Parrhesia, or Christian and Ministerial Freedom of Speech [pp. 312-336]

Parrhesia.
it be remembered that one of the most prevalent and operative
errors in the church, from its foundation to the present day, is
the error of those who imagine that the essence of religion lies
in the hatred of evil, as an exercise altogether separate and
distinct from the love and practice of good. Or rather such
imagine that the one includes the other, and that there can be
nothing better in itself, or in its tendencies, than bitter hostility
to sin, as shown in its detection, condemnation, and punishment.
The indulgence of this feeling, when controlled by human weakness and remaining corruption~ can scarcely fail to seek its
objects rather in our neighbours than ourselves, until at last we
may be brought, by an insensible transition, to regard our own
defects as in some sense made good by detecting and exposing
the defects of others. Where religion takes this form, and
breathes this spirit, it is perfectly conceivable that truth may
be violated, more or less directly, without any conscious purpose
to do wrong; nay, with the highest estimation of our own zeal
for God and holy hatred of whatever does not wear our uniform
or talk our dialect. For nothing is more common in such cases
than to make resemblance to ourselves the authoritative standard of comparison and rule of judgment, by which others
without mercy, are to stand or fall. This inexorable law may
even comprehend in its exactions constitutional peculiarities, or
matters of mere accidental origin, endeared to us by habit, but
no more a rule of right to others, than their singularities of
temperament and of usage are to us. The existence of this
inquisitorial and vindictive piety among our Saviour's first disciples, is apparent from the frequency and point of his attacks
upon it, all of which may be summed up in that pregnant exhortation, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Matt. vii. 1. Its
continued existence ever since may be read in the history of
inquisitors and persecutors, and might be read in that of makebates and busy-bodies, even in the church, and even among
those who are true believers. For strong indeed must be the
faith of those who, under this false view of their relation both
to God and to their fellow-men, can steadfastly resist the perpetual temptation to discolour, to exaggerate, and even to
invent, in the exercise of their self-constituted office as inquisitors and judges of their fellow-Christians. But even where this
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