SERMON X.

HONESTY.

JOB, XXVII. 5.

Till I die, I will not remove mine integrity from me.

THE Word integrity seems to be used by this patient and magnanimous sufferer in a somewhat wider sense than that in which it is commonly received at the present day. With us it is usually taken to mean the same thing with honesty or uprightness; and seems to imply merely the perfect discharge of the social duties. But as it is used in different of the book of Job, it seems to passages regard the whole circle of the virtues, personal, social, and devotional. When the infatuated wife of this pious man exhorts him to resort to suicide as the only relief from the accumulated evils which oppressed him, she impatiently asks," Dost thou still retain thine integrity?" The word must here mean his fear of offending God in any particular; his respect for all his commandments. A man of integrity, in this sense, means a man of uni

versal goodness, of ripened virtue. It does not indeed imply that he never yields to any temptation, for of what mortal can this be said! but it supposes that he respects the authority on which all the laws of God are founded, and does not therefore habitually tolerate in himself any one vice; does not deliberately permit himself to offend in any single point. There are no breaks in the links of that golden chain by which all his virtues are bound together. There is no secret and unseen disease preying on the soundness and healthiness of his moral constitution. In the goodly superstructure of his character, there can be found no unnoticed seam, through which even the penetrating light of conscience can enter, betraying that its foundation is unsolid and insecure.

In this sense of the word, we shall all agree, that to pronounce any one to be a man of integrity, is to give him most exalted praise. But when it is used in the more restricted sense in which it is received among us, it is supposed to imply the possession of a very necessary and very valuable, certainly, but not a very high and dignified virtue. I however think otherwise. I believe that what is sometimes called "common honesty," when it is taken to imply all that it fairly and properly means, is a very exalted quality, and is, I am afraid, not so common as is sometimes believed. I propose in this discourse to consider some of the modes in which the laws of honesty are most usually violat

ed in our dealings with one another, and examine some of those elements, or features of moral character, which mark, and are necessary to constitute, a man of integrity-a truly honest man.

I. There are certain violations of honesty, which the laws define and punish as open frauds, of the nature of which no one can be ignorant, the turpitude of which no one denies, and which therefore do not require even to be named to those who habitually meet in our religious assemblies.

There are other departures from the strict rule of right, from their nature not cognizable by the laws, which really amount to the same thing as dishonesty, though they sometimes receive gentler names. Of this nature is every species of deceit, dissimulation, or evasion, in our dealings with one another. For not only is it dishonest, expressly or by implication, to ascribe to our goods any quality which we know they have not; but also designedly to conceal any fault which we know they have, and with which the buyer cannot in fairness be supposed to be acquainted. It is dishonesty to represent our wares to be, in any respect, what they are not, or not to be what they are. It is dishonesty also, of a very aggravated kind, to take advantage of another's confidence in our integrity to borrow, for example, on false securities or false representations of our circumstances, without any intention or reasonable expectation of repaying; and it is dishonesty to raise by design any expectations which we do not intend or desire to fulfil.

Dishonesty is implied in all cases, where the forms of law are used to shelter us in any violalations of equity. The laws of civil society are instituted mainly to guard its peace and general security; not to watch over the virtue of the individual. This last is the province of religion and morality. They must proceed on fixed and known rules, which in general will operate equitably, but which in some particular cases will not. Here, then, a thoroughly honest man will follow, not what the law may permit, but what equity demands. He must not, for example, keep his neighbour to the very words and letter of his agreement, when they clearly violate the original spirit and equitable intention of it. Nor, on the other hand, is he allowed to allege any flaw or defect in form, to get loose from a contract which in good faith and conscience he ought to perform. He is not allowed to put another to the charge and hazard of the law unjustly or needlessly; or, in ever so necessary a law-suit, to occasion unnecessary expenses, or contrive unfair delays.

We must place excessive rigour and hardness in our dealings, among the violations of strict integrity. He who takes advantage of a buyer's ignorance or particular necessities, to insist on a higher price than the current value or fair "market price" for his commodity; or on the other hand, who uses the same advantages to beat down his merchandize greatly below this standard, violates the

laws of honesty. Under this head also must be placed the exaction of usury-not because it is not right that a man should receive compensation for lending his money, as well as any other property into which that money may be converted-but in some degree, because the rapid accumulation of wealth without industry is bad for the state and for the individual, and chiefly, because we must know that in most instances he who is willing to borrow at exorbitant interest must be on the brink of insolvency, and that by lending to him, we only precipitate his downfall, and increase his inability to discharge the just demands of those creditors, who have entrusted him with the hard earnings of their own exertion. In this way we make ourselves partakers of another man's sins.

In the fourth place, we must number extravagance among the cases of dishonesty. Whoever spends upon himself, or throws away upon any other person, more than he can prudently afford, whatever fine names of elegance, good nature or generosity his conduct may receive, in reality disposes of what cannot fairly be called his own; he does in effect defraud his family, and will be in great danger of being driven at last to endeavour to repair by unlawful means what he has lost by folly.

Finally, we must give the epithet of dishonesty to every act whereby we withhold or take from a neighbour, from any society or body of men, from