there is not truth: many nice cases have been put on this question, whether we are always obliged to speak the truth? and though some have maintained that truth may be dispensed with when it is evidently for our neighbor's benefit that he should be kept in ignorance, yet it never was pretended that vanity or cunning would excuse the want of it. Our Saviour tells us that evil things proceed from an evil heart: now the evil that lies at the heart of a vain-glorious man is pride. There is no attempt in which men are more generally unsuccessful than in that of praising and extolling themselves: yet in spite of the sin and folly and disappointment that attend on it, pride will have its work; and wherever this evil has rooted itself in the heart, it will produce such sin and folly in the mouth as will be remembered at the day of judgment.

But vanity may be sometimes the vice of men otherwise good and virtuous; yet even theirs are, in this case, idle words; and men must answer for the praise and glory which they assume to themselves. It is dangerous at all times to speak of ourselves; if we have done ill, to excuse or deny it inflames the account; if we have done well, our Saviour tells us that we must call ourselves unprofitable servants. Nor is there much difference between a boasting pride and an affected humility, which lets others know what good we have done by lessening and discommending that which we think they ought to admire: so that in this respect the rule of prudence and the rule of virtue are coincident, that the less we talk of ourselves the better.

There

In the next degree is placed cunning and artifice, which make men very forgetful of the respect that is due to truth, whilst they direct their speech to serve some design of their own. are many degrees of this cunning; that which aims at making a prize of the ignorance of others needs not be mentioned here. But the charge of idle words lies against a cunning less desperate and malicious, which distinguishes such men as deceive you by a show of kindness which is not real: he who courts

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and caresses all that come near him, must allow himself a great latitude, and often be guilty of falsehood and hypocrisy. The man of general civility and address destroys the credit of language but the advantage he has is from the folly and self-love of mankind; for most men cannot suppose a man insincere who commends and extols them.

But what account shall a man give of himself for living perpetually in a disguise; for deceiving all about him, and using the speech that God gave him for better purposes, in imposing on the folly and weakness of mankind? An account he must give, unless he can show the use and benefit of his fair speeches: this point enlarged on. But,

II. Idle words may comprehend the reports of envy and malice. A distinction made under this head between those who invent and contrive wicked stories to the scandal and defamation of their neighbor, and those who credulously take them up when so invented, and spread them. The first is a vice that the text has no name for: it exceeds all that can be meant by idle words, and must be numbered with blacker crimes. But even to believe without sufficient ground, or to report, when we do believe, the ill we hear of others, cannot be divested of malice and envy: it is a mark of an evil disposition; and the restlessness of some minds to disburthen themselves of an ill report which they have picked up, shows their readiness to do this work and drudgery of the devil; but when men spread such stories with pleasure, and rejoice in the scandal, then they share the contriver's malice or envy, and are to be ranked with him in guilt.

But there are others who, out of an itch of knowing and talking of other people's concerns, have their heads and tongues continually running on the affairs of their neighbors; often doing much mischief without being chargeable with any malice or design to injure; but in the multitude of words there wanteth not sin; and when men's curiosity leads them beyond their proper

sphere, they must answer for the mischief they do it is not enough that we mean to do no ill; it must be our care and study to do none. Were it not for such busy talking creatures, it would not be worth a malicious man's while to invent a story of his enemy. God has provided every man with business proper to employ his time: what we can spare from the necessary cares of life, and those relaxations and amusements which nature requires, is little enough to lay out on the thoughts of eternity; nor are there ever wanting opportunities of doing good, in which all active spirits might be usefully employed: this point enlarged on.

III. Idle words may imply such as are the product of an idle and impure mind, &c. There is nothing more directly contrary to morality and good manners, than the liberty which some men take of entertaining company with subjects unfit for the mouth and ears of a Christian. Whether this be an employment which even common sense and reason should submit to, any one who is not quite lost to shame may determine. It is a great argument of the impurity of men's minds, when things of this nature lie uppermost, and are always at their tongue's end: and therefore for their own sakes they should confine such thoughts.

This impudent wit, in all persons abominable, is never more truly infamous than when found in company with grey hairs; when men seem to be feeding on the dregs of the pollutions of their youth, when the decay of nature calls for other thoughts. In calling these idle words, the expression does not reach to the heinousness of the crime; for nothing is more contrary to the modesty and purity of our holy religion, nothing more destructive of morality, than this lewd wit, whose present glory is shame, and whose future reward shall be confusion.

If men have the power of clothing their unchaste thoughts in cleanly language, it cannot be justly pleaded in mitigation of their crime; this possibly may be to sin more like a gentleman, but it carries an aggravation with it that cannot easily be

forgiven. To improve on vice, and take off that mark of infamy which God has set on it, is the highest abuse of reason and sense. To make lewdness agreeable, and recommend it by an artful address and pleasant wit, what is it but to convey the poison in a precious mixture, that may tempt the palate to admit it? Modesty is the outguard of virtue, and gives notice of the approach of vice and when lewdness is so dressed up as to pass unsuspected, it proves but the more dangerous enemy within; therefore we must expect to give a severe account for the time and words which we spend in this diversion, to that Judge who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.

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PART II.

Fourth division of the first part of this Discourse referred to. By idle words we may understand useless and insignificant words; which are spent to no great purpose either good or bad.

This sense will comprehend a great part of the conversation of the world, which aims at nothing but present amusement. Now it is worth while to inquire what guilt a man contracts by this kind of idle words. To discover whether useless though innocent conversation comes within the judgment of the text, the following particulars must be considered: I. the scope of our Saviour's argument in this place: II. the end and design of speech, which is the gift of God to mankind: III. the nature of man in general, and the different degrees of sense and understanding given to different men.

First, as to the scope of our Saviour's argument, it is evident that he descends from the greater to the less evils of speech; from blasphemy he comes to the other evils which are generated in the heart, and from thence derived to the tongue. The form with which the words of the text are introduced, looks as if they were intended as an addition and improvement to the old doctrines of the law. The Jews knew that perjuries, blasphe

mies, and such like crimes, would be punished; and therefore our Saviour merely mentions them without speaking of the punishment: then he adds, but I say unto you, which emphatical words denote the doctrine to be new, and founded on his authority which same form is used in Matt. ch. v. and in other instances, where Christ enlarges our duty, and debars us from the least approaches to vice. Allowing this to be the case in the text, it follows that we have therein a rule implied for the government of Christian conversation, of the greatest purity, restraining us not only from all evil, but from the very appearance of it; from every thing with the serious demeanor required in a Christian; from such faults as bear no greater proportion to the evil things mentioned before the text, than anger does to murder, or a wanton look to adultery.

The text thus understood leads us to inquire what are these faults and levities of speech that are misbecoming a disciple of the gospel, as being inconsistent with a Christian frame of mind; for though it may not be our duty always to be meditating on the mystery of our redemption and the surprising love of God, yet ought we to preserve a consistency of character, in conversation as becometh the gospel of Christ: for we should consider that we are adopted sons of God, and candidates for heaven; and should such spend their time in uttering foolish jests, and entertaining idle minds with idle talk, till they are lost in a forgetfulness of God and themselves?

The part of a common wit or jester does not well become a man, much less a Christian: it is below the dignity of reason; still more so, when reason is improved by grace: and to this purpose is St. Paul's prohibition, when he forbids all foolish talking and jesting, which are not convenient. What our translation renders jesting, the original styles evrpareλía, which Aristotle reckons among his virtues, and defines it to be the habit of jesting handsomely. So that what passed in the heathen world for a virtue is forbidden to Christians; and it