A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics

by Richard Baxter

You see then that there are two degrees of lying. 1. The grossest is the speaking of a known falsehood, with a purpose to deceive. 2. The other is the speaking falsely through culpable ignorance, error, or inconsiderateness.

Direct. I. Be well informed of the evil of the sin of lying; for the common cause of it is, that men think that there is no great harm in it, unless some one be greatly wronged by it: but it is not forbidden by God only because it wrongeth others, but it hath all this evil in it.

1. Lying is the perverting of man's noble faculties, and turning them clean contrary to their natural use. God gave man a tongue to express his mind, and reveal the truth; and lying doth monstrously turn it to the hindering of the mind and truth, yea, to the venting of the contrary to both. And as it is the evil of drunkenness to be a voluntary madness or corruption of so noble a faculty as reason, so it is the fault of lying, to be corrupting, perverting, and deforming both of the mind and tongue; and by confusion, a destroying of God's work and creature as to its proper use.[501]

2. Lying is the enemy and destroyer of truth: and truth is a thing divine, of unspeakable excellency and use. It is God's instrument by which he maketh men wise, and good, and happy. Therefore if he should not make strict laws for the preservation of so excellent a thing as truth, he should not secure the happiness of the world. As to the securing of men's lives it is not enough to make a law that you shall not kill men without just cause (though that be all that the law intendeth to attain); for then every man being left to judge, would think there were just cause whenever his passion or interest told him so; but the law is, You shall not kill at all without the judgment of the magistrate: so, if the law against lying did intend no more than the securing men from the injuries of error and deceit, yet would it not have been a sufficient means, to have said only, You shall not injure men by lying; for then men would have judged of the injury by their own interests and passions; but much more is it needful to have a stricter law, when truth itself is the thing that God intendeth to secure, as well as the interest of men. In the eyes of christians, and heathens, and all mankind that have not unmanned themselves, there appeareth a singular beauty and excellency in truth. Aristotle could say, that the nature of man is made for truth. Cicero could say, that Quod verum, simplex, sincerumque est, id naturæ hominis accommodatissimum est: Verity and virtue were ever taken as the inseparable perfections of man. Pythagoras could say, that to love truth and do good, were the two things that made man likest to God, and therefore were his two most excellent gifts. Plato could say, that truth was the best rhetoric and the sweetest oration. Epictetus could say, that truth is a thing immortal, eternal, of all things most precious; better than friendship, as being less obnoxious to blind affections. Jamblichus could say, that as light naturally and constantly accompanieth the sun, so truth accompanieth God and all that follow him. Epaminondas is praised for that he would not lie, no not in jest. Pomponius Atticus was so great a hater of a lie, that all his friends were desirous to trust him with their business, and use him as their counsellor. He knoweth not what use man's understanding or his tongue were made for, that knoweth not the excellency of truth.[502] Let a Pilate only ask as a stranger, "What is truth?" John xviii. 38, as Pharaoh asked, "Who is the Lord?" "For this end Christ himself came into the world, to bear witness to the truth, and every one that is of the truth will hear him," John xviii. 37. "He is the truth," John xiv. 6, and "full of grace and truth," John i. 14. "Grace and truth came by him," John i. 17. His Spirit is given to "guide his servants into the truth," John xvi. 13, and to "sanctify them by the truth," John xvii. 19, that "knowing the truth, it might make them free," John viii. 32. "The fruit of the Spirit is in all truth," Eph. v. 9. His ministers can "do nothing against the truth, but for the truth," 2 Cor. xiii. 8. "Truth" is the "girdle" that must "gird our loins," Eph. vi. 14. The "church" is the "pillar" and "ground of truth," 1 Tim. iii. 15. The faithful are "they that believe and know the truth," 1 Tim. iv. 3. "Speaking the truth in love," is the way of the churches' growth and edification, Eph. iv. 15. "Repentance" is given men, "to the acknowledging of the truth, that they may escape out of the power of the devil," 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26. The dullards are they that are "never able to come to the knowledge of the truth," 2 Tim. iii. 7. "They are men of perverse minds that resist the truth," 2 Tim. iii. 8. "They that receive not the truth in the love of it cannot be saved," 2 Thess. ii. 10. All they "are damned that believe not the truth," 2 Thess. ii. 12, 13. You see what truth is in the judgment of God and all the sober world. Therefore a lie, that is contrary to truth as darkness to light, must be equally odious as truth is amiable: no wonder therefore if it be absolutely forbidden of God.

3. You may the easier perceive this by considering, that other faults of the tongue, as idle talk, swearing, and such like, are forbidden, not only because they are a hurt to others, but for the intrinsical evil in the thing itself: great reason therefore that it should be so in this.

4. Lying is a vice which maketh us most unlike to God. For he is called the "God of truth," Psal. xxxi. 5; Deut. xxxii. 4. All his "ways" are "mercy and truth," Psal. xxv. 10. His "judgment is according to truth," Rom. ii. 2. "It is impossible for God to lie," Heb. vi. 18; Tit. i. 2. His word is the "word of truth," Psal. cxix. 43; Col. i. 5; 2 Tim. ii. 15; Jam. i. 15; 2 Cor. vi. 7. And who shall "dwell in his tabernacle," but those that "speak the truth in their hearts," Psal. xv. 2.[503] The disconformity of the soul to God, then, being its greatest deformity, in things wherein it is made to be conformed to him, it may hence appear that lying is an odious sin. And this may the easilier appear, if you consider, what a case the world were in if God could lie, and were not of undoubted truth: we should then be sure of nothing; and therefore could have no sure information by his word, no sure direction and guidance by his precepts, and no sure consolation in any of his promises. Therefore that which maketh us so unlike to the true God, must needs be odious.

5. Lying is the image or work of the devil, and liars are his children in a special sort: for Christ telleth us that he "abode not in the truth, for there is no truth in him; when he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it," John viii. 44. The proud, the malicious, and the liars, are in a special sort the children of the devil; for these three are in Scripture in a special manner made the devil's sins.[504] Therefore sure there is an intrinsical evil and odiousness in a lie. It was Satan that filled the hearts of Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the Holy Ghost, Acts v. 3. To change the "truth of God into a lie," and "to make God a liar," are therefore the most odious sins, Rom. i. 25; 1 John v. 10; because it is a feigning him to be like the devil: and should we make ourselves like him then by the same vice? If you love not the devil's sin and image, love not a lie.

6. Lying destroyeth human converse, and bringeth most pernicious confusion into the affairs of mankind. If truth be excluded, men cannot buy and sell, and trade, and live together. It would be sufficient to destroy their rational converse if they had no tongues; but much more to have false tongues: silence openeth not the mind at all; lying openeth it not when it pretendeth to open it, and falsely representeth it to be what it is not. And therefore though you say, that your lies do no such hurt; yet seeing this is the nature and tendency of lying as such, it is just and merciful in the righteous God, to banish all lying by the strictest laws:[505] as the whole nature of serpents is so far at enmity with the nature of man, that we hate and kill them though they never did hurt us, because it is in their nature to hurt us; so God hath justly and mercifully condemned all lying, because its nature tendeth to the desolation and confusion of the world; and if any indulgence were given to it, all iniquity and injustice would presently like an inundation overwhelm us all.

7. Lying tendeth directly to perjury itself. It is the same God that forbiddeth them both: and when once the heart is hardened in the one, it is but a step further to the other. Cicero could observe, that he that is used to lie, will easily be perjured. A seared conscience that tolerateth one, will easily be brought to bear the other.

8. There is a partiality in the liar that condemneth himself, and the sin in another, which in himself he justifieth; for there is no man that would have another lie to him. As Austin saith, I have known many that would deceive, but never any that would be deceived.[506] If it be good, why should not all others lie to thee? If it be bad, why wilt thou lie to others? Is not thy tongue under the same law as theirs? Dost thou like it in thy children and in thy servants? If not, it should seem much worse to thee in thyself, as thou art most concerned in thy own actions.