Answ. When preachers ask such questions unscripturally and slyly, they are suspicious turnkeys for Lucifer, working his chain pump, to produce by the sucker of the tongue, the putrescent bilge water of hell, which they squirt through the syringe of slanderous whispering, and contaminating destructive oppression, by which hydraulic machine the tree of defamation is watered and nourished, until by spreading its roots and boughs throughout all the circles of society, the surrounding atmosphere is thereby rendered contagious, the respiration of the churches poisoned, and the tongues of all the brethren and sisters turned into infectious, burning, hot, inquisitive, impertinent madness, resulting in the direful hydrophobia of "a world of iniquity!"

When impertinent curiosity, that crosses the lines in which other persons move, prompted Peter to ask, Lord, and what shall this man do? The truth replied with sharpness, What is that to thee? follow thou me; that is, mind thine own duty, Mr. Slanderer.

Moreover, charity thinketh no evil, and, therefore is not a suspicious, busy meddler. 1 Cor. xiii. 5. But suppose I have lost all faith in a brother, what then can I do but blab it out?

Answ. Then charity comes in with its hope; for it hopeth all things of the reformation of a brother, when faith in him fails, yea, and suffereth 1-o-n-g in this hope with its fallen sister; it is not vaunting, or rash, as the margin hath it, with a brother or enemy. 1 Cor. xiii. 7. Charity rejoiceth in, or, as the margin has it, with the truth; for charity is emphatically the truth in the concrete. But if he curses, or she brawls, he fights, and she

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is a mischief maker, must I not go and tell the preacher, or some ruler of the church?

The truth does not authorise you, for it reads thus: Put them in mind to speak evil of no man. Titus iii. 1, 2. Here is no exception, but a positive negative in the indefinite, no man. This is the truth-this is the apostolic precept; when then you speak evil of any man, you are a liar, though what you say of a person is a certain fact, it being scripturally true that he that keeping not the commandments is a liar, as saith our text, and the truth of God's word is not in him.

But I will tell upon such wicked, sinful hypocrites; you encourage theft, adultery, drunkenness, fornication, uncleanness, lies, fighting, and quarrelling, and all villainy, by such silence; speaking of them is a virtue.

Answ. Set your foot there, and we shall prove that all you have charged us with is openly levelled at the lawgiver and the law. "Speak not evil one of another, brethren; he that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge." James iv. 11. So that you, by telling the faults of your brother, so far from being in the truth or your duty, are speaking evil also of the law, and judging the law, not being a doer of the law, which commands silence, forbearance, and lovingly to reclaim and forgive a friend or foe, but a judge; a judge of the law, and a judge upon the law. You say, then, that the law tolerates sin of every kind by your evil speakings; you blame also the lawgiver, you judge the Almighty God himself, and thus slander Jah Jehovah for commanding you to be silent! No wonder, then, that when you call the master of the house a

favorer of sin, you would also apply the same slander to those of his household. But thrice happy for our subject, such are proved and found to be liars, and not Jews in heart; for he that saith I know him, and keepeth not his commandments of silence, forgiveness, and covering a multitude of sins, is a liar according to God's truth, though he or she tell ten thousand of the devil's tattling truths.

"Truth is the proper foundation for all credibility; and God's truth the only foundation of Christian credibility, or faith. There can be no foundation without truth; and, consequently, no faith without this foundation.

it.

"But the foundation must be laid: that is, the truth must be published, or faith cannot rest upon God, therefore, hath revealed and published his truth, which, before his revelation of it, must have been hid in himself as its proper essence.

"As all truth proceeds from God, he is, and he calls himself the truth emphatically: he is the source of all reality. What, therefore, proceeds from him must be true; and thus the matters which he hath declared or done, are manifestations or revelations of his truth ad extra, or to his people, and as such are to be received by them.

"These manifestations or revelations in the word are real and immovable truths, necessary and credible for us, with us, and in us.

"They proceed from Him as their cause; are effected by Him as their agent; and tend to Him as their end. They descend for us as grounds of our faith; are with us for strengthening our hope; and remain experimentally in us as the means, or earnest, used for our salvation.

"When we say us, we mean that the house of God is the Church of the living God, which some

translate, pillar and ground, others better, the station and seat of the truth. 1 Tim. iii. 15. God is the truth; and so, subordinately, are the revela tions from him; the church is the column raised upon this truth, as upon its proper foundation, and is also the seat or place where all these revelations concentrate, and where only, as to the application, they will ever be found.

"Christ hath taken the name of truth. Rev. iii. 14, and is become the basis or foundation of his people. Isaiah xxviii. 16.

"The Gospel, which treats of both truth in essence, and truth communicated, is the truth of God, because it both proceeded from him as its cause, and returns to him and to his glory as its end.

"Reason seems to show with what strict propri. ety God hath assumed this name of truth. But it was only the revelation of God himself which could convince, how suitably and justly this bright attribute operates for the eternal welfare and salvation of sinners.

"In Deuteronomy, xxxii. near the beginning, Moses publishes the name of Jehovah-and among other titles, ascribes to him the remarkable one, AL the TRUTH, which is rendered in our translation, God of Truth, but more justly by Montanus, Deus Veritus, God the truth.' But the apostle John says, 1 John v. 6. It is the spirit that beareth witness, because the spirit is the Truth. The Spirit, therefore, is Jehovah, Alehim and AL, which are among the titles given to the Truth in Deuteronomy, above mentioned.

"In Psalm xxxi. God is styled Jehovah AL, the TRUTH, or of truth, according to our translation; but the Holy Ghost is named the Truth, and Spirit of TRUTH."

You ask, if a man hath cheated another out of a dollar, don't you think I ought to tell upon such a person to a preacher or magistrate?

Answ. "Thou shalt not steal." Exod. xx. 15. This don't mean not steal by the hands only, but also by any means; for instance, a man robs you of a trifle, and you, by giving publicity thereunto, may, in the devil's court, rob him of five thousand dollars: that is, you prosecute him in Satan's court of a world of iniquity, by the compound interest of sleepless slander, to his or her entire undoing; and even allowing that you could legally bring all such culprits to justice, yet justice itself is a crime, when opposed to the law of love, which we prove by the following passage of Scripture. "The same servant found one of his fellow servants who owed him, and he took him by the throat and said, pay me that thou owest, and cast him into the prison till he should pay the debt; so when his fellow servants (whose mercy had overcome their justice) saw what was done they were sorry; then his Lord said unto him, O thou 'wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, shouldst not thou also have had compassion upon thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors (for doing justice) till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye, from your hearts, forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." Matt. ix. 24 to 35. He was, therefore, condemned for doing justice, for not imitating his Lord in compassion, and for nothing else; so also shall God damn us if we use justice in opposition to mercy. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their