SERMON XXIV.

PART II.

4. CHRISTIAN simplicity teaches openness and ingenuity in contracts, and matters of buying and selling, covenants, associations, and all such intercourses, which suppose an equality of persons as to the matter of right and justice in the stipulation. Μετὰ τὴν ἀγορὰν ἀψευδεῖν, was the old Attic law; and nothing is more contrary to Christian religion, than that the intercourses of justice be direct snares, and that we should deal with men as men deal with foxes, and wolves, and vermin; do all violence: and when that cannot be, use all craft, and every thing whereby they can be made miserable.

Ἡ δόλῳ ἠὲ βίῃ, ἡ ἀμφαδὸν ἠὲ κρυφηδόν.

There are men in the world who love to smile; but that smile is more dangerous than the furrows of a contracted brow, or a storm in Adria; for their purpose is only to deceive: they easily speak what they never mean; they heap up many arguments to persuade that to others which themselves believe not; they praise that vehemently which they deride in their hearts; they declaim against a thing which themselves covet; they beg passionately for that which they value not, and run from an object, which they would fain have to follow and overtake them; they excuse a person dexterously where the man is beloved, and watch to surprise him where he is unguarded; they praise that they may sell, and disgrace that they may keep. And these hypocrisies are so interwoven and embroidered with their whole design, that some nations refuse to contract, till their arts are taken off by the society of banquets, and the goodnatured kindnesses of festival chalices: for so Tacitus observes concerning the old Germans: "De adsciscendis principibus, de pace et bello, in conviviis consultant; tanquam nullo magis tempore aut ad simplices cogitationes pateat animus, aut ad magnas incalescat:" "As if then they were more simple when they were most valiant, and were least deceitful when they were least themselves "."

• c. 22.

But it is an evil condition, that a man's honesty shall be owing to his wine, and virtue must live at the charge and will of a vice. The proper band of societies and contracts is justice and necessities, religion and the laws; the measures of it are equity, and ourselves, and our own desires in the days of our need, natural or forced: but the instruments of the exchange and conveyance of the whole intercourses is words and actions, as they are expounded by custom, consent, or understanding of the interested person, in which, if simplicity be not severely preserved, it is impossible that human society can subsist, but men shall be forced to snatch at what they have bought, and take securities that men swear truly, and exact an oath that such is the meaning of the word; and no man shall think himself secure, but shall fear he is robbed, if he has not possession first; and it shall be disputed who shall trust the other, and neither of them shall have cause to be confident upon bands, or oaths, or witnesses, or promises, or all the honour of men, or all the engagements of religion. Οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἂν ἔτι πιστεῦσαι δύναιτο ὑμῖν, οὐδ' εἰ πάνυ προθυμοῖτο, ἰδὼν ἀδικούμενον τὸν μάλιστα φιλία προσή XOVтa, said Cyrus in Xenophon: A man, though he desires. it, cannot be confident of the man that pretends truth, yet tells a lie, and is deprehended to have made use of the sacred name of friendship or religion, honesty or reputation, to deceive his brother.

κοντα,

But because a man may be deceived by deeds and open actions as well as words, therefore it concerns their duty, that no man, by an action on purpose done to make his brother believe a lie, abuse his persuasion and his interest. When Pythius, the Sicilian, had a mind to sell his garden to Canius, he invited him thither, and caused fishermen, as if by custom, to fish in the channel by which the garden stood, and they threw great store of fish into their arbours, and made Canius believe it was so every day; and the man grew greedy of that place of pleasure, and gave Pythius a double price, and the next day perceived himself abused. Actions of pretence and simulation are like snares laid, into which the beasts fall though you pursue them not, but walk in the inquiry for their necessary provisions: and if a man c Cicer. Off. iii. 14. Heusing.

b 1, 8. c. 7. §. 23. Schn.

fall into a snare that you have laid, it is no excuse to say, you did not tempt him thither. To lay a snare is against the ingenuity of a good man and a Christian, and from thence he ought to be drawn; and, therefore, it is not fit we should place a danger, which ourselves are therefore bound to hinder, because from thence we are obliged to rescue him. "Vir bonus est, qui prodest quibus potest, nocet autem nemini:" 'When we do all the good we can, and do an evil to no man, then only we are accounted good men.' But this pretence of an action signifying otherwise than it looks for, is only forbidden in matter of contract, and the material interest of a second person. But when actions are of a double signification, or when a man is not abused or defeated of his right by an uncertain sign, it is lawful to do a thing to other purposes than is commonly understood. Flight is a sign of fear; but it is lawful to fly when a man fears not. Circumcision was the seal of the Jewish religion; and yet St. Paul circumcised Timothy, though he intended he should live like the Gentile Christians, and not as do the Jews.' But because that rite did signify more things besides that one, he only did it to represent that he was no enemy of Moses's law, but would use it when there was just reason, which was one part of the things which the using of circumcision could signify. So our blessed Saviour pretended that he would pass forth beyond Emmaus; but if he intended not to do it, yet he did no injury to the two disciples, for whose good it was that he intended to make this offer: and neither did he prevaricate the strictness of simplicity and sincerity, because they were persons with whom he had made no contracts, to whom he had passed no obligation and in the nature of the thing, it is proper and natural, by an offer to give an occasion to another to do a good action; and in case it succeeds not, then to do what we intended not; and so the offer was conditional: But in all cases of bargaining, although the actions of themselves may receive naturally another sense, yet I am bound to follow that signification which may not abuse my brother, or pollute my own honesty, or snatch or rifle his interest: because it can be no ingredient into the commutation, if I exchange a thing which he understands not, and is, by error, led into this mistake, and I hold forth the fire, and delude him, and amuse his eye; for by me he is made worse.

But, secondly, as our actions must be of a sincere and determined signification in contract, so must our words; in which the rule of the old Roman honesty was this: "Uterque, si ad eloquendum venerit, non plus quam semel eloquetur:" "Every one that speaks, is to speak but once;" that is, "but one thing,' because commonly that is truth; truth being but one, but error and falsehood infinitely various and changeable and we shall seldom see a man so stiffened with impiety as to speak little and seldom, and pertinaciously adhere to a single sense, and yet that at first, and all the way after, shall be a lie. Men use to go about when they tell a lie, and devise circumstances, and stand off at distance, and cast a cloud of words, and intricate the whole affair, and cozen themselves first, and then cozen their brother, while they have minced the case of conscience into little particles, and swallowed the lie by crumbs, so that no one passage of it should rush against the conscience, nor do hurt, until it is all got into the belly, and unites in the effect; for by that time two men are abused, the merchant in his soul, and the contractor in his interest: and this is the certain effect of much talking and little honesty. But he that means honestly, must speak but once, that is, one truth,-and hath leave to vary within the degrees of just prices and fair conditions, which because they have a latitude, may be enlarged or restrained according as the merchant pleases; save only he must never prevaricate the measures of equity, and the proportions of reputation, and the public. But in all the parts of this traffic, let our words be the signification of our thoughts, and our thoughts design nothing but the advantages of a permitted exchange. In this case the severity is so great, so exact, and so without variety of case, that it is not lawful for a man to tell a truth with a collateral design to cozen and abuse; and, therefore, at no hand can it be permitted to lie or equivocate, to speak craftily, or to deceive by smoothness, or intricacy, or long discourses.

But this precept of simplicity in matter of contract, hath one step of severity beyond this: in matter of contract it is not lawful so much as to conceal the secret and undiscernible faults of the merchandise; but we must acknowledge them, or else affix prices made diminute and lessened to such proportions and abatements as that fault should make. 'Caveat

emptor' is a good caution for him that buys, and it secures the seller in public judicature, but not in court of conscience; and the old laws of the Romans were as nice in this affair, as the conscience of a Christian. Titus Claudius Centumalusd was commanded by the augurs to pull down his house in the Cœlian mountain, because it hindered their observation of the flight of birds. He exposes his house to sale; Publius Calpurnius buys it, and is forced to pluck it down; but complaining to the judges, he had remedy, because Claudius did not tell him the true state of the inconvenience. He that sells a house infected with the plague, or haunted with evil spirits, sells that which is not worth such a price which it might be put at, if it were in health and peace; and therefore cannot demand it, but openly, and upon publication of the evil. To which also this is to be added,-That in some great faults, and such as have danger (as in the cases now specified), no diminution of the price is sufficient to make the merchant just and sincere, unless he tells the appendant mischief; because to some persons in many cases, and to all persons in some cases, it is not at all valuable; and they would not possess it, if they might, for nothing. Marcus Gratidianus bought a house of Sergius Orata, which himself had sold before; but because Sergius did not declare the appendant vassalage and service, he was recompensed by the judges: for although it was certain that Gratidianus knew it, because it had been his own, yet" oportuit ex bona fide denunciari," said the law; it concerned the ingenuity of a good man to have spoken it openly.' In all cases it must be confessed in the price, or in the words: but when the evil may be personal, and more than matter of interest and money, it ought to be confessed, and then the goods prescribed, lest by my act I do my neighbour injury, and I receive profit by his damage. Certain it is, that ingenuity is the sweetest and easiest way; there is no difficulty or case of conscience in that; and it can have no objection in it, but that possibly sometimes we lose a little advantage, which, it may be, we may lawfully acquire, but still we secure a quiet conscience; and if the merchandise be not worth so much to me, then neither is it to him; if it be to him, it is also to me; and therefore I have no loss, no hurt to keep it, if it be refused. But he that secures his own

d Cicero. Off. iii. 16. 4. Heus.

Off. iii. 16. 9.