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

.Parrhesia.
it; that they do not even recognize the duty of avoiding or the
danger of exciting it. They simply let the thing alone, and
pursue a course which would be wise and right if they were
called to deal with sinless beings, or with Christians in the
highest state of spiritual discipline and cultivation. No wonder
that to such the effects of their instructions or their course on
others, even those whom they believe to be sincere, is often the
occasion of a painful surprise, under the influence of which they
are ready to demand of some who once appeared to be their
best friends-"Am I therefore become your enemy because I
tell you the truth?"
In other cases, the effect is owing, not to sheer neglect or
inadvertence, but to want of skill in doing that which is seen to
be expedient, or acknowledged to be binding. The necessity
of so presenting truth as to avoid offence is fully recognized;
but in attempting to apply the principle, it fails through ignorance of human nature, or a want of tact in the selection and
employment of the necessary means of influencing men's convictions and their conduct, or the want of just discernment as
to the effect of the means used. There is an honest purpose to
speak the truth, and so to speak it as to win men to the love
of it; nay, more, there is a faithful and laborious application
of the means which seem best suited to promote this end; and
yet instead of seeing it successfully accomplished, the expounder
and defender of the truth is often mortified by seeing his
instructions have precisely-the effect which he was most solicitous to shun, and finds himself involuntarily saying to those
whom he not only wished but expected to conciliate, " Am I
then become your enemy because I tell you the truth?"
In addition to these cases there is still another, where the
same result is'reached, but in a somewhat different way. There
is no want either of a disposition to conciliate, or of intellectual
capacity and skill to do it* but the end is defeated by infirmity
of temper. He who speaks the truth may really desire that
others should not only believe it, but receive it, in the love of it;
and yet, because he is himself morose or captious, domineering
or irascible, he cannot do the good he would. He cannot speak
the truth without imparting to it something of his own dogmatical or acrimonious. spirit. In this case there is less room
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