SERMON XXI.
Christian Morality, viz. Truth, Sincerity, &c.
Philip. iv. 8.—Whatsoever things are true,—think on these things.
Truth is a name of wide extent. It includes in it the blessings of the head and the heart. Happy the man whose head is furnished with a large knowledge of divine and human truth, and so far delivered from mistakes and errors, as to lay a foundation for wisdom and holiness! But all the furniture of the head is not sufficient to make us truly wise and holy, without the honesty and integrity of the heart. Truth demands a room and place there also: And this is the truth which my text recommends.
The first thing I proposed, was to shew the latitude and extent of this duty—and I have described it as consisting in these three things; 1. Veracity, which is, when our words are conformable to the sentiments of our mind. 2. Faithfulness, when our actions agree with our words. 3. Constancy, and that is when our practices are consistent with our pious principles, and the whole course of our life is of a piece, governed by the same rules and dictates of morality and religion. Where these are wanting, that person is false, faithless, fickle, and inconstant, and acts neither agreeable to his nature as a man, nor to his character as a christian.
The second thing I designed to shew, was that the light of nature dictates and requires the practice of this virtue: And it will appear, if we consider our relation either to God or man.
I. If we consider our natural relation to God, both as our Creator or Father, and as our Lord or Governor.
Consider him as our Father, the Author of our being. Truth and faithfulness are the attributes of his nature, and the necessary characters of his conduct toward his creatures; and many of the heathens could tell us, that a likeness to God the Father of our spirits, in such moral perfections of his nature, is the duty and glory of mankind. We are his offspring, saith Aratus, a heathen poet; Acts xvii. 28. and children should be like their divine Parent.
The light of nature tells us, that he is not only our Creator, and our Father in this sense, but he is our Lord and Governor also. And he has knowledge, and he has power to answer and fulfil this high character and station. The great God who looks into our hearts, who sees our souls through and through, he knows what our inward sentiments are while the falsehood is on our lips; he remembers what our engagements and contracts are while we renounce and break them; he hates deceit, lying, and falsehood; and all the civilized nations have ever supposed that he will avenge it with peculiar judgments.
It is upon this supposition of an all-knowing and avenging power, that oaths are administered in all countries which are reformed from utter barbarity. An oath is appointed to be the confirmation of truth in what we say or do. Therein God himself, with all his knowledge, his power and his terrors, is called upon to bear witness to what we speak, and to be an avenger of perjury and falsehood. Surely we might venture to say, that a day will come when the great and holy God will shew himself terrible to liars and deceivers, if we had nothing but the light of nature to tell us so.
II. If we consider our relation to mankind, truth will appear to be a necessary duty. Man is a sociable creature, he is made to love society; but no society can be maintained without truth: All falsehood therefore is inconsistent with the social nature of mankind, and consequently it becomes contrary to the law and light of nature. Without truth we should all become deceivers to one another, every man a liar to his neighbour. No contracts would be of any force; no commerce could be maintained; none of us would he able to trust another, nor could we live safe by those that dwell nearest to us.
He that indulges himself in lying, takes away his own credit, and gives sufficient occasion for his neighbour not to believe him, even when he happens to speak the truth; for a man that will lie and deceive sometimes, how can we tell that he is not dealing deceitfully with us, even when he professes to be most faithful and true? And children should take notice of this, that if once they indulge the sin of lying, there is nobody will ever believe what they say.
A liar is such an abandoned character amongst mankind, that though there are too many who deserve the name, yet every one is ashamed of it. It is esteemed a reproach of so heinous and hateful a nature for a man to be called a liar, that sometimes the life and the blood of the slanderer has paid for it. The very nature of man resents it highly, for it implies in it, that a man guilty of this vice deserves to be cut off from all society with mankind, and to be thrust out of cities and families like a beast of the earth.
The same thing may be said of an unfaithful man, a man who makes promises, contracts, and agreements, and takes no care to perform them. All commerce and traffic is confounded, and the laws of it dissolved, by a person of this shameful conduct. He that loses his credit and honour by this sort of falsehood, cuts himself off from many of the blessings of civil society, and stands as it were excommunicated from the friendship, the company, and commerce of his neighbours among whom he dwells. His character becomes hateful among men, and his name is a word of scandal and infamy. But where a man is true to his word, and punctual in all his correspondencies, how fair is his reputation! How honourable is his name! And he stands entitled to all the blessings of the society where he resides.
I might borrow arguments also from the light of nature, to shew what an excellent virtue is that of constancy; how useful in the whole course of life; how honourable a name does it gain a man in the world! With what a happy regularity his affairs proceed, both in his household and in his shop, or business of life! He maintains a sacred and steady peace of mind, and all men bless him: but the character of a fickle, wavering, inconstant man, is always mean and contemptible: he is compared to a weather-cock, that is blown about by every wind: and his name is thus exalted, or stuck on high, there to become a more public mark of jest and ridicule.
The third thing I proposed, is to consider what are those additional arguments that might be drawn from the gospel for the practice of this truth and sincerity, this faithfulness and constancy: For the gospel doth not only confirm all the duties of morality that the light of nature dictates, and establish all the reasons of them that the light of nature more feebly proposes, but it adds also many arguments and motives to enforce the same virtuous practices, which the mere light of nature knows nothing of; and I shall represent all these advantages of the gospel here. But I will not overload your memory with particulars, and therefore I shall speak them more generally, and heap them together; and may your souls and mine feel the united force of them!
It is a gospel of truth we profess, even the eternal truth of God revealed to men concerning our salvation and his glory. There are a multitude of scriptures where the gospel itself is called the truth, and the word of truth; and it is a most inconsistent thing for the professors of this gospel to be guilty of falsehood.
God the Father is the God of truth: and never did he give so glorious a demonstration of the sincerity of his love, of the faithfulness of his promises, and of the constancy of his compassionate design to man, as in sending his own Son into the world, according to his ancient prophecies of a thousand years, and bestowing upon us Jesus the Saviour.
Jesus Christ, by whose name we are called, he is the true and faithful witness; Rev. iii. 14. Truth, and grace, and peace, came by him; John i. 17. He is called the truth; John xiv. 6. He came down to bring life and immortality to light by his gospel; he came to tell us, and he well knew, that in his Father’s house were many mansions; and if it were not so, says he, I would have told you: But it is not my business to be a deceiver to men: Therefore all the life, light, and immortality that I have discovered to you in my preaching, it is all sincere, it is all real. When you enter into the other world, trusting my promises, you will find all my words fulfilled. I would not have raised your expectations, if it had been otherwise.
Again, the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of truth; it is he that guides us into all truth; John xvi. 13. And the name of this Father, and this Son, and this Holy Spirit, is called upon us in our first admission to christianity. So that we wear the name of the God of truth upon us, and shall we indulge temptations to falsehood? Shall we practise deceit, who profess a gospel of such truth, and upon whom the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the name of the God of truth is pronounced in baptism?
God is sincere in his revelations of grace, and discoveries of his pardoning mercy; for he sent his own Son to die for us, and this is a proof of his sincerity in his designs of love. Let us then be sincere in love to our God, to our fellow-creatures, and fellow-christians. Jesus Christ is sincere in the profession of his love, and he hath given us an infallible pledge of it, for he hath given his life for us. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends; John xv. 13. But he hath laid down his life for enemies, and therefore he hath magnified his love, and divinely demonstrated it to be sincere and true, beyond all possibility of jealousies and exceptions.
God is faithful to all the promises of his gospel; all his ways are mercy and truth to his people: He is a God keeping covenant through all generations. This is the illustrious title that he assumes to himself, and glories in: And this is the name by which the ancient saints have delighted to make their addresses to him. These heavens shall be dissolved and perish in the flame, and this earth become a smoking cinder; “heaven and earth shall pass away, but the word of the Lord and his truth abide for ever; not one jot or tittle of them shall perish, but all shall be fulfilled.”
“By two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie;” that is, his oath and his promise, he hath established his covenant of grace, “that the heirs of salvation, might have strong consolation;” Heb. vi. 18. Hereby it comes to pass that we have a sure hope of eternal life; for “God that cannot lie hath promised it to us in Christ Jesus before the world began;” Tit. i. 2. and 2 Tim. i. 9. And though it was so long ago since the first promise was made, the first promise made to Christ before the foundations of the world, and the first promise made to fallen Adam a little after the foundations of the world were laid; yet our God hath not forgotten his promises and his covenant; he remains still faithful to fulfil every word of grace “that is gone is out of his lips;” Ps. lxxxix. 33, 34. And should not this oblige us to like faithfulness to our fellow-creatures, since God, who is so infinitely our superior, is pleased thus to bind himself by promises, and thus to fulfil them.
The constancy and immutability of God in his designs of mercy to sinners, should influence us to the practice of the same constancy of spirit in our professions of his gospel. God acts always like himself, conformable to the glory, and holiness, and dignity of his nature, so should we, who are the sons and daughters of the most high and holy God. He is uniform in his counsels and methods of grace and peace, he is unchangeable in his love, and always the same: “And Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever;” constant to himself, and consistent with himself in all the purposes of his mercy, and in all the prosecutions of those divine and eternal purposes in heaven and on earth. No alteration of circumstances, no change of place, from a cross on earth to a throne in heaven, can change his compassion and love to his saints. And shall we suffer our petty changes here on earth, from a higher to a lower part of a little mole-hill, to make such a shameful alteration in our conduct to our friends, as too often endangers our truth, and discovers our inconstancy?
Let us consider that by our profession of christianity we renounce deceit and falsehood, and all the hidden things of darkness: We are children of the light, then let us walk in the light and do the truth, and let our deeds be made manifest, that they are wrought in God; that is, in the faith and fear of God; John iii. 21. Why should a christian be a deceiver, when he bears the name of Christ the faithful and true? How inconsistent a character is it for a christian to be a liar? For a christian to be false, and violate and break his word? How dishonourable is it to the holy name we bear?
Let the children of Satan, who is a liar from the beginning, delight themselves in falsehood, and sport themselves in their own deceivings: Let those who renounce all hope in the promises of God, imitate the devil, who is the father of lies: But let us who trust in the God of truth, who believe in Jesus the Saviour, and make his truth our hope, let us imitate our heavenly Father and our blessed Lord. Let us speak the truth and practise it. It was by a lie of the devil that our first parents were deceived and ruined: All our sin and misery sprung from that falsehood, Ye shall not surely die. And it is by our faith in the truth and promise of God that we hope for salvation. While we therefore remember either the spring of our ruin, or the means of our recovery, we should love the truth, and hate lying.
But there are motives of terror, as well as arguments of grace and love, that should ever influence us to sincerity and truth. We should remember that Christ our Lord has eyes like a flame of fire, that he searches the hearts and the reins, and will render to every one according to their works; Rev. ii. 23. We should remember the dreadful threatenings that Christ the faithful and true Witness, Christ the Lord and Judge of all men, hath denounced against hypocrites. You scarce find him preaching a sermon of any length, but he has one or more woes in it ready for those that practise hypocrisy.
There is no sort of sinners that he treats with such infamous names, and such killing reproaches as he does the hypocrite. They resemble the old serpent, the devil, in subtlety and falsehood, and therefore the language of Christ to them runs in this manner; Ye Jews, who are false to the inward conviction of your own consciences, ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.—When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar and the father of it; John viii. 44. It is as if our Lord had said, “The first lie that ever was made, was made by the devil; and by his telling a lie, and our mother Eve’s believing it, he murdered mankind in Adam their head. And yet you false Jews would imitate him, and make him your father.” And again, Woe unto you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites,—ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, sons of the old serpent, how can ye escape the damnation of hell; Mat. xxiii. 29, 33. Your eternal punishment is most just and unavoidable.
In another of his discourses he makes the punishment of hypocrites to be, as it were, the pattern of the punishment of the worst of wickedness. The servant who is intrusted with the household of his Lord, that shall beat his fellows, and shall eat and drink with the drunken, his Lord shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrite; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; Mat. xxiv. 51. And when you read the black catalogue of sinners, who are doomed to everlasting destruction; Rev. xxi. 8. the name of liars is put in with a peculiar remark, the unbelievers, the murderers, the whoremongers, the sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. As if he had said, whosoever escapes hell, no liar shall escape it, and it is repeated again in the next chapter, Without the gates of heaven are dogs, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie; Rev. xxii. 15.
Whensoever therefore we find a temptation to falsehood, let us set ourselves under the immediate eye of God our Judge, God who shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and shall judge the secrets of every heart one day by Jesus Christ our Lord; 1 Cor. iv. 5. Rom. ii. 16. If we did but always place ourselves as in the sight of the great and dreadful God, whose eye beholds every falsehood we practise, and all the hidden hypocrisy, the lurking deceit of the soul, whose ear attends to every word of falsehood we speak, and records it all in his book against that great and terrible day of account; surely we should find a more effectual influence of it upon our spirits, to guard us from such words and actions as are inconsistent with the sincerity of a christian.
And let our hearts be melted into repentance for our past iniquities of this kind, and moulded into the love of truth by a delightful meditation of the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ to us, in performing his kind and dreadful undertaking to suffer for our sins. Let us dwell upon the thoughts of his faithfulness to all his promises, and think thus with ourselves, that he has engaged us to truth of every kind by the strongest bonds of duty and love: And if we are false and unfaithful to him in this world, how justly may he cut us off from all our glorious hopes and expectations in the world which is to come.
But this leads me to the fourth general head that I proposed; which was to lay down some directions how christians may be preserved in the ways of truth, how they may secure and maintain this blessed character of integrity and uprightness which I have described. And I think this may be better performed by distinguishing truth, or integrity, into those three distinct parts, under which I treated of it before, namely, veracity, faithfulness, and constancy, and by giving some rules for the preservation of each.
The rules to preserve veracity, or to keep our words conformable to our hearts, are such as these:
I. Be persuaded in your own minds, that no circumstances whatsoever can make a lie lawful. Though when a question is asked, there are many cases wherein it may be lawful to turn the discourse aside, to wave a direct answer, to be entirely silent; or in some circumstances it may be both lawful, prudent, and proper, to conceal a part of the truth, as I hinted in the former sermon; yet in my opinion it is neither prudent, proper nor lawful, to speak a falsehood to deceive my neighbour. The whole truth may not always be necessary to be spoken to men; but such falsehood is always a sin in the sight of God. All lying is utterly forbidden; and the true meaning of a lie is, when we speak that which we believe to be false, with a design to deceive the person to whom we speak.
Here may arise two questions:—I. If I have a good and valuable end in speaking, and my design is to serve the glory of God, or the good of my neighbour, may I not then use the art of lying, or speak a known falsehood without sin?—2. Surely there are some sort of persons who have no right to truth, such as children, common liars, knaves or cheats; may we not therefore deceive them by direct falsehoods, either for their good, or for our own?
These are enquiries of very great importance to the honour of truth, to the satisfaction of conscience, and to the welfare of mankind: And it is my present opinion (and I think there is good reason for it) that none of these cases can make an express and deceitful falsehood to be lawful, or change the nature of a lie, and make it innocent; but to debate these two cases as largely as they deserve, would too much incumber the present discourse; I leave them therefore to be read with an honest and serious mind, as an Appendix to these sermons of truth, and so proceed to the next direction, how to preserve our veracity.
II. The second rule to preserve veracity is this; accustom yourselves to a sober, modest way of speaking, avoid all those methods of speech that border upon falsehood. I shall mention a few of them, to give sufficient notice of what I mean.
Some persons affect to be certain of every thing they speak, and pronounce all that they say with the highest assurance. If they are relating matters of fact, which they only learn by report, they tell you every circumstance without the least hesitation, and endeavour even in a dubious matter to make the hearer believe it with the highest confidence: They are never in the wrong, never doubtful, whether they are in the right no. If they are declaring their own sentiments of the most difficult subject, it is always as clear to them as the light, they are always as positive as if it were divinely revealed, and written in the most express words of scripture.
Now such sort of speakers will often find they have been mistaken; and if they have modesty enough to retract their words, it is well: but for the most part they refuse conviction, and often persist to maintain their own error, even almost against their own consciences. In short, it appears to me, that a man who dares frequently to assert doubtful matters with the most positive air of assurance, has not so much tenderness about his heart, and such a religious fear of lying, as a good christian ought to have.
There are others again that affect to tell you nothing that is common, but would always surprize the company with strange things and prodigies, and all this out of the pride of their hearts, and an ambition to have their own stories applauded and admired by all that hear them. This sort of affectation oftentimes betrays a person into falsehood, and secretly and insensibly allures him to say things that are neither credible nor true. Sailors and travellers should set a special guard upon themselves in this respect.
There are a third sort of talkers, that when they discourse of common things, are ever expressing them in exalted and superlative language. If they speak of any thing small, it is prodigiously small; if they speak of any thing great, it is incomparably great. If they name a man of wisdom, he is the wisest man in the world; or a woman of piety, she is the only saint in the nation. An imprudent man with them is the greatest fool in nature; and a little disappointing accident in life, is an intolerable vexation. If they happen to hear a good sermon, the preacher was inspired, not an angel could exceed him: If it was a mean discourse, the wretch had not a grain of sense and learning. Every opinion they hold is divine and fundamental: All their own sentiments, even in lesser matters, are the very sense of Christ and his apostles, and all that oppose them are guilty of heresy or nonsense. Now persons who have accustomed their tongues to this language in common discourse, seem to want that due caution which the strict rules of godliness may seem to require, and make a little too free with truth. Either their thoughts are very injudicious, if they can believe what they say; or if they do not believe it, they should make their words agree better with their thoughts.
But besides the approaches to falsehood in this manner of conversation, there is something in it that is very vain, and almost ridiculous. Methinks such an extravagant talker is something like a man that walks upon stilts through the open street, or like one who wears a coat much longer than his neighbours; and how tall soever they may think themselves, the world will be ready to call one of them a child, and the other an idiot.
Objection. But are there not a multitude of such expressions in scripture in the books of Job, and the Psalms, and the Prophets, wherein even the more plain or common occurrences of life are dressed up in very magnificent language, and in expressions that far exceed the truth of things? Does not David, in his elegy upon Saul and Jonathan, say, they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions? 2 Sam. i. 23. And even in St. John’s history of the life and death of Christ, does he not suppose, that if all things which Jesus did were written, even the world itself could not contain the books? John xxi. 25.
Answer. It is the natural language of poetry and prophecy, and the custom of the eastern nations, to express things in a lofty and sublime manner; so that there is no danger of being deceived by that language, when a prophet or a poet indulges such figures of speech. Now the books of Job and Psalms, and David’s elegy, are so many Hebrew poems. The business of oratory is a-kin to verse, and sometimes requires a figurative style. But in familiar language and common discourse, it is not the custom of mankind to use such extravagance of expression: The hearer is many times ready to be led into a mistake thereby, because he supposes the speaker to mean plainly what he says. And I would not willingly indulge a habit of expressing my thoughts in such a manner in common conversation, as should deceive my hearers, to humour a silly affectation.
As for the figure which St. John uses to represent the variety of useful things which were said and done by our Saviour, it is such as can lead no man into a mistake, for none can believe it to be understood in a literal sense. Besides, if one would indulge the most superlative expressions and boldest figures that human language can furnish one with, to set out the honours of any person on earth, there can be no such proper or deserving subject as Jesus Christ our Lord.
III. The third rule to preserve veracity is this, practise nothing which you are ashamed of. Do nothing that you need be afraid of the ear of the world: Walk carefully in the ways of virtue and duty: Fulfil your obligations to God and man to the utmost of your power: Venture upon no practice that needs a cover, a disguise, or an excuse; and then you will not be so often under the temptation of lying.
Let children remember this, and have a care of disobeying God, or their parents, even when they are alone; lest they be tempted to excuse their faults by lying, which indeed does but enlarge and double them, rather than diminish and excuse them. Let servants take notice of this, and pay all due honour and faithful obedience to their masters and governors? or else the devil, and their own corrupt hearts, will frequently join together and help them to lie for the cover of their guilt. Let every one that hears this discourse watch over all their actions, and confine them within the rules of religion; otherwise their practice, which will not bear the light, will put them under a temptation to hide it behind a refuge of lies.
And under this head I might particularly give this advice. Do not affect a cunning way of life. Do not aim at the character of a subtle and crafty man. Be not fond of being let into secrets, nor of engaging in intrigues of any sort. There are some tempers of mankind that are naturally addicted to craft, and are ever seeking to outwit their neighbours: they seldom live upon the square, or walk onward in an open path; but are still doubling, and turning, and traversing their course. They take a special pleasure in managing all their affairs with art and subtilty, and call it necessary prudence. But if you would shew yourselves tender of the truth, and preserve it, let your course of life be bold, and free, and open. There is much prudence to be used in our daily conduct, without this crafty humour. The integrity of a man will preserve him, and keep his tongue from falsehood; whereas a man who is much engaged in crafty designs, will now and then be tempted to intrench upon truth, and come near the brink of lying, to carry on and cover all his secret purposes.
Methinks I could pity rather than envy the high station of courtiers. How often they are constrained to put on disguise, to colour or to conceal their real designs! How near they walk to the borders of falsehood, and tread hourly upon the very edge of a lie! David, the man after God’s own heart, while he kept his father’s sheep, was more secure from this temptation; but when he became a courtier and a king, he was often exposed, and therefore he begs earnestly, that God would remove from him the way of lying; Ps. cxix. 29. He had felt the mischievous influence of this snare, and dreaded the pernicious power of it. To be ever practising the politician at home and abroad, is a constant snare to sincerity; and to live as a spy in a foreign court, may be a post of service to our own nation; but it is exceeding dangerous to virtue and truth.
IV. Have a care of indulging any violent passion, for that will tempt the tongue to fly out in extravagance of expression, and out-run the settled judgment of the mind. Whether it be grief or impatience, or anger and resentment, it will engage the soul to form ideas far above and beyond the truth of things, and often arm the tongue with unruly expressions, even beyond the sentiments of the heart. Strife and contention, and noisy quarrels are very dangerous enemies to truth.
And upon this account, above all things, I would warn young christians to avoid the excessive zeal of a party-spirit in the lesser differences of religion. There has been often a great deal of darkness, and fire, of rage, and deceit, and falsehood in such sort of quarrels as these. Men of natural warmth, animated by an honest zeal for God and religion, taking it into their head, that every doctrine besides their own is damnable heresy, and all forms of worship different from their own, are superstitious or schismatical, and abominable in the sight of God; they have, under the influence of these principles, kindled their passions to a flame: and to secure the reputation of their own party, or vindicate all their principles and practices, they have made shameful inroads upon truth, even in relating matters of fact: and as Dr. Tillotson well expresses it, that the zealots of all parties have got a scurvy trick of lying for the truth; though he confesses he has never observed any that would be so very fond of a false report, or hug and caress a lie as the papists have done. And I wish no protestant had ever followed their example.
I should proceed now to lay down rules how persons may best preserve their faithfulness to vows or engagements of any kind. But this may be reserved to the next discourse.