Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Sermon,
To bring the matter nearer home—we talk of honour—it were to he wished that we talked more of religion ; but we talk of honour as of a sacred principle , ancl how could honour subsist without secrecy ? It is true , there are secrets with whicli honour can submit to no connection ; of them by and by . But has friendship no secrets ? no secrets of the most honourable kind , which a good man would not rather die than betray ? We all know that it hasif we know and respect the nature of
, friendship , which no man can rightly know ancl respect not . How , then , am I to serve my friend , how assist him in difficulty and danger , how promote his interests , how defend his character , if 1 am first to disclose all his errors and foibles to tbe world , and lay bare the inmost secrets of his soul ? - His errors , his foibles—like yours , like mine , like those of every son of Adam—are perhaps inseparable from our mortal conditionand such as it would only gratify the weak to knowand the
, , wicked to contemplate . In the government of a private family are there to be no secrets ? Is the master of a house to leave his letters and papers open on his table for the inspection of his children ancl his servants ? Is he to consult them in every thing he means to do , and acquaint them with every thing he does , lest he be supposed ashamed of what he is doing ? In assessing the heaviest and most obnoxious of all state imposts—the
income-tax—the commissioners are required to take an oath of secrecy not to divulge those private circumstances which necessarily come within their cognizance , and materially concern the commercial or professional credit of any subject . Without such a restraint , the capital of many a respectable tradesman and merchant must be endangered , and his affairs
exposed to misrepresentation . Bold and unprincipled speculators , no doubt , take all possible advantage of this just provision ; but so long as the wicked are suffered to hold intercourse with the good , mankind will never be at a loss for such proofs of the dependency of vice on the excellence of virtue . I hope , then , that no doubt remains with you , my Christian brethren who are not of our order , of the possible purity , propriety , and even moral benefit of secrecy . I have shown that it has been from time to
time , still is , ancl probably ever will be employed occasionally by the best and wisest men , for the most useful and laudable purposes , lt may also be , and often has been made subservient to the most abominable depravity , and to the prosecution of schemes the most dangerous both to private and the public welfare . The ancient Pagan mysteries , even in the opinion of many writersthose of Eleusis—whatever may have been their originbecame so many
, regular systems of vice , founded upon secrecy . The conspiracy of Catiline , and numberless other plots of desperate men , recorded both in sacred and profane history , depended upon secrecy for success . But in no instance is the abuse of it more distinctly shown than in the miserable end of Sampson , as related in the book of Judges . He had been a " Nazarite from his mother ' s womb ; " consequently , " no razor had ever been upon his head . " By this outward sign he was devoted to the service
of the Most High , and as long as he retained his hair , he was endowed with the most stupendous degree of corporeal strength . He easily baffled every attempt of the Philistines to enslave or to slay him , till , in an evil hour , he revealed to an abandoned " woman of the valley of Sorek " the means by which alone he might be overcome . His head was then shaven as he slept , and he immediately became " weak , ancl as another
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Sermon,
To bring the matter nearer home—we talk of honour—it were to he wished that we talked more of religion ; but we talk of honour as of a sacred principle , ancl how could honour subsist without secrecy ? It is true , there are secrets with whicli honour can submit to no connection ; of them by and by . But has friendship no secrets ? no secrets of the most honourable kind , which a good man would not rather die than betray ? We all know that it hasif we know and respect the nature of
, friendship , which no man can rightly know ancl respect not . How , then , am I to serve my friend , how assist him in difficulty and danger , how promote his interests , how defend his character , if 1 am first to disclose all his errors and foibles to tbe world , and lay bare the inmost secrets of his soul ? - His errors , his foibles—like yours , like mine , like those of every son of Adam—are perhaps inseparable from our mortal conditionand such as it would only gratify the weak to knowand the
, , wicked to contemplate . In the government of a private family are there to be no secrets ? Is the master of a house to leave his letters and papers open on his table for the inspection of his children ancl his servants ? Is he to consult them in every thing he means to do , and acquaint them with every thing he does , lest he be supposed ashamed of what he is doing ? In assessing the heaviest and most obnoxious of all state imposts—the
income-tax—the commissioners are required to take an oath of secrecy not to divulge those private circumstances which necessarily come within their cognizance , and materially concern the commercial or professional credit of any subject . Without such a restraint , the capital of many a respectable tradesman and merchant must be endangered , and his affairs
exposed to misrepresentation . Bold and unprincipled speculators , no doubt , take all possible advantage of this just provision ; but so long as the wicked are suffered to hold intercourse with the good , mankind will never be at a loss for such proofs of the dependency of vice on the excellence of virtue . I hope , then , that no doubt remains with you , my Christian brethren who are not of our order , of the possible purity , propriety , and even moral benefit of secrecy . I have shown that it has been from time to
time , still is , ancl probably ever will be employed occasionally by the best and wisest men , for the most useful and laudable purposes , lt may also be , and often has been made subservient to the most abominable depravity , and to the prosecution of schemes the most dangerous both to private and the public welfare . The ancient Pagan mysteries , even in the opinion of many writersthose of Eleusis—whatever may have been their originbecame so many
, regular systems of vice , founded upon secrecy . The conspiracy of Catiline , and numberless other plots of desperate men , recorded both in sacred and profane history , depended upon secrecy for success . But in no instance is the abuse of it more distinctly shown than in the miserable end of Sampson , as related in the book of Judges . He had been a " Nazarite from his mother ' s womb ; " consequently , " no razor had ever been upon his head . " By this outward sign he was devoted to the service
of the Most High , and as long as he retained his hair , he was endowed with the most stupendous degree of corporeal strength . He easily baffled every attempt of the Philistines to enslave or to slay him , till , in an evil hour , he revealed to an abandoned " woman of the valley of Sorek " the means by which alone he might be overcome . His head was then shaven as he slept , and he immediately became " weak , ancl as another