walk before God in all his commandments and ordinances blameless, and to hold fast our integrity and not let it go, that our hearts may not reproach us as long as we live: for," beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, then have confidence to wards God."

Against

Against Evil-fpeaking.

TITUS iii. 2.

Put them in mind-to Speak evil of no man.

Of all the bad habits which we are liable to contract, perhaps there are none fo hard to be cured as those which refpect the tongue. The reafon is, that we are much less apprehenfive of the criminality of words than of actions. Actions, which require more time, and are attended with a greater variety of circumftances, force themselves upon our observation, and impress our memories. "But words, which have wings," and fly away, flip from us unregarded, and the remembrance of them foon perishes. Hence we are apt to look upon offences of the tongue as too trivial to merit any great degree of attention, and commit them, time after time, almost without notice; fo that, before we are

aware,

aware, a criminal habit is formed. In this manner it is that men become habitual liars, fwearers, and the like, without being fufficiently fenfible of the guilt they are incurring, and perhaps almost without perceiving their faults. But there is no habit refpecting the tongue which steals more imperceptibly upon men than the habit of flander and detraction. There is, therefore, great neceffity for a frequent repetition of those precepts which prohibit this vice-for "putting men in mind to fpeak evil of no man.”

In the vice of evil-fpeaking we may remark three stages or degrees of criminality; the highest and most criminal, faying things to the injury or disadvantage of another which we know to be falfe; the Second, fpreading reports against another which we do not know to be true; the third, and loweft, fpeaking concerning the faults of others what we certainly know. Let us inquire into the degree of criminality attending each of these kinds of evil-speaking.

The

The man who, from his own wanton and wicked invention, exprefsly charges another with a crime or fault of which he knows him to be innocent, ftands foremost in the rank of evil-speakers, When falfe accufations are brought forward publicly in a court of judicature, and afferted with the folemnity of an oath, the crime of flander, united with that of perjury, takes the deepest tincture of guilt. This moft direct and heinous violation of the commandment-" Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour," is in all civil governments juftly treated as an offence of the firft magnitude. It implies a degree of depravity and malignity which excites univerfal indignation, and which, indeed, happily for mankind, is feldom found. In a lefs formal and public way it is, however, no very uncommon thing for people to bring falfe accufations against their neighbours. The love of truth, or the dread of the infamy of a lie, is often not fufficiently strong to fortify men against the temptations to 4

flander,

flander, which arise from a natural maliguity of temper, from the occafional emo, tions of envy or refentment, from the violence of party spirit, from vanity, or from mere wantonnefs. From fome one or other of these caufes it very frequently happens, that rumours to a man's disadvan tage are not only eagerly feized and propagated, but wilfully and deliberately magnified. Nay, it cannot be doubted; for no other account can poffibly be given of many tales of scandal which are in daily circulation-that there are not a few idle perfons in the world who, to exercise their ingenuity, or to gratify their fpleen, often employ themselves in fabricating flanderous tales which are wholly without foundation. It was not without reafon admitted into the Mofaic law as an exprefs precept *—"Thou shalt not raise a falfe report."

But there is fomething fo bafe and infamous in these direct attacks upon the characters of others, that those who are

Exod. xxiii. I.

addicted