I think I need not ask which of these two is the honest man, any more than which was the honest penitent, the Pharisee or the publican.
Honesty, like friendship, is tried in affliction; and he that cries out loudest against those who in the time of this trial are forced to give ground, would perhaps yield as far in the like shock of misfortune.
To be honest when peace and plenty flow upon our hands, is owing to the blessing of our parents; but to be honest when circumstances grow narrow, relations turbulent and quarrelsome, when poverty stares at us, and the world threatens, this blessing is from Heaven, and can only be supported from thence. God Almighty is very little beholding to them who will serve Him just as long as He feeds them. Twas a strong argument the devil used in that dialogue between Satan and his Maker about Job. Yes, he is a mighty good man, and a mighty just man, and well he may while you give him everything he wants: I would serve you myself, and be as true to you as Job, if you would be as kind and as bountiful to me as you are to him: but now, do but lay your finger on him; do but stop your hand a little, and cut him short; strip him a little, and make him like one of those poor fellows that now bow to him, and you will quickly see your good man be like other men; nay, the passion he will be in at his losses will make him curse you to your face.
Tis true the devil was mistaken in the man, but the argument had a great deal of probability in it, and the moral may be drawn, both from the argument and from the consequences:
That tis an easy thing to maintain the character of honesty and uprightness when a man has no business to be employed in, and no want to press him.
That when exigencies and distresses pinch a man, then is the time to prove the honesty of his principle.
The prosperous honest man can only by boasting tell the world he is honest, but the distressed and ruined honest man hears other people tell him he is honest.
In this case, therefore, since allowance must be made for human infirmities, we are to distinguish between an accident and a practice. I am not pleading to encourage any man to make no scruple of trespassing upon his honesty in time of necessity; but I cannot condemn every man for a knave who by unusual pressures, straits, difficulties, or other temptation, has been left to slip and do an ill action, as we call it, which perhaps this person would never have stooped to if the exigence had not been too great for his resolution. The Scripture says of David, He was a man after Gods own heart; and yet we have several things recorded of him, which, according to the modern way of censuring people in this age, would have given him the character of a very ill man. But I conceive the testimony of Davids uprightness, given us so authentically from the Scripture, is given from this very rule, that the inclination of his heart and the general bent of his practice were to serve and obey his great Sovereign Benefactor, however human frailty, backed with extremities of circumstances or powerful temptations, might betray him to commit actions which he would not otherwise have done. The falling into a crime will not denominate a man dishonest; for humanum est errare. The character of a man ought to be taken from the general tenor of his behaviour, and from his allowed practice. David took the shew-bread from the priests, which it was not lawful for him to eat. David knew that God, who commanded the shew-bread should not be eaten, had, however, commanded him by the law of Nature not to be starved, and therefore, pressed by his hunger, he ventures upon the commandment. And the Scripture is very remarkable in expressing it, David, when he was an hungry. And the occasion for which our blessed Lord Himself quoted this text is very remarkable, viz., to prove that things otherwise unlawful may be made lawful by necessity. Matt, xii. 4.
Another time, David in his passion resolves the destruction of Nabal and all his family, which, without doubt, was a great sin; and the principle which he went upon, to wit, revenge for his churlish and saucy answer to him, was still a greater sin; but the temptation, backed by the strength of his passion, had the better of him at that time; and this upright, honest man had murdered Nabal and all his house if God had not prevented him.
Many instances of like nature the Scripture has left upon record, giving testimony to the character of good men, from the general practice and bent of their hearts, without leaving any reproach upon them for particular failings, though those sins have been extraordinary provoking, and in their circumstances scandalous enough.
If any man would be so weak as from hence to draw encouragement to allow himself in easy trespasses upon his honesty, on the pretence of necessities, let him go on with me to the further end of this observation, and find room for it if he can.
If ever the honest man I speak of, by whatsoever exigence or weakness, thus slips from the principle of his integrity, he never fails to express his own dislike of it; he acknowledges upon all occasions, both to God and to man, his having been overcome, and been prevailed upon to do what he does not approve of; he is too much ashamed of his own infirmity to pretend to vindicate the action, and he certainly is restored to the first regulation of his principles as soon as the temptation is over. No man is fonder to accuse him than he is to accuse himself, and he has always upon him the sincere marks of a penitent.
Tis plain from hence that the principle of the mans integrity is not destroyed, however he may have fallen, though seven times a day; and I must, while I live, reckon him for an honest man.
Nor am I going about to suppose that the extremities and exigencies which have pressed men of the best principles to do what at another time they would not do, make those actions become less sinful, either in their own nature or circumstances. The guilt of a crime with respect to its being a crime, viz., an offence against God, is not removed by the circumstances of necessity. It is without doubt a sin for me to steal another mans food, though it was to supply starving nature; for how do I know whether he whose food I steal may not be in as much danger of starving for want of it as I? And if not, tis taking to my own use what I have no right to, and taking it by force or fraud; and the question is not as to the right or wrong, whether I have a necessity to eat this mans bread or no, but whether it be his or my own? If it be his, and not my own, I cannot do it without a manifest contempt of Gods law, and breaking the eighth article of it, Thou shalt not steal. Thus, as to God, the crime is evident, let the necessity be what it will.
But when we are considering human nature subjected, by the consequences of Adams transgression, to frailty and infirmity, and regarding things from man to man, the exigencies and extremities of straitened circumstances seem to me to be most prevailing arguments why the denomination of a mans general character ought not by his fellow-mor-tals (subject to the same infirmities) to be gathered from his mistakes, his errors, or failings; no, not from his being guilty of any extraordinary sin, but from the manner and method of his behaviour. Does he go on to commit frauds, and make a practice of his sin? Is it a distress? Is it a storm of affliction and poverty has driven him upon the lee-shore of temptation? Or is the sin the port he steered for? A ship may by stress of weather be driven upon sands and dangerous places, and the skill of the pilot not be blamable; but he that runs against the wind, and without any necessity, upon a shelf which he sees before him, must do it on purpose to destroy the vessel, and ruin the voyage.
In short, if no man can be called honest but he who is never overcome to fall into any breach of this rectitude of life, none but he who is sufficiently fortified against all possibility of being tempted by prospects, or driven by distress, to make any trespass upon his integrity woe be unto me that write, and to most that read! where shall we find the honest man?