By William Gurnall
“Thus error, like a thief, comes in through the windows, yet truth, like the owner of the house, enters at the door of understanding, and from there moves into the conscience, will, and affections. The man who finds and professes truth before he understands its excellency and beauty cannot fully appreciate the worth of its heavenly birth and descent. A prince travelling in disguise is not honoured because people do not realize who he is. Truth is loved and prized only by those who recognize it and know it personally.
If we do not desire to know truth we have already rejected it. It is not hard to cheat a person out of truth if he does not know what he has. Truth and error are all the same to the ignorant man and so he calls everything truth. Have you heard about the covetous man who constantly hugged his many bags of gold? He never opened them or used the treasure, and thus when a thief stole the gold and left his bags full of pebbles in his room, he was as happy as when he still had the gold.”
