WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate,and would
not stay for an answer. Certainly there be,
that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to
fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well
as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers
of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain dis-
coursing wits, which are of the same veins, though
there be not so much blood in them, as was in those
of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and
labor, which men take in finding out of truth, nor
again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon
men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but
a natural, though corrupt love, of the lie itself. One
of the later school of the Grecians, examineth the
matter, and is at a stand, to think what should be
in it, that men should love lies; where neither they
make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advan-
tage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake.
But I cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and
open day-light, that doth not show the masks, and
mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half so
stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may
perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth
best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a
diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied
lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.
Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out
of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes,
false valuations, imaginations as one would, and
the like, but it would leave the minds, of a number
of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy
and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy
vinum daemonum, because it fireth the imagina-
tion; and yet, it is but with the shadow of a lie.
But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind,
but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that
doth the hurt; such as we spake of before. But how-
soever these things are thus in men's depraved
judgments, and affections, yet truth, which only
doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth,
which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the
knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and
the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is
the sovereign good of human nature. The first
creature of God, in the works of the days, was the
light of the sense; the last, was the light of reason;
and his sabbath work ever since, is the illumina-
tion of his Spirit. First he breathed light, upon the
face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed light,
into the face of man; and still he breatheth and in-
spireth light, into the face of his chosen. The poet,
that beautified the sect, that was otherwise in-
ferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a
pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see ships
tossed upon the sea; a pleasure, to stand in the win-
dow of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adven-
tures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable
to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth
(a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is
always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and
wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale
below; so always that this prospect be with pity,
and not with swelling, or pride. Certainly, it is
heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in
charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the
poles of truth.
To pass from theological, and philosophical
truth, to the truth of civil business; it will be ac-
knowledged, even by those that practise it not, that
clear, and round dealing, is the honor of man's
nature; and that mixture of falsehoods, is like alloy
in coin of gold and silver, which may make the
metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these
winding, and crooked courses, are the goings of the
serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and
not upon the feet. There is no vice, that doth so
cover a man with shame, as to be found false and
perfidious. And therefore Montaigne saith pret-
tily, when he inquired the reason, why the word
of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an
odious charge? Saith he, If it be well weighed, to
say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is
brave towards God, and a coward towards men.
For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely
the wickedness of falsehood, and breach of faith,
cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that
it shall be the last peal, to call the judgments of God
upon the generations of men; it being foretold,
that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith
upon the earth.
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