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SERMON XV.

SUBORNATION OF INSINCERITY.

2 JOHN 4.

I rejoiced greatly when I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father.

Who does not profess to admire and love sincerity? It is the theme of universal eulogy, and very deservedly so, and in a certain sense very honestly so; for those who have no intention of practising it themselves, yet perceive that in many points it would be very convenient to them that it should be practised by others, and so it has their hearty recommendation. And yet with all this praise there is, perhaps, not another virtue with which society deals so harshly. We have heard of political virtues being expiated on the scaffold, but perfect sincerity would subject its possessor to a living martyrdom, which would endure from childhood to old age. As a Christian grace, certain is its crown of glory hereafter; but not less certain is its crown of thorns here. Its way to immortality is by a crucifixion. It is true, that notwithstanding these external inflictions, it may have internal sources of consolation and strength. That

It

is only saying that the wisdom of Providence may counteract the folly of man. It is no merit of theirs who hedge up the straight-forward path, and would, if they could, make the fence an insurmountable barrier: they are quite as culpable as if they were completely successful; and that culpability is not trifling. We have no slight responsibility in this matter. ought to weigh heavily on a man's conscience, if he have been the cause of another's deviating from sincerity and frankness into the crooked ways of concealment and guile. When we pray that the kingdom of God may come, we mean that it should comé in other's hearts as well as in our own: our duty is not to obstruct it anywhere. It is no justification of repressing a virtue in others that we practise it ourselves. If, for instance, we plume ourselves upon speaking out our own opinions, but do it in a manner so violent and overbearing that we drive others into the suppression of their honest convictions, it may be that we do as much harm by the fervor as benefit by the frankness. Our sincerity is not good, in so far as to another it becomes the stimulus to insincerity. It was often remarked, when attempts were making to rouse the sympathies of the people of this country in favor of the Greeks, that the character of their Turkish masters was one which might be regarded with much greater moral complacency; that the Turk was manly, open, truthful in his language, but the Greek cunning, deceptive, fraudulent. Now the same thing might be said of oppressors and slaves all over the world. Why should they practise acts of cunning who have nothing to apprehend, or resort to

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fraud who can use force with impunity?

The vices

of slaves are generated by the condition of slavery. The frankness of the tyrant arises not from the love of truth, but from a sense of power: he keeps down truth in his bondsmen; he is guilty in their degradation-for the cause of their insincerity is in his oppressions; and if it were not by oppression, but by bribery, by persuasion, by talking, by legislation, by influence, by church government, or in any other way, he would be guilty still. This is the evil against which I warn you. I am not now preaching against the practice of insincerity, but the promotion of insincerity. I wish you to heed the distinction. You may be very sincere, and yet do many things which tend to make those about you less sincere than they otherwise would be. There is a subornation of insincerity which is not less vicious than falsehood itself, inasmuch as it produces falsehood in others. There may be no such intention, perhaps a very opposite intention; but it is weak to talk of intention when the tendency of actions may be ascertained by reflection and exhibited in experience. 'I did not mean any harm,' is a contemptible apology for having occasioned mischief which reflection might have anticipated and precaution might have prevented. We are responsible, not only for the goodness of our intentions, but for the use of all the means in our power by which those intentions may be made wise as well as good, and their useful realization brought within the compass of a rational probability. Without such use, the plea is very pitiful, and the conduct very wrong.

In most things connected with religion, what a tide of influence sets in to bear down individual sincerity! What can be more hostile to it than that dogma, so generally held, so vehemently maintained, so vigorously enforced, of the condemnability of opinion? The wide-spread notion that belief is not merely intellectual but moral-not necessary but voluntary-seems at times to have darkly overclouded almost the whole horizon of human honesty. It strikes at the very root of sincerity, and excites man's fears, so as to make him palter with his mental convictions, and become unfaithful to his own conscience. To declare to an inquirer, the reception of this doctrine will save your soul,-the rejection of that doctrine will consign you to damnation,'-is a declaration of war against truthfulness. It is doing your utmost to make him a partial inquirer or a hypocritical professor. How many would be induced to doubt, deny, or be silent about, the demonstrated propositions of Euclid, if a large and influential portion of society should uphold, that to affirm the whole to be greater than a part, was indicative of vicious disposition, and worthy of future suffering. We often hear of the dishonesty of unbelievers in their attacks on Christianity. They have shown much disingenuousness in assailing it by insinuations and covertly. The blame is not all their own; it must be shared by those Christians who make such opinions, however erroneous, a legal offence, a social proscription, the token of God's eternal reprobation. What greater influence could be used to make them disingenuous? But in this respect the teacher has been as hardly tempted

as the sceptic. How, in some churches, commences that priesthood which has for so important a part of its ministry, the inculcation of Christian sincerity and simplicity? By professing a call from the Holy Spirit, which, to say the least, cannot be evidenced; by subscribing a long and complicated creed when, to say the least, but little of it can have been investigat ed. Carry this farther. Connect temporal advantages, connect political advantages, connect bright prospects and hopes, connect large emoluments, connect the means of subsistence, with the profession of faith in certain dogmas, and the preference of certain forms and systems, and what but insincerity, to a great extent, can be the result? If any intended to generate equivocation, the suppression of honest thought, a bias to outward acquiescence, without inward conviction, what means more adapted to that end could be devised? Prevent diversity of opinion, indeed; the most that can be done, is to produce uniformity of expression. Churches of humbler form and means have tried their power in the same way. They have their little tests to fence their little circles. They roll their mimic echoes of the thunder of excommunication, and within their pale keep men's tongues quiet or servile. The influence extends beyond all churches; and they who worship no God, are horror-struck at those who only adore one Divine person; and he who knows nothing, shudders at him who does know something, though he only believes a little. Hence a monstrous mass of ignorance, servility, and hypocrisy of profession, in religion. But this preserves purity of faith, we are told. What

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