SERMON VI
ON EVIL-SPEAKING.
" But Jesus did not commit himself unto them; because he knew all men." John ii. 24.
These were the same Pharisees, who a little before had been decrying to the people the actions of Jesus Christ, and endeavouring to poison the purity and sanctity of his words, now make a show of believing in him, and classing themselves among his disciples. And such is the character of the evil-speaker; under the mask of esteem, and the flattering expressions of friendship, to conceal the keen invectives of slander.
Now, although this be, perhaps, the only vice which no circumstance can palliate, it is the one we are most ingenious in concealing from ourselves, and to which piety and the world at present show the greatest indulgence. Not that the character of a slanderer is not equally odious to men, as, according to the expression of the Holy Spirit, it is abominable in the sight of God; but in that number they comprise only particular defamers, of blacker and more avowed malignity, who deal their blows indiscriminately, and without art; and who, with sufficient malice to censure, are destitute of the wit necessary to please. Now, the defamers of that description are more rare; and had we only them to address ourselves to, it would be sufficient at present to point out, how much unworthy of reason and religion this vice is, to inspire with a just detestation of it those who feel themselves guilty.
But there is another description of slanderers who condemn the vice, yet allow themselves the practice of it; who, without regard, defame their brethren, yet applaud themselves for circumspection and moderation; who carry the sting to the heart, but, because it is more brilliant and piercing, perceive not the wound it has made. Now, defamers of this character are every where to be found: the world is filled with them; even the holy asylums are not free: this vice is the bond of union to the assemblies of sinners; it often finds its way even into the society of the just; and we may safely say, that all are tainted with it; and there is not one who has preserved his tongue pure, and his lips undefiled.
It is proper, then, my brethren, to expose at present the illusion of the pretexts made use of every day in the world, in justification of this vice, and to attack it in the circumstances where you believe it most innocent; for, were T to describe it to you, in general, with all its meanness, cruelty, and irreparability, you would no longer apply it to yourselves; and, far from inspiring you with horror at it, I should be accessary toward your persuasion that you are free from its guilt.
Now, what are the pretexts, which, in your eyes, soften or justify the vice of evil-speaking? In the first place, it is the lightness of the faults you censure: we persuade ourselves, that as it is not a matter of culpability, there cannot likewise be much harm in censuring it. Secondly, it is the public notoriety, by which, those to whom we speak being already informed of what is reprehensible in our brother, no loss of reputation can be the consequence of our discourses. Lastly, zeal for truth and the glory of God, which does not permit us to be silent on those disorders which dishonour him. Now, to these three pretexts, let us oppose three incontrovertible truths. To the pretext of the lightness of the faults; that the more the faults which you censure are light, the more is the slander unjust: — first truth. To the pretext of the public notoriety; that the more the faults of our brethren are known, the more cruel is the slander which censures them: — second truth. To the pretext of zeal; that the same charity, which, in piety, makes us hate sinners, makes us likewise cover the multitude of their faults: — last truth.
Part I. — The tongue, says the apostle James, is a devouring fire, a world of iniquity, an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. And, behold, what I would have applied to the tongue of the evil-speaker, had I undertaken to give you a just and natural idea of all the enormity of this vice, — I would have said, that the tongue of the slanderer is a devouring fire, which tarnishes whatever it touches; which exercises its fury on the good grain, equally as on the chaff; on the profane, as on the sacred; which wherever it passes, leaves only desolation and ruin; digs even into the bowels of the earth, and fixes itself on things the most hidden; turns into vile ashes, what, only a moment before, had appeared to us so precious and brilliant; acts with more violence and danger than ever, in the time when it was apparently smothered up and almost extinct; which blackens what it cannot consume, and sometimes sparkles and delights before it destroys. I would have told you, that evil-speaking is an assemblage of iniquity; a secret pride, which discovers to us the mote in our brother's eye, but hides the beam which is in our own; a mean envy, which, hurt at the talents or prosperity of others, makes them the subject of its censures, and studies to dim the splendour of whatever outshines itself; a disguised hatred, which sheds, in its speeches, the hidden venom of the heart; an unworthy duplicity, which praises to the face, and tears to pieces behind the back; a shameful levity, which has no command over itself or words, and often sacrifices both fortune and comfort to the imprudence of an amusing conversation; a delicate barbarity, which goes to pierce your absent brother; a scandal, where you become a subject of shame and sin to those who listen to you; an injustice, where you ravish from your brother what is dearest to him. I would have said, that slander is a restless evil, which disturbs society, spreads dissension through cities and countries, disunites the strictest friendships, is the source of hatred and revenge, fills, wherever it enters, with disturbances and confusion, and every where is an enemy to peace, comfort, and Christian good-breeding. Lastly, I would have added, that it is an evil full of deadly poison; whatever flows from it is infected, and poisons whatever it approaches; that even its praises are empoisoned, its applauses malicious, its silence criminal, its gestures, motions, and looks, have all their venom, and spread it each in their way.
Behold, what in this Discourse it would have been my duty, more at large, to have exposed to your view, had I not proposed only to paint to you the vileness of the vice, which I am now going to combat; but, as I have already said, these are only general invectives, which none apply to themselves. The more odious the vice is represented, the less do you perceive yourselves concerned in it; and though you acknowledge the principle, you make no use of it in the regulation of your manners; because, in these general paintings, we always find features which resemble us not. I wish, therefore, to confine myself, at present, to the single object of making you feel all the injustice of that description of slander which you think the most innocent; and, lest you should not feel yourselves connected with what I shall say, I shall attack it only in the pretexts which you continually employ in its justification.
Now, the first pretext which authorizes in the world almost all the defamations, and is the cause that our conversations are now continual censures upon our brethren, is the pretended insignificancy of the vices we expose to view. We would not wish to tarnish a man of character, or ruin his fortune, by dishonouring him ill the world; to stain the principles of a woman's conduct, by entering into the essential points of it: that would be too infamous and mean. But upon a thousand faults, which lead our judgment to believe them capable of all the rest; to inspire the minds of those who listen to us with a thousand suspicions which point out what we dare not say; to make satirical remarks, which discover a mystery, where no person before had perceived the least intention of concealment; by poisonous interpretations, to give an air of ridicule to manners which had hitherto escaped observation; to let every thing, on certain points, be clearly understood, while protesting that they are incapable themselves of cunning or deceit, — is what the world makes little scruple of; and though the motives, the circumstances, and the effects of these discourses be highly criminal, yet gaiety and liveliness excuse their malignity, to those who listen to us, and conceal from ourselves their atrocity.
I say, in the first place, the motives. I know that it is, above all, by the innocency of the intention that they pretend to justify themselves; that you continually say, that your design is not to tarnish the reputation of your brother, but innocently to divert yourselves with faults which do not dishonour him in the eyes of the world. You, my dear hearer, to divert yourself with his faults! But what is that cruel pleasure, which carries sorrow and bitterness to the heart of your brother? Where is the innocency of an amusement, whose source springs from vices which ought to inspire you with compassion and grief? If Jesus Christ forbid us in the gospel to invigorate the languors of conversation by idle words, shall it be more permitted to you to enliven it by derisions and censures? If the law curse him who uncovers the nakedness of his relations, shall you, who add raillery and insult to the discovery, be more protected from that malediction? If whoever call his brother fool, be worthy, according to Jesus Christ, of eternal fire, shall he who renders him the contempt and laughing-stock of a profane assembly, escape the same punishment? You, to amuse yourself with his faults? But does charity delight in evil? Is that rejoicing in the Lord, as commanded by the apostle? If you love your brother as yourself, can you delight in what afflicts him? Ah! the church formerly held in horror the exhibitions of gladiators, and denied that believers, brought up in the tenderness and benignity of Jesus Christ, could innocently feast their eyes with the blood and death of these unfortunate slaves, or form a harmless recreation of so inhuman a pleasure. But you renew more detestable shows, to enliven your languor: you bring upon the stage, not infamous wretches devoted to death, but members of Jesus Christ, your brethren; and there you entertain the spectators with wounds which you inflict on persons rendered sacred by baptism.
Is it then necessary that your brother should suffer, to amuse you? Can you find no delight in your conversation, unless his blood, as I may say, is furnished toward your iniquitous pleasures? Edify each other, says St. Paul, by words of peace and charity; relate the wonders of God toward the just, the history of his mercies to sinners; recall the virtues of those who, with the sign of faith, have preceded us; make an agreeable relaxation to yourselves, in reciting the pious examples of your brethren with whom you live; with a religious joy, speak of the victories of faith, of the aggrandisement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, of the establishment of truth, and the extinction of error, of the favours which Jesus Christ bestows on his church, by raising up in it faithful pastors, enlightened members, and religious princes; animate yourselves to virtue, by contemplating the little solidity of the world, the emptiness of pleasures, and the unhappiness of sinners, who yield themselves up to their unruly passions. Are these grand objects not worthy the delight of Christians? It was thus, however, that the first believers rejoiced in the Lord, and, from the sweets of their conversations, formed one of the most holy consolations to their temporal calamities. It is the heart, my brethren, which decides upon our pleasures: a corrupted heart feels no delight but in what recalls to him the image of his vices: innocent delights are only suitable to virtue.
In effect, you excuse the malignity of your censures by the innocency of your intentions. But fathom the secret of your heart: whence comes it that your sarcasms are always pointed to such an individual, and that you never amuse yourself with more wit, or more agreeably, than in recalling his faults? May it not proceed from a secret jealousy? Do not his talents, fortune, credit, station, or character, hurt you more than his faults? Would you find him so fit a subject for censure, had he fewer of those qualities which exalt him above you? Would you experience such pleasure in exposing his foibles, did not the world find qualities in him both valuable and praiseworthy? Would Saul have so often repeated with such pleasure that David was only the son of Jesse, had he not considered him as a rival, more deserving than himself of the empire? Whence comes it, that the faults of all others find you more indulgent? That elsewhere you excuse every thing, but here every circumstance comes empoisoned from your mouth? Go to the source, and examine if it is not some secret root of bitterness in your heart? And can you pretend to justify, by the innocency of the intention, discourses which flow from so corrupted a principle? You maintain that it is neither from hatred nor jealousy against your brother: I wish to believe it; but in your sarcasms, may there not be motives, perhaps, still more shameful and mean? Is it not your wish to render yourself agreeable, by turning your brother into an object of contempt and ridicule? Do you not sacrifice his character to your fortune? Courts are always so filled with these adulatory and sordidly interested satires on each other! The great are to be pitied whenever they yield themselves up to unwarrantable aversions. Vices are soon found out, even in that virtue itself which displeases them.
But, after all, you do not feel yourselves guilty, you say, of all these vile motives; and that it is merely through indiscretion, and levity of speech, if it sometimes happen that you defame your brethren. But is it by that you can suppose yourself more innocent? Levity and indiscretion! that vice, so unworthy of the gravity of a Christian, so distant from the seriousness and solidity of faith, and so often condemned in the gospel, can it justify another vice? \ What matters it to the brother whom you stab, whether it be done -^ y through indiscretion or malice? Does an arrow, unwittingly drawn, / make a less dangerous or slighter wound than if sent on purpose? Is the deadly blow which you give to your brother, more slight, because it was lanced through imprudence and levity? And what signifies the innocency of the intention, when the action is a crime? But, besides, is there no criminality in indiscretion, with regard to the reputation of your brethren? In any case whatever, can more circumspection and prudence be required? Are not all the duties of Christianity comprised in that of charity? Does not all religion, as I may say, consist in that? And to be incapable of attention and care, in a point so highly essential, is it not considering, as it were, all the rest as a sport? Ah! it is here he ought to put a guard of circumspection on his tongue, weigh every word, put them together in his heart, says the sage Ecclesiasticus, and let them ripen in his mouth. Do any of these inconsiderate speeches ever escape you, against yourself? Do you ever fail in attention to what interests your honour or glory? What indefatigable cares! what exertions and industry, to make them prosper! To what lengths we see you go, to increase your interest or improve your fortune! If it ever happen that you take blame to yourself, it is always under circumstances which tend to your praise: you censure in yourself only faults which do you honour; and, in confessing your vices, you wish only to recapitulate your virtues: self-love connects every thing with yourself. Love your brother as you love yourself, and every thing will recall you to him; you will be incapable of indiscretion, where his interest is concerned, and will no longer need our instructions, in respect to what you owe to his character and glory.
But if these slanders, which you call trivial, be criminal in their motives, they are not less so in their circumstances.
In the first place, I should make you observe, that the world, familiarized with guilt, and accustomed to see the most heinous vices now become the vices of the multitude, is no longer shocked at them; denominates light, defamations which turn upon the most criminal and shameful weaknesses: suspicions of infidelity, in the sacred bond of marriage, are no longer a marked discredit or an essential stain, — they are sources of derision and pleasantry: to accuse a courtier of insincerity and double-dealing, is no attack upon his honour; it is only casting a ridicule on the protestations of sincerity with which he amuses us: to spread the suspicion of hypocrisy, in the sincerest piety, is not an insult to God through his saints; it is a language of derision, which custom has rendered common: in a word, excepting those crimes punishable by the public authority, and which are attended with the loss of credit and property, all others seem trivial, and become the ordinary subject of conversation and of the public censure.
But let us not pursue this reflection farther. I wish to allow that your brother's faults are light: the more they are light, the more are you unjust in heightening them: the more he merits indulgence on your part, the more are we to presume in you a malignity of observation, from which nothing can escape; a natural hardness of heart, which can excuse nothing. Were the faults of your brother important you would spare him, you say; you would find him entitled to your indulgence; politeness and religion would make your silence a duty. What! because his weaknesses are only trivial, you find him less worthy of your regard? The very circumstance which ought to make him respectable, authorizes you in making him the butt of your sarcasms? Are you not, says the apostle, become a judge of iniquitous thoughts? And your eye, is it then wicked, only because your brother is good? Besides, the faults which you censure are light; but would they appear so to you, were you to be reproached with them? When certain discourses, held in your absence, have reached your ears, and which, in fact, attacked essentially neither your honour nor probity, but only acquainted the public with some of your weaknesses, what have been your sensations? My God! Then it was that you magnified every thing; that every circumstance appeared important to you; that, not satisfied with exaggerating the malice of the words, you raked up the secret of the intention, and hoped to find motives still more odious than the discourses. In vain you are told, that these are not reproaches which essentially interest you, and, at the worst, cannot disgrace you: you think yourselves insulted; you mention them with bitter complaints; you blaze out, and are no longer masters of your resentment; and whilst all the world blames the excess of your sensibility, you alone obstinately persist in the belief of its being a serious affair, and that your honour is interested in it. Make use, then, of this rule in the faults which you publish of your brother: apply the offence to yourselves: every thing is light which is against him; but with regard to what touches you, the smallest circumstance appears important to your pride, and worthy of all your resentment.
Lastly. The vices which you censure are light; but do you add nothing of your own to them? Do you faithfully exhibit them as they are? In their relation, do you never mingle the malignity of your own conjectures? Do you not place them in a point of view different from their natural state? Do you not embellish your tale? And, in order to make the hero of your ridicule agreeable, do you not fashion him to the wish of the company, and not such as in reality he is? Do you never accompany your speeches with certain gestures, which allow all to be understood; with certain expressions which open the minds of your hearers to a thousand suspicions equally rash as dishonourable? Even with a certain silence, which permits more to be imagined than any thing you could have possibly said? For, how difficult is it to confine ourselves to the bounds of truth when we are no longer within those of charity! The more what we censure is light, the more is calumny to be dreaded; we must embellish, to attract attention; and we become calumniators, where we did not suppose ourselves even censurers.
Behold the circumstances which regard you; but if, on their account, the slanders which you think light, be highly criminal, will they be less so with respect to the individuals whom they attack?
In the first place, it is a person, perhaps of a sex, to whom, especially on certain points, the slightest stains are important; to whom it is a dishonour to be publicly spoken of; to whom raillery becomes an insult, and every suspicion an accusation; in a word, a person, whom not to praise, becomes an outrage and a disgrace to their station. Thus St. Paul would have every woman to be adorned with bashfulness and modesty; that is to say, he would wish those virtues to be as conspicuous in them as the ornaments with which they are covered; and the highest eulogy which the Holy Spirit makes on Judith, after speaking of her beauty, youth, and great wealth, is, that in all Israel not a person was to be found who had aspersed her conduct, and that her reputation corresponded with her virtue.
Secondly. Your censures are perhaps pointed toward your superiors; or against those whom Providence has established above you, and to whom the law of God commands you to render that respect and submission to which they are entitled. For the pride which hates inferiority, always recompenses itself by finding out weaknesses and foibles in those to whom it is under the necessity of yielding obedience; the more they are exalted, the more they are exposed to our censures. Malignity is even more quick-sighted in regard to their errors; nothing in their actions is pardoned; the very persons most loaded with their kindnesses, or most honoured by their familiarity, are frequently those who most openly publish their imperfections and vices; and besides violating the sacred duty of respect, they likewise render themselves guilty of the mean and shameful crime of ingratitude.
Thirdly. It is a person, perhaps consecrated to God, and established in the church, whom you censure; who, engaged by the sanctity of his vocation, to more exemplary, pure, and irreproachable manners, finds himself stained and dishonoured by censures which would not affect the reputation of persons of the world. Thus the Lord, in the Scriptures curseth those who shall even meddle with his anointed. Nevertheless, the traits of slander are never more animated, more brilliant, or more applauded in the world, than when directed against the ministers of his word. The world, so indulgent to itself, seems to have preserved its severity only on their account; and for them it has eyes more censorious, and a tongue more empoisoned, than for the rest of men. It is true, O my God! that our conversation amongst the people is not always holy, and free from reproach; that we frequently adopt the manners, luxury, indolence, idleness, and pleasures of the world, against which we ought to struggle; that we hold out to believers more examples of pride and negligence than of virtue; that we are more jealous of pre-eminence than of the duties of our calling; and that it is difficult for the world to honour a character which we ourselves disgrace. But, as I have often said, my brethren, our infidelities ought rather to be the subject of your tears than of your pleasantry and censures. God generally punishes the disorders of the people by the corruption of the priests; and the most dreadful scourge with which he strikes kingdoms and empires, is that of not raising up in them venerable pastors, and zealous ministers, who may stem the torrent of dissipation; it is that of permitting faith and religion to become weakened, even among those who are its defenders and depositaries; that the light, which was meant to instruct you, should be changed into darkness; that the co-operators in your salvation should assist, by their example, toward your destruction; that even from the sanctuary, from whence ought to proceed only the good savour of Jesus Christ, there should issue a smell of death and scandal; and, in a word, that abominations should find their way even into the holy place. But what alteration does the relaxation of our manners make in the sanctity of the vocation which consecrates us? Are the sacred vases which serve on the altar, though composed of a mean metal, less worthy of your respect? And even granting the minister may merit your contempt, would you be less sacrilegious in not respecting his ministry?
What shall I say? Your detractions and censures are perhaps directed against persons who make a public profession of piety, and whose virtue your hearers formerly respected. You then persuade them that they had been too credulous; you authorize them to believe, that few worthy and intrinsically good characters are to be found on the earth; that all those held out as such, when narrowly examined, are like the rest of men: you confirm the prejudices of the world against virtue, and give fresh credit to those discourses, so usual, and so injurious to religion, with regard to the piety of the servants of Jesus Christ. Now, do all these appear so very light to you? Ah, my brethren! the just on this earth are like the holy ark, in the midst of which the Lord dwells, and any contempt or insult to which, he most rigorously avenges. They may stagger in their road, like the ark of Israel, while conducting in triumph to Jerusalem, for the purest and most shining virtue has its spots and eclipses, and even the most solid cannot always equally support itself; but the Lord is incensed, when rash and impure hands, like those of Uzziah, shall venture to put them right; and scarcely have they touched them, when they are smote by his wrath. He takes to himself the slightest insults with which they dishonour his servants, and he cannot endure that virtue, which has found admirers, even amongst tyrants and the most barbarous nations, should frequently, among believers, find only censures and derisions. Thus the little children of Israel were devoured on the spot, for having mocked the small number of hairs of the man of God; nevertheless, these were only the puerile indiscretions so pardonable at their age. Fire from heaven fell upon the officer of the impious Ahaziah, and in a moment consumed him for having in derision called Elijah the man of God; nevertheless, it was a courtier, from whom little regard might be expected for the austerity and simplicity of a prophet, or for the virtue of a man, rustic in his appearance, and hateful to his master. Michal was struck with barrenness, for having too harshly censured the holy excesses of joy and piety of David before the altar; nevertheless, it proceeded merely from female delicacy. But to meddle with those who serve the Lord, is, according to the Scripture, to meddle with the apple of your eye. He invisibly curses those rash censures on piety; and though he may not strike them, as formerly, with instant death, yet he marks on their forehead, from this life forward, the stamp of reprobation, and denies to themselves that precious gift of sanctity and grace which they had despised in others. Nevertheless, it is the upright who are now become the general butt of the malignity of public discourses; and we may safely say, that virtue gives birth to more censurers in the world than vice.
I do not add, that if these slanders, which you term light, be highly criminal in their motives and circumstances, they are still more so in their consequences; I say their consequences, my brethren, which are always irreparable. You may expiate the crime of voluptuousness by mortification and penitence; the crime of hatred by love for your enemy; the crime of ambition by a renunciation of the honours and grandeurs of the age; the crime of injustice by a restoration of what you had unjustly ravished from your brother; even the crime of impiety and free-thinking, by a religious and public respect for the worship of your fathers; but what remedy, what virtue, can repair the crime of detraction? You revealed to only one person the vices of your brother: it may be so; but that unlucky confidant will soon, in his turn, have communicated it to others, who, on their part, no longer regarding as a secret what they have just heard, will relate it to the first comers; in the relation of it, every one will add new circumstances; each, in his way, will empoison it with some new trait; in proportion as they publish, they will increase, they will magnify it: similar to a spark of fire, says St. James, which, wafted by an impetuous wind to different places, sets in flames the forests and countries it reaches: such is the destiny of detraction.
What you had mentioned in secret was nothing at first, and seemed stifled and buried under its own ashes; but this fire lies hid for a while only in order to burst forth with redoubled fury: that nothing soon acquires reality, by passing through a diversity of mouths; every one will add to it whatever his passion, interest, disposition of mind, or his own malignity, may hold out to him as probable. The source is hardly perceptible; but, assisted in its course by a thousand foreign streams, the united torrent will overwhelm the court, city, and country; and that, which at its birth was only a private and imprudent pleasantry, but a simple idea, but a malicious conjecture, will become a serious affair, a public and formal dishonour, the subject of every conversation, and an eternal stain upon the character of your brother. Repair now, if you can, the injustice and scandal; restore to your brother the good name of which you have deprived him. Will you pretend to oppose the public inveteracy, and singly hold forth his praise? But they will regard you as a new comer, who is ignorant of what has taken place in the world; and your praises, come far too late, will serve only to draw upon him fresh satires. Now, what a multitude of crimes proceeding from only one! The sins of a whole people become your's; you defame through the mouths of all your fellowcitizens; you are likewise answerable for the guilt of all who listen to you. What penitence can expiate evils to which it can no longer afford relief? And will your tears be able to blot out what shall never be effaced from the memory of man? Again, were the scandal to end with you, your death, by terminating it, might be its expiation before God. But it is a scandal which will survive you. The shameful histories of courts never die with their heroes. Lascivious writers have transmitted to us the anecdotes and irregularities of the courts which have preceded us; and licentious authors will be found amongst us, to acquaint the ages to come with the public rumours, the scandalous circumstances, and the vices of our own.
O my God! these are of that description of sins of which we know not either the enormity or extent; but we know, that to become a stumbling-block to our brethren is to overturn for them the work of thy Son's mission, and to destroy the fruit of his labours, of his death, and of all his ministry. Such is the illusion of the pretext which you draw from the lightness of your slanders; the motives are never innocent, the circumstances always criminal, the consequences irreparable. Let us examine if the pretext of the public notoriety be better founded. This is what yet remains for me to investigate.
Part II. — Whence comes it that the majority of precepts are violated by those very persons who profess themselves their observers, and that we find more difficulty in bringing the world to acknowledge than to correct its transgressions? The reason is, that our ideas of duty are never taken from the ground- work of religion; that we never enter into the spirit to decide upon the letter; and that few people ascend to the principle to clear up the doubts which corruption forms on the detail of the consequences.
Now, to apply this maxim to my subject: what are the rules in the gospel which constitute slander a crime to the disciples of Jesus Christ? In the first place, it is the precept of Christian humility, which, as it ought to establish in us a profound contempt of ourselves, and to open our eyes on the endless multitude of our own wants, should at the same time shut our eyes on those of our brethren. In the second place, it is the duty of charity; that charity so recommended in the gospel; the grand precept of the law, which covers the faults it cannot correct, excuses those it cannot cover, delights not in evil, and with difficulty believes, because it never wishes it to happen. Lastly, it is the inviolable rule of justice, which, never permitting us to do to others what we would not have done to ourselves, condemns whatever goes beyond these equitable bounds. Now, the scandalous discourses which turn upon those faults which you term public, essentially wound these three rules: judge, then, of their innocency.
First. They wound the precept of Christian humility. Indeed, my dear hearer, were you feelingly touched with your own wants, says a holy father; were your own sin incessantly before your eyes, like the penitent David, you would find neither sufficient leisure nor attention to remark the faults of your brethren. The more they were public, the more would you in secret thank the Lord for averting from you that scandal; the more would you feel your gratitude awakened, when you considered, that, though fallen perhaps into the same errors, he hath not permitted them to be proclaimed from the house-tops, like those of your brother; that he hath left in obscurity your deeds of darkness; that he hath covered them, as I may say, with his wings; and that, in the eyes of men, he hath preserved for you an honour and an innocence which you have so often forfeited before him: you would tremble, while saying to yourself, that perhaps he hath spared your confusion in this world, only to render it more bitter and more durable in the next.
Such is the disposition of Christian humility toward the public disgraces of our brethren. We should often speak of them to ourselves, but almost never to others. Thus, when the Scribes and Pharisees presented to our Saviour the woman caught in adultery, and eagerly pressed him to give his judgment, though the guilt of the sinner was public, Jesus Christ kept a profound silence; and to their insidious and pressing entreaties to explain himself, he simply answered, " He that is without sin amongst you, let him first cast a stone at her;" as if he thereby meant to make them understand that sinners like them were little entitled to condemn, with so high a hand, the crime of that woman; and that to acquire the right of casting a single stone at her, it was necessary the individual should himself be free from reproach. And behold my brethren, what I wish to say to you at present: the evil conduct of such a person is become notorious. Very well; whoever of you is without sin, let him cast the first stone! If, before God, you have nothing, perhaps more criminal, with which to reproach yourself speak with freedom; condemn, in the severest manner, his fault, and open upon him the whole flood of your derisions and censures: it is permitted to you. Ah! you, who so hardly speak of it, you are more fortunate; but are you more innocent than he? You are thought to possess more virtue, and more regard for your duty; but God, who knoweth you, will he judge like men? Were the darkness which conceals your shame to be dissipated, would not every stone you throw recoil upon yourselves? Were an unexpected circumstance to betray your secret, would not the audacity and malicious joy with which you censure, add additional ridicule to your confusion and disgrace? Ah! it is only to artifices and arrangements, which the justice of God may disconcert and lay open in an instant, that you are indebted for this phantom of reputation on which you pride yourselves so much. You perhaps border on the moment which shall reveal your shame; and, far from blushing in secret and in silence, when faults like your own are made known, you speak of and relate them with pleasure, and you furnish the public with traits which one day it will employ against yourself. It is the threat and prediction of our Saviour: " All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." You pierce your brother with the sword of the tongue; with the same weapon shall you be pierced in your turn; and though you were even exempted from the vices you so boldly censure in others, the just God will deliver you up to it.
Disgrace is the common punishment of pride. Peter, on the evening of the Lord's supper, never ceased to exaggerate the guilt of the disciple by whom his Master was to be betrayed. He was the most anxious of them all to know his name, and the most forward to express his detestation of his perfidy; and, immediately after, he falls himself into the infidelity which he had so lately blamed with such pride and confidence. Nothing draws down upon us the wrath and curse of God so much as the malicious pleasure with which we magnify the faults of our brethren; and his mercy is incensed, that these afflicting examples, which he permits for the sole purpose of recalling us to our own weaknesses and awakening our vigilance, should flatter our pride, and excite only our derisions and censures.
You depart, then, from the rules of Christian humility, when you permit yourselves to censure the faults, however public, of your brother; but you likewise essentially wound those of charity; for charity never faileth says the apostle. Now, if the vices of your brother be known to those who listen to you, to what purpose, then, do you repeat them afresh? What, indeed, can be your intention? To blame his conduct? But, is his shame not already sufficient? Would you wish to overwhelm an unfortunate wretch, and give the last stab to a man already pierced with a thousand mortal blows? His guilt has already been exaggerated by so many dark and malicious hearts, who have spread it in colours sufficient to blacken it for ever. Is he not sufficiently punished? He is now worthy of your pity rather than of your censures. What then could be your intentions? To condole with him for his misfortune? But to open afresh his wounds, is a strange way of condoling with an unfortunate brother. Is true compassion thus cruel? What is it then? To justify your prophecies and former suspicions on his conduct? To tell us, that you had always believed that, sooner or later, it would come to that? But you come, then, to triumph over his misfortune? To applaud yourself for his disgrace? To claim an honour to yourself for the malignity of your judgment? Alas! what glory can it be to a Christian to have suspected his. brother; to have believed him guilty before he was known as such; to have rashly foreseen his disgraces yet to come; — we, who ought not to see them, even when they have taken place. Ah! you can prophesy so justly on the destiny of others: be a prophet in your own country, and anticipate the misfortunes which threaten you. Why do you not prophesy thus for yourself, — that unless you fly from such an opportunity, and such a danger, you will perish in it? — that unless you dissolve such a connexion, the public which already murmurs, will at last break out, and then you will find it too late to repair the scandal; — that unless you quit these excesses, into which the passions of youth and a bad education have thrown you, your affairs and fortune will be ruined beyond resource? It is on these points that you ought to exercise your art of conjecture. What madness, while surrounded oneself with precipices, to be occupied in contemplating from afar those that threaten our brethren!
Besides, the more your brother's disgraces are public, the more affected ought you to be with the scandal which they necessarily occasion to the church; with the advantage which the wicked and the freethinkers will draw from them, to blaspheme the name of the Lord, to harden themselves in impiety and to persuade themselves that these are weaknesses common to all men, and that they are most virtuous who best know how to conceal them; — the more ought you to be afflicted at the occasion which these public examples of irregularity give to weak souls to fall into the same disorders; the more does charity oblige you to grieve over them; the more ought you to wish, that the remembrance of these faults should perish; that the day and the places of their revealment should be effaced from the memory of men; and, lastly, the more ought you, by your silence, to endeavour to suppress them. But the whole world speaks of them, you say: your silence will not prevent the public conversations; consequently, you make remarks in your turn. The inference is barbarous. Because you are unable to repair the disgrace, are you permitted to augment it? Because you cannot save your brother from shame, shall you assist to overwhelm him with confusion and infamy? Because almost every one casts a stone at him, shall it be less cruel in you to throw one in your turn, and to unite with those who bruise and beat him in pieces? Setting religion aside, how beautiful it is to declare for the unfortunate! How much real dignity and greatness of soul in sheltering under our protection those abandoned by the world! And, even admitting the rules of charity were not to make it a duty to us, the feelings alone of glory and humanity should in this case be sufficient.
Thirdly. You not only violate the holy rules of charity, but you are also a breaker of those of justice; for the faults of your brother are public; let it be so; but place yourself in the same situation, would you exact from him less deference, or less humanity, were your disgrace to be no longer a mystery? Would you agree, that the public example gave to your brother a right against you, which you arrogate to yourself against him? Would you accept on his part, in justification of his malignity, an excuse which would render him still more odious, mean, and cruel? Besides, how do you know whether the author of all these reports be not an impostor? So many false reports are circulated in the world; and the malice of men renders them so credulous on the faults of others! How do you know but these calumnies have been circulated by an enemy, a rival, or some envious person, in order to ruin him, who has thwarted his passions or his fortune? Are such instances rare? Whether it be not some heedless person who has given occasion to all these discourses, by an indiscreet expression, uttered without thought, and laid hold of through malice. Are such mistakes impossible? Whether it be not a mere conjecture, originally circulated as such, and afterwards given as a truth? Are such alterations uncommon in public rumours? What could have a greater appearance of feasibility, to the children of the captivity, than the alleged misconduct of Susanna. The judges of the people of God, venerable through their age and dignity, deposed against her; the people exclaimed against her as an adulteress; they looked upon her as the disgrace of Israel; nevertheless, it was her modesty alone which drew upon her these insults; and had not a Daniel been found in her time, who had the courage to doubt a general report, the blood of that innocent woman must have stained the whole people. And, without departing from our gospel, were not the sacrilegious reports, which held out Jesus as an impostor and Samaritan, become the public discourses of all Judea? The Priests and Pharisees, to whom the the dignity of their station, and the regularity of their manners, attracted the respect and confidence of the people, strengthened them by their authority. Nevertheless, would you excuse such amongst the Jews as, on reports so common, spoke of the Saviour of the world as a seducer, who imposed on the credulity of the people? You expose yourself, then, to the guilt of having calumniated your brother; however circulated the rumours against him may be, his crime, of which you have not been a witness, is always dubious to you, and you do him an injustice, when you propagate as true, what you have only heard from public reports, often false, and always rash.
But I go farther: when your brothers disgrace should even be certain, and the malignity of reports should have added nothing to its criminality; how can you know that the very shame of seeing it so public may not have recalled him to himself; and that a sincere repentance, and tears of compunction, may not have already effaced and expiated it before God? Years are not always required for grace to triumph over a rebellious heart; there are victories which it leaves not to time; and a public disgrace often turns out the moment of mercy, which decides upon the conversion of a sinner. Now, if your brother is in a state of repentance, are you not unjust and cruel to revive faults which his penitence has effaced, and which the Lord hath ceased to remember? Do you recollect the sinful woman in the gospel? Her irregularities were notorious, seeing she had been known through the whole city as a prostitute; nevertheless, when the Pharisees reproached her with her sins, her tears and love had effaced them at the feet of our Saviour; the goodness of God had remitted her errors, yet the malignity of men was unable to obliterate them.
Lastly. Your brothers disgrace was public; that is to say, it was confusedly known that his conduct was not free from reproach, and you come to particularize the circumstances, to proclaim his deeds, to explain the motives, and to lay open the whole mystery; to confirm what they but imperfectly knew; to tell them of: what they knew not at all; and to applaud yourself for appearing better instructed in your brother's misfortune than those who listen to you. Some degree of character, though wavering, yet remained to him; he still preserved, at least, some remains of honour, a spark of life, and you completely extinguish it. I do not add, that these public reports, perhaps originated from people of no character, persons of neither reputation nor consequence to convince. Hitherto none durst yield credit to rumours so poorly supported; but you, who, by your rank, birth, and dignities, have acquired an influence over the minds, remove every shadow of doubt or uncertainty. Your name alone will now serve as a proof against the innocency of your brother; and in future it will be cited in justification of the general reports. Now, can any thing be harder or more unjust, both on account of the injury you do to him, and of the service you fail to perform? Your silence on his fault might alone perhaps have stopped the public defamation, and you would have been cited to clear his innocence, as you now are to blacken it. And what more respectable use could you have made of your rank and influence? The more [you are exalted in the world, the more ought you to be religious and circumspect on the reputation of your brethren; the more ought a noble decency to render you reserved on their errors. The discourses of the vulgar are soon forgot, they expire in coming into the world; but the words of the great never fall in vain, and the public is always a faithful echo, either to the praises they bestow, or to the censures they allow themselves to utter. My God! thou teachest us, by concealing thyself the sins of men, to conceal them on our part; to reveal our faults, thou waitest with a merciful patience the day when the secrets of our hearts shall be manifested; and we, by a rash malignity, anticipate the time of thy vengance; we, who are so interested, that the secrecies of our hearts, and the mystery of the consciences, should not as yet be laid open to thee.
Thus, you particularly, my brethren, whom rank and birth exalt above others, be not satisfied with putting a check upon your tongue; according to the advice of the Holy Spirit, present a melancholy and severe countenance, a silence of disapprobation and indignation to every defamatory discourse; for the crime is exactly equal between the malignity of the speaker and the satisfaction of those who listen to him. Let us surround our ears with thorns, that they may not be accesible to poisonous insinuations; that is to say, let us not only shut them against these words of blood and gall, but let us return them on their author in a manner equally bitter and mortifying. Were slander to find fewer approvers, the kingdom of Jesus Christ would soon be purged of that scandal. Slander is pleasing; and a vice which pleases, soon becomes a desirable talent. We animate slander by our applauses; and as there is no person but wishes to be applauded, there are few, likewise, who do not study it, and endeavour to make a merit of slandering with skill.
But what is surprising is, that piety itself frequently serves as a pretext to that vice, which saps the very foundations of piety, and which sincere piety detests. This ought to be the last part of this Discourse; but I shall say only a single word upon it. Yes, my brethren, slander frequently finds, in piety itself, wherewithal to colour itself. It decks itself out in the appearance of zeal. Hatred to vice seems to authroize the censure of sinners. Those who make a profession of virtue often believe that they are honouring God, and rendering glory to him, when they dishonour and exclaim against those who offend him; as though the privilege of piety, whose soul is charity, were to dispense us even from charity. It is not that I wish here to justify the discourses of the world, and to furnish it with new traits against the zeal of the upright; but, at the same time, I ought not to dissemble, that the liberty which they assume, of censuring the conduct of their brethren, is one of the most common abuses of piety.
Now, my dear hearer, you whom this Discourse regards, listen to, and never forget, the rules which the gospel prescribes to true zeal.
First. Remember, that the zeal which makes us lament over the scandals that dishonour the church, is contented with lamenting them before God; with praying him not to forget his former mercies; to cast his propitious regards upon the people; to establish his reign in all hearts, and to recall sinners from their erroneous ways. Behold the holy manner of lamenting over the disgraces of your brethren; mention them frequently to the Lord, but forget them in the presence of men.
Secondly. Remember, that piety gives you no right of empire or authority over your brethren; that if you be not established over them, and responsible for their conduct, whether they fall or remain steadfast, is the concern of the Lord, and not yours; consequently, that your continual and public lamentations over their irregularities proceed from a principle of pride, malignity, levity, and intolerance; that the church has its pastors to superintend the flock; that the ark has its ministers to sustain it, without needing the interference of any foreign or imprudent succours; and, lastly, that by these means, far from correcting your brethren, you dishonour piety you justify the discourses of the wicked against the just, and you authorize them in saying, as formerly in the Book of Wisdom — why professeth the righteous to have a right to fill the streets, and the public places, with their clamours and upbraidings against our conduct, and holdeth it out as a point of virtue to defame us in the minds of our brethren?
Thirdly. Remember, that the zeal regulated by wisdom seeks the salvation, and not the defamation, of the brother it wishes to edify; that it loves not to injure; that, in order to render itself useful, it studies to render itself amiable; that it is more affected with the misfortune and loss of its brother, than irritated against, or scandalized by, his errors; that, far from going to publish them to others, it would wish to be enabled to conceal them from itself; and that the zeal which censures them, far from lessening the evil, serves only to augment the scandal.
Fourthly. Remember, that the censorious zeal which you display is useless to your brother, seeing he witnesses it not; that, far from being of service, it is even hurtful to his conversion, to which you raise up obstacles, by irritating him against your censures, should he happen to be informed of them; that it is injurious to his reputation, which you wound; and, lastly, to those that listen to you, who, respecting your pretended virtue, never entertain a doubt that they can err, while following your steps, and no longer place slander among the number of vices. Zeal is humble, and has eyes for nothing but its own wants; it is simple, and much more disposed to be credulous with regard to good than evil; it is merciful, and is always indulgent to the faults of others, in the same proportion as it is severe to its own weaknesses; it is gentle and timorous, and prefers to have failed in sufficiently blaming vice, to rashly exposing itself to go too far in censuring the sinner.
Thus, my brethren, you who, returned from the errors of the world, now serve the Lord, allow me to conclude, with addressing to you the same words formerly spoken by a holy father to the servants of Jesus Christ, who, through an indiscreet zeal, made no scruple of tearing in pieces the characters of their brethren:
"A tongue which has confessed Jesus Christ, which has renounced the errors and splendours of the world, which every day blesses the God of peace at the foot of the altar, and is often consecrated, by participation of the holy mysteries, should no longer be intolerant, dangerous, and full of gall and bitterness against its brethren. It is disgracing religion, after having offered up pure prayers and thanksgivings to the Lord in the assembly of believers, to go and spit out the venomous traits of the serpent, against those whom the unity of faith, charity, the sacrament, and even their very errors, should render more endeared and more respectable to you."
By the wisdom and moderation of our discourses, let us deprive the enemies of virtue of every occasion to blaspheme against it; let us correct our brethren by the sanctity of our example rather than by the keenness of our censures; let us recall them, by living better than they, and not by speaking against them; let us render virtue respectable by its sweetness rather than by its severity; let us draw sinners toward us by compassionating rather than censuring their faults, in order that our virtue may be conspicuous to them only through our charity and indulgence, and that our tender care to cover and excuse their faults, may induce them to accuse and condemn themselves with more severity, when they perceive the difference of our conduct. By these means we shall regain our brethren; we shall honour piety; we shall overthrow impiety and freethinking; we shall deprive the world of all occasion for those discourses, so common and so injurious to real virtue; and, after having used mercy toward our brethren, we shall with more confidence go to present ourselves before the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation, to ask mercy for ourselves.