5. The two great means which cunning uses in order to deceive are simulation and dissimulation. Simulation is the seeming to be what we are not; dissimulation, the seeming not to be what we are; according to the old verse, Quod non est simula dissimuloque quod est. Both the one and the other we commonly term, the "hanging out of false colours." Innumerable are the shapes that simulation puts on in order to deceive. And almost as many are used by dissimulation for the same purpose. But the man of sincerity shuns them both, and always appears exactly what he is.

6. But suppose we are engaged with artful men, may we not use silence or reserve, especially if they ask insidious questions, without falling under the imputation of cunning? Undoubtedly we may nay, we ought on many occasions either wholly to keep silence, or to speak with more or less reserve, as circumstances may require. To say nothing at all, is in many cases consistent with the highest sincerity. And so it is, to speak with reserve, to say only a part, perhaps, a small part, of what we know. But were we to pretend it to be the whole, this would be contrary to sincerity.

7. A more difficult question than this is, "May we not speak the truth in order to deceive? like him of old, who broke out into that exclamation, applauding his own ingenuity, Hoc ego mihi puto palmarium, ut vera dicendo eos ambos fallam. This I take to be my masterpiece, to deceive them both by speaking the truth!'" I answer, A heathen might pique himself upon this; but a Christian could not. For, although this is not contrary to veracity, yet it certainly is to sincerity. It is therefore the most excellent way, if we judge it proper to speak at all, to put away both simulation and dissimulation, and to speak the naked truth from our heart.

It

8. Perhaps this is properly termed simplicity. goes a little farther than sincerity itself. It implies not only, first, the speaking no known falsehood; and, secondly, the not designedly deceiving any one; but,

thirdly, the speaking plainly and artlessly to every one; when we speak at all; the speaking as little children, in a childlike, though not a childish, manner. Does not this utterly exelude the using any compliments? A vile word, the very sound of which I abhor; quite agreeing with our poet,

"It never was good day

Since lowly fawning was call'd compliment."

I advise men of sincerity and simplicity never to take that silly word into their mouth, but labour to keep at the utmost distance both from the name and the thing.

9. Not long before that remarkable time,

"When statesmen sent a prelate 'cross the seas,
By long-famed act of pains and penalties,"

several bishops attacked Bishop Atterbury at once, then bishop of Rochester, and asked, "My lord, why will you not suffer your servants to deny you, when you do not care to see company ? It is not a lie for them to say your lordship is not at home; for it deceives no one every one knows it means only, your lordship is busy." He replied, "My lords, if it is (which I doubt) consistent with sincerity, yet I am sure it is not consistent with that simplicity which becomes a Christian bishop."

10. But to return. The sincerity and simplicity of him in whom is no guile have likewise an influence on his whole behaviour: they give a colour to his whole outward conversation; which, though it be far remote from every thing of clownishness and ill-breeding, of roughness and surliness, yet is plain and artless, and free from all disguise, being the very picture of his heart. The truth and love which continually reign there produce an open front and a serene countenance; such as leave no pretence to say, with that arrogant king of Castile, "When God made man, he left one capital defect he ought to have set a window in his breast;"

for he opens a window in his own breast by the whole tenor of his words and actions.

11. This then is real, genuine, solid virtue. No truth alone, nor conformity to truth. This is a property of real virtue; not the essence of it. Not love alone though this comes nearer the mark: for love, in one sense, "is the fulfilling of the law." No: truth and love, united together, are the essence of virtue or holiness. God indispensably requires "truth in the inward parts," influencing all our words and actions. Yet truth itself, separate from love, is nothing in his sight. But let the humble, gentle, patient love of all mankind, be fixed on its right foundation, namely, the love of God springing from faith, from a full conviction that God hath given his only son to die for my sins; and then the whole will resolve into that grand conclusion, worthy of all men to be received: "Neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith that worketh by love."

7

SERMON XCI.

ON CHARITY.

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."-1 Cor. xiii. 1-3.

WE know, "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," and is therefore true and right concerning all things. But we know, likewise, that there are some scriptures which more immediately commend themselves to every man's conscience. In this rank we may place the passage before us there are scarce any that object to it. On the contrary, the generality of men very readily appeal to it. Nothing is more common than to find even those who deny the authority of the holy Scriptures, yet affirming, "This is my religion; that which is described in the thirteenth chapter of the Corinthians." Nay, even a Jew, Dr. Nunes, a Spanish physician, then settled at Savannah, in Georgia, used to say, with great earnestness, "That Paul of Tarsus was one of the finest writers I have ever read. I wish the thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians were wrote in letters of gold. And I wish every Jew were to carry it with him wherever he went." He judged (and herein he certainly judged right) that this single chapter contained the whole of true religion. It contains "whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things

are pure, whatsoever things are lovely: if there be any virtue, if there be any praise," it is all contained in this. In order to see this in the clearest light, we may consider,

I. What the charity here spoken of is.

II. What those things are which are usually put in the place of it. We may then,

III. Observe, that neither of them, nor all of them put together, can supply the want of it.

I. 1. We are, first, to consider what this charity is. What is the nature and what are the properties of it?

St. Paul's word is ayann, exactly answering to the plain English word love. And accordingly it is so rendered in all the old translations of the Bible. So it stood in William Tindal's Bible, which, I suppose, was the first English translation of the whole Bible. So it was also in the Bible published by the authority of King Henry VIII. So it was, likewise, in all the editions of the Bible that were successively published in England during the reign of King Edward VI., Queen Elizabeth, and King James I. Nay, so it is found in the Bibles of King Charles the First's reign; I believe, to the period of it. The first Bibles I have seen wherein the word was changed, were those printed by Roger Daniel and John Field, printers to the Parliament, in the year 1649. Hence it seems probable that the alteration was made during the sitting of the Long Parliament; probably it was then that the Latin word charity was put in the place of the English word love. It was in an unhappy hour this alteration was made: the ill effects of it remain to this day and these may be observed, not only among the poor and illiterate; not only housands of common men and women no more understand the word "charity" than they do the original Greek; but the same miserable mistake has diffused itself among men of education and learning. Thousands of these are misled thereby, and imagine that the charity treated of in this chapter refers chiefly, if not wholly, to outward actions, and to mean little more than