So it is evident that if one would seek excuse for the lie of exigency, in the concessions made by Martensen, he must do so only on the score of the hardness of his heart, and the softness of his head, as one lacking a proper measure of wisdom, of courage, and of faith, to enable him to conform to the proper ideal standard of human conduct.  And even then he must recognize the fact that in his weakness he has done something to be ashamed of, and to demand repentance.  Cold comfort that for a decent man!

It would seem that personal temperament and individual peculiarities had their part in deciding a man’s attitude toward the question of the unvarying duty of veracity, quite as surely as the man’s recognition of great principles.  An illustration of this truth is shown in the treatment of the subject by Dr. Charles Hodge on the one hand, and by Dr. James H. Thornwell on the other, as representatives, severally, of Calvinistic Augustinianism in the Presbyterian Church of the United States, in its Northern and Southern branches.  Starting from the same point of view, and agreeing as to the principles involved, these two thinkers are by no means together in their conclusions; and this, not because of any real difference in their processes of reasoning, but apparently because of the larger place given by the former to the influence of personal feeling, as over against the imperative demands of truth.

Dr. Hodge begins with the recognition and asseveration of eternal principles, that can know no change or variation in their application to this question; and then, as he proceeds with its discussion, he is amiably illogical and good-naturedly inconsistent, and he ends in a maze, without seeming quite sure as to his own view of the case, or giving his readers cause to know what should be their view.  Dr. Thornwell, on the other hand, beginning in the same way, proceeds unwaveringly to the close, in logical consistency of reasoning; leaving his readers at the last as fully assured as he is as to the application of unchangeable principles to man’s life and duties.

No one could state the underlying principles involved in this question more clearly and explicitly than does Dr. Hodge at the outset;[1] and it would seem from this statement that he could not be in doubt as to the issue of the discussion of this question of the ages.  “The command to keep truth inviolate belongs to a different class [of commands] from those relating to the sabbath, to marriage, or to property.  These are founded on the permanent relations of men in the present state of existence.  They are not in their own nature immutable.  But truth is at all times sacred, because it is one of the essential attributes of God, so that whatever militates against or is hostile to truth is in opposition to the very nature of God.”

[Footnote 1:  See Hodge’s Systematic Theology, III., 437-463.]