תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

outward decency, and inward tranquillity: For, though Satan corrupted man, God made him, and he loves Heaven in the midst of his iniquity; he is ever ready to throw over his sins the robe of virtue, to comfort his soul with soothing words, and decent pretences, and to say a grace to God, before he sets down to feast with Mammo

There is a liar, who is not so much a liar from vanity as from warmth of imagination, and levity of understanding; such a man has so thoroughly accustomed his mind to extraordinary combinations of circumstances, that he is disgusted with the insipidity of any probable event; the power of changing the whole course of nature is too fascinating for resistance; every moment must produce rare emotions, and stimulate high passions; life must be a series of zests, and relishes, and provocations, and languishing existence be refreshed by daily miracles: In the mean time, the dignity of man passes away, the bloom of Heaven is effaced, friends vanish from this degraded liar; he can no longer raise the look of wonder, but is heard in deep, dismal, contemptuous silence; he is shrunk from

and abhorred, and lives to witness a gradual conspiracy against him of all that is good and honourable, and wise and great.

Fancy and vanity are not the only parents of falsehood;-the worst, and the blackest species of it, has its origin in fraud;-and, for its object, to obtain some advantage in the common intercourse of life. Though this kind of falsehood is the most pernicious in its consequences, to the religious character of him who is infected by it; and the most detrimental to the general happiness of society, it requires, (from the universal detestation in which it is held,) less notice in an investigation of the nature of truth, intended for practical purposes. He whom the dread of universal infamy, the horror of being degraded from his rank in society, the thought of an hereafter will not inspire with the love of truth, who prefers any temporary convenience of a lie, to a broad, safe, and refulgent veracity, that man is too far sunk in the depths of depravity for any religious instruction he can receive in this place ;the canker of disease is gone down to the

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

fountains of his blood, and the days of his

life are told....

Truth is sacrificed to a greater variety of causes than the narrow limits of a discourse from the pulpit will allow me to state :—it is sacrificed to boasting, to malice, and to all the varieties of hatred ;-it is sacrificed, also, to that verbal benevolence which delights in the pleasure of promising, as much as it shrinks from the pain of performing, which abounds in gratuitous sympathy, and has words, and words only, for every human misfortune.

Ihave hitherto considered the love of truth on the negative side only, as it indicates what we are not to do;-the vices from which we are to abstain ;-but there is an heroic faith, ---a courageous love of truth, the truth of the Christian warrior, an unconquerable love of justice, that would burst the heart in twain, if it had not vent, which makes women men, and men saints, and saints angels.--Often it has published its creed from amid the flames ---often it has reasoned under the axe, and gathered firmness from a mangled body;---often it has rebuked the mad

ness of the people;-often it has burst into the chambers of princes, to tear down the veil of falsehood, and to speak of guilt, of sorrow, and of death.-Such was the truth which went down with Shadrach to the fiery furnace, and descended with Daniel to the lion's den.-Such was the truth which made the potent Felix tremble at his eloquent captive.-Such was the truth which roused the timid Peter to preach Christ crucified before the Sanhedrin of the Jews; and such was the truth which enabled that Christ, whom he did preach, to die the death upon the cross.

Having thus stated the most ordinary causes of falsehood, I shall endeavour to lay before you the means, and the motives for its cultivation. The foundation of the love of truth must be laid, in early education, by unswerving example, and by connecting, with truth, every notion of the respect of men, and of the approbation of God; and by combining, with the idea of falsehood, the dread of infamy and impiety ;-nor must the young be allowed to hesitate about the importance of the particular truth truth in

question, but be taught, rather, that all truth must be important; they must never balance, for an instant, between the convenience of falsehood, and the peril of veracity;—but if the alternative be death, or falsehood, let them look upon death as inevitable, as if God had struck them dead with his lightning.

A thorough conviction of the security derived from truth, is no mean incitement, to its cultivation. Falsehood subjects us to a perpetual vigilance; we must constantly struggle to reconcile a supposed fact to the current of real events, and to point out the consequences of an ideal cause; the first falsehood must be propped up by a second, the second cemented by a third, till some failure, in the long chain of fictions, precipitates into the gulph of infamy, him whom it is intended to support ;-then there is the perpetual suspicion of being suspected; we elaborate meaning from idle words, and significance from thoughtless gestures. Watchfulness, silence, and melancholy, succeed to the gaiety of a true heart, and all virtue is gone out of life. This is the bondage of falsehood, and these the massive,

« הקודםהמשך »