodigality receive the praise 
 which is due to liberality. The passions 
 make out a false case, and hence a false judg- 
 ment is necessarily rendered. The ablest ad- 
 vocate of the passions on such occasions is the 
 power of association. Let unpleasant ideas 
 be connected with a name, and they will be 
 transferred to every thing to which the name 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 119 
 
 is applied. A slaveholder at the North is the 
 very embodiment of evil, and an abolitionist 
 at the South an emissary of darkness. It is 
 the trick of politicians to bandy epithets; 
 words being the counters of wise men, but 
 the coin of fools. You might not be able to 
 injure a man's principles ; but call him some 
 hateful name, and you effectually destroy him. 
 There is no subject in regard to which the 
 young should be more constantly on their 
 guard, than the sophistry of the heart. In a 
 right ordered mind, adaptation to its state is 
 the highest evidence of good ; and when the 
 heart is corrupt, the things which are suitable 
 to it will still be prized as objects of desire, 
 and invested with all those properties and 
 attributes which belong to real excellence. 
 It will still make analogy, or correspondence 
 to its prevailing tastes and inclinations, the 
 practical criterion of truth. As the relation 
 of assent can never freely and cheerfully ob- 
 tain, where the mind and proposition are not 
 homogeneous — sympathy being, in this, as in 
 all other cases, essential to union— it is clear 
 
120 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 that wickedness has a fearful power in seduc- 
 ing the understanding into error. It has but 
 to seize upon this principle of fitness, to make 
 the feeling of proportion to its own tastes, of 
 correspondence and congruity with its own 
 dispositions or desires, the measure of good, 
 in order to fill the mind with prejudices, and 
 to erect a standard of practical truth, which 
 must fatally pervert the judgment. Taylor 
 has well observed that *' a man's mind must 
 be like your proposition before it can be en- 
 tertained ; for whatever you put into a man, 
 it will smell of the vessel. It is a man's mind 
 that gives the emphasis, and makes your ar- 
 gument to prevail." Hence, as the same 
 eloquent writer again remarks, " It is not the 
 wit of man, but the spirit of a man, not so 
 much his head as his heart, that learns the 
 Divine philosophy." Moral is not more dis- 
 tinguished from mathematical reasoning by 
 the fact, that it admits of degrees, than by 
 the equally important fact, that these de- 
 grees may be indefinitely modified by our 
 tempers, dispositions and habits. Even the 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 121 
 
 transient humour, in which we may chance to 
 be, has often a controlling influence. The 
 same circumstance which in one state of mind 
 would carry no weight with it, in another 
 might amount to a very high degree of cer- 
 tainty, just as in one state of mind a phenom- 
 enon may be eminently suggestive, which in 
 another would pass unheeded. Newton, no 
 doubt, had often seen apples fall, but the 
 event was insignificant until he happened to 
 be in a particular vein of speculation. "Tri- 
 fles," which to the generous and unsuspecting 
 seem "light as air, are to the jealous confir- 
 mation strong as proof of Holy Writ." While, 
 therefore, it is true that a man's faith will 
 always be according to his apprehension of 
 the evidence, it is not true that in moral sub- 
 jects the evidence will always be apprehended 
 in its just proportions. It may be perverted, 
 distorted, discoloured, or reduced to nothing ; 
 the facts which contain it may fail to suggest 
 it, or suggest it feebly and inadequately. To 
 a man under the habitual dominion of cov- 
 
 etousness, it is impossible to represent in its 
 
 6 
 
tSSZ THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 true light an enterprise of charity ; to a glut- 
 ton lost in sensuality, or a sot reduced to the 
 condition of a brute, all discourses upon man's 
 sublime gifts must be unmeaning. The vo- 
 luptuary and debauchee cannot comprehend 
 the dignity and excellence of self-denial. 
 The proud will turn in disgust from lessons 
 of humility, and the envious sneer at the ob- 
 ligation of benevolence. It is an universal 
 rule, that sin darkens the understanding, while 
 it corrupts the heart. It is as inconsistent 
 with the just appreciation of evidence as with 
 the faithful discharge of duty. Hence, it was 
 a custom in the ancient schools of philosophy 
 to spend some time in trials and examinations 
 of the genius and disposition of their scholars 
 before they admitted them to the sublime in- 
 structions of the sect. The Platonists partic- 
 ularly laid down severe rules for " the purga- 
 tion of the soul, for refining and purifying it 
 from the contagion of the body and the infec- 
 tion it might have contracted from the sensi- 
 tive life, in order to fit and prepare it for the 
 contemplation of intellectual and abstract 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 123 
 
 truths." One greater than Plato or Aristotle, 
 the master of a nobler philosophy than ever 
 sprang from earth, has enjoined it as the con- 
 dition of knowing divine truth, that we culti- 
 vate the spirit of universal obedience. He 
 that will do God's will, shall know of the 
 doctrine. 
 
 There is no principle which needs to be 
 more strenuously inculcated, than that evi- 
 dence alone should be the measure of assent. 
 In reference to this principle, the whole disci- 
 pline of the understanding must be conducted. 
 Our anxiety should be to guard against all the 
 influences which preclude the access of evi- 
 dence, incapacitate us to appreciate its value, 
 and give false measures of judgment, instead 
 of the natural and legitimate laws of belief 
 All real evidence we are bound to receive, ac- 
 cording to the weight which it womld have, in 
 a sound and healthful condition of the soul. 
 It is a defect in the mind not to be able to 
 appreciate its lowest degrees. That is a 
 feeble and must be a fickle mind which, fool- 
 ishly demanding certainty on all the questions 
 
 Itf: 
 
 ^!^ 
 
124 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 submitted to its judgment, cannot proportion 
 its faith to the amount of light it enjoys. 
 Dissatisfied with probability, and ever in quest 
 of what the circumstances of our case put 
 hopelessly beyond our reach, such men, like 
 Noah's dove, will seek in vain for a spot on 
 which they can rest. Probability is the guide 
 of life; and he who resolves to believe no- 
 thing but what he can demonstrate, acts in 
 open defiance of the condition of sublunary 
 existence. There are many things herp which 
 we can only see through a glass darkly. Our 
 duty is to walk by the light which we have. 
 God commands us to yield to all evidence that 
 is real in precise proportion to its strength. 
 Evidence, and that alone, He has made it ob- 
 ligatory on our understandings to pursue ; and 
 whatever opinions we hold that are not the off- 
 spring of ewdence, that have come to us merely 
 from education, authority, custom, or passion, 
 however true and valuable they may be in 
 themselves, are not held by us in the spirit of 
 truth. These measures of assent are only pre- 
 sumptions, which should stimulate inquiry, 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 125 
 
 and breed modesty and caution. They are 
 helps to'our faith, but should never be made 
 the props of it. 
 
 Hence, all efforts to restrict freedom of de- 
 bate and the liberty of the press should be 
 watched with caution, as prejudicial to the 
 eliciting of evidence, and the defence and 
 propagation of the truth. But little is gained 
 if opinions are crammed into men, and this is 
 likely to be the case where they are not per- 
 mitted to inquire and to doubt. At the same 
 time it must be remembered, that no spirit is 
 more unfriendly to that indifference of mind, 
 so essential to freedom of inquiry, than that 
 which arises in the conduct of controversy. 
 When we become advocates, we lay aside the 
 garb of philosophers. The desire of victory 
 is often stronger than the love of truth ; and 
 pride, jealousy, ambition and envy, identify- 
 ing ourselves with our opinions, will lend 
 their aid to pervert our judgments, and to se- 
 duce us from our candour. A disputatious 
 spirit is always the mark of a little mind. 
 The cynic may growl, but he can never aspire 
 
126 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 to dignity of character. There are undoubt- 
 edly occasions when we must contend ear- 
 nestly for the truth ; but when we buckle on 
 the panoply of controversy, we should look 
 well to our own hearts, that no motives ani- 
 mate us but the love of truth and zeal for the 
 highest interests of man. 
 
 I am apt to suspect that the habit which is 
 not unfrequently recommended, as a means 
 of intellectual discipline, of arguing on the 
 wrong side of a question, as a trial of in- 
 genuity and skill, is inconsistent with in- 
 genuity of mind. It is sporting with false- 
 hood, trifling with evidence, and must event- 
 ually produce a fondness for sophistry, which 
 will ultimately destroy solidity of judgment. 
 Beside this, to use arguments as conclusive 
 which we do not believe to be possessed of 
 that character, is very near to a deliberate 
 lie. It is a practice closely allied to pious 
 frauds. 
 
 But the most serious dangers to which a 
 young man is exposed, of surrendering the in- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 127 
 
 terests of truth, are those which arise from 
 vanity or shame. 
 
 The love of applause which, studious only 
 of appearances, substitutes hypocrisy for vir- 
 tue, rashness for courage, and pedantry for 
 learning, will court reputation rather from 
 the glitter of paradox than the steady light 
 of truth. He whose end is to elicit admira- 
 tion, who aims to seem, not to he a philoso- 
 pher, will prefer plausibility to evidence, in- 
 genuity to reasoning, and singularity to gen- 
 eral consent. When the ambition of notorie- 
 ty, which ought not to occupy the subordi- 
 nate position of an incidental motive, usurps 
 the place of an end of inquiry, its disturbing 
 influences upon the integrity of the mind, are 
 not less disastrous, than the effects of ostenta- 
 tion in morals upon the sincerity of the heart. 
 The laws of evidence cease to be regarded ; 
 novelty, not truth, becomes the measure of 
 assent ; astonishment, not conviction, the aim 
 of argument; and the stare of wonder is 
 deemed a more pleasing tribute than substan- 
 tial esteem. The excui ons of this insane 
 
128 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 principle are marked by opposition to the 
 settled opinions of the race, fierce and malig- 
 nant, in proportion to their worth, and by a 
 prolific ingenuity in the invention of error. 
 As the reputation of sagacity and superior 
 discernment is the prize to be won, he prom- 
 ises to be the most successful competitor, who 
 triumphs over the general persuasion of man- 
 kind, who detects flaws and elements of false- 
 hood in the faith of generations, and rears a 
 new fabric of wisdom and knowledge upon 
 the ruins of ancient ignorance and supersti- 
 tion. To such men, nothing is venerable, no- 
 thing sacred. They penetrate the depths of 
 the past to collect the mischievous opinions 
 which time had consigned to oblivion, and to 
 reproduce upon the stage, in the dress of nov- 
 elty, the actors that once inspired consterna- 
 tion and alarm. They explore the mysteries 
 of science, not to admire the wisdom, or 
 adore the goodness of God — not to enlarge 
 the dominion of mankind, to relieve their 
 wants, to increase their comforts, to stimulate 
 their piety, and exalt their destiny, but to 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 129 
 
 wring from the secrets of nature, by hateful 
 processes of torture, some dubious confess- 
 ions, that may signalize themselves as unex- 
 pected ministers of ill. As religion is the 
 most awful subject that can occupy the 
 thoughts of men, it is here that the encroach- 
 ments of vanity will be most daring and pre- 
 sumptuous. Science is the possession of but 
 few, and he who ventures upon novelties in 
 any of its departments, can expect but a lim- 
 ited glory. Religion, on the other hand, is 
 the property of the race, and he who should 
 succeed in confounding its principles, or extin- 
 guishing its sanctions, would achieve a con- 
 quest, which, if the extent of ruin is to be the 
 measure of renown, might satisfy the largest 
 ambition. It is a marvellous phenomenon 
 that men should be willing to relieve obscuri- 
 ty by infamy ; that rather than not be known, 
 they will deliberately suppress the light of 
 reason, quell the remonstrances of conscience, 
 forfeit the approbation of the wise and good, 
 defy the , Omnipotent to arms, and run the 
 
 risk of everlasting damnation. Yet such 
 
 6* 
 
180 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 there are, infatuated men, who seek for dis- 
 tinction in unnatural efforts to degrade their 
 species — who found a title to respect, upon 
 discoveries which link them in destiny to the 
 brutes, who glory in their shame. Nothing in 
 the majesty of virtue rebukes them, nothing 
 in the simplicity of truth allures them, no- 
 thing in the terrors of the Almighty, alarms 
 them. With ruthless violence and parricidal 
 zeal, they attack whatever is venerable, sa- 
 cred, august, and true. The sublimest doc- 
 trines of religion, the dread retributions of 
 eternity, and the name and perfections of 
 Him who sits upon the circle of the earth, 
 and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshop- 
 pers, before whom the nations are counted as 
 the small dust of the balance, are treated as 
 materials to minister to vanity. At one time, 
 under the pretext of exalting natural relig- 
 ion, the mysteries of the cross are disregard- 
 ed, and reason is professedly exalted only 
 that grace may be really despised. At an- 
 other time, the distinctions of truth and false- 
 hood are involved in confusion, and universal 
 
THE LOVE 0/ rr. UTH. lol 
 
 skepticism made the touchstone of sound 
 philosophy. And truth, and duty, and relig- 
 ion, disappear in the darkness. The scene 
 changes, and we behold open apologists for 
 Atheism, who seek to gain a name in the 
 earth by unblushingly proclaiming that they 
 can detect no traces of wisdom in the fabric 
 of the world, no tokens of goodness in the 
 conduct of Providence ; whose deity is chance, 
 whose devotion is sensuality, whose hope is 
 extinction. But as these gross forms of im- 
 piety and absurdity soon excited too much 
 disgust to flatter the vanity of their authors, 
 the infamous odour they emitted rebuking 
 the inspection of curiosity, this miserable am- 
 bition of distinction was compelled to resort 
 to decency, and assuming the air of profound 
 speculation, covered its enormities under the 
 refinements of a philosophy, in which names, 
 that are dear to the heart, the names of God, 
 of virtue, and religion, are retained, but the 
 things themselves are exploded. This sys- 
 tem is exactly adapted to the ruling passion 
 of the vain. Obscurity is its element, and as 
 
182 THE LOVE OF THUTH. 
 
 objects look larger in a mist, the reputation 
 of profound sagacity and wisdom, may be 
 cheaply purchased by substituting mystery 
 for sense, and dreams for thought, by drink- 
 ing inspiration from the clouds, and clothing 
 oracular responses in a jargon as dark and 
 unintelligible as the hieroglyphics of those 
 great exemplars of imposture, the priesthood 
 of Egypt. Guard, my young friends, against 
 vanity. Never let it be a question whether 
 this, or that opinion, shall attract attention to 
 your persons. Look only for evidence — fol- 
 low the light — and be content with the re- 
 flection that you have deserved, whether you 
 have gained or not, the approbation of your 
 fellows. Wisdom will eventually be justified 
 of all her children. The triumphs of vanity 
 are short — those of truth everlasting. 
 
 Closely connected with vanity is the ir- 
 regular influence of .the sense of shame, in 
 prompting us to shrink from opinions which 
 may expose us to ridicule. False shame, it is 
 obvious, however, is not so fatal to the inter- 
 ests of truth, as vanity; since, content with 
 
THE LOVE OF TliUTH. 1S3 
 
 suppressing unpopular convictions, it makes 
 no excursions into the fields of error. Unam- 
 bitious of attracting observation, it meditates 
 no monument of glory. It is not obscurity, 
 but contempt, that excites its apprehensions. 
 The sense of shame, as a subsidiary sanction 
 of virtue and propriety, is an important, per- 
 haps an indispensable element, in the econo- 
 my of human nature. It is a protection from 
 what is little in principle, and mean in con- 
 duct. But to exalt the sense of the ridicu- 
 lous into a criterion of truth, to make it the 
 guide of reason in the pursuits of philosophy, 
 is to destroy the just subordination of im- 
 pulses and passions to the dictates of the un- 
 derstanding. Our emotions depend, not upon 
 the essential qualities of the objects that ex- 
 cite them, but upon the representations that 
 are made to the mind. The eye affects the 
 heart — the aspects, or lights, in which things 
 are contemplated, determine the character 
 of the feelings they produce. If, then, virtue 
 and truth are capable of being distorted by 
 the fancy, and presented under false appear- 
 
1S4 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 ances, they are capable of being made the oc- 
 casions of emotions foreign to their nature. 
 It may, indeed, be conceded that the sense 
 of ridicule is an instinct of nature, and that 
 its appropriate qualities are neither truth, vir- 
 tue, nor goodness, distinctively as such ; but 
 as instances of virtue can be misrepresented 
 to the moral sense, and receive the censure 
 which is due to vice, so truth can be covered 
 in the disguise of falsehood, and provoke the 
 laughter which is due to folly. The intrinsic 
 dignity and importance of an object are no 
 exemption from the shafts of raillery. The 
 noblest painting may be seen in a false light. 
 The history of infidelity is fraught with mel- 
 ancholy proof, that no subjects are too sub- 
 lime for levity, too sacred for caricature, or 
 too solemn for a jest. Could religion always 
 be presented in its true colours — and this is 
 the truth which it is most important to guard 
 — ^it would have nothing to fear from the 
 power of ridicule. But when piety is de- 
 nounced as superstition, humility reproached 
 as meanness, faith derided as enthusiasm, firm- 
 
THE LOVE OF TKUTH. 136 
 
 ness despised as obstinacy, and joy in the 
 Holy Ghost insulted as the offspring of spirit- 
 ual pride, religion may suffer from the con- 
 tempt due only to the gross and disgusting 
 pictures which sophists and buffoons have 
 drawn of it. There are a thousand tricks by 
 which wit and humour may pervert the mys- 
 teries of the cross, and connect them with low 
 and ridiculous associations, with which they 
 have no natural affinity. Through the fatal 
 imposture of words, by mean and vulgar an- 
 alogies, the eccentricities of good men may 
 be artfully exaggerated, their ignorance and 
 frailties conspicuously set off, and true piety 
 dexterously confounded with hypocrisy and 
 fraud. In every age skeptics have relied 
 more upon the power of sarcasm, than upon 
 the power of argument. The enemies of 
 Christianity, as Dr. Paley justly remarks, 
 have pursued her with poisoned weapons. A 
 sophism may be detected, but who can refute 
 a sneer. When infidelity ceased to be con- 
 fined to the circles of philosophers, and be- 
 gan to court the approbation of the crowd, 
 
136 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 it abandoned whatever dignity and elegance 
 it formerly possessed, and descended to the 
 lowest forms of buffoonery. It dropped the 
 mask of the sage, assumed the character of 
 the harlequin, relinquished argument, and be- 
 took itself to ribaldry. The design of the 
 French philosophers was not to discuss the 
 merits of Christianity, but to present it in 
 false lights, to exhibit it in uncouth and re- 
 volting attitudes, to attach disgusting or ridi- 
 culous associations with its peculiar doctrines, 
 and to cover it with the contempt which was 
 due only to the odious pictures themselves had 
 drawn. It has been the trick of the profane, 
 in every age, to deride the pretensions to 
 spiritual religion, and it requires no ordinary 
 degree of courage, to resist the contempt to 
 which the profession of vital religion is ex- 
 posed in the world. When it is industrious- 
 ly connected with ideas of littleness, mean- 
 ness, and fanaticism, represented as the prop- 
 erty of narrow spirits and of coward hearts, 
 the temptation is very strong to be ashamed 
 of its doctrines, its promises, and its hopes. 
 
THE LOVE OP TRUTH. 137 
 
 Such is the depravity of men, that singular 
 virtue is made the object of reproach, while 
 singular vice, or singular error, may be the 
 means of distinction. Hence our Saviour 
 brings the awful sanctions of eternity to bear 
 upon those who are in danger of surrender- 
 ing truth to a jest — their honest opinions to 
 raillery and banter. He points to a shame 
 with which sin shall be finally accompanied, 
 more tremendous and appalling than all the 
 reproaches of men — an everlasting contempt 
 which shall astonish and overwhelm the guil- 
 ty — ^when God shall laugh at his calamity, 
 and mock when his fear cometh. "Whoso- 
 ever is ashamed of me, and of my words, of 
 him also shall the Son of man be ashamed 
 when he comes in the glory of the Father 
 with the holy angels." 
 
 We should particularly guard against the 
 irregular influence of shame, because its op- 
 erations do not always stop at the suppression 
 or concealment of obnoxious opinions. The 
 rebukes of conscience must be silenced by 
 pleas, and the self-respect we have forfeited 
 
188 THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 
 
 must be regained by evasions. He who is 
 ashamed of the truth will soon proceed to 
 condemn it. He who is afraid to profess 
 Christ will soon be tempted to deny him. 
 He that is not prepared to suffer will soon be 
 induced to betray. That character alone is 
 great in which the love of truth is supreme, 
 habitually superior to the clamours of preju- 
 dice, the surmises of ignorance, and the jeers 
 of contempt. 
 
 I have now described briefly and rapidly 
 the characteristics of the love of truth, which 
 was previously evinced to be a duty, and 
 pointed out some of the dangers to which we 
 are exposed, of foregoing its claims. My de- 
 sign has been to commend this spirit to your 
 hearts. It is the foundation of all solid ex- 
 cellence. It gives stability to character, and 
 distinguishes firmness from obstinacy. It 
 makes the man of principle. You may be 
 distinguished in the world without it ; but you 
 never can have the approbation of your own 
 hearts, or the smile of God. You never can 
 perfect and adorn your natures. Learn to in- 
 
THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 139 
 
 vestigate, to examine, to try the principles 
 that are proposed to you, and make it a fixed 
 rule to regulate your assent by no authority 
 but that of evidence. Never be in love with 
 opinions upon any foreign or adventitious 
 grounds; cleave to them only because they 
 are the truth. Hear instruction, and be wise, 
 and refuse it not. "Blessed," says Divine 
 Wisdom, "is the man that heareth me, watch- 
 ing daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of 
 my doors. For whoso findeth me, findeth 
 life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord. But 
 he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own 
 soul ; all they that hate me love death." 
 
<^ i It r ^ r i 1 1 . 
 
 "Finally, brethren, wliatsoever things are true — think on 
 these things." — Philippians, iv. 8. 
 
 ■f^Tn^, ttt Truth mav be considered in 
 DISC. IV. -. ,. 
 
 two leading aspects, either as 
 
 having reference to the correspondence of 
 our convictions with the reality of things, 
 which may be called speculative truth, or 
 truth of opinion ; or as having reference to the 
 correspondence of our expressions with the 
 reality of our convictions, which, in contra- 
 distinction from the former, may be called 
 practical truth, or truth of life and conduct. 
 The one protects our minds from imposition 
 and error, the other protects our lips from 
 treachery and falsehood. The one keeps us 
 from being deceived, the other from deceiv- 
 ing. The love of truth, as a general habit, 
 equally includes them both ; it makes us cau- 
 
SINCERITY. * 141 
 
 tious, discriminating and attentive to evi- 
 dence, in the process by which our opinions 
 are formed, and exact, prudent and scrupu- 
 lous in the testimony by which we communi- 
 cate our judgments to others. The love of 
 truth, as a general habit, and as applying to 
 our speculative inquiries, has already been 
 sufficiently considered. It remains now to 
 discuss the second great branch of the sub- 
 ject, practical truth, or truth of life and con- 
 duct. 
 
 This seems to me to include three things. 
 First, sincerity^ which obtains whenever the 
 signs, whatever they may be, by which we in- 
 tentionally communicate ideas, exactly repre- 
 sent the state of our own convictions. The 
 standard of this species of truth is a man's 
 own thoughts. As the design of speech is 
 not directly and immediately to express the 
 nature and properties of things, but our own 
 conceptions in regard to them, he that utters 
 what he thinks, is not wanting in veracity, 
 however his thoughts may fail to correspond 
 to the realities themselves. Distinguished 
 
142 SINCERITY. 
 
 casuists have, accordingly, defined veracity to 
 be a moral virtue, inclining men to represent 
 phenomena according to their own apprehen- 
 sions.* The matter of it they make twofold, 
 immediate and remote ;f the immediate con- 
 sisting in the correspondence of the statement 
 with the conviction of the speaker, the re- 
 mote in the correspondence of the conviction 
 to the thing itself The concurrence of the 
 
 * Thomas Aquinas's Summa. 2. 2. quest. 110, art. 1. Dens. Theol., 
 Mor. and Dog., vol. iv. p. 306. De Veritate. 
 
 f The distinction of Aquinas is into matter and form. The 
 matter of a proposition being its truth or falsehood abstractly 
 considered; the form, its truth or falsehood according to the be- 
 lief of the speaker. 
 
 A proposition may, obviously, be contemplated in two lights, 
 either abstractly as a naked affirmation or denial, and then the 
 matter of it is the thing, whatever it may be, which is asserted 
 or denied ; or relatively, according to the purpose and intention 
 of the speaker, and then the matter of it is the apprehension of 
 his own mind ; it affirms or denies, not what is, except per acci- 
 dens, but what he believes. When the question is in reference to 
 the truth of the thing, the matter, in the first aspect, is the 
 point of inquiry ; when the question is in reference to the sin- 
 cerity of the speaker, the matter, in the second, is all that is 
 important. This is, indeed, the sole matter of veracity, but not 
 the sole matter of the proposition. Hence, the distinction into 
 proximate and remote is a convenient one, if it be borne in mind 
 that the proximate is the essence of veracity, as it respects the 
 speaker ; the remote, of the proposition abstractly considered as 
 true or false. The most common distinction, however, is into 
 matter and form ; the matter having reference to the proposi- 
 tion itself, the form to the belief of the speaker. 
 
SINCERITY. 143 
 
 two is a safeguard against all deception from 
 testimony. It is then perfect and complete. 
 With this double distinction of the matter of 
 veracity, it is easily conceivable that a man may 
 veraciously utter what is false, and falsely 
 utter what is true. If he affirms that to be 
 true which he believes to be false, or affirms 
 that to be false which he believes to be true, 
 though in each case his belief may be er- 
 roneous, and things be exactly as he repre- 
 sents them, he is guilty of deceit — he has 
 spoken against his mind — the proximate or 
 immediate matter of veracity is wanting. 
 This proximate matter is what modern writers 
 have denominated moral, and the remote what 
 they have denominated, physical or logical 
 truth. It is evident that in the former the 
 essence of sincerity consists, and upon the 
 latter the value of testimony, as an independ- 
 ent source of knowledge, depends. " If there 
 be an agreement," says South,* who, in his 
 definition of a lie, has followed Augustine, 
 *' if there be an agreement between our words 
 
 * Sermon on Falsehood, Prov. xii. 82. 
 
144 SINCERITY. 
 
 and our thoughts, we do not speak falsely, 
 though it sometimes so falls out, that our 
 words agree not with the things themselves ; 
 upon which account, though in so speaking, 
 we offend indeed against truth ; yet we offend 
 not properly by falsehood, which is a speak- 
 ing against our thoughts; but by rashness, 
 which is affirming or denying, before we 
 have sufficiently informed ourselves of the 
 real and true estate of those things whereof 
 we affirm or deny." It is certainly incum- 
 bent upon men to guard against imposture 
 and error, and where their judgments have 
 been hastily formed, without due attention to 
 the evidence within their reach, or under the 
 influence of prejudice and passion, their mis- 
 takes are not without guilt. They sin against 
 the truth in the absence of that spirit of in- 
 difference, impartiality and candid inquiry in 
 which the love of it consists, though they are 
 not chargeable with insincerity or deceit in 
 their communications to others. The differ- 
 ence betwixt a mistake and a lie is, that in 
 the one case the speaker himself is deceived, 
 
SINCERITY. 145 
 
 in the other he proposes to deceive others. 
 A mistake always, a lie never, has the prox- 
 imate matter of veracity. 
 
 The second branch of practical truth re- 
 quires that our actions correspond with our 
 professions. This is called faithfulness^ and 
 consists in fulfilling the engagements and 
 meeting the expectations which we have 
 knowingly and voluntarily excited. This sub- 
 ject is generally discussed under the head of 
 veracity ; but faithfulness is evidently a mixed 
 virtue, combining the elements of justice and 
 of truth. A promise or a contract creates a 
 right in another party — and the obligation to 
 fulfil it arises accordingly, not simply from 
 the general obligation of veracity, but from 
 the specific obligation, which corresponds 
 to my neighbour's right. Hence, breach of 
 promise is something more than a lie, it is a 
 fraud — it cheats a man of his own. 
 
 The third thing involved in practical 
 truth, is consistency or harmony of character. 
 Truth is one, and the life of the good man 
 must be a reflection of its unity. Fluctua- 
 
146 SINOEKITY. 
 
 tions and fickleness of opinion^ or of conduct, 
 are certain indications of gross dishonesty of 
 heart, or of gross imbecility of understanding. 
 When a man often shifts his principles, it 
 is not truth, but imagined interest that he 
 stands on ; and he who is under the frequent 
 necessity, as the phrase goes, of ^' defining his 
 jposition^^'' has no position that is worth defin- 
 ing, and is fit for no position of any moment. 
 
 These three, sincerity, faithfulness, and 
 consistency, comprise the whole duty of prac- 
 tical veracity. The opposite of the first is 
 deceit, in its protean shapes of lying, hypoc- 
 risy and flattery ; the opposite of the second 
 is fraud, and the opposite of the third is in- 
 constancy or fickleness. 
 
 Before proceeding to a more detailed dis- 
 cussion of these subjects, it may be well to 
 adjust a preliminary question in reference to 
 the grounds of the obligation of veracity. 
 Paley resolves them into contract.* *' A lie," 
 says he, "is a breach of promise: for whoever 
 seriously addresses his discourse to another, 
 
 * Moral and Political Philosophy.— Book iii. Chap. 6. 
 
SINCERITY. 147 
 
 tacitly promises to speak the truth, because 
 he knows that the truth is expected." To say 
 nothing of the fact that a promise pre-sup- 
 poses the veracity of the promiser as the 
 measure of its engagement, that it is nothing 
 and can be nothing except on the supposition 
 that the promiser really conveys the purpose 
 of his mind, the theory labours under another 
 difficulty. It is not enough to constitute a 
 promise that expectations are entertained — 
 they must be knowingly and voluntarily ex- 
 cited by ourselves. It is nothing worth, 
 therefore, to affirm that because truth is ex- 
 pected when we seriously address our dis- 
 course to another, therefore we have tacitly 
 promised to speak it, unless it can be shown 
 that this expectation has been intentionally 
 produced by our agency. We are not bound 
 by any other expectations of men, but those 
 which we have authorized. It is idle, there- 
 fore, to pretend to a contract in the case. If 
 Dr. Paley had pushed his inquiries a little 
 further, he might have accounted for this ex- 
 pectation, which certainly exists, independ- 
 
148 SINCERITY. 
 
 ently of a promise, upon principles firmer and 
 surer than any he has admitted in the struc- 
 ture of his philosophy. He might have seen 
 in it the language of our nature proclaiming 
 the will of our nature's God. It is surprising 
 to what an extent this superficial theory of 
 contract has found advocates among divines 
 and moralists. " Upon the principles of nat- 
 ural reason," says South, in a passage of* 
 which the extract from Paley may be regard- 
 ed as an abridgment, "the unlawfulness of 
 lying is grounded upon this, that a lie is 
 properly a sort or species of injustice, and a 
 violation of the right of that person to whom 
 the false speech is directed ; for all speaking, 
 or signification of one's mind, implies, in the 
 nature of it, an act or address of one man 
 to another; it being evident that no man, 
 though he does speak false, can be said to lie 
 to himself Now, to show what this right is, 
 we must know that in the beginnings and 
 first establishments of speech, there was an 
 implicit compact amongst men, founded upon 
 common use and consent, that such and such 
 
SINCERITY. 149 
 
 words or voices, actions or gestures, should be 
 means or signs, whereby they would express 
 or CQuvey their thoughts one to another; 
 and that men should be obliged to use them 
 for that purpose ; forasmuch as without such 
 an obligation, those signs could not be effect- 
 ual for such an end. From which compact, 
 there arising an obligation upon every one 
 so to convey his meaning, there accrues also 
 a right to every one, by the same signs to 
 judge of the sense or meaning of the per- 
 son so obliged to express himself; and con- 
 sequently if these signs are applied and used 
 by him, so as not to signify his meaning, the 
 right of the person, to whom he was oblig- 
 ed so to have done, is hereby violated, and 
 the man, by being deceived and kept ignorant 
 of his neighbour's meaning, where he ought 
 to have known it, is so far deprived of the 
 benefit of any intercourse or converse with 
 him." 
 
 If men once existed in a state of solitary 
 independence, as destitute of language as 
 of society, it is impossible to conceive how 
 
150 siNCEKirv. 
 
 they could have established a mutual un- 
 derstanding and concerted the signs which 
 were subsequently to be employed as tte ve- 
 hicles of thought. There must have been 
 some mode of communication, or the conven- 
 tion in question becomes utterly impracti- 
 cable. Whatever that mode might be, the 
 obligation of veracity applied to it, in order 
 that it might be effectual, and an arrange- 
 ment which presupposes, cannot be the 
 source of a duty. Men were either bound 
 to represent their thoughts honestly to each 
 other, when they came together to frame an 
 artificial language, or they were not. If they 
 were previously bound, the obligation can- 
 not spring from any agreement entered into 
 at the time — if they were not, there is no 
 security that the terms of the agreement 
 express the intentions of the parties, and no 
 evidence, accordingly, that any real promise 
 was made. Such are the inconsistencies inci- 
 dent to all explanations of the origin of 
 society and language, which overlook the 
 historical facts of the Bible. Man was 
 
SINCERITY. 1^1 
 
 evidently created a social being and with the 
 gift of speech. He was as much adapted, 
 when he came from the hands of God, to 
 intercourse with his fellows by the possession 
 of language, as by the possession of those in- 
 stincts, passions and affections, which make 
 the home, the family and the State, indis- 
 pensable to his progress and developement. 
 He was born in society and for society ; it 
 is not a condition which he has voluntarily 
 selected from a calculation of its conveniences 
 and comforts ; it is the condition in which 
 God has placed him, and from which he can- 
 not be divorced. Language is arbitrary in 
 the sense that there is, except to a very lim- 
 ited extent, no natural analogy between 
 sounds and the thoughts they represent; it 
 is not arbitrary in the sense that it is purely 
 the product of the human will ; it is not an 
 invention, but a faculty, and, like all other 
 faculties, capable of improvement or abuse. 
 
 The account which Dr. Whewell gives in 
 his Elements of Morality,^ of the obligation 
 
 * Elements of Morality, book iii., chap. 16, § 386. 
 
152 SINCEllITY. 
 
 of veracity, though it is free from the pa- 
 ralogisms of Paley and South, and the the- 
 ory of contract, is not unincumbered with 
 difi&culties of its own. Among the springs 
 of action he enumerates the need of a mu- 
 tual understanding among men — speaks of 
 this as a need rather than a desire, it being 
 " rather a necessity of man's condition than 
 an object of his conscious desire." " We 
 see this necessity," he continues, "even in 
 animals, especially in those which are gre- 
 garious. In their associated condition, they 
 derive help and advantage from one an- 
 other ; and many of them, especially those 
 that live, travel, or hunt in companies, are 
 seen to reckon upon each others' actions with 
 great precision and confidence. In societies 
 of men, this mutual aid and reliance are no 
 less necessary than among beavers or bees. 
 But in man, this aid and reliance are not 
 the work of mere instinct. There must be 
 a mutual understanding, by which men learn 
 to anticipate and to- depend upon the actions 
 of each other. This mutual understanding 
 
SINCERITY. 158 
 
 presupposes that man has the power of de- 
 termining his future actions, and that he has 
 the power of making other men aware of 
 his determination. It presupposes purpose 
 as its matter, and language as its instrument." 
 It is clear that Dr. Whewell had princi- 
 pally in view promises and contracts, those 
 purposes of our own in regard to the future, 
 which have given rise to expectations in 
 others, in conformity with which they have 
 adjusted their plans and regulated their con- 
 duct. Mutual understanding is a necessity 
 only where deceit is an injury. There are 
 cases of falsehood, in which it would be 
 hard to prove that any shock is given to 
 society, provided it were understood that 
 the prevarication, in these cases, was not in- 
 consistent with the strictest integrity, where 
 confidence was really important. Upon Dr. 
 Whewell's principles, the law of veracity is 
 not universal, embracing every instance and 
 form in which one man communicates ideas 
 to another ; it extends only to those contin- 
 gencies in which we have entered into 
 
 7* 
 
t^ SINCERITY. 
 
 virtual engagements. He could convict jest- 
 ing and foolish talking of guilt only on the 
 ground, that they imperceptibly disturb our 
 love of truth and undermine the security of our 
 faithfulness, and gradually introduce us into 
 fraud and treachery. They are not wrong, 
 upon his hypothesis, essentially and inher- 
 ently, but only indirectly and contingently. 
 
 In the next place, it is not explained how 
 this need of mutual understanding operates 
 as a spring of action. It is denied to be 
 a conscious desire — it is denied to be an 
 instinct — by which, I suppose, he means a 
 blind craving of our nature. What then 
 is it? If it expresses simply a necessity of 
 our condition as social, we are either con- 
 scious of this necessity, or we are not. If 
 we are not conscious of it, it can have no 
 possible influence upon us. It will be to 
 us as though it existed not. If we are con- 
 scious of it, then it must produce desire, and 
 that desire must lead to expedients to grat- 
 ify it. Speaking the truth, as the means of 
 satisfying this craving of our nature, would 
 
SINCERITY. 106 
 
 consequently be the suggestion of reason. 
 This, I think, is what the learned author 
 meant, although some expressions he has 
 used are hardly reconcilable with it. If so, 
 the obligation of veracity is a deduction of 
 the understanding from the circumstances 
 in which we are placed. The end to be 
 gained is first distinctly suggested by a 
 sense of need, and veracity is enforced as 
 the only conceivable expedient by which it 
 can be accomplished. Plence the law of 
 truth is not a primary and fundamental da- 
 tum of consciousness, but a secondary and 
 subordinate principle, which requires some 
 knowledge of our social relations in order 
 to its developement. The statement of these 
 difficulties is a sufficient refutation of the 
 hypothesis. 
 
 The r^al ground upon which the obliga- 
 tion of this, as ultimately the obligation of 
 every other duty, must be made to rest, is 
 the will of God, as expressed in the constitu- 
 tion of the human mind. Truth is natural. 
 There are two principles, or laws, impresse(i 
 
 
156 SINCERITV. 
 
 upon every man, by which he is adapted to 
 social intercourse, and which operate inde- 
 pendently of any consciousness, on his part, 
 of their subserviency to the interests of 
 society, and which manifest themselves in 
 the form of dispositions^ one prompting him 
 to speak the truth himself, and the other to 
 believe that others speak it. No man ever 
 tells a lie without a certain degree of vio- 
 lence to his nature. Motives must inter- 
 vene, of fear, or hope, or vanity, or shame 
 — temptations J as in the case of all other 
 vices, must take place, in order that the 
 contradiction to our nature and the whole 
 current of our thoughts or feelings, involved 
 in a falsehood, may obtain. It is not the 
 spontaneous native offspring of the soul — 
 it is the creature of passion and of lust. It 
 is in consequence of this constitution of the 
 mind, with reference to truth and social in- 
 tercourse, that the expectation of which Dr. 
 Paley speaks, as always existing when we 
 seriously address our discourse to another, 
 springs up in the breast. This expectation 
 
SINCERITY. 157 
 
 is only the manifestation of our natural ten- 
 dency to speak the truth and to credit the 
 statements of others. 'V\nien we look at our- 
 selves, we see that God has impressed upon 
 our souls the law of truth. We see that he 
 has fitted us to trust, at the same time, in 
 others ; and though both dispositions are 
 indulged long antecedently to any knowl- 
 edge of the important bearing of such ele- 
 ments of our being upon the interests of 
 society, yet the subsequent developement of 
 these relations strengthens our attachment 
 to truth and enlarges our views of the wis- 
 dom of God. The author of our nature 
 has made provision for a mutual understand- 
 ing among men, and not left them, under the 
 influence of a blind craving, to make pro- 
 vision for themselves. Our social affections 
 might just as reasonably be ascribed to a 
 vague desire of society, prompting to the 
 invention of expedients for its indulgence, 
 as our disposition to speak the truth, to a 
 vague craving for the interchange of thought. 
 To those, therefore, who would ask, Why am 
 
168 SINCERITY. 
 
 I bound to speak the truth? I would 
 briefly answer, because it is the law of my 
 nature; it is a fundamental datum of con- 
 science ; a command of God impressed upon 
 the moral structure of the soul. It can be 
 resolved into no higher principle — ^it is 
 simple, elementary, ultimate. In this view 
 of the case, it deserves further to be re- 
 marked, that the obligation is universal, 
 and not restricted to promises or contracts. 
 It is not only natural to fulfil the expect- 
 ations we knowingly and voluntarily excite, 
 but it is equally natural, that in the use of 
 signs to communicate ideas, we should fairly 
 and honestly represent the thoughts of our 
 own minds. In every case, nature prompts 
 us to speak and expect the truth, and it is 
 not until experience has taught us that our 
 confidence is often abused that we learn to 
 limit our credulity, and even then, "not- 
 withstanding the lessons of caution commu- 
 nicated to us by experience, there is scarcely 
 a man to be found," as Dr. Reid has properly 
 remarked, " who is not more credulous than 
 
SINCERITY. 159 
 
 he ought to be, and who does not, upon 
 many occasions give credit to tales which not 
 only turn out to be perfectly false, but which 
 a very moderate degree of reflection and at- 
 .tention might have taught him could not 
 well be true. The natural disposition is 
 always to believe. It is acquired wisdom 
 and experience alone that teach incredulity, 
 and they very seldom teach it enough." 
 
 Having nov»^ explained the ground of the 
 obligation of veracity, I proceed to con- 
 sider the duties which are involved in the 
 general law of sincerity. 
 
 This law is, that the signs, whatever they 
 may be, by which y^e intentionally commu- 
 nicate ideas, should correspond as exactly 
 as possible with the thoughts they are em- 
 ployed to represent. 
 
 1. The first thing here to be noted is, 
 that truth is not to be restricted to speech. 
 Language is not the only vehicle of thought. 
 A greater prominence is given to it than to 
 any other sign, because it is the most com- 
 mon and important instrument of social com- 
 
160 SINCERITY. 
 
 munication. But the same rule of sincerity 
 which is to regulate the use of it, applies to 
 all the media by which we conscicusly pro- 
 duce impressions upon the minds of others. 
 Augustin defines a lie to be the false signi- 
 fication of a word for the purpose of deceit, 
 and intimates that by the term word^ he 
 means any and every significant sign, whether 
 spoken or written, whether natural or arti- 
 ficial — gestures, actions, looks, or ejaculations. 
 It may be also added, that the absence of 
 any signs, or the omission to use them, may 
 have the efi'ect of suggesting thoughts, and 
 when we neglect them from this consider- 
 ation, we are responsible for the effect pro- 
 duced. A lie, then, is compendiously " any 
 false signification, knowingly and voluntarily 
 used," no matter what may be the instru- 
 ments employed for the purpose. He who 
 responds to the question of a traveller con- 
 cerning the road by pointing in a wrong 
 direction, who nods to a proposal which he 
 does not mean to accept, who omits in a 
 narrative a circumstance without which an 
 
siNCEKirr. 161 
 
 erroneous judgment cannot but be formed 
 in the case, or so arranges his facts as to 
 lead naturally- and justly to inferences that 
 are false ; he who in these, or in any other 
 ways, consciously misleads his neighbour, is 
 as really wanting in sincerity and as truly 
 guilty of a lie as if he had deceived by 
 words. Appearances kept up for the pur- 
 pose of deceiving, such as a splendid equip- 
 age by one whose income is inadequate to 
 the expense ; hurry and bustle in a phy- 
 sician without patients ; a multitude of pa- 
 pers by a lawyer without briefs ; and all sim- 
 ilar tricks for effect, belong to this species of 
 dissembling. South thinks that though the 
 principle is the same in each case, the term 
 lie is distinctly applied to deception by words, 
 and simulation or hypocrisy to deception by 
 gestures, actions, or behaviour. I appre- 
 hend, however, that hypocrisy, according to 
 general usage, denotes only a particular 
 species of this deception. It refers to 
 the personation of a character that does 
 not belong to us. We are hypocrites only 
 
162 SINCERITY. 
 
 as we pretend to be that which we are 
 not. 
 
 2. The application of the law, in the case 
 of parables, fictions, tales and figurative lan- 
 guage, such as hyperbole and irony, is not 
 to the details and subordinate statements, 
 but to the moral, which, as a whole, they are 
 intended to illustrate. Dr. Paley has strange- 
 ly enumerated these under the head of false- 
 hoods^ which are not lies, attaching them 
 to the same class with the disingenuous 
 assertions of an advocate in pleading a 
 cause, or with a servant's denial of his mas- 
 ter. But in these cases there is evidently, 
 in no proper sense, any falsehood at all. 
 The fable, parable, or tale, taken as a whole, 
 may be and is regarded as a species of 
 proposition, in which the lesson to be in- 
 culcated is all that is strictly affirmed. The 
 rest is drapery, mere conceptions of the im- 
 agination, intended to illustrate and place 
 in commanding lights, the ultimate truth to 
 be taught. They are not proposed as facts, 
 but rather as the signs and representatives 
 
SINCERITY. 163 
 
 of wliat might be facts. They are, in other 
 words, only the language in which the 
 proposition is enounced. When a man hon- 
 estly believes the moral of his tale, what- 
 ever may be its ingredients and subordinate 
 circumstances, he is not wanting in sincerity. 
 The pictures of his fancy are not the things 
 which he affirms. If, however, he should 
 invent a story to enforce a proposition which 
 he believes to be false, he would then vio- 
 late the obligation of veracity. It is only 
 where the end aimed at is contradictory to 
 a man's own convictions that these contriv- 
 ances of the imagination possess either the 
 form or matter of falsehood. Of course, if 
 a man should assert the details of a fable, 
 parable, or fiction, as facts^ without believing 
 them himself, he would be justly subject 
 to the imputation of lying, as he would be 
 equally subject, if he believed them, to the 
 imputation of insanity. 
 
 3. There is a form of simulation which is 
 resorted to for the purpose of exciting curi- 
 osity, stimulating attention, conveying in- 
 
164 S I N C K li I T Y . 
 
 struction, or exploring and bringing to light 
 what otherwise might not be known. It is a 
 species of interrogatory by action. It has 
 the same effect on the mind as the asking of 
 a question. When our Saviour made as 
 though he would have gone further, he ef- 
 fectually questioned his disciples as to the 
 condition of their hearts in relation to the 
 duties of hospitality. The angels, in pre- 
 tending that it was their purpose to abide 
 in the street all night, made the .same ex- 
 periment on Lot. This species of simulation 
 involves no falsehood — its design is not to 
 deceive, but to catechize or instruct. The 
 whole action is to be regarded as a sign by 
 which a question is proposed, or ihe mind 
 excited to such a degree of curiosity and 
 attention, that lessons of truth can be suc- 
 cessfully imparted. The command to Abra- 
 ham to sacrifice his son involved a series 
 of practical interrogatories, to which no 
 other form of proposing them could have 
 elicited such satisfactory responses. The 
 principle holds here, which obtains in refer- 
 
SINCEKITY. 166 
 
 ence to fictions and fables. The action is 
 only the dress of the thought, and where 
 the purpose in view is honourable and just, 
 no exceptions can be taken, on the score 
 of veracity, to the drapery in which it is 
 adorned. But when it has no ulterior ob- 
 ject, when it is not in fact a sign, it is 
 ihen to be reckoned as deceit. It is to be 
 judged of simply as it is in itself Just 
 as the details of a fiction, if represented 
 absolutely and as facts, are to be regarded 
 as departures from veracity. Even if ca- 
 pricious simulations were not, as they are, 
 lies, they are so much like them, that he 
 who accustoms himself to indulge in this 
 species of conduct, must insensibly lose his 
 impressions of the sacredness of truth, and 
 forfeit that delicate sensibility to its claims, 
 upon which sincerity depends. It is dan- 
 gerous to sport even on the verge of guilt. 
 The least that can be said, with any show of 
 reason, is, that unmeaning pretences are 
 analogous to foolish talking and jesting, 
 which are not convenient. It is especially 
 
166 SINCEKITV. 
 
 important, in the education of children, that 
 we allow ourselves in no conduct, which 
 may insensibly affect them with light thoughts 
 of the evil of hypocrisy. The child who 
 sees his parents frequently feigning, without 
 reason, or merely for amusement, will be a 
 dull scholar in depravity, if he should not 
 speedily conclude that he also may feign, 
 when his interests or malice require it. 
 
 4. The law of sincerity is not violated in 
 those cases of silence, or of partial and 
 evasive information, (which, however, must 
 always be correct, as far as it goes,) in which 
 the design is not deception, but conceal- 
 ment. There are things which men have 
 a right to keep secret, and if a prurient 
 curiosity prompts others officiously to pry 
 into them, there is nothing criminal or dishon- 
 est in refusing to minister to such a spirit. 
 Our silence, or evasive answers, may have 
 the effect of misleading — that is not our 
 fault, as it was not our design. Our purpose 
 was simply to leave the inquirer, as nearly 
 as possible, in the state of ignorance in 
 
SINCERITY. 167 
 
 which we found him — ^it was not to misin- 
 form, but not to inform at all. "Every 
 man," says Dr. Dick, " has not a right to 
 hear the truth when he chooses to demand 
 it. We are not bound to answer every ques- 
 tion which may be proposed to us. In such 
 cases we may be silent, or we may give as 
 much information as we please and suppress 
 the rest. If the person afterwards discover 
 that the information was partial, he has no 
 title to complain, because he had not a right 
 even to what he obtained; and we are not 
 guilty of a falsehood, unless we made him 
 believe, by something which we said, that 
 the information was complete. We are at 
 liberty to put off with an evasive answer, 
 the man who attempts to draw from us 
 what we ought to conceal." This principle 
 is certainly recognized in the Scriptures. 
 When Jeremiah was interrogated of the 
 Princes in relation to the interview which 
 he had with the King, he concealed the 
 principal design of it, which was to recom- 
 mend submission to the Chaldeans, and dis- 
 
16S SINCERITY. 
 
 closed only the petition, that the King would 
 not remand him to Jonathan's house. Sam- 
 uel was instructed by the Lord to act upon 
 the same principle, in order to avoid the 
 danger to which he was exposed from the 
 resentment of Saul, if the real purpose of 
 his mission to Bethlehem, when he went to 
 anoint David, were known. "And Samuel 
 said, how can I go ? If Saul hear it, he will 
 kill me. And the Lord said. Take an heifer 
 with thee, and say I am come to sacrifice to 
 the Lord." 
 
 The principle, of course, can only be ap- 
 plied to those cases where we have a right 
 to conceal. But all partial and evasive an- 
 swers, when we are bound to speak the 
 whole truth, or when they are given for the 
 purpose of deception, are inconsistent with 
 veracity. Then a man does not Mde^ but 
 lie. 
 
 It may be asked whether a direct false- 
 hood is not lawful when it is uttered only 
 for the purpose of concealment. Sir Walter 
 Scott, it is well known, defended his denial 
 
SINCERITY. 169 
 
 to the Prince of Wales, of his being the au- 
 thor of the Waverly Novels, on the ground 
 that it was a matter which he was anxious 
 to keep secret, and that he could not do it 
 in any other way, but by the course which 
 he had pursued. In all such cases, however, 
 the immediate end is deception — concealment 
 is only a remote one. We intend to deceive 
 in order to conceal. We do not cover^ but 
 misrepresent our mind, which can never be 
 lawful, however important the ends it is 
 intended to accomplish; and when these 
 ends are incapable of being answered in 
 any other way, we should take it as a clear 
 intimation from Providence, that we are re- 
 quired to abandon them. In the case just 
 mentioned, Scott might have been silent, 
 might have changed the subject, might have 
 protested against the question ; and although 
 such evasions might have been considered 
 equivalent to a confession, yet a disclaimer 
 on his part that he meant them in that light, 
 would have still left the matter in some de- 
 gree of uncertainty. Guilt, in such cases, 
 8 
 
170 SINOEKITY. 
 
 is not confined to the party who prevaricates 
 or lies. He who asks impertinent questions 
 is chargeable with the sin of putting a stumb- 
 ling block in his brother's way. He is a 
 tempter to evil. 
 
 Having made these general explanations, 
 which seemed to be necessary in order to an 
 adequate comprehension of the subject, I pro- 
 ceed to indicate some of the modes in which 
 the law of sincerity is evaded, after which I 
 shall discuss the question, whether, under any 
 circumstances, it can be dispensed with ; this 
 being, perhaps, the most satisfactory method 
 of elucidating the nature and extent of its 
 application — more definite, certainly, than 
 vague statements of what it requires, which, 
 at best, are little more than repetitions of the 
 definition. 
 
 1. The light in Avhich Aristotle treats of 
 truth, in his Nichomachean Ethics, is that of 
 simplicity of conduct, and the extremes of 
 which he regards it as the medium, are vain 
 boasting and self-disparagement. *^ There are 
 men," says he, *' who arrogate to themselves 
 
SINCERITY. 171 
 
 good qualities of which they are entirely des- 
 titute, and who amplify the good qualities of 
 which they are possessed far beyond their 
 real measure and natural worth. The ironi- 
 cal dissembler (I should prefer to translate 
 the word self-dis]parager) on the other hand, 
 either conceals his advantages, or, if he can- 
 not conceal, endeavours to depreciate their 
 value, whereas the man of frankness and plain 
 dealing shows his character in its natural size ; 
 truth appears in all his words and actions, 
 which represent him exactly as he is, Avithout 
 addition and without diminution." There are 
 forms in which these vices are as common as 
 they are disgusting. Some endeavour to ex- 
 aggerate their importance by pretending to 
 an intimacy with the great to which they are 
 not entitled, and others to depreciate the ex- 
 cellencies for which they are distinguished, 
 only to elicit flattery and praise. In both 
 cases, it is the hypocrisy of vanity ; and in 
 both cases the actor is guilty of a lie. 
 
 The most serious form of hypocrisy, how- 
 ever, is that in which a man pretends to a 
 
172 SINCERITY. 
 
 character to which he is really a stranger. 
 No vice is more severely condemned in the 
 New Testament than this. "But woe unto 
 you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye 
 shut up the kingdom of heaven against men : 
 for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer 
 ye them that are entering to go in." This 
 terrible malediction, from lips that were not 
 given to the language of denunciation, is re- 
 peated no less than seven times in the prog- 
 ress of a single discourse, and the most strik- 
 ing imagery, such as whited sepulchres, beau- 
 tiful without, but within full of dead men's 
 bones and all uncleanness, is employed to de- 
 pict the hatefulness of the sin. The only 
 honest way of maintaining the appearance of 
 virtue is to possess the reality. Every other 
 method is a cheat. 
 
 2. The law of sincerity is as inconsistent 
 with adulation and flattery as it is with hy- 
 pocrisy. The hypocrite and flatterer belong 
 to the same genus; one lies about himself, 
 the other about his neighbour, but both are 
 equally liars. Affability, or courtesy, an in- 
 
SINCERITY. 173 
 
 separable element of refined and elegant man- 
 ners, is as remote, as Aristotle long ago point- 
 ed out, from flattery, on the one hand, as 
 from moroseness, on the other. Persons of 
 station and influence are apt to be surround- 
 ed with a croTVd of sycophants who vie with 
 each other in concealing their defects, exag- 
 gerating their virtues and lauding their vices. 
 To become an encomiast of sin, seems to be 
 the last point of degradation to which a ra- 
 tional being can be sunk, and yet it is the 
 point to which all flattery tends, and which 
 many a flatterer has reached. This vice is 
 sometimes contracted from malice, from the 
 wicked design of exposing the weak and 
 credulous to ridicule, by possessing them 
 with the belief that they are distinguished for 
 qualities which do not belong to them ; some- 
 times from selfishness, from the base desire of 
 rendering the vanity of another subservient to 
 our purposes and schemes — sometimes from 
 weakness, from a sickly delicacy of temper, 
 which shrinks from giving pain, or from in- 
 curring the resentment to which honest truth 
 
174 SINCERITY. 
 
 might give rise. There are degrees of malig- 
 nity in the vice according to the motives and 
 ends which prompt to it. But in every form 
 it is a departure from truth, as well as a de- 
 parture from that charity which meditates no 
 wrong to another. " A man that flattereth 
 his neighbour sp**eadeth a net for his feet." 
 
 3. There is another form of falsehood 
 which, in its effects, is analogous to flattery, 
 and, in its nature, is a species of hypocrisy. 
 It consists in pretensions to a friendship 
 which is not felt. The world thinks so little 
 of this kind of lying that, except in flagrant 
 and aggravated cases, it hardly takes the 
 trouble to censure it when exposed. It has 
 caused friendship to come to be esteemed as 
 little more than a name. 
 
 This vice is peculiarly hateful, as it gains a 
 confidence which is too often prostituted to 
 the ruin of the unsuspecting and credulous. 
 It was in the mask of friendship that the devil 
 entered the garden and insinuated the lie 
 which brought " death into the world with all 
 our woe" — ^in the mask of friendship Judas 
 
SINCERITY, 176 
 
 kissed his Master to betray Him ; and in the 
 mask of friendship Satan now comes to us as 
 an angel of light to seduce us from our alle- 
 giance to God. There is no point of practical 
 morality which needs more to be inculcated, 
 than the sacred duty of abstaining from every 
 species of conduct or expression, that would 
 induce men to believe that we think more 
 highly of them than we do. The customs of 
 society are such that, without perpetual vigil- 
 ance, we are liable to deceive our neighbours 
 upon this point. The civilities of life should 
 never be so exaggerated as to create the im- 
 pression of extraordinary regard, where ex- 
 traordinary regard does not exist. The affec- 
 tation of unusual sweetness of expression or 
 blandness of manner, honeyed words, soft and 
 insinuating tones — a lingering pressure of the 
 hand — apparent reluctance to quit one's socie- 
 ty, all these and similar expedients are arrant 
 lies, if the victim of the tricks is, after all, no- 
 thing more than a stranger; and yet, by such 
 tricks, the confidence of thousands is flattered 
 out of them by knaves and cheats, to their 
 
176 SINCERITY. 
 
 utter ruin. The vice is well called perfidy, 
 and those who are guilty of it are emphatical- 
 ly children of the devil. " Instruments of 
 cruelty are in their habitations. Oh my soul ! 
 come not thou into their secret ; unto their as- 
 sembly, mine honour, be not thou united." 
 
 4. It is hardly necessary to add, after 
 what has been said of the nature of sincerity, 
 that equivocation is inconsistent with its 
 claims. It consists either in^an abuse of the 
 ambiguity of language, or in partial state- 
 ments of the truth, for the purpose of pro- 
 ducing an erroneous impression of the whole. 
 The promise of Temures to the Garrison of 
 Sebastia, that if it would surrender, not a 
 drop of blood should be shed, was grammat- 
 ically susceptible of the meaning in which he 
 kept it, though the garrrison understood it 
 as conveying a pledge of exemption from 
 punishment. He was just as truly guilty of 
 a falsehood in buryipg them alive, though he 
 shed no blood, as if he had promised, in so 
 many words, to spare their lives. Words 
 were not meant to conceal, but to convey 
 
SINCERITY. 177 
 
 thoughts; and if a man takes advantage of 
 their ambiguity to make a grammatical truth 
 subservient to deceit, he fails to represent his 
 own thoughts. He speaks against his mind. 
 The idea which he excites in another, is not 
 the idea which exists in himself 
 
 The other mode of equivocation, by partial 
 statements, is liable to the same objection. 
 It does not reproduce our own convictions in 
 another. Our minds are not read, touching 
 the matter in question, by our neighbour. 
 
 Equivocation may exist in action as well 
 as in words. We have an example in the 
 case of Ananias and Sapphira. They sold 
 their lands — brought a part of the price and 
 laid it down at the Apostles' feet. They 
 wished to produce the impression that they 
 were as liberal and magnanimous as Barnabas 
 and the other believers, who had sold their 
 possessions, and devoted the whole to the 
 service of the Church. The language ac- 
 cordingly of their conduct was — that this 
 is the tvhole price of the land. They uttered 
 no falsehood in words — they simply acted 
 
178 SINCERITY. 
 
 a cheat ; aiid the light in which God regards 
 such equivocation, is manifested in the super- 
 natural judgment which overtook them. 
 
 5. Mental reservations, when what is sup- 
 pressed is not obvious from the circumstances, 
 and it is necessary to prevent deception, 
 are downright lies. What is kept to one's 
 self is not signified. It is the signs which 
 one uses., not those which he suppresses, 
 which convey his thoughts to another, and 
 if those which he uses are not in correspond- 
 ence with his convictions, he signifies false- 
 ly, and therefore lies. That form of reser- 
 vation in which the suppressed circumstances 
 are things to be taken for granted as known — 
 provided they are understood at the time 
 to be known, is no real reservation at all. It 
 is only where what is suppressed is essential 
 to the truth, and is suppressed for the pur- 
 pose of deceit, that the reservation comes 
 under the censure of the moralist. And 
 such frauds cannot be too strongly rebuked. 
 They are destructive of all confidence, of all 
 intercourse by signs. 
 
SINCEllITV. 179 
 
 Dr. Paley says that there are two cases in 
 which falsehoods are not criminal. The first 
 is " where no one is deceived," the second, 
 " where the person to whom you speak has 
 no right to know the truth, or more properly, 
 where little or no inconvenience results from 
 the want of confidence in such cases." These 
 exceptions are perfectly consistent with the 
 theory of moral obligation which confounds 
 virtue with expediency and duty with ad- 
 vantage. In that, every thing depends upon 
 the effect; and where no appreciable injury 
 results, or evident utility obtains, it is right 
 and proper to prevaricate with any princi- 
 ples or to dispense with any laws. But if 
 there be such a thing as inherent and essen- 
 tial rectitude, if the distinctions betwixt right 
 and wrong be permanent and unchanging, 
 and if truth be one of the elements of immu- 
 table morality, the answer of Paley must be 
 condemned by every unsophisticated heart. y 
 
 1. In the first class of cases which he 
 exempts from the operation of the law of 
 sincerity, he has fallen into the unaccountable 
 
180 SINCEKITY. 
 
 mistake that the essence of a lie depends 
 upon the effect actually produced. He con- 
 founds the falsehood with the deception 
 which it occasions. The utmost that can 
 be said, with any show of reason, is that the 
 intention to deceive is necessary to guilt, but 
 the intention of the speaker and the effect 
 consequent upon it, are very different things. 
 The abandoned liar, whose character is 
 known to the community, has reached a 
 point of degradation at which no ©»e thinks 
 of relying upon his word, and yet it would 
 be strange philosophy to say that because 
 he had become incapable of deceiving, he had, 
 therefore, become incapable of lying, except 
 f/ by telling the truth. Augustin's definition, 
 which is the one commonly adopted, introduces 
 the jpurjpose of deceit as all that is necessary 
 to render a false signification a lie. Even 
 this, as it seems to me, is going beyond what 
 the truth of the case admits. The law ot 
 sincerity requires that a man who addresses 
 his discourse to another, should introduce 
 him, as nearly as possible, into the condition 
 
SINCERITY. 181 
 
 of his own mind. He should represent, by 
 whatever signs he employs, the precise state 
 of his own feelings and convictions. The 
 essence of a lie, consequently, must consist 
 in a misrepresentation of one's self, or in 
 speaking against one's mind. " Speech was 
 invented," says Thomas Aquinas, ''for the 
 purpose of expressing the conceptions of the 
 heart ; whenever, therefore, any one utters 
 what is not in his heart, he utters what is not 
 lawful." The intention^ accordingly, which 
 determines the species of the lie, and which 
 gives it its essential or formal criminality, is 
 not the intention to deceive another, though 
 that is criminal and is generally the effect of 
 falsehood, but the intention to misrepresent 
 ourselves. '' Where these three things con- 
 cur," says Aquinas, " that an enunciation 
 should be false, voluntarily made, and in- 
 tended to deceive, there is found material 
 falsehood, the thing asserted not being true — 
 formal falsehood, there being a will to utter 
 what is not true — and effective falsehood, 
 there being a desire to impress it upon 
 
182 SINCERITY. 
 
 others." It must be borne in mind, how- 
 ever, that the essence of lying consists in 
 formal falsehood, or a voluntary enunciation 
 of what is not true ; it derives its name 
 from the circumstance that it consists in 
 speaking against one's mind. If any one, 
 consequently, utters a falsehood, believing it 
 to be true, he himself is not guilty of lying, 
 though the thing itself be materially false, 
 as he had no intention of falsehood. What 
 is beside the intention of the speaker cannot 
 enter into the specific difference of the act. 
 In like manner, if a man should utter a 
 truth, believing it to be a lie, he would be 
 chargeable with the moral guilt of falsehood, 
 that being the purpose of his will, which de- 
 termines its character, though accidentally 
 it happens to be true. This pertains to the 
 species of falsehood. But the purpose to 
 mislead another by deception, does not per- 
 tain to the species but to the perfection of 
 lying. It is falsehood's having its perfect 
 work. In natural things, whatever has what 
 pertains to the constitution of a species, is 
 
SINCERITY. 183 
 
 referred to that species, though some of the 
 usual effects may be wanting. A heavy- 
 body may be suspended in the air, and the 
 law of gravity counteracted, yet because the 
 descent which gravity is fitted to produce, 
 does not take place, it would be absurd to 
 deny that the body in question is possessed of 
 weight. 
 
 Hence, to determine the question, whether 
 a man has lied or not, it is not necessary 
 to inquire whether he has actually deceived 
 another, but whether he has signified in 
 contradiction to the thoughts, feelings or 
 convictions of his mind. It is a matter of 
 no consequence whether his falsehood has 
 been believed or not. The moral character 
 of Ms act does not depend upon his neigh- 
 bour's acuteness or simplicity, but upon the 
 purpose of his own heart. The intention to 
 deceive is, of course, to be presumed, where 
 a man voluntarily and consciously misrep- 
 resents himself If the signs which he em- 
 ploys are fitted to produce a given impress- 
 ion, and he knows that they are so fitted, 
 
184 SINCERITY. 
 
 if the impression in question is one that 
 would always be produced where the signs 
 are honestly employed, he is to be held 
 guilty of designing to make it. But what- 
 ever might be the secret purpose of his soul, 
 he is a liar before God, if he knowingly and 
 willingly utters, or in any other way signifies 
 what is false. This is the essence of the sin. 
 Other circumstances may aggravate its malig- 
 nity, but this determines its specific dif- 
 ference. 
 
 2. Dr. Paley is equally unfortunate in 
 the principle upon which he exempts his 
 second class of cases from the law of sin- 
 cerity. The right of another to know the 
 truth, is not the ground of my obligation, 
 when I speak at all, to speak nothing but 
 the truth. It is the ground in many cases, 
 of my obligation to speak — that may be 
 freely confessed — but, if independently of 
 this ground, I choose, upon any other con- 
 siderations, to open my lips, the law of 
 sincerity must apply to my discourse. The 
 absence of the right in question, on the part 
 
SINCERITY. 185 • 
 
 of my neigh])our, can operate no farther than 
 to justify me in being silent — it exempts me 
 from all obligation to signify at all. But it, 
 by no means, imparts to me a right to signify 
 falsely. The two questions, whether I am 
 bound to speak at all in a given case, and 
 what I shall speak, are entirely distinct. 
 The consideration of my neighbour's right 
 may be important in determining the first, 
 it is of no importance to the other, except as 
 it may affect the extent of my communica- 
 tions. It is preposterous and absurd to con- 
 found the absence of a right to know the 
 truth with the existence of a right to be 
 cheated with a lie. The ground of obliga- 
 tion to signify nothing but truth, when one 
 signifies at all, is that it is truth — it is the law 
 under which alone I am at liberty to use ^ 
 signs in social intercourse. It might be 
 questioned, whether even upon consider- 
 ations of expediency, the principle of Dr. 
 Paley ought not to be condemned. To say 
 that a right to lie is the correlative of the ' 
 absence of a right to know the truth, would 
 
186 SINCERITY. 
 
 seem to be equivalent to a very general 
 dispensation with the law of sincerity. Each 
 man must, in ordinary cases, determine for 
 himself, whether the right attaches to his 
 neighbour or not, and as his veracity is sus- 
 pended upon his opinions in relation to 
 this point, no one could ever be sure that 
 he was not deceived. How is a man to 
 know that his neighbour deems him entitled 
 to the truth? From his neighbour's dec- 
 laration? But that declaration has no value 
 unless it is previously known that the right 
 in question is conceded. It may be one of 
 those things, about which, in his judgment, 
 another has no right to know the truth. 
 Hence Paley's law would obviously be the 
 destruction of all confidence. How much 
 nobler and safer is the doctriue of the Scrip- 
 tures, and of the unsophisticated language of 
 man's moral constitution, that truth is ob- 
 ligatory on its own account, and that he who 
 undertakes to signify to another, no matter 
 in what form, and no matter what may be 
 the right in the case to know the truth, is 
 
SINCERITY. 187 
 
 bound to signify according to the convictions 
 of his own mind. He is not always bound 
 to speak, but whenever he does speak he 
 is solemnly bound to speak nothing but the 
 truth. The universal application of this 
 principle would be the diffusion of universal 
 confidence. It would banish deceit and sus- 
 picion from the world, and restrict the use 
 of signs to their legitimate offices. 
 
I'ait^fuliu^s 
 
 " Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true — ^think on 
 these thinga" — ^Philippians, iv. 8. 
 
 TMQH ir 1 "^^^ second branch of practical 
 
 DlbO. V.J 1 1 • 1 
 
 truth, which we have denominat- 
 ed Faithfulness, consists in making our ac- 
 tions correspond to our professions, in per- 
 forming our engagements and fulfilling the 
 expectations which we have, by any means, 
 knowingly and voluntarily excited. Cicero* 
 makes faith the fundamental principle of jus- 
 tice, and derives the word in Latin from the 
 correspondence it exacts betwixt words and 
 deeds. The English term is said to be the 
 third person singular of the indicative mood 
 of an Anglo-Saxon verb signifying, to engage, 
 
 * Off., i. T, 23. Fundamentum autem justitise est fides, id est, 
 dictorum conventorumque constantia et Veritas. Ex quo, quam- 
 quam hoe videbitur fortasse cuipiam durius, tamen audeamus 
 imitari Stoicos, qui studiose exquirunt, tmde verba sint ducta. 
 credamusque, quia. Jiat, quod dictum est, appellatam fidem. 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 189 
 
 to covenant, to contract. The definition, 
 however, extracted by Home Tooke from 
 this etymology — " that which one covenant- 
 eth or engage th" — is obviously inconsistent 
 with the usage of the language. Faithfulness 
 obtains not in the making^ but in the keeping 
 of covenants. It is not the saying^ but the 
 doing of what we have said, that constitutes, 
 as Cicero suggests, the very essence of the 
 virtue. Quia fiat quod dictum est contains the 
 substance of a good definition, whatever may 
 be said of the accuracy of the philology. 
 
 The engagements of men, to which faith- 
 fulness extends, may be embraced under 
 the heads of Promises, Pledges, and Yows. 
 These three classes, in their relations to each 
 other, are an instance of moral climax, and 
 furnish a beautiful illustration of the ascend- 
 ing scale of moral obligation. The pledge is 
 more solemn than the promise, and the vow 
 more solemn than the pledge. The peculiar- 
 ities which distinguish the pledge and vow 
 from an ordinary promise impart an addi- 
 tional sacredness to the duty. They are 
 
190 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 species of which it is the genus ; they include, 
 consequently, all that it includes and some- 
 thing characteristic of themselves ; and as the 
 differences by which they are distinguished 
 from it and from each other, involve moral 
 elements of the highest importance, there 
 must be a corresponding solemnity of obliga- 
 tion and a corresponding malignity of guilt in 
 case of transgression. The pledge turns upon 
 a point of honour, and stakes a man's reputa- 
 tion for integrity upon compliance with his 
 engagement. As the whole virtue of a female 
 is summed up in her chastity, so the whole 
 character of the man for probity and upright- 
 ness is summed up in the single instance of 
 redeeming his pledge. To break a pledge, 
 therefore, is not only unjust but disgraceful. 
 The vow is of the nature of an oath, it is an 
 act of religious worship ; and to disregard it, 
 is to be guilty of irreverence to God. There 
 is fraud in all breaches of engagement, wheth- 
 er of promises, pledges, or vows — that being 
 the very essence of unfaithfulness; but to 
 break a promise is simply fraudulent, to break 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 191 
 
 a pledge is infamous, and to break a vow is 
 profane. He who violates a promise tramples 
 upon truth and justice, he who violates a 
 pledge tramples upon character, and he who 
 violates a vow tramples upon God. 
 
 In illustrating the duty of faithfulness I 
 shall begin with promises, and restrict myself 
 to the two points of their definition and the 
 grounds of their obligation. 
 
 I. According to the ordinary acceptation 
 of the term, the essence of a promise consists 
 in the peculiar mode of signifying, to the ex- 
 clusion of all reference to the matter, or thing 
 signified. Whenever, by the voluntary use 
 of signs, whether verbal or otherwise, we 
 knowingly excite expectations in the mind of 
 another, whatever may be the nature of the 
 things expected, we are said to promise. 
 The etymology of the word has, perhaps, con- 
 tributed to the currency of this meaning. It 
 is a paronym of promittere — to send ahead, as 
 if the prominent idea were the projection of 
 the mind of another into the future. Qui 
 pollicentur — says Vossius — verbis aliquem in 
 
192 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 longum mittant, ut qui non tarn faciant quam 
 aliquando se facturos recipiant. 
 
 If the definition of a promise is to be re- 
 stricted exclusively to the mode of signifying, 
 it is manifest that promises are not essential- 
 ly obligatory. Whether they shall be bind- 
 ing or not is an accidental circumstance. 
 There is nothing in themselves, nothing in 
 their own nature, considered simply as prom- 
 ises, which can give rise to the obligation. 
 They may or may not do so, but when they 
 do so, it is not because they are promises, but 
 because of other considerations. This state- 
 ment, though a legitimate deduction from the 
 definition in question, and from the loose lan- 
 guage of ordinary life, is in open and flagrant 
 contradiction to the common feeling of the 
 race. There is not a deeper or more pervad- 
 ing sentiment than that of the sacredness of 
 covenants. The common sense of men is 
 always right, though language does not al- 
 ways adequately represent it. There is a-dis- 
 tinction in the signification of words analo- 
 gous to that between the spontaneous and re- 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 193 
 
 flective processes of reason. A philosopher, 
 therefore, should not look to the meaning 
 which floats upon the surface, and which a 
 term has received from accidental circum- 
 stances — he should penetrate into the hearts 
 of men and find out the meaning which has 
 real emphasis there. That is its true sig- 
 nification, and the one to which he should 
 restrict it, which, without reflection, finds 
 an echo in the soul. In the case before 
 us, the associations which are instantly awak- 
 ened by the term are all of a solemn and sa- 
 cred character. Its primary emphatic refer- 
 ence is only to that class of declarations 
 which are felt to be obligatory. It 'has been 
 applied to others in consequence of the palpa- 
 ble resemblance in form, but this is a reflec- 
 tive application which, as it does not repre- 
 sent, so it does not disturb, the spontaneous 
 feelings which cluster, around the word. It 
 is still univocal to the heart. If, then, in con- 
 formity with the real convictions of mankind, 
 nothing can be regarded as strictly and prop- 
 erly a promise, which is not essentially obliga- 
 
194: FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 tory, the definition must include something 
 more than the mode of signifying. It must 
 also take account of the matter. As that is 
 not to be considered as a deed in law — 
 though it may be loosely called so — which 
 conveys no right, so that should not be re- 
 garded as a promise, in the ethical sense, 
 which creates no duty. It may have the 
 form, but not the substance, the appearance, 
 but not the reality. Those semblances of the 
 thing, in which the language of a promise is 
 employed, but in which the life of a promise 
 is not found, I would call apparent promises, 
 while those which create obligation and give 
 rise to rights, I would denominate real. Then 
 the proposition would be universal, that all 
 real promises are binding, and binding pre- 
 cisely because they are promises, and all the 
 cases in which divines and casuists have held 
 them to be void could be explained, at once, 
 upon the simple principle, that they are 
 not cases of promisCiJ at all. They are only 
 counterfeit coin. They have the shape, the 
 stamp, the appearance of the true currency. 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 196 
 
 but they want the gold. I would, therefore, 
 define a real promise, as any form of volunta- 
 ry signification which has a known tendency 
 to excite an expectation in the mind of an- 
 other, in regard to a matter which is possible 
 and right. Here the mode of signifying and 
 the thing signified, the matter and the form, 
 both enter into the specific difference. It is 
 not enough that expectations are excited, or 
 means employed which are suited to excite 
 them, the things expected must be lawful in 
 themselves and within the competency of him 
 that promises. But we can best vindicate the 
 propriety of the definition by a brief examin- 
 ation of its parts. 
 
 1. Any mode of voluntary signification^ 
 without limitation to any particular class of 
 signs. This includes tacit as well as express 
 promises. It is obviously indifferent by what 
 means thought is communicated, the import- 
 ant thing is that it be actually done. To re- 
 strict promises to words is to make them the 
 only language of the mind, to the exclusion 
 of actions, gestures, and signs, which may be 
 
196 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 equally made the vehicle of thought and the 
 instruments of exciting expectation. 
 
 2. The signification must be voluntary^ 
 otherwise the promise is not a moral act, and 
 cannot be attributed to him who makes it. 
 
 3. Which has a known tendency to ex- 
 cite expectation. Paley makes the essence 
 of a promise depend on the fact, that ex- 
 pectations are excited. This is to resolve 
 the cause into the effect. The promise must 
 be conceived as existing^ before expectations 
 can be conceived as produced. The fact of 
 their production depends not upon the fact 
 that a promise has been made, but that a 
 promise has been believed, and faith in the 
 author is essential to the reality and obli- 
 gation of a promise ; it is not simply his own 
 act which binds the agent, but the effect it 
 has produced. It would follow, too, that a 
 liar could not make a promise because he 
 could not create expectation. The promise 
 is clearly the act of the man that makes it, 
 and as it comes from him independently of 
 any influence upon others, it possesses every 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 197 
 
 element that is necessary to a perfect obliga- 
 tion. It is indifferent whether it is believed 
 or not; all that is important is that if be- 
 lieved, it should give rise to expectation — 
 it should be a cause suited to produce the 
 effect, whether it succeeded in doing so or 
 not. The author must hnow that it has this 
 tendency. He must understand the import 
 of his signs, or they would not convey the 
 thoughts of his mind. The expectations 
 which the signs are fitted to excite, will al- 
 ways be, with an honest man, the expectation 
 he aims to produce. His language will con- 
 vey his real meaning. But if he is disposed 
 to be dishonest and evasive, he is held re- 
 sponsible for the known tendencies of the 
 cause which he has put in operation. The 
 rule of Paley that a promise is always to be 
 interpreted in the sense in which the prom- 
 iser apprehended at the time that the prom- 
 isee received it, results immediately from 
 the definition we have given. 
 
 4. I have ventured to add to the definition, 
 in regard to a matter ivhich is ^possible and 
 
198 F A I T H F I' L N K S S . 
 
 right. These it is universally conceded are 
 conditions of the obligation of a promise. 
 No man can be bound to do what it is phys- 
 ically impossible that he can do, or what 
 contradicts the principles of right. It can 
 obviously never be his duty to do wrong, 
 and just as little can it be his duty to exer- 
 cise a power which has never been imparted 
 to him. If he was made a man, he can only 
 be required to do the work of a man. Now, 
 as all the other cases in which promises are not 
 binding may be explained by showing that 
 they are not promises at all; that something 
 is wanting to complete them, or that they 
 have been formally cancelled and annulled; 
 as they are confessedly apparent and not real, 
 it would contribute to simplify the whole 
 subject, by reducing those which are impos- 
 sible and unlawful to the same category. 
 Any man who will take the trouble to exam- 
 ine Paley's enumeration of the cases in which 
 promises are void, will see, that with the ex- 
 ception of the impossible and unlawful, the 
 promise is either defective in form, or has 
 
FAITH F U L N E S S . 199 
 
 ceased to exist. A promise before accept- 
 ance, that is, before notice to the promisee, 
 is manifestly no promise, because it wants 
 the necessary element of signification. It 
 is as Paley says, nothing more than a res- 
 olution of the mind. Promises released by 
 the promisee have just as manifestly ceased 
 to exist. The right which was created has 
 been relinquished, and the obligation has 
 expired with it. Erroneous promises are not 
 promises, because their being was contingent 
 — it was suspended upon a condition which 
 has confessedly failed. If now we make 
 possibility and lawfulness essential to the 
 being, as they are to the obligation of a 
 promise, the proposition would be unlimited, 
 that all real promises are binding, and that 
 those were only apparent, only shadows and 
 semblatfces, which entailed no obligation of 
 performance. These apparent promises 
 would then be reduced to two classes, those 
 which were defective in form, embracing the 
 three last heads of Paley, and "those which 
 
200 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 were defective in matter, embracing his 
 three first heads. 
 
 II. The next point to be considered is 
 the ground of the obligation of promises. 
 
 The advantages of good faith are so pal- 
 pable and manifest, it is so indispensable to 
 the very existence of society, that the utilita- 
 rian makes out a very plausible case, in re- 
 solving the duty of it into considerations of 
 expediency. Paley has made the best of the 
 argument. He has set in a very clear light, 
 not only the importance but the necessity of 
 confidence, and then concludes that what 
 we cannot do without, we must have sim- 
 ply because we cannot do without it. But 
 the truth is, its importance depends upon its 
 rectitude. Society is the union of moral and 
 intelligent beings, and it is because they are 
 moral, that virtue is their security and hap- 
 piness. It is the law of their nature, and 
 of course is the condition of their prosperity 
 and well being. 
 
 Without detracting, therefore, in the least 
 from what Paley has said upon the utilitj 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 201 
 
 of confidence, we proceed to show that the 
 real ground upon which promises are binding 
 is, that they involve moral elements which 
 are the immediate data of conscience. These 
 elements are the principles of truth and jus- 
 tice. A man is bound to keep his promise 
 from the two-fold consideration that his own 
 veracity and the rights of another are at 
 stake. 
 
 1. The law of sincerity requires that the 
 promiser should signify the purpose pre- 
 cisely as it exists in his own mind. He can- 
 not mean one thing and say another with- 
 out falsehood. But this law requires nothing 
 more than the honest expression of present 
 intentions. 
 
 2. But the law of truth goes farther, it 
 requires that a man's words shall correspond 
 to the reality of things. It is not enough, 
 in regard to past facts, that a man be hon- 
 est and sincere in the declarations which he 
 makes, he must have used all diligence to 
 guard against deception and mistake. If 
 
 what we have called the remote matter of 
 9* 
 
 \^. 
 

 
 202 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 ^ truth be wanting, he is culpable unless his 
 mistake arises from causes beyond his con- 
 trol. The same principle holds in regard to 
 future facts. The event must correspond 
 to our words, unless it can be shown, that 
 though we honestly believed that it would 
 correspond when we made the declaration, 
 it has failed to do so through no fault of ours. 
 The language of a promise is absolute and 
 assertory, it positively affirms two things ; a 
 present intention and the continuance of that 
 intention until the thing is done. It declares 
 that a thing sliall be, and as its existence de- 
 pends upon himself, the promiser is bound 
 to realize the fact at the appointed time. 
 He is bound to make things consistent with 
 his words. Hence, he who fails to keep a 
 promise, is universally detested as a liar, not 
 because he is supposed to have been insin- 
 cere at the time of making it, but because 
 the thing has not taken place according to 
 his word. He is responsible for the want 
 of material truth, because it was clearly 
 in his power to produce it. 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 203 
 
 3. But what particularly enforces the obli- 
 gation of a promise is the right, created by 
 the expectation it excites, to have it fulfilled. 
 It is distinguished from a simple resolution 
 in that it does not terminate upon ourselves. 
 It extends to another party, and gives him 
 a claim of justice which he did not possess 
 before. Hence, a breach of promise is not 
 only a lie but a fraud.* The connection of 
 rights with promises is clearly discoverable in 
 the case of contracts. There the engage- 
 ment is mutual, but the transaction is only a 
 reciprocation of promises — no moral elements 
 enter into it, which do not enter into every 
 other promise. Now there is nothing of 
 which the parties to a contract are more dis- 
 tinctly conscious, than that they have a right 
 to demand from each other the fulfilment of 
 their stipulations. It is true that the law rec 
 
 * *' We should remember that when we bind ourselves by a 
 promise to give any good thing to another, or to do any thing 
 lor the benefit of another, the right of the thing promised passes 
 over from \is to the person to whom the promise is made, as 
 much as if we had given him a legal bond, with all the formal- 
 ities of signing and sealing ; we have no power to recall or re? 
 verse it without his leave." Watts's Sermon on thi§ tgxt, 
 
S04 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 ognizes the right only in the case of a val- 
 uable consideration. But the design of the 
 distinction is to protect men from the conse- 
 quences of rash and ill-considered acts. The 
 presumption is, that what has been done with- 
 out a proper motive, has been done thought- 
 lessly and hastily. What shows that this is 
 the spirit of the law, is the fact that it al- 
 ways presumes a consideration, where the 
 promise has been made under such sanctions 
 as to imply deliberation. There is no essen- 
 tial difference in so far as they are promises, 
 and consequently, in so far as moral obliga- 
 tion is concerned, between the nudum j^;«c- 
 tum of the law and those contracts which 
 it undertakes to enforce. The consideration 
 is not the source of the right — it is only the 
 cause of the promise that gives the right. 
 The consideration is a guarantee that the 
 man has promised with his eyes open — that 
 he knew what he was doing. The law in- 
 terposes it as a security to itself that it shall 
 not oppress the weak. 
 
 In the case of promises to do unlawful or 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 206 
 
 impossible things, there can obviously be no 
 right on the part of the promisee to demand 
 a fulfilment. It is a contradiction in terms 
 that he can have a right to make his neigh- 
 bour do wrong, and a flagrant absurdity that 
 a creature can exact from his fellow what 
 even God cannot enjoin. But while there is 
 no injustice in the violation of these promises, 
 there is enormous fraud in making them, 
 when the unlawfulness and impossibility are 
 known at the time. The man shows himself 
 reckless of truth and reckless of his neigh- 
 bour's right. He manifests a contempt of 
 veracity and justice. He is guilty of the 
 same species of crime, as he who solemnly 
 pretends to transfer the property of another, 
 or who knowingly circulates counterfeit coin, 
 or who forges a note or a bill of exchange. 
 As in other cases the falsehood and fraud con- 
 sist in breaking^ here they consist in making 
 the promise. The crime is the same, but it 
 dates from a different point. The same eter- 
 nal principles of right which proclaim as with 
 a voice of thunder — thou shalt keep all real 
 
206 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 promises, — -just as solemnly command, thou 
 shalt make no unlawful engagements. In 
 cases in which the unlawfulness and impossi- 
 bility were not known at the time of mak- 
 ing the promise, it may be fairly presumed, 
 that the promise was tacitly conditioned by 
 them, and though there may be rashness, 
 there is nothing of fraud in engagements 
 made upon mistake. The implied condition 
 has failed and the promise is at an end. 
 
 Before dismissing the subject of promises, 
 there are tvfo questions of casuistry which 
 deserve a moment's consideration, and which 
 may be regarded as a test of the principles 
 we have maintained. 
 
 The first is, whether extorted promises 
 are binding? The second, whether, when 
 a promise proceeds upon an unlawful con- 
 dition, and the condition has been fulfilled, 
 the promise is to be kept ? That is, whether 
 there can ever be a real promise which is 
 unlawfully conditioned ? 
 
 1. As to extorted promises, the only point 
 to be settled is the subjective condition of 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 2Q7 
 
 the agent. "^ Did he voluntarily signify and 
 did he know the import of the signs he 
 employed? If he was in such a state of 
 agitation and alarm, that he could not com- 
 mand the use of his faculties; if, in other 
 words, he was deprived, for the time, of the 
 essential elements of moral agency, he could 
 no more be responsible for his acts than 
 an idiot or a lunatic. But if he hneiv what 
 he was doing, no violence of fear, no exter- 
 nal pressure can exempt him from respon- 
 sibility. The act was voluntary, though 
 not chosen for itself The man was in cir- 
 cumstances which led him to prefer it as 
 the least of two evils. He, therefore, in 
 a moral sense deliberately promised, and the 
 obligation is the same as in all other cases. 
 The true security against being drawn into 
 an engagement, which we are subsequently 
 reluctant to perform, is that firm reliance 
 upon the providence of God which enables 
 us to look upon danger with contempt, 
 
 * See on this subject, besides the common treatises, Taylor's 
 Bule of Conscience, book iv., chap i., rule 7. 
 
208 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 or to regard nothing as a danger which 
 does not shake our claim upon the Di- 
 vine protection. Let the heart be estab- 
 lished by confidence in Him, and then 
 there is no ground for the fear of evil 
 tidings. The preservation of integrity should 
 be superior to all other considerations, and 
 it is a miserable confession of weakness, 
 that the love of life or limb has been stronger 
 than the love of virtue. No Christian man 
 should ever be prevailed on by the ser- 
 vile motive of fear, to make engagements 
 which his sense of propriety condemns. 
 Why should he fear who has the arms of 
 the Almighty to sustain him ? What shield 
 like that of a good conscience aid the fa- 
 vour of God? Of all men the true Chris- 
 tian should exemplify the description of 
 the heathen poet : 
 
 Justum ac tenacem propositi virum 
 Non eiviura ardor prava jubentium, 
 Non vnltus instantis tyranni 
 Mente quatit solida neque Auster 
 Dux inquieti turbidus Hadriae, 
 Nee fulminantis magna manus Jovis. 
 Si fractus illabitur orbis 
 Impavidum ferient ruinse. 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 209 
 
 Those circumstances in which cowardice 
 yields and puts in the plea of extortion, 
 constitute the occasions on which the Chris- 
 tian hero may illustrate the magnanimity 
 of his principles. Virtue becomes awful 
 when it subordinates to itself the whole 
 external world. A good man struggling 
 with the storms of fate, unshaken in his al- 
 legiance to God, and steady in his purpose 
 never to be seduced into wrong, is the 
 noblest spectacle which the earth can pre- 
 sent. There is something unutterably grand 
 in the moral attitude of him, who, with his 
 eye fixed upon the favour of God, rises su- 
 perior to earth and hell, and amid the wrecks 
 of a thousand barks around him steers his 
 course with steadiness and peace. 
 
 2. To the other question concerning the 
 effect of an unlawful condition upon the va- 
 lidity of a promise, I am constrained to 
 return a very different answer from that 
 which has been given by most recent writers 
 whom I have been able to consult.* Paley 
 
 * I am gratifl id in being able to state that Dr. Adams, late 
 
210 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 says, ^'it is the ])erformance being unlawful, 
 and not any unlawfulness in the subject or 
 motive of the promise, which destroys its 
 validity ; therefore, a bribe after the vote 
 is given ; the wages of prostitution ; .the re- 
 ward of any crime, after the crime is com- 
 mitted ; ought, if promised, to be paid. For 
 the sin and mischief by this supposition are 
 over, and it will be neither more nor less 
 for the performance of the promise." " It 
 is sometimes made a question," says Dr. 
 Whewell,* " supposing such an informal con- 
 tract immorally made, whether, when the 
 immoral end is answered, it is a duty to per- 
 form the rest of the contract; for instance, if 
 a person were elected to an office of public 
 trust, on promise of sums of money to the 
 electors, whether, after his election, it is 
 his duty to pay these sums. We may remark 
 that the question here is not, what he is to 
 do as an innocent man ; for by the supposition 
 
 President of Charleston College, is an honourable exception. 
 See his Moral Philos., p. 210. 
 
 * Ebments of Morality, book iii., chap. 15, § 386. 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 211 
 
 he is a guilty one ; having been concerned in 
 an immoral bargain. If the question be what 
 is he to do as a repentant man, convinced of 
 his guilt and wishing henceforth to do what 
 is right, the answer is, that he must pay. 
 There is no reason why he should add to the 
 violation of his absolute duty, the violation 
 of his relative duty to the promisees. If in 
 his repentance he wishes not to complete an 
 immoral transaction, he is to recollect that 
 the immoral transaction is completed by his 
 election. If he wish to mark his hatred of 
 the offense, he may signify his meaning more 
 clearly, by expressing his repentance and pay- 
 ing the money than by keeping it, which may 
 be interpreted as adding avarice and false- 
 hood to the violation of public duties." 
 
 Upon these statements I have to remark, 1, 
 that Paley's solution is inconsistent with the 
 principles of his own philosophy. The effect 
 of keeping such promises is to encourage the 
 making of them, and upon the doctrine of 
 general consequences — the evil of the exam- 
 ple, — they ought not to be kept. "The sin 
 
212 FAll HF f LNKSS. 
 
 and mischief" are not over. If it were uni- 
 versally felt and acted on, that such engage- 
 ments were not binding, there would soon be 
 an end to them. It is the very doctrine of 
 Paley and Whewell that gives them currency 
 in the world. 2. In the next place, Dr. 
 Whewell's solution proceeds upon a distinc- 
 tion between relative and absolute duties 
 which is purely fictitious and arbitrary. He 
 affirms that in the case of an immoral promise 
 there is an absolute duty to break it. '' In all 
 such cases, the promiser by his promise has 
 rejected his moral nature, and can only re- 
 sume it by repudiating his own act." But 
 there is a relative duty to the promisee to 
 keep it. Now, if I owe a relative duty to the 
 promisee, he has a moral claim upon me, in 
 the language of Dr. Whewell, in which a 
 moral claim is equivalent to an imperfect 
 right. There is, consequently, a collision of 
 absolute and relative duty. If, therefore, a 
 man keeps his promise, he does his duty 
 and yet sins, or if he breaks his promise, 
 he di^es his duty and sins. That is, the 
 
FAITH F I LNESS. 21S 
 
 same act is both right and wrong at the 
 same time. The absurdity is intolerable, and 
 yet it cannot be avoided without repudiat- 
 ing the distinction in question. The true 
 state of the case is, that the absolute duty 
 is the only duty involved, and the effect of 
 it is to prevent the rise of the relative duty 
 which ensues upon a lawful promise. It is 
 the absolute principles of right which deter- 
 mine obligation, in the concrete instances of 
 life. There never can be a duty, relative or 
 absolute, to do a wrong thing. It is a contra- 
 diction in terms. No man can ever have a 
 claim upon another for a violation of the 
 eternal principles of right. As, then, the ex- 
 istence of a relative duty depends, in every 
 case, upon the lawfulness of the promise. Dr. 
 Whewell, instead of resolving the difficulty, 
 has quietly begged the question. He has as- 
 sumed that there is a relative duty to the 
 promisee, when that is the very point in dis- 
 pute, and vindicates his assumption by main- 
 taining that in all cases of immoral promises 
 it exists, though, when the performance is un- 
 
214 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 lawful, the superior importance of the abso- 
 lute duty supersedes it. 
 
 3. To me it seems that the true answer is, 
 that an unlawful condition renders the prom- 
 ise absolutely null and void. That condition, 
 in the language of the schools, is no moral en- 
 tity — Quad ex nihilo nihil Jit is as true in morals 
 as physics. The man who stipulated to per- 
 form it was confessedly not bound — the other 
 party had, and could ha,ve, no right or claim 
 upon him. His act, therefore, has no moral 
 value. The promise and its fulfilment, how- 
 ever, are only parts of one and the same pro- 
 cess. If now, at the time of making the un- 
 lawful stipulation, the maker was not bound 
 by it, the other party was equally free from 
 obligation in relation to his promise. The 
 promiser was bound only upon the supposi- 
 tion that the promisee was bound. Now, if the 
 making and fulfilment of a promise are parts 
 of the same act, and no obligation accrued at 
 the time of making, it is clear that none can 
 ever subsequently arise. The moral relation 
 of the parties undergoes no changes. 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 215 
 
 4. It should, further, be recollected, that to 
 maintain the validity of such promises is com- 
 pletely to reverse the cardinal principle of 
 moral government. It is to reward the wicked 
 and to punish the righteous. There is some- 
 -thing inexpressibly revolting in either giving 
 or receiving the wages of iniquity. I cannot 
 conceive of a position, in which a man more 
 openly and flagrantly sets at defiance the 
 eternal rule of justice, or more shockingly 
 travesties the moral administration of his 
 God, than when he dispenses favours to the 
 guilty, upon the ground that they are guilty. 
 This attitude of bold contradiction to the law 
 of the Divine government is enough to brand 
 with enormity the doctrine which justifies it. 
 He cannot be right who mocks instead of imi- 
 tating God. r have no doubt that the moral 
 principle which I am here repudiating and 
 which is so universally maintained, is the pro- 
 lific parent of infamy, outrage, and crime. It 
 is a devil whose name is legion. Let it be 
 cast out from society, and many a man who 
 has been the victim of its power, will be 
 
216 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 found clothed and in his right mind sitting at 
 the feet of Jesus. 
 
 One consideration which serves to uphold 
 this species of promises, is the apprehension 
 that if, when the unlawful condition has been 
 performed, the other party should refuse ta 
 execute his engagements, he will be exposed 
 to the imputation of mean and interested mo- 
 tives. He would not be likely to receive any 
 credit for a high sense of integrity. If he 
 was not too conscientious to begin the sin, 
 the presumption would be, that it was some- 
 thing beside conscience which kept him from 
 completing it. This equivocal position is the 
 penalty which repentance must pay for the 
 crime. It is a grievous cross, but it is a 
 cross that must be borne. It is a memorial 
 of transgression which serves at once to pro- 
 mote severity to ourselves and charity to 
 others — a broken limb, or a bone out of joint, 
 that keeps one in constant recollection of his 
 fall. 
 
 I cannot dismiss this subject of promises 
 without alluding to the peculiar interest 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 217 
 
 which attaches to it, in the mind of the true 
 believer, in consequence of the prominence 
 which is given to the promises of God in the 
 dispensation of the Gospel. The faithfulness 
 of Jehovah is our only hope ; and for the pur- 
 pose of alluring our confidence, as well as il- 
 lustrating His own grace. He deals with his 
 creatures in the way of covenant. He conde- 
 scendingly gives them a right, which embold- 
 ens their access to the throne of grace. The 
 promises, all yea and amen in Christ Jesus, 
 are the sure warrant that they shall not be re- 
 ceived with coldness nor sent empty away. 
 Hardly a blessing is bestowed, which is not 
 apprehended in some promise, before it is en- 
 joyed in experience. A faithful and cov- 
 enant-keeping God ; these are the precious 
 titles by which a sinner loves to recognize the 
 God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 The Gospel is nothing but a great charter of 
 promises ; and that man must renounce his 
 inheritance in the covenant of grace, and ab- 
 jure the hope of everlasting life, who can 
 
 think or speak lightly of what the blessed 
 10 
 
218 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 God has sanctified by His own example. In 
 reverencing the sacredness of promises, we rev- 
 erence Him who is emphatically a God to sin- 
 ners, only, when in faith they apprehend His 
 covenant. In the preciousness of His prom- 
 ises, we have an illustration of the moral 
 value of faithfulness, and the fidelity which 
 we delight to attribute to Him, we should en- 
 deavour to imitate in all our own engage- 
 ments. Be ye perfect, even as your Father 
 in heaven is perfect. Whatsoever things are 
 true, think on these things. 
 
 Pledges. 
 
 Pledges, under the Roman Law, were prop- 
 erly securities for the payment of a debt. 
 The thing pledged was put into the possess- 
 ion of the creditor, with a right to sell it and 
 indemnify himself against the loss, in case the 
 creditor failed to comply with his contract. 
 If, for example, a man borrowed money, and 
 deposited his watch or his jewels with the 
 lender, in token that he would repay the sum, 
 the watch or the jewels became a pledge or 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 219 
 
 pawn. lu war and among public enemies, 
 the security for the faithful execution of a 
 treaty, or the performance of any specific stip- 
 ulations, was called a hostage. Whatever was 
 pledged or pawned was, of course, possessed 
 of such value, that the desire to redeem it 
 would be likely to be stronger than any in- 
 ducements to violate faith. The fundamental 
 notion of a pledge, therefore, is that of a 
 security ; a protection to the promisee against 
 injury or loss. In bargains of sale, or con- 
 tracts of debt, the thing pledged was always 
 something that the creditor might sell. In 
 treaties among hostile armies, hostages were 
 usually persons of consequence, whose re- 
 demption was of greater importance than any 
 incidental advantages that might accrue from 
 breach of engagement. In either case, the 
 pledge was a distinct, tangible, palpable thing, 
 and of such value as to be a real guarantee of 
 good faith. Transferred from bargains and 
 treaties to a peculiar and solemn form of 
 promises, the pledge still retains its funda- 
 mental meaning of security, but ceases to be 
 
220 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 a tangible commodity. In these cases it is a 
 man's honour which he puts in pawn, as a 
 guarantee of the faithful execution of his 
 promise. 
 
 The language of a pledge is, I renounce 
 all claims to integrity and honour, I am will- 
 ing to be excluded from society, to be 
 stripped of character, to be an object of con- 
 tempt and detestation, if I am found wanting 
 in fidelity to my engagements. 
 
 The faith which is pledged under such 
 sanctions cannot be violated without aggra- 
 vated guilt. Character is not a thing to be 
 sported with, infamy and disgrace not 
 trifles to be laughed at ; and he who deals 
 with honour as a bauble, will experience a 
 penalty that may well make him tremble. It 
 cannot be too earnestly inculcated upon 
 the young, that to break a pledge is apt to 
 be followed by the total ruin of one's virtue. 
 Trangression is not a transitory thing. The 
 single act is soon done and over, but it leaves 
 an influence behind which, like the adder's 
 poison, may grow and operate and spread 
 
FAITHFULNESS, 221 
 
 until it reaches the seat of life, ind triumphs 
 in the ruin of its victim. No act of the will 
 — it is an indestructible and fearful law of 
 our being — ever passes away without leaving 
 its mark upon the character. There is a 
 double tendency in every voluntary deter- 
 mination, one to propagate itself, the other to 
 weaken or support, according to its own 
 moral quality, the general principle of virtue. 
 Every sin, therefore, imparts a proclivity to 
 other acts of the same sort, and disturbs and 
 deranges, at the same time, the whole moral 
 constitution; it tends to the formation of 
 special habits and to the superinducing of 
 a general debility of principle, which lays a 
 man open to defeat from every species of 
 temptation. % The extent to which a single act 
 shall produce this double effect, depends upon 
 its intensity, its intensity depends upon the 
 fulness and energy of will which will enter 
 into it, and the energy of will depends upon 
 the strength of the motives resisted. An 
 act, therefore, which concludes an earnest 
 and protracted conflict, which has not been 
 
222 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 reached without a stormy debate in the soul, 
 which marks the victory of evil over the 
 love of character, sensibility to shame, the 
 authority of conscience and the fear of God, 
 an act of this sort concentrates in itself the 
 essence of all the single determinations 
 which preceded it, and possesses a power to 
 generate a habit and to derange the con- 
 stitution, equal to that which the whole series 
 of resistances to duty, considered as so many 
 individual instances of transgression, is fitted 
 to. impart. By one such act a man is im- 
 pelled with an amazing momentum in tlie 
 path of evil. He lives years of sin in a day 
 or an hour. It is always a solemn crisis 
 when the first step is to be taken in .« career 
 of guilt, against which nature acl educa- 
 tion, or any other strong influences protest. 
 The results are unspeakably perilous when 
 a man has to fight his way into crime. 
 The victory creates an epoch in his life. 
 He is from that hour, without a miracle of 
 grace, a lost man. The earth is strewed with 
 wrecks of character which were occasioned 
 
FAITHFULNESS. * 228 
 
 by one fatal determination at a critical point 
 in life, when the will stood face to face with 
 duty, and had to make its decision deliber- 
 ately and intensely for evil. That act threw 
 the whole energy of being into the direc- 
 tion of sin. A young man has been trained 
 in a righteous horror of gambling ; he looks 
 upon cards or dice with shuddering and 
 dread. His whole soul is set against them. 
 In an ill-omened hour he is tempted to play. 
 The associations of childhood, his father's 
 counsels, his mother's warnings, a sister's 
 love, the convictions of his own judgment, 
 the fearful consequences of the crime both 
 in this world and that which is to come, 
 every moral energy which conscience, relig- 
 ion and the love of character can summon, 
 rise up to protest against the deed. He is 
 staggered, he hesitates, he almost resolves 
 to flee the temptation. But a spell is on him, 
 the seducer pursues him, the conflict is re- 
 newed, he is in agony, and at last resolves in 
 desperation and madness to terminate the 
 
224 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 struggle — he plays. From that time his 
 character is fixed, the man is ruined. 
 
 To break a pledge is a critical act of the 
 same kind. It is an act of concentrated po- 
 tency for evil. It is a victory after a severe 
 contest, and in the triumph x)f evil, sensibil- 
 ity to shame and tenderness of conscience 
 have been paralyzed or lost. The man feels 
 that he is disgraced and degraded and gives 
 himself up to infamy and vice without a fur- 
 ther struggle. Character is gone, and all mo- 
 tive for honourable effort has ceased to exist. 
 As in the case of the female who has lost her 
 chastity, his virtue has perished with his hon- 
 our. It is a solemn thing to stake character 
 upon the hazard of a single act, and he who 
 has done it should feel, that nothing less than 
 the whole moral history of his being is in- 
 volved in the issue. When the pledge is 
 apprehended in its true significancy and re- 
 lations, and the natural effects of a breach of 
 it according to the fixed principles of human 
 nature, are duly appreciated, it will be seen 
 to be one of those critical obligations which 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 225 
 
 should be approached with somewhat of the 
 awful reverence that belongs to the oath. 
 It should never be made cheap. It is a secu- 
 rity^ and should only be resorted to on im- 
 portant occasions, where important interests 
 are at stake. But once made in regard to a 
 matter which is possible and right, a man 
 should die rather than forego it. Death is 
 tolerable, but real dishonour cannot be borne. 
 Sacred as the pledge is, however, it can 
 never justify wrong. After what has been 
 said upon the subject of promises, to which 
 the pledge generically belongs, it would be un- 
 necessary to add any thing here, were it not 
 that the feelings of the young are apt to mis- 
 lead them upon this point, and betray them 
 into contradictions, which, always a snare, 
 may terminate in permanent injury to char- 
 acter. The alternative seems to be dishon- 
 our, or an unlawful act. Both are evils ; and 
 upon the principle of choosing the least, an 
 individual instance of transgression is prefer- 
 red to a general shock of the moral sensibilities. 
 
 The young man says, I had rather do this par- 
 10* 
 
226 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 ticular unlawful act, than sacrifice the whole se- 
 curity for good which I find in a delicate re- 
 gard for reputation. In this predicament 
 students in college are very often involved. 
 They enter into combinations against legit- 
 imate authority under the sanctions of a 
 pledge. They feel that their honour is at 
 stake, and that their faith must be redeemed, 
 at whatever sacrifice to their own prospects, 
 the wishes of their parents, or the prosperity 
 of the institution against which they have 
 conspired. The feeling, that of the sacredness 
 of honour, is a noble one, and should not be 
 rudely shocked. But the point is, that true 
 honour in this case, requires that the pledge 
 should be broken. It was a grievous sin to 
 make it, but having been made nothing re- 
 mains but the duty, which extends to every 
 instance of transgression, of immediate repent- 
 ance. The evil must be undone. The man 
 who has taken a wrong step, should instantly 
 retrace it. There can, in the nature of things, 
 be no obligation to persevere. Unlawful 
 pledges, like unlawful promises, create no 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 227 
 
 rights, and as the attempt to give a security 
 for evil only deepens the crime, the pledge 
 is only a counterfeit stipulation of honour. 
 The principle which would attach dishonour 
 to the breach of such unlawful engagements, 
 if legitimately carried out, would unhinge the 
 entire system of morals. It assumes that 
 man can set aside the law of God, that the 
 stern prohibitions of eternal rectitude can be 
 changed into transient commands by the will 
 of a feeble creature, that the word of man 
 may become superior to the word of his 
 Maker. No, let God be true and every man 
 a liar, and when He speaks, let us promptly 
 obey, whatever may have been our previous 
 engagements to evil. The effects which 
 result from the breach of a lawful pledge, and 
 which render it so critical, cannot obtain in 
 this case. The spirit which here operates is 
 the spirit of repentance, the act is an act of 
 virtue, and its tendency, consequently, is to 
 strengthen the general principle of virtue. 
 To keep the pledge, however, as an act 
 of transgression, has all the influences which 
 
22$ FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 essentially iuhere in sin. We say, therefore, 
 confidently to the young, Be cautious never 
 to be entangled in engagements of this sort, 
 but if, in an evil hour, you have been seduced 
 into them, take the first opportunity of re- 
 asserting your allegiance to right. 
 
 There is not a more touching proof of 
 God's condescension to the weakness of His 
 creatures, than the use of the pledge, on His 
 part, to assure our hearts of the immutability 
 of His counsel. His promises, though felt to 
 be yea and amen in Christ Jesus, appeal to 
 considerations less personal and distinct — 
 the abstract principle of truth and justice; 
 but the pledge is an appeal to His honour, 
 or, in the language of Scripture, to His 
 glory, which stands in the same relation to 
 Him, that honour does to us. We cannot 
 disbelieve, without the most revolting blas- 
 phemy, when God puts His character in pawn 
 for His word. He addresses us on a ground 
 which comes home to us with peculiar power. 
 He transfers to Himself our regard for reputa- 
 tion, and if we instinctively shrink from 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 229 
 
 whatever is branded with ignominy and dis- 
 grace, how can we imagine that the very 
 fountain of purity shall become corrupt, the 
 very source of honour defiled. The glory 
 of God is an expression that contains the 
 most impressive sanction that the imagin- 
 ation of man can conceive. When God 
 plights His glory, He plights His right 
 to the love, homage and adoration of His 
 creatures. He plights all claim upon their 
 worship, veneration and obedience. He 
 virtually engages to abdicate His throne, and 
 to be stripped of the prerogatives that be- 
 long to Him ; to lose His own self-respect, 
 to forfeit forever His name, if He should be 
 found unfaithful to His word. What a secu- 
 rity to the heirs of the promise ! How can 
 we hesitate in committing our souls, our 
 interests for time and for eternity, to that 
 everlasting covenant which is charged with 
 the glory of God? What broader founda- 
 tion could be laid for our faith ? As if it 
 were not enough to appeal to us upon the 
 eternal principles of truth, and justice, and 
 
230 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 righteousness, as if these were too abstract 
 and impalpable to arouse our sympathies and 
 wake up a warm and living interest, God 
 comes to us in a relation which is pre-em- 
 inently personal, and stands before us as one 
 who has a name to vindicate, and puts His 
 faithfulness on a ground, which in the case 
 of a man, a creature like ourselves, we rec- 
 ognize as the most sacred and solemn of all 
 sanctions. As certainly as God cannot deny 
 Himself, as certainly as His own glory is 
 the end of all His works, the scope of every 
 manifestation of His being, as certainly as 
 His own great name is dear to Him, so cer- 
 tainly shall every pledge of His love be re- 
 deemed. Not one word of all the good 
 things He hath spoken, shall ever fall to the 
 ground. Heaven and earth may pass away, 
 but the word of the Lord abideth forever, 
 and this is the word which by the Gospel is 
 preached unto us. We cannot sufficiently 
 adore that goodness which has stooped to 
 our infirmities and illustrated this faithfulness 
 by the analogy of principles which address 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 281 
 
 themselves with power to every human heart, 
 and which shut us up to the alternative of 
 faith or the most shocking and abominable 
 imputations upon the Divine character. 
 
 I conclude the subject of our engagements 
 with our fellow-men with a caution, that 
 cannot be too earnestly inculcated upon the 
 young, and that is, never by facility of tem- 
 per, by reluctance to give offence, or anxiety 
 to please, permit themselves to be betrayed 
 into expressions naturally fitted to excite ex- 
 pectations, when it is not their purpose to 
 come under the obligation of a promise. 
 " It must be observed," says Dr. Paley, '' that 
 most of those forms of speech which, strictly 
 taken, amount to no more than declaration 
 of present intention, do yet, in the usual 
 way of understanding them, excite the ex- 
 pectation, and therefore carry with them the 
 force of absolute promises. Such as ' I in- 
 tend you this place,' 'I design to leave 
 you this estate,' ' I purpose giving you my 
 vote,' ' I mean to serve you.' In which 
 although the 'intention,' the 'purpose,' th* 
 
232 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 'design,' the 'meaning' be expressed in 
 words of the present time, yet you cannot 
 afterwards recede from them without a 
 breach of good faith. If you choose, there- 
 fore, to make known your present intention, 
 and yet to reserve to yourself the liberty of 
 changing it, you must guard your express- 
 ions by an additional clause, as ' I intend at 
 present,' ' if I do not alter,' or the like. 
 And after all, as there can be no reason for 
 communicating your intention, but to excite 
 some degree of expectation or other, a wan- 
 ton change of an intention which is once dis- 
 closed, always disappoints somebody, and is 
 always for that reason wrong. There is in 
 some men an infirmity with regard to prom- 
 ises, which often betrays them into great dis- 
 tress. From the confusion, or hesitation, or 
 obscurity with which they express themselves, 
 especially when overawed, or taken by sur- 
 prise, they sometimes encourage expectations, 
 and bring upon themselves demands which 
 possibly, they never dreamed of This is a 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 233 
 
 want not so much of integrity as of presence 
 of mind." 
 
 A man's character suffers in the eyes of 
 others, his self-respect is diminished in his 
 own, when he finds himself ensnared into 
 reputed obligations to which he has weak- 
 ly or foolishly given rise. His ingenuous- 
 ness and candour are brought under a cloud, 
 and however he may vindicate his name, 
 he cannot but feel that he has put a weapon 
 into the hands of malice. "He that in- 
 tends," says Jeremy Taylor, "to do himself 
 honour must take care that he be not sus- 
 pected; that he give no occasion of re- 
 proachful language ; for fame and honour 
 is a nice thing, tender as a woman's chas- 
 tity,* or like the face of the purest mirror, 
 which a foul breath or an unwholesome air, 
 or a watery eye can sully, and the beauty is 
 lost, though it be not dashed in pieces. 
 When a man, or a sect is put to answer for 
 themselves in the matter of reputation, they, 
 with their distinctions, wipe the glass, and 
 at last can do nothing but make it appear 
 
284 FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 it was not broken ; but their very abstersion 
 and laborious excuses confess it was foul and 
 faulty." 
 
 There is but one way of avoiding these 
 painful predicaments, and that is by putting 
 a bridle upon our lips. He that offends 
 not in word is a perfect man. Speech is 
 a sacred prerogative, the tongue rules the 
 world, and we should see to it that our hearts 
 rule it. Let us weigh the import of what 
 we utter, speak with the deliberation of ra- 
 tional and accountable beings, speak accord- 
 ing to our real purposes and thoughts, and 
 we shall be saved the mortification and the 
 shame of even an appearance of failure in 
 good faith. It is an awkward thing and 
 humbling to a good man, to have to defend 
 himself from the imputation _ of perfidy, 
 when malice can give any colour to the 
 charge. As to suspect a servant is to corrupt 
 him, so calumny often drives men to crime. 
 They resent the injustice of mankind by be- 
 coming what they have been falsely rep- 
 resented to be. They take reprisals on soci- 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 235 
 
 ety by practising the vices of which they 
 have experienced the shame without the guilt. 
 Let the young, then, guard with jealous care 
 the sanctity of their faith. Let them avoid 
 even the appearance of evil. Let them even 
 suffer wrong rather than give the least oc- 
 casion of being suspected of falsehood, du- 
 plicity, or fraud. If Achilles, who had Chiron 
 for his master, could exult in the ingen- 
 uous simplicity of his character, how should 
 he who has had the Son of God for his 
 teacher and example, be clothed with truth 
 as with a garment? 
 
 The evil of being seduced into engage- 
 ments contrary to our purpose, is not to be 
 compared with that of being ensnared into 
 those that are unlawful. To make a promise 
 or pledge with the consciousness that the 
 matter of it is wrong, is a most deliberate 
 compact with the devil ; it is selling one's self 
 to evil. He that does so either intends to 
 keep his word, or he does not. If he intends 
 to keep it, he actually makes evil his good and 
 approximates as closely as his circumstances 
 
2'dQ FAITHFULNESS. 
 
 will allow, to the father of lies, who never 
 speaks truth, except when it redeems his en- 
 gagements to sin. If he does not intend to 
 keep it, he is guilty of deliberate fraud. In 
 either view, the making of an unlawful prom- 
 ise, knowingly and voluntarily, is an aggra- 
 vated crime. Few, it is to be hoped, ever 
 reach this pitch of wickedness. But to make 
 an unlawful promise, unconsciously, is not 
 without sin. It is always rash ; and though it 
 is not obligatory, it places a man, when the 
 unlawfulness is discovered, in a very painful 
 situation. It is apt to diminish his sensibility 
 to moral distinctions — to superinduce a soph- 
 istry which corrupts the heart and darkens the 
 understanding. The very anxiety to exempt 
 himself from censure will tempt him to prevar- 
 icate with duty, and the effort to acquit the 
 criminal may terminate in a justification of 
 the crime. To come in close contact with 
 vice is always dangerous. 
 
 • " Seen too oft, familiar with its face. 
 
 We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
 
 To apologize for sin is the next step to the 
 
FAITHFULNESS. 287 
 
 commission of it ; and to apologize for it all 
 those will be tempted to do who have been 
 entangled in unlawful engagements. Let 
 all men, but particularly the young, guard 
 against them with a holy solicitude. Resolve 
 never to make a promise without having well 
 weighed the moral character of its matter. 
 
 Never let a formula, implying obligation, 
 pass your lips unless you are sure that it re- 
 lates to nothing which is inconsistent with 
 your duty to God or man. Whatever is 
 not of faith is sin, and he that doubteth is 
 damned. In every undertaking, our first care 
 should be to have a clear conscience. Recti- 
 tude is a sacred, an awful thing, and as its 
 eternal laws should never be despised by 
 open and deliberate transgression, so the very 
 possibility of invading them by rashness and 
 imprudence should fill us with constant vigil- 
 ance and unceasing caution. " Ignorance of 
 duty," says Jeremy Taylor, "is always a sin, 
 and therefore, when we are in a perceived 
 discernible state of danger, he that refuses to 
 inquire after his duty, does not desire to do 
 
238 FAITHFULNESS, 
 
 it." "We enter upon danger and despise our 
 own safety, and are careless of our duty, and 
 not zealous for God, nor yet subjects of con- 
 science, or of the Spirit of God, if we do not 
 well inquire of an action we are to do, wheth- 
 er it be good or bad." 
 
 To him, however, who has been rashly en- 
 snared I would solemnly say — do not hesitate 
 to repent of your engagement, and to nip the 
 action in the bud. You have sinned already. 
 Do not double the offence by the perpetration 
 of the deed. Let no fear of reproach, no 
 sense of self-degradation, induce you to par- 
 ley with the crime. You have come too near 
 it already. Your only safety is in instant re- 
 treat. If you have betrothed yourself to a 
 harlot, under the impression that she was a 
 virgin, flee her poisoned embraces as soon as 
 you find out her pollution. Never, never for 
 an instant think of excusing or extenuating a 
 wrong, because you have been implicated in 
 it. The moment you begin to debate you 
 have soiled the purity of your conscience. 
 
i to s . 
 
 ''Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true — think on 
 
 these things." — Puy^ippiANs, iv. 8. 
 
 There is a marked difference 
 
 DlbU. V 1. J T T-k 
 
 between Protestant and Rom- 
 ish communions in their estimate of the 
 value and importance of vows as an element 
 of religious worship. The Church of Rome 
 has perverted and Protestants have neglected 
 them. The will-worship and superstition 
 fostered by the one have produced a re-ac- 
 tion to the opposite extreme in the other. 
 In this, as in most other cases, the truth lies 
 in moderation. It is obvious to remark that 
 this species of devotion has entered into all 
 religions, whether Pagan, Jewish, or Chris- 
 tian. Wherever God and Providence have 
 been acknowledged, there, too, have been 
 acknowledged the sanctity of oaths, and the 
 
240 vows. 
 
 piety of vows. A form of worship so uni- 
 versal must be founded in nature, and how- 
 ever it may have been corrupted by the mix- 
 ture of false doctrines, or perverted by igno- 
 rance and superstition, there must be some- 
 thing in it wliich is consistent with reason, 
 and which should be reclaimed from prosti- 
 tution and restored to its right place among 
 the functions of the religious life. I have no 
 doubt that, as in the Church of Rome, the 
 extravagant commendation of supererogato- 
 ry works, which are productive of nothing 
 but pain to the flesh, and vanity and pride 
 to the spirit, has detracted from the weight- 
 ier matters of the law, and degraded piety 
 from obedience to God to the punctilious 
 observance of the uncommanded devices of 
 men ; while the doctrine of vows in its con- 
 nection with ^'a show of wisdom in will- 
 worship and humility, and neglecting of 
 the body," has practically destroyed, in many 
 instances, all real piety of life ; among Pro- 
 testants, on the other hand, the general inat- 
 tention to the principle which has made the 
 
vows. 241 
 
 vow as universal as the oath, has prevented 
 many from apprehending, in any thing like 
 their true sacredness and interest, the peculiar 
 obligations of religion. Johnson's horrour 
 of a vow is well known. He looked upon 
 it as nothing but a snare to the conscience, 
 and had almost said that he who could not 
 get to heaven without one, deserved not to 
 go there at all. 
 
 I have thought, therefore, that it would 
 not be amiss to devote a little more attention 
 to this subject than it has usually received 
 from the Protestant Pulpit, and have col- 
 lected my thoughts under the heads of the 
 nature, uses, and obligation of vows. 
 
 1. First, then, a vow is of the general 
 nature of a promise. The schoolmen have 
 discussed the question whether it consists es- 
 sentially in a mere purpose of the will, or 
 whether the act of reason which, in other 
 instances, transmutes a resolution into a 
 promise and gives it its binding force, must 
 here also be superinduced. The definition 
 
 which confounds it with a deliberate and firm 
 11 
 
242 vows. 
 
 resolution, making a mere conceptio bom 
 propositi cum animi deliheratione firmata, 
 qua quis ad aliquid faciendum^ vel non fa- 
 ciendum se Deo obligate proceeds on the as- 
 sumption, that the only importance of signi 
 fication in ordinal y promises is to make 
 known the thoughts and intent of the heart 
 — ^that if men could read the purposes of 
 each other as they are secretly formed in 
 the mind, these purposes would instantly 
 create obligations and impart rights. But 
 this is obviously a mistake ; there is a broad 
 distinction betwixt a purpose and a promise. 
 The promise is the child of the purpose, 
 but there must be a father to beget it. 
 There must be something added to the pur- 
 pose before it can bind as an engagement.' 
 The intervening act by which a purpose is 
 changed is an ordination of the reason by 
 which the purpose is voluntarily made the 
 rule or law of a future thing to be done by 
 ourselves. The promise sustains the same 
 relation to our own future acts, which a com- 
 mand or order bears to the acts of a servant. 
 
vows. 243 
 
 The constituting of this relation is essential 
 to obligation ; it is explicitly enounced by 
 signification in promises among men — it is 
 enough that it exists in promises to God. 
 This act or ordination of reason is simply the 
 voluntary determination to be considered as 
 bound, voluntas se ohligandi. Where this 
 does not obtain either explicitly or implicitly, 
 a resolution terminates upon ourselves, and 
 carries no other duty along with it than what 
 is essentially involved in the matter of it. 
 Where it is not signified there is no promise ; 
 where it does not exist, no vow.* 
 
 2. What distinguishes the vow from every 
 other promise is the party to whom it is 
 made — God. By virtue of this relation it 
 becomes an act of religious worship, and par- 
 takes, at the same time, of the nature of an 
 oath. He takes a very limited view of what 
 constitutes the worship of God, who restricts 
 it exclusively to those exercises of prayer, 
 praise, or thanksgiving, which are specifically 
 religious. Our whole life should be one 
 
 * Aquinas' Summa. 2. 2. quest. 88, art. 1. 
 
244 V o w s . 
 
 great instance of devotion. It is the end, 
 the intention, or, as the Schoolmen phrase it, 
 the ordination of it, which determines the 
 character of an act ; and if in all that we 
 do, we aim at the glory of God, "every 
 action of nature becomes religious," every 
 meal an instrument of piety, every ofi&ce of 
 ordinary life a holy oblation. It is the spirit 
 and temper of the soul which settles the 
 question of worship. A cup of cold water 
 given to a disciple in the name of a disci- 
 ple is not simply charity, it is an offering ac- 
 ceptable to God. As in the vow the ordi- 
 nation of the action is to God, whatever may 
 be the nature of the thing to be done, wheth- 
 er natural, civil, or spiritual, the action be- 
 comes religious. It takes its denomination 
 from its end. The writers of the Romish 
 Church make it an act of the highest relig- 
 ious worship, an act of latria^ and are accord- 
 ingly at one with Protestants in affirming, 
 that vows can be lawfully made to God only. 
 This, beyond all controversy, is the doctrine 
 of the Scriptures. Hence the indignation of 
 
vows. 246 
 
 the Lord against the children of Israel for 
 making vows to the Queen of Heaven. The 
 crime was idolatry. 
 
 But a vow is also of the nature of an 
 oath. Although primarily it respects God 
 simply as the party to whom a promise is 
 made, yet secondarily, in consequence of 
 His relations to the creature, it must also 
 regard Him as a witness and a judge. The 
 oath is a solemn invocation of God, in which 
 His name is made the guarantee of the 
 truth of what we say, or in case of false- 
 hood, in which we deliberately abjure His fa- 
 vour. We suspend our claims to the Di- 
 vine protection upon our veracity. The pe- 
 culiarity of its sanction is the reverence for 
 the Divine Being upon which all its sacred- 
 ness depends. Its peculiar guilt consists in 
 taking the name of the Lord our God in 
 vain. All this is obviously implied in the 
 vow ; and hence it may be compendiously 
 defined as a promissory oath, using that 
 phrase, not in its common acceptation as a 
 promise, to which men are the parties, con- 
 
246 vows. 
 
 firmed by an oath, but as a promise which 
 is at the same time an oath. The Jews, 
 accordingly, were accustomed to couple im- 
 precations with their vows ; the Psalmist re- 
 peatedly employs terms of swearing and vow- 
 ing as synonymous expressions. 
 
 The circumstance that it is God with 
 whom we have to deal in the vow, deter- 
 mines at once the nature of its matter, and 
 the spirit or temper in which it should be 
 made. 1. Without entering into the frivo- 
 lous discussions of the Schoolmen de bono 
 melior% which they made essential to the va- 
 lidity of vows, it is obvious that nothing can 
 legitimately constitute the matter of our en- 
 gagements which is inconsistent with rever- 
 ence for His name, forbidden by His word, 
 hurtful to our virtue, or beyond our strength 
 of nature or of grace. Such oblations, instead 
 of being worship, are a mockery. I would 
 not say, the common doctrine of the schools,* 
 
 * Vota vero quae sunt de rebus vanis et inutilibus, sunt magis 
 deridenda quam servanda. Aquinas Sum. 2. 2. quest. 88, art. 2. 
 Sanderson in his little treatise de Juraniento, takes the view 
 which is adopted in the text. 
 
Y o w s . 247 
 
 that light and frivolous promises, provided 
 they respected things that were not essen- 
 tially unlawful, are absolutely null, — they, no 
 doubt, bind the conscience; but I will say 
 that they argue a contempt of God, and 
 that it is utterly unlawful to make them. 
 To call His awful name upon actions that 
 are silly and ridiculous, that neither in them- 
 selves nor their tendencies, have a moral 
 significancy, is a crime of impiety and pro- 
 fan eness which is even as the sin of perjury. 
 What can be his conception of God, who 
 approaches the terrible majesty with absurd 
 promises to walk with pebbles in his shoes, 
 to stand for a given time upon a single 
 foot, to lie in a particular posture, or to eat 
 with a particular implement, and imagines 
 that these worse than childish follies are ac- 
 cepted as proofs of extraordinary piety. 
 Verily their foolish heart is darkened, and 
 they have changed the glory of the incor- 
 ruptible God into the image of a child, 
 "pleased with a rattle and tickled with a 
 straw." 
 
248 vows. 
 
 To guard against profaneness in making 
 vows, let the following cautions in relation to 
 the matter be observed : 
 
 1. If they respect an act which is specific- 
 ally religious, which is directly and immedi- 
 ately and not merely by virtue of the inten- 
 tion, an act of worship, let it be well settled 
 that it is appointed in the Word of God. As 
 it is the prerogative of the monarch to ordain 
 the ceremonial of his court, so it belongs ex- 
 clusively to God to determine by what ex- 
 ternal observances His holy name shall be 
 honoured. Nothing is more offensive or in- 
 sulting than will-worship. He takes such 
 pleasure in obedience "that he pronounces a 
 curse," says Calvin,* "on all acts of will- wor- 
 ship, however specious and splendid they 
 may be in the eyes of men. If God abomi- 
 nates all voluntary services invented by us, 
 without his command, it follows, that nothing 
 can be acceptable to Him, except what is ap- 
 pointed by His word. Let us not, therefore, 
 assume to ourselves such a great liberty, as to 
 
 * Institutes. Book iv. chap. 13. 
 
vows. ^§ 
 
 presume to vow to God any thing, that has no 
 testimony of His approbation." In vain do 
 they ivorsMp we, teaching for doctrines^ the 
 commandments of men. 
 
 2. In the next place, if the vow respects 
 any other act, let us be certain that the act is 
 either the elicit or imperate one of some vir- 
 tue — that is — that it consists in doing some- 
 thing positively commanded, or avoiding 
 something positively forbidden, or in making 
 that which is naturally indifferent conduce to 
 our improvement. There can be no doubt 
 about the lawfulness of engagements to per- 
 form our duty, or to abstain from sin. All 
 elicit acts of virtue . are clearly within the 
 scope of a vow. But the case is not as plain 
 when it comes to the curtailment of Christian 
 liberty. That should not be done except to 
 save ourselves from temptation, or others 
 from offence. When an indifferent thing, by 
 being specially sanctified to God, can promote 
 my own piety,, or the piety of others, it seems 
 to me that it can legitimately constitute the 
 
 matter of a vow. Liberty is then used for 
 11* 
 
260 V o w s . 
 
 the glory of God, and the use of it is mani- 
 festly consistent with His will. In the lan- 
 guage of the Schools, it becomes a great- 
 er good. This is the doctrine of Thomas 
 Aquinas.* " Maceration of one's own body," 
 says he, '' by vigils and fasts, for example, is 
 not accepted of God, except in so far as it is 
 a work of virtue — that is, in so far as it is 
 done with proper discretion for the purpose of 
 restraining concupiscence without too much 
 inconvenience to nature." The same is the 
 doctrine of Calvin. "If a person," says he, 
 " has fallen into any crime through the vice 
 of intemperance, nothing prevents him from 
 correcting that vice by ja temporary renuncia- 
 tion of all delicacies, and enforcing this ab- 
 stinence by a vow, to lay himself under the 
 stronger obligation." " Yet," he adds, " I 
 impose no perpetual law on those who have 
 been guilty of such an offence : I only point 
 out what they are at liberty to do, if they 
 
 * Summa, 2, 2, Quest. 88. Art. 2. See, also, Bishop Hall. 
 Cases of Conscience. Decade iii., case 4. Bishop Eeynolds on 
 Hosea. 
 
vowa. 251 
 
 think that such a vow would be useful to 
 them. I consider a vow of this kind, there- 
 fore, as lawful, but, at the same time, left to 
 the free choice of every individual." 
 
 3. The matter of a vow should, further, be 
 something clearly in our own power, either 
 according to the strength of nature, or the 
 promises of grace. In the case of command- 
 ed duties, or prohibited sins, we can throw 
 ourselves upon the everlasting covenant, and 
 should make all our engagements in humble 
 reliance upon its provisions. But in uncom- 
 manded instances, we should measure our 
 ability before we venture to assume so solemn 
 an obligation. The aids of grace will be im- 
 parted, only in so far as may be conducive to 
 God's glory ; and as the circumstances which 
 to-day justify a particular use of liberty may 
 change to-morrow, no man can contract any 
 permanent obligations, in regard to these 
 things, in dependencQ upon God's help. He 
 has no promise to justify such faith. Vows 
 of this class, therefor^, should always be 
 temporary ; othe rwise th^y become a tempta^^ 
 
tion and a snare. To illustrate my meaning, 
 there may be a conjuncture of circumstances 
 which render it highly inexpedient at one 
 time for a man to marry. It may, subse- 
 quently, by a change in his condition, be as 
 evidently his duty to do so. If, now, he had 
 contracted a vow of perpetual celibacy, he 
 has engaged to do what he is not sure that he 
 shall have strength to perform, and what God 
 has nowhere promised to enable him to do. 
 The Lord has commanded chastity, and all 
 His people may rely upon His grace to pre- 
 serve them from uncleanness. But chastity is 
 not virginity ; the wife is as pure as the virgin 
 — the husband as chaste as the eunuch. We 
 dare not, therefore, pledge ourselves to per- 
 petual continence, when it may be that God 
 designs to protect our purity by the holy 
 estate of wedlock. This is the class of vows 
 which entangle the conscience — those which 
 relate to matters of indifference, that only par- 
 take of the character of virtue in the way of 
 accident. Hence the advice of Taylor, " Let 
 not young beginners in religion enlarge their 
 
vows. 258 
 
 hearts and straiten their liberty by vows of 
 long continuance; nor indeed can any one 
 else without a great experience of himself, 
 and of all accidental dangers. Yows of single 
 actions are safest, and proportionable to those 
 single blessings, ever begged in such cases of 
 sudden and transient importunities." 
 
 The matter of one class of vow^s is the con- 
 secration of a person or thing to the service 
 and glory of God. The thing to be done 
 is the renunciation of all rights of property 
 on our part and the devotion of the object, 
 whatever it may be, to the service and glory 
 of God. Such was Hannah's vow. " And 
 she vowed a vow and said. Oh Lord of Hosts, 
 if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of 
 thine handmaid, and remember me and not 
 forget thine handmaid, and will give unto 
 thine handmaid a man child, then will I give 
 him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and 
 there shall no razor come upon his head." 
 Such also was Jacob's vow — he consecrated 
 the stone and the tithes to the Lord. " And 
 Jacob vowed a vow, saying, if God will be 
 
254: vows. 
 
 with me and keep me in the way that I go, 
 and will give me bread to eat and raiment to 
 put on, so that I come again to my father's 
 house in peace, then shall the Lord be my 
 God, and this stone which I have set for a 
 pillar shall be God's house, and of all that 
 thou shalt give me, I will surely give the 
 tenth unto thee." These are what Calvin 
 calls vows of thanksgiving. He finds " other 
 examples of them in the ancient peace-offer- 
 ings, which used to be vowed by pious kings 
 and generals entering on just wars, to be of- 
 fered in case they should obtain the victory ; 
 or by persons labouring under more than 
 common difficulties, in case the Lord would 
 deliver them. Thus we are to understand all 
 those places in the Psalms which speak of 
 vows. Yows of this kind may also be now 
 used among us, whenever God delivers us 
 from any great calamity, from a severe dis- 
 ease, or from any other danger. For on such 
 occasions it is not inconsistent with the duty 
 of a pious man to consecrate to God some 
 oblation that he has vowed, merely as a 
 
V o w s . 255 
 
 solemn token of grateful acknowledgement, 
 that he may not appear unthankful for his 
 goodness." Such, it may be added, is the 
 vow implied in the very nature of the Chris- 
 tian profession. A man yields himself to God 
 a living sacrifice — he is sanctified to the di- 
 vine service and glory, renounces all right of 
 property in himself, and dedicates his faculties 
 and members as instruments of righteousness 
 unto holiness. Such also is a good man's con- 
 secration of his children to the Lord ; they are 
 devoted — and he feels that he has no more 
 right to train them for merely secular ends, 
 than an ancient Jew had to use the vessels of 
 the sanctuary for the ordinary purposes of 
 life. It is nothing less than sacrilege to treat 
 them in any other way than as holy to the 
 Lord. The vow of personal consecration 
 made in baptism, is repeated in every recep- 
 tion of the Lord's Supper. The sacraments 
 are seals of a covenant by which God certifies 
 His promises to us, and by which we solemn- 
 ly pledge an absolute allegiance to Him. 
 Every Christian man, therefore, can justly ap- 
 
256 vows. 
 
 propriate the language of David with all the 
 comfort and consolation it imparts, ''thy 
 vows are upon me, Oh God," and with the 
 Apostle he rejoices that he is not his own, but 
 is bought with a price. 
 
 II. Having sufficiently indicated the nature 
 of vows, I proceed to the question of their 
 use. Is it, or is not expedient to make them ? 
 Of course the discussion must be confined 
 to those which are lawful and proper, which 
 are consistent with the will of God, not rashly 
 made nor disproportioned to our powers. 
 
 There is but little force in the objections, 
 in so far as such vows are concerned, that 
 they curtail our liberty, multiply temptations, 
 and are without warrant from the example of 
 Christ and His Apostles. There is no abridg- 
 ment of liberty in strengthening the bonds 
 of duty, no necessary peril in what nothing 
 but depravity can convert into an instrument 
 of sin, and no reflection upon Christ, whose 
 whole life was a vow, nor upon the Apostles, 
 who were body and soul devoted to the 
 work of the Lord. That is not freedom 
 
vows. 257 
 
 which absolves from obligation, that is not a 
 snare which is only made so by our volun- 
 tary neglect, and that is not unchristian, 
 which aims at the perfection of Christian life. 
 The truth is, the whole question concerning 
 the utility of vows turns upon the spirit and 
 temper in which they are made. They have 
 no absolute eflficacy in themselves; there is 
 no charm by which the mere making of them 
 shall be an instrument of good. All depends 
 upon the state of mind, the purpose and ends 
 with which they are made. Here, as in every 
 thing else, the maxim of the Apostle holds 
 good, whatsoever is not of faith is sin. 
 
 1. If vows are made in the spirit of bribes, 
 if they proceed from low and degrading 
 thoughts of the God-head, and are presented 
 as inducements which have an intrinsic value 
 in the court of Heaven, they are insults to 
 Him and injuries to us. God maintains no 
 intercourse of barter and traffic with His 
 creatures, and those who look upon His cov- 
 enants as the interchange of reciprocal ben- 
 efits, are puffed up with pride, and have al- 
 
268 vows. 
 
 ready fallen into the condemnation of the 
 Devil. All things come of Him and it is 
 only of His own that we can give Him. 
 
 2. In the next place, those who look upon 
 vows as instances of extraordinary merit, 
 eviscerate them of all their tendencies to 
 good. There is no righteousness but in obe- 
 dience to God, and as the vow is only an ac- 
 knowledgement of duty, coupled with a fixed 
 resolution to perform it, there is nothing 
 more in it than the honesty of a debtor, who 
 admits the debt and makes arrangements to 
 discharge it. So far are those vows which re- 
 spect uncommanded instances from possess- 
 ing extraordinary merit, that the sole merit 
 or moral excellence which belongs to them 
 is derivative and secondary, it springs from 
 their relation to commanded duties. They 
 are the merest puerilities except as they are 
 ordained to the ends of virtue. They become 
 lawful only when they are assumed as the in- 
 struments or means of enforcing prime obli- 
 gations. They are like the ancient phylac- 
 teries memorials of duty rather than duties 
 
vows. 259 
 
 themselves. To treat them, therefore, as 
 proofs of extraordinary righteousness, is to 
 reverse the relation of means and end, and to 
 substitute the sign for the thing signified. 
 He that enters into engagements of this sort, 
 with the secret feeling that he is pleasing 
 the Lord of Hosts with the display of un- 
 wonted zeal, may expect the confounding 
 rebuke that " obedience is better than sac- 
 rifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." 
 It is the preposterous notion that there is 
 something more than God requires, a 
 righteousness of supererogation, in these in- 
 stances of vows, that has corrupted the 
 whole subject, and made it stink in the nos- 
 trils of humble piety. This dead fly has pol- 
 luted the whole box of ointment. The Di- 
 vine law is the standard of moral perfection, 
 and nothing is good which does not express 
 the spirit and temper of this perfect standard. 
 There is no going beyond it ; there may be 
 a fearful falling short of it. Whatev jr expe- 
 dients we employ to impress this law upon 
 the conscience and to engrave it in the very 
 
260 vows. 
 
 texture of the will, they are good or other- 
 wise, according to their tendencies to secure 
 the result. The man is righteous or un- 
 righteous, holy or sinful, according as his 
 heart is in union and sympathy with the 
 holy commandment. The effect of exalting 
 supererogatory observances above simple obe- 
 dience, and treating him pre-eminently as a 
 saint, whatever may be the general temper 
 and disposition of his mind, who excels in as- 
 cetic devotions, has been to degrade religion 
 from its noble eminence as a reasonable ser- 
 vice to the emptiest show of fooleries. Yows 
 conceived in such a spirit are as fatal to pros- 
 perity as the mildew or pestilence. They 
 are a high conspiracy against heaven, an im- 
 pious and daring attempt to reverse the 
 order which God has established, and to 
 make His will subordinate and secondary 
 to the little contrivances of man. It is 
 to subvert morality and to convert religion 
 into superstition. Hence, Taylor in his Holy 
 Living, in order to obviate this tendency to 
 pervert th^ vow into will-worship, has very 
 
Vv. .vs. 261 
 
 reasonably advised, ''that every vow of a 
 new action be also accompanied with a new 
 degree and enforcement of our essential and 
 unalterable duty. Such was Jacob's vow, that 
 (besides the payment of a tithe) God should 
 be his God, that so he might strengthen his 
 duty to Him, first in essentials and precepts, 
 and then in additional and accidentals. For 
 it is but an ill tree that spends more in leaves 
 and suckers and gums than in fruit ; and that 
 thankfulness and religion is best that first 
 secures duty and then enlarges in counsels." 
 
 3. Vows that are made in conformity with 
 the spirit of the Gospel, with proper views of 
 the majesty and goodness of God and of 
 the weakness and ill-desert of man, made in 
 faith and as the honest expressions of sincere 
 worship, are undoubted helps to piety. These 
 are not the vows which become hinderances 
 and snares. 
 
 1. In the first place, they obviously 
 strengthen the general bonds of duty. They 
 consecrate the offices of life. They dif- 
 fuse the influence and savour of the Di- 
 
262 V c w s . 
 
 vine name around moral and civil observ- 
 ances, and attach the sacredness of religion to 
 every thing which they touch. The vow in- 
 troduces a new sanction, and the sanction 
 which of all others is dearest to the Chris- 
 tian heart, reverence for the glory of God. 
 It pronounces the Divine name, and makes 
 that to be specifically religious which before 
 was only natural or civil, and thus superin- 
 duces what Augustin calls a " blessed neces- 
 sity to good." It confirms the will by a direct 
 sense of the majesty and holiness of God. 
 It is, indeed, the general spirit of religion 
 concentrated on a single act. As the pe- 
 culiar motive of the vow is reverence for 
 God, it is manifest that every instance of 
 fidelity strengthens the principle until it is 
 matured into the stability of habit. 
 
 2. In the next place, vows are conducive 
 to piety by increasing the sense of union with 
 God. They keep alive the consciousness that 
 we are His, and that He is ours. David, 
 when overwhelmed by afflictions and op- 
 pressed by dangers, often established his 
 
vows. 
 
 heart with the reflection that the vows of his 
 God were upon him. The feeling Avas that 
 God had a peculiar interest in him as one 
 devoted to His service, and that the Deity 
 was not likely to abandon His own property 
 as a spoil to men of violence and blood. 
 We kee23 aloof from the throne of grace 
 when we distrust our right to be found 
 there ; nearness of access is in proportion to 
 the feeling of intimacy betwixt God and the 
 creature. It is precisely this feeling which 
 the vow cherishes. This is eminently the 
 case with that general vow of consecration, 
 which is involved in the very notion of the 
 Christian profession ; its language is, my be- 
 loved is mine and I am his. We know that 
 God careth for His own, and in proportion 
 as we cherish the conviction that we belong 
 to Him, will be the frequency of our ap- 
 proaches to His seat, and the strength of our 
 reliance on His name. It is the prerogative 
 of faith to appropriate God and the promises 
 of the covenant ; and whatever has a ten- 
 dency to increase the feeling of propriety, re- 
 
264 vows. 
 
 acts upon faith and strengthens that very fea- 
 ture of it, by which it is made the instrument 
 at once of comfort and of growth in grace. 
 There is no privilege, no exaltation of bless- 
 edness comparable with that, by which a sin- 
 ner is permitted to avouch the Lord to be 
 his God. Every thing of good, whether for 
 this world, or that which is to come, is em- 
 braced in the compendious declaration, I will 
 be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee. 
 The vow corresponds to this promise, and 
 presents the man as an oblation to the Lord, 
 holy and acceptable through Jesus Christ. 
 It is an exercise of faith which strengthens 
 faith. 
 
 3. In the third place, vows in exercising 
 specific virtues contribute to the habit of 
 them, and through the intimate connection 
 which obtains among them, fortifies the gen- 
 eral principle of integrity. Calvin recog- 
 nises four ends to which our vows may be 
 rightly directed, two referring to the past 
 and two to the future. " To the time past 
 belong those vows by which we either testify 
 
vows. 265 
 
 our gratitude to God for benefits received, or 
 in order to deprecate His wrath, inflict pun- 
 ishment upon ourselves for sins we have com- 
 mitted. The former may be called vows of 
 thanksgiving ; the latter vows of penitence." 
 The vows which he refers to the future 
 ''have for their object, partly to render us 
 more cautious of danger, partly to stimulate 
 us to the performance of duty." It cannot 
 be denied that whatever strengthens the sen- 
 timent of gratitude, or reminds us of our own 
 guilt and unworthiness, whatever guards us 
 against future temptations or arms us for fu- 
 ture conflict, is of no mean utility to the Di- 
 vine life. The stronger the tie which binds 
 us to God and duty the better. If a man 
 honestly aims at the Divine glory, and his 
 own spiritual improvement, if his heart is 
 right, the solemn bonds of a vow will co-op- 
 erate mightily with the ordinary sanctions of 
 law. The precept binds by its native force, 
 the obligation is sweetened when a man 
 chooses it by a free act, and re-writes it upon 
 
 his conscience. The vow becomes an addi- 
 12 
 
266 vows. 
 
 tional security for obedience, and every in- 
 stance of fidelity is an instance of moral prog 
 ress. To the conscientious man, a vow is a 
 monitor, a heavenly mentor, constantly at his 
 side, and when the flesh would plead and re- 
 monstrate, it gently whispers, " Remember that 
 this duty has been made your choice. Your 
 vow did not create the obligation, although 
 in uncommanded instances it gave a specific 
 consent, but already existing, your vow ac- 
 cepted it, and accepted it as a good." 
 
 The truth is, all the objections that can be 
 justly urged against the benefit of vows, ap- 
 ply only to that class of them which are rash 
 and imprudent, which are either ofiensive in 
 matter, or relate to acts which we have no 
 warrant for assuming an obligation to per- 
 form. 
 
 Still, I am far from thinking that vows 
 should be niade common. To make them 
 common is to cheapen them, to reduce them 
 to the level of ordinary obligations ; and 
 when this process is once begun, the next 
 step will be to deny the reality of all obliga- 
 
vows. 267 
 
 tions which have not been self-imposed. 
 Human nature is a weak thing, and as its 
 tendency is to run into extremes, it would 
 be nothing strange that it should oscillate 
 from the point of highest reverence for 
 a vow to that of comparative contempt. 
 What I insist on is, that the vow is an act 
 of solemn religious worship ; that it is of 
 the nature of an oath, and that, when prop- 
 erly used for proper ends and on proper oc- 
 casions, it is eminently conducive to virtue. 
 It loses its efficacy, however, just as the 
 oath does, if made the ordinary form of Chris- 
 tian obedience. It should be reserved for 
 extraordinary occasions, when we wish to 
 erect a monument to God's goodness, or a 
 memorial ^of our own shame, or to begin a 
 new epoch in the Christian life. Familiarity 
 here, as in the case of the oath, is destructive 
 of reverence. There is a marked difference 
 between the questions whether the vow, as an 
 extraordinary act of worship, that is, in its 
 true character and relations, or as an ordina- 
 ry act of worship, that is, perverted from its 
 
2!^ vows. 
 
 true character and relations, is of beneficial 
 tendency. No one can be more deeply 
 sensible than I am that the consequences of 
 turning every duty into a vow, are pernicious 
 in the extreme. It proceeds from a weak 
 and superstitious spirit, and if permitted to 
 operate without check, vsrill multiply scru- 
 ples until it converts religion into torture. 
 The abuse of vows consists in their fre- 
 quency. Let that be guarded against, and 
 they can certainly be turned to a good ac- 
 count. The occasions on which they should 
 be resorted to, every man must determine for 
 himself His own heart is the best expository 
 of extraordinary circumstances in his own 
 life. He knows its critical points, the events 
 which have given shape and direction to his 
 history and have left their mark upon his 
 character. 
 
 III. The next point to be discussed is the 
 obligation of vows. The fact of their obli- 
 gation is, of course, not disputed. The con- 
 victions of every heart coincide here with 
 the positive declarations of Scripture : "When 
 
vows. 269 
 
 thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy 
 God, thou shalt not be slack to pay it: 
 for the Lord thy God will surely require 
 it of thee, and it would be sin in thee. That 
 which is gone out of thy lips, thou shalt 
 keep and perform : even a free-will offer- 
 ing, according as thou hast vowed unto the 
 Lord thy God, which thou hast promised 
 with thy mouth." "When thou vowest a 
 vow unto God, defer not to pay it ; for 
 He hath no pleasure in fools. Pay that which 
 thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou 
 shouldst not vow, than that thou shouldst 
 vow and not pay." "Yow and pay unto 
 the Lord your God." But while the fact 
 is clear, the immediate grounds of the 
 obligation are not directly stated, though 
 they are implicitly assumed. 
 
 I cannot forbear to notice how completely 
 the theory of Dr. Paley, in regard to the 
 obligation of promises, breaks down in its 
 application to vows. He was perfectly con- 
 scious of it, and frankly confesses it, and yet 
 it seems to have raised no sort of misgiv* 
 
270 V o w s . 
 
 ings as to the soundness of his principles. 
 It is clear that whatever is the formal cause 
 of the obligation of a promise as such, must 
 extend to every promise ; the whole essence 
 must be found in the species. The produc- 
 tion of a case, therefore, in which a prom- 
 ise really exists, and yet is not binding upon 
 the given ground, is conclusive evidence 
 that the ground in question is not the formal 
 cause of obligation in any promise. Falsus 
 in uno^ falsus in omnibus.^ We are shut up to 
 the admission, either that there is no specific 
 reason in the case, or that Dr. Paley's theory 
 is false — either no promise is obligatory, be- 
 cause it is a promise, or Dr. Paley has failed 
 to indicate why any is obligatory. Listen to 
 his naive confession : " Yows are promises to 
 God. The obligation cannot be made out 
 upon the same principle as that of other 
 promises. The violation of them, neverthe- 
 less, implies a want of reverence to the Su- 
 preme Being ; which is enough to make it sin- 
 ful." Vows are promises, but they do not 
 oblige because they are promises. There can 
 
vows. 271 
 
 be no deception in the case, and consequent- 
 ly no breach of confidence reposed; which 
 makes it so important to keep other promises. 
 But though not binding as promises, they are 
 still to be kept, because a breach of them im- 
 plies a want of reverence for the Supreme 
 Being. But how does this want of reverence 
 appear ? If there was nothing sacred in the 
 vow, considered as a promise, if it carried no 
 obligation or enjoined no duty, if it were a 
 mere moral nullity, where is the want of rev- 
 erence to be found? Did not Dr. Paley feel 
 in penning, and does not every reader feel in 
 perusing these lines, that it is precisely be- 
 cause the vow is binding as a promise, that 
 the violation of it casts contempt upon God. 
 Such inconsistencies and contradictions result 
 from partial schemes of philosophy, and this 
 is one among the thousand that might be pro- 
 duced, that convicts the system of expediency, 
 as expounded by Dr. Paley, of gross and 
 flagrant falsehood. Of all philosophies it is 
 the most shallow and superficial, and its prin- 
 cipal recommendation is to simple minds, 
 
272 vows. 
 
 whom it flatters with the belief that they ai'e 
 possessed of principles, without the labour of 
 patient thought. 
 
 The true ground of the obligation of vows 
 is very easily explained. We have but to re- 
 cur to the definition — a promise made to God 
 — or a promise, which is, at the same time, an 
 oath. As a promise it is obligatory from the 
 two-fold considerations of truth and justice 
 which have been already explained. God is 
 a person, and we may maintain relations to 
 Him analogous to those which subsist among 
 men. We can give Him of His own. The 
 notion is preposterous that our engagements 
 to the Almighty do not give Him a covenant- 
 ed right to exact obedience at our hands. 
 He does not deal with us as things. In mak- 
 ing us originally in His own glorious image. 
 He stamped it upon us as the prerogative of 
 our nature to be persons, and in conformity 
 with this high distinction. He conducts all the 
 dispensations of His providence towards us. 
 We are always treated by Him as persons. 
 We are not tools and instruments, but con- 
 
vows. 278 
 
 scious and responsible agents, capable of giv- 
 ing and receiving rights. Hence the relation 
 of justice, pre-eminently a personal relation in 
 our intercourse with Him, as well as with one 
 another. And although the cattle upon a 
 thousand hills are His, and He has no need of 
 our sacrifices and offerings ; though we our- 
 selves belong to Him, and all that we have 
 and are, yet He condescends to accept at our 
 hands what is our own by a free donation 
 from Himself He permits us to transfer to 
 Him such rights as we have, and even repre- 
 sents Himself, all blessed though He be, as 
 injured by faithless dealings on our part. 
 Hence the Scriptures do not hesitate to speak 
 of Him as wronged, robbed, defrauded. The 
 very passages which inculcate the faithful ob- 
 servance of a vow, put it distinctly on the 
 ground of justice — it is the payment of a 
 debt. If Dr. Paley had apprehended the es- 
 sential rectitude of truth and justice, he 
 would have seen the folly of resolving the ob- 
 ligation of promises into the inconveniences 
 
 of deceit, and would have been saved his em- 
 12* 
 
274 vows. 
 
 barrassment in the awkward effort to make 
 infidelity to God a sin. A rustic could have 
 told him, " I must fulfil my vow because my 
 word is out, and God has a right to expect it 
 of me." 
 
 But a vow also partakes of the nature of an 
 oath ; this is its specific difference. And while 
 it binds as a promise upon the grounds of 
 truth and justice, it binds as an oath upon the 
 principle of reverence for God. He that 
 keeps a vow is not only just, but pious — ^he 
 that breaks it, is not only guilty of injustice, 
 but perjury. Hence the enormous malignity 
 of the sin. The Word of God, as well as the 
 common consent of all civilized nations, has 
 attributed the highest degree of sanctity to 
 the oath, and he that is not held by it has 
 cut loose from all moral obligations. He that 
 has no reverence for the awful name of God, 
 has severed the last tie which binds him to 
 truth. He is an outlaw in the universe — a 
 star of disastrous omen that has broken be- 
 yond the attraction of its central sun, and 
 must be left to pursue its course unchecked 
 
vows. 275 
 
 by the only power that could keep it in its 
 orbit. Nultum vinculum ad astringendam 
 fidem^ says Cicero, ma/jores nostri jure-juran- 
 do arctius esse voluerunt. And the highest 
 authority has assured us that the Lord will 
 not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in 
 vain. So sacred were oaths esteemed among 
 the ancient Romans, that they needed no pro- 
 tection from law. The perjured man was 
 simply exposed by the Censor, and that was 
 enough. The brand of infamy was upon him, 
 and like the taint of leprosy, debarred him 
 from the fellowship of his species, and left 
 him to the vengeance of the insulted God. • 
 
 And yet what gives to perjury its maligni- 
 ty above a common lie — and it is a thought 
 which I would earnestly impress upon the 
 youthful mind — is perhaps the most common 
 of all the sins that are daily committed — it is 
 want of reverence for God. The oath or vow 
 breaker carries it to the point of positive con- 
 tempt. He openly defies that august and 
 terrible majesty before which angels bow and 
 arch-angels veil their faces. It is a sin, the 
 
276 vows. 
 
 enormity of which the imagination cannot 
 conceive, because no thought can compass the 
 infinite excellence of Him, whose prerogative 
 it is to be, who sits upon the circle of the 
 earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grass- 
 hoppers, who stretcheth out the heavens as a 
 curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to 
 dwell in. That a puny creature of the dust, 
 born to-day and gone to-morrow, should have 
 the audacity to pour contempt upon that glo 
 rious name, which seraphs adore with rap- 
 ture, is enough to astonish the heavens and 
 convulse the earth. Yea, still more astonish- 
 ing is that miracle of patience which endures 
 the monsters, when one word would arm all 
 nature against them, make the ground treach- 
 erous beneath them, heaven terrible above 
 them, and hell ready to meet them at their 
 coming. The magnitude of the sin cannot be 
 exaggerated, and yet the principle, to which 
 it is indebted for its preeminence in guilt, is 
 constantly exemplified in the speech and in- 
 tercourse of those who would be shocked at 
 the imputation of any thing that approiri- 
 
vows. 277 
 
 mates to perjury. Profane swearing, light and 
 frivolous appeals to the Almighty, the indis- 
 criminate use of the lot, all these are only dif- 
 ferent forms of expressing irreverence for 
 God. They contain the ingredients of the 
 same poison with perjury and vow breach. 
 It is a startling reflection that the very cir- 
 cumstance which distinguishes these from an 
 ordinary falsehood and has armed the senti- 
 ments of mankind against them, brands the 
 speech of the profane swearer with the same 
 species of crime. It is not, I admit, the same 
 in degree, but it is the same in kind. The 
 thoughtlessness which is often pleaded in ex- 
 tenuation of the guilt, is a confession of the 
 fact. It is a proof how little veneration the 
 name of God inspires, when we can pronounce 
 it in reiterated blasphemies, without even be- 
 ing conscious that a word is escaping from 
 our lips which fills all heaven with awe. It 
 is a proof how near we come to despising it, 
 when we can use it in the mere wantonness 
 of sport, as a convenient expletive to fill up 
 the chasms of discourse. It is a proof that all 
 
278 vows. 
 
 respect for it is gone when we can use it to 
 point a jest, to season obscenity, and to gar- 
 nish a tale. It is enough to make the blood 
 curdle to think of the name of God bandied 
 about as the bauble and plaything of fools. 
 This offence cannot go unpunished. If there 
 be a God, He must vindicate His own majesty 
 and glory. There must be a period when all 
 shall tremble before Him, when every knee 
 shall bow and every heart shall do rever- 
 ence. The sword of justice cannot always be 
 sheathed, nor the arm of vengeance slumber. 
 Engrave it upon your minds, fix it in the 
 very depths of your souls, that it is a fearful 
 thing to make light of God. It is the very 
 spirit and essence of all evil, the very core of 
 iniquity. There is no language of earnestness 
 in which I would not warn you against it, no 
 language of expostulation or entreaty in 
 which I would not implore you against it. If 
 you could see it as the angels see it; or as 
 the spirits of just men made perfect see it; if 
 you could see it as you yourselves will see it 
 in that dnj when God shall arise to shake ter- 
 
vows. 279 
 
 ribly the earth — when Jesus shall sit upon the 
 throne of His glory, and the tribes of earth 
 shall be gathered before Him; if you could 
 see as it is, in the naked enormity of its guilt, 
 you would flee from it as from the very pesti- 
 lence of death. You may sport with the 
 whirlwind and trifle with the storm, you may 
 lay your hand upon the lion's mane and play 
 with the leopard's spots, you may go to the 
 very crater of a burning volcano, and laugh 
 at the lava which it belches out in thunder, 
 you may trifle with any and every thing, but 
 trifle not with God. Let there be one holy 
 thing upon which you dare not lay a profane 
 hand, and let that be the name of God. 
 Above all things let His throne be sacred, 
 and His praise be glorious. Who would not 
 fear thee, oh thou king of Saints ? 
 
 There are reflections suggested by this sub- 
 ject, which, at the risk of being tedious, I 
 cannot repress. In treating of the benefit of 
 vows I had occasion to allude to the comfort 
 and strength imparted to the true believer by 
 the consciousness that he belongs to God. 
 
280 vows. 
 
 This thought is an anchor to the soul amid 
 the storms of temptation and adversity; it 
 carries assurance of divine care and of divine 
 protection. But it has its counterpart, and 
 though the everlasting covenant is so ordered 
 that the Lord will never depart from His 
 children, to do them good, yet this very 
 kindness towards them aggravates the crime 
 of their unfaithfulness to Him. It is mourn- 
 ful to reflect to what a fearful extent spiritual 
 perjury obtains. The vows of God are upon 
 us, we profess to be devoted to Him, and yet 
 our pledges are unredeemed, our promises 
 forgotten — our faith broken. He has taken 
 us into a covenant which keeps us, and yet 
 we live for the world ; we forget His glory in 
 our pleasures and our gains. The mark can- 
 not be discerned upon our foreheads, and 
 through us His precious name is profaned. 
 The most faithful have occasion to blush — the 
 daughter of Zion may well bow her head in 
 the dust. If God tenderly forgives us, surely 
 we can never forgive ourselves for the ingrat- 
 itude, th^ meanness, the baseness of not keep- 
 
vows. 281 
 
 ing faith with Him who is the very fountain 
 and source of truth. 
 
 But you congratulate yourselves, perhaps, 
 that you are exempt from the temptation to 
 spiritual perjury. The vows of God are not 
 upon you. You have entered into no en- 
 gagements to serve him, and consequently, 
 whatever other crimes you may commit, you 
 are free from the charge of breaking faith with 
 your Maker. There is in this condition no 
 cause of exultation. The exemption from 
 one specific sin is purchased at a dreadful 
 price. You are, according to the statement, 
 aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and 
 strangers to the covenants of promise. You 
 are without Christ, and consequently without 
 God and without hope in the world. There 
 is something overwhelming in the thought of 
 having no God to go to; and yet this is 
 the condition, and the only condition, upon 
 which you can plead immunity from the 
 possibility of breaking vows. 
 
 But is it certain that the vows of God are 
 not on you ? It may be that your parents at 
 
282 vows.* 
 
 your birth solemnly devoted you to Him. 
 This act of theirs, sanctioned by His authority, 
 you are bound to respect, and all the engage- 
 ments, in regard to you, which, consistently 
 with parental rights, they have made, you are 
 bound to observe. They were your guar- 
 dians before you were conscious of the need 
 of a protector, and if they have devoted you 
 to God, you are not at liberty to regard your- 
 selves as your own. You cannot, without 
 sacrilege, prostitute your talents, faculties, 
 and members, to a profane purpose. Holi- 
 ness to the Lord must be written upon your 
 foreheads, and when you forget the obliga- 
 tions it implies, and walk in the light of your 
 own eyes, and after the imaginations of your 
 own hearts, you as much despise the cove- 
 nanted claims of God, as if you had given 
 yourselves to His service by your own free 
 act. You have been made a vessel of the 
 sanctuary ; and in surrendering your being to 
 secular ends, you are guilty of the same 
 species of sin, which he commits who defiles 
 the temple of the Lord. Think not, there- 
 
vows. 283 
 
 fore, to escape the guilt of profaneness by 
 pleading the absence of vows. It was Solo- 
 mon who built and consecrated the august 
 edifice on Moriah, but, being consecrated, it 
 was sacred to all generations. I am afraid 
 that the sanctity of the relation which the 
 piety of the parents has constituted between 
 their children and God, is very inadequately 
 understood. The young do not recognise and 
 feel the right which it gives Him to them — 
 they do not appreciate their state of external 
 holiness — and consequently, fail to compre- 
 hend the malignity of guilt which is involved 
 in the absence of inward purity. It is a great 
 blessing to be thus in covenant with God — it 
 is an equal curse to despise it. I beseech you, 
 therefore, to bethink yourselves, and while 
 you are boasnng that you are free from per- 
 jury, take care that you are not tainted with 
 sacrilege. It is the same sin, profaneness in 
 k different dress. 
 
 But is it so that you are free from vows 
 which you have voluntarily assumed? Do 
 you not remember the time, when your days 
 
284 vows. 
 
 were consumed like smoke, and your bones 
 burned as an hearth, when your souls ab- 
 horred all manner of meat, and you drew 
 near to the gates of death ? Do you not re- 
 member your anxious thoughts, your solemn 
 reflections, your agonizing fears? Then you 
 cried unto the Lord in your trouble, and in 
 the depths of your distress bound yourselves 
 to His service. Have you forgotten the 
 promise you made when you trembled at the 
 mouth of the grave ? Have you forgotten 
 the vows which you uttered when you shrunk 
 in terror from the prospect of eternity? He 
 slew them, then they sought Him ; and they 
 returned and inquired early after God. And 
 they remembered that God was their rock, 
 and the high God their redeemer. These 
 vows, be assured, are recorded in heaven; 
 they imposed a solemn obligation on your 
 souls, from which no power on earth can re- 
 lease you ; and they will confront and haunt 
 you, if unredeemed, in the day of retribution, 
 and throughout eternity, as the ghosts of the 
 murdered. Such flattering with the mouth. 
 
V o w s . 286 
 
 such lying with the tongue, when th*. heart is 
 not right with God, nor steadfast in His cov- 
 enant — such promises made to procure fa- 
 vours, and forgotten as soon as the favours 
 are enjoyed, are a mixture of ingratitude, per- 
 fidy, and profaneness, which cannot escape 
 vengeance. Talk not of your exemption from 
 perjury, when such witnesses are prepared to 
 testify against you. Wipe not your mouths 
 and carelessly protest that you have done no- 
 thing wrong, when you have lied unto God, 
 and proved recreant to the most solemn en- 
 gagements that it is possible for man to make. 
 You are perjured — ^your souls are blackened 
 with guilt, and unless they are purged and 
 washed through the blood of the everlasting 
 covenant, it will be like a mill-stone around 
 your necks, to sink you to the lowest hell. 
 God is not to be mocked. The conduct 
 which in relation to a fellow-man, would 
 doom you to infamy, think you it loses any 
 of its atrocity when directed to Him who is 
 the very centre and perfection of right ? The 
 greatest and best of beings, is He alone to be 
 
286 vows. 
 
 degraded so low in the scale of personal ex- 
 istence, that faith and honour lose their sig- 
 nificancy when applied to our intercourse 
 with Him? Tell it not in Gath, publish it 
 not in the streets of Askelon ! 
 
 There are other occasions on which you 
 have remembered God and solemnly plighted 
 your faith that you would serve Him. When 
 the pestilence was walking in darkness and 
 destruction wasting at noon-day, when a 
 thousand were falling at your side and ten 
 thousand at your right hand, when you were 
 afraid of the terror by night and the arrow 
 that flieth by day, then you sought the pro- 
 tection of the Almighty with promises and 
 vows, with strong crying and tears. You are 
 a father, and have you forgotten the resolu- 
 tions which you bound upon your souls, as 
 you hung over the form of a dying child, or 
 consigned its dead body to the grave ? You 
 are a husband, and do you not remember the 
 agony of your prayers when you implored 
 the Almighty to spare the wife of your 
 bosom? Have you forgotten the promises. 
 
vows. 287 
 
 thrice repeated, by which you hoped to re- 
 deem your beloved one from the jaws of 
 death ? She still lives ; but where are those 
 vows ? 
 
 You are thoughtless and impenitent. 
 There was a time when you trembled at the 
 Word of God — when the sense of guilt was. 
 fastened upon your consciences, and your 
 bones waxed old through your roaring all the 
 day long. You felt that you were a sinner, 
 and must be born again. But you were not 
 yet ready for the change. Did you not, in 
 the conflicts of your spirit, solemnly pledge 
 yourselves to God, that, at a given time, 
 when a given scheme was accomplished, yod 
 would turn to Him and live ? That time has 
 come and gone — that scheme has been real- 
 ized — ^but where are you ? It is vain for any 
 man who has a conscience, and who believes 
 in Providence and law, it is vain for any man 
 who has ever reflected upon his nature and 
 his prospects, to allege that he is under no 
 vows to God. We have all made^them, and 
 alas ! we have all broken them. Their wrecks 
 
28$ vows. 
 
 may be seen along the whole course of our 
 history — ^perfidy and ingratitude have marked 
 our career ; our lives have been a vast, un- 
 broken lie — and our true posture is, with our 
 hands on our mouths and our faces in the 
 dust. When I reflect upon the magnitude of 
 human guilt in this single aspect of it, I am 
 amazed and confounded at the long-suffering 
 forbearance of God. Antecedently to expe- 
 rience no creature could have dreamed that 
 Infinite Holiness could have endured for a 
 day or an hour such monsters of ingratitude, 
 treachery and fraud, as we have shown our- 
 selves to be in the whole course of our deal- 
 ings with the Father of lights. I am ashamed 
 of myself, I am ashamed of my species, 
 when I recollect how false and faithless we 
 have been. Who can boast of his honour, 
 who can scorn the imputation of a lie, when 
 there are promises in heaven unredeemed — 
 vows that are forgotten or despised? Who 
 dares glory in his righteousness, when the 
 first principles of justice are openly trans- 
 gressed? No, no. We have all sinned and 
 
vows. 
 
 come short of the glory of God. But, in his 
 amazing goodness, there is a remedy. All- 
 guilty as we are, we can be pardoned and ac- 
 cepted — all-polluted as we are, we can be 
 purified and cleansed. There is a fountain 
 opened in the house of David for sin and un- 
 cleanness. Let us wash in that fountain and 
 we shall come forth new men, men of real 
 truth, honour, and integrity. The laws of 
 God will be put into our minds and written 
 upon our hearts, and the Eternal Spirit will 
 effectually train us for glory, honour, and im- 
 mortality, and crown us with eternal life. 
 Oh ! that men would praise the Lord for his 
 goodness and for his wonderful works to the 
 
 children of men. 
 
 13 
 
€ 11 s i ^ t ^ It r )i 
 
 "Finally, breth/en, whatsoever things are true — ^think on 
 
 these things." — Philippians, iv. 8. 
 
 ^^_^ __„ -, The primary notion of consist- 
 DISC. YIL] ^ ,. , 
 
 ency, according to the etymolo- 
 gy of the word, is that of the agreement or 
 correspondence, the standing together^ of things 
 compared, and it receives different names ac- 
 cording to the cause or effects of the agree- 
 ment in question. When the things com- 
 pared are our life and opinions, at successive 
 periods of our history, there emerges the 
 meaning of constancy or firmness ; the cause 
 of the coincidence — the man, being felt to 
 have stood his ground. When the things 
 compared are our conduct and relations, the 
 agreement or proportion is denominated de- 
 cency ; the effect produced upon the mind of 
 
CONSISTENCY. 291 
 
 the spectator. When the relations are moral, 
 the deportment which corresponds to them is 
 virtue ; when external and incidental, the de- 
 portment is simply decorum. When the 
 things compared are our professions and our 
 deeds, we receive the commendation of sin- 
 cerity or faithfulness, according to the nature 
 of the professions themselves. The man's 
 principles and life stand harmoniously togeth- 
 er. Hence, by an easy and natural applica- 
 tion of its primary import, consistency em- 
 braces stability of opinion, harmony of life, 
 and decency or propriety of behaviour, in- 
 cluding equally the obligations of rectitude 
 and the lesser morality of manners. It is 
 only in the sense of constancy that it is prop- 
 erly referred to the department of truth, as in 
 that sense, it indicates honesty of sentiment, 
 and fulfils the expectations which our princi- 
 ples, character, and conduct, a species of 
 promise, have excited. Though it is essential 
 to integrity, the necessary result of truth in 
 the inward parts, yet, in itself considered, 
 Constancy is neither a virtue nor a vice. Its 
 
292 CONSISTENCY. 
 
 moral character depends upon the moral char- 
 acter of the past which it continues to repro- 
 duce and to perpetuate. It expresses only 
 the notion of perseverance or continuance ; it 
 transmits the man unchanged from one period 
 of his being to another ; and as there may be 
 uniformity in wickedness, as well as steadfast- 
 ness in duty, consistency is entitled to praise 
 or blame, not for itself, but according to the 
 nature of the things in which it pursues the 
 even tenour of its way. There is no credit in 
 perseverance, unless it be a perseverance in 
 right. When our professions and conduct 
 give a promise of sin, we are no more at lib- 
 erty to gratify the expectations they excite, 
 than to keep any other unlawful engagement. 
 Repentance, or a radical change of mind — a 
 thorough revolution of purpose and of life — is 
 as much a duty, as to be steadfast and unmov- 
 able, when our previous course has abounded 
 in the work of the Lord. To persevere is a 
 virtue only when we have begun well. When 
 the past has been right, then, and then only, 
 should the future be shaped in conformity 
 
CONSISTENCY. 293 
 
 with it. Consistency, in this case, is nothing 
 but the continued recognition of the suprema- 
 cy of right ; the predominance, in every suc- 
 cessive moment of our history, of the un- 
 changing obligations of morality and religion. 
 The obligation of it is only another name for 
 the unceasing obligation of virtue. We are 
 to be uniform and constant in well-doing, be- 
 cause the same reason which requires integri- 
 ty to-day, will exact it to-morrow ; the same 
 reason which requires us to begin, requires us 
 to hold on. The succession of moments or 
 the revolution of years makes no change in 
 the stable principles of rectitude. They, like 
 their eternal Author, are without variableness 
 or shadow of turning ; the same yesterday, to- 
 day, and forever. As long as the elements of 
 moral responsibility attach to us, whether our 
 winters have been few or many, the same 
 rules of truth, justice, piety, and benevolence, 
 must continue to regulate our lives. Duty is 
 determined by our nature and not by our age. 
 Increasing years, it is true, unfold new rela- 
 tions, and develope larger capacities. The 
 
2M- coNsisTExcr. 
 
 circle of duty may expand, but its nature is 
 subject to no change. With this preliminary 
 explanation I proceed to the consideration of 
 the general subject of consistency, as em- 
 braced under the head of constancy, — the 
 only one which falls within the scope of 
 these discourses, — including stability of opin- 
 ion and harmony of life. 
 
 I. Stability of opinion, it deserves first to 
 be remarked, is not incompatible with all 
 change. Absolute immutability is the prerog- 
 ative of God alone. It would not be a per- 
 fection even in Him, were He not perfect in 
 all other respects, so that the notion of change 
 involves necessarily the notion of deteriora- 
 tion or injury. Finite creatures, from the very 
 law of their nature, are subject to change 
 in being made capable of improvement. 
 Their growth, expansion, and developement 
 of faculties, the invigoration of their habits, 
 and confirmation of their principles are all 
 so many changes for the better. To exempt 
 them from change would be to stereotype 
 their imbecility and ignorance. When we 
 
C O N S I S T E 2^ C Y . 296 
 
 commend consistency of opinion, we neither 
 mean to exclude progress nor the abandon- 
 ment of error. If, through the operation of 
 any cause, a man has adopted as true what he 
 subsequently finds to be false, genuine con- 
 sistency requires that he should relinquish the 
 dogma. The pervading love of truth is the 
 spirit which should regulate all of our opin- 
 ions, the standard by which consistency is 
 to be tried, the touchstone of intellectual in- 
 tegrity. Whatever doctrines or sentiments 
 are not the results of its operation are preju- 
 dices, even should they chance not to be 
 errors; and whatever changes are effected 
 through its energy and influence, are elements 
 of progress, and contribute to the real perfec- 
 tion of our nature. He only deserves the 
 commendation of firmness of opinion who be- 
 gan with the predominating love of truth, and 
 has maintained it steadily and sincerely in all 
 the subsequent periods of his history. The 
 law of his intellectual life gives unity and con- 
 sistency to all the operations of his mind. 
 Amid all his changes, he has still been the 
 
296 CONSISTENCY. 
 
 same. The streamlet winds around rocks and 
 hills, but it still bends its course to the river, 
 as the river bends its course to the sea. The 
 uniform ascendency of candour, or the love 
 of truth, is the life and soul of the only 
 species of consistency which a wise man de- 
 sires to possess. To have an opinion to-day 
 merely because we had it yesterday, without 
 reference to the grounds on which it was 
 adopted, is childish folly. Error is none the 
 more sacred for having been embraced — a lie 
 none the more venerable for having been 
 told. 
 
 Fickleness of opinion, apart from dishonesty 
 arises, for the most part, from an imbecility of 
 understanding, which fluctuates between con- 
 flicting probabilities without being able to de- 
 termine the preponderance. It cannot sur- 
 vey the question as a whole, — a single view 
 excludes every other from the horizon of its 
 vision ; as each side is successively examined, 
 each, for the moment, appears to be inviting. 
 The mind vacillates and wavers. The assent 
 oscillates from argument to argument, without 
 
CONSISTENCY. 297 
 
 the power of becoming fixed. The man is 
 always of the last opinion which had pleaded 
 its cause before him. He wants breadth of 
 intellect — he wants the power of comparing 
 and weighing. The forces, to borrow a phys- 
 ical illustration, act upon him successively 
 and singly — he wants the power of combining 
 and resolving them. "His second thinking 
 only upsets the first, and his third confounds 
 them both." The case of such a man, to use 
 the striking illustration of Foster — "is like 
 the case of a rustic walking in London, who, 
 having no certain direction through the vast 
 confusion of streets to the place where he 
 wishes to be, advances and hesitates, and 
 turns and inquires, and becomes, at each cor- 
 ner, still more inextricably perplexed." Men 
 of extraordinary acuteness are apt to be the 
 victims of their own ingenuity. They see 
 objections, in the minuteness of their gaze, 
 which others, of wider vision, had over- 
 looked. Straws are magnified into formida- 
 ble obstacles, and mole-hills swell into moun- 
 tains. Men of this sort cannot be said to have 
 13* 
 
298 C O N S I S T E X C Y . 
 
 an opinion. Their assent is not stable enough 
 to deserve the name — it is hardly more than 
 a leaning, and hence they are ever learn- 
 ing and never able to arrive at the knowl- 
 edge of the truth. They are only the recep- 
 tacles of the various appearances of things 
 which, in succession, invite their attention — 
 and like the chameleon, they always exhibit 
 the colour of the last object they touch. 
 What they call their opinions are simply 
 copies of these successive impressions — and 
 are as various and fluctuating as the phenome- 
 na themselves. These are the species of 
 changes which constitute fickleness — this is 
 real vacillation. But a change from the less 
 to the more perfect, from error to truth, indi- 
 cates neither weakness nor oscillation. 
 
 II. No more is consistency, or firmness of 
 opinion, to be confounded with obstinacy. 
 That is the creature, not of evidence or the 
 love of truth, but of stupidity or pride. It 
 may spring from an incapacity to appreciate 
 argument — a vis inertice of the mind — which 
 causes it to stagnate in its present condition, 
 
CONSISTENCY. 299 
 
 and then, as Foster has happily illustrated 
 a kindred temper, "its constancy is rather of 
 the nature of a dead weight than of strength ; 
 resembling less the re-action of a powerful 
 spring than the gravitation of a big stone." 
 Or it may arise from incorrigible headiness^ 
 which prefers the reputation of consistency to 
 that of candour, and sacrifices truth to vanity. 
 Its decisive argument in this aspect is always 
 personal. / have said so, or I have expressed 
 such an opinion, and, like the law of the 
 Medes and Persians, I cannot change. It is a 
 blind, bold presumption of personal infallibili- 
 ty. The ass or the mule may be obstinate, 
 but neither can ever be consistent. Consist- 
 ency is the inflexibility of principle — obstina- 
 cy the inflexibility of pride. Reason predom- 
 inat<^5 in the one — will, in the other. The 
 one is a homage to truth — the other is the 
 idolatry of self When obstinacy is associated 
 with uncharitableness, it becomes bigotry. It 
 is one of the effects of candid inquiry, accom- 
 panied as it is with a sense of the difficulties 
 that attend the investigation of truth, that it 
 
300 CONSISTENCY. 
 
 renders us lenient to the weaknesses and 
 errors of others. We may be sensible of the 
 mischief likely to result from perverse opin- 
 ions, and may feel the obligation of counter- 
 acting their influence, but we learn to distin- 
 guish betwixt the sentiments and the man. 
 The worst doctrines excite in relation to the 
 individual only pity or compassion, though, 
 in themselves, they are the objects of a right- 
 eous abhorrence. It is not more character- 
 istic of charity that it rejoices in the truth, 
 than it is characteristic of the love of truth 
 that it rejoices in charity. The consistent 
 man, however, is, by no means, insensible to 
 error. There is a bastard liberality which 
 conceals its indifference under the specious 
 pretext of thinking no evil. There is not en- 
 ergy enough in its apprehensions of truth to 
 rouse any emotion — there is nothing that can 
 be called love. It is the frigid tranquillity of 
 a mind which prefers ease to every other 
 good. 
 
 But as the counterpart of spurious charity 
 (such is the weakness of human nature), 
 
CONSISTENCY. 301 
 
 we are constantly tempted to confound asper- 
 ity of invective with zeal for truth — ^bitterness 
 of denunciation with opposition to error. We 
 are prone to call down fire from heaven upon 
 those who differ from us — forgetting that the 
 dispensation has passed away, in which truth 
 was civil obedience, and error rebellion 
 against the State. Opinions, except in cases 
 in which they are promotive of sedition or of 
 crime, are no longer offences within the juris- 
 diction of the magistrate — and we are not at 
 liberty to cherish a spirit which would prompt 
 us to persecute, if persecution were still with- 
 in our power. The golden mean betwixt in- 
 difference on the one hand and intolerance on 
 the other, is characteristic of genuine consist- 
 ency. There is a love of truth, which is 
 superior to every other consideration — there 
 is also, from the necessary law of contraries, 
 a corresponding detestation of falsehood. 
 There is also sympathy with the weakness 
 and prejudices of men — and a sincere desire 
 to see the emancipation of their minds fully 
 achieved. The result is a mixed state, in 
 
802 CONSISTENCY. 
 
 which all these elements are fused — the ex- 
 emplification of the apostolic method of 
 speaking the truth in love. It should not be 
 overlooked that there are occasions on which 
 the profoundest charity employs the language 
 of the sternest rebuke. Men must sometimes 
 be pulled out of the fire with violence, and in 
 such cases it is preposterous to complain of 
 the rudeness of the means, when they were 
 the only ones that could avail. The sleeping 
 hypocrite is not to be aroused by honeyed 
 words, nor a shameful imposture exposed by 
 delicate and courtly phrases. It is Charity 
 herself that thunders the woe in their ears. 
 It is not the language of malice — but of pity 
 — and it is with a heavy heart and a sad 
 countenance that he who is intent upon the 
 best interests of his race, must denounce the 
 vengeance of God against those, whom his 
 very earnestness evinces, that he is anxious to 
 rescue from ruin. He has no pleasure in con- 
 templating the doom he proclaims. It is not 
 the constancy nor the zeal of the bigot and 
 sectary which justljr exposes them to con- 
 
CONSISTENCY. '603 
 
 tempt — it is the pride which lies at the bot- 
 tom of their opinions and the malignity which 
 pervades their spirit. They neither love 
 truth nor their race — they are simply lovers 
 of themselves. 
 
 There is no truth which the young are in 
 more danger of forgetting, than that genuine 
 stability of opinion can never be obtained as 
 the object of direct effort. To make constan- 
 cy an idol is to disregard the authority of 
 candour, as the pervading law of intellectual 
 activity. It is a foolish prejudice which hesi- 
 tates to inquire, because it is afraid of change. 
 True firmness is only the result of a perpetual 
 and persevering honesty of mind. He that 
 always walks by the same rule need not be 
 afraid of inconsistency. Make the love of 
 truth the supreme principle of thought, guard 
 against the influences which are likely to se- 
 duce you into error, love truth for itself and 
 not for its dowry, and your path will be as 
 the shining light, which shineth more and 
 more unto the perfect day. If, at any time, 
 you have been deceived by error, do not 
 
304 CONSISTENCy. 
 
 hesitate to renounce it as soon as it is discov- 
 ered. Let no pride of opinion replace can- 
 dour with obstinacy, or tempt you to con- 
 found stubbornness with firmness. Be not 
 ashamed to acknowledge that you are fallible 
 and imperfect — but be ashamed to confess 
 that you prefer stagnation to improvement. 
 It was a noble answer of Melancthon, when 
 reproached with inconsistency on account of 
 the abandonment in later life of some of his 
 juvenile opinions; that he would be very 
 sorry to think that he had lived so long with- 
 out learning anything. The same silly preju- 
 dice against change which tempts us to 
 stereotype opinions, is the deadly foe to all 
 improvement in the State. Innovations are 
 dreaded, without respect to their character 
 and tendencies, on the naked ground that 
 they involve a departure from established cus- 
 toms. Beyond doubt, a presumption is al- 
 ways against them — and it is far better to 
 stand still than to introduce changes merely 
 from the love of novelty. But society, like 
 the individual, is certainly capable of im- 
 
CONSISTENCY. ^ 305 
 
 provement, and when it is a real "reforma- 
 tion that draweth on the change, and not the 
 desire of change that pretendeth the reforma- 
 tion," it is a blind idolatry of the past that re- 
 sists the innovation. True conservation com- 
 bines stability with the spirit of progress. It 
 retains the good and incorporates with it 
 whatever of utility or excellence the present 
 has to offer. It imitates time, which, as Lord 
 Bacon remarks, "innovateth greatly, but 
 quietly, and by degrees scarce to be per- 
 ceived." It is opposed to all violent disrup- 
 tions or radical revolutions; it would have 
 the past and the future so imperceptibly 
 blended with each other, that they should run 
 together and coalesce, without an absolute 
 commencement or a sudden termination. 
 
 As fickleness results, in a great measure, 
 from imbecility of understanding and a want 
 of confidence in our own judgments, it is a 
 matter of the utmost importance that we train 
 our minds to a military discipline of thought. 
 There are some persons who can hardly be 
 said to think — they are the passive recipients 
 
306 CONSISTENCr. 
 
 of impressions and suggestions, derived from 
 their circumstances or surrounding objects; 
 but they exert no active influence upon the 
 train which passes through their minds. 
 They have no grasp of any thing. Hence 
 what they call their opinions must sit loosely 
 upon them. The least opposition or difficulty 
 disconcerts them — they dare not rely upon 
 themselves. The remedy against this evil is 
 the habit, acquired by ceaseless vigilance and 
 discipline, of thinking clearly, distinctly, and 
 coherently. The confidence in our facul- 
 ties must not be a reckless presumption ; this 
 is the parent of obstinacy and conceit — it 
 must result from the consciousness that we see 
 things in their just proportions, and. survey 
 them in their true significancy. The confi- 
 dence of philosophy is always accompanied 
 by humility and modesty. Though the man 
 may feel that his notions are clear and con- 
 nected, and entertain no distrust of any given 
 opinion, yet there is such an habitual sense of 
 the limitation of his faculties and of the 
 boundless regions over which his ignorance 
 
CONSISTENCY. 807 
 
 extends, that he is always modest and unas- 
 suming. Presumption, on the contrary, as- 
 pires to omniscience — it regards its facul- 
 ties as competent for any thing, and is pre- 
 pared to assert that nothing exists beyond the 
 territory in which its excursions have been 
 made. 
 
 The fickleness which results from the in- 
 fluences of sinister motives, in which the 
 heart is made to corrupt the head, deserves 
 rather to be called dishonesty than fickleness. 
 As we ha^e already seen, belief is not wholly 
 involuntary. We can mould our opinions 
 into the type of our passions and our interests. 
 A sophist may finally succeed in persuad- 
 ing his understanding to embrace any lie. 
 When interest or ambition, or the love of 
 pleasure, is stronger than the love of truth, 
 we may expect a man to reflect, in the variety 
 of his opinions, the variety of shapes which 
 these objects are accustomed to assume. This 
 is, perhaps, the most fruitful source of the 
 changes in principle which distinguish those 
 who court popular favour. They trim their 
 
808 CONSISTS .^CY. 
 
 sails to the breeze. In some instances they 
 are flagrantly dishonest — they profess opin- 
 ions which they do not believe ; but in many 
 others, they are the dupes of their pas- 
 sions. They have revolved the desirableness 
 of change so long and earnestly, that they 
 finally experience it. It is this species of 
 fickleness which the moral sense of mankind 
 so indignantly condemns. We can pity the 
 man who vacillates because he is incapable 
 of vigourous and systematic thought — but the 
 man who changes his opinions with his inter- 
 ests, who inquires only for the expedient and 
 not for the true — who is more solicitous about 
 what shall serve a turn, than whafras condu- 
 cive to the health of his understanding or the 
 good of his kind, we despise too much to 
 pity. The baseness of such conduct, and the 
 moral resentment which every ingenuous 
 mind cherishes against it, bring all change 
 into suspicion. Men seek consistency for it- 
 self, in order to escape the odium of sinister 
 and selfish motives. They feel that the impu- 
 tation of dishonesty may be cast upon them, 
 
c o N s I s T E X c y . 809 
 
 and are afraid to confess their errors, and fol- 
 low the cozrse of their sincere and unbiassed 
 convictions. 
 
 The only antidote to this species of incon- 
 sistency is to be found in that moral and re- 
 ligious culture, which gives the law of God 
 and the authority of conscience the suprema- 
 cy to which they are entitled. We must 
 expel unhallowed motive's by the operation 
 of others of an opposite character — the devils 
 must be ejected by fasting and prayer. It is 
 a corrupt and deceitful nature which, occa- 
 sions the mischief, and a complete exemption 
 can only be secured by the renovation of the 
 soul. The fountain must be purified — the 
 tree made good — or no thorough reformation 
 can take place. No man is safe from the 
 danger of tergiversation and apostasy as long 
 as any principle obtains in his heart stronger 
 than the fear of God. There is always a 
 point, like the heel of Achilles, in which he is 
 vulnerable. 
 
 II. Closely allied to stability of opinion is 
 consistency Dr harmony of life. When a 
 
310 CONSISTENCY. 
 
 man's actions correspond to his professed 
 principles and fulfil the expectations which 
 his character and past conduct have excited, 
 he is entitled to the distinction of a consistent 
 man. " His carriage is conformable to itself" 
 The standard of virtuous consistency is the 
 pervading influence of integrity of hsart. He 
 whose eye is single will never be wayv/ard in 
 his course. 
 
 Inconsistency may spring from a defect of 
 understanding which grasps its principles too 
 loosely to give them an operative influence 
 upon the conduct, or from defect of will, 
 which is not able to resist the temptations to 
 a contrary course ; or from defect of honesty, 
 in professing principles which one does not 
 actually believe. The third is hypocrisy, the 
 second weakness, and the first fickleness. 
 
 1. In the first case, the principles may be 
 sound and upright, but as they have no hold 
 upon the heart, the springs of action are inde- 
 pendent of fjem, as to the influences which 
 excite and the motives which regulate their 
 course The man is ^^s completely the crea- 
 
CONSISTENCY. 811 
 
 ture of impulse, as if he were destitute of 
 reason or of conscience. This want of energy 
 in the understanding is a very different thing 
 from impotency of will. The principles 
 would controul, if the man had a firm hold 
 upon them — ^but his notions are superficial, his 
 thoughts without intensity — his mind is lan- 
 guid and sleepy. He rather dozes over his 
 principles than believes them. As there is a 
 torpor of the imagination which often renders 
 a man rude and repulsive, through inability 
 to exchange situations with another, and real- 
 ize his own feelings upon the change, so every 
 one must have noticed, that the intellectual 
 operations of some men are so lifeless and 
 inert, that, for all practical purposes, they 
 might almost as well be without an under- 
 standing at all. Such men, when required to 
 act, are like a ship without a rudder, exposed 
 to the mercy of the winds and waves. Their 
 impulses are apt to be in the inverse ratio of 
 their mental energy — and hence their conduct 
 may be expected to exhibit all the fluctua- 
 tions and caprices of passion and app-^tite. 
 
S12 C O N S I B T E N C V . 
 
 The explanation of their waywardness is not 
 that they have no principles, but that their 
 principles want intensity; they are on the 
 surface — not in the texture of the soul. 
 
 2. By defect of will in the second case, I 
 mean a defect in strength of purpose. There 
 are sound principles and there is a general 
 resolution to exemplify them in life; but 
 upon occasions of sudden temptation — or 
 where the inducements to transgression are 
 strong and multiplied, the will is mastered. 
 In this case there is no torpor — there are life 
 and activity — there is often a severe, some- 
 times a protracted conflict — and the will sel- 
 dom yields until the understanding has been 
 bribed into a lie. But still, as the seat of the 
 disorder is in the active principles of our na- 
 ture, and as the temptation was immediately 
 addressed to them, this species of inconsistency 
 may be ascribed to the state of the will. This 
 is the kind of inconsistency that most general- 
 ly prevails in the world. The changes of 
 fortune from adversity to prosperity or from 
 prosperity to adversity, from honour to shame 
 
CONSISTENCY. 313 
 
 or from contempt to popularity,- from poverty 
 to wealth or from wealth to poverty — the 
 changes of situation, from a public to a pri- 
 vate or from a private to a public station, our 
 different circumstances and relations — the dif- 
 ferent societies into which we are thrown, are 
 so many trials of the strength of virtue, and 
 few have been able to undergo them without 
 tripping in their steps. To keep the even 
 tenour of one's way in sunshine and storm, 
 through evil as well as through good report, 
 amid afflictions and reproaches as well as 
 smiles and benedictions, is a proof of integri- 
 ty which he is thrice-blessed who can appro- 
 priate to himself To be always the same, at 
 all times, in all places, in all conditions, in all 
 companies — to stand firmly by our principles 
 at every sacrifice of interest or of fame — to 
 consent to be misunderstood and maligned 
 rather than let go our integrity — to count no- 
 thing a good but duty, nothing ill but wrong 
 — this is a perfection of character, which, 
 while it is incumbent upon all to pursue, such 
 
 is the melancholv weakness of human nature, 
 14 
 
814 CONSISTENCY. 
 
 that it has ne\ner been realized but once. Our 
 efforts are at best but faint approximations. 
 We press forward — not that we have already 
 attained — but the prize is in view. We have 
 but one rule to go by. The law of the Lord 
 must be in our hearts, must be the controlling 
 law of our wills, if we would keep us from 
 the paths of the destroyer. When the princi- 
 ples of duty are habits, and holiness is the na- 
 ture of the soul, then, and then only, can we 
 hope to be perfect. But, in the meantime, 
 our duty is to watch against temptation, and 
 pray for strength to resist it. Vigilance and 
 prayer are the indispensable conditions of suc- 
 cess. Let no man presume upon his own 
 strength. The stoutest have fallen, and 
 though low and vulgar temptations may have 
 no effect upon us, yet depend upon it, that 
 there is some door by which every heart can 
 be entered, unless kept by the keeper of 
 Israel, and betrayed into the hands of the 
 enemy. No man is safe but he who abides 
 under the shadow of the Almighty. Of every 
 other it may be truly said that he stands in 
 
CONSISTENCY. 816 
 
 slippery places, and his feet shall slide \d. due 
 time. 
 
 3. The third case of inconsistency is an in- 
 stance of pure hypocrisy, and after what has 
 already been said of the law of sincerity re- 
 quires no other notice than that of stern and 
 indignant reprobation. 
 
 The conduct of men in relation to religion 
 is chargeable with inconsistency in all these 
 aspects. In the first place they assent to its 
 doctrines — they acknowledge its overwhelm- 
 ing importance — that it is the one thing need- 
 ful, and should constitute the great absorbing 
 business of their lives; they profess to be 
 convinced of truths which it would seem are 
 enough to shake heaven and earth in the 
 great commotion ; and yet so little power do 
 these principles have upon their minds, that 
 hardly a trace of their influence can be de- 
 tected in the daily walk. They receive only 
 a cold and otiose assent — all living interest is 
 expended upon the world. Again, when the 
 conscience has been really awakened, and the 
 sinner is aroused to some effort for the salva- 
 
316 C O N S I S T E N C Y . 
 
 tion of the soul, how feeble and irresolute are 
 the decisions of the will. The truth is felt, 
 but the lusts of the flesh are stronger than it, 
 and, unless grace interpose, in every instance 
 secure the victory. What is still worse — the 
 transgressor, as a quietus to his conscience, 
 sometimes assumes the obligations of religion, 
 and undertakes to palm upon his God the 
 form as a substitute for the substance. We 
 have all dealt faithlessly upon this subject. 
 We have resisted reason, conscience, and the 
 Spirit of God. We have been wayward and 
 rebellious children. Let us resolve, in all 
 future time, to act in accordance with the 
 dignity of rational and intellectual beings. 
 If religion is true, let us embrace it in our 
 hearts and embody it in our lives. If there 
 is -an endless destiny for which we are called 
 to prepare, let us project our plans upon a 
 scale commensurate with its grandeur, and 
 pursue them to their consummation with un- 
 tiring zeal and perseverance. Let us fix our 
 eyes upon the skies, and, in seeking glor}'-, 
 honour, and immortality, we shall assuredly 
 
CONSISTENCY. 817 
 
 lay hold upon eternal life. Supreme devotion 
 to the glory of God will give consistency to 
 our thoughts and harmony to our lives. / 
 have set the Lord alivays before me^ because 
 He is at my right hand^ I shall not be moved, 
 
 III. Before concluding this discourse, it 
 may not be improper, though the subject is 
 only remotely connected with that of truth, 
 to make a few remarks upon that species of 
 consistency which obtains in the correspond- 
 ence of our actions to our external circum- 
 stances and incidental relations. This is 
 properly decorum or decency. In a wide 
 sense decency covers the whole ground of our 
 relations, and includes the dignity of virtue as 
 well as the proprieties of life. There is an 
 intimate alliance, no doubt, between integrity 
 of heart and a delicate refinement of man- 
 ners. Each adorns its possessor — each is 
 beautiful and lovely. The two combined 
 make up that gracefulness of character which 
 Cicero so warmly commends in his Offices. 
 Whatever is virtuous is certainly becoming ; it 
 is adapted to the nature and state of the spe* 
 
318 CON-SIS TEXcy. 
 
 cies — and it should be an additional incentive 
 to duty, that it not only contributes to the 
 health, but to the ornament and glory of man. 
 In the sight of angels and of holy beings, the 
 sinner is a deformed and ugly thing. His 
 habits and affections are as unsuited to the 
 constitution of his mind as coarse and unseem- 
 ly apparel, or rude and boisterous manners, at 
 a festival or at court. They contemplate him 
 with feelings analogous to those with which 
 we contemplate the disgusting coarseness of 
 the low and abandoned. The disproportion 
 betwixt his faculties and actions — ^betwixt his 
 capacities and ends, is so huge and revolting, 
 that we can well understand the terms of self- 
 loathing and abhorrence, of shame and con- 
 fusion of face, which true penitence is accus- 
 tomed to appropriate. And of all indecen- 
 cies impiety is the most monstrous. It is an 
 outrage upon the original dignity of man, a 
 being made but little less than the angels, and 
 capable of eating angels' food, to waste his 
 noble energies upon the beggarly elements of 
 earth. It is a lamentation and shall be for a 
 
CONSISTENCY. 319 
 
 lamentation that he who might aspire to com- 
 munion and fellowship with God, should be 
 content to accept his portion among the 
 beasts that perish. Religion is the true glory 
 of man, and those who despise its claims, 
 must, from the necessity of the case, awake to 
 shame and everlasting contempt. 
 
 But my purpose, at present, is not to dis- 
 cuss the fitnesses which grow out of the es- 
 sential relations of humanity, all-important as 
 these are, and interesting as is the light in 
 which they hold up the beauty and dignity 
 of virtue. I now have in view those external 
 and incidental relations which are peculiar to 
 individuals, and which grow out of their age, 
 station, business, and pursuits. Cicero has 
 marked the distinction, and given some ad- 
 mirable hints for preserving decorum in each. 
 What is becoming in the young is not becom- 
 ing in the old — what is becoming in a servant 
 might not be becoming in his master. What is 
 suited to the condition of a peasant would be 
 grossly out of proportion to the state of a lord. 
 The rules which custom has sanctioned are 
 
320 CONSISTENCY. 
 
 not altogether arbitrary. They are founded 
 upon an analogy which is much more easily 
 felt than defined; and delicacy of sensibil- 
 ity to this species of decency is the mark of a 
 noble and generous mind. It is what is com- 
 monly called, especially when associated with 
 solid virtue, dignity of character. This was 
 the kind of fitness which Themistocles had his 
 eye on, when he -^rebutted the imputation 
 growing out of his want of a common accom- 
 plishment: '' I cannot fiddle, but I know how 
 to make a small town a great city." It was 
 not for a man, whose mind was intent upon 
 grand and lofty aims, to be stooping to the 
 amusements of the giddy and the gay. This 
 same spirit ^Y3iS exemplified in Nehemiah, 
 when he indignantly rejected an unworthy 
 proposal : "And I said, should such a man as 
 I flee? who is there that being as I am, 
 would go into the temple to save his life ? I 
 will not go in." In contrast to these cases is 
 the conduct of Nero, fiddling when Rome was 
 on fire, and disguised as a charioteer, when an 
 atrocious persecution was going on. The life 
 
CONSISTENCY. 321 
 
 of the bloody Jeffreys is not more distin- 
 guished by the savage depravity of his heart, 
 and the prostitution of his office to the most 
 wicked and corrupt designs, than by the 
 brutal ferocity of his manners, and the degra- 
 dation of his rank by the most shameful and 
 revolting indecencies. He had as little sense 
 of decorum as of duty. 
 
 There may be refinement of external man- 
 ners and scrupulous attention to outward de- 
 corum, as the results of education and habit, 
 without sensibility to beauty and without 
 moral culture. Accomplishments may be me- 
 chanically imparted and mechanically used. 
 But in these cases, they are cold and repul- 
 sive. They want the freshness and glow of 
 nature and of life. They are truly graceful 
 only when they are the genuine expressions 
 of the spirit of the mind. He, therefore, that 
 would aspire to the praise of dignity of char- 
 acter, must study at once the general excel- 
 lence of his nature and his particular sphere 
 as an individual. He must aim at worth as a 
 
 man, and at propriety as such a man. He 
 14* 
 
822 CONSISTENCY. 
 
 must cherish a nice discernment of the beau- 
 tiful and becoming, and not permit himself 
 to become familiar with the little, the degrad- 
 ing, and the mean. 
 
 It is in their relaxations and amusements 
 that men are most apt to forget what is due 
 to their character. When the eye of the 
 world is upon them, or when they are en- 
 gaged in their pursuits of business, they are 
 not so likely to unbend. But in their hours 
 of recreation they not unfrequently compound 
 with their dignity. This is particularly the 
 case with the young, at that most important 
 period of their lives, when they are laying 
 the foundations of their future characters. 
 Colleges and universities, both in this country 
 and Europe, have suffered from no cause 
 more severely than inattention on the part of 
 their students, to what was due to the station 
 they occupy. The indecency of their amuse- 
 ments has been the bane of these seats of 
 learning, and has counteracted the effect, in 
 multiplied instances, of the most faithful in- 
 struction Antecedently to experience, we 
 
CONSISTENCY. 323 
 
 should form a fine picture of a youthful stu- 
 dent — we should figure him as one whose 
 mind was expanding in knowledge — who was 
 beginning to taste- the sweetness of truth — to 
 relish the beautiful and admire the good. 
 We should expect him to be animated with a 
 just sense of the dignity of his pursuits, to 
 breathe their refinement, and to reflect, in all 
 his conversation and deportment, the elevat- 
 ing influence of letters. His amusements and 
 recreations, we should naturally think, would 
 be impregnated with the same spirit. The 
 groves in which he walked, the place in 
 which he dwelt, we should spontaneously 
 image to our fancy, as the abodes of quiet, 
 tranquillity, and peace. But how sadly are 
 these anticipations too often disappointed. 
 ''Let him," says the biographer of Bacon, 
 '' who is fond of indulging in dream-like ex- 
 istence, go to Oxford, and stay there ; let him 
 study this magnificent spectacle, the same un- 
 der all aspects, with its mental twilight tem- 
 pering the glare of noontide, or mellowing 
 the shadowy moonlight; let him wander in 
 
824 CONSISTENCY. 
 
 her sylvan suburbs, or linger in her cloistered 
 halls ; but let him not catch the din of schol- 
 ars or teachers, or dine or sup with them, or 
 speak a word to any of the privileged inhab- 
 itants ; for if he does, the spell will be broken, 
 the poetry and the religion gone, and the pal- 
 ace of enchantment will melt from his em- 
 brace into thin air." If the vain and frivo- 
 lous agitations of their wit were all that dis- 
 figured our seats of learning, the evil would 
 not be so intolerable. But how ill do turbu- 
 lence, riot, and disorder, boisterous mirth, 
 coarse ribaldry and even open profanity, com- 
 port with the temple which has been conse- 
 crated to letters. The case is immeasura- 
 bly worse, when a low standard of opinion 
 endures, if it does not sanction, flagrant 
 breaches of morality. It is the influence of 
 these abuses which, in too many cases, has 
 rendered public schools and colleges, in the 
 language of Dr. Arnold, "nurseries of vice." 
 " Those who are dismissed from the parental 
 roof," complains the same illustrious teacher, 
 "frank, open, ingenuous and pure, soon lose 
 
CONSISTENCY. 825 
 
 these graces whicli adorned them, and return, 
 to their parent's shame, without modesty, 
 without nice sensibility to truth — without 
 tenderness and sympathy — coarse, false, and 
 unfeeling." This is the natural result of de- 
 parting in the first instance from the spirit 
 of rigid propriety. Proficere in jpejus is the 
 law of degradation. When the general feeling 
 of fitness is shocked or rudely disregarded, a 
 man has taken a step towards the corruption 
 of his principles as well as his manners. The 
 sentiment of honour is weakened by every 
 blow which is inflicted on the sense of pro- 
 priety. He that becomes accustomed to what 
 is unseemly and unbecoming and out of all 
 proportion in lighter matters, will soon lose 
 the perception of the beautiful in the weight- 
 ier matters of the law. This is the reason 
 why it is so important that the amusements 
 of the young should be made to harmonize 
 with their condition and relations. In these 
 amusements a moral discipline is going on, a 
 moral influence exerted, which will tell upon 
 
CONSISTENCY. 
 
 their future character — unconsciously but 
 surely they are shaping their destiny. 
 
 Many of these inconsistencies, my young 
 friends, I rejoice to say cannot be imputed to 
 you. They are of a character to make you 
 scorn them. But be not satisfied with pres- 
 ent attainments. Let it be your ambition to 
 have a college, in which the deportment of 
 every member shall reflect the refinement of 
 the gentleman, the dignity of the scholar, and 
 the integrity of the Christian. We can make 
 this a delightful place — we can turn these 
 groves into hallowed ground, and these clois- 
 tered halls we can render worthy of the illus- 
 trious immortals who linger among them in 
 their works. Is not this an object worthy of 
 your ambition? Here we are permitted to 
 converse, from day to day, with the sages, 
 poets, and heroes of antiquity ; " the blind old 
 man of Scio's rocky isle," that prodigy of 
 genius, whose birth-place Avas Stagira, whose 
 empire has been the world ; that other prodi- 
 gy of common sense who brought wisdom 
 from the skies — the Divine Plato ; the masters 
 
CONSISTENCY. 827 
 
 of the Porch, Academy, and Lyceum, are all 
 here. Here, too, we can listen to the rapt vis- 
 ions of the prophets, hold converse with apos- 
 tles and martyrs, and above all, sit at the 
 feet of Him who spake as never man spake. 
 Here, in a single word, we are "let into that 
 great communion of scholars, throughout all 
 ages and all nations — ^like that more awful 
 communion of saints in the Holy Church Uni- 
 versal — and feel a sympathy with departed 
 genius, and with the enlightened and the gift- 
 ed minds of other countries, as they appear 
 before us, in the transports of a sort of beatific 
 vision, bowing down at the same shrines and 
 glowing with the same holy love of whatever 
 is most pure, and fair, and exalted, and Divine 
 in human nature." Is there nothing in such 
 society and such influences to stimulate our 
 minds to a lofty pitch ? Catch the spirit of 
 the place, imbibe its noble associations, and 
 you cannot descend to the little, the trifling, 
 the silly, or the coarse. Every fibre of your 
 hearts would cry out against it. When Bona- 
 parte animated his troops in Egypt, it was» 
 
828 CONSISTENCY. 
 
 enough to point to the pyramids, beneath 
 whose shadows they stood, and remind them 
 that " from yonder heights forty centu- 
 ries look down upon them." That thought 
 was enough. The same great motive may 
 be applied to you. The general assembly of 
 all the great, and good, and learned, and glo- 
 rious, of all ages and of all climes, look down 
 upon you^ and exhort you to walk worthy of 
 your exalted calling. Quit yourselves like 
 men — and make this venerable seat of learn- 
 ing a joy and a praise in all the earth. Let 
 Truth be inscribed on its walls. Truth wor- 
 shipped in its sanctuary, and the Love of 
 Truth the inspiration of every heart. 
 
 THE END, 
 
 pi 17 B RSI T 7] 
 
„« THE LAST DATE 
 
jT 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 /--•