For truth
and sincerity, equity and candour, meekness and charity are
inviolably to be observed, not only towards dissenters in opinion,
but even towards declared enemies of truth itself; we are to bless
them (that is, to speak well of them, and to wish well to them), not
to curse them (that is, not to reproach them, or to wish them ill,
much less to belie them). Truth also, as it cannot ever need, so
doth it always loathe and scorn the patronage and the succour of
lies; it is able to support and protect itself by fair means; it
will not be killed upon a pretence of saving it, or thrive by its
own ruin. Nor indeed can any party be so much strengthened and
underpropped, as it will be weakened and undermined by such courses.
No cause can stand firm upon a bottom so loose and slippery as
falsehood is. All the good a slanderer can do is, to disparage what
he would maintain. In truth, no heresy can be worse than that would
be which should allow to play the devil in any case. He that can
dispense with himself to slander a Jew or a Turk, doth in so doing
render himself worse than either of them by profession is: for even
they, and even pagans themselves, disallow the practice of
inhumanity and iniquity.
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