a firanger, and not thine own lips. Let nothing be done through ftrife or vain glory: but in lowlinefs of mind let each efteem others better than himself (t). Many other offences of the tongue réquire to be noticed: and will form, with the permiffion of God, the fubject of a future discourse. The number, however, and the magnitude of those which have been investigated are fufficient to awe the carelefs into reflection. Where now, ye inconfiderate, are your delufions? delufions? Are words empty air? Are fins of the tongue like the path of an arrow through a cloud, undifcerned, undiscoverable, forgotten? If a book of remembrance is written before God for them that fear the Lord, and Speak often one to another: is there no book of remembrance for them who employ not his gift of fpeech to his glory? If the Lord bearkens and bears, when men glorify Him in the use of His gift: if He proclaims, They fhall be mine; and I will spare them, as a man fpareth his own fon that ferveth him (u): shall he not hearken and hear, fhall he not avenge and destroy, when the tongue (t) Prov. xxvi. 12. xxvii. 2. Pet. iii. 8. Philipp. ii. 3. labours labours in the service of fin? In that fervice, my brethren, how long have our tongues wearied themselves! How little in the application of speech have we imitated our Lord; his prudence, his patience, his calmnefs, his lowlinefs. By foolish talking, by fretful and impatient language, by ftrife, by boafting, by one or by all of these fins, how often has every one of us tranfgreffed! In proportion as we have resembled any of the pictures which have been drawn, fuch has been our guilt. Do we deem the difpenfation unreasonable, that words, no less than actions, fhall be grounds of punishment? They reft on the fame bafis. They are in nature effentially the fame. Words and actions are equally figns: figns of the state of the heart. The word, the deed, the meditated purpose, speak the fame language in the ear of the Moft High. Alike they reveal the governing principle of the foul. Alike they teftify the fact which decides our doom: that we are fervants of God; or that we are servants of the devil. Set a watch, O Lord! before my mouth: keep the door of my lips. IN N the preceding discourse I reprefented to you the nature and confequences of various fins of the tongue. Let me now profecute my defign of warning you against additional offences equally comprehended within the scope of the text. V. The offence to which I fhall in the next place refer is cenforiousness. It is not cenforioufnefs to affirm fin to be fin to paint its heinoufnefs in its ue colours: to proclaim the tremendous judgements which hang over the heads of the impenitent. To palliate guilt as though it were of trivial concern: to denominate various kinds of wickedness by thofe light appellations, which fashion most irreli gioufly applies to them: to lull the tranf greffor into fecurity by obfcuring or explaining away the fcriptural limitations of the divine mercy; by defcribing the pu nishments referved for the ungodly as lefs awful in their nature and duration than the plain import of the Word of God pronounces them to be; or by maintaining a cowardly and unchriftian filence, when duty requires you to proteft, to admonish, to alarm to act thus is to prove yourself little acquainted with the Gospel of Christ, or little disposed to imbibe the spirit of a Christian; little folicitous for the glory of your Lord, and for the falvation of your own foul, and of the foul of your neighbour. Neither is it alway cenforiousness to make known the faults of another. Not only may public justice require you to uphold the interests of fociety by bearing a faithful, testimony against crimes; but your duty to your family and to your friends, and your general obligation to fupply seasonable counsel to the unwary, may demand that you should reveal, in the fpirit of truth and meeknefs, the actual mifconduct of VOL. II. indivi S individuals and that you fhould point out, according to your deliberate view of their characters, fuch of their difpofitions, habits and purposes as, in your apprehenfion, would prove, were you to remain filent, mifchievous and enfnaring. But when you publish the faults of others unneceffarily; when you enlarge upon them to a needlefs length; when you develope them with unwarranted vehemence; when you knowingly omit any true or probable circumftance tending to diminish their magnitude: in each of these cafes you are cenforious. In other words, cenforiousness is fo to difcourfe concerning the offences of another as to tranfgrefs against charity. Some perfons are cenforious through careleffness; fome through felfishness; fome through anger; fome through malice; fome through envy. According to the difference of the fources from which cenforiousness fprings, its guilt is more or lefs flagrant. But even when it arifes from careleffness, deem it not a trifling fin. You are not careless concerning your own character, your own welfare. Are you not to love your neighbour as yourfelf? You feel pained and injured, if your own failings are inadvertently made the subject of need |