portion; and if you indeed desire him, you shall have him, and if you have him, you cannot but be satisfied, for he is all: to him therefore be all praise, honour, and glory, for ever. Amen.

PRECEPT IX.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

The apostle St. James, in that sharp but most true censure of the tongue, might well call it an unruly evil. There are but ten precepts or words of the law of God, and you see two of them, so far as concerns the outward organ and vent of the sins there forbidden, are bestowed on it, tending, if not only, yet mainly, to keep it in order; one in the first table, and this other in the second, as being ready to fly out both against God and man, if not thus bridled.

The end of the commandment is to guard the good name of men from injury, as the former doth his goods; this possession being no less, yea, much more precious than the other; and, because the great robber and murderer of a good name, is the mischievous detracting tongue, acted by a malignant heart, it requires in the heart a charitable tenderness of the good name of our brethren, and that will certainly prove truth and charitable speech in the tongue.

Though divines here usually speak of lying, in the general notion and extent of it, and not amiss, being most of all exercised in the kind here mentioned; yet there be such lies as may be more fitly reputed a breach of some other commandment; and, possibly, the sin of lying in general, as it is a lie, a discrepance of the speech from the mind, and so a subverting of the divine ordinance set in nature, making that which he hath made the interpreter of the mind, to be the disguiser of it, and withal, disregarding God as the searcher of the heart, and sovereign witness of truth, and avenger of falsehood; I say, thus it may possibly * Non est illud desiderium, πλεονεξία, sed πανεξια.

be more proper to refer it to another commandment, particularly to the third: but it imports not much to be very punctual in this; it is seldom or never that one commandment is broken alone; most sins are complicate disobedience, and in some sins, the breach of many at once is very apparent, As to instance in perjury, if it be to testify a falsehood against our brethren, both the third commandment and this ninth are violated at once; and if it be in such a thing as toucheth his life, the sixth likewise suffers with them.

This perjury or false testimony in a public judiciary way, is, we see, by the express words and letter of the command, forbidden, as the highest and most heinous wrong of this kind; but under the name of this (as it is in the other commandments) all the other kinds and degrees of offence against our neighbour's good name are comprised. 1. All private ways of calumny and false imputation. 2. All ungrounded and false surmises or suspicions, all uncharitable construction of others' actions and carriage. 3. Strict remarking of the faults of others, without any calling so to do, or honest intention of their good; which appears, if having observed any thing that of truth is reprovable, we seek not to reclaim them by secret and friendly admonition, but, passing by themselves, divulge it abroad to others; for this is a most foolish, self-deceit to think, that because it is not forged, but true, that thou speakest, this keeps thee free of the commandment; no, thy false intention and malice † makes it calumny and falsehood in thee, although for the matter of it, what thou sayest be most true; all thou gainest by it is, that thou dost humble and bemire thyself in the sin of another, and makest it possibly more thine, than it is his own that committed it; for he, may be, hath some touch of remorse for it; whereas it is evident thou delightest in it; and though thou preface it with a whining, feigned regret and semblance of pity

* Ut testis falsi aut testimonium falsi non dices aut respondebis. † AλYDEJOVTES EV ayann, Eph. iv. 15: We must not only speak the truth, but in love.

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ing him, and add withal some word of commending him in somewhat else; this is but the gilding and sugaring the pill to make men swallow it the more easily, and thy bitter malice pass unperceived. They that by their calling ought to watch over the lives of others, must do it faithfully and diligently, admonishing and rebuking privately; and where that prevails not, they may, yea, they ought to do it more publicly, but all in love, seeking nothing but the glory of God and the salvation of souls. 4. Easy hearing and entertaining of misreports and detraction when others speak them, (Exod. xxiii. 1,) this is that which maintains and gives subsistence to calumny, otherwise it would starve and die of itself, if nobody took it in and gave it lodging. When malice pours it out, if our ears be shut against it, and there be no vessel to receive it, it would fall like water upon the ground, and could no more be gathered up; but there is that same busy humour that men have, (it is very busy, and yet the most have of it more or less,) a kind of delight or contentment to hear evil of others, unless it be of such as they affect; to hear others slighted and disesteemed, that they readily drink in, not without some pleasure, whatsoever is spoken of this kind. The ear trieth the words, (as he says in Job,) as the mouth tasteth meats; but certainly the most ears are perverse and distempered in their taste, as some kind of palates are ; can find sweetness in sour calumny. But, because men understand one another's diet in this, that the most are so; this is the very thing that keeps up the trade, makes backbiting and detractions abound so in the world, and verifies that known observation in the most, that the slanderer wounds three at once, himself, him he speaks of, and him that hears; for this third, truly it is in his option to be none of the number; if he will, he may shift his part of the blow, by not believing the slander; yea, may beat it back again with ease upon the slanderer himself by a check or frown, and add that stroke of a repulse to the wound of guiltiness he gives himself. 5. They offend that

seek in any kind, at the expense of the good name and esteem of others, to increase their own; out of others' ruins to make up themselves;* and therefore pull down as much as they can, and are glad to have others to help them to detract from the repute of their brethren, particularly any that are in likelihood to surpass and obscure them; and for this reason, incline always rather to hear and speak of the imperfections and dispraise of others than to their advantage, and would willingly (Ottoman-like) kill the good name of their brethren that theirs may reign alone.† This is a vile disease, and such as cannot be incident to any mind that is truly virtuous and gracious; no, such need not this base, dishonest way to raise themselves, but are glad to see virtue, and whatsoever is praiseworthy, to flourish in whomsoever; these are lovers of God indeed, and his glory, and not their own; and therefore, as all he bestows on themselves, they venture back the honour of it to him, so they are glad to see many enriched with his best gifts; for seeing all good that all have belongs to God, as the sovereign owner and dispenser, this contents and rejoices his children when they see many partake of his bounty, for the more is his glory; and as in love to their brethren, they are always willing to take notice of what is commendable in them, and to commend it, so they do this the more willingly, because they know that all praise of goodness at last terminates and ends in God, as Solomon says of the rivers, Unto the place from whence they come, thither they return again. 6. They sin against this commandment, who, although they no way wrong their neighbours' good name, yet are not careful to do their utmost to right it when it

* Ex alieni nominis jactura gradum sibi faciunt ad gloriam. Sallust.

The. Rabbins frequently condemn this. Hammith Cabbed, &c. Qui honorat se ex ignominia socii sui, non habet partem in seculo venturo. Beres. Rab. Item, qui per contemptum aliorum laudem suam quærit, miserrimus est omnium. Quis est honore dignus? Qui hono¬ rat alios homines. Aboth. C. iv.

suffers, to remove aspersions from them, and to clear them all that may be.

For this is here required to desire and delight in, and further the good name of others, even as our own; to look most willingly on the fairest side of their actions, and take them in the best sense, and be as inventive of favourable constructions (yet without favouring vice) as malice is witty to misinterpret to the worst; to observe the commendable virtues of our brethren, and pass by their failings; as many, like scurvy flies, skip over what is sound in men, and love to sit upon their sores.

It is lamentable to consider how much this evil of mutual detraction, and supplanting the good name one of another, is rooted in man's corrupt nature, and how it spreads and grows in their converse, as the apostle St. Paul cites it out of the Psalmist, as the description of our nature, Their throat is an open sepulchre; they have deceitful tongues, and the poison of asps is under their lips, Rom. iii. 13. Their throat is an open sepulchre, full of the bones as it were of others' good names that they have devoured; and, Rom. i. 30, amongst other their endowments, they are whisperers, backbiters, despiteful. But it is strange that Christians should retain so much of these evils, that profess themselves renewed, and sanctified, and guided by the Spirit of God. Consider in your visits and discourses, if something of this kind doth not entertain you often, and lavish away that time you might spend in mutual edifications, abusing it to descant upon the actions and life of others, in such a way as neither concerns nor profits us, taking an impertinent, foolish delight in inquiring and knowing how this party lives, and the other. This is a very common disease, as Nazianzen observes; and thus men are most strangers at home; have not leisure to study and

*

* Curiosum genus ad cognoscendam vitam alienam, desidiosum ad corrigendam suam. Ave. Conf. L. x. C. iii. Ουδεν έτως ἡδυ τοις ανθρώποις ως το λαλείν τα αλλοτρία. Orat. i.