And so on through other Bible incidents. Dr. Thornwell has no hesitation in distinguishing when concealment is right concealment, and when concealment is wrong because intended to deceive.
Exposing the incorrectness of the claim, made by Dr. Paley, as by others, that certain specific falsehoods are not lies, Dr. Thornwell shows himself familiar with the discussion of this question of the ages in all the centuries; and he moves on with his eye fixed unerringly on the polar star of truth, in refreshing contrast with the amiable wavering of Dr. Hodge's footsteps.
"Paley's law," he concludes, "would obviously be the destruction of all confidence. How much nobler and safer is the doctrine of the Scriptures, and of the unsophisticated language of man's moral constitution, that truth is obligatory on its own account, and that he who undertakes to signify to another, no matter in what form, and no matter what may be the right in the case to know the truth, is bound to signify according to the convictions of his own mind! He is not always bound to speak, but whenever he does speak he is solemnly bound to speak nothing but the truth. The universal application of this principle would be the diffusion of universal confidence. It would banish deceit and suspicion from the world, and restrict the use of signs to their legitimate offices."
A later work on Christian Ethics, which acquires special prominence through its place in "The International Theological Library," edited by Drs. Briggs and Salmond, is by Dr. Newman Smyth. It shows signs of strength in the premises assumed by the writer, in accordance with the teachings of Scripture and of the best moral sense of mankind; and signs of weakness in his processes of reasoning, and in his final conclusion, according to the mental methods of those who have wavered on this subject, from John Chrysostom to Richard Rothe and Charles Hodge.
Dr. Smyth rightly bases Christian ethics on the nature and will of God, as illustrated in the life and teachings of the divine-human Son of God. "A thoroughly scientific ethics must not only be adequate to the common moral sense of men, but prove true also to the moral consciousness of the Son of man. No ethics has right to claim to be thoroughly scientific, or to offer itself as the only science of ethics possible to us in our present experience, until it has sought to enter into the spirit of Christ, and has brought all its, analysis and theories of man's moral life to the light of the luminous ethical personality of Jesus Christ."[1]
[Footnote 1: Smyth's Christian Ethics, p. 6.]
In his general statement of "the duty of speaking the truth," Dr. Smyth is also clear, sound, and emphatic.[1] "The law of truthfulness is," he says, "a supreme inward law of thought." "The obligation of veracity … is an obligation which every man owes to himself. It is a primal personal obligation. Kant was profoundly right when he regarded falsehood as a forfeiture of personal worth, a destruction of personal integrity…. Truthfulness is the self-consistency of character; falsehood is a breaking up of the moral integrity. Inward truthfulness is essential to moral growth and personal vigor, as it is necessary to the live oak that it should be of one fiber and grain from root to branch. What a flaw is in steel, what a foreign substance is in any texture, that a falsehood is to the character,—a source of weakness, a point where under strain it may break…. Truthfulness, then, is due, first by the individual to himself as the obligation of personal integrity. The unity of the personal life consists in it."
[Footnote 1: Ibid., pp. 386-389.]
And in addition to the obligation of veracity as a duty to one's self, Dr. Smyth recognizes it as a duty to others. He says: "Truthfulness is owed to society as essential to its integrity. It is the indispensable bond of social life. Men can be members, one of another in a social organism only as they live together in truth. Society would fall, to pieces without credit; but credit rests on the general social virtue of truthfulness…. The liar is rightly regarded as an enemy to mankind. A lie is not only an affront against the person to whom it is told, but it is an offense against humanity."
If Dr. Smyth had been content to leave this matter with the explicit statement of the principles that are unvaryingly operative, he would have done good service to the world, and his work could have been commended as sound and trustworthy in this department of ethics; but as soon as he begins to question and reason on the subject, he begins to waver and grow confused; and in the end his inconclusive conclusions are pitiably defective and reprehensible.[1]