Bernard observes, kills three at once : first, it kills his name and fame by ill report who is slandered ; secondly, it kills his belief with a lie to whom the report is made ; thirdly, it kills the slanderer himself with the sin of detraction. David, who fell oftener under the sad lashes of evil tongues, compares reviling tongues to three fatal weapons : a razor, a sword, and an arrow. 1. To a razor in that Ps. lii. 2. Now you know a razor meets with every little hair, and many times instead of shaving the hair it slashes the flesh ; and sometimes by missing the beard it endangers the throat. And so the reviling tongue will take the least advantage imaginable to slash and cut the names and reputa- tions of those that fear the Lord in a thousand pieces. 2. To a sword, Ps. Ivii. 4, that cuts and wounds deep ; and so does the reviler's tongue cut deeply into the names, fames, and credits of the people of God ; and, 3. To an arrow, Ps. Ixiv. 3. The sword only cuts when we are near, but the arrow hits at a distance ; the sword cannot cut except we be at hand, but the arrow may hit us when we are afar off. The re viler can easily shoot his arrows of reproach a great way off ; he can shoot them from one town to another, from one city to another, from one kingdom to another, yea, from one end of the earth to the other, Ps. Ixxiii. 9. When the hands are manacled, and the feet fettered and stocked, the tongue travels freely all the world over, and loads the names of men with what reproaches it pleaseth. The tongue is the great interpreter of the heart ; the tongue is the key that unlocks those treasures of wickedness that be in the heart ; the corruptions of men's hearts commonly breaks forth at their lips, Mat. xii. 34. Look, as a pimpled face discovers a distempered liver, and as a stinking breath discovers corrupted lungs, so a reviling tongue discovers a base rotten heart. i When the pump goes you may quickly know whether the water that is in the fountain or well be clear or muddy, sweet or stinking ; and when the clapper strikes you may soon guess of what metal the bell is made of ; and so by men's tongues you may easily guess what is in their hearts. If the tongue be vird,^ the heart is so ; if the tongue be bloody, the heart is so ; if the tongue be adulterous, the heart is so ; if the tongue be malicious, the heart is so ; if the tongue be covetous, the heart is so ; and if the tongue be cruel, the heart is so, &c. Men's minds are known by their mouths. If the mouth be bad, the mind is not good. He that is rotten in his talk, is commonly rotten in the heart. Of all the members of the body there is none so serviceable to Satan as an evil tongue ; and therefore when all the body is full of sores he will keep the tongue from blisters, that so a man may the more freely and fully curse God and die.^ And this was the reason why Satan spared Job's tongue, when he sadly paid * all other members of his body, that so his grand design, which was to provoke Job both to curse God and to charge him foolishly, might take place ; but Job's tongue be-oiled with grace, proved his glory in his trying hour ; and instead of cursing, he blesses a taking God, an angry God. 0 sirs, the world is as full of evil tongues as Nilus of crocodiles, or as Sodom of sulphur, or as Egypt of lice ; and there
^ That man has commonly most of the devil in his heart that has most of the devil in his mouth. The strokes in music answer to the notes that are pricked in the rules. * ' Vile.'— G. ■^ Cbrysostom, Drexelius, and others. * Query, ' pained ? ' — G.
320 THE NECESSITY, EXCELLENCY, RARITY, [HeB, XII. 14.
is no fence, no guard against these evil tongues ; and therefore why should any man be discouraged from pursuing after holiness, because of the revilings of evil tongues ? Munster writes of men in India which speak not like men, but bark like dogs ; and who regards such men ? no more should we regard such foul-mouthed persons who are still bark- ing against holiness, as the dogs bark against the moon ; but as the moon runs her race and holds her course, though all the dogs in the town bark never so much at it ; so should you pursue after holiness, though all the tongues in the town should be barking and scoffing at you. But,
[3.] Thirdly, Consider that those that now reproach holiness will ere long he of another mind, they that now revile and reproach holiness will in a short time change their minds and their notes. When these very men who revile holiness shall come to fall under terrors and horrors of conscience, and when they shall come to lie upon their dying beds, and to have their immortal souls sit trembling and quaking upon their pale lips, and when they shall appear before the great God, and awake with everlasting flames about their ears, oh, how will they then wish that they had never reviled holiness ! How will they then wish that they had prized holiness, and that they had spent their all in pm'suing after holiness ! Num. xxiii. 10. Oh, how will they then charge themselves, and censure themselves, and arraign and condemn them- selves, for their scorning and condemning of holiness ! Oh, how will they then wish that they had never heard of holiness, nor read of holiness, nor thought of holiness ! Oh, how will they then wish that their mothers' wombs had proved their tombs, and that they had rather lived and died in a land of darkness, than thus to live and die without holiness ! Now, oh, what folly and madness is it for thee to neglect the pursuit of holiness, because such and such revile it, who perhaps before the next year, the next month, yea it may be the next Sabbath comes about, will wish ten thousand times over and over that they had pursued after it, and that they had made it their greatest work in this world to obtain it ! But,