A69235:68
A treatise against lying Wherein is showed what it is, the nature and causes…A treatise against lying Wherein is shevved vvhat it is, the nature and causes…
A treatise against lying Wherein is showed what it is, the nature and causes of this sin, the divers kinds of it; and that all of them are sinful, and unlawful, with the motives and means to preserve us from it, or to cure us of it. By John Downame, B. of D. and preacher of Gods Word.A treatise against lying Wherein is shevved vvhat it is, the nature and causes of this sinne, the divers kindes of it; and that all of them are sinfull, and unlawfull, with the motives and meanes to preserve us from it, or to cure us of it. By John Dovvname, B. of D. and preacher of Gods Word.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Nicolas Bourne, 1636
Title page typeset from the transcription.
A TREATISE AGAINST THE SIN OF LYING. › Chapter 5A TREATISE AGAINST THE SINNE OF LYING. › Chapter 5
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And though it were not ⟨p. 46⟩Abraham's absolute and free will to lie, yet it was his will by accident, as he thought himself necessitated hereunto to save his life, and though it were not his principal and main end to deceive by speaking untruth, but to escape the danger of being killed; yet it was his next and mediate end which he used to advance the other. Neither doth Abraham's speech to the King imply that he was wholly faultless, but rather the contrary. For if he had spoken a clear and ingenuous truth, in saying that she was his sister, why should he excuse it, that he did it not upon free choice, but because he was necessitated thereunto being in danger of his life? And his saying that indeed she was his sister, tendeth not wholly to acquit him of all fault, but only to extenuate it, seeing she was so truly in some sense, though not in that where in he desired that they should understand him. Finally, Abimelech even by the light of nature discerned that notwithstanding Abraham's excuse, Sarah had equivocated in saying that she was his sister, and therefore 1reproved her for it, because it was such an untruth as had exposed her to the danger of being defiled. But though it be unlawful to lye or equivocate, yet it is lawful to conceal the truth, wholly by silence if we be not examined, or to conceal it in part if we be questioned, so that the other part which we speak be not only true in it self 2and in our own sense, but also in his understanding to whom we utter it, or at least as we desire to have him understand it. And of this judgement is Saint Augustine himself else where: It is not all one (saith he) to hide the truth, and to tell a lye; ⟨p. 47⟩for although every one who lieth desireth to conceal what is true, yet not every one lieth who willeth to conceal it. For very often we conceal things that are true, not by lying, but by our silence. Neither did our Lord lye when he said, I have many things to say unto you, but as yet ye cannot 3bear them. He concealed truths, but did not speak untruths, because he judged such truths as yet unfit for them to hear.