[1.] First, That those that revile and reproach holiness, are such that have never knoiun the necessity nor the excellency of holiness; they have never experienced the power nor the sweetness of holiness ; they speak evil of things they know not, of things they understand not, Jude 10 ; 1 Tim. i. 7. Not to know is man's misery, but to speak evil of that which a man understands not is the height of folly ; and this these revilers do. ' Had they known,' saith the apostle, * they would not have crucified the Lord of glory,' 1 Cor. ii. 8 ; so I say, had these re- vilers known the splendour, the beauty, and the glory of holiness, they would never have reviled it and scorned it.^ Had the Jews known the Godhead of Christ, the divinity of Christ, the glory of Christ, they would never have cried up Barabbas, and have railed on Jesus as they did : so, had these railers but known the worth and the weight of holiness, they would never have cried up wickedness, and decried holiness as they do. Now, oh what shame, what folly, what vanity is it for a man to turn his back upon holiness because such revile it and scorn it, who never knew feelingly, nor experimentally, what holiness was ! Would not a man either sigh or laugh at him that should turn his back upon riches, honours, and preferments, &c., because the blind, poor, and beggarly sort of people, who never experienced what these things mean, casts dirt, dung, scorn, and reproach upon them ? and is not this the present case ? Surely yes. The fox in the fable, when H| he could not come at the grapes, cried out, that ' they were sour, they ™ were sour ; ' so men that cannot reach to the riches, the honours, and the great things of the world, oh, how do they cry out against these things ! oh, what disgrace, scorn, and contempt do they cast upon these things ! and all because they cannot reach them, because they cannot grasp them. The application is easy. It is men's ignorance of holiness that makes them cry out so much of holiness. That heathen, Aristotle, hit the mark when he cried out, Ignorat sane improhvs omnis, Ignorance is the source of all sin ; the very well-spring from whence all wickedness flows ; for ignorance enslaves the soul to Satan, it lets in sins by troops, and then locks them up in the heart, and it shuts out all the means of recovery, &c. And who then will wonder to see ignorant persons let fly at holiness ? Suppose a geometrician ^ Scicntia non habet inimicum prseter ignorantem.
318 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RARITY, [HeB. XIT. 14.
should be drawing of lines and figures, and there should come in some silly, ignorant fellow, who seeing him, should laugh at him, would the artist, think you, leave off his employment because of his derision ? Surely no ; for he knows that his laughter is but the fruit of his ignor- ance, as not knowing his art, and the grounds upon which he goes ; and therefore he holds on drawing, though the silly fellow should hold on in his laughing. 0 sirs, though ignorant persons deride holiness, and laugh at holiness, yet be not you ashamed of holiness, but hold on, and hold out in your pursuit after holiness, for they understand not the rules and principles by which you are acted ; and therefore it is that they throw dirt in the face of holiness ; but it will be your wisdom to wipe that off, and so much the more to pursue after holiness, by how much the more the silly ones of the world slight holiness, and laugh at holiness. But,
[2.] Secondly, There is no fence against an evil tongue. A man may fence himself against an evil eye, and against an evil hand, and against an evil head, &c., but there is no fence against an evil tongue. An evil tongue is such an unruly, such a mischievous, such a dangerous, such a killing, and such a destroying member, that there is no fence against it. A man may fence off the stroke of a sword, the thrust of a rapier, and the shot of an arrow, but he can never fence off the reproach and the reviling of an evil tongue. If the heart be sanctified the tongue is the best member in the body ; if the heart be unsanctified it is the worst, ^sop being by his master sent to buy up all the best meat he could get in the market, bought up all the tongues ; and being sent again to buy up all the worst meat he could get in the market, he bought up all the tongues again ; and when he was asked why he did so, he answered, that there was no flesh better than a good tongue, nor no flesh worser than a bad tongue ; which the apostle confirms fully in that James iii. 2-12.1 An evil tongue is wilder than the wildest beast. The horse, the ass, the camel, the elephant, yea, the lion, the leopard, the bear, and aU other beasts, have been tamed by man ; but the tongue, no man, no monarch, on earth have ever been able to tame. Aja evil tongue, in some respect, is worse than the devil ; for the devil may be shunned and avoided, but an evil tongue no man can shun ; and if you resist the devil he will fly from you, but the more you resist an evil tongue the more it will fly upon you: Prov. xvi. 27, ' An ungodly man diggeth up evil : and in his lips there is a burning fire.' An ungodly man, or a man of Belial, as the original has it, ' digs up evil.' Such old evils that have been long since buried in the grave of oblivion and forgetfuhiess, he digs up to cast in the saints' dishes, and to reproach them with. The teeth of malice will be still a-digging to find out something against the people of God, and if they can pick up anything out of the dunghill of false reports to object against them, their hps presently are as so many burning beacons to discover it to all the world. Now their tongues will be set on fire of hell, and now they will labour to fire the hearts and tongues of others against the people of God. A wicked tongue, as
Bias, one of the 8eV<:.*^ wise men, told Amasis king of Egypt, that the tongue was the best or worst member of the body. Tota vita hominis UngucB delictia est referta ; The whole life of man is made up of the sins of the tongue. — Basil,
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 319