Excellent speech becometh not a fool: much less do lying lips a prince.
Ver. 7. Excellent speech becometh not a fool.] A Nabal, a sapless, worthless fellow, in whom all worth is withered and decayed, - qui nullas habet dicendi vires, as Cicero hath it, that can say no good except it be by rote, or at least by book, - what should he do discoursing of high points? God likes not fair words from a foul mouth. Christ silenced the devil when he confessed him to be the Son of the most high God. The leper's lips should be covered, according to the law. The Lacedemonians, when a bad man had uttered a good speech in their council house, liking the speech but not the speaker, commanded one of better carriage to give the same counsel, and then they made use of it. a The people of Rome sware they would not believe Carbo though he sware. b
Much less do lying lips a prince.] Or any ingenuous man, as some render it. A prince's bare word should be better security than another man's oath, said Alphonsns, King of Arragon. When Amurath, the great Turk, was exhorted by his cruel son, Mohammed, to break his faith with the inhabitants of Sfetigrade, in Epirus, he would not listen, saying, "That he which was desirous to be great among men, must either be indeed faithful of his word and promise, or at least seem to be so." c - thereby to gain the minds of the people, who naturally abhor the government of a faithless and cruel prince. What a foul blur was that to Christian religion, that Ladislaus King of Hungary should, by the persuasion of the Pope's envoy, break his oath given to this Amurath at the great battle of Varna, and thereby open the mouth of that dead dog to rail upon Jesus Christ! d And how will the Papists ever be able to wipe off from their religion that stain that lies upon it ever since the Emperor Sigismund, by the consent and advice of the Council of Constance, brake his promise of safe conduct to John Huss and Jerome of Prague, and burnt them! But they have a rule to walk by now, Fides cum haereticis non est servanda: Promises made to heretics are not to be observed. And it is for merchants, say they, and not for princes, to stand to their oaths, any further than may stand with the public good. This divinity they may seem to have drawn out of Plato, who, in his third Dialogue of the Commonwealth, saith, That if it be lawful for any one to lie, it may be lawful doubtless for princes and governors, that aim therein at the public welfare. But God, by the mouth of his servant and secretary, Solomon, here assures us it is otherwise.
a Odi hominem; ignava opera, philosopha sententia.
b Liv.
c Turkish History, fol. 321.
d Turkish History, fol. 291.