This is the true account of that disposition to ridicule, which the world so commonly observes in bad men, and sometimes mistakes for an argument of their tranquillity, when it is, in truth, an evident symptom of their distress. For they would forget themselves, in this noisy mirth; just as children laugh out, to keep up their spirits in the dark.
Let me alledge the case in the text once more, to exemplify this remark.
When our Lord reproved the Pharisees for their covetousness, and admonished them how impossible it was to serve God and mammon, the weight of this remonstrance should, in all reason, have engaged their serious attention: and then they would have seen how criminal their conduct was, in devouring widows houses, while yet they pretended a zeal for the house of God; and being led by the principles of their sect to admit a future existence, it was natural for them, under this conviction, to expect the just vengeance of their crimes.
But vice had made them ingenious, and taught them how to elude this dreadful conclusion. They represented to themselves their reprover in a ridiculous light; probably as one of those moralists, who know nothing of the world, and outrage truth and reason in their censures of it: or, they affected to see him in this light, in order to break the force of his remonstrance, and insinuate to the by-standers, that it merited no other confutation than that of neglect. They did, then, as vicious men are wont to do; they resolved not to consider the consequences of their own conduct; and supported themselves in this resolution by deriding the person, who, in charity, would have led them to their duty.
Thus it appears how naturally the way of ridicule is employed by those who determine not to comply with the rules of reason and religion. They are solicitous to keep the evidence of moral truth from pressing too closely upon them: they would confound and obliterate, if they could, the differences of moral sentiment: they would overlook, if possible, the consequences of moral action: and nothing promises so fair to set them at ease, in these three respects, as to cultivate that turn of mind, which obscures truth, hardens the heart, and stupifies the understanding. For such is the proper effect of dissolute mirth; the mortal foe to reason, virtue, and to common prudence.
I have shewn you this very clearly in the case of one vice, the vice of avarice, as exemplified by the Pharisees in the text. But, as I said, every other vice is equally disingenuous, and for the same reason. Tell the ambitious man, in the language of Solomon, that by humility and the fear of the Lord, cometh honour[157]; and he will loudly deride his instructor: or, tell the voluptuous man, in the language of St. Paul, that he, who liveth in pleasure, is dead while he liveth[158]; and you may certainly expect the same treatment.
It is not, that vague and general invectives against vice will always be thus received: but let the reproof, as that in the text, be pressing and poignant, let it come home to men’s bosoms, and penetrate, by its force and truth, the inmost foldings and recesses of conscience, and see if the man, who is touched by your reproof, and yet will not be reclaimed by it; see, I say, if he be not carried, by a sort of instinct, to repel your charitable pains with scorn and mockery. Had Jesus instructed the Pharisees to pray and fast often; or had he exhorted them, in general terms, to keep the law and to serve God; they had probably given him the hearing with much apparent composure: but when he spoke against serving mammon, whom they idolized: and still more, when he told these hypocritical worldlings, that their service of mammon did not, and could not consist with God’s service, to which they so much pretended; then it was that they betook themselves to their arms: they heared these things, and because they were covetous, they derided their teacher.
If this be a just picture of human nature, it may let us see how poor a talent that of ridicule is, both in its origin, and application. For, when employed in moral and religious matters, we may certainly pronounce of it, That it springs from vice, and means nothing else but the support of it. Should not the scorner himself, then, reflect of what every other man sees, “That his mirth implies guilt, and that he only laughs, because he dares not be serious?”
But Solomon[159] has long since read the destiny of him, who would reprove men of this character. It will be to better purpose, therefore, to warn the young and unexperienced against the contagion of vicious scorn; by which many have been corrupted, on whom vice itself, in its own proper form, would have made no impression. For the modesty of virtue too easily concludes, that what is much ridiculed must, itself, be ridiculous: and, when this conclusion is taken up, reflexion many times comes too late to correct the mischiefs of it. Let those, then, who have not yet seated themselves in the chair of the scorner, consider, that ridicule is but the last effort of baffled vice to keep itself in countenance; that it betrays a corrupt turn of mind, and only serves to promote that corruption. Let them understand, that this faculty is no argument of superior sense, rarely of superior wit; and that it proves nothing but the profligacy, or the folly of him, who affects to be distinguished by it. Let them, in a word, reflect, that virtue and reason love to be, and can afford to be, serious: but that vice and folly are undone, if they let go their favourite habit of scorn and derision.