If the Truth were on your side, she would fight for you-
she would conquer for you; and whatever enemies you might have to
encounter, "the Truth would set you free" from them, according to
her promise. But you have had recourse to falsehood, for no other
design than to support the errors with which you flatter the sinful
children of this world, and to bolster up the calumnies with which you
persecute every man of piety who sets his face against these
delusions. The truth being diametrically opposed to your ends, it
behooved you, to use the language of the prophet, "to put your
confidence in lies." You have said: "The scourges which afflict
mankind shall not come nigh unto us; for we have made lies our refuge,
and under falsehood have we hid ourselves." But what says the
prophet in reply to such? "Forasmuch," says he, "as ye have put your
trust in calumny and tumult- sperastis in calumnia et in tumultu- this
iniquity and your ruin shall be like that of a high wall whose
breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. And he shall break it as the
breaking of the potter's vessel that is shivered in pieces"- with such
violence that "there shall not be found in the bursting of it a
shred to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the
pit." "Because," as another prophet says, "ye have made the heart of
the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and ye have flattered and
strengthened the malice of the wicked; I will therefore deliver my
people out of your hands, and ye shall know that I am their Lord and
yours.
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