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the more readily think of this: but at the utmost at night, when he should be for most rest, when that sad night comes after this day of fairest prosperity, the unbelieving unrepenting sinner lies down in sorrow, in a woeful bed; then must he, whether he will or no, enter to the possession of this inheritance of everlasting burnings. He hath an inheritance indeed, but he had better want it, and himself too be turned to nothing. Do you believe, there are treasures that neither thief breaks into, nor is there any inward moth to corrupt them', an inheritance, that though the whole world be turned upside down, is in no hazard of a touch of damage; a kingdom, that not only cannot fall, but cannot be shaken? Oh! be wise, and consider your latter end, and whatsoever you do, look after this blessed inheritance. Seek to have the right to it in Jesus Christ, and the evidences and seals of it from his Spirit; and if it be so with you, your hearts will be upon it, and your lives will be like it.

Ver. 10.

For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile.

THE rich bounty of God diffuses itself throughout the world upon all; yet there is a select number that hath peculiar blessings of his right hand, which the rest of the world share not in; and even as to common blessings, they are differenced by a peculiar title to them, and sweetness in them: their blessings are blessings indeed, and entirely so, outside and inside, and more so within than they appear without; the Lord himself is their portion, and they are his. This is their blessedness, which in a low estate they can challenge, and so outvie all the painted prosperity of the world. Some kind of blessings do abundantly run over upon others; but the cup of blessings belongs unto the Godly by a new right from Heaven, graciously conferred upon

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them. Others are sent away with gifts, (as they apply that passage",) but the inheritance is Isaac's; they are called to be the sons of God, and are like him, as his children, in goodness and blessings. The inheritance of blessing is theirs alone, called, says the Apostle, to inherit a blessing; and all the promises in the great charter of both testaments run in that appropriating stile, they are entailed to them, as the only heirs. Thus this is fitly translated, from the one testament to the other, by the apostle for his present purpose, he that will love, &c.

Consider, 1. The qualification required. 2. The blessing annexed and ascertained to it; the scope being to recommend a rule so exact, and for that purpose to propound a good so important and desirable, as a sufficient attractive to study and conform to that rule.

The rule is all of it one straight line, running through the whole tract of a godly man's life; yet you see clearly that it is not cut asunder indeed, but only marked into four, whereof the two latter parcels are somewhat longer, more generally reaching a man's ways, the two former particularly regulating the tongue.

In the ten words of the law that God delivered in so singular a manner both by word and writ from his own mouth and hand, there be two, that if not wholly, yet most especially and most expressly concern the tongue, as a very considerable, though a small part of man; and of these four words, here two are bestowed on it.

The Apostle St. James is large in this, teaching the great concernment of this point. It is a little member (says he) but boasteth great things, it needs a strong bridle and the bridling of it makes much for the ruling the whole course of a man's life, as he there applies the resemblance; yea, he gives the skill of this as the very character of perfection. And if we consider it, it must indeed be of very great consequence how we use the tongue, it being the main a Gen. xxv. 5,6, b Psal. xxxiv. 13, 14. © Ja. iii. 5.

outlet of the thoughts of the heart, and the mean of society amongst men in all affairs civil and spiritual; by which men give birth to the conceptions of their own minds, and seek to beget the like in the minds of others. The bit that is here made for mens mouths, hath these two halfs that make it up, 1. To refrain from open evil speaking. 2. From double and guileful speaking.

From evil.] This is a large field, the evil of the tongue: but I give it too narrow a name; we have good warrant to give it a much larger, a whole universe, a world of iniquity, a vast bulk of evils, and great is the variety of them, as of countries on the earth, or creatures in the world; and multitudes of such are venomous and full of deadly poison, and not a few, monsters, new productions of wickedness, semper aliquid noci, as they say of Africa.

There be in the daily discourses of the greatest part of men many things that belong to this world of evil, and yet pass unsuspected, so that we do not think them to be within its compass; not using due diligence and exactness in our discoveries of the several parts of it, although it is all within ourselves, yea within a small part of ourselves, our tongues.

It were too quick a fancy to think to travel over this world of iniquity, the whole circuit of it, in an hour, yea or so much as to aim exactly at all the parts that can be taken of it in the smallest map: but some of the chief we would particularly take notice of, in the several four parts of it; for it will without constraint hold resemblance in that division with the other, the habitable world.

1. Profane speech, that which is grossly and manifestly wicked; and in that part lie, 1. Impious speeches, that directly reflect upon the glory and name of God, blasphemies, and oaths, and cursings, of which there is so great, so lamentable abundance amongst us; the whole land overspread and defiled with it, the common noise that meets a man in streets and houses, and almost in all places where he d Ja. iii. 6.

comes and to these, join those that are not uncommon amongst us neither, scoffs and mocking at religion, the power and strictness of it, not only by the grosser sort, but by pretenders to some kind of goodness; for they that have attained to a self-pleasing pitch of civility or formal religion, have usually that point of presumption with it, that they make their own size the model and rule to examine all by. What is below it, they condemn indeed as profane'; but what is beyond it, they account needless and affected preciseness: and therefore are as ready as others to let fly invectives or bitter taunts against it, which are the keen and poisoned shafts of the tongue, and a persecution that shall be called to a strict account. 2. Impure or filthy speaking, which either pollutes or offends the hearers, and is the noisome breath of a rotten polluted heart.

2. Consider next, as another grand part of the tongue, uncharitable speeches, tending to the defaming and disgrace of others; and these are likewise of two sorts, 1. Open railing and reproaches. 2. Secret slander and detraction. The former is unjust and cruel, but it is somewhat the less dangerous, because open. It is a fight in plain field; but truly it is no piece of a christian's warfare to encounter it in the same kind. The sons of peace are not for those tongue combats; they are often no doubt set upon so, but they have another abler way of overcoming it than by the use of the same weapon; for they break and blunt the point of ill reproaches by meekness, and triumph over cursings with more abundant blessing, as is enjoined in the former words, which are seconded with these out of. But they that enter the lists in this kind, and are provided one for another with enraged minds, are usually not unprovided of weapons, but lay hold on any thing that comes next', as your drunkards in their quarrels, in their cups and pots, if they have any other great reproach, they lay about them with that, as their sword; but if they want that, true or untrue, pertie Psal, xxxiv. 13, 14. f Furor arma ministrat.

nent or impertinent, all is one, they cast out any revilings that come next to hand. But there is not only wickedness, but something of baseness in these kind of conflicts that makes them more abound amongst the baser sort, and not so frequent with such as are but of a more civil breeding and quality than the vulgar.

But the other, of detraction, is more universal amongst all sorts, as being a far easier way of mischief in this kind, and of better conveyance. Railings cry out the matter openly, but detraction works all by surprises and stratagem, and mines under ground, and therefore is much more pernicious. The former are, as the arrows that fly by day, but this, as the pestilence that walketh in darkness, as these two are mentioned together in3, it spreads and infects secretly and insensibly, is not felt but in the effects of it; and it works either by calumnies altogether forged and untrue, of which malice is inventive, or by the advantage of real faults, of which it is very discerning, and these are stretched and aggravated to the utmost. It is not expressible how deep a wound a tongue sharpened to this work will give, with a very little word and little noise, as a razor, as it is called in", that with a small touch cuts very deep, taking things by the worst handle, whereas charity will try about all ways for a good acceptation and sense of things, and takes all by the best. This pest is still killing some almost in all companies; it castesth down many wounded, as it is said of the strange woman', and they convey it under fair prefacing of commendation; so giving them poison in wine, both that it may pass the better, and penetrate the more. This is a great sin, that the Lord ranks with the first, when he sets them in order against a man, Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother. 3. Vain fruitless speeches are an evil of the tongue; not only those they call harmless lies, which some poor people take a pleasure in, and trade

s Psal. xci. 5, 6. h Ps, lii. 2. i Prov. vii. 26. k Psal. 1. 20.

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