Of Truth

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.