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   Title: The Government of the Tongue
   Creator(s): Allestree, Richard (1619-1681)
   Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All; Ethics; Theology
   LC Call no: BJ1533.C7
   LC Subjects:

   Ethics

   Individual ethics. Character. Virtue (Including practical and applied
   ethics...)
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THE

                                   Government

OF THE

                                     Tongue

   By the Author of
   The Whole Duty of Man, &c.

   Death and Life are in the power of the Tongue. Prov. 18. 21.

   The Second Impression

   MDCLXXIV.
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The Preface

   The Government of the Tongue has ever been justly reputed one of the
   most important parts of human Regiment. The Philosopher and the Divine
   equally attest this: and Solomon (who was both) gives his suffrage
   also; the persuasions to, and encomiums of it, taking up a considerable
   part of his book of Proverbs. I shall not therefore need to say
   anything, to justify my choice of this subject, which has so much
   better Authorities to commend it. I rather with that it had not the
   super-addition of an accidental fitness grounded upon the universal
   neglect of it, it now seeming to be an art wholly out-dated. For though
   some lineaments of it may be met with in books, yet there is scarce any
   footsteps of it in practice, where alone it can be significant. The
   attempt therefore of reviving it I am sure is seasonable, I wish it
   were half as easy.

   2. Indeed that skill was never very easy, it requiring the greatest
   vigilance and caution, and therefore not to be attained by loose
   trifling spirits. The Tongue is so slippery, that it easily deceives a
   drowsy or heedless guard. Nature seems to have given it some unhappy
   advantages towards that. Tis in its frame the most ready for motion of
   any member, needs not so much as the flexure of a joint, and by access
   of humors acquires a glibness too, the more to facilitate its moving.
   And alas, we too much find the effect of this its easy frame; it often
   goes without giving us warning; and as children when they happen upon a
   rolling engine, can set it in such a carrier, as wiser people cannot on
   a sudden stop; so the childish parts of us, our passions, our fancies,
   all our mere animal faculties, can thrust our tongues into such
   disorder, as our reason cannot easily rectify. The due management
   therefore of this unruly member, may be rightly be esteemed on of the
   greatest mysteries of Wisdom and Virtue. This is intimated by St.
   James, If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and
   able also to bridle the whole body, Jam. 3. 2. Tis storied of Bembo, a
   primitive Christian, that coming to a friend to teach him a Psalm, he
   began to him the thirty-ninth, I said I will take heed to my ways, that
   I offend not with my Tongue; upon hearing of which first verse, he
   stopped his Tutor, saying, "This is enough for me, if I learn it as I
   ought"; and being after six months rebuked for not coming again, he
   replied, that he had not yet learned his first lesson: nay, after
   nineteen years he professed, that in that time he had scarce learned to
   fulfill that one line. I give not this instance to discourage, but
   rather to quicken men to the study; for a lesson that requires so much
   time to learn, had need be early begun with.

   3. But especially in this age, wherein the contrary liberty has got
   such a prepossession, that men look on it as a part of their
   birth-right; nay, do not only let their tongues loose, but studiously
   suggest inordinacies to them, and use the spur where they should the
   bridle. By this means conversation is so generally corrupted, that many
   have had cause to wish they had not been made sociable creatures. A man
   secluded from company can have but the Devil and himself to tempt him;
   be he that converses, has almost as many snares as he has companions.
   Men barter vices, and as if each had not enough of his own growth,
   transplant out of his neighbors soil, and that which was intended to
   cultivate and civilize the world, has turned it into a wild desert and
   wilderness.

   4. This face of things, I confess, looks not very promising to one who
   is to solicit a reformation. But whatever the hopes are, I am sure the
   needs are great enough to justify the attempt; for as the disease is
   Epidemic, so it is mortal also, utterly inconsistent with that pure
   religion, which leads to life. We may take St. James's word for it, "If
   any man seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, that man's
   religion is in vain", Jam. 1. 26. God knows we have not much Religion
   among us: Tis great pity we should frustrate the little we have, render
   that utterly insignificant, which at the best amounts to so little. Let
   therefore the difficulty and necessity of the task, prevail with us to
   take time before us, not to defer this so necessary a work, till the
   night come; or imagine that the Tongue will be able to expiate its
   whole age of guilt by a feeble "Lord have mercy on me" at the last.
   Though indeed if that were supposable, Twere but a broken reed to trust
   to, none knowing whether he shall have time or grace for that. He may
   be surprised with an Oath, a Blasphemy, a Detraction in his mouth: many
   have been so. Tis sure there must be a dying moment: and how can any
   man secure himself, it shall not be the same with that in which he
   utters those, and his expiring breath, be so employed? Sure they cannot
   think that those incantations (though hellish enough) can make them
   scot free, render them invulnerable to death's darts; and if they have
   not that or some other as a ridiculous reserves, Tis strange what
   should make them run such a mad adventure.

   5. But I expect it should be objected, that this little despicable
   Tract is not proportionable to the encounter to which it is brought;
   that besides the unskillful managing of those points it does touch, it
   wholly omits many proper to the subject, there being faults of the
   Tongue which it passes in silence. I confess there is color enough for
   this objection. But I believe if it were put to votes, more would
   resolve I had said too much, rather than too little. Should I have
   enlarged to the utmost compass of this Theme, I should have made the
   volume of so affrighting a bulk, that few would have attempted it; and
   by saying much I should have said nothing at all to those who most need
   it. Men's stomachs are generally so queasy in these cases, that Tis not
   safe to overload them; let them try how they can digest this: if they
   can so as to turn it into kindly nourishment, they will be able to
   supply themselves with the remainder. For I think I may with some
   confidence affirm, that he that can confine his Tongue within the
   limits here prescribed, may without much difficulty refrain from its
   other excursions. All I shall beg of the Reader, is but to come with
   sincere intentions, and then perhaps these few Stones and Sling used in
   the Name, and with invocation of the Lord of Hosts, may countervail the
   massive armor, of the uncircumcised Philistine; And may that God who
   loves to magnify his power in weakness, give it the like success.
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Section I.
Of the Use of Speech.

   Man at his first creation was substituted by God as his Viceregent, to
   receive the homage, and enjoy the services of all inferior beings: nay,
   farther was endowed with excellencies fit to maintain the port of so
   vast an Empire. Yet those very excellencies, as they qualified him for
   dominion, so they unfitted him for satisfaction or acquiescence in
   those his vassals: the dignity of his nature set him above the society
   or converse of mere animals; so that in all the pomp of his royalty,
   amidst all the throng and variety of creatures, he still remained
   solitary. But God who knew what an appetite of society he had implanted
   in him, judged this no agreeable state for him, It is not meet that man
   should be alone. Gen. 2. 18. And as in the universal frame of nature,
   he engrafted such an abhorrence of vacuity, that all creatures do
   rather submit to a preternatural motion than admit it, so, in this
   empty, this destitute condition of man, he relieved him by a miraculous
   expedient, divided him that he might unite him, and made one part of
   him an associate for the other.

   2. Neither did God take this care to provide him a companion, merely
   for the intercourses of Sense: had that been the sole aim, there needed
   no new productions, there were sensitive creatures enough: the design
   was to entertain his nobler principle, his reason, with a more equal
   converse, assign him an intimate, whose intellect as much corresponded
   with his, as did the outward form, whose heart, according to Solomon's
   resemblance, answered his, As in water face answers face, Prov. 27. 19.
   with whom he might communicate minds, traffic and interchange all the
   notions and sentiments of a reasonable soul.

   3. But though there were this sympathy in their sublimer part which
   disposed them to a most intimate union; yet there was a cloud of flesh
   in the way which intercepted their mutual view, nay, permitted no
   intelligence between them, other than by the mediation of some Organ
   equally commensurate to soul and body. And to this purpose the infinite
   wisdom of God ordained Speech; which as it is a sound resulting from
   the modulation of the Air, has most affinity to the spirit, but as it
   is uttered by the Tongue, has immediate cognition with the body, and so
   is the fittest instrument to manage a commerce between the rational yet
   invisible powers of human souls clothed in flesh.

   4. And as we have reason to admire the excellency of this contrivance,
   so have we to applaud the extensiveness of the benefit. From this it is
   we derive all the advantages of society: without this men of the
   nearest neighborhood would have signified no more to each other than
   the Antipodes now do to us. All our arts and sciences for the
   accommodation of this life, had remained only a rude Chaos in their
   first matter, had not speech by a mutual comparing of notions ranged
   them into order. By this it is we can give one another notice of our
   wants, and solicit relief; by this we interchange advices, reproofs,
   consolations, all the necessary aids of human feebleness. This is that
   which possesses us of the most valuable blessing of human life, I mean
   Friendship, which could no more have been contracted amongst dumb men,
   than it can between pictures and statues. Nay, farther to this we owe
   in a great degree the interests even of our spiritual being, all the
   oral, yea, and written revelations too of God's will: for had there
   been no language there had been no writing. And though we must not
   pronounce how far God might have evidenced himself to mankind by
   immediate inspiration of every individual, yet we may safely rest in
   the Apostle's inference in Rom. 10. 14. How shall they believe in Him
   of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a
   preacher?

   5. From all these excellent uses of it in respect to man, we may
   collect another in relation to God, that is in praising and magnifying
   his goodness, as for all other effects of his bounty, so particularly
   that he hath given us language, and all the consequent advantages of
   it. This is the just inference of the son of Syrach in Ecclus. 51. 22.
   The Lord hath given me a tongue, and I will praise him therewith. This
   is the sacrifice which God calls for so often by the Prophets, the
   Calves of our Lips, which answers to all the oblations out of the herd,
   and which the Apostle makes equivalent to those of the floor and
   winepress also, Heb. 13. 15. The fruit of our lips, giving thanks to
   his name. To this we frequently find the Psalmist exciting both himself
   and others, Awake up my glory, I will give thanks unto Thee, O Lord,
   among the people, and I will sing unto Thee among the nations. Psa. 57.
   9, 10. And O praise the Lord with me, and let us magnify His name
   together. Psa. 34. 3. And indeed, whoever observes that excellent
   magazine of Devotion, the book of Psalms, shall find that the Lauds
   make up a very great part of it.

   6. By what hath been said, we may define what are the grand Uses of
   speech, viz. the glorifying of God, and the benefiting of men. And this
   helps us to an infallible test by which to try our words. For since
   everything is so far approvable as it answers the end of its being,
   what part soever of our discourses agrees not with these primitive ends
   of speech, will not hold weight in the balance of the sanctuary. It
   will therefore nearly concern us to enter upon this scrutiny, to bring
   our words to this touchstone: for though in our depraved estimate the
   Eloquence of Language is more regarded than the innocence, though we
   think our words vanish with the breath that utters them, yet they
   become records in God's Court, are laid up in his Archives as witnesses
   either for, or against us: for he who is truth itself hath told us,
   that By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt
   be condemned. Mat. 12. 37.
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Section II.
Of the manifold Abuse of Speech.

   And now, since the original designs of speaking are so noble, so
   advantageous, one would be apt to conclude no rational creature would
   be tempted to pervert them, since tis sure he can substitute none for
   them, that can equally conduce, either to his honor, or interest.

   2. Yet experience (that great baffler of speculation) assures us the
   thing is too possible, and brings in all ages matter of fact to confute
   our suppositions. So liable alas, is speech to be depraved, that the
   Scripture describes it as the force of all our other depravation.
   Original sin came first out of the mouth by speaking, before it entered
   by eating. The first use we find Eve to have made of her language, was
   to enter parley with the tempter, and from that to become a tempter to
   her husband. And immediately upon the fall, guilty Adam frames his
   tongue to a frivolous excuse, which was much less able to cover his sin
   than the fig leaves his nakedness. And as in the infancy of the first
   world, the tongue had licked up the venom of the old serpent, so
   neither could the Deluge wash it off in the second. No sooner was that
   small colony (wherewith the depopulated earth was to be replanted) come
   forth of the Ark, but we meet with Ham, a detractor of his own father,
   inviting his brethren to that execrable spectacle of their parent's
   nakedness.

   3. Nor did this only run in the blood of that accursed Person; the holy
   seed was not totally free from its infection, even the Patriarchs
   themselves were not exempt. Abraham used a repeated collusion in the
   case of his wife, and exposed his own integrity to preserve her
   chastity. Isaac the heir of his blessing, was son of his infirmity
   also, and acted over the same scene upon Rebecca's account. Jacob
   obtained his father's blessing by a flat lie. Simeon and Levi spake not
   only falsely, but insidiously, nay, hypocritically, abusing at once
   their proselytes, and their religion, for the effecting their cruel
   designs upon the Shechemites. Moses, though a man of unparalleled
   meekness, yet spake unadvisedly with his lips, Psa. 106. 33. David
   uttered a bloody vow against Nabal, spake words smoother than oil to
   Uriah, when he had done him one injury, and designed him another. Twere
   endless to reckon up those several instances the Old Testament gives us
   of these lapses of the Tongue: neither want there divers in the New;
   though there is one of so much horror, as supersedes the naming more, I
   mean that of St. Peter in his reiterated abjuring his Lord, a crime
   which (abstracted from the intention) seems worse than the one of
   Judas: that traitor owned his relation, cried Master, Master, even when
   he betrayed him, so that had he been measured only by his tongue, he
   might have passed for the better disciple.

   4. These are sad instances, not recorded to pratonize the sin, but to
   excite our caution. It was a politic inference of the elders of Israel
   in the case of Jehu, Behold two kings stood not before him, how then
   shall we stand? 2 King. 10. And we may well apply it to this: if
   persons of so circumspect a piety have been thus overtaken, what
   security can there be for our wretched obstinacy? If those who kept
   their mouths, as it were, with a bridle, Psa. 39. could not have always
   preserve their innocence, to what guilts may not our unrestrained
   licentious tongues hurry us? Those which as the Psalmist speaketh in
   Psa. 73. 9. go through the world, are in that unbounded range very
   likely to meet with him who walks the same round. Job 2. 2. and by him
   be tuned and set to his key, be screwed and wrested from their proper
   use, and made subservient to his vilest designs.

   5. And would God this were only a probable supposition! But alas,
   experience supplants the use of conjecture in the point: we do not only
   presume it may be so, but actually find it is so; for amidst the
   universal depravation of our Faculties, there is none more notorious
   than that of speech. Whither shall we turn us to find it in its
   pristine integrity? Amidst that infinity of words in which we exhaust
   our breath, how few are there which do at all correspond with the
   original designation of speech, nay, which do not flatly contradict it?
   To what unholy, uncharitable purposes is that useful faculty perverted?
   That which was meant to serve as the perfume of the tabernacle, to send
   up the incenses of praise and prayers, now exhales in impious vapors,
   to eclipse, if it were possible, the Father of light. That which should
   be the store-house of relief and refreshment to our brethren, is become
   a magazine of all offensive weapons against them, spears and arrows and
   sharp swords, as the Psalmist often phrases them. We do not only fall
   by the slipperiness of our tongues, but we deliberately discipline and
   train them to mischief. We bend our tongues as our bows for lies. As
   the Prophet speaks in Jer. 9. And in a word, what God affirmed of the
   old world in relation to thoughts, is too applicable to our words, they
   are evil and that continually, Gen. 6. 5. and that which was intended
   for the instrument, the aid of human society, is become the disturber,
   the pest of it.

   6. I Shall not attempt a particular discussion of all the vices of the
   Tongue: it doth indeed pass all Geography to draw an exact Map of that
   world of iniquity, as St. James calls it. I shall only draw the greater
   lines, and distribute it into its principal and more eminent parts,
   which are distinguishable as they relate to God, our Neighbor, and our
   Selves: in each of which I shall rather make an essay by way of
   instance, than attempt to exact enumeration or survey.
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Section III.
Of Atheistical Discourse.

   I Begin with those which relate to God, this poor despicable member the
   tongue being of such a gigantic insolence, though not size, as even to
   make war with heaven. Tis true every disordered speech doth remotely
   so, as it is a violation of God's law; but I now speak only of those
   which as it were attack his person, and immediately fly in the face of
   Omnipotency. In the highest rank of these we may well place all
   Atheistical Discourse, which is that bold fort of rebellion, which
   strikes not only at his Authority, but Himself. Other blasphemies level
   some at one Attribute, some another; but this by a more compendious
   impiety, shoots at his very being; and as if it scorned those
   piece-meal guilts, sets up a single monster big enough to devour them
   all: for all inferior profaneness is an much outdated by Atheism, as is
   religion itself.

   2. Time was when the inveighing against this, would have been thought a
   very impertinent subject in a Christian nation, and men would have
   replied upon me as the Spartan Lady did, when she was asked what was
   the punishment for adulteresses, There are no such things here. Nay,
   even amongst the most barbarous people, it could have concerned but
   some few single persons, no numbers, much less societies of men, having
   ever excluded the belief of a Deity. And perhaps it may at this day
   concern them as little as ever; for amidst the various Deities and
   worships of those remoter nations, we have yet no account of any that
   renounced all. Tis only our light hath so blinded us: so that God may
   upbraid us as he did Israel, Hath a nation changed their gods which yet
   are no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth
   not profit. Jer. 2. 11. This madness is now the enclosure, the
   peculiarity of those, who by their names and institution should be
   Christians: as if that natural Aphorism, That when things are at their
   height they must fall again, had place here also, and our being of the
   most excellent, most elevated religion, were but the preparation to our
   being of none.

   3. Tis indeed deplorable to see, how the professors of no God begin to
   vie numbers with all the differing persuasions in religion, so that
   Atheism seems to be the gulf that finally swallows up all our Sects. It
   has struck on a sudden into such a reputation, that it scorns any
   longer to skulk, but owns itself more publicly than most men dare do
   the contrary. Tis set down in the seat of the scorner, and since it
   cannot argue, resolves to laugh all Piety out of countenance, and
   having seized the mint, nothing shall pass for wit that hath not its
   stamp, and with it there is no metal of so base an alloy, but shall go
   current. Even the dullest creature that can but stoutly disclaim his
   Maker, has by it sufficiently secured its title to ingenuity; and such
   measures being once established, no wonder at its shoals of proselytes,
   when it gives at the one hand license to all sensual inordinancies,
   permits them to be as much beasts as they will, or can, and yet tells
   them on the other, that they are the more men for it. Sure tis not
   strange that a hook thus doubly baited should catch many. Either of
   those allurements single, we see has force enough. The charms of
   sensuality are so fascinating, that even those who believe another
   world, and the severe revenges that will there attend their luxuries,
   yet choose to take them in present with all their dismal reversions.
   And then sure it cannot but be very good news to such a one to be told,
   that that after-reckoning is but a false alarm: and his great
   willingness to have it true, will easily incline him to believe it is
   so. And doubtless were Atheism traced up to its first cause, this would
   be found the most operative. Tis so convenient for a man that will have
   no God to control or restrain him, to have none to punish him neither,
   that that utility passes into Argument, and he will rather put a cheat
   upon his understanding by concluding there is no future account, than
   leave such a sting in his pleasures, as the remembrance of it must
   needs prove. This seems to be the original and first rise of this
   impiety, it being impossible for any man that sees the whole, nay, but
   the smallest part of the Universe, to doubt of a first and supreme
   Being, until from the consciousness of his provocations, it become his
   interest there should be none.

   4. This is indeed, considering the depravity of the world, a pretty
   fast tenure for Atheism to hold by; yet it has of late twisted its
   cord, and got that other string to its bow we before mentioned. Its
   bold monopolizing of wit and reason compels, as other invited men. This
   we many indeed call the devil's press, by which he hath filled up his
   troops. Men are afraid of being reproached for silly and irrational, in
   giving themselves up to a blind belief of what they do not see: and
   this bugbear frights them from their religion, resolving they will be
   no fools for Christ's sake. 1 Cor. 4. 10. I dare appeal to the breasts
   of many in this Age, whether this have not been one of the most
   prevalent temptations with them to espouse the tenet: and though
   perhaps they at first took it up, only in their own defense, for fear
   of being thought fools, yet that fear soon converts into ambition of
   being thought wits. They do not satisfy themselves with deserting their
   religion, unless they revile it also; remembering how themselves were
   laughed out of it, they essay to do the like by others. Yea, so zealous
   propugners are they of their negative Creed, that they are
   importunately diligent to instruct men in it, and in all the little
   sophistries and colors for defending it: so that he that would measure
   the opinions by their industry and the remissness of believers, would
   certainly think that the great interests of Eternity lay wholly on
   their side. Yet I take not this for any argument of the confidence of
   this persuasion, but the contrary: for we know they are not the secure,
   but the desperate undertakings, wherein men are most desirous of
   partners, and there is somewhat of horror in an uncouth way, which
   makes men unwilling to travail it alone.

   5. The truth is, though these men speak big, and prescribe as
   positively to their pupils, as if they had some counter revelation to
   confute those of Moses and Christ, yet were their secret thoughts laid
   open, there would scarce be found the like assurance there. I will not
   say to what reprobate sense some particular persons may have provoked
   God to deliver them, but in the generality, I believe one may affirm,
   that there is seldom an infidelity so sanguine as to exclude all fears.
   Their most bold Thesis, That there is no God, no judgement, no hell, is
   often met with an inward tremulous Hypothesis, What if there be? I dare
   in this remit me to themselves, and challenge (not their consciences,
   who profess to have none, but) their natural ingenuity to say, whether
   they have not sometimes such damps and shivering within them. If they
   shall say, that these are but the relics of prepossession and
   education, which their reason soon dissipates, Let me then ask them
   farther, whether they would not really give a considerable sum to be
   infallibly ascertained there were no such thing: no sensible man would
   give a farthing to be secured from a thing which his reason tells him
   is impossible: therefore, if they would give anything (as I dare say
   they cannot deny to themselves that they would) tis a tacit
   demonstration that they are not so sure as they pretend to be.

   6. I Might here join issue upon the whole, and press them with the
   unreasonableness, the disingenuousness of embracing a profession to
   which their own hearts have an inward reluctance, nay, the imprudence
   of governing their lives by that position, which for ought they know
   may be (nay, they actually fear is) false, and if it be, must
   inevitable immerse them in endless ruin. But I must remember my design
   limits me only to the faults of the Tongue, and therefore I must not
   follow this chase beyond those bounds. I shall only extend it to my
   proper subject, that of Atheistical talk, wherein they make as mad an
   adventure as in any other of their enormous practices, nay, perhaps in
   some respects a worse.

   7. In the first place, tis to be considered, that if there be a God,
   He, as well as men, may be provoked by our words as well as our deeds.
   Secondly, tis possible he may be more. Our ill deeds may be done upon a
   vehement impulse of temptation; some profit or pleasures may transport
   and hurry us, and they may at least have this alleviation, that we did
   them to please or advantage ourselves, not to spite God: but
   Atheistical words cannot be so palliated: they are arrows directly shot
   against heaven, and can come out of no quiver but malice; for tis
   certain there never was man that said, There was no God, but he wished
   it first. We know what an enhancement our injuries to each other
   receive from their being malicious: and sure they will do so much more
   to God, whose principal demand from us is, that we give him our heart.
   But thirdly, this implies a malice of the highest sort. Human spite is
   usually confined within some bounds, aims sometimes at the goods,
   sometimes at the fame, at most but at the life of our neighbor: but
   here is an accumulation of all those, backed with the most prodigious
   insolence. Tis God only that has power of annihilation, and we (vile
   worms) seek here to steal that incommunicable right, and retort it upon
   himself, and by an anti-creative power would unmake him who has made
   us. Nay lastly, by this we have not only the utmost guilt of single
   rebels, but we become ringleaders also, draw in others to that accursed
   association: for tis only this liberty of Discourse that has propagated
   Atheism. The Devil might perhaps by inward suggestions have drawn here
   and there a single Proselyte, but he could never have had such numbers,
   had he not used some as decoys to ensnare others.

   8. And now let the alert Atheist a little consider, what all these
   aggravations will amount to. Twas good counsel was give to the
   Athenians to be very sure Philip was dead, before they expressed their
   joy at his death, lest they might find him alive to revenge that hasty
   triumph. And the like I may give to these men, Let them be very sure
   there is no God, before they presume thus to defy Him, lest they find
   Him at last assert His being in their destruction. Certainly nothing
   less than a Demonstration can justify the reasonableness of such a
   daring. And when they can produce that, they have so far outgone all
   the comprehensions of mankind, they may well challenge the liberty of
   their Tongue, and say, We are our own, who is Lord over us? Psa. 12. 4.

   9. But till this be done, twere well they would soberly balance the
   hazards of this liberty with the gains of it. The hazards are of the
   most dreadful kind, the gains of the slightest: the most is but a vain
   applause of wit for an impious jest, or of reason for a deep
   considerer: and yet even for that they must encroach on the Devil's
   right too, who is commonly the prompter, and therefore, if there be any
   credit in it may justly challenge it. Indeed tis to be feared he will
   at last prove the master wit, when as for those little loans he made to
   them, he gets their souls in mortgage. Would God they would consider
   betimes, what a woeful raillery that will be, which for ought they know
   may end in gnashing of teeth.

   10. The next impiety of the Tongue is Swearing, that foolish sin which
   plays the Platonic to damnation, and courts it purely for itself,
   without any of the appendant allurements which other sins have: a vice
   which for its guilt may justify the sharpest, and for its customariness
   the frequentest invectives which can be made against it: but it has
   been assaulted so often by better pens, and has showed itself so much
   proof against all Homily, that it is as needless as discouraging a task
   for me to attempt it. Tis indeed a thing taken up so perfectly without
   all sense, that tis the less wonder to find it maintain itself upon the
   same principle tis founded, and continue in the same defiance to reason
   wherein it began.

   11. All therefore that I shall say concerning it, is to express my
   wonder how it has made a shift to twist itself with the former sin of
   Atheism, by which according to all rules of reasoning it seems to be
   superseded: and yet we see none own God more in their oaths, than those
   that disavow him in their other discourse: nay, such men swear not only
   to swell their language, and make it sound more full and blustering,
   but even when they most desire to be believed. What an absurdity of
   wickedness is this? Is there a God to swear by, and is there none to
   believe in, none to pray to? We call it frenzy to see a man fight with
   a shadow: but sure tis more so, to invoke it. Whey then do these men of
   reason make such solemn appeals (for such every oath is) to a mere
   Chimera and Phantasm? It would make one think they had some inward
   belief of a Deity, which they upon surprise thus blurt out: if it argue
   not this, it does something worse, and becomes an evidence how much the
   appearance of a sin recommends it to them, that they thus catch at it,
   without examining how it will consist with another they like better.
   These are indeed wholesale chapmen to Satan, that do not truck and
   barter one crime for another, but take the whole herd: and though by
   reason of their disagreeing kinds they are apt to gore and worry each
   other, yet he still keeps up his old policy, and will not let one Devil
   cast out another. A league shall be made between the most discordant
   sins, and there shall be a God, or there shall be none, according as
   opportunity serves to provoke him: so assuming to himself a power which
   even Omnipotence disclaims, the reconciling of contradictions. And the
   Devil succeeds in it as far as his concern reaches: for though he
   cannot solve the repugnancies in reason, yet as long as he can unite
   the sins in men's practice, he has his design, nay, has at once the
   gain and the sport of fooling these great pretenders to ratiocination.

   12. A Third sort of impious discourse there is, which yet is bottomed
   on the most sacred, I mean those profane paraphrases that are usually
   make upon the holy Text, many making it the subject of their cavils,
   and others of their mirth. Some do it out of the former Atheistical
   principle, and I cannot but confess they act consonantly to themselves
   in it: for this but a needful artifice for men to disparage those
   testimonies, which they fear may be brought against them. But there are
   others who not only profess a God, but also own the sacred Scripture
   for His word, and use it as coarsely as the others. And these, I
   confess, are riddles of profaneness that hang, as some have pictured
   Solomon, between heaven and hell, borrow the Christian's faith, and the
   Atheist's drollery upon it: and tis hard to say in which they are more
   the earnest. It is indeed scandalous to see, to what despicable uses
   those holy Oracles are put: such as should a Heathen observe, he would
   little suspect them to be owned by us as the rule of our religion, and
   could never think they were ever meant for anything beyond a whetstone
   for wit. One tries his Logic upon them, and objects to the sense;
   another his Rhetoric, and quarrels at the phrase; a third his
   contrivance, and thinks he could have woven the parts with a better
   contexture: never considering, that unless they could confute the
   Divinity of their original, all these accusations are nothing else but
   direct blasphemy, the making God such a one as themselves, Psa. 50. 21.
   and charging Him with those defects which are indeed their own. They
   want learning or industry to sound the depths of those sacred
   treasures, and therefore they decry the Scripture as mean and poor; and
   to justify their wisdom, dispute God's. This is as if the mole should
   complain that the sun is dark, because he dwells under ground, and sees
   not its splendor. Men are indeed in all instances apt to speak ill of
   all things they understand not, but in none more than this. Their
   ignorance of local customs, Idioms of language, and several other
   circumstances, renders them incompetent judges, (as has been
   excellently evinced by a late Author). Twill therefore befit them,
   either to qualify themselves better, or to spare their Criticisms. But
   upon the whole, I think I may challenge any ingenious man, to produce
   any writing of that antiquity, whose phrase and genius is so
   accommodated to all successions of ages. Styles and ways of address we
   know grow obsolete, and are almost antiquated as garments: and yet
   after so long a tract of time, the Scripture must (by considering men)
   be confessed to speak not only properly, but often politely and
   elegantly to the present age: a great argument that it is the dictate
   of Him that is, The same yesterday, today, and forever. Heb. 13. 7.

   13. But besides these more solemn traducers, there are a lighter
   ludicrous sort of profaners, who use the Scripture as they do odd ends
   of plays, to furnish out their jests; clothe all their little
   impertinent conceits in its language, and debase it by the mixture of
   such miserable trifles, as themselves would be ashamed of, were they
   not heightened and inspired by that profaneness. A Bible phrase serves
   them in discourse as the haut-goust does in diet, to give a relish to
   the most insipid stuff. And were it not for this magazine, a great many
   men's raillery would want supplies: for there are divers who make a
   great noise of wit, that would be very mute if this one Topic were
   barred them. And indeed, it seems a tacit confession that they have
   little of their own, when they are fain thus to commit sacrilege to
   drive on the trade. But sure tis a pitiful pretence to ingenuity that
   can be thus kept up, there being little need of any other faculty but
   memory to be able to cap Texts. I am sure such repetitions out of other
   books would be thought pedantic and silly. How ridiculous would a man
   be, that should always enterlard his discourse with fragments of
   Horace, or Virgil, or the Aphorisms of Pythagoras, or Seneca? Now tis
   too evident, that it is not from any superlative esteem of sacred Writ,
   that it is so often quoted: and why should it then be thought a
   specimen of wit to do it there, when tis folly in other instances? The
   truth is, tis so much the reserve of those who can give no better
   Testimony of their parts, that me thinks upon that very score it should
   be given over by those that can. And sure were it possible for anything
   that is so bad to grow unfashionable, the world has had enough of this
   to be cloyed with it: but how fond soever men are of this
   divertissement, twill finally prove that mirth Solomon speaks of, which
   ends in heaviness. Prov. 14. 13. For certainly, whether we estimate it
   according to human or divine measure, it must be a high provocation of
   God.

   14. Let any of us but put the case in our persons: suppose we had
   written to a friend, to advertise him of things of the greatest
   importance to himself, had given him ample and exact instructions,
   backed them with earnest exhortations and conjurings not to neglect his
   own concern, and lastly enforced all with the most moving expressions
   of kindness and tenderness to him: suppose, I say, that after all this,
   the next news of we should hear of that letter, were to have it put in
   doggerel rime, to be made sport for the rabble, or at best have the
   most eminent phrases of it picked out and made a common by-word: I
   would fain know how any of us would resent such a mixture of
   ingratitude and contumely. I think I need make no minute application.
   The whole design of the Bible does sufficiently answer, nay, outgo the
   first part of the parallel, and God knows our vile usage of it does too
   much (I fear too literally) adapt the latter. And if we think the
   affront too base for one of us, can we believe God will take it in good
   part? That were to make Him not only more stupid than any man, but as
   much so as the heathen idols, that have eyes and see not, Psa. 115. 5.
   And tis sure the highest madness in the world, for any man that
   believes that there is a God, to imagine he will finally sit down by
   such usage.

   15. But if we weigh it in the scale of religion; the crime will yet
   appear more heinous. Mere natural Piety has taught men to receive the
   Responses of their gods with all possible veneration. What applications
   had the Delphic Oracle from all parts, and from all ranks of men? What
   confidence had they in its prediction, and what obedience did they pay
   to its advice? If we look next into the Mosaical Oeconomy, we shall see
   with what dreadful Solemnities that Law was promulgated, what an awful
   reverence was paid to the mount whence it issued, how it was fenced
   from any rude intrusions either of men or beasts: and after it was
   written on tables, all the whole equipage of the Tabernacle, was
   designed only for its more decent repository, the Ark itself receiving
   its value only for what it had in custody. Yea, such a hallowing
   influence had it, as transfused a relative sanctity even to the meanest
   utensils, none of which were after to be put to common uses: the very
   perfume was so peculiar and sacred, that it was a capital crime to
   imitate the composition. Afterwards, when more of the divine
   revelations was committed to writing, the Jews were such scrupulous
   reverers of it, that twas the business of the Masorites, to number not
   only the sections and lines, but even the words and letters of the Old
   Testament, that by that exact calculation they might the better secure
   it from any surreptitious practices.

   16. And sure the New Testament is not of less concern than the Old:
   nay, the Apostle asserts it to be of far greater, and which we shall be
   more accountable for, For if the word spoken by Angels were steadfast,
   and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense,
   how shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation, which at the
   first began to be spoken to us by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us
   by them that heard it? Heb. 2. 23. And it is in another place the
   inference of the same Apostle, from the excellency of the Gospel above
   the Law, that we should serve God acceptably with reverence and godly
   fear. Heb. 12. 28. And certainly tis but an ill essay of that reverence
   and godly fear, to use that very Gospel so irreverently and ungodily as
   men now do. If we pass from the Apostolic to the next succeeding ages
   of the Church, we find the Primitive Christians looked on their Bibles
   as their most important treasure. Such was the outward respects they
   paid to them, (of which the standing up at the reading of Gospel, still
   in use among us, is a faint memorial) that the heathen persecutors made
   it one part of their examination of the Christians brought to their
   tribunals, What those books were which they adored while they read
   them? Such was their intimate esteem, that they exposed all things else
   to the rapine of their enemies, so they might secure those volumes. Nor
   was this only an heroic piece of zeal in some, but indispensably
   required of all: insomuch that when in the heat of persecution, they
   were commanded to deliver up their Bibles to be burned, the Church gave
   no indulgence for that necessity of the times, but exhorted men rather
   to deliver up their lives: and those whose courage failed them in the
   encounter, were not only branded by the infamous name of Traitors, but
   separated from the communion of the faithful, and not readmitted till
   after many years of the severest penance.

   17. I Have given this brief narration, with a desire that the reader
   will compare the practice of former times with those of the present,
   and see what he can find either among Heathens, Jews, or Christians,
   that can at all patronize our profaneness. There was no respect thought
   too much for the false Oracles of a falser god: and yet we think no
   comtempts too great for those of the true. The moral law was so sacred
   to the Jews, that no parts of its remotest retinue, those ceremonial
   attendants, were to be looked upon as common: and we who are equally
   obliged by that Law, laugh at that by which we must one day be judged.
   The Ritual, the Preceptive, the Prophetic, and all other parts of
   sacred Writ, were most sedulously, most religiously guarded by them:
   and we look upon them as a winter night's tale, from which to fetch
   matter of sport and merriment. Lastly, the first Christians paid a
   veneration to, nay, sacrificed their lives to rescue their Bibles from
   the unworthy usage of the Heathens, and we ourselves expose them to the
   worse: they would but have burned them, we scorn and vilify them, and
   outvy even the persecutor's malice with our contempt. These are
   miserable Antitheses; yet this God knows is the case with too many. I
   wonder what new state of Felicity hereafter these men have fancied to
   themselves: for sure they cannot think these retrograde steps, can ever
   bring them so much as to the Heathen Elysium, much less the Christian
   Heaven.

   18. It will therefore concern those who do not quite renounce their
   claim to that Heaven, to consider soberly, how inconsistent their
   practice is with those hopes. A man may have a great estate conveyed to
   him; but if will madly burn, or childishly make paper kites of his
   Deeds, he forfeits his title with his evidence: and those certainly
   that deal so with the conveyances of their eternal inheritance, will
   not speed better. If they will thus dally and play with them, God will
   be as little in earnest in the performance, as they are in the
   reception of the promises; nay, He will take His turn of mocking too,
   and when their scene of mirth is over, His will begin. Prov. 1. 24.
   which deserves to be set down at large, Because I have called, and ye
   refused, I have stretched out may hand and no man regarded: But ye have
   set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof, I will also
   laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh. When your
   fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind:
   when distress and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon
   me, but I will not answer, they shall seek me early, but they shall not
   find me. Would God I could as well transcribe this Text into men's
   hearts, and there would need no more to secure the whole Canon of
   Scripture from their profanation. Could men but look a little before
   them, and apprehend how in the days of their distress and agony, they
   will gasp for those comforts which they now turn into ridicule; they
   would not thus madly defeat themselves, cut off their best and only
   reserve, and with a pitiful contempt cast away those Cordials, which
   will then be the only support of their fainting spirits. As for those
   who deride Scripture upon Atheistical grounds, all I shall say is to
   refer to what I have said in the beginning of the Section; they had
   need be very well assured that foundation be not sandy: for if it be,
   this reproaching God's word will be a considerable addition to the
   guilt of all their other hostility, and how jolly soever they seem at
   present, it may be when that question they are so willing to take for
   granted, is by death drawing near a decision, some of their confidence
   will retire, and leave them in an amazed expectation of somewhat, which
   they are sure cannot be good for them, who have so ill provided for it.
   Then perhaps their merry vein will fail them; and not their infidelity,
   but their despair may keep them from invocating that Power that they
   have so long derided. Tis certain it has so happened with some: for as
   practical, so Speculative wickedness, has usually another aspect, when
   it stands in the shadow of death, than in the dazzling beams of health
   and vigor. It would therefore be wisdom beforehand to draw it out of
   this deceitful light, and by sober, serious thoughts place it as near
   as may be in those circumstances in which twill then appear: and then
   sure to hearts that are not wholly petrified, twill seem safer to own a
   God early and upon choice, than later upon a compulsion.

   19. However, if they will not yield themselves Homagers, yet the mere
   possibility of their being in the wrong, should methinks, persuade them
   at least to be civil to adversaries. A generous man will not pursue
   even a falling enemy with revilings and reproach, must less will a wise
   man do it to one who is in any the least probability of revenging it:
   it being a received Maxim, That there is no greater folly than for a
   man to let his tongue betray him to mischief. Let it therefore, in this
   case at least, stand neuter, that if by their words they be not
   justified, yet by their words they may not be condemned. They can be no
   losers by it: for at the utmost, tis but keeping in a little unsavory
   breath, which (supposing no God to be offended with it) is yet nauseous
   to all those men who believe there is one. To those indeed who have a
   zeal for their faith, there can be no Discourse so intolerable, so
   disobliging: it turns conversation into skirmishing, and perpetual
   disputes. The Egyptians were so zealous for their brutish Deities, that
   Moses presumed the Israelites sacrificing of those beasts they adored,
   must need set them in an uproar, Exod. 8. 26. And sure those who do
   acknowledge a Divine power, cannot contentedly sit by to hear Him
   blasphemed. Tis true there are some so cool, that they are of the same
   mind for God, that Gideon's father was for Baal, Judg. 6. 31. Let him
   plead for himself, they will not appear in His defense: yet even these
   have a secret consciousness, that they ought to do so, and therefore
   have some uneasiness in being put to the Test: so that it cannot be a
   pleasant entertainment even for them. And therefore those who have no
   fear of God to restrain them, should methinks, unless they be perfectly
   of the temper of the unjust Judge, Luke 17. 1. in respect to men
   abstain from all sorts of impious discourse; and at least be civil,
   though they will not be pious.
     __________________________________________________________________

Section IV
Of Detraction.

   We have seen in the last Section the insolence of the Tongue towards
   God; and sure we cannot expect it should pay more reverence to men. If
   there be those that dare stretch their mouths against heaven, Psa. 7.
   39. we are not to wonder if there be more that will shoot their arrows,
   even bitter words, against the best on earth, Psa. 64. 3. I shall not
   attempt to ransack the whole quiver, by showing every particular sort
   of verbal injuries which relate to our Neighbors, but rather choose out
   some few, which either for the extraordinariness of their guilt, or the
   frequency of their practice, are the most eminent. I begin with
   Detraction, in which both those qualities concur: for as in some
   instances tis one of the highest sins, so in the general tis certainly
   one of the most common, and by being so becomes insensible. This vice
   (above all others) seems to have maintained not only its Empire, but
   its reputation, too. Men are not yet convinced heartily that it is a
   sin: or if any, not of so deep a die, or so wide an extent as indeed it
   is. They have, if not false, yet imperfect notions of it, and by not
   knowing how far its Circle reaches, do often like young Conjurers step
   beyond the limits of their safety.

   This I am the apter to believe, because I see some degree of this fault
   cleave to those, who have eminently corrected all other exorbitancies
   of the Tongue. Many who would startle at an Oath, whose stomachs as
   well as consciences, recoil at an obscenity, do yet slide glibly into a
   Detraction: which yet, methinks, persons otherwise of strict
   conversations should not do frequently and habitually, had not their
   easy thoughts of the guilt smoothed the way to it.

   It may therefore be no unkind attempt, to try to disentangle from this
   snare by displaying it; showing the whole contexture of the sin, how
   tis woven with threads of different sizes, yet the least of them strong
   enough to noose and entrap us. And alas, if Satan fetter us, tis
   indifferent to him whether it be by a cable or a hair. Nay, perhaps the
   smallest sins are his greatest stratagems. The finer his line is spun,
   the less shadow it casts, and is less apt to fright us from the hook:
   and though there be much odds between a talent of lead and a grain of
   sand, yet those grains may be accumulated till they out-weigh the
   talent. It was a good replay of Plato's, to one who murmured at his
   reproving him for a small mater, Custom, says he, is no small matter.
   And indeed, supposing any sin were so small as we are willing to fancy
   most, yet an indulgent habit even of that would be certainly ruinous:
   that indulgence being perfectly opposite to the Love of God, which
   better can consist with the indeliberate commissions of may sins, than
   with an allowed persistence in any one.

   But in this matter of Detraction I cannot yield that any is small, save
   only comparatively with some other of the same kind which is greater:
   for absolutely considered, there is even in the very lowest degrees of
   it, a flat contradiction to the grand rule of Charity, the loving our
   neighbor as ourselves. And surely that which at once violates the sum
   of the whole second Table of the Law, for so our Savior renders it,
   Luke 10. 7. must be looked on as no trifling inconsiderable guilt. To
   evidence this I shall in the Anatomizing this sin apply this Rule to
   every part of it: first consider it in Gross, in its entire body, and
   after descend to its several limbs.

   1. Detraction, in the native importance of the word, signifies the
   withdrawing or taking off from a thing; and as it is applied to the
   reputation, it denotes the impairing or lessening a man in point of
   fame, rendering him less valued and esteemed by others, which is the
   final aim of Detraction, though pursued by various means.

   2. This is justly looked on as one of the most unkind designs one man
   can have upon another, there being implanted in every man's nature a
   great tenderness of Reputation: and to be careless of it, is looked on
   as a mark of a Degenerous mind. On which account Solon in his Law
   presumes, that he that will sell his own fame, will also sell the
   public interest. Tis true, many have improved this too far, blown up
   this native spark into such flames of Ambition, as has set the world in
   a combustion; Such as Alexander, Caesar, and others, who sacrificed
   Hecatombs to their Fame, fed it up to a prodigy upon a Cannibal diet,
   the flesh of Men: yet even these excesses serve to evince the universal
   consent of mankind, that Reputation is a valuable and desirable thing.

   3. Nor have we only the suffrage of man, but the attestation of God
   Himself, who frequently in Scripture gives testimony to it: A good name
   is better than great riches, Prov. 22. 1. And again, A good name is
   better than precious ointment. Eccles. 7. 1. And the more to recommend
   it, he proposes it as a reward of piety and virtue, as he menaces the
   contrary to wickedness. The memory of the just shall be blessed, but
   the name of the wicked shall rot. Prov. 10. 7. And that we may not
   think this an invitation fitted only to the Jewish Oeconomy, the
   Apostle goes farther, and proposes the endeavor after it as a duty,
   Whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if
   there be any praise, think on these things. Phil. 4. 8.

   4. And accordingly, good men have in their estimate ranked their names
   the next degree to their Souls, preferred them before goods or life.
   Indeed, tis that which gives us an inferior sort of Immortality, and
   makes us even in this world survive ourselves. This part of us alone
   continues verdant in the grave, and yields a perfume, when we are
   stench and rottenness: the consideration whereof has so prevailed with
   the more generous Heathens, that they have cheerfully quitted life in
   contemplation of it. Thus Epaminondas alacriously expired, in a
   confidence that he left behind him a perpetual memory of the victories
   he had achieved for his Country. Brutus so courted the fame of a
   Patriot, that he broke through all the obstacles of gratitude and
   humanity to attain it: he cheerfully bore the defeat of his attempt, in
   contemplation of the glory it. Twere endless to recount the stories of
   the Codri, Decii, and Curtii, with the train of those noble Heroes, who
   in behalf of their Countries devoted themselves to certain death.

   5. But we need no foreign Mediums to discover the value of a good name:
   let every man weigh it but in his own scales, retire to his breast, and
   there reflect on that impatience he has when his own repute is invaded.
   To what dangers, to what guilts does sometimes the mere fancy of a
   reproach hurry men? It makes them really forfeit that virtue from when
   all true reputation springs, and like Aesop's dog, lose the substance
   by too greedy catching at the shadow; an irrefragable proof how great a
   price they set on their fame.

   6. And then, since reason sets it as so high a rate, and passion at a
   higher, we may conclude the violation this interest, one of the
   greatest injuries in the human commerce; such as is resented not only
   by the rash, but the sober: so that we must pick out only blocks and
   stones, the stupid and insensible part of mankind, if we think we can
   inflict this would without an afflictive smart. And though the power of
   Christianity does in some so moderate this resentment, that none of
   those blows shall recoil, no degree of revenge be attempted; yet that
   does not at all justify or excuse the inflicter. It may indeed be a
   useful trial of the patience, and meekness of the defamed, yet the
   defamer has not the less either of crime or danger: not of crime, for
   that is rather enhanced than abated by the goodness of the person
   injured; nor of danger, since God is the more immediate avenger of
   those who attempt not to be their own. But if the injury meet not with
   this meekness (as in this vindictive age tis manifold odds it will not)
   it then acquires another accumulative guilt, stands answerable not only
   for its own positive ill, but for all the accidental which it causes in
   the sufferer, who by this means is robbed not only of his repute, but
   his innocence also, provoked to those unchristian returns, which draw
   God also into the enmity, and set him at war with heaven and earth. And
   though as to his immediate judgement, he must bear his iniquity, answer
   for his impatience: yet as in all Civil insurrections the ring-leader
   is looked on with a particular severity, so doubtless in this case, the
   first provoker has by his seniority and primogeniture a double portion
   of the guilt, and may consequently expect of the Punishment, according
   to the Doom of our Savior, Woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.
   Matt. 18. 7.

   7. Indeed, there is such a train of mischiefs usually following this
   sin, that tis scare possible to make a full estimate of its malignity.
   Tis one of the grand incendiaries which disturbs the peace of the
   world, and has a great share in the most of its quarrels. For could we
   examine all the feuds which harass Persons, Families, nay, sometimes
   Nations, too, we should find the greater part take their rise from
   injurious, reproachful words, and that for one which is commenced upon
   the intuition of any real considerable interest, there are many which
   owe their being to this licentiousness of the Tongue.

   8. In regard therefore, of its proper guilt, and all those remoter sins
   and miseries which ensue it, tis every man's great concern to watch
   over himself. Neither is it less in respect both of that universal
   aptness we have to this sin, and its being so perpetually at hand, that
   for others we must attend occasions and convenient season, but the
   opportunities of this are always ready: I can do my neighbor this
   injury, when I can do him no other. Besides the multitude of objects do
   proportionally multiply both the possibilities and incitations; and the
   objects here are as numerous, as there are Persons in the world, I
   either know, or have heard of. For though some sorts of Detractions
   seem confined to those to whom we bear particular malice, yet there are
   other kinds of it more ranging, which fly indifferently at all. Lastly,
   this sin has the aid almost of universal example, which is an advantage
   beyond all other, there being scarce any so irresistible insinuation as
   the practice of those with whom we converse, and no subject of converse
   so common as the defaming our neighbors.

   9. Since then the path is so slippery, it had not need to be dark, too.
   Let us then take in the best light we can, and attentively view this
   sin in its several branches, that by a distinct discovery of the divers
   acts and degrees of it, we may the better be armed against them all.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECTION V.
Of Lying Defamation.

   Detraction being (as we have already said) the lessening and impairing
   a man in his repute, we may resolve, that whatever conduces to that
   end, is properly a Detraction. I shall begin with that which is most
   eminent, the spreading of Defamatory reports. These may be of two
   kinds, either false, or true: which though they seem to be of very
   different complexions, yet may spring from the same stock, and drive at
   the same design. Let us first consider of the false.

   2. And this admits of various circumstances. Sometimes a man invents a
   perfect falsity of another; sometimes he that does not invent, yet
   reports it, though he know it to be false; and a third sort there are,
   who having not certain knowledge whether it be false or no, do yet
   divulge it as an absolute certainty, or at least with such artificial
   insinuations, as may bias the hearer on that hand. The former of these
   crimes is so high, so disingenuous a nature, that though many are vile
   enough to commit it, none are so impudent as to avow it. Even in this
   age of insulting vice, when almost all other wickedness appears
   barefaced, this is feign to keep on the vizard. No man will own himself
   a false accuser: for if modesty do not restrain him, yet his very
   malice will; since to confess would be to defeat his design. Indeed, it
   is of all other sins the most Diabolical, it being a conjunction of two
   of Satan's most essential properties, Malice and Lying. We know tis his
   peculiar title to be the Accuser of the brethren: and when we
   transcribe his copy, we also assume his nature, entitle ourselves to a
   descent from him, Ye are of your Father the Devil. John. 8. 44. We are
   by it rendered a sort of Incubus brats, the infamous progenies of the
   Lying spirit. It is indeed a sin of so gross, so formidable a bulk,
   that there needs no help of Optics to render it discernable, and
   therefore, I need not further expatiate on it.

   3. The next degree is not much short of it; what it wants is rather of
   invention than malice: for he that will so adopt another's lie, shows
   he would willingly have been its proper Father. It does indeed differ
   no more than the maker of adulterate wares, does from the vendor of
   them: and certainly there cannot be a more ignominious trade, than the
   being Hucksters to such vile Merchandize. Neither is the sin less that
   the baseness: we find the Lover of a lie ranked in an equal form of
   guilt with the Maker, Rev. 21. And surely he must be presumed to love
   it, that can descend to be the broker to it, help it to pass current in
   the world.

   4. The third sort of Detractors look a little more demurely, and with
   the woman in Proverbs, Chap. 30. Wipe their mouths, and say they have
   done no wickedness. The do not certainly know the falsity of what they
   report, and their ignorance must serve them as an Amulet against the
   guilt both of deceit and malice: but I fear it will do neither. For
   first, perhaps, they are affectedly ignorant: they are so willing it
   should be true, that they have not attempted to examine it. But
   Secondly, it does not suffice that I do not know the falsity; for to
   make me a true speaker, tis necessary I know the truth of what I
   affirm. Nay, if the thing were never so true, yet if I knew it not to
   be so, its truth will not secure me from being a liar: and therefore,
   whoever endeavors to have that received for a certainty, which himself
   knows not to be so, offends against truth. The utmost that can consist
   with sincerity, is to represent it to others as doubtful as it appears
   to him: yet even that how consonant soever to truth, is not to Charity.
   Even doubtful accusations leave a stain behind them, and often prove
   indelible injuries to the party accused: how much more than do the more
   positive and confident aspersions we have hitherto spoken of? Let me
   add only this concerning this later sort, that they are greater
   advancers of Defamatory designs, than the very first contrivers. For
   those, upon a consciousness of their falseness, are obliged to proceed
   cautiously, to pick out the credulous and least discerning persons, on
   whom to impose their fictions, and dare not produce them in all
   companies for fear of detection: but these in confidence that the
   untruth (if it be one) lies not at their door, speak it without any
   restraint in all places, at all times, and what the others are fain to
   whisper, they proclaim, like our new Engine, which pretends to convey a
   whisper many miles off. So that as in the case of Stealing, tis
   proverbially said, that if there were no receivers there would be no
   thieves; so in this Slander, if there were fewer spreaders, there would
   be fewer forgers of Libels: the manufacture would be discouraged, if it
   had not these retailers to put off the wares.

   5. Now to apply these practices to our rule of duty, there will need no
   very close inspection to discern the obliquity. The most superficial
   glance will evidence these several degrees of Slanderers to do what
   they would not be willing to suffer. Who among them can be content to
   be falsely aspersed? Nay, so far are they from that, that let but the
   shadow of their own calumny reflect on themselves, let any but truly
   tell them that they have falsely accused others, they grow raving and
   impatient, like a dog at a looking glass fiercely combating that image
   which himself creates: and how smoothly soever the original lie slides
   from them, the Echo of it grates their ears. And indeed tis observable,
   that those who make the greatest havoc of other men's reputation, are
   the most nicely tender of their own; which sets this sin of calumny in
   a most Diametrical opposition to the Evangelical precept of Loving our
   neighbors as ourselves.

   6. Thus, much is discernable even in the surface of the crime: but if
   we look deeper and examine the motives, we shall find the foundation
   well agrees to the superstructure, they being usually one of these two,
   Malice or Interest. And indeed, the thing is so disingenuous, so
   contrary to the dictates of Humanity as well as Divinity, that I must
   in reverence to our common nature, presume it must be some very
   forcible impellent, that can drive a man so far from himself. The Devil
   here plays the Artist: and as the fatalest poisons to man are (they
   say) drawn from human bodies, so here he extracts the venom of our
   Irascible and Concupiscible part, and in it dips those arrows, which we
   thus shoot to one another.

   7. Tis needles to harangue severally upon each. The world too
   experimentally knows the force of both. Malice is that whirlwind, which
   has shook States and Families, no less than private Persons; a passion
   so impetuous and precipitate, that it often equally involves the Agent
   and the Patient: a malicious man being of like violence with those who
   flung in the three Children, Dan. 3. consumed by those flames into
   which he cast others. As for Interest, tis that universal Monarch to
   which all other Empires are Tributaries, to which men sacrifice not
   only their Consciences and Innocence, but (what is usually much dearer)
   their Sensualities and Vices. Those whom all the Divine (either)
   threats or promises, cannot persuade to mortify, and but restrain one
   Lust, at Mammon's beck will disclaim many, and force their inclinations
   to comply with their interest.

   8. And whilst this sin of Calumny has two such potent Abettors, we are
   not to wonder at its growth: as long as men are malicious and
   designing, they will be traducing; those Cyclopses will be perpetually
   forging Thunderbolts, against which no innocence or virtue can be
   proof. And alas, we daily find too great effect of their industry. But
   though these are the forgers of the more solemn deliberate calumnies,
   yet this sportive age hath produced another sort, there being men that
   defame others by way of divertissement, invent little stories that they
   may find themselves exercise, and the Town talk. This, if it must pass
   for sport, is such as Solomon describes, Prov. 26. 18, 19. As a mad man
   that casteth firebrands, arrows and death, so is he that deceiveth his
   neighbor, and saith, am I not in sport? He that shoots an arrow in
   jest, may kill a man in earnest; and he that gives himself liberty to
   play with his neighbor's fame, may soon play it away. Most men have
   such an aptness to entertain sinister opinions of others, that they
   greedily draw in any suggestion of that kind; and one may as easily
   persuade the thirsty earth to refund the water she has sucked into her
   veins, as them to deposit a prejudice they have once taken up.
   Therefore, such experiments upon fame, are as dangerous as that which
   Alexander is said to have made of the force of Naptha upon his Page,
   from which he scarce escaped with life. These jocular slanders are
   often as mischievous as those of deeper design, and have from the
   slightness of the temptation an enhancement of guilt. For sure, he that
   can put such an interest of his neighbor's in balance with a little fit
   of laughter, sets it at a lower price than he that hopes to enrich or
   advance himself by it: and thought it pass among some for a specimen of
   Wit, yet it really lifts them among Solomon's fools who make a mock at
   sin, Prov. 14. 9. In the meantime, since slander is a plant that can
   grow in all soils, since the frolic humor, as well as the morose,
   betrays to the guilt, who can hope to escape this Scourge of the
   Tongue, as the Wise man calls it, which communicates with all, Ecclus.
   26. 6. Persons of all ranks do mutually asperse, and are aspersed: so
   that he who would not have his credulity abused, has scarce a securer
   way, than (like the Astrologer, who made his Almanac give a tolerable
   account of the weather by a direct inversion of the common
   prognosticators,) to let his belief run quite counter to reports. Yea,
   so Epidemic is this disease grown, that even religion (at least those
   parties and factions which assume that name) has got a taint of it;
   each sect or opinion seeking to represent its Antagonist as odious as
   it can. And whilst they contend for speculative truth, they by mutual
   calumnies forfeit the practice: a thing that justly excites the grief
   of good men, to see that those who all pretend to the same
   Christianity, should only be unanimous in the violating that Truth and
   Charity it prescribes.

   9. And if these be the weapons of our spiritual warfare, what may we
   think of the carnal? How are our secular animosities pursued, when our
   Speculations are thus managed? How easily do we run down the reputation
   of any who stand in the way, either of our spleen or avarice? When
   Joseph's resolute purity had changed the scene of his Mistress's
   passion, she does as readily shift that of guilt too, and fixes her
   crime upon him, Gen. 39. 14. So when Zeba had a mind to undermine
   Mephibosheth in his estate, he first practices upon his fame in a false
   accusation, 2 Sam. 16. 3. And alas, how familiarly do we now see both
   these scenes reacted? Those who will not take vice into their bosoms,
   shall yet have it bespatter their faces: they who will not run to the
   same excess of riot, must expect to be evil spoken of, 1 Pet. 4. 4.
   Nay, not only pious men, but piety itself partakes of the same fate,
   falls under the two edged slander both of deceit and folly. And if men
   cannot be permitted quietly to enjoy their piety, much less will they
   those things whereof the world hath more gust, I mean secular
   advantages. There are still crimes to be discovered in the possessors
   of honors or Estates, and they wonderfully excite the zeal of those who
   would supplant them. What artifices are there to make them appear
   unworthy of what they have, that others more unworthy may succeed them?
   Nor are these storms only in the upper regions, in the higher ranks of
   men; but if we pass through all degrees, we shall find the difference
   is rather in the value of the things, than in the means of pursuing
   them. He that pretends to the meanest office, does as studiously
   disparage his competitor, as he that is rivaled for a kingdom. Nay,
   even he that has but a merry humor to gratify, makes no scruple to do
   it with the loss of another man's reputation.

   10. Thus we do accommodate every petty temporal interest at the cost of
   our eternal: and as an unskillful Fencer, whilst he is pursuing his
   thrust, exposes his body; so whilst we thus actuate our own malice, we
   abandon ourselves to Satan's, receive mortal wounds from him, only that
   we may give a few light scratches to one another. For, as I have before
   said, there is nothing does more secure his title to us, than this vice
   of Calumny, it bearing his proper impress and figure. And we may fear
   Christ will one day make the same Judgment of Persons as he did of
   coin, and award them to him whose Image and Superscription they bear.
   Matt. 22. 20.

   11. And now, how great a madness is it to make such costly oblations to
   so vile an Idol? This is indeed the worshipping our own Imaginations,
   preferring a malicious fiction before a real felicity: and is but
   faintly resembled by him, who is said to have chosen to part with his
   Bishopric, rather than burn his Romance. Alas, are there not gross
   corporal sins enough to ruin us, but must we have aereal ones too, damn
   ourselves with Chimeras, and by these forgeries of our brains, dream
   ourselves to destruction?

   12. Let all those who thus unhappily employ their inventive faculty,
   timely consider, how unthriving a trade tis finally like to prove, that
   all their false accusations of others will rebound in true ones upon
   themselves. It does often so in this world, where many times the most
   clandestine contrivances of this kind meet with detection: or if they
   should happen to keep on the disguise here, yet twill infallibly be
   torn off at the great day of manifestation, when before God, Angels,
   and Men, they will be rendered infinitely more vile, than twas possible
   for them here to make others.
     __________________________________________________________________

SECTION VI.
Of Uncharitable Truth.

   In the next place we are to consider of the other branch of Defamatory
   reports, viz. such as are true: which though they must be confessed to
   be of a lower form of guilt than the former, yet as to the kind, they
   equally agree in the definition of Detraction, since tis possible to
   impair a man's credit by true reports as well as by false.

   2. To clear this I shall first observe, that although every fault hath
   some penal effect which are coetaneous to the act, yet this of Infamy
   is not so: this is a more remote consequent; that which it immediately
   depends upon, is the publishing. A man may do things which to God and
   his own conscience render him abominable, and yet keep his reputation
   with men: but when this stifled crime breaks out, when his secret
   guilts are detected, then, and not till then, he becomes infamous: so
   that although his sin be the Material, yet it is the discovery that is
   the Formal cause of his infamy.

   3. This being granted, it follows that he that divulges an unknown,
   concealed fault, stands accountable for all the consequences that flow
   from that divulging; but whether accountable as for guilt, must be
   determined by the particular circumstances of the cause. So that here
   we must admit of an exception: for though every discovery of another's
   fault be in the strict natural sense of the word a Detraction, yet it
   will not always be the sin of Detraction, because in some instances
   there may be some higher obligation intervene, and supersede that we
   own to the fame of our neighbor; and in those cases it may not only be
   lawful, but necessary to expose him.

   4. Now all such cases I conceive may summarily be reduced to two heads,
   Justice and Charity. First as to Justice: that we know is a fundamental
   virtue, and he that shall violate that, to abound in another, is as
   absurd, as he that undermines the foundation to raise the walls. We are
   not to steal to give alms, and God himself has declared that he hates
   robbery for a burnt offering: so that no pretence either of Charity or
   Piety can absolve us from the duty we owe to Justice. Now it may often
   fall out, that by concealing one man's fault, I may be injurious to
   another, nay, to a whole community: and then I assume the guilt I
   conceal, and by the Laws both of God and Man am judged an accessory.

   5. And as Justice to others enforces, so sometimes Justice to a man's
   self allows the publishing of a fault, when a considerable interest
   either of fame or fortune cannot otherwise be rescued. But to make loud
   outcries of injury, when they tend nothing to the redress of it, is a
   liberty rather assumed by rage and impatience, than authorized by
   Justice. Nay, often in that case the complainer is the most injurious
   Person; for he inflicts more than he suffers, and in lieu of some
   trivial right of his which is invaded, he assaults the other in a
   nearer interest, by wounding him in his good name: but if the cause be
   considerable and the manner regular, there lies no sure obligation upon
   any man to wrong himself, to indulge to another.

   6. Neither does Charity retrench this liberty; for though it be an act
   of Charity to conceal another man's faults, yet sometimes it may be
   inconsistent with some more important Charity, which I owe to a third
   Person, or perhaps to a Multitude; as in those cases wherein public
   benefit is concerned. If this were not allowable, no History could
   lawfully be written, since if true, it cannot but recount the faults of
   many: no evidence could be brought in against a Malefactor: and indeed
   all discipline would be subverted, which would be so great a mischief,
   that Charity obliges to prevent it, what Defamation soever fall upon
   the guilty by it. For in such instances tis a true rule, that mercy to
   the evil proves cruelty to the innocent. And as in a competition of
   mischiefs, we are to choose the least, so of two goods the greatest,
   and the most extensive, is the most eligible.

   7. Nay, even that Charity which reflects upon myself, may also
   sometimes supersede that to my neighbor, the rule obliging me to love
   him as, not better than, myself. I need not sure silently assent to my
   own unjust Defamation, for fear of proving another a false accuser; nor
   suffer myself to be made a beggar, to conceal another man's being a
   thief. Tis true, in a great inequality of interest, Charity (whose
   Character it is, Not to seek her own, 1 Cor. 13. 5.) will prompt me to
   prefer a greater concern of my neighbors, before a slight one of my
   own: but in equal circumstances I am sure at liberty to be kind first
   to myself. If I will recede even from that, I may; but that is then to
   be accounted among the Heroic flights of Charity, not her binding and
   indispensable Laws.

   8. Having now set the boundaries to the excepted cases; as all
   instances within them will be legitimated, so all without them will be
   (by the known rule of exceptions) be precluded, and fall under that
   general duty we owe to our neighbor, of tendering his credit: an
   obligation so Universally infringed, that tis not imaginable the breach
   should always happen within the excepted cases. When tis remembered how
   unactive the principles of Justice and Charity are grown in the world,
   we must certainly impute such incessant effects, to some more vigorous
   causes: of which it may not be amiss to point out some of the most
   obvious, and leave every man to examine which of them he finds most
   operative in himself.

   9. In the first place, I may reckon Pride, a humor which as it is
   always mounting, so it will make use of any footstool towards its rise.
   A man who affects an extraordinary splendor of reputation, is glad to
   find any foils to see him off; and therefore will let no fault nor
   folly of another's enjoy the shade, but brings it into the open light,
   that by that comparison, his own excellencies may appear the brighter.
   I dare appeal to the breast of any proud man, whether he do not upon
   such occasions, make some Pharisaical reflections on himself, whether
   he be not apt to say, I am not like other men, or as this Publican,
   Luke 18. though probably he leave out the God, I thank Thee. Now he
   that cherishes such resentments as these in himself, will doubtless be
   willing to propagate them to other men, and to that end render the
   blemishes of others as visible as he can. But this betrays a degenerous
   spirit, which from a consciousness that he wants solid worth, on which
   to bottom a reputation, is fain to found it on the ruins of other
   men's. The true Diamond sparkles even in the sunshine: tis but a
   glow-worm virtue that owes its luster to the darkness about it.

   10. Another prompter to Detraction is Envy, which sometimes is
   particular, sometimes general. He that has a pique to another, would
   have him as hateful to all mankind as he is to him; and therefore, as
   he grieves and repines at anything that may advance his estimation, so
   he exults and triumphs when anything occurs which may depress it, and
   is usually very industrious to improve the opportunity, nay, has a
   strange sagacity in hunting it out. No vulture does more quickly scent
   a carcass, than an envious Person does, those dead flies which corrupt
   his neighbor's ointment, Eccles. 10. 1. the vapor whereof his hate,
   like a strong wind, scatters and disperses far and near. Nor needs he
   any great crime to practice on: every little infirmity or passion,
   looked on through his Optics, appears a mountainous guilt. He can
   improve the least speck or freckle to leprosy, which shall overspread
   the whole man: and a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, like that of
   Elisha, 1 King. 18. 44. may in an instant, with the help of prejudice,
   grow to the utter darkening of the brightest reputation, and fill the
   whole horizon with tempest and horror. Sometimes this Envy is general,
   not confined to any man's person, but diffused to the whole nature.
   Some tempers there are so malign, that they wish ill to all, and
   believe ill of all; like Timon the Athenian, who professed himself a
   universal man-hater. He whose guilty conscience reflects dismal images
   of himself, is willing to put the same ugly shape upon the whole
   nature, and to conclude that all men are the same, were they but
   closely inspected. And therefore, when he can see but the least
   glimmering of a fault in any, he takes it as a proof of his Hypothesis,
   and with an envious joy calls in as many spectators as he can. Tis
   certain there are some in whose ears nothing sounds so harsh as the
   commendation of another, as on the contrary nothing is so melodious as
   a Defamation. Plutarch gives an apt instance of this upon Aristides's
   banishment, whom when a mean Person had proposed to Ostracism, being
   asked what displeasure Aristides had done him, he replied, None,
   neither do I know him, but it grieves me to hear everybody call him a
   just man. I fear some of our keenest accusers nowadays may give the
   same answer. No man that is eminent for Piety (or indeed but moral
   virtue) but he shall have many insidious eyes upon him watching for his
   halting: and if any the least obliquity can be espied, he is used worse
   than the vilest malefactor: for such are tried but at one bar, and know
   the utmost of their doom, but these are arraigned at every Table, in
   every Tavern. And at such variety of Judicatures, there will be as
   great variety of sentences; only they commonly concur in this one, that
   he is an Hypocrite, and then what complacency, what triumph have they
   in such a discovery? There is not half so much Epicurism in any of
   their most studied luxuries, no spectacle affords them so much
   pleasure, as a bleeding fame thus lying at their mercy.

   11. Another sort of Detractors there are, whose designs are not so
   black, but are equally mean and sordid, much too light to be put in
   balance with a neighbor's Credit. Of those some will pick up all the
   little stories they can get; to humor a Patron: an artifice well known
   by those trencher guests, who, like Rats, still haunt the best
   Provisions. These men do almost come up to a literal sense of what the
   Psalmist spoke in a figurative, Psa. 14. and eat up people for bread,
   tear and worry men in their good names, that themselves may eat. It was
   a Curse denounced against Eli's offspring, that they should come and
   crouch for a morsel of bread. 1 Sam. 2. 39. But such men court this as
   a preferment, and to bring themselves within reach of it, stick not to
   assume that vilest office of common Delators. There are others who when
   they have got the knowledge of another man's fault, think it an
   endearing thing to whisper it in the ear of some friend or confidant.
   But sure if they must needs sacrifice some secret to their friendship,
   they should take David's rule, and not offer that which cost them
   nothing. If they will express their confidence, let them acquaint them
   with their own private crimes. That indeed would show something of
   trust: but those experiments upon another man's cost, will hardly
   convince any considering person of their kindness.

   12. There still remains a yet more trifling sort of Defamers, who have
   no deliberate design which they pursue in it, yet are as assiduous at
   the Trade as the deeper contrivers. Such are those who publish their
   neighbors' failings as they read Gazettes, only that they may be
   telling News: and Itch wherewith some people's tongues are strangely
   over-run, who can as well hold a glowing Coal in their mouths, as keep
   anything they think New; nay, will sometimes run themselves out of
   breath, for fear least anyone should serve them as Ahimaaz did the
   Cushite 2. Sam. 18. 23. and tell the tale before them. This is one of
   the most Childish vanities imaginable: and sure men must have Souls of
   a very low level that can think it a commensurate entertainment. Others
   there are who use Defamatory discourse, neither for the love of News,
   nor Defamation, but purely for the love of talk: whose speech like a
   flowing current bears away indiscriminately whatever lies in its way.
   And indeed, such incessant talkers are usually people not of depth
   enough to supply themselves out of their own store, and therefore can
   let no foreign accession pass by them, no more than a Mill which is
   always going, can afford any waters to run wait. I know we used to call
   this Talkativeness a Feminine vice; but to speak impartially, I think,
   though we have given them the enclosure of the Scandal, they have not
   of the fault, and he that shall appropriate Loquacity to Women, may
   perhaps sometimes need to light Diogenes's Candle to seek a man: for
   tis possible to go into Masculine company, where twill be as hard to
   edge in a word, as at a Female Gossiping. However, as to this
   particular of Defaming, both the Sexes seem to be at a vie: and I think
   he were a very Critical Judge, that could determine between them.

   13. Now lest this later sort of Defamers should be apt to absolve
   themselves, as men of harmless intentions, I shall desire them to
   consider, that they are only more impertinent, not less injurious. For
   though it be granted, that the proud and envious are to make a distinct
   account for their Pride and envy; yet as far as related to the
   neighbor, they are equally mischievous. Anacreon that was choked with a
   grape-stone, died as surely as Julius Caesar with his three and twenty
   wounds; and a man's reputation may be as well fooled and prattled away,
   as maliciously betrayed. Nay, perhaps more easily; for where the
   speaker can least be suspected of design, the hearer is apter to give
   him Credit: this way of insinuating by familiar discourse, being like
   those poisons that are taken in at the pores, which are the most
   insensibly sucked in, and the most impossible to expel.

   14. But we need not dispute which is worst, since tis certain all are
   bad, none of them (or any that hold proportion with them) being at all
   able to pretend their warrant either from Justice or Charity. And then
   what our Savior says in another case, will be applicable to this, He
   that is not for us is against us. Matt. 12. 30. He that in publishing
   his neighbor's faults, acts not upon the dictates of Justice or
   Charity, acts directly in contradiction to them: for where they do not
   upon some particular respects command, they do implicitly and generally
   forbid all such discoveries.

   15. For first, if a fault divulged be of a light nature, the offender
   cannot thereby merit so much, as to be made a public discourse. Fame is
   a tender thing, and seldom is tossed and bandied without receiving some
   bruise, if not a crack: for reports we know, like snow balls, gather
   still the farther they roll, and when I have once handed it to another,
   how know I how he may improve it, and if he deliver it so advanced to a
   third, he may give his contribution also to it, and so in a successive
   transmitting, it may grow to such a monstrous bulk, as bears no
   proportion to its Original. He must be a great stranger to the world,
   that has not experimentally found the truth of this. How many persons
   have lain under great and heavy scandals, which have taken their first
   rise only from some inadvertence, or indiscretion? Of so quick a growth
   is Slander, that the least grain, like that of mustard seed, mentioned
   Mat. 13. 32. immediately shoots up into a tree. And when it is so, it
   can no more be reduced back into its first cause, than a tree can
   shrink into that little seed from whence it first sprang. No ruins are
   so irreparable as those of reputation: and therefore he that pulls out
   but one stone towards the breach, may do a greater mischief than
   perhaps he intends: and a greater injustice too; for by how much the
   more strictly Justice obliges to reparation in case of injuries done,
   so much the more severely does it prohibit the doing those injuries
   which are uncapable of being repaired. In the Levitical Law, he that
   knew his ox was apt to gore, and yet kept him not up, stood responsible
   for any mischief he happened to do, Exod. 21. 29. I think there is no
   considering man can be ignorant how apt even little trivial accusations
   are to tear and mangle one's fame: and yet if the lavish talker
   restrain them not, he certainly stands accountable to God, his
   Neighbor, and his own Conscience, for all the danger they procure.

   16. But if the report concern some higher and enormous crime, tis true
   the delinquent may deserve the less pity, yet perhaps the reporter may
   not deserve the less blame: for often such a discovery serves but to
   enrage, not reclaim the offender, and precipitate him into farther
   degrees of ill. Modesty and fear of shame, is one of those natural
   restraints, which the wisdom of God has put upon mankind, and he that
   once stumbles, may yet by a check of that bridle recover again: but
   when by a public detection he is fallen under that infamy he feared, he
   will then be apt to discard all caution, and to think he owes himself
   the utmost pleasures of his vice, as the price of his reputation. Nay,
   perhaps he advances farther, and sets up for a reversed sort of Fame,
   by being eminently wicked: and he who before was but a Clandestine
   disciple, becomes a Doctor of impiety. And sure it were better to let a
   concealed crime remain in its wished obscurity, than by thus rousing it
   from its covert, bring it to stand at bay, and set itself in this open
   defiance; especially in this degenerous age, when vice has so many well
   willers, that, like a hoping party, eagerly run into any that will head
   them.

   17. And this brings in a third consideration relating to the public, to
   which the divulging of private (especially if they be novel, unusual)
   crimes, does but an ill piece of service. Vice is contagious, and casts
   pestilential vapors: and as he that should bring out a plague-sick
   Person, to inform the world of his disease, would be thought not to
   have much befriended his neighborhood, so he that displays these
   vicious Ulcers, whilst he seeks to defame one, may perhaps infect many.
   We too experimentally find the force of ill examples. Men often take up
   sins, to which they have no natural propension, merely by way of
   conformity and imitation. But if the instance happen in a crime, which
   more suits the practice of the hearers, thought it cannot be said to
   seduce, yet it may encourage and confirm them; embolden them not only
   the more frequently to act, but even to avow those sins, wherein they
   find they stand not single, and by discovering a new accessory to their
   Party, invite them the more heartily and openly to espouse it.

   18. These are such effects as surely do very ill correspond with that
   Justice and Charity we owe either to particular Persons, or to mankind
   in General. And indeed, no better can be expected, from a practice
   which so perfectly contradicts the grand rule both of Justice and
   Charity, The doing as we would be done to. That this does so, every man
   has a ready conviction within him, if he please but to consult his own
   heart. Alas, with what solicitude do we seek to hide our own guilts,
   what false dresses, what varnishes have we for them? There are not more
   arts of disguising our Corporal blemishes, than our Moral: and yet
   whilst we thus paint and parget our deformities, we cannot allow any
   the least imperfection of another's to remain undetected, but tear off
   the veil from their blushing frailties, and not only expose them, but
   proclaim them. And can there be a grosser, a more detestable partiality
   than this? God may sure in this instance (as in many others)
   expostulate with us as he did with Israel, Ezek. 33. Are not your ways
   unequal? What Barbarism, what inhumanity is it, thus to treat those of
   the same common nature with ourselves, whom we cannot but know have the
   same concern to preserve a Reputation, and the same regret to lose it,
   which we have? And what shame it is, that that Evangelical precept, of
   doing as we would be done to, which met with so much reverence even
   from the Heathens, that Severus the Emperor preferred it to all the
   Maxims of Philosophers, should be thus condemned and violated by
   Christians, and that too upon such slight inconsiderable motives as
   usually prevail in this case of Defamation?

   19. But we are not to consider this fault only in its root, as it is a
   defect of Justice and Charity, but in its product too, as it is a
   Seminary of more Injustice and Uncharitableness. Those disadvantageous
   reports we make of our neighbors, are almost seen to come round: for
   let no man persuade himself, that the hearers will keep his counsel any
   better than he does that of the defamed Person. The softest whisper of
   this kind, will find others to Echo it, till it reach the ears of the
   concerned Party, and perhaps with some enhancing circumstances, too.
   And when tis considered how unwilling men are to hear of their faults,
   though even in the mildest and most charitable way of admonition, tis
   not to be doubted a public Defamation will seem disobliging enough to
   provoke a return, which again begets a rejoinder, and so the quarrel is
   carried on with mutual recriminations, all malicious inquiries are made
   into each others manners, and those things which perhaps they did in
   closets, come to be proclaimed upon the house top: so the wild-fire
   runs round, till sometimes nothing but blood will quench it; or if it
   arrive not to that, yet it usually fixes in an irreconcilable feud. To
   this is often owing those distances we see among friends and relations;
   this breeds such strangeness, such animosities amongst neighbors, that
   you cannot go to one, but you shall be entertained with invectives
   against the other; nay, perhaps you shall lose both because you are
   willing to side with neither.

   20. These are the usual consequences of the liberty of the Tongue; and
   what account can any man give to himself, either in Christianity or
   prudence, that has let in such a train of mischiefs, merely to gratify
   an impotent childish humor of telling a tale? Peace was the great
   Legacy Christ left to his followers, and ought to be guarded, though we
   expose for it our greatest temporal concerns, but cannot without
   despite to Him, as well as our brethren, be thus prostituted.

   21. Yet if we consider it abstractedly, from these more solemn
   mischiefs which attend it, the mere levity and unworthiness of it sets
   it below an ingenuous Person. We generally think a tattler and busybody
   a title of no small reproach: yet truly I know not to whom it more
   justly belongs, than to those, who busy themselves first in learning,
   and then in publishing the faults of others: an employment which the
   Apostle thought a blot, even upon the weaker sex, and thinks the
   prevention of such importance, that he prescribes them to change their
   whole condition of life; to convert widow-hood (though a state which in
   other respects he much prefers, 1 Cor. 7. 8) into marriage, rather than
   expose themselves to the temptation, 1 Tim. 5. 13, 14. And if their
   impotence cannot afford excuse for it, what a debasement is it of men's
   nobler faculties to be thus entertained? The Historian gives it as an
   ill indication of Domitian's temper, that he employed himself in
   catching and tormenting Flies: and sure they fall not under a much
   better character, either for wisdom, or good nature, who thus snatch up
   all the little fluttering reports they can meet with, to the prejudice
   of their neighbors.

   22. But besides this divulging the faults of others, there is another
   branch of Detraction naturally springing from this root, and this is
   the censuring and severe judging of them. We think not we have well
   played the Historians, when we have told the thing, unless we add also
   our remarks, and animadversions of it. And although tis, God knows, bad
   enough to make a naked relation, and trust it to the severity of the
   hearers; yet few can content themselves with that, but must give them a
   sample of rigor, and by the bitterness of their own censure, invite
   them to pass the like: a process contrary to all rules of Law or
   equity, for the plaintiff to assume the part of a Judge. And we may
   easily divine the fate of that man's fame that is so unduly tried.

   23. Tis indeed sad to see how many private tribunals are everywhere set
   up, where we scan and judge our neighbor's actions, but scarce ever
   acquit any. We take up with the most incompetent witnesses, nay, often
   suborn our own surmises and jealousies, that we may be sure to cast the
   unhappy Criminal. How nicely and scrupulously do we examine every
   circumstance, (Would God we were but half as exact in our own
   penitential inquisitions) and torture it to make it confess something
   which appears not in the more general view of the fact, and which
   perhaps never was in the actor's intentions? In a word, we do like
   witches with their Magical Chemistry, extract all the venom, and take
   none of the allay. By this means we confound the degrees of sins, and
   sentence deliberate and indeliberate, a habit or an act all at one
   rate, that is commonly, at the utmost it can amount to, even it its
   worse exception: and sure this were a most culpable corruption in
   judgment, could we show our commission to judge our brethren.

   24. But here we may every one of us interrogate ourselves in our
   Savior's words, Who made me a Judge? Luke. 12. 14. And if he disclaimed
   it, (who in respect of his Divinity had the Supreme right) and that too
   in a case wherein one (at least) of the Litigants had desired his
   interposition, what a boldness is it in us to assume it, where no such
   appeal is made to us, but on the contrary the Party disowns our
   Authority? Nay, (which is infinitely more) tis superseded by our great
   Law-giver, in that express prohibition, Matt. 7. 1. Judge not, and that
   backed with a severe penalty, that ye be not judged? As God hath
   appropriated vengeance to himself, so has He Judicature also; and tis
   an invasion of His peculiar, for any (but His Delegates the lawful
   Magistrates) to pretend to either. And indeed, in all private Judgments
   so much depends upon the intention of the Offender, that unless we
   could possess ourselves of God's Omniscience, twill be as irrational as
   impious to assume His Authority. Until we know men's hearts, we are at
   the best but imperfect Judges of their actions. At our rate of judging,
   St. Paul surely passed for a most malicious Persecutor, whereas God saw
   he did ignorantly in unbelief, and upon that intuition had mercy on
   him, 1 Tim. 1. 13. Tis therefore good counsel which the Apostle gives,
   1 Cor. 4. 5. Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come. For
   though tis said the Saints shall judge the world, 1 Cor. 6. 3. yet it
   must be at the great Assize, and he that will needs intrude himself
   into the office before the time, will be in danger to be rather Passive
   than Active in the Judicatory. I do not here advise to such a stupid
   charity as shall make no distinction of Actions. I know there is a woe
   pronounced as well to those who call evil good, as good evil. Surely
   when we see an open notorious sin committed, we may express a
   detestation of the Crime, though not of the Actor; nay, it may
   sometimes be a necessary Charity, both to the Offender, and to the
   innocent Spectators, as an Amulet to keep them from the Contagion of
   the Example. But still, even in these cases, our Sentence must not
   exceed the evidence, we must judge only according to the visible
   undoubted circumstances, and not aggravate the crime upon the
   presumptions and conjectures; if we do, how right soever our guesses
   may be, our judgment is not, but we are as St. James speaks, Judges of
   evil thoughts. Chap. 2. 4.

   25. Indeed, this rash judging is not only very unjust both to God and
   man, but it is an act of the greatest pride. When we set our selves in
   the Tribunal, we always look down with contempt on those at the bar.
   And certainly there is nothing does so gratify, so regale a haughty
   humor, as this piece of usurped Sovereignty over our brethren: but the
   more it does so, the greater necessity there is to abstain from it.
   Pride is a hardy kind of vice, that will live upon the barest pasture:
   you cannot starve it with the most industrious mortifications: how
   little need is there then of pampering and heightening it, which we
   cannot more effectually do, than by this censorious humor? for by that
   we are so perpetually employed abroad, that we have no leisure to look
   homeward, and see our own defects. We are like the inhabitants of Ai,
   Josh. 8. so eager upon the pursuit of others, that we leave ourselves
   exposed to the ambushes of Satan, who will be sure still to encourage
   us in our chase, draw us still farther and farther from ourselves, and
   cares not how zealous we are in fighting against the crimes of others,
   so he can but keep that zeal from recoiling upon our own.

   26. Lastly, this judging others is one of the highest violations of
   Charity. The Apostle gives it as one of the properties of that grace,
   that it thinks no evil (i.e.) is not apt to make severe constructions,
   but sets everything in the fairest light, puts the most candid
   interpretations that the matter will bear. And truly this is of great
   importance to the reputation of our neighbors. The world we know is in
   many instances extremely governed by opinion, but in this tis all in
   all; it has not only an influence upon it, but is that very thing:
   reputation being nothing but a fair opinion and estimation among
   others. Now this opinion is not always swayed by due motives: sometimes
   little accidents, and often fancy, and most often prepossession governs
   in it. So that many times he that puts the first ill Character, fixes
   the stamp which afterwards goes current in the world. The generality of
   people take up prejudices (as they do religions) upon trust, and of
   those that are more curious in inquiring into the grounds, there are
   not many who vary on the more charitable hand, or bring the common
   sentence to review, with intent to moderate but enhance it. Men are apt
   to think it some disparagement to their acuteness and invention, if
   they cannot say something as sharp upon the subject as hath been said
   before; and so tis the business of many to lay on more load, but of few
   to take off: and therefore he that passes the first condemnatory
   sentence, is like the incendiary in a popular tumult, who is chargeable
   with all those disorders to which he gave the first rise, though that
   free not his Abettors from their share of the guilt.

   27. And as this is very uncharitable in respect of the injury offered,
   so also it is in reflection on the grand rule of Charity. Can we
   pretend to love our neighbors as ourselves, and yet shall our love to
   him have the quite contrary effects to that we bear ourselves? Can
   self-love lessen our beam into a mote, and yet can our love to him
   magnify his mote into a beam? No, certainly true Charity is more
   sincere, does not turn to us the reverse end of the perspective, to
   represent our own faults at a distance, and in the most diminutive
   size, and yet shuffle the other to us when we are view his. No, these
   are Tricks of Legerdemain we learn in another School, even in whose
   style is the accuser of the brethren. We know how frequently God
   protests against false weights and false measures. And sure tis not
   only in the shop or market that he abhors them, they are no less
   abominable in conversation than in traffic. To buy by one measure and
   sell by another, is not more unequal, than it is to have these
   differing standards for our own and our neighbor's faults, that our own
   shall weigh, in the Prophet Jeremiah's Phrase, lighter than vanity, yea
   nothing, and yet his (though really the lighter) shall prove
   Zechariah's talent of lead. This is such a partiality, as consists not
   with common honesty, and can therefore never be reconciled with
   Christian Charity: and how demurely soever such men may pretend to
   sanctity, that interrogation of God's presses hard upon them, Shall I
   count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful
   weights? Mich. 6. 11. Such bitter invectives against other men's
   faults, and indulgence or palliation of their own, shows their zeal
   lies in their spleen, and that they consider no so much what is done,
   as who does it: and to such the sentence of the Apostle is very
   applicable, Rom. 2. 1. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever
   thou art that judgest, for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest
   thyself, for thou that judgest dost the same thing. But admit a man
   have not the very same guilts he censures in another, yet tis sure
   every man has some, and of what sort soever they be, he desires not
   they should be rigorously scanned, and therefore by the rule of
   Charity, yea, and justice too, ought no to do that which he would not
   suffer. If he can find extenuations for his own crimes, he is in all
   reason to presume others may have so for theirs: the common frailty of
   our nature, as it is apt alike to betray us to faults, so it gives as
   equal share in the excuse; and therefore, what I would have pass for
   the effect of impotency or inadvertence in myself, I can with no
   tolerable ingenuity give a worse name to in him.

   28. We have now viewed both these branches of Detraction, seen both the
   sin and mischiefs of them, we may now join them together in a
   concluding observation, which is that they are as imprudent as they are
   unchristian. It has been received among the maxims of civil life, not
   unnecessarily to exasperate anybody; to which agrees the advice of an
   ancient Philosopher, Speak not evil of they neighbor, if thou dost thou
   shalt hear that which will not fail to trouble thee. There is no Person
   so inconsiderable, but may at some time or other do a displeasure: but
   in this of Defaming men need no harnessing, no preparation, every man
   has his weapons ready for a return: so that none can shoot these
   arrows, but they must expect they will revert with a rebounded force:
   not only to the violation of Christian Unity (as I have before
   observed) but to the Aggressors great secular detriment, both in fame,
   and oftentimes interest also. Revenge is sharp-sighted, and overlooks
   no opportunity of a retaliation, and that commonly not bounded as the
   Levitical ones were, An eye for any eye, a tooth for a tooth, Exod. 21.
   24. no, nor by the larger proportions of their restitutions fourfold,
   Exod. 22. 1. but extended to the utmost power of the inflicter. The
   examples are innumerable of men who have thus laid themselves open in
   their greatest concerns, and have let loose the hands as well as
   Tongues of others against them, merely because they would put no
   restraint upon their own, which is so great an indiscretion, that to
   them we may well apply that of Solomon, A fool's mouth is his
   destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul. Prov. 18. 7.

   29. And now, who can sufficiently wonder that a practice that so
   thwarts our interest of both worlds, should come universally to prevail
   among us? Yet that it does so, I may appeal to the consciences of most,
   and to the observation of all. What so common Topic of discourse is
   there, as this of backbiting our neighbors? Come into company of all
   Ages, all Ranks, all Professions, this is the constant entertainment.
   And I doubt he that at night shall duly recollect the occurrences of
   the day, shall very rarely be able to say he has spent it without
   hearing or speaking (perhaps both) somewhat of this kind. Nay, even
   those who restrain themselves other liberties are often apt to indulge
   to this: many who are so just to their neighbor's property, that as
   Abraham once said, Gen. 14. 23. they would not take from him, even from
   a thread to a shoe latchet, are yet so inconsiderate of his Fame, as to
   find themselves discourse at the expense of that, though infinitely a
   greater injury than the robbing of his Coffer: which shews what false
   measures we are apt to take of things, and evinces that many of those,
   who have not only in a general abjured the world in their baptism, but
   do in many instances seem to themselves (as well as others) to have
   gained a Superiority over it, do yet in this undiscernibly yield it the
   greatest ensign of Sovereignty, by permitting it to set the Standards
   and estimate of things, and taking its customary Prescriptions for
   Laws. For what besides this unhappy servility to custom, can possibly
   reconcile men that own Christianity, to a practice so widely distant
   from it? Tis true those that profess themselves men of this world, who
   design only their portion in this life, may take it up as sometimes
   conducing (at least seemingly) to their end: but for those who propose
   higher hopes to themselves, and know that Charity is one of the main
   props to those hopes, how foolishly do they undermine themselves, when
   they thus act against their principles, and that upon no other
   Authority, but that of popular usage? I know men are apt to excuse
   themselves upon their indignation against vice, and think that their
   zeal must as well acquit them for this violation of the Second Table,
   as it once did Moses for the breaking both, Ex. 32. 19. But to such I
   may answer in Christ's words, Luke 9. 55. Ye know not what manner of
   spirit you are of. Meekness and Charity are the Evangelical graces,
   which will most recommend and assimilate us to Him, who was meek and
   lowly in heart. But after all this pretext of Zeal, I fear it is but a
   cheat we put on ourselves, the Elder brother's raiment only to disguise
   the Supplanter. Gen. 27. Let men truly ransack their own breasts, and I
   doubt the best will find there is something of vanity which lies at the
   bottom, if it be not the positive sort mentioned before, of designing
   to illustrate myself by others' blemishes, yet at least the negative,
   that I am unwilling to incur the contempt incident to those who scruple
   at small sins. Besides, I observe perhaps, that tis the common
   entertainment of the world to Defame their neighbors, and if I strike
   not in upon the Theme, I shall have nothing to render me acceptable
   company; perhaps I shall be reproached as morose or dull, and my
   silence shall be construed to proceed not from the abundance of my
   Charity, but the defect of my Wit.

   30. But sure they that can thus argue, do hereby give a more
   demonstrative proof of that defect. He whose wit is so precarious that
   it must depend only upon the folly or vice of another, had best give
   over all pretence to it. He that has nothing of his own growth to set
   before his guests, had better make no invitations, than break down his
   neighbor's enclosure, and feast them upon his plunder. Besides, how
   pitiful an attestation of wit is it, to be able to make a disgraceful
   relation of another? No scolding women but may set up such Trophies:
   and they that can value a man upon such an account, may prefer the
   Scarabes, who feed upon dung, and are remarked by no other property,
   before the Bee that sucks the flowers and returns honey.

   31. But in the next place, admit this restraint should certainly expose
   one to that reproach; methinks this should be no news to those who know
   the condition of Christianity is to take up the Cross: and sure it
   cannot weigh lighter than in this instance. What am I the worse if a
   vain Talkative Person think me too reserved? Of if he whose frolic
   levity is his disease, call me dull because I vapor not out all my
   spirits into froth? Socrates, when informed of some derogatory Speeches
   one had used of him behind his back, made only this facetious reply,
   Let him beat me too when I am absent. And he that gets not such an
   indifference to all the idle censures of men, will be disturbed in all
   his civil transactions, as well as his Christian; it being scarce
   possible to do any thing, but there will be descants made on it. And if
   a man will regard those winds, he must, as Solomon says, never sow,
   Eccles. 11. 4. He must suspend even the necessary actions of common
   life, if he will not venture them to the being misjudged by others.

   32. But there is a yet farther consideration in this matter: for he
   that upon such a despicable motive will violate his duty in one
   particular, lets Satan get a main point of him, and can with no good
   Logic deny to do it in others. Detraction is not the only sin in
   fashion: Profaneness, and Obscenity, and all sorts of Luxury are so
   too, and threaten no less reproach to those who scruple at them. Upon
   the same grounds, therefore, that he discards his Charity to his
   neighbor, he may also his Piety, his Modesty, his Temperance, and
   almost all other virtues. And to speak the truth, there is not a more
   fertile womb of sin, than this dread of ill men's reproach. Other
   corruptions must be gratified with cost and industry, but in this the
   Devil hath no farther trouble than to laugh men out of their souls. So
   prolific a vice therefore had need be weeded out of men's hearts: for
   if it be allowed the least corner, if it be indulged to in this one
   instance, twill quickly spread itself farther.

   33. Yet after all, this fear of reproach is a mere fallacy, started to
   disguise a more real cause of fear: for the greater danger of reproach
   does indeed lie on that other side. Common estimation puts an ill
   Character upon pragmatic, meddling people. For though the
   inquisitiveness and curiosity of the hearer may sometimes render such
   discourses grateful enough to him, yet it leaves in him no good
   impressions of the speaker. This is well observed by the son of Sirach,
   Ecclus. 19. 8, 9. Whether it be to friend or foe, talk not of other
   men's lives; and if thou canst without offense, reveal them not, for he
   heard and observed thee, and when time cometh he will hate thee. In a
   word, all considering Persons will be on their guard in such company,
   as foreseeing that they will talk no less freely of them, than they do
   of others before them. Nor can the commonness of the guilt obviate the
   censure, there being nothing more frequent than for men to accuse their
   own faults in other Persons. Vice is like a dark Lantern, which turns
   its bright side only to him that bears it, but looks black and dismal
   in another's hand: and in this particular none has so much reason to
   fear a Defamer, as those who are themselves such: for (besides the
   common prudential motive) their own consciousness gives them an inward
   alarm, and makes them look for a retribution in the same kind. Thus,
   upon the whole matter we see, there is no real temptation, even to our
   vanity, to comply with this uncharitable custom, we being sure to lose
   more repute by it than we can propose to ourselves to gain. The being
   esteemed an ill man will not be balanced by being thought pleasant,
   ingenuous company, were one sure to be so. But tis odds that will not
   be acquired by it neither, for the most assiduous tale-bearers and
   bitterest revilers are often half-witted people: there being nothing
   more frequently observable, than such men's aptness to speak evil of
   things they understand not, Jude. 1. 2.

   34. O Let not then those that have repudiated the more inviting sins,
   shew themselves pilfered and bewitched by this, but instead of
   submitting to the ill example of others, set a good one to them, &
   endeavor to bring this unchristian custom out of fashion. I am sure if
   they do not, they will be more deeply chargeable than others: for the
   more command they have over their other corruptions, the more do they
   witness against themselves. Their remissness and willing subjection to
   this, besides their example when ill, is more ensnaring than other
   men's, and is apt to insinuate easy thought of the sin. Men are apt to
   think themselves safe while they follow one of noted piety, and the
   authority of his Person often leads them blindfold into his failings.
   Thus when Peter dissembled, St. Paul tells us that the other Jews, and
   even Barnabas also was carried away with his dissimulation. Gal. 2. 13.
   And I doubt not in this particular many are encouraged by the liberty
   they see even good men take. So that such have a more accumulative
   guilt, for they do not only commit, but patronize the fault: the
   consideration whereof has kept me, I confess, longer upon this head
   than is proportionable to the brevity of the rest; but I think no
   longer than agrees to the importance of the subject.

   35. And now, since we have considered the malignity of this sin of
   Detraction, and yet withal find that tis a sin, which, as the Apostle
   speaks, doth easily beset us, tis but a natural Corollary that we
   enforce our vigilance against it. And where the importance and
   difficulty are both so great, twill be a little necessary to consider
   what are the likeliest means, the most appropriate Antidote against
   this so dangerous, and yet so Epidemic a disease.

   36. And here the common rule of Physic is to be adverted too, viz. to
   examine the causes, that the remedies may be adapted to them. I shall
   therefore in the first place desire every man seriously to study his
   own constitution of mind, and observe what are his particular
   temptations to this sin of Detraction, whether any of those I have
   before mentioned, as Pride, Envy, Levity, &c. or any other which lies
   deeper, and is only discernible to his own inspection. Let him, I say,
   make the scrutiny, and then accordingly apply himself to correct the
   sin in its first principle. For as when there is an eruption of Humor
   in any part, tis not cured merely by outward application, but by such
   alterative Medicines as purify the blood; so this Leprosy of the Tongue
   will still spread farther, if it be not checked in its Spring and
   source, by the mortifying of those corrupt inclinations, which feed and
   heighten it.

   37. This is an inquisition I must leave to every man's own Conscience,
   which alone can testify by what impulses he acts. Yet as the Rabbis
   were wont to say, that in every Signal Judgment which befell the Jews,
   there was some grain of the golden-calf; so I think I may venture to
   say, that in all Detraction, there is some mixture of Pride: and
   therefore I suppose, a Caution against that, will be so generally
   seasonable, that it may well lead the Van of all other advices in this
   matter. And here tis very observable, that God who has made of one
   blood all Nations of the earth. Acts 17. has so equally distributed all
   the most valuable privileges of Human nature, as if He designed to
   preclude all insulting of one man over another. Neither has He only
   thus insinuated it by his Providence, but has enforced it by his
   commands. In the Levitical Law we find what a particular care He takes
   to moderate the rigor of Judicial correction, upon this very account,
   lest thy Brother be despised in thine eyes. Deut. 25. 3. So
   unreasonable did He think it, that the crime or misery of one, should
   be the exultation of another. And St. Paul brands it as a great guilt
   of the Corinthians that they upon the occasion of the incestuous Person
   were puffed up, when they should have mourned. 1 Cor. 5. 2. When we see
   a dead Corpse, we are not apt to insult over it, or brag of our own
   health and vigor; but it rather damps us, and makes us reflect, that it
   may (we know not how soon) be our own condition. And certainly the
   spectacles of Spiritual mortality should have the same operation. We
   have the same principles of Corruption with our lapsed Brethren, and
   have nothing but God's grace, to secure us from the same effects, and
   by these insulting reflections forfeit that too; for He gives grace
   only to the humble. Jam. 4. 6. St. Paul's advice, therefore, is very
   apposite to this case, Gal. 6. 1. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a
   fault, restore such a one in the spirit of Meekness, considering
   thyself, least thou also be tempted. In a word, the falls of others
   ought to excite our pity towards them, our caution as to ourselves and
   our thankfulness to God, if he hath hitherto preserved us from the
   like, For who made thee to differ from another? 1 Cor. 4. 7. But if we
   spread our Sails, and triumph over these wrecks, we expose ourselves to
   worse. Other sins like Rocks may split us, yet the lading may be
   preserved; but Pride like a Gulf swallows us up; our very virtues when
   so leavened, becoming weights and plummets to sink us to our deepest
   ruin. The counsel, therefore, of the Apostle is very pertinent to this
   matter. Rom. 11. 20. Be not high minded, but fear.

   38. But God knows we can insult over others when we are not only under
   a possibility, but are actually involved in the same guilt; and then
   what are all our accusations and bitter censures of others, but
   indictments and condemnatory sentences against ourselves? And we may
   justly expect God should take us at our word, and reply upon us as the
   Prophet did upon David, Thou art the man. 2 Sam. 12. 7. For though our
   officious vehemence against another's crime, may blind the eyes of men,
   yet God is not so mocked: as therefore when a thief or murderer is
   detected, it gives an alarm to the whole confederacy; so when we find
   our own guilts pursued in other men's Persons, tis not a time for us to
   join in the prosecution, but rather by humble and penitent reflections
   on ourselves to provide for our own safety. When therefore, we find
   ourselves (upon any misdemeanor of our brother) ready to mount the
   tribunal, and pronounce our sentence, let us first consider how
   competent we are for the office, calling to mind the decision Christ
   once made in the like case, He that is without sin let him first cast a
   stone, John 8. 7. And if we did this, many perhaps of our fiercest
   impeachers, would think fit to retire and leave the delinquent (as they
   themselves finally desire to be) to the merciful indulgence of a
   Savior. In short, would we but look into our own hearts, we should find
   so much work for our inquisitions and censure, that we should not be at
   leisure to ramble abroad for it. And therefore, as Lycurgus once said
   to one, who importuned him to establish a popular parity in the state,
   Do thou, says he, begin it first in thine own family; so I shall advise
   those that will be judging, to practice first at home. And if they will
   confine themselves to that, till there be nothing left to correct, I
   doubt not their neighbor will be well enough secured against their
   Detractions.

   39. Another preservation against that sin is the frequent contemplation
   of the last and great judgment. This is indeed a Catholicon against
   all: but we find it particularly applied by St. Paul to this of judging
   and despising our Brethren. Why dost thou judge thy brother? or why
   dost thou set at nought thy brother? We shall all stand before the
   Judgement Seat of Christ. Rom. 14. 10. That is the great day of
   Revelation and retribution, and we are not to anticipate it by our
   private inquests or sentences: we have business enough to provide our
   own accounts against that day. And as it were a spiteful folly for the
   Malefactors that were going together to the bar, to spend their time in
   exaggerating each other's crimes: so surely it is for us, who are all
   going toward the dreadful tribunal, to be drawing up Charges against
   one another. And who knows but we may then meet with the fate of
   Daniel's accusers, see him we censured acquit, and ourselves doomed.
   The penitence of the criminal may have numbered him among the Saints,
   when our unretracted uncharitableness may send us to unquenchable
   Flames. I conclude this consideration with the words of St. James,
   There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy, who are thou
   that judgest another? Jam. 4. 12.

   40. A Third expedient may be, to try to make a revulsion of the humor,
   to draw it into another channel. If we must needs be talking of other
   people's faults, let it not be to Defame, but to amend them, by
   converting our Detraction and backbiting into Admonition and fraternal
   correction. This is a way to extract medicine out of the viper, to
   consecrate even this so unhallowed a part of our temper, and to turn
   the ungrateful meddling of a busybody, into the most obliging office of
   a friend. And indeed, had we the zeal for virtue, which we pretend when
   we inveigh against vice, we should surely lay it out this way, for this
   only gives a possibility of reforming the offender. But alas, we order
   the matter so, as if we feared to lose the occasion of Clamor, and will
   tell all the world but him that it most concerns. Indeed, tis a
   deplorable thing to see how universally this necessary Christian duty
   is neglected; and to that neglect we may in a great degree impute that
   strange overflowing of Detraction among us. We know the receiving
   anything into our Charge, insensibly begets a love and tenderness to it
   (a nurse upon this account comes often to vie kindness with the
   mother:) and would we but take one another thus into our care, and by
   friendly vigilance thus watch over each other's souls, tis scarce
   imaginable what an endearment it would create: such certainly as would
   infallibly supplant all our unkind reportings, and severe descants upon
   our brethren; since those can never take place, but when there is at
   least an indifference, if not an enmity.

   41. The next cure I shall propose for Detraction, is to subtract its
   nourishment, by suppressing all Curiosity and inquisitiveness
   concerning others. Were all Supplies thus cut off, it would at last be
   subdued. The King of Ethiopia in a vie of Wit with the King of Egypt,
   proposed it as a Problem to him, to drink up the Sea, to which he
   replied by requiring him first to stop the access of Rivers to it: and
   he that would drain this other Ocean, must take the same course, dam up
   the avenues of those Springs which feed it. He that is always upon the
   scent, hunting out some discovery of others, will be very apt to invite
   his neighbors to the quarry; and therefore twill be necessary for him,
   to restrain himself from that range: not like jealous States, to keep
   Spies and pensioners abroad to bring him intelligence, but rather
   discourage all such officious pick-thanks: for the fuller he is of such
   informations, the more is his pain if he keep them in, and his guilt if
   he publish them. Could men be persuaded to affect a wholesome ignorance
   in these matters, it would conduce both to their ease and innocence:
   for tis this Itch of the ear which breaks out at the Tongue: and were
   not Curiosity the Purveyor, Detraction would soon be starved into a
   tameness.

   42. But the most infallible recipe of all, is the frequent
   recollecting, and serious applying of the grand rule, of doing as we
   would be done to; for as Detraction is the violation of that, so the
   observation of that must certainly supplant Detraction. Let us
   therefore, when we find the humor fermenting within us, and ready to
   break out in Declamations against our brethren, Let us, I say, check it
   with this short question, Would I myself be thus used? This voice from
   within, will be like that from heaven to St. Paul, which stopped him in
   the height of his carrier, Acts 9. 4. And this voice, every man may
   hear, that will not stop his ears, nor gag his conscience, it being but
   the Echo of that native Justice and equity which is planted in our
   hearts: and when we have our remedy so near us, and will not use it,
   God may well expostulate with us, as he did with the Jews, Why will ye
   die, O house of Israel? Ezek. 33. 11.

   These are some of those many recipes which may be prescribed against
   this spreading disease. But indeed, there is not so much need to
   multiply remedies, as to persuade men to apply them. We are in love
   with our Malady, and as loath to be cured of the Luxury of the Tongue,
   as St. Augustine was of his other Sensuality, against which he prayed
   with a Caveat, that he might not be too soon heard. But tis ill
   dallying, where our Souls are concerned: for alas, tis they that are
   wounded by those darts, which we throw at others. We take our aim,
   perhaps at our Neighbors, but indeed hit ourselves: herein verifying in
   the highest Sense that Axiom of the Wise-man, He that diggeth a pit,
   shall fall into it, and he that rolleth a stone, it shall return upon
   him. Prov. 26. 27. If therefore, we have no tenderness, no relentings,
   to our Brethren, yet let us have some to ourselves, so much compassion,
   nay, so much respect to our precious immortal Souls, as not to set them
   at so despicable a price, to put them in balance with the satisfying of
   a petulant, peevish vanity. Surely the shewing ourselves ill natured
   (which is all the gain Detraction amounts to) is not so enamouring a
   design, that we should sacrifice to it our highest interest. Tis too
   much to spend our breath in such a pursuit, O let not our souls also
   exhale in the vapor; but let us rather pour them out in prayers for our
   brethren, than in accusations of them: for though both the one and the
   other will return into our own bosoms, yet God knows to far differing
   purposes, even, as differing as those wherein we utter them. The
   Charity of the one, like kindly exhalations will descend in showers of
   blessings, but the rigor and asperity of the other, in a severe doom
   upon ourselves: for the Apostle will tell us, He shall have Judgement
   without mercy, that shewed no mercy, James 2. 13.
     __________________________________________________________________

Section VII.
Of Scoffing and Derision.

   There is also another fault of the Tongue injurious to our neighbor,
   and that is Derision and Mockery; the striving to render others as
   ridiculous and contemptible as we can. This in respect of the subject
   matter differs from the other of Detraction, as much as folly or
   deformity does from vice: yet since injuries as well as benefits are to
   measured by common estimation, this may come in balance with the other.
   There is such a general aversation in the human nature to contempt,
   that there is scarce anything more exasperating. I will not deny but
   the excess of that aversation may be leveled against Pride, yet sure
   scorn and disdain never sprung from humility, and therefore, are very
   incompetent Correctors of the other; so that it may be said of that, as
   once it was of Diogenes, that he trampled on Plato's Pride with greater
   of his own.

   2. Nor is this injury enhanced only by the refinement of the sufferer,
   but also by the way of inflicting it. We generally think those are the
   severest marks of infamy, which are the most indelible. To be burnt in
   the hand or pilloried, is a more lasting reproach than to be scourged
   or confined; and it is the same in this case, for here commonly Wit is
   the Lictor, which is armed with an edged tool, and leaves scars behind
   it. The reproach of rage and fury seem to be writ in Chalk or Lead,
   which a dispassionate hearer easily wipes out, but those of Wit are
   like the engraver's burn upon copper, or the corrodings of Aquafortis,
   engrave and indent the Characters that they can never be defaced. The
   truth of this daily experience attests. A dull contumely quickly
   vanishes, nobody thinking it worth remembering; but when tis steeled
   with Wit, it pierces deep, leaves such impressions in the fancy of the
   hearers, that thereby it gets rooting in the memory, and will scarce be
   eradicated: nay, sometimes it happens to survive both speaker and
   hearer, and conveys itself to posterity; it being not unusual for the
   sarcasms of Wit to be transmitted in story. And as it thus gives an
   edge, so also does it add wings to a reproach, makes it fly abroad in
   an instant. Many a poor man's infirmities had been confined to the
   notice of a few relations or neighbors, had not some remarkable strain
   of drollery scattered and dispersed them. The jest recommends the
   Defamation, and is commonly so incorporate with it, that they cannot be
   related apart. And even those who like it not in one respect, yet are
   many time so transported with it in the other, that they choose rather
   to propagate the contumely, than stifle the conceit. Indeed, Wit is so
   much the Diana of this age, that he who goes about to set any bounds to
   it must expect an uproar, Acts 19. 28. or at least to be judged to have
   imposed an envious inhibition on it, because himself has not stock
   enough to maintain the trade. But however sharp or unexpected the
   censure may be, yet tis necessary that plain, downright truth should
   sometimes be spoken, and I think that will bear me out, if I say, tis
   possible men may be as oppressive by their parts, as their power; and
   that God did no more design the meaner intellectuals of some for
   triumphs to the Pride and vanity of the more acute, than he did the
   possessions of the less powerful, as a prey to the rapine and avarice
   of the mighty.

   3. And this suggests a yet farther aggravation of this sin, as it is a
   perverting of God's design, and abuse of the talent he has committed to
   men in trust. Ingenuity and quickness of parts, is sure to be reckoned
   in the highest ranks of Blessings, an instrument proper for the most
   excellent purposes: and therefore we cannot suppose the Divine wisdom,
   so much short of Human, as not in His intention to assign it to uses
   worthy of it. Those must relate either to God, ourselves, or our
   neighbors. In respect of God, it renders us more capable of
   contemplating His Perfections, discerning the Equity and excellence of
   his Laws, and our obligations to obedience. In regard of ourselves, it
   makes us apprehend our own interest in that obedience; makes us
   tractable and persuadable, contrary to that Brutish stubbornness of the
   Horse and Mule, which the Psalmist reproaches, Psa. 32. 9. Besides it
   accommodates us in all the concerns of Human life, forms itself into
   all those useful contrivances, which may make our being here more
   comfortable: especially it renders a man company to himself, and in the
   greatest dearth of Society, entertains him with his own thoughts.
   Lastly, as to our neighbors, it renders us useful and assistant. All
   those discoveries and experiments, those Arts and Science, which are
   now the common treasure of the world, took their first rise from the
   ingenuity of particular Persons: and in all Personal exigencies wherein
   any of us are at any time involved, we need not be told the usefulness
   of a wise adviser. Now all these are employments commensurable to the
   faculty from whence they flow, and that answer its excellence and
   value; and he that so bestows his talent, gives a good account of this
   trust. But I would fain know under which of these Heads Derision of our
   Neighbors comes in: certainly not under that of being assistant to him.
   It would be a sorry relief to a poor indigent wretch, to lavish out wit
   upon him, in upbraiding of his misery. And is not this a parallel case?
   Is it not the same Barbarism, to mock and reproach a man that wants the
   gifts of Nature, as him that wants those of Fortune? Nay, perhaps it
   may be more, for a Beggar may have impoverished himself by his own
   fault, but in Natural defects there is nothing to be charged, unless we
   will fly higher, and arraign, that Providence that hath so dispensed.
   In a word, as the Superfluities of the Rich are by God assigned as the
   store-house of the poor, so the Abilities of the Wise are of the
   ignorant: for tis a great mistake, to think ourselves Stewards in some
   of God's gifts, and proprietors in others. They are all equally to be
   employed, according to the designation of the Donor, and there is
   nothing more universally designed by him, than that mankind should be
   equally helpful to one another. Those therefore, whom God hath blessed
   with higher degrees of sagacity and quickness, ought not to look down
   on others as the objects of their contempt or scorn, but rather of
   their care and pity, endeavoring to rescue them from those mischiefs,
   to which their weakness may expose them, remembering still, that God
   might have changed the Scene, and made themselves what they see others.
   It is part of Job's justification of his integrity, that he was eyes to
   the Blind, and feet to the Lame, Job 29. 25. (i.e.) he accommodated his
   assistances to all the wants and exigencies of others: and sure tis no
   less the part of a good man to do it in the Mental than in the Corporal
   defects.

   4. But alas, many of us would rather put a stumbling block in the way
   of the Blind, pull away the Crutch from the Lame, that we may sport
   ourselves to see them tumble: such a sensuality we have in observing
   and improving the imperfections of others, that it is become the grand
   excellence of the Age to be Dexterous at it, and Wit serves some men
   for little else. We are got indeed into a merry world, Laughing is our
   main business; as if because it has been made part of the Definition of
   man, that he is Risible, his man-hood consisted in nothing else. But
   alas, if that be all the use men have of their understandings, they
   were given them to little purpose, since mere Idiots can laugh with as
   much pleasure and more innocence than they; and it is a great instance
   how extremes may be brought to meet, that the excess of Wit in the one,
   and of Folly in the other, serve but to produce the same effect.

   5. Yet so voracious is this humor now grown, that it draws in
   everything to feed it. There is not game enough from the real folly of
   the world, and therefore, that which is the most distant from it must
   be stamped with its mark. Tis a known story of the Friar who on a
   fasting day bid his Capon be Carp, and then very canonically ate it;
   and by such a transubstantiating power our Wits bid all seriousness and
   consideration be formality and foppery, and then under that name
   endeavor to hunt it out of the world. I fear moral honesty fares not
   better with some of them than moral prudence. The old Philosophical
   virtues of Justice, Temperance, and Chastity are now hissed off the
   stage, as fit only for that Antiquated set of Actors; and he that
   appears in that equipage, is by many thought more ridiculous than he
   that walks the street in his Ancestor's trunk hose. Nay indeed, vice
   itself is scarce secure if it have not the grand accomplishment of
   impudence: a puny blushing sinner is to be laughed out of his Modesty,
   though not out of his sin; and to be proof against their scorns, he
   must first be so against all the regrets of his own mind.

   6. And if mere Ethic virtue, or shame-faced vice have this treatment,
   Christian piety must expect worse: and so indeed, it finds its
   professors being, beyond all others, exposed to their scorn and
   contempt. Nor is it strange it should be so, such men being made, as it
   is Wisd. 2. 14. to reprove their ways, they think in their own defense
   they are to deride theirs. This is it indeed, which gives a secret
   sting and venom to their reproaches: other men they abuse as an
   exercise of their Wit but these in defense of the party. So Julian
   after his Apostasy, thought it a more effectual way to persecute the
   Christians by taunts and ironies than by racks and tortures, as
   thinking it more possible to shame than fright them out of their
   religion. And the stratagem seems to have been reassumed by many in
   this age, and I fear with too great success: for I doubt not there are
   divers who have herded themselves amongst these profane Scoffers, not
   that they are convinced by their reasons, but terrified by their
   contumelies; and as some Indians are said to worship the Devil, that he
   may not hurt them; so these choose to be active, that they may not be
   passive in the contempts flung upon religion: such men forget the
   dreadful denunciation of Christ against those that shall be ashamed of
   Him and His words. Matt. 8. 38.

   7. As for those who, upon a juster estimate, find the advantages of
   piety worthy to be chosen, and take it with all its accessory
   ignominies, they have the encouragement of very good company in their
   sufferings. The Psalmist long ago had his share, when not only Those
   that sat in the gate spake against him, but the drunkards made songs
   upon him, Psa. 69. 12. Twas also the Prophet Jeremiah's complaint, I am
   in Derision daily, everyone mocketh at me, Jer. 20. 7. Nay, our blessed
   Lord himself was derided in his life by the Pharisees, Luke 16. 14.
   mocked and reviled at His death by the Priests, the Elders, the
   Soldiers, nay, by casual passengers, Matt. 27. 39. And shall the
   servant think himself greater than his Lord? Shall a Christian expect
   an immunity from what his Savior has borne before him? (He that does
   so, is too delicate a member for a crucified head.) No, sure let us
   rather animate ourselves, as the Apostle exhorts, by considering Him
   who as well despised the shame, as endured the cross for us, Heb. 12.
   3. and who has not only given an example, but proposed a reward, a
   Beatitude to those who are reviled for righteousness sake, Matt. 5. 11.
   And when this is soberly pondered, twill sure make it easy for us to
   resolve with holy David in a like case, I will yet be more vile, 2 Sam.
   6. 22.

   8. But to return from this digression to those who thus unhappily
   employ their parts, let me propose to them, that they would borrow
   every day some few minutes from their mirth, and seriously consider
   whether this be (I need not say a Christian, but) a manly exercise of
   their faculties. Alas, when they have rallied out the day from one
   company to another, they may sum up their account at night in the wise
   man's simile, their Laughter has been but like the crackling of Thorns
   under a pot, Ecclus. 6. 7. made a little brisk noise for the present,
   and with the sparkles perhaps annoyed their Neighbors, but what real
   good has it brought to themselves? All that they can fancy is but the
   repute of Wit: but sure that might be attainable some other way. We
   find the world affected to new things, and this of Derision and abuse
   to others is so beaten a road, that perhaps the very variety of a new
   way would render it acceptable. They are the lighter substances that
   still swim away with the stream, the greater and more Solid bodies do
   sometimes stop the current: and sure twere a noble essay of a man's
   parts to stem this tide, and by a more useful application of their own
   faculties, convince others that their might be better employed. Tis
   said of Anacharsis, that at a feast he could not be got to smile at the
   affected railleries of common Jesters, but when an ape was brought in
   he freely laughed, saying an ape was ridiculous by nature, but men by
   art and study. And truly, tis a great contempt of human nature to think
   their intellects were given them for no better end, than to raise that
   laughter which a brute can do as well or better.

   9. I Would not be thought to recommend such a Stoical sourness, as
   shall admit of nothing of the cheerful, pleasant part of Conversation.
   God has not sure been more rigid to our Minds than to our Bodies: and
   as He has not so devoted the one to toil, but that He allows us some
   time to exercise them in recreation as well as labors, so doubtless He
   indulges the same relaxation to our Minds: which are not always to be
   screwed up to the height, but allowed to descend to those easinesses of
   Converse, which entertain the lower Faculties of the Soul. Nor do I
   think those are all employed in those little skirmishes of Wit, which
   pass familiarly between intimates and acquaintances, which besides the
   present divertissement, serve to whet and quicken the Fancy. Yet I
   conceive this liberty is to be bounded with some Cautions: as first in
   these encounters, the Charge should be Powder not Bullets; there should
   nothing be said, that should leave any ungrateful impressions, or give
   any umbrage of a spiteful intent. The world wants not experiments of
   the mischiefs have happened by too severe Railleries: in such Fencings
   jest has proven earnest, and Florets have often turned to Swords, and
   not only the Friendship, but the Men have fallen a Sacrifice to a Jest.

   10. Secondly, this is to have the same restriction with all other
   recreations, that it be made a divertissement, not a trade. Tis an
   insinuating thing, and is apt to encroach too much upon our time, and
   God knows we have a great deal of business for this world, and much
   more for the next, which will not be done with laughing: and therefore,
   tis not for us to play away too much of that time, which is exacted by
   more serious concerns. Tis sure we shall die in Earnest, and it will
   not become us, to live altogether in Jest. But besides this stealth of
   our time, tis apt to steal away men's hearts too, make them dote so
   upon this kind of entertainment, that it averts them from anything more
   serious. I believe I may appeal to some who have made this their
   business, whether it go not against the hair with them to set to
   anything else, and having espoused this as their one excellence, they
   are willing to decry all others, that they may the more value
   themselves upon this. By this means it is, that the gift of Raillery
   has in this Age, like the lean Kine, devoured all the more solid worthy
   qualifications, and is counted the most reputable accomplishment. A
   strange, inverted estimate, thus to prefer the little ebullitions of
   Wit before solid reason and judgment. If they would accommodate either
   Diet at the same rate, they should eat the Husk, rather than the
   Kernel, and drink nothing but froth and bubbles. But after all, Wisdom
   is commonly at long running justified even of her Despisers; these
   great Idolaters of Wit often dashing themselves upon such Rocks, as
   make them too late wish their Sails had been less, and their Ballast
   more. For the preventing, therefore, of more such wrecks, I wish the
   present caution may be more adverted to, not to bestow an
   unproportionable part of our time or value on this slight exercise of
   man's slightest Faculty.

   11. A Third Caution in this matter, is to confine ourselves to present
   Company, not to make absent Persons the Subject of our mirth. Those
   freedoms we use to a man's face, as they are commonly more moderate, so
   they are more equitable, because we expose ourselves to the like from
   him; but the back blows are disingenuous, and give suspicion we intend
   not a fair trial of Wit, but a cowardly murder of a man's fame. Twas
   the precept of the Philosopher, Deride not the absent, and I think it
   may well be so of the Politician: there being nothing more imprudent as
   to our civil concerns than the contrary liberty. For those things never
   die in the company they are first vented in (nay, perhaps the hearer is
   not willing his wit should so soon expire;) and when they once take
   air, they quickly come to the notice of the derided Person, and then
   nothing in the world is more disobliging. Twas a sober precept given
   one, not so much as to laugh in compliance with him that derides
   another, for you will be hated by him he derides. And if an accessory
   be hated, sure much more the principal: and I think I may say, there
   are many can sooner forgive a solemn deep contrivance against them,
   than one of their jocular reproaches: for he that designs seems to
   acknowledge them considerable, but he that mocks them, seems to think
   them too low for anything but contempt: and we learn from Aristotle,
   that the measure of anger is entirely taken thence, men being so far
   provoked, as they imagine they were slighted or affronted. In mere
   secular wisdom it will therefore become men to consider, whether this
   trade be like to turn to account; or whether it be worth the while, at
   once to make a jest and an enemy.

   12. And if it be imprudent to make man our enemy, tis much more to make
   God so, by leveling our blows at anything sacred: but of that I have
   already had occasion to speak, and shall not repeat; only give me leave
   to say, that besides the profaner sorts of jests, which more
   immediately reflect on Him, He is concerned in all the unjust
   reproaches of our brethren, our love to them being confirmed by the
   same divine Sanction with our reverence to Him: and sure nothing is
   more inconsistent with that love, than the exposing them to that
   contempt we are ourselves impatient of. In a word, what repute soever
   this practice now has of Wit, it is very far from wisdom to provoke God
   that we may also disoblige man: and if we will take the Scripture
   estimate, we shall find a Scorner is no such honorable Epithet as we
   seem to account it. Solomon does almost constantly set it in opposition
   to a Wise man: thus it is, Prov. 9. 8. and again Chap. 13. 1. and many
   other places; and on the other side, closely links it with the Fool:
   and that not only in title, but in punishment too, Judgments are
   prepared for scorners, and stripes for the backs of fools, Prov. 19.
   29. So that if our Wits think not Solomon too dull for their Cabal, we
   see what a turn he will give to their present verdict.

   13. And if these reproaches which aim also at ostentation of Wit, be so
   unjustifiable, what shall we say to those that are drawn with blacker
   lines, that are founded in Malice and Envy, or some undermining design?
   Every man that is to be supplanted cannot always be attacked with a
   downright battery: perhaps his integrity may be such, that, as twas
   said of Daniel, Chap. 6. 4. they can find no occasion against him: and
   when they cannot shake the main Fort, they must try if they can possess
   themselves of the out-works, raise some prejudice against his
   discretion, his humor, his carriage, and his most extrinsic adherents,
   and if by representing him ridiculous in any of these they can but
   abate men's reverence to him, their confidence of him will not long
   hold out; bare honesty without some other adornment, being looked on as
   a leafless tree, nobody will trust himself to its shelter. Thus the
   enemies of Socrates, when they could no otherways suppress his
   reputation, hired Aristophanes, a Comic Poet, to personate him on the
   stage, and by the insinuations of those interludes, insensibly conveyed
   first a contempt, then a hatred of him into the hearts of the people.
   But I need not bring instances of former times in this matter, these
   being sufficiently versed in that mystery.

   14. It is not strange that men of such designs, should summon all their
   Wit to the service, make their Railleries as picquant as they can, that
   they may wound the deeper: but methinks tis but a mean office they
   assign their Wit, to be (I will not say the Pander, that being in this
   age scarce a title of Reproach but) the executioner or hangman to their
   malice. Christ bids us be wise as Serpents, yet adds withal harmless as
   Doves, Matt. 10. 18. But here the Serpent has quite eat up the Dove,
   and puts a Vulture in the place, a creature of such sagacity and
   diligence in pursuit of the prey, that tis hard for any art or
   innocence to escape its talons.

   15. There is yet another sort of Contumelious Persons, who indeed are
   not chargeable with that circumstance, of ill employing their Wit, for
   they use none in it. These are people whose sole talent is Pride and
   Scorn; who perhaps have attained the Sciences of dressing themselves
   finely, and eating well, and upon the strength of those excellencies,
   look fastidiously, and disdainfully on any who want them, concluding if
   a man fall short of their Garniture at the Knees and Elbows, he is much
   inferior to them in the furniture of the Head. Such people think
   crying, O Ridiculous! is an ample Confutation of anything can be said,
   and so they can but despise enough, are contented not to be able to say
   why they do so. These are I confess, the most innocent kind of Deriders
   in respect of others, what they say having not edge enough to cause any
   smart. The greatest hurt they do is to themselves, who though they much
   need, yet are generally little capable of a rescue, and therefore I
   shall not clog the present discourse with any advice to them: I shall
   choose rather to conclude with enforcing my Suit to the former, that
   they would soberly and sadly weigh the account they must one Day give
   of the Employment of their Parts, and the more they have hitherto to
   embezzled them, the more to endeavor to expiate that Unthriftiness, by
   a more careful Managery for the future; that so instead of that vain,
   empty, vanishing Mirth they have courted here, they may find a real,
   full, and eternal Satisfaction in the Joy of their Lord.
     __________________________________________________________________

Section VIII.
Of Flattery.

   The last of Verbal injuries to our Neighbor which I shall mention, is
   Flattery. This is indeed the fatalest wound of the Tongue, carries
   least Smart, but infinitely more of Danger, and is as much superior to
   the former, as a Gangrene is to a Gall or Scratch; this may be sore and
   vexing, but that stupifying and deadly. Flattery is such a Mystery,
   such a Riddle of iniquity, that its very softnesses are its cruelest
   rigor, its Balm corrodes, and (to comprise all in the Psalmist's
   excellent Description) its words are smoother than oil, and yet be they
   very swords. Psa. 56. 21.

   2. But besides the mischiefs of it to the Patient, tis the most
   dishonoring, the most vilifying thing to the Agent. I shall not need to
   empanel a Jury either of Moralists or Divines, every man's own breast
   sufficiently instructing him in the unworthiness of it. Tis indeed a
   Collective, accumulative Baseness, its being in its Elements a compound
   and a complex of the most sordid, hateful qualities incident to
   Mankind. I shall instance in three viz. Lying, Servility, and
   Treachery, which being detestably deformed single must in conjunction
   make up a loathsome Monstrous guilt. Now, though Flattery has two
   Branches, yet these lie so at the Root as equally to influence both:
   for whether you take it as it is the giving of praise where it is not
   due, or the professing of kindness which is not real, these Properties
   are still is Constitutive parts.

   3. And first we may take Lying to be the very corner Stone of the
   Fabric; for take it away, and the Whole falls to the ground. A Parasite
   would make but a lean trade of it, that should confine himself to
   truth. For though tis possible so to order the manner and
   circumstances, as to flatter even in the representing a man's real
   virtues to him, yet commonly if they do not falsify as to the kind,
   they are forced to do it as to the degree. Besides, as there are but
   few such subjects of Flattery, so neither are men of that Worth so
   receptive of it. Such sort of addresses are less dangerous to those who
   have the perspicuity to see through them: so that these Merchants are
   under a necessity of dealing with the more ignorant Chapmen, and with
   them their counterfeit wares will go off best. It is indeed strange to
   consider, with what gross impudent falsehoods men of this trade will
   court their Patrons. How many in former ages have not only amassed
   together all sublunary excellencies, but have even ransacked heaven to
   supply their Flattery, Deified their Princes, and persuaded them they
   were gods, who at last found they were to die like men? And though this
   strain be not out-dated, yet perhaps tis not that the vice is grown
   more modest, but that Atheism has robbed it of that Topic. Those that
   believe no God, would rather seem to annihilate than magnify the person
   to whom they should apply the title. But I do not find that the
   practice has any other bounds. A great man's vices shall still be
   called virtues, his deformities beauties, and his most absurd follies
   the height of ingenuity. Such a subtle Alchemist is this Parasite, that
   he turns all he touches into gold, imaginary indeed as to the deluded
   Person, but oft-times real to himself. Nor is Lying less natural to the
   other part of Flattery, the Profession of service and kindness. This
   needs no evidencing, and to attempt it would be a self-Confutation: for
   if those Professions be true, they are not Flattery, therefore, if they
   be Flattery, they must needs be Lies. It will be almost as needless to
   expatiate on the Baseness and meanness of that sin; for though there is
   no Subject that affords more matter for Declamation, yet Lying is a
   thing that is ashamed of itself, and therefore may well be remitted to
   its own convictions. Tis Aristotle's observation, that all Elements but
   the Earth, had some Philosopher or other, that gave it his vote to be
   the first productive Principle of all things: and I think we may now
   say, that all Crimes have had their Abettors and fautors, somebody that
   would stand up in their defense; only Lying is so much the dregs and
   refuse of wickedness, that none had yet had Chemistry enough to
   sublimate it, to bring it into such a reputation, that any man will
   think fit to own it: the greater wonder that what is under so universal
   a reproach, should be so commonly admitted in practice. But by this we
   may make an estimate, what the whole body of Flattery is, when in one
   limb of it we find so much corruption.

   4. A Second is Servility and Abjectness of humor: and of this there
   needs no other proof than has been already given; this charge being
   implicitly involved in the former of Lying, the condescending to that,
   being a mark of a disingenuous spirit. And accordingly, the nobler
   Heathens looked on it as the vice of Slaves and vassals, below the
   liberty of a free man, as well as an honest. But though I need no other
   evidence to make good the accusation, yet every Sycophant furnishes me
   with many supernumerary proofs. Look upon such a one, and you shall see
   his eyes immovably fixed on his Patron's face, watching each look, each
   glance, and in every change of his countenance (like a Star-gazer)
   reading his own destiny, his Ears chained (like galley-slaves at the
   oar) to his dictate, sucking in the most insipid discourses with as
   much greediness as if they were the Apothegms of the seven Sages, his
   Tongue turned only to Panegyrics and acclamations, his feet in winged
   motion upon every nod or other signification of his pleasure: in a
   word, his whole body (as if it had not other animal spirits than what
   it derived from him) varies its postures, its exercises, as he finds
   agreeable to the humor he is to serve. And can humanity contrive to
   debase itself more? Yes it can, and does too often, by enslaving its
   Diviner part too, taking up not only opinions, but even crimes also in
   compliance, playing the incarnate Devil, and helping to act those
   villainies which Satan can only suggest: and if this be not a state of
   abject slavery, sure there is none in the world. Plutarch tells us,
   that Philoxenus for despising some dully Poetry of Dionysius, was by
   him condemned to dig in the quarries: from whence being by the
   mediation of friends remanded, at his return Dionysius produced some
   other of his verses, which as soon as Philoxenus had read, he made no
   reply, but calling to the waiters, said, Let them carry me again to the
   quarries. And if a heathen Poet could prefer a corporeal slavery before
   a mental, what name of reproach is low enough for them, who can submit
   to both, in pursuit of those poor sordid advantages they project by
   their Flatteries. Nor is this baseness more observable in these mean
   fawnings and observances, than it is in the protestations of kindness
   and Friendship. Love is the greatest gift any man has to bestow, and
   Friendship the sacredest of all moral bonds: and to prostitute these to
   little pitiful designs, is sure one of the basest cheats we can put
   upon our common nature, in thus debasing her purest and most current
   coin, which by these frequent adulterations is become so Suspected,
   that scarce any man knows what he receives. But Christian Charity is
   yet worse used in this case: for that obliging to all sincerity, is
   hereby induced to give gold for dross, exhibit that Love indeed and in
   truth, which is returned only in word and in Tongue, 1 John 3. 18. And
   so it does in those who observe its rules: but in those who own, yet
   observe them not, tis yet a greater sufferer, by laboring under the
   scandal of all their dissimulations. It was one the Character give
   Christians, even by their Enemies, Behold, how they love one another:
   but God knows we may now be pointed out by a very differing mark,
   Behold, how they deceive and delude one another. And sure this
   violation we herein offer to our religion, does not allay but aggravate
   the baseness of this practice: for if in the other we fell ourselves,
   in this we fell our God too, sacrifice our interest in Him to get a
   surreptitious title to the favor of a man. And this, I conceive, does
   in the second place not much commend the Art of Flattery, which is
   built up of so vile materials.

   5. And to complete this infamous composition, in the third place
   Treachery comes in; a crime of so odious a kind, that to name it is to
   implead it: yet how intrinsic a part this is of Flattery, will need no
   great skill to evidence, daily experience sufficiently doing it. Tis a
   common observation of Flatterers, that they are like the Heliotrope,
   open only towards the sun, but shut and contract themselves at night,
   and in cloudy weather. Let the object of their adoration be but
   eclipsed, they can see none of those excellencies which before dazzled
   their eyes: and how ever inconstant they may seem to others, they are
   indeed very constant to themselves, true to their fixed principle, of
   courting the greatness not the man; in pursuit whereof their old Idol
   is often made a sacrifice to their new: all malicious discovery is made
   of their falling friend, to buy an interest in the rising one. Of this
   there are such crowds of examples in Story, that it would be
   impertinent to single out any, especially in an age that is fitter to
   furnish presidents for the future, than to borrow of the past times.
   But supposing the Parasite not actually guilty of this base revolt,
   (which yet he seldom fails to be upon occasion) yet is he no less
   Treacherous even in the height of his Blandishments; and while he most
   courts a man, he does the most ruinously undermine him. For first he
   abuses him in his understanding, precludes him form that which wise men
   have judged the most essential part of Learning, the knowledge of
   himself, from which tis the main business of the Flatterer to divert
   him. And to this abuse there is another inevitably consequent: for this
   ignorance of his faults or follies, necessarily condemns him to the
   continuing in them, it being impossible for him to think of correcting
   either the one or the other, who is made believe he has neither. This
   is like the treachery of a bribed officer in a Garrison, who will not
   let the weak parts be fortified, and lays the man as open to assaults,
   as that doth the Town. Yet this is not all, he does not only provide
   for the continuance, but the improving of his crimes and errors, which
   alas, are too prolific of themselves, but being cultivated and manured
   with perpetual soothings and encouragements, grow immeasurably
   luxuriant. And accordingly, we see that men used only to applauses are
   so fooled with them that their insolences are intolerable. And this
   they are sometimes taught to their cost, when they happen among free
   men, who will not submit to all they say, nor commend all they do. And
   finding these uneasy contradictions when they come abroad, they are
   willing to return to their most complaisant company: and so this
   Sycophant Devil having once got them within his circle, may enchant
   them as he pleases, lead them from one wickedness to another. And as
   Caligula and other voluptnous Emperors, by being adored as gods, sunk
   in their sensuality below the Nature of man, so these celebrated
   Persons are by that false veneration animated to all those reproachful
   practices, which may expose them to a real contempt: their follies, as
   well as their vices still get had, till they answer the description the
   Wise man give of the old Giants, Who fell away in the strength of their
   foolishness. Ecclus. 16. 7.

   6. And sure he that betrays a man to all these mischiefs, may well be
   thought perfidious. But that which infinitely amplifies and enhances
   the Treachery is, that all this is acted under the notion and disguise
   of a friend; a relation so venerable, that methinks tis the nearest
   secular transcript of the treason, which is storied of those who have
   administered Poison in the Eucharist. The Name of a friend is such an
   endearment, as nothing human can equal. All other natural or civil ties
   take their greatest force from this. What signifies an unfriendly
   Parent, or Brother, or Wife? Tis friendship only that is the cement
   which really and effectively combines mankind: and therefore we may
   observe, that God reckoning up other relations, illustrates them by
   several notes of endearment, but when he come to that of friendship,
   tis the friend who is as thine own soul, Deut. 13. 6. nothing below the
   highest instance was thought expressive enough of that union. What a
   Legion of Fiends then possesseth man that can break these chains, Matt.
   5. 4. nay, that can hammer and forge those very chains into Daggers and
   Stilettos, and make their friendship an engine of ruin? This is
   certainly the blackest color wherein we can view a Parasite, his false
   light makes the shadow the more dismal: as the Ape has a peculiar
   deformity above other brutes by that awkward and ungraceful resemblance
   he has to a man, so sure a Flatterer is infinitely the more hateful for
   being the ugly counterfeit of a Friend. And as this Treachery lies at
   the bottom of the Panegyrics, so also does it of all the caresses and
   exuberant kindness of a Flatterer, which if they aimed not at any
   particular end of circumvention must yet in the general be Treacherous
   by being false. A man looks on the love of his friend as one of the
   riches possessions (upon which account the Philosopher thought friends
   were to be inventoried as well as goods.) What a defeat and
   discomfiture is it to a man, when he comes to use this wealth, to find
   it all false metal, such as will not answer any of those purposes of
   which he depended on it. There cannot sure be a greater Treachery, than
   first to raise a confidence and then deceive it. But besides this
   fundamental falseness, there are also many incidental Treacheries,
   which fall in upon occasion of particular designs. A pretence of
   kindness is the universal stale to all base projects: by this men are
   robbed of their fortunes, and women of their honor: in a word all the
   wolfish designs walk under this sheep's clothing, and as the world
   goes, men have more need to beware of those who call themselves
   friends, than those who own themselves enemies.

   7. These are those lineaments of this vice of Flattery, which sure do
   together make up a face of most extreme deformity. I might upon a true
   account add another, and charge it with Folly too. I am sure according
   to the Divine estimate it is always so: and truly it does not seldom
   prove so in the secular also. Men of this art do sometimes drop their
   vizard before they have got the prize, and then there is nothing in the
   world that appears so contemptible, so silly; a barefaced Flatterer
   being everybody's scorn. The short is, wherever this game is played
   there is always a fool in the case: if the Parasite be detected, it
   falls to his share: if he be not, to his whom he deludes. But at the
   best tis but subtlety and cunning he can boast of; and if he can in his
   own fancy raise that to the opinion of true wisdom, tis a sign he is
   come round to practice his deceits upon himself, and is as much his own
   Flatterer as he has been others.

   8. And now I know not whether it be more shame or wonder, to see that
   men can so put off ingenuity, and the native greatness of their kind,
   as to descend to so base, so ignoble a vice: yet alas, we daily see it
   done, and not only by the scum and refuse of the people, such as Job
   speaks of, who are viler than the earth. Chap. 30. 8. but by Persons of
   all conditions. Flattery, like a spring forced upward ascends, as cares
   are by the wise man said to descend, Ecclus. 40. 4. from him that
   weareth a linen frock to him that weareth a crown: all intermedial
   degrees are but like pipes, which as they suck from below, so transmit
   it still upwards. There are few so low but find somebody to cajole and
   Flatter them. Some interest or other may sometimes be to be served even
   upon the meanest, and those that fine themselves thus solicited for
   benefits, are easily taught by it how to address to their immediate
   superiors, from whom they expect greater: and as tis thus handed from
   one rank to another, the art still is more subtilized and refined. (God
   help poor Princes the while, who commonly meet with the Elixir, and
   quintessence of this venom.) And thus it passes through all states and
   conditions: as they are passive on the one side, and are Flattered by
   some, so they are active on the other, and Flatter others.

   9. I Say all conditions, I do not say all Persons in those conditions,
   for no truly generous soul can stoop so low: but tis too evident to
   what a low ebb Generosity as well as Christianity is grown, by the
   numbers of those who thus degrade themselves, every little petty
   interest being thought worth these base submissions. And truly, it is
   hard to find by what Topic of persuasion to assault such men. The
   meanness, or the sin will scarce be dissuasives to those who have
   reconciled themselves to both: if anything can be pertinently said to
   them, it must be upon the score of Interest, for that being their grand
   principle, they can with no pretence disclaim the inferences drawn
   thence.

   10. Let them therefore, duly balance the advantages they project from
   this practice with the mischiefs and dangers of it. What they expect is
   commonly either Honor or wealth, these they hope may be acquired by
   their prostrations to those who can dispense or procure them. Tis true,
   as Honor signifies Greatness and power, it is sometimes attained by it,
   but then as it signifies Reputation and esteem, tis as sure to be lost.
   He that thus ascends, may be looked on with fear, but never with
   reverence. Now I think tis no good bargain to exchange this second
   notion of Honor for the first, for besides the difference in the
   intrinsic value, tis to be considered how tottering a Pinnacle
   unmerited Greatness is. He that raised him to satisfy his humor at one
   time, can (with more ease and equal justice) throw him down at another:
   and when such a man does fall, he falls without pity, so without
   remedy, has no foundation on which to rebuild his fortune. His
   Sycophanting arts being detected, that Game is not to be played the
   second time: whereas a man of a clear reputation, though his barque be
   split, yet he saves his Cargo, has something left towards setting up
   again, and so is in capacity of receiving benefit not only from his own
   industry, but the friendship of others. A sound piece of Timber, if it
   be not thought fit for one use, yet will be laid by for another: and an
   honest man will probably at one time or other be thought good for
   something.

   11. As for the other aim, that of Wealth, tis very possible that may
   sometimes be compassed; and well it may, the Flatterer having several
   Springs to feed it by. For he that has a great Patron, has the
   advantage of his countenance and Authority, he has that of his bounty
   and liberality, and he has another (sometimes greater than both) that
   of his negligence and deceivablenesss. But yet all these acquisition
   are may times like Fairy money, what is brought one night, is taken
   away the next. Men of this mold seldom know how to bear prosperity
   temperately, and it is no new thing to see a Privado carry it so high,
   as to awaken the jealousy of his promoter, which being assisted by the
   busy industry of those who envy his fortune, twill be easy enough to
   find some flaw in his Gettings, by which to unravel the whole Web: an
   event that has been oft experimented not only in the private managery
   of Families, but in the most public administrations. And these are such
   hazards, that laid altogether would much recommend to any the Moral of
   Horaces's Fable, and make one choose the country Mouse's plain fare and
   safety, rather tan the delicacies of the City with so much danger. This
   then is the state of the prosperous Parasite: but alas, how many are
   there who never arrive to this but are kicked down ere they have
   climbed the two or three first rounds of the Ladder, whose designs be
   so humble, as not to aspire above a Major-Domo or some such domestic
   preferment, for in this trade there are adventurers of all sizes? But
   upon all these considerations, methinks it appears no very inviting one
   to any. At the long run an honest freedom of speech will more recommend
   a man, than all these sneaking flatteries: we have a very wise man's
   word for it, he that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favor,
   than he that flattereth with his lips. Prov. 28. 23.

   12. But after all that hath or can be said, the suppression of Flattery
   will most depend upon those Persons to whom it is addressed: if it be
   not repulsed there, nothing else will discourage it, and if it be, tis
   crushed in the egg, and can produce no viper. These Vultures prey only
   on carcasses, on such stupid minds, as have not life and vigor enough
   to fray them away. Let but Persons of quality entertain such customers
   with a severe brow, with some smart expression of dislike, those
   Leeches will immediately fall off. In Sparta when all laws against
   theft proved ineffectual, at last they fixed the penalty on them that
   were robbed, and by that did the business: and in the present case, if
   twere made as infamous to be flattered as tis to flatter, I believe it
   might have the like effect. Indeed, there is pretence enough to make it
   so: for first, as to Wit, the advantage is clear on the Flatterer's
   side: he must be allowed to have more of that (which in this age is
   more than a counterpoise to honesty;) and as for virtue, the balance
   (as to the principle motive;) seems to hang pretty even, tis the vice
   of Avarice that tempts the one to Flatter, and the vice of Pride that
   makes it acceptable to the other. The truth is, there is the bottom of
   the matter: tis that secret confederate within that exposes men to
   those assaults from without. We have generally such an appetite to
   praise, that we greedily such it in without staying to examine whether
   it belong to us or no, or whether it be designed as a kindness or an
   abuse. Other injuries rush upon us with violence, and give us notice of
   their approach: they may be said to come like water into our bowels;
   but this like oil into our bones, Psa. 109. 18. penetrates easily,
   undiscernibly, by help of that native propension we have to receive it.
   Tis therefore, the near concern of all, especially of those whose
   quality most exposes them, to keep a guard upon that treacherous
   inmate, not to let that step into the scale to make a base Sycophant
   out-weigh a true friend, and whenever they are attacked with
   extravagant Encomiums, let them fortify themselves with the Dilemma,
   Either they have those excellencies they are praised for, or they have
   not: if they have not, tis an apparent cheat and gull, and he is of a
   pitiful, forlorn understanding that delights to be fooled: but if they
   have, they are too good to be exposes to such worms who will instantly
   wither the fairest gourd, Jonah 4. 7.

   For as it is said of the Grand Signior, that no grass grows where his
   horse once treads: so we may say of the Flatterer, no virtue ever
   prospers where he is admitted: if he finds any he hugs it till he
   stifles it, if he find none, he so indisposes the soil that no future
   seeds can ever take root. In fine, he is a mischief beyond the
   description of any Character. O let not men then act this part to
   themselves by being their own Parasites! and then twill be an easy
   thing to escape all others.
     __________________________________________________________________

Section IX.
Of Boasting.

   We have now seen some effects of an ungoverned Tongue, as they relate
   to God and our Neighbor. There is yet a third sort which reflect upon a
   man's self. So unboundedly mischievous is that petulant member, that
   heaven and earth are not wide enough for its range, but it will find
   work at home too: and like the viper, that after it had devoured its
   companions, preyed upon itself, so it corrodes inward, and becomes
   often as fatal to its owner, as to all the world besides.

   2. Of this there are as many instances, as there are imprudent things
   said, for all such have the worst reflection upon the speaker: and
   therefore, all that have given rules for civil life, have in order to
   it, put very severe restraints upon the Tongue, that it run not before
   the judgment. Twas the advice of Zeno to dip the tongue in the mind
   before one should permit it to speak. Theophrastus used to say, It was
   safer trusting to an unbridled horse, than to intemperate speech. And
   daily experience confirms the Aphorism, for those that set no guard
   upon their tongues are hurried by them into a thousand indecencies, and
   very often into real considerable mischiefs. By this means men have
   proved their own delators, discovered their own most important secrets:
   and, whereas their heart should have kept a lock upon their Tongue,
   they have given their Tongue the key of their heart, and the event has
   been oft as unhappy as the proceeding was preposterous. There are
   indeed so many ways for men to lose themselves in their talk, that I
   should do the like if I should pretend to trace them. Besides, my
   subject leads me not to discourse Ethically but Christianly of the
   faults of the Tongue, and therefore I have all along considered the one
   no farther than it happens to be twisted with the other.

   3. In the present case I shall insist only upon one fault of the
   tongue, which partakes of both kinds, and it is at once a vice and a
   folly, I mean that of Boasting and vaunting a man's self: a strain to
   which some men's tongues have a wonderful glibness. No discourse can be
   administered, but they will try to turn the Tide, and draw it all into
   their own Channel, by entertaining you with long stories of themselves:
   or if there be no room for that, they will at least screw in here and
   there some intimations of what they did or said. Yea, so stupid a
   vanity is this, that it works alike upon all materials: not only their
   greater and more illustrious acts or sentences, but even their most
   slight and trivial occurrences, by being theirs, they think acquire a
   considerableness, and are forcibly imposed upon the company; the very
   dreams of such people strait commence prophesy, and are as seriously
   related, as if they were undoubted revelations. And sure if we reflect
   upon our Savior's rule, that Out of the abundance of the heart the
   mouth speaketh, we cannot but think these men are very full of
   themselves, and to be so, is but another phrase of being very Proud.
   So, tis Pride in the heart, which is the spring that feeds this
   perpetual current at the mouth, and under that notion we are to
   consider it.

   4. And truly there is nothing can render it more infamous, Pride being
   a vice that of all others is the most branded in Scripture as most
   detestable to God, and is signalized by the punishment to be so. This
   turned Lucifer out of Heaven, Nebuchadnezzar out of his Throne, nay,
   out of Human society. And indeed, it seems still to have something of
   the same effect, nothing rendering a man so inconsiderable; for it sets
   him above the meaner sort of company, and makes him intolerable to the
   better, and to compete the parallel, he seldom comes to know himself
   till he be turned a-grazing, be reduced to some extremities.

   5. But this Boasting, arrogant humor, though always bad, yet is more or
   less so according to the Subject on which it works. If it be only on
   Natural excellencies, as Beauty, Wit, or accidental acquisitions, as
   Honor, Wealth, or the like, yet even here tis not only a Theft, but a
   Sacrilege; the glory of those being due only to the Donor, not to the
   receiver, there being not so much as any predisposition in the subject
   to determine God's bounty. He could have made the most deformed Beggar
   as handsome and as rich as those who most pride themselves in their
   wealth and beauty. No man fancies himself to be his own Creator, and
   though some have assumed to be the Architects of their own fortunes,
   yet the frequent defeats of men's industry and contrivance, do
   sufficiently confute that bold pretense, and evince that there is
   something above them, which can either blast or prosper their attempts.
   What an invasion then is it of God's right, to engross the honor of
   those being done, which were not at all in their power to do? And sure
   the folly is as great in respect of men, as the sin is towards God.
   This boasting, like a heavy Nurse, overlays the Child, the vanity of
   that quite drowns the notice of the things in which tis founded; and
   men are not so apt to say such a man is Handsome, Wise, or Great, as
   that he is proud upon the fancy of being so. In a word, he that
   celebrates his own excellencies, must be content with his own
   applauses, for he will get none of others, unless it be from those
   fawning Sycophants, whose praises are worse than the bitterest
   Detractions.

   6. And yet so sottish a vice is Pride, that it can make even those
   insidious Flatteries matter of boast, which is a much more irrational
   object of it than the former. How eagerly do some men propagate every
   little Encomium their Parasites make of them? With what gust and
   sensuality will they tell how such a Jest of theirs took, or such a
   Magnificence was admired? Tis pleasant to see what little Arts and
   dexterities they have to wind in such things into discourse: when alas,
   it amounts to no more than this, that some have thought them fools
   enough to be flattered, and tis odds but the hearers will think them
   enough so to be laughed at.

   7. But there is yet another Subject of Boasting more foolish, and more
   criminal too, than either of the former, and that is when men vaunt of
   their Piety; which if it were true, were yet less owing to themselves
   than any natural endowment. For though we do not at all assist towards
   them, yet do we neither obstruct, but in the operations of Grace tis
   otherwise: we have there a principle of opposition, and God never makes
   us his own till He subdues that: and though He do it not by
   irresistible force, but by such sweet and gentle insinuations, that we
   are sometimes captivated ere we are aware: yet that does not impeach
   His right of conquest, but only shews Him the more gracious conqueror.
   Tis true in respect of the event we have great cause of exultance and
   joy, God's service being the most perfect freedom: yet in regard of the
   efficiency, we have as little matter of Boast, as the surprised City
   has in the triumphs of its victor.

   8. But secondly, either this vaunted Piety is not real, and then tis
   good for nothing; or else by being vaunted becomes so. If it be not
   real, tis then the superadding Hypocrisy to the former sacrilege, an
   attempt at once to rob God and cheat men, and in the event usually
   renders them hateful to both: to God (who cannot be mocked) it does so
   at the instant, and seldom misses to do so at last to men. An Hypocrite
   has a long part to act, and if his memory fail him but in any one
   scene, his play is spoiled: so that his hazards are so great, that tis
   as little prudent as tis honest to set up the trade, especially in an
   age when Piety itself is at so low a price, that its counterfeit cannot
   pass much. But if the Piety be indeed true, the Boasting it blasts it,
   makes it utterly insignificant. This we are told by Christ Himself, who
   assure us, that even the most Christian actions of prayer, alms, and
   fasting, must expect no other reward (when boasted) that the sought-for
   applause of men. Matt. 6. When a man shall make his own tongue the
   trumpet of his Alms, or the echo of his prayers, he carves, or rather
   snatches his own reward, and must not look God should heap more upon
   him: the recompense of his pride he may indeed look for from Him, but
   that of his virtue he has forestalled. In short, piety is like those
   Lamps of old, which maintained their light some Ages under ground, but
   as soon as they took air expired. And surely there cannot be a more
   deplorable folly, than thus to lose a rich Jewel, only for the pitiful
   pleasure of shewing it: it's the humor of Children and Idiots, who must
   be handling their birds till they fly away, and it ranks us with them
   in point of discretion, though not of innocence.

   9. From the view of these particulars we may in the gross conclude,
   that this ostentation is a most foolish sin, such as never brought in
   advantage to any man. There is no vice so undermines itself as this
   does: tis glory it seeks, and instead of gaining that, it loses common,
   ordinary estimation. Everybody that sees a bladder puffed up, knows tis
   but wind that so swells it: and there is no surer argument of a light,
   frothy brain than this bubbling at the mouth. Indeed, there is nothing
   renders any man so contemptible, so utterly useless to the world; it
   excludes him almost from all commerce, makes him uncapable of receiving
   or doing a benefit. No man will do him a good turn, because he foresees
   he will arrogate it to himself, as the effect of his merit: and none
   (that are not in some great exigence) will receive one from him, as
   knowing it shall be not only proclaimed, but magnified much above the
   true worth. There seems to be but one purpose for which he serves, and
   that is to be sport for his company: and that he seldom fails to be,
   for in these gamesome days men will not lose such an opportunity of
   divertissement, and therefore, will purposely give him hints, which may
   put him upon his Rodomontades. I do not speak this by way of
   encouragement to them, but only to shew these vaporers, to what scorn
   they expose themselves, and what advantage they give to any that have a
   mind to abuse them: for they need not be at any pains for it, they do
   but swim with their stream; an approving nod or smile, serves to drive
   on the design, and make them display themselves more disadvantageously,
   more ridiculously, than the most Satirical Character could possibly do.

   10. But besides these sportive projects, such a man lays himself open
   to more dangerous circumventions. He that shews himself so enamoured of
   praise, that (Narcissus like) dotes on his own reflections, is a fit
   prey for Flatterers, and such a Carcass will never want those Eagles:
   when his weak part is one discerned (as it must soon be when himself
   publishes it) he shall quickly be surrounded with assailants. The last
   Section has shewed the misery of a man so besieged, therefore, I shall
   not enlarge on it here, this mention being only intended to evince how
   apt this vainglorious humor is to betray men to it.

   11. These are competent Specimens of the folly of this vice: but it has
   yet a farther aggravation, that it precludes all means of growing
   wiser: tis Solomon's assertion, Seest thou a man wise in his own
   conceit? there is more hope of a Fool than of him. Prov. 26. 12. And
   the reason is evident, for he discards the two grant instruments of
   instruction, Admonition and Observation. The former he thinks
   superseded by his own Perfections, and therefore, when any such
   friendly office is attempted towards him, he imputes it either to Envy,
   and a desire to eclipse his luster by finding some spot, or else to
   Ignorance and incapacity of estimating his worth: the one he entertains
   with Indignation, the other with disdainful Pity. As for Observation,
   he so circumscribes it within himself, that it can never fetch in
   anything from without. Reading of men has been by some thought the most
   facile and expedite Method of acquiring Knowledge; and sure for some
   kinds of Knowledge it is: but then a man must not only read one Author,
   much less the one worst he can pick out for himself. Tis an old and
   true saying, He that is his own Pupil shall have a fool for his Tutor:
   and truly he that studies only himself, will be like to make but a
   sorry Progress. Yet this is the case of arrogant men, they lose all the
   benefit of Conversation, and when they should be enriching their Minds
   with foreign treasure, they are only counting over their own store.
   Instead of adverting to those sober discourses which they hear from
   others, they are perhaps watching to interrupt them by some pompous
   Story of themselves, or at least in the abundance of their
   self-sufficiency, think they can say much better things, Magisterially
   obtrude their own notions, and fall a-teaching when tis fitter they
   should learn: and sure to be thus forward to lay out, and take no care
   to bring in, must needs end in a Bankrupt state. Tis true, I confess,
   the study of a man's self is (rightly taken) the most useful part of
   Learning, but then it much be such a Study as brings him to know
   himself, which none do so little as these men, who in this are like
   those silly women the Apostle describes, 2 Tim. 3. 7. Who are ever
   learning yet never attain. And tis no wonder, for they begin at the
   wrong end, make no inquiry into their faults or defects, but fix their
   Contemplation only on their more splendid qualities, with which they
   are so dazzled, that when you bring them to the darker parts of
   themselves, it fares with them as with those that come newly from
   gazing on the Sun, they can see nothing.

   12. And now having dissected this swelling vice, and seen what it is
   that feeds the tumor, the cure suggests itself. If the disease be
   founded in Pride, the abating that is the most natural and proper
   remedy: and truly, one would think that mere weighing of the foregoing
   considerations might prove sufficient allays to it. Yet because where
   humors are turgent, tis necessary not only to purge them, but also to
   strengthen the infested part, I shall adventure to give some few
   advices by way of fortification and Antidote.

   13. In the first place, that of the Apostle offers itself to my hand,
   Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
   of others. Phil. 2. 4. A counsel which in a distorted sense seems to be
   too much practiced. We are apt to apply it to worldly advantages, and
   in that notion not to look on our own things with thankfulness, but on
   other men's with envy. We apply it also to errors and sins, and look
   not on our own to correct and reform, but on others to despise and
   censure. Let us at last take it in the genuine sense, and not look on
   our own excellencies, but those of others. We see in all things how
   desuetude does contract and narrow our faculties, so that we may
   apprehend only those things wherein we are conversant. The droiling
   Peasant scarce thinks there is any world beyond his own Village, or the
   neighboring Markets, nor any gayety beyond that of a Wake or Morris,
   and men who are accustomed only to the admiration of themselves, think
   there is nothing beside them worthy of regard. These unbred minds must
   be a little sent abroad, made acquainted with those excellencies which
   God has bestowed on other men, and then they will not think themselves
   like Gideon's fleece to have sucked up all the dew of heaven: nay,
   perhaps they many find they rather answer the other part of the
   miracle, and are drier than their neighbors. Let them therefore put
   themselves in this course, observe diligently all the good that is
   visible in other men, and when they find themselves mounting into their
   altitudes, let them clog their wings with the remembrance of those who
   have out-soared them, not in vain opinion, but in true worth. Tis
   nothing but the fancy of singularity that puff us up. To breath, to
   walk, to hear, to see, are excellent powers, yet nobody is proud of
   them, because they are common to the whole kind: and therefore, if we
   would observe the great number of those that equal or exceed us, even
   in the more appropriate endowments, we should not put so excessive a
   price upon ourselves.

   14. Secondly, if we will needs be reflecting upon ourselves, let us do
   it more ingeniously, more equally, let us take a true survey, and
   observe as well the barren as the fertile part of the soil: and if this
   were done, may men's value would be much short of what they are willing
   to suppose it. Did we but compare our crop of Weeds and Nettles, with
   that of our Corn, we must either think our ground is poor, or ourselves
   very ill husbands. When therefore, the recollection of either real or
   fancied worth begins to make us airy, let us condense again by the
   remembrance of our sins and folly: tis the only possible service they
   can do us, and considering how dear they are to cost us, we had not
   need lose this one accidental advantage. In this sense Satan may cast
   out Satan, our vilest guilts help to eject our pride, and did we will
   manage this one stratagem against him, twould give us more cause of
   triumph, than most of those things for which we so spread our plumes: I
   do not say we should contract new guilts to make us humble, God knows
   we need not, we have all of us enough of the old stock if we would but
   thus employ them.

   15. In the last place I should advise those who are apt to talk big
   things of themselves, to turn into some other road of discourse: for if
   they are their own theme, their tongues will as naturally turn into
   Eulogies, as a horse does into that Inn to which he is customed. All
   habits do require some little excess of the contrary to their cure: for
   we have not so just a scantling of ourselves, as to know to a grain
   what will level the scales, and place in the right Mediocrity. Let men
   therefore that have this infirmity, shun (as far as prudence and
   interest permits) all discourse of themselves, till they can sever it
   from that unhappy appendage. They will not be at all the less
   acceptable company, it being generally thought none of the best parts
   of breeding, to talk much of one's self: for though it be done so an
   not to argue pride, yet is does ignorance of more worthy subjects.

   16. I Should here conclude this Section, but that there is another sort
   of vaunting Talk, which was not well reducible to any of the former
   Heads, the subject matter being vastly distant: for in those the
   Boasting was founded in some either real or supposed worth, but in this
   is all Baseness and villainy. There are a Generation of men, who have
   removed all the Land-marks which their Fathers (nay, even the Father of
   Spirits) have set, reversed the common notions of Humanity, and call
   evil good, and good evil, and those things which a moderate impudence
   would blush to be surprised in, they not only proclaim but boast of,
   blow the Trumpet as much before their crimes, as others before their
   good deeds. Nay, so much to they affect this inverted sort of
   Hypocrisy, that they own more wickedness than they act, assume to have
   made practical the highest Speculations of villainy, and like the
   Devil's Knights errant, pretend to those Romantic achievements, which
   the veriest Fiend incarnate could never compass. These are such
   Prodigies, such Monsters of villainy, that though they are objects of
   Grief and Wonder, they are not of Counsel. Men who thus rave, we many
   conclude their brains are turned, and one may as well read Lectures at
   Bedlam as treat with such. Yet we know that there sharp corrections
   recover crazed men to Sobriety; and then their Cure lies only in the
   hand of Civil Justice: if that would take them at their words, receive
   their brags as Confessions, and punish them accordingly, it may be a
   little real smart would correct this mad Itch, and teach them not to
   glory in their shame. Phil. 3. 19.

   In the mean time, let others who are not yet arrived to this height
   consider betimes, that all indulgent practice of sin is the direct Road
   to it, and according to the degrees of that indulgence, they make more
   less haste. He that constantly and habitually indulges, rides upon the
   Spur, and will quickly overtake his Leaders. Nay, if it be but this one
   vice of vanity, it may finally bring him to their state. He that loves
   to brag, will scarce find exercise enough for that faculty in his
   virtues, and therefore, may at last be tempted to take in his vices
   also. But that which is more seriously considerable is, that Pride is
   so provoking to Almighty God, that it often causes him to withdraw His
   Grace, which is a Donative He has promised only to the humble. Jam. 4.
   6. And indeed, when we turn that Grace into wantonness, as the proud
   man does who is pampered by it into high conceits of himself, tis not
   probable God will any longer prostitute his favors to such abuse. The
   Apostle observes it of the Gentiles, who had in contradiction of their
   natural light abandoned themselves to vile Idolatries, that God after
   gave them up to a reprobate mind and vile affections. Rom. 1. 25, 26.
   But the proud now stifle a much clearer light, and give up themselves
   to as base an Idolatry, the adoration of themselves. And therefore, tis
   but equal to expect God should desert them, and (as some Nations have
   Deified their diseases) permit them to celebrate even their foulest
   enormities. The application of all I shall sum up in the words of the
   Apostle. Rom. 11. 21. Take heed also that he spare not thee.
     __________________________________________________________________

Section X.
Of Querulousness.

   To this of Boasting may not unfitly be subjoined another inordinancy of
   the Tongue, viz. murmuring and complaining. For though these faults
   seem to differ as much in their complexions, as Sanguine does from
   Melancholy, yet there is nothing more frequent than to see them united
   in the same person. Nor is this a conjunction of a later date, but is
   as old as St. Jude's days, who observes that murmurers and complainers
   are the very same with those who speak great swelling words, Jude 16.

   2. Nor are we to wonder to find them thus conjoined, if we consider
   what an original cognation and kindred they have, they being (however
   they seem divided) streams issuing from the same fountain. For the very
   same Pride which prompts a man to vaunt and overvalue what he is, does
   so forcibly incline him to contemn and disvalue what he has; whilst
   measuring his enjoyments by that vast Idea he has formed of himself,
   tis impossible but he must think them below him.

   3. This indeed is the true original of those perpetual complainings we
   hear from all sorts and conditions of men. For let us pass through all
   Degrees, all Ages, we shall rarely find a single person, much less any
   number of men, exempt from this Querulous, this sullen humor: as if
   that breath of life wherewith God originally inspired us, had been
   given us not to magnify his Bounty, but to accuse his illiberality, and
   like the more dismal sorts of instruments, could be tuned to no other
   Strains but those of Mourning and Lamentation. Every man contributes
   his note to this doleful Harmony, and after all that God has done to
   oblige and delight mankind, scare any man is satisfied enough, I will
   not say to be thankful, but to be patient. For alas, what tragical
   complaints do men make of their infelicity, when perhaps their
   prosperity is as much the envious outcry of others? Every little defeat
   of a design, of an appetite, every little disregard from those above
   them, or less solemn observance from those below them, make their Heart
   hot within them, Psa. 39. 3. and the tongue (that combustible part)
   quickly takes fire and breaks out into extravagant exclamations. It is
   indeed strange to see how weighty every the trivialest thing is when a
   passion is cast into the scale with it, how every the slightest
   inconvenience or petty want preponderates hundreds of great substantial
   blessings; when indeed, were it in an instance never so considerable,
   it could be no just Counterpoise. Yet so closely is this corruption
   interwoven with our constitution that it has sometimes prevailed even
   upon good men. Jacob though he had twelve sons, yet upon the supposed
   death of one despised the comforts of all the rest, and with an
   obstinate sorrow resolves to go mourning to his Grave. Gen. 35. 37.
   David after that signal victory which had preserved his life,
   reinstated him in his Throne, and restored him to the Ark and
   Sanctuary, yet suffered the loss of his rebellious son, who was the
   Author of his danger, to overwhelm the sense of his deliverance, and
   instead of Hymns and praises, breaks out into ejaculations and
   effeminate wailings. 2. Sam. 18. 33.

   4. But God knows the most of our complaints cannot pretend to such
   considerable motives: they are not the bowels of a Father, the
   impresses of Nature that excite our repinings, but the impulses of our
   lusts and inordinate appetites. Our discontents are usually such as
   Ahab's for his neighbor's vineyard, Haman's for Mordecai's obeisance,
   Achitophel's for having his counsel rejected. Every disappointment of
   our avarice, ambition, and pride, fills our hearts with bitterness and
   our mouths with clamors. For if we should examine the numerous
   complaints which sound in every corner, it would doubtless be found
   that the greatest part of them have some such original: and that
   whether the pretended grievances be public or private. For the first:
   many a man is a state malcontent merely because he sees another
   advanced to that honor or wealth which he thinks he has better
   deserved. He is always inveighing against such unequal distributions,
   where the best services (such you may be sure his own are) are the
   worst rewarded: nor does he ever cease to predict public ruins, till
   his private are repaired. But as soon as that is done, his Augury grows
   more mild: and as if the estate and he were like Hippocrate's twins,
   his recruits give new vigor to that, and till his next suit is denied
   everything is well administered. So full, alas, are men of themselves,
   that tis hard to find any the most splendid pretenses which have not
   something of that at the bottom: and would every man ransack his own
   heart, and resolve not to cast a stone till he had first cleared it of
   all sinister respects, perhaps the number of our complainers would be
   much abated.

   5. Nor is it otherwise in private discontents. Men are apt to think
   themselves ill used by any man who will not serve their interest or
   their humor, nay, sometimes their vices; and are prone in all companies
   to arraign such an unpliant Person, as if he were an enemy to mankind,
   because he is not a slave to their will. How many have quarreled even
   with their dearest friends, because they would not assist them to their
   own ruin, or have striven to divert them from it: so forcible are our
   propensions to mutiny, that we equally take occasions from benefits or
   injuries.

   6. But the highest and most unhappy instance of all is in our behavior
   toward God, whose allotments we dispute with the same, or rather
   greater boldness than we do those of men. What else mean those
   impatient murmurs at those things which are the immediate issues of
   Providence? Such are our native blemishes, disease, death of friends,
   and the like. Nay, what indeed are our displeasure even at those things
   which we pretend to fasten upon the Second Causes? For those being all
   under the subordination of the first, cannot move but by its
   permission. This holy Job well discerned, and therefore does not indite
   the Chaldeans or Sabeans for his plunder, but knowing they were but the
   instruments he submissly acknowledges that there was a higher agent in
   his loss, The Lord has taken away, Job 1. 21. When therefore, we
   ravingly execrate the rapine of one man, the deceit of another for our
   impoverishment, when we angrily charge our defamation on the malice of
   our maligners, our disappointments on the treachery or negligence of
   our friends, we do interpretatively conclude either that there is no
   over-ruling providence which could have restrained those events, or
   else (which is equally horrid) we accuse it as not having done well in
   permitting them. So that against whomsoever we direct our clamors,
   their last rebound is against Heaven; this Querulous humor carrying
   always an implicit repugnance to God's disposals: but where it is
   indulged to, it usually is its own expositor, and explicitly avows it,
   charges God foolishly, and by impious murmurs blasphemes that power
   which it cannot resist. Indeed, the progress is very natural for our
   impatiences at men to swell into mutinies against God: for when the
   mind is once embittered, it distinguishes not of objects, but
   indifferently lets fly its venom. He that frets himself, the Prophet
   tells us, will curse his King, nay his God, Isa. 8. 21. and he that
   quarrels at God's distributions is in the direct road to defy His
   Being.

   7. By this we may estimate the danger of our discontents, which though
   at first they are introduced by the inordinate love of ourselves, yet
   are very apt to terminate in hatred and Blasphemies against God. He
   therefore, that would secure himself from the highest degree, just
   watch against the lowest; as he that would prevent a total Inundation
   must avert the smallest breach in his Banks. Not but that even the
   first beginnings are in themselves well worth our guarding: for
   abstracting from all the danger of this enormous increase, there
   murmurings (like a mortiferous Herb) are poisonous even in their first
   Spring, before they arrive to their full maturity. To be always
   moralizing the Fable of Prometheus upon one's self, playing the Vulture
   upon one's own entrails, is no desirable thing, though we were
   accountable to none but ourselves for it: to dip our tongues in gall,
   to have nothing in our mouths but the extract, and exhalation of our
   inward bitterness, is sure no greater Sensuality. So that did we
   consult only our own ease, we might from that single Topic draw
   arguments enough against our mutinies.

   8. But besides our duty and ease, our credit and reputation make their
   plea also. Fortitude is one of the noblest of moral virtues, and has
   the luck to appear considerable even to those who despise all the rest.
   Now one of the most proper and eminent acts of that is, the bearing
   adverse events with evenness and temper. This passive valor is as much
   the mark of a great mind as the active, nay, perhaps more, the later
   being often owing to the Animal, this to the Rational part of man. And
   sure we must strangely have corrupted the principles of Morality as
   well as Religion, if every turbulent, unruly Spirit, that fills the
   world with blood and rapine, shall have his ferocity called gallantry;
   yet that sober courage that maintains itself against all the shocks of
   Fortune, that keeps its Post in spite of the rudest encounters, shall
   not be allowed at least as good a name. And then on the contrary we may
   conclude, that to sink under every cross accident, to be still whining
   and complaining, crying our upon every touch, is a note of a mean,
   degenerous soul, below the dignity of our reasonable nature. For
   certainly God never gave us reason for so unkind a purpose, as only to
   quicken and enhance the resentment of our sufferings, but rather to
   control those disorders, which the more tumultuous part of us, our
   senses, are apt to raise in us: and we are so far men and no farther,
   as we use it to that end. Therefore, if the dictates of religion cannot
   restrain our murmurs, if we are not Christians enough to submit to the
   divine precepts of meekness and acquiescence: yet let us at least keep
   within those bounds which ingenious nature has set us, and not by our
   unmanly impatiences enter common with Brutes and Animals.

   9. Nay, I may fuller add, if neither for God's nor our own sakes, yet
   for others, for humane society's sake, this querulous inclination
   should be suppressed; there being nothing that renders a man more
   unpleasant, more uneasy company. For (besides that tis very apt to vent
   itself upon those with whom he converses, rendering him capricious and
   exceptious; and tis a harsh, a grating sound to hear a man always in
   complaining Key) no man would willingly dwell within the noise of
   shrieks and groans; and the exclamations of the discontented differ
   from those only by being more articulate. It is a very unwelcome
   importunity, to entertain a man's company with remonstrances of his own
   infelicities and misadventures, and he that will relate all his
   grievance to others, will quickly make himself one to them. For though
   he that is full of the inward sense of them, thinks it rather an ease
   than oppression to speak them out, yet the case if far otherwise with
   his Auditors: they are perhaps as much taken up with themselves, as he
   is, and as little at leisure to consider his concerns, as he theirs.
   Alas, we are not now in those primitive days, when there was as it were
   one common sense among Christians, when if one member suffered, all the
   members suffered with it. 1 Cor. 12. 26. That Charity which gave that
   sympathetic motion to the whole, is now itself benumbed, flows rarely
   beyond the narrow compass of our personal interest; and therefore we
   cannot expect that men should be very patient of our complaints who are
   not concerned in the causes of them. The Priest answer to Judas does
   speak the sense of most men in the case What is that to us? See thou to
   that. Matt. 27. 4. I do not deny but that the discharging one's griefs
   into the bosom of a true friend, is both innocent and prudent: nay
   indeed, he that has such a treasure is unkind to himself if he use it
   not. But that which I would dissuade, is the promiscuous use of this
   liberty in common Conversation, the satisfying our Spleen, when we
   cannot ease our hearts by it, the loud declaimings at our misery, which
   is seldom severed from as severe reflections on those whom we suppose
   the causes of it; by which nothing can be acquired but the opinion of
   our Impatience, or perhaps some new grievance from some, who think
   themselves concerned to vindicate those whom we asperse. In a word, tis
   as indecent as it is unacceptable, and we may observe all men are
   willing to slink out of such company, the Sober for the hazards, and
   Jovial for the unpleasantness. So that the murmurer seems to be turned
   off to the company of those doleful Creatures which the Prophet
   mentions which were to inhabit the ruins of Babylon, Isa. 13. 12. For
   he is ill Conversation to all men, though the worst of all to himself.

   10. And now upon the force of all these considerations, I may
   reasonably impress the Wise man's Counsel, Therefore beware of
   murmuring, Wisd. 1. 11. And indeed, it is not the precept of the Wise
   man alone, but of all who have made any just pretence to that title.
   For when we consider those excellent lectures of contentation and
   acquiescence, wherewith the writings of Philosophers abound, tis hard
   to say whether they speak more of instruction or reproach to us. When
   their confused notions of a Deity had given them such impressions of
   His Wisdom and goodness, that they would not pretend to make any
   elections for themselves, how does it shame our more explicit
   knowledge, who dare not depend on Him in the smallest instance? who
   will not take His disposals for good unless our senses become His
   sureties? which amounts but to that degree of credit, which the most
   faithless man may expect from us, the trusting him as far as we see
   him. This is such a contumely to Him, as the Ethic world durst not
   offer Him, and is the peculiar insolence of us degenerated Christians,
   who sure cannot be thought in earnest when we talk of singing
   Hallelujahs in the next world to Him, whilst we entertain Him here only
   with the sullen noise of murmurs and repinings. For we are not to think
   that Heaven will Metamorphose us on a sudden, and turn our exclamations
   and wild clamors into Lauds and Magnificats. It does indeed perfect and
   crown those graces which were here inchoate and begun, but no man's
   conversion ever succeeded his being there: for Christ has expressly
   told us, That except we be converted, we shall not enter the kingdom of
   heaven; and if we go hence in our froward discontents, they will
   associate us with those with whom is Weeping and wailing and gnashing
   of teeth.
     __________________________________________________________________

Section XI.
Of Positiveness.

   Another very unhandsome circumstance in discourse is the being over
   confident and peremptory, a thing which does very much unfit men for
   conversation, it being looked on as the common birth-right of mankind,
   that every man is to opine according to the dictates of his own
   understanding, not another's. Now this Peremptoriness is of two sorts,
   the one a Magisterialness in matters of opinion and speculation, the
   other a Positiveness in relating matters of fact: in the one we impose
   upon men's understandings, in the other on their faith.

   2. For the first, he must be much a stranger in the world who has not
   met with it: there being a generation of men, who as the Prophet
   speaks, Are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight,
   Isa. 5. 21. Nay, not only so, but who make themselves the standards of
   wisdom, to which all are bound to conform, and whoever weighs not in
   their balance, be his reasons never so weighty, they write Tekel upon
   them. This is one of the most oppressive Monopolies imaginable: all
   others can concern only something without us, but this fastens upon our
   natures, yea, and the better part of it too, our reason, and if it meet
   with those who have any considerable share of that within them, they
   will often be tempted to rally it, and not too tamely resign this
   native liberty. Reason submits only to Reason, and he that assaults it
   with bare Authority (that which is Divine always excepted) may as well
   cut flame with his sword, or harden wax in the sun.

   3. Tis true indeed, these great Dictators do sometimes run down the
   company, and carry their Hypothesis without contest: but of this there
   may be divers reasons besides the weight of their arguments. Some
   unspeculative men may not have the skill to examine their assertions,
   and therefore, an assent is their fastest course; others may be lazy
   and not think it worth their pains; a third sort may be modest and awed
   by a severe brow and an imperious nod: and perhaps the wiser may
   providently foresee the impossibility of convincing one who thinks
   himself not subject to error. Upon these or other like grounds tis very
   possible all may be silenced when never a one is convinced so that
   these great Masters may often make very false estimates of their
   conquests, and sacrifice to their own nets, Heb. 1. 16. when they have
   taken nothing.

   4. Nay indeed, this insolent way of proposing is so far from
   propagating their notions, that it gives prejudice against them. They
   are the gentle insinuations which pierce (as oil is the most
   penetrating of all liquors) but in these Magisterial documents men
   think themselves attacked, and stand upon their guard, and reckon they
   must part with Honor together with their Opinion, if they suffer
   themselves to be Hectored out of it. Besides, this imposing humor is so
   unamiable, that it gives an aversion to the Person; and we know how
   forcible personal prejudices are (though tis true they should not be)
   towards the biasing of Opinions. Nay indeed, men of this temper do cut
   themselves off from the opportunities of Proselyting others, by
   averting them from their company. Freedom is the endearing thing in
   Society, and where that is controlled, men are not very fond of
   associating themselves. Tis natural to us to be uneasy in the presence
   of those who assume an Authority over us. Children care not for the
   company of their Parents or Tutors, and men will care less for theirs,
   who would make them children by usurping a Tutorage.

   5. All these inconveniences are evidently consequent to this
   Dogmatizing, supposing men be never so much in the right: but if they
   happened to be in the wrong, what a ridiculous pageantry is it, to see
   such a Philosophical gravity set to man-out a Solecism? A concluding
   Face put upon no concluding Argument, is the most contemptible sort of
   folly in the world. They do by this sound a trumpet to their own
   defeat: and whereas a modest mistake might slip by undiscerned, these
   Rodomontade errors force themselves upon men's observations, and make
   it impossible for men not to see, as it is not to despise them when
   they do. For indeed, Pride is as ill linked with Error, as we usually
   say it is with Beggary, and in this as well as that, converts pity into
   contempt.

   6. And then it would be considered, what security any man that will be
   imposing has, that this will not be his case. Human nature is very
   fallible, and as it is possible a man may err in a great many things,
   so tis certain every man does in something or other. Now who knows at
   the instant he is so positive, but this may be his erring turn? Alas,
   how frequently are we mistaken even in common ordinary things! for as
   the Wiseman speaks, hardly do we judge aright even in things that are
   before us, Wisd. 9. 16. our very senses do sometimes delude us. How
   then may we wander in things of abstruse speculation? The consideration
   of this hath with some so prevailed, that it has produced a Sect of
   Skepticism: and though I press it not for that purpose, yet sure it may
   reasonably be urged to introduce some modesty and calmness in our
   assertions. For when we have no other certainty of our being in the
   right, but our own persuasions that we are so; this may often be but
   making one error the gauge for another. For God knows confidence is so
   far from a certain mark of truth, that tis often the seducer into
   falsehood, none being so apt to lose their way as those who, out of an
   ungrounded presumption of knowing it, despise all direction from
   others.

   7. Let all this be weighed, and the result will be, that this
   peremptoriness is a thing that can befit no form of understanding. It
   renders Wise men disobliging and troublesome, and fools ridiculous and
   contemptible. It casts a prejudice up on the most solid reasoning, and
   it renders the lighter more notoriously despicable. Tis pity good parts
   should be leavened by it, made a snare to the owners, and useless to
   others. And tis pity too that weak parts should by it be condemned to
   be always so, by despising those Aids which should improve them. Since
   therefore, tis so ill calculated for every Meridian, would God all
   Climes might be purged from it.

   8. And as there are weighty objections against it in respect of its
   effects, so there are no inconsiderable prejudices in relation to its
   causes, of which we may reckon Pride to be the most certain and
   universal: for whatever else casually occurs to it, this is the
   fundamental constitutive principle; nothing but a great overweening of
   a man's own understanding being able to inflate him in that imaginary
   empire over other men's. For here sure we may ask the Apostle's
   question, Who made thee to differ from another? When God has made
   Rationality the common portion of mankind, how came it to be thy
   inclosure? or what Signature has he set upon thine, what mark of
   excellency, that thine should be paramount? Doubtless if thou fanciest
   thou hast that part of Jacob's blessing, To be Lord of they brethren,
   and that all they mother's sons should bow down to thee, Gen. 27. 29.
   thou hast got it more surreptitiously than he did, and with less
   effect: for though Isaac could not retract his mistaken benediction,
   God will never ratify that fantastic thou hast pronounced to thyself,
   with his real effective one.

   9. But there happens many times to be another ingredient besides Pride,
   and that is Ignorance: for those qualities however they may seem at
   war, do often very closely combine. He who has narrow notions, that
   knows but a few things, and has no glimpse of any beyond him, thinks
   there are no such: and therefore, as if he had (like Alexander) no want
   but that of worlds to conquer, he thinks himself the absolute Monarch
   of all knowledge. And this is of all others the most unhappy
   composition: for ignorance being of itself like stiff clay, and
   infertile soil, when Pride comes to scorch and harden it, it grows
   perfectly impenetrable: and accordingly we see none are so
   inconvincible as your half-witted people; who know just enough to
   excite their pride, but not so much as to cure their ignorance.

   10. There remains yet a 2d kind of Peremptoriness which I am to speak
   to, and that is of those who can make no relation without an
   attestation of its certainty: a sort of hospitable people, who
   entertain all the idle vagrant reports, and send them out with
   passports and testimonials; who when they have once adopted a story,
   will have it pass for legitimate how spurious soever it originally was.
   These somewhat resemble those hospitals in Italy, where all bastards
   are sure of reception, and such a provision as may enable them to
   subsist in the world: and were it not for such men, many a Fatherless
   lie would be stifled in its birth. It is indeed strange to see, how
   suddenly loose rumors knit into formal stories, and from thence grow to
   certainties; but tis stranger to see that men can be of such
   profligated impudence, as knowingly to give them that advance. And yet
   tis no rarity to meet with such men who will pawn their honor, their
   souls, for that unworthy purpose: nay, and that too with as much
   impertinence as baseness, when no interest of their own, or perhaps any
   man's else is to be served by it.

   11. This is so prodigious a thing, as seems to excite one's Curiosity
   to inquire the cause of so wonderful an effect. And here as in other
   unnatural productions, there are several concurrents. If we trace it
   from its original, its first Element seems to be Idleness: this
   diverting a man from serious useful entertainments, forces him upon
   (the usual refuge of vacant Persons) the inquiring after News; which
   when he has got, the venting of it is his next business. If he be of a
   credulous Nature, and believe it himself, he does the more innocently
   impose it on others: yet then to secure himself from the imputation of
   Levity and too easy Faith, he is often tempted to lend some probable
   circumstance. Nay, if he be of a proud humor, and have that miserable
   vanity of loving to speak big, and to be thought a man of greater
   correspondence and intelligence than his neighbors, he will not bate an
   Ace of absolute certainty, but however doubtful or improbable the thing
   is, coming form him it must go for an indisputable truth. This seems to
   be the descent of this unhappy folly, which yet is often nursed up by a
   mean or imprudent Education. A man that hat conversed only with that
   lower sort of company, who durst not dispute his veracity, thinks the
   same false Coin will pass over the world, which went current among his
   Father's Servants or Tenants: and therefore we may observe, that this
   is most usual in young men, who have come raw into company with good
   fortunes and ill breeding. But it is too true also that too many never
   lose the habit, but are as morosely positive in their Age, as they were
   childishly so in their Youth. Indeed, tis impossible they should be
   otherwise, unless they have the wit to disentangle themselves first
   from the love of Flattery, and after from the company of Flatterers:
   for (as I have before observed) no vice will ever wither under their
   shade. I think I shall do the Reader no ill office to let in a little
   light upon them, and shew him some of those many mischiefs that attend
   this unworthy practice.

   12. First, it engages a man to oaths, and for ought he knows to
   perjuries. When he has launched out boldly into an incredible relation,
   he thinks he has put his Credit upon the forlorn hope, and must take
   care to relieve it: and there is no succor so constantly ready at hand
   as that of oaths and imprecations, and therefore whole vollies of them
   are discharged upon the doubtful. Thus do we make God a witness, and
   our Souls parties in the cause of every trifling rumor, as if we had
   modeled our Divinity by the Scheme of that Jesuitical Casuist, who
   legitimates the Killing of a man for an Apple.

   13. A Second mischief is, that it betrays a man to quarrels. He that is
   peremptory in his own Story, may meet with another that is as
   peremptory in the contradiction of it, and then the two Sir Positives
   must have a skirmish indeed. He that has attested the truth of a false,
   or the certainty of a doubtful thing, has brought himself into the same
   trait with Balaam's Ass, he must either fall down flat or run upon a
   sword, Num. 22. 27. For if his Hearers do but express a diffidence,
   either he must sink to a down-right confession that he was a Liar: or
   else he must huff and bluster till perhaps he raise a counter-storm,
   and as he fooled himself out of his truth, so be beaten out of his
   pretence to it. Indeed, there is scarce any quality that does so tempt
   and invite affronts as this does: for he that can descend to such a
   meanness, may reasonably enough be presumed to have little (as of true
   worth, so) even of that which the world calls Gallantry, and so every
   puny swordman will think him a good tame Quarry to enter and flesh
   himself upon.

   14. In the third place, it exposes him to all the contempt and scorn
   which either good or ill men can fling upon him: the good abominate the
   sin, the ill triumph over the folly of it. The truth is, there can be
   nothing more wretchedly mean. To be Knight of the Post to every
   fabulous relation, is such a sordid thing, that there can scarce be any
   name of reproach too vile for it. And certainly he that can pawn his
   faith upon such miserable terms, will by those frequent mortgages
   quickly be snapped upon a forfeiture; or however will have his credit
   so impaired by it, that no man will think his word a competent gauge
   for the slightest concern.

   15. And this may pass for a fourth consideration, That this
   Positiveness is so far from gaining credit to his present affirmation,
   that it destroys it for the future: for he that sees a man make no
   difference in the confidence of his asserting realities and fictions,
   can never take his measures by anything he avers, but according to the
   common Proverb, will be in danger of disbelieving him even when he
   speaks truth. And of this no man can want conviction, who will but
   consult his own observation. For what an allay do we find it to the
   credit of the most probable event, that it is reported by one who uses
   to stretch? Thus unhappily do such men defeat their own designs: for
   while they aver stoutly that they may be believed, that very thing
   makes them doubted, the world being not now to learn how frequently
   Confidence is made a supplement for truth. Nor let any man who uses
   this, flatter himself that he alone does (like Job's messenger) escape
   the common fate: for though perhaps he meet with some who in civility
   or pity will not dispute the probability of his narrations, or with
   others who for raillery will not discourage the humor with which they
   mean (in his absence) to divert themselves, yet he may rest assured he
   is discerned by all and derided for it.

   16. It therefore concerns men who either regard their truth, or their
   reputation, not to indulge to this humor, which is the most silly way
   of shipwrecking both. For he that will lay those to stake upon every
   flying story, may as well wager his estate which way the wind will sit
   next morning, there being nothing less to be confided in, than the
   breath of fame, or the whispers of private tale-bearers. Wise men are
   afraid to report improbable truths: what a foolhardiness is it then to
   attest improbable falsities, as it often is the luck of these Positive
   men to do?

   17. Certainly there is nothing which they design by this, which may not
   be obtained more effectually by a modest and unconcerned relation. He
   that barely relates what he has heard, and leaves the hearer to judge
   of the probability, does as much (I am sure more civilly) entertain
   that company, as he that throws down his gauntlet in attestation. He as
   much satisfies the itch of telling news; he as much persuades his
   hearers: nay, very much more (for these over earnest asseverations
   serve by to give men suspicion that the Speaker is conscious of his own
   falseness:) and all this while he has his retreat secure, and stands
   not responsible for the truth of his relation. Nay indeed, though men
   speak never so known and certain truths, tis most advisable not to
   press them too importunately. For boldness, like the Bravoes and
   Banditti, is seldom employed but upon desperate services, and is so
   known a Pander for lying, that truth is but defamed by its attendance.

   18. To conclude, modesty is so amiable, so insinuating a thing, that
   all the rules of Oratory cannot help men to a more agreeable ornament
   of discourse. And if they will try it in both the foregoing instances,
   they will undoubtedly find the effects of it: a modest proposal will
   soonest captivate men's reasons, and a modest relation their belief.
     __________________________________________________________________

Section XII.
Of Obscene Talk.

   There is another vice of the Tongue which I cannot but mention, though
   I knew not in which of the former Classes to place it: not that it
   comes under none, but that tis so common to all, that tis not easy to
   resolve to which peculiarly to assign it, I mean obscene, and immodest
   talk, which is offensive to the purity of God, damageable and
   infectious to the innocence of our Neighbors, and most pernicious to
   ourselves: and yet is now grown a thing so common, that one would think
   we were fallen into an Age of Metamorphosis, and that the Brutes did
   (not only Poetically and in fiction) but really speak. For the talk of
   many is so bestial, that it seems to be but the conceptions of the more
   libidinous Animals clothed in human Language.

   2. And yet even this must pass for Ingenuity, and this vile descent
   below Humanity, must be counted among the highest strains of Wit. A
   wretched debasement of that sprightful Faculty, this to be made the
   interpreter to a Goat or Boar: for doubtless had those Creatures but
   the organs of Speech, their Fancies lie enough that way to make them as
   good company, as those who more studiously apply themselves to this
   sort of entertainment.

   3. The crime is comprehensive enough to afford abundance of matter for
   the most Satyrical zeal, but I consider the dissecting of putrid Bodies
   may cast such pestilential fumes, as all the benefits of the scrutiny
   will not recompense. I shall therefore, in respect to the Reader
   dismiss this noisome Subject, and thereby give an example with what
   abhorrence he should always reject such kind of discourse, remembering
   the advice of St. Paul, That all uncleanness should not be once named
   among those who would walk as becometh Saints, Eph. 5. 3.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Close

   I Have now touched upon those enormities of Speech which I principally
   designed to observe, wherein I have been far from making a full and
   exact Catalogue: therefore, I would have no man take this little Tract
   for a just Criterion, by which to try himself in reference to his
   words. Yet God grant that all that read it, may be able to approve
   themselves even by this imperfect essay: and he that does so, makes
   fair approaches towards being that perfect man St. James speaks of,
   Jam. 3. 1. these being such faults of the Tongue as are the harder to
   avoid, because they are every day exemplified to us in common practice,
   (nay, some of them recommended as reputable and ingenious). And it is a
   strange insinuative power which example and custom have upon us. We see
   it in every trivial secular instance, in our very habit: those dresses
   which we laugh at in our forefathers wardrobes or pictures, when by the
   circulation of time and vanity they are brought about, we think very
   becoming. Tis the same in our diet: our very palates conform to the
   fashion, and everything grows amiable to our fancies, according as tis
   more or less received in the world. And upon this account all sobriety
   and strict virtue lies now under a heavy prejudice, and no part of it
   more, than this of the Tongue, which custom has now enfranchised from
   all the bonds Moralists or Divines laid upon it.

   2. But the greater the difficulties are, the more it ought to awake our
   diligence: if we lie loose and carelessly, tis odds we shall be carried
   away with the stream. We had need therefore fix ourselves, and by a
   sober recollection of the ends of which our Speech was given us, and
   the account we must one day give of it, impress upon ourselves the
   baseness and the danger of misemploying it. Yet a negative innocence
   will not serve our turns, twill but put us in the condition of him, who
   wrapped up the talent he was commanded to employ, Matt. 25. 25. Nay
   indeed, twill be impossible to preserve even that if we aspire no
   farther. The Tongue is a busy active Part, will scarce be kept from
   motion: and therefore, if that activity be not determined to good
   objects, twill be practicing upon bad. And indeed, I believe a great
   part of its licentiousness is owing to this very thing. There are so
   few good Themes of discourse in use, that many are driven to the ill
   for want of better. Learning is thought Pedantic, Agriculture
   Peasantlike, and Religion the most insufferable of all: so by excluding
   all useful Subjects of converse, we come together as St. Paul (in
   another case) says, Not for better but for the worse. 1 Cor. 11. 17.
   And if the Philosopher thought he had lost that day wherein he had not
   learned something worthy of his notice, how many days do we worse than
   lose, by having them not only empty of solid useful acquisitions, but
   full of noxious and pernicious ones? And indeed, if they be the one,
   they will not miss to be the other also: for the mind is like the
   stomach, which if it be not supplied with wholesome nourishment, will
   at last suck in those humors with which the body most abounds. So that
   if in our converse we do not interchange sober useful notions, we shall
   at the best but traffic toys and baubles, and most commonly infection
   and poison. He therefore, that would keep his tongue from betraying
   himself or others to sin, must tune it to a quite contrary Key, make it
   an instrument, an incentive to virtue, by which he shall not only
   secure the negative part of his duty, but comply with the positive
   also, employing it to those uses for which it was given him.

   3. It would be too vast an undertaking to prescribe the particular
   subjects of such discourse, nay indeed, impossible, because many of
   them are occasional, such as cannot aforehand be reduced to any certain
   account. This only in the general we may rest upon, that all speech
   tending to the glory of God, or the good of man, is aright directed.
   Which is not to be understood so restrictively, as if nothing but
   Divinity or the necessary concerns of human life, may lawfully be
   brought into discourse: something is to be indulged to common civility,
   more to the intimacies and endearments of friendships, and a competency
   to those recreative discourses which maintain the cheerfulness of
   society; all which are, if moderately used, within the latitude of the
   rule, as tending (though in a lower degree) to the well-being of men,
   and by consequent to the honor of God, who indulges us those innocent
   refreshments. But if the subordinate uses come to encroach upon the
   higher, if we dwell here and look no farther, they then become very
   sinful by the excess which were not so in their nature. That inordinacy
   sets them in opposition to God's designation, in which they were
   allowed only a secondary place. We should therefore, be careful to
   improve all opportunities of letting our tongues pay their more
   immediate homage to God, in the duties of prayers, and praises, making
   them not only the interpreters of our pious affections, but the
   promoters of the like in others. And indeed, he can scarce be thought
   in earnest, who prays, Hallowed by Thy Name, and does not as much
   endeavor it with men, as he solicits it from God.

   4. And if we answer our obligations in this point, we shall in it
   discharge the highest part of our duty to man also: for in whose heart
   we can implant a true reverential awe of God, we sow the seed of
   immortality, of an endless happy being, the greatest the most
   superlative good whereof he is capable. Besides, in the interim we do
   by it help to manumit and release him from those servile drudgeries to
   vice, under which those remain who live without God in the world. And
   these indeed, are benefits worthy the dignity of human nature to
   communicate. And it is both sad and strange to see among the multitude
   and variety of Leagues that are contracted in the world, how few there
   are of these pious combinations; how those who show themselves
   concerned in all the petty secular interests of their friends, never
   take this at all into their care; a pregnant evidence how little true
   friendship there is among men.

   5. I Know some thing they sufficiently excuse themselves when they
   shift off this office to Divines, whose peculiar business they say it
   is. But this is as if one who sees a poor fainting wretch, should
   forbear to administer a Cordial he has at hand, for fear of entrenching
   on the Physician's Faculty. Man opportunities a Friend or Companion may
   have which a Divine may want. He often sees a man in the very fit, and
   so may more aptly apply: for where there is an intimacy of Converse,
   men lay themselves open, discover those passions, those vices, which
   they carefully veil when a strange or severer eye approaches. Besides,
   as such a one may easier discern the disease, so he has better
   advantages for administering remedies: so Children will not take those
   Medicines from the Doctor's hand, which they will from a Nurse or
   Mother: and we are usually too Childish in what relates to our Souls,
   look on good counsel from an Ecclesiastic as a Divinity Potion, and set
   our stomachs against it; but a Familiar may insensibly insinuate it
   into us, and ere we are aware beguile us into health. Yet if Lay
   Persons will needs give the Clergy the enclosure of this office, they
   should at least withdraw those impediments they have laid in their way,
   by depositing those prejudices which will certainly frustrate their
   endeavor. Men have in these later days been taught to look on Preaching
   as a thing of form to the Hearers, and of profit only to the Speakers,
   a craft whereby as Demetrius says They get their living. Acts. 19. 25.
   But admit it were so in this last respect, yet it does not infer it
   should be so in the former. If it be a Trade, twas sure thought (as in
   all Ages but this) a very useful one, or else there would never have
   been such encouragement given to it. No State ever allotted public
   certain Salaries for a set of men that were thought utterly useless:
   and if there be use to be made of them, shall we lose our advantages
   merely because they gain theirs? We are in nothing else so senseless:
   no man will refuse counsel from a Physician, because he lives by the
   Profession. Tis rather an argument on his side, that because such an
   interest of his own depends on it, he has been the more industrious to
   fit himself for it. But not to run farther in this digression, I shall
   apply it to my purpose, by making this equitable proposal, that Lay men
   will not so moralize the common Fable, as neither to admonish one
   another themselves, nor suffer Ministers to do it without them. And
   truly tis hard if neither of these can be granted when both ought. I am
   sure all is little enough that can be done, though we should have as
   the Prophet speaks, Precept upon precept, Line upon line, here a little
   and there a little. Isa. 28. 13. Man's nature is so unattentive to
   good, that there can scarce be too many monitors. We see Satan though
   he have a much stronger party in our inclinations, dares not rely upon
   it, but is still employing his emissaries, to confirm and excite them,
   and if whilst he has so many Agents among us, God shall have none, we
   are like to give but an ill account of our zeal either to God or our
   neighbor, or of those tongues which were given us to glorify the one,
   and benefit the other. Indeed, without this, our greatest officiousness
   in the secular concerns of others is no kindness. When we strive to
   advance the fame, to increase the fortune of a wicked man, what do we
   do in it, but enable him to do the more mischiefs, by his wealth to
   foment his own luxuries, and by his reputation commend them to the
   practice of others? He only makes his friend truly rich and great, who
   teaches him to employ those advantages aright; and would men turn their
   tongues to this sort of Oratory, they would indeed shew they understood
   for what ends they were given them.

   6. But as all good receives enhancement from its being more diffusive,
   so these attempts should not be confined to some one or two intimates
   or relatives, but be as extensive as the common needs, or at least as
   our opportunities. Tis a generous ambition to benefit many, to oblige
   communities: which can no way so well be done, as by endeavoring to
   subvert vicious customs, which are the pest and poisons of all
   societies. The heathens had many ceremonies of lustrations for their
   cities and countries, but he that could purify and refine their
   manners, would indeed attain to the substance of those shadows. And
   because the Apostle tells us that Evil words corrupt good manners,
   twould be a fundamental piece of reformation, to introduce a better
   sort of converse into the world: which is an instance so agreeable to
   my present subject, that I cannot Close more pertinently, than to
   commend the endeavor to the Reader, which if he have been by this Tract
   at all convinced of the sin and mischief of those Schemes of discourse
   deciphered in it, cannot be more just to his convictions, than by
   attempting to supplant them.

   7. It were indeed a design worthy of a noble soul, to try to new model
   the Age in this particular, to make it possible for men, to be at once
   conversable and innocent. I know twill be objected, tis too vast a
   project for one or many single Persons to undertake: yet difficulties
   use to animate generous spirits, especially when (as here) the very
   attempt is laudable. But as Christ says of Wisdom, so may we of
   Courage, The Children of this world are more daring than the Children
   of light. The great corrupters of discourse have not been so
   distrustful of themselves: for tis visible to any that will reflect,
   that tis within man's memory since much of this monstrous exorbitancy
   of discourse grew in fashion, particularly the Atheistical and
   Blasphemous. The first propugners of it were but few, and durst then
   but whisper their black rudiments, yet the world now sees what a
   Harvest they have from their devilish industry.

   8. And shall we give over our Clime as forlorn and desperate, and
   conclude that nothing which is not venomous will thrive in our Soil.
   Would some of parts and authority but make the experiment, I cannot
   think that all places are yet so vitiated, but that they may meet with
   many who would relish sober and ingenuous discourse, and by their
   example be animated to propagate it to others: but as long as
   Blasphemy, Ribaldry, and Detraction set up for Wit, and carry it
   without any competition, we do implicitly yield that title we dispute
   not: and tis hard to say, whether their triumphs be more owing to the
   boldness of ill men, or the pusillanimity of the good. What if upon the
   trial they should meet with the worser part of St. Paul's fate at
   Athens, That some will mock, Acts 17. 32. yet perhaps they may partake
   of the better also, and find others that would be willing to hear them
   again, and some few at least may cleave unto them. And sure they are
   too tender and delicate, that will run no hazard, nor be willing to
   bear a little share in that profane drollery, with which an Apostle
   was, and their God is daily assaulted: especially when by this exposing
   themselves, they may hope to give some check to that impious liberty.
   However besides the satisfaction of their own consciences, they may
   also gain this advantage by the attempt, that it may be a good test by
   which to try their company. For those whom they find impatient of
   innocent and profitable converse, they may assure themselves can only
   ensnare not benefit them; and he is a very weak Gamester, that will be
   drawn to play upon such terms, as make it highly probable for him to
   lose, but impossible for him to win. Therefore, in that case the advice
   of Solomon is very proper, Go from the presence of a foolish man, when
   thou perceivest not in him the lips of Knowledge. Prov. 14. 7.

   9. But he that will undertake so Heroic and enterprise, must qualify
   himself for it, by being true to his own pretensions. He must leave no
   uneven thread in his loom, or by indulging to any one sort of
   reprovable discourse himself, defeat all his endeavors against the
   rest. Those airy Speculators that have writ of the Philosopher's Stone
   have required many personal qualifications, strict abstinences and
   purities in those who make the experiment. The thing may have this
   sober application, that those who would turn this Iron Age into Gold,
   that would convert our rusty, drossy converse into a purer strain, must
   be perfectly clean themselves. For alas, what effect can that man hope
   from this most zealous reprehensions, who lays himself open to
   recrimination? He that hears a man bitterly inveigh against Blasphemy
   and profaneness, and yet (in that almost the same breath) hears his
   monitor inveigh bitterly against his Neighbor, will scarce think him a
   good guide of his tongue, that has but half the mastery of his own. Let
   every man, therefore, be sure to begin at the right end of his work, to
   wash his own mouth clean, before he prescribe Gargarisms to others. And
   to that purpose let him impartially reflect on all the undue liberties
   he has given his tongue, whether which have been here remarked, or
   those others which he may find in all Practical books, especially in
   (the most Practical of all books) his own Conscience. And when he has
   traced his talk through all its wild rambles, let him bring home his
   stray; not like the lost sheep with joy, but with tears of penitence
   and contrition, and keep a strict watch over it that it break not loose
   again; nay, farther require it to make some restitution for the
   trespass it has committed in its former excursions, to restore to God
   what it has robbed of his Honor, by devoting itself an instrument of
   His service; to his Neighbor what it has detracted from him, by wiping
   off that fullage it has cast upon his Fame; and to himself by defacing
   those ill Characters of vanity and folly it has imprinted on him. Thus
   may the Tongue cure its own sting, and by a kind of Sympathetic virtue,
   the wound may be healed by dressing the weapon. But alas, when we have
   done all, the Tongue is so slippery that it will often be in danger to
   deceive our watch: nay, it has a secret intelligence with the heart,
   which like a corrupted Gaoler is too apt to connive at its escape. Let
   us therefore strengthen our guards, call in Him who sees all the secret
   practices of our treacherous hearts, and commit both them and our
   tongues to His custody. Let us say with the Psalmist, Try me, O God,
   and seek the ground of my heart. Psa. 129. 23. And with him again, Set
   a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and keep the door of my lips, O let
   not my heart be inclined to any evil thing, Psa. 141. 3. And if hand
   thus join in hand, Prov. 16. 6. if God's grace be humbly invoked, and
   our own endeavor honestly employed, even this unruly evil of the Tongue
   (as St. James calls it Chap. 3. 8.) may be in some degree tamed. If now
   and then it get a little out by stealth, yet it will not like the
   Demoniac be so raving, as quite to break all its chains. If we cannot
   always secure ourselves from inadvertence and surprise, but that a
   forbidden word may sometimes escape us, yet we may from deliberate
   willful offences of the Tongue. And thought we should all aspire
   higher, yet if we can but reach this, we ought not to excuse ourselves
   (upon remaining infirmities) from the Christian generous undertaking I
   was recommending, the reforming of others. Indeed, I had made a very
   impertinent exhortation to that, if this degree of fitness may not be
   admitted; for I fear there would be none on earth could attempt it upon
   other terms: the world must still remain as it is, and await only the
   Tongues of Angels to reduce it. Nor need we fear that censure of
   Hypocrisy which we find, Matt. 7. 5. for the case is very differing.
   Tis indeed as ridiculous as insolent an attempt, for one that has a
   Beam in his own eye, to pretend to cast a Mote out of his brother's:
   but it hold not on the contrary, that he that has a Mote in his own,
   should not endeavor to remove the Beam in his Brother's. Every speck
   does not blind a man, nor does every infirmity make one unable to
   discern, or incompetent to reprove the grosser faults of others.

   10. Yet after all, let us as much as is possible clear our eyes even of
   this mote, and make our Copy as worth transcribing as we can: for
   certainly the best instrument of reformation is example: and though
   admonition may sometimes be necessary, yet there are many circumstances
   required to the right ordering of that, so that it cannot always be
   practicable, but a good example ever is. Besides, it has a secret
   magnetic virtue like the Loadstone, it attracts by a power of which we
   can give no account: so that it seems to be one of those occult
   qualities, those secrets in nature, which have puzzled the enquirers,
   only experience demonstrates it to us. I am sure it does (too
   abundantly) in ill examples, and I doubt not might do the like in good,
   if they were as plentiful experimented. And that they may be so, let
   every man be ambitious to cast in his mite: for the two make but a
   farthing, yet they may be multiplied to the vastest sum. However, if a
   man cannot reform, yet I am sure twill be worth his while, so to save
   himself from this untoward generation, Acts. 2. 40. I have now
   presented the Tongue under a double aspect, such as may justify the
   ancient Definition of it, that it is the worst and best part of man,
   the best in its original and design, and the worst in its corruption
   and degeneration. In David, the man after God's heart, it was his
   glory, Psa. 57. 8. The best member that he had, Psa. 108. 1. But in the
   wicked it cuts like a sharp Razor, Psa. 52. 2. Tis as the venom of
   Asps, 140. 3. The Tongues from heaven were Cloven Acts. 2. 2. to be the
   more diffusive of good: but those that are fired from hell are forked,
   Jam. 3. 6. to be the more impressive of mischief: it must be referred
   to every man's choice, into which of the forms he will mold his.
   Solomon tells us Death and Life are in the power of the Tongue, and
   that not only directly in regard of the good or ill we may do to
   others, but reflexively also, in respect of what may rebound to
   ourselves. Let Moses then make the inference from Solomon's premises,
   Therefore choose life, Deut. 30. 15. a proposal so reasonable, so
   agreeable to nature, that no flourishes can render it more inviting. I
   shall therefore leave it to the Reader's contemplation, and shall hope
   that if he please but to resolve it with that seriousness which the
   importance exacts, he will new set his tongue, compose it to those
   pious Divine strains, which may be a proper preludium to those
   Allelujahs he hopes eternally to sing.

  F I N I S.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture References

   Genesis

   [1]2   [2]6:5   [3]14:23   [4]27   [5]27:29   [6]35:37   [7]39:14

   Exodus

   [8]8:26   [9]21:24   [10]21:29   [11]22:1   [12]32:19

   Numbers

   [13]22:27

   Deuteronomy

   [14]13:6   [15]25:3   [16]30:15

   Joshua

   [17]8

   Judges

   [18]6:31

   1 Samuel

   [19]2:39

   2 Samuel

   [20]6:22   [21]12:7   [22]16:3   [23]18:23   [24]18:33

   1 Kings

   [25]18:44

   2 Kings

   [26]10

   Job

   [27]1:21   [28]2:2   [29]29:25

   Psalms

   [30]7:39   [31]12:4   [32]14   [33]32:9   [34]34:3   [35]39
   [36]39:3   [37]50:21   [38]52:2   [39]56:21   [40]57:8   [41]57:9
   [42]57:10   [43]64:3   [44]69:12   [45]73:9   [46]106:33   [47]108:1
   [48]109:18   [49]115:5   [50]129:23   [51]141:3

   Proverbs

   [52]1:24   [53]9:8   [54]10:7   [55]13:1   [56]14:7   [57]14:9
   [58]14:13   [59]16:6   [60]18:7   [61]18:21   [62]19:29   [63]22:1
   [64]26:12   [65]26:18-19   [66]26:27   [67]27:19   [68]28:23   [69]30

   Ecclesiastes

   [70]7:1   [71]10:1   [72]11:4

   Isaiah

   [73]5:21   [74]8:21   [75]13:12   [76]28:13

   Jeremiah

   [77]2:11   [78]9   [79]20:7

   Ezekiel

   [80]33   [81]33:11

   Daniel

   [82]3   [83]6:4

   Jonah

   [84]4:7

   Micah

   [85]6:11

   Matthew

   [86]5:4   [87]5:11   [88]6   [89]7:1   [90]7:5   [91]8:38   [92]10:18
   [93]12:30   [94]12:37   [95]13:32   [96]18:7   [97]22:20   [98]25:25
   [99]27:4   [100]27:39

   Luke

   [101]9:55   [102]10:7   [103]12:14   [104]16:14   [105]17:1   [106]18

   John

   [107]8:7   [108]8:44

   Acts

   [109]2:2   [110]2:40   [111]9:4   [112]17   [113]17:32   [114]19:25
   [115]19:28

   Romans

   [116]1:25-26   [117]2:1   [118]10:14   [119]11:20   [120]11:21
   [121]14:10

   1 Corinthians

   [122]4:5   [123]4:7   [124]4:10   [125]5:2   [126]6:3   [127]7:8
   [128]11:17   [129]12:26   [130]13:5

   Galatians

   [131]2:13   [132]6:1

   Ephesians

   [133]5:3

   Philippians

   [134]2:4   [135]3:19   [136]4:8

   1 Timothy

   [137]1:13   [138]5:13-14

   2 Timothy

   [139]3:7

   Hebrews

   [140]1:16   [141]2:23   [142]12:3   [143]12:28   [144]13:7
   [145]13:15

   James

   [146]1:26   [147]2:4   [148]2:13   [149]3:1   [150]3:2   [151]3:6
   [152]3:8   [153]4:6   [154]4:6   [155]4:12

   1 Peter

   [156]4:4

   1 John

   [157]3:18

   Jude

   [158]1:2   [159]1:16

   Revelation

   [160]21

   Wisdom of Solomon

   [161]1:11   [162]2:14   [163]9:16

   Sirach

   [164]6:7   [165]16:7   [166]19:8-9   [167]26:6   [168]40:4
   [169]51:22
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

References

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