06. Of Uncharitable Truth
The Government of the Tongue by Richard Allestree
SECTION VI. Of Uncharitable Truth. IN the next place we are to consider of the other branch of Defamatory reports, viz. such as are true: which though they must be confessed to be of a lower form of guilt than the former, yet as to the kind, they equally agree in the definition of Detraction, since tis possible to impair a man’s credit by true reports as well as by false.
2. TO clear this I shall first observe, that although every fault hath some penal effect which are coetaneous to the act, yet this of Infamy is not so: this is a more remote consequent; that which it immediately depends upon, is the publishing. A man may do things which to God and his own conscience render him abominable, and yet keep his reputation with men: but when this stifled crime breaks out, when his secret guilts are detected, then, and not till then, he becomes infamous: so that although his sin be the Material, yet it is the discovery that is the Formal cause of his infamy.
3. THIS being granted, it follows that he that divulges an unknown, concealed fault, stands accountable for all the consequences that flow from that divulging; but whether accountable as for guilt, must be determined by the particular circumstances of the cause. So that here we must admit of an exception: for though every discovery of another’s fault be in the strict natural sense of the word a Detraction, yet it will not always be the sin of Detraction, because in some instances there may be some higher obligation intervene, and supersede that we own to the fame of our neighbor; and in those cases it may not only be lawful, but necessary to expose him.
4. NOW all such cases I conceive may summarily be reduced to two heads, Justice and Charity. First as to Justice: that we know is a fundamental virtue, and he that shall violate that, to abound in another, is as absurd, as he that undermines the foundation to raise the walls. We are not to steal to give alms, and God himself has declared that he hates robbery for a burnt offering: so that no pretence either of Charity or Piety can absolve us from the duty we owe to Justice. Now it may often fall out, that by concealing one man’s fault, I may be injurious to another, nay, to a whole community: and then I assume the guilt I conceal, and by the Laws both of God and Man am judged an accessory.
5. AND as Justice to others enforces, so sometimes Justice to a man’s self allows the publishing of a fault, when a considerable interest either of fame or fortune cannot otherwise be rescued. But to make loud outcries of injury, when they tend nothing to the redress of it, is a liberty rather assumed by rage and impatience, than authorized by Justice. Nay, often in that case the complainer is the most injurious Person; for he inflicts more than he suffers, and in lieu of some trivial right of his which is invaded, he assaults the other in a nearer interest, by wounding him in his good name: but if the cause be considerable and the manner regular, there lies no sure obligation upon any man to wrong himself, to indulge to another.
6. NEITHER does Charity retrench this liberty; for though it be an act of Charity to conceal another man’s faults, yet sometimes it may be inconsistent with some more important Charity, which I owe to a third Person, or perhaps to a Multitude; as in those cases wherein public benefit is concerned. If this were not allowable, no History could lawfully be written, since if true, it cannot but recount the faults of many: no evidence could be brought in against a Malefactor: and indeed all discipline would be subverted, which would be so great a mischief, that Charity obliges to prevent it, what Defamation soever fall upon the guilty by it. For in such instances tis a true rule, that mercy to the evil proves cruelty to the innocent. And as in a competition of mischiefs, we are to choose the least, so of two goods the greatest, and the most extensive, is the most eligible.
7. NAY, even that Charity which reflects upon myself, may also sometimes supersede that to my neighbor, the rule obliging me to love him as, not better than, myself. I need not sure silently assent to my own unjust Defamation, for fear of proving another a false accuser; nor suffer myself to be made a beggar, to conceal another man’s being a thief. Tis true, in a great inequality of interest, Charity (whose Character it is, Not to seek her own, 1 Corinthians 13:5.) will prompt me to prefer a greater concern of my neighbors, before a slight one of my own: but in equal circumstances I am sure at liberty to be kind first to myself. If I will recede even from that, I may; but that is then to be accounted among the Heroic flights of Charity, not her binding and indispensable Laws.
8. HAVING now set the boundaries to the excepted cases; as all instances within them will be legitimated, so all without them will be (by the known rule of exceptions) be precluded, and fall under that general duty we owe to our neighbor, of tendering his credit: an obligation so Universally infringed, that tis not imaginable the breach should always happen within the excepted cases. When tis remembered how unactive the principles of Justice and Charity are grown in the world, we must certainly impute such incessant effects, to some more vigorous causes: of which it may not be amiss to point out some of the most obvious, and leave every man to examine which of them he finds most operative in himself.
9. IN the first place, I may reckon Pride, a humor which as it is always mounting, so it will make use of any footstool towards its rise. A man who affects an extraordinary splendor of reputation, is glad to find any foils to see him off; and therefore will let no fault nor folly of another’s enjoy the shade, but brings it into the open light, that by that comparison, his own excellencies may appear the brighter. I dare appeal to the breast of any proud man, whether he do not upon such occasions, make some Pharisaical reflections on himself, whether he be not apt to say, I am not like other men, or as this Publican, Luke 18:1-43. though probably he leave out the God, I thank Thee. Now he that cherishes such resentments as these in himself, will doubtless be willing to propagate them to other men, and to that end render the blemishes of others as visible as he can. But this betrays a degenerous spirit, which from a consciousness that he wants solid worth, on which to bottom a reputation, is fain to found it on the ruins of other men’s. The true Diamond sparkles even in the sunshine: tis but a glow-worm virtue that owes its luster to the darkness about it.
10. ANOTHER prompter to Detraction is Envy, which sometimes is particular, sometimes general. He that has a pique to another, would have him as hateful to all mankind as he is to him; and therefore, as he grieves and repines at anything that may advance his estimation, so he exults and triumphs when anything occurs which may depress it, and is usually very industrious to improve the opportunity, nay, has a strange sagacity in hunting it out. No vulture does more quickly scent a carcass, than an envious Person does, those dead flies which corrupt his neighbor’s ointment, Ecclesiastes 10:1. the vapor whereof his hate, like a strong wind, scatters and disperses far and near. Nor needs he any great crime to practice on: every little infirmity or passion, looked on through his Optics, appears a mountainous guilt. He can improve the least speck or freckle to leprosy, which shall overspread the whole man: and a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, like that of Elisha, 1 King. 18. 44. may in an instant, with the help of prejudice, grow to the utter darkening of the brightest reputation, and fill the whole horizon with tempest and horror. Sometimes this Envy is general, not confined to any man’s person, but diffused to the whole nature. Some tempers there are so malign, that they wish ill to all, and believe ill of all; like Timon the Athenian, who professed himself a universal man-hater. He whose guilty conscience reflects dismal images of himself, is willing to put the same ugly shape upon the whole nature, and to conclude that all men are the same, were they but closely inspected. And therefore, when he can see but the least glimmering of a fault in any, he takes it as a proof of his Hypothesis, and with an envious joy calls in as many spectators as he can. Tis certain there are some in whose ears nothing sounds so harsh as the commendation of another, as on the contrary nothing is so melodious as a Defamation. Plutarch gives an apt instance of this upon Aristides’s banishment, whom when a mean Person had proposed to Ostracism, being asked what displeasure Aristides had done him, he replied, None, neither do I know him, but it grieves me to hear everybody call him a just man. I fear some of our keenest accusers nowadays may give the same answer. No man that is eminent for Piety (or indeed but moral virtue) but he shall have many insidious eyes upon him watching for his halting: and if any the least obliquity can be espied, he is used worse than the vilest malefactor: for such are tried but at one bar, and know the utmost of their doom, but these are arraigned at every Table, in every Tavern. And at such variety of Judicatures, there will be as great variety of sentences; only they commonly concur in this one, that he is an Hypocrite, and then what complacency, what triumph have they in such a discovery? There is not half so much Epicurism in any of their most studied luxuries, no spectacle affords them so much pleasure, as a bleeding fame thus lying at their mercy.
11. ANOTHER sort of Detractors there are, whose designs are not so black, but are equally mean and sordid, much too light to be put in balance with a neighbor’s Credit. Of those some will pick up all the little stories they can get; to humor a Patron: an artifice well known by those trencher guests, who, like Rats, still haunt the best Provisions. These men do almost come up to a literal sense of what the Psalmist spoke in a figurative, Psalms 14:1-7. and eat up people for bread, tear and worry men in their good names, that themselves may eat. It was a Curse denounced against Eli’s offspring, that they should come and crouch for a morsel of bread. 1 Sam. 2. 39. But such men court this as a preferment, and to bring themselves within reach of it, stick not to assume that vilest office of common Delators. There are others who when they have got the knowledge of another man’s fault, think it an endearing thing to whisper it in the ear of some friend or confidant. But sure if they must needs sacrifice some secret to their friendship, they should take David’s rule, and not offer that which cost them nothing. If they will express their confidence, let them acquaint them with their own private crimes. That indeed would show something of trust: but those experiments upon another man’s cost, will hardly convince any considering person of their kindness.
12. THERE still remains a yet more trifling sort of Defamers, who have no deliberate design which they pursue in it, yet are as assiduous at the Trade as the deeper contrivers. Such are those who publish their neighbors’ failings as they read Gazettes, only that they may be telling News: and Itch wherewith some people’s tongues are strangely over-run, who can as well hold a glowing Coal in their mouths, as keep anything they think New; nay, will sometimes run themselves out of breath, for fear least anyone should serve them as Ahimaaz did the Cushite 2 Samuel 18:23 and tell the tale before them. This is one of the most Childish vanities imaginable: and sure men must have Souls of a very low level that can think it a commensurate entertainment. Others there are who use Defamatory discourse, neither for the love of News, nor Defamation, but purely for the love of talk: whose speech like a flowing current bears away indiscriminately whatever lies in its way. And indeed, such incessant talkers are usually people not of depth enough to supply themselves out of their own store, and therefore can let no foreign accession pass by them, no more than a Mill which is always going, can afford any waters to run wait. I know we used to call this Talkativeness a Feminine vice; but to speak impartially, I think, though we have given them the enclosure of the Scandal, they have not of the fault, and he that shall appropriate Loquacity to Women, may perhaps sometimes need to light Diogenes’s Candle to seek a man: for tis possible to go into Masculine company, where twill be as hard to edge in a word, as at a Female Gossiping. However, as to this particular of Defaming, both the Sexes seem to be at a vie: and I think he were a very Critical Judge, that could determine between them.
13. NOW lest this later sort of Defamers should be apt to absolve themselves, as men of harmless intentions, I shall desire them to consider, that they are only more impertinent, not less injurious. For though it be granted, that the proud and envious are to make a distinct account for their Pride and envy; yet as far as related to the neighbor, they are equally mischievous. Anacreon that was choked with a grape-stone, died as surely as Julius Caesar with his three and twenty wounds; and a man’s reputation may be as well fooled and prattled away, as maliciously betrayed. Nay, perhaps more easily; for where the speaker can least be suspected of design, the hearer is apter to give him Credit: this way of insinuating by familiar discourse, being like those poisons that are taken in at the pores, which are the most insensibly sucked in, and the most impossible to expel.
14. BUT we need not dispute which is worst, since tis certain all are bad, none of them (or any that hold proportion with them) being at all able to pretend their warrant either from Justice or Charity. And then what our Savior says in another case, will be applicable to this, He that is not for us is against us. Matthew 12:30. He that in publishing his neighbor’s faults, acts not upon the dictates of Justice or Charity, acts directly in contradiction to them: for where they do not upon some particular respects command, they do implicitly and generally forbid all such discoveries.
15. FOR first, if a fault divulged be of a light nature, the offender cannot thereby merit so much, as to be made a public discourse. Fame is a tender thing, and seldom is tossed and bandied without receiving some bruise, if not a crack: for reports we know, like snow balls, gather still the farther they roll, and when I have once handed it to another, how know I how he may improve it, and if he deliver it so advanced to a third, he may give his contribution also to it, and so in a successive transmitting, it may grow to such a monstrous bulk, as bears no proportion to its Original. He must be a great stranger to the world, that has not experimentally found the truth of this. How many persons have lain under great and heavy scandals, which have taken their first rise only from some inadvertence, or indiscretion? Of so quick a growth is Slander, that the least grain, like that of mustard seed, mentioned Matthew 13:32. immediately shoots up into a tree. And when it is so, it can no more be reduced back into its first cause, than a tree can shrink into that little seed from whence it first sprang. No ruins are so irreparable as those of reputation: and therefore he that pulls out but one stone towards the breach, may do a greater mischief than perhaps he intends: and a greater injustice too; for by how much the more strictly Justice obliges to reparation in case of injuries done, so much the more severely does it prohibit the doing those injuries which are uncapable of being repaired. In the Levitical Law, he that knew his ox was apt to gore, and yet kept him not up, stood responsible for any mischief he happened to do, Exodus 21:29. I think there is no considering man can be ignorant how apt even little trivial accusations are to tear and mangle one’s fame: and yet if the lavish talker restrain them not, he certainly stands accountable to God, his Neighbor, and his own Conscience, for all the danger they procure.
16. BUT if the report concern some higher and enormous crime, tis true the delinquent may deserve the less pity, yet perhaps the reporter may not deserve the less blame: for often such a discovery serves but to enrage, not reclaim the offender, and precipitate him into farther degrees of ill. Modesty and fear of shame, is one of those natural restraints, which the wisdom of God has put upon mankind, and he that once stumbles, may yet by a check of that bridle recover again: but when by a public detection he is fallen under that infamy he feared, he will then be apt to discard all caution, and to think he owes himself the utmost pleasures of his vice, as the price of his reputation. Nay, perhaps he advances farther, and sets up for a reversed sort of Fame, by being eminently wicked: and he who before was but a Clandestine disciple, becomes a Doctor of impiety. And sure it were better to let a concealed crime remain in its wished obscurity, than by thus rousing it from its covert, bring it to stand at bay, and set itself in this open defiance; especially in this degenerous age, when vice has so many well willers, that, like a hoping party, eagerly run into any that will head them.
17. AND this brings in a third consideration relating to the public, to which the divulging of private (especially if they be novel, unusual) crimes, does but an ill piece of service. Vice is contagious, and casts pestilential vapors: and as he that should bring out a plague-sick Person, to inform the world of his disease, would be thought not to have much befriended his neighborhood, so he that displays these vicious Ulcers, whilst he seeks to defame one, may perhaps infect many. We too experimentally find the force of ill examples. Men often take up sins, to which they have no natural propension, merely by way of conformity and imitation. But if the instance happen in a crime, which more suits the practice of the hearers, thought it cannot be said to seduce, yet it may encourage and confirm them; embolden them not only the more frequently to act, but even to avow those sins, wherein they find they stand not single, and by discovering a new accessory to their Party, invite them the more heartily and openly to espouse it.
18. THESE are such effects as surely do very ill correspond with that Justice and Charity we owe either to particular Persons, or to mankind in General. And indeed, no better can be expected, from a practice which so perfectly contradicts the grand rule both of Justice and Charity, The doing as we would be done to. That this does so, every man has a ready conviction within him, if he please but to consult his own heart. Alas, with what solicitude do we seek to hide our own guilts, what false dresses, what varnishes have we for them? There are not more arts of disguising our Corporal blemishes, than our Moral: and yet whilst we thus paint and parget our deformities, we cannot allow any the least imperfection of another’s to remain undetected, but tear off the veil from their blushing frailties, and not only expose them, but proclaim them. And can there be a grosser, a more detestable partiality than this? God may sure in this instance (as in many others) expostulate with us as he did with Israel, Ezekiel 33:1-33. Are not your ways unequal? What Barbarism, what inhumanity is it, thus to treat those of the same common nature with ourselves, whom we cannot but know have the same concern to preserve a Reputation, and the same regret to lose it, which we have? And what shame it is, that that Evangelical precept, of doing as we would be done to, which met with so much reverence even from the Heathens, that Severus the Emperor preferred it to all the Maxims of Philosophers, should be thus condemned and violated by Christians, and that too upon such slight inconsiderable motives as usually prevail in this case of Defamation?
19. BUT we are not to consider this fault only in its root, as it is a defect of Justice and Charity, but in its product too, as it is a Seminary of more Injustice and Uncharitableness. Those disadvantageous reports we make of our neighbors, are almost seen to come round: for let no man persuade himself, that the hearers will keep his counsel any better than he does that of the defamed Person. The softest whisper of this kind, will find others to Echo it, till it reach the ears of the concerned Party, and perhaps with some enhancing circumstances, too. And when tis considered how unwilling men are to hear of their faults, though even in the mildest and most charitable way of admonition, tis not to be doubted a public Defamation will seem disobliging enough to provoke a return, which again begets a rejoinder, and so the quarrel is carried on with mutual recriminations, all malicious inquiries are made into each others manners, and those things which perhaps they did in closets, come to be proclaimed upon the house top: so the wild-fire runs round, till sometimes nothing but blood will quench it; or if it arrive not to that, yet it usually fixes in an irreconcilable feud. To this is often owing those distances we see among friends and relations; this breeds such strangeness, such animosities amongst neighbors, that you cannot go to one, but you shall be entertained with invectives against the other; nay, perhaps you shall lose both because you are willing to side with neither.
20. THESE are the usual consequences of the liberty of the Tongue; and what account can any man give to himself, either in Christianity or prudence, that has let in such a train of mischiefs, merely to gratify an impotent childish humor of telling a tale? Peace was the great Legacy Christ left to his followers, and ought to be guarded, though we expose for it our greatest temporal concerns, but cannot without despite to Him, as well as our brethren, be thus prostituted.
21. YET if we consider it abstractedly, from these more solemn mischiefs which attend it, the mere levity and unworthiness of it sets it below an ingenuous Person. We generally think a tattler and busybody a title of no small reproach: yet truly I know not to whom it more justly belongs, than to those, who busy themselves first in learning, and then in publishing the faults of others: an employment which the Apostle thought a blot, even upon the weaker sex, and thinks the prevention of such importance, that he prescribes them to change their whole condition of life; to convert widow-hood (though a state which in other respects he much prefers, 1 Corinthians 7:8) into marriage, rather than expose themselves to the temptation, 1 Timothy 5:13-14. And if their impotence cannot afford excuse for it, what a debasement is it of men’s nobler faculties to be thus entertained? The Historian gives it as an ill indication of Domitian’s temper, that he employed himself in catching and tormenting Flies: and sure they fall not under a much better character, either for wisdom, or good nature, who thus snatch up all the little fluttering reports they can meet with, to the prejudice of their neighbors.
22. BUT besides this divulging the faults of others, there is another branch of Detraction naturally springing from this root, and this is the censuring and severe judging of them. We think not we have well played the Historians, when we have told the thing, unless we add also our remarks, and animadversions of it. And although tis, God knows, bad enough to make a naked relation, and trust it to the severity of the hearers; yet few can content themselves with that, but must give them a sample of rigor, and by the bitterness of their own censure, invite them to pass the like: a process contrary to all rules of Law or equity, for the plaintiff to assume the part of a Judge. And we may easily divine the fate of that man’s fame that is so unduly tried.
23. TIS indeed sad to see how many private tribunals are everywhere set up, where we scan and judge our neighbor’s actions, but scarce ever acquit any. We take up with the most incompetent witnesses, nay, often suborn our own surmises and jealousies, that we may be sure to cast the unhappy Criminal. How nicely and scrupulously do we examine every circumstance, (Would God we were but half as exact in our own penitential inquisitions) and torture it to make it confess something which appears not in the more general view of the fact, and which perhaps never was in the actor’s intentions? In a word, we do like witches with their Magical Chemistry, extract all the venom, and take none of the allay. By this means we confound the degrees of sins, and sentence deliberate and indeliberate, a habit or an act all at one rate, that is commonly, at the utmost it can amount to, even it its worse exception: and sure this were a most culpable corruption in judgment, could we show our commission to judge our brethren.
24. BUT here we may every one of us interrogate ourselves in our Savior’s words, Who made me a Judge? Luke 12:14. And if he disclaimed it, (who in respect of his Divinity had the Supreme right) and that too in a case wherein one (at least) of the Litigants had desired his interposition, what a boldness is it in us to assume it, where no such appeal is made to us, but on the contrary the Party disowns our Authority? Nay, (which is infinitely more) tis superseded by our great Law-giver, in that express prohibition, Matthew 7:1. Judge not, and that backed with a severe penalty, that ye be not judged? As God hath appropriated vengeance to himself, so has He Judicature also; and tis an invasion of His peculiar, for any (but His Delegates the lawful Magistrates) to pretend to either. And indeed, in all private Judgments so much depends upon the intention of the Offender, that unless we could possess ourselves of God’s Omniscience, twill be as irrational as impious to assume His Authority. Until we know men’s hearts, we are at the best but imperfect Judges of their actions. At our rate of judging, St. Paul surely passed for a most malicious Persecutor, whereas God saw he did ignorantly in unbelief, and upon that intuition had mercy on him, 1 Timothy 1:13. Tis therefore good counsel which the Apostle gives, 1 Corinthians 4:5. Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come. For though tis said the Saints shall judge the world, 1 Corinthians 6:3. yet it must be at the great Assize, and he that will needs intrude himself into the office before the time, will be in danger to be rather Passive than Active in the Judicatory. I do not here advise to such a stupid charity as shall make no distinction of Actions. I know there is a woe pronounced as well to those who call evil good, as good evil. Surely when we see an open notorious sin committed, we may express a detestation of the Crime, though not of the Actor; nay, it may sometimes be a necessary Charity, both to the Offender, and to the innocent Spectators, as an Amulet to keep them from the Contagion of the Example. But still, even in these cases, our Sentence must not exceed the evidence, we must judge only according to the visible undoubted circumstances, and not aggravate the crime upon the presumptions and conjectures; if we do, how right soever our guesses may be, our judgment is not, but we are as St. James speaks, Judges of evil thoughts. James 2:4.
25. INDEED, this rash judging is not only very unjust both to God and man, but it is an act of the greatest pride. When we set our selves in the Tribunal, we always look down with contempt on those at the bar. And certainly there is nothing does so gratify, so regale a haughty humor, as this piece of usurped Sovereignty over our brethren: but the more it does so, the greater necessity there is to abstain from it. Pride is a hardy kind of vice, that will live upon the barest pasture: you cannot starve it with the most industrious mortifications: how little need is there then of pampering and heightening it, which we cannot more effectually do, than by this censorious humor? for by that we are so perpetually employed abroad, that we have no leisure to look homeward, and see our own defects. We are like the inhabitants of Ai, Joshua 8:1-35. so eager upon the pursuit of others, that we leave ourselves exposed to the ambushes of Satan, who will be sure still to encourage us in our chase, draw us still farther and farther from ourselves, and cares not how zealous we are in fighting against the crimes of others, so he can but keep that zeal from recoiling upon our own.
26. LASTLY, this judging others is one of the highest violations of Charity. The Apostle gives it as one of the properties of that grace, that it thinks no evil (i.e.) is not apt to make severe constructions, but sets everything in the fairest light, puts the most candid interpretations that the matter will bear. And truly this is of great importance to the reputation of our neighbors. The world we know is in many instances extremely governed by opinion, but in this tis all in all; it has not only an influence upon it, but is that very thing: reputation being nothing but a fair opinion and estimation among others. Now this opinion is not always swayed by due motives: sometimes little accidents, and often fancy, and most often prepossession governs in it. So that many times he that puts the first ill Character, fixes the stamp which afterwards goes current in the world. The generality of people take up prejudices (as they do religions) upon trust, and of those that are more curious in inquiring into the grounds, there are not many who vary on the more charitable hand, or bring the common sentence to review, with intent to moderate but enhance it. Men are apt to think it some disparagement to their acuteness and invention, if they cannot say something as sharp upon the subject as hath been said before; and so tis the business of many to lay on more load, but of few to take off: and therefore he that passes the first condemnatory sentence, is like the incendiary in a popular tumult, who is chargeable with all those disorders to which he gave the first rise, though that free not his Abettors from their share of the guilt.
27. AND as this is very uncharitable in respect of the injury offered, so also it is in reflection on the grand rule of Charity. Can we pretend to love our neighbors as ourselves, and yet shall our love to him have the quite contrary effects to that we bear ourselves? Can self-love lessen our beam into a mote, and yet can our love to him magnify his mote into a beam? No, certainly true Charity is more sincere, does not turn to us the reverse end of the perspective, to represent our own faults at a distance, and in the most diminutive size, and yet shuffle the other to us when we are view his. No, these are Tricks of Legerdemain we learn in another School, even in whose style is the accuser of the brethren. We know how frequently God protests against false weights and false measures. And sure tis not only in the shop or market that he abhors them, they are no less abominable in conversation than in traffic. To buy by one measure and sell by another, is not more unequal, than it is to have these differing standards for our own and our neighbor’s faults, that our own shall weigh, in the Prophet Jeremiah’s Phrase, lighter than vanity, yea nothing, and yet his (though really the lighter) shall prove Zechariah’s talent of lead. This is such a partiality, as consists not with common honesty, and can therefore never be reconciled with Christian Charity: and how demurely soever such men may pretend to sanctity, that interrogation of God’s presses hard upon them, Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights? Micah 6:11. Such bitter invectives against other men’s faults, and indulgence or palliation of their own, shows their zeal lies in their spleen, and that they consider no so much what is done, as who does it: and to such the sentence of the Apostle is very applicable, Romans 2:1. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest, for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest dost the same thing. But admit a man have not the very same guilts he censures in another, yet tis sure every man has some, and of what sort soever they be, he desires not they should be rigorously scanned, and therefore by the rule of Charity, yea, and justice too, ought no to do that which he would not suffer. If he can find extenuations for his own crimes, he is in all reason to presume others may have so for theirs: the common frailty of our nature, as it is apt alike to betray us to faults, so it gives as equal share in the excuse; and therefore, what I would have pass for the effect of impotency or inadvertence in myself, I can with no tolerable ingenuity give a worse name to in him.
28. WE have now viewed both these branches of Detraction, seen both the sin and mischiefs of them, we may now join them together in a concluding observation, which is that they are as imprudent as they are unchristian. It has been received among the maxims of civil life, not unnecessarily to exasperate anybody; to which agrees the advice of an ancient Philosopher, Speak not evil of they neighbor, if thou dost thou shalt hear that which will not fail to trouble thee. There is no Person so inconsiderable, but may at some time or other do a displeasure: but in this of Defaming men need no harnessing, no preparation, every man has his weapons ready for a return: so that none can shoot these arrows, but they must expect they will revert with a rebounded force: not only to the violation of Christian Unity (as I have before observed) but to the Aggressors great secular detriment, both in fame, and oftentimes interest also. Revenge is sharp-sighted, and overlooks no opportunity of a retaliation, and that commonly not bounded as the Levitical ones were, An eye for any eye, a tooth for a tooth, Exodus 21:24. no, nor by the larger proportions of their restitutions fourfold, Exodus 22:1. but extended to the utmost power of the inflicter. The examples are innumerable of men who have thus laid themselves open in their greatest concerns, and have let loose the hands as well as Tongues of others against them, merely because they would put no restraint upon their own, which is so great an indiscretion, that to them we may well apply that of Solomon, A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul. Proverbs 18:7.